The Pie
Today’s metaphor begins, as all good metaphors do, with the first verse of the theme song from The Jeffersons:
Yummy! A piece of the pie! Who wouldn’t want a piece of the pie? (If it were a fruitcake, this metaphor wouldn’t work.)
The question facing the nation at the moment is how big everyone’s slice is. Obama is positioning the government in the role of pie slicer, making sure that nobody’s piece is any bigger than anyone else’s. But he can only have direct influence over the American Pie, whether or not he drives his Chevy to the levee. The rest of the world often looks at the World Pie and complains that America has too big a piece.
Nobody’s paying any attention to the size of the pie.
As I have lamented the coming collapse of charitable giving in this country on Facebook, many of my friends have made a number of comments that illustrate that, for them, they’re far more concerned with the size of the pieces, not the pie itself. “Since wealthy people wouldn't be able to create wealth without the commons and infrastructure,” writes Scott, “it seems logical that they should contribute accordingly.” Jen opines, “The economy's soo better spread and lubricated that way really...oooh I'm turned on just thinking about it...yowzah!” And Kim says, in response to my concern that those over $250,000 will no longer get a tax deduction for contributing to charity, “Wow, that would be great to be making more than $250,000.”
So Scott thinks the rich aren’t paying enough for their pie. Jen thinks the pie’s better when it’s “spread and lubricated” in even amounts. And Kim, like so many of us, longs for a piece bigger than the one she currently has.
Folks, to switch metaphors for a moment, this is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The pie is shrinking. The American Pie, the World Pie, all of it – there’s less pie to slice up, and the more we squabble over the size of the pieces we have left, the smaller the pie gets. In fact, a pie is a terrible metaphor for the world’s wealth. It implies that the size of the economy is a static thing, finished and unchangeable, and that, like a pie, its overall status is unaffected by how it's sliced.
Well, we’re movin’ on up
To the East Side
To a deluxe apartment in the sky
We’re movin’ on up
To the East Side
We finally got a piece of the pie
Yummy! A piece of the pie! Who wouldn’t want a piece of the pie? (If it were a fruitcake, this metaphor wouldn’t work.)
The question facing the nation at the moment is how big everyone’s slice is. Obama is positioning the government in the role of pie slicer, making sure that nobody’s piece is any bigger than anyone else’s. But he can only have direct influence over the American Pie, whether or not he drives his Chevy to the levee. The rest of the world often looks at the World Pie and complains that America has too big a piece.
Nobody’s paying any attention to the size of the pie.
As I have lamented the coming collapse of charitable giving in this country on Facebook, many of my friends have made a number of comments that illustrate that, for them, they’re far more concerned with the size of the pieces, not the pie itself. “Since wealthy people wouldn't be able to create wealth without the commons and infrastructure,” writes Scott, “it seems logical that they should contribute accordingly.” Jen opines, “The economy's soo better spread and lubricated that way really...oooh I'm turned on just thinking about it...yowzah!” And Kim says, in response to my concern that those over $250,000 will no longer get a tax deduction for contributing to charity, “Wow, that would be great to be making more than $250,000.”
So Scott thinks the rich aren’t paying enough for their pie. Jen thinks the pie’s better when it’s “spread and lubricated” in even amounts. And Kim, like so many of us, longs for a piece bigger than the one she currently has.
Folks, to switch metaphors for a moment, this is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
The pie is shrinking. The American Pie, the World Pie, all of it – there’s less pie to slice up, and the more we squabble over the size of the pieces we have left, the smaller the pie gets. In fact, a pie is a terrible metaphor for the world’s wealth. It implies that the size of the economy is a static thing, finished and unchangeable, and that, like a pie, its overall status is unaffected by how it's sliced.
That's nonsense.
The economy is a living being, like a person, thriving or dying according to her living conditions, and each slice into her is like surgery without anesthesia.
People also confuse the Economy Pie with the Wealth Pie, which includes gobs of old money that is no longer subject to taxation. The Rockefellers and Kennedys of the world have all of their pieces locked up in refrigerated safety deposit boxes. It’s just the Kims and the Weezie Jeffersons of the world, hoping to slice off a $250,000 piece, that are going to get sliced down if they make the attempt.
Obama’s not slicing the pie. He’s drawing economic blood.
The economy is a living being, like a person, thriving or dying according to her living conditions, and each slice into her is like surgery without anesthesia.
People also confuse the Economy Pie with the Wealth Pie, which includes gobs of old money that is no longer subject to taxation. The Rockefellers and Kennedys of the world have all of their pieces locked up in refrigerated safety deposit boxes. It’s just the Kims and the Weezie Jeffersons of the world, hoping to slice off a $250,000 piece, that are going to get sliced down if they make the attempt.
