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

Don't they have to take it? For the future, and the present for that matter, they can't leave this with a regional judge and Circuit.

7 stars, out of 5 possible #mustreads: http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...ld-trump-obama

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

I read it, but I'm not sure why I needed to. Nostradomus predicted 9/11 in like 1300. And the "why Trump got elected" stuff you post ignores that you are uniquely positioned to explain why Trump won. But it isn't by posting stuff someone else wrote. Write about why you voted 3rd party. This week you said "we elected a lunatic," so I assume you didn't want him to be President. I assume you only voted for 3rd party because you assumed Hillary was going to win big. Do you know other 3rd party voters? Can you get them to explain why, and if they feel regret? Much more enlightening than posts about some old liberal's take.

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

I just thought it was an insightful article. Rorty nailed it, right on the head, twenty years ago.

I'm not uniquely positioned to say anything.

I neither wanted, nor didn't want, either of these people to be President. But he is a lunatic, so it is only logical to infer voters were really fucking angry if they took the step of voting for someone like him.

I assumed she'd win, but I'm not sure I wouldn't have have voted third party no matter how close it was. I was considering voting for her out of fear the market would get crushed, but another part of my brain was saying, "the Fed can fight whatever may come - even Trumpocalypse."

I have several close friends who did not vote or voted third party (Ds and Rs). I'm not aware of any who regret it. And none who believe your argument that we're at fault. I was laughing about that position with one non-voter who's on the DC party circuit just last week. We're still confused at the nerve of those making your argument, from the HRC and Trump sides (Trumpkins get pissed when you tell them you voted third party). The conclusion was:

1. Where do they get off blaming us for their own candidate's failure?
2. Where do these pompous people get off telling us we had a duty to vote for a candidate?

I'd never tell anyone what he or she has to do. I mean, I might... but it'd be done jokingly, knowing I had no pedestal from which to make such demand, and without any expectation of it being followed. The self-righteousness there is mind-bending.

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

By the way, math: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.d4a1e934f528

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeaut...llary_clinton/

http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/09/ga...-stein-voters-

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

Reason link doesn't open. Reddit only looks at Stein, and admits Hil now wins Michigan. WaPo, that lib organ, defending the libs who voted wrong, misses the point. They have no proof that Hil wouldn't have taken more of Johnson voters than Trump. That's why i want to know why people voted for him. I find it impossible to believe someone who would go for Johnson would move to Trump w/o the option.

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

you, and they, have the absolute right to your vote. and these other socks here that rail against disenfranchising the precious votes of others can hardly take the position you shouldn't have the right to pick.

Mostly I'm trying to understand the pick though, given the possible (now actual) outcome. I mean, I watched "Missiles of October." Kennedy talked with advisors for a few days about what to do about a nuclear issue. Trump sent out a tweet defining his policy. I just don't get how people smart enough to vote third party (at least it implies some thought as opposed to lockstep party voting) could not come to the conclusion that Hil was better than Trump.

But I certainly did not mean to offend you. Honest.

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

Almost all Johnson voters would've voted Trump. If Johnson was hit by a bus on November 7, Trump would've had a more resounding victory. No one wants to discuss that because it ends the debate entirely.

Quite literally almost every Johnson voter I know was a Republican who simply couldn't stand Trump.

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

I figured Trump risk was low, as he was a closet centrist.

I also view Balkanization as just a different variety of system. It's a new environment in which the table is reset. One always has to adapt to succeed. So I'll adapt to this. There's always a way to do well if you're creative. A lunatic's in charge? Well, then learn the new rules and angles, right?

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

One of the things I like about the foreign policy community is they have guts to take a stand. Don't like Trump but couldn't vote for Hillary? That's the definition of putting party above country.

Where even the Robert Kagans of the world in the foreign policy arena said, we're Republicans, but we can recognize an existential threat even when its on our side, and recognize when you have to man up and vote for Hillary.

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

Don't. Like. Either.

Not willing to accept either.

Work with that position.

We were willing to accept the risk. Did we think he was this bizarre? Most of us, no. Are we concerned enough to regret our vote? Not enough of us to have gotten her elected had we voted for her. Not by a long shot.

Do we think this is an existential crisis? No. This is hysteria. The world will go on, and the checks and balances are working. Have a scotch. Calm down.

ETA: I expected people to react in an overwrought fashion. The country's polarized. God only knows the form of overheated reply we'd have seen from the other side if he lost.

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

Is President Buchanan among your favorites?

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

atcq.

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

Translation: I live in an Ivory 1%Tower.

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

All respect to Sebby's Rorty thing, but this is much more interesting.

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

Interesting questions, but it's like he's never thought about micro.

Maybe a little time breaking down the expenses of each kind of enterprise over time?

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

That is more interesting than the Rorty thing. Far more tactile and testable.

I only have two thoughts on it, regarding causes...

1. Third Party Payment Structures

Anytime you have a disconnected third party paying for something, be it a consumer using a credit card which bills them a month after purchases, and with which they may carry a balance, or health care insurance, or a student loan lender wiring money to college once a year for tuition, costs explode.

People do not spend as prudently as they would with third party payment structures as they do when the money is coming out of their own pocket in the immediate. This obviously isn't some shocking revelation, and I certainly don't offer it as one. But like "cost disease," it's a thing we all see every day, we all recognize, and yet no one discusses... which is pretty odd.

2. Financialization

No underwriter would give an 18 year old $200k for a college degree in a normal market. But make that loan non-dischargeable and they will (btw, there's a load of dumb money investing in delinquent student loan portfolios, thinking one can squeeze blood from a stone... may their losses be staggering -- enough, ideally, to render them homeless).

