- Gonemild writes
Attention:the following sentence is my paraphrase of the linked article). Ha-ha…sarcasm…Madoff screwed Republicans out of their money…more sarcasm, now they get to taste their own medicine…happy days. (Attention:previous sentence is my paraphrase of the linked article).It was already pointed out that Madoff was a major Democratic contributor: Mr. Madoff, a New York money manager who was arrested on charges of investment fraud, has donated a total of $150,000 to politicians and party committees over the past decade, nearly all of it to Democrats, according to campaign finance records filed with the Federal Election Commission, and that a lot of money lost in this scam was invested by Jews, who are mainly democrats; and that many charities took huge financial hits and some where forced to close. I am not surprised that Gonemild is so happy, people who enjoy operating with other people’s money don’t have the same sense of loss. Contrary to popular belief republicans donate more than democrats.(I know a column by George Will may not be accepted as proof of anything but it references a book written by an independent and backed up by data).
- C.J.Janovy writes: That’s not to say we haven’t suffered along with everyone else — except for a privileged few — in the Bush economy. But after eight long years of whatever is the opposite of “compassionate conservatism,” we’re left with an economy in ruins. And we’ll be honest: It’s torn a hole in part of The Pitch.
So Bush economy did it? Maybe Bush himself signed pink slips? I don’t get when people assign magic powers to the President: Reagan didn’t take down the Berlin Wall, Clinton didn’t invent blow jobs and Bush didn’t ruin the economy or even start the Iraq war by himself. There were other people like the Congress, Supreme Court, press, etc. The only US President in the past 70 years who (I could be wrong on this) single-handedly had to make a crucial history-changing decision was Harry S.Truman when he ordered to nuke Japan. Other Presidents just got their names associated with certain events while the power was elsewhere. Blaming Bush is just not very smart albeit very popular and will become even more so in the next 8 years. - I am not a fan of boycotts. So I am not about to call for one. I personally will not be patronizing businesses owned by this guy, I know they have two or three inside the City Market. I don’t really aim to harm his business, just when I buy another falafel sandwich I feel I contribute money so his relatives can buy more rockets and bomb my relatives. Not gonna happen!
- Speaking about boycotts, what’s up with vindictive gays harassing people who contributed to the passing of the Proposition 8. Tolerance my ass! (no pun here, move along). Here is one example: The “No Milk for Cinemark” movement tries to dissuade audiences from seeing “Milk” at Cinemark facilities. I think if you don’t agree with how someone spends his personal money you can do whatever you want (see the paragraph above), but trying to screw with said person’s livelihood is little extreme, coming from a group promoting tolerance. If it was turned the other way and let’s say I had a problem with the gay community, should I just pick on someone and make his/her life miserable? And a blogger can make a person’s life miserable, just ask “mayor funky“( wow! 645 results). Many people like me are not against gay rights (and why would someone be I don’t know) but when I see things like this I can’t see myself supporting the cause and I won’t (not that I have before).
- Lastly on a lighter note:
Why is this guy returning toilet paper? Impulse buy? Not soft enough? Not absorbent enough? If I was working retail I would’ve probably redefined “going postal”, so let’s be thankful that I don’t.
Little by little, the blogasphere is getting me educated.
Amazing what one can learn from reading blogs.
Seriously. I’m daily challenged to think about things that have always been “not part of my world”.
My head hurts, but I’m learning.
I bet the guy is returning it due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from watching those freaky, cuddly bears in the Charmin commercial. Either that or he just laid off and decided to get his money back after deciding to use catalogues…My theory at least.
I’m a little confused, Meesha – or, to be more direct, I have no idea what you’re whining about.
First, your claimed quotation of me is not a quotation. I never wrote it, and you mislead your readers when you act as though I did.
Second, I never said that Madoff was a Republican. I said that Republican economic theory should view him as a hero for creating incentive for the wealthy.
Third, I never claimed republicans give less than democrats.
Kind of grinds my own gear-skiy.
As the game is boring I’ll take a moment to quibble just a tad.
“…Bush didn’t…even start the Iraq war by himself.”
Actually…
In both Johnson and Bush’s cases, each President twisted, lied about and/or concealed from Congress important information that would have – in both cases according to both historical memoirs and interviews with a plethora of news organs – resulted in Congress denying the Presidents their desire: the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002.
Further, Nixon – who initially wanted to revoke the GT Resolution –preceded Bush in his arrogance by stating his Administration’s pursuance of the Vietnam ‘war’ wasn’t based on the resolution, but was a constitutional exercise of Nixon’s authority as commander in chief of U.S. military forces.
