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

We will voluntarily or involuntarily (as we have, to an extent, already) go through the mother of all debt workouts in this country. It's not govt debt. It's private debt.

It's a funny time to be thinking that:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=7gem

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=7eZt

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=7ger

(That's just a few minutes playing with data from Fred. There may be better data sets to use.)

sebastian_dangerfield

09-19-2016 12:49 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 502729)

There are other factors, but those are a bigger part of it than even the people you are describing probably consciously realize.

CHARTS

http://www.slate.com/articles/busine...ve_charts.html

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/thi...out-2016-09-16

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money...cans/89103976/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-survey-finds/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...ebt-is/379865/

Icky Thump

09-19-2016 12:50 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 502721)

I find myself putting more and more of my tickets on NFL Ticket Exchange instead of going to the games. Sooner or later I'll give them up.

My cousin's kid plays on the line now, and his parents were hoping that he'd hate it. Of course he loves every second, and they sort of take comfort in that 13 year olds on O and D line are essentially just wrestling without any major hits. But if he keeps on going, they are going to reevaluate.

Unless he is really big (I mean 6'5" ) he should devote his energy to something else.

That being said my son went to HS with a kid who was a decent baseball player who played for their lame ass HS football team. He really picked up football in college as well as getting bigger, stronger, faster, and starts for an NFL team now on their O line.

Shame, his dad was the biggest dingus I ever met.

Tyrone Slothrop

09-19-2016 01:18 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 502722)

That said, Hillary's Achilles Heel is her lack of a compelling message.

Hey, that's what I said.

Quote:

The country wants radical change, and she's slow-and-steady.

I don't think most people want radical change. If Obama were running again, I suspect he'd be destroying Trump.

Quote:

Don't try figuring it out. I've asked numerous ardent GOP friends, "Why are you so incensed by a moderate? The people on the right ought to be pleased with her. She's closer to a classic Republican than the current Republican, who's a fucking populist! It's the Left who have a true complaint here." They offer in reply some claptrap about her dishonesty, and then get to the real reason they're so against her - "We can't have another four years of Obama. The country won't survive it. Trump is nuts, but he'll blow things up, and undo much of what Obama's done."

I don't understand the people who say that. Things just aren't that bad.

Quote:

I'd vote for a creative, smart candidate who'd "blow it all up," and get on with a short, nasty form of the intense pain we all know is coming. But Trump is a fool, and I fear he'd only create a police state.

Trump isn't competent enough to create a police state, and the GOP establishment is scared that he'll win. He wishes he were a Putin, but he'd be a Hugo Chavez if he were lucky.

Tyrone Slothrop

09-19-2016 01:24 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 502727)

I think it's a bit more complex than that. There's a voter out there, D and R, who looks at the system and says, "We need a complete overhaul."

I'm in that camp to an extent. We can't kick the can much further without suffering serious social upheaval and crippling govt dysfunction. On top of that, in just about all institutions impacting our lives, we're seeing what I'd call "peak corruption." We're reaching that tipping point where we become a case study for the next update of The Collapse of Complex Societies.

Hearing you talking about this stuff is like listening to the neoconservatives for whom it's always Munich 1938 and the choice is always between being Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. WTF? Things just aren't that grim. What's the tipping point?

Tyrone Slothrop

09-19-2016 01:30 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 502732)

Hey, that's what I said.

Just to expand on this, one of Hillary's problems is that she has a laundry list of small-bore policies that she would enact that probably would do good for a lot of people. But unless the House changes hands, she has zero chance of getting any of that passed through Congress. Trump has shown that voters have had enough of the obstructionism that prevents Congress from getting anything done, but it would take a Democrat with a better, bolder message than Hillary to run against the Congress for broader change.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

09-19-2016 02:33 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 502728)

They want a revolution. They're just not organized enough to put a winning one together.

The "I want a revolution that doesn't take too much effort or inconvenience me" is not a desire for a revolution. Perhaps it's a desire for a fascist overlord, but it's not a desire for revolution.

This is why Bernie went with the "political revolution" concept. The other word for political revolution is "incremental change", but, you know, that doesn't sell well.

taxwonk

09-19-2016 05:09 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall (Post 502702)

Agree.

Agree.

What is amazing about this is that if Trump wins, Hillary will be blamed. She'll be the terrible candidate who couldn't beat an unhinged lunatic. But that will be a small part of it. The larger story, that only minorities in this country will be talking about (not entirely) amongst ourselves is that this country is filled with racist, ignorant, selfish, stupid assholes.*

TM

*Even more than we thought.

I'm sorry. This country is filled with racist, ignorant selfish, stupid assholes. Even more than you thought. And Trump has let all the monkeys out of the cage.

Tyrone Slothrop

09-19-2016 05:45 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502736)

I'm sorry. This country is filled with racist, ignorant selfish, stupid assholes. Even more than you thought. And Trump has let all the monkeys out of the cage.

Agree that there are many such people. The hypothesis below isn't intended to suggest otherwise.

Many people form their views through a sort of affiliational affinity, adopting a package of views from their "side." The election of President Obama made it more acceptable for many conservatives and Republicans to express racist views, because it more tightly tied racial attitudes to existing political affiliations. People on the right changed their views because a black Democrat was elected President. A black Republican would not have had the same effect. Donald Trump is having the same effect now. Because he is the Republican candidate, a whole bunch of odious views that he expresses are much more palatable to roughly half the country, because the election is a contest and he is on their side.

He's not just letting monkeys out of the cage. He is turning people into monkeys.

Pretty Little Flower

09-19-2016 08:21 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 502736)

I'm sorry. This country is filled with racist, ignorant selfish, stupid assholes. Even more than you thought. And Trump has let all the monkeys out of the cage.

Hey, fuck you. I am not racist. The other stuff? Sure. But definitely not racist. Well, I probably am in some ways, probably in ways that I don't even think about. But I try not to be. So, that's cool, right? Also, I think your monkeys comment is racist, even though you appear to be referring to white people as the monkeys. Anyway, I have done this Daily Dose before, but I think we need something uplifting, so for a repeat DD, here is Funkadelic with "Everybody's Going to Make It This Time." Unless President Trump, in which case we will spiral downward into an impenetrable darkness that will never lift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp93s2nmUhU

Adder

09-20-2016 11:32 AM

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

If a boatload of Skittles was fleeing possible/probable death in their war-torn homeland, but one or two of them might be poisoned, would you send them all back to danger? You would? You're a terrible person.

Tyrone Slothrop

09-20-2016 12:04 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 502739)

I don't agree with them on refugees, but was the Skittles thing really all that bad?

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

09-20-2016 12:22 PM

Re: fun times with racist memes

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 502740)

I don't agree with them on refugees, but was the Skittles thing really all that bad?