Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of [...]]]> A good quote via Krugman from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre:

Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.

Anecdotal of course, and fictional at that, however says it all about those who claim not having a job is always a character issue.

Ok, tactically, I suppose I understand, as Brad Delong does. But it still smells really, really, bad and given that no matter how you look at it he’s being “two-faced” and then which face is the real one?

In any [...]]]> Or rather, he feels sympathetic to rich people getting richer. It’s so hard to tell the difference.

Ok, tactically, I suppose I understand, as Brad Delong does. But it still smells really, really, bad and given that no matter how you look at it he’s being “two-faced” and then which face is the real one?

In any case, in response, this is an edited (because I screwed up frankly) version of what I commented to Brad’s post with:

“Uh, forget bailouts. No one deserves $16 million period. I mean, did this guy (Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase) risk his life fighting AIDS infected cannibal terrorists from hell, with the daily threat of having his skin pealed off alive, all in the effort to save 300 million Americans from certain death or something?

I mean to deserve $17 million, there has to be a threat of dying or dismemberment or physical torture or your soul being sucked from your lifeless corpse or something (of course that would require a soul)…

Seriously, think about this – these guys are so good they deserve to get paid more than the guys who stand in front of the President to take a bullet?

Let’s see – average wage is $41,000, so $16 million divided by $41,000 is roughly 390. So Blankfein is 390 times more valuable than the average American? 390 times smarter? 390 times more talented?

Makes me wonder why we even bother with “average” Americans. When you consider that they are 390 times less useful, it seems like an awful waste of space and oxygen. In fact, it makes me think we ought to take those 390 times more useless Americans and ship them off to some place where they’re out of the way so people like Dimon, who are clearly 390 times more useful, can do some real good around here. Christ why do we even bother with these bozo lowlifes who are worth a piddling $41k? Maybe we could just clone Dimon and Blankfein and eliminate the other 390 times more worthless slobs?

Come to think of it, my wife, an ICU nurse who only saves lives daily, makes less than the $41,000 national average. She’s not even worth 390 times less than Dimon! Dang, I wish I had realized that before I married her. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am now. What will I tell my son? If this gets out I’m sure the other kids at school, who I think are only 390 times more useless than Dimon, will make fun of him.

Oh, the horror of it! If only I had asked for a prenup!”

Seriously, that’s what we’re saying – this guy is soooooo good and works sooooo much harder and is soooooo much smarter and performs sooooo much better that he deserves 390 times more compensation (and this is just the bonus – I’m not even calculating in base compensation) than your average American.

Roughly 13% of Americans live in poverty, so taking two adults and one child on the figures, something like $17k as a very rough estimate of the poverty line for that family (it varies by where you live), then Dimon is 941 times more worthwhile than those lazy loafers earning only $17k. So extrapolating a bit, he’s at least 900 times better than 13% of the population? Or to put it another way, at least 900 times better than all those poor blokes living in poverty?

BTW, I know those figures are messed – for instance those numbers include two income households, so an individual family member is probably significantly more than 900 times less worthy than Dimon. Still, the basic premise remains.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge people getting rich. God knows I want to become rich too (who wouldn’t given the mess we call “job markets” these days – we all want to get out of this crazy rat race). However $1 million is rich (contrary to the Republican National Committee Chairman), so is $2 or $3 million – let them have that. But this is just insane (incidentally, I think about 99% of Americans would like to have the chance to “verify” Steele’s assertion personally thank you).

But maybe like all the average Joe’s that the Republicans care about sooooo much about, I’ll just head off to Hawaii to contemplate this…

In my mind intelligence and even wisdom have little quarter in politics. I know vastly smarter and even wiser people than me who have bought into one party or another’s dogma and will not be dissuaded by even their lying eyes. Really it is [...]]]> Taken from a post I made at another site:

In my mind intelligence and even wisdom have little quarter in politics. I know vastly smarter and even wiser people than me who have bought into one party or another’s dogma and will not be dissuaded by even their lying eyes. Really it is a matter of religion, tribalism, or “Red Sox versus Yankees” and it cares not about truth, logic, or reality. In fact it buttresses itself against those very things.

