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With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

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Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#31

Post by WildUtah »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

Ron Paul will never be president. And he was never going to be president.

It's not just that he's too intellectual and not suave and good-looking enough. It's that he actually wants to run the government. The bureaucracy, the intellectuals, the press, and monied business interests don't want to see a more innovative, more free, and more forward-looking country. They like preserving the power they have just fine, thank you.

And the press, the academy, and big business have enough influence over public opinion to prohibit anyone they really don't like from winning power.

The purpose of sending money to Ron Paul and voting for Ron Paul is to move the Overton Window. [1]

The day that someone like Ron Paul can win the presidency, there will be dozens like him running and he won't seem like a special shining light. The thing that does make Paul special is that he is running when it's impossible to win but still possible for things to change.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#32

Post by WiseWeasel »

WildUtah wrote: post #31
WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

Ron Paul will never be president. And he was never going to be president. It's not just that he's too intellectual and not suave and good-looking enough. It's that he actually wants to run the government. The bureaucracy, the intellectuals, the press, and monied business interests don't want to see a more innovative, more free, and more forward-looking country. They like preserving the power they have just fine, than…

Meh. If he's not in it to win, I don't see the point. Sure, nothing gets handed to you on a silver platter, positive national media coverage in particular, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, it just means you need a very creative strategy. Paul doesn't have that.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#33

Post by tlianza »

borism wrote: post #27
Mvandenbergh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously he doesn't believe that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination. Only an imbecile would believe that and Thiel is not that. The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support. Witness how Santorum pulled Romney towards more…

The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support. do you have any example to support this claim? Ron Paul isn't running for the first time. Which of his positions got anywhere close to mainstream candidate's agenda previously? Witness…

Here's a random example from one of the debates... http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc-gop...

"In closing, Rick Perry said he has most learned from Ron Paul’s effort to end the Federal Reserve, and why it matters."

In later debates, Gingrich seemed to make similar moves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCC0vokYHnY

Not saying Paul was completely transformative, but his take on the Federal Reserve which I think was largely considered "extreme" started to become more of a mainstream GOP topic.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#34

Post by tomjen3 »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

You have understand something if you are to understand Ron Pauls actions from the last election.

He is OLD and has been running for this forever. He has always been an outsider. Always.

And he never ever expected to win. He ran to get some discussion, to shake the political system up a bit.

What Ron Paul didn't expect was the massive boost he would get from the internet. The first generation to grow up with the internet had come of voting age and quite frankly we were sick and tired of George Bush and many of us didn't believe in Obama either (and, by the god I don't believe in, were we ever right) and then, seemingly out of nowhere, comes this politician who have something that we would never expect to see -- honestly and fucking integrity. In a politician?

So basically you have a man how is used to being ignored and people who are used to ignore politicians. So he meets the supporters never expecting anything to happen and suddenly the money bombs starts to go of, soldiers overseas donate massively to his campaign and he is making more progress than he had done all the years before.

Basically he was nowhere near ready for the onslaught that came his ways -- much like the shops in west Berlin had no idea what was about to happen when the wall came down -- and really, I can't fault the guy. How could he possibly know that this time it was different? Heck I couldn't have predicted it and I almost live on the internet.

And by the way he has one additional trick up his sleeve that is about to go of in a month or two. It may be worth sticking around to watch.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#35

Post by WiseWeasel »

nextparadigms wrote: post #29
WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

His movement has quite a big impact in GOP right now. They are replacing people in local GOP parties with their own. Even if Ron Paul doesn't win now, whoever will be their candidate in 2016 or even for the next Congress elections, will have a very high chance of winning. You may or may not like the libertarian views, but I'd say they'd be a huge improvement to the current religious conservatives, the neo-conservativ…

I think all that stuff is great, and that's why I supported him last time, but then he also has some less good platforms, like wanting to bring back a gold-backed currency [1], and a perhaps controversial stance on the legality of abortion. He's a mixed bag to me, and on top of that, he just comes off as not being sure why he's even in the race.

