72 responses to “Real News and Pabulum (updated)”

1. 

   Mike Thornton

   18 November 2011

   No it’s not all the fault of the Banksters, George. But I notice you leave Newt Gingrich’s name out of the mix….
   Do you not believe that the real problem is rooted, not in people buying homes, but in the fact that Wall Street was able to create a whole new vehicle for taking what everyone knew were bad loans, slicing and dicing them to sell on the market while creating a CDO industry to bet against them at the same time?
   No one in government forced any bank to make a bad loan, period!
   The banks discovered a way to make profits off of pushing bad loans on people and then turning around and selling them off as investments, which they all knew were going to eventually crash.
   If the question is: Does government act as a tool of big business the answer is, yes.
   But your answer is to get rid of the middle man and turn the entire operation over to the banksters directly.
   They’ve already proven what they’ll do when left to their own devices. The answer isn’t to give them unfettered power, it’s to force government to do it’s job.
   And for you Todd. You know exactly what I’m talking about.
   When you live in a glass house, you shouldn’t throw rocks. But the idea of any kind of humility seems beyond your ability to grasp.

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2. 

   Bonnie M

   18 November 2011

   Mike T’s comment “the fact is that they are going to Congress and saying that they’re willing to pony up some of their cash so the entire burden doesn’t fall on the poor and working class” sounds like a political mantra, but doesn’t make sense. The poor don’t carry the burden. I thought it was well known that the private sector middle working class has always paid the most taxes. Isn’t that why President Obama was going to rescue the middle class??? Ahem…If our government is having financial problems it stands to reason there’s something wrong with their accounting. An old oft repeated story about what happens when the working people become oppressed is that they start looking at those in charge, and notice how much of the public wealth they’re giving themselves. (Read the kids story about Robinhood.)”Their wealth shall testify against them,” like those officials in Bell. The young royal in France who said, “Let them eat cake,” lost her head at the guillotine. I think it’s wonderful that some of our media are beginning to print the facts and figures exposing what’s been going on at the government union bargaining tables. The expose of human greed by those who point fingers at others is remarkable.

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3. 

   Mike Thornton

   18 November 2011

   Bonnie:
   I think I’ll go with the Economist’s analysis
   http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america

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4. 

   George Rebane

   18 November 2011

   Amen to BonnieM. Let the record show that RR has NEVER condoned unfettered capitalism, and has always maintained that it would be a disaster. But government has never shown itself to be smart in the making, let alone enforcing, of complex rules. Large corporations have the same problem, and because they know it, they lobby the dirtbags in Washington to mangle the playing field to their advantage. I hope we can all agree on that.
   MikeT – I don’t see that what BonnieM said and the Economist’s remarks about the income inequality diverge. In any economy, that is overtaken by technological advance and a workforce that is steadily becoming less skilled (dumb is a more accurate characterization) to what the modern world needs, we will see income inequality increase.
   The simplistic interpretation of this is that the increase is due to the rich stealing the share of the poor. A more accurate assessment is that the rich and smart are creating wealth and a new environment in which the poor and uneducated cannot compete. We both would agree that this is neither good nor stable.
   But we part company on the diagnosis of cause, and most certainly on the remedy. I believe that a more illuminating dialogue will result if we start on the causal end. Because if we cannot even come close in that assessment, then most certainly we will talk past each other in prescribing remedies. (BTW, RR has gone around this barn several times, but your statements like “But your answer is to get rid of the middle man and turn the entire operation over to the banksters directly.” are totally non-productive and demonstrates that you believe RR, and my extensive writings on this, are only the last post deep. This blog is a searchable record, and I will not debate everything from the gitgo every time I add another piece to the development. I hope you understand.)

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5. 

   Todd Juvinall

   18 November 2011

   I don’t recall anyone on RR condoning unfettered capitalism without rules, but MikeT like all liberals, has to use some fantastic stretch to make their point.
   MikeT I still don’t know what you are asking me. Please give me the details of your question so I can try and answer.

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6. 