Unfortunately this statement is probably equally true in regards to myself. I can only credit myself with being aware of the affliction.

We live in “The Matrix” of our own making, though certainly not without the help of those who also understand the game and wish to manipulate for their own gain. It is a hard won illusion, one that defines who we are, and is as painful to rid as the memories of those abused as children. We think that it is based on truth, but it is really just what we want to believe.

That said, the truth exists, and in any choice one path is better than the other, but the support shown for one path over another should not to be assumed to be based on anything less human than the other. That is, even the people who are right, probably aren’t basing their choice on any better basis than the other. Most of what we believe in is simply the arbitrary luck of what side we decided to ally with at a young age, not a better argument – the idea that we would have chosen differently given different input is largely an illusion.

UPDATE:

Undoubtedly many reading this are thinking, “No, this isn’t me! I’m not biased. I take everything into account. I’m independent.” I would argue that this is the same issue as why something like 80% of drivers think they are “above average” (myself included at one time, though not so much anymore). We all believe it’s the other guy who is “irrational”. The truth is it’s not that the other guy isn’t irrational and wrong, it’s just that you (I, whoever) are irrational and right. That is, we were lucky to have chosen the side that was right, but that decision was based on arbitrary and irrational factors as much as anything else.

That’s not to say we don’t make any rational political decisions, but I believe it is far more rare than we would like to believe and that the people who are capable of it on a regular basis (which of course, I’d like to believe I am, but is probably delusional as well) make up a much smaller number than thought. The vast majority of the people who walk this earth are making their political judgment based not on argument, but essentially on “club membership”.

Now you may want to say, “We Republicans don’t do that!” or “We Democrats don’t do that!” but think how silly that is. By some magic miracle all the grounded people drifted to one side? Does that really fit any other model of human interaction you’ve seen? It’s a pleasant illusion, particularly if you consider yourself on the “good” side (which we all do – curious coincidence right?), but ultimately it really is all just contextual self-delusion. To think otherwise though, is to doubt oneself, and of course no one wants that (me included).

It is just such a cognitive dissonance that allows us to torture one set of humans, but then nearly immediately disclaim the evil of another doing it. Or to object to the use of the word retard by one, but accept it as humor by another (and to note, this isn’t just talking heads, read the blog commentaries and you’ll see a very curious dividing line in the responses of the “masses”)(“masses” meaning the little guys like you and me).

Now you may be tempted, as I am, to try to split the difference here and say, “True, but it afflicts the other side more than my side.” Certainly I am hard pressed not to thing that Republicans are “insane” as opposed to Democrats being merely “touched”, but again this is undoubtedly self-protective bull shit. We are ultimately all humans with all the foibles that implies. While we’d like to believe we make decisions on a rational basis, all of us, that is “all” as in “you and me”, are far more emotionally wired than we’d ever care to admit. Subsequently we are subject to the whims of that animal part of our psyche, even when we’re trying to desperately convince ourselves that we’re the only rational one on this God forsaken planet.

In short, you, I, we are the problem.

Have I convinced you? Does this seem threatening?

Worry not, you and I will move on and return to our old ways in short order. After all, it’s only human.

UPDATE 2:

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority

So, if we know we suffer from it, how do we deal with it (other than saying, “I’m superior – I don’t suffer from it!”)???

I’ve seen this on a bumper sticker and now a t-shirt (see image to right):

I point it out, not because it’s particularly egregious in what it says, but because it encapsulates well those that are against Obama.

You see, it’s like a caricature of what you’d think a liberal would be, [...]]]>

Yada, yada - whatever...

I’ve seen this on a bumper sticker and now a t-shirt (see image to right):

I point it out, not because it’s particularly egregious in what it says, but because it encapsulates well those that are against Obama.

You see, it’s like a caricature of what you’d think a liberal would be, but Obama isn’t. That is, since elected at least:

• Obama hasn’t done anything about gun control, nor threatened to.
• Obama hasn’t increased taxes (ok, there are mild threats for his healthcare package he might tax the richest, but they’re unlikely to wear this damn t-shirt anyway).
• He certainly hasn’t touched their “freedom” – in fact he’s in lockstep with Bush (in a bad way, but certainly no worse).

