prosperity

There are two ways to approach this depending on how detailed you want to be. One, you've already sort of hit on already. The first way - and the easiest I might add - is to rest on the logical fallacy that says that you are never called upon to prove a negative. That, it sounds like, you tried. Try expanding on that a little further. The onus is on the one making the assertion. "They" - the religious folk - asserted that there was a supernatural deity capable of evading all of our senses. You don't need to "prove that God doesn't exist" since they made the arbitrary assertion that God does exist. If you are going to tell them to prove that God exists, make sure that they make the statement first. That way, you don't need to even raise the question. They can hit you with the negative, but your response, although it may seem crude, can be to - at least initially - rely on the fact that THEY made the assertion first, they need to prove their assertion before you can move forward. It's actually easy to shoot down their alleged "proofs" since they will all rely on non-real statements or the Bible (a circular argument) or some other argument which will violate A = A, which you can demonstrate as self-evident, nullifying their position immediately. Another way is a bit more complicated, but so satisfying for those who are a little higher on the intellectual scale. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Sparta/1019/AFE.html That explanation is truly awesome. Beware...you'll get a lot of glazed over looks.

Here's where I would say it is not like Capitalism. In a Capitalist society, new values are being created. More wealth is being created. Every "player" in a capitalist society doesn't just carve up a finite pie and eventually leave someone with no pie. In poker, there is a finite pie (assuming you are playing table stakes). Money is merely changing hands. The total pot size never really gets bigger, the wealth just gets redistributed to the best player. Yes? No?

What do you like most? Accounting or Finance? Think about all the careers you can enter into and what those jobs demand of you...and think about what you are really passionate about. It's tough. It took me a long time to figure that out. Now, every day is fun. It really and truly does not feel like "work" in the stereotypical sense of "living for the weekend". Sometimes, I am actually bummed about the weekend (if I am in the middle of an exciting project)...sometimes I work through the weekend. Find a career where you can do that and still feel good Do you want to be in a transactional business? Then choose banking. Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit and enjoy learning about economics and risk management...and trying to find a practical application for insurance and investments? Consider being a financial planner. Do you like analyzing securities and pouring over numbers? Become a stock analyst. Or an accountant for a large corporation. Or... ...do you like pouring over tax laws? hehe. That would push you towards a CPA I guess. You can also look at the IARFC (www.iarfc.org) The Ayn Rand bookstore also sells some excellent lectures by Dr. Brook. Good luck with that. The way it worked for me was a firm approached me. You can submit a resume, and "Mr. X will call you back". You wait 6 months and turn in another resume. Rinse and repeat. Especially now, you may have a tough time getting into the business with a major firm. Of course, that depends entirely on what firm you are considering.

I haven't never seen any sort of Objectivist anything around here. We have a very liberal town surrounded by a lot of conservatives. You can get an anti-abortion T-shirt and gay rights pants.

I have always known (since the time I first grasped the role of the FED) that the Federal Reserve played a big part in this. According to Dr. Brook, it was a combination of the CRA, the FED, Fannie and Freddie, and the Bush initiative that said that "everyone who wants to own a home ought to be able to have one" and the ensuing lax lending standards pushed by Fannie and Freddie. His argument made pretty decent sense. EDIT: Also...the long-standing policy of "too big to fail". That explains the reason why some large corporations would snap up risky investments. The analogy I read was that many of these large institutions acted like ordinary individuals act when they go to open a bank account. For the most part, they don't care who they do business with. Some interest-rate shoppers aside, a bank is a bank, and since all banks are Federally insured, you don't need to worry too much about how financially sound they are or what their lending practices are.

Exactly! I had an individual, a few months back, say to me "I won't ever retire". I congratulated him. And then I asked him "what if you were forced to retire?" While not planning on retiring is a good idea...life happens. If you can't work anymore because of some type of health issue (or it becomes extremely difficult to the point of being almost self-defeating and you need to slow down to a point where the level of productivity does not bring in the amount of money you need/want), you'll be glad you had saved or invested (or both) enough to live comfortably on.

You could also spend some time on Environmentalism.com

That's not true. If you invested through the 1990s and suffered through the post 2000 crash, you never really recovered... ...if you held it from '98 to today....you lost money....on both the S&P and the DOW. Study the chart --> Dave Ramsey has the same problem that Suze Orman does. I mean, they're T.V. personalities who paint everyone with the same brush. They give advice without getting the full story on someone's finances. Dave loves mutual funds. Dave is also consistently wrong about mutual funds (http://www.twintierfinancial.com/the_uncommon_cents/2008/03/the-trouble-wit.html)...unless he changed his mind and started liking index funds again. But if you are going to track an index, why not save yourself some of the taxes and buy a random assortment of stocks? I mean I guess you could just buy an index fund, but about 40 random stocks would do the same thing and probably be cheaper. Just my opinion. ...he also makes a lot of false statements about life insurance, annuities, stocks, bonds, precious metals, and debt management. Merrill Lynch is having a lot of difficulties due to their subprime holdings. I would not use the word "solid" to describe them at this point. I would also be careful about using fee-based planners in the sense that it might give you a false sense of security. In this business there are several ways to charge fees. Either by commission, fee-based, or fee-only. There is also a lot of criticism about commission and fee-based advisors because they both earn a commission in some way or form from working with you. I used to work with fee only and fee-based planners...some were good, some were apathetic because once they got paid, they really didn't care too much what happened afterwards. The true test of an advisor is not how he makes his money, but whether or not he or she teaches (aka advises) you how to be independent and shows you a comprehensive approach to financial planning or whether he or she uses subtle or not so subtle attempts to make you more dependent upon them. Handing over your financial decisions - whether it be everyday decisions or long-term investment decisions - to someone else can have disastrous consequences. Guidance yes. Advice yes. Giving someone else your money and saying "here, make me more", very bad.

