What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

[lobodelmar]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Don’t forget,
> Lukester, Fastest Typist in the west, needs to type out 3 pages to get a 3 sentence point across. Could work as a online text message representative for any company in the world and no one even in the entire country of India could beat his performance. I would need Dragon Naturally Speaking software 2015 edition with A.I. just to keep up.

Hmmm...fast typist, or maybe it should read "has a really boring day job?"

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Billboard -

About Sapiens? Well ... Sapiens is Sapiens, permanently unsatisfactory in his response to pleas for a reply in plain English. He doesn't do pedestrian "explanations", 'cause he's "The Oracle". Alternately smart and maddeningly obscure, with little or no accountability. I have no idea if it adds up or not.

But the real point is there are a lot of other really odd characters around here too.

Here's just a handful, in absolutely no rational order:

> Tet. "Tet is Tet" (somebody advised me this was an explanation for the guy - but I think he's got a bit of Attila the Hun in his genealogy cause he's like a land mine)
> Mega is a total end-of-the-world maverick, with freaked out posts reminding us like a prophet about our Mad Max future (wierdly, he's also reputedly a a Winston Churchill / Margaret Thatcher fan! Go figure).
> C1ue efficiently posts rational replies everywhere like a robot with a mind like a steel trap, while racking up iTulip monopoly money credits like a slot machine on autodrive.
> Lobodelmar - hangs back while occasionally offering stunningly counterintuitive yet rational investment advice which those most in need of enlightenment duly ignore.
> Spartacus discreetly posts everywhere displaying how much he knows about every conceivable topic under the sun (gives C1ue a run for his monopoly money)
> JK - riffs quietly and in the background to some rigorously articulated Thelonious Monk jazz melody in his head - offering us a quiet heads-up about our impending catastrophes - this guy is a real bear and regularly depresses me when I want to enjoy some upbeat fantasy for a bit of relief.
> Finster - wants to strap you into a compressed 3 week course in graduate level economics and blast you off the ground on an experimental nitro rocket while observing with clinical detachment to see if you survive the trip without executing a splat upon landing
> Bart - neatly lines up the numbers demonstrating why we are all screwed and then sits back to observe us like guinea pigs (BTW, these two are wierd brainy types)
> Bill - One of those crusty, "old school" inner iTulip circle guys (jeez what I gotta put up with!). Probably some kind of former Suit? He's in my face, but I gotta hand it to the guy he's smarter than the "young Turks" ( well maybe Aaron Krowne and DanielLCharts keep up ). Put your best foot forward with this Bill guy and see if he chews off your arm off or not! What can I say? Maybe the zoo-keepers fed him before you showed up and he's not hungry? Could be he's one of the milder Ambassadors, and not one of those red meat eating Centurions?. Take your chances. Who the hell knows with these iTulip creatures?
> Jim Nickerson - well that guy is hard to put in a nutshell, but he's from Texas so you gotta give him some room - he's like a proctor around here 'cause he's keeping an eye on everyone (lately he bugs me)
> Rajiv is your classic over-educated fencing-rapier-intellect-type-guy (keeps C1ue and Spartacus diligently checking their facts, which is a good thing as they would get opinionated otherwise) - occasionally given to bouts of haunting poetry in his prose. Maybe he's some kind of communist because normal people aren't supposed to do poetry
> Rick Bishop is this shadowy paranoid character with a checkered past in the hedge fund industry? (he's wierd too, and very reclusive)
> Raja is Mr. Rational - pesky guy who always wants to nail the logical issue down to the floor with screwed down lag bolts. His avatar is gambling dice but I get the sense he's the last person here to gamble on anything? I bet he's an accountant, the way he talks about bonds.
> QuigleyDoor is this ethereal software engineer living up in Brahmin New England with a humanistic streak in his persona a mile wide (avatar looks like some kind of throwback to British rockers from the 1960's ferchrissakes)
> Glacial is a former lurker now intrepidly walking into the "live zoo" area here (don't feed the animals or you'll lose a hand!) and offering comments as to how the Fed can finesse it's gargantuan debt with maneouvers worthy of Charles Ponzi - (evidently he's had direct experience of the "three card monte" somewhere in his checkered past)
> Metalman is reputedly one of the guys (of dubious character) that bust out of Alcatraz with Clint Eastwood - I suspect he never really reformed and a Frisco parole officer is said to be wandering around still looking for him.
> Medved is some guy who comes and goes, who you can never pin down into an "ism" cause he's always posting "out of the box" without any identifiable ideological stance (very frustrating cause you don't know if he's left or right ferchrissakes)
> Da Bear is very gifted but one suspects he was fed some LSD or Amphetamines in his developmental years and forced to read the Wall Street Journal and the Economist instead of pursuing ordinary teenage hobbies (he's wierd)
> DanielLCharts is a freaking genius who went away somewhere and hasn't come back
> Aaron Krowne is another freaking genius who's wandered off to pick fights with real estate shills (we should help him out, as they are slimy)
> Christoph Von Gamm is this upper crust guy from Germany who posts extremely smart summaries (rarely - because he's an IBM exec and has to keep up corporate appearances and not be associated with this rabble crowd.)
> WDCRob scores off the charts on the kind of common sense and human approachability many of us lack (yeah, Jim Nickerson's got some of that too - but he bugs me, so that's different)
