How did Sgrena get sprung? When will Buffett stop droning? Will Hawkeyes phone home? Get all the answers, in Reason Express.
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rich toscano|3.8.05 @ 12:23PM|#
What now? I don't understand the Buffett-bashing. His latest letter is not "bizarre" by any stretch; it is utterly logical, well-written, and reflective of the laws of REAL economics (as opposed to the "new economy" bullshit constantly being crammed down our throat by tthe mainstream media - and now apparently Reason?)
You say: "Evidently you are to obsessively keep score with your dollars and try to make more of them, but never, ever spend them or enjoy them." This is not what he says at all. What he says is that if you spend MORE than you make (as an individual or a nation) there will be consequences. This has always been and will continue to be a fundamental truth of economics.
The irony is that the debt-based overspending Buffett laments is due entirely to government meddling in the economy (deficit spending, negative real interest rates, etc)... why is the libertarian outrage being directed at entirely the wrong place?
|3.8.05 @ 1:24PM|#
Rich, the ideology promoted in Reason goes way beyond opposition to activist government. As every column ever printed about art and culture argues, buying stuff is the truest, most admirable expression of personal development.
No one likes to read their preferred system of ethics denounced. And sadly, consumerist materialism has been elevated to the status of an ethical system.
rich toscano|3.8.05 @ 2:17PM|#
Joe - You may well be right, but the thing is that Buffett didn't argue against "buying stuff" per se--he argued against buying stuff IF you don't have the money to do so! That's why the attack seemed so uncalled for.
R C Dean|3.8.05 @ 6:14PM|#
And sadly, consumerist materialism has been elevated to the status of an ethical system.
Sure, why not.
By all the evidence, it produces the greatest material goods for the greatest number, in a completely voluntary exchange of value. If that ain't ethical, what is?
Beats the hell out of forcible redistribution of wealth, that's for sure.
|3.8.05 @ 9:03PM|#
"Nihilists? Well, fuck me. Say what you like about the tenets of consumerist materialism, Dude, but at least it's an ethos."
|3.9.05 @ 10:51AM|#
RC, did you by change interpret the term "ethical system" to mean "a system that is perfectly ethical?" Because I meant it to mean "a system of ethics."
I'm not claiming that buying and selling is, in and of itself, unethical, just that the values the market economy promotes are, by themselves, a system for living a moral life.