"muslim" is an arabic word meaning "a servant (slave?) of god" or "one who submits to god's will."

it would not be hard to argue that jesus submitted to god's will, thus, was a muslim.

  ...but, most people are in the habit of using words without much concern about what they mean.  the arabic word "muslim" was in existence well before mohammed came on the scene.

when most people hear "jesus was a muslim," they think it means "jesus was a follower of the religion of mohammed,"  which he was not.  never mind any religious considerations, the chronology does not permit it.  that isn't what it means.  it means "jesus was a  servant of god."

...just arrived in my e-mail.

Thanks Santa!

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My Dear Extended Family,

I will expand on this over the summer, but as an introduction:

1. Economics are not weekly and monthly statistics. It is comprised of motion and change that determines the trend.

2. The effect of economic actions is not a static amount, for example QE in some determined period of time, but rather an inescapable cumulative impact due to the rate of change. Each event of stimulation requires greater effort than the previous.

3. Economic activity is either increasing at an increasing rate or it is decelerating and an increasing rate. There are no Plateaus of Prosperity or Goldilocks Economics other than in the minds of spin doctors.

4. Debt has come home to be confronted here and now. There is no normal business means of accomplishing this.

The conclusion to be outlined in many ways over the summer is clearly the Western world finance is in deep trouble. QE to infinity is the only political tool that can kick the can. Gold will trade at and above $3500 regardless of all the previous attempts to manipulate it.

Cash market buyers will prevent all attempts to color gold otherwise.

Respectfully,
Jim

http://www.jsmineset.com/

You are critiquing anarchism, not libertarianism.  However, as an anarcho-capitalist, let me respond.

You claim that force is required for society to function.  This is true.  What I don't understand is why you think that force has to come from the barrel of a gun.  Did you ever take a cruise?  Maybe go out into international water?  Did you know that you weren't subject to the laws of a nation-state while you were out there?  So tell me, why don't the passengers just tear each other to bits?  I mean, with the hundreds of people there, there must be at least a few of these bad people that you need government guns to protect you from.  Why no mass murders on the open seas?

This (and numerous other examples of non-coercive interaction) disproves your thesis, and all descendent arguments.  Have a nice evening knowing that your neighbor doesn't come through your window and murder you in the night not because he is afraid of government guns, but because A. he doesn't want to hurt you or anyone else really, and B. even if he did, the force of societal norms prevents him from doing so, and perhaps most importantly C. there is a real chance that he would be killed either in the attempt or afterwards by a family member or someone else seeking justice. 

Or did you think that human nature would just totally change when the already widely invisible and mostly worthless government disappeared?

I'm leaving it up to you. Good luck.

I was simply sincerely thanking WhyMeLord for taking me back to a more pleasant (albeit) younger time.

Sometimes a good tune is just that.

I'm a late boomer and it's covered.

GSR moving sideways. So far, that is good for silver.

Implosion of society /collapse happens not only because marginal returns in energy declines after initial period and get negative during collapse, but in everything done in societies /civilizations as they get more complex in a response to variations with aim to maintain/improve some parameters of life, has declining marginal returns after some point where all low hanging fruits has been exploited. When collapse starts , marginal returns turn negative.  See Joseph A. Tainter, "The collapse of Complex societies". 

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X

Recommended reading, not pleasant conclusions, but simplification/disintegration/autonomy  is one of potential solutions in the midst of potential wars and total civic chaos. Not guaranteed, though,as also this way of survival in today's world immediately leads to complexity as it needs to be protected, organized and its not obvious that marginal returns of investments/activities made will not start to decline again ( after colossal decline in life style , access to medicine , education  etc., shortening of life span, need for organized protections, laws, internal order etc. ). Basically a huge step back - OR, temporarily, a bigger empire with even more complexity , but at first moment improving returns by centralization of resources and administration.

You go ahead and go with the National Irish Bank.  I'm going all in on the Texas Lotto since I think it's probably safer and has better odds of getting my money back.

Going for the short-term high risk municipal market eh?

"Come on Krugman, give us a new economic theory that explains what to do with 40 million people that may never work again."

LOL. I love how they always fabricate complexity on this topic. For example, if you protect the borders no one will pick the fruit... it's an unsolvable conundrum...

Oh yes, they most certainly will, if you eliminate welfare and work becomes the means by which they eat. And picking fruit is tiring...less energy for destructive activities.

A win/win.

Edit - I realized I inadvertently perpetuated the myth that the only jobs taken are fruit-picking. This is absurd, as anyone can tell you who used to do landscaping, or used to do carpentry, or used to install carpet, or used to do masonry, etc. My sincerest apologies to those forced into a low-end service economy for the benefit of Chamber of Commerce repubs, and vote smuggling dems.

