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The co-founder of Politico writes in the Wall Street Journal:
Bring on a Third-Party Candidate
Establishment America deserves disruption, but not of the Sanders or Trump type. Here’s how to do it.
By JIM VANDEHEI
April 25, 2016 6:41 p.m. ET… Why not recruit Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg to head a third-party movement? Maybe we can convince Michael Bloomberg to help fund the movement with the billions he planned to spend on his own campaign—and then recruit him to run Treasury and advise the president.
With all that money they could probably even find a candidate whose name doesn’t end in “berg.”
I will even throw out a possible name for the movement: The Innovation Party. Who is against innovation, especially when winning campaigns are almost always about the future?
I’ve got a better name for the new party: the Billionaire Liberation Front.
Except that’s the functional description of the two existing parties …
As Hillary recently rasped:
“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow,” Mrs. Clinton asked the audience of black, white and Hispanic union members, “would that end racism? Would that end sexism? Would that end discrimination against the L.G.B.T. community?,” she said, using an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. “Would that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?”
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I think Mark Zuckerberg should change his name to Caligula so we can really get into the Fall of Rome 2.0 zeitgeist.
I was wondering how anyone could say the “establishment” could be shaken up this way when the establishment is owned lock, stock and barrel by the billionaire Borg – then i googled the guy’s face.
I’m guessing the other co-founder was the bright one.
[Laughs] So, are you really that naive to believe that you and your ideologues lack any sort of control in your life? I mean, I hear repeatedly that the corprocrats or elites or what ever flavor of the month name dominate you.
Ok, let’s assume they do. Are you that impotent to take charge of the situation? I mean, is it that hopeless? Are you merely just taking it lying down? OR, rather than complain on a blog, go out there and actually do something about it.
I’m pleased enough both the major party candidates have half-ashkenazi grandchildren.
Bernie does not have any biological grandchildren. His son born during a short relationship with a Vermont local adopted three Chinese babies. His second wife had three children already, and he raised them as his own.
I laughed out loud at the “berg” line. If the Unzberg Review had emoticons/emoji I’d post a tentative thumbs up. : )
From a recent article by David Cole on the celebrated research of Martin Gilles on how American oligarchy is skewering American politics in a social left wing direction while pushing it right wing on economics:
She might as well have said “yes they own me.”
And as breaking up the big banks would probably mean less back door funding for divide and rule organisations it might very well reduce racism and sexism (a bit).
Certainly they'd be less inclined to make huge bets that take the economy down.Replies: @anon
That is why she is Crooked Hillary.
I was thinking more like Carl Icahn, though Michael Dell might work.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/30/carl-icahn-no-brainer-to-elect-trump-president.html
On the other hand the sentiments in this article show an astonishing lack of awareness, or self deception.
Actually, his political cluelessness (trying to make two fake pro-immigration sites and having them be mirror images of each other) would totally fit his having been the ‘bright one’ in the sense of doing all the coding.
(I prob shouldn't judge by appearances like that anyway but his comment about one of the Borgs being an anti-establishment candidate riled me.)
And as breaking up the big banks would probably mean less back door funding for divide and rule organisations it might very well reduce racism and sexism (a bit).Replies: @SFG, @Mr. Anon, @Jefferson, @Forbes
More local banks would mean less racism and sexism? Probably, fewer huge organizations means you’d probably have more Nice White Lady types interested in running a local organization and more black people running the local bank in the black neighborhood, etc.
Certainly they’d be less inclined to make huge bets that take the economy down.
Carl is already a big Trump supporter. Indeed I heard him be interviewed about it and he seemed well aware how hard a time most Americans have had it in the past 15 years, and that this needs to change.
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/30/carl-icahn-no-brainer-to-elect-trump-president.html
On the other hand the sentiments in this article show an astonishing lack of awareness, or self deception.
The anti-semitism you guys display sure is funny!
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?
It's more like:
Proceeding as planned.
He states that particular book definitely could not be published in the USSR.
Reason: Solzhenitsyn insists that the word "Бог" (God in English) at the time described in the book was always written with capital letter "Б". Meanwhile that was forbidden at the USSR time. Solzhenitsyn writes further:
And all this is when such words as "КГБ", "Чека", "КПСС" etc. are all written with capital letter(s) (KGB, Tcheka, CPSU in English.)
Kevin Silver writes "Israel will still be a Jewish" with capital letters at the beginning,
but "west" and "nonwhite" with small letters there.
It shows.Replies: @jack o'fire
Are you a cop? You know, just like your average """"KKK"""" rally is organized by a member who's actually FBI, and about 80% of the """KKK""" group's members are also FBI.Replies: @SFG
2. A majority nonwhite America is probably not going to support Israel nearly as hard--from their point of view, Jews are just a variety of white who think they're oppressed for some reason. Heck, I'm not even sure there's going to be an Israel in 50 years.
3. You're such a troll I bet you regenerate 3 hitpoints a round.
So what America really needs is party even more nakedly controlled by billionaire Bergs. Are people in the media really this out of touch?
they're not out of touch. they're just going to take as much as they can get at swordpoint.Replies: @Anonymous
Yes.
Why aren’t Hillary and Cruz not acceptable to this group? They are both globalists and Zionists. Does any conservative think Lyin’ Ted is serious about border enforcement? His wife co-authored a paper at the CFR suggesting a merge between the U.S. and Mexico: http://www.cfr.org/canada/building-north-american-community/p8102
For what it's worth, I thought Trump would have been better off in the beginning running as an independent. He and Hillary would have both been close to 40% and the open borders stooge the GOP ran would be down around 25%. It would have given him a much better chance of winning than he has now.Replies: @Andrew
Look everyone sees the elephant in the room with Hillary and that's her health which is very much in question but isn't really brought up because the MSM doesn't allow it.
This terrifies the elite, because in a Hillary vs. Trump scenario, I think they are worried about the old hag blowing a gasket. After all, she's a morbidly obese , emotionally brittle woman with a boat load of health issues and probably a stroke victim.
This has to worry them.Replies: @Jefferson
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
The founding and continued existence of Israel is fully a product of the support of Western Christian nations. It hasn’t been able to stand on its own two feet since its founding a relatively short time ago, but I’m sure it will soon and won’t be affected by the coming radical changes to Western societies.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
Not so fast. While both Jewish and Muslim TFRs are comfortably above replacement levels and the gap is closing, the Muslim TFR remains slightly higher. Also, the Jewish fertility rate is highest among the ultra-Orthodox, who are a net drain on the state: if they become a majority of the Jewish Israeli population it will become very difficult for Israel to maintain a viable military infrastructure:
Lastly, as the white majorities are eclipsed in the West, you can kiss goodbye the billions in subsidies and aid that make the Jewish state possible.
The “innovation” they propose is…? Do even more of the stuff that’s ruined the country?
Most of them are directly on the payrolls of billionaire Bergs. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Oh thank the lord the reporter noted it was “black, white and Hispanic union members”. Can you imagine if he had only noted she spoke in front of “union members”?
And thank heaven Hillary gave us a hint about her first piece of legislation: she is going to make the banks have transgender bathrooms and she will make them give free checking to illegals! This is going to solve everything.
There’s some truth to that, aside from the fact that “right-wing” economics is actually left-wing.
So there’s one thing that all Americans can agree upon – we LOVE billionaires! Billionaires are winners and America loves a winner.
I’m trying to think of whether it would be possible to conjure up a candidate who was more cynical and hypocritical than Hillary, who more clearly couldn’t really give a damn about the rubes, and I think the answer is no – we have reached peak cynicism, a high water mark. The only step after this is for our rulers to take off the mask, declare themselves Emperor and get rid of the Republic altogether. But why should they when they can claim legitimacy as “popularly elected leaders”?
“Innovation Party”
When I hear the word “innovation” in a political sense today, my instinct is to hold on tightly to my border.
“What’s the Matter with Kansas” turns out to have been about the wrong people and the wrong party.
Maybe I'll write What's the Matter with Oregon?Replies: @anonn
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
How do we like those apples?
It’s more like:
Proceeding as planned.
“because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control” in the words of Noam Chomsky.
they’re not out of touch. they’re just going to take as much as they can get at swordpoint.
This is what I can't understand. How can they be so greedy? Don't they have any empathy for their fellow countrymen or any shame about their wealth or power?
steve sailer wrote:
Uh oh.
Steve, I really think you should have provided a trigger warning for your core audience right above that text.
Why are you so clueless and why do you keep making comments like this?
And sure enough, broke 200 comments.
As a former proud card holder in the Mouse Liberation Front I happily endorse the Billionaire Liberation Front. Can we get cool cards made up like I used to have?
Well the SJW concept of intersectionality has validity. There are large correlations between class and race, and these correlations are to a large part inflexible. So either class has to trump race or race has to trump class. And for the modern left, for reasons more complex than I could write about in a day, race trumps class. But for the wealthy, class still trumps race. Hence the anger at Trump by his fellow billionaires for having the audacity to favor policies that are unabashedly, if implicitly, pro-white.
Elites use race as a wedge to thwart the formation of a populist coalition that might otherwise be strong enough to wrest a greater share of the nation's wealth away from them. Isn't all the additional complexity just po-mo circle-jerkery?
I acknowledge that I am dangerously close to Leftist Conservative territory here. The difference is, I think most posters here know what I'm talking about.Replies: @AndrewR, @SFG
I think Hillary is acceptable to them and they could live with Cruz if they were forced to, which is why this is such a stupid column. Most of the billionaires would much rather use their money to manipulate politicians rather than go to the trouble of running for office themselves. This allows them to focus on only the things that interest them and mostly stay out of the public line of fire. In addition to the Bergs, I don’t know how someone like Warren Buffett would have been better off running for President when he can treat Treasury Secretaries and Senators like they are his employees while he’s in the private sector.
For what it’s worth, I thought Trump would have been better off in the beginning running as an independent. He and Hillary would have both been close to 40% and the open borders stooge the GOP ran would be down around 25%. It would have given him a much better chance of winning than he has now.
Being in the GOP race gave him all the free publicity he could ever want by providing endless opportunities for sound bites and conflict with the other candidates.
Running as an Independent offers much less opportunity for publicity or to shape the debate. He'd also have to hire legions of people to get him on the ballot and build a campaign infrastructure he will get for free from the GOP.
No. The analysis in that book was largely accurate but it only told part of the story.
Maybe I’ll write What’s the Matter with Oregon?
