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Strategies & Market Trends : ajtj's Post-Lobotomy Market Charts and Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: roto who wrote (35834)	9/3/2021 12:05:51 PM
From: ajtj99	2 Recommendations Recommended By Jacob Snyder towerdog Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97950

The homeless problems really started when the US stopped locking people up in insane asylums in the early 70's. Once they were freed, many ended up living on the streets. Also, many Vietnam vets who were suffering from PTSD and were getting little to no help ended up on the streets homeless in the 80's. A majority of the US homeless people suffer from mental illness and/or substance abuse. While the US government loves to lock up folks at $40k/year for possessing recreational drugs, it doesn't like to spend a dime on treatment for addiction. It's politically untenable, so we get blowback. One of the forms is homelessness. It's a complex problem, and even more so in high rent areas like SFO and NYC.

To: roto who wrote (35834)	9/3/2021 12:22:38 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 97950

... but somewhere along the way antagonisms formed & persisted The sometime was around 1750 and the somewhere was Ohio and the Appalachian mountains. That was when the cast of characters that envisioned manifest destiny for the United States gained ascendancy. Those antagonisms were for whatever group or tribe was in their way. Once the bulk of population washed up against the western shore the antagonisms turned toward any new face.

To: roto who wrote (35834)	9/4/2021 3:19:05 PM
From: Sun Tzu	2 Recommendations Recommended By ajtj99 Jacob Snyder Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97950

I am going to channel my inner Malcolm Gladwell and give you a few parallels. It is funny how people associate what they want to see to history and the reason for success (or failure). If you ever listen to the Islamists, especially Arab Islamists, you see that they associate the golden age of Islamic empire to being righteous and the will of God. While their demise falls squarely on straying from that path and losing their ways. Their reasoning is very similar to some American conservatives who see the "golden" age of the US as part of a manifest destiny and all the ills that has befallen the society due to astraying from the conservative values. I've seen some American conservatives speak of the constitution and the wisdom of the founding fathers with the same reverence that the Islamists speak of Quran and the early Muslim leaders. But I can easily make a case from many different angles. For example, I can say that their progress was due to communication. Islam mandates that every Muslim who can afford it should go to Haj (Mecca) at least once in their lifetime. The "only if you can afford it" condition and technology of the time meant that Haj was the equivalent of Davos conference where all the rich people and influencers got together to exchange news of the economic and political conditions of their region and figure out what has worked where. Many if not most of them were merchants and capitalist who also brought goods with them and traded them. The descent of the Islamic empire maps to about the same period that the printing press became common and allowed Europeans to communicate more effectively than the Muslims. Furthermore, the Europeans pirated and downright plagiarized much of Muslim scholars (Copernicus would be kicked out for plagiarism if he had published his paper today). So the pirated the knowledge base that was there and spread it more effectively within Europe. Now it doesn't have to be communication networks (though that is a big one). It can also be social equality and equity. Islam (initially) smashed class barriers and promised everyone who converted a chance to pursue their dreams and go as far as he is able to. To many of the Arab looters, it was not so different than the conquest of the Americas (although to be fair they were a little more compassionate about it - they only killed you and raped your wife if you didn't convert). The 2nd and 3rd generations of some of the conquered lands joined in and led armies under the banner of Islamic conversion. As well, to many of the lower classes in the conquered lands conversion brought the freedom from rigid social structure and the ability to move far ahead. They didn't care who the "lord" of the land was if it meant more freedom for therm. Their situation was not unlike what some early American immigrants experienced. This of course changed once new ruling classes got well established and after the first 200 years (America is here) little of the original promise remained. Then we can look at it as a banking and capital flow system...or the military technology...or... My point is that social progress is multitiered. There are some common elements such as immigration, ease of access to capital, freedom from rigid social constraints, and communication technology along with relative peace that are common to the golden age of all countries. And they all pretty much end up the same way; as new elite get established, they protect their status according to the logic of their time and limit upward social mobility, immigration, access to capital and communication systems and so on. There are lessons to be learned from history. And one of the big ones is that from history we learn that we learn nothing from history.