patrick.net

Quigley says

It's extremely high levels of personal integrity.

That is the same as taking responsibility of one's actions.

marcus says

I say its a combination of hard work, intelligence, discipline and luck (not necessarily in that order).

Or, someone who manages his "luck" intelligently.

The maxim of cutting losses short and letting profits run is very true. One must handle luck with asymmetry.

Bellingham Bill says

bully for you, LOL

meanwhile, here in the real world, rent are up 50% since 2000:

I didn't say the rents (including mine) are cheap ;) But it is not like the rise in rents is so unpredictable that it will put you into financial turmoil vs all the stuff that can go wrong with owning a house - plus you can always downsize instantly if your rent becomes unbearable.Bellingham Bill says

Yes, we all want free money. That's our fucking problem. 5-10% returns have to come from people doing the actual work -- real-life goods & services wealth creation -- in this economy.

And the bigger the top 10% make their pile, the bigger these 5-10% returns have to be.

Soon the pile is going to fall over. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians in this economy.

Sure, too many chiefs. But in a free market interest rates are very simple. You get a decent savings rate and the bank (or any other creditor) takes a bit more when they loan out the money - included in this calculation is obviously the percentage of defaulters and people who withdraw their savings prematurely. I don't think it requires anybody to work hard for these returns, they calibrate and occur naturally if there is no intervention like there has been the past decades.

I don't know if and how many people have stopped trying (as suggested by Peter P) harder and while it sure looks like there are some I think far more people are guilty of continuous overspending, as in, "hey, can you get this cab ride for us, you know I have a mc mansion mortgage to pay now and I'm sure you understand..." Or as in "You know I need to upgrade my electronic gimmicks every 6 months to stay hip!" - just buy a linux laptop already and it will last and perform nicely 5+ years, you can so some amazing shit with it (improve your coding skillz) and it only costs as much as an iPhone but can do so much more ;)

Bellingham Bill says

GraooGra says

atheists in the real world borrow from moral code of believers.

belief in mythical beings is positively correlated with immorality, not morality.

religion is just one massive appeal-to-authority fallacy.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

I wonder how many fallacies you have incorporated into your daily life.

We probably haven't even gotten started yet.

You can not explain religion with rational. Belief is what it is, a belief.
We were talking about moral code we live with more or less. It was created by monotheistic religions. Even if you are atheist, you know that you shouldn't murder, steal, lie, etc. Like it or not, you took it from the religious code of morality. But I was just inserting it in the context of law. I was saying that some laws are immoral and they can be broken. Laws are imposed by the government which tries to coerce you to do something. Sometime the whole system of government goes crazy. People create laws, people make huge mistakes. For example, slavery was a law of the land, I would say go ahead and break it.... You understand that concept.

GraooGra says

We were talking about moral code we live with more or less. It was created by monotheistic religions.

eyeroll.

We got our moral code from all over the place -- pagan Germany for a lot of it.

Even if you are atheist, you know that you shouldn't murder, steal, lie, etc. Like it or not, you took it from the religious code of morality.

Not in the slightest. Modern-day religions arrived after mankind developed morality, not before.

I don't owe my morality to the "Judeo-Christian" tradition any more or less than I do to Mormonism.

"Treat others as you would be treated" is the beginning and end of wisdom.

And no, the writer(s) of the book of Matthew didn't invent that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule

People looking for their morality out of a bronze-age desert-goatherder religious community are simpletons at best, very dangerous ideologues at worst.

If you want to live your life like the Old Testament, move to Iran or Saudi Arabia.

GraooGra says

You can not explain religion with rational. Belief is what it is, a belief.

Sure I can. People can be dissatisfied with not knowing something, and look to find answers they can believe are true, regardless of the actual evidence supporting it.

Rationality can only get you so far in this world, LOL.

Exhibit A are the millions of Mormons and Scientologists running about.

People will believe anything, apparently.

The rich I like.

The rich I hate.

Do you notice the pattern? One group got rich by creating wealth: inventing something significant, solving a problem, saving lives, even creating entertainment. The other group got rich by siphoning massive amounts of wealth off of other, hard working people. The second group never produced any wealth, and have often destroyed it. Yet the second group is even more rich than the first group.

Rational people don't hate the rich for being rich. We hate the rich because of how they got rich: at the expense of everyone else.

You made a pseudo argument in the first place. how stupid

"Why pseudo-rationalists hate the rich

Because they think they are the greatest, yet they are rarely rich. Therefore, they try to invent reasons to explain why wealth beyond a certain point (i.e. a level attainable by their professions) should be re-distributed away.

