ruveyn ben yosef

Frankly, I cannot distinguish between speculating and investing. A person puts his money into some transaction or enterprise (I assume they are legal) and he hopes to realize a profit. My guess is that the term "speculator" is a scare term indicating and kind of ideological prejudice against investing one's own money with the hope of realizing a profit. Sort of like the term "junk bond". Another scare term. I have also heard the term "speculator" used against the Hunt Brothers who attempted to corner the market on silver. It did not work. In the long term the market cannot be jiggered. Please forgive my relative ignorance of matters economic. The only economics I know is 1. the law of supply and demand; 2. Sayes law and 3. Gresham's law. After that I am lost. ] My take is that anyone investing his money in a legal undertaking should not be interfered with. His risks are his own and so should be his rewards. ruveyn

How does this differ from garden variety investment? ruveyn

This might be a good place to ask the following question: What wealth creation functions do speculators perform? Any sound economic input would be very much appreciated. TIA. ruveyn

Therein is the "magic" of the market economy which depends on the specialization of labor. Everyone, except those afflicted with physical disease and deficiency not of their choosing, can do -something- well enough that they can earn some of their keep. The market economy provides the matrix and the context where in those with a skill and a level of competence in exercising that skill can find employment. If such folks are craftsmen, then can sell their product at some price. If they perform a service then they can find someone who will buy the service at an acceptable price. To be sure the overall level of the economy is driven by the most creative and inventive among us. It took a Michael Faraday to discover the principles of the electric motor. He got only a fraction of the value of his invention, but without the likes of Faraday we would still be using waterwheels or crude steam engines. So we are all dependent (in some overall sense) on the folks who create the technology that prospers us. On the other hand we are all value creators at some level of performance, so our wage also depends on -us-, what skills we have or are acquiring and how well we exercise those skills. I reject the view that our society consists of one percent genius creators and ninety nine percent ballast that merely live off the crumbs that their betters throw their way. That is the kind of thinking that is more in line with feudalism than with modern industrial capitalism. I think the majority in our society are useful and productive at some level of performance and that the law of supply and demand will provide wages (or income) commensurate with our skills and performance levels. While it is true that there are more folks who are voluntarily useless than there ought to be (that is the welfare state for you), I believe, even so, such folk are in the minority. I think if we did away with or vastly reduced the welfare operations in our society many of those currently taking handouts would be afforded the opportunity to earn an honest living and most of those would jump at the chance. I respect any man who pulls his own weight and does not expect to be carried as a noble being. As for labor unions, to the extent that they operate as employment agents and bring together qualified workers with those who wish to employ them, I have no objection whatsoever. There is nothing dishonorable with engaging the services of an agent. As for labor unions run by racketeers who extort wealth from producers and then screw (and corrupt) the people they are "representing", to hell with them and the politicians who make them possible. Also think of this. Without an Eddy Willers to do the detail work and minutia, how productive would Dagny Taggart have been. She would have had to spend her time doing stuff which was well below her talent and skill level. In short, without Eddy, Dagny would have had to waste some of her precious time. ruveyn

Nat Taggart needed passengers for his railway. The passengers needed Nat Taggart for transportation. Both/And. As to employers and employees, ask how much would a businessman earn if he could not get anyone to work for him. All he could do is sell the labor of his own hands. Employees are a force multiplier (assuming they are competent) for their employer. How much steel or Reardon Metal would HR have made if no one worked in his plants? Both/And. ruveyn

What will an inventor gain if there is no one to use his machines? Would Nathaniel Taggart have run trains if they ran empty? Inventors do not invent, just to invent. They invent for their inventions to be used productively. Producers do not just produce. They produce for trade. That means there are others out there. Review Rand's Pyramid. It is true that inventors only get a fraction of the value they create, but without the bottom, their inventions would have little or no value. There have to be those who can -use- the inventions well and productively to make stuff. And there have to be productive folk who use the reward of their labors to buy the stuff that the machines produce. There is no commerce on a desert island. Commerce is based on both production -and- trade. It is based on the specialization of labor. There are multi way interactions going on throughout the process. Like I said, it is both/and. ruveyn

The problem is that speculation looks like gambling to most people. Gamblers do not produce anything, they simply move money from here to there by a series of risky undertakings. The way for speculators to defend themselves is to show that their activities lead to useful capitalization of productive businesses. ruveyn

Wonderful pics. The model is lovely. ruveyn

This brings to mind a joke told back in the days when Socialists, Communists and IWW folk (the Wobblies) demonstrated in Union Square in New York City. Demonstrator 1: Comes the Revolution we will have whipped cream with our strawberries. Demonstrator 2: But comrade, suppose I don't like whipped cream with my strawberries. Demonstrator 1: Comes the Revolution, you -will- like whipped cream with your strawberries. The point is, no new viable government or order is going to be established contrary to the will of a substantial majority of the population, regardless of how rational and beautiful the new order is. Enough people have to buy into it to get it kick started and operating. Even Judge Nareganssett in Galt's Gulch did not start from scratch. He made some modifications to the already existing Constitution which had at one point been established and operating. The New Objectivist Order will not be woven from whole New Cloth. It will have to be a variation on that which as worked. Not enough have "shrugged". Enough competent people who buy into the current system remain and man the machines and computers. There is enough freedom left in the system that capable folk do not have a mind and a will to abandon it. Maybe those who stay in think they can improve it incrementally and sufficiently. Maybe others think they will find a way to exist "between the cracks". I do not expect to see Objectopia in my lifetime. But then I am 76 and all good things take time, time which, most likely, I do not have. Perhaps my children and grandchildren will have better luck than I do. If I am lucky, avoid illness and stay fit, I might last another ten or fifteen years. Not enough time. ruveyn

