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I like your friend, LL. And the good Cap'n is spot on in his disdain of Paul Krugman. I don't even know how Krugman can find a job.
Yes, I like her, too! No matter what her rating is, she could probably beat me just by repeatedly distracting me!
And it certainly is a bit hard for clear-thinking people to imagine how Krugman can still be held in high esteem by some. But I suppose that if you've spent years hanging out in a Princeton faculty lounge, at CUNY, or in the boardroom of The New York Times, you might agree down-the-line with almost everything Krugman writes.
The guy becomes more and more detached from reality as time goes by. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that all those undereducated rubes out in flyover country increasingly view big-money supporters of the Democratic Party as a bunch of elitist, condescending grandees who couldn't care less about the struggles of middle- and working-class America. A perfect avatar for this big-money crowd is The Palindrome, although there's no shortage of wannabe, "junior varsity" versions of The Mighty Palindrome.
A few decades ago, many tens of millions of Americans (including me) thought of the Democratic Party as one that, above all else, fairly represented the interests of hard-working, middle class Americans. But nowadays, its leaders seem to have a far greater interest in identity politics, race grievance-mongering, rent-seeking, and crony capitalist opportunities for their biggest donors.
Krugman must surely be as quintessential an example as you can find of an IYI. No one fits Nassim Nicholas Taleb's descriptions in the linked piece better:
By the way, two of Taleb's books, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, are among the most interesting and thought-provoking books I've read during the last ten years.
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Yes, I like her, too! No matter what her rating is, she could probably beat me just by repeatedly distracting me!
And it certainly is a bit hard for clear-thinking people to imagine how Krugman can still be held in high esteem by some. But I suppose that if you've spent years hanging out in a Princeton faculty lounge, at CUNY, or in the boardroom of The New York Times, you might agree down-the-line with almost everything Krugman writes.
The guy becomes more and more detached from reality as time goes by. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that all those undereducated rubes out in flyover country increasingly view big-money supporters of the Democratic Party as a bunch of elitist, condescending grandees who couldn't care less about the struggles of middle- and working-class America. A perfect avatar for this big-money crowd is The Palindrome, although there's no shortage of wannabe, "junior varsity" versions of The Mighty Palindrome.
A few decades ago, many tens of millions of Americans (including me) thought of the Democratic Party as one that, above all else, fairly represented the interests of hard-working, middle class Americans. But nowadays, its leaders seem to have a far greater interest in identity politics, race grievance-mongering, rent-seeking, and crony capitalist opportunities for their biggest donors.
Krugman must surely be as quintessential an example as you can find of an IYI. No one fits Nassim Nicholas Taleb's descriptions in the linked piece better:
By the way, two of Taleb's books, Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, are among the most interesting and thought-provoking books I've read during the last ten years.
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Remember Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Sam Nunn, Daniel Moynihan, Frank Church and others like them? Would they have tolerated Harry Reid and the current Democrats? How they have changed.
Remember Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Sam Nunn, Daniel Moynihan, Frank Church and others like them? Would they have tolerated Harry Reid and the current Democrats? How they have changed.
Yep! Now those were some honorable Democrats whom one would not have been embarrassed to say they voted for. It's difficult to find such a Democrat today.
Someone opined in this forum a year or two ago that if someone like Democratic Party icon JFK were to run today and espouse all of the policy positions he did in the early 1960s, he's be booted from the primaries in short order. I don't doubt that for a minute. Most of these people have left the world of reason. (Keith Ellison for DNC chair? Are you fucking kidding?)
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Yep! Now those were some honorable Democrats whom one would not have been embarrassed to say they voted for. It's difficult to find such a Democrat today.
Someone opined in this forum a year or two ago that if someone like Democratic Party icon JFK were to run today and espouse all of the policy positions he did in the early 1960s, he's be booted from the primaries in short order. I don't doubt that for a minute. Most of these people have left the world of reason. (Keith Ellison for DNC chair? Are you fucking kidding?)
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LMAO! as a Deplorable I fully support "Keith Ellison for DNC chair".
Krugman... seems completely oblivious to the fact that all those undereducated rubes out in flyover country increasingly view big-money supporters of the Democratic Party as a bunch of elitist, condescending grandees who couldn't care less about the struggles of middle- and working-class America...
A few decades ago, many tens of millions of Americans (including me) thought of the Democratic Party as one that, above all else, fairly represented the interests of hard-working, middle class Americans. But nowadays, its leaders seem to have a far greater interest in identity politics, race grievance-mongering, rent-seeking, and crony capitalist opportunities for their biggest donors.
Well said... I may be reaching back a few decades too far, but compare the USA county vote map in 1936 (a Dem landslide, when FDR campaigned for the "common man") with 2016:
Paul Krugman Loses It Over Coming "Era Of Epic Corruption" In 'Trumpistan'
by Tyler Durden
Jan 2, 2017 3:55 PM
In a time of great change; upheaval of norms and establishment status quo dissolution, there is one steadfast member of the elite that the world can rely on to never change - no matter how the facts around him do. Nobel-prize-winner Paul Krugman has begun the year as he ended the last, with a New York Times' op-ed exclaiming that "America has become a 'Stan'."
