Bloggingheads Community - Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

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badhatharry

11-18-2011 11:08 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232000)

Only one of those two things is on the table.

Not if she makes it to the Senate. If you are saying that it is not the overthrow of capitalism that isn't on the table, I suspect you haven't been watching the news. Lot's of people want the government to get in there and fix things, thereby creating some sort of capitalism-lite. Lite on freedom, heavy on state regulation, because the peeps just can't handle all that freedom.

The problem is that those who espouse this ignore the fact that the government is even more corrupt than the evil capitalism they hate so much.

miceelf

11-18-2011 11:19 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232001)

We have had our differences in the past, but this is the first time I think I have seen you write something that I think is literally insane.

badhatharry

11-18-2011 11:29 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232002)

We have had our differences in the past, but this is the first time I think I have seen you write something that I think is literally insane.

Right, so you don't think that the proposals of the OWS crowd and their leaders like Van Jones and Michael Moore don't look anything like tampering with the basic tenets of capitalism and encouraging the state to manage and ameliorate its consequences.

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 11:35 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232005)

Be specific. What is Elizabeth Warren in favor of that would constitute "the end of capitalism?" While you're answering this, I'd like to know if you think the U.S. was a capitalist country under Richard Nixon.

miceelf

11-18-2011 11:40 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232005)

You weren't making a claim about Van Jones or Michael Moore. You were making a claim about Elizabeth Warren, whose big nod toward socialism was a plan to prevent banks from defrauding their credit card holders.

badhatharry

11-18-2011 11:51 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 232006)

Elizabeth Warren wants to spend billions of tax dollars to rein in the evil credit card companies and educate ignorant consumers about reading their contracts. It has always been my position that if she thinks this is necessary and would benefit the public, she should go out and either find private funding and set up a storefront from which to do this or do it as a voluntary activity. Hell, maybe she could even make some money at it. For her to think that her ideas are worthy of taxpayer subsidy is insane (to use miceelf's characterization).

These kinds of education should be done primarily in the home and secondarily in the school. That there is a perceived need for the Federal government to educate the American public how to be responsible in their household finances shows just how decadent (look it up) this country has become.

I don't know about what the condition of capitalism was in the Nixon era was. I think there have always been assaults on freedom and attempts at government intervention into what should be free of that intervention. People always will tend to want the government to care for their needs. What they aren't aware of is the freedom they lose by accepting that care. Nothing comes without a price.

thouartgob

11-18-2011 11:53 AM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 231998)

So Greenspan was wrong, especially in the case of people using the equity in their houses to buy more stuff. It was the making of a bubble that got the economy where it is today. But this has nothing to do with evaluating capitalism. It's a way of evaluating Greenspan. People need to be smarter and I daresay go back to sensible practices like not buying stuff you can't afford. We don't need Elizabeth Warren or the overthrow of capitalism to accomplish this. We just need to be marginally sensible. Is this too much to ask from the American public?

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek no ?

Well capitalism is an effective way but it is just one way to work with the free market ( everybody likes a free market but how do you keep it?). I am sure there are creative ways, emergent phenomenon, collectiv'o'libertarian ways of parsing power and rights to have a stable and maybe elegant free market but I will stay a bit conservative and stick with capitalism. I'm a liberal so I like my capitalism mild/medium and hot on occasion and my rights very hot'n'spicy.

A.) I like being a citizen of this country and I like it when others take their citizenship seriously.

B.) I like to keep power devolved as much as reasonable at any one time so that the game of the free market can be played for the benefit of most of the citizens of this country.

C.) I think playing fair and being respectful of others should give you a chance to keep you in the game.

D.) I don't think allowing the powerful either in the private or public spheres run things is all that great an idea in the long run.

E.) I believe that as a democracy ( republic whatever ) we have access and control when it comes to dealing with pubic end of D.)

F.) I think if we as citizens ( A. ) can mitigate the problems of the private end of D.)

U.) I think Warren feels the same way as do most people in this country.

:)

miceelf

11-18-2011 12:22 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232010)

Elizabeth Warren wants to spend billions of tax dollars to rein in the evil credit card companies and educate ignorant consumers about reading their contracts.

