Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Money Matters

  • Bitcoin?

    You first. I'll presume it fraudulent until it is proven not. Here: Bitcoin is an old fashioned fraud clothed in the new age wonder of technology. Promoting bitcoin is not so much about a new asset class as its is a class of felony, yet civil authorities have so far been unwilling to shut it…

  • Ten Political-Economic Theses

    Here are ten theses to which I subscribe in the critical way of the philosopher, not the dogmatic way of the ideologue. 1.  There is nothing wrong with money.  It is absolutely not the root of all evil.  The most we can say is that the inordinate desire for money is at the root of some evils.  I develop this theme in Radix…

  • Compound Interest

    Either you pay it, or it pays you.

  • Poverty and Plenty

    Material plenty allows the leisure to contemplate one's moral and intellectual and spiritual poverty. So money, far from being the root of all evil, is often conducive, and sometimes necessary, for the uprooting of some evils. Related: Radix Omnium Malorum. This is one of my best entries. It definitively refutes the widespread notion that money…

  • Why Budget?

    I have never made a budget in my life. Never having made one, I have never had to adhere to one. The budgeter is involved in a negative enterprise: he essays to control and curtail spending. He allocates so much money for this, and so much for that, and strives to stick to his limits.…

  • Prediction

    If Hillary wins, the price of guns and ammo will soar.  So buy now. 'Lead' is a good investment. The wise hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

  • Health and Money

    Although their presence is insufficient for happiness, their absence  is sufficient for misery.

  • What Should You Do in the Aftermath of the ‘Brexit’ Vote?

    First off, hats off!  to the Brits, or at least to those of their number who voted Leave.   But now what should we do financially speaking?  Expect turmoil in the markets.  The stock market was down when I checked it a few hours ago.  But gold  and other precious metals were up.  Good news…

  • You Say You Want Money Out of Politics?

    You say you want money out of politics? But of course you understand that running political campaigns costs money.  What you object to is the buying of influence.  What you object to are candidates who will do the bidding of their deep-pocketed donors, whether corporate or individual.  Now along comes Donald Trump who funds himself…

  • The Opium of the Redistributionists

    If religion is the opium of the masses, then OPM is the opium of the redistributionist. Bernie Sanders, the superannuated socialist, "and his wife, Jane, paid an effective tax rate of 13.5 percent, or $27,653 in federal taxes on an adjusted gross income of $205,271." This is for 2014.  That is less than Mitt Romney…

  • Boston, a Great Town to be Young in, but . . .

    Fond are the memories of my years in  Boston as a graduate student in the mid-70s, '73-'78 to be exact, with a year off to study in Freiburg im Breisgau of Husserl and Heidegger fame.  Even after securing a tenure-track post in the Midwest in '78 I would return to Boston in the summers, '79-'81.…

  • Lottery Winnings as Ill-Gotten Gains?

    Suppose you win big in a state-sponsored lottery.  The money was extracted via false advertising from ignorant rubes and is being transferred by a chance mechanism to one who has done nothing to deserve it. Besides, you are complicit in the state-sponsorship of gambling, which is clearly wrong.  The state-sponsorship, not the gambling.  There is…

  • Do You Get What You Pay For?

    Sometimes.  Other times you are charged what you can afford.  Adding to the problem is that we often do not pay directly for goods and services.  A third party picks up the tab, an insurance company, or an employer.  No wonder my dentist and primary care physician like to see me so often.  No wonder I…

  • The Monetary Criterion

    When are people serious?  When money is involved — their money. My mind drifts back to faculty meetings in which half-listening colleagues doodled and dozed.  But when salary considerations came to the table, the dullest among them pricked up their ears. Suddenly they became sharp and serious.

  • The Additivity of Small Amounts of Money

    He who is penny-foolish will also be pound-foolish.