We were due for a new grill, and Krugman wanted to be ripped-off in his entirety.
I get the essence. The GOP campaign is based on five main themes, three negative and two positive.
Negative:
The claim that Obama denigrated businessmen, saying that they didn’t build their own firms — which isn’t true.
The claim that Obama has gutted Medicare to pay for the expansion of health insurance — which isn’t true.
The claim that Obama has eliminated the work requirement for welfare — which isn’t true.
Positive:
The claim that Ryan has a plan to balance the budget — which isn’t true.
The claim that Romney has a plan for economic recovery — which isn’t true. (The Economist: “The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs†is like “Fifty Shades of Grey†without the sex).
Today’s xkcd, while not his funniest work, is definite all-of-FK bait.
“Pedes” is missing!
damn the tarp pedes.
I love this.
I think we’re only seeing one side of the spectrum here.
We’ll see how sketchy it sounds when we’re seated up near the sex tarp on Saturday.
Brown chicken brown cow
I choose “ravine”
I finally caught up with all the FK that I missed during my week away (in Beijing, then Yosemite). I didn’t even resort to the mark all unread button!
Wow–that’s pretty impressive!
Woo!
Then I went to a meeting and fell behind again… should have brought my laptop and sat in the corner.
That’s working well for me.
So, this is probably more lounge material than grill material, but FK it — I passed my commercial pilot check ride this morning!! 2.5 years (out of a total 7 I’ve been flying) and a failed test along the way.
I feel like Chris Carter!
nice
Woot. Knew you would on the next one.
Yay! And…I don’t exactly know what this means. So by commercial, do you mean that you’ll do this as a profession? Or is “commercial” a particular class of license?
Good questions – it’s a particular class of license, that allows me to charge for piloting services. It’s pretty limited – I’m not, for example, allowed to act as an “air carrier” or a “tour service operator” (for example, if I were to offer, on this site, that I’d give any of you an aerial bay tour for $300, or whatever, I’d be in violation of the FAA regs). The limited list of things I can do for hire, right now, is: banner towing, crop dusting, fire fighting, probably a few other minor things.
My plan is to become a part time instructor, but I’m not looking at having it be a true profession.
so you’re taking us on a FREE tour?? OK!!!
and congratulations!
Thanks! (to all)
I can ask for pro-rata cost to help cover my costs, without violating any regs (so, if I take you and a friend, I can ask for up to 2/3 of my costs — and I’d be happy to do so, at less than that rate, if you’re interested).
I have no idea when this would be or how much it’d be, but I’ve occasionally thought it’d be really cool to go for a flight with someone and photograph various places.
Who knows, maybe it will be a possibility sometime.
That’d be awesome. I’d be more than open to a barter arrangement as well!
Neat. No timetable on it, very premature to even discuss, but we could talk via e-mail and see what’s what.
[scratches chin pondering very possible possibility]
it does sound fun
To anyone interested, I’m sure we can work something out!
Tailgate tours! Plus then you can bring a plane load of samosas.
What kind of aircraft?
For a tour, I’d use a Cessna 172 – relatively (!) cost effective, newer aircraft so nice safety features, high-wing so you can see the ground. Only downside is that it can only really carry 3 people (including myself).
What does it generally cost for a flight and how far would that involve going, theoretically?
Oh, I see the lack of certainty on cost below.
Well, lack of certainty on cost for a banner tow. Newer 172s cost about $169/hour, and a bay tour could take 1 to 1.5 hours depending on how much we cruise around. If we’re circling for photos, for example, that’d naturally take longer. And, so I’m not acting as a tour service, I can only charge you half of that (or bartered equivalent).
It’ll definitely be worth researching further when the time is right. Lots of things could be fun to photograph from above. Just too bad it’d likely cost a lot more to get out of the area a bit further.
Let’s keep in touch on this. I’d love to do a photo flight.
Yeah, I have no idea when or where but it’s been something I’ve kicked around in the back of my head before.
We can also take it off FK so we don’t forget – flashfire at speakeasy dot net
A Free, Hour Tour…A Free, Hour Tour….
A free tour with free foie gras!
Banner towing, huh? Can we get you to fly over the Coliseum with some FK taglines?
I really do want to tow a banner sometime.
[looks it up on urbandictionary]
I think that would bring new meaning to the idea of “rotating taglines.”
holy shitballs yes!
How much would something like that cost?
And would you be able to fly over the coliseum?
I have no idea about cost, but I’ll do some research.. I’ll also have to get some additional training (I think it’s not that much though, and certainly no FAA exam – just an instructor’s sign off).
To fly over the Coli during a game: there are flight restrictions, but I believe as long as I’m on a flight plan and talking to air traffic control, so I have a clearance, it’s possible to do so.
My wheels they are a-turnin’
(high five)
Yessssss
heh heh, you said crop dusting.
You laugh, but as of this morning, I can get PAID for that!
(I had no idea it meant that…)
Yay!
I knew you would do it!
Congrats!
How much would you charge for curing Mr. Poppy of his flying-fear by December?
(This might also require hypnosis. Can you do that?)
I know a guy.
That’s so cool!
Wow! Congratulations!
that’s great.
My current take on the points, one by one, subject to further investigation:
1) Obama has denigrated businessmen — I’m not sure whether he has or has not denigrated businessmen, but it seems to me that Obama, and liberals generally, have a whole lot more faith in the ability of government to solve economic problems than in the ability of entrepreneurs to do the same. I’m going to give this one to the Republicans on substance, whether or not it is literally true.
2) Obama has gutted Medicare to pay for expanded health coverage — I don’t know one way or the other the full impact of whatever reforms have taken place to the health care system, but this to me is too specific of a point to be relevant. The bigger issue is how to get the most people the best health care at the least cost. I’ve yet to be impressed that any proposal put forth by either party does this adequately. One annoying thing about proposals from both parties is the steadfast refusal to incorporate ideas put forth by the other party, e.g. Democrats refuse to allow insurance to sold across state lines and oppose expansion of health savings accounts, while Republicans refuse to recognize the costs to society of the massive numbers of uninsured both in terms of higher hard costs to insured people and the state as well as worse health. Republicans also ignore the difficulty encountered by sick people in getting covered. I’m going to call this a giant failure for both parties.
3) Obama has eliminated work requirement for welfare — I really don’t know, but don’t care because this is just a distraction from our greater economic problems. I’m going to give this one to the Democrats, because Romney has chosen to focus on a small potatoes hot-button issue rather than provide a blueprint for economic recovery.
4) Ryan has a plan to balance the budget — Again, I doubt that anyone has one of these that will work in the absence of rapid and sustainable economic growth, so I don’t care about this criticism. Not an issue for me.
5) Romney has a plan for economic recovery — This is basically true as far as I can tell, neither does Obama as far as I can tell. I’m going to call this one a scoreless, error-filled 5000 inning tie.
So in summary:
Republicans – 1
Democrats – 1
Both Crappy – 2
I don’t care – 1
I want to say this is going to be a tough decision for me, but so far I’m thinking it doesn’t really matter who wins the election since the country will limp along in its current mediocrity in either case.
Oops I meant that Romney does not have a real plan for economic recovery
First, I think your response sets aside the main point that the Republican campaign is based on misinformation about Obama and their current plans. However, I also get your point that maybe we should put aside the rhetoric and focus on the substance. As far as I’m concerned:
1. The government, aside from preventing complete disaster during recession, has little effect on the economy. I disagree that liberals put more faith in the government to solve economic problems than Republicans do. I do think that they are realistic that Republican proposals for “tax reform” are little more than half-veiled attempts to benefit the already wealthy, which neither helps entrepreneurs nor the vast majority of Americans.
2. More or less agree; however, Obama has gone further than any other; hopefully future efforts will be put forth to improve, not undo, what Obama has done.
3. Agreed.
4. Agreed.
5. Agreed, but again, in reality, this shouldn’t be the substance of the election, if we were to be honest and say that THE PRESIDENT HAS LITTLE IMPACT ON THE ECONOMY. However, it’s really fucking easy to prey on people’s fears that four more years of Obama means continued unemployment.
The trope that the President has anything but the most tangential impact on “the economy” and “jobs,” asserted 24/7/365 by corporate mass media and thus a lie repeated so often it has become the truth, is further proof, were it needed, that Americans have been led to a state of near-religious belief in the most blatant and simplistic of falsehoods.
