User talk:MrVoluntarist

Hi, I'm Mr. Voluntarist. Please post any messages you have for me here.

Thanks for registering, I'm sure you'll find there are many advantages which make it worthwhile. Grant65 (Talk) 11:13, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Hi people reading my talk page. A lot of you seem to be longtime Wikipedia contributors, but seem to insert your own opinions and research into the article. It would be a good idea to check out some of these things:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question at the village pump or feel free to ask me on my Talk page.
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And remember:Be Bold!

Anti-semitism

"Perhaps you should take the Holocaust seriously?" Personally I find that the insinuation that someone is racist a personal attack in itself. Eightball 03:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And when someone casually dismissed the idea that racism still occurs... what do you call that? MrVoluntarist 03:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No one did that. Everyone knows that racism is around. The idea that you are putting forth, the idea that at least one of our editors and one, perhaps many, of our administrators, are racist because of Henry Rank is ranked first; hell, I wasn't even aware that Ford was racist before today, and yet you say that this makes people racist? That offends me, I'm sure it offends the man who created the image, and it's an offense to the entire community. Eightball 03:19, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why didn't anyone stop and say, "Hey, how come only one of these in the list is a real historic figure, while the others are generic names?" That should have set off flags right there. And you don't have to be actively racist to be racist. Mere ignorance and dismissiveness is also racist. MrVoluntarist 03:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how to say this without starting a personal attack again (which I apologize for, honestly, I try not to blow up), but let me just say that you, sir, are the personification of the type of people that I believe ruin this world; the type of people that always assume the worst in people for their own personal gain. I just want you to ADMIT that there is a great chance that no one created this with any intention of racism. Why can't you believe that there are good people? Eightball 03:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, just for the record -- the whole idea that the WP admins are out to "get" the Jew is ridiculous. But on the other hand, we have to watch out for the pro-socialist, anti-rich people bias among Wikipedia contributors, which I think amounts to a kind of crypto-anti-Semitism. See Anti-globalization and Anti-Semitism. Let's be more careful about who we call "number one" on example ballots. MrVoluntarist 03:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They are all fairly generic and, more importantly, noncontroversial names to most readers. I and the hundreds of other editors that touched the article, for example, were completely unaware of any controversy around Henry Ford until you brought it up. Still, please refrain from personal attacks on Wikipedia - directly challenging someone in the manner you did is not a productive way to improve images in the encyclopedia. Scott Ritchie 03:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All I want to say is, I'm proud of you fellas. You all kept your head on a swivel, and that's what you gotta do when you find yourself thrust into the middle of vicious cock fight. Eightball 03:42, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ARE YOU CALLING ME A COCK?!?!?! j/k man MrVoluntarist 03:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry about the names

It was useful to know that the choice of "Henry Ford" as an example name was possibly offensive, and I'm trying to get it changed wherever it occurs, in my images and others', although I don't have access to an image editor at the moment.

You could have made your point more tactfully. You could have posted on a relevant talk page, "Hey, it's possibly offensive for Henry Ford to be number 1 on the example ballot" instead of accusing various people of being anti-Semitic. Then people could get to fixing the images faster rather than spending all the time responding to your lack of good faith.

rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:36, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I second that emotion. jengod 03:38, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, I was a bit too emotional. Okay, WAY too emotional. There are better ways to handle conflicts like this. I just started panicking because it was like fifteen minutes (or so it seemed) after I posted the complaint on the discussion page, and I couldn't think of what else to do, and that was such a long response time. None of that excuses it, of course. I'll stay truer to policy in the future so we don't have these harmful conflicts in the future. MrVoluntarist 03:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

jengod, anyone who gets me singing is the man. I third that emotion. Eightball 03:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you take the Holocaust seriously?

No you do not. Otherwise you wouldn't be trivializing it with that bullshit about the main page. 65.27.76.238 16:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. This is another example of a holier than thou, PC do-gooder gone mad, hell bent on monitoring all our articulations for traces of discriminatory statement. As I said on the main discussion page, by altering the image, we have told this person that his paranoid antics are acceptable, when, unequivocally, they are not.

