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Re: The Crypto Winter
by Steve Schear 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

At 11:15 AM 11/22/2001 -0800, David Honig wrote: >At 08:46 PM 11/21/01 -0800, Petro wrote: > > No. Libertarians are for "free markets", which are inherently > >capitalistic in nature, but the reverse is not true. There are many > >*wealthy* capitalists who are all for strongly regulated markets and > >high barriers to entry. One could argue that they are not Capitalists. > >Those are philosophical parasites. Like a congressvermin who campaigns >on liberty and once in office destroys it. A good recent example is Warren Buffett calling for an FDIC-style government insurance against terrorism. In the sweet name of self-interest he proposes that the government increase existing insurance moral hazards by forcing all citizens to underwrite those who have chosen to live or work in higher risk areas. http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/columns/terror20.htm I'M in the insurance business -- an expensive place to be in the past couple of months. It was made costly for Berkshire Hathaway, the company I run, because I did something very dumb: allowed Berkshire to provide insurance coverage for a huge catastrophe loss without its getting a premium for doing so. The risk we unthinkingly assumed was a loss from terrorism. Given the degree of my error, I was lucky: We estimate our Sept. 11 loss at Berkshire to have been ``only'' about $2.3 billion. That's more, by far, than we've ever lost from a single catastrophe, but the toll could have been far larger. Indeed, had a nuclear device been available to Osama bin Laden, the loss could have bankrupted most of the insurance industry. A potential loss of almost infinite magnitude can be assumed only by an entity of almost-infinite resources. That entity doesn't exist in the private sector. Only the U.S. government fits the bill. Washington has accepted this proposition to a point. Congress is now agonizingly trying to create some sort of industry-government coalition that would insure losses from terrorism. Some proposals limit the government's liability but leave the risk for the industry open-ended. These proposals won't work: If unlimited liability is left with insurers, they will necessarily refuse to renew policies they see potentially leading them to bankruptcy. Equally bad, all the proposals now being considered will engender pricing based upon risk exposure: If a business is located in a high-risk spot, it will be asked to pay a staggering price for insurance. Risk-based pricing is normally equitable and desirable. In this case, though, it would have anti-social consequences. For example, the terrorism risk per dollar of insured value may be 10 or more times for iconic or critical properties in New York City what it is for properties in less-populated areas. But great cities are central to our society. We don't want them to wither under the burden of hugely disadvantageous insurance costs. Their citizens almost certainly bear above-normal physical risks in the terrorist war being waged upon us; we shouldn't impose crippling economic costs on them as well. We should adopt the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as a model for where we want to head in the insurance industry. The rationale for the FDIC, formed 68 years ago, was clear-cut: The United States sorely needed to eliminate bank runs and the financial panics they caused. Before the FDIC, the risk from bank failures resided with depositors, who had no way to shed it. Neither they nor their banks could lay that risk off on private insurers for two reasons. First, the dollar amounts involved were simply too large; second, losses were correlated, in the sense that the failure of a few banks frequently caused a chain reaction, toppling good banks with bad, leaving a mountain of economic damage. Fortunately, these punishing disruptions to our economy were ended by the advent of FDIC insurance. Now, millions of business owners, individuals, landlords and lenders bear the economic risk of terrorist attacks. Insurers won't assume the risk -- we were previously dumb, but we've learned. It isn't right, though, that these risk-laden millions should have to shoulder this burden themselves. If we were to adopt an FDIC model for handling terrorism, the insurance industry would not be permitted to earn a dime from the coverage. Instead, a premium tax, payable to the U.S. Treasury, would be levied on all insurance. This would have the equitable effect of spreading the terrorism-related cost to the country in general, just as we spread defense expenditures. Were such a proposal enacted, it should sharply limit private lawsuits seeking to place blame on some party involved -- an airline, say. We should want the Treasury to make payments to victims solely to compensate them for loss of property, life or direct earnings, without worrying about fault. The law also should cover war losses. Some people will argue that an FDIC model for insurance would be a socialistic intrusion into the private sector, yet that institution is today generally regarded as having been enormously beneficial. Once, the problem was bank runs and economic panics; we found an innovative solution. Today, the problem is terrorism and its capricious effects on insurance costs; we need a solution of comparable efficacy. Warren Buffett is chairman of the board of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a diversified company with insurance operations, and a director of the Washington Post Co., which has an investment in Berkshire Hathaway. This was written for the Post.