It’s just another aspect of the impetus the corrupt power structure that demands overthrow has to systematically disinform the American population with its infantile narrative into a state of complete, 100% manipulability and engineered, empty and impotent “opinion” whilst their actual quality of life circles the drain of all drains forever.
The idea that the president impacts the economy in such a direct, absolute way is just another piece of the narrative designed to make sure Americans believe in a “Daddy” figure whose job it is to solve their financial problems, a parent. Because the goal of this cocksucker slave system is to keep us all obedient to our own suicide-by-capitalism, with ultimate fealty to a system that requires an outright fantasy of infinite growth from finite resources, and to keep us on board requires an invocation of that primal family aspect, an omnipotent father figure.
Someday I’m-a write a big ol’ book on exactly how we are all engineered to the delusional, terrorized Stockholm Syndrome state we inhabit, and how this shit started dating all the way back to the invention of marketing in the 19-teens as a mechanism to divide and conquer us so we could be made completely subservient in every aspect of our existence to the power elite whilst simultaneously being convinced we were the freest motherfuckers ever to breathe air.
I have a whole lot of issues with your list, but I’ll focus quickly on this from #1:
This is a false dichotomy. Government policymakers aim to influence macroeconomic trends, whereas entrepreneurs obviously are focused on micro events. The standard conservative position (as I understand it) is that the collective decisions of “job creators” will lead to better results than would the decisions of a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington. But the Democratic philosophy is that government policymakers (at all levels) should strive to create the optimal economic conditions for business to thrive in a way that benefits society at large. The fundamental difference between the parties is not “who do you trust to solve problems” but rather how much can and should government act at the macro level to change incentives and rein in bad behavior at the micro level.
And incidentally, the point of the Obama quote that the R’s are pulling out of context is that government is always going to have some role in your success as an entrepreneur, whether you like to admit it or not. Complete individualism does not exist in the American economy, and that’s a good thing.
Hmm… regarding your last paragraph, I’ve read it less about government specifically, but society as a whole (including government) has had some role in your success, etc. etc. You can be successful without my willingness and ability to buy from you, ergo while you’re making money (and deservedly so), you, in turn, need to play your role in allowing me to be successful and/or able to continue to play my role(s).
What Obama was saying is that every successful business relies on roads, electricity, educated workers, police, fire departments, etc, etc. that the state provides. And he is right about that.
Thanks for this. Here are my thoughts, presented as fairly as I can.
1) I guess it depends upon your goalposts. I would say it is fair to characterize GOP policy as “many regulations are roadblocks that prevent business from working” and Democratic policy as “we need government regulations to prevent abusive business practices.” I can see why you see the latter as less fond of business (because it is), but the specific claim is the “you didn’t build that” b.s. that the GOP built the entire first day of their convention around. That’s just plain dishonest, and a major part of the Romney campaign.
2) “One annoying thing about proposals from both parties is the steadfast refusal to incorporate ideas put forth by the other party” I won’t lie. This one has me seeing red. The ENTIRE STRUCTURE of Obamacare is based upon GOP policy (as opposed to liberal structures like single-payer which I believe would work better). If you want proof, look to Romneycare which was enacted by a Republican based upon research by conservative think-tanks looking for an alternative to Hillary’s proposals in the nineties. I think you should reconsider this feeling, because in my view it is not true. I also disagree with your substantive conclusion. Obamacare will provide insurance for a huge number of people, and represents the largest expansion in coverage in a LONG time. Oh, and it will save money. It’s probably the best piece of domestic policy since LBJ, and anything but a giant failure (even though it isn’t everything I wanted).
3) This one is not unknowable. It is just a lie. I know I am critical of fact check sites, but this summary is accurate.
4) Fair enough, I think you’re right that the budget is in trouble unless the economy recovers rapidly. That said, Ryan’s plan is a fraud.
5) Disagree. Obama has requested a number of things that would help, but the GOP has blocked them all to deny him any wins. Romney, on the other hand, is focused on tax cuts for the wealthy (and tax increases for the poor).
I would score it 4-0-1 based upon the opinions you’re expressing.
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
1) I’m not going to defend GOP rhetoric during the convention, and I don’t expect to be all that swayed by rhetoric during the Democratic convention.
2) I forgot about the single-payer idea. Sorry about that. I’m also not going to say that Romney has a better, or even substantively different plan. I didn’t mean to imply that I thought Obamacare wouldn’t expand coverage. I do think it will do that. I’m not convinced that it will save money, but I don’t know one way or the other.
3) It may be a bald faced lie. I scored this one for the Democrats anyway.
4) I need to analyze Ryan’s plan more than I have, but it doesn’t sound like we really disagree on the importance of economic growth in budget balancing
5) Looking at that list, I’m not seeing anything that really excites me as a means to transform the economy into something fundamentally better. I understand that both Republicans and Democrats have put forth ideas that have not been adopted, but I’ve yet to see one that I think will make a significant positive difference.
Here’s where I land on these:
1) Sure, but the original point is that a major GOP campaign theme is a lie. That’s not normal, and it would trouble me if I was considering supporting the GOP. Like it would trouble me if Obama made his campaign primarily about an assertion that Romney can’t tell the difference between corporations and people.
2) Romney absolutely does have a different plan: he would repeal Obamacare and then ______. I wasn’t mad that you forgot about single payer, I was mad that you accuse both sides of failing to do something when that something is exactly what Obama did. It’s a peeve of mine. As far as the saving money part, do you have any basis to disbelieve the CBO’s analysis? If so I would be interested in seeing it.
3) Ok
4) We don’t, but that isn’t the problem with the Ryan plan. Krugman’s claim was that it is a lie to say the Ryan plan would balance the budget. That claim is true, not because Ryan relies upon recovery but because he relies on unspecified and impossible cuts to offset his identifiable and plausible spending increases. In other words, it’s a typical tax-cut plan with a magic asterisk.
5) I would agree that those proposals won’t solve the problem. But they’d be steps in the right direction. And the claim was that Romney has no proposal but is lying about it, not that Obama has a secret answer that he is withholding until after he is reelected.
1) OK. This isn’t a big deal to me, but I see your point.
2) Good point. Sorry about that.
3) Yay!
4) I don’t disagree with Krugman here, but I’m not a deficit hawk as much as a growth guy.
5) Romney seems to be suggesting the usual Republican things of tax cuts and deregulation. I’m not excited by them, but I wouldn’t say he’s silent on the topic.
4) We have to redefine growth. The world economy and the rapidly changing world ecosystems are intertwined, and can’t support our wasteful ways indefinitely. One of the reasons I love my hometown is that I have to love it while it’s still here. It won’t do any good to pine for it after the valley is filled 60 feet deep with saltwater and the major valley population center is Chico… a lovely town overlooking the New Ione Sea…
Specifically on Point 2’s
a) insurance across state lines: I am fine with that so long as there is an enabled Federal insurance commission, something I don’t think the Republicans would be ok with. Insurance is a nasty business that needs a lot of over site.
b) I don’t have an informed opinion of expansion of HSA’s, but I know that the health care plan that I am currently on has an HSA and it really really really sucks. And our broker explained that any plan that is HSA eligible sucks.
I don’t know if the problem is with i) the HSA itself or ii) the inability for the tax code to allow me to put pre tax money in an account for low deductible plans.
I’m more fatigued by each side putting forth the same proposals year after year and having the other side make up some reason why it’s a bad idea. I’m not a policy wonk, and don’t know whether interstate insurance would matter or that HSA would make my life easier. The longer this goes on unresolved the more pessimistic I get. In the past there would have been a bipartisan proposal that took all corrupt interest groups into account and somehow gotten through. Nowadays it seems that no one gains any political advantage from attaching his/her name to anything bipartisan so we just have the same sniping ad nauseum.
A couple reactions to this (while I think about your other one)
First, a lot of the bipartisanship of the past was an illusion based upon the fact that southern racists ran as Democrats. So northerners could agree on civil rights stuff, for example, and it would be bipartisan. Now, there is no similarly-huge intra-party divide.
Second, the problem with interstate insurance is that you would have a race to the bottom, with states racing to reduce requirements and attract insurance HQs (notice, for example, that credit card companies are often stationed in the Dakotas). That’s why Ed is talking about a regulatory comission.
Third, you’re right that the stated goal of the GOP is to deny Obama a second term. So he refuses to make anything bipartisan unless it is 95%+ of what the GOP asks for.
Why is this race to the bottom bad for me?
