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Yanis Varoufakis: The Straw That Breaks the Ponzi’s Back?
Yanis Varoufakis: The Straw That Breaks the Ponzi’s Back?
By
Cognitive Dissonance
What do you do when your opponent won’t play by the rules? Worse, what do you do when your loan ‘partner’ (aka ‘debtor’) declares Calvinball, where the only rule is there are no rules, and proceeds to go off the deep end? The result, to put it mildly, is utter chaos, at least for those who expect the (self serving) rules to be adhered to. After all, the central bankers’ henchmen admonish, we’re all civilized here. So come back to the table and play nice. “Do it for the kids,” they plead - the epitome of hypocrisy since their stacked deck and tilted playing field does precisely the opposite.
There is an old and familiar saying in the financial world, no doubt a product of game theory brinkmanship, which speaks to the role reversal of power and leverage once the monster debtor owes such an astronomical amount they can no longer pay to service the note, let alone chip away at the principal. The supposedly weak suddenly inherit the Earth, or at least they wield a very long lever along with a fulcrum with which to move the central banker’s world.
It is most likely a safe bet to say those reading this article clearly see the unsustainability of the present day economic system. The vicious cycle of debt requiring ever more debt just to tread water leads nowhere else but into the abyss of inexorable socioeconomic crumble, if not all out chaos and collapse. At the very least we are facing war; the only real question is will it be worldwide and involve a nuclear exchange.
As individual pawns cavalierly exchanged back and forth, one for one, in the same manner high ground is taken, only to be conceded, then taken again in a bloody game of war only those at the top could possibly win, you and I must step back and ask ourselves the only two sane questions left. How did we get here and where do we go from here?
I can’t count the number of times I have heard, read or seen one commenter after another declare with the highest piety their belief that capitalism has been tragically subverted, perverted and co-opted into what it is today. Often the unspoken, but clearly implied, thought is that aside from a few bad apples stinking up the joint, capitalism would be humming along just fine thank you, providing full employment, the proper allocation of capital and apple pie justice for all.
While clearly the above description is an exaggeration, though not by much, when will “We the People” begin to question the basis for our most fundamental and indoctrinated premise, one that declares ‘Capitalism’ is the greatest thing since sliced bread and clearly superior to any other socioeconomic system out there?
When the ideological blinders are removed, or at least cleaned up enough to allow a modicum of peripheral vision, it becomes increasingly clear the present day socioeconomic disaster is not ‘just’ an aberrant case of food poisoning, but rather a fundamentally organic and intimately integrated deliberate flaw ranging all the way from garden to gut. When the body politic grows weaker by the day and various interventions only hasten the degradation, everything must be called into question and preferably not from the grave.
Similar to any team sport, the credibility and sustainability of capitalism depends upon a fair playing field governed by rules applicable to all, policed and enforced by independent referees that rewards the most innovative and talented without exploiting the weak and defenseless. While many will pine on and on about how things used to be so much better during the Golden Age of capitalism, an honest reading of the history of America, ‘Capitalism’ and the monetary system will disabuse most of this notion. Capitalism didn’t just go bad like some two week old fish mistakenly left out of the freezer. Capitalism has been, and always will be, corrupted and co-opted by the rich and powerful in order to form a more perfect union of slave plantations.
When End of Empire comes calling, only the illusion of invincibility, one perpetuated both by those desperately dependent upon the Empire for sustenance and power along with those whose bones the Empire grinds to make its bread, stands between “We the Trampled” and the last of the Empire’s ideological guards. Reduced to the lowest common denominator and groveling at the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid begging for handouts and scraps, both prison guards and prisoners find they are sharing the same living quarters while blindly following their assigned roles in the nearly exhausted controlling narrative.
Sadly, tragically, by the time End of Empire is at death’s door, those best positioned to seize the day and thrust their swords into the belly of the beast have lost all hope and any remaining desire to walk point and be the first to confront the decomposing remains of the self savaged beast. The final agonizing death throes and delirium tremens of Empire consume friend and foe alike long before the remains are scattered in the gutter to be picked over by the hovering vultures and newly arrived squatters.

