[ExI] Interesting statistic

[William Flynn Wallace]

I remember a phrase 'the gnomes of Zurich', referring to the finance people
there.

I niece I once had married a Lebanese guy who worked in a finance house in
New York City.  A room full of people.  He said that he was the only nonJew.

I have no idea what the statistics are, but I suspect that Jews mostly run
Wall Street and therefore the country.  We'll have to hope that they know
what they are doing, not that the derivatives crash showed a whole lot of
intelligence.  They were not elected, which may be highly in their favor.
They produce or they are out.  Survival.

Maybe we will show the world what happens when greed runs everything.  The
most spectacular crash of a state in history.  Huns and Rome will be
nothing compared to it.

But, after all, it's just money.  The people will still be here, and will
build again, possibly even learning a lesson or two.  We have the genes to
succeed.  That's just an obvious fact.  I have read that many very rich
people have made and lost several fortunes, but always came back and did it
again.  And then the crash comes again.  Look at Sears.  Did not evolve.
Did not innovate.  Amazon will not be forever (it still hasn't made money,
I think - and how do we explain that?).

I am not a pessimist except when it comes to sex.  We will fuck ourselves
out of a great and beautiful planet if we don't stop trashing it with more
and more people, who we now know will mostly be free riders and cheaters,
contributing nothing but hungry mouths looking to be on the dole.

I am not saying that a big crash won't hurt quite a bit.  I am saying that
it will not kill us.  It may kill our system of government, and some might
say that's long overdue.  It will have been a good run - nothing lasts
forever.

Then on the other hand, the world might decide that we are too big to fail
- we would take too many down with us.

bill w

On Fri, Nov 9, 2018 at 7:11 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *William Flynn Wallace
>
>
>
> >>…Have you any ideas on balancing the budget?  Do share please.
>
> spike
>
>
>
> >…Yes - forget about it.  Won't happen…
>
> OK, what if it doesn’t?  What happens when China stops lending?
>
>
>
> >…The only consolation I see is that point that John Clark made about
> when you borrow money you pay back dollars that are worth less than the
> money you have when you borrow it…
>
> True sorta.  If a country starts inflating its currency, lending stops.
> It is no longer profitable to loan money to that country.  So now we have a
> pile of new problems on top of trying to pay back loans with growing
> unemployment.  We are setting ourselves up for catastrophe.
>
>
>
> >…One idea:  means-based Social Security…
>
> This transition is a soft default.  As soon as it happens, voters
> persistently reduce all Social Security payments.  There’s a really good
> reason why this hasn’t already happened.
>
>
>
> >…  Not likely a popular idea…
>
> Roger that.
>
> >…  Another - negotiate drug costs… bill w
>
> Might help, but will likely be mostly irrelevant if the government isn’t
> buying much of it anymore.
>
> However, our problems will likely be mountainous compared to the small
> pile of money to be saved with lower cost drugs.
>
> I keep getting the feeling it will be way worse than we anticipated as
> soon as America starts to sober up.
>
> spike
>
>
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