>> ^TheFreak:
The real shame is the uncritical feedback he's getting from the people around him. Without anyone to tell him that his music is ham fisted and clumsy there's every likelyhood that his narcisistic self appraisal will lead him to nothing.


This is right on. This news segment and the stupid fawning anchor are terrible for this kid.

Agreed, for the most part.

He obviously has talent, but to be a great artist one tends to need life experience (often of a darker nature) and that is something he doesn't have.

It should come with time though.

As for why we haven't seen a Mozart, etc. in hundreds of years, maybe its because the great artists of our time aren't composing classical music (which tends to cultivate the misbelief that it is somehow superior). Now, I'm a fan of classical music, but listen to While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Gimme Shelter, or All Along the Watchtower and tell me you don't feel as moved as when listening to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, or The Marriage of Figaro.
>> ^TheFreak:

Bullshit.
Try listening to Jay Greenbergs Symphony no 5. It's horrible.
It's an unorganized cacophany. One moment it sounds every bit like an action movie score then immediately it swings the other way and you'd think you were listening to the music from a 30's cartoon. There's no rhyme or reason behind any of the sounds you hear, no progression, no building of emotion, no story being told, no subtlety or purpose...just great big sloppy swipes of an oversized lyrical paintbrush.
That 60 Minutes segment describes Jay's early and enduring interest in writing music. I believe that's about the only element of the story that's not pure hyperbole. From listening to his music you can tell that he has obviously learned a great deal at a young age about arranging orchestral music. He has knowledge. What he lacks is everything else necessary to create great music.
Boys his age do one thing with great expertise and skill....masturbate. And that's what "Blue Bird" is doing with his music...masturbating all up in your ear holes.
Jay Greenergs interest and dedication to study clasical music composition, as well as the encouragement he's received, has brought him a long way. The real shame is the uncritical feedback he's getting from the people around him. Without anyone to tell him that his music is ham fisted and clumsy there's every likelyhood that his narcisistic self appraisal will lead him to nothing.
Jay Greenberg has demonstrated an impressive ability to learn how to compose in a classical style. It remains to be seen if he can turn that technical skill into artistic achievement.

Bullshit.

Try listening to Jay Greenbergs Symphony no 5. It's horrible.

It's an unorganized cacophany. One moment it sounds every bit like an action movie score then immediately it swings the other way and you'd think you were listening to the music from a 30's cartoon. There's no rhyme or reason behind any of the sounds you hear, no progression, no building of emotion, no story being told, no subtlety or purpose...just great big sloppy swipes of an oversized lyrical paintbrush.

That 60 Minutes segment describes Jay's early and enduring interest in writing music. I believe that's about the only element of the story that's not pure hyperbole. From listening to his music you can tell that he has obviously learned a great deal at a young age about arranging orchestral music. He has knowledge. What he lacks is everything else necessary to create great music.

Boys his age do one thing with great expertise and skill....masturbate. And that's what "Blue Bird" is doing with his music...masturbating all up in your ear holes.

Jay Greenergs interest and dedication to study clasical music composition, as well as the encouragement he's received, has brought him a long way. The real shame is the uncritical feedback he's getting from the people around him. Without anyone to tell him that his music is ham fisted and clumsy there's every likelyhood that his narcisistic self appraisal will lead him to nothing.

Jay Greenberg has demonstrated an impressive ability to learn how to compose in a classical style. It remains to be seen if he can turn that technical skill into artistic achievement.

>> ^rottenseed:

According to this, HARP helps people with a loan to value of over 80%. This means if somebody's house goes down in value, your loan-to-value will actually increase (mortgage/appraised worth of home). Cenk is saying HARP does the opposite of that. Either I'm confused or he is confused.

You're reading the document right -- it says what you're saying.

According to this, HARP helps people with a loan to value of over 80%. This means if somebody's house goes down in value, your loan-to-value will actually increase (mortgage/appraised worth of home). Cenk is saying HARP does the opposite of that. Either I'm confused or he is confused.>> ^NetRunner:

And for those who want to read the actual text of the announcement from the FHFA on this change, here you go.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have been reading a lot of this kind of stuff lately (because I'm underwater on my mortgage now too!), and all they're really doing is widening the pool of people who they're going to allow to do refinances by letting people who are less screwed participate.
Here's their response to the "moral hazard" argument I alluded to in my earlier comment:

Are you concerned that eliminating seller and servicer representations and warrants on HARP loans will force the Enterprises to take on additional risk?
We anticipate that the package of improvements being made to HARP will reduce the Enterprises credit risk, bring greater stability to mortgage markets and reduce foreclosure risks – each of which is an important statutory mandate for FHFA.
Nearly all HARP-eligible borrowers have been paying their mortgages for more than three years, and most of those for four or more years. These are seasoned loans made to borrowers who have demonstrated a capacity and commitment to make good on their mortgage obligation through a period of severe economic stress and house price declines.
Reps and warrants protect the Enterprises from losses on defective loans; typically, such defects show up in the first few years of a mortgage and so the value of the reps and warrants decline over time. By refinancing into a lower interest rate and/or shorter term mortgage, these borrowers are recommitting to their mortgage and strengthening their household balance sheet, thereby reducing the credit risk they already pose to the Enterprises. Therefore, FHFA has concluded that eliminating the reps and warrants that may have discouraged industry participants from taking greater advantage of HARP to-date will be good for borrowers, housing markets, and the Enterprises and taxpayers.