> Andreuccio projects the image of one of those really smart well balanced guys with his feet planted firmly on the ground - sounds all-American - but his name sounds kinda foreign? An Eyetie I bet, so he can't be any good. They're all communists.
> Hoodoo is a man with a conscience who does not like to get pigeonholed into any stereotype - I think he takes us all more seriously than we deserve so when we offer dumb reactionary answers he's nonplussed.
> Moe Gamble up and went away - maybe if we all yell out "Moe - come back! He'll come back? I don't know who the hell he thinks he is just abandoning us like that! Someone should look him up over at the Oil Drum and haul him back here for a bit of diversity ! (Yeah - I need some help to re-educate this bunch of stick-in-the-muds!)
> Uncle Jack hangs back and is self-effacing - known to make trenchant remarks from time to time - he's a financial professional so he has to maintain an air of sobriety and not get too closely associated with this crowd 'cause we are a rabble. Same professional predicament as Christoph Von Gamm. We might kill their reputable business by disreputable rabble assocation.
> Flow5 is authoritative and esoteric to the point of sweeping everyone off the deck except maybe Bart, who seems to relish the tangle (let them have at it, I say, and may the rest of us survive the arcane discussion without frying our synapses!)
> Charles Mackay appears periodically - like a smoky apparition summoned by Aladin's Djinn-Lamp out of a time-warp from Dickensian times. This one is ethereal, like a smoky apparition!
> Grapejelly has enough of the pinched, hardened skeptic in him to be a Yankee from New England, 'cept I figure he's from somewhere else (haven't figured out where yet). This guy does not like anyone to yank his chain - has been known to bite, so approach with caution. Oh, and the guy knows all about what's up with gold (which a lot of others dont!).
> JimmyGu sounds a bit like a hardened sceptic but occasionally lets it slip that he's really got a bit of the patriot and straight arrow in him (we can't be fooled, he's a hidden idealist!)
> DemonD is this really smart guy from Harvard that works in healthcare but digs sin stocks like Altria. He's one of the iTulip centurions so remember to always say something nice about iTulip around him or he'll take a bite out of you.
> Friendly Jacek - everybody likes Friendly_Jacek and he's mister easy-going - but make sure you don't put one over on him with loose facts cause he'll nail you right down to the floor on it with drywall screws. Doesn't seem to tolerate playing loose with facts.
> Buconero - ( ?? Who ?? ) nobody's ever heard a peep from this guy - just some name on the lists - Italian sounding moniker translates as "black hole" - so he probably works for the SISDE, Italian intelligence sevice, and is collecting data on us for no good purpose.
> BlackVoid - "Limits to Growth" guy like me - he 'went away" because iTulip people were too dumb to get the concept. I'm too dumb to know when it's time to leave, otherwise i'd be where BlackVoid went .. somewhere else ...
> DBarberic - another one of these Slav guys with the treacherous steel trap minds? Asks tricky leading questions? Only this one's a maverick - reads politically suspect places like the Oil Drum and Financial Sense. Sounds like an iTuliper, but you can't be sure. He's one of those dangerous "free-thinkers" about enegy depletion, with that tiresome Lutheran perspective (me too - I'm seeing my shrink next week for some more meds to cure it!).
> Renewable - has the petrodollar thoroughly sussed out. Argues with Tet fruitlessly on the topic.
> ToddPW - like Renewable he's just downright unpatriotic in his assessment of what makes the dollar the world's rightful reserve currency. These guys will never pass muster in the US Army! They simply won't take any orders to think patriotically!
> Unlucky - people like him betting constantly and determinedly against the USD are making the Fed's job just harder and harder! Why won't they get in line and back the Fed, realising it's their duty as Americans? And who is that dreadful Ron Paul guy these subversives are backing?
> JohngaltFla - totally up to speed on the Gold question. This guy will be at the head of the que collecting payola because he figured out how, what, where, when and why to 'pick up his "paycheck" for having the wisdom and patience to wait.
> Spunky - Zoned out FOREX trader, probably collecting a nice payola. Guy is also thoroughly clued in on gold, like Grapejelly and JohngaltfFla. These guys are the ones that run circles around everyone else discussing "theory". They are very much "show me da payola" type guys.
> Outback Oracle - not to be confused with Sapiens, the Delphic Oracle - Outback is Aussie - so these guys are a pirate breed unto themselves. Probably some disreputable Mark Twain riverboat gambler with a software engineer's degree, stuck out in the middle of Alice Springs, central Australian high desert, looking to kickstart some disreputable Uranium company after walking away from a respectable restaurant biz.
> Vancouvergoinup!!! - Where'd that guy go? a fearless Vancouver housing bull among a bunch of (mostly American) jaded, sour-tempered housing bears ...
> Fred - he's the administrator? He's the guy that runs this place - tirelessly re-inserting pacifiers into the drooling, squawking gobs of all the over-grown babies who are periodically brawling around here (fair disclosure - includes me when I fall off my Kaiser health plan medications). This is not a very well behaved community unfortunately.
> E.J. - He's the guy who coughed up the big bucks to put this entire squalling community online. Nobody can figure out why he did it. Has been known to publish some rather dour prognistications regarding the US's future, including something best described as "crash forecasts"? He does not think we are going to come to a good end, so we are making merry and exchanging insights into our sorry plight in the meantime just to let the world know we are not as stupid as the Government and CNBC thought, and are fully aware of our impending fate.

