
With Eye On Future, Billionaire Investor Bets On Paul - ca98am79
http://www.npr.org/2012/05/19/153002892/with-eye-on-future-billionaire-investor-bets-on-paul
======
mindcrime
Dear Mr. Thiel:

How about throw some money Gary Johnson's way? It's pretty clear that Ron Paul
won't be winning the GOP nomination; but Governor Johnson will likely be on
the ballot in all 50 states, as the Libertarian alternative to the major party
hegemony.

Thx,

Mindcrime

~~~
SkyMarshal
The problem with Gary Johnson is that when it comes to the financial crisis
he's too close to the status quo. His position is that nobody did anything
illegal, so no prosecutions, etc.

That's demonstrably false, and the lack of S&L-like prosecutions is a symptom
of governmental capture/crony capitalism, and its consequent moral hazard is
something we'll paying for sooner or later.

From that perspective, Ron Paul and/or Bill Still > Gary Johnson.

~~~
mindcrime
_From that perspective, Ron Paul and/or Bill Still > Gary Johnson._

Yeah, but Gary Johnson > Mitt Romney & Barak Obama. And Johnson will (likely)
be on the ballot in all 50 states, probably the only candidate other than
Romney or Obama who can make that claim.

------
WiseWeasel
I supported Paul last time around and was disappointed to discover he wasn't
really serious about (or maybe simply not prepared for) winning the primary or
having a significant impact on US politics at the expense of his political
party. I got the feeling he was perfectly content to let his r3volution get
hijacked by the Tea Party and used to suit the purposes of various
politicians. The money I donated was not used to mount a serious campaign, but
was instead appropriated for other use once the campaign was conceded. I ended
up having to vote for Bob Barr. Bob Barr! Fool me twice, you're not gonna fool
me again. Paul seems like a good guy, but he's doing more harm than good
squandering all these resources that might be better spent on someone who's
actually serious about running a viable campaign.

~~~
WildUtah
Ron Paul will never be president. And he was never going to be president.

It's not just that he's too intellectual and not suave and good-looking
enough. It's that he actually wants to run the government. The bureaucracy,
the intellectuals, the press, and monied business interests don't want to see
a more innovative, more free, and more forward-looking country. They like
preserving the power they have just fine, thank you.

And the press, the academy, and big business have enough influence over public
opinion to prohibit anyone they really don't like from winning power.

The purpose of sending money to Ron Paul and voting for Ron Paul is to move
the Overton Window. [1]

The day that someone like Ron Paul can win the presidency, there will be
dozens like him running and he won't seem like a special shining light. The
thing that does make Paul special is that he is running when it's impossible
to win but still possible for things to change.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window>

~~~
redthrowaway
I'd like to see libertarians admit that most people simply don't like Ron Paul
and his policy platform, rather than try and claim it as a conspiracy of the
political elite to keep him out.

The political elite, like most of America, don't give two shits about Ron
Paul. They're not afraid of him; they ignore him. He's easy to ignore, because
he will never be a threat. He will never be president, not just because he
doesn't have the charisma to win an election, but because his policies are
actively off-putting.

Paul fans like to claim that there are things to ling about him from all sides
of the political spectrum. This is true. As a liberal, I like his stance on
civil liberties, drug policy, and the like. However, I _hate_ his economic
policies, which appear to be crafted under the illusion that the world stopped
turning in the 1920s. So while I like some things about him, I would _never_
vote for him. Likewise for social conservatives: while they might like his tax
policies, they hate his social ones.

Ron Paul is a perennial also-ran because his policies actively repulse the
vast majority of Americans. Deal with it, and stop blaming it on some
conspiracy of the political elite.

------
Jach
I was more interested in when Thiel talked about whether technology growth is
decelerating. It was back in March, here's the video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRrLyckg8Nc>

------
adrianwaj
How far will $2.5 million go anyway? How will it compare to say $5 or $15
million? Sounds like chicken feed to me (coming from him) ..especially now
with the FB IPO a done deed.

What amount (if any) to Paul would it take for him to get kicked off the
Bilderberg steering committee?

------
dantheman
"I believe we are in a world where innovation in stuff was outlawed. It was
basically outlawed in the last 40 years — part of it was environmentalism,
part of it was risk aversion," he says. "And all the engineering disciplines
that had to do with stuff have basically been outlawed one by one."

~~~
vannevar
As an engineer myself, this quote illustrates Thiel's ignorance of engineering
progress over the past 40 years, and his disregard for the risks posed by
industrial-scale experiments on the general public. People like him are
precisely _why_ we need environmental regulations in the first place, instead
of simply relying on people's common sense and prudence.

