September 06, 2005

• A New World Order
• I think you're overreacting squidranch. My mum would say that about Sydney. Heaps of people would say that about their home state/town/country. I don't read hubris in it. *shrug*
• Get the pitchforks! I got the tar and feathers. Let's decorate the bitch.
• err....I didn't hear it, needing a plugin - I went and saw the Drudge article cited.
• I don't read hubris in it. *shrug* This particular instance might not be hubris -- insensitive, yes -- but that does not mean that Bush, et al are lacking in hubris. Let's hope that if they don't fly too close to the sun that they at least get swamped by the flood waters.
• So she's a glass half-full kind of gal?
• "which is kind of scary"
• I read it as a wealthy, powerful woman speaking about people who are less fortunate than her and being tremendously uncaring and insensitive. These sad folks are suffering under the burden of losing their homes, livelihoods and quite possibly their loved ones and she implies that they are fortunate just because they were poor to begin with? Yes, I see that as hubris.
• Hubris, and worse, willful ignorance. On Larry King tonight she was asked how she responds to criticism of her son and she just pooh-poohed it, even LEGITIMATE criticism. I do think that this is a time that we should be coming together as Americans to help with the relief efforts, but to say that criticism of the the slow response time is unfounded because, hey, look how GOOD these people are doing, is simply tragic and unconscionable. The people who screwed up the START of the relief efforts are still in charge and I'm afraid that they will continue to screw things up. This is NOT a political matter. This is a matter of poor governance, something altogether different. And her "cake" attitude is very illustrative of the thinking that has produced this flawed leadership.
• i hope this all ends with bush jr. sleeping with his mother. . . .and gnashing of the eyes. i generally try to look bush family actions in terms of politics, but this was just cold. ice cold.
• I wonder if all three mentioned Bushes hum, click and whir should you get close enough to hear without the Secret Service shooting you or being hugged as a prop. After they hug you, you vapourize off camera.
• You people are just jealous because they are the evil inhuman overlords in charge of the murdering war machine, drunk on human blood and bathing in their ill-gotten wealth, while you're just some dude with a tiny little pee-pee (or woo-woo, as the case may be).
• I retract my earlier comments. I went and read Drudge again. Either I didn't properly read it or hyperskimmed or something, but somehow I hadn't picked up that last paragraph viz: "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this --this is working very well for them." I won't get into the semantics of whether or not that actually qualifies as hubris. But that is elitist condescension and smug faux-felicitations. What a bitch! [Sorry for my flawed comprehension before. The new chip has been inserted and the new drug regime has been commenced.]
• off with her head!
• Hahahahaha! Oh, Jesus Christ.
• 
• I think the Bushites constantly use this type of reasoning, like "Well, Iraqis are used to torture anyway, so this-- the fact that we torture them not quite as much works out very well for them." A Moral Relativist isn't quite as evil as someone else.
• OMGITSWORKING!!!
• Fact: The entire Bush family, from way back, has consisted of worthless human beings who didn't scruple to suppoert the Nazi war manchine or latterday interests of Arabs over their own countrymen. They're entirely about wealth and privilege. Why expect anything different from them now?
• That's the first image I've ever seen at mofi. Either you are all very restrained or tracicle has hitherto otherwise kept you that way. "manchine"? That sounds like it should be accompanied by disco music, strobe lights and screaming female office workers with sweaty fists full of $20 notes and rum punch cups, drooling as their eyes pop-out on a hen's night.
• It's choppin' heads time!
• Chy's little image made me look up the French Revolution on wikipedia for a little history lesson refresher.

  Causes of the revolution include the following: ... An unmanageable national debt, both caused by and exacerbating the burden of a grossly inequitable system of taxation. ...

  How interesting.
• Unbelievable. But not surprising. If that's even possible.
• Wow.
• RE revolution: There's not a distinct enough class difference nor any kind of goal most 'underpriviledged' would recognize to work for. That is, most people, regardless of class, think american capitalist democracy is still the way to go. There's nothing to fight, folks. Go back to your homes. If you're poor it's your own fault because we live in a meritocracy.
• Meritocracy? Ok, I'll bite. Then I would assume by your logic how are people born into wealth and power are somehow deserving of this boon? That those with the connections and wealth to go to the best schools and education don't have a leg up on those born into poverty? By what "merit" is that? I admit that our society alows for the odd "up by the boot straps" story, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
• And, with the estate tax possibly on the chopping block, how will "old money" get spread around? The Reagan years proved that "trickle down" just doesn't work.
