[ExI] s&p 500 growth

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 7:33 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On
Behalf Of Dan TheBookMan
>>…His records of bankruptcies -- and walking away from them without
>> incurring hits to his personal fortune -- seems to speak of his ability
>> to game the system rather than the kind of brilliance anyone should
>> applaud.
>
> We Americans must face what we ourselves created.

I don't mind accepting blame for stuff I'm actually responsible for, but I
don't believe that's the case here. I didn't vote, so don't blame me. :)

> It is our own fault, our collective punishment for having elected the
nearly
> meritless three predecessors Bill Clinton, Bush43 and Obama.  Regardless
> of who wins, we get a throbbing canker sore in our highest office, a
> remorseless master of gaming the system, of shamelessly working the
> angles, a wizened guru of skating past the intent of the law while
maintaining
> a strained pretense of the letter, practiced in the art of subterfuge,
lacking a
> trace of moral character.  We will choose a top executive who is the
> reprehensible antithesis of Gandhi: harmless as the serpent and wise as
the dove.

I'm not sure that follows. I think one can find similar faults going back
well before Clinton. In my mind, the bigger problem is looking to a ruler
for solutions in the first place. As long as that mindset is in place,
gaming the system becomes not only possible but likely. I don't want to
sound as apocalyptic as some do -- it's just one election and a hundred
years hence might only be something scholars will worry about (and not the
most important choice in the history of the species or the planet:) -- but
it seems much like the ancient Roman system worked reasonably only so long
as no one tested its limits. Once tested, though, it fell apart. This can
be used to blame the testers or blame other around them, but one does have
to notice that the system was really fragile in the first place.

However, you can place some blame on many people who should know better,
and that might include most people. Doing so doesn't resolve anything
though.

Regards,

Dan
     Sample my Kindle books via:
http://author.to/DanUst
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