We have a lotto 649 ticket that is going to make us fabulously rich, once we figure out how to use it.  Hubby bought it on a whim, and we honestly don't understand it, and the instructions on the back require an electron microscope to read.  So we are just going to keep it, and know we will be fine.  Schroedinger's lotto ticket - our terrible retirement plan.

You are Krugman. It's just as simple as that. If I have to be Ayn Rand, then you must be Krugman, but not for economic theories. You are Krugman because you are smug and know so much more than anyone else. I don't think yours was a drunk rant. Since French is my second language, I believe it must be your first language and you just wrote from the bottom of your heart what you truly believe without stopping to recheck the English. No big deal as we can all follow your points.

Look, I have read a lot of crap. Marx had some great ideas, as did Aristotle. You don't mention Berlin in your critique. You know, "freedom from" and "freedom to". We all give up our freedoms willingly for a little bit of security. (There's a Benjamin Franklin quote about that, but we won't go there.) That's Rousseau. We don't want life to be "nasty, brutish, and short." We just don't believe the government needs to be in health care, nor does it really have a purpose in things like social norms like marriage. And keep the government way out of education,because that's where things start heading the wrong way. With a few exceptions, less government is better. Notice- WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS. Don't lump us all together with your silly ideas. Rand had some interesting things to say, as did George Orwell, Walker Percy, and Ray Bradbury. None of them are crap.

We do not live with capitalism because prices are not free. Trade is not free. We have ridiculous restrictions like we cannot buy milk as it comes from a cow. Instead it has to go through government processes to be made safe for everyone. My children were at a 4-H camp this summer and we couldn't send homemade brownies (the good Ghirardelli ones) because there is a fear that we may not have the most sanitary conditions in our homes. We cannot even do good for our fellow humans because of asinine regulations. Tell me this makes sense. If you are French, then you know how good cheese from unpasteurized milk is. We cannot get it here. And don;t even get me started on why tobacco cigarettes and merlot are ok but marijuana is not. (And I have never partaken in the MaryJane, but it is a principle here.) Explain this to me Krugman's balz.

I'd love for us to actually try capitalism. I work in risk, helping with regulation, publishing a lot of stuff. The best idea to me is to heavily enforce that several risk measures be reported under the same model. Don't require they hold one risk measure's worth of reserve capital. Just require they report it. Let the individuals decide what is worthy of investment. And let crooks like Jamie Dimon go out of business by the rule of the many rather than by the rule of the few clueless ones at the AMF or SEC. Because the will of the people is better than the will of an oligarchy. Let us decide....not some crony capitalists who set things up to help out those who help them. This is what you are endorsing. I cannot find any sense in this.

Nice to see you too!  A somewhat involuntary hiatus, but my sense of humour is returning, and I have learned not to post when it is absent.

JMHO.  I recall talking to CA Lawyer about this type of thing a year or so ago.

It's not exactly what I had laid out speculatively back then but it fits a pattern of Govt. home ownership/control that later will be parlayed into a brand new Govt backed mortgage (future revenue stream) on bank property that ended up in the Govt.'s hands that will one day revert back to bank controlled hands.

They win either way and the creation of new debt/mortgage commitment and the long term revenue stream  is what it's all about.

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Bond investors who will be needed to reduce taxpayers’ role in U.S. mortgage lending have a new reason to stay away: the threat of outright confiscation by local governments.

A plan under consideration in San Bernardino County, California, would use a local government’s eminent domain authority to confiscate and write down mortgages for borrowers who are underwater on their loans, meaning they owe more than their houses are worth. The plan would raise borrowing costs and deter private lenders from returning to the $10 trillion mortgage market, according to bond buyers such as Pacific Investment Management Co. and AllianceBernstein LP.

“If you know that the county in which you make a loan could force you to sell it for less than it’s worth if it goes underwater, then the rate you will charge, in a free market system, would be a lot higher,” said Mike Canter, head of securitized assets at New York-based AllianceBernstein, which oversees about $400 billion.

About 11.4 million American borrowers -- 24 percent of homeowners with a mortgage -- were underwater as of March 31, according to Corelogic Inc., with prices down 34 percent from their July 2006 peak. In San Bernardino County, about 150,000 homeowners or half of all houses with a mortgage are underwater and the area’s economic struggles helped push the city of San Bernardino, the county seat, to decide to file for bankruptcy protection.

Government Dominates

Private mortgage securities now fund less than 1 percent of new loans, down from more than a third before the housing market collapsed in 2007. The U.S. government currently backs about 90 percent of home loans...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-13/bondholders-see-eminent-domain-as-state-attack-mortgages.html

Glad things are well with you and glad to have you back.