[Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Hi All, Ayn Rand hated the Communists. If you want to see where she was coming from, read We the Living, a novel by Ayn Rand. Published in 1936, We the Living was Ayn Rand's first novel. http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/rand/living/index.html Jack Smith Jed Rothwell wrote: I could be wrong is just what Rand and communists would never say. They thought their economic systems were constructed on scientific principles.
[Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Terry wrote: And, yes, Greenspan admitted he FU. He opened the gates expecting the banks to protect themselves. He misjudged human greed. Hi All, Greenspan knew the extent of the thievery that was going on. He thought the Kondratieff upswing would hide it, but too much was being stolen. We are now in the position of a company that has suffered a major embezzlement; but, in this case, thanks to Phil Gramm and the other deregulators, what the theives did was legal. However, we are still in a K. upswing. All we have to do is pour in capital. Come on President Obama, spend a trillion making jobs building windmills, etc. And, if oil hit $40/barrel by Christmas, don't blink. Jack Smith
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
And just to sweeteen the kitty, lets give an extra $140 billion in tax breaks to the banks. Like Smith Barney said.. we earned it! Paulson only did what he's very good at.. being slick as silk. It takes a particular type to be a banker.. ever notice ? Richard - Original Message - From: Taylor J. Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 8:48 AM Subject: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile... Terry wrote: And, yes, Greenspan admitted he FU. He opened the gates expecting the banks to protect themselves. He misjudged human greed. Hi All, Greenspan knew the extent of the thievery that was going on. He thought the Kondratieff upswing would hide it, but too much was being stolen. We are now in the position of a company that has suffered a major embezzlement; but, in this case, thanks to Phil Gramm and the other deregulators, what the theives did was legal. However, we are still in a K. upswing. All we have to do is pour in capital. Come on President Obama, spend a trillion making jobs building windmills, etc. And, if oil hit $40/barrel by Christmas, don't blink. Jack Smith No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.0/1778 - Release Date: 11/9/2008 2:14 PM
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Taylor J. Smith wrote: Ayn Rand hated the Communists. If you want to see where she was coming from, read Yes, she hated them, yet she strongly resembled them. That's my point. Both were extremists. Both put their theories about human nature ahead of actual observations and experience. Both were blinded by the beauty of a doctrine and could not see where it did not fit reality. Many scientists and intellectuals suffer from these faults. Experimentalists are less prone to it than theorists, I think. It was T. H. Huxley, the great experimentalist, who said: Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact. Pragmatists and experimentalists have what I consider a healthy distrust of theory. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Jones Beene wrote: Perceptive ... or were you kidding? Its sounds almost like the kind of shrug where John Galt/Gordon Gekko is thinking about dumping a past-life of laissez-faire, greed-is-good capitalism in favor of the B-team? This actually happened the other day. Alan Greenspan more or less admitted he was wrong, in Congressional testimony. Partially wrong, anyway, which is a huge change for him. He studied with Ayn Rand herself. I don't care for Rand or her books, but I would like to note that her hero, John Galt, invents a mysterious power station that outputs electricity with no apparent source of fuel. It occurred to me many years ago that Rand must have imagined this as some sort of nuclear reactor. It is a standalone, no maintenance unit similar to the Hyperion gadget that Ed doesn't trust. Now, I suppose it would be a cold fusion reactor. If cold fusion comes about, let it be noted that the people who discovered it and brought it to fruition, such as Fleischmann, are about as different from John Galt as anyone can be. So, to answer the famous question reiterated by Terry Blanton, Who *is* John Galt? the answer is: You're look at 'im, kiddo. We are him. We are the ones we have been waiting for, as Obama puts it. [*] Not me, actually, but these old greasers are: http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/ICCF09.htm A bunch of retired electrochemists. Most of them worked their entire lives with government grants. What a disappointment they would be to people with romantic notions about the heroic inventor! Greenspan doesn't look much like we imagine Galt would look either. And he did not actually invent anything, did he? - Jed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * FOOTNOTE. The Daily Show response to that comment is hilarious. I don't even know what that means, but Holy S**t I'm feeling it! . . . Every time Barack Obama speaks, an Angel has an orgasm!)
