I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

You keep wanting to think there's new shit in the world, but there isn't. All of this stuff is ancient.

You keep wanting to read that into what I've said. Of course there's nothing new (Hint: I cited Plato... kind of an old source, no?) But within the relevant timeline (our lives), the phenomenon I noted is an emerging one.

Those in charge will eventually find new ways to spin myths, and the people will believe them again. But probably not to any meaningful extent here, and not in our lifetimes. The Internet is Just Getting Started...

I'd say we have a higher likelihood of seeing more aggressive direct govt control in the future than a return to management of the masses by narrative.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Really? So when you read a journalist who is writing on the financial industry, it is not relevant to you whether that journalist is getting paid on the side for services provided to Goldman Sachs?

This is about ethics in journalists who are gaming us.

Gawker had more ethics than 75% of financial journalists.

Look at Andrew Ross Sorkin. That's the corruption of that field perfectly encapsulated in human form.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Really? So when you read a journalist who is writing on the financial industry, it is not relevant to you whether that journalist is getting paid on the side for services provided to Goldman Sachs?

Sure.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You're right that I have a reaction to the specific situation and don't want to try to turn that into a general rule. Whether that somehow proves me wrong in this specific case probably turns on whether you favor inductive or deductive reasoning.

I disagree. I think you've had a reaction to this situation without really thinking through it. You keep acting like I'm trying to get you to create a rule when all I want to do is understand what types of things are and aren't problematic. You don't want to think about it beyond Cantor? Okay. I guess we're done.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I guess I don't think that Bernie turned that many people. This split in the Democratic Party is not new. Tsongas/Clinton. Bradley/Gore. Dean/Kerry. Clinton/Obama. And if Bernie hadn't raised the issue, I nonetheless think Trump would have made hay with it, because he was running as an outsider against her as an insider.

I disagree. Bernie was able to define Hillary as owned by the banks. If he had not, the narrative would have been that Hillary is an insider. Given how fucking corrupt Trump is, I doubt his people would have opened that door. Since it was already blown open, he just hammered away. (And yes, mucho mixed metaphors.)

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

What's ridiculous is me repeatedly declining to make anything a standard, and your pretending that I'm holding anyone to any kind of standard.

If you're going to argue with stuff you've made up, just leave me out of it entirely.

Not at all. I regret that he took this money from Cantor. I do not want to turn that into a general standard, and do not think that he should take a vow of poverty. (Notably, I've never said I have a problem with his taking much more money from a publisher for his memoirs.)

Then I'm not sure you're saying anything.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If he were to ostentatiously turn down some opportunities to make big coin, or to have firms donate it to charity, that certainly would give him cover to both make money and look better than Republicans.

This is garbage. You don't know what he's turned down. You only know he took money from Cantor. You don't know his plans--if you don't think he's going to have a foundation or dedicate a great deal of his post political life to some type of charity or public service, then color me very surprised. I guess he needs to make a big show of turning down certain opportunities for you to not be disappointed? Whatever.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Look, it's the same problem that Democrats have when they leave other (non-elective) government offices for highly paid job. You're saying we need to educate voters to accept that there is a revolving door. I'm saying that's easier said than done.

No. The whole point is that it's not the same. Taking speaking engagements from numerous sources means you would have to be making decisions to benefit all sorts of industries in order for your soft corruption theory to mean anything. Taking a job in investment banking after being President (and that's exactly what would happen) for huge dollars would mean you'd be more likely to make decisions in office to ensure that job is available.

TM

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It's funny, but Josh Barro is registered with some of the speaker bureaus, and he's an active journalist not an out of office former-President. But he doesn't see the conflicts there apparently....

I'm replying to GGG instead of TM, Ty, or Young Adder because (a) the recent posts on The Soft Corruption of Barry O from all y'all are too long, and (b) I'm too lazy to go back to find the original and shorter version of your respective positions.

