It is easy to hack the media. Get on the radio, television, write it in the newspaper, or give a speech and start saying the most whacked out things imaginable — even out and out lies. The people who agree with you will think you are brillant — these are the sheep. The people you disagree with you will listen to what crazy thing you will say next. This is exactly the stragedy of the right wing nut bags, e.g. Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, etc. etc. They distort history and the daily news. They claim Obama is a Muslim, runs re-education camps, wasn’t born in the US, death camps, etc. — it matters little to the likes of these self granulizing bozos that this is just a pack of lies.
Let’s these wing nuts say something crazy and they will be the talk of the media — nonstop. Everybody talked about Palin’s death panels. CNN presents their point of view and pretend that it has merit. There will be a host of talking heads who agree and those that rationally pick apart the ridiculous nonsense. In the end, CNN will declare, “you decide”. This is not what a Free Press should do — they are expected to report on the news and reveal the truth of issues. When there is no merit of a claim, it should be dismissed as nonsense. People get to disagree on the solutions but nobody gets to make up the facts.
Larry Gellman on his blog post pointed out how he tried to correct the errors from people who made absurd claims. Even when they found out that the claims they were making were absurd, they continue to make them. Rationality died. Conversation halted. Political discourse failed. It just became a bastion of anger and hate without purpose. Anger is not bad in itself but if truth dies there is no point in the anger. Appropriate anger has to be escorted by TRUTH. People have to engage in rational discussions and not just want to incite others. Hitler was an excellent example of somebody who just wanted to make people angry about others, like the Jews. He would say the same nonsense over and over again but he wasn’t concerned with the truth. Eventually, people believed the nonsense and millions of Jews were killed.
It is important to be very suspicious of anybody who stops being truthful. When Palin yells death panels for months about health care, make her prove it. If she can’t she is a lunatic. Likewise, for all the others nonsense from the right wing nut jobs. People that are willing to lie about issues are not worth listening to. Yet, it is probably some flaw in human DNA that makes us curious — frequently, we want to point out the absurdity of their positions. Perhaps, it makes us feel superior by picking apart the daily lies of the right wing bozos. These right wing nuts are not involved in rational discourse — they are just hacking the media and killing America.
America is Doomed.
Admin, that was so pathetic…..where were you the majority of the past several decades when the Democrats and the media which is 90% left-leaning have been lying all the time and repeating their lies so the great “sheep” in the land follows? It is the left-wing hypocrites who have hijacked America for the past several decades. Every time Obama and the Democrats blame things on the 8 years from 2001-2008, they conveniently forget that they had the majorities in both houses of Congress starting Jan 2007. Obama is a liar every time he says he “inherited” something. How can you inherit something in 2009 that you already controlled for 2 years prior to that and were part of? Democrats and you, admin are the biggest liars and hypocrites, and the sole reason for America’s doom.
There is a bonafide right winger in our midst with the wing nut talking points — like the media is so liberal. Exactly what media is that? Fox News? 90% of political talk radio?
Admin, thanks for publishing my earlier comment. I was not sure if you would let it post, but you are ok. No, I am not a right wing nut. I am an independent minded voter who is a just a little right of center. I will be the first one to acknowledge that both political parties put out a lot of crap for the public to swallow. However, Democrats have now controlled both houses of Congress for the past 4 years and almost 58 of the last 78 years. Look it up on Wiki, which is non-political. How can you claim hacking of the masses and the media by the Republicans when the Democrats have done an amazing job of that for several decades?
Here are some of my positions
- As a very hard working American, I believe the tax code is unfair. It should not reward the super rich folks on Wall Street who speculate using others money. It should not reward lazy folks who never work or don’t work hard enough. A fair tax on earned income plus a high tax on speculative returns would be better.
- I hate outsourcing and want all jobs to come back, especially to the vast middle part of the country where everything is cheap and ideal for companies to work from.
- I hate Wall Street firms, especially financial firms. They do little work but get lots of money and bonuses, with little risk, since taxpayers bail them out.
- I am pro-choice
- I believe Americans have self-destructed housing with all this talk of homes being in a bubble, which is unwarranted. American homes are extremely affordable compared to incomes, quality, size, infrastructure etc. No other country in the world provides so much “house” at such affordable prices. Most Americans, including a huge majority of the middle class, has lost so much in the housing collapse. This has affected the whole economy, resulting in severe job losses. A strong recovery in housing will bring the economy back on track sooner than anything else. Both parties are to blame for not doing enough to stop the housing collapse.
The ideologue (dialog over ideology) is often a tactic used by those in power to keep those they subjugate from coalescing. While we quibble over scraps of dignity thrown to us from the table of the elite, those in power laugh at us as we fight over trivial relativism. And worst of all, the vast majority of the media, the so-called journalists, writers, pundits, celebrities, talk-show announcers, TV personalities, ex-politicians, former corporate executives, speech-makers, lecturers, etc., are ALL more than happy to entertain their masters while they pull our strings.
