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Vladurday: WANT
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Vlad is a wanton kind of guy. Or is it ‘wonton’?
Not dim sum, for sure.
Mmm, lobster purse, and gai lan… not to mention those horrible, greasy sticky rice rolls in banana leaf with pork centers… (has a borborygmus)
Jasmine rice please??
Phad Thai. MMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!
Gyoza.
Pad Thai
Clueless is not clueless.
If he has it, why would he want it??
(Bad use of poster format)
He wants MORE.
It’s the want he has. I think you have to have some experience of ICHC captions to read this one right. :p
I can has crown?
Not till you clean up your room, mister.
It took me awhile to get it, but it’s all there; the accronym, the comment, and the LOL, you addressed them all. kudos my friend.
Ha ha. I didn’t get the acronym until Wicket pointed it out. FTW, Rando.
*giggles* Clever, Rando!
Where do people find so many funny pictures of one person. I loled just looking at the picture. The caption was unnecessary.
Happy Vladerday everybody. I brought extra hot chocolate for everyone. (passes around thermos of cocoa) I have to leave for work in 20 minutes though, sigh.
PS To Vlad’s staff who have to read this, I brought extra hot chocolate for you and my extra slippers. (Holds up slippers) See they have Mickey Mouse on them. I also put an enlargement charm on them so they will fit. You could put half the Russian army in them and they would still fit. Enjoy.
You may be clueless, but you bring hot chocolate. You are welcome here. Oh, wait… did you remember the marshmallows?
I happen to always have some. *holds up marshmallows, thereby possibly saving clueless’s butt*.
I can’t drink hot chocolate though.
Can’t drink Hot Chocolate? But how do you survive?
Intravenous hot chocolate?
Mmmm, Cocoa IV.
Now we need to figure out how to get marshmallows down the IV.
Micro miniature marshmallows?
Works for me. And I hope it’s dark chocolate. Mmmmmmm.
Coffee. LOTS of coffee. I love coffee.
Thanks for the marshmallows. I had forgotten them but it was before 8 on Vladerday and I had to work.
Oh and can we forgive punctuation errors for posts made before 8 AM on Vladerday?
There were punctuation errors? *goes back to look* I think your errors have to be much more egregious than that to cause complaint. ‘Sides, you brought cocoa.
Of course! *sips hot chocolate*
MMMMmmmm.. Thanks!
Happy Vladurday! I will nom this hot chocolate you have brought and be happy!
Mmmmmmmm cocoa.. Thank you.
Tsar/Czar Vlad the Great?
He demands czar vlad the incredibly awesome.
In Soviet Russia, hat wants you?
Things would be much easier if I was the Tsar…. I mean for real.
-Vlad
“Pretty lady from Russian America thinks she is going to get the better of Vladimir Vladimirovich, BAH HA HA!”
‘Russian America’? Are you referring to Alaska? A) She is not that pretty . B) She could not get the better of anybody even with the whole Republican Party behind her.
PS I am very impressed that you could spell Vlad’s first and middle names. I am not sure I can read words that long and I certainly cannot spell past V-l-a-d.
I’ve heard David Brooks (moderate conservative commentator) say that Palin has been the best possible thing to happen for Mitt Romney’s plans to run for the Republican Presidential primary. He would get the ‘we don’t want that wacko representing us!’ vote…
That’s probably true. Not that I want Mitt Romney at all, but if I absolutely had to choose, I’d probably go with Mitt over Sarah.
FYI: I just saw a poll of the CPAC convention members that said Ron Paul beat Mit Romney for who they’d like to see on the next presidential ballot. Crazy huh?
Ron Paul has some disturbing points of view, but he’s an intelligent and sincere man. I’d be much more afraid of losing the presidency in 2012 if he ran against Obama than just about anyone else.
Not me! If she runs, I’m donating to her in the primaries. Nothing would improve the dems chances than Palin as Presidential candidate, or, if by some chance she wins, nothing is guaranteed to swing the country back to the left more quickly!
Sarah Palin only got 7% in that same CPAC poll. Mit Got like 30% and Ron Paul got 32%. Just to keep it in context, Mit Romney has won that same poll for the previous three years and he’s never made it through the primaries.
Too risky. The damage she could do in even 4 years might not be worth it. Although she’d probably resign after a couple years when public opinion turned on her. Yeah, she could swing the country back to the left, but we’ve seen how easily that can dissipate. I mean, who would’ve guessed the country would have gotten amnesia so quickly after 8 years of Bush?