The End of Empire clean up crew on standby.
To battle the beast from within, particularly when the Empire is at death’s door, is utterly futile for the beast is all consuming and totally corrupt. One must be an insider, thus corrupt to the bone, in order to reach the guarded halls of power. Once within the outer gates of hell, the disruptor is thoroughly co-opted and corrupted, thus they have become the problem and no longer the solution. To be anything else means entry is never gained and at best they remain impotent, at worst thoroughly spent.
Similarly, the emboldened and inspired revolutionary faces Hobson’s Choice if s/he is to overthrow the still-mighty-in-the-minds-of-the-native-population Empire. Damned if they adopt the most effective and expedient tactics of resistance, thus seen as indistinguishable from the Empire itself, and damned if they follow the rules of fair play and compassion in the face of a savage and cruel Empire desperate to cling to power, thereby ready and still able to shatter the native population in order to suckle the teat one last time.
But now there appears to be a third path, potentially enabling the man walking point to avoid the road to perdition, a trail and technique that strikes terror directly into the heart of Empire for it assaults the cancer at the core. An ascendant assassin from within, unconstrained by the cloth of corruption, inflamed by revolutionary ideology and armed with the Empire’s own debt weapons reversed for maximum effect, the perfect blunt instrument to bludgeon with.
Held together with baling wire and chewing gum along with heaping helpings of hubris and avarice, the Empire is vulnerable to internal destabilization wrought by those suddenly parachuted in by a population no longer believing or benefiting from the lies and deceit of Empire. A migraine headache repeatedly suppressed by opiates is eventually experienced as an agonizing wakeup call to those ready to do anything to relieve the pain of suffocating debt. The fiat party is eventually recognized as over either by consent or death. The Greeks have opted for consent over death.
For some, nothing settles the mind more thoroughly than the knowledge of certain death. Yanis is blessed (or cursed depending upon your point of view) with the certain knowledge of capitalism’s death. In fact, based upon the little I have learned about this man, he knows capitalism is already dead and the problem we now face is how to keep the decomposing corpse from violently exploding after the buildup of catastrophic internal forces is released.
Essentially Yanis Varoufakis sees himself as saving capitalism from itself with a Greek pinprick to a rapidly thinning cow hide. Wait too long and the cow hide becomes thin latex, then nothing will restrain the controlled demolition. She’s gonna blow, of this Yanis and many others are certain. If true, better now than later.
For decades he labored in relative obscurity doggedly speaking his conviction, credible because of his credentials, condemned as delusional because of his dissertation. Tempered by the impact of countless arrows and continuous stoning, hardened by years of self examination as he fought to understand his flaws and failure to communicate, Yanis is now the right man at the right time in the right place. His only true vulnerability, his Achilles Heel if you will, is the seaworthiness of the ship that ushered in his ascension. No man is an island, entire of itself when surrounded by those weaker of flesh, mind and spirit. Will his newly elected political party hold the red line or will it fold under intense international pressure?
Can the teetering fiat Jenga stack be carefully deconstructed? No, absolutely not, for The Powers That Be (TPTB) are fully prepared to go to the mats and practice a scorched Earth policy if only to deny the victor the means to rebuild in their own likeness. I suspect Yanis understands that holding firm will upset the Ponzi apple cart just enough to force TPTB to madly scramble in an effort to hold the decay at bay and the pieces from flying apart. This in turn will give Yanis and his posse additional time to pivot and attack the firmly entrenched Greek oligarchy, those who are obscenely profiting from the rape and misery of their fellow citizens.
Ultimately the Ponzi continues because those who hold the power all agree to play by the rules in order to collectively benefit from the confidence game. Yanis and company are the wild cards slipped into a stacked deck the powers that be were all but assured was clear of any jokers. With Varoufakis now firmly seated at the table and unwilling to play by the rules or constrained by the common goals of greed and self dealing, TPTB are now locked in a cage match to the death they thought they could contain and thereby never truly saw coming.
