That's what people said about me growing up. Usually took 2-4 years of somebody knowing me well for the ticks and habits to get on their nerves to the point of causing a problem.
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30.
I agree with John Guilt's advice below, and would add one thing- find his obsession and if it could be of use to somebody, anybody, in the real world, encourage the hell out of it. It has been my experience that Asperger's syndrome people are given one great gift in life, and if they can make money with it, that's a by-product that will enable them to also be economically independent, if not rich. Of course, they'll do it because it is their obsession, not because they make money with it- some of my most useful software projects I never made a dime on.
I imagine they could save a bunch of money by hiring someone with a spine.
My last employer, I went to the Union and got them to join in an ADA lawsuit against the state that resulted in me getting four months back pay for the time I was unemployed. Enough of a spine for you?
There are a lot fewer guarantees with being happy if you can't get out of your mind the insult some kid gave you on the bus 30 years ago.
That's Asperger's. Or rather, it's one of my symptoms of Asperger's. The depression and paranoia are sub symptoms of the disorder- along with the stimming, migraines, disgraphia, inability to understand body language, inability to have empathy for other people, inability to understand when I should stop typing because I'm boring everybody to death....
Does everybody else deal with their paranoia by using Google Earth to scout good places to set up a sniper nest to shoot at random into skyscrapers?
Not that I've ever given into my mental illness to that extent, but it is something that crossed my mind as a way to get some revenge and exit the normal economy at the same time.
Thoughts of my wife and son kept me from doing it- me going to jail would harm them. But that's *NORMAL* thinking for the paranoia side of my mental illness, and I can easily see somebody with my mental illness becoming a terrorist- and one who isn't stupid enough to get caught by having all of the sniper deaths in a single jurisdiction.
How about- don't eat the salad? Actually, after many moons, I've found avoiding certain behaviors, combined with medication, have reduced my migraines down to only 2-3 a month.
I went into civil service in 2003 as a private contractor- was hired in 2006- was fired in 2007 for not understanding the difference between public and private use of computer equipment.
I'm MUCH better now in a company that understands my needs.
That mirrors my situation- one set of posts on alt.religion.catholic of all things, and somebody suggested I go check out alt.support.autism. This led to better medication for my migraines and then based on the medication that worked for my migraines, a formal diagnosis and coping mechanism training.
30 years of being just weird, 9 years of knowing *why* I'm strange and learning how to deal with it better every day.
And the frustration level from that is immense- especially when by law and physical proximity, most of the people who will do economic harm to your life you will never meet, let alone have a chance to take a shot at.
I've got a good thing going NOW- but it took failing at being a civil servant to get here.
I've got some niggling little physical symptoms for my Asperger's as well- stimming to the point of rubbing holes in my skin and bleeding (sometimes without noticing); migraines (sun, violins, and vinegar salad dressing are three big triggers); disgraphia (ha, there's a reason to go into software engineering, where one can type rather than write!); spd (sensory perception disorder- aka halucinations).
I don't understand how anybody with Asperger's would be totally unable to work. Unable to keep a job more than three years in a row due to driving everybody else nuts, yes, but not totally unable to work.
I have Asperger's. Diagnosed, not self-diagnosed like so many on slashdot.
Bitterness as a symptom of my Asperger's. This would explain a lot of the "delusions of inadequacy" side of my personality. I work so hard at some stuff that I'm just incapable of, like having a real career where I'm not exploited.
A lot of my paranoia is related to this as well.
I'm so lucky to be in a company now that respects my talents, and allows me time to deal with my mental illnesses; but not everybody is that lucky.
Looks like Plasma Boy and his White Zombie have a competitor out there. (AFAIK, he uses hot-swappable battery packs as well, and only goes full out on the quarter mile).
Speak for yourself. I've made a lot of money on that roulette wheel. Let's mark down a calendar and have this conversation again in 2013. If civilization has collapsed I'll give you one of my solar cells or firearms. If it hasn't then I think you owe me a beer and a single share of the stock of my choice;)
2nd reply on this bet specifically- change that to a beer and a sack of seed corn, and I'll gladly accept. Here are my "signs the apocalypse is nearing", including one we can both agree on as being objective right at the end.
1. Late 2009/early 2010- the federal government doesn't see enough improvement in unemployment to stop Keynesian stimulus spending, goes even further into debt, triggering an increase in Chinese & Indian flight from petrodollar reserves.
2. Because unemployment is a severely lagging indicator, the FED overshoots on petrodollar production at the same time petrodollars stop being a reserve currency for anybody. Result- what I call Weimar Hyperstagflation- Unemployment >15%, Inflation >10% at the same time. (the trigger figures for this are on the conservative side- real Wiemar Hyperstagflation could well see an inflationary depression- a couple of million for a loaf of bread and no way for a quarter of the population to earn even $1/day).
3. In 2011/2012, the hyperinflation becomes a political problem. Obama becomes a one-term loser president with the reputation of Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover.
I say this because I don't believe total economic collapse will happen by 2013- and if we keep predicting it, maybe some miracle boy someplace will pull us out. But only by being prepared have I kept my house and stayed out of bankruptcy. Millions more aren't so lucky.
But you said "civilization has collapsed"- and from my point of view, that happened 36 years ago. This ain't civilization, this is every man for himself.
