There should be no investor class in the first place; the existence of institutional investors at all is a major contributor to our current socio-economic reality’s absolute fuckedupness. I’ll start with my model of how I think things should be then point out the most significant divergences and their ramifications. I’ll finish by praying to whatever deity will listen for boulders to fall from the sky onto the heads of everyone who has ever gotten rich from institutionalized theft.
My ideal for investment is a wealthy man, or a group of organized people who together have enough money to fund an enterprise, putting their own money on the line to buy into a business or investment (real property or commodities) with which they are intimately familiar so that they understand the risks they are taking and so they are confident in the likelihood of success and factors which may contribute to the enterprise or investment’s success or failure.
This model provides a basis for sound, consistent growth by forcing investors to be EXTREMELY CAREFUL with their investments – that’s the principal component lacking from the current model. What institutional investors do is gamble. You can tell me all you want about SEC filings, blue sky laws, audit inquiries, and all of the other disclosure and regulatory regimes that exist, but these investors are NOT intimately familiar with the companies in which they’re investing. They’re familiar only with paper filings, usually fraught with misrepresentations. The institutions that consistently profit do so by cheating, whether through market manipulation (w/ government complicity and support) or computerized frontrunning or whatever other methods are available.
Nor are they gambling with their own chips, a fact which requires no lengthy explanation. Other people give the banks their money to manage, and it is all insured by the support of taxpayers. So it’s easy to see how the element of EXTREME CAUTION is here completely lacking, and in fact has been totally abandoned in a fatalistic orgy of spend-’til-the-big-one-hits (and it will hit soon if there is any justice in this world).
So on that note I send out my sincere prayers to God, Allah, Krishna, Vishnu, Wotan, Thor, Mercury, Satan, Baal, Tammuz, Jesus, Yahweh, Jupiter, Ares, Shiva, Athena, Zeus, and all of the many other gods I’ve overlooked that boulders fall from the sky and onto the heads of all bankers, politicians, insurers, and anyone else getting rich from institutionalized theft, and all of those who support them, and also pharmaceutical company managers for good measure. While I’m certain there are good people among these groups, I do not wish for them to be spared. I would joyfully give loyal service unto my death and beyond for the deity who can accomplish this for me.
In all sincerity,
Mike Brewster
A sure path to failure: spend all of your time dreaming and making plans, so many that there’s no time to act on any of them. The blog will remain on hold for the time being.
Massive debt, economy in shambles, growing dissatisfaction with the current regime (slowly but certainly), political opportunity presents itself- a matter of years. To have answers, to be helpful. Arthor Bearing’s grail is a political philosophy.
Everyone can see how strong the political currents are flowing today; our president can’t even tell kids to stay in school without a major brouhaha in the media and among the American people. But why this upsurge in political activism and outrage?
It’s easy to make ignorant speculations without really knowing anything (RACISM!), but a little bit of context makes it clear that the answer goes deeper than one president’s skin. In fact, one doesn’t have to look too far to find a president as politically contentious as our 44th president… just look at our 43rd.
Hypothetical
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Country U is politically divided, roughly 50%-50%, between two political parties, D and R. Party R is able to gets its nominated candidate for the presidency, W, elected. W has an active presidency: war is declared, government size and importance is increased, and a major shift in the government’s role occurs (W decided the government should be a transparent vehicle for cronyism, good man that he is). Party D is outraged at W’s heavy-handed, unilateral actions. W is hated, insulted, spit on, and called a traitor who should be impeached from office. W serves out two terms before party D’s candidate, O, wins the presidency and takes over.
With poetic symmetry, both presidents (W right as his term ends, and O just as his begins) pass legislation to give wealthy bankers in failing institutions billions of dollars.
O begins an active presidency: the wars continue, reforms are proposed, government size and importance are increased, and a major shift in the government’s role occurs (O decided government should be a vehicle for national property redistribution, good man that he is). Party R is outraged at O’s heavy-handed, unilateral actions. O is hated, insulted, spit upon, and called a terrorist who should be impeached from office.
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Two presidents, one from each of the two relevant political parties, are elected in succession. The American public reacts the same way to both, the only difference being the people doing the criticizing (and that’s determined largely by a simple matter of who a person chooses to identify with personally). The half of the populace which chooses to identify with the “winning” side is silent or at best dismissive of their opponents. The other side expresses persistent outrage.
With an outsider’s perspective it becomes clear that the problem is less likely to be with particular political figures and more likely to be with long-term trends in the office of the presidency and the government itself (which is why that’s the non-partisan position I’ve consistently held).
I’m pretty sure there was once a time when people didn’t have to gather in groups of thousands of people (whether war protests or “tea parties”) to impotently wave signs around in order to get the people making major decisions about their lives to stop and listen for a minute. Most of those decisions were being made at a much more local level- now the federal juggernaut makes most of the important decisions and we can merely stand by and watch it happen. No wonder people (people who don’t consider themselves “winners” in the short-term political scene) are getting outraged at the government’s actions.
Small government: don’t react ideologically. Rather, act logically.
Morning frosts start suddenly here in the New England region. Here are practical tips for keeping safe if walking over ice without boots during the cold half of the year.
Define “Abstraction” – something created which is relatively simple and not necessarily realistic.
Underneath everything is reality.
Then on top of that is the small percentage of reality we’re allowed to see, limited by space and time, as well as our limited ability to perceive it. Actually we perceive only a few narrow bands of electromagnetic radiation which stimulate nerve centers in our brain which are converted into signals which we then interpret, and call the end result “real.” So by perceiving the world around us, we’re already positing an abstract overlay between our consciousness and reality.
And then to describe what we perceive, to take our still-rich perceptions and boil them down to a series of letters, words, sentences, requires a further abstract overlay. Paintings, no matter how realistic, are not reality, and so all paintings are abstractions too. And music. And especially TV.
Well that’s abstract, what’s real? A question which goes far, far beyond the scope of this entry. All of this blog, even all of philosophy could be interpreted as an attempt at answering that question. My first hypothesis: Beauty is the measure of reality. My second: reality is that which is of God (not so quick to judge, you don’t know what I mean by the G word, or the B word earlier, for that matter).