The race to the bottom that nm is talking about would be states competing to have the most lenient regulations, because all of the insurance companies will move their headquarters to the most lenient state. The practical effect will be that all insurance regulation is relaxed and history shows that unregulated insurance providers do some really nasty things, like dropping people for nit-picky reasons once they get sick.
Ah. I see how that would be bad for me.
Yep, this.
HDHPs suck unless, like this year in PoppyLand, your employer funded the HSA and then you or your dependents ran up half a million in medical expenses (so far — say one of your dependents will be getting genetic testing, a mammogram, and a CT scan & colonoscopy before the end of the year, and the other dependent is in therapy and might need a hip replacement) that you wound up only having to pay about $10-12K for, TOTAL, out of pocket. Even with a self-funded HSA, a year like this one would be a bargain.
But once upon a time, we had an HDHP + HSA (self-funded) during a healthy year, and yeah, it really really really sucked.
yeah, I can not go to the doctor and ride shit out, but I can’t do that for my kids.
this conversation reminds me of this article by my friend.
Nothing more than a shameless plug to read my friend’s piece.
Hee. I’m actually surprised there aren’t more swing voters if it’s true we’re in single digits. It’s not that we don’t know anything about the candidates. Speaking for myself, I voted for Obama in 2008 mostly because of his fierce opposition to the war in Iraq, and also because he had the upside to be an inspirational leader. I was less sanguine about his chances at fixing the economy, but after 8 years of Bush, I figured he couldn’t be any worse, and he hasn’t been worse, but no better at that either. He has done more or less what I wanted from him, which is to ramp down in Iraq and present a less hostile face to the world, while maintaining strength, as he showed in Libya and elsewhere. This time though, to me it’s more about the economy. I’m faced with the choice of maintaining the status quo, which I don’t like, or doing something difference, which so far isn’t very impressive but is at least not the same. Hence my indecision.
Different from Obama, maybe, but basically the same as the predecessor, who got us into this mess in the first place. And his foreign policy advisors would include the whole neocon crew that got us into Iraq and would dearly love to engage in Iran.
good point about the salivation over Iran.
Romney has been mostly silent on Iran so far, from what I’ve seen. I imagine it is going to be a major point in the debates, though, which will be interesting. I’m sure Romney will downplay just how Cheney-esque his administration will be.
Romney hasn’t been talking much about foreign policy at all, really, except for being weirdly bellicose toward Russia. I think he has (correctly) realized that the Democrats for the first time in memory have the upper hand on foreign policy, and that the last thing he wants to highlight is how green he and Ryan are internationally. I’m a little worried that they are going to get into the White House without ever laying out their foreign policy vision.
His foreign tour during the Olympics was a major fail.
Yeah. It also doesn’t help that Ryan, for all of his charm, looks like a little boy trying on daddy’s big boy clothes. He exudes “not ready for the presidency” when you see him on television, especially with all of that “I like AC/DC and Zeppelin” nonsense. Romeny went against the Cheney/Biden model at his political peril.
It’s quite bothering to me that these people are possibly going to become the most powerful men in the world.
Thanks, and go As.
It bothers me that a lot of the folks around the country that I have no say in have way too much power to dictate my future.
It makes me want to projectile vomit all over everything.
you sir, are no dan quayle.
He’s smarter than Quayle, but just as green. Thing is, though, Bush could get away with a naif as a running mate because he himself had impeccable foreign policy credentials. Romney, like Obama and W, doesn’t have that going for him.
I find it hard to believe Ryan will be Dick Cheney, but I also didn’t believe Dick Cheney would be Dick Cheney.
I meant that in 2000, the Cheney pick helped W with voters who would have thought he was too green to handle the foreign policy responsibilities of the presidency. He was a political asset on that front (though a political liability later once we learned about his actual views and conduct in office). Romney’s problem is that he is already weak on foreign policy credentials, and the Ryan pick exacerbates that problem.
I definitely don’t think Ryan would be a Cheney figure. I don’t think he’s ever devoted any serious thought to foreign policy, and I doubt he would exert any influence over a Romney Administration foreign policy. Ryan might be susceptible to a Cheney-like figure in the event he becomes president, but that’s another question.
Right. I agree with all this.
Similar to what Biden did for Obama
Exactly.
Not for me he didn’t. What made me an Obama guy was that he opposed the war from the beginning and never wavered. I don’t really care about foreign policy experience in a president. You can hire people for that. What I care about is the ability to stick to one’s principles in the face of unpopularity, and Obama had that in spades on that issue.
you don’t think hiring a VP counts?
I’m not sure what you’re asking. I was for Obama before Biden, and Biden’s arrival made absolutely no difference to me.
I don’t, except to the extent you’re making a judgment call that the person would be a good president. Which I think has an upside of not mattering and a downside of Palin.
For example, it was funny to see Mitt continue the Obama-has-no-business-experience attack yesterday. Because Obama has more of it than Ryan.
Yes, Romney’s similarity to Bush on the economy is the biggest thing Obama has going for him in my mind on that topic.
but is there any reason to think that this change would be to your benefit? i’m not counting myself among those who can…
…chance it.
IIRC, you don’t care much about the social policy end of things.
I don’t worry about theoretical fiscal policies subject to debate and congressional vote as much as I worry about the idea that a Romney win will be taken as a mandate by the social/religious right to unleash an even larger wave of socially regressive legislation and behavio(u)r in general. I can see attempts to re-criminaliz(s)e homosexuality brewing in those fearful little minds. There’s already a movement a-brewin’ to (in the long run) re-classify women legally as potential carriers of unborn children first, and humans second.
It’s not that I don’t care about the social policy end of things, it’s that I don’t think it’s that important in presidential elections. Social policies change when the population wants them to change, and politicians usually follow but don’t lead. Those movements you describe all exist, and will exist regardless of who’s president, but I also think that no matter who’s president they will weaken if the economy grows. Economic hardship is a fine fertile ground for anti-social people, bigots and the like.
They’ll exist and continue to exist, but I don’t really want to hand them the fucking presidency. Since having someone in office who can veto things that will make my lifestyle illegal and make it legal to discriminate against me in regards to my job/finances/child custody/schooling/etc is, y’know. Concerning.
Do you believe there is a substantive difference in the personal views of Obama and Romney on LGBT issues? My impression for both is that they, at heart, are not particularly gay-friendly, but that things like marriage rights, right to serve in the military, right to gain spousal benefits, etc. aren’t very important to either, and that either will say what he has to in order to raise the most money. Obama made what looked to me like a pretty dramatic about face on the marriage issue when fundraising season got into full gear. Romney hardly mentions these issues except as part of a checklist so he can raise money from those with opposing views.
I do believe there’s enough of a difference — and at the end of the day, their personal view doesn’t matter to me as much as their political actions. They’ll respond to their constituents. Obama’s not going to particularly rock the boat, since through LGBT and women under the bus in order to maintain the moderates has been the Democrats’ policy for years now. He’ll make some minor steps, like his current statements and support, and those have their uses. I do absolutely believe that Romney will make life hellacious if he made it to office, particularly if the GOP has a House and/or Senate majority, in order to appease his party.
I agree. Romney’s a false alpha male with confidence issues he covers up with bullying and bluster. He’ll be appeasing so many motherFKers and alienating so many others he’ll end up causing conflicts from talking out of both sides of his mouth, and shitstorm city will likely ensue internationally.
Interesting to see this comment just after reading this.
semi-topic reply fail
Domestically, the future is a little murkier. I don’t think this particular backlash against women is going to end up in long-term rollbacks, except in regions/areas that may splinter in the distant future to become theological fascist enclaves. I think there will be short-medium term losses in central states, but the inevitable progression of obsolescence of unaltered humans is going to eventually kill conservative society’s baby fetish and right-to-live movements over the next couple of decades, unless radically unforeseen regression happens and we live in some sort of technofascist theocracy.
Wow. Too bad this is too long for a tagline.
I’ve seen longer.
Ahem.
TWSS?
I’m speculating pretty hard here, but I think that Obama’s belief system is probably strongly influenced by his academic background at Columbia, Harvard, and Chicago, and that his religious background is somewhat less than authentic (adopted mostly as a political tool to relate to constituents on the south side of Chicago). Mitt has similar Ivy league credentials, but I am more convinced of his dedication to his religion — and it’s a religion that has very conservative views on social issues.