• That is, most people, regardless of class, think american capitalist democracy is still the way to go. That should read "That is, most people (who matter), regardless of class, think american capitalist democracy is still the way to go." That way, you can exclude the cubic fuckton of people who don't think that.
• I believe the last few lines of stripey's comment are "ironic".
• Hmm. Didn't read that way to me. Anyway Quid, how did you know about my woo-woo?
• I felt it thisaways: "Nothin' to see here, folks ... now get on home - if you're poor, its your own damn fault 'cause we live a a meritocracy, yuk yuk yuk!" And I've always loved your woo-woo. I live in a woowocracy.
• Or possibly a typo-archy :(
• MonkeyFilter has always been run as a typocracy. Is Constitution specifically outlaws spellchecking because... hey, funny typos RULE!
• Is s/b Its... see?
• Woowoocracies -- are they the ones with all the trains? Sorry. I'm just reeeeeeeaaaaaaally bored. Can't get back to work after the Labour Day weekend. It's been quite laborious, actually. Gettit? Laborious? Labour Day? Aw, fergitit. Somebody needs to post something. I looked, and I can't find anything new on the internets. There's nothing new on the internets! How can that be? I mean, really! Is this what I've been reduced to -- making cheap puns on someone else's pee-pee and woo-woo jokes? So sad. So very sad. Allright, I'll stop ranting now. But somebody's got to post something, that's all I'm saying. Even IF somebody says it's not FPP-worthy later on down the thread. And what's up with that, lately, anyway? People going on like FPP spots are as valuable as the virginity of some babe from the backwoods, when really, it's just computer code you can hand out like toilet paper. Especially when the 'new comments' collumn on the side doesn't really make it clear that there's stuff added to old threads that I haven't read before. Allright, now I really am rambling. Time to make some tea. Carry on...
• As for the comments of the Queen Mother of the Bushocracy, she could have said something about "hoping" or "working towards" turning the disaster into a postive for the already-disadvantaged (and the Bushite spinmeisters will certainly try to declare it so), but that ain't what she said... "It's nice to get so many people out of those decaying 150-year-old homes and into a big modern sports arena."
• Besides, I thought Fark was the website run as a woowoocracy...
• No, it's the Taataacracy.
• Here's a link to Cadenhead's blog with an 8 minute podcast of Al Franken's story about meeting Barbara Bush. Worth a listen. She's a fucking monster.
• Hmm. I was indeed attempting sarcasm in the last two sentences up there ...but Mr. Knickerbocker I do in fact disagree with. I'm not saying everyone is in fact overly pleased with their american capitalist democracy, but I haven't heard a lot of better ideas being put forward. (not en masse, anyway) Especially not by those who are most heavily disadvataged by said system. Let restate that: in my experience, the working and poorer classes may not be entirely satisfied with the system but they aren't entertaining a lot of radical ideas about changing it. ("my experience" is mostly based on spending the last two very depressing months working in a factory. I'd love to be proven wrong.)
• I don't think that this is something that you can rally a revolution around, but the American Capitalist Democracy is not the only model that one can choose from. The Socialistic Democratic Capitalism of much of Europe and other modern democracies is one that seems to work most of the time. The conservative movement in the US has eviscerated much of the "new deal" style programs that existed that made post war America great. At one time, my home state California led the world in education, our streets were spotless, we took care of our indigent, libraries were well stocked and open on weekends, in other words, we were a well run, working government. Now, due to Howard Jarvis and other tax break libertarians we have a weak infrastructure that can't even do decent road repair. I for one would be much happier in a state that charges me more for my taxes, but delivers the goods. I don't wanna to spread democracy to the Iraqis. Charge me taxes and spend it at home.
• What squidranch said. My mom and I were leaving a polling place on election day a few years back (lo, in the days of Clinton). A pollster (illegally placed too close to the polling place) asked us both "Don't you agree that you pay too much in taxes?" My mom surprised the pants off of him by replying "No. My daughters go to public school and receive a good education. I drive on good roads. When I call the police, they come to my house. All of this is paid for by my taxes." This is the first year my mom minded paying taxes, because she didn't want to fun the Iraq war. Beyond that, she and my dad both willingly pony up because they use and enjoy what they get in return.
• Let restate that: in my experience, the working and poorer classes may not be entirely satisfied with the system but they aren't entertaining a lot of radical ideas about changing it. You better keep hoping the status remains quo. Does the phrase "rising expectations of the middle class" ring a bell? When the so-called "middle" class starts feeling disenfranchised, it's going to get ugly. That's when you're going to see blood in the streets.
