A long week at work ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. SP and I are celebrating a landmark anniversary by marinating ourselves, along with family and a few Glibs and HnR buddies, most notably WebDom, the Pride of the Millennials. If we can avoid the alligator, all will be well. Our big problem will be scaring the normals who are at our little party today. At least we’re getting recompense from the Hell we lived in this summer by having perfect January weather so we can drink outside. The Cremant de Loire is chilling and soon, so will we.
But first, some other anniversaries, this time births. And today’s include a guy who was a real gas; a bonny lad; someone who scares me; one of my heroes; another one of my heroes; and yet another one of my heroes.
And now news, featuring people who are not my heroes.
Let’s just say that this recounting is… unlikely.
“I recorded Trump doing something legal and normal! IMPEACH!”
“I heard it on the grapevi…AGGGGGGGHHHHH!”
I am going long on Orville Redenbacher.
And look, this is unlikely to be true, but if it is, I’ll take extra butter and salt.
I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it.
Old Guy Music features a guy I used to see on the regular when I was a kid and who turns 91 today. This is one of his classic songs, covered by everyone, and perfect in its simplicity.
You had a party with Glibs and HnR types…. gee, thanks for the invite….
Oh. Meh…. nevermind….
Happy Anniversary!
OMWC’s bangs always turn into whimpers. It’s the pedo way.
“I recorded Trump doing something legal and normal! IMPEACH!”
Actively subverting a president’s foreign policy is totes OK and not something you can be fired for. Imagine if anybody had done this to Obama.
Speaking after the interview aired, Kelly described how she was called back into Pompeo’s living room at the State Department after the interview, where the outburst then unfolded.
Hawt. Hope Pompeo erupted on her like Vesuvius.
I laughed really hard at the Raisin link before clicking on it.
What an awful way to go.
The pickle slicer got fired too.
Why is that on CNN? Oh, someone died at work in an accident. And?
It was Trump what done it?
Those draconian OSHA cuts, don’tcha know.
Looks like that’s what happened to Maxine.
What are you talking about? In three days that bastard will be back at work. Well known that people who work with dried grapes never die.
You’ve heard of raisin the dead haven’t you?
I’m surprised that they could even build that diplodocus for $30k. Is this a fire sale or something?
PS – and, uh, happy anniversary
Overstock
It appears that’s the price at which they build it to order.
Happy Anniversary SP, the road has been long and torturous but here you are. Happy Anniversary, OM, you’ve been living the high life. Just kidding, of course, Happy Anniversary to both of you and enjoy your party.
Just remember though, no good deed goes unpunished.
The felicitous Glibs’ third anniversary is coming up next month, I believe.
Alright, I’ll be the dummy. What does, “avoid the alligator” mean?
It means to wear Lacoste.
Puzzled me too but often times it is best not to know.
I assume he’s referencing the picture at the top of the links.
Makes sense. Thought it was old fart slang.
My assumption too, but the alligator is the least threatening character in that photo imho.
Aww. I want to go to there.
I’d be a shitty guest but I always doff my footwear at the front door. Stenciled thank you notes will not be forthcoming unless I remind Judi.
doff my footwear at the front door
That’s how you can spot a Canadian infiltrator in your home. No shoes.
They are thoughtful and polite?
Not always.
heh. We actually keep “visitor slippers” by the front door.
No shirt, no shoes, no dice.
*said in Bronson voice*
We’re starting at 4. Pants are required.
Just for admission, or the whole time?
Once the alcohol kicks in, no promises.
Hey, seriously, if you want to drive up here, drop me an email.
Unfortunately, the hidden tax of c suiting is being levied this weekend – I’m about to leave for the office.
You’re no fun! : (
So no dresses for ladies, and no kilts (or togas, I suppose) for the guys?
No…. He just said “pants required”. Doesn’t say you gotta wear ’em.
Loophole!
That’s fancy lawyer talk! Legaleez! Git offa mah prop’ty!
And Yukata are right out!
Dang! I was holding out hope that I’d get to don those parachute pants just one more time. Back in the vacuum seal you go, old friend.
Hammer don’t hurt em !
“I recorded Trump doing something legal and normal! IMPEACH!”
Firing an ambassador has to be the stupidest thing the D’s pulled out of their asses.
Ya, not so sure about that.
We used to call flighty, spazzy girls “spinny” back in the long ago. The House Dems are acting all “spinny” and shit. Like “Learn a clue, Fuckwad” dumb.
Not to be confused with “spinners” I suppose, which I heard a lefty use to describe petit girls that could be spun around on his penis like a top.
Spinners
And just when you though I’d redeemed myself:
Also spinners
It was a different time in the 70’s.
This is particularly retarded. The President can fire ambassadors whenever xe wants for any reason.
It’s almost like they currently and always have served at the pleasure of the president, who is elected by the
peoplestates to handle such affairs.Not just stupid, it actually undercuts their case against Trump. Because this happened before Biden had announced his run.
But Brawndo has what plants crave…
“ At least we’re getting recompense from the Hell we lived in this summer by having perfect January weather so we can drink outside.”
You pays your money, you makes your choice.
Let’s just say that this recounting is… unlikely.
Mary Louise Kelley is recounting this on NPR now.
There is no bias in the media…. people who talk about propaganda machines are conspiracy theorists…
But some reporter gets into a private argument with a politician about an interview that didn’t follow the agreed parameters and this hitherto unknown reporter is doing an all-stations tour to tell her story…..
Is she vocal frying it up?
That said, some Democratic political advisers are wary of any direct confrontation with Sanders, who has tapped into the changing demographics of the party. The coalition that got Obama elected two terms – African Americans, women and working-class whites — has been disrupted by the emergence of young, white progressives who are attracted to Sanders’ far-left agenda. Working-class whites have largely defected to Trump, who has campaigned on nationalist issues, such as immigration control, and against free trade.
By attacking Sanders, Obama may alienate this growing block of Democratic base voters causing them to sit out what could be a close contest with Trump, who despite his low approval ratings, will run in 2020 on a strong economy. “It would be surprising if Obama did anything upfront because Dems would splinter between Sanders’ faction and Obama’s faction,” said veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “Don’t underestimate the Bernie faction; otherwise he wouldn’t be surging in polls.”