I would agree that neither of these guys views gay rights as a personal crusade (in the positive or negative direction), so they are probably both going to play those issues mostly for politics. But there is a difference there too, because Obama is mostly responsive to the Democrat base while Romney has to keep Republicans happy. There is a big difference in the party platforms…
Right, to me this basically means that neither will rock the boat. I can even see Romney supporting LGBT rights wholeheartedly if he thought that’s where the country was.
I agree. I mean, Mitt even boasted that he would be a bigger supporter of gay rights when he was running against Ted Kennedy for Senate in MA.
yeah i strongly disagree with this.
The long run is a hell of a lot shorter than I’d like, given the mammoth amount of dumbfuck law proposals dedicated to criminalizing miscarriage, promotion preconceptive care, and treating women like two-year-olds (not capable of understanding that pregnancy means there’s shit growing inside you, but apparently capable of raising a child. What.) and the ability of said laws to actually pass.
The government has long since stopped considering women to be humans.
How do you rate the ability and desire of politicians in general to legislate on such controversial issues? When was the last time a politician actually took the lead on one? Civil Rights passed in 1964, after the white northern citizenry went to the South and protested segregation. Kennedy famously stated in 1957 that it was not the right time for such laws. “Don’t ask don’t tell” was implemented by Clinton because he thought it appropriate for the time, regardless of his personal feelings, which even today I don’t know no matter what he says. I just don’t believe that any politician is going to go out on a limb for social justice if it’s not popular.
It’s not just about getting legislation passed, of course. Running the administrative state, wielding the veto pen, and nominating federal judges are what matter most on these issues.
Yes but even judges usually follow the public. Nobody wants to be the guy who made homosexuality illegal unless he thinks that that’s where the public is. Even Roe v Wade followed the feminist movement of the 1960s.
I don’t know how to respond to this. Yes, the direction the public is heading on an issue is very influential on both political and judicial actors. But these are often close questions on which the public is deeply divided. Who is issuing executive orders, approving agency rulemaking, casting the deciding vote on constitutional cases etc. matters greatly, no matter whether the tide of history is already pointing in a particular direction.
I just can’t think of any case in recent US history where the public didn’t lead on a social issue. In fact the only example I can think of worldwide was Hitler, who was virulently anti-Jewish regardless of the politics. On deeply divided issues, my take is that politicians avoid the issue like the plague once in office. I really don’t think it matters who’s casting deciding votes and all that stuff if the tide of history is pointing in a particular direction. The vote caster will go along no matter what his/her personal beliefs nor the party platform. These are survivors first and foremost.
For me, and I assume gm, its more professional than social.
There are a lot of bad judges giving us ideological rulings on cases you won’t hear about. Bad cases make things harder for you as a consumer, a “private” citizen, and being able to enjoy scientific/intellectual advancements.
For me, who is in office and appointing judges and administrators directly impacts my work.
This, I believe.
Umm… Obama.
Lily Ledbetter and ending DADT.
This.
After the public was ready to accept it. There was no uproar as far as I remember.
There was a bit of an uproar over DADT. Just not around here.
I mean even in St Louis, I don’t remember any great objections to lifting DADT.
OK, but so what? Do you think a Republican president would have lifted it? I don’t.
I think it depends on the individual, but you’re right. Most probably would have not done anything.
McCain went hardcore this is going to hurt America while we are in two wars so I think emperically youre belief is false.
You mean there is an uproar? I wouldn’t call one senator’s statement an uproar. I think the change is broadly accepted by the public.
well considering that he was the other choice for president and Romeny opposes the repeal as well Im not sure how you could claim that it would have happened with GOP presidency
As I replied to GM, I mostly agree
I mean, it was a purely partisan law that was opposed by many in the GOP, including Romney.
It was definitely not inevitable, though you are right the public overwhelmingly supported it.
Uh, given that 2011 was a record-setting year for state legislation creating abortion restrictions despite the fact that the economy is the real issue in every single state? Plenty of politicians are willing to go out and legislate on controversial issues in a conservative fashion and claim that these ‘ethical issues’ are more important than the financial crisis? I will absolutely take someone who isn’t willing to go balls-to-the-wall for social justice if they’re willing to at least not fuck shit up and veto those bills that will.
It doesn’t need to be a grand affair to the extent of the Civil Rights Act to have a profound impact – the erosion of reproductive rights in America through the increased restrictions and requirements for clinics in proof of that, the small-time tactics and nonstop wave of legislation has been proof of that. There’s been more of a guerilla war being run nowadays to enact change, rather than going with the large, sweeping decisions.
Also, a ‘what up’ fistbump to Lilly Ledbetter as NM’s point.
Yes but again, this is what the public wanted. When did a politician do something like this against the public’s wishes, because of his/her own beliefs or party platform?
I may be misunderstanding your question. Are you asking about laws passed without popular support or positions taken without popular support?
I could believe the former is rare. There are lots of politicians, though, that are anti-death penalty.
Well, look at the current batshit issue — the polls from varying sources have repeatedly indicated that the American public generally supports health of the mother/rape/incest exceptions, yet we’ve seen an increase in the number of pushes for blanket abortion bans without exemptions over the past ten years?
I didn’t know that, but if these 10 years included the past 4, then my point about who’s in the White House and Senate not mattering for stuff like this stands.
Except it DOES matter. A lot of the proposed bills over the past 4 are the result of conservative backlash/posturing. (seriously, some of the shit they tried to get passed, I can’t even), and a large percentage are individual state law.
And if nothing else, preventing one state’s asshole behavior from becoming national policy (like our friend Paul Ryan’s co-sponsoring a federal version of the forced ultrasound bill? Yes, it matters having someone like that get more power)? Is important. It matters.
The fact that they’re willing to enact legislation against the will of the people, and basic science, on a state level just means that there’s more reason not to open the doors to the White House to them.
The only doors that should be opened to people like that are prison and crazyhouse entrance gates.
I don’t think they’re willing to, or capable of, enacting legislation against the will of the people. To the extent that the will of the people differs from state to state, legislation is differing from state to state. If the national will of the people is that women should get forced ultrasounds I’m thinking it will probably happen. I don’t think that’s the prevailing will of the people nationally though.
….So you think that, if the will of the people is to dehumanize a particular minority group, remove their rights, and their right to their personal liberty, that’s cool? And the government is under no obligation to protect them?
Not if it violates anyone’s constitutional rights, it’s not cool. But if no laws are broken, there’s not a whole lot the government can do. Legislators can try to enact new laws but if the people don’t want them, they’re not likely to pass. I mean it still isn’t “cool”, but it also isn’t likely to change in the short term until the hearts and minds of people changes.
You are correct that all of the abortion restrictions are originating at the state level. Republicans seem to be doing a really good job of pressing the attack at the local and state levels. If they can get that done, then their national politics can focus on more palatable state’s rights / anti-federalism arguments to achieve pocket right-wing utopias.
Yes, this makes sense to me as a strategy. Americans are deeply divided on some issues, and to the extent that those divisions are geographic, it might make sense to have the laws vary by state.
But I don’t think it is a good thing for the country to divide up into little pockets that diverge politically until we end up with a bunch of Berkeleys and Colorado Springs.
Why not?
ptbnl has one very good example below.
I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, but it seems to be the direction we’re heading. The greater choice of people regarding where they live seems likely to result in people of like mind congregating.
Like slavery in the south?
No. Not like that. That violated the constitutional rights of people whose occupation was “slave”.
Not before the 13th Amendment it didn’t.
Yes. That was an important amendment.
Agreed.
But then you get to messing with the constitution (eg. an amendment banning same-sex marriage) to overrule state decisions you don’t like.
I think that’s likely to pass if it has enough public support. And it should pass if it has enough public support to amend the constitution. That’s how the country was designed. I don’t have a better design for a country than the US constitution, and the current amendment process, even if it results in laws I don’t personally like.
Except equality should never be at the mercy of public support/majority rule.
How would you design a country that guarantees that absolutely and forever?
Not sure it’s possible. A big problem is that this country has gotten too big to be able to adequately protect it’s citizen’s rights or needs.
I think our rights are better protected now than they’ve ever been. Massive improvements in information availability and communications have been the key….as well as mobility and economic opportunity. You just can’t lynch, intimidate and rape people as freely as you could in the past.
Not really the same thing. Yes, things are better. They’ll probably improve, still. But that’s not the same as protected. It just means the more horrify overt/aggressive criminal actions are less likely. The less aggressive means are still there. And those can be worse because they can be easier for good people to justify, ignore, dilute, and accept.