Perhaps I should have put "the popular vision of what a consensus means". Because, the "debate" by most of the folks I know goes something like this: "X number of scientists say that man is causing Global Warming. There is a consensus in the scientific community to prove that it is true. Therefore, Global Warming is a threat and we must do something about it". In other words, it's not the science that is being asked to be accepted as proof, it's the alleged consensus.

Sometimes I think these "consensus" arguments are a joke...sometimes I think they constitute gross negligence...sometimes I think they are some kind of perverse intellectual dishonesty. It's easy to find counterbalancing points: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...ty.SenateReport Now...the nice thing about science is that it doesn't require a consensus, and REAL scientists know that. Only one individual needs to be correct for the scientific theory to be valid. Just one. Fortunately, we are provided ample common sense evidence that man-made Global Warming is not what it is made out to be. For example, part of the popular "Globull Warming" theory uses General Circulation Models which are based off of the same GCMs that get our weekly weather forecast wrong twice a week if you can't see the problem with using these models for long-term forecasting, we have another problem on our hands. Unfortunately, there are enough people who don't understand how to discern truth from falsehood and enough dishonest twits that take advantage of that.

I thought it was an EXCELLENT example of traditional a Democrat vs. Republican debate. Palin, like most republicans, pretended to be for small Government by at one point saying - and I am paraphrasing - "we just want Government out of our life"...actually I think she said that a few times. And then in almost the next breath calling for MORE Government intervention into the education system, into the healthcare system, etc. I wished this was set up like the gong show, and so someone could stand there with a big mallet and smack the gong when they contradict themselves... Biden, on the other hand was unashamed of the idea of big Government. At one point he called the redistribution of wealth "fair". Well, Biden, where *I* come from we don't call that "fair", we call it theft. I hate both of them equally. Actually, maybe I hate Palin a little bit more for pretending to be the champion of free markets. And this is ALWAYS a frustrating point with Republicans. They give the Democrats something to spin. They really are Capitalism's worst enemy. I was thinking how cool it would have been to have Yaron Brook up there as a third person being the REAL spokesman for free enterprise.

A little late on the reply I know but... ...did the SEC move to find out if the seller was securities licensed and if not did they prosecute for violating SEC regulations? ...it seems like that would be funny, but maybe it would just be because of the absurdity of it...obviously we know the listing is meant to be funny.

Yes, I know. I was just confused when the OP said that actual troubled mortgages were excluded. Of course, I'm glad that this was shut down. Whether it will stay that way is another story. I am a little pessimistic.

Actually, if it says "on or before March 14, 2008", wouldn't that mean if you purchased a home on or before the 14th of March, 2008, that you are included in this statement? That would exclude the last 6 months, not include it. Is this a typo?

...and if all else fails, the new President always has the power of an Executive Order at his disposal

Just keep in mind that if you do decide to get into one of these, that during the 1990's the Government instituted a "sundry tax" on 401(k) accounts for those who accumulated "too much" money (this is on top of the tax that you pay when you draw this money out later in life). They nixed the tax/penalty, but with the ability to bring it back in the future I always found it strange that they placed contribution limits on savings and investment plans that were supposedly for your benefit...they created a loophole, with the ability to close it up...and if you make too much money during retirement, they can slowly start eliminating your social security benefits which they forced you to pay your entire life in the first place... ...and on top of that, you HAVE to start taking a required distribution after age 701/2 and if you don't they slap you with a 50% penalty and force you to take the money anyway. I guess they can "get away" with it because technically, the 401(k) doesn't belong to you. If you look on your plan documentation you'll notice "FBO" and then your name...it's held "for the benefit of" you...but you are not the actual account holder. Uncle Sam is "technically" the owner of that account...though I think you'd be hard pressed to find a politician dumb enough to start seizing accounts - even to pay for Government programs. ...though I have been wrong before.