Would you feel better if we draw and quartered him in the public square while forcing him to watch as people assraped his family?
Given the involvement of his family in the scam, YES. And then ALL of their assets taken away, sold at auction, and the money returned to the people they stole it from. And if that isn't enough for full recompense (and it probably isn't) then the family sold into slavery for however many generations it takes to repay the debt.
He's spending the rest of his life behind bars. Unless you are looking for some sort of cruel and unusual punishment I don't see why we are even still talking about him.
Without a strong level of cruel and unusual punishment in this case, we have no guarantee that the rest of the market isn't playing the same game.
Yes, there isn't a single honest person left in the financial industry. Every single actor ranging from the Wall Street tycoon to the loan officer at my community credit union is a con-artist looking for the fastest way to screw the American people.
Yes, that's the lesson that September 2008 proved to everybody with an ounce of common sense.
Pray tell, what other reserve currency would you use?
I wouldn't- the whole idea of currency is morally bankrupt and highly suspect. Tangibles is where it's at- making sure your family and neighbors can eat.
Another sweeping generalization. It's getting hard to take you seriously.
So don't. What do I care? Sweeping generalizations are the only truth we're allowed to have, since we're not allowed to have any REAL information.
So what you are really against is success. Gotcha.
That isn't success. Success is serving your friends and your family, not conning strangers out of their money.
I've had my share of misery. I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit and had to spend thousands of dollars to clear my name. It contributed heavily to my bankruptcy a few years ago. You don't see me making sweeping generalizations about the justice system and condemning every single actor within it.
Then you're a bigger loser than I am by a long way- because you're too stupid to see that the world is really out to get you and that it wasn't worth clearing your name.
A proper use of the scientific method would seem to demand a larger data set than the experiences of one individual.
There is no proper use of the scientific method, because the scientific method relies upon one big lie: that human beings are capable of objective data.
Speak for yourself. I've made a lot of money on that roulette wheel. Let's mark down a calendar and have this conversation again in 2013. If civilization has collapsed I'll give you one of my solar cells or firearms. If it hasn't then I think you owe me a beer and a single share of the stock of my choice;)
Interesting bet. But one you won't live to collect, it seems.
And he's going to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for the rest of his miserable life for his crimes.
Last I heard, he was going into minimum security, not supermax.
I've already said that anyone who commits fraud should be held accountable for their actions.
The problem is, that's everybody. Thanks to the way things were deregulated, there are NO honest men in the financial industry- at all.
We'll see I guess:)
The writing was on the wall in 1970. Only an idiot would use the petrodollar as a reserve currency after what the FED has been doing.
Who are you to judge what the manager contributed to the project?
An HONEST man, which is more than I can say for any manager I've ever met or heard of.
What you are purposing is a Governmental mandate to interfere in business that would destroy the profit incentive that fuels productivity.
The profit incentive doesn't fuel productivity, the profit incentive fuels fraud.
Such a system has failed miserably every single time it's been attempted.
Actually, no it hasn't- it's only failed when it has grown too large (which is something else I'm against- any corporation that serves customers more than 10 miles from it's home office, or has more than 500 customers/workers/managment/investors total).
To quote Churchill: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
There's no difference between the two once they exceed two degrees of friendship.
So you are bitter about what happened to you
Yes. Wouldn't you be?
and are making sweeping generalizations about everyone and everything because of your own experience?
Yes, because that is science- to take experiences and draw conclusions from them.
My company doesn't tell me which funds within the 401(k) I can invest in.
But they limit your choices to the funds they want you to invest in.
That's left up to me. I could invest it all in cash,
Which would effectively put your reserves in petrodollars, which by the end of 2012 will be worth less than a Zimbabwean Baked Bean
all in stocks
Which are the biggest scam ever and are based in nothing real.
some balance of the two
What, no bond funds? Of course, those are even worse.
I do agree with you that I'd rather see it more open ended than this (the IRA example given previously) but you must admit that the reality of the situation isn't quite what you are claiming it to be.
Unless you can go up to the CEO of the corporation you are investing in and shoot him for wasting your money, you have no guarantees. Anything less is just betting your future on a roulette wheel. No, strike that- the roulette wheel has a better return on investment if you bet on red or black (48% instead of 10%).
Strange then, because I was able to find it without much trouble.....
And exactly what are you basing your ability to know the information you found was accurate on? Madoff, for instance, posted huge returns 9/10 reporting periods- all based on fake info.
If you really feel that way keep all your money under the mattress. Let's get back together in ten years and see who did better:)
If we base it on the next 10 years, we'll both be negative. Strongly negative, because the petrodollar is a dead duck.
Yeah well, what do you want?
100% transparency by outside organizations into all corporate matters, and 0% secrecy. A true brokerage account that allows you to trade in anything, not a limited number of funds, much more like an IRA.
I think it would be better if you could direct your 401(k) in the same manner as you can your IRA (you can invest in almost any type of stock or fund with an IRA) and maybe that's something that can be worked on.
Yeah, that's one way anyway. The other bit though is that the cost of wages should be increased to 98% of profits, porportioned by what people actually DO for the company. (In other words, a line worker who adds a million in value to the product, should be paid $900,000- and his manager, who just pushed paperwork and added far less value to the end product, should be paid less).
Umm, care to provide a link to the 401(k) with a fund that has two digit management fees?