Edit summaries and concerns thereto

My edit summary made clear that the objection was based on the reported POV content of the target article. However, that is not reason for removing a relevant link - it is a reason to fix the article it points to. I have already tagged Socialism and Gold with a {{cleanup}} tag (in addition to the {{NPOV}} tag it already had) and I have made a couple of alterations to it. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Like I said, that may not have been a good reason, or a reason in accordance with Wikipedia standards, but a justification was given. What would happen if people referenced every reason they disagreed with as "no justification given"? Try to make your edit summaries more accurate. MrVoluntarist 05:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About Talk:Capitalism

Anyone overviewing the Talk:Capitalism page can see that much, perhaps a majority, of the discussion has degenerated into a debate on the underlying issues. This impedes progress on the article and should be stopped. Also, my comment on that page was specifically directed at everyone, not you specifically. I know you are not the only one who has done this. It wasn't meant as a specific criticism of you. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:15, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Call it what you want. The discussion going on concerns what material is encyclopedic and NPOV. THAT IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO ON THE TALK PAGE. I don't know anyone debating the merits of capitalism. MrVoluntarist 05:11, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Anarchism

Hi, thanks for your contribution, but could you please keep discussion out of the disputes section. This is purely for my benefit as it gives me a better understanding of what the nature of the dispute is. Thanks :) - FrancisTyers 06:01, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you also move FluteyFlake's comment's (number 4) currently, since it's a response to me rather than a separate dispute. MrVoluntarist 06:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Haha, I'm glad you agree :) My apologies if I seemed a bit pushy, just I get this definition crap a lot and its a distraction from writing an encyclopaedia, oh and I have access to this fancy subscription so I figured I may as well use it! :) - FrancisTyers 01:15, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vulgar libertarians, we are

Howdy and good call on nominating vulgar libertarianism for deletion. The link that was provided (the one from some "anarchist" website, about Chile) is probably the worst example of a straw man argument I've ever seen. Paul 22:04, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Glad to be appreciated. Do you think there are some more reasons I can give? As far as I can see, Carson started using it, and it hasn't really picked up. MrVoluntarist 00:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

definitions of capitalism

Wikidictionary cannot be used as a sole reference - it's wikipedia rules! Wikipedia articles should not use other Wikipedia articles as sources. Wikilinks are not a substitute for sources. See also Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary -- max rspct leave a message 15:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Few! Good thing I didn't reference Wikidictionary! Good thing I limited myself to citations of real dictionaries, which were collected on Wikiquote! Good thing Wikipedia policies say Wikipedia articles should begin with a definition of the term! MrVoluntarist 17:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But obviously not dictionary defs -max rspct leave a message 00:23, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are we talking abou the same article? The capitalism article defines it first under common usage, then, when going into entymology, references dictionaries, since it's relevant at that point. What do you want it to do? Do you even know? MrVoluntarist 01:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Individualist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism

Thank you for your comments on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Individualist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. I have closed the debate as no consensus. Please note that this does not preclude further discussion of eventual disposition of the article, including keeping, merging, redirection, or a further nomination for deletion. Again, thank you for your calm and level-headed comments, they are much appreciated. -- Jonel | Speak 03:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your warning other users that I am "a jew"

Hi, could you please explain this talk page comment you made on Jan 28 [1]. Is it an attempt at provocation through racist behaviour, an attempt at humour based on the assumption that User:200.125.110.99 is racist, or something else that I fail to understand? — Hillel 09:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That message was intended for our Spanish-speaking amigo, not you. And if you want to call me anti-Semitic, think twice. I'm the one who led the charge to remove the "vote for Henry Ford" picture from the main page when voting systems was a featured article. See above on this page. MrVoluntarist 19:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talk:Anarchism

Please stop. If you continue to remove comments from Talk:Anarchism, you will be blocked from editing Wikipedia. --cesarb 14:36, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Statements attributed to you

Hi, you complain that I "attribute statements to you". I'd like to know where I'm going wrong and how to fix things so the two of us can cooperate efficiently :-)

First of all, I would like to apologise for the following comment

So this was a major or significant discovery? I'm not at all sure that you're saying that.