• I'm not saying everyone is in fact overly pleased with their american capitalist democracy... Actually, that's pretty much exactly what you said, and what I took issue with. ...but I haven't heard a lot of better ideas being put forward. (not en masse, anyway) That the thing with having too many options. You can't get the masses to choose just one. This is why left-wingers, liberals, and such argue so much between themselves, trying to land on just one good idea of hundreds. ...Especially not by those who are most heavily disadvataged by said system. Those most heavily disadvantaged are given the smallest voice in any medium, and that's only when they're given voice at all. Also, those who are most heavily disadvantage are also those who've had complacency most beaten into them, and they get that training anew every time they try using their voice. in my experience, the working and poorer classes may not be entirely satisfied with the system but they aren't entertaining a lot of radical ideas about changing it. By radical ideas, do you mean a violent rebellion? Because your complaint speaks more about their conscience than their acceptance. Also, they have been, just like the rest of us have been, indoctrined with the belief that it's impossible to change the system. All of us have been taught that we can't fix the system, that it's too big to be affected by any of our efforts. It's not that they don't believe the options are better, it's that they don't believe that the options are options.
• Well said squidranch...
• Myself, I see Mrs Bush's remarks as symptoms of her own failings rather than the system's. It does sometimes seem to me that the rich and powerful are currently lesser people, morally and intellectually, than their predecessors in earlier periods. Think of how Carnegie (a capitalist if ever there was one) would have reacted to a similar disaster.
• God chooses which babies go to rich families and which babies go to poor families, and God is infallible. Also, squidranch is a communist. /turns TV volume back up, tries to decide whether to have the McChicken Sandwich or the McNuggets for lunch
• Plegmund: I was just reading an article that said that the wealthy of an earlier era had to justify themselves through lots of public philanthropy or by being the sorts of politicians who worked for (or appeared to work for) the working class. This way, they could morally justify their riches. Today's rich, by contrast, believe that they deserve what they have and that others have less because they deserve less. The article called it a "return to the robber barons," and I agree.
• Yes, the robber barons of old knew that if they didn't set up philanthropic institutions that the poor and middle class would have their heads on the end of a pike. A violent class revolution, even if it was in another country, would rattle the wealthy's cages and set them on notice. Accumulated wealth only exists when a society alows it to exist.
• Think of how Carnegie (a capitalist if ever there was one) would have reacted to a similar disaster. "Oh my God the city was not only hit by a hurricane, now it's being attacked by giant metal birds!!"
• Bab's belongs back on the Quaker Oat hot cereal container sans the ever present pearls.
• We could call her the Quaker Oats Qunt.
• It just seems a bit of a leap to blame capitalism for the fact that the President's mother said something crass. I dare say old Mrs Guevara said some stupid things once or twice, too. I do also think that the moral quality of the people within the political system can have as much to do with the upshot as the character of the system itself, and it does seem to me that in the last 30 or 40 years we've had a worse class of ruling class. I dare say I may possibly have a slightly rose-tinted view of the past.
• Not to say the JP Morgan and that crew weren't arseholes, but our current bunch seem so much more ... slimy.
• Accumulated wealth only exists when a society alows it to exist. Hmm. While all the Khmer Rouge talk is nice and all, it comes to mind that the acquiring and accumulating of money is not a zero-sum game. Someone else's accumulating money does not impinge on your ability to do same. Just because Gates has a billion doesn't mean you or I can't have a million. While I will admit that America is a meritocracy in theory far more than in practice, and that the absence of a blood aristocracy has fomented a back door financial aristocracy? People can and do succeed, both professionally and financially, every day. And I might also add that, in light of recent events, the idea that *more* governmental involvement in our lives might be a bit, er, not very good. Considering the obvious competence issue, the conflicts of interest and the historical role of government as the repository of the mediocre, handing government more power to straighten out race, class and poverty issues seems... troublesome. Otherwise, why anyone gives a rat's patootie what Barbara Bush has to say is beyond me.
• disclaimer: I work for a company, of whom one primary line of business is aiding (rich) people in the accumulation and retention of wealth, primarily through long term (often multi-generational) investment guidance and tax avoidance.
• My point, dear Fes, is that the super rich only exist in societies/governments that allow them to accumulate hyper-wealth. I'm not saying it is a good or a bad thing (although on reflection too much wealth in too few hands is not very good) but that this strata of hyper-rich are not a given fact of life as we are lead to believe here in the US. Each society has to a greater or lesser extent a tolerance for great wealth accumulation, and that American "unfettered capitalism" is not any more natural than the more socialist capitalism of, let's say, Canada or Sweden or France. Now, that being said, you have upset our dear leader Pol Pot with your capitalist running dog lies. If you get a ticking package in the mail, please feel free to open it as it is only a travel alarm clock. You just don’t want to be within 25 meters when the alarm goes off.