Others say by allowing Sanders to continue to gain momentum, the Democratic Party might be doomed at a time when it faces a vulnerable incumbent in Trump. “Sanders is widely disliked by Democrats over 30,” said David Brand, a long-time Democratic strategist based in Atlanta, who is supporting Biden. “He doesn’t work well with others, has no significant legislative records, and only a few people support him other than his die-hard following. He can’t win a general election.”
As a practical matter, a President Sanders administration would set a new standard for political gridlock. Maybe we should be supporting him.
a vulnerable incumbent in Trump
So vulnerable that they need to attempt to remove him by impeachment so he can’t slaughter them in the next election.
Maybe not.
OMG the comments
“@talesofjoe
1h1 hour ago
More
Also, working people are stay at home parents, volunteers, caregivers, activists. They are doing the work valuable to them, but not valuable to the market. Update the economic measurements so that everyone is seen as an investment, and so everyone gains market value.”
When everyone is ‘valuable’, no one is valuable.
Back to commie square one.
offeeNTrees
@CoffeeNTrees
1h1 hour ago
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Replying to @BernieSanders
Netflix CEO just got a raise. $34,000,000 a year.
Because that’s necessary.
Is it necessary for Lebron to be paid what he is?
Is it necessary for me to drink my own urine?
Flight Shaming Isn’t Just a Problem for Airlines
“We must get ahead of change and public perception,” Jason Geall, vice president for Northern Europe at American Express Global Business Travel, said in a speech to business travel and meetings executives in London on Monday. “A failure to act now could leave us vulnerable to existential threats, such as flight caps and increased taxation and regulation.”
In case you didn’t notice, climate change wasn’t one the “existential threats”.
No car use for anybody who works for the government.
“These are not the existential threats you are looking for!”
Who was it, just recently, who vowed to fire all Trump appointees on her first day in office?
ABUSE OF POWER
*raises hand slightly, leans into the microphone* “Who is Hitler?”
Now that half an hour has passed:
Old Guy Music
Goddammit Ted! I thought that you might redeem yourself this morning.
I haven’t done anything that requires redemption.
‘Cause you don’t have a token.
My palm gem turned black some time ago so I don’t even have that going for me anymore. Sorry Fourx20, it’s going to have to fall to the next generation…
TheHill.com
Parnas says he has turned over tape of Trump calling for diplomat’s firing
By Tal Axelrod – 01/24/20 09:24 PM EST
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Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who is at the center of Congress’ impeachment proceedings, said Friday he had given congressional Democrats a 2018 recording of President Trump discussing the dismissal of then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
Parnas worked closely with Giuliani to further Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. Trump and his associates are known to have viewed Yovanovitch, who was a career official at the State Department and an anti-corruption crusader, as an impediment to their efforts.
What, exactly, is the provenance of this “recording”? Were all parties aware? Did they consent? I’m just a dumb old deplorable, but it seems to me secretly recording the President of the United States as he conducts official business might not be legal. Some people might even be tempted to characterize it as espionage.
But what do I know?
Everyone in Government wears a wire, even if its just a pocket phone to turn on and record each interaction. “Its our way, man”
Huh. where did that extraneous crap come from? Time for more coffee, I guess.
*Pulls P. into a manly hug and sniff* It’ll be fine, Son. Juuust fine.
That’s how I get more extraneous crap.
I thought this was an interesting juxtaposition:
Former officials who testified in the House’s impeachment investigation told lawmakers that Yovanovitch was subject to a smear campaign from Giuliani and his associates that directly led to her firing.
Performance review or smear campaign?
You decide.
P.Brooks and Festus meeting with HR https://youtu.be/9KKUkv6L9HU
Damn.
https://twitter.com/Lumrunner/status/1220725249169330178
I want one.
Nope. Nope nope nope nope.
No kidding. Everyone needs an exploding attack umbrella.
Interesting. I’m in the nope camp. I suspect nobody is in the middle on this. It’s either “nope” or “hell yeah”.
That has a better plot than most Hollywood movies today.
What are the odds of My Little Cherokee Maiden making a claim she is some flavor of “non-binary” before the election cycle is done (if it’s ever done; the 2016 cycle is still ongoing in the “news” media)?
Wasn’t UCS putting out a call for descriptors of harpies a day or two ago?
She’ll profess to experimenting in college before being forced to conform to norms by the patriarchy.
“I did. have. sexual relations with that woman”
Bravissimo!
“Imma go grab me some pussy! You want some, Hon?”
The governor here has laid claim to being bicurious in the past.
THE BROWN BADGE OF COURAGE.
I’d throw some cash towards a GoFundMe for something like that. If it happened the rest of the crowd would feel pressured to follow suite in some manner. That would be even more entertaining than it already is.
“This ain’t yer Grandad’s Lesbo porn!” *pictures shrieking and flying elbows and knees, pointy ones, puts out own eyes with a #2 pencil one after the other*
Greater than zero, certainly, but that would be Heap Big Princess Liawatha’s last desperate act.
One of my Grandmothers was kind.
last desperate act
Yeah, I don’t see that count result in net positive votes.
If she thought it would deliver New Hampshire, the rumors would start leaking this afternoon.
She really is that cynically corrupt.
Uffda. What a fucking shitlord. Do you go out of your way to denigrate her noble ancestry?
She’s a Two-Spirit. Not some icky euro trans weirdo.
Proud, regal, even.
So if a concept invented in 1990 to win prog points can be described as aboriginal, why can’t the Indians invent some concepts like the Spirit of Productivity, and the Distilled Spirits of Temperance, embrace the free market and actually end the poverty on the reservations?
Because Shut Up, Hater!
Letter to the Local Rag: THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW
From wikipedia: In biologically highly active soil, CA fibers are completely destroyed after 4–9 months.
That person should have their voting rights taken away.
Indeed
Language in the bill explicitly criminalizes free speech, in what would constitute a blatant attack on the 1st Amendment of the Constitution.
“If any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass any person, shall use a computer or computer network to communicate obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, or indecent language, or make any suggestion or proposal of an obscene nature, or threaten any illegal or immoral act, he is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor,” the legislation reads.
I suspect this is why they so despise a sufficiently armed populace. They intend to violate all of your rights. Who could have guessed?
And it only applies to the government.
“provides that certain crimes relating to threats and harassment may be prosecuted in the City of Richmond if the victim is the Governor, Governor-elect, Lieutenant Governor, Lieutenant Governor-elect, Attorney General, or Attorney General-elect, a member or employee of the General Assembly, a justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia, or a judge of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.”
Again, who could have guessed?