It does indeed seem to imply that you said that the discovery was major or significant, until you get to the second sentence, where I clearly state that I'm not sure that was what you're saying. I should, instead, have made that the first sentence, and said something along the lines of

I am not at all sure that you are actually saying this, but you seem to be implying that the discovery was major or significant (i.e. notable), because only then would it be Wikipedia's job to help people link a "a discovery later, or one before [...] back to this one".

As for other statements, I'll try to be more careful. If there's any specific thing in the past that you would like to talk about, please feel free to do so. I'm assuming good faith, and I hope you will continue to do so for my edits even if we're off to a rocky start.

Again, any issues, please feel free to use my talk page, or the "email this user" option.

Thanks!

RandomP 02:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes it's hard to assume good faith, when you brush off hard questions with "it's a math/physics thing, you wouldn't understand." Now, as for this particular matter, I didn't say that the discovery in the picture was major (though it may be). It's just that it's a good picture, and in the caption I as a reader of the article appreciated knowing who discovered them, even if I personally haven't heard of them before. I never once claimed that the discovery was itself signficant. While it may be, that wasn't a part of my argument. MrVoluntarist 02:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. I'll reply to the "brushing off" thing here. The other issue really belongs on the article's talk page, as it makes a point that I (and, I'm willing to bet, at least one of the other one or two opposing editors) had not yet considered.

As far as I remember, the only time I did that was with regard to my slip of referring to a certain economical theory as "classical". I apologised for that. There's nothing about the usage you wouldn't (or, at least, couldn't) understand! A "classical theory" is one that's so widely accepted that usually no further sources are given. For example:

Newtonian physics, when considering relativistic or quantum matters
The decomposability of finitely-generated abelian groups. I have no idea who to attribute this to, it's just "classical". (And, yes, I'm lazy.)
Economics based on strict assumptions of [[homo economicus|"economic rationality"], and a strict separation between economic and non-economic activity. As in the first case, it's clear today that that's a simplification that just doesn't hold up in real life under extreme conditions. As in the second case, I have no idea who properly to attribute this to, though chances are most introductory textbooks treat the matter (and that's where I got it from).

It's slang. It was impossible for you to recognise you, and had I taken greater care to proofread it wouldn't have happened.

I'll try to take more care in the future

RandomP 03:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I've never heard it used that way. From what I know, it always refers to some older kind of theory. For example, classical mechanics does not mean "mechanics that everyone excepts so much you don't need a source"; it means the mechanics of Newton and Euler, which have since been *replaced* by models that account for relativistic effects. You can still find sources for "classical" theories. "Classical economics" refers to the economics of Adam Smith through much of the nineteenth century. It happens to include some assumptions of homo oeconomicus. In any case, your use of it contradicts what you just said; you just agreed that's called "classical" despite no one using it today".

By contrast, your "classical" theory of investment is unsupported by anyone. You couldn't name one source for it. I've never heard anyone say anything like "unless it draws an income or an imputed income, or will draw an income or imputed income after you sell it, it's not an investment". Your use of "classical" there was not justified by any precedent; it was quite clearly a case of "here's my theory, I don't have a source, let me lend it a false aura of credibility". MrVoluntarist 03:32, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to go over this, and quote what "my" theory of economics says, I'm happy to do so here, in order to better understanding one another. If you're happy to let the matter drop, so am I. Please indicate which is the case.

There's a subtle matter of fact, on which I feel I should correct you on: the classical theory of Newton has by no means been replaced! The effects of special relativity and quantum mechanics are still not known to be compatible (see quantum gravity), and until a consistent theory generalising both has been accepted, there are three branches of physics; the one based on Newton's laws, unchanged, might still be the most significant, because much of engineering is based on it. The Navier-Stokes equations, for example, might be even less amenable to being solved if they weren't based on classical mechanics.

Just to point that out (I haven't, really, so far), I am now convinced that it is acceptable to refer to a given amount of gold as an investment, though whether investment activity is taking place is something I am not sure about.

