The L Word!

[JackRiddler]

Back in the 19th century when all your modern ideologies took their enduring shapes, liberalism originally stood for laisez-faire economics in a representative democratic state with individual rights to life, liberty and property. Economically, the word meant the reverse of how it is commonly used today in the United States. Of course, the U.S. understanding of liberals as supportive of strong state regulation of the economy is largely nominal. Most American leaders labeled as liberals, if not their base, are committed to what leftists now call neo-liberalism and have, e.g., supported measures for corporate and financial deregulation. (We'll see what happens with the coming vote on the Trans Pacific Partnership.) In most places in the world, however, liberal still refers to what Americans now call "economic conservatives" (who on economic questions are actually radical liberals, in the old sense). In the rest of the world, parties named Liberal tend to be center-right, like in Australia. The German FDP, Die Liberalen, have always been the raging libertarians in a society that mostly hates them, since they are truly the Party of the 5%. They are permissive on social issues and immigration, unlike the Australian Liberals who are more like Tancredo Wall builders. (In another one of these historic word-flips, libertarian was originally coined as the self-identification of anarchist socialists like Emma Goldman, but let's not get into that.) Of course, to right-wing Americans a liberal is a dirty commie agent. Among centrist pundits, liberal is absurdly used as a 1:1 synonym for the left, since the hegemonic discourse generally refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything to the left of Hillary Clinton except to call it extreme. Many leftists, meanwhile, have mounted a comeback for progressive rather than liberal as a clearer reference to the (soft) left politics represented, say, by Al Franken, or by 1960s U.S. liberals. And of course we've seen the 20-year rise of the liberal humanitarian imperialists, who also are not really new under the sun but re-taking up a modern version of "the white man's burden." The paradoxes around this word never cease.

[reddread]

1. I found the story of Henry A Wallace very thought provoking.

Imagine a world that never heard of Harry Truman?

[JackRiddler]

2. What ifs are problematic.

But I like this one.

I like to imagine things would have been different if the last real president with the individual power to change the historical course, FDR, had lived. But I don't know, of course.

[BKH70041]

3. Most of the conservatives I know are what would be called "Classic Liberal"

Interesting thoughts.

TY

[JackRiddler]

4. Economically, perhaps, but...

also on the social-religious stuff? Because liberal is secular and socially permissive, relatively speaking.

[BKH70041]

5. The social stuff doesn't interest me, so I don't talk about it.

[Rex]

6. Oh then you must know a lot of libertarians.

Conservatives tend to be classic enigmas.

[BKH70041]

7. I know people from all corners of life.

I judge people as individuals. No two are the same. Lots of false stereotypes about the others coming from all sides. I don't listen to it.

But as a financial advisor and planner, I admit most of my customers are more conservative because, quite frankly, they tend to have the money. You have money you can make money. Another rule I didn't make up, it just happens to be true.

Good Night

[Rex]

8. I'm sure it has to do with the area you live in.

Another simple fact of life that most financial advisor's know too. Have a great night!

[JackRiddler]

9. What's the range with your customers?

[BKH70041]

10. I take it you mean their net worth and not age, etc...

First let me clarify something else. Another poster seems to believe that my clients are from around where I live, which isn't the case. One of the things about being a financial adviser and planner is that I can live where I want and still service my clients. A nice benefit.

I currently have 98 clients, of which 27 live in the SF Bay area, 24 live in NYC, 19 live in the Boston area, 8 live in Atlanta, 7 live in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale/West Palm Beach, 5 live in the Asheville, NC area, and the rest live in various parts of the USA.

I don't accept clients with less than $1M, and currently my range is from $5M to $700M, the majority falling in the $20M to $50M range.