After gaining a seat at the table who in their right mind would not bluff, parry, and finally settle for the chance to thrust their beaks into the feast of fiat pie. Even worse for the powerful, the joker never picks up his cards to gauge his hand. Instead, incredibly, he lays them all out on the table as soon as they are dealt for everyone to see, especially by the ignorant and unwashed. The illusion of power and invincibility is slowly being exposed by the upstart Greeks led by Varoufakis.
While for now the fiat fire is contained to the nation of Greek islands, the embers that will ignite a raging inferno are rapidly drifting towards Italy, Spain and France. The arrogant European Union has seriously overplayed its hand and now is no longer certain exactly who is the fool still seated at the table. The only thing Greece has to fear is fear itself for the Emperor has no clothes and this is rapidly becoming apparent to those who wish to see.
The only way to defeat the insanity is to be perfectly and utterly sane, then sit back as the insane spontaneously burst into the flames of a cleansing self immolation.
02-17-2015
Cognitive Dissonance
Yanis Varoufakis

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i agree, all isms are cold temporal prisms and
light has always source-defined our content, limits, boundaries,
language and prisons. prisons of prisms, enlightening ....,
yet the mind has an insatiable appetite for everything,
as,
(the cat killer), curiosity. i never cared for cats
too much, not to the point of extinguishing curiousity.
.
so, i found this link on zero h.. apologies to the
hedger whose avatar, here, goes UN-recited.
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http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/the-global-minotaur-a-global-finance-...
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The Global Minotaur – a global finance metaphor by the new Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis
Minotaur
February 10, 2015 Economics, Editorial
EDITORIAL
By Sannleikur Komist
Yanis Varoufakis, the new Finance Minister of Greece, has a very interesting view of how the current global economic problems developed and why they continue to get worse instead of better.
In this four part video interview with Varoufakis, he explains, in metaphorical terms, how the United States has played the major role in collapsing the global economies and why Europe’s economies, through their own mismanagement, have little hope of surviving another looming financial crisis.
Varoufakis recounts the Greek myth of the Minotaur, a creature kept confined in the Labyrinth by King Minos of Crete. The Minotaur had the head of a bull and the body of a man and was kept alive by devouring human sacrifices. The Minotaur eventually required more sacrifices than the King was able to provide and had to be slain if the kingdom was to survive.
Varoufakis relates the myth to the roles of the United States and Europe in creating an all-consuming monster that the world can no longer afford to feed."
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end quote
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music ...
Paul Newman - Plastic Jesus (Cool Hand Luke OST)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNtftzGqrmY
The higher one goes in the levels of power, the greater the chance that they are sociopaths. So basically this means we have allowed sociopaths to become our "leaders".
Humans have a fatal flaw that can't be blamed on any type of system. No other creature on this planet is malicious except humans. A tiny fraction (.001?) of them are evil and sick and always wants moar, moar, moar. Unlike the rest of humans they do not care what happens to everybody else and will do anything, no matter how despicable to achieve this.
Wringing moar efficiency is getting toughter so big growth is in fraud. It keeps getting worse because these sick humans program their malice into faster and faster computers. Our kids are old enough to have kids of their own but won't because they know this and I can't and don't argue with them.
Yep. The trick is getting people to let go of thier beliefs in favor of thier knowing.
A big part of acquiring wisdom is relinquishing stored, often cherished, information. If I already know so much, am I inhibiting learning?
Any of the isims could work well. If it could be held accountable. That is the rub.
It could be done. But it would take some bigtime changes in thought and faith. Its this blind trust we are tricked into giving to various systems. Gov,religion,legal systems and such. We live in a constuct of our own choosing. Choosing a better construct is possible. It comes down to the will.
"Any of the isms could work" ?
Like communism, where everything is taken from everyone and passed out 'each according to his needs' (by the anointed ones in The Party, of course)? That has Never worked, ever. And the only way to enforce it is through the use of violence.
Value relativism has infected the Western consciousness for a long time. People don't know up from down, right from wrong. Most would get all bent out of shape if you suggested such things exist.
Yes any of the isms could work if there is accountability at all levels. Without it none of them do. Other than that I agree with you 100% on the free markets without force thing. It sure looks to me thats how all societies start out. The wierd thing is no matter the path they all seem to end up in the same place too.
