A planet at the brink

[Fiat Currency]

Re: A planet at the brink

Regarding this article, it gets me to thinking that we need a new religion, a new "bible", a new ten commandments, in essence, a new set of guiding principles on which to re-base society.

Maybe we could start with 2 of my favourites ...

"The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life." - Henry Ford

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

[leegs]

Re: A planet at the brink

Terrific article, thanks for sharing. I need duct tape to keep my head from exploding everytime I venture onto iTulip. The breadth of topics and wealth of knowledge and opinions here is sometimes, literally, overwhelming.

Well said! I agree completely.

When my father lost his job in 1973, he sold our upper class home and all of our nice toys and belongings. He bought a travel trailer and stuffed our family of five into a camp ground for over a year. For 6 months, he went fishing with us every day after school. We had no luxuries, but, at 14 years old at the time, those are my fondest memories of growing up. Families and children don't need expensive toys and lots of money to have a great life. They need each other and an appreciation for what they have.

That's a cool story. Thanks for sharing it.

Regarding this article, it gets me to thinking that we need a new religion, a new "bible", a new ten commandments, in essence, a new set of guiding principles on which to re-base society. The church has been great, but has lost much credibility. Not that many of the core principles aren't credible, just that the whole tradition doesn't seem to have kept pace with society, and you don't get the impression that the best and brightest thinkers are running the show at this point.

Unfortunately, there seem to be so few "givens" and so many issues and beliefs open to interpretation and opinion. How would one even know where to start? It sure seems like we should all have a core set of science/fact based beliefs at this stage, but hell, we don't even have agreement on creationism or not, abortion or not, sexual orientation or not, global warming or not, and a whole host of other issues. I wish we could use that ol' IQ helmet to staff a Supreme Court-like council of elders to tackle some of these tough questions and provide us thruth and wisdom on which to base our actions, our laws, our signposts for a life properly lived. You know, kinda like the way we look to EJ for tomorrow's price of a barrel of oil.;) Not exactly, but you know what I mean.

I can't go along with this, at least for myself. If one needs some rules, what's wrong with the existing 10 commandments? What more is necessary? Why does anyone need some council to tell them what to believe on creationism, sexual orientation, etc. I frankly can not see ANY relationship between the core values of how to treat one's fellows and how to be happy in a sincere and sensible way, and those issues. All those issues are dreamed up by the religion power structure to keep people distracted so that they continue to subscribe to the structure.

[flintlock]

Re: A planet at the brink

Not to sound insensitive but they went to the craps table, rolled some unlucky sevens and eventually "craped out". It is what it is.

Are we supposed to feel sorry for them? The same type of guys(ego- driven) that can't shut up when they hit winners and are typically the loudest guys in the bar?

At least he did the honorable thing and elected not to take any innocent bystanders with him.

That, I can respect.

Oh, I agree completely. I don't particularly feel bad for the guy. Especially after mentioning it to another college friend who knew him. He told said he had met the guy and he was a real dick to him.

These guys played the bigshot with borrowed money for decades before it all caught up to them. Sorry, but if you can afford a 50 acre spread with a mansion, barn, huge gate, etc, perhaps you can afford to actually reinvest some of those profits back into your company instead of spending every last dime on shit like that.

It's the blow to the ego they can't handle. Its not the money. That guy probably still had a higher net worth than I do, even after the business bankruptcy. But they've so wrapped up who they are in money that they probably don't want to live without it. Pretty cowardly way out really.