   Mike Thornton

   18 November 2011

   Well, good. We agree that we need “rules”
   Now it’s a matter of what the rules will be.
   The fact that George believes that wealth has been accumulated because the rich are smarter than the poor is incredible. Just look at Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian and GW Bush.
   Oh Todd, Give it up. How many times have your foibles been pointed out already?

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7. 

   Steve Frisch

   18 November 2011

   By the way, never had a class with Robert C. Smith, I predate him!

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8. 

   Todd Juvinall

   18 November 2011

   MikeT, what is it that you are asking off me. I need you to explain in detail.

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9. 

   Todd Juvinall

   18 November 2011

   This is for the race baiters on the left, those full of outrage and really smart paragraph parsing.. What a hoot!
   http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82439d28/article/packers-nelson-says-being-white-helps-him-thrive-at-receiver?module=HP11_content_stream

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10. 

    George Rebane

    18 November 2011

    MikeT 445pm – The business intelligence of two out the three you cited are unknown to me. But I think citing outliers in a large cohort of the wealthy kind of stops this thread from any serious progress. As does the implied conclusion (of the Left?) that the preponderance of wealth accretion in the US has been due to dumb luck and criminality. Such divergence really is the sum and stuff of the Great Divide, so I’m not sure whether I am correctly understanding your reply.

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11. 

    Greg Goodknight

    18 November 2011

    Thornton, sure, a road map would be great. Maps have place names and show the roads that link them together.
    What’s the name most would give your political philosophy, what’s the name you prefer to use, and what’s the route you want to take to get there from here.

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12. 

    Greg Goodknight

    18 November 2011

    George, don’t forget the role of the Clinton administration for taking the subprime mortgage model from pilot program status to being nationwide and Countrywide, the state Chris Dodd was representing in the Senate.
    Heard a good one on Kudlow today… suggesting the Democrats tactics on tax increases are similar to a high school boy with his prom date, asking for the same favor twenty different ways and not wanting to accept no for an answer.

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13. 

    Mike Thornton

    19 November 2011

    Are these people stupider than the “wealthy” George?
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/us/census-measures-those-not-quite-in-poverty-but-struggling.html
    I know you don’t like to hear it, but the truth is that a good portion of one’s life path is determined by the zipcode you’re born in and where you live. It dictates your living conditions, educational options, health impacts, employment options and much more.
    When you make statements that the rich are wealthy because they’re smarter than the poor you’re simply wrong. Of course not all wealthy people are wealthy as a result of luck or criminality. But clearly the majority of the poor are not poor because they’re stupid or lazy either.

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14. 

    Todd Juvinall

    19 November 2011

    Yes, yes, we need to get rd of all zipcodes and make AMERICA a one zipcode/socialist paradise.

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15. 

    Mike Thornton

    19 November 2011

    Dolt

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16. 

    Russ Steele

    19 November 2011

    Check this out:
    The latest “Economics 101” video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P), narrated by Silvia Morandotti, a student at The University of Milan, draws upon the European sovereign debt turmoil to provide timely lessons for US policymakers. Entitled, “The European Fiscal Crisis and Lessons for America,” the video puts a spotlight on the ongoing crack-up of the Eurozone, and explains how the United States can avoid a similar fate.
    The video offers five key lessons from Europe: 1) Higher taxes mean bigger government, not lower deficits; 2) Politicians cannot be allowed to impose a value-added tax; 3) Big government slows growth, but also cripples the human spirit; 4) Nations reach a dangerous tipping point when a majority of people live off government; and 5) Bailouts don’t work.
    http://youtu.be/rZzJE7i8JWY

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17. 

