SH!T SANDWICH
And we all have to take a bite…
(Henry Paulson)
picture: dunno source, via our lol builder. lol caption: kal
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SH!T SANDWICH
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It’s what he’s feeding us…
Does any body see the screwed up pinky finger (looks broken)
first!
*sniggers*
ah you tread the fine line between win and fail, unfortunately you tipped to the side of fail.
Why do people do this? What kind of tape-on-your-glasses dork are these people?
Hey…don’t insult dorks. :/
Keep them as pets.
As long as they’re house-trained…
Pluralizing “dork” fail.
Every time I hear (or see) that word I think of the Bill Engvall bit about the dorkfish.
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“I’m a dorkfish! He caught me on a corndog! I was just swimmin’ ‘long underneath the ocean!…….and I thought to myself, ‘what’s that corndog doin’ underneath the ocean?’”
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“But you have to take the stick out, cause they’ll eat that, too.”
*Pulls stick out of mouth*
Uh, you mean this kinna stick?
I just want to take this opportunity to say:
DORKNOZZLE.
(When is Rachel Maddow coming back from vacation? Ariana Huffington’s accent drives me up a wall.)
Next week. If I’d known Ariana was filling in, I’d have listened in this week. I was afraid they’d get David Bender; if I wanted to listen to Public Radio, I’d just switch over!
Which, in fact, I’ve been doing all this week!
MSNBC.com has video of her shows archived, but if your browser has an aggressive ad blocker the video won’t load. You *have* to sit through the web ads if you want to watch.
Nah, the dorks/nerds/geeks at least try to say something interesting (if only to themselves). These are sheeple.
Anyone check out the pinkie finger on his left hand!!!???
I think he may get a few more broken…
Maybe they caught him cheating in Vegas…
…could it be one of the signs of the Antichrist?!
…or maybe he’s part of the Hapsburg’s.
Doubtless Agnes Nutter mentions ‘a robber baron with a crook’d fyngere fhall forely piffe orf the maffes byw gyinge theyr monnie too the ryche… & theye will bee soerlee braffed off’ in her ‘The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch” in the run up to the end of days…
LOL! The translation was painful, but the end result was worth it.
Terry Pratchett win!
What a great ICHC caption!
Maybe he borrowed from some very unforgiving people.
That’s what happens when you “link pinks” with the Devil! >:}~
He must have sneezed once while “digging for gold.”
Eh, mainstream economics. Economy=efficient perfection.
In what universe? I’ve said before, economics is a pseudo-science. Not one model they claim works can be said to actually work in reality.
That’s becuase not one model has actually ever been followed to the letter before. At some point in time, greed always gets in the way.
Reality doesn’t follow a model, it is what it is. Economics is about prediction of reality, not some mythological construct to be followed. It’s like saying that Gravity is works by the action of small purple elves and then getting pissy when t no one else thinks so.
The map is NEVER the terrain.
I feel slightly stupider every time I read one of BattleCry’s posts. They are like black holes of ignorance, from which no intelligence can escape.
You get the Hawking Radiation of some of my replies though…
Ok wise guy, name a model that has been followed, to the exact way it was dreamed up by its creator, and then bring on the heartache.
Til then here’s a bit ‘o my sandwich.
Hey, dipstick, you’re trying to get into a pissing contest with a man holding a garden hose in his hand. I wouldn’t ask Seth to back up his claims unless you want to be buried under a mountain of evidence and sources. Jane said it best: “If Seth calls you a retard he will have so much evidence backing it up that you will go buy the helmet yourself!”
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Cheers!
If you substitute “fire hose,” I’ll go with that assessment!
Actually, you don’t understand the answers you’ve been given… you’re that stupid
If you weren’t that stupid, you’d not have basically restated your first canrd.
The point is MODELS ARE NOT FOLLOWED, REALITY IS. Christ’s Wounds, but you’re a dullard.
Dullard, yes, but not in a *good* way.