RandomP 03:51, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just want to know the name of a theorist who has promoted your theory of investment (that requires there to be an income or imputed income at some point). It's really for my personal edification, since this is one of my areas of interest, no pun intended. From what I know, at least since the time of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and probably much further back, a gain in book value was regarded as a profit, even if the venture never received payments. Any other matters, I'd be glad to let drop. MrVoluntarist 03:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At googling random:

this somewhat disreputable-looking page

The value of a stock (a bond, a firm, real estate, or any asset) is the sum of the income (cash flow) that a reasonable investor would expect to get in the future, discounted at the appropriate rate.

this blog post starts out with the bogus

The value of a stock is the dividend divided by the current interest rate

but continues

If a stock’s dividend is expected to rise, the stock is worth more. If the dividend is expected to fall, the stock is worth less.

which gets fairly close to what I referred to.

[2] has a reference to a certain Williams, though it appears he's only credited with returning to "firm foundations".

Further references: [3] [4] [5] (which argues the way you do, kinda) [6] [7] [8] [9]

The latter two appear to be somewhat academic, but think give some credence to this Williams person :-)

RandomP 04:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I don't think that answers my question. I "get" that they teach about discounting rents for present value and such. The question was, where is the fundamental distinction between investments that draw income while you retain them, and investments you must sell in order to get income. I've just never seen the distinction. For example, say a corporation liquidates its assets and pays out their value to shareholders as dividends, effectively ending the corporation. Would it not be an investment if investors expected this possibility? And if you think it matters that the people who buy the assets would draw rents from them, what if they liquidated the assets to individuals for personal use? (Say the assets were cattle or something.) If your'e then going to count any benefit from personal use as an "imputed income", you've stretched your theory just far enough to cover gold, as people could e.g. wear necklaces. (Plus, there's the point about holding gold paying you an imputed income of the value of an insurance policy that gives you usable money during a crisis such as currency collapse or military occupation.) MrVoluntarist 00:23, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And one more thing: I know that last bit may sound harsh, but again, I would be glad to rescind it when you finally tell me in which period the "classical theory" of investment was the predominant one, which I believe was why I was asking about this the first time. MrVoluntarist 03:42, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the Dividend discount model (and I'm going to keep red-linking that until it turns blue, or I do) doesn't contradict your "rise in book value is a profit" thing. It just states, quite nonchalantly, that obviously the market must have changed its expectations for the time value of future dividends.

The imputed income debate is largely immaterial to gold, though it does become relevant for real estate.

As far as I understand, the model is one taught to undergraduates even today, and largely accepted by them, though it has more problems than I thought at first (in particular, the investor's expectations of the future change in the market's expectations become relevant, though "perfect information" can be bent into something saying those are just going to be the current market's expectations, and don't be silly [edited to note: "don't be silly", of course, is what economists say to mathematicians, like me, who make their life complicated by looking at the non-simplified case. It's not what I'd say to you, or anything]).

RandomP 04:50, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, from your last comment i get the impression it would be genuinely worthwhile to expand this a bit here.

You ask, if I understand you correctly, what the fundamental difference is between investing into something that (by assumption) never will generate dividends; and something that will. Furthermore, we're talking about an asset that cannot be liquidated (this is, again, an assumption; gold can, strictly speaking): you can sell your gold to someone else, but for purposes of the discussion, that just shifts the problem to someone else. There's no way (again, in the model) for gold to stop existing.

I'm going to be talking about a mathematical model here. I'll make a couple of simplifying assumptions, but I might get around to generalising a bit again, in the end:

No new gold is mined
No gold is ever used as anything but a hoarded asset
No gold ever disappears
No dividend is paid for gold held as a hoarded asset, but no cost arises, either.
No transaction costs

I think we can agree on those five assumptions. They're not actually true, but true enough to compare this modelled gold to the real gold out there.