They want to make it easier to take people’s guns away.
Hadn’t thought of that. This will be used to punish dissent and in conjunction with the red-flag law.
Punishing dissent has worked so well lo these last ten thousand years. Let’s try again!
“Also, since the biodegradable filters won’t actually filter anything from the cigarette smoke, smokers will all die sooner, which they deserve, because smokers are bad people. In closing, herp derp de derp.”
My buddies girlfriend flicked a butt out the window in the middle of town awhile back. A state trooper saw it and pulled him over. Mandatory court visit with something like a thousand dollar fine and a year in jail. Prosecutor let her plead it down to mere littering and gave her a $45 fine after scaring the shit out of her for an hour.
One of my employees recently caught a city cop throwing trash out his window on his dashcam. Posted it to Facebook.
Living on the edge.
I honk at assholes who litter their butts out the window. That really gets to me. I got no gripes with you when it comes to smoking, more power to you if that is your thing. But have an ash tray in your car and use it.
One of the best thing about vaping is that it is far rarer now to see people tossing their butts out the window. I hadn’t thought of that until just now.
My plan back in the day was to put a deposit on each cigarette butt. Maybe a quarter? If you want your money back you have to bring them back in to the smoke shop. Not only would it cut down on littering it would have made hundredaires out of the homeless. For a while they could get tons of cash by sweeping the entire city clean of butts.
In my smoking days I only littered as a last resort.
And I’ve been hit by someone else’s lit butt before, too.
One of my pet peeves too. Buddies GF is a dingbat of superior order. Not a big danger in town, but is a big fire risk certain times of year.
My car does not have an ashtray. I don’t smoke though.
I don’t remember my last car to have an ashtray. But the last few years I smoked I found one that sat in the cup holder.
How’s about that cunte read the Bill of Rights, wad it up into a cylinder and jam it strait up xer gaping bunghole? How’s that sound?
“I recorded Trump doing something legal and normal! IMPEACH!”
That is the running theme.
Sanders Seizes Lead in Volatile Iowa Race
Welcome to the Gulag. We got fun and games.
It can’t really happen… Can it?
He won’t get the nomination because of the way the democratic primary system is set up. The deck is stacked against him. It will highlight the dissonance within the democratic party. There is a big rift between the party power structure and the average voter. It had a big impact in 2016, but Bernie vs. Biden will bring it to a boil.
I’m really hoping that they burn Milwaukee to the ground. At least then you can say the Bernie Bros did the nation a favor.
Just the facts
Parnas has emerged as a central figure in efforts by Giuliani to pressure the government of Ukraine to investigate political rivals of Trump. That campaign is now the focus of the ongoing impeachment trial against Trump in the Senate.
The State Department itself is now investigating the possible surveillance of Yovanovitch, who during testimony before House impeachment investigators in November said she had felt threatened by Trump.
After working under Hillary, she had a heightened sense of danger.
pressure the government of Ukraine
“Hey could you do us a favor?”
He’s pressuring them!!!!
“He say massage! I say no happy ending! Rules on door!”
Letters to the Local Rag: Life Imitates Futurama
“Maple Syrup Urine Disease (MSUD), which is among the most volatile and dangerous inherited metabolic disorders.”
Canadians hardest hit.
That’s an East of the Rockies thing. Out here we put our puds in the mighty Cedar, the statuesque Spruce, the dripping Pine! The Larch!
I read this article while eating pancakes. Is that wrong?
Eh. It’s all over but the crying now. https://youtu.be/2Ko9TpduOhE
Brooksed my reply to Brooks. Go figure.
Now you must face one another in single combat. There can only be one.
Dee dee dee dee dee dee dum dum
Silicone Saturday brings you one of the finest collections yet.
http://archive.li/K8WHj
9
33 went too hard in the paint
9, 28, 33
Nice. I don’t click your links too often because they always remind of how stupidly I squandered my youth.
I got to 10 and threw in the towel. Someone has a different opinion about what makes an aesthetically pleasing and beautiful woman than me. Fucking ham-hocks. Bed breakers.
Then you missed out on 14.
Calls for reparations hit Notre Dame amid allegations of harm, oppression against blacks, Native Americans
A forum Wednesday at the University of Notre Dame featured panelists who urged the university to pay reparations to blacks and Native Americans.
Panelist Savanna Morgan, a senior at Notre Dame, said black and indigenous communities have a “right” to pursue reparations at Notre Dame. These reparations are “indeed monetary,” she said, adding they are “equally psychological and symbolic.”
Morgan said one of the “appropriate remedies” for Notre Dame is “taking our $13.8 billion endowment out of this one mile radius and sharing this wealth with the people Notre Dame has historically robbed of their right to a safe and secure life.”
“We must acknowledge how white institutions contribute to black disadvantage and commit to the appropriate remedies,” she said.
Meritless affirmative action admission has consequences.
Shorter: GIBS ME DAT.
On a related note, I’d be perfectly fine with taxing the living shit out of these indoctrination factories’ endowments. Have at it.
ND has its entire endowment invested in a one mile radius? Damn, that’s impressive.
Fortunately I can directly give to a certain group at my alma mater so that people like her can’t hijack my money.
No kidding. You can’t let remedial minds into an intellectual and academic setting.
They can give the impression of belonging in such an environment by mimicking the behaviours but the mind is not capable of actual intellectualism that’s supposed to be enhanced in college.
The college can’t take a mediocre mind and make it great. But a mediocre mind can destroy an institution.
When I was in university two thoughts occurred to me. One, on a personal level, while I found it unchallenging for the most part (except for a couple of classes I appreciated thus making me think about academia and intellectualism in a more proper light), I did do well and kept up but never really felt deep down I belonged (but Im like that about a lot of things; very introverted and enjoy being alone) and b) Two, how at least 75% of a class didn’t belong there. It was a glorified high school class in a lot of ways.
Which made me wonder where all this was going and how the heck were all these people going to find jobs with Bachelor of Arts degrees?
Affirmative Action only hastened this decline I reckon. Worse, it seems the people I considered the least worthy of being in university and who didn’t go into the real world settled into faculties it would appear.
Hence, you get the utter stupidity like we see here.
My university called me several times before I went to go pick up my diploma.
I used to study in the Ed major library on McTavish and well, it did not instill confidence in the education system. Good visuals though. Goddamn.
You’re talking about the McClellan library?
Not McCllean. I think it was part of the Faculty of Education Building. Not sure if it had a set name.