You're speaking heresy there my friend. It sounds like you're saying ultimately we are responsible for our own reality. OMG, you mean it's not THEY, THEM or THOSE over there who 'make me'? :-)
First of all, one has to define their terms.
How is ''capitalism" defined ?
Now if one means the free, non coercive, non violent exchange between willing individuals of value for value - - this is far from obsolete. As a matter of fact, the world should give it a try for a change.
If something other than such free choice is proposed, what would that be? And if free individuals shouldn't be able to make such choices for themselves, who should make those choices for them? On what basis do they have that right ?
Again, it gets back to the grammar - the actual definitions of what one is talking about. 'Capitalism' as practiced today looks nothing like free exchange which adheres to human rights and Cosmic Law, at all.
Maybe we need a new word.
- “A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying — to others and to yourself.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Let's not be delusional: Yanis Varoufakis and his band / party of Radical Leftist Revolutionaries are not moral, honest or interested in the truth or "saving" Greece. They are liars interested only in The Revolution as a means to THEM taking power. They are the Sinaloa cartel that has made a hit on a fellow traveling Los Zetas cartel. He and all the Syriza leadership are notorious for their corruption and heavy handedness (mainly on the INSIDE of their movement to "enforce" compliance) and while they may be the stick that breaks the EU pinata, their hyper-leftist firebranding will turn the same way all failed radical MARXIST movements go - further CENTRALIZATION, elimination of private property and the replacement of the current corrupt regime with one even more corrupt and destructive, especially to the Greek poor and disadvantaged. We all know that the EU is run by the NEO-CON/Western Fabian Socialist centralists. The EU cartel and all its life choking bandito splinters are not free market capitalism. The EU is just this generation's non-revolutionary flavor of NEO-CON SOCIALISM. Yanis is no hero, he's an idiot like all who are blinded red by their Trotskyite/Marxist/Eco-Socialist ideologies. And the Greeks have not helped themselves by electing what will turn out to be a more deadly cure than the disease from which they are suffering. At the end of this most recent charade, Syriza will disappoint and cave. The Dear Leader of this ridiculous hodge-podge called Syriza put it this way: "We do not support any sort of Euroscepticism" (http://www.tovima.gr/en/article/?aid=593303)
+1 for the quote
"Tramp (our cat) did not like the collar. He's a capitalism loving Republican rather than a commie loving Democrat."
Sounds like animals and republicans have a lot in common. They don't like being collared.
Look, America is a communist country now. Republican is just a slower democrat- slower as in slower to accept/want change.
Both parties and therefore the country is full of commie mindset and most don't even realize it.
"We the people..." yea, that's not commie :P
I do have to disagree with you about ism's being a mental prison. Do they not encapsulate they general idea of what we as people refers to? If you take the base idea of the words, (i.e. capital, commune, social, Darwin, hedon, catholic) and think about their definitions, the ism's generalize the basic idea and concepts without getting into core principles that then defines each aspect of the word we use.
Example- capital is the savings of your labor. Capitalism is the investing of that capital into a business, or other areas that then allow your capital to grow as it assists others to do the same. The variations within it may differ but the concept is still the same.
Cog 101: Consider everything and believe nothing. Funny enough, I call that a Cog-ism lol.
Belief in an ideology (ism) blinds us to seeing the corruption and bastardization of it no matter how wonderful of an idea it was at its base, thus the trap.
To me the belief in something is knowing it and following it. It is the weak minded that allow themselves to be trapped by their beliefs because they do not know fully why they believe what they believe.
If you are a Christian and you believe Christianity is the only religion you are not following the faith of Christianity because you are believing in one RELIGION not one GOD.
However I do agree that there is traps in ism's but it's the ignorant that allow themselves to become trapped.
Very nice essay, mate. I wish I had the time today to elaborate further but suffice to say a wonderful reflection of the sentiments I and many others here hold on the core issues of the economic philosophies that littered the battlefields of the 20th century and threatens to crack societies apart today, tied together with the well deserved recognition of Yanis for his efforts on behalf of his nation.
Weeeeee!!!!
Isn't communism fun!!!!!!!!!!!