Don't have the link anymore- I learned my lesson after I lost everything with them in 2001, and haven't taken a 401k since. They were Schwab based though.
I've never seen any fund with a 10% management fee, let alone one within a 401(k). 1% to 2% is more typical and if you do your homework you can find funds with fees that are even less than that.
You aren't allowed to do your homework with a 401(k)- you have to take what your company offers.
You should change your nickname to Captain Pessimist.
Again, I don't have any sympathy for those who are too lazy to seek out said information on their own.
Said information is not available anymore. It once was, but that was before the system was deregulated.
If you don't have the knowledge to make informed decisions about your retirement investments on your own then you'd damn well better acquire that knowledge or turn to someone you can trust for help.
There is nobody left to trust- the entire bloody market is a scam.
As far as management fees I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Most 401(k)s that I've seen have a number of different funds you can invest in.
A limited number, chosen by the company, and if you want to invest in something outside of that number, you're SOL.
Some with high management fees, some with no management fees and some in the middle. It's up to you to do your homework and make good decisions.
All the ones I've ever seen all had 10%/year OR MORE management fees associated with them. Which meant if you didn't have enough money to diversify, they'd disappear.
I have a lot more confidence in all of these investments than I'll ever have in anything run by Uncle Sam.
I don't. In fact, as near as I can tell, there isn't a single broker on Wall Street who isn't a lying Madoff-style scumbag.
By the time I'm 65 I'll bet the social security retirement age is 80. I'm not counting on it for a single penny.
Well, on that scale, neither am I- my first accounting letter from the Social Security Administration told me my estimated retirement, if I waited until 80, would be $40,000/year- and my expectation of getting that amount was 0%.
If anything I wish I could take the money that is being stolen from me and manage it myself. I suspect that I could do a lot better with it.
Where I wish I could convert it to gold. Or better yet, buy a campground on top of one of the old Oregon mines. It's the only safe investment left.
If the other side is actively committing fraud then I suggest you do the American thing and sue them once you discover said fraud.
Does no good- the banks own the judges and the lawyers.
Where are you going to get the parts to repair those generators and refurbish your batteries when society breaks down?
Same place I got them to begin with- mining and building them myself.
What else can you call a pension fund that if you have less than $5000 in it will eventually disappear just due to management fees? And that you are encouraged to self-manage, but never given enough information to actually do so?
and have very little sympathy for those that didn't properly manage their investments
Given the amount of lying the financial industry does, this is everybody.
or whom were too lazy to read their mortgage paperwork.
Of which the brokers have also been repeatedly shown to have falsified. You can do all the due diligence you want, but if the other side is actively committing fraud, you're not being given the information needed to make a competent decision.
Hey, I don't think we need to go out and change their beliefs at gunpoint. I just don't think we need to excuse away repugnant behavior because of cultural differences.
Ah, ok. That makes more sense. No, I don't excuse their repugnant behavior. I just am honest enough to admit that perhaps to them, it's not repugnant.
If you are that pessimistic I hope you are socking some of it away into firearms and ammunition;)
Yeah, well, on that, I prefer sonic and energy based weaponry. I might run out of lead, sulfur, and saltpeter one day, but I can always recharge my batteries from my wave, wind, and solar generators. And for stopping power, a 11,000-12,000hz siren at 460 db is both directional and will stop both man and beast (at least, for the cougar, bear, and coyote who live in my area of the country). As will a 26,000 volt, 1/4th amp fence.
I have no problem doing so as long as my culture respects freedom and self determination and theirs does not.
Yeah, and freedom/self-determination has worked out so well for the thousands of newly homeless baby boomers who bought into the 401k/subprime mortgage scam.
Ours is clearly superior and it's about time that we recognized that instead of rationalizing the bad behavior of others as some sort of cultural difference. African tribes routinely slice off the clitoris of young girls but we don't celebrate that behavior because of their culture. We condemn it and use what influence we have to change it.
You might, I for one still want to see more evidence. We've monkeyed too much with other people's cherished beliefs in the name of freedom, and all it has gotten us is more tyranny.
China oppresses individual rights, is wiping out the Tibetan culture/way of life, practices female infanticide and forced abortions. I can think of nothing redeeming to say about the Chinese regime and earnestly hope their people will break free of it within our lifetimes.
Then I for one can only say you don't know very much about the Chinese regime- if you think it's all evil and no good.
It's all about perspective. From my perspective I would rather live in environment with no nanny state trying to micromanage my vices and behavior than the current environment where the state "looks out" for me in the manner of a parent with OCD.
I'd say as of late the state in America has been looking out for us in the manner of a parent with an addiction to drug abuse. Completely non-existant.
I'm not worried about that because I have a marketable skill
Marketable skills are worthless in times of stagflation.
and used the boon times to build up a healthy reserve of funds
Hope you didn't keep them in dollars or a bank.
While the rest of this country was out living beyond their means I was living in a 500 sq foot apartment and socking away 25% of my salary (more if you count my retirement investments) into savings.
Sucker.
I have little sympathy for those that were greedy and bought houses they couldn't afford and SUVs that got 15 miles to the gallon when gasoline was above $4/gal.
I've got NO sympathy for them, but know that due to their greed, my money will likely be worthless by 2012, so I'm quickly socking it away into tangibles- like a permaculture garden, rain gathering devices, and ambient energy generators.