She wanted modest oversight to ensure that credit card company contracts are clearly written. Oh the humanity. We should all prepare for a trip to the gulag momentarily.

Do you have an exact or even rough figure for what the spending plan was. Billions of dollars?

badhatharry

11-18-2011 01:10 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232013)

I'm sure if it were billions you'd find a way to like it, regardless. But, you got me. However, as we all know millions magically turn into billions in Washington. I know millions seems like such a small amount these days. Please note that this is just to get the thing off the ground.

Quote:

The language included in the House GOP's budget proposal for 2011 would restrict the CFPB's annual budget to $80 million-- a major cut from the $143 million the agency expects to spend as it hires staff and implements new systems to get off the ground.

So it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to make changes to credit card contracts. Oh the humanity (stupidity). Never mind, we'll get it from the rich.

Quote:

The CFPB – created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law – has hired a dozen employees at more than $225,000 per year, Judicial Watch reported on Tuesday. The massive new financial regulator has also hired a college student intern, paying her $42,036 per year, despite being listed as a “student trainee” in federal records.

badhatharry

11-18-2011 01:32 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by thouartgob (Post 232012)

I was being a little tongue-in-cheek no ?

:)

I heartily agree with everything except FU (without the F, levity?) and I will think of this from now on when I read your posts.

But about U, I must disagree. I think Warren and her ilk see Americans as a collection of ignorant people who need to be protected by Harvard professors like her. She thinks she understands things which no one, except intellectuals who have studied the problem like she has, does. She wants to take on the job of taking care of us and guiding us through the harsh world that lies outside her ivy covered offices and she thinks she deserves to make a lot of money doing it...for the good of the nation!

If I had my way, I'd send her to a construction site and have her hauling lumber for a year or two until she had the acquired the skills by watching others to start pounding nails. I think that would do her a lot of good.
Do you think I could head a federal agency dedicated to getting squishy academics to understand what it is to actually work for a living?

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 01:35 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

You know what $143 million dollars is? $0.143 billion. So to get to even a single billion, much less "billions," we'd need to multiply the agency's budget by 7. And in fact, the article you posted noted that the GOP is trying to cut the budget in half. Also, administrative agencies like this cost more to start than to operate once they are established, seeing as you have to find and hire workers, spend time figuring out how the agency will be organized, purchase equipment, facilities, etc. etc. etc..

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 01:36 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232029)

I heartily agree with everything except FU (without the F, levity?) and I will think of this from now on when I read your posts.

But about U, I must disagree. I think Warren and her ilk see Americans as a collection of ignorant people who need to be protected by Harvard professors like her. She thinks she understands things which no one, except intellectuals who have studied the problem like she has, does. She wants to take on the job of taking care of us and guiding us through the harsh world that lies outside her ivy covered offices and she thinks she deserves to make a lot of money doing it...for the good of the nation!

If I had my way, I'd send her to a construction site and have her hauling lumber for a year or two until she had the acquired the skills by watching others to start pounding nails. I think that would do her a lot of good.
Do you think I could head a federal agency dedicated to getting squishy academics to understand what it is to actually work for a living?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wikipedian_protester.png

chiwhisoxx

11-18-2011 01:41 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 232006)

what's your point re: nixon? I don't think you're going to get a lot of conservatives defending wage and price controls just being richard nixon was a republican. parties and ideologies shift; we're at a very different place today. To answer your question, I think it was still capitalism, just a very managed, throttled, and misguided capitalism. But it's also worth keeping in mind the mixed bag that comes with Nixon; you have the wage and price controls, which I'm guessing is what you were gesturing at, but you also have Nixon ending the gold standard and the Bretton Woods system.

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 01:42 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232010)

Oh, so you think that establishing an additional federal agency that is fundamentally similar in function to other consumer protection agencies like the FDA constitutes "the overthrow of capitalism?" Quick, somebody hold a seance. I need to tell Karl and Vlad the good news.

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232010)

I don't know about what the condition of capitalism was in the Nixon era was. I think there have always been assaults on freedom and attempts at government intervention into what should be free of that intervention. People always will tend to want the government to care for their needs. What they aren't aware of is the freedom they lose by accepting that care. Nothing comes without a price.