Speaking of British Communism... I hear that This Morning HSBC has been Raided from NPR.
That must be why ZH is so quiet? Right Tyler?
"Speaking of Western Communism...."
FYP
I don't expect you to answer this necessarily CD, but maybe someone can. We all talk about collapsing the system, ending the ponzi, etc.
My question is why is this banking 'system' not sustainable, at least for decades more? Now that the US has been brought in to the Fabian fold, what nation is going to object to the goals of one world government and one world currency - which will probably entail a be some sort of a fiat reset. This global currency reset will probably be sold as a solution to all the 'debt' issues in the world.......like Greece. I see very few in our government that understand the nation we've become, let alone and real ways of fixing it. Our constitution has been rendered meaningless, so that is less and less of a barrier to the US being integrated in to the global socialist turtle scenario. Hence the ISIS solution offered up that what we need to do to defeat ISIS is give them jobs - doublespeak for lets give them wheelbarrows of fiat and win them to our side and integrate them in to the 'machine'.
Russia and China are already communists/socialists, so when they feel the playing field has been equalled, I suspect they will be onboard also.
As a non-financial guy, my take on life is this: money is simply a claim on present/future wealth (whether resources, services or whatever). As banks don't produce any wealth, it seems strange that they should be able to make a claim on it by printing money (and giving to themselves).
In a rational world, I would agree. But in a rational world we would probably be on a gold standard. The stated goal of these people was to get us off the gold standard, incrementally in order to achieve it (see Fabian Society - turtle mascot and wolf in sheeps clothing standard), so that 'money' could be created out of thin air and seemingly not accounted for.
See Cog, you can write an excellent article that is concise, to the point and objective. It makes for even better dialogue and openness about a topic of importance and seriousness.
Now just tell that to HH before he gets a chance to publish his next contribution so we can have a healthy objective conversation rather than just a narrow biased pov.
Haven't seen him here lately since that dust up.
PS- hope you haven't had any new intruders since your last adventure.
"PS- hope you haven't had any new intruders since your last adventure."
The cat door was always magnetic collar activated in order to gain entry, a system I deactivated because Tramp (our cat) did not like the collar. He's a capitalism loving Republican rather than a commie loving Democrat.
After Whitey the possum exploited that system weakness I put the collar on Tramp, thus restoring him to obvious slavery status and once again became the king of my castle.
Until.......I took off the collar the other night to give Tramp a break and then forgot to put it back on before Tramp went out. Somehow Tramp still got in and I have no idea how he did. The door does not open from the outside unless the magnet is hanging from his collar and I checked that status again.
The only explanation I can come up with is either Tramp has a magnetic personality, something Mrs. Cog has always insisted was the case, or he is creating his own reality. Since he believed he could enter through the door he did, thus temporarily creating a reality where the door has no lock.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)
Cats are very adept at illusion. They are smugly satisfied when you believe you know what is going on with them.
There's an analogy in there, somewhere...
Sounds like you are describing a sovereign being. Some people around here confidently assert only governments can be sovereign. Sounds like no one told the cats. :-)
I'm likin' that kitty Tramp! :-)
Cog dis is a writer like the Dollar is as good as gold.
extraneous verbiage and appeals to emotion....not good writing.
Yeah....but I work cheap...as in for nothing. So the price is write. :-)
Free/Cheap shit is still shit. Thanks for making my point.
If you are reading this, or at least commenting about it, then that must make you part of the free shit army. Thanks for enlisting and making my point. :-)
Dear Cog dis,
TL;DNR means I did not read it.
But that's not entirely true. I read a couple paragraphs to see if anything changed. It did not.
Man is a part of Nature. Man exists in packs, but sexual reproduction continually produces deviants from a prevailing pack mentality. Man's systems are his constructs that evolve. The big dominates do not live forever. Giant dinosaurs perished. Giant bankers will perish. Small mammals may have stole and eaten the giant dinosaur's eggs.
The banker's system of debt perpetual enslavement uses too much of man's efforts and will perish. Varoufakis exploits a weakness of the Banker Leviathan. Varoufakis may pull the beast down, but his system will fail like Robespierre's to be replaced by a new Napoleon.
