Merry Christmas, everyone

Ahhh priori...take the run of people...on average, having a 'pile" skews the workd view into focus even for a Couch.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 21:41:45 -0800, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 09:26:59 +0700, John B.
wrote:

I think that you generalize.

Yep. There are exceptions to every rule. However, I did not propose
a rule that covers all situations and individuals. I merely said:

"What I do that's different and possibly unique is ask "Why
did they do that?" or "What were they thinking?" My basic
assumption is that the rich and powerful are mostly interested
in getting more rich and more powerful, which suggests that
most everything is motivated by these goals. Those at the
other end of the social and economic scale, are mostly
interested in keeping what little they have and not losing
ground."

Yep, that's fairly general, but sufficient for my purpose, which is
asking myself why the rich and powerful did this or that. If I drill
deep enough into motivations, money usually floats to surface first,
followed by power, and then perhaps an entertaining conspiracy theory.
That's roughly what I did with my revised version of religious
history, where attached money or power as the inspiration for many
events.

If we remove money and power as the prime movers of religious
innovation, what's left? Not much methinks.

Some of the U.S. top family fortunes date
back 200 years, or more. The DuPont family fortune, of $14.5 billion,
dates to 1802 and the 10th place dates to 1873: The Haas family, with
a mere $3.7 billion. In Europe the Rothschild family established
finance houses across Europe from the 18th century.

Sure. At some amount, the accumulated wealth becomes a perpetual
motion machine. However, it's nothing intrinsic in money or power.
It's simply that at some point, one is able to afford the services of
a profession influence peddler, who arranges legislation to favor the
wealthy individual, company, or family. If you read the US IRS Tax
Code (all 70,000 pages), you'll find some really complex requirements
for deductions, exclusions, and refunds. These are intended to give
exactly one individual or company a personalized tax break, since only
they meet all the requirements stated in the tax code.

But influence is, and has been, a part of every political system ever
devised. In fact one might even say it is part of human nature. After
all how many individuals did you assume would be benefited by your
influencing that cute young thing to marry you?

But you are correct in that "Old Money" does view money in a different
manner than the Hoy palloi who seem to think that money is something
to be spent while the creed of the Boston Brahmins is "Never touch the
capital".

One of my wealthy customers comment on Black Monday (Oct 19, 1987)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_(1987)
when the stock market lost about 25% of value overnight was "No
problem. I'm not using that money right now". Somehow, I suspect we
may have had a different perspective of the value and use of money.

When I was working I felt much the same about some of my investments.
"O.K., so they are down a bit, I'm not using it right now".
Unfortunately it is a bit different now that I'm retired.
--
cheers,

John B.

On 12/31/2016 12:41 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
If I drill
deep enough into motivations, money usually floats to surface first,
followed by power, and then perhaps an entertaining conspiracy theory.
That's roughly what I did with my revised version of religious
history, where attached money or power as the inspiration for many
events.

If we remove money and power as the prime movers of religious
innovation, what's left? Not much methinks.

In modern culture, that may be the case. But at least some sources hint
it may not always have been true.

I believe it was _A History of God_ by Armstrong that claimed that for
hundreds of years, theological debate was very prominent in the public's
interest. The way she described it, it sounded like theology and its
arguments were as important as today's sports events and Monday morning
quarterbacking.

In fact, it may be that modern obsession with money and power is as much
a historic anomaly as is the automobile. I suspect that most cultures
throughout history were closer to the attitudes of the Amish than to the
attitudes of possession-obsessed Americans.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 12/31/2016 9:20 AM, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 12/31/2016 12:41 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
If I drill
deep enough into motivations, money usually floats to
surface first,
followed by power, and then perhaps an entertaining
conspiracy theory.
That's roughly what I did with my revised version of
religious
history, where attached money or power as the inspiration
for many
events.

If we remove money and power as the prime movers of religious
innovation, what's left? Not much methinks.

In modern culture, that may be the case. But at least some
sources hint it may not always have been true.

I believe it was _A History of God_ by Armstrong that
claimed that for hundreds of years, theological debate was
very prominent in the public's interest. The way she
described it, it sounded like theology and its arguments
were as important as today's sports events and Monday
morning quarterbacking.