There is a *good* way?
I’m nice to stray cats, and I smile a lot. See?—->
???
I’m nice to stay cats… infinitely preferable to people… I’m withffoukes
A model, in science, is a law, theory, or hypothesis depending on the strength of it’s predictions. It is not something you ‘follow.’ Get it? A model is like a map of reality. It says, if you go down this road, you’ll reach New York, but if you go down this other road, you’ll reach New Haven.
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You are talking about something completely different. Your idea of an economic model is something we put into practice, that is, we have this idea about how our economy should be, and we set it up like that. You state that, because we have never set up our economy EXACTLY like the economists say we should, we have not tried their models. But that is not how models work in science.
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Economic models make predictions. They are not little toy train sets that we need to actually build to test. Rather, the model says things like ‘These toy trains work on electricity. If you do not plug them in, they won’t work’ or ‘These toy trains run on springs. If you don’t wind them up, they won’t work.’ Do you see, we do not need to build the entire train set to know if either of these models accurately describes the trains we have.
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Economic models are the same way. They do not tell us how to run our economy. They tell us, if you do this, this is what will happen. And the thing is, they are not accurate. The models tell us things that have been shown to be untrue. We can take any situation and see what the model tells us will happen. Then we can see what actually happens.
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For instance, lets start with a simple circumstance. We have a two
player game. Player 1 gets some free money. He can keep any or all of it, or give some or all of it to player 2. But player 2 gets to decide whether to accept the deal, or nix it, so nobody gets any money. Our current economic models predict that person one will keep all but one penny, and person 2 will accept that penny and let person 1 keep all the rest.
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Why does the model say that? Because the model assumes that people act out of self interest. Person 1 knows that if he keeps all the money, person 2 will negate the deal and person 1 will get nothing. However, the model also predicts that person 2 will accept any non-zero sum. After all, a penny is better than no penny. Person 1, knowing this, will offer a penny, knowing person 2 will take it.
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This experiment has been run thousands of time. It has been done in India, with the sums being offered equivalent to months worth of salary. Our current economic models make incorrect predictions. In the real world, people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest. They will punish unfair splits, even though it means they lose out. It is more important to enforce fairness than it is to make money, for most people.
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This is but one example of how mainstream economic models make incorrect predictions. I will give another example. Mainstream economic models predicted that the derivatives market would self-regulate, and thus not require government regulation. Alan Greenspan took actions based on the predictions of this model. He has since admitted that the model completely failed to predict the actual course of events. The model he used has therefore been shown to be incorrect.
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Models would be useless if they only predicted events within a tiny set of circumstances. Do you understand? If the model says, “This only works on Tuesdays under a full moon while wearing plaid and carrying a chicken” it is useless. An economic model that only makes accurate predictions if everything is done a precise way is also useless. A useful model makes predictions for a wide range of circumstances. Your claim that, as we have not created the right set of circumstances, the models have not been tried, only proves how useless those models are.
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So, to reiterate, you do not understand science in the slightest.
GIANT. garden. hose.
Well it is Wednesday and I am wearing a shirt that isn’t plaid and I don’t have a chicken… Dammit!!! I knew I did something wrong.
Hung like a horse!
Maybe “open fire hydrant” would be a better comparison.
Or incoming tide in the Bay of Fundy?
Gulf Stream. (The ocean current, not the small aircraft.)
We knew we could count on Seth to follow up.. not just with a witty retort, but with an avalanche of information!
Seth, m’dear, you have the patience of a SAINT… let no one tell you otherwise
Wow…you people actually deify (ok, canonize) each other…that’s scary. how does Seth’s breakfast taste, froo?
and I’m an atheist…
I wouldn’t know about Seth’s breakfast, hehe. He and I are pretty much polar opposites on just about everything, but I respect a man who knows what he knows and can back it up. And when you’re as educated and intelligent as Seth, people would do well not to screw with you
I learned my lesson a long time ago about poking Seth too hard 
Well, there is a subtle difference between being educated/intelligent, and just holding forth. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is being done, and being drowned in a mountain of arguments sometimes makes it hard to tell. I see Seth (and others) holding forth a lot, and offering mountains of arguments a lot. That’s not to say he is (or they are) not educated and intelligent, it’s just a heads-up that there is not necessarily the causal relationship between the two that you’re implying.