I find it interesting that a bleeding heart such as yourself is advocating nuclear warfare as a solution to terrorism.
The "War on Terror" isn't about terrorism- it's about fundamentalism. And fundamentalism is a fire you can only put out in two ways: Surrender or Total Victory.
It seems to me that if we had just deployed our 100,000+ troops to Afghanistan instead of Iraq we could have solved the problem without using any nuclear weapons.
Nah, that would have just made us into Ghengis Kahn. Or England. Or Russia. Afghanistan is not conquerable by foot soldiers and calvary.
Oh well, at least we ensured friendly airspace for the Israeli's when they deal with Iran for us.....
Which is another group of fundamentalists we will have to deal with unless we choose the surrender option (and by surrender, I don't mean letting them have control of this nation, I mean isolationism).
I will judge them by my rules, because as far as I'm concerned Marxism/Communism/Mao'ism/what-have-you is at odds with the inalienable rights of man.
Under Marxism, the individual has no inalienable rights.
I see no reason that an event such as Tiananmen deserves anything but scorn because of a different culture or political system.
Then you're being an arrogant and placing your culture above theirs.
I'll take the tyranny of the greenback over the tyranny of the enlightened majority any day of the week.
You wouldn't say so if you had lived through the end of the 19th century in America. In fact, I dare say you won't be singing the same song 3 years from now, as the tyranny of the greenback takes away your right to have food, clothing, and shelter.
If you are advocating a scorched earth policy at odds with a hundred years of international law then I could point out that you wouldn't need large numbers of troops to implement it. Not since we learned how to split the atom anyway.
True enough- and my early posts in September of 01 in Usenet recommended nuking Mecca right from the start. But thanks to the Bedouin, large percentages of the enemy population are not in cities and are rather hard to find, let alone target with a nuke. When this was pointed out to me, I suggested cobalt warheads, with their 100 mile radius blast pattern, might be in order.
You sure live up to your Marxist handle if you think that the fact that they were a minority justifies the fact that they were brutally put down with violence.
I don't emulate Marxism- I think it has a fatal flaw, oddly enough the same fatal flaw exists in Wall Street. But I do understand it, and one of the primary (and more ironic, especially given the protest in question) ethical values of Marxism is a brutal adherence to the tyranny of the majority. If you are willing to judge people by their own rules instead of arrogantly judging them by YOUR rules, then yes, under the rules of Marxism, a protesting minority is a danger to orderly society, perhaps more so than an invading army.
Because we have rule of law in this country
Yep, one law for the rich and a totally different one for the poor.
and there are legal processes (both criminal and civil) that we resort to before we break out the pitchforks, torches and firearms.
Only if you're rich enough to demand it. I guarantee you that in any sufficiently small village in America- the lynch mob IS the legal process.
Well I'd argue in favor of a military draft to ensure that our military represents all portions of society (including the best and brightest that the military so desperately needs) but I suspect that you leftists would have a problem with that.
Actually, many people on the left have argued for it since 9-11, so you'd be wrong there. In fact, at one point I personally supported a 25% draft and scorched earth policy with respect to Islam- because I'm pretty sure that the United States, even in it's weakened state from years of non-manufacture- could finish the "War on Terror" in a couple of months, if given enough troops.
If we had a draft the kids of rich people would wind up being sent into harms way along side the kids of poor people. Think that might make it less likely that we engage in interventionist adventures and more likely that we reserve our use of the military for those situations wherein our national security is actually threatened?
Possibly, but going back to my original point, I think it would make it less likely that we'd have soldiers able to be bribed to ignore the UCMJ.
Sure does, when you think about it and realize that among a billion people, the million or so who were protesting were a MINORITY.
Capitalists don't control the Government. Capitalists have influence in the Government that outweighs their numbers but "control" is a bit of a stretch.
Then why do they get by with harming millions without being lynched? No, they've got control alright- both candidates in every election are already bought and paid for with campaign contributions- and who has the money to give campaign contributions? Those who have the money, give to both sides and have the right to lobby for favors afterward.
Actually it takes a bit more than that. Look up "permissive action links" the next time you lose sleep over the security of our nuclear weapons.
I decided to Look this up before responding, and what I found *will* make me sleep more securely at night, knowing that some undereducated private won't be the one able to do this. Unfortunately it doesn't quite negate what I said entirely- there is no such thing as a "tamper proof membrane", and theoretically one *could* indeed replace the control mechanism and detonator and still get some form of a yield (even though it would be far more likely to be a dirty bomb than a true nuclear detonation).
And that's relevant to my point in what way exactly? It seems that you are ignoring the point I was trying to make in favor of spouting liberal talking points.
The uniform code of military justice has a huge hole in it thanks to (and I actually call these CONSERVATIVE talking points, since any *real conservative* realizes that it is important to national security to adequately compensate one's military- this is the reason Saddam lost Gulf War I) the lack of compensation of the military. These aren't ideologues volunteering for the most part, they're people who have *NO* other option in our depressed economy.
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Mine was more from school.
I'll bet he ends up an excellent baker- and with writing his own ad copy, he'd probably do quite well at farmer's markets for selling his wares.
That's what people said about me growing up. Usually took 2-4 years of somebody knowing me well for the ticks and habits to get on their nerves to the point of causing a problem.
I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30.