Certainly yes to the first, not sure on the second. Israel’s secular population will be outbread by religious fundamentalists, forever changing the dynamics of the game.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
are you a n*zi troll using reverse psychology on us? I can’t believe a Jew wrote what you did. There are Jews living in the West, you know? No Jew can be this provincial to gloat at the demise of the West!
And as breaking up the big banks would probably mean less back door funding for divide and rule organisations it might very well reduce racism and sexism (a bit).Replies: @SFG, @Mr. Anon, @Jefferson, @Forbes
One thing that Trump did in this campaign, that has been little noticed or remarked upon, was to break the polite gentleman’s rule that you don’t make an issue of the other candidate’s funding sources. Trump said, flat out, that Jeb Bush was “owned” by his donors. This could be huge, or rather “yuge”. Would he be willing to say to Hillary in a national debate: “You are George Soros’ favorite candidate. He has spent millions of dollars to get you elected. What is it that he expects to get in return for that? The American people have a right to know. Tell us.”
It's gonna be so fun.
Shorter Jim Vandehei: We need a third party to give a voice to voiceless disenfranchised destitute Jewish billionaires, because the two we have doing that aren’t enough.
I can just imagine Mark Zuckerberg, America’s sweetheart, out there campaigning before crowds of 25,000 and more, telling them how he’s going to lay them off and replace them with cheaper immigrants from India and Pakistan. With his personal charm and that winning message, he’d be huuuge!
I’m listening to the audio of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, by Dan Lyons. He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, “I want to be that guy.”
So, I would imagine that you have handy the number of Indians and Pakis on his staff.
“He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, “I want to be that guy.”
Interesting, because I always thought we should applaud men and women who earned wealth. I was led to believe that capitalists, like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, ought to employ every trick in the book to accumulate their status. You have read about these men, right, Harry? Did they not also “connive and backstab” their way to the top? Can’t blame them, their efforts helped to make America what it is today. Why you be hatin’, dog?
Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson, @Peter Akuleyev
John McAfee actually fits that description to a T, his colorful past is probably a barrier but then again perhaps it could be used as proof he’s not some elitist.
First I believe Kevin Silver is a troll. A third world “West” will be a disaster, a disaster unparalleled in modern history, a true regression to a hellish mean. It would be horrible for the West, the World, Jews, Gentiles, Israel. Just thinking of a Muslim France controlling the French nuclear arsenal should horrify anyone. It should especially horrify Israel.
But as for Israel, comments like that of Ruth Marcus are par for the course in Israeli public life, and are meaningless. To an opposition party, Israel is always “verging” on a trajectory of a disaster and although Israel was “verging” on slipping to a third world economy (according to Marcus), somehow Israel never actually got on that trajectory. You will note that that article was written in 2012. Since then the Israeli economy has continued to grow nicely, and Kadima, Marcus’s party, has zero seats in the Knesset. And deep down the Israelis do not mind the incredibly high ultra birth rate, they simply want to turn the ultra Orthodox into working and fighting citizens. But the birth rate they like. The ultra Orthodox Ashkenazi population, once you shave their beards, has a high potential.
If we killed all the Whites tomorrow would that end racism/sexism/LGBABC discrimination?
Somebody needs to gather up examples of all the racism and sexism found in all the non-White areas of the Universe. I would do it, but I keep falling asleep anytime I try. Everything is so boring, drab, plain, and sad I just fall asleep.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/26/us/racist-texts-san-francisco-police-officer/index.html
But he no lai.
The fool doesn’t get that one is supposed to DO ‘racism’, not SAY it.
You are supposed to SAY ‘I love blacks’ and DO stop-and-frisk on them.
It’s like communism. You SAY ‘I will liberate the working class’ and then DO the enslavement of them.
Words go a long way to cover up the action.
‘Action speaks louder than words’ is one of the biggest lies.
Just read almost anything on the New York Times opinion page.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
If this is not a false flag or a troll I’ll just say you sure are good at encouraging that which you despise. I’m not sure how to reconcile that with intelligence–perhaps you can help me with that.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
This reminds me Solzhenitsyn’s preface to one of his books.
He states that particular book definitely could not be published in the USSR.
Reason: Solzhenitsyn insists that the word “Бог” (God in English) at the time described in the book was always written with capital letter “Б”. Meanwhile that was forbidden at the USSR time. Solzhenitsyn writes further:
And all this is when such words as “КГБ”, “Чека”, “КПСС” etc. are all written with capital letter(s) (KGB, Tcheka, CPSU in English.)
Kevin Silver writes “Israel will still be a Jewish” with capital letters at the beginning,
but “west” and “nonwhite” with small letters there.
It shows.
Check out the comments section of right wing Israeli sites, you will find many supportive for the destruction of the West.
“Check out the comments section of right wing Israeli sites, you will find many supportive for the destruction of the West.”
Again, I inquire, who uses this term “the West”? Why should people use it?Replies: @Mr. Anon
I once suggested that a centrist party be created and that it be called: The Reasonable Party.
I like the name Steve’s suggests for Vandehei’s party, more than the one Vandehei suggests.
In most cases, 3rd party candidates siphon off more Republican votes than Democrat and thus throw the election to the Democrat. Whether they are sincere or insincere in their candidacy, this is the effect that they have. Most Democrat voters vote on racial or whatever lines and are gonna pull that D lever no matter what – they are not up for grabs by a 3rd party candidate. The Republican party is such a schizophrenic mess right now that I don’t think there is anyone left who is a “true” Republican or who even knows what a “true” Republican is anymore. Of the dozen or so people who were up on the debate stage earlier this year, which one was the “true” Republican (and even if he was, could he command a significant number of votes)? How could they ALL be Republicans when they were all over the place on so many issues? The “Republican base” really no longer exists. There are professional Republican fund raisers and single issue voters (abortion, immigration, etc.) but no voter really identifies himself with the party.
Hillary already looks likely to win the general against Trump so a Billionaire’s Party candidate would be redundant. But as pointed out above, billionaires are not the kind of people who like to take chances with their money. Instead of a 98% chance of having someone in their pocket in the White House, they would like to raise the odds to 100%, so a 3rd party candidate might help. But since Hillary is looking pretty solid, they probably won’t bother.
How about calling it FWD.US
they're not out of touch. they're just going to take as much as they can get at swordpoint.Replies: @Anonymous
“they’re not out of touch. they’re just going to take as much as they can get at swordpoint.”
This is what I can’t understand. How can they be so greedy? Don’t they have any empathy for their fellow countrymen or any shame about their wealth or power?
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
I’d agree that there are Jew-haters among the commenters here,. Some of them hate Jews in part because they blame Jews for facilitating mass immigration from the third world into the West, and your gloating betrays cluelessness (or trollishness). Most of the Jewish commenters on this site, myself included, are appalled by the stupidity of the West’s immigration policies and realize that mass third world immigration will bring no good outcome either for us or the West.
Does the average American or even European look at things from this perspective? That is, do they even comprehend there is such as a thing as “The West”? That it is being “under attack”? Does the West even have cache anymore? Or, does the average American or European simply refer to matters as being, well, an “American (European) problem”?
Bernie does not have any biological grandchildren. His son born during a short relationship with a Vermont local adopted three Chinese babies. His second wife had three children already, and he raised them as his own.Replies: @415 reasons, @Jefferson
Interesting, so he is literally a cuckold
Steve, I really think you should have provided a trigger warning for your core audience right above that text.Replies: @Anonymous, @SFG
“Steve, I really think you should have provided a trigger warning for your core audience”
Why are you so clueless and why do you keep making comments like this?
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
This Platonic ideal perfection of outrage bait has to be a Muslim fucking with people.
I'm trying to think of whether it would be possible to conjure up a candidate who was more cynical and hypocritical than Hillary, who more clearly couldn't really give a damn about the rubes, and I think the answer is no - we have reached peak cynicism, a high water mark. The only step after this is for our rulers to take off the mask, declare themselves Emperor and get rid of the Republic altogether. But why should they when they can claim legitimacy as "popularly elected leaders"?Replies: @CJ, @Marty, @Charles Erwin Wilson
Yes, yes, and yes — and the corollary of that is anyone without a billion dollars is a freaking loser. This appears to be a core belief of establishment politicians today.
I'm trying to think of whether it would be possible to conjure up a candidate who was more cynical and hypocritical than Hillary, who more clearly couldn't really give a damn about the rubes, and I think the answer is no - we have reached peak cynicism, a high water mark. The only step after this is for our rulers to take off the mask, declare themselves Emperor and get rid of the Republic altogether. But why should they when they can claim legitimacy as "popularly elected leaders"?Replies: @CJ, @Marty, @Charles Erwin Wilson
I know he’s out of the picture but, just curious, do you see Kasich as being a wannabe Hillary? I’d bet he and his wife have said to themselves, “we should be able to make as much as they have.”
The best he can hope for is a few grand for appearing before the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. If he is lucky, a job as a Washington lobbyist or a Fox News commentator. If he could scrape up more than $1 mil/year out of the whole business it would be a miracle. As much as Hillary can make in 1 night. Chump change, not in Hillary's league. Sorry.Replies: @Barnard, @Jefferson
I love it when they use the word innovation with reference to Zucky. What he founded is MySpace with different fonts and a more restrained color scheme.
Also the word “tech.” Yes, companies like Facebook and Twitter use technology, but so do pants manufacturers and whoever owns Olive Garden. They don’t create any new technology.
All the tech innovation is in hardware. Moore’s law, cheaper RAM, bigger and cheaper screens, faster Internet – those things really have changed how we live. That’s tech innovation.
To draw an analogy with the car industry, automotive engineers are tech innovators and Zucky is a guy who founded a very successful chain of drive-in movie theaters.
Well, not quite.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4
"Noah had a product where you call a phone number and it would turn your message into an MP3 hosted on the Internet. That was the technology that Noah brought that turned into Odeo," says early employee Ray McClure…Next, Odeo moved into an office and started hiring more employees — including a quiet, on-again, off-again Web designer named Jack Dorsey and an engineer named Blaine Cook. Evan Williams became Odeo's CEO. By July 2005, Odeo had a product: a platform for podcasting.”
In addition, they create the means by which the technology is utilized. It’s called services. That’s what consumers want. Gadgets have to have functionality and adaptability.
"Like Google, Facebook designs its own servers and has them built by ODMs (original design manufacturers) in Taiwan and China"
(http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/who-needs-hp-and-dell-facebook-now-designs-all-its-own-servers/)Replies: @Brutusale
If we are going third party I say go with Richard Epstein.