There are no "facts" that prove we are "killing the Earth". This is a derivative argument of Resource Economics that is embraced at the heart of the Environmentalist movement. Here's a fact that disproves what you just said: E=mc2. Now...what is it about THAT fact that YOU don't understand that we, as a species, are not "killing the Earth"? B.S. Earth First! EXPLICITLY demands that we do exactly that. And if we don't, they destroy an individual's (or Corporation's) private property. They were created by inspiration from people like Rachel Carson. You would never see the Audubon Society do the types of things these folks do, but they were born of the same ideology: Holistic Biology and Resource Economics. Not every environmentalist is a crazy loon, but the ideology itself IS looney. It's the same as any other religion. You have those who are fundamentalist and then those who have adopted reason (at least to some extent) over their faith. Maybe not explicitly, but that is what is implied. From Al Gore's never ending crusade the save the planet from Global warming to our political leader's calls for "conservation", to the subsidizing of ethanol and other sources of "renewable energy"...to eco-terrorist groups like Earth First!. Actually, I think Earth First! is explicit in their hatred of human life and openly says that it wants to halt technology and progress if it means that the planet can be "saved". Do yourself a favor, go borrow or buy the book Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns...and read over www.environmentalism.com

You mean like this? The Argument From The Fact of Existence

Sort of. I guess it depends on how you are investing in it, your aversion to risk and what your goals and expectations are. There's also the matter of strategy. You can receive a comfortable return that approaches double digits with a very precise mix of bonds and index call options and not risk losing your principal, or you can "throw it all in" and hope for the best...or you can concentrate your efforts into specific industries...or...you know what I mean?

I believe that his position was that relying on TA as a long-term approach wouldn't work.

Ahh yes, it was an excellent course. You know, one thing that I wished that he'd spent more time on is technical analysis vs. "the objective approach"... ...I think I can expand on his argument a little, but I am not an active trader so my knowledge probably seems academic for those who are pros. The biggest argument for TA seems to be that "it works". I've seen individuals with horrible accuracy (20-30%) and still walk away anywhere between 5% and 1,400% in profit (big swing, I know) at the end of the day. They claim, year over year, that they have a 60+% accuracy with trading and make double digit returns. It's fascinating because according to Brook, that shouldn't happen...at least not the long-term TA. Apparently there is a short-term approach that is supposed to work reliably... Does anyone here know the difference (if any) between valid TA and invalid TA? I'd actually be interested in hearing it.

This is why I never recommend using a 401(k)...and those that do have created their own problems... ...think about it for a moment: In the mid 70's when qualified plans were first created, the highest tax bracket was 70%. The Government and employers also wanted a way for employees to save money on their won for retirement...but the Government had decided that employees couldn't do it on their own and that they needed "direction" - hence the creation of section 401(k) in the IRS code. Seems like something of a broken window fallacy. Now you have a multitude of advisors who become "experts" in finding new ways to defer taxes and mitigate the pain of G'vment taxation - it was "great" as it "created" a lot of new work for individuals and attracted a lot of new individuals to the financial planning profession - which up until that time had been largely disorganized as a profession, but which was comprised of three major financial products (which worked fine for the bulk of Americans): life insurance, real estate, and SOME stocks or mutual funds (for those advisers who were more aggressive in their planning). Now we, as an industry, are tilted heavily towards mutual funds. I'm not a big fan of government sponsored/funded retirement plans. Here you have the G'vment essentially saying "here, I know we created a huge tax burden...but, look we're going to provide a solution to this problem that we created not by actually solving the problem, but by giving you a loophole to jump through" I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts I discovered this while putting together an executive bonus plan (which traditionally uses a specially designed life insurance contract that's been modified to function as a 401(k) "look-a-like")...that even with an employer match of 100% up to 6% of an employees income, you get more net income during retirement than you get from your traditional 401(k) in almost every case (provided that your combined State and Federal marginal tax rate is over 20%)...and you don't have to mess with contribution limits, early withdrawal penalties, required minimum distributions, etc. etc., etc.. ...most advisers just preach 401(k)s as the "best" because that is what their brokerage house tells them , and frankly because they make a good living selling 401(k) plans. The fact they make a good living doing this gives little incentive to think about what they are really doing - guaranteeing that their clients will pay back every single penny they've saved in taxes and then some...probably in their lifetime...but definitely as the money passes on to the next generation. With 78 million people heading into retirement, most of whom probably have accumulated some kind of savings in a traditional qualified retirement account...do you think that the G'vemt will lower taxes to the point that they give up a huge, fat cash cow? Of course not.

Actually, I'd say far less on the accuracy. I'd have to dig up the website...but I remember reading his accuracy rating at a little under 50%...that's not superhuman if you ask me.

Depending on what area of environmentalism you are interested in catching up on, you might also check out 'the heated debate' by Robert C. Balling which focuses exclusively on global warming. Very detailed. Not sure if the layman will be able to verify everything, but it does address numerous claims made by the popular vision of global warming.

But, and I'm trying not to stray too far from the topic, we might still be sucked into a black hole: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/28/lh...tanist_lawsuit/ Are there any physicists here that can explain this (not why Cern is being sued, but whether there are indeed real dangers to a super collider)?