Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Money Matters

  • Death Spiral States

    Do you live in a death spiral state?  Buying real estate or municipal bonds in such a state may prove to be a foolish move.  Here is a list with each state's 'taker ratio':  Ohio 1.0 Hawaii 1.02 Illinois 1.03 Kentucky 1.05 South Carolina 1.06 New York 1.07 Maine 1.07 Alabama 1.10 California 1.39 Mississippi…

  • Why We are Headed for a Fiscal Cliff

    A short video.  It explains the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending and why not even mandatory spending is covered by tax revenues.  Mandatory spending comprises the entitlements and the interest on the national debt.  A balanced budget is not possible given the way the government is currently structured.  A re-design is needed.  It must…

  • Left, Right, and Debt

    A reader writes, " I enjoy your philosophical and theological views, but unfortunately disagree with your political and economic views.  I recommend large doses of Paul Krugman, beginning with Nobody Understands Debt. " I got a kick out of that because I should think that the febrile Krugman  is absolutely the last person to convince me of anything.  I…

  • Why are People So Easy to Swindle?

    People are so easy to swindle because the swindler has as accomplices the victim's own moral defects.  When good judgment and moral sense are suborned by lust or greed or sloth or vanity or anger, the one swindled participates willingly in his own undoing.  In the end he swindles himself. How is it, for example, that…

  • A Letter from the Ukraine on the Morality of Stock and Currency Trading

    I have been following your blog with great interest for a couple of years now and I feel honored knowing that there are people like yourself on this planet in our times. I live in the Ukraine and represent the post-soviet cultural enviroment where philosophy has been practically persecuted and distorted by Marxists. I have…

  • Conservatism, Religion, and Money-Grubbing

    This from a reader in Scotland: I'm a first year undergraduate philosophy student with some very muddled political views. My father has always been a staunch supporter of the Left to the point of being prejudiced against all things on the conservative or Right side as 'religious' and 'money grubbing' . I never questioned any…

  • A Sucker is Born Every Minute

    And so is a hustler.  Before you rush out and buy Richard Lustig's book about winning the lottery, ask yourself a simple question: why is this guy hawking a book if he has the winning lottery method?  Writing a book is a lot more work than buying lottery tickets.  His surname smacks of an aptronym:…

  • Tip-Skimming: Say it Ain’t So, Mario

    If Mario Batali was really involved in tip-skimming, then he's a bum.  I enjoy waiting on the occasional guest I allow into my house, but to have to make a living from such work is not an appetizing prospect.  So I always tip properly when I am out.  For some reason, pretty girls bring out…

  • State-Run Casinos

    If state-run lotteries are a bad idea, as I have argued, then state-run casinos are even worse.  But they are starting to pop up.  Moral rot is at the root of all other rot.  Overextended abroad, collapsing within, how long can we last?  Bread and circuses are the people's pablum supplied by a government whose power…

  • Europe Stares into the Abyss

    Here.  Excerpt: From the foreign perspective, the situation is clear: Rescuing the euro depends on Germany, which merely has to abandon its resistance to pooling debt. But this sort of "liability union" would not only contradict the so-called no-bailout clause of the European treaties, under which no euro-zone country can be held liable for the…

  • Best to be Neither Poor nor Rich

    The poor think only of their poverty, the rich of their wealth.  The few exceptions prove the rule.

  • The Lottery Player

    Those who play lotteries, by the very fact that they play, demonstrate the irrationality and lack of financial understanding that in many cases would ruin them were they so 'lucky' as to win.  And yet people persist in the illusion that everything would be fine if a huge sum of money were suddenly dumped on…

  • More on Why Social Security is not Insurance

    John Stossel, here: Twice the government has argued before the Supreme Court that Social Security is not insurance. In 1960, Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Arthur Sherwood Flemming submitted a brief to the courts stating: "The contribution exacted under the Social Security plan is a true tax. It is not comparable to a premium promising…

  • Is Social Security Insurance?

    (This first appeared on the predecessor blog on 15 April 2005.) Many supporters of the current Social Security system claim that it is a form of insurance. (See AARP Bulletin, April 2005, p. 38) I would  like to ask these supporters some questions. (Q1) If SS is a form of insurance, what eventuality does it…

  • Are We in a Gold Bubble?

    The housing bubble, the education bubble, the gold bubble?  Here is some good analysis.