Obama’s not slicing the pie. He’s drawing economic blood.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 7:52 AM
38 Comments:
The ending statement is a bit dramatic, but the metaphors used and their interpretations hold some truth and value.
I can't think of a single person who likes fruitcake. Why is it one of the more prominent Christmas gifts if no one eats them?
Are you going to post any other chapters to your book, Stallion?
No, I've got a draft finished, and I'm circulating it among folks in its entirety.
If you want a copy, email me.
The very best way that wealth gets spread, is when employers pay employees.
When government spreads wealth, a good portion of that wealth is lost in the costs associated with spreading said wealth.
Instead of worrying about a slice of the pie, folks should worry about growing the size of the pie itself.
Because eventually socialists will run out of other people's money.
Liberals tend not to understand these things, because they have a very teenager-like mentality, where fairness and equal division can work in some kind of utopian fantasy.
If you doubt this, attend your next high school reunion and seek out those who became liberals. You'll find that their thinking process at age 40, is exactly the same as it was at age 14. They never mature.
This is frightening because it means we have a bunch of mental teenagers running the country.
I really love that the economy is a living person. Do you know this person? I would like to meet the economy, maybe go out on a date, do an interview. Have you ever made out with the economy? Do you have photos to prove it?
Wouldn't reducing population make the pie proportionately bigger? If we consider the economy as a whole, the numerator is always going to be "1", but the denominator is variable according to how many people there are. I'm going to force everyone to become Quakers, including Richard Nixon.
You're right in saying it isn't a pie at all.
There is enough and to spare in this world for those who create and add value to society.
For those who cheat and steal from others and call it a living... vultures who feed off the carcasses of the dead... they are the pie people.
And they don't get it.
OH MY!
The emotional responses are bubbling over today.
Some remarks from the above comments:
"teenager-like mentality"
"utopian fantasy"
"never mature"
"those who cheat and steal"
"vultures who feed off the carcasses of the dead"
And, of course, the most upsetting image is that of ANYONE eating fruitcake. (ugh!)
My only response to some of the hyperbole above is to remind eveyone that the economic mess we are in (nationally and internationally) was not caused by the policies of liberals. The last 30 years have been the conservative approach to things, and unfortunately it hasn't worked out too well.
Will the new approach work out better? If we are honest, then we will have to admit that we cannot know for sure either way. However, Americans are now in FULL RETREAT from the Reagan-Bush-Limbaugh philosophy(ies).
Time will tell. No sense in getting ulcers over it folks.
Peace!
Sorry, that was me.
POUNDS
"My only response to some of the hyperbole above is to remind eveyone that the economic mess we are in (nationally and internationally) was not caused by the policies of liberals. The last 30 years have been the conservative approach to things, and unfortunately it hasn't worked out too well."
The conservative approach to things. Ahhh, would that it were so.
Yet to refute that would be to enter a partisan discussion which, while perhaps engaging on its own merits, is tangential to where we currently find ourselves economically.
Our current predicament was not caused by ideology per se - it was caused primarily by the failure of mortgage-backed securities tied to an over-speculative housing market. The environment for that failure was cultivated with the best of intentions. People who couldn't afford homes were offered "the dream of home ownership" to help mitigate their poverty, on the assumption that the homes would increase in value indefinitely.
A similar approach was adopted worldwide to an even greater degree, and countries who could hardly be said to have applied "the conservative approach to things" are in even worse shape than we are.
All of this is hardly reflective of conservative values, although it;s true that conservatives did little or nothing to prevent it.
I make a mean bluberry pie, as well as an awesome "patriotic berry pie" with strawberries, cream cheese, whipped cream on the top, graham cracker crust on the bottom, and blueberries sprinkled on top.
People need to eat more pie. And more bluberries.
So there was no "Reagan Revolution"?
and the "Contract With America" wasn't real?
and the "Ownership Society" was a mirage?
and the foreign poicy debacles of recent years really didn't cost us anything?
and the tax cuts since 2000 didn't reduce the projected revenues?
and the prohibiton against regulating the trading of derivatives didn't occur?
I guess it could be said that the above actions just weren't conservative ENOUGH.... but that is a hard sell to make at this point.
At any rate, it is certainly a distortion to maintain that they were the fault of the evil LIB-ER-ALS. (Unless you are willing to call Bush, Cheney, Delay, et. al. a bunch of liberals who infiltrated the Republican Party as part of some fantastic conspiracy.)