I wholeheartedly agree — after 2009, I can barely remember what those six years of prosperity under Bush felt like.
Well, at least somebody prospered under it. Make sure to raise your hand so we all know who it was.
I think we talked about this once — you have this conspiracy theory, right, that despite all the economic evidence to the contrary, the country was really in recession for the entirety of the Bush presidency?
Oh I remember that. That was a totally worthless conversation that went nowhere, like every other argument we’ve ever had. Like I said before, things weren’t very good where I was. Different areas are gonna have different economies. If the numbers say as a whole the country did well during Bush’s presidency, whatever, I sure as hell never saw it here. I also question WHO had it good during Bush’s presidency, because it didn’t seem like the middle class had it good at all. But if the economic evidence says the country did well, then I guess we all did well, right?
Well, you’re in a mood tonight. Man monthlies?
If that’s your attitude, then it’s a “lecture”, not an “argument”, and no wonder it didn’t go anywhere. (Also, not my fault they’re worthless, chief.)
*I’m* in a mood? You’re the one who started with the “conspiracy theory” bit. That’s not nice, you know, calling me a conspiracy theorist. Seemed like baiting to me. But I had to explain my conspiracy theory, didn’t I?
I’ll give that Bush’s entire presidency wasn’t a complete living hell (that hurt to say). It did take a little while to get to that point. I agree that the entire Bush economy didn’t suck, but 6 years of prosperity is nonsense to me.
Rando: You have been a little testy lately to those on the other side of the arguement. You’ve attacked me when I wasn’t even insulting you. I understand that people who argue like Dhoti get’s you miffed, gets me miffed too, but don’t think that everyone who has those ideals argues the same way, then you become them. And yes you are starting to get Dhotish.
Well, let’s look at what you’re saying, Rando — you don’t dispute the definitions, and you don’t dispute the numbers, but you refuse to believe the conclusions. That’s one of two things — a conspiracy theory or a personal dogma. (I thought calling it a conspiracy theory would be slightly more polite.)
If you were being honest, you would have just said, “that may be, but they sucked for me”. Instead, you’re conjuring up this alternate reality in which life for “your team” (the middle class, and apparently only the liberal middle class at that) sucked, while life for “the other team” (conservatives, moderates, and the rich, I guess) didn’t. That’s many things — comforting, perhaps — but it’s not rational.
tl;dr: Don’t show up saying “I refuse to listen” and then claim it gives you the moral high ground.
I’m saying that the numbers don’t tell the whole story. And I’m not trying to say it was only hard on the liberals. That’s silly. Hard times hit the middle class no matter who you supported.
ILPB–I like Dhoti, but I don’t like arguing with him. It’s maddening. He’s been looking for a fight lately, and I went on the defensive.
That’s fine, but you need some hard data to back it up — otherwise it’s just as nebulous as “the dust doesn’t bounce right” or “steel doesn’t melt”. The numbers say the economy grew considerably, and in an economy this size, a rising tide tends to float a whole lot of boats — why not this time?
Your statement, “a rising tide floats all boats”, is an example of the nebulous statement you are trying to argue against. It would be wonderful if rising GDP meant everyone got a little slice of the pie, but in the last couple decades, it tends to mean that those who are wealthy get wealthier, and those in the middle class and below tend to fall behind.
{http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/even-more-gilded/}
I think this is largely due to the fact that a man who makes, say, a million dollars per year doesn’t consume twenty times as much consumer goods as a man who makes fifty thousand. I can’t sell him twenty prime ribs a day, he doesn’t drive twenty cars, and his kids don’t drink twenty gallons of milk per week. Instead, that money gets used to drive up the price of real estate, among other things. Since wages have remained stagnant for the last twenty years in spite of massive increases in productivity, that means the middle and working classes get priced out of owning property, unless, of course, some group of people decides to loan to them anyway and sell their debt instruments in large bundles as “mortgage backed securities”.
If I’m not mistaken, under Bush, he made a lot of tax cuts that hurt what could be surplus now. Tax cuts that benefited the rich, you know, those who don’t need benefits. Had he not made those tax cuts, the subprime crisis that we faced that helped topple the economy could have been somewhat balanced out by a surplus.
Also, under Bush, the wealth disparity grew. So, like PM said, the rich got richer and the middle class got further away from attaining wealth.