In fact, it may be that modern obsession with money and
power is as much a historic anomaly as is the automobile. I
suspect that most cultures throughout history were closer to
the attitudes of the Amish than to the attitudes of
possession-obsessed Americans.


There is a wide body of work with a decidedly different
conclusion:

http://www.alibris.com/Banking-and-B...925?matches=11

As with any group of humans, small or large, ancient or
modern, we are an inherently diverse lot; ponderers,
mystics, strivers and whiners all mixed together.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 7:56:50 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 1:51:03 AM UTC, Doug Landau wrote:
On Sunday, December 25, 2016 at 5:26:39 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Monday, December 26, 2016 at 1:10:58 AM UTC, jbeattie wrote:
On Sunday, December 25, 2016 at 4:18:10 PM UTC-8, Andre Jute wrote:
On Sunday, December 25, 2016 at 4:21:30 AM UTC, Ralph Barone wrote:
Jeff Liebermann wrote:

Thanks. Bah Humbug and happy first evening of Hanukkah to y'all.


Merry Kwanzmas to you too Jeff!

Oops. Kwanzaa is a fraudulent "African" holiday invented by the FBI agent provocateur Maulana Ndabezitha Karenga (born Ronald McKinley Everett) whose instructions were to make the Black Power movement overreact so much that they would become a laughing stock to Americans. As it turned out, Americans had no sense of irony and took this crap so seriously that now it is a thought crime to make jokes about it.

I remember sitting around a campfire in Kenya with a bunch of Swahili askari (guards for a food convoy I was running through hostile country to the famished), having a whole hilarious evening when one of them brought up Kwanzaa within no more than a couple of years of its invention; it was the first time I heard of it. Since the very word is Swahili, you can imagine how this invention went down with the very people it was supposed to "honor". Any bureaucrat who told them to celebrate Kwanzaa instead of Christmas, as schoolchildren are now forced to do in America, would have walked funny for a long time because they would have shoved their rifles up an uncomfortable place at the very suggestion of such silliness.


My son was literally placed in shackles, his eyelids taped open and made to witness Kwanzaa celebrations in public school here in the US. His liberal, lesbian communist teachers also made him memorize passages from Chairman Mao's Red Book and renounce Christianity. Jesus wept. I heard about his capture and commanded my Seal Team unit -- Seal Team 6.2 -- to join me in storming the school to retrieve my son and the other suffering, imprisoned students. We deployed in our black helicopter gun ship (on whisper mode), repelled on to the playground, and my team laid down covering fire while I ran into the building and saved the children. One teacher tried to attack me, and I dispatched her with a piece of chalk from the blackboard -- like a Ninja throwing star, but chalk. The mission was successful and is fully recounted in my book "The Kwanzaa Conspiracy," which has sold internationally and received the 2007 Dunning-Kruger book award.

-- Jay Beattie.

Gee, it's rough where you live, Jay. I thought this liberal/Democratic madness was still in it's mild form:
"The new clergy not only teach children clever repartee such as Bush is like Hitler!, but they use their positions as taxpayer-supported wards of the state to demote the old religion, treating prayer, Bibles, and Christmas songs like hate crimes. At the Cori Street Elementary School in State College, Pennsylvania, children were led in a chant of "celebrate Kwanzaa" while Christmas carols were stripped of all religious content. At Pattison Elementary School in Katy, Texas, Christmas songs were banned, but students were threatened with grade reductions for refusing to sing songs celebrating other religious faiths. A school district in California prohibits teachers from mentioning Christmas or wearing Christmas jewelry. A New Jersey teacher was forced by an ACLU suit to abandon plans to take children to see the Broadway version of A Christmas Carol. In Panama City, Florida, the school principal changed the name of a Bible study group from "Fellowship of Christian Students" to "Fellowship of Concerned Students" and for good measure prohibited the club from advertising. A school administrator in Dallas, Texas, was reprimanded for using her e-mail to forward copies of President Bush's National Day of Prayer Proclamation, though the school district had no problem with em- ployees using e-mail to send jokes, chain e-mails, and secular messages of
encouragement." -- Ann Coulter, GODLESS

Man, is she -UGLY-

I suppose tastes differ. I noticed her that quality of her mind and wit, not her appearance.

There is very little courtesy here because there are far too many people that have been taught that they are losers. And most don't even know where it came from.