Sometimes, that mountain of “evidence” is there to mask a lack of knowledge on a given topic.
And again, not saying that this is the case with Seth in particular – -just making the general observation.
I would agree with you about the fine line, but with Seth as the exception that proves the rule. Seth doesn’t just bury you under a mountain, he has carefully researched and tends not to just grab the first Google entry that pops up. Unless it’s about Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin, then his blood lust lets loose and we’re treated to a harange about how evil they both are and how they should be put in the well and fed to vicious pigs. But usually other than that, he’s extremely learned and intelligent.
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And holding a garden hose in said pissing contest
For pigs to eat someone they don’t need to be vicious… although there’s no sound quite like when they find carrion… it quite lives with one.
Yes, but can you deny that Seth would go the extra step to find vicious pigs to eat Limbaugh and Palin versus regular pigs? He might even go as far as getting ill-tempered sea bass.
True… he’d probably find a rare breed to add to his frisson of delight…
Not that that is a bad thing, you under stand…
“Seth doesn’t just bury you under a mountain, he has carefully researched and tends not to just grab the first Google entry that pops up”
Unfortunately, this WordPress venue doesn’t allow us to verify that. He makes a lot of arguments that sound as if they are well-reasoned and fact-based, but we have no way of knowing. I do the same thing (but I feel I must point out that whenever a non-self-proclaimed-liberal does so, we suddenly somehow are all parroting talking points from the RNC and conservative talk).
So again, I just wanted to caution everyone against assuming someone is well-researched, when they may just be one terrific bullsh*tter.
Just remember that us Conservatives are greatly outnumbered here, and it would do us well to remember to take the high road at all times
Yeah, apparently those of us who claim no allegiance to either persuasion are in the tiniest minority. :\
OTOH, If I could post links here to back up my bullsh*t, no one likely would read them because they would all be from dry, factual sites.
I’ve held my own with Seth on a few occassions but he will eventually bury you in mounds of posts and it just isnt worth it to me anymore, we have made our peace. I come in here to laugh and have fun, not end up under a pile of angry posters. You are correct though, conservative links to information and research are always suspect.
(suspect in here, that is…)
Yeah, that’s why I like to stick to apolitical links such as govvie stats sites and (yes, even) Wikipedia. If any of you can find a bias in either direction on Wikipedia, I’ll buy you, er…something…it won’t be gold though.
Technically I have no political agenda as far as parties go. I know that despite any ideal, any and every politician will have to kiss some kind of devil to get things done.
This time, I swung for Obama. If a Republican or Independent can do it, fine, have at. So I am neither Liberal or Conservative.
That means you’re a godless leftist…
and at the people complaining about the level and quality of Seht’s info…
Google is your friend, assuming one can pull one’s head from up the ‘I’m a conservative’ sphincter that it seems to be inserted up and use the brain you think your sky fairy gave you to winnow out the bias without introducing your own.
God’s death, but since when did ‘I’m a conservative’ mean that one’s objective critical faculties were surgically removed?
How long did it take you to write that?
About four minutes. I type fast.
…tl;dr. Damn.
“In the real world, people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest. They will punish unfair splits, even though it means they lose out. It is more important to enforce fairness than it is to make money, for most people.”
Holy flurking schnitt!! This is actually true? And proven? People aren’t all Lord of the Flies and stuff?