~~~
dantheman
Neal Stephenson recently wrote an article on how being risk averse is limiting
our progress: [http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-
starv...](http://www.worldpolicy.org/journal/fall2011/innovation-starvation)

I think there are two sides to this, I want to see more innovation and am
willing to live in a riskier world to see that happen faster. A lot of
regulation merely locks in present bad forms, in the nuclear world we see that
yucca mountain isn't perfect so instead we leave nuclear waste all around the
country in "temporary pools" -- where the risk is much much higher that
something bad can happen. Unfortunately, when people become risk averse the
status quo dominates, I mean who can argue with "that's how it's always been
done" vs "I took a chance and it didn't work out, but the status quo was
unsustainable."

We've unleashed a monster of bureaucracy that vastly limits the potential
avenues of investigation. Feynman, has a great perspective - I got good at
math and could do it fast, this means that when I wanted to try something the
cost was low - a few minutes or an hour, whereas others it would take a day or
two. This allowed me to investigate areas with low likelihood of success, and
try out novel ideas. Some of his big discoveries were from that type of work.
(paraphrased from memory - couldn't find the story, it's in one of his books.

The problem is that we can directly measure the cost of an accident/disaster,
but we don't correctly factor, imho, the cost of stuff that was never created.

~~~
vannevar
_[W]hen people become risk averse the status quo dominates..._

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Looking at history objectively, I don't
think it can be plausibly argued that technological progress now is slower
than it was 60 years ago. And we are taking big new risks on a variety of
fronts, including massive experiments in the genetic engineering of worldwide
agriculture, smaller but even more dangerous experiments with genetically
modified viruses, and experiments in large-scale decentralized automation of
large segments of our financial systems, not to mention the ongoing global
experiment in CO2 saturation that we are conducting unabated. You can argue
for the benefits of all these experiments, but you can hardly say we've become
risk averse. In the context of the highly leveraged and interconnected world
we are creating, I would argue that we are nowhere near risk averse _enough_.

------
leot
Question: anyone know the largest risk, financially, that Thiel has recently
taken?

~~~
borism
Clarium Capital

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarium_Capital>

(directly related to his Ron Paul support)

~~~
Retric
_Clarium's assets under management grew to $8 billion in 2008 after which a
series of unprofitable investments and client redemptions resulted in its
assets declining below $1 billion as of 2011_

Ouch.

------
stevenj
After reading the headline, and then first seeing Peter's picture in the
article, I was expecting to read that he was going to be directly investing in
Paul Graham and YC.

Ha.

------
davidw
Sorry, but political articles are "off topic".

------
pgryff
Stupid "bet" by Thiel. If he was truly thinking of the future, he'd be better
off supporting Rand Paul not Ron. But a fool and his money...

~~~
Mvandenbergh
Obviously he doesn't believe that Ron Paul will win the Republican nomination.
Only an imbecile would believe that and Thiel is not that. The point is that
as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of plausible
candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist candidates
will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his support.

Witness how Santorum pulled Romney towards more socially conservative
positions just by existing. Santorum didn't win, but as a result of his run he
pulled the Republican centre towards him.

~~~
borism
_The point is that as long as Ron Paul is out there on the political flank of
plausible candidates with a small committed support base, the more centrist
candidates will tack towards his position to try and capture some of his
support._

do you have any example to support this claim? Ron Paul isn't running for the
first time. Which of his positions got anywhere close to mainstream
candidate's agenda previously?

 _Witness how Santorum pulled Romney towards more socially conservative
positions just by existing._

Santorum was Romney's runner-up if not outrunning him during several moments.

~~~
tlianza
Here's a random example from one of the debates...
[http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc-
gop...](http://vote4reason.com/2011/12/11/ron-paul-wins-iowa-abc-gop-
debate-121011-according-to-online-polling/)

"In closing, Rick Perry said he has most learned from Ron Paul’s effort to end
the Federal Reserve, and why it matters."

In later debates, Gingrich seemed to make similar moves:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCC0vokYHnY>

Not saying Paul was completely transformative, but his take on the Federal
Reserve which I think was largely considered "extreme" started to become more
of a mainstream GOP topic.

~~~
borism
Rick Perry? oh boy...

anyway, criticism of Fed from GOP is nothing new
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Federal_Reserve_System#The_enactment_of_the_Federal_Reserve_Act)

I'm skeptical Ron Paul had any particular role in reigniting it.