Whatever excuses are made.... it is a tenet of conservative doctrine that deregulation of the economy is GOOD, and regulation of the economy is BAD.
Unfortunately, too much of EITHER is usually a big mistake.
POUNDS
POUNDS, of all the events you listed, the only one with any direct bearing on our current circumstances is the regulation of derivatives, which would have been unnecessary if Fannie and Freddie et al hadn't destabilized the underlying assets.
Can you make a credible case that the international popping of the housing bubble is a result of Reagan's tax cuts?
My listing of events was to demonstrate that it has not been any kind of liberal philosphy that has dominated the last three decades.
As for the Reagan tax cuts.... they don't have anything directly to do with the current economic collapse, except as they began the massive increase in the national debt.... something that the current Republican Party is suddenly criticizing.
And saying regulation wouldn't have been necessary if mistakes weren't made by financial institutions is analogous to saying that police wouldn't be necessary if there weren't criminals.
I would remind you that there was abuse by all the Savings and Loans in the nineties (which we also had to bail out) because of a scaling back in regulation.
So the old saying applies to (the Phil Gramm led) decrease in regulation this time: "Fool me once, shame on you.... fool me twice, shame on me." The G.O.P STILL stands for less regulation
POUNDS
"The economy is a living being, like a person, thriving or dying according to her living conditions, and each slice into her is like surgery without anesthesia."
And hey, when did the economy become a WOMAN?
That is one disturbing image, on so very many levels....
A couple of quick points:
1. Let's just stipulate at the outset that essentially everything said about politics or economics by actors and others closely associated with the entertainment industry is dumb.
2. I don't think that Obama is going to abolish the charitable giving deduction over $250,000. I think that he is talking about increasing the number of folks subject to the alternative minimum tax. That may be a bad idea and it will certainly hurt institutions that depend on charitable giving, but it is not the same thing as abolish the deduction.
3. In historical perspective, Obama's proposed policies are not wildly redistributive. We're talking about increasing marginal tax rates, not the end of capitalism.
4. The on going implosion of the financial sector strikes me as of greater immediate concern, in particular the wishy-washy tickering with the banks has got to be playing havoc with planning. If we really need to keep CitiGroup and Bank of America afloat, it looks increasingly like they will need a capital infusion. Capital, not debt. That means the government has to buy stock. That means at least temporary nationalization, nasty as that is. Either bit the bullet and do it, or let them fail. Don't dither.
5. The NYT reported today that the prospects for re-privatizing Fannie and Freddie are looking grim. This scares me, unless of course the feds are going to dismember them and sell of the pieces, a la Larry Summers's proposal.
Put in starker terms, right now there are bigger ecnomic worries than tax rates and a modestly more redistributive state. A much more pressing issue is getting financial markets functional, eliminating the massive uncertainty under which they are operating, and avoiding long term government management of large segments of the market.
Pound-sy: It seems rather unlikely to me that something as complicated as the current economic downturn is best analyzed in terms of ideological hot buttons from the 1980s, as fun as it is to engage in a rememberence of polemics past.
For what it is worth, to the extent that the current problem is the result of an asset price bubble, the main culprit is in all liklihood Alan Greenspan. The problem is that while it is easy to find his errors in hindsight, at the time he was not operating in a wildly irrational way. He was looking at broad measures of infaltion like the CPI, and rightly noted that loose monetary policy didn't seem to be having an effect. He also rightly noted that central banks had never targeted asset prices as opposed to broad price inflation, and that the Fed was probably unsuited for determining what the correct price of houses in Las Vegas was. In hind sight, it looks as though international competition controlled prices and the inflationary effect of the monetary policy was felt mainly in terms of asset price inflation. You will notice, by the way, that the same phenomena of asset price inflation occurred not only in the USA, but also in Spain, the UK, Ireland, and Eastern Europe. This is an indication that domestic idealogical narratives are probably not particularlly good tools for analyzing the source of the problem.
There is a real sense in which talking about regulation of the financial industry at the level of clearing house rules for CDSs misses the elephant in the room, namely that the entire market is subject to a government price setting body, the Fed. The problem is that when it screws up, it can screw up really, really big.
law geek,
I actually agree with almost everything you said in both of your posts. 1) stabilize the financial sector. 2) spend us out of the recession
Isn't that what they are trying to do?
As for the reference I made to anything in the 80's, it was simply in response to questions about my assertion that the last 30 years have had a predominantly conservative tilt (and certainly not a liberal one).