I have killed for a good parking place, and I’ll do it again.
you live in TX, the most Darwinian state of the Union. In AZ they’ll kill you for a parking space in shade…
Here’s one study that shows people will reject an unfair offer of money, even if it means they won’t get any money at all…
Really amazing. I don’t know what surprises me more, the fact that people will act altruistically, or the fact that the same action (holding out for a fair share) is simultaneously ethical AND expedient.
Then con artists are successful because…?
Then there’s the dear old Milgram Experiment, where in people off the street would torture someone to death when someone ‘in authority’ tells you to…
Not people off the street. Owning class students at an exclusive university. And not all of them would do it. Owning class people tend to have their empathy circuits damaged at an early age. I have a friend who’s a Buddhist monk, goes around to grade schools teaching kids about oppression. Even in third grade, he can spot the owning class kids. They are the ones who argue that oppression is good, right, and necessary. They’ve had it beaten into them that you are either the one wielding the stick, or the one getting beaten, even by age six or seven. You need to kill off your empathy in order to be a good stick wielder. That’s not to say that average working class people wouldn’t do the same thing. Just saying it hasn’t been proven in a scientific experiment.
Damn, Seth.
I’m considering going to Sweden for surgery, just so I can have your babies after that one.
It’s cheaper in Thailand.
but less reliable…
Not small purple elves, the underpants gnomes!
They’re the ones who send your underwear to Narnia (all driers are nexus points_
They’re the cousins of the Sock Boggarts.
Step 1 is collect the underpants.
Step 2: ?????
Step 2 is meet Mr. Tumnus at the Lampost with said underpants.
Step 3 is make lotsa money.
With used underpants? How’s that work?
Ask the Japanese.
o.O
The images you make my mind create are so disturbing *shudders*
Gee I’ve lived a sheltered life. Methinks I’ve been lurking a little over long.
You aren’t missing much but that might be a matter of perspective.
Most of the things I come out with I couldn’t make up
Apart from the comment about Ann Coulter’s voice box looking like the elbow of a parasitic conjoined twin… that was fiction…
It doesn’t?
Well, the part about her having a parasitic conjoined twin was made up. In reality Ann Coulter ate her twin in the womb to gain it’s power.
That’s covered in Step 2 (above).
It’s a reference to a “South Park” episode where underpants gnomes were stealing everyone’s underpants in the middle of the night, and nobody could figure out why. The scene I’m referring to went something like this:
– What’s step 2?
– Step 3 is make lotsa money.
– Yeah, but what’s step 2?
– Well… Step 1 is collect the underpants.
So we never did find out exactly how the gnomes made their money.
It created the huge meme of:
1) Do X
2) ????
3) PROFIT
My wife took a couple of economics courses recently, and so far, they seem to be able to do little more than tell you why something happened, why something is happening, even with all that, never really seems to predict what *will* happen.
You fail at understanding science. Science makes models. These models predict future events. One does not need to ‘try’ the models. The models should predict what happens given any set of circumstances. Greed is actually an important component in most old-school economic models, even though it has been proven recently to be the least important motivator for most people. The models of economics do not accurately predict squat. Understand? The models say, ‘do this, that will happen. Do that, this will happen,’ and, come this OR that, the model doesn’t work. It has nothing to do with ‘trying’ the model, that is ludicrous and betrays a completely juvenile understanding of the way science works.
TBH, it’s the African Queen school of engineering – you kick it or hit it with a hammer until the banging stops and it does what you want it to do…
You’re in high finance? I never knew…
Does this methodology in some way involve… duct tape?
Nah, I think it needs hydraulic cement!
Coke, hookers and duct tape (see above).
Seems like you guys end up arguing semantics a lot. Maybe there is another word besides model that would fit?
In Economics I’d go for ‘Faith Based Initiative’
So “voodoo economics” is redundant?
Aha! So the problem is an underregulated straight pin market!
How’s that pain…just below your 4th left rib?
rho^2 sweetie, can you not tell right from left or are you holding the doll backwards? The pain is in my right side low in my ribcage.
