Saturday, November 29, 2008

What do you mean "long-term"?

I don't know why I spend my mornings watching financial programs. I may be a pain glutton.

All of the fools clamoring for increased spending and mocking those arguing that cutting tax-rates is the best long-term strategy are fascinating to me. In a morbid way. They seem entirely ignorant of history (and usually economics, too--which is odd because they are financial commentators).

Anyway, these people are perfect examples of the anti-conceptual faculty. Ayn Rand said of the anti-conceptual mentality:

The main characteristic of this mentality is a special kind of passivity: not passivity as such and not across-the-board, but passivity beyond a certain limit—i.e., passivity in regard to the process of conceptualization and, therefore, in regard to fundamental principles. It is a mentality which decided, at a certain point of development, that it knows enough and does not care to look further. What does it accept as “enough”? The immediately given, directly perceivable concretes of its background . . . [emphasis mine]


Everything is self-evident and short-range to this kind of mentality. The immediately perceivable is the whole of reality. That is why, if you watch the financial shows on the news networks, you will see an endless stream of people acknowledging that, yes, cutting the tax rate and cutting government spending may be the best decision long-term (they don't know exactly why, they just heard someone say it), but they want to feel better now.

These people are actually willing to sacrifice long-term economic stability for a quick burst of large-scale wealth redistribution ("stabilization" they call it, the fools). A burst that will almost certainly do long-term damage itself, not to mention set a dangerous precedent for government intervention into the economy. But that doesn't matter: it's too far down the road to affect the anti-conceptual mentality.


From the migraine field--
Matt

Thursday, November 20, 2008

"It's not your money"

In reference to my last post on Wednesday, I bring you this:



And I reiterate: with an oar.

This is the mentality of so many people these days--in government, in business, in the public at large--that one of two things is likely going to happen within my lifetime, neither of which is very attractive: (1) things are going to come to a head, violently, or (2) we will eat ourselves up from the inside out and collapse of our own inner rot.

"To save the world is the simplest thing in the world. All one has to do is think." Novel idea, isn't it?


-M.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

This can't be healthy

How bad is it that my most frequent thought is: "Wow, you should be beaten with an oar."?

Friday, November 14, 2008

Well, well, well...

Peter Schiff taking the fools to task:



Behold the power of principles, kids.

Also--
General rule: these days--with the kinds of people who populate this world--when everyone thinks you're wrong, you're probably right. 

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I have found Eden

Now, let me get this out of the way: I am a bibliophile. I love libraries, dusty old leatherbounds and everything else associated with that...and I love cryptography and technology history.

Given all of that, I think I have found where I want live out the rest of my life: Jay Walker's personal library. Hit your knees and praise.


-Matt

Whoa...

I am experiencing a feeling alien to me as a Denver Broncos fan: pity for the Oakland Raiders.

Honestly, I feel sorry for the players on that team. The men in charge of that organization are clearly unstable. Now there's this.

The Raiders won't have another banner year until Al Davis dies. Mark my words.



Oh yeah, and Obama is president. Whatever. I'm too fed up with evil right now to comment. I have four years worth of blog-fodder coming my way from that entity.


"We've never celebrated anything here at all"--
Matt

Sunday, November 2, 2008

The virtue of selfishness

Barrack "The One" Obama on selfishness and taxes:

"The point is, though, that -- and it’s not just charity, it’s not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class -- it’s that when we actually make sure that everybody’s got a shot – when young people can all go to college, when everybody’s got decent health care, when everybody’s got a little more money at the end of the month – then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That’s what happened in the 1990s, that’s what we need to restore. And that’s what I’m gonna do as president of the United States of America.

"John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic," Obama continued. "You know I don’t know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness."


Die. Choke and die.

Ever wonder exactly how thoroughly one can commit an economic fallacy and demonstrate his moral failings in one breath? Behold.


-M.

Oy vey iz mir...

A couple of weeks ago, some random half-wit from Kansas City wrote up a short stack of nonsense about how "socialist" is a code word for "black". It is a relatively obscure source, but due to its incredible inanity, it made a short trip around the blogs for a little while.

Now, via Titanic Deck Chairs, I've learned of this over at Salon.com.

*sigh*

I'm going to go crawl into bed with a good book before my teeth try to reach back and eat my brain.



Welcome to the strange--
Matt