Since when did Tiffany's appraise second-hand jewellery?

>> ^BoneRemake:

>> ^bareboards2:
But why just them? They aren't in it alone. It takes that man with the stunningly fashionable glasses to set up the website. It takes the 100,000 men on the site to make it work.
It takes the internet to do .... what? Democratize the profession? Allow these college educated women, who grew up with an explosion of sexual images that no other generation has been party to, to have a different view of what they are doing? Heck, Dan Savage and the whole sex-positive sex worker movement might have some effect on these women's thinking.
This, to me, is so much more interesting a topic than just labeling these women "skanks" and letting that be the whole response.

>> ^BoneRemake:

My opinion on them is not relevant. Spreading your hoo hah to pay for school is my concern.


Not everyone is out to change the world and express opinions on everything, even when asked. To say that this is new and within the last generation or two is bullshit, pimps and whores have been around since the first fuck. You imply that I think the johns are any better then the slutteros, dont assume, you make an ass out of you not me.


Excellent handling of the moral crusader, if i may say so. It's easy for some people to claim you're only doing it because they're women and you kept above it.

Personally, i feel that as they weren't coerced into the situation in any way, but simply chose to do something for personal gain, they are by far the most culpable and deserving of scorn. If you're gonna scorn that kind of thing - i don't particularly mind.

Also, i hope all the sexism crusaders have absolutely no sympathy for drug users - people who are homeless, abandoned, that kind of thing - due to drugs. Because in the same way as here, they're as responsible as the "supplier", right? Next time i see any of you opining that a drug dealer is a horrible piece of shit, i want you to give an equal appraisal of drug users. Those poor drug dealers are being enabled by those horrible drug users! Though i suspect the righteousness doesn't stretch further than anything specifically male/female.

I bet he jerked off till balls fell off while having to do his "research".
I bet he wrote off all those magazines off as a company expense.
I bet he kept all them and stored them in a little box at home.
I bet his grandson found them and discovered something "new"
I bet his grandson liked visiting grandpa's house.
I bet the grandson snatched the little box just after grandpa died.
I bet he took that little box to the Antique Road show and got a good appraisal for the collection.
I bet the great grandson is reading this porn collection now.

Here in Portland , years ago, cops started taking the Johns cars in prostitution busts. They would list the cars they grabbed in the local news. It was a big publicity blitz.
Pretty soon, it was known that they didnt take shitty cars, or they wouldnt take a car that still had a lot owed to the banks. So they were doing appraising and credit checks at the crime scenes. It made for bad press and legal questions.
Then they started running into Johns that were city workers, cops, water bureau, etc., in their city owned cars, they didnt confiscate those cars.
They still take cars and property here, they just dont report it the way they used to.

Cops, eventually, will just suck at everything they do.

Your arrogance and presumption don't make me retch (I'm not given to hysterical hyperbole on the internet), but it says nothing good about you as a person...

You give the whole game away when you use the term 'prostituting'. Oh, you can respect her okay just as long as everyone knows that she's a whore... Very tolerant of you. /eyeroll

And your utopian world view? Well I don't know if you've heard about the whole women's suffrage movement, or the sexual revolution, but your archaic ideas of morality (and your hauty superiority) are remnants of a bygone era. I wonder how you deal with nudity in art, such as http://www.artenuda.com/paintings1.php.

You're not a creature of principle, you're a creature of prejudice. You're just too self righteous to admit it.

ps. Anytime you'd like to submit your 'body' of work for critical appraisal, we can make determinations on whether we think you're job has any dignity... Wonder if any commercial jingles will appear... X D

>> ^Gallowflak:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/MarineGunrock" title="member since July 13th, 2007" class="profilelink"><strong style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">MarineGunrock
The idea that you think dignity is a false concept makes me retch.
If a woman is comfortable exposing her body to untold masses for the sake of giving them boners and getting money in return, then I wish her all the best. I didn't say she wasn't worthy of respect, I said that prostituting oneself requires a greater resignation of one's dignity than a more typical job. You are agreeing to your body being used for the sexual satisfaction of others, so that you can get currency.
My original comment stands. A society in which women cannot be consumed as products, and men are not willing to do so, would be just that little bit closer to utopia. Humankind's approach and reaction to sexuality is enormously dysfunctional.
I'm a creature of principle. I believe that there are human traits, values, virtues and ideals that are worthy of exaltation, in spite of the lack of any objective authority. Our unique position as intelligent agents is one of great dignity and responsibility, and we must require the most exacting standards of ourselves. I think that having a market for human beings as products for arousal is disgusting and must be done away with, as well as people as products in general.