It's more fun when I can disagree with you, though...... lol
POUNDS
"Whatever excuses are made.... it is a tenet of conservative doctrine that deregulation of the economy is GOOD, and regulation of the economy is BAD." - Pounds
This is a true statement.
Yet, it was Republicans (who may or may not be conservative) like Bush and McCain who pushed for increased regulation of Fannie, Freddie, and the housing sector in general back in 2005.....and it was liberals like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who refused said regulation because they had to keep putting people into homes they couldn't afford.
We can talk about the tenets of the GOP 'till we're blue in the face. But that doesn't change the reality that on this issue of regulation, the GOP had it right and the liberals had it wrong.
Don't misunderstand....I'm not suggesting this entire mess is the fault of liberals. It cannot squarely be blamed on any one person or any one group. Everyone has blame. But your comments about the GOP being the party of deregulation, while true, are fairly misleading in this case.
Andy
Poundsy:
To be sure, I think that Obama and et al think that they are trying to stablize the financial secture, whether or not they actually are is an entirely different matter. The stimulus package is an economically incoherent behemouth caught on the horns of the dilemma between spending fast and spending on "smart." I do see that it has had any impact on market expectations about the future, which suggests that as a bit of Keynsian pump priming it will likely fail. This should not be much of a surprise to anyone who has looked at the results of fiscal stimulus over the last thirty to forty years. It doesn't have a good record. Indeed, it was largely the failure of fiscal attempts to manage the business cycle that led to the turn to monetary policy that may well have caused this mess.
Likewise, the Obama administration's approach to the banks over the last month has been dithering. Dithering itself may not be such a bad thing if there are clear expecations that the dithering will continue forever. Dithering punctuated by the possibility of random and intrusive federal action, however, is a recipe for INCREASING rather than DECREASING uncertainty. If I was a banker, I wouldn't lend either. I have no clue as to what the government was going to do in the future.
The Obama-ites need to decide what they are going to do: create a bad bank a la Sweden, recapitalize the banks (which will involve some sort of soft nationalization at least in the short term and the massive dilution of curren stockholders), or simply let banks fail and then sell off their profitable bits.
The problem with "pragmatically" "managing" the economy is that it plays havoc with any certainty about future expectations and makes planning extremely difficult. The result is paralysis.
"I do see that it has had any impact on market expectations about the future, which suggests that as a bit of Keynsian pump priming it will likely fail."
Oops! Should be "I DON'T see"...
Typing too fast. Sorry. Off to class now....
Law geek, I want to marry you.
Can we get back to talking about having that pie-baking party?
law geek,
With the recession spiraling out of control at an accellerated pace, your question of whether they should be spending "fast" or spending"smart" is moot.
Currently, "spending smart" = "Spending fast." To paraphrase Gladstone: "Spending delayed is recovery denied."
I chuckled at your reference to "priming the pump." Nowadays, they always say "jump-starting" the economy. Are you a lot older than I thought? (I wonder how many people know what "priming a pump" is or how to do it.)
Query about your statement that "everything said about politics or economics by actors and others closely associated with the entertainment industry is dumb." ..... Were you including Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Rush Limbaugh, and Arnold Schwatzeneggar?
Most importantly, I wonder about your statement that Alan Greenspan is the main "culprit."
You are aware (I assume) of Greenspan's testimony (mea culpa if ever there was one) that his BIG MISTAKE was assuming regulation was not necessary because he believed (wrongfully he now says) that CEO's would have as their primary concern, the long term well-being of their companies.
And THAT is why firm and steady regulation is, and always will be, necessary!!! Too many CEO's look only short-term (if that!!), and make decisions not necessarily good for the company, the employees, or the shareholders. The massive compensation paid to those guys (whther the company succeeds or not) is largely (but certainly not entirely)the problem.
The overwhelming majority of businesses FAIL. Most businessmen are about five steps down the rung on intelligence (and judgment). The altar on which business owners and/or CEO's are placed is where Stallion will really find that blood he mentioned in his original post. It is the blood of shareholders, employees, and customers.
This is too long......
POUNDS
Actually, the conservative way of things have worked out great.
Just not for folks who want to lay around and get free checks from the government to pay for all of life's expenses, i.e. socialists.
Anyone who has purchased an i-anything from Apple, has no business complaining about the economy.
When you're forced to eat pig's feet and cow's tongue to keep yourself alive, then you can talk.
Until then, you're just a spoiled whiney child who's pouting because he isn't getting everything he wants when he wants it.
If you want to see the living effect of leftist economic policies, take visit to the unlivable hellhole known as Detroit. You won't be able to leave fast enough.