IMO the rich getting richer and getting more benefits does not help us as a nation. Trickle down economics just don’t work. I think that’s what Rando is getting at.. Sure the GDP grew and the rich got a lot of benefits. But um, the rich aren’t the entire population of the country.
You mean the rich who pay well, well above their fair share in taxes; who employ millions of small business workers; who command a big chunk of investment in the economy? Clearly, these are the folks we need to soak with taxes — all to turn around and pay off the sleazeball subprime lenders, and their government cronies at Fannie and Freddie, who precipitated this whole crisis in the first place.
It’s funny — I know a few middle-class folks who built wealth during those six years. They didn’t go into credit card debt up to their eyeballs, or try a get-rich-quick scheme in the subprime market; they saved, and invested, and seemed to do just fine. It’s not by any stretch impossible — it’s just contrary to the message of dependence pushed on one side of the aisle.
Well, you are right in the bashing of the sleazeball subprime lenders. I personally don’t think it’s fair that anyone should have to pay those people back for what they did, unfortunately (as I am not an economist) I’m not sure what else to do. I really don’t want to get into a discussion as to what should happen to those people, because I think they should all be hanged. They bankrupted our country to make a quick buck. How’s that goin for ya now, Wall Street?
Anyway.
Dhoti, not all those rich people own businesses and employ people. Sure, some of them do, and I’d like to see some figures on how many of them have shipped jobs overseas to save money and please shareholders. That doesn’t help the economy. Nor does giving them tax breaks for doing so.
Tax breaks for the rich don’t benefit everyone as much as people want us to believe. Trickle down economics don’t work.
Also, I’m surprised you would fall back on the anecdotes. I’m sure we all know people like that. The country got screwed. I think it’s as much a fault of Bush economics as it is what came before it. I just don’t believe our legislators (like our businesses) actually have LONG TERM GOALS in mind. I think they are more concerned about short term and that’s what’s messing things up the most. Unfortunately, that’s as much a product of us (the voters) as it is them. We demand instant results, they don’t give it to us, we vote them out. Really, the vast majority of people aren’t concerned with long term.
It’s too bad we can’t just knock everything down and start over again.
I’m sorry my anecdotes contract your stereotypes — but really, what am I to do? You’re arguing from a position of faith, dogma, whatever to you want to call it: rich people are bad; rich people in government are good; wealth is bad; taxes are good.
Wait just a second. So when I talk about what it’s like around here, that’s not admissible, but your anecdotal evidence proves that all liberals are full of it? Seriously?
No, Dhoti. I was just surprised because you hammered Rando for his anecdotes. That’s all.
I don’t think you understand my position at all, if that’s what you got out of it.
What position, Charro? You and Rando are going off of dogma, not rational arguments.
Case in point — I say that most of the rich are small business owners. (That happens to be true.) Your response: “oh, well, they ship jobs overseas” — ignoring that (a) we’re talking about small business owners, not big, bad corporate CEOs, and (b) small business jobs are in fact the LEAST likely to be outsourced. It seems to me like you’ve already made up your mind.
If all you can say is I “don’t get it” because I don’t share your faith — well, that says it all, doesn’t it?
@Dhoti Why do the rich pay too much tax? As I understand it, the top US tax bracket is only 35% of income for people earning over $373,650.
That’s a pittance, it’s patheticly low compared to what we have to pay here in Australia. The top income bracket is $55,850 in tax if you earn over $180,000 plus 45c for every extra dollar earned over $180,000 plus a 10% Goods & Services Tax loaded on to everything except essential foods and yet somehow we have unemployment figures just under half the US figures (5.7% and back on the way down)
It would seem the rich here have no problem employing so why do the Americans when they have to pay so little? Oh and don’t try arguing cost of living being higher in the States because it isn’t, just try buying a house in Sydney for example.
Cynical, I’d be interested to see how well your tax system actually collects that theoretical tax owed — typically, when tax rates go up, especially on high earners, tax shelters and tax-free investments look more promising, and tax revenues actually go down. (It’s a dirty little secret over here that the Bush tax cuts actually increased federal tax revenue.)
Like you’ve alluded to, America is more private property-based than Australia: we prefer to work for private employers, buy our own homes, our own health insurance, our own transportation, rather than relying as heavily as you do on government-subsidized alternatives. Also, as you’re no doubt aware, the current downturn hit the US, rich and all, much harder, so obviously that’s going to be reflected in unemployment. (Personally, I consider it a fair trade-off for the much higher rate of economic growth we’ve experienced over the past six decades.)