In 2015 the city of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, was graced with a new public monument: a giant gold-plated sculpture portraying the country’s president on horseback. This may strike you as a bit excessive. But cults of personality are actually the norm in the “stans,” the Central Asian countries that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union, all of which are ruled by strongmen who surround themselves with tiny cliques of wealthy crony capitalists.
Americans used to find the antics of these regimes, with their tinpot dictators, funny. But who’s laughing now?
We are, after all, about to hand over power to a man who has spent his whole adult life trying to build a cult of personality around himself; remember, his “charitable” foundation spent a lot of money buying a six-foot portrait of its founder. Meanwhile, one look at his Twitter account is enough to show that victory has done nothing to slake his thirst for ego gratification. So we can expect lots of self-aggrandizement once he’s in office. I don’t think it will go as far as gold-plated statues, but really, who knows?
Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented — or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, “unpresidented” — conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will — in fact, he’s already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.
This means that Mr. Trump will be in violation of the spirit, and arguably the letter, of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars gifts or profits from foreign leaders, the instant he recites the oath of office. But who’s going to hold him accountable? Some prominent Republicans are already suggesting that, rather than enforcing the ethics laws, Congress should simply change them to accommodate the great man.
And the corruption won’t be limited to the very top: The new administration seems set to bring blatant self-dealing into the center of our political system. Abraham Lincoln may have led a team of rivals; Donald Trump seems to be assembling a team of cronies, choosing billionaires with obvious, deep conflicts of interest for many key positions in his administration.
In short, America is rapidly turning into a stan.
I know that many people are still trying to convince themselves that the incoming administration will govern normally, despite the obviously undemocratic instincts of the new commander in chief and the questionable legitimacy of the process that brought him to power. Some Trump apologists have even taken to declaring that we needn’t worry about corruption from the incoming clique, because rich men don’t need more money. Seriously.
But let’s get real. Everything we know suggests that we’re entering an era of epic corruption and contempt for the rule of law, with no restraint whatsoever.
How could this happen in a nation that has long prided itself as a role model for democracies everywhere? In a direct sense, Mr. Trump’s elevation was made possible by the F.B.I.’s blatant intervention in the election, Russian subversion, and the supine news media that obligingly played up fake scandals while burying real ones on the back pages.
But this debacle didn’t come out of nowhere. We’ve been on the road to stan-ism for a long time: an increasingly radical G.O.P., willing to do anything to gain and hold power, has been undermining our political culture for decades.
People tend to forget how much of the 2016 playbook had already been used in earlier years. Remember, the Clinton administration was besieged by constant accusations of corruption, dutifully hyped as major stories by the news media; not one of these alleged scandals turned out to involve any actual wrongdoing. Not incidentally, James Comey, the F.B.I. director whose intervention almost surely swung the election, had previously worked for the Whitewater committee, which spent seven years obsessively investigating a failed land deal.
People also tend to forget just how bad the administration of George W. Bush really was, and not just because it led America to war on false pretenses. There was also an upsurge in cronyism, with many key posts going to people with dubious qualifications but close political and/or business ties to top officials. Indeed, America botched the occupation of Iraq in part thanks to profiteering by politically connected businesses.
The only question now is whether the rot has gone so deep that nothing can stop America’s transformation into Trumpistan. One thing is for sure: It’s destructive as well as foolish to ignore the uncomfortable risk, and simply assume that it will all be O.K. It won’t.
Someone opined in this forum a year or two ago that if someone like Democratic Party icon JFK were to run today and espouse all of the policy positions he did in the early 1960s, he'd be booted from the primaries in short order. I don't doubt that for a minute.
Not sure if this is the thread you're referring to, but it does have some nice pics of HoustonMilfDebbie aka SassySue aka ???
"Our present tax system... exerts too heavy a drag on growth; it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking. In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the federal government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures... It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now."
JFK in speech to the Economic Club of New York, 12/14/62
Can anyone imagine Fauxcahontas Liz Warren or Comrade Bernie Sanders uttering anything like that today?
"Who gave your candidates the debate questions in advance, Mr. Ellison?"
"I swear on my Koran it wasn't me!"
Or " What OTHER taxpayer paid for inducements has the DNC stuffed into budget bills to pay for the Dindu Nuffins and your fellow muzzies to " vote early and often " Mr Ellison ? " And would those additional funds be ear marked for any " polling site security " contracts with the New Black Panther party ?
I'm not sure whether that's the thread I was thinking of, but I believe that sentiment regarding JFK may have been mentioned on several occasions.
And, as I recall, HoustonMilfDebbie rocks a pretty nice bod for a 50-something woman! (If she could only have avoided the Noam Chomsky idolatry and all the spamming.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by lustylad
Yeah, I can see it too...
"Who gave your candidates the debate questions in advance, Mr. Ellison?"
"I swear on my Koran it wasn't me!"
I don't care who you are, that's pretty fucking funny!
I'm anxious to see Krugman's reaction when taxes on high incomes and capital gains are cut, and that ridiculous 3.8% health care surtax on dividends, capital gains, rental income, and interest income is thrown onto the ash heap of history where it belongs. Have you ever noticed how his head starts rapidly shaking when he's talking about something that he's gotten all exercised about? He'll probably start to spasm like a cockroach after receiving a nice spritz of Raid.
It will surely be quite a spectacle. I can hardly wait!
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