How the Democrats destroyed the economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivmL-lXNy64
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
And of course we can't forget the wacko activists from the fraudulent partisan organization ACORN who marched and chanted, demanding that lenders give loans to people who could never afford them, all in the name of fanciful "fairness."
Normally, I would just laugh off the post at 5:13 P.M.
I figure there is no real chance to dialogue with someone expressing those views.
But for everyone else.... look at what he wrote in the first two sentences of his post. (Well, actually the second is a sentence "fragment", but you know what I mean.)
He says:
"Actually, the conservative way of things have worked out great.
Just not for folks who want to lay around and get free checks from the government to pay for all of life's expenses, i.e. socialists."
He actually believes that all the people who is suffering in this economy (unemployed or lost their home or took a giant hit on their retirement accounts, etc.) are socialists who want to lay around.
Here in California the unemployment rate is listed as over 10% .... but of course it is much higher. Real estate agents, automobile salesmen, and many others still have their jobs -- they just don't have any income. And unemployment numbers don't measure all those who would like to work full-time, but can only get part-time employment.
People who worked hard for decades have seen their 401k accounts cut in half in a matter of months. Why would anyone accuse them of wanting to lay around and collect free checks from the government.
How many unemployed construction workers are hungry to return to work? There is no building going on, does that make them lazy freeloaders?
I am not angry at the "5:13 guy" ... I suspect he would like it if I were. It just makes it difficult for you genuine conservatives when there are voices "on your side" that are so intemperate. As a liberal I know how that can be. Our side has had many angry voices over the years. We still have a bunch. It's effect is to repel people from joining your (or our) cause(s).
And since the number of self-identified Republicans is down to only 25%-30% of the voters, you can't afford to alienate people who might otherwise be persuaded.
The "red meat" that excites people like the "5:13 guy" extends the time the Republicans will be in the political wilderness.
Since I value a strong two-party system, you have my sympathy.
POUNDS
I just noticed that "5:13 guy" is actually "5:30 guy."
Sorry about that.
POUNDS
Poundsy: The problem with the Obama stimulus is that in order to spend the money on projects dear to the heart of Democratic constituencies they are spending the money too slowly for it to have much of a Keynsian stimulatory effect, yet the Keynsian argument is the one being sold to the public. For what it is worth, I think that folks are hypervehnilating about the possible effects that a stimulus package will have either way. A well constructed Keynsian stimulus might in the best of all possible worlds speed along a recovery slightly. What Obama signed into law was not a well-constructed stimulus and this is not the best of all possible worlds.
I say "pump priming" because that is what they talked about in my macroeconomics text books low those many years ago.
Greenspan's mea culpa was about the wrong things, in my opinion. First, he lacked the regulatory authority to do anything about "CEO's" in general, so you are actually mistating what he said. (For the record, what he said was that he wrongly thought that banks could properly judge their own exposure under CDS contracts. At this point we don't actually know what the exposure of banks is on CDS contracts, so he may or may not be right.) Second, what he should have entered the mea culpa on was the extremely loose monetary policy he pursued from the late 1990s on. After all, the real job of the Fed is controlling the money supply, and ultimately we need some explanation as to why suddenly we had an asset price bubble. Frankly, the notion that everyone suddenly got much greedier and much stupider strikes me as rather implausible. A more likely explanation is that we had a systemic shift in asset prices. When looking for causes of such things, while I am willing to nod to Shiller and give him his due, there are limits to the explanatory power of pyschology. I tend to think that monetary policy is a better candidate.
The fact that most businesses fail is a good thing. An economy regulated so that no one ever failed would be so devoid of risk taking as to make the return on capital rather pitful. Risk and failure are good.
The choice here is not between regulation and no regulation. The financial sector and commercial credit is already regulated up the wazoo. (Trust me on this; I make my living teaching this law to students.) The question is whether the regulations are good regulations or bad regulations. The notion, however, that prior to fall of 2008 we were operating some laissez faire wonderland is laughable.
Actually, most CEOs are bright and driven people who face complicated tasks that require high stakes decision making in the face of uncertainty. It is a difficult job, and one that requires considerable skill knowledge. The persistent habit of intellectuals (and those that ape them) from Plato to the present to disparage the intelligence of those engaged in commerce tells us more about the ignorance of Plato and his progeny about commerce than it does about the intelligence of merchants.