Nixon imposed wage and price controls, the airlines were so heavily regulated that they were basically public utilities, the financial sector was far more heavily regulated than any feasible reform proposals today, and taxes were much higher than they were under Clinton, which is of course the unacceptable level of tax burden that would result if the Bush Tax Cuts are allowed to lapse. In other words, there was far more regulation and taxation than anything that's on the table today. So again, would you consider America in 1975 to be a capitalist country?

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 01:45 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by chiwhisoxx (Post 232032)

I'm not trying to get any of you guys to support Nixon's economic policies, I just want to force an admission that dire warnings about the "overthrow of capitalism" are silly and unsupported by the facts. I didn't pick Nixon's tenure to make an "even the conservative Richard Nixon" argument, I picked it because it's post-Medicare and pre-Ronald Reagan.

thouartgob

11-18-2011 02:51 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232029)

I heartily agree with everything except FU (without the F, levity?) and I will think of this from now on when I read your posts.

The smiley was actually the edit. The F was a happy coincidence. The U and the :) are levity although if I were a less patient and wonderful individual the U could have sufficed to exemplify my opinion of the idea that a woman such as Warren, who is republican by temperament and formally by affiliation, is somehow looking to destroy capitalism.

Quote:

I will think of this from now on when I read your posts.

Nothing good will come from reading my posts whatever one's thoughts are :)

Quote:

But about U, I must disagree. I think Warren and her ilk see Americans as a collection of ignorant people who need to be protected by Harvard professors like her. She thinks she understands things which no one, except intellectuals who have studied the problem like she has, does. She wants to take on the job of taking care of us and guiding us through the harsh world that lies outside her ivy covered offices and she thinks she deserves to make a lot of money doing it...for the good of the nation!

I think we all know that very many companies and especially big and powerful companies that control lots of market share in major parts of american's economic lives require ignorance and try to enforce it to keep up profit margins. In the case of credit card companies and the like they have they make lots more money from people in debt and want to keep them in debt as long as possible, making minimum payments, adding fees and rate increases and obscuring the details. Punishing them if the try to close out or pay off credit card accounts. Do we need a bubble in the credit card industry as well like the we are still reeling from now. Why not allow some fresh air into what is going on here. I think of Ms. Warren as trying to help restore the balance that an informed consumer can bring to the capitalist enterprise.

Here is a link to some other anti-consumer practices that have been allowed in the past and have ended badly for everyone.

http://philmitschforamerica.com/_blo...ing_Practices/

Quote:

If I had my way, I'd send her to a construction site and have her hauling lumber for a year or two until she had the acquired the skills by watching others to start pounding nails. I think that would do her a lot of good.
Do you think I could head a federal agency dedicated to getting squishy academics to understand what it is to actually work for a living?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren

Quote:

Elizabeth Herring was born June 22, 1949, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to working class parents Pauline and Donald Herring. She was the Herrings' fourth child, with three older brothers. When Warren was twelve, her father, a janitor, had a heart attack, which led to a pay cut, medical bills, and eventually the loss of their car. Her mother went to work answering phones at Sears and Warren worked as a waitress.

At Northwest Classen High School she was named "Oklahoma's top high-school debater", which led her to receive a full debate-team scholarship to George Washington University at the age of 16. Initially aspiring to be a teacher, she left after two years to marry her high-school boyfriend Jim Warren. Jim was a NASA engineer in Houston at the time, and Elizabeth moved to Houston to live with him. She enrolled in the University of Houston where she graduated in 1970 with a degree in speech pathology and audiology, hoping specifically to work with brain-injured children. She went on to teach for a year in a public school helping children with disabilities. However, she had not taken the required education courses to get a teaching certificate (she previously taught under an "emergency certificate"). After taking several graduate education courses, she realized she no longer wanted to pursue education as a career. By this point she and Jim had moved to New Jersey, and she was pregnant with their first child, so she stayed at home for several years.