No lie. I have no idea how, but I seem to have injured an intracostal muscle. So what I want to know is, how did you get my hair to use?
so in answer to your question, no there’s not another word and it’s not semantics.
Well I guess all those Economics courses are worthless. (I always hated economics anyway!) Now if everyone could just balance their own checkbooks we’d be fine.
I hate just about everything involving numbers…
Right… I think I see where you’re going wrong with your chequeing account…
Lack of money would be one red flag, at least in my case.
Thank goodness for my smart and benevolent friends who understand those funny things one counts with…
Fingers!
Uh…this is why my wife balances the checkbook.
Not worthless, but just realize that there is no more politically motivated science than economics. Climate science doesn’t even come close. Economic theories are not widely adopted because they are accurate. They are widely adopted because they make the ruling class happy. New economic research is very interesting though, especially the contributions of game theory. It turns out, humans are not, for the most part, selfish. Humans are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than they are motivated by self interest. Most of us will take a large personal loss if it enforces fairness. Most of us will not take advantage of others, even if we can do so easily and with no consequences. However, in a system that rewards unfairness and selfishness, people will act that way in self defense, to avoid being taken advantage of. So our current economic system is worse than useless, it actually brings out the bad parts of human nature, encouraging selfishness that would not exist in a different system. And then using that selfishness to justify the system that creates it.
You closet Polly Anna you…
Or maybe a balance of both would be good.
You’ll be singing songs they used to market Coca-Cola like they mean something next…
It’s Seth’s fault…
[sings]
I’d like to give the world a hug
And tell it jokes and stuff…
~~
Luckily for all of us, I can’t remember the rest of the song.
Continuing on:
But when it come to market shares,
We know it’s all just fluff
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Sorry, I was a bit pitchy on that one.
It’s the re-alll thi-innng
Thanks for the tonal save!
Actually they are pretty much worthless, other than as examples of what *nearly worked*
And the projections are probably not going to be much better than 4 weeks (and there I’m being kind) In reality I think much more than 10 days is more realistic.
At the moment, the models are akin to using trying to predicts next years Hurricane Season with a bit of kelp and a pine cone…
Damn. And here I’ve been using a dog’s leg and some foreskin to make my predictions.
Sheep entrails were the weapon of choice at Enron
You almost got me in trouble at class with this one.
GIVE THAT BACK!!! I knew I lost it somewhere…
Why did you leave your foreskin in Texas?
I… I……. I don’t know… >_>
She made it look like a good idea at the time.
All been there bud… have a brew.
*enjoys brew* … That’s better.
Of course, you’ll always be called ‘Stumpy to me from now on…
That is a mighty big stump………
Of course it is…
Ok, so what you’re saying here is that all models are predictors rather than directors. Makes sense, but it leads to an interesting question. If all models are toast from day one because all they can do is fail to speculate correctly, then why do we base our entire economy on a speculative platform like the stock market. And I’m not saying that in a snarky way, I’m asking a question.
To me, the stock market, inflation, the fed, etc are all about as concrete as the tooth fairy and I’ve NEVER understood why we use this system to create money that does not and cannot exist. It’s like a whole nother dimension where physics don’t apply. It’s not a science, it’s not even “not an exact science”. Only thing I can possibly equate it to to make you understand how I feel towards it is summed up in one word:
Phrenology.
Now you totally get it. You understand what we’re saying about models, and how that applies to economics, and I think you actually understood it all along, but it was just a matter of the lingo. Phrenology is a great comparison.
Hey, I’m not a dumbass, I just play one on the internet
But I still don’t have an answer to my question….why are we using this form of unstable economy? Is the gold standard better? I mean come on, we place value on gold so is it any better than the value we place on stocks?
And who thought this was a good idea in the first place?
everytime we have an economic recession in this country (or the ones I’ve looked up) I can only see two factors that are constant…bad speculation and the fed being stupid. If we eliminate those two issues, yet still promote a free market-SANS the exhanges, would we see an end to bubbles…both the economic and simian kind?