This is the sad thing, and it was true of Clinton too – Obama is anything but what I would call a “real” liberal. I mean compare him to say Lyndon Johnson and he’s a closet Tea Bagger. Hell when I was growing up people who talked about making the country fully socialist were actually taken seriously.

Again it’s a weird reaction to a caricature of what a liberal would be. You’d think he was Noam Chomsky or something (I wish).

Anyway, I think it characterizes the delusional quality of the hard right these days. They live in some strange paranoid fantasy world where black is white and Obama is liberal.

PS: I’m not saying he doesn’t suck, I’m just saying he doesn’t suck for the reasons conservatives think he sucks.

Oh, Really?!

CBS allows on a “pro-life” ad:

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/press/pressreleases/a000001434.cfm

But not of course MoveOn.org or Peta ads:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0116-01.htm

If the media were anymore “liberal” it would be shameless!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/21/supreme-court-sides-hillary-movie-filmmakers-campaign-money-dispute/

“money quote” from the dissent (Justice Stevens):

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it [emphasis added]

For more [...]]]> At last they have succeeded at their greatest triumph. Let the Rapture begin…

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/01/21/supreme-court-sides-hillary-movie-filmmakers-campaign-money-dispute/

“money quote” from the dissent (Justice Stevens):

In the context of election to public office, the distinction between corporate and human speakers is significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our society, corporations are not actually members of it [emphasis added]

For more on “corporate personhood” (or in my opinion, lack thereof), see:

http://rutrow.org/2008/05/19/corporations-are-people-too/

I’m serious. The end is here. It’s done.

UPDATE:

Make no mistake. This is not simply a judicial decision. It is a coup. The Supreme Court has handed the country to the corporate interests and by extension to the Republicans. Turd Blossom now has his permanent majority.

Actually when you really look at it the coup happened in 2000, when the Supreme Court handed the election to George W. Bush ultimately giving him the option to seat these judges.

UPDATE 2:

I still think it probably does bode badly for the future of democracy, but Glenn Greenwald here, here, here, and here nearly has me convinced that not only was it the right decision, but even that “corporate personhood” is necessary.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/04/fannie-freddie-and-the-new-red-and-blue

The money quote however is:

For what we’ve learned in the last few years as one scandal after another spilled onto the front pages is that the bubble economies of the last two decades were not merely monstrous Ponzi schemes that destroyed [...]]]> Taibbi hits the nail on the head again in this article:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/04/fannie-freddie-and-the-new-red-and-blue

The money quote however is:

For what we’ve learned in the last few years as one scandal after another spilled onto the front pages is that the bubble economies of the last two decades were not merely monstrous Ponzi schemes that destroyed trillions in wealth while making a small handful of people rich. They were also a profound expression of the fundamentally criminal nature of our political system, in which state power/largess and the private pursuit of (mostly short-term) profit were brilliantly fused in a kind of ongoing theft scheme that sought to instant-cannibalize all the wealth America had stored up during its postwar glory, in the process keeping politicians in office and bankers in beach homes while continually moving the increasingly inevitable disaster to the future.

Says it all to me.

Anyone who wonders why the Obama administration seems to be bending over so far backwards to appease conservatives and industry leaders in the health care debate and Wall Street in the financial regulatory reform debate can find their answer there: those groups make Obama pay [...]]]> The always excellent Matt Taibbi hits the nail on the head:

Anyone who wonders why the Obama administration seems to be bending over so far backwards to appease conservatives and industry leaders in the health care debate and Wall Street in the financial regulatory reform debate can find their answer there: those groups make Obama pay for their financial/political support with real actions and policy concessions, while Obama’s “base” will continue their feverish support in exchange for mere gestures and marketing hocus-pocus, for news about the new family puppy or an appearance on Jay Leno.

That’s a pretty profound point. If we don’t ask, frankly demand, something of Obama, that’s what we’re going to get – nothing.

Full post can be read here.

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