As you see, there is so much noise going on here it's difficult to differentiate Sapiens from any of the other characters in this fractious community. Everyone's putting in their two cents. You get to pick and choose who you take seriously. When it comes to your wallet, as I can attest from this past week's miserable experience, at least that E.J. guy may be worth a read for some actionable updates.

[IMG]file:///C:/Program Files/Common Files/Microsoft Shared/Stationery/images/misc/progress.gif[/IMG]

Lukester, I did not read all this, but just looking at it makes me think you should ask your doctor to change your prescription from Ritalin to something that will simmer you down a bit. Perhaps if I catch up on things related to investment commentary, I'll come back and see all of what you think.

Once again I think I perceive a contradiction (last of your paragraphs) in your characterizations of what you call the "community." Previously it seems you were harping that "it" thought the same, and now you say "it" is "fractious." To me the people who make worthwhile contributions here all do so because of their independence in analyzing things.

One thing I think we all should continue to keep in mind is that probably someone is correct and others aren't. I think that is always the case when it comes to speculating about the future.

[hoodoo]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Lukester,

What a great way to start the day. Reading your personality assessement chart was a guilty pleasure akin to reading People Magazine when I wait for my appointment at the doctors office. Superb!

Hoodoo

[FRED]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

How about an email address where we can sent our objections to YouTube over the withdrawal?