Capitalism/socialism, conservative/liberal, Republican/Democrat, fundamentalist/progressive, atheist/theist, secular/sectarian…it’s all a ploy for those in power to distract, divide and conquer while they lie, cheat and steal our lives into submission.
well said, neo …
Hi all. Been awhile for awhile and I’m glad to see some new faces. Thought I’d post a few comments to some of these newbies:
To adminexposed:
Whenever I hear the dribble about how Democrats have controlled Congress for most of the last kagillion years i have to snicker. I am no fan of the Democrats because ,in my mind they serve as nothing more than the good cop for the corporate plutocracy. However, logic dictates their consistent control of Congress stems from either:
A) The Democrats are more consistently in tune with the American people. Isn’t that what Democracy is all about? The people choosing the candidates that best fit their values? You don’t hate democracy do you?
OR
B) The Republican’s aren’t working hard enough to get elected. Hey don’t we live in an egalitarian society where anyone can be whatever they want if they just pull up dem bootstraps? Isn’t this the land of the free, the land of opportunity, and all those other clichés that right wingers are fond of tossing out to explain why the peasants are exclusively to blame for being peasants. If so, then the Republicans must be too lazy or too incompetent to get elected. What is it about Republicans that makes them think they should be handed everything on a silver platter. Typical right wing mentality thinking they should be entitled to the right to rule without having to work for it. That and blaming the American people at large for not rewarding the laziness and incompetence of the right wingers.
NEO:
My degree is in Mathematics(Applied) and I have worked in IT most of my career so I appreciate the ‘getting to the underlying philosophy’ in your comments. It takes a perceptive mind to look below the surface.
Rob:
I don’t agree with much of what you have to say but I do respect and appreciate your civility. You have comported yourself very well so my hat’s off to you. I do wish to take issue with what you say about housing and I hope we can disagree without being disagreeable as the saying goes. My comment will be in my next post
Rob:
You assert that rebuilding the housing market is key to revitalizing the economy. I say that the reverse is true. You have to revitalize the economy to justify the housing market. You mention the housing bubbles in India and China but you are missing the reason for those bubbles. In the last twenty years both of those nations have gone from 3rd world cesspools to growing world powers(Whereas the US is heading in the opposite direction). Much of their wealth has come from the availability of cheap labor(hence the outsourcing of manufacturing and professional jobs from west to East), favorable trade agreements, currency manipulation, and trade surpluses. As they have grown wealthier a vibrant and growing middle class has emerged. The emergence of a middle class invariably leads to a greater demand for housing. Consider places like detriot or pittsburgh and remember how decades ago suburbs with nice homes sprung up around these cities. Ask yourself did these houses bring good stable jobs in manufacturing or did the jobs bring the desire for good housing?.
Housing does almost nothing for an economy. It certainly cannot spur economic growth. Manufacturing creates products like the auto’s in Detroit or the bombs we drop on the eebil Ayrabs. Creating these products in turn creates jobs. Farmers grow crops and raise livestock to sell. These products, in turn, create jobs. Gold, silver, and diamonds are rare and in demand so obtaining these products creates jobs. The tech bubble led to the internet, broadband technology, cell phones, ipods etc all of which created jobs. What do houses produce? Nothing. How many jobs does it create? Precious few save for the occassional bubble headed real estate lady or, for every few hundred homes, the occassional overpriced plumber. Are houses rare? nope…certainly not like gold or silver. There are millions of homes out there and, as any transient will tell you, a dumpster, cardboard box or tin shack can be a home. A home serves no other people than to keep the rain out.
From 2001 to 2007 the economy failed to create enough jobs to keep up with increases in population. The shortage was around 3 million. To confirm this statement just go to the BLS.gov website and total up job creation and compare it to the increase in working age population. Not since the 1930′s has america faced such a job crisis. Many people who had been employed in good jobs for decades lost those jobs and found new jobs lacking both in quantity and in pay. Consequently, many people found themselves borrowing against the value of their homes to make ends meet. This was a major factor in the housing bubble and was referred to as using their home as an ATM. My point is the housing bubble didn’t create the economic crisis but was caused by the worsening of economic crisis. The bubble bursting was just phase two of the collapse of America’s economy. The real crisis has not yet begun.
China and India have vibrant jobs creating engines that are only starting to kick into gear. THis machine justifies higher home prices.Inflating the US housing buble with nothing but fantasy to justify it will only lead to another burst.