Put another way: I think that in the face of the recession most journalists and commentators (1) moralize, or (2) fall back on idelogical narratives about regulation v. the evils of laissez faire. The reality of macroeconomics, however, is more complicated. On the other hand, most journalists (especially the political journalists who dominate the coverage) frankly don't understand this stuff, and if they did understand it and then tried to explain it to the public, the public wouldn't sit still long enough to understand it. Add to that the fact that this is actually a genuinely difficult phenomena about which we actually don't know all that much, and we are left with a public debate that is largely trivial and beside the point. You are best off reading high quality business journalism like the WSJ or the FT, ignoring all broadcast news in whatever medium, and staying away from political commentary if you actually want to understand the ecnonomics rather than the politics. And, of course, read The Economist.
law geek,
Two quick items (I am falling asleep... got up very early to head to Pechanga casino):
1) The projects that can spend the stimulus monies the quickest must depend (to a very great extent) on the state governments. The federal workforce (which, of course, doesn't have high risk of unemployment) doesn't build the bridges, highways, etc.
The governors need to get that stuff done, partly with current employees, but also with contracted work to the private sector. By and large, it was the governors who responded to Obama's inquiry about "shovel ready" projects. Both Dem's AND Rep's (Crist of Florida and Schwartzeneggar of California included) said they had stuff ready to go.
2) Here is what the Associated Press reported about Greenspan's testimony regarding his "mistake" in thinking financial institutions would protect the shareholders and the company/bank:
Greenspan, 82, acknowledged under questioning that he had made a “mistake” in believing that banks, operating in their own self-interest, would do what was necessary to protect their shareholders and institutions. Greenspan called that “a flaw in the model ... that defines how the world works.”
What I watched on C-Span and CNN conveyed that as well.
Early bedtime for me, good night.
POUNDS
He actually believes that all the people who is suffering in this economy (unemployed or lost their home or took a giant hit on their retirement accounts, etc.) are socialists who want to lay around.
Your psychic legerdemain needs to be corrected.
This is not what I believe. This is an invention entirely of your own making.
Not once did I refer to any of the folks you mention in your paragraph.
What I am referring to is just as I stated: folks who are waiting for Obama to send them free checks from the government to pay for all of life's expenses, to be taken care of from cradle to grave with stolen money from the pockets of the "rich."
It's very important when you debate someone to focus on your reading comprehension and argue against the points that were actually written, as opposed stupidly making things up and artificially manufacturing points that were never written just because you want to argue against them.
Hi Jim,
Sorry but the PM system on Moist is not working.
Quick question. Next week I am meeting a business associate who is of the Mormon faith for lunch. I do not want to offend him. I understand that certain soda drinks are not allowed. Are there any other dietary restrictions that I should know about?
I just want to make him feel comfortable.
Thanks,
Jim
Wow, all of your cool-headed arguments about the cause of this crisis are so fascinating, but as an extremely gifted emotionalist, I just thought I'd share an emotional side to all of this excrement.
I know someone in his late 50's who is brilliant and who has worked hard his whole life to build a beautiful retirement fund. He started as a cheeky little Brooklyn Italian, son of a printer, who used to entertain himself with his friends by making dummies, calling cabs, and tossing the dummies in the back with an order of "take me to 42nd street" just to see how far the cab got before the driver realized he didn't have a live one. Oh, he was cool! Was a great student, went to Cooper Union, became a chemical engineer, and got a job for one of those big, evil American pharmaceutical companies working in their storage plant. Did fine for some years, but returned to school years later for an MS in computer science. Kept growing as a researcher, developer, manager, etc., did some great stuff for pharmaceutical research, put in 50-60 weeks most weeks, saved, invested in land and funds, was a good boy, generous to others, and, when the 60 hour weeks were just starting to really take their toll, retired early at 56 to pursue more interesting employment opportunities. Being young and holding a lot of liquid assets as well, he left a lot of funds in the market, trusting that they'd be okay in the long run because he still had some time on his side. Yes, it was a mistake. He's really beating himself up over it. He's now looking for a job. He has a beautiful home which he built a decade ago. (Dream home at 46. Lucky man. Bought with a two incomes, mind you). That may need to go on the market in a few years if the market doesn't come back up and hard.
Yeah, I know what a lot of you are thinking. "Poor, stupid idiot!" "Serves you right for not making more secure choices." Or "What does he have to complain about? Now he'll have to live like the rest of us." But it's impossible for me to not fully resent the arrogant assumptions that many liberals make that those rich people owe it those real working class people, etc, etc. Blah blah blah. Do you have any idea how much work it takes to become one of those rich people? Do you think it's pure luck that they've stumbled upon? That they got their BS in something, and then - poof - they just started making $250,000 a year and are expecting 30-40 years of $250K. What slobs! No, actually. They work HARD. They work LONG. They've been smart, for the most part. Most of them are only recently landing in that cursed tax bracket. Yes, they've been working up the ladder like the rest of us. And, in this case, he made a mistake that a lot of people might've made under the same circumstances. He admitted that he didn't expect Pres. Obama to come out so hard and fast and aggressive in proving himself as a socialist. He thought he had a little time to watch the trends. He knew it was possible, but he had no idea that the constant threat of "okay, rich folks, get ready to addy-up" would create plunging "girations" in the market.