Thanks, raja. Please send comments to copyright@youtube.com.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Billboard -

> Fred - he's the administrator? He's the guy that runs this place - tirelessly re-inserting pacifiers into the drooling, squawking gobs of all the over-grown babies who are periodically brawling around here (fair disclosure - includes me when I fall off my Kaiser health plan medications). This is not a very well behaved community unfortunately.

> E.J. - He's the guy who coughed up the big bucks to put this entire squalling community online. Nobody can figure out why he did it. Has been known to publish some rather dour prognistications regarding the US's future, including something best described as "crash forecasts"? He does not think we are going to come to a good end, so we are making merry and exchanging insights into our sorry plight in the meantime just to let the world know we are not as stupid as the Government and CNBC thought, and are fully aware of our impending fate.

To my understanding Fred is someone who works for EJ, and there is always confusion in my mind when Fred posts things, whether it is Fred't thinking or EJ's thinking. I personally do not like this situation if I am correct in characterizing it. If I am wrong, Fred or EJ should clarify the situation.

I have reason to believe EJ, I have no reason to believe Fred--because forever I have been confused as to whose thoughts were being posted when Fred is shown to be the poster. If I think Fred is posting something EJ wrote, then I believe it's worth considering. If for some reason I think it might actually be Fred's thoughts, then I wonder if it is worth considering--no offense meant, Fred. You should straighten this out. If Fred post's anything that is not his personal opinion, it should read posted for ?? by Fred.

I'll speculate on why EJ started and re-started iTulip. I think he is ego-driven to express himself regarding what is going on--and I fully condone such motivation as I think all good accomplishments are derived from individuals seeking to satisfy their egos. Howard Roark--The Fountainhead--being the fictional epitome.

Probably EJ has desired to try to help others from being trapped in the morass of bullshit information that comes out of Wall Street and all those who profit from the masses' ignorance about the investment world.

I think more recently it's possible that iTulip can be monetized into something resembling profit, and there is nothing wrong with that. Surely this is speculation on my part as I have no vague idea of what all this is costing or netting if anything. It shows perhaps how good ideas, regardless of what led to their initiation can prove to be of value--certainly of value to those who avail themselves of a lot of what shows up on iTulp and perhaps value in bonars to the originator. And I am not meaning to "kiss up" to EJ here.

[BillBoard]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Don't tell me I answered the wrong question. Not uncommonly do I do that--part of being an old fart.

Personally I think taking Sap. literally to even vaguely consider taking all one's wealth and putting it into currency and into your or anyone's elses safe is foolishness. That would not be true if one only had a few bonars, but then that wouldn't be important to begin with.

As much as I hate to trust anyone when it comes to money, in our US system I think you must gather the willpower to trust some entities to some degree.

It does not bother me at all to have my money in a Schwab money market fund, and I don't have a half million parked in even a treasury money market fund, just a regular basic money fund.

I hope I understood you question this time.

Jim i am sorry for not being clear, mea culpa for not being specific. i was able to wire my funds out, i think i will be fine. thank you.

[Andreuccio]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

> Andreuccio projects the image of one of those really smart well balanced guys with his feet planted firmly on the ground - sounds all-American - but his name sounds kinda foreign? An Eyetie I bet, so he can't be any good. They're all communists.

I love this! Thanks, Lukester.

You're right, the name is Italian, though I'm not. Andreuccio da Perugia is a relatively obscure character from Italian Literature who loses everything through stupidity but then learns to dominate his situation and profits in the end. My hero.

[Guest]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Andreuccio -

Perugia has a dark history. It's was a very old city-state, but it's medieval history is rife with intrigue, murder, dark deeds, wars with neighbors and general mayhem - far more than even the many other fractious medieval neighboring city-states. When you drive into it you can feel a palpable sense of dark foreboding lingering. Even modern day tourists remark on it, and it's legend among people living in central Italy.

It's polar opposite is Assisi, just a few Kilometers to the southeast. Founded by St. Francis, Assisi is the city of light, and just as palpably exhudes a sense of serenity and radiance. These two cities are commonly recognized to be polar opposites by both locals and modern day tourists who visit them.

