{"id":12282,"date":"2010-06-14T23:01:01","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T06:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=12282"},"modified":"2010-06-26T07:39:06","modified_gmt":"2010-06-26T14:39:06","slug":"reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-one-things-rarely-change-as-quickly-or-as-dramatically-as-we-expect-them-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12282\/reasons-to-be-cheerful-part-one-things-rarely-change-as-quickly-or-as-dramatically-as-we-expect-them-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Reasons to be cheerful, Part one: Things rarely change as quickly or as dramatically as we expect them to."},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you want to hear some really bad news? I mean dauntingly bad, horrifyingly bad, news so bad you could spend days or even weeks ruminating on it, worrying about it, desperately praying for it not to be true.<\/p>\n

Are you ready? Here goes:<\/p>\n

While you might have heard that the national debt in the United States is approaching $14 trillion, the actual unfunded liability of all American governments exceeds $125 trillion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stupefying, ain’t it?<\/p>\n

And stupefying is precisely the right word, since news like that brings out the stupid in people. Nothing enervates the chicken in Chicken Little like a weather report predicting falling skies. If you find yourself in the business of selling advertising or shrieking treacly books or quack nostrums to Chicken Little, it behooves you to hire yourself some weathermen. Worked for Al Gore, didn’t it?<\/p>\n

Am I being cynical? Not so much. Mainly I’m just being old.<\/p>\n

I am an old libertarian. Not an old man<\/em>, I hope, though of course I’m not getting any younger. But I have been a very radically committed libertarian since I was 19 years old, and an anarcho-capitalist since I was 24. I have been swimming in this ocean for 30 years, where many folks all over America are just now daring to wet their toes. I can defend the proposition that I am the first consistent theorist of both rational egoism and market anarchism, but, leaving that claim aside, it remains that I have been a libertarian for a long, long time.<\/p>\n

Why does that matter? Because I’ve seen the gravely-predicted collapse of the starry firmament before. More than once. More than twice. More than a dozen times. It does seem plausible to me that the-world-as-we-know-it will someday come to an end. But with every passing day, I become more resolved in the belief that that day will not be tomorrow, regardless of the breathless weather reports.<\/p>\n

It’s like this: New libertarians can be excitable. You’ve lived your whole life in an eyes-glazed-over sleep-walking state, and then, all at once, you wake up. The precipitant cause might be Atlas Shrugged<\/em> or a John Stossel TV special or Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you want to hear some really bad news? I mean dauntingly bad, horrifyingly bad, news so bad you could spend days or even weeks ruminating on it, worrying about it, desperately praying for it not to be true. Are you ready? Here goes: While you might have heard that the national debt in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251,24,212,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-big-mother","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-flourishing","9":"category-group-therapy","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17462,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17462\/overnight-news-jeffrey-epsteins-estate-sues-chinas-joke-to-regain-meme-supremacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":0},"title":"Overnight News: Jeffrey\u00a0Epstein\u2019s estate sues China\u2019s joke to regain meme-supremacy.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 12, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"How do you know the election was stolen? Everybody knows. The whole world knows. The Chinese are selling hoodies featuring the image of China Joe's improbable leapfrogging in votes. Here, I fear, is the last remaining form of the Jeffrey Epstein joke: Q: What's the difference between Jeffrey Epstein and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":18128,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/18128\/overnight-news-the-secret-to-zillows-flavor-of-ibuying-sucking-at-real-estate-helps-them-sucker-real-estate-agents-which-is-where-the-real-money-is\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":1},"title":"Overnight News: The secret to Zillow\u2019s flavor of iBuying? Sucking at real estate helps them sucker real estate\u00a0agents \u2013 which is where the real money\u00a0is.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 10, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote the other day about Zillow's losses on its iBuyer \"investments\" \u2013 incomprehensible losses considering that this is one of the few times when it is possible to make money on non-producing real estate. The losses on iBuyer \"investments\" can be stupefying from the point of view of any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Group Therapy"","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2689,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2689\/people-who-write-too-much-one-bloodhounds-manifesto\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":2},"title":"People who write too much: One Bloodhound’s manifesto","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Mike Farmer's post on philosophy got me thinking. I knew I had written fairly extensively, fairly recently, on some of the same ideas, but I couldn't remember where. I write a lot, and I don't always remember what gets posted where. What I was thinking of was Todd Carpenter's \"Blogger\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1698,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1698\/what-should-you-do-when-the-real-estate-news-turns-out-not-to-be-as-bad-as-you-had-feared\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":3},"title":"What should you do when the real estate news turns out not to be as bad as you had feared?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A. Smile in good grace:Today, in its Existing Home Sales report for June 2007, the National Association of REALTORS noted that mortgage rates are lower by 0.02% than in June 2006. I guess I knew that, but wasn't paying attention to it.\u00a0 I had wrongly assumed rates were higher because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lending"","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6197,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/6197\/joe-strummer-my-thoughts-on-the-looming-crisis\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":4},"title":"Joe Strummer: My thoughts on the looming crisis","author":"Greg Swann","date":"December 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Joe Strummer\" is the pseudonym of a frequent commenter on BloodhoundBlog. He runs a weblog of his own -- under a different pseudonym -- and leads a life of joy, contemplation and undisturbed privacy under his real name. But no matter how he is denominated, Strummer is an expert in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Mother"","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1949,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1949\/chicken-soup-to-social-responsibility-damn-im-a-paradox\/","url_meta":{"origin":12282,"position":5},"title":"Chicken Soup to Social Responsibility – Damn, I’m a Paradox","author":"Kris Berg","date":"September 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't pretend to understand the half of what Greg is trying to convey. This much, however, I will confess. Government is necessary, coalitions have value, and social responsibility is incumbent on all of us. Slam zoning laws if you must, but if, as a homeowner,\u00a0you suddenly find yourself sharing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Lending"","block_context":{"text":"Lending","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/lending\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12396,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12282\/revisions\/12396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}