I think that’s probably the way things will go though. Passive aggressive bad acts are taking over from overt bad acts.
Yeah, you have to work harder to redefine those terms in your favor first these days.
Unfortunately it seems easier to accomplish. I mean, the GOP distorts their voter ID laws in order to help maintain power by diminishing the poor they’re subjugating, but on the surface it seems reasonable and responsible to make sure those who are voting have that right.
You can’t lynch, intimidate, and rape people freely, but you can ‘stand your ground’, use ‘necessary force’, and have to define if something ‘legitimate rape’ or not.
@Kylianna, yes on the first two but these were always true, and on the third one I think it’s a lot harder to call a rape anything but a rape than it was even 30 years ago.
Media and politicians seem to do an admirable job of it of calling rape pretty much anything but.
@Kylianna, I admit ignorance to your reference. Is there some incident or pattern of incidents that I should be aware of?
Keep in mind that ‘not the same’ can also mean ‘hella worse’.
Theoretically yes, but I basically consider Bush the worst anyone could practically be. My floor for Romney on the economy is Bush.
I can understand that position, but I would disagree with it. I think Romney would try to go further down the deregulation path than Bush did (as Bush did with respect to his father). And that would be really really bad for the economy.
I’m not that concerned with regulation or deregulation. I want real, sustainable GDP growth. If deregulation achieves that, then I’m for it, and if regulation achieves that then I’m for it. It depends on the specifics.
Ok, but when we had a well-regulated economy we had sustainable GDP growth with benefits that reached every American. When we started deregulating we lost the sustainability and the the benefits to the non-wealthy. (Incidentally, the fact that deregulation led to the mortgage excesses that caused this crisis is something upon which Krugman and Posner can agree).
Indeed, if you look at the charts here, and particularly the third one and the last one, you’ll see very clearly the cost of the deregulation which began right around 1980.
So it really isn’t a policy that may achieve what you want depending upon the specifics. It’s a recipe for continued/increased economic disaster.
If your point is that the wealthiest Americans have become superrich over the past 30 years while lower middle class people have stayed the same or gotten worse in terms of real income levels I agree. If you’re saying this is due to deregulation, then I would probably agree with that too, if by “deregulation” you’re including the impact of globalization, technology advances that make it easier to circumvent regulations, etc.
I think you are right that it isn’t just deregulation (and globalization is a fair part of that). But deregulation created the business models like Bain which allowed people to get rich without creating anything (and at the expense of the non-rich) instead of by building mammoth companies that built something cool.
This is a giant topic for me on which I have a number of observations:
1) The trend over the past 12 or so years of replacing venture capital with private equity is a terrible thing that, as you say makes it more profitable to take a healthy company, leverage it to the hilt with cheap debt to grow ROE and take giant fees than to start a company that builds something cool. Deregulation may have played a part in this, and I’m not sure of the particulars, but to me, the primary culprit is the zero interest rate policy that creates asset inflation without real, sustainable GDP growth. Bush and Greenspan started it, and Obama and Geithner are continuing it. If there were one thing I could change in the US economic policy today, it would be this.
2) Other than private equity, there is the travesty of giant banks gambling with taxpayer dollars in a game of “heads I win, tails you lose”, which is often blamed on the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. This also served to create asset inflation by making most home loans FHA loans and making it more profitable to be a giant FDIC insured bank/conduit than a company which built something cool. I personally don’t have a problem with banks also being investment banks, but I do have a problem with the resultant entity getting FDIC insurance. So to me it wasn’t “deregulation” per se that was the problem in this case, it’s the continued government backing of the deregulated entity. If there’s a second thing I’d change about the US economy it would be to revoke FDIC insurance from these entities.
3) I am not particularly horrified at the thought of greater income disparity, or even massive income disparity, as long as the lives of everyone are getting better. My perspective on this is that although income levels of lower middle class people have stagnated their lives and opportunities are exponentially better than they were 30 years ago. In past discussions you have stated that you don’t “count” technological advances or other hedonic stuff as “life betterment” and prefer to focus purely on real wages. That’s fine, but I don’t agree. To the extent that greater economic openness has created a climate that makes greater opportunity possible for lower middle class people, I’m for it, even though most of them do not benefit. America is the land of opportunity.
3a) The part of income disparity I don’t like is the opportunity disparity….from education to health care to other stuff. I’m not sure how greater regulation would lead to greater opportunity for people, but I’m open to any ideas.
Can you expand a bit on your preferred monetary policy? It sounds as though you are advocating “tight money” even during times of high unemployment and low inflation, but I’m not sure whether I understand correctly.
I don’t know about “tight” or “loose” money, but I want monetary policy to encourage entrepreneurship first and foremost, as I believe entrepreneurs are what will revitalize the economy, now and forever. We are a country that thrives on business creativity.
The problem now is that interest rates are so low that banks have trouble attracting depositors, making it difficult for them to make loans. So, IMO, interest rates should be at a level where savers have an incentive to put some money into bank deposits so that banks have money to make business loans.
The CW that raising interest rates tightens the economy doesn’t hold for me in the current situation, because the obstacle to borrowing for your small business isn’t that you can’t afford the interest rate or even slightly higher interest rates, it’s that banks have no money to lend you unless you’re uber-uber-creditworthy. I want at least the uber-creditworthy, and probably the merely creditworthy also to be able to take business loans, expand businesses and hire people.
If you combine greater funds for banks to lend, with removing the incentives to make FHA loans that do nothing but artificially inflate home prices, then banks will have greater incentive to make business loans, IMO. You can remove the home loan over business loan favoritism by revoking FDIC insurance to bank/conduit/investment banks that thrive on such loans but are bailed out when they go bad.
Once banks go back to making business loans, and interest rates are too high to allow private equity companies from implementing their current scheme, equity capital should return to financing venture projects. Basically I want the monetary policy that enabled the tech boom of the 1990s, not the monetary policy that enabled the housing bubble of the 2000s
Interesting, thanks.
Your view is, at least in how I’m reading it, consistent with some of the views described in this article about this report talking about the lack of good jobs. A lot of the report focuses on decreasing worker bargaining power, but also discusses the larger macroeconomics of focusing on controlling inflation rather than focusing on achieving full employment (or, in your words, removing barriers to entrepreneurship, which would achieve fuller employment.)
I didn’t find anything objectionable in those readings, but my phrasing and emphasis was slightly different.
You call the tech bubble a “boom” and not a “bubble”? Why?
Because tech companies do real things to improve the lives of people. Having everyone’s house double in value overnight doesn’t do that.
The tech could/would have grown and the internet commerce era would have started, regardless of whether the financial scammers inflated a bubble out of it or not.
I don’t think tech companies would have grown without venture capital. They didn’t typically take business loans from banks but other non-tech businesses do.
I disagree with your characterization of the slowdown. There is currently an excess of people wanting to save money — this is why interest rates are so low… supply of loans is far exceeding demand. Demand for loans is low because there is no point to build or expand your business when the economy is depressed and consumers aren’t buying anything (’cause they are all saving their money).
This is the Keynesian paradox of thrift. My description here comes more or less straight from Krugman. I don’t have time now to find any source or evidence to cite, but maybe someone else can back me up…
While the savings rate isn’t nearly as low as it was in 2005-6, it’s hovering around 4%, which isn’t a whole lot. Only some of that is due to increased savings; I would argue more of that is due to the fact that there are a lot of unemployed who aren’t buying anything, and those that are employed are in jobs that play less and less in real wages. To the extent that the savings rate has increased, I’m curious as to how that would be allocated among the wealthy vs. the unwealthy.
Clarification – when I say “some of that,” I mean to say that some of the reason that people aren’t buying anything.
Presumably that doesn’t include Swiss/Cayman Island savings.
This may also be true, but I think the solution here is fiscal expansion, not easy money. I wanted Obama to spend massively on infrastructure, education, health care and the like. I was disappointed in the stimulus package because 1) It was too little and 2) It didn’t build anything new or inspire people to build anything new. I don’t think easy money by itself can revitalize an economy — look at Japan over the past 30 years.
We can’t use the timescales of the past as a template for the future… not without huge efforts to suppress technology and introduce new innovations at artificially extremely slow rollout rates.
The only problem I’m having with SPWC’s comments is choosing which one to make my tagline
:)
Your point 1 seems relevant to the presidential election, since this is exactly how Romney made his fortune. It’s unlikely that Obama will take action to shut down private equity, but even less likely that Romney would.
