Curt Doolittle

Author: Curt Doolittle

  • UKRAINE’S ECONOMY IS A MESS IMHO: Ukrainians have the Highest IQ per dollar and

    http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/03/ukraine-and-russiaWHY UKRAINE’S ECONOMY IS A MESS

    IMHO: Ukrainians have the Highest IQ per dollar and best work ethic outside of the USA. An incredible piece of real estate and natural gas reserves. They are just broken from generations of peasantry, generations of communism, and a generation of economic uncertainty. Victims of a predatory post-soviet government. But they still soldier onward. (I love them),

    WHY DO THEY SUFFER?

    –“Dodgy economic policy, distaste for reform and endemic corruption have brought the country to its knees.”–

    –“Corruption and poor governance…”–

    –“The Ukrainian shadow economy is one of the biggest in the world—at around 50% of GDP, according to IMF research. Businesses operating underground tend not to pay taxes, further depriving the government of funds. And last week Ukraine’s new prime minister estimated that $37 billion had gone missing during Viktor Yanukovych’s rule.”–

    –“Protecting the currency drained the central bank’s reserves, which tumbled from a high of $40 billion in 2011 to about $12 billion today. Last month the central bank admitted defeat and let the currency go. Currency depreciation, while necessary, will be an economic headache for Ukraine in the short term. About half of its public debt is in foreign currencies: as the hrvynia loses value, Ukraine’s debt burden rises.”—

    –“The state gas company, Naftogaz, only charges consumers a quarter of the cost of importing the gas. Cheap gas discourages investment: Ukraine is one of the most energy-intensive economies in the world and domestic production has slumped by two-thirds since the 1970s.”–

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-06 05:06:00 UTC

  • ARROGANCE TO INCOMPETENCE: “AN AMATEUR ON PAR WITH JIMMY CARTER” —“Having been

    ARROGANCE TO INCOMPETENCE: “AN AMATEUR ON PAR WITH JIMMY CARTER”

    —“Having been president for more than five years, we can now render some reasonable and informed judgments about Mr. Obama, including this one: he is an amateur on par with Jimmy Carter. And to see the crude and brutish Putin run circles around Obama—on negotiations over nuclear weapons, on granting asylum to Edward Snowden, on convincing Obama to undercut our allies in Poland and the Czech Republic, on establishing ties with Egypt, on strengthening the murderous Syrian regime, and now invading Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine—is painful for any American to witness. As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers put it, “Putin is playing chess and I think we are playing marbles, and I don’t think it’s even close.” —

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-05 19:49:00 UTC

  • ARE MORAL PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA AFTER ALL Second anchor quits rather than report P

    http://digg.com/video/video-rt-anchor-quits-on-airTHERE ARE MORAL PEOPLE IN THE MEDIA AFTER ALL

    Second anchor quits rather than report Putin’s propaganda.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-05 17:56:00 UTC

  • WITHOUT FORCE IS LIKE MUSIC WITHOUT INSTRUMENTS” Morris on Ukraine

    http://www.dickmorris.com/the-lessons-of-ukraine-dick-morris-tv-lunch-alert/?utm_source=dmreports&utm_medium=dmreports&utm_campaign=dmreports”DIPLOMACY WITHOUT FORCE IS LIKE MUSIC WITHOUT INSTRUMENTS”

    Morris on Ukraine.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-05 16:44:00 UTC

  • Curt, I have read this guy on and off since the 1990’s on the investment side. H

    Curt, I have read this guy on and off since the 1990’s on the investment side. His models were spot on for the end of the 2000 market, tech bust and, later, economic declines when he was at Princeton Economics. However, he went to jail in a murky case where he, along with Republic Bank, was accused by the SEC of misdeeds against the Japanese. He fought it as his own attorney (claiming Republic was blaming him for their losses) and lost and is now out. I cannot figure out now if he is a genius or completely delusional. However, I think you will enjoy this piece he just published.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-05 14:57:00 UTC

  • Is Social Security A Ponzi Scheme?

    Contrary to rhetoric it is, indeed, a ponzi scheme, which is defined as early entrants are paid by later entrants under the assumption that there will always be enough new entrants to pay for each person exiting. 

    It’s not insurance because Insurance works by a lot of people giving a little bit of money to an investor who invests the money at a reasonable rate of return, then pays out to some small percent of people in the event that a few of them actually need a lot of money.   That is not the case, since all of us both enter and leave.

    When social security was conceived, people didn’t live very long. It was in fact, at that time, insurance.  But as we have lived much longer, we are confronted with the problem that old people are still not very useful in the work force, and it’s hard for them to work at even small jobs as they age, and we have smaller population growth and a smaller population who must sacrifice more and more of their incomes to pay for aged people who live much longer and have very high health care costs.

    To compensate for this problem, western countries have brought in large numbers of immigrants in order to increase the number of working people, But this has in turn created cultural friction as the only people that can be brought into the country are largely the poor from the third world, who are much less productive per person than the prior generations. 

    The counter argument is that people should be forced to save, even if we redistributed money via taxation to people’s savings accounts. Then this money could be insured by the government, and people could actually plan.

    There are numerous arithmetic arguments to suggest that it is possible to perpetuate this scheme indefinitely, but they are heavily biased with assumptions. The reason is that most of our economic data starts with the postwar era, And economic data before that time, with the colonial period. And it is not certain that our country can remain competitive.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Social-Security-a-Ponzi-scheme

  • Is Social Security A Ponzi Scheme?