The consequence of accepting that some people "deserve" their "excess" wealth is too severe for their egos to bear."

Irrational, illogical, unprovable, unsubstantiated and baseless.

Dan, wealth is morally neutral. You certainly can like or hate anyone you want. But it is a mistake to apply value judgement to any kind of economic activity.

If I hate someone, I usually try to become him.

Hatred is a response to fear.

Peter P says

If I hate someone, I usually try to become him.

Do you hate Ted Bundy?

Peter P says

Dan, wealth is morally neutral.

No one has ever said that the rich are inherently less moral and less likely to go to heaven -- ok, one guy named Jesus did, but besides him...

What I and everyone else has said is that how you get your wealth does matter. There are ethical and moral ways to become rich, but those ways are slow and there are limits to how rich you will become. You might become a millionaire, but unless you invent something motherfuckingly spectacular like the Google founders did, you ain't becoming a billionaire with this route.

There are also immoral and unethical routes to wealth, and this is how almost all billionaires in our country became such. How the fuck does one person actually produce a billion dollars of wealth? Outside of invention, it's not possible. So those billionaires got their wealth by siphoning (aka stealing) it from other people. The theft might by legal, but it sure as hell ain't moral. There is no reason why common folk like us should respect those billionaires who gained their wealth through zero-sum games and unethical behavior.

I respect the rich who actually earned their wealth. I do not respect or like the rich who got their wealth by stealing it from other people, no matter how legal the form of theft was.

Example: The assholes at Goldman Sachs cost our nation trillions of dollars of real wealth in order to siphon billions of dollars from hard-working wealth-producing people to financial parasites. They are worthy of hatred.

Peter P says

Hatred is a response to fear.

Maybe that's how your brain works. It's not how my brain works.

I hate Hitler and Nero. I don't fear them at all. They're dead. They can't do anything.

Hatred is an evolved response to injustice. It serves a purpose. That purpose is to discourage evil by ensuring that those who participate in it will be shunned by the community. Hatred exists to make evil prohibitively expensive and thus nonprofitable.

I rather not having to decide who earned it.

Peter P says

I rather not having to decide who earned it.

It's not that subjective. The financial industry produces nothing. At best they are overhead. Yet, the largest fortunes are made in the financial industry. This makes no sense from a sheer economics perspective. Overhead should not be the most profitable use of human resources. The riches of the financial industry can only be explained by wealth parasitism. Parasitism cannot be justified under any economic philosophy.

Dan8267 says

Example: The assholes at Goldman Sachs cost our nation trillions of dollars of real wealth in order to siphon billions of dollars from hard-working wealth-producing people to financial parasites. They are worthy of hatred.

Exactly right: The people has to lose trilions for GS to profit billions. I have said it before in other words, sometimes I think we would be better off paying Goldman Sachs to dig ditches by hand and fill them again, rather than have them involved in financial "services".

justme says

The people has to lose trilions for GS to proifit billions.

The really big parasites are highly inefficient parasites. So, yes, even with the moral hazard, it would be more cost efficient to just pay off the parasites. The problem is that the parasites' greed knows no bounds. No matter how much money you give them, even if its more than they are making now, they will continue to destroy wealth to gain even more. Furthermore, paying off the parasites will only serve to encourage more people to become parasites.

The best solution is the one the French came up with in the 1790s.

The financial industry provides liquidity and many other vital functions of the market.

Everything can be seen as a zero sumgame. In the end, either you have power over someone or the other way around.

I would not even think technology as anything special. It is just about some sntics and dome payments.

Who was behind the French Revolution?

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

Bellingham Bill says

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

So very true. And well illustrated on this site. Case point: http://patrick.net/?p=1219726

You will find that ideas on people tend to be the most profitable.

leo707 says

Peter P says

If I hate someone, I usually try to become him.

Do you hate Ted Bundy?

I hate the terrifying idea of what a serial killer stands for.

I love Al Bundy.

Peter P says

The financial industry provides liquidity and many other vital functions of the market.

That remains to be proven. I'd like to see concrete proof that all the complicated shenanigans the financial industry plays really does improve the flow of money and the efficiency of the economy.

Right now banks charge 1.5% and 25 cents per transaction on electronic money. I suspect that eliminated this tax alone will do far more for improving the efficiencies of the economy than everything the financial industry does, even based on the assumption that what they do is good. In reality, the financial industry probably makes the economy far less efficient by diverting massive resources to zero-sum games.