After meeting some former classmates she was convinced to study law, and enrolled at the Rutgers School of Law–Newark, where she served as an editor of the Rutgers Law Review, and was one of two female summer associates at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's Wall Street office. She received her J.D. law degree in 1976. Shortly before graduating, she became pregnant with her second child, which made it difficult to pursue an active law career. Instead she worked from home, writing wills and doing real estate closings for walk-in clients.

She and Jim had two children before divorcing in 1978: Amelia Warren Tyagi, with whom Elizabeth would later coauthor two books and several articles, and a son, Alexander Warren. Today they have three grandchildren. In 1980, Warren married Bruce Mann, a legal historian and law professor, also at Harvard Law School. She has taught Sunday School and cites Methodist founder John Wesley as an inspiration.

A dangerous radical out of touch radical if I ever saw one. Or maybe she is a secret agent for commies and islamic radicals !!!! See how ignorance can hurt you. ;)

Ocean

11-18-2011 03:05 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Yeah, all very nice, but where in that bio is the part about hauling lumber??? ;)

thouartgob

11-18-2011 03:37 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ocean (Post 232039)

Yeah, all very nice, but where in that bio is the part about hauling lumber??? ;)

Ya got me.:D BadHat is right, Warren is trying to destroy this country and I was her willing pawn. I renounce Elizabeth Warren and her enchanting ways !!!!:)

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 03:40 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 232033)

Barely. 1973 was the high water mark of the New Dealers. It is one of history's greatest ironies that the left dislikes Nixon so much; he was one of the most "Progressive" Presidents in American history.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 03:59 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

The "grassroots left" in action:

OWS Protesters Chant ‘Follow Those Kids!’ As Small Children Try To Go To School On Wall Street

Tiny Tots, Some As Young As 4, Overwhelmed By Hostility, Crush Of Humanity
November 17, 2011 11:45 PM

Some grade school students were forced to walk a gauntlet of screaming “Occupy Wall Street” protesters just to get to school on Thursday.

It was a wild day in lower Manhattan for most everyone involved, including elementary school children who had to brave the mayhem just to get to class on the other side of Wall Street.

GALLERY: Occupy Wall Street “Day Of Action”

In the middle of thousands of protestors yelling and chanting — some kicking and screaming – CBS 2’s Emily Smith found little school kids trying to get to class. Nervous parents led them through the barriers on Wall Street. The NYPD helped funnel the children, anything to ease their fears while some protestors chanted “follow those kids!”

“These guys are terrorists, yelling at little kids,” one father said.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/11/...n-wall-street/

TwinSwords

11-18-2011 05:15 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232025)

The massive new financial regulator has also hired a college student intern, paying her $42,036 per year, despite being listed as a “student trainee” in federal records.

Hate to break it to you, Alice, but that's what full time interns in skilled and high demand professions make in corporate America. The government is probably paying market rates for that intern.

Besides, $42K isn't very much money.

TwinSwords

11-18-2011 05:17 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 232030)

Oh, you snobbish liberals and your concern with factual accuracy!!! *shakes fist*

Alice's point stands! With or without facts!!1!

The truth didn't take any wind out of Rush Limbaugh's sails; why should it take any out of Alice's?

TwinSwords

11-18-2011 05:19 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232025)

... you got me. However, as we all know ... [blah blah blah facts don't matter blah blah don't try to corner me with the truth you stinkin' commie! blah blah blah ....]

Just so you know, Alice: Reading your posts is at least half the fun of hanging out at this place.

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 05:25 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwinSwords (Post 232065)

Yep. I pulled down $3,000 per month interning at a bank once, and that was without any particular experience or skills in finance. This makes for a good sound bite on Rush, but there's no there there.

miceelf

11-18-2011 05:28 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232025)

So it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to make changes to credit card contracts. Oh the humanity (stupidity). Never mind, we'll get it from the rich.

I guarantee this is a drop in the bucket compared the the amount of enforcement dollars thrown at that other commerce activity, sale of illicit drugs.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 05:42 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Don Zeko (Post 232030)

Yes, it is only millions of dollars. Why quibble over hundred millions of dollars?

This argument scales up, amusingly. Foreign aid, for example, is only tens of billions of dollars.

