Ah, this thread should be fun.

In before the derp brigade!!

Sounds like Obama.

Sounds like my bowling league.

Sounds like penis.

Sounds like #dictatorproblems.

Smells like victory.

Sounds like my HOA.

Dictators with regimes are so 90s. All the cool countries are into strongmen with juntas. Your country is so lame.

Trance750: oryx: Sounds like Obama.

Sorry, must I must disagree. If it wasen't for Obama, America would have already been sunk because of 8 years of phony wars, in the name of oil.

Yes, we owe everything to our great leader. Every home should have a shrine to him.

Weaver95: based on that article, the only way to affect lasting political change seems to be to work outside the system...

I kinda like Lawrence Lessig's crazy idea. Link (new window)

/term limits won't work
//those in charge aren't going to change it.

Polly Ester: Trance750: oryx: Sounds like Obama.

Sorry, must I must disagree. If it wasen't for Obama, America would have already been sunk because of 8 years of phony wars, in the name of oil.

Yes, we owe everything to our great leader. Every home should have a shrine to him.

Did you just disrespect our last true Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush? Sorry, lib, I know you're terrified to stand up for freedom and would rather cower at Starbucks with Terry Gross while MEN like me are out protecting our women, but if it wasn't for Bush's leadership, you'd be speaking Iraqi.

I, unfortunately, arrived after the derp brigade. Interesting article that dimes out everyone and is surprisingly honest.

The bit about CEOs is crazy accurate. I have said for a long time there is a problem with Corporate Culture in business. Maximizing profit at all costs. OS the mantra. Never mind taking care of your workers and keeping them on in a downturn and still make a smaller profit. No, we have to stoke the shareholders with a 3% gain instead of a 1.5% gain. I am just uncomfortable with govt telling me, or them, how to run their affairs. I am not sure how you solve this on an agrigate level. For me I will just leave the system and be a contractor (going ok so far.)

Sounds like an associate economics professor without tenure (link). He's not advancing in his department because he's less competent than his colleagues. He's not advancing because only immoral people move up to leadership positions.

Or maybe I'm being overly cynical. This tends to happen whenever I read a "theory of everything" made up entirely of blanket statements. He seems to use speculation and subject changing to dismiss any counterexamples:

"If you're working for the common good you didn't come to power in the first place. If you're not willing to cheat, steal, murder and bribe then you don't come to power."

"[Reporter] What if you're Lech Walesa?"
"I'm pretty certain he had his own political power base. He wanted to make society more inclusive. This is always the battle cry of revolutionary leaders. When they get into power they change their tune."

Weaver95: based on that article, the only way to affect lasting political change seems to be to work outside the system...

In a dictatorship, if you get caught working outside the system, you get imprisoned or executed. In business, you get fired. In American "democracy," you get called Ron Paul and receive a bit of popular support, but essentially ignored by the real political power.

That headline makes me want to go back to playing Tropico 3. I still haven't finished that groundhog day loop mission in Absolute Power. (665 MW? That's a lot of power stations.)

draypresct: Sounds like an associate economics professor without tenure (link). He's not advancing in his department because he's less competent than his colleagues. He's not advancing because only immoral people move up to leadership positions.


Dammit, that made no sense. I meant "It's not that he's not advancing due to being less competent than his colleagues. The real story is that he's not advanceing because only immoral people move up to leadership positions."

/Never claimed I was competent. Or even literate.

Trance750: Polly Ester: Trance750: oryx: Sounds like Obama.

Sorry, must I must disagree. If it wasen't for Obama, America would have already been sunk because of 8 years of phony wars, in the name of oil.

Yes, we owe everything to our great leader. Every home should have a shrine to him.

Never said that. But people love to hate him so much, they refuse to credit him for the good, and just live to blame him for the bad

The Repubs are acting the same way towards Obama that they accused us of behaving towards Bush

Meanwhile, you want to cover up for Obama and pretend nothing is wrong the same way the Neocons wanted to cover up for Bush.

Partisan shills are stupid that way.

Look at some of Obama's well rewarded cronies.

