TrueCasey is a Loon

If you haven't been over to TrueCasey's blog, don't bother.

He's spent his last two posts passing on information about the coming new world order, "fake" money, 911 conspiracies, etc. Much of the material he passes on for "education" is racist, anti-semetic and arguably un-American. We choose not to partake.

Now, we will be the first to note that the current international monetary and fiscal systems are hardly sound, and a return to sanity will be painful. But TrueCasey has jumped off into the deep end.

However, we note that this is consistent with TrueCasey's behavior. We have noted in the past that he has always looked for a way to rationalize his behavior, and even more so, has looked for reasons why his dumb behavior is actually "right" and will be redeemed in the end. He continues that now, going to even more ridiculous extremes. His new gurus are the survivalists and troothers. His new rationale for running up debt and failing to acquire a life is that it doesn't matter, the system is going to collapse and it'll all be worthless. Naturally, he never stops to think that even if bad things come to pass, having worked for a while will allow him to stockpile food or whatever, or buy gold coins, or do whatever else he needs to do to be prepared.

We suggest that TrueCasey read a book called The Tartar Steppe, which is also addressed in Taleb's masterpiece The Black Swan. Without giving it all away, it centers on the life of a young military commander, sent to a remote outpost to prepare for the invasion of the Tartars. He wastes his entire life there, waiting for an invasion that only comes when he is on his deathbed and unable to share in the glory.

We think TrueCasey could learn from this. His newfound gurus have been shouting similar slogans for a hundred years. They have been shouting about the invalidity of the currency since FDR, and arguing about it longer than that. They said similar things about JFK as they are now saying about Obama.

Someday, in some ways, they will probably be right. All monetary regimes eventually collapse, and the dollar will too. But anybody who is betting that they know when it will happen is seriously deluding themselves. It makes for nice idle discussion, and certainly is always the kind of thing that's worth bearing in mind, but if you live your life waiting for it, the odds are good that you'll end up like young Giovanni Drogo in The Tartar Steppe -- wasting your life waiting for an event that will most likely never come.

Or, as our dear friend Tony Dwyer of FTN Midwest Securities once famously noted "The sun is certain to go dark someday, but it makes for a pretty bad trade."

But TrueCasey cannot understand this. He has eschewed education, analayis and understanding in favor of quick answers and rationalization of the things he's already done, always easily available from videos and blogs on the internet.

Which is why he fails.

And that's the view from a temporary FalseCasey HQ away from home, where we have a fantastic view of the City and the bay.

Feel free to discuss