Thursday, May 24, 2012

Regarding the Facecrack IPO.
 
It makes me sick to have to defend them, But: EVERY IPO starts like this. There is a pent up demand that is released suddenly amid much hype.. Even long term survivors are upside-down at this point. But the point of most IPOs is to raise capital for a physical infrastructure. The purpose of this one was to harvest the founder's rewards. Not a good reason for an IPO. If people would buy stocks with a track record of dividends rather than try to surf the bleeding edge. If they would only treat stocks as an on-going profit machine rather than a dice roll, we would all be better off.
Eduardo Severin is off to Galt's Gulch

From time-to-time. people tell me that Atlas Shrugged is "ridiculous" that people would not act that way. Of course that presumption that people would not act in their rational self interest is the scoffing belief of the looters in the book also. But observe Eduardo Saverin. He engineered the idea of his friend and partner Mark Zuckerberg that is Facebook. whether you like Facebook or not, it is an economic engine that helps power the world and its economy.

It can happen here.
From a reader comment section of an article on the release of the book"the Amateur".

He is positively correct, and the reason I actually
refer to myself as a Liberal, when everyone else calls me
"conservative". I am not what everyone calls Liberal today. That is
NOT Liberal, that is statist and "Progressive". Progressing to the
same old "man was born to be a slave" mentality of the last several
thousand years. Nicely said.

******************************************************
SPARKS FROM WYATT’S TORCH

Conservatives and libertarians should stop calling Democrats
"liberals" ---- because they are helping the Democrats with this label
--- not hurting them.

While many Democrats and other leftists agitate in favor of socialism
or communism [distinctions without a difference], the majority of them
prefer the Nazi / fascist economic model --- which works out in
practical terms to the "crony capitalist progressivism" now practiced
by Barak Hushpuppy OhBummer, the OhBummer Wrecking Crew, the Democrat
party at-large, and the “establishment” / "RINO"
[Republican-In-Name-Only] Republicans.

{Luxomni's note: Here is my only objection to the piece. I do not believe name-calling is a  tool of reasonable people}

Keep in mind here that Hitler and Mussolini launched their political
careers as Marxist communists and later they adopted political
disguise for their agenda of moral cannibalism and “eating the rich.”

Does this sound familiar, given who now controls the White House and
the US Senate?

Note that progressivism, socialism, Nazism [“national socialism”],
fascism and communism are all joined-at-the-hip in their common
contempt, enmity, and disdain for human rights. More on this, later.

Now, the Democrat [and other leftist] technique for character
assassination is what it has always been --- a barrage of outright
lies, half-truths, misrepresentations, innuendos, misinformation,
disinformation, and poisonous propaganda --- all of that directed at
anyone who obstructs their access to our wallets and our other
property --- and especially any public figure who rises to fight them
with any prospect of beating them and liberating the American people
from the Democrats' kleptocracy.

In the past thirty years or so, from Ronald Reagan going forward, the
technique has been to try and destroy anyone before they rose within
striking distance of the Supreme Court, the Congress, or the White
House.

These Democrat propagandists could and can count on the corrupt,
complicit, and compliant sycophants in the Democrat-captured media to
help keep their propaganda afloat and their dictatorship fastened on
the backs of the American people.

Listen up, if you are a privately-employed, non-government taxpayer---
and thus a member of America’s # 1 class of victims.

We are ruled by armed force and by fraud by lying, thieving, arrogant,
bloodsucking, greedy-for-the-unearned, tax-eating government hoodlums,
gangsters, and thugs, by spies, spooks, and snoops, and by their
sticky-fingered constituents and assorted limpets, lampreys,
barnacles, parasites, and other hangers-on.

And they are our “protectors!” Just ask them and this predatory
humanitarian Mafia will tell you so.

Who protects us from our protectors? The outspoken American citizen
under the First Amendment --- and the armed citizen under the Second
Amendment to the US Constitution.

Little wonder, then, that the Democrats seek to destroy the First
Amendment --- in order to silence their critics by prohibiting “hate
speech” --- and that they seek to misinterpret and destroy the Second
Amendment in order to disarm their intended victims --- those whom
they intend to silence and to plunder. Freedom of speech works best
when millions of guns in private hands are aimed at our rulers.

---------------------------------------------------------

Now, are you ready for this?

What this country needs is a truly LIBERAL president and congress and
judiciary! And I forgive the reader for suspecting that this must be
some kind of bad joke!

But the Democrats believe in "statism" --- not "liberalism."

Strip them naked of their “liberal” camouflage and behold their ugliness.

They benefit from the imprecise American political terminology ---- we
say "the government" here in the USA ---- rather than "the state." And
that's a dangerous problem.

Famous brands of statism in recent centuries have been Nazism,
socialism, fascism, communism, progressivism, and welfare statism ----
these last two are mixtures of fascism and socialism.

Liberalism, on the other hand, is a political philosophy of small,
cheap government ---- it is a constabulary ---- and the job of a
liberal government is to enforce human rights within its own
jurisdiction.

What "human rights?"

I speak of the unalienable and perfectly-natural and universally-valid
human rights of life, liberty, private property, and the pursuit of
personal happiness.

A slave is owned by someone other than himself --- but a free man owns himself.

The first article of private property is "the self" --- and all other
rights are derivatives of and flow from these cardinal rights.

These rights ---- The Rights of Man ---- are the gift of nature or of
nature's god ---- and they belong to all human beings, everywhere.

Show me a Democrat who subscribes to all of the above, without
qualifications or weasel words.

The words "liberal" and "liberalism" were hijacked by the Democrats,
socialists, progressives, and fascists, long ago ---- and it was the
mistake of conservatives and libertarians to let them get away with
it.

It is long past time that liberalism be reclaimed, defined, and
explained by its rightful owners ---- by the champions of freedom,
i.e.: not by Democrats.

Friends of freedom! Friends of peace-through-strength! And friends of
prosperity!

Declare yourselves to be "liberals," then ---- and kick over the
bloody coffee tables --- and overthrow and trounce the Democrats in
2012! Destroy them!

Sunday, May 6, 2012

It has been a while since I wrote anything. Perhaps you can blame on Facebook, perhaps you can blame on my spending more time with my dogs. But in any event, I have neglected my wirting and I humbly apologize. I will try to do better. And I will do my best not to be so arrogant as my old college classmates who are so certain that they are the only ones who can be right, while the whole time they defend their positions with pomposity and ad hominum attacks of the viscious kind. I will never change them, I shouldn't try. I truly believe I can maintain my agnostic position of searching for truth without tearing down those whose beliefs are based on Credo, whether they are Christians or Atheists. I leave out Jews  as they are generally more tolerant of others as are the Buddhists and Hindi. And I leave out the Muslims until they can demonstrate the ability to play well with others In the meantime "I will call them as I see them", not worrying so much if I say things that others don't believe as long as I say things I believe.
And to my Facebook and Shimer friends I actually don't watch Fox News but maybe I should. Apparently they see things more openly and evenly than you do.

Credo.