Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

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Mongrel
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:17 am

Speaking of terrible smells...

A crumbling ghoul is bad enough, but it turns out that if you stick one in the Senate they get a LOT smellier.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Büge » Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:59 pm

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Büge » Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:36 am

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Mon Feb 01, 2021 2:13 pm

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Sun Feb 07, 2021 11:45 am


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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Friday » Sun Feb 07, 2021 2:46 pm

Some of my friends who have been, let's say, "activated" politically by the previous 4 years have been asking me questions about how we got here and I just keep telling them "well, Nixon was elected and then his best friend was."

It really helps to understand who and what Reagan was if you think of him in the context of how he and Nixon were bffs and Reagan (while governor of my great state of California) once called Nixon to complain about Black "monkeys and cannibals" making speeches at the UN.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:17 am

That's a good approach; of the many pernicious myths Americans believe about America, Reagan being a good president and a decent man is one of the really damaging ones.

But those charts aren't examples of how Nixon and Reagan were similar; they're examples of how they were different.

Nixon was a dangerous extremist in so many ways, but in terms of economic policy he was a mainstream post-New Deal president. There's a reason that (on the charts where we can see them) his numbers largely fall on the same trend line as Ford, Carter, and the rest of the developed world.

Nixon wasn't a Randian; he didn't think government was inherently bad. He wasn't opposed to taxes or regulations or the social safety net on principle; he understood that all of those things are part of a functioning government. Economically, he was to the left of Clinton and Obama.

What Reagan did was combine Goldwater's economic extremism with Nixon's bigotry and cynicism. And that's how we got the modern Republican Party. (And, for that matter, the modern Democratic Party, as after their three consecutive defeats in the '80s Democrats decided the only way to beat Republicans was by adopting racist "tough on crime"/"welfare reform" policies themselves. That's finally starting to show signs of changing -- Sanders as budget chair isn't going to singlehandedly bring the Democratic Party back to the Great Society era, but the party's mere willingness to put him in that position signals that they're not as terrified of being called socialists as they used to be -- but, well, look who's president; it's not like the New Democrats have exactly fallen out of favor in the party, either.)

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Friday » Mon Feb 08, 2021 5:41 pm

Yeah, I've mentioned to friends a few times that as much as I hate Nixon, he WAS the president that created the EPA.

I'm not sure really what Reagan accomplished that was positive. Bring down this wall, I guess.

Also, I'm curious what you think the Dems should have done instead of "become more like the enemy" in the 80s.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:34 pm

It's really difficult to figure out what would have been a smart play by the left in the world of say, 1988.

A lot of it basically boils down to a lie Reagan sold too well.

The 70's confronted the US with a variety of serious economic problems (Stagflation, energy crises, etc.), and higher taxes had repeatedly been tried as ways to try and get out from under the problem. Unfortunately for various reasons, this didn't work.

What Reagan did was basically declare war on the poor and minorities, stealing money from them to redistribute to white middle classes. That, plus the massive debt-fuelled stimulus (which this went almost entirely to funding weapons and wars instead of anything useful) created the illusion of renewed prosperity. Voter suppression and criminalization of poverty were the GOP's method of not having to deal with the consequences of this electorally.

So we ended up with both parties thinking that government overreach had pushed too far, not just in the US but across much of the western world, a backlash pushed by the rich eager for flesh after some twenty five-odd years of "too much" filthy socialism.

Other countries' mistakes fed into the same notion, especially in the UK where the industrial sector had been mostly nationalized in the postwar decades and then spectacularly mismanaged into oblivion the 70's. And of course the Soviet Union was failing as a whole, but that was really a story about the failings of autocracies, not economic systems.

It's possible that some form of pullback on regulation and nationalization would have been appropriate even in a justly-managed 80's, but what took place was nothing more than vicious theft and murder, a new division and conquest of the working classes by the wealthy, and Reagan's Morning in America narrative has been clouding that era and everything after it since the day he was elected.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Thad » Tue Feb 09, 2021 12:09 am

I've said this before, but I think Bill Clinton could have won on any platform he damn-well pleased. He won because he was a talented and charismatic politician and because George HW Bush's support was cratering due to a recession. His politics were...well, I was going to go for a "distant third" reference here, but frankly comparing Bill Clinton to a head-of-state who tries to fuck everything in a skirt is a little too on-the-nose.

