Tag: antifragile

Becoming Antifragile

submitted by jwithrow.

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
Becoming Antifragile

September 16, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $1,970. Gold closed at $1,102 per ounce. Oil closed at $44.59 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.18%. Bitcoin is trading around $227 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

Wife Rachel cornered me the other day: “I saw what you did in your newest post!”, she said in an accusatory tone.

“Whatever do you mean, honey?”, I asked innocently.

“You talked about Madison buying me a walker when I am old!”

I couldn’t contain my laughter. It’s the little things that I find most amusing.

Last week I delved into global finance and speculated that a currency crisis in the U.S. was on the horizon. It is just unreasonable to create trillions of dollars from thin air on a regular basis and expect the world to accept those dollars ad infinitum. I observed that government has no intention of ceasing its monetary escapades, thus currency ruin is inevitable. Continue reading “Becoming Antifragile”

On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care

submitted by jwithrow.universal health care

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care

July 22, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,114. Gold closed at $1,103 per ounce. Oil checked out just under $51 per barrel, and the 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.37%. Bitcoin is trading around $278 per BTC today.

Dear Journal,

The big news in the markets this week is gold’s staggering fall. The reason: nearly 5 Tonnes of gold was unloaded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange within a two minute window during the Asian trading session on Monday. This activity represented nearly 20% of the average daily trading volume in gold on the Shanghai Exchange – all within a two minute window. Nearly simultaneously, 7,600 contracts of the August 15 gold contract sold off on the COMEX within a two minute window as well. Somebody knows something. Nevertheless, this pullback looks like a great buying opportunity to me.

Las week we examined ways to disintermediate the State and I suggested holistic wellness as a means of distancing yourself from the corruption and cronyism that manifests in the relationship between allopathic medicine and its lobbies, big pharmaceutical corporations and their lobbies, big health insurance corporations and their lobbies, and the federal government and its regulatory agencies. You could potentially throw Wall Street and the big agriculture corporations into this mix as well for the roles they play in perpetuating the sickness paradigm.

Here’s how it works in a simplified nutshell: the allopathic medical establishment (AMA) preaches a hyper-interventionist mentality that focuses on prescribing drugs for every illness – real or imagined. Big-Pharma provides the drugs and constantly develops new drugs for the temporary treatment of symptoms. Big-Insurance sets the reimbursement figures for each drug and each treatment thus incentivizing certain practices. All three fund massive lobbies that exert influence upon the FDA and other State-regulatory agencies which in turn protect the established interests from competition and law suits. For their part, Big-Agra manufactures a huge variety of unhealthy food products that help keep people sick which leads to more doctor visits and more drugs. Wall Street keeps the pressure on Big-Pharma and Big-Agra to grow revenues which incentivizes marginal innovations and aggressive marketing campaigns. This system does not seek to improve health, it seeks only to treat sickness symptoms over and over again. Continue reading “On Allopathic Medicine and Universal Health Care”

The Fragility of Modernity

submitted by jwithrow.modernity

Journal of a Wayward Philosopher
The Fragility of Modernity

June 10, 2015
Hot Springs, VA

The S&P closed out Tuesday at $2,080. Gold closed at $1,177 per ounce. Oil checked out at $60 per barrel. The 10-year Treasury rate closed at 2.42%, and bitcoin is trading around $230 per BTC.

Dear Journal,

In my last entry I brought up the concept of ‘Modernity’ and I suggested that it attempts to put life in a box by emphasizing a fear and control mindset. I felt this concept was worthy of a little more discussion this week because our society has been shaped by this fear and control paradigm.

Here’s how Nassim Taleb, author of Antifragile, views Modernity:

We are moving into a phase of modernity marked by the lobbyist, the very, very limited liability corporation, the MBA, sucker problems, secularization (or rather reinvention of new sacred values like flags to replace altars), the tax man, fear of the boss, spending the weekend in interesting places and the workweek in a putatively less interesting one, the separation of “work” and “leisure” (though the two would look identical to someone from a wiser era), the retirement plan, argumentative intellectuals who would disagree with this definition of modernity, literal thinking, inductive inference, philosophy of science, the invention of social science, smooth surfaces, and egocentric architects. Violence is transferred from individuals to states. So is financial indiscipline. At the center of all this is the denial of antifragility… Modernity starts with the state monopoly on violence, and ends with the state’s monopoly on fiscal irresponsibility.

Continue reading “The Fragility of Modernity”