This has gone around social media word for word from Twitter and into FB for a while now. It was a troll who posted it here, no doubt, regardless of the original intent. And I doubt very much if the poster here is the same person as the original.
“These are the wrong sort of bees” –A.A.Milne
I’m sure they’ll find one whose name ends in “-stein.”
“Why not recruit Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg…to head a third-party movement?”
Because he might seriously be the only potential candidate (this side of a convicted child molester, I suppose), who would actually be more unappealing than Hillary Clinton?!?
Because he is constitutionally ineligible since he is only 31?
Crane Brinton has said in Anatomy of a Revolution that people do not revolt when they’re desperate, they revolt when they are confident that they could do better than the existing government will allow. From the time I found myself in Iraq reflecting on neocon “experts” who did not speak a word of Arabic and whose idea of studying The Arab was fantasizing about what they politically required The Arab to be, I have been thinking that The Problem Of Our Time Is Inferior Superiors.
>let’s ask somebody to disrupt the establishment
>but who?
>let’s ask the Jewish Facebook head who cooperates with Chinese censorship
SOON!
You know, that reminds me: not too long ago I had a look at the writebacks of a French-language Muslim blog. As soon as someone started sounding too mystical/Sufi/Alawite/nuanced on Western culture, he was told he deserved capital punishment for his apostasy.
He states that particular book definitely could not be published in the USSR.
Reason: Solzhenitsyn insists that the word "Бог" (God in English) at the time described in the book was always written with capital letter "Б". Meanwhile that was forbidden at the USSR time. Solzhenitsyn writes further:
And all this is when such words as "КГБ", "Чека", "КПСС" etc. are all written with capital letter(s) (KGB, Tcheka, CPSU in English.)
Kevin Silver writes "Israel will still be a Jewish" with capital letters at the beginning,
but "west" and "nonwhite" with small letters there.
It shows.Replies: @jack o'fire
Thank you for that bit o’ history.
Or Wall Street.
>let's ask somebody to disrupt the establishment
>but who?
>let's ask the Jewish Facebook head who cooperates with Chinese censorship
SOON!Replies: @Jim Don Bob
Tell us some stories of your time in Iraq. I think by the time Dubya left office there was a chance that it could be better than it was.
Not really true. The comments at those sites are more like ‘If the West is going to kowtow to Muslim demands by constantly excusing terrorism when it is directed at Israel, then they will inevitably get what they deserve.’ They are right about that – for years European governments had an attitude toward Islamic terrorism of “Sure it’s tragic, but based on understandable grievances such as the occupation.” Now that Islamic terrorism is a regular phenomenon in the heart of Europe, they have conveniently changed their tune.
These ‘subsidies’, in spite of the wild claims encountered on the internet, amount to about a little less than 2% of Israel’s GDP. They are not make or break for Israel, sorry.
Now if the USA ditched Israel...Replies: @Maj. Kong, @biz
It's not very polite to denigrate presents as "not much", "quite worthless", "I have a lot of those", etc. The correct behavior would be to thank the help and tell that you don't need it anymore. Or you can be thankful and keep accepting it. What you're doing (and I've talked to many Israelis and non-Israeli Jews on the issue, and your answer seems to be quite standard) comes across as if you were assholes.Did you include the technology transfers and the benefits of being a trusted contractor of the NSA? Did you include the fact that there's no international embargo against Israel because of US vetoes and sympathetic (or at least not overly hostile) European governments?
I'm not sure Israel could survive if the West went under. Not impossible, but not totally sure either.
Only in his dreams. Who is going to pay the ex-Governor of Ohio and his wife $153 MILLION in “speaking fees”? http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/05/politics/hillary-clinton-bill-clinton-paid-speeches/
The best he can hope for is a few grand for appearing before the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. If he is lucky, a job as a Washington lobbyist or a Fox News commentator. If he could scrape up more than $1 mil/year out of the whole business it would be a miracle. As much as Hillary can make in 1 night. Chump change, not in Hillary’s league. Sorry.
Doesn’t this imply that the two main parties aren’t in the hands of plutocrats?
Also the word "tech." Yes, companies like Facebook and Twitter use technology, but so do pants manufacturers and whoever owns Olive Garden. They don't create any new technology.
All the tech innovation is in hardware. Moore's law, cheaper RAM, bigger and cheaper screens, faster Internet - those things really have changed how we live. That's tech innovation.
To draw an analogy with the car industry, automotive engineers are tech innovators and Zucky is a guy who founded a very successful chain of drive-in movie theaters.Replies: @Jack D, @Corvinus, @Yngvar
So why do engineers and scientists make $80k/year and Z is a zillionaire? What did Henry Ford invent or John D. Rockefeller?
The answer is that they all invented new business models and that’s the most valuable thing to invent, especially if it some kind of monopolistic model or one with economies of scale and you own the monopoly or have a head start on the economies. There are a lot of people in the world. There are 300,000,0000 Americans to start with so if you can figure out a way for each American to give you just $4 worth of his money over the next decade (40 cents/year) (or 40 cents worth of his attention that advertisers will pay you for), there’s your billion $ right there.
You say that Zuck just stole MySpace’s business model? Nonsense – MySpace was downscale and Facebook is UPSCALE. That’s like saying that the White House is just an oversized trailer park. Of course, with Bill and Hillary in it, it is, but that’s another story.
Because the US economy is inefficient at allocating resources. Duh.
Friendster and Myspace were both the slowest sites on the Internet, 30-40 seconds to load a page with plenty of time-outs. Myspace also allowed flashing GIFs and autoplay music, which made it impossible to browse quietly at work. Even with the sound off, click on the wrong page and your monitor starts flashing wildly.
The best he can hope for is a few grand for appearing before the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. If he is lucky, a job as a Washington lobbyist or a Fox News commentator. If he could scrape up more than $1 mil/year out of the whole business it would be a miracle. As much as Hillary can make in 1 night. Chump change, not in Hillary's league. Sorry.Replies: @Barnard, @Jefferson
Kasich was already had his own FOX News show and a cushy influence peddling job at Lehman Bros. in between stints doing his duty as a “public servant.” Plus he has two years left as Ohio Governor before the end of his term. He won’t make Clinton money, but he won’t be hurting for cash either.
So why do engineers and scientists make $80k/year and Z is a zillionaire?
Because the US economy is inefficient at allocating resources. Duh.
Also the word "tech." Yes, companies like Facebook and Twitter use technology, but so do pants manufacturers and whoever owns Olive Garden. They don't create any new technology.
All the tech innovation is in hardware. Moore's law, cheaper RAM, bigger and cheaper screens, faster Internet - those things really have changed how we live. That's tech innovation.
To draw an analogy with the car industry, automotive engineers are tech innovators and Zucky is a guy who founded a very successful chain of drive-in movie theaters.Replies: @Jack D, @Corvinus, @Yngvar
“Also the word “tech.” Yes, companies like Facebook and Twitter use technology, but so do pants manufacturers and whoever owns Olive Garden. They don’t create any new technology.”
Well, not quite.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-twitter-was-founded-2011-4
“Noah had a product where you call a phone number and it would turn your message into an MP3 hosted on the Internet. That was the technology that Noah brought that turned into Odeo,” says early employee Ray McClure…Next, Odeo moved into an office and started hiring more employees — including a quiet, on-again, off-again Web designer named Jack Dorsey and an engineer named Blaine Cook. Evan Williams became Odeo’s CEO. By July 2005, Odeo had a product: a platform for podcasting.”
In addition, they create the means by which the technology is utilized. It’s called services. That’s what consumers want. Gadgets have to have functionality and adaptability.
neutral
“Check out the comments section of right wing Israeli sites, you will find many supportive for the destruction of the West.”
Again, I inquire, who uses this term “the West”? Why should people use it?
Nobody in People magazine or on reality TV. Perhaps that's why you hadn't heard it before.Replies: @Corvinus
I'm listening to the audio of Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, by Dan Lyons. He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, "I want to be that guy."Replies: @Corvinus
“I can just imagine Mark Zuckerberg, America’s sweetheart, out there campaigning before crowds of 25,000 and more, telling them how he’s going to lay them off and replace them with cheaper immigrants from India and Pakistan.”
So, I would imagine that you have handy the number of Indians and Pakis on his staff.
“He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, “I want to be that guy.”
Interesting, because I always thought we should applaud men and women who earned wealth. I was led to believe that capitalists, like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, ought to employ every trick in the book to accumulate their status. You have read about these men, right, Harry? Did they not also “connive and backstab” their way to the top? Can’t blame them, their efforts helped to make America what it is today. Why you be hatin’, dog?
Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?
“I was wondering how anyone could say the “establishment” could be shaken up this way when the establishment is owned lock, stock and barrel by the billionaire Borg.”
[Laughs] So, are you really that naive to believe that you and your ideologues lack any sort of control in your life? I mean, I hear repeatedly that the corprocrats or elites or what ever flavor of the month name dominate you.
Ok, let’s assume they do. Are you that impotent to take charge of the situation? I mean, is it that hopeless? Are you merely just taking it lying down? OR, rather than complain on a blog, go out there and actually do something about it.
“Most of the Jewish commenters on this site, myself included, are appalled by the stupidity of the West’s immigration policies and realize that mass third world immigration will bring no good outcome either for us or the West.”
Does the average American or even European look at things from this perspective? That is, do they even comprehend there is such as a thing as “The West”? That it is being “under attack”? Does the West even have cache anymore? Or, does the average American or European simply refer to matters as being, well, an “American (European) problem”?
I once stopped cold a dinner party in Madison, Wisconsin, by observing that the then-new meme of “Borg” seemed an ethnic misdirection.
Concise and parsimonious too, requiring the shifting of just one vowel.
My business partner at the time found it hilarious and spot-on, but nobody else did. He was the only Jew in the room.
He was the person who, when asked at a Passover seder what relationship his family had to “the Holocaust,” replied dryly, “My family on both sides left Russia and Poland in the 1800s. But my mother thinks she’s an eternal lampshade in the study of some Nazi emigre in Argentina.” Whole lotta airforks at that.
Bernie does not have any biological grandchildren. His son born during a short relationship with a Vermont local adopted three Chinese babies. His second wife had three children already, and he raised them as his own.Replies: @415 reasons, @Jefferson
“I’m pleased enough both the major party candidates have half-ashkenazi grandchildren.”