If you think its justified to balloon the price of piles of brick and wood just because it’s held together by nails and mortar by all means pay me a visit. I’ll be glad to take a couple pieces of wood, pound some nails into it and charge you half a mill for it. It would have as much to justify its value as any mcMansion.
housing is in real trouble …. particularly the larger so-called McMansions … smaller homes, apts, and condos will be the future as incomes continue to decline.
Rick, good for you. I always pay special attention to you and your wisdom, as your analysis is flawless. I wish that I posessed an analytical mind like yours. My problem is that Sister Mary Diesel Dyke beat the shit out of me because I just didn’t really understand 9th grade algebra. I was a geometry wizzard, though. I use it every day of my life, in my maintenence and design work.
I totally agree with Admin that McMansions are rellics. I’m building (as I type) a tiny texas house. Downsizing is here to stay. You can’t give a McMansion away unless you are giving it to a welfare DumbaKrap with a whole brood of drug addict kids and relatives. All they will do with it anyway is strip the copper, flooring, water heater, appliances, etc.. and sell them for drugs and then call you “Raciss” if you so much as question their bizarre actions.
They dregs simply need more of your money and everything will work out. If you would only work 3 or 4 minimum wage jobs and forward your paycheck to a high ranking DumbaKrap, like Biden or Carey, or especially a Kennedy, then everything will work out and we could all touch and feel each other, and suck and fuck, and lick and dick, and the world would just become the “garden of Eden”. Don’t believe me? Just “aksk” a DumbaKrap. But remember, they are notorious for their low IQ’s.
Les:
Always a pleasure. As I always said I have always admired your self reliant approach to the world. Screw commercialism and keeping up with the jones’s. As for housing indeed that is true….the media had American’s believing that in order to have worth—you needed a mansion that could be seen from outer space. A small house–to keep out the rain and the racoons–is all anyone needs.
Now that i’m back I look forward to many insightful discussions
Keep coming rick c. I always wait to hear your words of wisdom . Wish others could hear what I do. Tiny Texas houses all the way. 400 ft2 or less. Don’t have to meet code. I am downsizing like you never belived. But I was always a downsizer. Planting my fall garden today. Fall is finally here on the coast. Shrimp are big, like the fish. If racoons bother me, I have lot’s of friends, both black and white who love to consume them. I trap them all winter and give them away. I use a Have-A_Hart trap and we slaughter them humanely, if there is such a thing. It is surely better than any animal on a feedlot or a factory farm. My friend built me a huge chicken coop today and I’m going into the organic egg “bidnuss”. I say “bidnuss” so that prejudice white honkey people think I’ve met the 2 reverunds and they think that I might even know a Kennedy, therefore, I could never be Raciss and shitzuz. Just aksk my antracite girlfriend. She told me that I don’t be Raciss and shitz.
I have 10 people signed up for my organic eggs, hopefully more will follow once the word gets out. I’m just trying this out. Don’t know if I will even cover the cost of supplemental organic feed. Oh well? Like Michelle Antoinette said, “let them eat Eggs”!!!
Rick C and anyone else who is interested. http://www.tinytexashouses.com Check it out. Let me know what you think. I’m constructing one right now and gettin ready to sell this 100 year old cavernous monstrosity that I now inhabit. I can easil accomodate visitors, like my “fambily” and my antracite galfriend, as well as a cooler or 2 full of shrimp, fish and clams, all wild caught.
Dr. Lester check out this site if Admin will post?http://www.dwell.com/ cool prefabs,400 sq ft homes,and recycled homes,and big mc mansions.
Try this http://www.dwell.com again if admin will post?
rickc,
I have been in the IT industry too for 20 years now, but that may be the only thing that we have in common !!! Most paid analysts think that the economy and jobs drives housing. So you are no different from them, and fail to think independently. I repeat, housing is the BACKBONE of every country. If you break that backbone, everything else breaks down. You ask what housing produces. A rising housing investment produces the great wealth effect, which then makes consumers spend more freely, which then supports all other parts of the economy. Do you know that the majority of China’s GDP growth is driven from government sponsored real estate investments? How can anyone justify home prices in China and India where the median income is less than 5000 dollars even today but median apartment prices are over 100,000 dollars? I have been to India many times, and have been shocked at the conditions, size, quality of these homes and by their million dollar price tags. This is in a place that until 10 years ago had a median annual income of less than one thousand dollars per person, and even now has less than 5000 dollars per person. These are 2 extremely corrupt nations where anything goes. Local politicians and realtors have totally taken over real estate and hyped it up to sucker in foreign investment. All this immense sudden wealth in the hands of current home owners has created a massive wealth effect in those countries, and not any hard work crap. What have China and India “innovated” for the benefit of the world in the last several hundred years? You are in IT, so think about one software or hardware innovation, if at all any, from those giant countries that has benefited anyone. I will make it simple – India and China has mere followers and implementors that have suddenly gotten very lucky because Americans companies discovered outsourcing. However, India and China have become extremely greedy and inflated their own costs of living. Mark these words well, my friend. The complete collapse of China and India will come sooner than anyone thinks, all because of their ABSURD real estate bubbles. This will unfortunately result in a GLOBAL depression because of how all economies are now connected, so it is not good news for America in any case. Sure, what I say may not be the common stuff that you hear from the mainstream media and folks like you that just absorb details on the surface. Time will tell….
