Monday, October 20, 2008
Hedge Funds, Weed, and American Revolutions
Andrew Lahde is a New York hedge fund manager who recently made a fortune thanks to his bets against the subprime mortgage industry. He is now taking the money and running, and he just published a letter explaining why. In the two-page letter, he also manages to propose a new system of US government (one that involves George Soros and the Linux operating system), and calls for the legalization of marijuana. You can read the full letter here. I don't have much to add, except that it is pretty awesome and hilarious.
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4 comments:
I loved the title of Ezra Klein's blog post linking to this letter: "SCREW YOU, AND YOU, AND YOU. AND YOU. YOU'RE COOL. I'M OUT."
Haha, that sums it up perfectly.
see, smokestack! I told you George Soros was behind the credit market collapse...
Okay, just read the letter. This is amazing. Jokes aside about his obvious hubris in writing the letter, there is a level of humility there too. And good ideas. Yes, a philosopher class should create a new system. I love that he's so strongly in favour of this and uses his spotlight to recommend smart people be left to make up the rules ("in AMERICA?!?!").
but for me, here's the most important part of the letter:
"Lastly, while I still have an audience, I would like to bring attention to an alternative food and energy source. You won’t see it included in BP’s, “Feel good. We are working on sustainable solutions,” television commercials, nor is it mentioned in ADM’s similar commercials. But hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products. Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows
like a weed, hence the slang term. The original American flag was made of hemp fiber and our Constitution was printed on paper made of hemp. It was used as recently as World War II by the U.S. Government, and then promptly made illegal after the war was won. At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant – marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers. This policy is ludicrous. It has surely contributed to our dependency on foreign energy sources. Our policies have other countries literally laughing at our stupidity, most notably
Canada, as well as several European nations (both Eastern and Western). You would not know this by paying attention to U.S. media sources though, as they tend not to elaborate on who is laughing at the United States this week. Please people, let’s stop the rhetoric and start thinking about how we can truly become self-sufficient."
This has been a long-time issue for me. Hemp is an incredibly robust plant that would be not only a boon for domestic manufacturing, farming and all applications under the sun, but if grown in abundance (strategically and in an a biodiverse manner) would act as one of the most powerful carbon traps--important when considering the extent to which deforestation of the rainforests and destruction of the boreal forests from the tar sands have greatly reduced our planet's only way to regulate its temperature.
The U.S. of A. was literally built on and because of hemp plantations. The founding fathers grew it, for gods sakes!
And on the subject of pot as a drug. Legalization would mean: huge revenue gains by govt through taxation; huge savings from dismantling the "war on drugs" regime that puts a ridiculous number of citizens caught smoking, buying, etc who are not part of an organized network of crime; and--I think--less violence because, as we all know, potheads are too lazy for fighting at the end of a night. (Imagine Granville Street on a Saturday night in a world where the people are smoking pot at the bars instead of guzzling alcohol! The city would save millions in police presense and enforcement.)
I could go on but I think my point is obvious.
This is important. I hope there's an audience to hear the message.
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