Wealthy Goyim in America always have some type of connection to the Jews. Either through marriage, dating, friendship, or their dentist is Jewish, or their lawyer is Jewish, or their accountant is Jewish, or their doctor is Jewish, or their agent is Jewish, or their business partner is Jewish, etc.
And of course “upscale” is code for “skimming massive and preferably automated ounces and pounds of flesh, usually through legalistic maneuvers such as ‘intellectual’ ‘property.’”
And as breaking up the big banks would probably mean less back door funding for divide and rule organisations it might very well reduce racism and sexism (a bit).Replies: @SFG, @Mr. Anon, @Jefferson, @Forbes
“She might as well have said “yes they own me.”
That is why she is Crooked Hillary.
Is it really all that complicated?
Elites use race as a wedge to thwart the formation of a populist coalition that might otherwise be strong enough to wrest a greater share of the nation’s wealth away from them. Isn’t all the additional complexity just po-mo circle-jerkery?
I acknowledge that I am dangerously close to Leftist Conservative territory here. The difference is, I think most posters here know what I’m talking about.
The full story is more complicated, and involves the old sectional divide between North and South, with liberal elites salving their consciences pursuing policies that hurt the evil southern whites they love to hate, with Jews and New England Yankees having slightly different motivations, and conservative elites doing the old divide and conquer.
But--yeah.
The best he can hope for is a few grand for appearing before the Dayton Chamber of Commerce. If he is lucky, a job as a Washington lobbyist or a Fox News commentator. If he could scrape up more than $1 mil/year out of the whole business it would be a miracle. As much as Hillary can make in 1 night. Chump change, not in Hillary's league. Sorry.Replies: @Barnard, @Jefferson
“If he is lucky, a job as a Washington lobbyist or a Fox News commentator.”
Fox News commentator is an extremely lucrative job, if you are a politician with name recognition.
When Sarah Palin was a Fox News commentator, she was making $1 million dollars a year and she did not even have to show up to work most days. Sarah Palin was making more money than Barack Hussein Obama.
Even in The San Fernando Valley you can live extremely comfortable if you make $1 million dollars a year, let alone in flyover country.
Somebody needs to gather up examples of all the racism and sexism found in all the non-White areas of the Universe. I would do it, but I keep falling asleep anytime I try. Everything is so boring, drab, plain, and sad I just fall asleep.Replies: @Jefferson
“If we killed all the Whites tomorrow would that end racism/sexism/LGBABC discrimination?
Somebody needs to gather up examples of all the racism and sexism found in all the non-White areas of the Universe. I would do it, but I keep falling asleep anytime I try. Everything is so boring, drab, plain, and sad I just fall asleep.”
When it comes to discrimination in 3rd World countries, it is often referred to as colorism instead of racism.
Expect the word colorism to be used more and more by the mainstream media here in The U.S when America becomes a majority Nonwhite nation and Blacks are still vastly disproportionately overrepresented among those who live in poverty and are locked up in prison.
Meanwhile lighter skin Nonwhites like the Han Chinese, the Koreans, Vietnamese, and Non European Caucasoids like Armenians and Persians will be flourishing in a majority Nonwhite in America.
When Social Justice Warriors at The New York Times start to notice this pattern, colorism will become a regular part of their vocabulary. Why are these lighter skin immigrants from Non European countries doing better than Blacks? IT’S COLORISM.
OT
Rich Lowry — The Working-Class Meltdown
Of course I did ‘Ctrl-F’ looking for…oh never mind.
But he really is a caring guy — he’s very concerned:
The authors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper say middle-aged whites may be a “lost generation.” That is depressing enough, but there is no guarantee only one generation will be lost.
In other news, trucks are idle, parked — America’s trucking industry faces a shortage. Meet the immigrants helping fill the gap
Part of the reason behind the shift is that the trucking industry is facing a labor shortage of up to 48,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations.
An unbiased source if there ever was one, I am sure.
There are trucks rotting on the roads to the fields.
It wasn’t clear I meant the politico guy, Vandehei.
(I prob shouldn’t judge by appearances like that anyway but his comment about one of the Borgs being an anti-establishment candidate riled me.)
Certainly they'd be less inclined to make huge bets that take the economy down.Replies: @anon
Yes, that’s a point too – if you believe economic troubles magnify bad stuff generally then TBTF are a guaranteed boost to racial conflict.
Anti-Semitic asshole.
If you think there are 1.7 billion upscale people in the world, life must be a daily challenge for you.
How does one create a genuinely upscale community? By excluding people. For example, if early on Zucky limited the membership to Harvard students and grads, he would have created a genuinely upscale web site.
The White House is genuinely more upscale than a mobile home. It’s larger, much more exclusive, it’s made from more durable materials, and it looks better. The difference in quality and exclusivity between Facebook and MySpace is entirely fictional.
Zuck is a good BS artist, so he was able to convince lots of people that his MySpace clone was more upscale than the original MySpace. But it’s not. The membership is pretty much the same, namely everybody.
Bob from Myspace has a net worth of $60 million dollars, so even though his creation went bust, he is still financially set for life.
Microsoft or Facebook didn't even have an initial innovation, being at the right place at the right time was enough to secure a monopoly, and for a very long time everybody had to use Windows because everybody was using it, and everybody has to be a member of Facebook (provided you are interested in how your old school friends' children look like etc.) because everybody is a member there. A better social network would be worthless to me without my friends there.
So it's essentially rent seeker billionaires sitting on top of a monopoly which they got through a combination of business acumen and sheer luck. They need to be genuinely good businessmen, otherwise they couldn't make it, but there are many others who are just as good but less lucky.Replies: @Jim Don Bob
I’m expecting that actually – can’t wait for the two remaining GOPe clowns to be got rid of so it comes to the main event.
It’s gonna be so fun.
Not as out of touch as most of the readers here, who seem to think that most Americans are anti-Semitic dirtbags like themselves who reflexively hate “Bergs”.
He's right that the media's crazy enough to think a candidate who supports policies sexy to billionaires and people with Harvard degrees (lower taxes, open borders, LGBTCBY rights) is going to make it in the general election.
You're right that American antisemitism is about a quarter of what lots of Jews think it is and about a tenth of what lots of people here wish it were. Americans in general hate illegal immigrants, legal Mexicans, Muslims and/or Arabs, gays, and blacks more than they hate Jews.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
“You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?”
Are you a cop? You know, just like your average “”””KKK”””” rally is organized by a member who’s actually FBI, and about 80% of the “””KKK””” group’s members are also FBI.
Also the word "tech." Yes, companies like Facebook and Twitter use technology, but so do pants manufacturers and whoever owns Olive Garden. They don't create any new technology.
All the tech innovation is in hardware. Moore's law, cheaper RAM, bigger and cheaper screens, faster Internet - those things really have changed how we live. That's tech innovation.
To draw an analogy with the car industry, automotive engineers are tech innovators and Zucky is a guy who founded a very successful chain of drive-in movie theaters.Replies: @Jack D, @Corvinus, @Yngvar
You sure?
“Like Google, Facebook designs its own servers and has them built by ODMs (original design manufacturers) in Taiwan and China”
(http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/who-needs-hp-and-dell-facebook-now-designs-all-its-own-servers/)
Very clever about the Bergd.
O/T but if there’s an “iSteve” play it has to be Clynbourne Park – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clybourne_Park
It’s about race & real estate and it’s probably one of the most topic plays I’ve seen, doesn’t pontificate or moralise. It’s written about an American and through the first act I was remember Steve’s articles about Oak Park etc.
Right:
http://takimag.com/article/son_of_a_raisin_in_the_sun/print
No, he’s a stepfather.
Here he is with his one biological son on a cable access show:
It isn’t clear if the mother is Jewish or not, I’d not based on her name. She was born Susan Campbell Mott, but is from NYC and later married someone with a Jewish name. She moved to Vermont with Sanders at some point.
Here are some additional Bernie on cable access clips:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/11/bernie-sanders-cable-access-show-clips
It is amazing how close this non-elite individual got to the presidency. General election matchups show him killing every GOP candidate with much higher positives than Hillary. He also has generated more small donors than HRC and all the Republicans combined. This is a proxy for the level of volunteering there will be, so he’d have that too.
Son Levi Sanders might not have graduated college. At one point he had to move out of Burlington because he could not afford the rent on his pay working at a grocery store. Bernie’s current wife looks to be about 240lbs, which disqualifies him from elite status:
https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-c7fb7887e873c4bb30cf726115553254?convert_to_webp=true
The thing is, he has some really good points. The banks are taking the American people for a ride. The kids have huge amounts of debt, even the ones who didn't major in Women's Studies, and they have really crappy jobs that won't let them pay it off. And his old-school pre-identity-politics economic leftism doesn't carry the odor of anti-whitism--even though he had to appease BLM. He's not a white nationalist for sure, but he doesn't hate white people either. His 'who' is the working and middle classes, regardless of race. But that's not good enough for the left anymore, which is why the white working class has plumped for Trump.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
Hey, didn’t a billionaire already run for President under the similarly-named “Tomorrow Party“? He looks like a totally reliable fellow:
From this example, we clearly deduce that all tech billionaires running on a platform of dynamic innovation are totally trustworthy, need not be feared in any way, and should never be compared to comic-book megalomaniacs bent on world domination.
The actor who played Zuckerberg in his biopic went on to play Lex Luther -and has been criticized for playing the two the same way- so I thought of this too.
Michael Bloomberg floated the independent billionaires' candidate idea earlier this election season. Bloomberg was a much better option for this, being constitutionally eligible for the job, having more money, and having run a large government bureaucracy. He correctly said that there was no point unless both Trump and Sanders won their nominations, and then backed off when polling indicated it would flop.
The basic problem with these ideas is that a pro-outsourcing (or "free trade"), pro-war, pro-immigration, pro-lower taxes on the wealthy program is unpopular with most people, for reasons that should be obvious. It has only gained traction due to both parties agreeing to support it, regardless of what most voters want, and both parties combining bits of this program with some things that are actually sort of popular. It just doesn't get votes naked.
Trump's significance is someone who at least in public disagrees with part of this program getting one of the major party nominations. I really wonder how this will be handled.
For the first 3 years facebook was nearly identical to friendster and myspace. The reason it took over was the initial focus on elite colleges help generate better buzz, and most importantly the site itself worked.
Friendster and Myspace were both the slowest sites on the Internet, 30-40 seconds to load a page with plenty of time-outs. Myspace also allowed flashing GIFs and autoplay music, which made it impossible to browse quietly at work. Even with the sound off, click on the wrong page and your monitor starts flashing wildly.