I told you… it suits the people in charge for the most part.
Do you refer to the elected kind or the banking kind?
There’s a difference? One owns the other…
The only difference between capitalism and communism is whether business owns the government, or vice versa. There’s an ‘In soviet Russia’ joke in there, but I refuse to make it.
The problem with gold is that there is a fixed amount of it, while the economy is not a fixed thing. What happens when the economy grows, but there is still the same amount of gold to represent it. Not to mention, gold is actually useful for other things, like electronic connectors. Do we use the gold for useful things, or representing economics.
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It may surprise you to learn that I don’t really have that great a comprehension of the fractional reserve banking system. I’ve tried to understand it, and sometimes after much study, I think I do. But then, say a week later, I try to explain it to someone and realize, no, I still don’t understand it at all.
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The most famous bubble, Tulip Mania, happened back in the 1630s, when we were still on a gold standard, and can be blamed entirely on bad speculation But speculation itself is not to blame, as it serves a useful purpose. It is a mechanism for sharing risk. The first futures markets were the spice markets. Nobody knew what the spice harvests would be like each year, and sending ships and wagon trains from Europe to India was hugely expensive. Good harvests meant more competition and lower prices, while bad harvests meant the opposite. Rather than let each individual trader carry the risk on their own, futures markets were set up to let people agree on fair prices ahead of time. You couldn’t scalp the other guy as hard if things played out in your favor, but you wouldn’t be as screwed if they didn’t, and overall, that’s a good thing.
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I believe the primary function of society is the equitable sharing of risks and rewards. Futures markets and speculation help do this, when regulated. The problem we face is unregulated speculation. What happened is that
people just kept repackaging and selling the risk, even risk they had no stake in. You and I could essentially make bet over whether or not a certain percentage of people would default on their mortgages, without being parties to the loan. And then other people could bet on whether you or I won the first bet, and so on. This lead to a horrible inflation of value, a very precarious situation where a few things going wrong could ripple through the entire house of cards. That kind of speculation does nothing to equitably share risk, it is just gambling, so it needs to be regulated. But things like oil and corn futures, being more concrete and related to real world variable risk, are not so bad.
There’s my hobby horse of the myth of unlimited growth from finite resource.
Even Alexander the Great ran out of worlds conquer.
Ah, but don’t you see? Technological advancement means we can do more and more with less and less. Forever. AHAHAHhahahahaha, oooh, sorr. I tried to say it with a straight face, I really did.
*spock*in-DEED*/spock*
Or, if you’re talking about hitting and kicking things to fix them, what about Pratchett’s “retrophrenology”?
I know a few people I’d like to try that on…
“And what is it today? Decisiveness?”
“Yes…No…Maybe…”
Let’s enlarge that bump of knowledge…
It’s more like a religion, since it’s fuelled mostly by wishful thinking, articles of faith and the vicissitudes of those who DO make money from it…
I like that word: vicissitudes.
vi
ci
ssi
tudes
It starts off all smoothly with the “v” and then there are those adorably bouncy “i”s and the lispy “c” and “s”s for your mouth to trip over and then the “t” makes the word sharp and tight and staccato. The “ude” sounds nice and official and it ends in an “s”, which is a good way for any word to end.
It’s nice and long too, without using any syllables it doesn’t need. It’s a good word. I wish I could use it in conversation but I can’t do so without sounding even more pretentious than usual.
Thank you, Uncle Fester, for giving it a well-deserved airing…
You’re welcome.
I like sussurate as a word too…
and coruscate…
I LOVE CORUSCATE!
And “coruscant,” “coruscating,”"élan” is nice too and so is “prestidigitation.”
Words are just fandabbydozy…
Coruscate is one of those words that needs a class of it’s own since it sounds like what it’s describing *looks* like… embers coruscating across the ashes…
It’s more than just onomatopoeia or connotation, there must be a word for it….