(Note: I am only focusing on the first sentence of your point 1, and I’m not 100% sure that I agree with your connection to low interest rates.)
I don’t want to make private equity illegal. Most companies in the world are “private equity”. I just want to make it more profitable to finance companies that need equity capital to grow than to grow ROE through leverage.
A lot of that is the tax code providing perverse incentives to (1) have crushing debt loads and (2) convert all earnings to a 15% bracket.
I agree about not outlawing private equity, but the system is broken, and deregulation is what broke it.
Yes we should fix those tax things if that will help. I’m not up for a blanket denouncement of deregulation though.
I actually don’t mind your FDIC proposal as an alternative, but I think it would have essentially the same effect in the banking industry, because no one would want to have uninsured deposits.
Of course, we’d still be screwed by things like Enron.
Ah, for Enron I want auditors to report to the Board of Directors rather than the management.
(1)- the trend is over the last 30 years or so, not 12. The initial deregulation(s) that allowed Milken to issue junk bonds and Romney and “Creative Destruction” shitheads free reign to use them came from the early years of the Reagan administration, IIRC.
True. The deregulation trend started in the 1980s. But the leveraged equity trend started with the easy money of Bush/Greenspan.
Then why is there less mobility from poor to middle class and middle class to wealthy and wealthy to not than at any other time since WWII?
Right. I am slightly sympathetic to the argument that large inequality is ok so long as everybody’s quality of life is going up (i.e. rich get way richer, but the poor are getting richer too). But you have to own up to the empirical observation that “equality of opportunity” is inversely correlated with income inequality (and the US is currently lagging other wealthy nations in both categories).
Yes we do. There’s also the problem of inequality in political influence.
This is a very good question. I don’t really know. My speculative guesses are:
1) Workers have become more fungible with globalization and technological advances
2) Education system isn’t doing its job
3) There are government incentives for people to spend rather than accumulate wealth unless they’re very rich
4) As entrepreneurship becomes increasingly important relative to working up the corporate ladder, there is more risk in accumulating wealth and therefore more people go bankrupt
5) Health care costs are spiraling up, effectively a regressive tax
6) Easy money policy has reduced the value of the US Dollar, making transportation costs rise, also an effective regressive tax
7) Easy money has increased housing costs, also an effective regressive tax
I’m not sure to what extent these things are actually true or relevant, but those are my guesses.
1) if workers were more fungible than their marginal product would more similar and wages would be similar as well because marginal product should equal wages in classic economics. Secondly if workers were more fungible now then you would see more mobility in the system that we have with wide disparity since a worker from the bottom wouldn’t be that different from a worker at the top.
2) Inequality is a key indicator or areas with poor education systems
3) This may be true, but income inequality is not the same as wealth inequality. Further, the contention is that income inequality is ok because there is mobility, but this contradicts your original point.
4) This is factually inaccurate because there is less downward mobility for the rich today.
5 – 7 ) Regressive taxes are bad, but they are a part of the greater economic openness that you claim is good and they in your opinion hurt mobility.
Inequality is fine as long as there is a lot of mobility. The problem is that inequality is increasing as mobility decreases. I have seen no evidence that suggest that there are ever societies with massive inequality that have a lot of mobility. Mobility is the most important thing that we should be focusing on in the economy and the Romney Ryan economic policies will effectively crush mobility by destroying the safety net that prevents generations from failing just because of the circumstances to which they were born. This is one of the reasons I support a massive estate tax.
Re: a massive estate tax. I’d be okay with that if it was scaled such that it would be to the recipients’ benefit if the deceased spreads the wealth around (i.e. little to no tax on smaller amounts and as you go upward it gets higher similar to the income tax system).
yeah right now there is no tax on anything less than 2.5m IIRC
I’d think something closer to the average home should be no tax and then scaled up exponentially from there. By 2.5m, I’m okay with a more extreme hit, but all of that is based on the amount receiving instead of the initial grand total.
I didn’t mean to imply that I thought these things were good or bad. I was just trying to take guesses to answer your question.
1) You’re right about this. I should have said that “most” workers have become more fungible, but those few with highly sought after skills are still not fungible.
2) I think we agree
3) I think we agree that lack of mobility is bad
4) I don’t see what entrepreneurship has to do with “the rich”. Entrepreneurs can come from almost any income level and rich people have lots of different occupations and lots of them have no occupation
5) I disagree that regressive taxes have anything to do with economic openness. You can have regressive taxes in an open or closed economy. I’ve provided by guess for each regressive tax what I think might be the cause.
I have to disagree.
If Bush is a floor, he’s not the bottom floor of our building… not by a longshot!
I guess that would be the Great Depression, but I don’t see a president as being capable of causing one.
so i’ve been thinking about this comment for a few days and a similar, though way more frightening, idea keeps popping into my head. i understand that your floor on the economy is bush, and that romney couldn’t do worse (in your opinion). what about in a geopolitical crisis? where is your romney floor on that? because that’s where my fear threshold kicks in and i’m about as articulate as, oh hellz no. the dude has some outlandish understandings about what he and his people are expected and can be expected to do. and when i pair that with 4 years of, well, every day could be a 9/11 (more than a 9/29), and bush was machiavellian at best and upsidedown-children’s-book-reading at worst, but… romney. oof. why do i keep picturing him mouthing (yes, i know… cross-faith reference but you’ll see my point), “it’s the rapture!” while pushing on the button with both hands, or somesuch? overblown example, sure. but the likelihood of some horrible event is not minimal, and in that circumstance, i would want someone making decisions… “of this earth” (by which i refer to both the someone and the decision). in that light, i do not see bush as the floor. no, he’s in my mind quite the middle ground there. and i would expect obama to be kind of a high water mark.
I fear Romney pushing the button much less than I fear is inability to control/lead the guys behind him pushing him out of the way to push the button.
I have a reason:
My friend works in the administration. He would continue to have a job.
BOOM! case closed.
Is he an A’s fan?
I don’t think he has anything against the A’s.
OK, then cool.
He is from fresno and a giants fan. He even was the bullpen catcher at Cal when he was there.
But he has kinda lost touch. In 2008, just after the election I talked to him on on the phone and mentioned tim lincecum and cy young chances or something.
He didn’t know who that was. He said he had been busy that year.
Good, now I can say I know someone who knows someone
I think each Republican speaker should just close every speech at the convention by apoplectically bellowing “Kill all the lazy, shiftless welfare n*gg*rs and the godless homos too!!!!” and frothing slightly at the mouth while glaring sociopathically into the camera.
Because whatever they said leading up to that line, they really meant that last part.
Or, you know, something like this, perhaps?
hahahahaha, awesome!!!!! The only way they could top that would be a star-studded video tribute to George Lincoln Rockwell tonight.
I laughed
Today’s Slussbeat:
* Coco’s back in the lineup and leading off
* Petaluma Little League team to be honored at Friday’s game
* Jonny Gomes hopes to play long enough that a Petaluma kid to join him on a big league roster (yeah)
* A’s Arizona Fall League players: Infielders Grant Green and Miles Head, catcher Max Stassi, and pitchers Gary Daley, Shawn Haviland, Brett Hunter and James Simmons
BOO A’s! Move the kids to Saturday!
Sorry, but Saturday is already booked for the guy who played Bernie’s corpse.
They could walk him out to the mound and make his body throw the first pitch.
Roll him out in a chair.
this season ticket holder is fine with the friday tribute.
Indeed I am.
speaking of, did you ever hear back about my september 4( i think) request?
I may have marked all comments as read and missed it.
Haven’t heard anything, but I’ve just sent a follow-up request.
cool
Just got the reply – sorry for the delay, sorry they’re not available.
ok then, cool.
Next year.
Or do you know if any dates on the previous list is available?
I’ll check.
The front row pair of seats are still available for the Mariners series:
9/28 @ 7:05
9/29 @ 1:05
9/30 @ 1:05
Same deal as always.
I may be up for 9/28 or 9/30, if either is left after Future Ed has spoken.
9/28 is the only day I could make it. I need to check it out, I will get back to you later, but if you know you can do it grab it. It depends on a friends availability.
I would love to purchase 9/29, if that remains a possibility.
Or 9/30, if oblique ends up not wanting them.
How about if I get 9/29 for Glorious Mundy and 9/30 for oblique now, and 9/28 if and when Future Ed confirms?
Confirmed – 9/30 would be lovely.
Perfect. Thank you so much!
i will let you know tomorrow, hopefully.