I agree with John Guilt's advice below, and would add one thing- find his obsession and if it could be of use to somebody, anybody, in the real world, encourage the hell out of it. It has been my experience that Asperger's syndrome people are given one great gift in life, and if they can make money with it, that's a by-product that will enable them to also be economically independent, if not rich. Of course, they'll do it because it is their obsession, not because they make money with it- some of my most useful software projects I never made a dime on.
I imagine they could save a bunch of money by hiring someone with a spine.
My last employer, I went to the Union and got them to join in an ADA lawsuit against the state that resulted in me getting four months back pay for the time I was unemployed. Enough of a spine for you?
There are a lot fewer guarantees with being happy if you can't get out of your mind the insult some kid gave you on the bus 30 years ago.
That's Asperger's. Or rather, it's one of my symptoms of Asperger's. The depression and paranoia are sub symptoms of the disorder- along with the stimming, migraines, disgraphia, inability to understand body language, inability to have empathy for other people, inability to understand when I should stop typing because I'm boring everybody to death....
Does everybody else deal with their paranoia by using Google Earth to scout good places to set up a sniper nest to shoot at random into skyscrapers?
Not that I've ever given into my mental illness to that extent, but it is something that crossed my mind as a way to get some revenge and exit the normal economy at the same time.
Thoughts of my wife and son kept me from doing it- me going to jail would harm them. But that's *NORMAL* thinking for the paranoia side of my mental illness, and I can easily see somebody with my mental illness becoming a terrorist- and one who isn't stupid enough to get caught by having all of the sniper deaths in a single jurisdiction.
How about- don't eat the salad? Actually, after many moons, I've found avoiding certain behaviors, combined with medication, have reduced my migraines down to only 2-3 a month.
I went into civil service in 2003 as a private contractor- was hired in 2006- was fired in 2007 for not understanding the difference between public and private use of computer equipment.
I'm MUCH better now in a company that understands my needs.
You need to join the Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical. Too bad it's just a joke.
That mirrors my situation- one set of posts on alt.religion.catholic of all things, and somebody suggested I go check out alt.support.autism. This led to better medication for my migraines and then based on the medication that worked for my migraines, a formal diagnosis and coping mechanism training.
30 years of being just weird, 9 years of knowing *why* I'm strange and learning how to deal with it better every day.
And the frustration level from that is immense- especially when by law and physical proximity, most of the people who will do economic harm to your life you will never meet, let alone have a chance to take a shot at.
A real adult takes out his frustration with a bottle of whiskey and a rifle.
I've got a good thing going NOW- but it took failing at being a civil servant to get here.
I've got some niggling little physical symptoms for my Asperger's as well- stimming to the point of rubbing holes in my skin and bleeding (sometimes without noticing); migraines (sun, violins, and vinegar salad dressing are three big triggers); disgraphia (ha, there's a reason to go into software engineering, where one can type rather than write!); spd (sensory perception disorder- aka halucinations).
I don't understand how anybody with Asperger's would be totally unable to work. Unable to keep a job more than three years in a row due to driving everybody else nuts, yes, but not totally unable to work.
I have Asperger's. Diagnosed, not self-diagnosed like so many on slashdot.
Bitterness as a symptom of my Asperger's. This would explain a lot of the "delusions of inadequacy" side of my personality. I work so hard at some stuff that I'm just incapable of, like having a real career where I'm not exploited.
A lot of my paranoia is related to this as well.
I'm so lucky to be in a company now that respects my talents, and allows me time to deal with my mental illnesses; but not everybody is that lucky.
Looks like Plasma Boy and his White Zombie have a competitor out there. (AFAIK, he uses hot-swappable battery packs as well, and only goes full out on the quarter mile).
Speak for yourself. I've made a lot of money on that roulette wheel. Let's mark down a calendar and have this conversation again in 2013. If civilization has collapsed I'll give you one of my solar cells or firearms. If it hasn't then I think you owe me a beer and a single share of the stock of my choice ;)
2nd reply on this bet specifically- change that to a beer and a sack of seed corn, and I'll gladly accept. Here are my "signs the apocalypse is nearing", including one we can both agree on as being objective right at the end.
1. Late 2009/early 2010- the federal government doesn't see enough improvement in unemployment to stop Keynesian stimulus spending, goes even further into debt, triggering an increase in Chinese & Indian flight from petrodollar reserves.
2. Because unemployment is a severely lagging indicator, the FED overshoots on petrodollar production at the same time petrodollars stop being a reserve currency for anybody. Result- what I call Weimar Hyperstagflation- Unemployment >15%, Inflation >10% at the same time. (the trigger figures for this are on the conservative side- real Wiemar Hyperstagflation could well see an inflationary depression- a couple of million for a loaf of bread and no way for a quarter of the population to earn even $1/day).
3. In 2011/2012, the hyperinflation becomes a political problem. Obama becomes a one-term loser president with the reputation of Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover.
I say this because I don't believe total economic collapse will happen by 2013- and if we keep predicting it, maybe some miracle boy someplace will pull us out. But only by being prepared have I kept my house and stayed out of bankruptcy. Millions more aren't so lucky.
But you said "civilization has collapsed"- and from my point of view, that happened 36 years ago. This ain't civilization, this is every man for himself.
Would you feel better if we draw and quartered him in the public square while forcing him to watch as people assraped his family?