[1] Hard currency is deflationary rather than inflationary, which takes away much of the incentive for holders of wealth to place their holdings in relatively risky placements such as seed funding and venture capital funds (a consequence HN readers would surely realize the distateful meaning of). This decreases social mobility, which is anathema to the American Way. Inflation, to a point, is the lubricant for social mobility.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#36

Post by WiseWeasel »

tomjen3 wrote: post #34
WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

You have understand something if you are to understand Ron Pauls actions from the last election. He is OLD and has been running for this forever. He has always been an outsider. Always. And he never ever expected to win. He ran to get some discussion, to shake the political system up a bit. What Ron Paul didn't expect was the massive boost he would get from the internet. The first generation to grow up with the inter…

I still don't think he's ready, and that ship has likely sailed in any case. I'll save my cash for the next guy.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#37

Post by ThomPete »

Cushman wrote: post #23
dantheman wrote: post #6

"I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was basically outlawed in the last 40 years — part of it was environmentalism, part of it was risk aversion," he says. "And all the engineering disciplines that had to do with stuff have basically been outlawed one by one."

I smell bullshit. There are a few unjustly felonious fields-- nuclear power, stem cells, and recreational psychotropics are the ones that spring to mind. But in general, government regulation seems an easy scapegoat for the massive extraction of money and talent into the inanely lucrative military and financial sectors, along with a consumerist economy which inappropriately values making something cheaper over making…

Here is the problem.

Most environmentalist believe they can solve the worlds problem by exchanging the current sources of energy with newer more environmentally friendly ones.

But this is a linear solution to an exponential problem. The need for energy is going to increase manifold the next couple of decades.

Can you name me one type of renewable energy that offers anything but a different source for same output?

Thorium Reactors are one thing but it smells too much of nuclear and thus have most of the world running scared. This of course despite more people dying or coal burning in a year than have died of nuclear disasters.

So yes the government is risk averse and eviromentialism is creating a false premise about how to solve the worlds problems.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#38

Post by redthrowaway »

WildUtah wrote: post #31
WiseWeasel wrote: post #11

I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various politicians. The money I donated was not used…

Ron Paul will never be president. And he was never going to be president. It's not just that he's too intellectual and not suave and good-looking enough. It's that he actually wants to run the government. The bureaucracy, the intellectuals, the press, and monied business interests don't want to see a more innovative, more free, and more forward-looking country. They like preserving the power they have just fine, than…

I'd like to see libertarians admit that most people simply don't like Ron Paul and his policy platform, rather than try and claim it as a conspiracy of the political elite to keep him out.

The political elite, like most of America, don't give two shits about Ron Paul. They're not afraid of him; they ignore him. He's easy to ignore, because he will never be a threat. He will never be president, not just because he doesn't have the charisma to win an election, but because his policies are actively off-putting.

Paul fans like to claim that there are things to ling about him from all sides of the political spectrum. This is true. As a liberal, I like his stance on civil liberties, drug policy, and the like. However, I hate his economic policies, which appear to be crafted under the illusion that the world stopped turning in the 1920s. So while I like some things about him, I would never vote for him. Likewise for social conservatives: while they might like his tax policies, they hate his social ones.

Ron Paul is a perennial also-ran because his policies actively repulse the vast majority of Americans. Deal with it, and stop blaming it on some conspiracy of the political elite.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#39

Post by borism »

tlianza wrote: post #33
borism wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support. do you have any example to support this claim? Ron Paul isn't running for the first time. Which of his positions got anywhere close to mainstream candidate's agenda previously? Witness…

Here's a random example from one of the debates... http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc-gop... "In closing, Rick Perry said he has most learned from Ron Paul’s effort to end the Federal Reserve, and why it matters." In later debates, Gingrich seemed to make similar moves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCC0vokYHnY Not saying Paul was completely transformative, but his take on the Federal Reserve w…

Rick Perry? oh boy...

anyway, criticism of Fed from GOP is nothing new http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_...

I'm skeptical Ron Paul had any particular role in reigniting it.

Re: With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul

#40

Post by TDL »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #35
nextparadigms wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His movement has quite a big impact in GOP right now. They are replacing people in local GOP parties with their own. Even if Ron Paul doesn't win now, whoever will be their candidate in 2016 or even for the next Congress elections, will have a very high chance of winning. You may or may not like the libertarian views, but I'd say they'd be a huge improvement to the current religious conservatives, the neo-conservativ…

I think all that stuff is great, and that's why I supported him last time, but then he also has some less good platforms, like wanting to bring back a gold-backed currency [1], and a perhaps controversial stance on the legality of abortion. He's a mixed bag to me, and on top of that, he just comes off as not being sure why he's even in the race. [1] Hard currency is deflationary rather than inflationary, which takes…

Contrary to your point, the 19th century was a deflationary period and there was massive wealth creation and innovation. Inflation is not and was never a lubricant for social mobility.
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