I'm with TM and GGG (and Young Adder, IIRC) on this one. There's an element on the left side of of the Democratic Party (yes, Bernie is not a member of the party, but whatever, suck it, pendants) who always pisses and moans that centrists and moderates (a/k/a every Democrat who won the presidency since FDR) are just a form of GOP Lite. Beholden to the special interests. Captured by Wall Steet or the Establishment. Jimmy Carter sells out and puts a Fortune 100 CEO in his cabinet! Can you believe that Bill Clinton appointed Rubin and Summers and, oh yeah, an actual Republican! Obama rolled over for Goldman and JP Morgan during the financial crisis!

So, predictably, Obama gets slammed by the party's left for taking money from the enemy, and the non-leftist wise women/men in the party, along with a good chunk of opinion writers for the MSM and the New MSM tut about "the optics" of it. Chin in hand, they state with profound seriousness that it is unseemly of Obama to take the money, and even if it weren't, it was foolish because it somehow "allows" the GOP to attack him and the Democratic Party itself.

Bullshit. The GOP will attack on anything and everything, and to imply that they wouldn't be on the attack on the issue of big business conspiring with big government is naive at best.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

I'm replying to GGG instead of TM, Ty, or Young Adder because (a) the recent posts on The Soft Corruption of Barry O from all y'all are too long, and (b) I'm too lazy to go back to find the original and shorter version of your respective positions.

I'm with TM and GGG (and Young Adder, IIRC) on this one. There's an element on the left side of of the Democratic Party (yes, Bernie is not a member of the party, but whatever, suck it, pendants) who always pisses and moans that centrists and moderates (a/k/a every Democrat who won the presidency since FDR) are just a form of GOP Lite. Beholden to the special interests. Captured by Wall Steet or the Establishment. Jimmy Carter sells out and puts a Fortune 100 CEO in his cabinet! Can you believe that Bill Clinton appointed Rubin and Summers and, oh yeah, an actual Republican! Obama rolled over for Goldman and JP Morgan during the financial crisis!

So, predictably, Obama gets slammed by the party's left for taking money from the enemy, and the non-leftist wise women/men in the party, along with a good chunk of opinion writers for the MSM and the New MSM tut about "the optics" of it. Chin in hand, they state with profound seriousness that it is unseemly of Obama to take the money, and even if it weren't, it was foolish because it somehow "allows" the GOP to attack him and the Democratic Party itself.

Bullshit. The GOP will attack on anything and everything, and to imply that they wouldn't be on the attack on the issue of big business conspiring with big government is naive at best.

Bingo. And after all these words, I think Ty's position is still best summed up like this:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Ruy Teixeira:

The way I look at it we are going through a long transition from an industrial capitalist system to a post-industrial services-based capitalist system. So far this transition has not gone well. It hasn’t had the outcomes that people want. We have slow productivity growth and rising inequality. The central point I’d make is that by and large, poor economic times are not good for the left. They make people reactive, pessimistic, trying to hold onto their own, and not supportive of collective endeavors to help the way society functions. And we’ve seen all that in spades in the last decade.

Really that kind of situation is best for the right, and the left has had a very difficult time figuring out a way forward.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I disagree. I think you've had a reaction to this situation without really thinking through it. You keep acting like I'm trying to get you to create a rule when all I want to do is understand what types of things are and aren't problematic. You don't want to think about it beyond Cantor? Okay. I guess we're done.

Works for me.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

I'm replying to GGG instead of TM, Ty, or Young Adder because (a) the recent posts on The Soft Corruption of Barry O from all y'all are too long, and (b) I'm too lazy to go back to find the original and shorter version of your respective positions.

I'm with TM and GGG (and Young Adder, IIRC) on this one. There's an element on the left side of of the Democratic Party (yes, Bernie is not a member of the party, but whatever, suck it, pendants) who always pisses and moans that centrists and moderates (a/k/a every Democrat who won the presidency since FDR) are just a form of GOP Lite. Beholden to the special interests. Captured by Wall Steet or the Establishment. Jimmy Carter sells out and puts a Fortune 100 CEO in his cabinet! Can you believe that Bill Clinton appointed Rubin and Summers and, oh yeah, an actual Republican! Obama rolled over for Goldman and JP Morgan during the financial crisis!

