Go evil.

Miscellaneous General
1

Warning: this is the result of an incredible amount of nihilism I’ve been feeling recently. I mainly wanted to vent.

What if I just threw caution to the winds and cashed in on all the bozo antics in the world? Instead of being an idealogue, I go take my math degree and work for the NSA or some other plum government job. I might help build the next better bomb, or find the optimal points to place nukes in Iran; but who cares, I’ll get paid $100k+.

Then go live in a gated community or “give charitable contributions” to the local government to “make sure I’m well-protected”.

As for investing…

I’ll compile three lists.

(1) Corporations that give the largest political campaign contributions/spend the most on lobbying.

(2) Corporations that receive the largest amount of their money from governments.

(3) Industries with the most regulations.

I then split my investment money among corporations that are in all three lists. There’s no way they’ll ever go bankrupt, they’ll win any lawsuit thrown against them, and they make mega-money during any boom time and get bailed out during any bust. Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Boeing, Northrop Grumann, McDonnel Douglass, Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Blackwater, JPMorgan and Chase, Bank of America, Wellpoint Inc., Pricewaterhouse Coopers, AT&T, Verizon, etc. would be at the top of my list.

And warning people about bubbles and stuff like that? Hell no. I’ll short them. Short Australian real estate. Short Japan (200% of GDP? Yeah, like that’ll last). Take the top 3 most highly indebted countries in the world. Short them. Find the countries that print the most money, and look for bubbles there.

Then to top it all off, I’ll do like Scrooge McDuck and make a giant tower filled with gold/silver to swim in and stop caring about the rest of the world.

2

I don’t understand why that’s evil, it just sounds intelligent to me. If you think you know a smart way to play the game, play it that way.

3

If getting a giant tower filled with gold/silver to swim in is that easy, it would be evil not to do it.

4

“If getting a giant tower filled with gold/silver to swim in is that easy, it would be evil not to do it.”

Lol seconded.

5

Seems to me you don’t understand the nature of short selling…

6

Then to top it all off, I’ll do like Scrooge McDuck and make a giant tower filled with gold/silver to swim in and stop caring about the rest of the world.

LOL!!! That show was the best! I always wanted to dive into gold coins with Scrooge, so maybe I’ll join you in being evil.

7

You can’t actually swim around in coins. You would break your neck.

8

Oh come on, why did you ruin all the fun :stuck_out_tongue:

9

Doing the most sensible and rational thing is not evil. In fact, not doing it is the same as a broke and unemployed libertarian not accepting welfare, and a libertarian single-mom not using the public school (assuming its a decent school where the gains outweigh the costs). If you need to suck on the tits of the state then do it, it will quicken the demise of the state. Not doing it means you are subsidizing the state by helping the system to work.

Although you also shouldn’t go to the extreme and be a corrupt politician.

10

Someone please let me know how to stop my conscience from nagging me and eating away at my soul. I try to blot it all out with sex, drugs, and overwork.

11

How else to actually make an impact, besides planting bombs at buildings and assassinating heads of State? The only time anarchists appear in State approved textbooks is when they’re literally destroying Statist establishments.

Violating NAP in order to establish it doesn’t necessarily make you non-libertarian anarchist. It just makes you practical.

The world is based on relationships of not only voluntary cooperation, but also on countering force with force.

12

Fephisto: I would just like to point out that shorting countries with bubbles is different from investing in rent-seeking corporations in the sense that shorting a bubble is actually good. You are in a sense imputing your knowledge of the bubble into the value of the asset, making economic calculation more efficient.

See Art Carden’s ‘Short Selling: Explanation and Defense’ in misesmedia

Cognitivist: I don’t think investing in rent-seeking corporations, staying in rent-controlled apartments, taking food stamps, and sending children to public school (assuming its a net positive, in some cases its not) is violating the NAP. Some bum is gonna do it anyway, so better a libertarian.

Now, if you become a politician and be corrupt in order to donate to mises.org, then that’s wrong because you create a vested interest in the state and it implies that everyone should be able to do it. Since everybody can’t be part of the mafia, then that clearly doesn’t work.

13

It is not all about money. It has also been scientifially proven that goal and purpose is more importaint for preformance of complex tasks as long as you get enough money for it to be comfortable.

Personally I could never work for the government because the knowledge that I am not actually achiving anything but destruction with my life would not be very fulfilling. Also I despise the people in such jobs, the corporate culture of inneffeciency in state owned enterprise and a bunch of other stuff that would make the good protion of my life I would spend at such a job utterly dreadfull. On top of they they also pay low wages compared to the private sector. There are of course exception I would consider working for a government university as long as academic freedom is somewhat guaranteed.

I would much rather have job with co-workers that i enjoy and doing something that seems meaningfull and fun in an effecient enviroment.

Since someone mentioned taking welfare from the government I would agree that it is just stupid to refuse it. Take as much as you can because they will steal from you and the people who voted for it want to give you there money. But who wants to live on welfare? A government job is different cause you are actually contributing to the state and it does effect where and how you have to spend your time.

Short-selling is fine. Buying government bonds and shit not so much though, it is also a bad investment.

14

I remember a graph somewhere showing how (if you include all benefits), public workers in the US now receive on average more than double the remuneration of private sector workers.

15

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Ring any bells?

16

I remember a graph somewhere showing how (if you include all benefits), public workers in the US now receive on average more than double the remuneration of private sector workers.

Here in Sweden at least they get lousy wages and everyone get the same benefits … private consultants doing jobs for the government though that is a different matter.

17

You can’t actually swim around in coins. You would break your neck.

That’s what my brother said. Stop trying to dash my dreams with common sense! :slight_smile:

18

The graph comparing government workers’ to productive workers’ pay is shown in the documentary ‘Meltup’. It’s uploaded in youtube if anybody wants to watch it.