Let me stop you here. Gold does generate dividends -- the imputed value of the crisis insurance you don't have to buy as a result of holding the gold. Plus, whatever use you get out of wearing it as jewelery. We're allowing imputed income, right? Second, selling it does not "shift the problem to someone else"; what allows gold to retain its value is the fact that you can always find a use for it, and *that use* drives its value. i.e., "Worst comes to worst, I can wear it and look cool." "Worst comes to worst, I can decorate my house." "Worst comes to worst, I can sell it to researchers." It is not the pyramid scheme you're trying to imply that it is. Third, gold does get used up; I've personally worked in a research facility that used gold as an input and rendered it in a worthless state. Fourth, the non-dividend nature, even if it existed, makes no economic difference. This is just another opportunity cost imputed out of the current price. If one investment retains its value and draws rents, another that doesn't draw rents will be bid down to capture the forgone opportunity. And fifth, I should add, virtually all existing physical assets used as investments (real estate, factories, etc.) require some upkeep and thus cannot retain their value on top of the rents they draw.

You've based everything you've said so far on multiple, compounded direct contradictions of the exact points I used to dispute the distinction you tried to make. Would I be correct to guess that it doesn't get any better? (And in the future, I know what a mathematical model is.) MrVoluntarist 02:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. Perfectly fine to stop me here :-)

You've asked me to name one economist who had a similar definition of value to me, and I did. Williams, whatever his first name was.

You promised to rescind some of what you said when I explained to you "in which period the "classical theory" of investment was the predominant one", and I think I've made a fairly good case that that period indeed includes today, but at the very least some of the formative years of the laureate of that prize that isn't technically a Nobel prize I linked to.

I'm going to stop right here, because you've made clear why you're not going to go with the simplifying assumptions. They're not actually true, but they're pretty close to being true - 2% p.a. error on the first one, give or take, much less on the others.

One exception: The insurance thing. That is a real reason always to have some gold in your immediate possession - on your person, or at home, or in some place you could always get to. I'd guess 10 to 20 percent of the world's gold are indeed held that way, though mostly in jewellery, mostly with a sense of tradition being involved. But it doesn't have to cover the whole cost imputed out of the current price - quite a few people hold gold that they have never physically seen, that would be impossible for them to wear or use to decorate their houses, that they could not get to in a crisis. I would go as far as to say that's the typical Western gold investor. For those investors, the assumptions above aren't a problem.

People buy gold today as an object of pure speculation; there is a widespread campaign to convince them that it is a "safe investment" to do so, but it is neither. It's a bet. It looks (or looked, at times) like a bet with a good chance of making good returns, which means that the brokers think there's a not-vanishingly-small chance of losing the pot.

RandomP 02:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping to learn about some kind of interesting theorist. Williams did not meet my above criteria, for the above reasons. If you can't find an example that meets the above criteria, then my search for more knowledge on this topic is fruitless and I'll be glad to let the matter drop. MrVoluntarist 03:01, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll make one more assumption, which I think will also be uncontroversial after I explain it:

the real time value of money increases exponentially, in the long term.

Essentially, the explanation appeals to the fact that there will always be a bias towards instant satisfaction: However small, there is a slight percentage of interest that the average investor wants just for not having that money for another year. I'm assuming that this slight percentage is bounded from below. If thinking about one year doesn't convince you, think about a lifetime: clearly, for someone to get a loan of some of your money for longer than you expect to live will require some interest payment, because it will not be you but your children who get to spend that money. I postulate, again, that there is a lower bound, no matter how small, on that interest. A percent will work, but so will a hundredth of a percent.

I will now hint at the proof of the following Theorem. The only way for gold investors to "average positive", in the long term, is for the real value of all gold there is to increase exponentially, forever and ever.

Hint. The alternative a gold investor has is instead to get the time value of their money. But we just postulated that will increase exponentially, and gold has to keep up, or gold investors will average negative - compared to the safe time value of money, that is.

If we furthermore postulate that gold investors are distributed nicely in the population - so if the population grows, there will also be more gold investors - the requirement becomes stricter: the only way for gold investors to average positive is then for the real value of the per capita wealth to increase exponentially, forever.

That might strike you as a mere mathematical game, but there is a truth in it that holds even after you forget all the simplifying assumptions: if you buy gold, you pay people who mine gold. You give them what amounts to an interest-free loan, because when they will have used the money you gave them to mine even more gold, your assumption is that it will have gained in value (otherwise, you wouldn't have bought gold in the first place!) to make up for the time-value loss.