Rob:
I’m never one to walk away from a vigorous debate. Allow me to reply to your most recent post.
You claim: A rising housing investment produces the great wealth effect, which then makes consumers spend more freely, which then supports all other parts of the economy.
Interesting theory I’ll give you that. See what I believe is that what makes consumers spend more freely is good steady employment. If a guy loses his job and runs out of unemployment I find it very incredulous to think he will go on a shopping spree just because his house goes up a smidge in value. In fact, in many cases rising housing prices destroys wealth instead of creating it. When people have to take pay cuts, or lose their jobs or whatever, affording a home gets a whole lot harder. More of their wealth gets tied up in mortgages and less is available for discretionary spending. Absent a solid job creation base, rising house prices only serves to exclude more people from home ownership which in turn feeds poverty and homelessness. You even admitted as much yourself when you spoke of how poor most people in India and China still are. Where is the great wealth effect for them or does it apply only to the super rich and not the great unwashed?
So housing creates wealth huh? Well then we can end hunger,poverty and disease in Africa just by building homes. The new homes will magically conjure good jobs to pay for them and even if they don’t well the houses will just magically conjure up wealth. Jesus turned water into wine. Alchemists believed that lead can be turned into gold. So hey why not add to that superstition with houses magically bring wealth.
Now I can respect your view if it was consistent but later on you illustrate that you don’t even believe your theory. You speak of houses generating wealth and then warn that the absurd real estate bubbles will bring India and china down…to Chinatown(sorry just wanted a bit of levity). How can their bubbles be absurd when they are based on rising housing prices generating wealth. As you suggest, just keep raising the prices to get people to spend more freely and wealth will be generated to infinity and beyond. If you concede they are bound to burst and that they are absurd you are admitting either that the price of a home must be justified by something or that the ‘great wealth” you speak of is a fantasy: the illegitimate love child of the Easter Bunny and Harvey the Rabbit. If there is something to justify house prices(like the ability of people to pay and that ability comes from good stable jobs) then you are forced to concede that housing does not generate wealth but is Dependant on wealth.
Hi rickc,
When I said consumer spending supports other parts of the economy, I was mainly referring to job creation. To me, this whole sequence is so simple and straight-forward, that I find it odd that most people just do not get it. When we self-destructed housing in this country, we destroyed people’s wealth. They then reduced their spending, which then resulted in many companies cutting back jobs, which then caused people to spend even less, and home values to decline even more, and so people reduced their spending even more, which then…..you get the picture. The current generation of homeowners, which is still a major percent, has been wiped out and will live in misery for many years. It will take a generation (15-20 years) until the next generation starts benefiting from these massive losses in housing wealth suffered by the current generation.
I believe the number one reason for the collapse of the economy in the past 3 to 4 years in the USA is a result of the collapse of housing. If prices start to go up, how many folks will be willing to foreclose their current homes? I know that a significant percentage of people are just walking away from their homes currently using strategic defaults.
I believe that the number two reason for the collapse of the economy is outsourcing, which also was invented by Americans. So we have self-destructed our country in 2 major ways.
I do not support absurd home prices anywhere in the world. My point is that we have always had very reasonable prices in most parts of the USA, but we wanted to self-destruct even that by convincing the masses that everything had to be even cheaper. I point out India and China as there is where things are completely out of whack. More on that in a later post.
Ductile, thanks for the link. I’m loving it. I just snicker when I drive by a decaying or unkempt McMansion. Someday space aliens will arrive (if they haven’t already) and wonder what those monstrosities were used for. There are so many really innovative people working on innovative solutions to the way we will house ourselves in the future. True energy efficiency, minimal or no grid connections, green organic lawns (grass that your pet goat or chickens can eat), organic gardens for lawns, and keeping most of it under 400 ft2, utility bills in the $35.00/month range. McMansions are gaudy looking tacky crap favored by the nouveax riche. They are the ultimate in conspicuous consumption. Hey world!! Look at me!! They are monuments to themselves (the dorks who built them).
Dr. Lester,No problem.I figured you would dig the link since the rag doesn’t focus only on this country,(which is far,far behind the rest of the world). Behind the rest of the world in just about every aspect.