Thanks for the quality!

In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*quality

Thanks for the trifecta!

In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*doublepromote
*quality

Human, fucking, garbage.

Thanks for the promote!
In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*promote

Thank you, that means a lot to me. I have the same frustration about arguments -- I feel like it's the best way to really challenge your own convictions, but you can't learn anything from a conversation that instantly devolves into namecalling and accusations, and that happens waaay too often.

Anytime you wanna have a civil debate, I'm happy to oblige.

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
Just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate our discourse. It seems awfully hard to argue with people without fighting with people anymore and you damn near always keep it civil and on topic.

Upvote granted. That is probably the best way to reply to that sort of argument too.

The real underlying problem with the "gas prices are going up because the Fed is printing money" theory is that gasoline is just one price, and "inflation" is a rise in the price of everything, overall. Economists say that to really spot inflation, you have to look at prices that are generally pretty stable; volatile commodities like food & gas which see frequent large shifts in both supply & demand are very poor measures of inflation, because there's just too much non-inflationary noise. Here's a much more in-depth explanation from Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/core-logic/

Keep in mind that the methods economists use to measure inflation show that we've been in a period of record-low inflation. That should, for any rational person, be the end of talk of inflation. This constant cry of "INFLATION!" at every price increase is quite literally the economic equivalent of hearing hoof-beats and assuming it's zebras and not horses.

Most changes in prices happen in response to real shifts in supply or demand, not because the Fed is expanding the monetary base.

In reply to this comment by lampishthing:
I researched a comment on the sift for the first time in about 2 years. I would like an upvote oh sage one.

You might even find it interesting!!!!

Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by Lawdeedaw:
Cock blocking the almighty!? *promote

So I guess I should just ask point blank, are you saying that my overall premise is wrong, and that there is no such thing as "idle rich"?

And just to make myself explicit, where I was really gonna go with the argument was that there's a fundamental problem with castigating "idleness" and valorizing "work", especially if your definition of "idle" is "not receiving any income" and "work" as "receiving income from any source".

Paris Hilton is an awesome springboard from the usual "welfare queens vs. captains of industry" conversation into something a little more grounded in reality, since both welfare queens and captains of industry are just figments of our imagination. The real people we lump into those categories never live up to those caricatures.

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
No, and in fact the people I can think of who lived off their inheritances tend to have done something notable as well, or I probably wouldn't have heard of them (like the impressionist painter Paul Cezanne).

When I tried a google search for more candidates, the first hit was from ancient Greece! Apollodorus, son of Pasion the slave...
In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Do you have a better example in mind? I mostly use her as my go-to example because she's a name people will recognize, associate with being ridiculously rich, has a reputation for having a crap work ethic, and a reputation for being completely out of touch with how normal people live.

I have more nuanced reasons for picking her as well, but that's really more of a springboard into a discussion about what "work ethic" really means...

Do you have a better example in mind? I mostly use her as my go-to example because she's a name people will recognize, associate with being ridiculously rich, has a reputation for having a crap work ethic, and a reputation for being completely out of touch with how normal people live.

I have more nuanced reasons for picking her as well, but that's really more of a springboard into a discussion about what "work ethic" really means...

In reply to this comment by oritteropo:
I think you've picked the wrong example there. If you check out Miss Hilton's IMDB page, she hasn't spent her life sitting around the pool living off interest even though she could have.

Now you could argue that the people who have paid her modeling fees, salary, appearance fees, travel, expenses etc. have overpaid, and I wouldn't disagree, but it was their choice and that's not the argument you made.
In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
[...]
Instead, the real "entitlement society" is comprised of people like Paris Hilton. They don't really work, certainly they don't do hard work, or even seem to possess valuable skills. They just collect interest, and act like they're royalty, entitled to collect the vast majority of the fruits of our labor.

Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
*promote

Thank you!

In reply to this comment by carneval:
belated galaxy congrats!

NP, take your time. I'll be here.

In reply to this comment by GeeSussFreeK:
Hey friend, just stopped by to say I intended to give some feedback on your feedback, but my home PC went nuclear, so had that to deal with. Should be all better now (digital fingers crossed), hope to add something if I have anything worth adding.

Sure, Barack and I chat all the time about things.

I guess my working model for predicting what Obama does is based on two hypotheses:

1. Obama is really telling us what he wants to see happen in his speeches. He wants to do what he can to address the progressive agenda because he sees it as his moral duty.

2. Obama is, contrary to his speeches, an uber-pragmatist.

It's the second part that gets activist lefties mad at him. He's not interested in waging war on the oligarchs who run the government from their boardrooms, he wants to try to reach out and show them that the progressive agenda is good for both the 99% and the 1%.

Similarly, he's not interested in picking a fights he can't win, just to make an ideological point. He unfortunately doesn't think it's his job to try to shift the Overton window with his words and deeds.

I think people who imagine him to have been some sort of anti-progressive infiltrator or turncoat are just being melodramatic, and I really wish they'd stop issuing all these pronouncements about whether Obama is "with us" or "against us."

He's clearly "with us", he's just not a hardline ideologue who makes everything into some showdown of unwavering and conflicting principles.

He prefers to use the inflexibility of others as his argument to the public for supporting him -- he's being more reasonable, after all. It seems to work out okay for him in the polls, but I think he'd be a much more effective President if he made being firmly on the side of doing what's right a higher priority than being reasonable.

In reply to this comment by Truckchase:
Good talk NR. I'm not convinced.... there are cabinet appointments, etc. he's made that make me not trust him, but I am listening. Ob's speech a couple days ago has me wondering you've got a direct line to him or something.

Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by ponceleon:
*promote

Thanks for the quality!

In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*quality

Thanks for the quality!

In reply to this comment by JiggaJonson:
*quality