True?
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/half-of-european-men-descended-from-a-bronze-age-king
When it's put like that I think a lot of people would imagine a single king with a big army taking a lot of territory and fathering all the kids - and maybe that's it - but personally i think it's more likely a process similar to cell division.
If you imagine a chessboard and on one square in the middle is a little clan with a particular ydna and when the population increases too much a younger son takes some dudes and captures an adjacent square then both squares now have that same ydna. Then some time later the population increases again and another younger son takes some dudes and captures the next adjacent square etc - so more of a rolling cell division type process than one big invasion imo with the capture of the last square maybe 1000 years after the first but still with the original ydna.
https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/a-conversation-with-camille-paglia-a842db2f3c6#.vl3wsfhhx
Isn’t Cowen the regression to the bean guy?
And as breaking up the big banks would probably mean less back door funding for divide and rule organisations it might very well reduce racism and sexism (a bit).Replies: @SFG, @Mr. Anon, @Jefferson, @Forbes
Breaking up the banks won’t solve the problem in the financial world (regulatory capture, the Fed giving the banks free money–ZIRP, QE)–which of course she doesn’t address by changing the subject to racism and sexism (which has what to do with banking?).
Anyway there's a bunch of reasons why I think the nature of TBTF banks is one of the factors guaranteeing economic stagnation (at best) and as economic stagnation magnifies conflict hence the indirect connection.
(mostly a throwaway comment though)Replies: @Forbes
For what it's worth, I thought Trump would have been better off in the beginning running as an independent. He and Hillary would have both been close to 40% and the open borders stooge the GOP ran would be down around 25%. It would have given him a much better chance of winning than he has now.Replies: @Andrew
“I thought Trump would have been better off in the beginning running as an independent. He and Hillary would have both been close to 40% and the open borders stooge the GOP ran would be down around 25%.”
Being in the GOP race gave him all the free publicity he could ever want by providing endless opportunities for sound bites and conflict with the other candidates.
Running as an Independent offers much less opportunity for publicity or to shape the debate. He’d also have to hire legions of people to get him on the ballot and build a campaign infrastructure he will get for free from the GOP.
Because he might seriously be the only potential candidate (this side of a convicted child molester, I suppose), who would actually be more unappealing than Hillary Clinton?!?Replies: @Andrew
“Why not recruit Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg…to head a third party?”
Because he is constitutionally ineligible since he is only 31?
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/half-of-european-men-descended-from-a-bronze-age-kingReplies: @anon
True I think except in how it may give a false impression of how it came about.
When it’s put like that I think a lot of people would imagine a single king with a big army taking a lot of territory and fathering all the kids – and maybe that’s it – but personally i think it’s more likely a process similar to cell division.
If you imagine a chessboard and on one square in the middle is a little clan with a particular ydna and when the population increases too much a younger son takes some dudes and captures an adjacent square then both squares now have that same ydna. Then some time later the population increases again and another younger son takes some dudes and captures the next adjacent square etc – so more of a rolling cell division type process than one big invasion imo with the capture of the last square maybe 1000 years after the first but still with the original ydna.
Maybe I'll write What's the Matter with Oregon?Replies: @anonn
The right keeps getting duped into voting for plutocrats because of the plutocrats’ pretend shared interest in outlawing abortion and worshiping their murder toys. We on the left keep voting for plutocrats because for some reason we think fly-over country people being slightly mean to gay people is exactly as bad as if slavery and the Holocaust had a baby.
Breaking up the banks would presuppose the end of regulatory capture as allowing them to combine commercial and investment banking in one was one of the aims of said regulatory capture – so the worthless gambling casino part of banking got access to the critical utility part of banking that came with a taxpayer guarantee hence making the gambling part suddenly risk free.
Anyway there’s a bunch of reasons why I think the nature of TBTF banks is one of the factors guaranteeing economic stagnation (at best) and as economic stagnation magnifies conflict hence the indirect connection.
(mostly a throwaway comment though)
As it is, regulators got to regulate, and they've decided one business model, one risk profile, one balance sheet, is they way to go. Turning 5 behemoths into 10 large banks won't significantly change system risk. The structure--the implicit TBTF taxpayer safety net (socialized losses, privatized gains)--needs to change. Breaking up the banks changes the players, it doesn't change the game.
Rich Lowry -- The Working-Class Meltdown
Of course I did 'Ctrl-F' looking for...oh never mind.
But he really is a caring guy -- he's very concerned:
The authors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper say middle-aged whites may be a “lost generation.” That is depressing enough, but there is no guarantee only one generation will be lost.
In other news, trucks are idle, parked -- America’s trucking industry faces a shortage. Meet the immigrants helping fill the gap
Part of the reason behind the shift is that the trucking industry is facing a labor shortage of up to 48,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations.
An unbiased source if there ever was one, I am sure.Replies: @Ivy, @JohnnyWalker123
More jobs that Americans just won’t do, no doubt!
There are trucks rotting on the roads to the fields.
Elites use race as a wedge to thwart the formation of a populist coalition that might otherwise be strong enough to wrest a greater share of the nation's wealth away from them. Isn't all the additional complexity just po-mo circle-jerkery?
I acknowledge that I am dangerously close to Leftist Conservative territory here. The difference is, I think most posters here know what I'm talking about.Replies: @AndrewR, @SFG
Well that’s the facile answer. But the story of how the left abandoned the white working class is obviously long and complex. To imply otherwise seems lazy.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/Lex2000.jpg
From this example, we clearly deduce that all tech billionaires running on a platform of dynamic innovation are totally trustworthy, need not be feared in any way, and should never be compared to comic-book megalomaniacs bent on world domination.Replies: @Ed
“Hey, didn’t a billionaire already run for President under the similarly-named “Tomorrow Party“? ”
The actor who played Zuckerberg in his biopic went on to play Lex Luther -and has been criticized for playing the two the same way- so I thought of this too.
Michael Bloomberg floated the independent billionaires’ candidate idea earlier this election season. Bloomberg was a much better option for this, being constitutionally eligible for the job, having more money, and having run a large government bureaucracy. He correctly said that there was no point unless both Trump and Sanders won their nominations, and then backed off when polling indicated it would flop.
The basic problem with these ideas is that a pro-outsourcing (or “free trade”), pro-war, pro-immigration, pro-lower taxes on the wealthy program is unpopular with most people, for reasons that should be obvious. It has only gained traction due to both parties agreeing to support it, regardless of what most voters want, and both parties combining bits of this program with some things that are actually sort of popular. It just doesn’t get votes naked.
Trump’s significance is someone who at least in public disagrees with part of this program getting one of the major party nominations. I really wonder how this will be handled.
O/T but if there's an "iSteve" play it has to be Clynbourne Park - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clybourne_Park
It's about race & real estate and it's probably one of the most topic plays I've seen, doesn't pontificate or moralise. It's written about an American and through the first act I was remember Steve's articles about Oak Park etc.Replies: @Steve Sailer
“O/T but if there’s an “iSteve” play it has to be Clybourne Park –”
Right:
http://takimag.com/article/son_of_a_raisin_in_the_sun/print
Both are very acceptable to the ruling elite. The politico article is just silly.
Look everyone sees the elephant in the room with Hillary and that’s her health which is very much in question but isn’t really brought up because the MSM doesn’t allow it.
This terrifies the elite, because in a Hillary vs. Trump scenario, I think they are worried about the old hag blowing a gasket. After all, she’s a morbidly obese , emotionally brittle woman with a boat load of health issues and probably a stroke victim.
This has to worry them.
“Zuck is a good BS artist, so he was able to convince lots of people that his MySpace clone was more upscale than the original MySpace. But it’s not. The membership is pretty much the same, namely everybody.”
Bob from Myspace has a net worth of $60 million dollars, so even though his creation went bust, he is still financially set for life.
Look everyone sees the elephant in the room with Hillary and that's her health which is very much in question but isn't really brought up because the MSM doesn't allow it.
This terrifies the elite, because in a Hillary vs. Trump scenario, I think they are worried about the old hag blowing a gasket. After all, she's a morbidly obese , emotionally brittle woman with a boat load of health issues and probably a stroke victim.
This has to worry them.Replies: @Jefferson
“Look everyone sees the elephant in the room with Hillary and that’s her health which is very much in question but isn’t really brought up because the MSM doesn’t allow it.”
Fox News has brought up Hildabeast’s constant coughing.
Hildabeast is less healthy than John McCain, yet I remember when he was running for POTUS there were Left Wingers in the mainstream media saying it would be a bad idea to elect him because he might die before his first term is over.
More like Hildabeast might die before her first term is over.
You know what is even funnier? The fact that in 50 years Israel will still be a Jewish state while the west will be majority nonwhite. How you like them apples?Replies: @Anonymous, @Nico, @countenance, @andy russia, @res, @Immigrant from former USSR, @Anonymous, @biz, @dumpstersquirrel, @SFG
1. America maybe, Europe probably not. I suspect the definition of ‘white’ on this side of the Atlantic is going to undergo a little stretching. There’s a SWPLish university town near me and every other day I see some lady of Asian extraction with her slightly paler kids. Europe’s already starting to react against the demographic changes.
2. A majority nonwhite America is probably not going to support Israel nearly as hard–from their point of view, Jews are just a variety of white who think they’re oppressed for some reason. Heck, I’m not even sure there’s going to be an Israel in 50 years.
3. You’re such a troll I bet you regenerate 3 hitpoints a round.
“Anti-Semitic asshole”
I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion. Their names literally contain “berg.” The joke would’ve held had their names all ended in “son.” Wouldn’t have had the extra anti-Joo implication, but I’m not confident Sailer intended that. I think it was a joke about the narrow circles full of same-same people the types who would propose an all-billionaire political party run in.
How would that be anti-Semitic in any negative sense?Replies: @cwhatfuture
You’re both right, actually.
He’s right that the media’s crazy enough to think a candidate who supports policies sexy to billionaires and people with Harvard degrees (lower taxes, open borders, LGBTCBY rights) is going to make it in the general election.
You’re right that American antisemitism is about a quarter of what lots of Jews think it is and about a tenth of what lots of people here wish it were. Americans in general hate illegal immigrants, legal Mexicans, Muslims and/or Arabs, gays, and blacks more than they hate Jews.
They are. Vandehei is just trying to do the Americans Elect thing, getting a candidate Tom Friedman likes even more.