Now, this might be a bit of a generalisation, but overall, all we get when we pay people to mine gold is gold; when we pay people to fly to the moon, many advances in science and engineering result (historically, at least). When we pay people for wheat, they will strive to find more efficient ways to grow wheat, and tomorrow's wheat might be cheaper for that.

What happens if the gold miners find more efficient ways to mine gold? Tomorrow's gold will be cheaper.

Contrast the two: Buying wheat (or an unmetered WWAN net connection, or whatever), you get two benefits: first of all, the wheat, which you can eat (or the net connection, with which you can edit Wikipedia); second, the knowledge that you encouraged research to make future wheat (or a future net connection!) cheaper, and world hunger (or world ignorance) might be ended.

With gold, you get an advantage (the security that gold, which is still considered the store of value par excellence, offers); but the second effect is a disadvantage: with every gram of gold that you hold, increasing your security, you also encourage people to find ways to make more of the stuff! In fact, you can be certain that when you buy gold, you might as well have bought it from the mines, and they will now have the funds to mine more gold, reducing the value of what you paid them for.

Sorry this got a bit long, but I believe it might help illustrate my point: Investments have a speculative component, sure; but they also have a win-win component. Even if it doesn't work in every single case, there is an expectation that investments will returns that, in the long term, grow exponentially in real value. If there weren't, there'd be no point in investing in the first place, and the market just wouldn't do it.

Gold doesn't have that win-win component: a sustained exponential increase of the real value of gold per capita is possible, yes; a sustained exponential increase of the real value of gold per capita that outpaces the sustained exponential increase of the real value of everything per capita is not: clearly, gold cannot be worth more than everything, gold included.

It's just speculation.

The same can be applied to all investments that are guaranteed never to pay a dividend. Imagine a car company that said: "We will never pay dividends. We will never expand into anything but making cars. We will never buy back our own shares: they must circulate forever. The values of our factories will increase with the market, of course, or this wouldn't be a good investment, but we will never stop using every cent that remains after paying our expenses to build more factories, hire more workers, and build more cars. There will be tremendous value in our factories, but there's no way to get at it other than convincing someone else to buy your shares, who will then have no way to get at it. This policy cannot be changed, ever." That is, in the model, what gold does.

Of course, real gold isn't quite that bad: one reason to buy gold is speculation that the world might return to a gold standard; after all, the central banks still hold lots of it, and after a bad market crash, it might be the only thing they have. Once the world were back on a gold standard, of course, the gold price would rise enormously: after all, the current M0, at least, would have to be converted to cold, and dividing the value of all M0s by the amount of gold that has been mined gives you the starting gold price. And starting then, in addition to the bet paying off, you would be able to receive interest on your gold - and all would be fine.

But I haven't heard a gold investor make that argument yet. Quite a few of them seem to believe in full-reserve banking, which implies no interest beyond deflation.

(Would there be deflation? Certainly not. Today, electronic accounting means there is virtually no limit to the circulation speed of money, which means no upper limit to inflation, by the monetary exchange equation. What limits it right now is the fractional reserve so-often misunderstood, wonderful thing that it is: with a 2% reserve limit, every cent's circulation is limited to 50 M0 accounts, and that's it. Furthermore, the Fed doesn't have to live out every secured loan in the country: a mere 2% of the secured loans need to be made by the fed, and for every multi-million loan the fed makes to a private bank, the banking system will be able to give out 48 times that amount in secondary loans.)

Again, sorry this got a bit long. Feel free to remove this if you feel it wasn't worth reading for you, and wouldn't be for anyone else who happened across your talk page.

But maybe, just maybe, it raises a new point, like the "insurance against market failure" has for me. I'm still thinking about that.

RandomP 01:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MS Encarta sources for anarchism

Hello there. You might do well to read more thoroughly the US and UK Encarta sources that I have supplied for my edits. Both establish that anarchism has roots in 19th century socialism. The US article even claims that, today, anarchism is "basically anticapitalist." I don't think that you're giving them a fair or unbiased reading.