Student loans are financialization of education. You have a clueless borrower, lazy lenders who think they can't lose, and education providers run by some of the least financially astute and cost-conscious managers alive.

A Proposed Fix:

A. Health Care insurance should be actual insurance.

Elective and preventative care should be the patient's responsibility, and on the patient's dime. Insurance should only cover acute and chronic illnesses upon their occurrence. When people have to pay for care out of their own pocket, prices will naturally drop for two reasons: (1) lack of third party payer funds pouring into the system; and, (2) no more cost inflation by providers to make up for insurance discounts (docs charging $1000 for a $50 procedure because they know the insurance only pays a nickle on the dollar for it).

The argument that people don't want to do this is not an argument. They're adults. They are required to be responsible for themselves. The argument it will cause people to forego preventative care has some merit. But I'm confident that that is preventative care costs drop radically, that problem will be minimized. Additionally, dollars for preventative care will be freed up by the decreased cost of the monthly insurance, rather than the ludicrous monthly payments currently made for a TPA masquerading as insurance.

B. Allow student loans to be discharged up to 50% in bankruptcy, and tie lending rates to actual likelihood of repayment

You want to borrow for a degree in modern dance or history? 10% rate. STEM? 4%. Let underwriters set those rates.

And as part of that adjustment to the bankruptcy code, put a clawback provision into the code allowing the trustee to recover up to 25% of the loan from the college or university to satisfy payment of other creditors. And put a five year statute of limitation on such clawback.

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

So apparently folks at Mar a Lago, the Winter Den of Corruption, got to pose with the guy who carries the nuclear football.

Neat-o.

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

Translation: I get uncomfortable when the black people get militant on TV.

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

You watch the Grammy awards? Loser.

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

Is there still a way to flag this so the moderators can have a vote on how to punish this sock?

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

You're not making any sense to me here.

(1) Where's the market failure? Consumers prefer to buy coverage in the current fashion, for a variety of reasons. One is they face information asymmetries in trying to negotiate prices for these things, and know they don't do it well. Another is that they would rather buy care in a bundle. A third, related to the first, is that they don't know how much preventative care they need and will underconsume, to the detriment of their health.

(2) Insurance discounts are the real price -- almost no one is paying the nominal price. But the fact that some people are shows that you're wrong about the potential for cost savings -- the prices to people who are actually negotiating for themselves instead of using their coverage are much higher, not lower.

(3) The argument that people don't want to do what you are providing is fundamentally economic. (They are being responsible for themselves by obtaining coverage.) What you're proposing is like requiring that people buy eggs individually to ensure that they don't buy any that are broken.

eta (4) As the blog post points out, you see the same cost increases in veterinary care, which doesn't use this coverage model.

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

Health economics are complicated as hell, and I wouldn't want to oversimplify.

But when comparing costs in the US to costs in other countries, there is one line item in the US that just doesn't exist in most other countries, or exists only as an elective not a necessity: insurance.

Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

Apropos of Nothing, my Pandora station has been giving me a regular dose of Letters to Clio and Veruca Salt today.

Yes, I know that I have the musical taste of an angsty suburban white teenaged girl in 1999. Carry on.

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

A guess: You once had an emotional connection with a woman that related in some way to Belly's song "Feed The Tree."

Jesus, man, that is so disappointing. But some nice funk riffs from the Meters will clear everything up. Today's Daily Dose is "People Say":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QYbZsBPawI

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

Aren't we past the point where the D listers try to elevate themselves by picking fights with the A listers?

We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 

Dude, you know I love you like that pledge who cock-blocked me sophomore year at the Tri Delt mixer by talking incessantly about the Stringed Cheese Incident, but you keep saying variations of "it's different this time; workers are doomed so I might as well get my tax cut" with not even a hint of doubt. You are precisely Damone-like in your self assured assertion of universal rules, but that's part of your charm.

It's always different this time, and predictions of doom always come true. We were supposed to run out of food due to overpopulation, but then came the green revolution. We were going to run out of gasoline a la Mad Max, and now we have too much capacity. We were going to have to build bubbles around our cities because of air pollution, and now there's less smog in LA than since before WW II (wild assertion that may not be true, but whatever).

Bad future stuff happens that is predicted and not predicted. So does good stuff. Hell and Utopia are each Not Preordained.

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

You're not too far off. And Belly's "Gepetto" just came on.

Pandora's Liz Phair Radio, fwiw. Although my thumbs up/down have likely skewed the algo a bit.

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

You're thinking of me. I used to work with Tanya Donelly at Newbury Comics. Carry on.

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

got big tits?

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

She made this not much later.

Re: Just living on a Sunday morning.
 

Sounds like a wicked good time.

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

I hate to do this again, but if you have no one else to reach out to, reach out to me. Or call the National Suicide Prevention hotline.

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
National suicide prevention hotline. 800-273-8255

And for fuck's sake, don't jump off the Golden Gate Bridge leaving your wife to hunt high and low for two days before being told by the police that there's a video.

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

I am so, so sorry, RT.

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

Thank you. Apparently there's video of him jumping on Saturday night, but after two desperate days of searching, his wife wasn't able to find out until last evening. I feel so sad for her, and I also feel helpless since there's not much I can do from so far away other than to yell from the rooftops that there is help out there.

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

So sorry. This is very sad. Strength to all.

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

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

As Roseanne Rosannadanna used to say, if it ain't one thing, it's another.

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

That is one pissed off intelligence community.

a) Find out who the intelligence community is spying on.
b) Don't talk to the people that the intelligence community are spying on.
c) If you do talk to the people that the intelligence community are spying on DON'T PISS OFF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.

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

I am so sorry. There are no words.