Paul Ryan brings house down too!

franco b wrote:You know a lot of your projections are based on assumptions also. Money printing can slow or stop well before a Wiemar situation. In fact a bit of printing in step with expansion makes for a more uniform value of the dollar.

Helicopter Ben is already hinting at QE III. What's the chance the money printing will stop?

I contend that the fuse is already lit for a Wiemar situation. Thanks to QE I and QE II, and all those big "evil" businesses sitting on their cash, the potential is there. It would just take a little velocity to really put price inflation into orbit.

And who do you think is going to get that money flowing?

lsayre wrote:

jpete wrote:I can smile and step in front of a bus hoping the driver will stop in time but it won't do me much good if he doesn't.

That sounds too much like reality being real, and things being as they appear. Hardly anyone believes that nonsense anymore. However, few of them are willing to step in front of a moving bus to prove that reality is not real. Reality being real, let's get real here!

Analogy s are good but only if they are analogous to the situation at hand. Our situation is more like an out of control bus which you try to slow down before stopping it.

franco b wrote:Analogy s are good but only if they are analogous to the situation at hand. Our situation is more like an out of control bus which you try to slow down before stopping it.

I sense a Ron Paul follower in the making here. Ryan doesn't want the bus to even begin to slow down until 2024.

Charlie stole the handle, and the train it won't stop rolling, no way to slow down....

jpete wrote:I contend that the fuse is already lit for a Wiemar situation. Thanks to QE I and QE II, and all those big "evil" businesses sitting on their cash, the potential is there. It would just take a little velocity to really put price inflation into orbit.

I agree which is why we have to replace Obama. You forget Wiemar survived as did Mexico, Brasil, and many others once sound practices were returned to. You should be in favor of it since Ron Paul principles would gain favor.

Nixon = Charlie

franco b wrote:

jpete wrote:I contend that the fuse is already lit for a Wiemar situation. Thanks to QE I and QE II, and all those big "evil" businesses sitting on their cash, the potential is there. It would just take a little velocity to really put price inflation into orbit.

I agree which is why we have to replace Obama. You forget Wiemar survived as did Mexico, Brasil, and many others once sound practices were returned to. You should be in favor of it since Ron Paul principles would gain favor.

yes i can see to replace Obama ...... but with what??????? Heckle & Jeckle its like a multi choice test and all of the answers are wrong ......


yes Obama is f *up but Ryan is way f*up..... I'm way to scared of the two R's if they get in we will be in WWIII

lsayre wrote:I sense a Ron Paul follower in the making here.

I do agree with most of what Paul stands for. I don't agree with the all or nothing stance because that guarantees you get nothing. Even homie sees a big difference between Romney and Obama. Why can't you and jpete. If logic and math ruled everyone would agree but in human beings we are dealing with emotion which is to say instinct. Even logic can't always be trusted because mostly all the factors can never be known. That's why the weather is so hard to predict. That's why central planning fails or falls short of what could be. Recognizing that I favor the wild or natural man, maximum practical freedom for the individual which is the only way to achieve a healthy society with least crime and certainly the best way to reap the benefits of those of us with special talent or genius.

Coach Lombardy said " Winning isn't everything its the only thing" In the same way freedom is the only thing and not just as a nice sounding phrase when we wave the flag or to make us feel good but to recognize it as scientific fact in the governance of human beings.

With freedom there will be abuses but they will be far less than in any other system because man will now be living in an environment in which his emotions are at peace rather than constant frustration resulting in the explosions which are all too common.

franco b wrote:Why can't you and jpete.

Much of it has to do with my understanding of the end result of compromise. As i see it, any compromise between good and evil can only result in evil. Others may see compromise between good and evil as resulting in good. Many others prefer not to think of such things at all, and would rather just go with the flow. This latter case would be compromise without thought or reason. I would suspect that the selfless/mindless thinkers among us would also be in this latter camp. Though this special group may also be in the camp that believes there is really no such thing as good or evil, since morality is merely what we (or the State, the collective mind, etc...) make it (or will it to be, or wish it to be)... [since reality isn't real]

"Why can't we all just get along?"

franco b wrote:

lsayre wrote:

jpete wrote:I can smile and step in front of a bus hoping the driver will stop in time but it won't do me much good if he doesn't.

That sounds too much like reality being real, and things being as they appear. Hardly anyone believes that nonsense anymore. However, few of them are willing to step in front of a moving bus to prove that reality is not real. Reality being real, let's get real here!

Analogy s are good but only if they are analogous to the situation at hand. Our situation is more like an out of control bus which you try to slow down before stopping it.

Using your example, you are a passenger on the bus and you are blissfully hoping the driver isn't drunk, crazy, or dead!

jpete wrote:Using your example, you are a passenger on the bus and you are blissfully hoping the driver isn't drunk, crazy, or dead!

Actually you are right that we are passengers rather than observers on the bus, but blissful hoping is your assumption or maybe observation and does not allow for any other action or recognize that any is possible.

lsayre wrote:

franco b wrote:Why can't you and jpete.

Much of it has to do with my understanding of the end result of compromise. As i see it, any compromise between good and evil can only result in evil. Others may see compromise between good and evil as resulting in good. Many others prefer not to think of such things at all, and would rather just go with the flow. This latter case would be compromise without thought or reason. I would suspect that the selfless/mindless thinkers among us would also be in this latter camp. Though this special group may also be in the camp that believes there is really no such thing as good or evil, since morality is merely what we (or the State, the collective mind, etc...) make it (or will it to be, or wish it to be)... [since reality isn't real]

"Why can't we all just get along?"

I like the way you think because it makes me think.

