[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

Tue Oct 22 19:43:37 UTC 2013

On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 9:15 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 12:43 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> > But with the juggernaut that is Washington, how else do you slow it
>> down other than throwing bodies under it? This is a serious question. How
>> the hell do we slow it down?
>>
>
> Easy, if you're in congress you vote to spend less money.
>

Uh, that just never happens. Or so rarely that I can't recall it, other
than "Dr. No", Ron Paul.

> And if things don't come out your way you try to convince others to come
> around to your way of thinking so that next time the outcome is different.
> What you DON'T do is have a temper tantrum and try your very best to
> destroy the world because you're angry that you lost.
>

So Obama in stating that he would not negotiate with the other side is MORE
rational?

> Well, wars are very expensive, the Republicans started 2 and refused to
> raise taxes to pay for them.
>

I was never in favor of the first or second Iraq war. I was not in favor of
the expensive nation building in Afghanistan.

> And then we entered the greatest economic downturn since the 1930's. And
> by the way, the Great Depression would have probably ended in 1938 if
> drastic measures were not taken to stop inflation,  inflation which did not
> exist in 1938. Sound familiar?
>

Not really. World War II ended the depression.

> > creationism.  The Tea Party holds no position on that subject.
>>
>
> I don't know how you determine the position of the Tea Party about
> anything except by looking at the position of Tea Party members, and nearly
> all of the most prominent ones are creationists, and very vocal and
> militant ones too. And there is a connection, if you don't think logic is
> important in one subject, like biology, then you probably don't think logic
> is important in another subject, like economics. At any rate it would
> certainly be irrational to claim that there is not a very strong connection
> between the Tea Party and creationism.
>

There is indeed a strong correlation. I just find it irrelevant.

> > The president would have folded in the face of such pressure, and the
>> individual mandate for Obamacare would have been sensibly put off for a year
>>
>
> It is time to face reality, the president is never EVER going to abandon
> Obama care. There are 2 reasons:
>
> 1) It was passed by the House and the Senate and the Supreme Court said it
> was constitutional and, although you may not like it, Obamacare is the
> single thing the president is most proud of having accomplished.
>

I know he's proud of it. I think it's going to blow up in his face though.

> 2) If Obama gives in to terrorist demands and they are seen to be
> successful then he knows that the exact same tactics will be used against
> him and future presidents again and again and again.
>

See, there you go calling the Tea Party terrorists. That's not the way to
build consensus, even amongst us friendly individuals.

>  > what CRAZY economic theory do you attribute to the Tea Party?
>>
>
> How about the USA going back to the Gold Standard and in effect give China
> and Australia and the happenstance of geology the power that the Federal
> Reserve Board has now, as both countries produce more gold than the USA
> does. And Uzbekistan becomes a major world power and Japan and Briton and
> Germany and France become insignificant footnotes. Do you expect a radical
> change like that to happen in 90 minutes without blood in the streets?
>

China's star is rising regardless of the gold standard. They will own the
moon. I'm public about that on the Long Now Bet site. I am not in favor of
going back on the Gold Standard, but I wish the dollar was treated with a
little more reverence than quantitative easing pays to it. We are not
Zimbabwe or at least we shouldn't be.

> > We need a currency based on Work, in the Physics sense. You could value
> oil in the amount of Work it would do, and then you could value everything
> else in terms of oil.
>
> So how much Work in the physical sense does a computer programmer do, or a
> novelist, or a cancer researcher, or a Tea party politician?
>

The amount that someone will pay them in oil for that work. I wouldn't
personally pay much for any politician, though the argument could be made
that if you paid them enough, you would get better ones.

>
> > Money's main purpose is to simply avoid barter.
>>
>
> Yes.
>
>
>
>> > To store wealth in between transactions.
>>
>
> Yes.
>
> > Anything will serve this purpose
>
> No not just anything can serve that purpose, only those things that, for
> whatever reason, people have faith will retain its value in the future. And
> thanks to Tea Party Neanderthals in congress that is the faith that came
> within 90 minutes of being destroyed forever.
>

Political Theater. Pandering to their base. Just like the other side.

> > The reason that some of us like Bitcoin is that it is just such a
>> currency, and is largely independent of centralized meddling (other than
>> just declaring it illegal).
>>
>
> If the free market decides it would prefer Bitcoins to dollars who am I to
> disagree, but that will take a long time if ever. Bitcoin, just like any
> other form of money, has value because people have faith it will be
> valuable in the future; right now far far fewer people have faith in
> Bitcoin than in the US dollar, so far far fewer people are willing to
> accept it as exchange. If Bitcoin can get over its wild and unpredictable
> price swings
>

I don't think it's all that wild. Silver did a bigger jump in 1978 and
everyone sees that as money.

> the faith people have in it could increase, but that sure as hell was not
> going to happen on Wednesday night in the 90 minutes before the dollar was
> lynched by hillbillies.
>

No, certainly Bitcoin is a long term bet.

> > The problem most people have with the debt and deficit is not related to
>> deflation or inflation, it's related to fairness.
>>
>
> If the Tea Party can make rich people poor but can't make poor people rich
> then fuck fairness.
>

Sorry, it's the Liberals that want to make rich people poor by taxing them
into the ground. Seems you want to fuck fairness.

>
> > How can the government operate in perpetual deficit when individuals and
>> corporations can not?
>>
>
> Because government can print money and corporations can't. Printing money
> can be a wonderful thing, or a terrible thing, it depends on the
> circumstances.
>

I think it's a terrible thing to print too much of it.

>
>
>>  >Every time the government prints a dollar, the dollar in your pocket
>> goes down in value just a little.
>>
>
> During the last 5 years the free market has disagreed with you about that,
> despite a lot more dollars having been printed prices have not gone up, and
> I think the free market is wiser in these matters than you or me.
>

In what sense has the dollar not lost value? Gold has gone up a lot. Oil
has gone up. Everything of real value has gone up.

-Kelly
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