Nature is a biological system with endless innovation, death, and survival of the adaptable. Capitalism attempts to imitate Nature.
TL;DNR
More commie Cog Dis crap.
Bleh.
Get over yourself.
Shhhhhh... we still haven't told my mother he isn't a Republican.
Commies, Republicans and Northern Aggressors, OH MY !!!
When the locals find this out I fully expect pitchforks and torches at the door. :-)
Neither a borrower Republican nor a lender Democrat be. :)
Let me guess, the new communist party, a.k.a. The Libertarian Party
Amirite?
I was pleasantly surprised Cog. Didn't expect it of you to first of all have this truth but to also tell it to the many hypos on this site, who complain mightily and often about the evils of the system, which of course encompasses mainly corrupt banks and corporations while screaming about any regulation designed to curb them but that might hinder economic freedoms. Congratulations.
I think Yanis and the Greeks will hold. God save them.
The greater the success the more risk of arogence. humility needs tobe built into the system, which the US is lacking and will be our downfall.
nice work cd.
Thank you.
But I regularly tweak the nose of the Zero Hedge readership. However I usually do it less forcefully. :-)
Bloomberg this morning declared the Greeks were ready to sign a six month extension of the bailout burial of Greece. It repeated that assertion in the first sentence. Three paragraphs down, though, we find the assertion was being made by an Euro 'official' and the actual declaration was full of if's, buts, maybe's and potentials.
Even the press is becoming desperate to keep the narrative whole.
And they'll keep trying until it's ridiculous.
Greece already has alternative funding in their pocket from brics, but it will still be hard, going against the full power.
At least they can't kill them at this point. I worry about behind the scenes deathly threats from the power scum.
Like I said God help them.
There's still some time to go yet, but these new Greek politicians are seriously looking like they can not be bought or threatened. If that turns out to be the case, then what can TPTB do?
What's more: this could be the first ever example of an electorate getting politicians that actually do what it voted them in to do. How will "democracy" as we know it deal with that?
Sorry, couldn't make it past the 'evil Caitalism' screed. Aren't we talking about debt here? Mainly, Greek government debt (as a microcosm) at this point? A country where so many people are on the government dole with a major portion of others that don't pay taxes - perhaps because they don't want to pay for people thst do nothing?
Was it 'capitalism' that brought on the $245 billion 'loan' to Greece? No, it was simply more of the bad thinking by governments that welfare in the form of a loan will in any way bring about structural change.
The early mention of 'role reversal of power and leverage' in favor of the debtor is true enough. This is where the world is today. Those on the dole - the welfare recipients, the parents of 'dummy dollar' kids, the overpaid government workers, the pensioners that knew all along their contributions wouldn't facilitate their pensions, the social security recipients that knew all along they weren't putting enough in, the burgeoning numbers of recipients on disability, entire cities and counties (and, likely, states) that have mismanaged themselves for decades - their conscience and votes has been bought by it all. Its the old 'easy money and government money is monetary heroin' truism.
To claim this is 'capitalism' is BS - part of the big lie. Increasingly, its simply been welfare-ism. Now take a minute to apply other more political monikers - 'cause it sure ain't capitalism.
Look at charts shown here on ZH on overall global debt. Looking just at the US debt - check a government debt chart. See how it has skyrocketed. And we have a president that claims there's been austerity? This is insane.
If the Greeks had any sense they'd default and restart with real capitalism. Its somethings that's been missing there and in most parts of Europe for decades. Extrapolate this to the world.
Agreed. Cog makes it sound as though we would be better off as commie slaves than Capitalist slaves. Get rid of the Fed, put reasonable controls on the banks and corporations and Capitalism will produce paradise on Earth (at least as close as we can get)
So you are correctly noticing the cognitive dissonance that spews forth from Cog Dis.
Congrats, you took the Red pill.
I think you forgot your /sarc/ tag doc.
Cog proposes we go through the painful process of examining why we are slaves at all. While some may be willing to settle for something they think is as close as we can get while remaining on the plantation, some of us think it is worth the pain to explore a better way than slavery, and that requires considering everything while buying into nothing.