    Contrary to rhetoric it is, indeed, a ponzi scheme, which is defined as early entrants are paid by later entrants under the assumption that there will always be enough new entrants to pay for each person exiting. 

    It’s not insurance because Insurance works by a lot of people giving a little bit of money to an investor who invests the money at a reasonable rate of return, then pays out to some small percent of people in the event that a few of them actually need a lot of money.   That is not the case, since all of us both enter and leave.

    When social security was conceived, people didn’t live very long. It was in fact, at that time, insurance.  But as we have lived much longer, we are confronted with the problem that old people are still not very useful in the work force, and it’s hard for them to work at even small jobs as they age, and we have smaller population growth and a smaller population who must sacrifice more and more of their incomes to pay for aged people who live much longer and have very high health care costs.

    To compensate for this problem, western countries have brought in large numbers of immigrants in order to increase the number of working people, But this has in turn created cultural friction as the only people that can be brought into the country are largely the poor from the third world, who are much less productive per person than the prior generations. 

    The counter argument is that people should be forced to save, even if we redistributed money via taxation to people’s savings accounts. Then this money could be insured by the government, and people could actually plan.

    There are numerous arithmetic arguments to suggest that it is possible to perpetuate this scheme indefinitely, but they are heavily biased with assumptions. The reason is that most of our economic data starts with the postwar era, And economic data before that time, with the colonial period. And it is not certain that our country can remain competitive.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Social-Security-a-Ponzi-scheme

  • Descriptive High Trust Ethics of Northern Europeans The intra-family system of o

    Descriptive High Trust Ethics of Northern Europeans

    The intra-family system of outbred North Sea Europeans contains these rules:

    0) Private property

    1) Voluntary Exchange

    2) Symmetry and Warranty*

    3) Prohibition on Externality*

    4) Requirement for Value Added*

    5) Prohibition on familial Rents and Free Riding.

    6) Prohibition on Socialization of Losses and Privatization of Gains

    These additional properties forbid the use of ‘cunning’ in exchange itself, and force all cunning in production, and distribution.

    Furthermore in propertarianism, I have added political constraints on contracts (ad laws):

    7) Requirement for operational language (as a prevention for obscurantism. Which means propertarian language must be used for contracts and law)

    8) Requirement for Calculability ( prohibition on pooling and laundering – this is a complex topic.)

    9) The right of exclusion (ostracization).

    These last three topics are the complex matters I have had to wrestle with in Propertarianism. Primarily as a defense against the Continentals, the Culture of Critique, the Postmoderns, and their philosophical heirs. All of whom have adopted the technique of obscurantism from monotheistic religion, and modernized it for advocacy of the state. Unfortunately, the Culture of Critique, Postmodernists, and the Continentals have mastered the art of obscurantism, and as such we must require operational language, and calculability of contracts, as does science, as a means of prohibiting use of obscurant language as means of obtaining discounts (theft).

    High Trust Is A Prohibition On Discounts

    These rules prohibit discounts. The only reason to eschew violence and engage in exchange is if ALL discounts are prohibited from the market, and therefore, by consequence, all improvements are in the construction and distribution of goods, and NOT in the verbal means of selling those goods.

    As Such, All Conflict Is Pressed Into The Market

    Not the market for words, but the market for goods and services. And since the only possible means of competing is innovation in production and distribution, then such societies will innovate in production and distribution faster than all others. So not only do such rules that place a prohibition on both violence, theft, and discounts foster peace and prosperity, it fosters innovation, and trust.

    As Such,

    1. Property is the result of the partial suppression of discounts,

    2) Private property is the result of full suppression of discounts

    3) Trust is the RESULT of total Suppression of Discounts.

    As Such, A Common Law System Can Function

    Where a homogenous set of property rights exist, and *ALL* discounts are violations of property rights, demand for intervention is limited to disputes over property via common law courts. Without homogeneity of property rights, and wherever all discounts are not suppressed, then demand for the State increases, since commensurability of discounts is logically impossible. (This is profound if you grasp it.) In other words, under rothbardian ethics, the common law is not possible. Under aristocratic ethics, it is possible.

    Any Science Requires Means of Commensurability

    As such Propetarianism provides us with the previously unmet promise of praxeology by changing the theory of human behavior from a deductive a priori form of rationalism, to an empirically descriptive science of all human behavior whose units of measure are property, and whose truths and falsehoods are involuntary transfers via discounts.

    Praxeology: (Action, Property, Calculation and Incentives), supplies us with a science of human action, if we treat property as DESCRIPTIVE rather than NORMATIVE.

    1) Reason renders words and concepts commensurable.

    2) Numbers render countable objects commensurable

    3) Measurements render relations commensurable

    4) Physics renders physical causes commensurable.

    5) Money renders goods and services commensurable

    6) Property renders cooperation (ethics, morals, politics) commensurable

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 18:23:00 UTC

  • (advice: feed her chocolate.)

    (advice: feed her chocolate.)

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 16:26:00 UTC

  • Productive day and I haven’t even pushed the ‘submit’ button on three other essa

    Productive day and I haven’t even pushed the ‘submit’ button on three other essays, one of which I’m really thrilled with. Some days are good days, and some are not.

    Source date (UTC): 2014-03-04 15:29:00 UTC