"Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'

Post Reply New Topic

Once a corporate executive pulls the cord on their golden parachute, they seem to lose interest in the price of shares in the company they were raiding. And until they pull the parachute cord (or the corporation crumbles), they may try all kinds of things to keep share prices growing short term, even if it is not in the long term interests of the company.

Yes, there are 'incentives' to prevent malfeasance by those in charge of corporate governance. Just like there are incentives to prevent malfeasance in the sphere of public governance. Which doesn't mean that either system works very well.

Of course they do. There is a principal-agent problem. However, how often do we see companies completely collapse, and how many companies are there? If we have tons of companies, and a few dry up due to complete failure on the part of executives then that does not seem like *that* bad of a system given how quickly companies can change and how many governments we see that suck like heck.

Both systems work somewhat well, it is just that politics includes ideological issues and often lacks competition in many sectors to get them working faster. At the very least, society has not collapsed, which goes to prove something.

Try to understand this. Some of these people are mentally ill, whether due to poor early development or genetic factors. In the former case, unhealthy living conditions are not conducive toward giving children from impoverished families chances for better moral and cognitive development than their parents had. In fact, it screws them up. Early childhood diseases can lead to mental retardation later in life, and an unhealthy diet during early childhood development can cause similar problems. In the case of the latter, there could be thousands of genetically heritable disorders that have not been discovered yet, and there are plenty as it is that do not have effective or reliable treatment programs in place. It is not helpful to leave them stranded, and it is not helpful to leave them in environments that could cause their condition to worsen. These unpleasant people that Johnnie was referring to are often deeply in need of mental help.

That doesn't even cover people who suffer from physical disabilities. Libertarians are the kind of people who would leave a paraplegiac stranded in the snow. It doesn't make a lick of sense to cut programs like disability when the same behavior would be labelled murder by neglect anywhere else in life. My room-mate was literally unable to walk on his own for a number of years. Because of one of the inherent flaws in the program, as it stands to day, he did end up remaining on the program long after he had physically recovered. I think that he would have benefitted, however, from being prompted to go into vocational rehabilitation once he was physically able to do so. He is not, by nature, a lazy person, but years of being laid-up leaves a scar of its own: it creates a comfort zone, and any human being in the world is naturally aversive to leaving his or her comfort zone, no matter how messed-up it actually is. This is why millions of people still cling to their religious beliefs in a world in which their beliefs look like some childish fantasy, even after being prompted to reexamine those beliefs. It's the same reason that we have such a thing as conservatives. This is one of the reasons that I am an advocate of welfare reform. I support the principle of it, but creating that comfort zone creates a problem in itself, and it also needs to be resolved.

What did I fail at, retired at 45, nice place in vermont. If it wasn't for the moron carter killing the economy when I finally got let out of school jail and the moron school system wasting my time and all the mooches I would have retired a lot sooner. My parents where democrats and ended up poor old people I had to help support on top of the supporting the government slugs and the safety net occupants.

I love the BITTER part, anyone who laughs at liberals is either full of hate or bitter.

Here's one some of you will love.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne ... g_of_a.htm

and one you will hate
The Dow Jones industrials surged nearly 400 points
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080401/wall_street.html

I hate that Dow Jones story, because a one-day "surge" is not a good indicator of anything except how investors were feeling that day.

[url=http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=^dji;range=1y;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=off;source=undefined]Look at the chart for the last year.[/url]

Its dollar value is only slightly up from one year ago, but the value of the dollar has fallen significantly.

A chart of the dollar value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average looks like this(This image is a link):



But if you take into account changes in the value of the U.S. Dollar, the actual value of the Down Jones Industrial Average looks like this(This image is also a link):



The actual value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked in 2000.

Excellent graphs, especially the second one!

so the reagan/bush gains held and the clinton bubble burst and there was no real gain to speak of during the clinton rain of terror on america and prior to reagan the dems had a horrable record and right after LBJ started his war & great society nonsense the economy dived for over a decade and jimmy carter blew it up completely.

It's only part of the story if dividends & taxes aren't accounted for along with things that changed totally beyond the control of government.

1960's a major wave of automation hit factories displacing large numbers of workers, than the shipping container changed the import game from a labor intensive longshoreman controlled operation to a few minutes of work for a guy to unload a truckload of stuff in a container. Than the computer showed up changing the office from very labor intensive to get some new software and lay off the staff.

Political junkies totally eaten up with politics believe the dork of the day in the whitehouse controlls planet earth.

Don't ya think Carter's 'blowing up of the economy' had something to do with Iran having a revolution and the price of oil going up? You know, one of those things totally beyond the control of the White House?? Looking at the graph, one could reasonably say that Carter inherited a strong downward trend from 12 years of Nixon/Ford/Bush administration.

Right. By eliminating environments where they can thrive with no effort.

Right, everything bad in america is attributable to democrats and everything good the republicans were responsible for. We get it by now.

I actually read the whole village voice article and what I dont get is why is this man's opinion is worth anything? Why are his ill perceived perceptions of how he defined liberalism to himself used as a foundation as to why he is decides to go 180. People like that to me just sound either really dumb or really unbalanced. If i were him i would just go cold turkey on politics for awhile and ask his parents if he consumed lead as a child.