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FiveStarSupplements.com
by Shane Mullholand 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

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Re: in praise of gold
by Faustine 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 > David wrote: > George wrote: >Faustine wrote: >Petro wrote: >>>> 5) Gold makes women sleep with you. I don't know why they >>>> like it, but they do. >>> They sleep with you because of your large cattle herd only they >>> have accepted abstracted value and settle for gold or stocks... >> Not all women are golddiggers. I happen to think any woman who marries >> for money or sleeps around for gifts and dinners is worse than a whore. >> As the old saw goes, at least real prostitutes are honest about what >> they're doing. >It might be more than just wealth these women are after. A man with >fat herds, or a fat wallet can better provide for children than a man >with a single battered old goat, or an empty wallet. And over emphasized >secondary sexual characteristics might, at the subconscious level be >linked with better child-producing abilities. Oh I know, I don't doubt it for a minute; I was just being difficult... As I said in another post, for the vast majority of people, there's no getting away from nature. Schopenhauer said it better than I could long ago in "World as Will and Representation"-- here's a link to his essay "The Metaphysics of the Love of the Sexes": http://www.concentric.net/~Wkiernan/text/Schopenhauer_Love_of_the_sexes.html Quite entertaining--lots to quarrel with but lots of good sense; one of the most intellectually honest philosophers I've ever come across. Here are some short general quotes to spur some interest... "To marry is to halve your rights and double your duties." "The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness." "Faith and knowledge are related as the two scales of a balance; when the one goes up, the other goes down." "It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character." "Every nation ridicules other nations-- and all are right." "Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." "Intellect is invisible to the man who has none." "What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity." "He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom." "Religion is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people as to how they shall think." "Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." "The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively not by the false appearance of things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice." Well, I guess that's enough proselytizing for one post... > The only "abstracted value" I find really intriguing is the quality of > a man's mind. Everything else is entirely beside the point. You have no > idea how often I get hit on by so-called "attractive" men--and I'm quite > proud to say I've never dated even one of them. I'd prefer a fat cranky old > genius over a rich businessman or male model anyday! >>You don't know how many men on this list you just gave hope to. :) Which reminds me, there were some really funny passages in that "Herman Kahn: Supergenius" biography I put up a link to a few months ago--if someone who really maxxed out all of the above qualifiers didn't have the slightest trouble getting laid, there must be hope indeed! LOL ~F. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/762/g5Tuca7bfvEQJlWwCfT3Hlg1F+hHVWI+aSJq5axfPaPCMAoI0t KDluLjESvKGwnkvwXuhJmgUX =jB+P -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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We are Unable to Reach your Web Page
by adam.brett＠mail.internetseer.com 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

There appears to be a problem in reaching the following Web page from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.99.04.05-99.04.11/msg00345.html Error: Time Out This error is most commonly due to an Internet connection problem and does not necessarily indicate that your server is down. As recommended by the robot Guidelines, this email is to explain our research activity and to alert you about the connectivity error we encountered. InternetSeer, the world's largest web site monitoring service, does not store or publish the content of your pages, but rather uses the information to update our ongoing Web Connectivity Study. To learn more about our study results or to request InternetSeer to continue monitoring your Web site in this way, visit: http://scclick.internetseer.com/sitecheck/clickthrough.jsp?I5s57h5e5i5g5l5o… If you find this information about the availability of your Web site useful, we would appreciate your feedback. Should you prefer not to receive these error notices in the future please let us know by replying to this email and placing "remove" in the subject line. You will be removed from receiving further email error notices. Adam Brett Analyst Manager cs-adam.brett(a)mail.internetseer.com InternetSeer.com "Your Remote Web Site Monitor" http://www.internetseer.com PS. We will send you a courtesy email when we are able to reach your Web page again. ##cypherpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com##

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New and Improved! 14017
by k8904＠orgio.net 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

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PaiGow Tournament & 30% Bonus At Cherry Casino!
by newsletter＠gamblerdepot.com 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

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Re: Geo-encryption
by Dorothy Denning 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

We don't have anything yet we are giving out to the public, but no, it isn't related to the CoinCard (which I hadn't even heard of).

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Re: Geo-encryption
by Dorothy Denning 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

We don't have anything yet we are giving out to the public, but no, it isn't related to the CoinCard (which I hadn't even heard of).

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Anonymizing Scam
by John Young 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

Below are strange statements coming from Lance Cottrell. Is there no anonymizer that is not sucking up to the TLAs? Worse, has there ever been? ----- http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/11/20/privacy.reut/index.html One company that is still making money off privacy is Anonymizer.com, a San Diego-based company that offers anonymous Web surfing for $50 a year, or $5 a month. The company has 20,000 active subscribers, said President Lance Cottrell. "We're still seeing very strong growth," Cottrell said. "Most people are looking to prevent their boss, insurance company, spouse, ISP (Internet Service Provider) from knowing where they're going." Even so, Anonymizer.com began a push six months ago to market its service to corporations, including law and investigation firms, and the U.S. government, he said. "Intelligence agencies have been using us for years, especially since September 11," Cottrell said. "They use us to keep an eye on bad guy sites" with covert monitoring. ----- The pattern: initial big deal about helping the public protect its privacy, then boom, a later revelation it was impossible to continue ... well, the reasons vary, but the cover story is always the need for money, the Judas rationale. Meanwhile, the fabulous surfing data archive allegedly inviolate, or never retained, or no way to ever know who was using the service, that is the data all free-gift marketers aim to collect. Were any anonymizing archives ever trashed or truly protected against concurrent snarfing? Is Safeweb laughing like ZKS, like Lance? First, the US, then EU, then CN, all the way to MD. What does this say about commercial anonymizing services, and remailers? And crypto, especially free PGP, and the honeypot AES?

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by Customer Service 23 Nov '01

23 Nov '01

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