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The Monetary Economics of Thurston Howell III
DLWormwood writes "In what has to be the Strangest... Essay... Ever... The libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute website has posted an essay which goes way too in-depth over the topic of why the castaways of Gilligan's Island used Thurston Howell III's 'worthless paper' instead of gold or seashells."
Why oh why do we let this on slashdot...
Posting as AC because ill get slapped down for someone elses usless comments.
djsmiley2k@gmail.com
Damn you mormons and your polygamy.
Well isn't it obvious what you would do?
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First you flood the market with cheap metal, driving traditional mining companies out of business, and eliminating any incentive for people to invest in the mining stocks. You may want to buy some of the now worthless mines to prepare for the next phase
Then, being a monopoly, you restrict the release of your metal to drive its value way up, to make you wayy rich.
Kind of like the way George Bush's friends artificially created the electricity shortage in California a few years back by shutting down power plants and then claiming there was no available generating capacity. (by the way, up here in BC Canada, we are still waiting for you damn americans to pay for the electricity you bought from us during the shortage! You choose of your own free will to make the purchase on your own open market, now pay the damn bill!).
Another example is how George Bush has intentionally destabilized the Oil markets by invading Iraq. Since the supply of oil is tight as it is, pinching that one easy target and wrapping it all up in the imaginary fear of terrorism, and the 'war on terrorism' that even Bush now admits shall be perpetual without end (just like the war in the book 1984), has more than doubled the price of oil! Of course BUSH also acted to keep the demand for oil as high as possible in the USA by fighting hard against a proposed 3mpg increase in fuel efficiency for all new cars that would have saved 3 times more oil than is imported from Iraq. Bush even sued California to put a stop to their tough laws that demand higher fuel efficiencies.
What a nice way for Bush to pay back the Bin Laden family for the $1.4BILLION they gave his family over the last couple decades! In fact just in the last MONTH you damn americans have spent $90BILLION more dollars on oil than you would have under the pre-bush, pre-war oil prices. $90BILLION that you personally handed over to the oil families in the middle east that you hate so much.
But nevermind. I'm sure you will just take this as trolling, wave your damn ugly flag in my face, and merrily run off in ignorance claiming Bush is your saviour.
Dumbass americans.
The problem is quite the opposite. Libertarians are totally singled minded and driven to simplify everything to the farthest extreme. That's the motivator for this essay that you, being perhaps a mere simpleton felt was overthought. In fact, it is quite the opposite of thinking too much. It is the problem of refusing to see anything but an exremely narrow mindset. The heart of the libertarian obsession is competition. Everything must be forced to make sense only in relation to this extremely narrow notion which is totally inappropriate for so many human beahviors.
This extrememe narrow mindedness also explains why there are so many libertarians on Slashdot. People who work in technology, and specifically computer technology, tend to become overly focused and dependent upon extremely limited rule sets. This is certainly true of software, but nowhere does it proliferate like in hardware. The reason is so simple to if you know the slightest thing about hardware design. The rules are incredibly simple, it is applying them to the world that becomes a life's obsession. For such individuals, Libertarianism can easily seem the seductive perfect fit.
But the real world is mostly Analog and only a little binary and most of the analog devices outside of tech never interface with binary systems. The real world is far more complex and Libertarianism absolutely refuses to see that.
Let me put it this way, competition is a lousy model for a library system. Competition is a lousy model for a relationship between a man and a woman. Competition is a lousy model for a relationship between a parent and a child. And the most interesting is that competition actually doesn't even play a that great of a role in the food chain. Boy, try explaining that to a Libertarian. But go ahead and ask an Ecologist, it's a fact.