No compromise between good and evil first requires you to accept that there are such things as absolutes, absolute good and absolute evil. Plato thought we recognize hot only because there is cold. Once you start down this path it can get very prickly because you are into metaphysics or first causes. Even a dictionary can't help because it only defines usage and not significance. It also requires you to recognize good from evil which is not always easy because again we don't have all the facts though we may think we do. Conrad in the preface to one of his books stated as a kind of apology in case you did not like it that,"We can only hold people responsible for their intentions, the ultimate result is far beyond their control," It was good intentions and ignorance of all the factors that resulted in the evil of the housing mess. Compromise could be ultimate good or evil, we don't know.

Morality is what has been instilled into us from our beginnings as a species regardless of what state, or religion, or fashion says. The proof is that we have survived which would be unthinkable without morality.

Plato did not believe that reality was real. He believed that real reality existed in some heavenly realm of "forms", and that what we perceive are only defective shadow or mirror images of the "real" forms of things. For example, a supreme entity or something akin to that concept perceived of a "real" and perfect form called a "chair", and all of our earthly chairs in all of their myriads of derivations are merely defective and ultimately illusionary figments (mirror images or shadows) of the "real" and perfect godly chair.

Quite nearly all of philosophy (and certainly all of religion) is built upon an acceptance that the world as we humans perceive it is not ultimately what is real. It's down right hard in fact to find a university anywhere on earth that teaches a philosophy that believes reality is real. Therefore it is not hard at all for anyone to find that they are in quite good company if they believe that there is no ultimate reality here on earth. Kant, Hegel, Voltaire, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Sartre, etc... Name your world famous philosopher and you are almost certainly naming someone who does not believe that reality is real. And if nothing is ultimately real as we perceive it there can be no absolutes. Everything is therefore subjective. There is no objective reality.

"I think therefore I am." : Descartes. An objective realist might state this as "I am (a human), therefore I think." In the first, thought holds the ultimate reality, and in the second reality must exist first in order for there to be thought. What came first, matter or mind? Can there be mind over matter?

lsayre wrote:Plato did not believe that reality was real. He believed that real reality existed in some heavenly realm of "forms", and that what we perceive are only defective shadow or mirror images of the "real" forms of things. For example, a supreme entity or something akin to that concept perceived of a "real" and perfect form called a "chair", and all of our earthly chairs in all of their myriads of derivations are merely defective and ultimately illusionary figments (mirror images or shadows) of the "real" and perfect godly chair.

Quite nearly all of philosophy (and certainly all of religion) is built upon an acceptance that the world as we humans perceive it is not ultimately what is real. It's down right hard in fact to find a university anywhere on earth that teaches a philosophy that believes reality is real. Therefore it is not hard at all for anyone to find that they are in quite good company if they believe that there is no ultimate reality here on earth. Kant, Hegel, Voltaire, Descartes, Kierkegaard, Sartre, etc... Name your world famous philosopher and you are almost certainly naming someone who does not believe that reality is real. And if nothing is ultimately real as we perceive it there can be no absolutes. Everything is therefore subjective. There is no objective reality.

"I think therefore I am." : Descartes. An objective realist might state this as "I am (a human), therefore I think." In the first, thought holds the ultimate reality, and in the second reality must exist first in order for there to be thought. What came first, matter or mind? Can there be mind over matter?

I implied that Plato was wrong and all the rest of the named philosophers are wrong also. They preceded Darwin and were appallingly ignorant of both animals and man. Clever and tortured logic they had though.
There is no absolute chair. An acceptance that the world as we perceive it is ultimately not what is real is correct. That does not deny reality, it just makes it harder to perceive. Doesn't Buddhism teach that enlightenment confers perception of reality? And how is that perception reached? Isn't it a matter of just not seeing things through our emotions? Something very difficult to do. The scientific method is also an attempt to screen out emotion. Pretty unsuccessfully in some of our sciences.Philosophers I would name are Schopenhauer, Goethe, Emerson. Matter would have to precede mind and as far as mind over matter we see it all around us as houses, bridges, etc.

Remember it was you I felt was using absolutes to detect good from evil. All this thinking is getting painful.

franco b wrote:Remember it was you I felt was using absolutes to detect good from evil. All this thinking is getting painful.

I'm quite the absolutist. The first web link seen below (warning: lengthy, heady, and complex) offers much insight on good and evil, true and false. It is Leonard Peikoff's Objectivist response to former Objectivist David Kelly's conclusion that one must be tolerant of those who hold irrational views, to the extent of holding and upholding such tolerance as a virtue. It is quite lengthy, but if read in its entirety it does present an absolutist perspective that you may never have come across before. The second link simplifies things a bit.

David Kelly argues that the philosophy of Objectivism is an open system capable of integrating and mutating, in a way that is much akin to the way many would perceive of the Constitution as a "living document" capable of mutating and morphing as time progresses. David Kelly actively promotes a new philosophy of his making and liking, yet he still calls it Objectivism. Leonard Peikoff argues that Objectivism is a closed (I.E. absolute) system of thought not open to mutation.

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer? ... ctivism_fv

http://www.lyceum.dk/tracinski.html

Curse you! Now I have to wade through more thickets of abstruse reasoning.

I like the story Jean Shepherd told of his brush with philosophy while in college. He took a term course in philosophy and in the first week a system of philosophy was laid out which sounded great to him. In the second week the instructor demolished that system and a new system was taken up. This went on for the whole term and he felt that at the end they would get to the philosophical system that answered all the objections and weak points of those gone into previously. He was looking forward to it when to his disappointment the course just ended with all the philosophical systems in flames.