Smallpox is one of the few diseases we have managed to pretty much wipe off the face of the earth. If it should happen to break out again, the US has a Billion dollars worth of vaccine still stockpiled . That same vaccine will reliably prevent death if given within four days to those exposed to smallpox.

Now, where are Obama's well rewarded cronies in all this?

Over the last year, the Obama administration has aggressively pushed a $433-million plan to buy an experimental smallpox drug, despite uncertainty over whether it is needed or will work.

Senior officials have taken unusual steps to secure the contract for New York-based Siga Technologies Inc., whose controlling shareholder is billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, one of the world's richest men and a longtime Democratic Party donor.

When Siga complained that contracting specialists at the Department of Health and Human Services were resisting the company's financial demands, senior officials replaced the government's lead negotiator for the deal, interviews and documents show.

When Siga was in danger of losing its grip on the contract a year ago, the officials blocked other firms from competing.

Siga was awarded the final contract in May through a "sole-source" procurement in which it was the only company asked to submit a proposal. The contract calls for Siga to deliver 1.7 million doses of the drug for the nation's biodefense stockpile. The price of approximately $255 per dose is well above what the government's specialists had earlier said was reasonable, according to internal documents and interviews.


The very definition of well rewarded crony.

What does science tell us about our need for this drug?

Siga's drug, an antiviral pill called ST-246, would be used to treat people who were diagnosed with smallpox too late for the vaccine to help. Yet the new drug cannot be tested for effectiveness in people because of ethical constraints - and no one knows whether animal testing could prove it would work in humans.

The government's pursuit of Siga's product raises the question: Should the U.S. buy an unproven drug for such a nebulous threat?

Dr. Thomas M. Mack, an epidemiologist at USC's Keck School of Medicine, battled smallpox outbreaks in Pakistan and has advised the Food and Drug Administration on the virus. He called the plan to stockpile Siga's drug "a waste of time and a waste of money."

So there you go. Crony capitalism is alive and well under Obama, just as it was under Bush.

Stop pretending things are any different.

Trance750: Sounds like your typical Republican

FTFA:
This is the big debate in the US. The Republicans are saying that the Democrats have too many taxes and want to suppress workers. But when they were in power five years ago they had no problem with taxing and spending policies, but now it's taxing their supporters to reward Democrats.

Note that he does not dispute the claim that "Democrats have too many taxes and want to suppress workers."

oryx: Sounds like Obama.

"Barack Obama is offering us a Latin-American future - that's to say, a United States in which a corrupt governing class rules a dysfunctional morass." (source)

mike0023: oryx: Sounds like Obama.

"Barack Obama is offering us a Latin-American future - that's to say, a United States in which a corrupt governing class rules a dysfunctional morass." (source)

ahhh, the good old "see, this won't work, look, we made it not work!"

Weaver95: based on that article, the only way to aeffect lasting political change seems to be to work outside the system...

FTFY

mike0023: oryx: Sounds like Obama.

"Barack Obama is offering us a Latin-American future - that's to say, a United States in which a corrupt governing class rules a dysfunctional morass." (source)

You're citing an a article from The National Review, one of the most right wing publications in the world? Is this supposed to make your point credible? It doesn't. But have at it. After all, the left wingers are always citing the Huffington Post.

Look, folks, both parties have been bought by corporate America; both are hopelessly corrupt. They answer to addresses on K Street, Washington, DC.

OK, I'm going to say it: This is why we need Ivory Tower academics. Professors outside the money and influence game, no stakes in the ring, who can say what they think about the foibles of those in power.

And, more importantly, can also see where the faults lie in the house of cards that people within the system build. E.g., who called the GFC? Any of the highly paid economists working for the banks or investment houses? No, they were the ones on the sidelines cheering about the end of risk.

"So now what?"

Sit back and relax. The money will keep flowing in, and the people don't have enough gumption to do anything serious to sabotage the system WE are enjoying, so we're totally safe. PLUS we just passed a new law labeling any saboteurs as terrorists, both labels having wide-reaching definitions!

IT'S A WIN-WIN!