thought no. 63

About thirty years from now, natural brick homes will be all the rage, painted brick will be considered tacky, and sandblasting companies are gonna be raking it in.

thought no. 62

Time is the one thing that everyone has in equal quantity (on a daily basis, anyway), and yet people happily sell it to the lowest bidder. People shouldn't be upset about about low wages, they should be upset with how little they value their own precious time. It can never be returned, or replayed.

thought no. 61

Okay, so I havent read Marx, but as I understand it Marx felt that unhindered Capitalism would eventually wreck the economy of any nation, eventually leading to Communism. Has it ever occurred to conservatives that by their support of the unregulated market, they fall into Marx's model of the creation of a communist state? Do you think they worry about that?

Huh. Do you think they worry about anything besides money?

thought no. 60

A trend I've noticed lately in conservative posturing: Talking about how many pages a bill has. Like somehow the bigger a bill is page-wise (even if it deals with a big, complicated problem), the worse it is. Which makes the Republican Party a living embodiment of TLDR.

thought no. 59

You know all those people who are the "job creators" who it is said will lose motivation if taxes are raised? If their only motivation for their actions is money, then maybe it would be better if they did lose interest.

Related to this idea, are the people suggesting that the minimum wage be reduced or eliminated the same people who claim that the reason the USSR failed is because the workers had no motive to work absent the profit motive?

thought no. 58

You know all those assholes who respond to calls for higher taxes with the suggestion that if you're so worried about the government having enough money, you should go ahead and pay more taxes? When those same people bitch about social security, when they are so concerned and think that people shouldnt have that option/fallback, suggest that they should forgo their own collection of benefits.

thought no. 57

I also find myself wondering how many more times we'll allow Republicans to be put in power before we finally realize that they are destroying the America we were taught to love.

And just how much too late it will be by then.

Remember I said this when Rick Perry wins in 2012.

thought no. 56

So, I find myself wondering if perhaps the Republican Party isn't some sort of giant psychological experiment* designed to see just how much idiotic behavior people are willing to accept before they finally turn away in disgust?

I mean, was he not paying attention last week to Michelle Bachmann?





* run by our alien overloards, of course

thought no. 55

I saw this, and my first thought was, "I would sooooo name this cat 'Manson'!"

thought no. 54

Here's a thought - Bacevich posits that the history of America is a history of expansion. This makes sense. Anyone familiar with American business knows that being a company that maintains its level of sales, production, etc, is to be a company considered in many ways to be a failure.
We are always searching for something new; new products, new markets, new niches, new demographics. Expansion is the watchword of any business. I've often speculated (without any kind of proof) that one of the reasons for this obsession was that bank loans were made based on expansion, rather than whatever the current situation of a business was; in other words, people get loans (and banks make them) with a payback schedule based on projected (expanded) future sales. If I'm right, then this kind of thinking may go a long way towards making the adjustable rate mortgage problem more understandable. Actually, I suspect a lot of those with adjustable rate mortgages were people that bought their home with every intention of selling it a higher price before the rates jumped up, but were caught by the (inevitable*) collapse.

Anyway, here was my thought (the preceding was set-up): The last time that Americans had to deal with an age of robber barons was about the same time as the U.S. ran out of frontier. We were left with nowhere to expand, so those in power set about expanding within our borders. As Wal-Mart shows, we don't care how we get more, as much as we care that we do get more. The time of the robber barons was also the time that led to the labor unions and workers rights because of the abuses of those barons in the pursuit of more wealth.
Now we find ourselves running out of room to expand again, not because we've run out of room, but because we're being hemmed in by the expanding economic might of Asia, and of our short-sighted planning which put our manufacturing capability into their hands. And so, once again, we have our leaders of industry, unwilling to settle for less (this is America, after all), looking inwards to expand their wealth, looking at us. And so now, as before, we have exploitation of immigrant workers, diminishing workers rights and benefits, and a growing disparity between the incomes of those who "direct" the production and those who actually do the producing.

Will things be allowed to get as bad as they did at the turn of the 20th century? Hard to say, but for those who complain of abuses in the workplace, I say, read your Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair. Then buckle down, because the ride could get a lot bumpier.

(what goes up, must come down)

Watch the stock markets: a stock's price will often fall upon the news that it didn't make profits as high as expected.

It is no longer enough for us to start a business and be our own boss, to have a company, store or service that provides a comfortable living for you and your family. Now, we want to start a business that does one of two things: a) goes on to greater business glory, destroying the competition and making you very, very rich in the process; or b) doesn't quite do the above, but does well enough that the competition buys you out, making you very, very rich in the process.

thought no. 53

Maybe "trickle-down" economics would work better with a bit of wringing.

thought no. 51

Here's a thought: maybe the reason liberals have allowed Republicans to have such control for so long is not because they're ineffective pussies, but because they just don't care as much. I mean, if your self worth is all wrapped up in money and power, then the loss of either of those things will be something you'll fight very hard against. But a Liberal's sense of self-worth is generally wrapped up in something else, maybe work, maybe community, maybe service, maybe art. The loss of power, the cost of money is annoying, but not devastating.

Am I suggesting that Republicans are less evolved?

Yes. Yes I am.