Thus, we have both Johnson and Bush almost single-handedly starting illegal ‘wars’ and we have Nixon echoing down the decades to cause even further mischief via His Imperial Presidency.
“…Bush didn’t ruin the economy or even start the Iraq war by himself.”
Again, economically speaking, the parallels between where we are now and where the country was at the end of the Vietnam conflict are blinding. In neither case did we actually pay for our wars, instead choosing to run them off-book, like a numbers racket in the back room of your Uncle Louie’s barber shop. The only difference is that the unregulated shenanigans allowed by the Bush administration this time around is bringing the financial murder of crows home much, much earlier than brother Neil’s Silverado faux pas.
[ Silverado cost the U.S. taxpayers around $1 billion in 80’s dollars and Neil walked away with just paying a fine somewhere under $100,000; big brother George looks to top that record by about $5 trillion and pay nothing. ]
As for the rest of your post, right on.
Although you should expect some retort from Dan soon – he seems to guard his ‘propriety’ somewhat over zealously.
sorry, I corrected my punctuation to reflect my paraphrasing.
Dan, I disagreed with a tone of your post, in Madoff affair democrats and charities suffered more than republicans, there are accounts of people losing their life savings (albeit pretty sizable), so I found sarcasm misplaced. at least republicans have an economic theory, you may think it’s misguided, we will now see how democratic theory (what is it again) will work.
Doc, the system is set up to prevent one branch going mad from doing this kind of stuff. The fact is if people like me (and you) knew it was deceit there was no excuse for the congress to grant the powers to the president based on no evidence. How many of them are still in congress? Exactly my point.
Thanks for the correction. You’re still misreading the post, but at least you’re not making it look like I wrote what you seem to think I wrote.
The point is that republicans seem to think that the uberwealthy are the economic engine who must not be taxed lest they lose their incentive. Madoff managed to create a whole lot of incentive for the uberwealthy.
As for who Madoff stole from, it appears that about 1 or 2 percent may have come from wealthy foundations, and no breakdown on the religion or party affiliation of his victims has been published.
I think the right word would be”over”-taxed, we all have seen stats about who pays what amount of taxes.
Sorry: you missed my point.
In both cases the President(s) lied/misled/withheld information from Congress.
But at the time, in both cases, Congress assumed/was told it was getting all the inside skinny/intelligence that the American public did not have.
Ergo, in both cases Congress made decisions in spite of the views of the American public becasue they knew they had the inside dope.
And the reason they believed that was because their President had assured them it was true.
Government systems can always be played by those within the system itself. In each case a President gamed teh system to get what he wanted. Afterward, when the facts were finally disclosed, it became too late (for several disparate reasons) to say ‘oops, sorry; we’ll pay for the breakage and head on home then, okay?’
Millions can die, global economies can be wrecked because of single individuals, my friend…
And the game still sucked.
MV said, “I think if you don’t agree with how someone spends his personal money you can do whatever you want (see the paragraph above), but trying to screw with said person’s livelihood is little extreme, coming from a group promoting tolerance.”
Let me break this down for you:
(1) CEO uses personal money to do “bad thing X”
(2) CEO gets that personal money from in the form of a salary paid by his company
(3) Company gets money to pay CEO’s salary from selling a product/service.
Therefore – I am not going to use said company’s product/service because part (even a teensy tiny part) will go to supporting causes with which I vehemently disagree.
Why is it OK to screw with other people’s civil rights, but it’s not OK to screw with his livelihood? My money is not (knowingly) going to go to supporting bigots – period.
That’s my point, you personally can do whatever you want, it’s when you start campaigning you lose me. When things become a cause they are no different then the cause of voting for prop 8.
I think they’re screwing with civil rights when they abuse people because of their vote. And when I say abuse, there have been several instances of abuse such as storming into churches during services and throwing things, etc., knocking people to the ground, etc. Tolerance – yah right.
Regarding the folks who are all butthurt about Proposition 8 (no I didn’t vote for it, yes I’m in California, and no I’m not sympathetic to the day-late fervor of gay rights groups in my state), it strikes me as odd that somebody would support the right of business owners to spend their personal money however the please (such as in support of a political issue) but not support the right of other people to not give that same person any more money.
It is exactly as right for people to campaign against Cinemark as it was for the CEO of Cinemark to donate to the Yes on 8 campaign, and for exactly the same reason.
People are far too easily outraged one way or another these days, and businessmen should be careful about throwing their weight behind controversial issues.