I'm not saying policy positions don't matter at all to electability, but I think the importance of appealing to a small percentage of undecided voters in a handful of swing states is highly, highly overrated. People like to think that elections are based on a rational evaluation of candidates' policy positions, but ultimately they're popularity contests. (Albeit popularity contests with a weighting system that sometimes means the most popular person doesn't win.) Most people vote on party lines. And of those who don't, a lot just vote for the guy they like better.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby beatbandito » Tue Apr 06, 2021 6:34 am

Seemingly real person CEO makes a tweet thread explaining how her "assistant" does her job for her.

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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Friday » Tue Apr 06, 2021 10:41 am

To this day Bale's Bruce Wayne remains my absolute favorite.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:45 pm

"So Christine... what would you say you do here?"
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Tue Apr 06, 2021 2:49 pm

Okay, so on one level it would still be nice to see a CEO say "look, this isn't all me." and share credit properly.

But in this case the hole only gets deeper. So much deeper.



Also it's a medical corp because OF COURSE IT IS.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby pacobird » Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:21 pm

Honestly it's a good example of the vice-like dilemma of Twitter. If you do...whatever Christine does, you can't just NOT tweet, but you can't stop anyone from asking these questions either.

Obviously the correct answer is, "ten grand, which is easily enough to keep her from leaving, and if I were to pay her US market rate I would just get an EA out of the US to avoid the time zone problems" which is both fair enough and will make the frankly-pretty-disingenuous lose their minds.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby beatbandito » Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:30 pm

I don't see the argument as Christine not paying a 'fair' wage for the labor of someone from another country that has lower wages. I see it as: if you can surf, and write a book, and read every night. And also you feel like your assistant does at least 60% of the work. Well, you might be the least important part of your job.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby Mongrel » Thu Apr 08, 2021 4:33 pm

pacobird wrote:Honestly it's a good example of the vice-like dilemma of Twitter. If you do...whatever Christine does, you can't just NOT tweet, but you can't stop anyone from asking these questions either.

Obviously the correct answer is, "ten grand, which is easily enough to keep her from leaving, and if I were to pay her US market rate I would just get an EA out of the US to avoid the time zone problems" which is both fair enough and will make the frankly-pretty-disingenuous lose their minds.

Are you just replying to my post or both me as well as beat's post of the original tweet.

Ten Grand isn't really a lot when this person's admitted that her EA basically IS the CEO.

I mean, I know that's not strictly true, I've BEEN an EA. But it also kind of is. Certainly in this case the EA is doing 60% of the CEO's job, by the CEO's own estimate.
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby pacobird » Thu Apr 08, 2021 11:44 pm

No, the point is to pay this person substantially above-market for their services, which would still make them a steal compared to any domestic laborer, and then challenge her detractors to explain what the problem is.

All these people pretending to be scandalized by the entire, explicit point of neoliberal capitalism and expecting this one random vapid VC to be some kind of sin eater; give me a break. No one attacking her is confused about what's going on here so you might as well troll

beatbandito wrote: And also you feel like your assistant does at least 60% of the work. Well, you might be the least important part of your job.


I mean, paying somebody else to do stuff you don't want to do yourself is the whole point of money
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby pacobird » Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:52 am

Oh, nevermind; I just actually read everything she said the EA was doing for her. I assumed it was people acting out over some dumb Devil Wears Prada shit, not her actually treating this person as a COO. Pretty funny/terrible.

At a basic level I have to admit I'm still not comfortable criticizing someone for taking advantage of a problem I don't see an answer to, but don't just tweet all that shit out!
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Re: Inspirational tales of Glorious Unfettered Capitalism

Postby beatbandito » Fri Apr 09, 2021 4:41 am

Thank you for finally reading the posts after explaining how we were wrong in our interpretation of them. You should be a CEO or something.
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