Any decision? I leave for 2 weeks in Yurp on Tuesday so I’d like to get these sorted over the weekend.
hi, yes a decision.
No on the tickets. SOrry to mux it up for so long.
Next year. That is a bad day for me.
Let me know when it’s appropriate to do so (or if it is already), and I’ll paypal you.
I also stand ready to paypal you, ptbnl.
I’ll let you both know when I have the tickets in hand – then I’ll need paypal + mailing address.
OK – tickets all lined up.
Please paypal $85 to jdborrill at lbl dot gov and include the mailing address you want me to send the tickets to.
Thanks.
Sent!
Received – many thanks.
All thanks are to you. This an amazing connection you have cultivated, and it’s very kind of you to share.
Sent!
Received – thanks.
Tickets are in the mail – please let me know when you get them.
And a shout-out to George, one of the holders of the plan, who tells me he now comes by the Kraut once in a while.
Tickets have arrived.
Got ’em!
Excellent – thanks for the confirmations and enjoy the games.
What GM said – thank you for providing this hook-up!
Fucking cheap ass A’s regarfing the Petaluma LL
holy shit james simmons and brett hunter are still alive?
ok, so remind my work beat brain. If GG is going to the fall league that means he isnt coming to Oakland when rosters expand..amIright?
Obama announces Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session. Crashes Reddit, of course.
Wow.
Indeed. No answers yet.
His verification photo. Lefthanded mouse FTW.
As a lefty myself, I just learned to adapt on that one.
Same here.
As a righty, I’ve actually adapted to using a lefty mouse sometimes, to help with the RSI.
As a righty who might get outnumbered at home, depending on how PDXSpawn2 turns out, I need to do this.
And my lefty wife uses a righty mouse.
I don’t even want to know what Urban Dictionary has to say about that.
One of the grad students I work with does that.
when you are the most powerful person in the world…adapting? meh
Sure, but at this point it would be harder to adapt back.
Yup. It actually feels awkward to use it with my right hand.
like somebody else is clicking?
Win.
[looks innocent]
Kinda…
lol
Proposition: Will the number of questions about legalizing marijuana exceed the number of questions about every other subject combined?
The definition of reddit:
*States’
Exactly my point.
Heh.
Such a savvy move.
here we go. barça-madrid for the supercopa.
drinking game. alexis in the box and he dives = have a beer. higuaÃn one-on-one with the goalie and he blows it = have a shot.
[sobers up.]
and just as quickly alexis gets me back on track.
he’s a FKing embarrassment to my beloved neighbors.
well this got ugly in a hurry.
and i’m heading toward alcohol poisoning.
the ref is merciful. nevertheless, he’s still going to star in a very loving gif with pepe in 5, 4, 3…
Red card just now?
yep. cristiano was running away with it and got tackled like in US football.
and while sanchez already got subbed off, pipita is keeping me in cups, no problem.
Yeah, that was pretty embarrassing to watch, even as a neutral.
i wish you were calling the game then. jorge ramos on ESPN spanish is decidedly pro cristiano + whoever the 10 around him.
I meant embarrassing for Barca. I am a notorious Cristiano apologist, however, having married into a Portuguese family.
i knew what you meant by embarrassment, but your definition of neutral is new to me.
OK, he’s pro messi too.
WOW.
damn. meant to spoil, not block.
Fixed.
That was SWEET.
gonzaLOL. even casilla is drinking after that one.
Oh, Montoya.
oh, lio. lio lio lio. the 91:30 wasn’t his, but the 92:15 one…
Just saw the replay. That dive casts shame on the entire Southern Cone.
:(
Drink.
FK astro-physicist types, please enlighten me as to how you spot a sugal molecule from 2.4 quadrillion miles away.
That would be sugar, not sugal.
By the absorption and/or emission lines the sugar leaves in the spectrum of the starlight passing through the cloud.
Thanks. My cousin has been doing some work on figuring out the make-up of exo-planets and it just is mind-boggling that we can be so precise as to figure that out from so far away. I get it, but it’s still amazing.
I’d imagine there would need to be a shit ton of that molecule around.
Can you imagine the street value of that cloud?
Ric Bucher, ESPN NBA analyst and former Warriors beat writer for the Merc will be the co-host on the Brandon Tierney shitshow on THE GAME. Now I’m convinced that they’re getting the Warriors, or at least that they think they’re getting them.
He’s excellent on the NBA, FWIW. Not sure if he knows a damn thing about baseball.
nobody on the radio is very good about baseball as far as I can tell.
No matter how irrelevant Third Eye Blind may be these days, that’s some quality skewering right there:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephan-jenkins/third-eye-blind-rnc_b_1839576.html
I still like Third Eye Blind.
I don’t think I’ve listened to anything new by them in close to a decade. Well, whenever Blue came out.
My fiancee had an entire scrapbook devoted to Stephen Jenkins back when she was in high school.
I don’t know. I think I’d play at their convention. I’d just make sure I’d play a ton of songs that outright condemn them all. All of which would be played to a catchy beat with catchy wordplay that they’d walk away humming and singing to themselves.
BOOOOORRRRNNNN IN THE USAAAAAAAA!
See item 8 though it seems it was unintentional.
I like Third Eye Blind. And one of my homegirls is pulling a reverse-Kyli and flying out here from England to see them on tour. They still have fans.
They played a free concert after a Saturday night Nationals game this month. I can verify that they’re as awesome as ever.
reverse-Kyli? Is that some sort of sex act?
Thanks, and go As.
hawt
Yes, but like that of the black widow spider, only the female lives all the way through it.
Still tempting.
Thanks, and go As.
This is FKing BS.
That’s terrible.
I’m kind of at odds with that one. I kind of side with the old man, but only to an extent. I think the real failure was not addressing this years ago when he was first hired, but with all those available exemptions you’d think someone who had been working there X amount of years without incident would be allowed some sort of fast tracking.
Regarding the powder keg issue of abortion I think the Republicans may be better off telling people to “go fuck yourself” when asked about Akin than trying to deflect or answer the them. EEEESH.
I’ve been waiting to see a GOP politician respond to the Akin issue without giving an answer that is vile/creepy/horrifying/lacks science.
I think I’ll be waiting a long, long time.
At least now it’s becoming clear that Akin is the trend, not the exception. And now I’mma go throw up in disgust.
Colbert last night had a hilarious (except for the hideousness) bit which included a “defense” from Rep. Steve King, who said he had never heard of anyone getting pregnant via rape or incest, so it was OK to remove rape/incest exemptions from anti-abortion laws. Then Colbert showed a clip of Rep. King talking about an incest pregnancy scenario one year earlier.
They want to own the non-white males like slaves again. That’s what the bastards pine for.
They want the two genders to be Male and Stepford Sperm Depository Baby Machine Shut Up.
They’re not going to win, but they’re going to blow diarrhea all over the country on their long slow way out.
Todd Akin is my congressman. I think I may have voted for him.
I hope you’re reconsidering that decision.
I really don’t remember whether I voted for him or not, but there’s no way I would again. At the time he seemed similar to Jim Talent, who was a generic unimpressive suburban rich guy. My district is composed largely of such people.
how do generic unimpressive suburban rich people make you feel?
They make me feel sad and empty, and frustrated with the lack of common cultural references and difficulty I have communicating with them.
I’m pretty happy with where I live. These people are generally nice, solid citizens. St Louisans love baseball so I have at least one thing I can discuss with almost anyone here.
Relevant to Krugman’s point:
Conservative economist tries, and fails, to prove that Romney’s plan can pay for itself.
And not only does the analysis fail the old algebra test, the variables he plugs in are bullshit.
Romney: either lying or incompetent.
I disagree with you guys, but it’s not worth the time or effort to argue.
Could you text George Will and ask him to argue for you?
He can’t receive texts on his rotary phone.
You can barter with oblique to do a banner fly-over! (Might take a lot of bannerage, though…)
I’d be interested to hear why you think that math adds up (unless you mean the larger point, in which case I’m not surprised)
Relevant.
Oops.
That is priceless.
um… the price is RIGHT THERE!
Yes… yes they did. Good for them for finally admitting it.
Holy crap, this lying stuff might be getting traction.
Also, this is good work by Ezra.
Hard to read this and not come off convinced that something has changed. For example:
The Republicans certainly aren’t seizing the opportunity that the bad economy has given them. I’m so disappointed they couldn’t do better than Romney.