• One more question. Poppy and Babs. Do they still fuck? Now that's a visual to leave you all with.
• Fuck you, squidranch, you bastard.
• Fes - just who do those people make money off? No one, unless they dig the gold nuggets out of the ground themselves, can say they made their own money. They all use other people's labour, charge customers money, invest money and make it off lending to other people. It's not a pure zero-sum game, but neither is wealth infinite. If it were, I could just print my own. But we don't allow that (for good reasons). So yeah, they do make money off of other people.
• *offers HawthorneWingo mental floss*
• Thanks, Alnedra, but it might be too late. I might need mental root canal surgery after that. Fucking squidfuck.
• btw, to circle back to the FPP, you know what's a great rock song? Fortunate Son. (I happen have just listened to it. Came up on my iTunes shuffle in between Ike Turner and the Del McCoury Band.)
• Hee.
• Ok, Squid, that's a good point - I might agree that too much concentrated wealth might have significant ramifications. On the other hand - it might not: imagine a benevolent king that holds ALL the material wealth of his kingdom. Bad? Not necessarily, if he uses that wealth to ensure the safety and welfare of everyone in his kingdom, if he assumes that all his subjects are also his dependants. Now, that ain't capitalism, and it's purely theoretical and would never happen, but there does still exist among the hyper-rich, at least in America, a very prevalent sense of noblesse oblige - they make the most, but they also give the most (I think this may be related to the seeming fact that many billionaires are also quite liberal poltiically - gates, turner, soros, etc). In any event, there are tried and true methods for extracting the wealth of the rich: taxes. Which I assume you are referring to when you mention a society's tolerance for wealth accumulation. just who do those people make money off? No one, unless they dig the gold nuggets out of the ground themselves, can say they made their own money. Well, that's a rather literal interpretation of what I was trying to say, so rather than "create wealth" let's say "add value to something in the eyes of someone else." That is how you, I and many people who are considered rich make their money: they perform services for someone or something else in exchange for compensation - in short, they work. Our work adds value to something else that wasn't there before - that's what I mean by (small scale) wealth creation. You are a sculptor; you obtain a block of marble for $50. By your effort, you carve it, then sell it for $100 to someone else. You have just created $50 of wealth that didn't exist before! That's the core idea behind my statement that wealth creation isn't a zero sum game. (more)
• They all use other people's labour, charge customers money, invest money and make it off lending to other people. It's not a pure zero-sum game, but neither is wealth infinite. If it were, I could just print my own. But we don't allow that (for good reasons). So yeah, they do make money off of other people. Sort of. First, they *pay* people for their labour, so initially, in any business (read: wealth creation endeavor), labor is a cost. But in light of what I said above, the business owner hopes/assumes that the labor of his employees will add more wealth to his whatever marble-sculpture business than he pays them (aka: profit!); and yes, he charges for his product - after assuming all the risk that, despite his initial investments, no one will buy it. No one is forced (ah, well, in a perfect world, but anyway) to purchase his sculptures. But let's say sculptures sell like hotcakes and the business makes a profit. A piece of that (and often, all of it) goes back into the business to foment growth (rich man often takes a salary like any other employee, and in my experience as an acquaintance to a couple, they put in a lot of unpaid overtime); but let's say he takes a slice of the profits. Now, he knows that to just stick it under his bed means to *lose* money (inflation) so yep, he invests it. Regular equity (stock) investments are pieces of other companies, bonds are loans to companies, municipalities or the government for a set interest rate. So, sure, technically he's loaning money out, but not to individuals - to corporations. Aren't corporations just colletions of people? Yes. However, no company is required to issue stock or bonds - they do so to acquire money to grow their *own* businesses, to hire more people, to create more wealth themselves. Money, and the printing thereof, has very little to do with this beyond the greater monetary policie sset by the Federal Reserve. Sometimes the money supply is tight, sometimes it's loose, but the paradigm remains the same. So it's not like there are rich people, and money from poorer people flows towards them in an unending stream, to the detriment of the poorer people (this sometimes happens, but mostly in monopolies). wealth is shared around constantly at both the macro and personal levels. It is, admittedly, not perfect. It is also heavily regulated and fiddled with everywhere, including America. But bad as it occasionally is? I am of the belief that it's the best economic system so far. Hey! Package!