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Jed Rothwell wrote:. Anyway, Obama is a conservative person and I am sure he will not go for anything radical. His proposals for health care will not put the insurance companies out of business, the way many European plans did, decades ago. Whatever the What I remember from B Husein's acceptance speach is that he wants to win a second term, which he won't do if he tanks the economy. OTOH, if someone were to show up with a F E machine ready to go to market, and he were to put the full faith and credit of the government behind it, America could be independent of foreigh oil in four years. $750 billion would go a long way towards stimulating the economy, but that doesn't count electrical generation. If he were to demand I P protection from the Chinese, and lean on them to clean up their CO2 emissions. That could easily push the amount over $1 trillion. --- Get FREE High Speed Internet from USFamily.Net! -- http://www.usfamily.net/mkt-freepromo.html ---
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
- Original Message From: Terry Blanton And everyone thought I was kidding when I posted this: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg28652.html Perceptive ... or were you kidding? Its sounds almost like the kind of shrug where John Galt/Gordon Gekko is thinking about dumping a past-life of laissez-faire, greed-is-good capitalism in favor of the B-team? ... which could be either Buddha or Barack g
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Mike Carrell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jed's comments are interesting as usual. Loosely, the man who invents the paradigm-shifting energy source is not John Galt, but Randy Mills. Good point! And unlike Fleischmann and company, he *does *resemble a Rand character. The function promised by Hyperion is also the target of BLP. Hyperion is using 'old' technology, BLP 'new' technology about to hatch out of the egg with safe techology that does not have to be sealed and buried. Yes indeed. Let's hope it works. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
- Original Message - From: Terry Blanton [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 6:08 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile... snip And, yes, Greenspan admitted he FU. He opened the gates expecting the banks to protect themselves. He misjudged human greed. But, there was a wall and the CRA built the gates. And scapegoaters are now in full cry. The finger of greed points everywhere since people realized that money could be treated as a commodity to be traded like the commodities market. From the greedy house-shopper to the CDO traders to the asset managers shopping the world for a fractionally better ROI -- all participate in the story. The lesson is **deterministic chaos** generated by feedback loops that nobody really understood. Blaming Greenspan is pointless. Nobody expected the consequences. Aircraft safety is bought by analyzing crashes -- including the blood, sweat and tears. Mike Carrell
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
I reviewed the plan linked to this article. I do not think they are talking about confiscating anything, but only setting up new plans for people who are not covered by 401(k) plans. I see nothing here about converting existing plans or changing the management of them. Anyway, Obama is a conservative person and I am sure he will not go for anything radical. His proposals for health care will not put the insurance companies out of business, the way many European plans did, decades ago. Whatever they come up with it would not be as bad as Bush's idea of investing Social Security savings in the stock market. Imagine where we would be if they had done that? - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Jed's comments are interesting as usual. Loosely, the man who invents the paradigm-shifting energy source is not John Galt, but Randy Mills. The function promised by Hyperion is also the target of BLP. Hyperion is using 'old' technology, BLP 'new' technology about to hatch out of the egg with safe techology that does not have to be sealed and buried. Unlike Galt or Rand, Randy-Atlas does not shrug, pout and go hide, but moves publicly to propagate the power source. Mike Carrell - Original Message - From: Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: vortex-l@eskimo.com; vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 5:38 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile... Jones Beene wrote: Perceptive ... or were you kidding? Its sounds almost like the kind of shrug where John Galt/Gordon Gekko is thinking about dumping a past-life of laissez-faire, greed-is-good capitalism in favor of the B-team? This actually happened the other day. Alan Greenspan more or less admitted he was wrong, in Congressional testimony. Partially wrong, anyway, which is a huge change for him. He studied with Ayn Rand herself. I don't care for Rand or her books, but I would like to note that her hero, John Galt, invents a mysterious power station that outputs electricity with no apparent source of fuel. It occurred to me many years ago that Rand must have imagined this as some sort of nuclear reactor. It is a standalone, no maintenance unit similar to the Hyperion gadget that Ed doesn't trust. Now, I suppose it would be a cold fusion reactor. If cold fusion comes about, let it be noted that the people who discovered it and brought it to fruition, such as Fleischmann, are about as different from John Galt as anyone can be. So, to answer the famous question reiterated by Terry Blanton, Who *is* John Galt? the answer is: You're look at 'im, kiddo. We are him. We are the ones we have been waiting for, as Obama puts it. [*] Not me, actually, but these old greasers are: http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/ICCF09.htm A bunch of retired electrochemists. Most of them worked their entire lives with government grants. What a disappointment they would be to people with romantic notions about the heroic inventor! Greenspan doesn't look much like we imagine Galt would look either. And he did not actually invent anything, did he? - Jed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - * FOOTNOTE. The Daily Show response to that comment is hilarious. I don't even know what that means, but Holy S**t I'm feeling it! . . . Every time Barack Obama speaks, an Angel has an orgasm!) This Email has been scanned for all viruses by Medford Leas I.T. Department.