That said, I'd greatly appreciate it if you stopped deleting or reverting my sourced edits. --AaronS 00:42, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What are you talking about? Search all three pages of the article for "capitalist" or "capitalism". There are three instances: anarchism's rise during the rise of large-scale industrial capitalism; Proudhon describing an alternative to capitalism, and the mention of A/C. That doesn't support what you claimed in that sentence. Please read your sources, like I said in the edit note. Recall that this isn't a new thing for you. In the past, you claimed that an article critical of anarchism (and this was clear from the title) was by an anarcho-capitalist. And you claimed to be acting in good faith! MrVoluntarist 00:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I already apologized for that mistake several times. Everybody makes mistakes - except for, perhaps, you. Now, regarding those articles, perhaps you should take your own advice and read it, instead of pressing [CTRL]+[F]. For the claim "has also traditionally and popularly been described as anti-capitalist," we have, in the UK article: "anarchism, as a self-conscious ideology, appeared in Europe during the first half of the 19th century, the uneasy sibling of modern socialism and communism" (here is a definition of sibling for you); "freedom was based on political, economic, and social equality"; and "It was through the First International that Bakunin and others promoted a movement of socialists." From the US article: "grew out of the socialist movement and appeared toward the end of the 19th century." For the claim "is to this day," we have, from the US article: "Since that time socialism and anarchism have diverged sharply, although both are basically anticapitalist." I don't really think that it's open to interpretation. Thank you kindly for ceasing to revert my sourced edits. :) --AaronS 04:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Wow, someone never learned to copy the source rather than the outpute. Not sure where to find that dictionary def. of "sibling", not that it matters. Take the rest to the anarchism page. And by the way, I'll stop bringing up your past bad faith when you admit it was bad faith, rather then trying to sell the quite obvious lie that it was an honest mistake. Yeah, you honestly believed you had read an article despite not finishing the title. MrVoluntarist 13:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I had copied that from the anarchism article discussion page, and forgot to include the URL. You can easily find it on that page. I did not act in bad faith in the past; I merely made a rash assumption. I apologized for it immediately. If that can't satisfy you, then nothing will. --AaronS 19:29, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You claimed to have read it. You had not finished reading the title!! If that's not bad faith, nothing is. Please grow up and admit the obvious. MrVoluntarist 19:39, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and about the copying -- I know were to get the info. I was just pointing out your sloppiness. Kinda comes with the territory I guess. "Haven't read the title of the essay" equates to "I read the whole essay" in your mind. MrVoluntarist 20:48, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I actually skimmed through it. But if it makes you feel better to insult me, go ahead. I don't really care. --AaronS 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. You skimmed through it, and somehow missed the title, and hoped I wouldn't notice. MrVoluntarist 04:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

RFM

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I think this is the better method than contacting me. I'm completely unfamiliar with the article at hand, and yes, the chap is being incivil, but if I can see that from 20 seconds of reading, I'm sure an RfC/RfM/RfAr will see that quickly as well. I'm not willing to jump right in to an argument I'm unfamiliar with. However, if things escalate, let me know. --Golbez 04:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have read both "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountian Head" if I can be of any help?

Carbonate 09:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

re: positional goods

I don't have a reference to Fred Hirsch's book, but this summary of it gives both "lonely beaches" and "high status jobs" as examples of positional goods. Clearly beaches are land in the economic sense - they're not defined in terms of social ranking, but they're still in fixed supply. The article also predicts that high status jobs will earn an increasing "price" (really, an in-kind scarcity rent) as a result of competition, which is the same conclusion that Henry George drew about land.

Personal Attacks

Please do not make personal attacks on other people. Wikipedia has a policy against personal attacks. In some cases, users who engage in personal attacks may be blocked from editing by admins or banned by the arbitration committee. Comment on content, not on other contributors or people. Please resolve disputes appropriately. Thank you. Paul Cyr 04:33, 15 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gold as an Investment

Hello Mr. V and let me thank you for your defence of reason when posting agaisnt RandomP. I am letting you know that I have picked up the torch so to speak and am trying to have redressed some of the nonsense that was effected on that page. You should take a look at the discussion page as the debate has heated up quite a bit.