Elites use race as a wedge to thwart the formation of a populist coalition that might otherwise be strong enough to wrest a greater share of the nation's wealth away from them. Isn't all the additional complexity just po-mo circle-jerkery?
I acknowledge that I am dangerously close to Leftist Conservative territory here. The difference is, I think most posters here know what I'm talking about.Replies: @AndrewR, @SFG
To a first approximation, I agree with you.
The full story is more complicated, and involves the old sectional divide between North and South, with liberal elites salving their consciences pursuing policies that hurt the evil southern whites they love to hate, with Jews and New England Yankees having slightly different motivations, and conservative elites doing the old divide and conquer.
But–yeah.
I’m not sure Bernie would have done as well as those polls say if he had somehow won the nomination and everyone started complaining about socialism–and a lot of rich people at Goldman Sachs (and Morgan Stanley) would get really, really scared. Trump would eat him for breakfast in a debate.
The thing is, he has some really good points. The banks are taking the American people for a ride. The kids have huge amounts of debt, even the ones who didn’t major in Women’s Studies, and they have really crappy jobs that won’t let them pay it off. And his old-school pre-identity-politics economic leftism doesn’t carry the odor of anti-whitism–even though he had to appease BLM. He’s not a white nationalist for sure, but he doesn’t hate white people either. His ‘who’ is the working and middle classes, regardless of race. But that’s not good enough for the left anymore, which is why the white working class has plumped for Trump.
If you're a Democrat, it's unfortunate that Hillary is now your likely nominee.
My ideal ticket would be Trump-Sanders.
Right. Stepfatherdom is obviously not something alpha males do, but it’s what happens if you wait too long to get married–after a while there just aren’t any eligible ladies around without kids.
Are you a cop? You know, just like your average """"KKK"""" rally is organized by a member who's actually FBI, and about 80% of the """KKK""" group's members are also FBI.Replies: @SFG
My vote is for 10 feet tall and rubbery green skin. He’s got no other quotes by that name.
You must be new here.
No, but right now the Arab states know that launching an attack on Israel runs a reasonable chance of retaliation by the big, bad US of A. They can defeat Israel if they’re willing to get a huge number of their citizens killed. They can’t defeat America.
Now if the USA ditched Israel…
Any attempt to overrun Israel would depend upon a disengaged US, Russia and China. You would also need to make sure that the Shia and Sunni were on the same page. Many forget it now, but until 1979 the Shah's Iran was an ally of Israel. The Gulf Arabs were the leading funders of the Arab states bordering Israel, today that alignment has reversed. Its easier to imagine a 2030 Iran as an Israeli ally than a reconciliation of the millennia old schism.
The real "existential threat" to Israel is a permanent split between the seculars, religious and Haredi. A far lower threat in likelihood is massive civil unrest by the latter group in the event of a joint US-Russia imposed peace deal.
The Arabs face a far more grave existential threat, that of the oil bust. No oil, no welfare state. Regression to nomadic barbarians. Imagine the whole Arab World looking like Libya is now.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Corvinus
Steve, I really think you should have provided a trigger warning for your core audience right above that text.Replies: @Anonymous, @SFG
Why? He didn’t bother the time he accused Otto Skorzeny of working for the Mossad. I saw that title and had to suppress my laughter, thinking, ‘Oh boy, Steve really knows how to mess with his audience’.
And sure enough, broke 200 comments.
Bullshit. I speak Hebrew, read the Israeli press fairly regularly, visit Israel on business fairly regularly and I have never heard of, spoken to, or read a single person calling for or supportive of the destruction of the West. I have heard people say that Europe is out of its mind to take in these Muslims and yes there are a few people expressing a bit of schadenfreude over Europe’s predicament, but wishing for the destruction of the West? Never. And right wing Israeli sites? I doubt you are reading any Israeli site because they are in Hebrew but if somehow you were, right wing in Israel means you do not want to let the territories go back to the Arabs and those Israelis are the most anti-Muslim of any Israelis and the last thing they are wishing for is the destruction of the West, especially by Muslims. And the only people wishing for the destruction of the West are Muslims (who say so quite openly) and of course their left wing fellow travelers. Those people hate Israel and the last thing a right wing Israeli would do is associate themselves with them.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4299673,00.html
http://forward.com/opinion/199092/have-the-jews-lost-europe/
*not an Israeli, but comes very close to making the revenge claim explicit
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Feiglin-objects-to-Beck-Jerusalem-event
I do agree with you on the worldview of most of the Israeli Right, and I consider them far more invested into building their own civilization, than tearing down ours. But I do wonder if given a choice, would most of them prefer the West or the Arab World circa 1914.Replies: @cwhatfuture
It might well be a minority but I've seen it scores of times.Replies: @cwhatfuture
The guilty flee when no man pursueth. Naturally first construed as simple comment on the names themselves.
Hope I’m not the first to point out you’re Exhibit A for “ANTI-SEMITISM!!!”
My faith is restored.
If there was not the tiresome troll Corvinus, we’d have to invent him.
Do we have handy the number of iSteve readers who reflexively scroll past this twit’s posts?
Where’s corvy asking for the cites? Oh, wait, that would make him rigorous in his pendantic trollery.
I have inferred before that there is a current in Jewish opinion that favors the dissolution of the West as revenge for the Holocaust.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4299673,00.html
http://forward.com/opinion/199092/have-the-jews-lost-europe/
*not an Israeli, but comes very close to making the revenge claim explicit
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Feiglin-objects-to-Beck-Jerusalem-event
I do agree with you on the worldview of most of the Israeli Right, and I consider them far more invested into building their own civilization, than tearing down ours. But I do wonder if given a choice, would most of them prefer the West or the Arab World circa 1914.
On your other question: Would most of the right in Israel prefer the West or the Arab World circa 1914? Of course, I cannot know this but half the Jews in Israel are Mizrachi - the Eastern Jews - and they form a large part of the right and they know very well how their parents or grandparents were treated in the Muslim world - badly. So they would prefer the West certainly. I believe this is true for the Ashkenazi as well but it is not the kind of question that comes up in conversation. If you would restate this as might they prefer a Middle East that was a sleepy backwater, with not much interest shown in it by the world? That was 1914. I think so, yes, but only if they could stay independent and as dynamic as they are. And for those two things, you need the West so you are right back to where we are now.
Now if the USA ditched Israel...Replies: @Maj. Kong, @biz
Israel has nuclear weapons, and a near unbeaten record with their conventional military. Only the Jordanians have a worthwhile military tradition, built by both the US and UK.
Any attempt to overrun Israel would depend upon a disengaged US, Russia and China. You would also need to make sure that the Shia and Sunni were on the same page. Many forget it now, but until 1979 the Shah’s Iran was an ally of Israel. The Gulf Arabs were the leading funders of the Arab states bordering Israel, today that alignment has reversed. Its easier to imagine a 2030 Iran as an Israeli ally than a reconciliation of the millennia old schism.
The real “existential threat” to Israel is a permanent split between the seculars, religious and Haredi. A far lower threat in likelihood is massive civil unrest by the latter group in the event of a joint US-Russia imposed peace deal.
The Arabs face a far more grave existential threat, that of the oil bust. No oil, no welfare state. Regression to nomadic barbarians. Imagine the whole Arab World looking like Libya is now.
I'm trying to picture the Gulf emirs surviving by hawking videotapes of homos being tossed off the Burj Khalifa.Replies: @Maj. Kong
You give little credit to the civilizing nature of western capitalism.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4299673,00.html
http://forward.com/opinion/199092/have-the-jews-lost-europe/
*not an Israeli, but comes very close to making the revenge claim explicit
http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Feiglin-objects-to-Beck-Jerusalem-event
I do agree with you on the worldview of most of the Israeli Right, and I consider them far more invested into building their own civilization, than tearing down ours. But I do wonder if given a choice, would most of them prefer the West or the Arab World circa 1914.Replies: @cwhatfuture
First on the Israeli story from Ynet, which deserves an answer. I should have stated, every society has its lunatics and Efrati is one. I know about him because that interview caused such a big fuss in the Israeli press. But first I note the source of this story is Yediot Achronot, a left wing paper which loves to print anti-religious stories. It is their bread and butter. A few days ago, on Passover they printed the normal “The Exodus did not happen” story. It is most assuredly no right wing Israeli site. And Rabbi Baruch Efrati is not the Rabbi of Efrat. He lives in Efrat and is considered to be crazy by left and right alike. For example he has suggested that Jews should pray in mosques, rather than at home. This did not go over well with anyone, least of all Muslims. Only Yediot (Ynet) would have printed anything he says, just to get their readership talking. He is typical of no one but his perverse self. But there he is, loving Islam.
On your other question: Would most of the right in Israel prefer the West or the Arab World circa 1914? Of course, I cannot know this but half the Jews in Israel are Mizrachi – the Eastern Jews – and they form a large part of the right and they know very well how their parents or grandparents were treated in the Muslim world – badly. So they would prefer the West certainly. I believe this is true for the Ashkenazi as well but it is not the kind of question that comes up in conversation. If you would restate this as might they prefer a Middle East that was a sleepy backwater, with not much interest shown in it by the world? That was 1914. I think so, yes, but only if they could stay independent and as dynamic as they are. And for those two things, you need the West so you are right back to where we are now.
I'm trying to think of whether it would be possible to conjure up a candidate who was more cynical and hypocritical than Hillary, who more clearly couldn't really give a damn about the rubes, and I think the answer is no - we have reached peak cynicism, a high water mark. The only step after this is for our rulers to take off the mask, declare themselves Emperor and get rid of the Republic altogether. But why should they when they can claim legitimacy as "popularly elected leaders"?Replies: @CJ, @Marty, @Charles Erwin Wilson
Dude! Rent the Star Wars sequence and watch it – sure it is fiction, and some of it not even good fiction, but the Leftist’s project of reducing the average IQ in America to room temperature still has to wait for all of us that had some contact with genuine education to die off. And with advances in medicine that might be quite a bit longer than you think.
So, I would imagine that you have handy the number of Indians and Pakis on his staff.
“He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, “I want to be that guy.”
Interesting, because I always thought we should applaud men and women who earned wealth. I was led to believe that capitalists, like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, ought to employ every trick in the book to accumulate their status. You have read about these men, right, Harry? Did they not also “connive and backstab” their way to the top? Can’t blame them, their efforts helped to make America what it is today. Why you be hatin’, dog?
Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson, @Peter Akuleyev
Nice to see that you are a Zuckerberg acolyte Corvinus. Zuckerberg and his Zucking of the American people suits your sentiment not just well, but attains a cosmic oneness with the Zuck himself. In fact, I’d say you’re Zucked. But the readers of this blog have known that for a long time.
I see that you drew the short end of the straw among the Coalition Of The Right Fringes, and were thus responsible for the content of your advertisement. Rather than thoughtful discourse, you stuck with your crib notes. I would grade your effort a C-.
Praytell, how many people have been "Zucked"? Why are you not one of them?
I will pose this inquiry in order for you to raise your grade. Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?
Now if the USA ditched Israel...Replies: @Maj. Kong, @biz
Arab countries tried four times to defeat Israel in a large-scale conventional war (1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973) and lost each time, in spite of Israel standing alone, and without the strategic depth and technological superiority it has today. Why would the outcome be any different now?
But yeah, I don't think the Arabs have a chance of militarily defeating Israel in the foreseeable future, especially with the nukes.
This is what I can’t understand. How can they be so greedy? Don’t they have any empathy for their fellow countrymen or any shame about their wealth or power?
There’s the possibility that a high-percentage of the 1% (or whatever it actually is) are downright functional psychopaths who just don’t care about anything but themselves. It’s one of the few explanations that makes sense.
This is a scary but a reasonable point.
One thing about the "1%" is that though this is an effective propaganda phrase, its misleading. We are really talking about the consolidation of much of the world's wealth into very few hands. Most people don't realize how few. The left, or at least the non IDpol left, talks about this but their vocabulary comes from the 19th century when wealth was spread around quite a bit more.
One organization recently reported, I think it was Oxfam, that 62 people control more wealth than half of the world's population (3.8 billion people). This is mind boggling, but I've seen reports on similar lines elsewhere.
At any rate the ownership group at this point is so small that who knows what weird personality quirks they share, that is now impacting the lives of the rest of us. I suspect, though of course I have no way of knowing for sure, that what is behind the "World War T" stuff is that many of these people are into cross-dressing.
Blatant lie.
It might well be a minority but I’ve seen it scores of times.
I read Haaretz, Yediot and Israel Hayom several times a week. I am in Israel at least twice a year on business, and I own a business there. I lived there for 7 years working for a defense contracting firm and NEVER once did I read in the paper or have someone say to me, they wished for the destruction of the West. When I lived there I read the newspaper every single day. I don't know what Israeli sites you read, but why don't tell us what they are?Replies: @anon
There's the possibility that a high-percentage of the 1% (or whatever it actually is) are downright functional psychopaths who just don't care about anything but themselves. It's one of the few explanations that makes sense.Replies: @Ed
“There’s the possibility that a high-percentage of the 1% (or whatever it actually is) are downright functional psychopaths who just don’t care about anything but themselves. ”
This is a scary but a reasonable point.
One thing about the “1%” is that though this is an effective propaganda phrase, its misleading. We are really talking about the consolidation of much of the world’s wealth into very few hands. Most people don’t realize how few. The left, or at least the non IDpol left, talks about this but their vocabulary comes from the 19th century when wealth was spread around quite a bit more.
One organization recently reported, I think it was Oxfam, that 62 people control more wealth than half of the world’s population (3.8 billion people). This is mind boggling, but I’ve seen reports on similar lines elsewhere.
At any rate the ownership group at this point is so small that who knows what weird personality quirks they share, that is now impacting the lives of the rest of us. I suspect, though of course I have no way of knowing for sure, that what is behind the “World War T” stuff is that many of these people are into cross-dressing.
Yes, certainly. I’d like to know what Goldman-Sachs and Citibank expect from the Clintons too. Or from Cruz or Kasich for that matter.
“Check out the comments section of right wing Israeli sites, you will find many supportive for the destruction of the West.”
Again, I inquire, who uses this term “the West”? Why should people use it?Replies: @Mr. Anon
“ Again, I inquire, who uses this term “the West”?”
Nobody in People magazine or on reality TV. Perhaps that’s why you hadn’t heard it before.
Or in Time Magazine, or in the New York Times, or on Fox News Sunday, or by Republicans, conservatives or cuckservatives, or by the average American citizen.
So, who uses this term "the West"? In other words, what groups of people? Why do YOU use it?
Any attempt to overrun Israel would depend upon a disengaged US, Russia and China. You would also need to make sure that the Shia and Sunni were on the same page. Many forget it now, but until 1979 the Shah's Iran was an ally of Israel. The Gulf Arabs were the leading funders of the Arab states bordering Israel, today that alignment has reversed. Its easier to imagine a 2030 Iran as an Israeli ally than a reconciliation of the millennia old schism.
The real "existential threat" to Israel is a permanent split between the seculars, religious and Haredi. A far lower threat in likelihood is massive civil unrest by the latter group in the event of a joint US-Russia imposed peace deal.
The Arabs face a far more grave existential threat, that of the oil bust. No oil, no welfare state. Regression to nomadic barbarians. Imagine the whole Arab World looking like Libya is now.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Corvinus
Or Yemen, the wrong side of the (camel) tracks.
I’m trying to picture the Gulf emirs surviving by hawking videotapes of homos being tossed off the Burj Khalifa.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/173824/large/yemen-average-rain.jpg?1446494375Replies: @Steve Sailer
The thing is, he has some really good points. The banks are taking the American people for a ride. The kids have huge amounts of debt, even the ones who didn't major in Women's Studies, and they have really crappy jobs that won't let them pay it off. And his old-school pre-identity-politics economic leftism doesn't carry the odor of anti-whitism--even though he had to appease BLM. He's not a white nationalist for sure, but he doesn't hate white people either. His 'who' is the working and middle classes, regardless of race. But that's not good enough for the left anymore, which is why the white working class has plumped for Trump.Replies: @JohnnyWalker123
I actually agree with most of Bernie’s platform. Especially on trade, financial regulation, taxes, healthcare, the minimum wage, and foreign policy. On race & immigration, I strongly disagree with him.
If you’re a Democrat, it’s unfortunate that Hillary is now your likely nominee.
My ideal ticket would be Trump-Sanders.
So, let’s see.
Zuck didn’t invent social networks themselves, they had existed before. (In Hungary there was a social network called IWIW with millions of members, started already in 2002, a year before MySpace, and I’m sure IWIW wasn’t the first one in the world. Facebook later won out because IWIW’s owner Deutsche Telekom refused to provide enough servers, and when finally they did, it was already late and FB had a huge market segment, especially among the people with foreign friends – in other words, among the better off part of the population. The poor don’t tend to have foreign friends.)
Zuck’s invention was that he attacked the market from the high end, like Tesla or Mercedes-Benz started out with producing luxury vehicles and later moved into other market segments, using their luxury image. This was a good strategy, because it’s very difficult to convince rich and upper middle class people to join a social network site where only their poorest friends are members, whereas it was way easier to convince the lower middle class and the poor to join it when initially it was only their richest and coolest friends who were members. And once you manage to get both the rich and the poor, there’s nothing left for others: you’re now a monopoly. Though I wouldn’t call it genius level, that’s a good business idea. Except that it wasn’t Zuck’s idea, he stole it from the Winklevoss twins.
When the Winklevosses complained to Larry Summers, Summers could’ve shut down Facebook early on (and let the Winklevosses start it all over again), because at the time it was running on Harvard’s servers, thereby killing this genius Zuckerberg and then maybe you’d be celebrating the genius of the Winklevoss twins or whatever. Or maybe not. After all, who knows, the fact that both Zuck and Summers were Jewish might have played a role in that decision. Interesting how a conversation about social networks could become one about ethnic networks, isn’t it?
I was surprised to learn that the biographer of America’s favorite “Berg”, Charles Lindbergh, one A Scott Berg, is not another Swede like Lindy, but a gay Jew. Berg’s original inspiration was his namesake F Scott Fitzgerald, so maybe he has a thing for Minnesotans.
So, I would imagine that you have handy the number of Indians and Pakis on his staff.
“He describes the Silicon Valley billionaires and wanna-be billionaires as people who saw the Aspergery, conniving, backstabbing little prick at the heart of Social Network and thought, “I want to be that guy.”
Interesting, because I always thought we should applaud men and women who earned wealth. I was led to believe that capitalists, like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, ought to employ every trick in the book to accumulate their status. You have read about these men, right, Harry? Did they not also “connive and backstab” their way to the top? Can’t blame them, their efforts helped to make America what it is today. Why you be hatin’, dog?
Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?Replies: @Charles Erwin Wilson, @Peter Akuleyev
Interesting. I was taught in school that Carnegie and Rockefeller were horrible amoral robber barons, and that Teddy Roosevelt saved the US from people like them. Then FDR made the US a country where the working man could earn a decent living. Granted, I went to school in the 1970s….
American history teachers at the high school and collegiate level worth their salt, and I surmise there are a number of them, point out the strengths and flaws of each man. We owe them for their business acumen, for revolutionizing capitalism. At the same time, they engaged in actions that significantly jeopardized the ability of workers to rise upward in society.
Most such “tech” billionaires might have had a good genuinely tech idea at the beginning (Zuck and Gates are not among them, but I think the Google founders did some improvements on the search engines), but then they make their billions buy creating a monopoly. In Google’s case it’s because search engines rely on their users’ behavior to determine what results to show, and even a genuinely better search engine couldn’t compete with it unless it could get a huge user base. So you can only get a huge user base if you already have one…
Microsoft or Facebook didn’t even have an initial innovation, being at the right place at the right time was enough to secure a monopoly, and for a very long time everybody had to use Windows because everybody was using it, and everybody has to be a member of Facebook (provided you are interested in how your old school friends’ children look like etc.) because everybody is a member there. A better social network would be worthless to me without my friends there.
So it’s essentially rent seeker billionaires sitting on top of a monopoly which they got through a combination of business acumen and sheer luck. They need to be genuinely good businessmen, otherwise they couldn’t make it, but there are many others who are just as good but less lucky.
Rich Lowry -- The Working-Class Meltdown
Of course I did 'Ctrl-F' looking for...oh never mind.
But he really is a caring guy -- he's very concerned:
The authors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper say middle-aged whites may be a “lost generation.” That is depressing enough, but there is no guarantee only one generation will be lost.
In other news, trucks are idle, parked -- America’s trucking industry faces a shortage. Meet the immigrants helping fill the gap
Part of the reason behind the shift is that the trucking industry is facing a labor shortage of up to 48,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations.