    George Rebane

    19 November 2011

    MikeT 803am – Nowhere have I said that smarts are the only determiner of relative wealth, you must be confusing me with another commenter. However, all things given equal, smarts and culture are major factors (in a statistical sense e.g. factor analysis) in explaining away why one person has more than the other.
    Culture is perhaps the biggest discriminant in sorting out where wealth aggregates. In modern history – cf Ben Shephard (2011) – the displaced persons’ camps in post-WW2 Germany was perhaps the biggest laboratory studied by sociologists and historians. Here millions of refugees from tens of cultures arrived to escape Stalin. And this diaspora continued after the war had ended, and before the Iron Curtain “descended” over Europe. They were all Caucasians, so we don’t have to start the race diversion.
    The DP camps were governed by the refugees themselves under a loose, primarily logistical system administered by the UN. Very quickly, the quality of life in the camps differentiated according to who from what culture was living there. Wide variances were noted in the refugees’ industry, social organization, productivity, establishment of the arts, literature, and criminality.
    Today, a similar laboratory is available for study in sub-Sahel Africa. Again race is not a factor since all the participants are of the Negroid race, but they come from a wide variety of cultures. Again, their quality of life, as witnessed by how they organize themselves and how they take advantage of the various non-African relief programs, varies greatly depending on their cultures and how these teach the value of initiative and enterprise, and the nature of their social contract.
    When in the late 1960s our federal government went into high gear to destroy the families of the poor through its horrendous social and welfare programs, America’s cultural boundaries were not only redefined but also made higher. The programs actually made social mobility more difficult by institutionalizing the ‘high first step’ that acted as an impediment to get out and up. This, of course, most affected the poor and especially the blacks. Numerous black authors have lamented this epoch in academic studies and popular essays (e.g see Walter Williams’ work). Today the beat goes on.
    But the bottom line, that our zip code is the major determinant of our fortune in America, is given lie by the number who sneak under our fences and wait in line outside our borders. They all come from ‘zip codes’ much worse than any in this land, yet they want in because here is still opportunity no matter in what American zip code you land when you arrive. I am one of those who arrived here into a bad zip code with NOTHING but my culture. Millions like me came before, and millions have followed.

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18. 

    Todd Juvinall

    19 November 2011

    Since the Great Society began, the social programs administered by the bureaucracy have infiltrated into every single zipcode in America. They are there to hand out the freebies taken from other places within the big zipcode. The worst zipcode here is better than the best zipcode outside our zipcode border.

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19. 

    Mike Thornton

    19 November 2011

    George:
    Do you believe that a white baby boy born into a home in the Nevada City area and a black baby boy born into a poverty stricken area of Los Angeles have the same set of “opportunities” for success in modern America?

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20. 

    George Rebane

    19 November 2011

    GregG 938pm – good point (sorry for the delay).
    MikeT 221pm – No they don’t have the same opportunities. The federal and state governments have taken about 40 years to make sure of that. So now the problem is, do we continue doing the same thing to limit opportunities to both (yes, even the white kid is hurt), or do we try something different.

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21. 

    Greg Goodknight

    20 November 2011

    “I think Marx (Karl) was a pretty smart and insightful guy. However I don’t kiss his arse like you guys do with Ayn (the hypocrite) Rand.” – Thornton
    Marx certainly could write better than he could hold his liquor, and, I suspect, would today be even more horrified about what was done in his name than when he was when alive.
    I’ve never been an Objectivist and have never written anything glowing about Rand. Let’s remember here that the “hypocrite” charge is from having the audacity to accept Social Security payouts after speaking out against SS. In other words, don’t complain about being forced to pay when you are young unless you are willing to opt out and face hardship when you are old; the hypocrite charge might be reasonable if she were allowed to opt out but then applied for welfare at age 65 because she didn’t save and cultivate good friends and close family for the old fashioned retirement plan. I suppose Thornton also thinks one should not be allowed to speak against Medicare unless one is willing to die rather than accept care when they are old. This is Thornton and Friends begrudging freedom of speech and thought, and this is nothing new for Thornton and Friends. Thoughtcrime discovered by Thornton’s hysterical materialism.
    Thornton, what’s the name most would give your political philosophy, what’s the name you prefer to use, and what’s the route you want to take to get there from here?

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22. 

    Greg Goodknight

    20 November 2011

    “Numerous black authors have lamented this epoch in academic studies and popular essays (e.g see Walter Williams’ work). ”
    George, the white sociologist turned Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) did the same in 1965. This was caricatured as “blaming the victim” by the Left.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action

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