;)
Given the involvement of his family in the scam, YES. And then ALL of their assets taken away, sold at auction, and the money returned to the people they stole it from. And if that isn't enough for full recompense (and it probably isn't) then the family sold into slavery for however many generations it takes to repay the debt.
He's spending the rest of his life behind bars. Unless you are looking for some sort of cruel and unusual punishment I don't see why we are even still talking about him.
Without a strong level of cruel and unusual punishment in this case, we have no guarantee that the rest of the market isn't playing the same game.
Yes, there isn't a single honest person left in the financial industry. Every single actor ranging from the Wall Street tycoon to the loan officer at my community credit union is a con-artist looking for the fastest way to screw the American people.
Yes, that's the lesson that September 2008 proved to everybody with an ounce of common sense.
Pray tell, what other reserve currency would you use?
I wouldn't- the whole idea of currency is morally bankrupt and highly suspect. Tangibles is where it's at- making sure your family and neighbors can eat.
Another sweeping generalization. It's getting hard to take you seriously.
So don't. What do I care? Sweeping generalizations are the only truth we're allowed to have, since we're not allowed to have any REAL information.
So what you are really against is success. Gotcha.
That isn't success. Success is serving your friends and your family, not conning strangers out of their money.
I've had my share of misery. I was accused of a crime that I didn't commit and had to spend thousands of dollars to clear my name. It contributed heavily to my bankruptcy a few years ago. You don't see me making sweeping generalizations about the justice system and condemning every single actor within it.
Then you're a bigger loser than I am by a long way- because you're too stupid to see that the world is really out to get you and that it wasn't worth clearing your name.
A proper use of the scientific method would seem to demand a larger data set than the experiences of one individual.
There is no proper use of the scientific method, because the scientific method relies upon one big lie: that human beings are capable of objective data.
Speak for yourself. I've made a lot of money on that roulette wheel. Let's mark down a calendar and have this conversation again in 2013. If civilization has collapsed I'll give you one of my solar cells or firearms. If it hasn't then I think you owe me a beer and a single share of the stock of my choice
Interesting bet. But one you won't live to collect, it seems.
And he's going to Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for the rest of his miserable life for his crimes.
:)
Last I heard, he was going into minimum security, not supermax.
I've already said that anyone who commits fraud should be held accountable for their actions.
The problem is, that's everybody. Thanks to the way things were deregulated, there are NO honest men in the financial industry- at all.
We'll see I guess
The writing was on the wall in 1970. Only an idiot would use the petrodollar as a reserve currency after what the FED has been doing.
Who are you to judge what the manager contributed to the project?
An HONEST man, which is more than I can say for any manager I've ever met or heard of.
What you are purposing is a Governmental mandate to interfere in business that would destroy the profit incentive that fuels productivity.
The profit incentive doesn't fuel productivity, the profit incentive fuels fraud.
Such a system has failed miserably every single time it's been attempted.
Actually, no it hasn't- it's only failed when it has grown too large (which is something else I'm against- any corporation that serves customers more than 10 miles from it's home office, or has more than 500 customers/workers/managment/investors total).
To quote Churchill: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
There's no difference between the two once they exceed two degrees of friendship.
So you are bitter about what happened to you
Yes. Wouldn't you be?
and are making sweeping generalizations about everyone and everything because of your own experience?
Yes, because that is science- to take experiences and draw conclusions from them.
My company doesn't tell me which funds within the 401(k) I can invest in.
But they limit your choices to the funds they want you to invest in.
That's left up to me. I could invest it all in cash,
Which would effectively put your reserves in petrodollars, which by the end of 2012 will be worth less than a Zimbabwean Baked Bean
all in stocks
Which are the biggest scam ever and are based in nothing real.
some balance of the two
What, no bond funds? Of course, those are even worse.
I do agree with you that I'd rather see it more open ended than this (the IRA example given previously) but you must admit that the reality of the situation isn't quite what you are claiming it to be.
Unless you can go up to the CEO of the corporation you are investing in and shoot him for wasting your money, you have no guarantees. Anything less is just betting your future on a roulette wheel. No, strike that- the roulette wheel has a better return on investment if you bet on red or black (48% instead of 10%).
Strange then, because I was able to find it without much trouble.....
:)
And exactly what are you basing your ability to know the information you found was accurate on? Madoff, for instance, posted huge returns 9/10 reporting periods- all based on fake info.
If you really feel that way keep all your money under the mattress. Let's get back together in ten years and see who did better
If we base it on the next 10 years, we'll both be negative. Strongly negative, because the petrodollar is a dead duck.
Yeah well, what do you want?
100% transparency by outside organizations into all corporate matters, and 0% secrecy. A true brokerage account that allows you to trade in anything, not a limited number of funds, much more like an IRA.
I think it would be better if you could direct your 401(k) in the same manner as you can your IRA (you can invest in almost any type of stock or fund with an IRA) and maybe that's something that can be worked on.
Yeah, that's one way anyway. The other bit though is that the cost of wages should be increased to 98% of profits, porportioned by what people actually DO for the company. (In other words, a line worker who adds a million in value to the product, should be paid $900,000- and his manager, who just pushed paperwork and added far less value to the end product, should be paid less).
Umm, care to provide a link to the 401(k) with a fund that has two digit management fees?
