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That all aside, let us consider the facts.
"the stock market has rebounded to record levels and more Americans than ever are participating in these markets. "
As Objectivists are consumate economists, it should be obvious to all that the stock market is fueled right now by inflation, not by real growth. Americans are dumping their dollars for anything, the way that Brazilians used to put their "savings" in radios and refrigerators. Right now the price of gold is at $668 and silver is at $13. Do you imagine that is because more people are having their teeth filled?
Pick a random rightwing goldbug blog.
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_03/wallenwein072603.html
"They can sell the 316 billion reserve dollars they racked up by running their trade surplus with the US - for euros.
When the Chinese sell dollars and buy euros, the euro will rise against the dollar."
-- July 26, 2003
Today, May 14, the euro is at $1.35. (So gold is at €493. ) Relative to the euro, the yen, etc., the "performance" of gold (so-called) is not that spectacular. Relative the dollar, the facts are the facts: A is A.
... gas prices are high because there's increased demand in other parts of the world, and because a small handful of noisy idiots are more worried about polar bears and beachfront property than your economic security. ...
Granted, again, that gasoline prices are rising relative to the dollar because the dollar is weak. However, the second part of that about the polar bears is a non-sequitar. I remember... Like Winston Smith, I remember that the Alaska Pipleline was supposed to make America independent of foreign oil. Yet, at the same time, I also know that the bogeyman of "foreign oil" is a conservative shibboleth. As capitalists, Objectivists know that world peace is causally effected by world trade.
It is important that we Objectivists remain clear on the distinction between the wahabbi terrorists who followed Ussma bin Laden and the state of Iraq which was -- was not; was; was not -- the catspaw of Washington D.C.'s war against Iran... against Iraq... against Iran... Bismark and von Moltke would be confortable with the present world situation: they would understand it. So, too, would have Pope Julian II, or Charles V, or Tallyrand or Demetrius Poliorketes. This has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with chess pieces on a world sized board.
You're incapable of seeing things through the long lens of history, the way our enemies do.
They were not my enemies until Dubya made them so. I am a capitalist and a good merchent never argues religion with his client... even as he avoids the sanction of the victim. More to the point, "our" enemies did not go to American universities, so they have absolute moral codes and they live and die by their understanding of right and wrong, whereas our post modern governmentalist stupidity factories have disarmed us intellectually and sliced our prefrontal lobes into free-floating masses of cells with their cultural, moral, epistemological and metaphysical relativism.
... At least they seem to have done that the vast majority of "us." Objectivsts are not fooled.
A is A.
This Dubya Shrugging was really Mr. Thompson's swan song as he hands over the reigns of control to Dr. Floyd Ferris and Cuffy Meigs: Dr. Candolezza Rice and Dick Cheney.
(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 5/14, 8:46pm)
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