Burning flesh isn't battery? ruveyn

That would also be the end of anonymous transactions. Any interaction with a database can be traced and audit trailed. ruveyn

Oh gracious! Shit has been happening since God invented dirt. One of the crowning glories of humans is that they can cope with, overcome and even grow better when dealing with emergencies. Our race, homo sapien is a champion survivor and even a winner. From chipping flints to building tall buildings and riding ships to the moon, the best of our kind overcomes difficulties. That is the story of our race; encountering natural difficulties, overcoming them, and turning them into victories. We struggle, we labor, we overcome and some of us triumph. We are the sons and daughters of survivor kings and some of us are kings in our own right. I am reminded of a line in the movie -Apollo 13-. When the flight manager, Gene Kranz, is told that the entire mishap is a failure of NASA, he responds by saying it will turn out to be one of the great success stories of NASA. It surely did. There is a good line from the movie -Starman-. The Visitor tells Mark Shermin from SETTI the following: Do you know what I find beautiful about your species? You are are you very best when things are at their very worst. Pooh on A.P., I say. ruveyn

Unless you are contemplating total automation, note that a non-automatic machine will not operate itself. If must be deployed by people and operated by people who can operate it correctly. The value of labor is determined by the capital goods that multiply the effectiveness of labor -and- the skill that laborers bring to the machines. A machine can be operated well or it can be operated badly. The value created is a joint effort. It is a combination of the inventive wit of machine designers and the operating skill of laborers who focus their energy to use the machines to produce goods that people will buy. In addition to the laborers who use machines invented by clever folk, there is the matter of management, scheduling, materials acquisition, inspection, storage and transport. Goods do not get from machine to end user without a lot of intermediate effort. It is not an either/or thing. It is a both/and thing. ruveyn

Why wasn't this fiend charged and indicted with aggravated assault and battery and abuse of children? Burning the flesh of defenseless children is not to be tolerated. ruveyn

I think going for the mother's nipple is a reflex. Having that reflex wired in genetically is a survival trait favored by natural selection. ruveyn

During the tragically brief period when the scholars of the Islamic Domains showed bright and brilliant light in the intellectual sphere, Muslim scholars made substantial advances over the Greeks in the fields of mathematics, optics, chemistry, medicine, pharmacology and navigation. The Greeks never developed algebra (nor did they have the zero, as did the Babylonians, the Chinese, the Indus, the Arabs and the Maya). The Muslim, al Jabir did and the field is even named after him. The notion of the calculation recipe is the brainchild of al Kwarizmi, after who the algorithm is named. Muslim scholars wrote their names of a good deal of mathematics that drove European development. Europe excelled and went way past the Greeks insofar as they pursued analytical technique (algebra, analytic geometry, calculus) as opposed to synthetic technique as exemplified in Euclid and Eudoxus. Mathematics was finally healed and strengthened when the analytic approach and the synthetic approach were reconciled and merged in the 19-th century by European mathematicians. In their intellectually fertile period, the Muslim scholars developed a strong empirical thread in their theoretical science, a tendency that moved to Europe along with the works of the ancient Greeks. The presence of Aristotle in Europe during the Middle Ages came to be by way of import from the Muslim east and from the Andalucia in Spain (which was Muslim until the time of Ferdinand and Isabella) Unfortunately for the Muslims (and us) their brief period of intellectual brilliance was brought to an end by the Darkness Within. Islam, the religion, hosted a dreadful meme that led to the Muslims to suppress the open spirit of inquiry and subordinate it to religious bigotry and mysticism. So fell Andalus and Baghdad. Alas! A great loss to both them and us. We are seeing the results even as we read the daily newspapers. ruveyn

Life imprisonment is one possibility. It is (partially) reversible. If a person is convicted wrongly then he can eventually be released and compensated (with money) for time lost. It is an expensive alternative to the death penalty since prisoners must be kept alive and health on the possibility that they may be released, if a miscarriage of justice occurred. Also there is the security question, since many of those imprisoned will be or become very bad actors. Another possibility with a somewhat lower cost is exile. Penal colonies can be established far from our shores, preferably on an island which is relatively inexpensive to patrol. The French did this in Guiana. Why they gave it up, I am not sure. For those guilty of lesser crimes, they can be compelled to compensate their victims for value taken plus damages for loss and inconvenience. This is possible for relatively small monetary losses. What do we do with the ENRON type cases where tens of thousands of working folk were bilked of their pensions? The perpetrators did not have enough money left to compensate the victims. Ken Lay and his buddies did more damage without violence than a common mugger could do with a blackjack. The only alternative besides fines and restitution is loss of liberty. ruveyn