Don't have the link anymore- I learned my lesson after I lost everything with them in 2001, and haven't taken a 401k since. They were Schwab based though.
I've never seen any fund with a 10% management fee, let alone one within a 401(k). 1% to 2% is more typical and if you do your homework you can find funds with fees that are even less than that.
You aren't allowed to do your homework with a 401(k)- you have to take what your company offers.
You should change your nickname to Captain Pessimist.
Oh, I'm FAR from the most pessimistic out there.
Again, I don't have any sympathy for those who are too lazy to seek out said information on their own.
Said information is not available anymore. It once was, but that was before the system was deregulated.
If you don't have the knowledge to make informed decisions about your retirement investments on your own then you'd damn well better acquire that knowledge or turn to someone you can trust for help.
There is nobody left to trust- the entire bloody market is a scam.
As far as management fees I honestly don't know what you are talking about. Most 401(k)s that I've seen have a number of different funds you can invest in.
A limited number, chosen by the company, and if you want to invest in something outside of that number, you're SOL.
Some with high management fees, some with no management fees and some in the middle. It's up to you to do your homework and make good decisions.
All the ones I've ever seen all had 10%/year OR MORE management fees associated with them. Which meant if you didn't have enough money to diversify, they'd disappear.
I have a lot more confidence in all of these investments than I'll ever have in anything run by Uncle Sam.
I don't. In fact, as near as I can tell, there isn't a single broker on Wall Street who isn't a lying Madoff-style scumbag.
By the time I'm 65 I'll bet the social security retirement age is 80. I'm not counting on it for a single penny.
Well, on that scale, neither am I- my first accounting letter from the Social Security Administration told me my estimated retirement, if I waited until 80, would be $40,000/year- and my expectation of getting that amount was 0%.
If anything I wish I could take the money that is being stolen from me and manage it myself. I suspect that I could do a lot better with it.
Where I wish I could convert it to gold. Or better yet, buy a campground on top of one of the old Oregon mines. It's the only safe investment left.
If the other side is actively committing fraud then I suggest you do the American thing and sue them once you discover said fraud.
Does no good- the banks own the judges and the lawyers.
Where are you going to get the parts to repair those generators and refurbish your batteries when society breaks down?
Same place I got them to begin with- mining and building them myself.
I don't regard the 401(k) as a scam
;)
What else can you call a pension fund that if you have less than $5000 in it will eventually disappear just due to management fees? And that you are encouraged to self-manage, but never given enough information to actually do so?
and have very little sympathy for those that didn't properly manage their investments
Given the amount of lying the financial industry does, this is everybody.
or whom were too lazy to read their mortgage paperwork.
Of which the brokers have also been repeatedly shown to have falsified. You can do all the due diligence you want, but if the other side is actively committing fraud, you're not being given the information needed to make a competent decision.
Hey, I don't think we need to go out and change their beliefs at gunpoint. I just don't think we need to excuse away repugnant behavior because of cultural differences.
Ah, ok. That makes more sense. No, I don't excuse their repugnant behavior. I just am honest enough to admit that perhaps to them, it's not repugnant.
If you are that pessimistic I hope you are socking some of it away into firearms and ammunition
Yeah, well, on that, I prefer sonic and energy based weaponry. I might run out of lead, sulfur, and saltpeter one day, but I can always recharge my batteries from my wave, wind, and solar generators. And for stopping power, a 11,000-12,000hz siren at 460 db is both directional and will stop both man and beast (at least, for the cougar, bear, and coyote who live in my area of the country). As will a 26,000 volt, 1/4th amp fence.
I have no problem doing so as long as my culture respects freedom and self determination and theirs does not.
Yeah, and freedom/self-determination has worked out so well for the thousands of newly homeless baby boomers who bought into the 401k/subprime mortgage scam.
Ours is clearly superior and it's about time that we recognized that instead of rationalizing the bad behavior of others as some sort of cultural difference. African tribes routinely slice off the clitoris of young girls but we don't celebrate that behavior because of their culture. We condemn it and use what influence we have to change it.
You might, I for one still want to see more evidence. We've monkeyed too much with other people's cherished beliefs in the name of freedom, and all it has gotten us is more tyranny.
China oppresses individual rights, is wiping out the Tibetan culture/way of life, practices female infanticide and forced abortions. I can think of nothing redeeming to say about the Chinese regime and earnestly hope their people will break free of it within our lifetimes.
Then I for one can only say you don't know very much about the Chinese regime- if you think it's all evil and no good.
It's all about perspective. From my perspective I would rather live in environment with no nanny state trying to micromanage my vices and behavior than the current environment where the state "looks out" for me in the manner of a parent with OCD.
I'd say as of late the state in America has been looking out for us in the manner of a parent with an addiction to drug abuse. Completely non-existant.
I'm not worried about that because I have a marketable skill
Marketable skills are worthless in times of stagflation.
and used the boon times to build up a healthy reserve of funds
Hope you didn't keep them in dollars or a bank.
While the rest of this country was out living beyond their means I was living in a 500 sq foot apartment and socking away 25% of my salary (more if you count my retirement investments) into savings.
Sucker.
I have little sympathy for those that were greedy and bought houses they couldn't afford and SUVs that got 15 miles to the gallon when gasoline was above $4/gal.
