All that is fine other than the "lower" part. What is the criterion for "higher" and "lower"? I can't speak for PS, but I'm guessing "higher" and "lower" was meant in the economic sense, e.g. forgoing an area of "high-status" BMW 7-series ...

Slowly I'm coming to realize that I'm basically a class traitor. I am naturally a member of this elite class, and I happily benefit from the economic opportunities it affords me, but I don't like living in the kinds of societies it creates--fast-paced, exhausting, stratified, expensive, obsessed wi...

But she does have the blessing of the mass media.  Their "votes" count for a lot. Have you noticed that every published photo of Trump tries to make him look as bad as possible?  It's obvious the media doesn't like him, and that may even be quite understandable, but I'm thoroughly disgust...

The multiculturalism boat has sailed. We decided to be a multicultural society before there even was a United States of America, when the first African slaves were brought to this continent. American multiculturalism continued when the federal government failed to commit complete and total genocide...

But however we got here, we have a multi-ethnic society, and I think you have to tailor solutions to that reality.  I don't see how you can possibly talk about transforming a multi-ethnic society into an all-white society without the discussion turning dark pretty quickly. America has not yet "...

One of the things that made it so great was the diversity of cultures there, and the ability to experience them easily.  You could go down to Chinatown for dim sum lunch, or to Little Italy for late night coffee, the Ukrainian area on the east side, etc. The above arrangement sounds more like Apart...

These Americans want a kind of freedom—a freedom to hate. They want the freedom to use words like “nigger,” “kike,” “spic,” “chink,” “raghead” and “fag.” They want the freedom to idealize violence and the gun culture. They want the freedom to have enemies, to physically assault Muslims, undocumente...

Last paragraph, with which I agree wholeheartedly. There is only one way left to blunt the yearning for fascism coalescing around Trump. It is to build, as fast as possible, movements or parties that declare war on corporate power, engage in sustained acts of civil disobedience and seek to reintegr...

If only GTU had held out for a few more months the fund would likely be selling at a premium now, invalidating Sprott's under-performance claim.  What a shame.

Sorry if that all seems complicated.  When you try to talk about the flaws of our current tax-code and the benefits of one going forward, you essentially need to say WHY the current complications need to go rather than talking about "a few brackets" and getting rid of "some deduction...

Sorry if that all seems complicated.  When you try to talk about the flaws of our current tax-code and the benefits of one going forward, you essentially need to say WHY the current complications need to go rather than talking about "a few brackets" and getting rid of "some deduction...

You might look into PEO as well.  Been around since 1929 and currently trades at a 16% discount.  The discount, however, has been persistent and a decade ago stood at ~8%, but a sudden reversal of fortunes in the energy sector could cause it to narrow.  Fees, at 0.63%, are good for a CEF but a middl...

Still holding GTU as I'm not sure how long it will take Sprott to assimilate Gold Trust.  The discount has narrowed from when I bought in at ~9% (it's now 1.5% last I'd checked) so I'm already ahead, but it is possible we could see a premium given the recent worries in foreign markets.  While a prem...

The other day the wife and I were calculating alternative allowances in the IRS's W4 worksheet.  Like many others, after a certain point I stood back astonished at how ridiculous the entire federal income tax system is.  "Allowances", "Annual Gross Income", "Marriage Status&...

That's moving the discussion from a citizen's dividend to immigration policies. A country could decide to implement the first while maintaining strict immigration standards - Denmark is very good to citizens and it's very hard to immigrate there. The two are intrinsically linked.  The meaning of ci...

Why don't you think it would happen?  I'm not necessarily in disagreement, but I'm curious why some folks are so positive that model would be rejected by either citizens or agents of the state would reject a model like that. A life-boat is only so big.  Most of the world's ~7 billion people live ou...

OpenBSD here.  Excellent book is available for learning the system inside and out.

In every respect in every fucking way, we are better off on every measurement than 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000, 10000 years ago. Ironically, the dogmatic temporal-parochialism underlying progressivism is itself founded on an act of faith.  Were there less ICBMs a hundred years ago?  Was there more open, ...

A highly relevant comment: It would also be fruitful to examine whether the subjects students are studying correlates with their enthusiasm for this kind of activism. My hypothesis would be that students are far more likely to sign on to this kind of social status-seeking hysteria when they begin t...

Topic: Does no one care that Turkey shot down a Russian plane today?

The gold market seemed to.

[The biggest problem I have with the PP is the same reason I don't short the S&P 500 or bet the "don't pass" line in craps -- simply I want to be an optimist.  For the PP to outperform the S&P500, bad things have to happen to the world.  I understand that may be inevitable, but I ...

Actually the dividend is like that housing you invested in saying here we can't rent the living room so here is the money back you paid for the living room portion. In effect those dollars they give you are dollars you had the day before the adjustment  , they are just giving you back your own mone...

Ben Graham used dividends as a sort of window into a company's quality.  From "Intelligent Investor": 4. Dividend Record .  One of the most persuasive tests of high quality is an uninterrupted record of dividend payments going back over many years.  We think that a record of continuous div...

Colored and subjective personal observations follow: The Near East Muslims I've encountered possessed no familiarity with chivalry.  None.  Not even a shred.  The authoritative medieval textbook on chivalry, "Romance of the Rose", apparently did not spread its influence to this people.  Ra...

I dunno PS.  My track record of picking winners goes way back.  I'm the Mathjak of presidential predictions! Hillary is a shoe-in. Trump will repel too many people.  Eventually one of the others will emerge as the tallest midget.  It's probably no coincidence that in presidential election years I s...