>> ^mintbbb:

ack, actually, this is a dupe I though I had seen here before..
dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/James-May-s-Toy-Stories-Lego-House


*isdupe

@blankfist, I'm kinda surprised at you. Perhaps you fell for the title, but here are some of the things Bill Black says:

1. Yes, [the bill's provision for running derivatives through a government-run exchange] is a good idea. You shouldn't be doing non-exchange traded derivatives, and this bill encourages exchange-traded derivatives. But it has loopholes that allow people to evade it, so it's probably not going to be terribly effective.
   
   Which is to say, the new regulations on derivatives are good, but they are too easy to circumvent.
   
   
2. What else do we know created perverse incentives? Professional compensation.
   
   
3. We know that the Goldmans of the world deliberately put the rating agencies in competition with each other in what in economics we call a "competition in laxity". In other words, whoever is willing to give the most absurdly inflated rating is who will get my business.
   
   Note: rating agencies are privately owned, for-profit companies.
   
   
4. So when we say the rating agencies screwed up, we don't mean that they took something that, you know, should've been a single-A and they call it a triple-A. No, we're talking about something that should have been 25 levels lower, and they called it AAA. If they're willing to do that, then they're going to be willing to bless the next insane thing, as long as the competition and laxity is allowed to exist.
   
   
5. Americans don't know that over 10 percent of all appraisers in America have signed a petition calling for the government to step in and regulate and enforce because of this Gresham's dynamic. A Gresham's dynamic is where cheaters and the least moral people prosper, and they drive the honest, moral people out of the marketplace. And that's what the appraisal industry was telling us. And the regulators refused to any do anything. And now, after a crisis measured in trillions of dollars of losses—and a trillion dollars is a thousand billion—we have, supposedly, the greatest reform bill since the Great Depression, and it completely ignores this causality.
   
   
6. The consumer bill was the other thing you asked me about. That is a good thing. But you can tell somebody has a really malicious sense of humor, because they put the new consumer agency into the Federal Reserve—the leading opponent of protecting consumers. This is the agency that under the HOEPA law [Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act], which goes way back to the '90s, had unique authority to protect us from otherwise unregulated mortgage bankers and anyone else who made mortgage loans. And even board members at the Federal Reserve went to Alan Greenspan and asked him to take action against these enormous abuses in the liar's loans and subprime, and Greenspan refused to act.
   
   This probably got your juices flowing, since it places some blame on the Fed. Unfortunately, it places blame on the Fed for refusing to regulate. Oh, and it was Republicans who insisted that the consumer protection agency be housed at the Fed.
   
   
7. So [in the subprime lending market] we had the exact opposite of what economics predicts: both parties to the transaction were made worse off. Well, why? Because the agents were made better off. Who were the winners? The rating agencies, the senior officers who walked away rich, the least moral appraisers, the least moral of the outside auditors at the big accounting firms. They were all the winners. They got rich by betraying their responsibilities. And so if you had had an Elizabeth Warren and if she had banned this nonprime product to protect consumers, now, that would enormously reduce this financial crisis.
   

In all, he's making all the usual liberal criticisms of the bill, which is that the bill's new regulations aren't nearly tough enough; which itself is based on the premise that unchecked greed and dishonesty was the root cause of the crisis.

Oh, and @marinara it doesn't "ensure Wall Street Scams keep running", a fair representation of his comments would be "doesn't crack down on Wall Street Scams."

Hell naw...I'd be in Cabo. WHERE I FEKKIN' BELONG!>> ^choggie:
>> ^rottenseed:
How it would've gone down if I were the appraiser:
Me: I'd say this worth $200 - $300. I'm sorry, it's just not authentic.
Her: Oh, well ok.
Me: You know what, I'd like to buy that off of you for $500 just because you came down here and gave us your time.

Illegal, mate-you'd be in jail in no time....WHERE YA FEKKIN' BELONG!!!

What about mugging her in the parking lot, would that be OK?

>> ^choggie:
Illegal, mate-you'd be in jail in no time....WHERE YA FEKKIN' BELONG!!!
<div><div style="margin: 10px; overflow: auto; width: 80%; float: left; position: relative;" class="convoPiece"> rottenseed said:<img style="margin: 4px 10px 10px; float: left; width: 40px;" src="http://static1.videosift.com/avatars/r/rottenseed-s.jpg" onerror="ph(this)"><div style="position: absolute; margin-left: 52px; padding-top: 1px; font-size: 10px;" class="commentarrow">◄</div><div style="padding: 8px; margin-left: 60px; margin-top: 2px; min-height: 30px;" class="nestedComment box">How it would've gone down if I were the appraiser:
Me: I'd say this worth $200 - $300. I'm sorry, it's just not authentic.
Her: Oh, well ok.
Me: You know what, I'd like to buy that off of you for $500 just because you came down here and gave us your time.
</div></div></div>

>> ^rottenseed:
How it would've gone down if I were the appraiser:
Me: I'd say this worth $200 - $300. I'm sorry, it's just not authentic.
Her: Oh, well ok.
Me: You know what, I'd like to buy that off of you for $500 just because you came down here and gave us your time.


Illegal, mate-you'd be in jail in no time....WHERE YA FEKKIN' BELONG!!!