Apparently that one, according my wife, doesn’t have a name like Redpath and McClellan. She seems to recall it was a small one where she would go get education books for her classes.
My true disillusionment came when I began to interview people for jobs who had earned MBA’s. I expected people of formidable intelligence and clear thought. Holy Christ! The institutions that gave some of these people masters degrees are straight up fraudulent.
I took a good number of business classes.
Not surprised.
And this is Gen X – before the arrival of the millennial SJW snowflake. But there were a lot of pre-SJW types.
Late 80’s. That’s when my generation went back to school. The girls that got knocked up early and the guys that never really moved away from home. It was a fucking tar pit by the time Wifey#1 got her Bachelor’s in 95. All her SJW friends sure liked to feel up old Festus when Melanie turned her head. I wasn’t even old then, just approaching 30.
And no, I never did cheat. Festus has an iron law about that sort of tom-foolery. Doesn’t even involve rusty tin can lids or anything. Not saying that the temptation wasn’t there…
Same here. For me, its a simple as “I swore an oath.”
An oath I broke once, when I was separated from my first wife but the divorce wasn’t final. I did not regard the fact that she had cheated on me as a release from my oath.
I watched my parent’s generation. That was quite enough for me. Not saying that I wasn’t a libertine (because I was) but as soon as you pledge yourself to someone else that is a sacred fucking bond. Didn’t matter if it was just a “steady” relationship. Never cheated, never will.
Maybe they should start by getting rid of their problematic nickname/mascot first?
If the NoDaks can’t have the Fighting Sioux, why hasn’t ND gotten rid of the Fighting Irish?
In fact UND should have changed their name to the Fighting Irish too. ND Fighting Irish. Let the trademark wars commence.
U.N.B.C Fighting Chugs. I’d wear that hat!
Everyone knows that Democrat’s primary concern is upholding and defending the Constitution, just like we are currently seeing in VA.
Klobuchar said, “I thought it was incredibly effective because basically, you have a president that’s defied so many of their professed beliefs, right? They care about going after Russia. They care about defending democracies. They know that he hasn’t stood up for Ukraine. They know what happened. You have a president that has not told the truth, and they claim they want to tell the truth. I really thought it was effective when he said, you know he’s going to do it again. There was. Also, I thought of each individual senator, and Claire knows some of these people, but as she pointed out when the former police chief, Representative Demings, was talking about the coverup and she said, you know, over 100 times he went after the whistle-blower. Well, Senator Grassley has spent his career standing up for whistle-blowers. Or when they went through the way that the parts of the coverup and what he had done in terms of putting things on this super-secret server, and you think about all of those senators on the Republican side that claim that they want to make things transparent. There’s just a lot of interesting, really pokes they were making at their core beliefs. I just hope they listen because, in the end, it is about patriotism. This is about whether or not you just want to do this job, as I pointed out yesterday, to be able to buy your senate chair at the end and have a trophy on the shelf, or do you actually want to do your job and defend the Constitution. That’s what each and every one of them has to grapple with.”
I’m convinced there is some kind of rupture in the space time continuum, because there are a lot of people living in some kind of alternate reality. Future physicists will look back on this time as proof of the multiple universes hypothesis.
No kidding. Was this before or after Nadler accused the Senate (y’know, the de facto jury he’s trying to convince) of being traitors?
Is there not one reporter that will roll their eyes when they hear about shit like this? Maybe ask Special K where she was when Obama was prosecuting the shit out of anyone who leaked unflattering stuff to the press? Or tapping the phones/computer of reporters? Or how he wouldn’t ship any arms to Ukraine? Just sent blankets.
If all the shit you are so worked up about now is so bad, why weren’t you screaming from the mountain top a few years ago?
That got a chuckle out of me. Are they the new Kurds or something now?
He only sent them military aid, something Obama never did and which the very Congressional Democrats now attacking Trump refused to authorize. And he has been pretty consistently working against Russian interests, with sanctions, the occasional targeted military action against Russian troops and proxies in the Mideast, and most importantly, by allowing the fracking revolution to go forward full speed (again in contract to Obama).
Worst. Russian. Asset. Ever.
There is something to be said for honesty, I guess.
Host Norah O’Donnell asked, “Your agenda has promised free health care for everybody, free college tuition, and to pay off people’s college loans. The price tag for that is estimated to be $60 trillion over ten years, correct?”
Sanders responded, “Well, look. We have political opponents who come up –.”
O’Donnell then cut in to ask, “You don’t know how much your plan costs?”
Sanders responded, “You don’t know. Nobody knows. This is impossible to predict.”
O’Donnell then queried, “You’re going to propose a plan to the American people, and you’re not going to tell them how much it costs?”
Sanders answered, “Of course I will. Do you know exactly what healthcare costs will be…in the next ten years if we do nothing? It will be a lot more expensive than a Medicare-for-all single-payer system.”
“Can you imagine the cost of doing nothing?!” Now where have I heard that argument before…
CATO foreign policy experts discussing the Iran deal?
I just want Trump to make Obama but a mistake; a hiccup in the annals of American history.
One in which it’s recorded as “Obama’s attempts to sow the seeds of class warfare, throttle innovation through heavy regulation, poor stewardship of the economy and foreign policy, and leveraging the popularity of the Presidency to create his brand all the while resetting the American experience, was put to the fire and into the bin of forgotten ‘what the fuck were we thinking?’ history by an uncouth, outsider used to brawling at wakes and rent collection rounds with no charm or politesse named Donald Trump.
Considering who writes the history books, I think it’s going to be how a new golden age begun by Obama was thwarted by Secret Nazi President.
Age of Nothing.
That’s what I’d call his waste of eight years.
Ah Rufus, my fellow, my compatriot! That was well said. Well said indeed.
To boldly go where no man has gone before
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
After consultation with our Great Military Leaders, designers, and others, I am pleased to present the new logo for the United States Space Force, the Sixth Branch of our Magnificent Military!
It’s a paper airplane. Nice.
This is why the economy is booming. Adding an armed force is going to create a bunch of billable hours for web developers who have to go add the new branch to various drop down lists. Just like the Y2K bug (M5?) no one ever thought ahead to a day when there weren’t 4 branches of the military (fuck the Coast Guard).
Now every ecommerce platform who offered some sort of military discount is going to have to go back and update code.
Anyone who coded a static list into a dropdown should be fired anyway.