Peter P says

Everything can be seen as a zero sumgame. In the end, either you have power over someone or the other way around.

This is exactly the problem with Republican thinking. When I buy food at the grocery market, it's not a zero-sum game. When I pay to have a maid clean my house or a mechanic to fix my car, it's not a zero-sum game. I save time I can spend doing something that I am more productive at than farming, cleaning, or repairing a car. At the same time, the person I'm paying is profiting. That's exactly what a zero-sum game is not.

Does your pseudo bullshit title have any facts to back it up?

FACTS please?

or is this your personal observation?

Dan8267 says

Right now banks charge 1.5% and 25 cents per transaction on electronic money. I suspect that eliminated this tax alone will do far more for improving the efficiencies of the economy than everything the financial industry does, even based on the assumption that what they do is good

Yep. The private tax on debit and credit card transactions is a big drag on the productive economy. Why don't the republicons complain about it? Well, because private taxes are good, public taxes are bad. Don't you see?

justme says

Dan8267 says

Right now banks charge 1.5% and 25 cents per transaction on electronic money. I suspect that eliminated this tax alone will do far more for improving the efficiencies of the economy than everything the financial industry does, even based on the assumption that what they do is good

Yep. The private tax on debit and credit card transactions is a big drag on the productive economy. Why don't the republicons complain about it? Well, because private taxes are good, public taxes are bad. Don't you see?

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

I would support making all roads toll roads.

Peter P says

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

Oh, please. VISA/MC and Discover is a duopoly with no real competition, plus all the banks like their cut of the fees, too. Who's to stop them?

Peter P says

I would support making all roads toll roads.

Par for the course. But you are much more sensible in person, that is the good news :).

justme says

Peter P says

I would support making all roads toll roads.

Par for the course. But you are much more sensible in person, that is the good news :).

justme, it is quite sensible to make all roads toll roads. If we do not stop subsidizing motorists people will not give public transit a consideration.

In some markets, public transportation can make economic sense if such market distortions are removed.

justme says

Peter P says

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

Oh, please. VISA/MC and Discover is a duopoly with no real competition, plus all the banks like their cut of the fees, too. Who's to stop them?

That is a bit sad. BTW, have you tried LevelUp?

https://www.thelevelup.com/

It is pretty cool buying lunch from a food truck with your phone.

Peter P says

justme, it is quite sensible to make all roads toll roads. If we do not stop subsidizing motorists people will not give public transit a consideration.

Don't you realize that if people start taking the bus, the toll road operators will just start charging per passenger instead of per vehicle? Why, because they can!

Your theories are cute, but only in theory. In practice they are so full of large holes that one can drive armored cars full of ill-gotten monopoly profits through them. And believe me, the monopolists WILL do exactly that.

justme says

Peter P says

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

Oh, please. VISA/MC and Discover is a duopoly with no real competition, plus all the banks like their cut of the fees, too. Who's to stop them?

Stop complaining, you're free to start your own credit card company! It's a free market right?

justme says

Your theories are cute, but only in theory. In practice they are so full of large holes that one can drive armored cars full of...

This is one thing that free market purists have very much in common with communists.

That we are cute?

justme says

But you are much more sensible in person, that is the good news :).

Yeah, this is one of the nice things about the Patrick.net coffee hour.

Peter P says

That we are cute?

In is that your theories make you cute.

But then again, the same cute theories make you horrifying if you get the power to inact them.

leo707 says

Peter P says

That we are cute?

In is that your theories make you cute.

But then again, the same cute theories make you horrifying if you get the power to inact them.

Only if you reject Utopia. ;-)

Peter P says

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

First, Fees are taxes just under a different name.

Second, there is no real competition as banking is largely a cartel.

Third, pure capitalism will never yield 0% transaction costs because

Only centralized control can reduce wasteful siphoning to 0%.

leo707 says

justme says

Peter P says

It is not a tax, it is a fee. There is also competitions.

Oh, please. VISA/MC and Discover is a duopoly with no real competition, plus all the banks like their cut of the fees, too. Who's to stop them?

Stop complaining, your free to start your own credit card company! It's a free market right?

http://www.youtube.com/embed/mL-AFSAIln0

121212 says

Fool, go divide your own party.

Peter P and I are joining mental telepathy powers to divide 121212's party. "wooooooo wooooooo woooooo"

(Opening one eye, to see if it's working)