It was a very bad field. If Romney loses, though, the race for the 2016 nomination could be very interesting. A Ryan-Christie-Condi-Jeb race would be a very interesting campaign and could produce a great candidate.
I’m not seeing where a great candidate would come out of that set.
yeah.
Thanks, and go As.
Condi would be a great candidate. Jeb would be a very good candidate, if America could forgive him for his last name. The other two make my skin crawl, but I’m just throwing them in because they are clearly top contenders.
Jeb?
Thanks, and go As.
Definitely. Fairly moderate, reasonably popular former governor of Florida, and god knows Americans don’t have a problem with dynasty politicians in general.
It would be interesting to see what a primary did to the first point. Romney, for example, was once a fairly moderate reasonably popular former governor.
Yes, but Romney’s more brazen than most politicians when it comes to lying and disguising his principles. It would be fun to watch.
I’m not sure that’s true. See Ryan, Paul.
Good point.
Yeah, the primaries seems to take moderates and chuck them full-on into the right to get that first level of support needed for the nomination.
America does, however, have a problem with Florida.
Jeb only looks good in comparison to how shitty the baseline has fallen over the last decade.
…Jeb is better than his brother, I suppose.
That’s not really placing him in ‘very good’ territory, though.
Why do you like Condi? I can’t imagine a universe in which I want someone who played such an important role in pre-9/11 terrorism prevention and post-9/11 foreign wars anywhere near the oval office. I don’t know anything about where she would stand on other issues though.
I like her relative to other Republicans on everything other than foreign policy, and I still harbor hope that she is naturally a Bush I foreign policy type, not a Bush II type. I realize that this is not entirely rational in the face of the available evidence.
It turns out that if you toss all four of them in a blender, FDR comes out. Unexpected but true!
We’ll never know unless we try. You have four years to design a blender that big.
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well, not a good president, but Jeb will be a great candidate, Christie could be, Ryan has to walk a tight rope and not go too far off the deep end in the 2012 campaign. I think Rice would be a terrible candidate and I don’t think she will ever run
Did you see her speech last night? I think she might run, and she could be very good at it. It would take a miracle for her to get the nomination though.
I didn’t. But she has never come off previously as someone with the stamina to be a shiny happy glad hander that you need to be to get through Iowa and New Hampshire
I think she would more likely want to be president of the NCAA than the United States.
I don’t see Rice every getting past the Iraq debacle though. She’ll have to defend it all over again and won’t be able to talk about anything else. I really like Christie as a budget balancing governor, much like Jay Nixon in my home state of Missouri.
That plus “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S.” would be her big problem in the general, no doubt. I think she is very smart and personally appealing though, and has reasonable positions on most issues. I hope she runs.
Budget-balancing by sleight of hand, disingenuity and misappropriation of funds, you mean?
that ball was crushed to deeep left field and gone!
Exactly
She’s pro-choice, so automatically disqualified from the Republican nomination.
Not if she does a Romney.
In my scenario, there would have to be a mild intra-party counterrevolution against the Evangelical wing, along with a collective decision that they need a woman to defeat Hillary.
The more centralist part would do well to split into a new middle ground party, adsorb some of the more moderate liberal ideas and pander directly to the middle (like they all try to do anyway) while siphoning from both sides. They might actually be able to do as they say given that they’re excluding the fringes.
Christie is an overrated idiot to nearly the same extent Ryan is (or, after that speech, was). The balanced budget stuff required draconian and counterproductive cuts (PLUS tax increases). Refusing to let DC and NY buy a new tunnel into NJ might be the single dumbest infrastructure decision in the last decade. And yelling at people for things that are your fault is not leadership. At least Steve Jobs actually did some good along with being a dick. Also, stuff like this would screw him in primary season.
Hee. I was expecting something like this.
I can’t be particularly calm about Christie. Dude pisses me off.
It really points to the fallacy of strong candidates opting not to run because an incumbent is perceived as destined for re-election. This was I think the case when the GOP candidates were positioning themselves to run long before the first primaries, when folks like Christie and Jeb Bush opted out. By the time they might have reconsidered, all the money and endorsements had already lined up behind others.
Bill Clinton has a similar dynamic to thank for having won the ’92 Democratic nomination.
That’s right, but I also think it’s a function of the Republicans not having a crop of top-notch candidates who would have been ready this year, either because of inexperience, obscurity, or Bush-taint. For example, neither Condi nor Jeb would have been viable this close to the W years, but I think both will be formidable in 2016.
I’m of the opinion that most of the time, running and losing is a plus to a candidate’s chances of winning in a subsequent national election (Rick Perry, your mileage may vary).
Yeah, Huckabee could’ve cleaned up this time if he hadn’t gotten comfy at Fox News.
I have nothing to back this up, but Bush 43’s preseidency was a rollercoaster for popularity as I remember.
By September 2011, I thought he might even quit. (which he did less than 2 weeks into the month for a few hours).
Then he got super popular. Forcing potential candidates like Kerry and Clinto to vote for his agenda (war et al) by 04 his popularity was waning enough to almost win with a ham sandwich running for the dems.
then he was popular again, but tried to push SS privatization and never recovered.
My impression only, not facts.
His popularity went from very low, to very high right after 9/11, then steadily declined all the way to the mid-20s. Even on the day of his reelect, he was sub-50%.
Yup. Clinton took the presidency when no one else wanted it. Nobody particularly liked him and so Perot was briefly credible, but he won. It just shows that if you run you have a chance.
A quantum leap doesn’t sound so bad. I’m thinking he’s not intending the real “quantum” meaning there. But great show.
Oh boy.
God I hope K-Thug is right.
John Cole thinks so. So does David Firestone.
This could prove to be a good thing.
He’s a dangerous guy. It would be great for the country if he destroys his reputation in a losing effort.
Maybe he’ll get Eagleton’d.
Daric. Barton.
In other A’s news, Grant is an idiot. Giambi was BIG NEWS around these parts. Or would have been, anyway, if we had noticed.
Vincent Gallo should totally make that movie (starring himself as Beane of course).
Also, learn how to use the subjunctive.
How embarrassing.
Re: Vincent Gallo — no.
I’ve actively tried to forget the Giambi Re-up. Thanks for opening old wounds, Grant. That’s how infections happen!
Friends, one of my inner voices just told me that the Republicans and the social rightists are engaged in the mass chanting of the Adam Savage mantra:
“I reject your reality and replace it with my own,”
They’re desperate for it to work, because if it doesn’t, everything they’ve ever believed in will be swept away within a generation or two, only to hang on in rural enclaves of lingering obsolescence.
Relevant:
Hee
Oh God.
LOL, Romney. And isn’t that socialism?
I feel like Obama’s “promise” is much more obtainable than Romney’s.
Harvard: teaching students how Congress works.
I hadn’t heard anything about it, until I saw a random headline somewhere on the intertubes (slate?) and then finally followed this link. Yay for being a post-doc and not giving a shit about anything class-related!
Excellent work all around by these student athletes.
Either I’m hallucinating, or Zombie Clint Eastwood is giving one of the craziest convention speeches of all time.
Strangely, Twitter has suspended that account as of this morning.
I shared that hallucination briefly while looking for the Niners game.
As was the style at the time.
apt description.
Clint Eastwood is our country’s crazy grampa now.
Only possible Democratic response to Eastwood’s performance is to have William Shatner sing “Rocket Man” as their keynote.
canadian
Even more perfect!
Obama’s press secretary got off the best line of the night:
Yeah, serious ASVD material.
Bouie’s quote is priceless.
I’m still laughing
It’s awesome.
Hey nm, do you know anyone named Sarah Stillman, who went to college with you for approximately the same years?
So I poked around on that isidewith.com page that apparently Gary Johnson’s people created.
Huge shock that I was 84% aligned with Gary Johnson, huh? LOL
Thanks, and go As.
Imagine that!
I would just like to point out how far over my head 90% of this thread is.
Thanks, and go As.
Don’t worry about it. You live in CA so your vote doesn’t matter!
Thanks, and go As.
Good work Mitt!
Now wait a minute. You’re forgetting the single most important part of his plan. The part that fully justifies that cost. More. Old. Rich. White. Dudes.
Why do you, and Krugman, hate America so much? America is awesome, and only Mitt understands that. USA! USA!
What is it that they say about repeating the same experiment and expecting different results…?
The GOP master plan?
It’s not an experiment; It’s a psychosis.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…won’t get fooled again.
Put food on your family!