I am giggling because we are creating a new custom app for the military where I work right now and this very subject was much discussed.
I think you could have been forgiven for thinking that the number of branches in the military would never change in your lifetime and that a simple dropdown would be fine. And that the need to write a service was just overkill.
How hard to leave a pick-list open for additions at the admin level?
Yeah, I’d settle for a simple database lookup.
Uffda. I guess you could do that if you were going to do something so crude as to build a UI that directly talks to the db.
Us cool kids only use rest services to get data.
^ NERDS!!!!! ^
Idiocracy Got It Wrong
Like many of you, I assume, I’m something of a fan of Mike Judge’s film Idiocracy. It’s a very funny movie. And a lot of people suggest that it was prescient. And I think that’s true, but only on a superficial level.
For those not familiar, the premise of the movie is that, because mankind really has no continued evolutionary demand for intelligence, no constant threats to cull the less intelligent from society, over time, it will be likely that society will get stupider. Intelligent people hold off reproduction until their later years, when they can afford to raise a child with the best advantages, while the less intelligent start reproducing early and keep at it. The mathematics of that is pretty simple. Over time, the less intelligent will overwhelmingly predominate.
Like I said, on a superficial level, this sounds plausible. If you don’t think our society has been getting dumber, you’re probably not paying attention. As just one example, fifty years ago the popular literary celebrities of the day were people we still recognize in the popular canon. Today, about the only literary celebrity most people can name is J.K. Rowling, the author of a set of childrens’ books.
But, that little factoid leads to what I think Judge got wrong. Empirically, I just don’t see a lot more stupid people than I did in earlier years. Nor do the stupid today seem noticeably more stupid than they were in previous years. Yes, the distribution has shifted to a lower mean. But, the shift seems to be mostly on the upper end of the distribution. We don’t have more stupid people than previous eras, nor do we have stupider stupid people. Instead, we have less intelligent smart people. In most fields of intellectual endeavor, the quality of the “thought leaders” has plummeted.
I’m not completely sure of what’s driving this. But, my first guess is that it’s a consequence of the demand for higher education for all. We push increasing numbers of marginal intellects into the role of thought or knowledge workers. In theory, this needn’t be a problem. The true intellects might still emerge. But, they don’t. To keep the system that relies on increasing numbers of marginal minds and marginal thinkers afloat, you see the academic and intellectual standards of the academy recalibrated to keep them in the system. Rigorous analysis, clear communication, and coherent argumentation aren’t demands the modern academy has the luxury of being able to make on its students. Not when their business models are premised on the sorts of volumes that universal higher education implies. This gives the marginal thinkers the pass they need. But, the truly worthwhile intellects are in those same classes. They’re not given the intellectual training they need to excel.
Then again, I could just be getting old and not wanting those damned kids on my lawn.
Any thoughts?
Media and social media means that we get LOTS of talking heads who *may* be an expert in a particular field, but know next to nothing about the rest of the world (Thank you grad schools). Of course…because they may be somewhat knowledgeable in an adjacent field by no means qualifies them to speak on it as an “expert”.
Don’t want more credentialing but folks should be more cognizant of who’s talking.
This. The really smart people are out there. They just aren’t on TV. Instead you have people like Neil DeGrasse pretending to be some super smart astronomer.
If smart people were becoming more of a rarity, I would think that the pace of change and improvement would be slowing.
“I would think that the pace of change and improvement would be slowing”
Change can be for the worse/stupider.
Improvement is harder to measure, but comparing the changes from, say, 1900 to 1960, to 1960 to now, you can make an regiment that the rate of improvement has slowed. We went from horse and buggy to space travel, and since then?
I’ll crush your regiment with my brigade (ok, my brain is a fire team at best)….
Depends on the dimension you use to measure progress doesn’t it? If you are measuring by physical mobility, yup, we’ve slowed down some. If you wanted to measure by access to information (or creation of information) then we are still doing fine.
This is one of the reasons that questions like this will continue to produce phd dissertations for the foreseeable future. No “real” answer and lot of room for craziness.
Sure, what counts as improvement is a value judgment. Whether more access to information is an improvement rather depends on the quality of the information and how/whether people are using that access.
A better counter argument would be the number of people lifted out of poverty in the last generation, I think. I tend to think of improvement as being improvement in people’s material security and conditions.
Hello? Exploding umbrellas?
You make some good points. The problem is that at least some fields, probably a majority in the humanities, have become so overwhelmed by the second rate minds that “an expert in the field” is of less value than a thoughtful layman.
https://www.amazon.com/Dysgenics-Deterioration-Populations-Evolution-Intelligence/dp/0275949176
Again, though, are we really seeing the decline coming from the bottom? It doesn’t seem to me like we are. If we were, we’d still have intellectual superstars like we did in earlier periods. That doesn’t seem to be happening.
I think we do, they just get no play in media or popular culture.
I think some of it also comes from the fields that get attention. I know there are musical prodigies out there, but the nature of commercialism doesn’t encourage *most* original music writing the same way.
Similarly in some of the science fields, there is amazing work being done but the overall volume is much larger in terms of content and some changes are incremental at this point. (and we are seeing issues with Chinese and other researchers – like western folks in the past – falsifying results, etc).
I also think that books are a bad measuring stick. 100 years ago writing was a good way to make a buck and become famous. Because lots and lots of people read.
As technology advanced it turned out that most people read only because they had nothing better to do. Once radio, TV and the internet came along, people stopped reading. And because there really is no longer any money in writing lots less people wrote.
That shift really explains why it is so hard to measure cultural achievements from one era to another. Is classical music really all that much better than rock and roll? And Penn Jillette has said on his pod cast that video games might be the current art form of our current era. Not sure I agree, but it was an interesting thought.
Okay. Let’s leave literature out of it. Seventy-five years ago, you had Heyek fighting it out with Keynes. Who are the really first rate economists out there today? The great political thinkers? Hell, Jordan Peterson is an international phenomenon because he’s one of the few people out there willing to think in public.
All the smart and wise people are on the sidelines waiting to get back into the game.
Speaking of Mike Judge, I was disappointed with the finale of Silicon Valley. While I accepted the bittersweet (mostly bitter) ending, I didn’t like the ‘greatest network ever created but it’s too dangerous ergo let’s blow it all up before we consult our lawyer and take a second to reflect properly’ angle. It was ‘wtf?’
But I guess the point was tech can go to dark places and we perhaps we need to be honest about that?
