> > > the local real estate market is suffering with foreclosures and
> > > unsolds

> > Then help your fellow [ex]westerner as well as yourself. Buy some
> > property.

> > Global warming scientists more or less have figured out the Colorado
> > is a _former_ river.

> > There's no institutional racism out west so we'll all vote Democrat
> > when we move back east.

> buy low/sell high

> buying when most are selling is certainly an intelligent, shrewd,
> vulturistic (if a word) concept, despite that liberal-humanist good
> deed rationale you imply too

During the first emotional stages of a natural disaster everyone is
expected to work for free, to sell gen sets and fuel at pre disaster
prices.

Super market chains do in fact often assume the role of the local
aristocrat and provide ice and water for free.

Not just populists but a large majority believe there's a difference
in making a profit off of someone who's situation hasn't changed and
someone who's situation has recently gotten much worse.

The thing is, markets should work regardless of whether someone's
situation has recently improved or recently gotten worse.

"Price gouging" is only considered evil in the first emotional stage
of a disaster.

If Home Depot cannot afford to truck in more generators, then the
people whose situation has recently gotten worse might not get the
stuff they need.

After all, couldn't we look at peak oil as a natural disaster and
demand prepeak gasoline prices?

Most believe it would be better to keep free markets.

If you want to make sure everyone got what he needed, then level
wealth with free speech on economic issues including national economic
policy, not just free speech for "Bong Hits for Jesus."

In any event, any mass migration from the SW won't be as sudden as a
hurricane.

Landlords will have plenty of time to jack up the prices.

> milton friedman, ayn rand etal: economic man acts primarily in his
> perceived rational self-interest

Well, their argument is that _all_ you need to do is act in your self
interest and that's best for everyone.

DeTocqueville also countered the socialists of his time saying you
cannot make the country strong by weakening the individual.

What the "market" economists "merely" omit is that it works both
ways; you cannot have strong individuals by weakening government.

JFK was countering the "market" economists' nonsense with his famous
speech but he really meant it goes both ways:

It's what you can do for your country as well as what your country can
do for you.

Any JFK historian will back me up on this.

> true enough, but then how do ya explain altruism, religious
> inhibitions, secular humanistic hang-ups ?
> "culture norms repress selfish (and rational, self-interested)
> instincts,"

The "market" economists twist the natural meanings of words and claim
that these are vices of the human heart and need to be countered.

But altruism is a successful survival tactic for the individual and
this is much more true today than back when humans were still
evolving.

Cheap communications politicizes everything.


Bret Cahill


"You . . . you . . . you have to be nice to EVERYONE. Ha ha ha ha
ha."

-- One gleeful Dad