What about words that make you feel like what you’re describing? Such as: “dreech.”
Oh, but coruscate’s just lovely…
According to Terry Pratchett, there isn’t…
*sigh*
I like big words and I cannot lie.
I like big words and I cannot lie.
You other linguists can’t deny…
*wicky wicky wicky*
When a comment has in that itty bitty space
Pentasyllabics in your face
You get sprung!
Break it down!
English Time!
Any model that doesn’t take greed into consideration automatically fails, then.
pretty much… I’d favour an increasing power of e
THIS IS A BAILOUT PACKAGE
IT IS MADE OF SHORT-SIGHTED ECONOMIC POLICY AND LIES
Indeed… although they could run it as a Reality show
‘Banking execs knife fighting for cash’… I’d pay to watch it…
Or how about Banking execs face the public…
That’s just blood thirsty.
I’m impressed… tar and feathers optional?
Mandatory!
Excellent… I’d hate to feel overdressed.
I am personally for gladiatorial arena justice. Make them fight it out for our entertainment. Their golden parachute is based off kills… Yaaaa, good stuff. I will wear my top hat. Excellent… Oh wait, huh?
Make them sumo wrestle.
Nude–against me !!
Muhahahahaha!!!!
Have you taken all your meds today, Joe?
I think he’s sniffed them
Waxing. Public full body waxing. Won’t kill them, WILL hurt them and it can be done every few weeks for as long as they live!
Yes but the torture of seeing their wobbly bits…YICK!
You mean the Bum Crack and Sac wax?
Oh gross…there went lunch. *sighs*
meatballs on bun was it?
Mmm–with grilled onions, too!
Good God, ema, I didn’t realize you were that brutal! But, I like the way you think. Maybe you should get a job in TV Programming.
Endemol, eat your heart out…
OH NOES!
WE ALL LOSE HOUSE!
ECONOMY SUCK!
GM & FORD WILL FALL!
1,000,000′S OUT OF WORK!
BANKS! OIL! PIRATES!
FAIRNESS DOCTRINE!
WAIT! >>>>>>>>> OBAMA! >>>>>> CHANGE!
WHEW!
nothing to see here carry on
PIRATES, I’d be more worried about ninjas.
Pirates have always been at war with ninjas.
And Chuck Norris has always kicked both of their asses.
Can we send Chuck Somalia, then?
Woops. TO Somalia?
Chuck Norris would make Somalia come to him
“Don’t get me mad !”
*rolls eyes*
NOW who’s being naive?
I’m mostly concerned about Bob’s caps lock key, it appears to be missing. Someone should really give it back to him.
*hides capslock key behind back* What? What?
Okay, it seemed like a god idea at the time…
Metalocalypse reference for the win!
Was that in Apocalypse too?
I think this person was too young for spinal tap. Dethklok is next gen.
Obviously not realizing that that’s likely where metalocalypse got the reference from.
yea wat the f is with his hand??
He’s an INVADER…(starring Roy Thinnes)
No wonder the captain didn’t want it.
ROFLMAO!
Ah ha! Mystery solved…
So ’twas never really “missing”
Full Metal Jacket reference w1n!
I miss Greenspan…
I’m sure that with a little practice your aim will get better. Just remember to lead if he’s running.
That one took me a second. Well played!
*curtsey*
Up close and personal… only way…
since PK was brought to us by ICHC creators (ty word press), should this be ‘invisible sh!t sandwich…’?
Handed to you by the invisible hand of capitalism.
Actually the bailout is anti-capitalism…
If it were a grant, you might have a point.
As ema said, the bailout is anti-capitalism. Do you need a definition to understand this concept?? Grant shmant, the bailout is what it is, a hand out that is currently wrecking our economy. Ema made her point. Make yours.