The other thing to add to this and my own comment up top. I once saw a guy who went to the same university as me selling shoes. Nothing wrong with that, since it was a) honest work and b) at a high end shop in a mall. Still, I can’t help but think he would utter to himself as he bent down to slip on a shoe for someone, ‘I went to university for this?’
If so, it’s no wonder we have many people who feel jaded or even cheated by the education system.
It’s tower of Babel shit going on. People have created little bubbles with academic sounding language and goon squads to go after nonbelievers. It’s just gibberish built on faulty premises and when anyone points that out, they go after him or her. Genetically I don’t think people are getting dumber. I just think that most people have no idea what anyone else outside their bubble is talking about.
“If any person, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, or harass any person, shall use a computer or computer network to communicate obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, or indecent language, or make any suggestion or proposal of an obscene nature, or threaten any illegal or immoral act, he is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor,” the legislation reads.
Dear Governor Blackface-
Go fuck yourself.
With All Due Respect,
P Brooks
This Coronavirus thing is giving me real John Ringo vibes. All we need is a little global cooling/maunder minimum excitement and it’s straight out of “The Last Centurion” (minus the actually invading Iran bit).
Good update from the ADVChina folks.
Since I had no idea what MSUD was I Duck-Ducked it and the first image I saw really made me think it was related to masturbation. On further examination, I’m not sure I’d be too happy if that pic was taken of my kid.
“Do you want to allow downloads from so-and-so?”
*furiously clicks Cancel*
How about this link? I made a copy of the image for you.
“Sign-in required”
That’s OK, I really don’t need to see what that looks like anyway.
Uffda. That is funny that imgur thought it was dirty too.
Basically it is a nurse taking a blood sample from a baby, but the way she is gripping the baby’s hand make it look like someone jerking off.
Nor do the stupid today seem noticeably more stupid than they were in previous years. Yes, the distribution has shifted to a lower mean. But, the shift seems to be mostly on the upper end of the distribution. We don’t have more stupid people than previous eras, nor do we have stupider stupid people. Instead, we have less intelligent smart people. In most fields of intellectual endeavor, the quality of the “thought leaders” has plummeted.
I think the “best minds” are tired of being shouted down, and have gone into a defensive crouch. Waiting for the tide to turn.
A man can dream, can’t he?
Close…
Last year, Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed five bills impacting the rights of firearm owners sent to his desk by the Democratically led Legislature. A solid Republican minority upheld all the vetoes.
Nonetheless, his staff said he “wanted to keep the conversation going,” said State Rep. Katherine Rogers, D-Concord.
So Rogers returned with the same bill as last year. HB 1101 would impose a three-day waiting period before someone could take home a purchased firearm.
“A waiting period will not stop all acts of senseless violence, every suicide, and sadly it won’t prevent every shooting, but does that mean we just stand by and watch the violence continue?” Rogers asked the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.
“For those of you who say New Hampshire is the safest place on the planet, take off your glasses and read the headlines. We do have violence in this state.”
But it, like every infringement, will actually do nothing towards the ostensible goal of preventing crime, which leads one to believe that is not actually the goal. . . Either way, rights delayed are rights denied.
And the safety argument is a non-sequitur anyway. Fulfillment of basic rights is not predicated on safety, real or perceived.
Safety is however the best argument to convince the normies to give up any right. It is fearmongering to oppress people.
Because that is something that somebody actually says.
Moran.
As Q acknowledges, gun-grabbers deal in logical fallacies.
Now do a voting registration waiting period.
I’ll be heading out for a day/night of debauchery in Denver with one of my oldest friends. On the docket: perhaps watching some Commieball, massive alcohol consumption, junk food and likely perusing the finer female clothing removal parlours.
Anyone have foolproof hangover reduction/prevention techniques?
hangover reduction/prevention
Stay hydrated.
Yeah, drink as much water as you think you need and then double that.
“Anyone have foolproof hangover reduction/prevention techniques?”
Yes, but I’m not sure if [[[my]]] ways meet other requirements…
Not drinking?
Stay hydrated plus end the night with either a McChicken sandwich or a Wendy’s Spicy Chicken sandwich… That seemed to work in college.
Easiest trick is just to order a glass of water with every drink you get. You’ll wind up drinking a lot of water.
Either stay hydrated or stay drunk.
And don’t skimp on the junk food.
Water and electrolytes. Have a sports drink before you go to bed, or have one ready to be drank first thing in the morning.
Before you go to bed. You will still wake up with a hangover if you wait.
I won’t, but then I’ve only had a couple hangovers in my life. From anecdotal evidence from those who do, the sports drink will help kill the hangover in the morning as well.
Histamines. Avoid silicone.
Movie recommendation – it’s anime but plays it pretty straight with the drama adding some fantastical elements – it looks like Makoto Shinkai’s “Weathering With You” is in semi-wide release (at least at Regal Cinemas.
Legitimately may be one of the most gorgeously animated flicks I’ve ever seen – and there are some nice nods to his last flick “Your Name” as well.
Also, in response to wdalasio-
We push increasing numbers of marginal intellects into the role of thought or knowledge workers. In theory, this needn’t be a problem. The true intellects might still emerge. But, they don’t. To keep the system that relies on increasing numbers of marginal minds and marginal thinkers afloat, you see the academic and intellectual standards of the academy recalibrated to keep them in the system. Rigorous analysis, clear communication, and coherent argumentation aren’t demands the modern academy has the luxury of being able to make on its
studentsfaculty.It’s a downward spiral, and I don’t know if it can be stopped before the whole thing crashes spectacularly. The inertia of institutions is a powerful force, but, as is frequently observed here, the value of an Ivy League credential is plummeting. At some point, we’re going to see a reversion to apprenticeships.
Honestly, the only thing really keeping it alive is the fact that legal precedent stops companies from administering aptitude tests for potential employees. That makes the university system the effective gatekeeper for management and professional jobs.
That’s fading out. Several companies have removed the college degree requirement, and IT has always had a parallel structure with certifications and experience.
That’s fading out.
I’m still seeing a lot of credential creep. I had to sit on our HR Department to get an exception for a promotion to manager for somebody who doesn’t have a BA. Bonus: pretty sure she would help dispose of a body now, which is nice.
And again, this is just my personal experience, but I really do think the difference between the quality of thought you get from a high school graduate and a college graduate has declined significantly over the years. Whether that’s a reduced selection bias from more people attending college or a sign of diminished intellectual value to a college degree is something I’ll leave to others.
