I've seen many good boards ruined because of political discussions slowly polluting investment discussion and then overwhelming it. It's Gresham's Law for investment boards and none of us can resist it, unfortunately.
...
...even the most altruistic of intentions degenerates quickly.
...the next few months and beyond are going to be difficult to not have the political posts carrying over across all topics, so let's try hard to resist the impulse to post political threads outside the politics sub-board.
wabuffo
Some resistance and then surrender.
You likely know that Gresham's Law's meaning has changed over time (generalizability vs validity), that it may not really 'belong' to Gresham and that conditions are required for the Law to apply. Somebody you like has reflected on that.
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/greshams-law/Some attribute the bad money driving out the good one to Gresham but there are other candidates such as Oresme (medieval treaty on money) and even Copernicus. However the origin likely comes from Aristophanes in his play The Frogs, which is eerily relevant for this thread and your post:
"This city, it often seems to me treats our best and worthiest citizens the way it does our old silver coins, our new gold ones, as well. This money was never counterfeit — no, these coins appeared to be the finest coins of all, the only ones which bore the proper stamp. Everywhere among barbarians and Greeks they stood the test. But these we do not use. Instead we have our debased coins of bronze, poorly struck some days ago or yesterday. That’s how we treat our finest citizens, the nobly born, our righteous men, our best and brightest, the ones well trained in music and the dance at the palaestra. Instead we use foreign bronze for everything — useless men from useless fathers, red heads, men who’ve come here very recently — the sort the city at its most negligent would never use in earlier days, not even as a scapegoat. But now, you silly fools, it’s time to change your ways. Use worthy people once again. You’ll see — if you’re successful, then you’ll merit praise. And if you fail, well, you’ll be a fine match for the tree you’re hanging from. At any rate, should you slip up, that’s what the wise will say."
The message in the play obviously is not economical or financial. This was the fifth century and Aristophanes (like this humble poster) witnessed the degradation of politics and called for some kind of renewal. His real point was that bad politicians tend to drive out good ones. One can argue that this was the last masterpiece of classical art and decaying politics was a presage for decaying democracy and conquest by the Macedonia, signaling the end of the Athenian adventure. It was meant to be a comical play but the second part is less funny and the outcome, sad.
i'm in the process of fighting these trends with the tools i have but i've come to agree that this anonymous investment forum is not the place to do it.
----)
Back to name-calling, insults, ad hominems etc