Ocean

11-18-2011 05:42 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by thouartgob (Post 232045)

Ya got me.:D BadHat is right, Warren is trying to destroy this country and I was her willing pawn. I renounce Elizabeth Warren and her enchanting ways !!!!:)

You don't have to be so extreme. Just get her hauling the darn lumber for some time, as aerobic exercise for example, and that will appease everybody, right?

Don Zeko

11-18-2011 05:44 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sulla the Dictator (Post 232074)

Yes, it is only millions of dollars. Why quibble over hundred millions of dollars?

This argument scales up, amusingly. Foreign aid, for example, is only tens of billions of dollars.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that I am, in fact, quibbling with badhat over the mere hundreds of millions of dollars that separate what she said from reality.

Gadsden

11-18-2011 05:53 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

In the spirit of Andrew Sullivan's awards, I would like to propose the Michelle Goldberg Award for cliche recital of liberal talking points, with complete failure to recognize or engage opposing viewpoints.

thouartgob

11-18-2011 05:59 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ocean (Post 232075)

You don't have to be so extreme. Just get her hauling the darn lumber for some time, as aerobic exercise for example, and that will appease everybody, right?

As others have noted, being on the forums can do that to you.

stephanie

11-18-2011 06:10 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

I agree with DZ's comments, but what I find remarkable about badhat's posts here is the level of personal hostility directed at Elizabeth Warren. You can agree or disagree with her and the many who agree with her on policy matters or on the CFPB specifically. I don't think one can reasonably argue that it's the end of capitalism, but whatever. What I'd like to focus on is the following:

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232029)

I think Warren and her ilk see Americans as a collection of ignorant people who need to be protected by Harvard professors like her.

Based on what? I always find it interesting and puzzling when people choose to buy into the "they look down on us" propaganda when I don't perceive anything of the kind.

Quote:

She thinks she understands things which no one, except intellectuals who have studied the problem like she has, does.

Again, based on what? That she likely thinks she has some level of expertise on some things?

Quote:

She wants to take on the job of taking care of us and guiding us through the harsh world that lies outside her ivy covered offices and she thinks she deserves to make a lot of money doing it...for the good of the nation!

This is the best one. And you try to portray the left as resentful and envious.

Quote:

Others have pointed to Warren's actual background and how the idea that she's not in touch with how others live is false, but talk about class war. It's just that you have such contempt -- however baseless -- for the people that you choose to focus on and the class signifiers (she's an academic! at, gasp, Harvard!, some people might even think she's smart!) that set you off that you aren't even able to acknowledge it.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 06:12 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232000)

Only one of those two things is on the table.

Elizabeth Warren has withdrawn from public life?

miceelf

11-18-2011 08:06 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephanie (Post 232080)

IThis is the best one. And you try to portray the left as resentful and envious.

It's especially amusing when juxtaposed with badhat's various claims that the left hates the rich. We aren't just resentful and envious in general, we specifically hate people who have a lot of money. And yet, somehow, venom direct toward the lower upper class (or upper middle class, depending) is fine and dandy.

Hating people who make 100s of millions of dollars a year is a horrible leftist approach.

Hating people who make PERHAPS 100 thousand a year is simply an expression of real folks.

I mean, it's not like those hedge fund managers badhat has such tender feelings for are out pounding nails or mucking cattle.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 08:29 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232105)

I can't speak for badhat, but for myself I tire of the pretense. Coastal elites who make only a hundred thousand dollars a year but actually set the agenda for the Republic whining about people wealthier than them disgusts me. These few people, supported by a mass of relatively uninformed lower class voters, are a rather spiteful, greedy lot.

Quote:

I mean, it's not like those hedge fund managers badhat has such tender feelings for are out pounding nails or mucking cattle.

It's not like those hedge fund managers are who we are actually talking about when discuss the top class of income earners. To the degree that there are any, its because the flow of wealth went to money markets, fleeing the Left's earlier war against industry.