Do I need to bring anything! Perhaps some MD 20/20 and a bag of pork rinds?
https://mediaanarchist.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/colt45web.jpg
But I don’t WANT to drive into that part of town. My usual attire is not conductive to concealing a 1911…
Take Boones Farm. It is classier.
I bought some decent beer. If you want shitty Mexican stuff, bring it yourself.
I have been watching “Band of Brothers”. First time. Whenever the guy from Office Space comes on, I say to myself, “Hey, that’s the guy from Office Space.”
I wonder if it would piss him off if I told him that.
It did take me out of things the first time I saw it.
Wait till you get to the scene where he’s been captured and gets interrogated by the two Fritz’s from the Gestapo.
“I wouldn’t say I miss the war”
Yeaaaaahhh…I’m gonna need you to go a head and rush that pill box. Thaaanks.
Good show. Its been awhile since I saw it, but I think I recall a textbook replay of the famous action where a group of Rangers took down a German artillery battery.
That happens to me with every Tom Hanks movie. “Hey, that’s Tom Hanks.” I never see the character.
I never saw Office space,don’t talk shit about Nix, great role, great acting
+1 crate of Scotch
And again, this is just my personal experience, but I really do think the difference between the quality of thought you get from a high school graduate and a college graduate has declined significantly over the years. Whether that’s a reduced selection bias from more people attending college or a sign of diminished intellectual value to a college degree is something I’ll leave to others.
A major factor is the destruction of the public school system. I have looked at the books and curricula from my parents’ and aunts’ and uncles’ high school years. I doubt half of modern college sophomores could get a high school diploma from that 1950s farm country Ohio school. The rot is pervasive and longstanding.
I’m going to stick to the Pollyannish take on all of this and counter with….
Have you been stuck having to help those geezers who were able to pass those 1950’s exams try to get logged in to their gmail account? (bonus points if you had to do it over the phone).
Everyone just learns different things.
True. People do need to learn from wise teachers, however. Wisdom that was passed down over generations is being dismissed out of hand and replaced with who knows what. French Revolution without the guillotine. The brains are still working, but towards what?
It may be the perfect storm of the decline of standards in elementary and secondary education, the mistaken “conventional wisdom” that EVERYONE needs a college education to succeed in the modern economy, the ease of getting student loans (whatever happened to working your way through college?) which almost certainly led to the creation of more institutions of “higher learning” and increasing enrollment at existing ones, not to mention extreme inflation of tuition rates. I’m thinking the incentives are very much against selective admission and academic rigor. Have we reached the point where a college diploma is essentially a participation trophy?
Left NPR on and they are now in Special Coverage of impeachment trial. Opening statement guy said something like the President defense and the R’s where shut out of the House proceedings/investigations. Scott Simon had to chime in a fact check stating that is false because the R’s on the committee could question witnesses and the President refused to participate. Ok.
Speaking of what passes for intellectualism in Trump’s America
This realm of direct commerce could be called Venture World. You know what its businesses are like. They appear suddenly, everywhere, with chatty ad campaigns on public transit starring cool, young people who were clearly nerds in high school but who have since mastered impressive dance moves. They tell you that their products aren’t just better; they are simplifying the whole deal, changing how stuff works across society, and not a moment too soon. If you are buying an actual object and live in a major city, you might find a brick-and-mortar storefront decked with ha-ha-clever wallpaper where you can hold the toothbrush of the future or try one of five purportedly game-changing eyeglass frames. But the bulk of Venture World’s offerings are online, where they are hawked on bright, uncluttered sites that scroll down, down, and down again with charming animations, offering moving stories about one big idea that will change the industry, about community, about zero-impact supply chains, which, thanks to their backing, they can afford. In Venture World, everyone seems to be more or less on your wavelength. Its companies are geared toward unfussed people who keep their phones silenced and close. Venture capitalism is behind most of the platforms on which people lament the gaucherie of “late-stage capitalism”; it has become the chief industrial backer of the self-aware, predominantly upper-middle-class approach to life style now called woke.
Yeah, okay. Precocious children vamping on stage at the elementary school talent show are less obnoxious to me.
I assume this sort of lunchroom prattle is all the rage at Columbia journo school.
People hawk stuff? Well, I never.
It’s like an exercise in how many buzzwords you can fit in a paragraph. Even if they’re contradictory.
“Its companies are geared toward unfussed people who keep their phones silenced and close. Venture capitalism is behind most of the platforms on which people lament the gaucherie of “late-stage capitalism” – Why are “unfussed” people “lamenting?”
“it has become the chief industrial backer of the self-aware, predominantly upper-middle-class approach to life style now called woke.” – “Self-aware” people are lamenting capitalism on platforms created by capitalism? Doesn’t that mean they aren’t actually self-aware at all?
I’m trying to slog my way through that New Yorker thing about venture kkkapitalists, but it ain’t easy.
The other thing to add to this and my own comment up top. I once saw a guy who went to the same university as me selling shoes. Nothing wrong with that, since it was a) honest work and b) at a high end shop in a mall. Still, I can’t help but think he would utter to himself as he bent down to slip on a shoe for someone, ‘I went to university for this?’
If so, it’s no wonder we have many people who feel jaded or even cheated by the education system.
There are probably millions of people who have been swindled by the Academic Industrial Complex.
“You know what? You don’t really need to go to college to live well.”
Aaaand there it is:
During the Depression and the Second World War, patient, deep-pocketed investors were in short supply. “The 1930s brought more progressive taxation,” and it “was frequently argued that this diminished the supply of entrepreneurial finance,” Nicholas writes, sounding as scrupulously objective as the butler at a swingers’ party. Put more baldly, Franklin D. Roosevelt soaked the rich. In 1935, his Administration imposed a seventy-five-per-cent tax—then widely known as the “wealth tax”—on incomes greater than five million dollars. A year later, it instituted a tax on undistributed corporate profits, in theory giving businesses an incentive to disburse more earnings to workers. Such policies helped rebuild the American middle class in the depths of the Depression; they also pinched super-rich parties trying to grow their wealth. Nicholas quotes the then head of the Investment Bankers Association of America: “No one in the high income tax brackets is going to provide the venture capital and take the risk which new enterprises and expansion require, and thereby help create new jobs, if heavy taxes take most of the profit when the transaction is successful.”