And why the hell do we elect career politicians? Oh they make me gag! People whose entire life's fortune has been riding on the money of tax-payers. Give me a businessman turned politician or a war-vet turned politician. They, at least, know what it's like to work your ass off for your dollars with full knowledge that it just might not come. They would at least have a little respect for those who, unlike myself, actually got in gear and started investing long ago and are actually aching over the plunge in in the market - because it affects them very directly and now. Career politicians who go to school, and then go to more school, and then stand up and use sophistry to get people excited about their ideas, and then lie and pretend that they are humble and are capable of compromise. And then they come out, give the successful people of the world the bird, and say, "You don't deserve what you've got."
And I almost got started on Hollywood and their advocacy of such people. I'll just say that people who make millions of dollars for 6 months of work learning and performing lines between trips to craft services have nothing to say to America with regards to the economy and politics.
People like Obama like to pretend that they think that all men are actually created equal. But I don't believe they do. They don't have any faith in the struggling man's ability to pull himself out his struggles. They think the struggling man is something below himself. Why hold them to the same laws of accountability as those who've proven themselves thus far through ingenuity, industry, and responsibility. So they want to enable the struggling man with an "it's not your fault" mentality. And when I say "struggling man," I'm not talking about people who've been working hard and who are facing recent unemployment, and who I believe will find a way to pick themselves back up. I'm talking about those who don't know how to budget anything, who bought homes that they knew they couldn't afford, who see the electronics, fast food, nice cars, etc, as necessities in life and something they should be entitled to. People who stand up in town meetings with president Obama and ask when their job at McD's, which they've had for over 4 years, will start providing better benefits.
Okay, I'd say I was rambling, but I've been doing that the whole time. My point is, I hope you know someone who is really feeling the pain of this new administration. Then maybe you'd have a little more respect for those big fat cats who are going to have to start footing the bill for this crap coming out of Washington. They haven't been fat for that long, and they won't be fat much longer.
I guess the good news is, the chances of my friend finding another job on his old pay scale is slim to none. So at least his taxes won't be affected as much by our new president.
I'm sorry. I missed something in that last piece.
He's lost all his stock, is out of a job, and is now pissed at Obama for not taxing him on $250,000 he does not earn?
I think his anger is somewhat miss directed.
explanation to 8:50 PM guy (a simple lesson in deductive logic)
Your original post said:
". . .things have worked out great.
JIST NOT (emphasis added) for folks who want to lay around and get free checks from the government to pay for all of life's expenses, i.e. socialists."
The words "just not" are restrictive and limiting. They convey that the following group is the ONLY exception to the preceding broader category.
If I said that "Medicare is available to everyone JUST NOT those under the age of 65" it would mean that the only people to whom Medicare is not available fall in to that single exception. (The people WITHIN the exception category might also have other characteristics such as being salesmen, surfers, or prostitutes, but they would have to be under 65 based on the previous premise.)
So you didn't have to NAME any other people. They are incorporated since you alleged everyone was included "just not" the group you name. If it is obvious that unemployed construction workers, people who have lost their homes, etc, have not had "things work out great" then they MUST be within the single category you said was an exception.
PUT ANOTHER WAY:
If category "A" contains everyone but those is category "B"
and
If those in category "C" are not within categor "A", then category ""C" MUST be a subset of category "B" ...... follow?
My reading comprehension is actually quite good.
Perhaps your origianl post meant to say "but not for" instead of "just not for."
POUNDS
Sorry, let me simplify.
-A man worked hard for 30 years.
-Saved a big retirement fund and decided to retire early, take a break, and then pursue other courses.
-Still had a lot in the market, because a)he's still relatively young, and b)despite the economy, there was reason to believe the market would reasonably rebound as it has moved back and forth for decades.
-Surprise! The market has plunged even further and on a daily basis, and at least 1/2 of the money is gone. The losses are monumental, and unless you've got 30+ years, the portfolio will never reach it's previous value.
-The man is compelled to come out of retirement and seek safer employment again since he'll need another decade or two to recover from the losses, or at least wait until the ride slows down enough to get off safely. (Good thing he's in great shape at 57.)