An unbiased source if there ever was one, I am sure.Replies: @Ivy, @JohnnyWalker123
Actually, it’s being projected that automation will eliminate a large number of trucking jobs. How the hell could there be an upcoming shortage?
This was a really good comment.
I'm trying to picture the Gulf emirs surviving by hawking videotapes of homos being tossed off the Burj Khalifa.Replies: @Maj. Kong
Yemen is a bid odd as the Arab world goes. It has rainfall (in the North), and Shias. Only Lebanon is similar. Like the rest of Arabia, it was far more diverse 100 years ago.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/173824/large/yemen-average-rain.jpg?1446494375Replies: @Steve Sailer
Yemen has a lot of links to Ethiopia, another highland across the Red Sea.
So why not stop them?
It’s not very polite to denigrate presents as “not much”, “quite worthless”, “I have a lot of those”, etc. The correct behavior would be to thank the help and tell that you don’t need it anymore. Or you can be thankful and keep accepting it. What you’re doing (and I’ve talked to many Israelis and non-Israeli Jews on the issue, and your answer seems to be quite standard) comes across as if you were assholes.
Did you include the technology transfers and the benefits of being a trusted contractor of the NSA? Did you include the fact that there’s no international embargo against Israel because of US vetoes and sympathetic (or at least not overly hostile) European governments?
I’m not sure Israel could survive if the West went under. Not impossible, but not totally sure either.
That was true only in 1948 and 1967, and 1967 was started by the Israelis as a surprise attack.
But yeah, I don’t think the Arabs have a chance of militarily defeating Israel in the foreseeable future, especially with the nukes.
“Nice to see that you are a Zuckerberg acolyte Corvinus. Zuckerberg and his Zucking of the American people suits your sentiment not just well, but attains a cosmic oneness with the Zuck himself. In fact, I’d say you’re Zucked. But the readers of this blog have known that for a long time.”
I see that you drew the short end of the straw among the Coalition Of The Right Fringes, and were thus responsible for the content of your advertisement. Rather than thoughtful discourse, you stuck with your crib notes. I would grade your effort a C-.
Praytell, how many people have been “Zucked”? Why are you not one of them?
I will pose this inquiry in order for you to raise your grade. Now, suppose you believe today’s billionaires have made their fortunes other than by earning it. What legislation do you think should be put in place to corral their activities? Would not these laws be considered anti-free market?
Look what one of them did to The Titanic
"Like Google, Facebook designs its own servers and has them built by ODMs (original design manufacturers) in Taiwan and China"
(http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/who-needs-hp-and-dell-facebook-now-designs-all-its-own-servers/)Replies: @Brutusale
Building their own RAIDs so they don’t spend on Dell or HP products is creating “new” technology?
“Interesting. I was taught in school that Carnegie and Rockefeller were horrible amoral robber barons, and that Teddy Roosevelt saved the US from people like them. Then FDR made the US a country where the working man could earn a decent living. Granted, I went to school in the 1970s…”
American history teachers at the high school and collegiate level worth their salt, and I surmise there are a number of them, point out the strengths and flaws of each man. We owe them for their business acumen, for revolutionizing capitalism. At the same time, they engaged in actions that significantly jeopardized the ability of workers to rise upward in society.
Any attempt to overrun Israel would depend upon a disengaged US, Russia and China. You would also need to make sure that the Shia and Sunni were on the same page. Many forget it now, but until 1979 the Shah's Iran was an ally of Israel. The Gulf Arabs were the leading funders of the Arab states bordering Israel, today that alignment has reversed. Its easier to imagine a 2030 Iran as an Israeli ally than a reconciliation of the millennia old schism.
The real "existential threat" to Israel is a permanent split between the seculars, religious and Haredi. A far lower threat in likelihood is massive civil unrest by the latter group in the event of a joint US-Russia imposed peace deal.
The Arabs face a far more grave existential threat, that of the oil bust. No oil, no welfare state. Regression to nomadic barbarians. Imagine the whole Arab World looking like Libya is now.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Corvinus
“The Arabs face a far more grave existential threat, that of the oil bust. No oil, no welfare state. Regression to nomadic barbarians. Imagine the whole Arab World looking like Libya is now.”
You give little credit to the civilizing nature of western capitalism.
Nobody in People magazine or on reality TV. Perhaps that's why you hadn't heard it before.Replies: @Corvinus
“Nobody in People magazine or on reality TV. Perhaps that’s why you hadn’t heard it before.”
Or in Time Magazine, or in the New York Times, or on Fox News Sunday, or by Republicans, conservatives or cuckservatives, or by the average American citizen.
So, who uses this term “the West”? In other words, what groups of people? Why do YOU use it?
Microsoft or Facebook didn't even have an initial innovation, being at the right place at the right time was enough to secure a monopoly, and for a very long time everybody had to use Windows because everybody was using it, and everybody has to be a member of Facebook (provided you are interested in how your old school friends' children look like etc.) because everybody is a member there. A better social network would be worthless to me without my friends there.
So it's essentially rent seeker billionaires sitting on top of a monopoly which they got through a combination of business acumen and sheer luck. They need to be genuinely good businessmen, otherwise they couldn't make it, but there are many others who are just as good but less lucky.Replies: @Jim Don Bob
IBM first went to Gary Kildall (sp?) to license his CPM OS for their new PC. Legend has it that Kildall was off flying his plane that day and was too busy to meet with them. So IBM went to Bill Gates who saw the opportunity. Gates licensed what became PC-DOS from a guy in Seattle for $50k and made a deal with IBM. The crucial part of the deal is that Gates retained the right to sell what became MS-DOS himself. IBM introducing the PC made it ok for corporate America to buy it. As the old saying goes, luck is where preparation meets opportunity.
Agreed, plus the alliteration of “the billionaire Borg” is good tabloid stuff.
Anyway there's a bunch of reasons why I think the nature of TBTF banks is one of the factors guaranteeing economic stagnation (at best) and as economic stagnation magnifies conflict hence the indirect connection.
(mostly a throwaway comment though)Replies: @Forbes
I agree with your general sentiment. The ‘break up the banks’ chant strikes me as so much boob bait. If a candidate said re-impose Glass-Steagall (splitting the casino from the utility, in your parlance), then there’d be something to discuss/debate.
As it is, regulators got to regulate, and they’ve decided one business model, one risk profile, one balance sheet, is they way to go. Turning 5 behemoths into 10 large banks won’t significantly change system risk. The structure–the implicit TBTF taxpayer safety net (socialized losses, privatized gains)–needs to change. Breaking up the banks changes the players, it doesn’t change the game.
It might well be a minority but I've seen it scores of times.Replies: @cwhatfuture
You are telling me what I have read and heard? What are you, some kind of psychic or just an a–hole.
I read Haaretz, Yediot and Israel Hayom several times a week. I am in Israel at least twice a year on business, and I own a business there. I lived there for 7 years working for a defense contracting firm and NEVER once did I read in the paper or have someone say to me, they wished for the destruction of the West. When I lived there I read the newspaper every single day. I don’t know what Israeli sites you read, but why don’t tell us what they are?
(I'm not saying they're representative.)
And if the Israelis pay enough tribute to Pakistan, the Pakistanis probably wouldn’t cause Israel any nuclear problems.
Anti-Gentilic asshole.
Why does that even matter? Suppose he’d said, “Find a candidate who wasn’t Jewish?”
How would that be anti-Semitic in any negative sense?
Although antisemitic to me is always in a "negative sense".
I don't think it is antisemitic to notice how Jews behave generally, for good and bad. Or how Germans behave, for good and bad or Italians etc etc. I notice those things all the time and I have no plans to send anyone to a concentration camp or to exile them or to limit their civil liberties . I would also notice a writer suggesting two billionaire Davos attending Jews should run for President backed by a third billionaire Jew and wonder what was wrong with that writer.Replies: @ben tillman
How would that be anti-Semitic in any negative sense?Replies: @cwhatfuture
I don’t think that is antisemitic and I am Jewish.
Although antisemitic to me is always in a “negative sense”.
I don’t think it is antisemitic to notice how Jews behave generally, for good and bad. Or how Germans behave, for good and bad or Italians etc etc. I notice those things all the time and I have no plans to send anyone to a concentration camp or to exile them or to limit their civil liberties . I would also notice a writer suggesting two billionaire Davos attending Jews should run for President backed by a third billionaire Jew and wonder what was wrong with that writer.
Yeah I know, that was hilarious, right? It’s as if all of us voters out there are in agreement that the ultimate yardstick for any government policy is how it’s going to affect transgenders. It’s rather as if, unlike Bible Thumpers who where “WWJD” bracelets, all good progressives always have “WWTGD”–what would transgenders do– on their minds at every policy suggestion.
I read Haaretz, Yediot and Israel Hayom several times a week. I am in Israel at least twice a year on business, and I own a business there. I lived there for 7 years working for a defense contracting firm and NEVER once did I read in the paper or have someone say to me, they wished for the destruction of the West. When I lived there I read the newspaper every single day. I don't know what Israeli sites you read, but why don't tell us what they are?Replies: @anon
You’re the one telling us we haven’t seen what we’ve seen – for example are there Rabbis who say non-Jews don’t have souls or don’t they exist either?
(I’m not saying they’re representative.)
I am telling you because I very much doubt you read or speak Hebrew. Or the other guy commenting. Israelis comment on Hebrew language sites. Their language is Hebrew, not English. US Jews comment on English language translation of Israeli sites. The two are not the same. And we were speaking of Israelis.
Are there Rabbis who say non-Jews don’t have souls? I have no idea. I am not religious, I don’t read religious literature. I am not what Jews call “observant”. I learned Hebrew in Israel, not in religious school. If someone showed me that a rabbi said it, I would say – OK he said it – so what? Do some Gentiles believe all Jewish souls are going to hell? Maybe – but I really don’t care what anyone says about my soul.
Although antisemitic to me is always in a "negative sense".
I don't think it is antisemitic to notice how Jews behave generally, for good and bad. Or how Germans behave, for good and bad or Italians etc etc. I notice those things all the time and I have no plans to send anyone to a concentration camp or to exile them or to limit their civil liberties . I would also notice a writer suggesting two billionaire Davos attending Jews should run for President backed by a third billionaire Jew and wonder what was wrong with that writer.Replies: @ben tillman
Of course. My point in saying it that way is that the term can be used so broadly as to encompass conduct or thought that there’s nothing wrong with.