Next Meeting - Thursday 04/29/10

Thur April 29, 2010
5:30 to 8:00 pm

Panera Bread
28551 Schoolcraft Road
Livonia, Michigan

After the rousing success of General Theory chapters 1 & 2, at the next meeting we will be discussing Chapter 12:  The State of Long-term Expectation.  We will also discuss Stefan Molyneux's interview of Stephan Kinsella on Intellectual Property.


Though not relevant to the next meeting, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict contrary to Rich & Xorp's contentions that the stock market will continue to rise, we are near the end of the current bear market bull run.  Stocks will soon correct.

Flash mobs and riots

The media blackout on this is almost as bad as the lack of coverage over the Ron Paul campaign.

In several big cities, including Philadelphia and Kansas City, flash mobs and riots instigated by "youths" have been taking place.

In Kansas City this weekend, and to a lesser degree the previous weekend:
- 900+ black kids aged 11-16 stormed an outdoor mall, fought with each other, beat up all the shoppers, and robbed the stores. The newscasters in this clip are irrelevant but there is some remarkable cell phone footage of the fights. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_2W_EbIN9o Since most of the "youths" are too young to drive (but since when has the law prevented miscreants from hijacking cars?), many of them came in by bus. Cops eventually called in helicopters.
A city council member said, "There's really no place in town that African-American kids can go and feel welcome." No matter what the race, do we think 900 thugs ought to be welcomed anywhere?

In Philadelphia this has been happening on a regular basis for nearly a year:
- Big group of teens rob convenience store http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDxoTpdxBWE
- 100s of teens fight with each other, knock down pedestrians, and rob Macy's http://cbs3.com/topstories/Center.City.Macys.2.1499306.html
- 100s of teens fight and ransack South Street http://cbs3.com/local/Police.Respond.Thousands.2.1579054.html
- South Street riots with 1000+ people, causing stores and restaurants to close early. Incredible video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4WOYMWp29g&feature=fvw
- Curfew implemented http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_region/20100323_Officials_consider_earlier_curfews_to_stop__flash_mobs_.html curfew
- Cell phone footage that makes "Boyz N The Hood" look tame. They beat up on a car with a driver in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMWT41Pu3tM If I was the driver I would have seriously run those m*therf*ckers over at 70 MPH in self-defense. The thug who posted this video subtitled it "GETTIN SOUTH ST POPPIN," and another one he subtitled "WE AT SOUTH STREET GETTIN IT POPPIN." Apparently riots are just such "popping" fun! Under an alternative screen name (you'll know it when you see it... think Randianism) I have posted a viciously hateful comment to that scumbag. He also has a bunch of other equally atrocious and terrifying videos glorifying the mobs. It is hard to imagine this is real. Another comment is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64INNh-FRuo

Next Meeting - Thursday April 15

Under the theory that it is easy to read people you agree with, we decided to study a book of John Maynard Keynes.   The choices being Treatise on Money and General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, we decided on General Theory.  Wikipedia states (http://sn.im/pyw8z):

Although The General Theory was written in the aftermath of the Great Depression and was taken by many to justify the assumption by government of the responsibility for the achievement and maintenance of full employment, it is for the most part a highly abstract work of theory and by no means a tract on policy. Its full meaning and significance continues to be debated even today. As a book, it is a difficult read for a modern student of economics, although it is enlivened by some brilliant rhetorical passages, including the description of the stock market in Chapter 12 and the concluding chapter 24 on the (rather tentative) policy implications Keynes derived from his theory.

Since the book looks tediously dull and worthless, we will read chapters 1, 12, 22, 24 and the preface to the German edition.  The book can be found at:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/general-theory/

or

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/keynes/john_maynard/k44g/

The ebooks.adelaide.edu version includes the preface to the German edition.

For the meeting on the 15th, we will discuss the preface, chapter 1, and Gary North's address on Keynes' influence at the ASC 2010 conference. 



An audio only version of North's address can be heard at http://media.mises.org/mp3/ASC2010/07_ASC2010_North.mp3