Of course, to have any compassion or respect for the predicament (what's that?), you'd have to acknowledge that this administration's policies and rhetoric might actually have something to do with how the stock market has continued to plunge instead of slowly improving. But that's naive of me, isn't it? How would hinting at nationalizing some banks, advocating an exponential increase in the deficit, and cocking a pistol at the biggest investors in America have any affect on the stock market?
No, of course it wouldn't. This is just fulfillment of Obama's prophecies. We should actually be grateful for the heads-up he's given us about these "disasters", and those who didn't pull out sooner and take the penalties and losses, etc, have no one to be angry at but themselves. And, like I said last night in my insomniatic rant, those of us who only have a 401-k in the early stages and who have only lost $5-10K (so far) can congratulate ourselves for being young, having time on our sides, and not having opened up those other investment funds sooner. Wow, we've now got the bargain of the century in front of us!
Actually: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604419092515347.html
But thank you for proving my point that you have to either be or know one of those investors who's directly hurt by Pres. O's views and policies to appreciate that these people have done a lot right and should not be punished for their intelligence through the years.
For some reason, the phrase about what happens when someone "pisses in the wind" is coming to mind. Except, in this case, it's Obama and Pelosi who are doing the pissing from upwind.
Pounds,
It appears that correcting you requires full time attention.
It’s very important for you to understand, that you are quite simply in no position to be lecturing anyone about anything, as is evidenced by your written thoughts. Anytime you make declarations about knowing what another person believes you are in deep doo doo because that requires psychic powers, which you clearly do not have.
So you didn't have to NAME any other people. They are incorporated since you alleged everyone was included "just not" the group you name. If it is obvious that unemployed construction workers, people who have lost their homes, etc, have not had "things work out great" then they MUST be within the single category you said was an exception.
Your points quite simply are not applicable, as the people you mentioned in your paragraph are not a part of the group I mention, not even within the exception category. People who receive unemployment paid for said unemployment, and are not included in the exception category, despite your best efforts to make them included so your delusional leftist points make sense.
Again, that was a work of fiction manufactured by you to be able to argue the points that you wanted to argue, and to target a harsh critic, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Nothing more.
As an aside, it’s imperative to note here that human suffering of any kind is never an excuse to inflict a people with the incorrect philosophy of socialism. Quite simply, you don’t give a drowning man a glass of water.
I should have known that I was going to be graded on my grammatical prowess on a blog comment by someone who erroneously fancies themselves as an intellectual such as you. But I’m still curious to know your answer to this question; are my grammatical inaccuracies any better or worse than capitalizing every letter in a word for emphasis? What you are doing is what Carl Sagan refers to as an ad hominem attack in his “Art of Baloney Detection” essay. It's very transparent.
But if you’re done with your little Alinksy-esque attempts to marginalize harsh critics by squabbling over grammatical minutiae, which is as ridiculous as your assertion that such harsh critics prevent folks from coming over to our side, why don’t you explain your earlier points regarding who is at fault over the state of the economy in context of the videos I posted, why Obama's ACORN isn't to blame, and why the left’s implementation of the Cloward-Piven Strategy shouldn’t outrage and infuriate every American?
Also let me know if I spelled doo doo right.
"You will notice, by the way, that the same phenomena of asset price inflation occurred not only in the USA, but also in Spain, the UK, Ireland, and Eastern Europe. This is an indication that domestic idealogical narratives are probably not particularlly good tools for analyzing the source of the problem."
Actually using domestical ideological narratives to explain international phenomena is useful since the Eastern European states were "forced" by World Bank and IMF geeks who were Washington/ Chicago school clones to ape their policies on reforming welfare, economy etc. They introduced a brand of capitalism which even Republican Americans would SHY from!! and would never let this brand of laissez-faire out unattended in their backyard.
Also the UK/Ireland and Iceland were the big bedfellows of US domestic neoliberal rhetoric. We are the anglosaxon bunch - regardless of how much it annoys either side that we share the kingsize!
Abbot
@ march 5th 12.23pm
I have worked hard for most of my life, beyond 60hr weeks, often all nighters to reach deadlines. I am freelance, I don't have those luxuries your friend has, although they are aspirations.
I have never claimed benefits either, something I have in principle. Although I may also have to lose my home.
So where is the compassion there?
Fuck off!
You want to point the finger at dithering! Absolutely no-one has a clue on what to do!! Pan global!
So piss off to your financial adviser, who'll be out of a job the next six months, and ask him where his crystal balls are now!!!
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