So, predictably, Obama gets slammed by the party's left for taking money from the enemy, and the non-leftist wise women/men in the party, along with a good chunk of opinion writers for the MSM and the New MSM tut about "the optics" of it. Chin in hand, they state with profound seriousness that it is unseemly of Obama to take the money, and even if it weren't, it was foolish because it somehow "allows" the GOP to attack him and the Democratic Party itself.

Bullshit. The GOP will attack on anything and everything, and to imply that they wouldn't be on the attack on the issue of big business conspiring with big government is naive at best.

I was done, but then Not Bob pulled me back in, but only to say: I'm a huge Obama fan. His taking money from Cantor hardly changes my opinion of his presidency, or my hopes for his next act. I'm not interested in making common cause with the folks on the left who are more interested in attacking moderate Democrats than in ever getting anything done.

All of that said, I think moderate Democrats have a real problem in that many voters see their program as pretty weak tea, and when party leaders are making hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street firms, it's pretty easy to see how disenchanted voters (as opposed to the left) might conclude that the party isn't that focused on solving their problems. (This is not a problem for Republicans, who don't pretend to be interested in solving their problems but are going to let the free market bestow wealth on the most deserving.) For the broader context, see what I just posted from Ruy Teixeira.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I was done, but then Not Bob pulled me back in, but only to say: I'm a huge Obama fan. His taking money from Cantor hardly changes my opinion of his presidency, or my hopes for his next act. I'm not interested in making common cause with the folks on the left who are more interested in attacking moderate Democrats than in ever getting anything done.

All of that said, I think moderate Democrats have a real problem in that many voters see their program as pretty weak tea, and when party leaders are making hundreds of thousands of dollars from Wall Street firms, it's pretty easy to see how disenchanted voters (as opposed to the left) might conclude that the party isn't that focused on solving their problems. (This is not a problem for Republicans, who don't pretend to be interested in solving their problems but are going to let the free market bestow wealth on the most deserving.) For the broader context, see what I just posted from Ruy Teixeira.

Add "reigniting a spat that had ended" to the list of Wonking's potential perils.

Also, despite evidence to the contrary, I do know the difference between a pedant and a pendant. Now if you'll excuse me, I will go lay prostate on the floor to ease my aching shoulder.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Add "reigniting a spat that had ended" to the list of Wonking's potential perils.

Also, despite evidence to the contrary, I do know the difference between a pedant and a pendant. Now if you'll excuse me, I will go lay prostate on the floor to ease my aching shoulder.

You do you, Not Bob. You keep doing you. I'm gonna do the Daily Dose. Beau Dollar with James Brown. "Who Knows." Right, Not Bob? Who does really know?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kR-eUxkW3s

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

You do you, Not Bob. You keep doing you. I'm gonna do the Daily Dose. Beau Dollar with James Brown. "Who Knows." Right, Not Bob? Who does really know?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kR-eUxkW3s

Thurgreed and I agree all the time now, so we do know. And we will beat you down with endless posts if you disagree.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Noah speaks for me.

https://giphy.com/gifs/thedailyshow-xUPGcLTPpjsfviAxna

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Noah speaks for me.

https://giphy.com/gifs/thedailyshow-xUPGcLTPpjsfviAxna

TM

I wish I could not take money to the tune of $65 million. That would be sweet.

eta: Which, by the way, is more than 2x what Clinton and W. got for their memoirs combined. And I have zero problem with that. I am much more likely to buy and read his memoir than theirs.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Noah speaks for me.

https://giphy.com/gifs/thedailyshow-xUPGcLTPpjsfviAxna

TM

He's figured out America pretty fast.

Why can't people who have lived here their whole lives figure that out?