In short, you’re comparing two very different economies that happen to speak the same language; don’t expect them to correspond all that closely.
Oh, and don’t leave out Medicare and Social Security tax, collected at the federal level, nor state income tax (and, occasionally, local income tax), nor state and local sales taxes…
Dhoti, I didn’t say that, you just inferred it. I guess I’ll take your word that they don’t ship them overseas, even though my statement was “I’d like to see some figures”. That actually implies that no, I have not made up my mind (at least about the small business owners not shipping their jobs overseas).
I notice you didn’t address your hypocrisy though.
Silly me — it only appears that you’re using completely one-sided, loaded dialogue and speaking as though your mind is thoroughly made up. In fact, you’re actually completely rational and open-minded. My mistake.
You’ll have to forgive me for the “hypocrisy” of not wanting to discuss the issue with a true believer.
It’s that pesky last year that kind of screws up your argument about prosperity under Bush. I won’t blame the whole recession on Bush, but not only was he in charge while it was mustering, his policies left little in cash reserves for when we could really use it. Like right now.
No, that’s why I said “six years” — clearly his presidency was bookended by recessions, but the central years were an expansion.
That’s not typical public policy — if the government runs a credit, people start to clamor for that money back. I’d expect government to run a relatively stable budget, boom or bust, and make up the extra spent in the busts during the booms.
I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to say that Bush’s presidency was full of economic growth… the expansion that was experienced in this middle years was unsustainable, hence the financial and housing crashes. The economy itself never actually expanded, it just appeared to because of increased lending (hence increased spending).
Mind you, it’s not really fair to say Bush was responsible for the recession either… while his policies didn’t really address the matter, they didn’t cause it either. Besides, it’s really easy to say in hindsight that “Bush messed up”, but even the best economic forcasters didn’t realise the crash was coming until it was too late.
In 2003, US GDP was $10.9 trillion (non-adjusted 2008 dollars). In 2008, it was $14.2 trillion. The best 2009/2010 estimate I can find is for 1/1/10, estimating $14.5325 trillion, which probably reflects a small loss once you account for inflation — but that’s still well above the 2003 figure, especially when you consider that home values have fallen by about $4.5 trillion so far.
Home prices, the size of the money supply, etc. aren’t directly included in GDP. Sure, they’ll have an indirect impact, but if you’re asserting that GDP corresponds directly to lending, I’ll need to see you back that up, because that doesn’t correspond to anything I’ve ever heard.
GDP is calculated based on the theoretical spending power of the nation. In other words, its the fluid cash flow in a nation at any given time.
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports − imports).
All of the above factors are directly influenced by how much cash-in-hand people have to spend, and doesn’t account for accrued debt. In other words, if you can access debt totalling twice the assets the debt is placed against (ie. a house), it creates the illusion of a doubling of wealth… GDP.
What I was saying is that the percieved growth in GDP was actually just that… percieved. The spending accounted for in that growth was money spent against assets that did not exist (or could not support the spending). Over-expansion leads to a correction, ie. contraction of markets and recession. In this particular case, because so much debt was accrued against assets that couldn’t pay for it (the exact same situation as in 1929), it turned into a full blown crash and depression.
So my original point still stands… the American economy didn’t actually grow during the Bush era, it just seemed to. However, it’s unfair to blame Bush directly for that, as nobody saw it coming, and (debatably) none of his policies directly lead to the recession.
Oh, and housing costs fall under private consumption (directly), and financial stability is directly related to gross investment.
GDP measures total economic output. By “theoretical spending power”, I think you mean something more like national wealth, which is something different.
For example, if my house doubles in value and I do nothing, GDP is unaffected. To get that value into GDP, I have to either take out a loan or sell the house, then buy something with that money. (Also, private consumption includes rent, but it doesn’t include the purchase of housing.)
In any case, if all that growth was just an illusion, shouldn’t GDP go down to match during this devaluation? Why hasn’t it?
Look at the equation defining GDP again… it’s a measure of, essentially, cashflow. It’s a comparitive scale that assumes that there is a direct relationship between money spent and economic strength, but that also accounts for money coming into and leaving the country due to foreign trade.
That was my point exactly, the apparent increase in GDP was due to people accruing debt equivalent to two or more times the value of their house, the new credit being used on purchases that weren’t sustainable. Those new purchases are included in GDP, but the debt is not, and eventually that debt will have to be accounted for somehow. Also, new home sales ARE included as private consumption, though I’m not entirely sure about resale.