A question I have for bitter old Johnnie is how do his morals come into play of his beliefs about corporation being good and government being bad? Do you really think we should expand our current privatized prison system? Should mercenaries in Iraq be above all laws because they answer to no on except their corporate boss? Why not bring back slavery while your at it. If poor people can't find jobs and you don't like welfare than why not just sell their labor to the wealthy? As for marriages that is fine and dandy for the ladies but what about all the poor men? How are unemployed men suppose to take care of children and wives? Wont it be better to just go bibilical and have rich men marry multiple wives. And I suppose you could either just kill the poor men or make them slaves; whatever works to get the problem solved. As for living in a cess pool and having plenty of s**t end up in your meat. I suppose a little e. coli never hurt anyone. Buyer beware is really going to start to take on meaning again.

Governments arn't perfect because people arn't perfect. Village voice man scores a point on that one. But governments at least the good ones are the tools of the people. You can have your cake and eat it too. You can actually live in a world where you can have buisnesses focusing on making money and and have a government in which the people are actually active in it and can have a voice as to how to solve such societal problems like poverty,crime,obesity,environmental pollution exc. I dont' see this is particuallry radical or leftist. I have a sneaking suspision that a lot of pple go extreme right wing out of sheer laziness. After all if you can just throw the baby out with the bathwater than you don't actually have to think, you can just go on being a mindless robot who dumbs down every issue and wishes to live in a dog eat dog primitive state.

My old man has always voted Democratic, and he could have retired years ago. Instead, he got his parents' old place renovated to move into, fixed a brain tumor, bought a hobby farm, and got mustangs for his wife and teenaged daughter. The only reason he did this instead of retiring is that it's a family tradition to stay on the job and leave a big legacy for the kids. Our money has always been tied up in property, and my line has done pretty well for themselves. His own father worked for life, too, actually. He did soft work until he was too crippled from age to continue functioning. I'm probably going to do the same thing, and so probably will my brother and sister, both of whom are making good grades and trying to decide what they want to do with their lives. Furthermore, our lifespans tend toward the mid-nineties, and divorce is nearly unheard of in my line. It comes from us having a good work ethic and positive attitude toward others, both of which you seem to take some perverse pride in lacking.

Carter ran as a moderate, you idiot.

Hate? Well, if the shoe fits, wear it, big boy. If being an outright jerk comes to you naturally, though, then I guess you're not bitter about anything. You've just got a bad attitude, and it's going to hurt you when the day's through. Whether your wife left you or your kids won't speak to you, though, don't take it out on people who have a better outlook on life than yourself. What made you retire at forty-five, anyway? You like just sitting around doing nothing? Perhaps you should go back into work, man. It might give you something better to do with your time than ridicule and attack others.

sums it up, rich kid.

Vermont & CT. are full of people like you, got old family money and are very noble knowing whatever the government takes from them won't affect their standard of living.

Unlike your spoiled butt, I worked for everything I have and don't take kindly to mooches sucking off me. I know you believe i should keep working so people like you can be noble with part of what I earn, but too bad I ain't paying crap in taxes no more and the government can tax you up the butt for all I care.

Griff it should be Biff
Thanks for the good laugh, you rant was hysterical. Like getting my butt ragged on by a pampered person like George Bush.



an ended up a moderate idiot.

regulation is one thing, handing people things stolen from other people is another thing. It's not the governments job to redistribute wealth.

A tax rate of 47.8 % isn't paying taxes, it's getting robbed blind.
15.3% social security taxes for self employed
28% federal income tax
4.5% state income tax
equals robbery.

adding up all the income & payroll & property taxes I paid in 2002, 03, 04 and seeing it equaled my total income on the w-2's for those 3 years wasn't paying taxes, it was having my whole paycheck stolen from me.

Why work at a 100% tax rate ?

Go to work before the sun comes up and on the way home see Biff and Muffy hanging around the park and it's not even 5pm yet. Oh yeah I'm going to go bust my butt to provide them the easy life, they can attend college a few hours a week and than get some 35 hour a week government job all on my dime, yeah right.

I sent Bush $17.00 last week, maybe he can buy a few Bullets to clean up the mess carter made in the middle east.It beats writting out checks to the Treasury for $17,000.00. Girl doing my taxes one year nearly had a stroke when she saw what I owed. She could barely get it out asking me if I knew how much I owed, I said what 15 ? 20 ? and her coworker sitting next to her said just lay it on me, I'm used to it. They always want a little more.

Ok Biff chew on my butt some more after you get done applying for your student loan that is funded by people who actually work for a living doing real jobs. I'm sure you believe you will pay for your education, hahaha. The whole system is subsidized by people who work for a living, colleges are tax exempt and all those donations that keep the cost down are tax write off's for the wealthy so you aren't even beginning to pay the true cost.
Did you say medical school, yeah tax exempt hospitals living off medicare & medicaid dollars.

Yeah i should go get back in a truck so Biff can have the easy life, work all sorts of crazy hours of the day and night ruining my health living on grease burgers so Biff can live to 90 because he was born wealthy and I wasn't.

Biff will lecture me about work ethic while his family exploits labor to get wealthy and cooks their tax returns probably got themselves a illegal mexican to work on the hobby farm for an added kicker and will justify it by babbling something about no americans will do that kind of work and leave out they don't want to pay a realistic wage to attract one.

Tsk, tsk. So angry. And so misinformed.

A large majority of student loans are not funded by taxpayers. While at one point, there was a subsidy to such loans, interest rates on student loans has been above market rates. The government does make certain guarantees, but the borrowers pay back the loans with interest, just as first time home owners pay back their FHA mortgages with interest. And isn't it curious that the well regulated FHA mortgage writers never went out to hoodwink people into a ballooning loan that they obviously can't afford?? While the geniuses on wall street may have used their freedom from regulation and responsibility to crash our financial system by writing so many bad notes.

At this point I'm leaning towards thinking his baby spoon had lead paint on it or something.