I've got NO sympathy for them, but know that due to their greed, my money will likely be worthless by 2012, so I'm quickly socking it away into tangibles- like a permaculture garden, rain gathering devices, and ambient energy generators.
I find it interesting that a bleeding heart such as yourself is advocating nuclear warfare as a solution to terrorism.
The "War on Terror" isn't about terrorism- it's about fundamentalism. And fundamentalism is a fire you can only put out in two ways: Surrender or Total Victory.
It seems to me that if we had just deployed our 100,000+ troops to Afghanistan instead of Iraq we could have solved the problem without using any nuclear weapons.
Nah, that would have just made us into Ghengis Kahn. Or England. Or Russia. Afghanistan is not conquerable by foot soldiers and calvary.
Oh well, at least we ensured friendly airspace for the Israeli's when they deal with Iran for us.....
Which is another group of fundamentalists we will have to deal with unless we choose the surrender option (and by surrender, I don't mean letting them have control of this nation, I mean isolationism).
I will judge them by my rules, because as far as I'm concerned Marxism/Communism/Mao'ism/what-have-you is at odds with the inalienable rights of man.
Under Marxism, the individual has no inalienable rights.
I see no reason that an event such as Tiananmen deserves anything but scorn because of a different culture or political system.
Then you're being an arrogant and placing your culture above theirs.
I'll take the tyranny of the greenback over the tyranny of the enlightened majority any day of the week.
You wouldn't say so if you had lived through the end of the 19th century in America. In fact, I dare say you won't be singing the same song 3 years from now, as the tyranny of the greenback takes away your right to have food, clothing, and shelter.
If you are advocating a scorched earth policy at odds with a hundred years of international law then I could point out that you wouldn't need large numbers of troops to implement it. Not since we learned how to split the atom anyway.
True enough- and my early posts in September of 01 in Usenet recommended nuking Mecca right from the start. But thanks to the Bedouin, large percentages of the enemy population are not in cities and are rather hard to find, let alone target with a nuke. When this was pointed out to me, I suggested cobalt warheads, with their 100 mile radius blast pattern, might be in order.
You sure live up to your Marxist handle if you think that the fact that they were a minority justifies the fact that they were brutally put down with violence.
I don't emulate Marxism- I think it has a fatal flaw, oddly enough the same fatal flaw exists in Wall Street. But I do understand it, and one of the primary (and more ironic, especially given the protest in question) ethical values of Marxism is a brutal adherence to the tyranny of the majority. If you are willing to judge people by their own rules instead of arrogantly judging them by YOUR rules, then yes, under the rules of Marxism, a protesting minority is a danger to orderly society, perhaps more so than an invading army.
Because we have rule of law in this country
Yep, one law for the rich and a totally different one for the poor.
and there are legal processes (both criminal and civil) that we resort to before we break out the pitchforks, torches and firearms.
Only if you're rich enough to demand it. I guarantee you that in any sufficiently small village in America- the lynch mob IS the legal process.
Well I'd argue in favor of a military draft to ensure that our military represents all portions of society (including the best and brightest that the military so desperately needs) but I suspect that you leftists would have a problem with that.
Actually, many people on the left have argued for it since 9-11, so you'd be wrong there. In fact, at one point I personally supported a 25% draft and scorched earth policy with respect to Islam- because I'm pretty sure that the United States, even in it's weakened state from years of non-manufacture- could finish the "War on Terror" in a couple of months, if given enough troops.
If we had a draft the kids of rich people would wind up being sent into harms way along side the kids of poor people. Think that might make it less likely that we engage in interventionist adventures and more likely that we reserve our use of the military for those situations wherein our national security is actually threatened?
Possibly, but going back to my original point, I think it would make it less likely that we'd have soldiers able to be bribed to ignore the UCMJ.
That must explain Tiananmen Square......
Sure does, when you think about it and realize that among a billion people, the million or so who were protesting were a MINORITY.
Capitalists don't control the Government. Capitalists have influence in the Government that outweighs their numbers but "control" is a bit of a stretch.
Then why do they get by with harming millions without being lynched? No, they've got control alright- both candidates in every election are already bought and paid for with campaign contributions- and who has the money to give campaign contributions? Those who have the money, give to both sides and have the right to lobby for favors afterward.
Actually it takes a bit more than that. Look up "permissive action links" the next time you lose sleep over the security of our nuclear weapons.
I decided to Look this up before responding, and what I found *will* make me sleep more securely at night, knowing that some undereducated private won't be the one able to do this. Unfortunately it doesn't quite negate what I said entirely- there is no such thing as a "tamper proof membrane", and theoretically one *could* indeed replace the control mechanism and detonator and still get some form of a yield (even though it would be far more likely to be a dirty bomb than a true nuclear detonation).
And that's relevant to my point in what way exactly? It seems that you are ignoring the point I was trying to make in favor of spouting liberal talking points.
The uniform code of military justice has a huge hole in it thanks to (and I actually call these CONSERVATIVE talking points, since any *real conservative* realizes that it is important to national security to adequately compensate one's military- this is the reason Saddam lost Gulf War I) the lack of compensation of the military. These aren't ideologues volunteering for the most part, they're people who have *NO* other option in our depressed economy.
My 386SX was 40Mhz, with 128k Cache. But what I found really helped the game was having a SCSI CD Rom.
I had misremembered MB/K- my video card was only a 640x480 128kb card.