Passing this bill is a ploy to score points with special interest constituents such as the religious loonies. The law will almost certainly be struck down in the courts, but those who voted for it will curry some favor. It is a very expensive way of influencing special interest groups. ruveyn

Monopoly pricing is not necessarily high pricing. It is price that will maximize profit low enough to discourage folks from finding alternatives. A rational monopolist will not cut himself off (in the medium and long run) from the source of his profit. Even the Telephone Company which was a regulated monopoly increased the quality of its service by investment in better technology for carrying and switching calls. The reason we have transistors is that Bell Labs needed a technology to break the call switching log-jam. And this from a legal and regulated monopoly. The notion that a monopolist will attempt to reduce his neighbors to penury and misery simply does not hold up to critical examination. When WalMart was a virtual monopoly among the Big Box retailers, their policy was not to gouge customers, but encourage a lot of buying with attractively low prices. The goal was volume and profit maximization, not reducing the buying public to penury. A monopoly cannot exist long term without government backing. In a free market, high prices will encourage alternative products and services. If a monopoly cannot be beat in head on competition, it can be outflanked by alternatives. ruveyn

I can see it now. 1974 all over again. Most of you guys were either not around or in diapers when the first major oil crisis hit. Cars were lined up for a mile to get a limited amount of gasoline because of (artificially) limited supplies. Ted Kennedy already had legislation to ration gas in detail, just like during WW2. The only good thing that came of it (for me) was that I started a business selling coffee and buns to motorists waiting line for their gasoline. It is an ill wind that does not blow somebody some good. If the gasoline system is nationalized, Soviet style queues will become the norm. People will spend a quarter of waking lives in lines and the pols will tell them it is their patriotic duty to car-pool. Heavens to Elizabeth! ruveyn

Yup. A good example of perverse incentive. The urge to build, but not maintain. Politicians score points for building, but no one scores political points for maintaining. In a competitive system of private roads (or carriers in general) maintaining quality and efficiency is a key factor in profitability. So in a market based system, maintenance is more linked to making profits than in a public or monopoly system ruveyn

Sometime it is the drivers who are unsafe. No matter how well built a road is and how well maintained there will always be mishaps because of careless driving or DUI. Where the state monopolies are really at fault is in the area of deferred maintenance and enforcing weight limits. The States won't rigorously enforce weight limits on trucks (overloaded trucks can beat the shit out of surfaces and bridges), nor do the States spend enough money on inspection of bridges and repair of potholes which are often caused by frost heaves and defective drainage. State ownership and operation is no guarantee of road quality (lack of incentive and perverse incentives are at work). Even so, most accidents and mishaps are caused by poorly driven vehicles or poorly maintained vehicles. My definition of a surprise on the road is seeing a truck weighing station that is actually open. When was the last time you saw that and how often? ruveyn

In a hypothetical state where roads are privately built, run and owned if Road Company X gets a reputation for unsafe bridges or road surfaces that wash out frequently, they will lose business. Safety very often pays. In the real society, roads are state run monopolies so there is not as much incentive for safety. See incident of collapsing interstate in Minneapolis or the collapse of the Canajohari Bridge on the New York State thruway. And even when the roads and bridges are built well they must be -maintained-. Government owned and run roads are infamous for deferred maintenance. Politicians love to fund New Stuff. They don't get publicity for safe bridges. We only hear about new bridges and the bridges that collapse, not the old ones that stand. ruveyn

A Good Thing that can happen to the human race is to meet a race aliens who will eat our garbage and piss out gasoline. ruveyn

Historical examples of voluntary industry standardization: 0. Everyone in a contiguous area drives on the right (or left in some countries). 1. Standard gauge railroad track within a geographically contiguous area. 2. Automatic couplers for railroad rolling stock. 3. Standard hose connections for railroad air brakes. 4. Standard bases for light bulbs regardless of who makes them. 5. Industry standard data protocols. 6. Standard navigation protocols such as the red/green running lights on ships and planes or turning to starboard to avoid collisions. ....beginning of a very long list....... Virtually everything in our commercial society is standardized and in most cases voluntarily standardized. Governments often acknowledge de facto standards. We do not need congress to formulate standards, in most cases. All (or mostly) voluntary and all rational. Standardization increases profitability or safety. We don't need no badges to convince people to do that which promotes sales, profitability and safety. Non-governmental protocols and standards were historically formulated by guilds and other trade associations starting back in the Middle Ages, when commerce was making a comeback. The motive was always the same. To promote sales and give customers a predictable context in which they could buy and sell. Some of these protocols were later written into Law. Businessmen do not need to be bludgeoned and whipped into doing that which promotes their profits. Production and trade converges rapidly to a system which conforms to generally accepted standards. So who sets the standards? Usually trade and industry leaders who either by luck or virtue get "the pole position" in the race for profits. Others fall into line behind them because it is in their interest to do so. And that is why you turn screw lids clockwise in order to tighten them. ruveyn