Why are Ninjas invisible?

Invisibility is the state of an object that cannot be seen.

A Ninja was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations. The ninja, using covert methods of waging war, were contrasted with the samurai, who had strict rules about honor and combat. In his Buke Myōmokushō, military historian Hanawa Hokinoichi writes of the ninja:

“	They travelled in disguise to other territories to judge the situation of the enemy, they would inveigle their way into the midst of the enemy to discover gaps, and enter enemy castles to set them on fire, and carried out assassinations, arriving in secret.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War
Chapter 1: Laying Plans Point 18:  "All Warfare is based on Deception."
Chapter 2: Waging War Point 6 and 19 "There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare." "In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns." (Strike swiftly and decisively)
Chapter 5: Energy Point 15: "Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger."
"Chapter 7: Maneuvering  Point 19: "Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

What one sees isn't necessarily what is reality. But many times people are easily lead to see what they want to believe.

Barings Security and Nick Leeson in the 1990s. Creating the illusion that everybody wants to believe. Today a billion isn't that substantial with the likes of AIG and Bernie Madoff but this is a story of how one man lost $1 billion.

Silver Update: Silver nears $50

In December I pointed out Silver was the Best Investment of 2011. At the time Silver was around $28. In January it dropped a bit... into the $26s and then began to launch. So, if you bought in the $26-28 range is it time to run? Is Silver a bubble about to pop?

Check out these charts... the Dow vs. Silver



If you look at the chart to the right. Silver hit a 27 year support in 2007... and yet the biggest gains have been since.

And if you look at this chart you'll see after 2007 the ratio continued to drop.










These charts would suggest it might be time to start diversifying. And if you do believe in these charts I'd say you may want to take some off the table and stick it into something else that has tangible value (non-dollar denominated). But I'm not convinced because I believe in another chart much more.

The chart on the right shows the value of gold vs. the Dow since 1900.

Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

Economics is getting fashionable thanks to Econ Stories. Keynes advocates War to boost the economy and Hayek counters with bottom up entrepreneurship! I'd say Hayek's logic wins hands down!



And the first Keynes vs. Hayek... still awesome.

How Government solved the Healthcare Crisis

Comment: This is a reprint from another blog post which I linked at the bottom. But a story that needs to be told in regard to how the medical industry has been corrupted by rules and regulation to the point that it has become a crisis. 

Today, we are constantly being told, the United States faces a health care crisis. Medical costs are too high, and health insurance is out of reach of the poor. The cause of this crisis is never made very clear, but the cure is obvious to nearly everybody: government must step in to solve the problem.
 
Eighty years ago, Americans were also told that their nation was facing a health care crisis. Then, however, the complaint was that medical costs were too low, and that health insurance was too accessible. But in that era, too, government stepped forward to solve the problem. And boy, did it solve it!
 
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, one of the primary sources of health care and health insurance for the working poor in Britain, Australia, and the United States was the fraternal society. Fraternal societies (called "friendly societies" in Britain and Australia) were voluntary mutual-aid associations. Their descendants survive among us today in the form of the Shriners, Elks, Masons, and similar organizations, but these no longer play the central role in American life they formerly did. As recently as 1920, over one-quarter of all adult Americans were members of fraternal societies. (The figure was still higher in Britain and Australia.) Fraternal societies were particularly popular among blacks and immigrants. (Indeed, Teddy Roosevelt's famous attack on "hyphenated Americans" was motivated in part by hostility to the immigrants' fraternal societies; he and other Progressives sought to "Americanize" immigrants by making them dependent for support on the democratic state, rather than on their own independent ethnic communities.)
 
The principle behind the fraternal societies was simple. A group of working-class people would form an association (or join a local branch, or "lodge," of an existing association) and pay monthly fees into the association's treasury; individual members would then be able to draw on the pooled resources in time of need. The fraternal societies thus operated as a form of self-help insurance company.