Cortona, much smaller and northwards across the border into Southern Tuscany, is far older than even Perugia and Assisi - it was founded by the Etruscans in 800 - 1000 BC, and was a highly sophisticated and very wealthy city state during the era of Ulysses, who is said to have moved to Cortona from Greece in his final years and died there.

The foundation stones of the Cortona city walls, perched high up a mountain, are as large as mini-vans. No-one can figure out how the Etruscans hauled them up there.

The Etruscans had a very high civilization, with plumbing, aqueducts, very large scale farming and grain storage systems, and reputedly evolved into a very luxurious, even sybaritic aristocracy given to revelry all year long, sustained by a vast institutionalized system of slavery by subjugation of neighboring less civilized populations. There is obviously a certain darkness in Cortona's origins as well, as the Etruscans definitely have a dark and mysterious history. They leveraged mass slavery to attain a very high standard of living for the Etruscans themselves.

Anyway, be aware that any avatar you've selected associated with Perugia springs from a 'dark past' !!

Here's a photo looking down into the Val di Chiana Valley, central Italy's largest, from Cortona's main square. If you spend a week in this town you'll never want to leave it. It has a magnetic fascination in the air, a feeling of extremely ancient origins, which literally has you inventing excuses to delay your departure.

[Rajiv]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Talking about poetic - now this prose is poetic - "America’s Tomorrow" by Manuel Valenzuela

Burden on Those Yet to Come


Throughout human history certain patterns continue repeating themselves over and over again, becoming, if careful attention is paid to study them, a direct harbinger to what tomorrow’s cultures and societies will be like. The inevitability of what a future generation’s destiny will become is oftentimes discernable from the accumulated sins of the fathers that came before as well as those of the grandfathers that no longer exist, over years accruing and building upon each other until the future becomes the unstoppable rollercoaster birthed from the damage that was done in the past.

Tomorrow’s fate follows the path of the slow to evolve human condition and of our raw animalistic emotions and psychologies that have for millennia remained unchanged, following the same direction and trends, the same inability to change, though multiplied by advanced technologies, societal complexity, environmental stresses and increases in populations. It can be read buried inside the forgotten writings of historians and in the investigations of anthropologists, for the patterns endemic to our existence are bountiful, traversing oceans and continents, sparing no corner of human habitation, prevalent to all peoples and all times.

What we will become can be analyzed by studying the research of evolutionary psychologists and that of modern day zoologists. The patterns of our descendants can be deciphered examining the perpetual hierarchy of castes and the habitual social engineering of entire groups demonizing humankind for tens of thousands of years. It can be foretold by the never ending rule of peasants by the Establishment, the exploitation of the masses by the elite and by the willing, seemingly masochistic subservience of the many to the will of the few, as if authoritarian systems of governance are inbred into the human condition, making us mammals thriving on the suffering and heartache ingrained with being governed by tyrants and despots.

Human history, both biological and of civilization, – with its massive amounts of evidence left behind, accumulated and now known – does not lie, telling us the human condition has been a constant throughout time, following the psychologies, behaviors, emotions, culture, needs, wants and instincts that have walked with us since the genesis of humankind. Through the study of the past and of ourselves, therefore, our future can be deciphered and better understood. For what is the future but days yet to come built atop the accumulated ruins of the past, its lessons and errors and triumphs forgotten? What is the future but the heavy burden left behind by past generations whose complicity or failure to act passes on to those young or not yet born? What is the future but the accumulated knowledge of past civilizations imprisoned and silenced by our inability to know who and what we truly are, our denial and ego becoming the demons condemning us to perpetual years of unnecessary turmoil?

The future has yet to arrive, of course, its destiny having not yet been sealed in stone, but what is certain is that there exists a perpetual belief among humankind, in this modern age of greed, selfishness and comfort, that the problems or errors or sins of the present can be ignored and inherited to those yet to take the reigns of society. Every generation, it seems, places upon the next the heavy weight of a society’s ills, those hidden secrets we all know about but would rather not confront, in the misplaced assumption that the future will invariably be better equipped to confront the maladies of the past visiting the innocence of the future.

