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To: kas1 who wrote (1413)	3/2/2001 2:01:35 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12410

OT OTedious Philosophical Digressions.... Hi kas, We do get far afield. The most famous thing about Allan Greenspan's early years is that he was a sycophant of Ayn Rand. Though no one puts it quite that way. Nor do they say toady. But I believe "disciple" is politically correct. So, he's got a not quite mainstream background. Though for a guy trying to run a bank and a currency for 300 MM people, the idea of espousing staunch individualism does seem a little wacky. David Lewis is one of the most famous contemporary philosophers, who has done symbolic logic type treatments of common knowledge. Speaking of symbolic logic, this past weekend, Claude Shannon passed away. Some may know that he is responsible for a seminal work in 1948 on Information Theory. The basis of modern telecommunication systems. He wrote it while employed at Bell Labs, and it still frequently cited to this day by the more theoretically based scientists at Bellcore, ITU and the other pantheons of telecom. In his retirement years, he took a lot of pleasure in speculating in the equity and options markets. . I think MF oversimplifies, and that Keynes, although now ignored, was actually a much greater intellect... I concur. But I still think that the PC idea is brilliant because it eliminates the crony capitalism that Greenspan and his ilk are so prone to. I imagine Nietzsche would've disliked him even more. I've spent my time with Thus Spake Zarathustra and some of the cheerier tomes. All I can say is, anything Nietzche would've disliked is probably just my cup of tea. I just wish he were alive so I could PM him and tell him to get a life. Nietzsche wrote that the intellectual softness of Germans can be traced to their lives being filled with "beer, politics, and Wagner's music. I've read that Nietzsche preferred laudanum. I suppose he would have sniffed at my favorite, Mozart, as well. Well, the etymology of "speculation" is of course "seeing through other people's eyes" -- The American Heritage Dictionary somewhat disagrees. Derivation is from Latin "specula" -- to see. From speculum -- a watchtower. Maybe your source meant that guards were on the parapets keeping an eye out for the barbarian and the speculating was being done by the well shielded aristrocrat? -- if there really were common agreed-upon knowledge in the financial markets, there would be no reason for financial markets. It amazes me how the mindset of the vast majority of punters in the markets has devolved to a matter of a zero-sum casino game of find the bean under cup number three. What ever happened to the entirely more noble notion that men of means would provide risk capital for enterprise and trade and be remunerated for increasing the wealth of the nation? Too old fashioned I guess. Way too trite. L8R, Ray :)