I wouldn't care in the slightest if a factory owner, a true capitalist in the original sense of the word, made ten thousand times what I make. Unfortunately for him, he was the first target of the left.

miceelf

11-18-2011 08:35 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sulla the Dictator (Post 232114)

IIt's not like those hedge fund managers are who we are actually talking about when discuss the top class of income earners. To the degree that there are any, its because the flow of wealth went to money markets, fleeing the Left's earlier war against industry.

Actually among the very top earners, people in the financial industry are disproportionately represented.

badhatharry

11-18-2011 08:35 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by thouartgob (Post 232037)

Did I say that? OOOOPs. What I meant to say is that people like Warren are spending taxpayer dollars for agendas the government wasn't intended for and aren't even good at. This expands the role of government in such a way that the government's reach becomes more and more powerful and intrudes more and more heavily into the private sector.

Quote:

I applaud Ms. Warren for her efforts and invite her to continue to do her good work in the private sector. Maybe what she could do is go into the schools and tell kids not to get credit cards until they can pay off the entire balance due every month. Seems pretty simple. I bet she could do a whole school district in a couple of months. She could plan to revisit every year. She could hire enough staff to get the message out loud and clear if she could get the funding.

Here's a little quote from a progressive blog extolling Warren's virtue:

Quote:

Once a month, almost every American will open a credit card statement that is a campaign ad for Warren; homeowners will write a mortgage check — or fail to do so — and understand they need a powerful ally to save their home. When the evening news shows a rich Senator defending the banks and Warren defending middle-class Americans, the message will be clarion-clear.

So once again we see the specter of Americans, unable to comprehend the concept of spending within their budgets, paying the mortgage before anything else or WTF, maybe renting out a room so you don't lose your house. And Warren will be coming to the rescue.

I wonder what Liz would think of this guy?...the darling of OWS. Scandalous! there oughta be a law!

Quote:

Consider, for instance, the Prepaid Visa RushCard, the product of a partnership between Unifund (a Cincinnati company best known for buying up and collecting on bad debts) and Russell Simmons, a founder of Def Jam records and the Phat Farm apparel brand. According to an ad, the “entrepreneur and philanthropist” Simmons devised the card because he “thinks everyone should be financially empowered.” There’s no credit check, and obviously you don’t need a bank account. “We created the prepaid RushCard,” Simmons says in the spot, “so everyone will have access to the American dream.”

Still, the RushCard is an entrepreneurial venture, not a philanthropic one. And one critique of prepaid cards — Wal-Mart offers one, as do others — is that this “empowerment” comes at a price: the RushCard costs $19.95 to obtain, and $1 per transaction to use (that fee is capped at $10 a month). Using one to draw money from an A.T.M. costs $1.95 plus whatever the A.T.M.’s owner tacks on. While direct deposits are free, there are fees to add money in the form of cash (at services like MoneyGram or CheckFreePay) or paper checks. If this sounds like a lot to pay for the privilege of spending your own money, well, that’s a pretty routine scenario for the unbanked. Prepaid cards can work out better than other options, like those high-fee check-cashing stores, though as with any currency instrument, the details depend on the situation — and the behavior — of the consumer.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 08:37 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232116)

Actually among the very top earners, people in the financial industry are disproportionately represented.

Why don't you expressly say majority?

miceelf

11-18-2011 08:42 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by badhatharry (Post 232117)

I wonder what Liz would think of this guy?...the darling of OWS. Scandalous! there oughta be a law!

the darling of OWS.

LOL. It's not quite "the collapse of capitalism.".. http://youtu.be/ClnSMCdw6E8

But there's a certain cute pinache nonetheless.

miceelf

11-18-2011 08:43 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sulla the Dictator (Post 232118)

Why don't you expressly say majority?

Cause I am not absolutely sure. I know that it's a higher proportion than your "we are not talking about" would suggest.

Sulla the Dictator

11-18-2011 08:50 PM

Re: Values Added: Winter Is Coming (Michelle Goldberg & Conn Carroll)

Quote:

Originally Posted by miceelf (Post 232120)

Cause I am not absolutely sure. I know that it's a higher proportion than your "we are not talking about" would suggest.

I believe it's around 15%, though I can't remember where I saw that figure, probably NR. It is simply the easiest group to attack.

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