In this way, the present can relinquish the guilt of what they have endowed to the future, enabling selfish minds to return to their comfortable existence, continuing on the errors of their ways, thereby condemning tomorrow for the short-term satisfaction of today. Built upon the foundations of those now ash and dust, themselves leaving behind heaps of unresolved troubles, and continuing with those now made producers, consumers, serfs and sheeple, the sins, errors, gluttonous stupor and indifference of yesterday and today gather momentum, building a colossal wall, brick of indifference built atop brick of indifference, making blind the present, hindering views of the horizon, even as their behavior degenerates further and even as their actions further indebt America’s tomorrow.

Ultimately, the weight of burdens and ills left behind by the past and present becomes an unbearable responsibility for those yet innocent and unborn who are placed in the indelible position of having to somehow make right what has for years been made wrong. The accumulation of past errors, indifference and acquiescence becomes so heavy, containing so much volume and momentum, that inevitably the dam containing and hiding the indifferences of times past breaks, flooding tomorrow with an unfixed and untreatable destiny. As such, one day in the not too distant future the remnants of times past will arrive to overtake our achievements and triumphs and virtues, swallowing our children with the inherited affliction not of their own making. The vicious cycle will continue, inevitably leading humankind to the precipice of its own destruction.

[Rajiv]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Some real poetry this time from "MYTHIFYING MARKETS AND MYSTIFIYING THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE FINANCIAL CRISIS"

Well the first rule of the market is don’t panic
And the second rule is you should panic first
‘Cause if everybody panics at the same time
Then the whole damn stock exchange is gonna burst

This is the game of the market
Where everybody’s maximizing profit
Money changes hands by the dictates of demand
Well it’s stupid, yes, but no…….body can stop it

Listen to selected tracks from the In Debt We Trust soundtrack

[Tet]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Some real poetry this time from "MYTHIFYING MARKETS AND MYSTIFIYING THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE FINANCIAL CRISIS"



Listen to selected tracks from the In Debt We Trust soundtrack

The one who panic's first, panic's best.

[raja]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Thanks, raja. Please send comments to copyright@youtube.com.

This link goes to the YouTube website, but I think you may have meant it to be an email address.

That's where I sent my protest . . . and YT responded saying they received it and would look at it later.

[raja]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Raja is Mr. Rational - pesky guy who always wants to nail the logical issue down to the floor with screwed down lag bolts. His avatar is gambling dice but I get the sense he's the last person here to gamble on anything? I bet he's an accountant, the way he talks about bonds.

Aw shucks . . . .
I am flattered by your characterization of me as Mr. Rational.
And, it's true that those who persist in irrationality find me "pesky", as I relentlessly reveal their foggy logic with my incisive reasoning.;)

You're way off on the accountant bet, though . . . .
I've been an entrepreneur all my life, and was the publisher of an alternative health magazine for 11 years. I like bonds . . . well . . . because after rational analysis they are the most rational investment choice in today's volatile environment . . . along with some gold and currency options

[Guest]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

Raja - Yes, the identi-kit was hastily drawn, so imperfect. I missed your risk profile by a mile it seems.

What do you think of my Rajiv profile though? Not bad, eh? Metaphorically speaking, Rajiv seems happiest when he's climbed to the top of a three hundred foot redwood to get a better view of what's approaching over the horizon.

[dbarberic]

Re: What do any of you think of Sapiens posts

DBarberic - another one of these Slav guys with the treacherous steel trap minds? Asks tricky leading questions? Only this one's a maverick - reads politically suspect places like the Oil Drum and Financial Sense. Sounds like an iTuliper, but you can't be sure. He's one of those dangerous "free-thinkers" about enegy depletion, with that tiresome Lutheran perspective (me too - I'm seeing my shrink next week for some more meds to cure it!).

Wow - I'm shocked that anyone actually cared enough about my postings to actually analyze my iTulip personality. When I started reading the list I didn't even think I'd make it on there with the few postings that I do.

Now I just have to figure out what "Slav" means (Slovakian????)..... what really is a "treacherous steel trap mind".... what is the tiresome "Lutheran" perspective (pardon my ignorance but I'm Catholic).... and is this analysis actually an insult in disguise.... ?