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Time will tell. Who *is* John Galt? ;-) Terry On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 4:01 PM, Jones Beene [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Original Message From: Terry Blanton And everyone thought I was kidding when I posted this: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg28652.html Perceptive ... or were you kidding? Its sounds almost like the kind of shrug where John Galt/Gordon Gekko is thinking about dumping a past-life of laissez-faire, greed-is-good capitalism in favor of the B-team? ... which could be either Buddha or Barack g
[Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Democratic leaders in the U.S. House discuss confiscating 401(k)s, IRAs By Karen McMahan November 04, 2008 RALEIGH Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers personal retirement accounts including 401(k)s and IRAs and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly. The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration. [snip] - end quoted article Here's the link... http://www.carolinajournal.com/articles/display_story.html?id=5081 Granted, they are only 'conducting hearings' at this stage, but just the fact they they are considering this kind of proposal is scary enough... The local financial radio program quoted one comparison: Parameters for average american: - 40 year work span - $60K/yr, investing 10% ($6K/yr) in a moderately conservative portfolio - avg of 10%/yr appreciation over that 40 yrs - avg of 3%/yr inflation At the end of the 40 yrs: Current 'flawed' retirement system $2.9M Proposed 'share more of your hard-earned $' program... $228,000 My only question is when will it become open season on Congress... Images of daffy and bugs... It's Duck season... No, wabbit season, no, Duck season... Wabbit season... You're both wrong, its Donkey season! :-) -Mark -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 10:32 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Hyperion Takes First Orders http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes £13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.' Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said. The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.' The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.' The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year. 'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium. Temperature-wise it's too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands.' Other companies are known to be designing micro-reactors. Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
And everyone thought I was kidding when I posted this: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l%40eskimo.com/msg28652.html Terry shrugs On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 2:08 PM, Mark Iverson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Democratic leaders in the U.S. House discuss confiscating 401(k)s, IRAs By Karen McMahan November 04, 2008 RALEIGH — Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration. Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly. The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers' retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration. [snip] - end quoted article Here's the link... http://www.carolinajournal.com/articles/display_story.html?id=5081 Granted, they are only 'conducting hearings' at this stage, but just the fact they they are considering this kind of proposal is scary enough... The local financial radio program quoted one comparison: Parameters for average american: - 40 year work span - $60K/yr, investing 10% ($6K/yr) in a moderately conservative portfolio - avg of 10%/yr appreciation over that 40 yrs - avg of 3%/yr inflation At the end of the 40 yrs: Current 'flawed' retirement system $2.9M Proposed 'share more of your hard-earned $' program... $228,000 My only question is when will it become open season on Congress... Images of daffy and bugs... It's Duck season... No, wabbit season, no, Duck season... Wabbit season... You're both wrong, its Donkey season! :-) -Mark -Original Message- From: Terry Blanton [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2008 10:32 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: [Vo]:Hyperion Takes First Orders http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/09/miniature-nuclear-reactors-los-alamos Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes £13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb. The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground. The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. 'Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,' said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. 'They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.' Deal claims to have more than 100 firm orders, largely from the oil and electricity industries, but says the company is also targeting developing countries and isolated communities. 'It's leapfrog technology,' he said. The company plans to set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. 'We already have a pipeline for 100 reactors, and we are taking our time to tool up to mass-produce this reactor.' The first confirmed order came from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specialising in water plants and power plants. 'They ordered six units and optioned a further 12. We are very sure of their capability to purchase,' said Deal. The first one, he said, would be installed in Romania. 'We now have a six-year waiting list. We are in talks with developers in the Cayman Islands, Panama and the Bahamas.' The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year. 'You could never have a Chernobyl-type event - there are no moving parts,' said Deal. 'You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium.