Except, that like I said, it’s not a handout. We (and I think I do me we) are buying preferred stock in these banks. At some point the exit strategy will be exercised, and we (and I do mean we) will sell off our stake in them. It’s happened before — the infamous S&L “bailout” was the same concept. We’re all just acting like this is new and shocking because (respectively) (a) we have short memories and attention spans, and (b) well, the amount can be said to be shocking, I’ll give you that.
The U.S. Government, contrary to popular belief, does not simply *give* tons of cash to private operations (we reserve that for foreign entities and nations). It’s always a loan of one form or another.
Of course, if the company or companies involved subsequently fail and go out of business, then it was just pissing money down the drain…
Except that we aren’t buying preferred stock in ANY bank. Henry Paulson, who has as a proviso in the bill an edict to ‘ensure the financial security of American Citizens’ (paraphrased), has decided that they aren’t going to do what they originally said they were going to do with the money. Instead, they are going to sit on it and see what needs to be done. Now we have the auto industry trying to get a bailout, Fannie and Freddy still sitting there, and now college kids who are in debt up to their ears with student loans asking for the money to be used to forgive their debts. None of this will be a loan. It will be a forgiveness of a debt.
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So how is this not a handout again? Especially since the original 700 billion (with a ‘B’) became 850 billion (with a ‘B’) overnight with so much pork that if you poke it with a stick it makes an oinking noise.
No, in fact, we’ve put out about $135B of it so far. What you (mis)heard is that Paulson is not going to use the money to buy up Troubled Assets (even though those are the first two letters of the program acronym), because no one can figure out what they actually are worth.
–
From the outset of this, banks have been able to accept public money in return for preferred stock (meaning, the stock that is made whole first in the event of a failure) in the operation. To date, several banks either have done so, or are finalizing the details necessary to do so.
–
This is not limited to failing banks, either — any commercial bank that wants to jump on board can, all they have to do is agree to the conditions set forth. This is the primary reason that American Express was so hot and bothered to become a commercial bank — so that they could take part in this program.
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The idea behind this is to prop up the banks to get them lending again. The theory is that since they are not lending because of the high inherent risk involved (risk as measured in potential losses), an infusion of cash as a backstop for these potential losses will cause the credit markets to unfreeze.
–
It hasn’t happened of course — because there is literally no goddamn oversight of all of this distribution, banks have felt free to do whatever they want with the capital (and so far, it’s been sit on the cash, pay executives fat bonuses or buy other banks). But that’s another rant (and incredibly, no one in the public arena seems that bothered by this).
“Especially since the original 700 billion (with a ‘B’) became 850 billion (with a ‘B’) overnight with so much pork that if you poke it with a stick it makes an oinking noise.”
And yet, somehow $25B that is virtually guaranteed to save 2.3M jobs is “setting a bad precedent”, as I heard on the news on the way home tonight…*shakes head*
“Now we have the auto industry trying to get a bailout, Fannie and Freddy still sitting there, and now college kids who are in debt up to their ears with student loans asking for the money to be used to forgive their debts. None of this will be a loan. It will be a forgiveness of a debt.”
The auto industry is asking for a bridge loan. It would be repaid. The government is already an owner in FNMA and FHLMC, and has been since the beginning — it would only be giving money to itself. And students can ask for whatever they want until they are blue in the face, at the end of the day they ain’t gettin’ it (I don’t know where you heard that they are).
So, that’s how I can call them “not bailouts”, because they aren’t.
A bailout is when your father gives you $5000 to buy a car because you totaled yours (and didn’t have insurance, fool).
A loan is when your father gives you $5000 to buy a car, and expects it to be repaid. With interest, if possible.
BTW, I would have figured this was self-evident. I guess everyone else who posts here *does* get their information only from talk pundits, because if you and ema think that this is a handout, then you haven’t been paying much attention to the details.
You sound surprised…
I think you’re forgetting Oprah magazine…
That was too close!
The economy was almost a sh!t sandwich!
What is going on with that pinky there?
Is that the sandwich the Captain lost earlier?