This was and remains a standard plea for tax breaks for the rich. Yet, during the Second World War, the government raised taxes further while plowing taxpayers’ money into business growth. Prospective innovators were paid four hundred and fifty million dollars—about five billion dollars in today’s money, by Nicholas’s calculations—in government contracts. When the war ended, the G.I. Bill helped talented people get technical training and social access, expanding the pool of potential entrepreneurs. The war and its aftermath, which saw the growth and reimagining of such companies as I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard—plus the first programmable digital computers, the jet engine, mass-produced antibiotics, and oodles more—was by most measures a golden age of American innovation. It happened largely on the government’s tab.
We should let the government plan and run the economy. Then we won’t have any shysters living high on the hog while they hype the Next Big Thing.
Need a ride? Get your ass to the bus stop.
Here’s something similar…the blurb on a fairly new book:
“Is planning for America anathema to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness? Is it true, as thinkers such as Friedrich Von Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ayn Rand have claimed, that planning leads to dictatorship, that the state is economically inefficient, and that prosperity is owed primarily to the workings of a free market? To answer these questions Ian Wray’s book goes in search of an America shaped by government, plans and bureaucrats, not by businesses, bankers and shareholders. He demonstrates that government plans did not damage American wealth. On the contrary, they built it, and in the most profound ways.
In three parts, No Little Plans: How Government Built America’s Wealth and Infrastructure (Routledge, 2019) is an intellectual roller coaster. Part I takes the reader downhill, examining the rise and fall of rational planning, and looks at the converging bands of planning critics, led on the right by the Chicago School of Economics, on the left by the rise of conservation and the ‘counterculture’, and two brilliantly iconoclastic writers – Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson.
In Part II, eight case studies take us from the trans-continental railroads through the national parks, the Federal dams and hydropower schemes, the wartime arsenal of democracy, to the postwar interstate highways, planning for New York, the moon shot and the creation of the internet. These are stories of immense government achievement.
Part III looks at what might lie ahead, reflecting on a huge irony: the ideology which underpins the economic and political rise of Asia (by which America now feels so threatened) echoes the pragmatic plans and actions which once secured America’s rise to globalism.
Ian Wray is Visiting Professor in Civic Design and Heseltine Institute Fellow at the University of Liverpool. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and Vice Chair of World Heritage UK.”
Keep in mind that that’s the summary of the book from whomever did the podcast interview with the author. I have no idea how accurately it reflects the content of the book (although, given the source, I would say it’s fairly close).
Yes, New York planned away entire neighborhoods and replaced them with instant slums. And sank billions of dollars into pensions after taking over the subways and then let them fall apart. But by all means, let’s have some more of that planning.
And putting Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson in the sentence… SMDH that hurts my brain.
“same” sentence
Blame DDT.
Goebbels would be proud.
It totally worked! It just took 20 years of massive deprivation and war, and then we were as good as new. Just like how Obama’s policies created the current economy, it just took 10 years. You have to be patient about these things.
war and its aftermath, which saw the growth and reimagining of such companies as I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard—plus the first programmable digital computers, the jet engine, mass-produced antibiotics, and oodles more—was by most measures a golden age of American innovation.
What an ignorant sack of shit. Let’s just randomly name companies and attribute anything that happened in the next twenty years to FDR’s fascist theft and enslavement of millions of Americans. WTF is reimagining? HP was building test equipment before WWII and was doing the same after. They didn’t build computer until the mid 60’s.
It’s the Krugabe school of disaster economics.
Strangely enough, Pauly Krugnuts wishes for an alien invasion to break some windows, but is totally opposed to climate change.
My grandfather did pretty well in the 20s and 30s building homes for wealthy people in the SF Bay Area despite the efforts of “that man”, Roosevelt. When the war came he had to close his business because he couldn’t get building materials. Tell me again how high taxes, government control and wear are good.
Desperation has a name, Krugnuts…….
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/01/22/paul-krugman-joe-biden/
Why in God’s name do they end that stupid screed with a huge glamour shot of Krugabe?
I was just watching some rando clip of Bernie prefacing every talking point with “We’ve got to stop this president. He is the most dangerous president in history”….
My question is, has anyone, I mean anyone, seen an actual articulation of what makes Trump the most dangerous president in history? And the list has to be tethered to reality. LIke “Trump got law X enacted”. Can’t be things that are only dreamed of in the fever swamps.
He is a big fan of Red Flag Laws. Other than that it seems mostly fevered dreams of media and #resistance because he calls them on their lies. Not that he is above lying himself.
My question is, has anyone, I mean anyone, seen an actual articulation of what makes Trump the most dangerous president in history?
Off the top of my head, I’d say Ulysses S Grant was the most dangerous President in history.
Wilson is always a contender.
Truman?
FDR. Hands down. Thank goodness he died when he did. Closest thing we’ve ever had to a President for Life.
Grant was a battlefield commander, and a damned effective one. That’s the category of “dangerous” i was going with.
One more dip:
What does this make it? Chiefly, a great business for some venture capitalists—especially those in firm control of startups being sent toward cash harvests in the pre-dawn of the private markets. Champions of regulating the sphere of private equity, most prominently Elizabeth Warren, have suggested that such models are “rigged.” Purely on the basis of risk-reward odds—who is bearing the risk and who is reliably extracting significant wealth—this is a hard claim to dispute. One might wonder why entrepreneurs and investors keep lining up for the privilege of being channelled into what has become a vast financial threshing machine.
They do it in part from competitive pressure: if your rivals are growing wildly at an early stage, and with good hookups, you’re obliged to play the game in order to keep up. But they also do it for the chance at the lottery. Jackpots have only become bigger as venture capital has grown overcapitalized; last year exit values, the proceeds from selling shares, topped two hundred billion dollars for the first time.
Not mentioned: the desperate search for return and resultant increase in investment risk brought about by government policy.
Warren is an expert on rigging business for personal results.
Purely on the basis of risk-reward odds—who is bearing the risk and who is reliably extracting significant wealth—this is a hard claim to dispute. One might wonder why entrepreneurs and investors keep lining up for the privilege of being channelled into what has become a vast financial threshing machine.
Wait, is he asking why people are lining up to profit from a rigged model?
Does he stop to ask whether regulatory barriers to entry might contribute to the rigged model? In a free market, disproportionate risk/reward is (theoretically) a temporary phenomenon. Perhaps the supposed ability of oligarchs to extract disproportionate rewards is linked to the way government makes it hard for others to get in on the game?