The American economy did contract for I believe 6 quarters straight. That was despite trillions of dollars of increased government spending (included in GDP measurements) and vastly reduced imports.
You’re assuming that every dollar of increased home value (and, presumably, every dollar of increased stock, bond, etc. value) was converted and spent. That strains credulity; you’re going to need to back that up for me if you want me to believe it.
Actually, stocks and bonds are considered capital investment, and are therefore considered as part of gross investment. Now, it’s not dollar for dollar when accounted for in GDP, and I’m not sure of the specifics, but tradeable investments do play a part.
I in no way meant to imply that all homes were overburdened with investment, but as you yourself pointed out, part of the correction in the housing industry was a “loss” of $4.5 trillion. Keep in mind this isn’t actually a loss, it’s a correction… in other words, the houses were selling for more than they were worth, and it’s safe to assume that a large portion of that $4.5 trillion is due to overburdening assets with debt.
Oh, and 2 other factors that aren’t accounted for in the apparent increase in GDP are inflation (which has been fairly high for over a decade) and the vast devaluation of the American daughter in the middle of the decade.
All I’m saying is that the American economy didn’t actually grow by any vast amount, it just appeared to. The recession proves that, and almost any economist will tell you the same thing. What I’m also saying is that it’s not fair to blame Bush, as not a single person of note saw the crash coming until it was far far too late.
That’s supposed to be devaluation of the american dollar… i don’t know why I said daughter.
For you to quote the GDP, just goes to show that we have different ways of measuring economic prosperity. One way has to do with the amount of money earned, otherwise known as the GDP, the other way to measure economic prosperity is the amount of jobs created. I found a nice tid-bit of numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics that backs up both Rando and Churj’s points in one single stat, Job Growth. George W Bush has the worst numbers of any President on job growth since WWII. In eight years from 2001-2009 the job market grew by only 0.28%. Thats roughly one job created for every four already there. To put it in perspective i’ll give you the last 3 Democratic president’s numbers. Lyndon Johnson, from 1963-69, had a job growth of 3.74%Jimmy Carter, from 1977-1981, had a job growth of 3.11%. Bill Clinton, from 1993-2001, had a job growth of 2.42%. Just to drive the point, and kind of to rub it in a little; Daddy Bush had the second worst with 0.59% job growth.
I’ll say it again — “six years”. I expressly limited myself to those six growth years in my initial post; you seem to have skipped over that twice now.
Pull those numbers again for 2003-8, and we’ll talk.
Your GDP argument only use 5 years, 2003-2008. Otherwise your numbers include Obama’s first year 2009-2010. Something tells me that regardless of the facts you want to believe what you want to believe.
Don’t get me wrong, i love to debate and this is a great forum for it. But i don’t enjoy just hitting a brick wall over and over again.
@Dhoti: Your argument seems to be that six years out of Bush II’s eight years in office were pretty good. By inference, (and maybe this isn’t what you mean), the entire presidency was a pretty good thing.
By that argument, the last flight of the Hindenburg was pretty good; after all, 99.9% was comfortable and worry free.
Argument by anaology is always pretty slippery, but this one expresses the fallacy of your position pretty well, I think.
@wicket: I think I’ve been pretty consistently talking about only those six years. Churj asked a slightly different question — still about the same six years, note — requiring a little more data.
If you’re only interested in quoting factoids about “the Bush years”, then good for you, but don’t pretend it’s my fault.
YEA but that didn’t work so well for Kerry… “anybody but Bush”…..
Anyone else think it looks like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch or is it just me?
First you counteth to one…
(no, you are not alone!)
One, two…FIVE!
(Three, suh!)
And the number of the counting shall be three.
And three shall be the number that is counted.
Six is right out.
And you shall not count to two except as then you proceed immediately to the counting of three.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS
I’m looking around now waiting for the spanish inquisition…
You’re expecting them.
So no, they won’t appear.
No, they will appear if you’re expecting them. It just takes them until the end of the credits to get there.
Glad to know I wasn’t the only one…that was my first thought!
Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three.
I think he’s lusting after that thing.
It is a sexy hat.
I actually kinda like those pants.
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I’m pretty sure that’s the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch….
Let’s be honest, who WOULDN’T want that hat?
What a retarded caption…