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Those kids are smarter than you guys think. They arrived at the same conclusion reached by the ancient greeks after watching their democracy become infested with self interest. No one here has heard of the concept of the benevolent tyrant? The founding fathers had similar conversations.

The website is arranged by topics. The topic influences the type of thread you will read. This one is about psychology - and the thread about smoking. I have had my best trades after researching and chainsmoking the night before. It's a bad habit (not the making money part - the smoking...

Well, I just wiped my monitors with those monitor wipes that have alcohol. I looked at the wipes, and guess what color they were? Dark orange. The monitors OTOH, look spectacular! I don't remember the colors being so vivid. (Those that smoke heavy know what I'm talking about) Yeah...

Yeah, it's the religion that's the cause. Underlying economic and political factors play no role. You said earlier that I am selling some kind of moral relativism. Ever notice that often times religious violence is just a symptom/manifestation of political and economic factors? There are...

Not at all. Anyone that is extreme in their religion as being the right one and all others evil is a crackpot. Look - 99% of people are born into a certain religion or are born in a region/country with a dominant religion - and that somehow makes them know-it-alls. In my view, that includes...

This is such a joke. I'll be the first to admit that all religions ultimately create crackpots and all religions have their share of violent periods thru-out history. But don't make this a lopsided Muslim/Arab thing. How many Muslim or Arab armies do you see stationed in North America...

I was at a 4th of July party - upper middle class professionals - Engineers, Software developers, Insurance and retail finance guys. I brought up these kind of topics and I got glassy eyed stares by most or worse- "but the stock market is up, things must be getting better" response. And...

I agree about Tyler Durden at Zero hedge - I have been following that blog since it began. He's on a crusade like the old muckraker journalists during the early 1900s, he's not letting this go. As for Goldman's enormous influence - it's just that, influence. Although government has been...

Enjoy that Koolaid do you? You say we don't have enough engineers. Do you know that there are law firms that specialize on advising companies how to write a want ad so they "can't" find someone who is qualified... and oh yeah, that same law firm shows the client how to get an H1B visa...

I agree, and the purpose of my post was to refute the "conservatism" of red states that was implied by the OP. Nonetheless, i agree with your points about CA budget mismanagement. But there are other issues. California, as well as other richer states are getting hit hard by this crisis. As...

You're twisting the conclusion of this study. This comparison has little to do with people - it focuses on just dollars. How many dolars leave the state and go to the federal gov't - and how many are recycled back in the form of spending. What is the net effect for each state? More or less...

This is from 2004 - but I don't believe much has changed: Red States Feed at Federal Trough, Blue States Supply the Feed Monday, September 27, 2004 The Tax Foundation has released a fascinating report showing which states benefit from federal tax and spending policies, and which states...

Wasn't Peggy Noonan caught on mic ripping Palin apart? Here's the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnn5vm6X6Y4 And she wasn't alone. Many thoughtful, real conservatives were alarmed at McCain's choice. Unfortunately, the moronic Hannity crowd destroyed the Republican party. My...

If much of your economy is a service sector/asset valuation dependent ponzi scheme... Deflation is really, really bad. But no worries - in a fiat world, there is a solution - you just print away money and shift the costs to those that are last to get that freshly printed money - the bottom...

According to your theory, banks were reluctantly complying with CRA lax standards. How does that make it a "catalyst" for subprime? The CRA focused on poorer neighborhoods with strict loan limits. They were full doc loans. The jump to McMansions and no doc is just too much of a jump to...

Funny how bronze age mythology still has a grip on a lot of people.

Saddam is a bad example - is that all you can come up with? You forgot one fact - Saddam was given a warning that we were going to bomb him - so we gave him plenty of time to hide. If we chose to take out Kim - I don't think we would warn him. The tough part is maintaining some sort of...

If some of the posters here worked in the Pentagon or State Dept. or White House, we would have WWIII within 24 hours, and the global economy would collapse in 48 hours. But hey, N Korea would have learned their lesson! I agree that N Korea is a threat, and I'm sure a lot is being done...

I was in the mortgage business for 9 years. I watched loan products develop over that span. I have sold just about all types of loans - except Option Arms, which I was never a big fan of. CRA loans could never compare in terms of risk, underwriting requirements and loan size to what the...

I hope you're right. My fear is that this depression will last quite some time, unemployment will continue, and payroll taxes will drop inversely to the amount of people entering medicare/social security. Inflation too - will be a menace.