I just finished this book, and wanted to recommend it to those of you that enjoyed "The Big Short". The author goes to Iceland, Greece, Germany, California, etc and talks to many of the involved parties in the economic crises. As always, he does it in an interesting, and easily understood ...

I would favor one of many fine Belgian beers, e.g., Rochefort, or Westmalle.

smurff wrote: The man was found 40% responsible for his own death...

Maybe he thought with two men and one woman, it would only be half as strenuous.

...well hopefully she invests that $3 million in the PP. I don't know. Her present strategy of marrying men with bad hearts and a proclivity for nontraditional coitus, while living in a state that rewards dubious lawsuits seems to be working pretty well. In fact this may be the ticket to portfolio ...

craigr wrote:

1NV35T0R wrote:Any other hypothetical ways to get it out of the country if the government goes full-on corrupt?

Yes. Already have some stored outside the country to begin with!

Is this a teaser for the book ?

The decay effects seem more significant over only 6 months than I would have guessed.

I have found that I tolerate lagging market returns in periods of stock out-performance much better than I tolerated the volatility of a stock heavy portfolio (the downward volatility, that is, had no problems with upward). That said, I can guarantee that we will have many more of these I'm done thr...

That's probably true, although I felt like I really had to earn my grades.  Getting B's wasn't all that easy, let alone A's (didn't get too many of those).  This seemed to be pretty common among my peers as well.  Might just have been an engineering thing though.  Seemed like my friends in business...

Dick Clark always seemed so normal to me. This place is bizarre. I do wonder if he ever found himself locked out, and never realized that he could just jump through the window.

I enjoyed his filtered, and mostly self-generated comments. My guess is it is ok to read his blog, just don't disagree with him.

MediumTex wrote: The plot thickens...

I love these MMT discussions.

This is meaty stuff. My biggest beef has been with the "deficits do not matter, except when they do, and we are not certain when that is, except it is not now" line of reasoning.

I just read this, and immediately thought of the barbarians here.

Gumby, Thank you for your patience and detailed answers. Forgive the simplicity of this observation. Given that debt has not been the magic elixir to prosperity in most countries, like those in Africa, might these observations be due to an effect, and not a cause? That a nation's ability to have a s...

But my point is more general than the discussions on saturated fats, whole milk, and the like. It is equally important to challenges to the validity of the unadulterated Permanent Portfolio in 2012. I am not sure what you are referring to in regard to the permport, but would love for you to flesh  ...

My Canadian pp (with some US asset) is down more than 3% since I started in two months ago. I expected some downside risk but not this much in a short period time. :(  I guess it was a good thing I put in only half of my money but it is pretty discouraging and I wonder if I should invest the rest i...

If it were possible to sequester such criminals from society permanently - short of execution - that strikes me as a reasonable alternative.  It is the durability of that permanence that is the problem. I agree with this, but I would add that some of these predators continue their attacks in prison...

If we presuppose that in all potential death penalty cases we are talking about whether to lock up the killer for life or kill him, I think that the idea that he will be returned to the streets to kill again should be removed from consideration I beg to differ. http://www.google.com/search?q=convic...

It also doesn't deter crime.  maybe. I am reminded of Thomas Sowell's quote on this subject: "I am prepared to admit that the death penalty does not deter if the opponents of the death penalty can show me just one case where a murderer who was executed then committed another murder." I ha...

Tough question, and one that bares our deepest beliefs about justice, often to conflict in my own case. I am left with a sense that there are some actions so depraved that it is reasonable for a just society to expect that the accused will forfeit his life if convicted. I do not think it blood-thirs...

Utilization (excessive), and insurance coverage that goes far beyond the traditional definition of insurance are important issues with regard to health care costs. Fraud is a politician's favorite target in describing ways to cut costs without decreasing service, but the only way likely to be succes...

"But he ignores the realities of hate crimes in our society:  A crime committed by a black person against a white person usually has nothing to do with race - it is simply a crime of a poor person robbing what he perceives to be a wealthier person.  A crime based solely on race is more offensi...

At work, we just went through another round of software upgrades, and as per routine, very few new benefits for me, the end user, but some features that I liked have been removed, or made slower or more cumbersome. As we are nearly dead in the water without this system, we have a healthy fear of the...

LonerMatt wrote: I'd certainly struggle to see how anyone could call Tolkein anything but complex and, in many ways, inaccessible.

Compared to Jacques Derrida or Noam Chomsky, Tolkien reads like Dick, Jane and Sally. I don't find him inaccessible, save for The Silmarillion.

Before I read the article I want to make a quick comment. I find this process of pinning emotional labels on things to be a very vexing problem which undermines clear, rational thinking. Creating labels like "liberal" is a way to get an immediate knee-jerk reaction out of people and it pr...

I was shocked at how fast I lost weight and fat sticking to this diet, and trust me when I say I did not restrict fat; in fact, I reintroduced some carbs sooner than planned. I am now in the process of titrating the appropriate amount, because I am already where I want to be weight-wise. I think thi...