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Terry Blanton wrote: I'm impressed, Jed. You are absolutely correct. However, I think you might wish to reconsider your opinion of AR. She *lived* socialism/communism. You mean she was Russian and lived through the revolution until 1925. Yes, that is obvious! She is a pure Russian intellectual. They tend to go to extremes, in one direction or the other. They love ideology and purist ideals, and they have no regard for real world considerations, or tradition, the complexity of real people, or a sense that we do not fully understand human nature so we should not experiment too much with social institutions. My parents spoke Russian, and they along with many of their friends were posted to Russia during WWII to work for lend-lease. So I knew several Russians of Rand's generation when I was growing up, including the daughter of the first Soviet Foreign minister, and the painter Raphael Soyer, and others. I read a lot of Russian books in translation, and spoke a little Russian. My father used to say that he never met such right wing conservative people as the Stalinist officials he dealt with in Russia. I think the same goes for the extreme anti-communists and idealistic capitalists such as Rand, the neo-Cons, and religious fanatics. Those people have more in common with one another than they realize, and they are all equidistant from me. Of course Russians are not all extremists! The Russian expatriots I knew disliked extreme anti-communists as much as they despised the Stalinists. They learned their lesson. Rand did not. She remained an extremist at heart, convinced that people can perfected by the power of an idea -- that one perfect idea can solve all of life's problems, purify us, give us a purpose, and make us whole. IMO, you take out the top 3% of the producers and the economy will fail. And if you bankrupt the bottom 90%, or even the bottom 20%, the economy will fail. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. I could be wrong is just what Rand and communists would never say. They thought their economic systems were constructed on scientific principles. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
Jed Rothwell wrote: Jones Beene wrote: Perceptive ... or were you kidding? Its sounds almost like the kind of shrug where John Galt/Gordon Gekko is thinking about dumping a past-life of laissez-faire, greed-is-good capitalism in favor of the B-team? I don't care for Rand or her books, but I would like to note that her hero, John Galt, invents a mysterious power station that outputs electricity with no apparent source of fuel. It occurred to me many years ago that Rand must have imagined this as some sort of nuclear reactor. It is a standalone, no maintenance unit similar to the Hyperion gadget When I was young and foolish I was quite infatuated with Ms Rand's ideas. I read all of her books. The energy machine mentioned in Atlas Shrugged cohered the ZPE. A S is a novel, a fanciful scenario, which won't happen because entrepreneurs are people, and all people want to be rich. There is a body of evidence to suggest that They (The Oligarchy) restricted the development of ZPE based technology. If this is true, than I believe that Rand's foolish ideas were truly ironic. --- Get FREE High Speed Internet from USFamily.Net! -- http://www.usfamily.net/mkt-freepromo.html ---
Re: [Vo]:Give them an inch, they'll take a friggin' mile...
On Sun, Nov 9, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So, to answer the famous question reiterated by Terry Blanton, Who *is* John Galt? the answer is: You're look at 'im, kiddo. We are him. We are the ones we have been waiting for, as Obama puts it. [*] Not me, actually, but these old greasers are: http://lenr-canr.org/Collections/ICCF09.htm I'm impressed, Jed. You are absolutely correct. However, I think you might wish to reconsider your opinion of AR. She *lived* socialism/communism. And, yes, Greenspan admitted he FU. He opened the gates expecting the banks to protect themselves. He misjudged human greed. But, there was a wall and the CRA built the gates. IMO, you take out the top 3% of the producers and the economy will fail. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. Terry
