Trouble Right Here In River City

Music Man

Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital “T”
That rhymes with “P”
And that stands for Pool,
That stands for pool.
We’ve surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!
Gotta figure out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble…

By Blue Bronc, a Trail Mix Contributor

Yes folks, there’s gonna be a whole lot o’ trouble in Cleveland when the Republican’s face reality and it is a stain more dark than that of someone peeing in the pool. They have their unpopular nominated candidate. With more votes than their next unpopular candidate, who is also not welcome in the pool.

The media is finally turning on Trump, and it is showing in his actions. The only thing left to keep his name in the headlines is to do as he said he would, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Shooting his voters is not a good thing, but encouraging bloodshed by his “supporters” is a good thing to him.  Somehow I do not think his “supporters” are really his, they are the ones who would support any racist, misogynist, loud mouth.  Wallace comes to mind.

Donald TrumpTrump is just one of many who sold his soul to the devil for votes.  He has exactly what he wants, international fame and glory infamy.  He accomplished more than any television program could ever do.  He wants the football to blast his way to the ultimate high.  That is what is scaring his fellow Republicans.  End civilization as the biggest of the big O’s for megalomaniac, narcissistic people like him.

The talking heads, the Jimmie Olsen’s, the political bloggers and even professional (bell rung too hard) athletes provide deep thought analysis of the Republican situation.  The Democratic situation, which is many levels higher, is a more cerebral issue.  The Republicans have a clown fight on their hands and cannot figure out which is the head clown with the full seltzer bottle and which is the clown with the wet face.

What will happen to the R’s in Cleveland comes down to which cohort do the Republican money men want to piss off most.  The angry white men who support any Fascist move, or at least any white supremacist group?  The mainstream Republican voters who would rather vote for green fuzzy white bread than any of the clown car inhabitants?  Or the rest of the U.S. and the world?

My guess is not formed yet.  Sure, I could speculate now and then do a Trump and say I never wrote that after proven wrong.  But, I would rather pop more popcorn and enjoy sitting in the cheap seats watching the action.  At least until after Ohio votes.

Blue Bronc’s blog: What-ME

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Author: Blue Bronc

Born in Detroit when Truman was president, survived the rest of them. Early on I learned that FDR was the greatest president, which has withstood all attempts to change that image. Democratic Party, flaming liberal, Progressive, equality for all and a believer in we are all human and deserve respect and understanding. College educated, a couple of degrees, a lot of world experience and tons of fun. US Air Force (pre-MRE days). Oil and gas fields, computer rooms and stuff beyond anything I can talk about. It has been quite a life so far. The future is making my retirement boat my home. Dogs, cats and other critters fill my life with happiness. Work pays the bills.

63 thoughts on “Trouble Right Here In River City”

  1. Great post, blue bronc.

    The ‘B’ side : The Ransom of Red Chief. You’re stuck with this, GOP. You can have him.

  2. drumpf’s mad dogs have distrumper:   feverish drooling nastiness , slobberly flaying about, attacking all within their path.

  3. Thanks, BB.  Holy time change…time change is for the poor people so they can feel jet lag, too.

    We should be thankful the GOP serves-up these corpses from their insightful autopsy…we are going to need some easy competition to get a woman elected.

  4. Seriously, do the dems want to be the moral compass for the GOP?  Hand them rope, shovels, back-hoes, explosives…not attention.

  5. “Strong encryption poses problems for law enforcement, is weakening it worth the risks it presents? It’s…complicated.”

  6. transcript of humorist dave barry on cnn the other day

    BARRY: Okay. No, but he’s like — all we — all we see on television, day and night, is Donald Trump — day and night. I mean—

    CAMEROTA: Right, but that’s the chicken and egg argument. We cover him because he’s the frontrunner — and you’re saying he’s the front-runner because we cover him.

    BARRY: I’m — I think it is both, but I think you can’t deny that — the incredible impact. I mean, it’s like — I think, at this point, Kim Kardashian also could run for president and would do okay if we gave her the same level of coverage that we give to Donald Trump—

    CAMEROTA: All right. Well, we have more—

    BARRY: All we talk about is Donald Trump. We’re talking about him right now.

    (…)

    BARRY: You know, really, part of it is — let’s be honest: the American public thinks that everybody in politics; everybody in Washington; and everybody in the media — including the three of us — is lying scum — right? I mean, that’s kind of where they are now for various reasons—

    CUOMO: She’s more the lying; I’m more the scum. We try to divide it—

    BARRY: But let’s own up to that’s how we are viewed—

    CAMEROTA: Sure—

    BARRY: You know? So I think — you know, in part, it’s because he’s on television all the time. But it’s, in part, just because everybody in the establishment hates him; doesn’t like him; keeps telling him he’s bad for us. And so, like, everyone goes — yeah, well, we hate you, so we like him and — and he can bring out his steaks. He can bring out whatever he wants, and people are going to just love it.

  7. Well, this election will test the old theory that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.   I tend to agree when it comes to drumpf.  Letting him get away with saying he doesn’t condone violence and taking no responsibility for violence at his rallies – blaming it on Sanders fuhgodsake – and suggesting that it’s OK for some old fart up in the stands to punch a guy in the mouth who shot the bird to…, to whom? drumpf? after drumpf loudly and openly said he’s like to punch certain protesters in the mouth and that he’d pay the legal fees of his supporters who roughed protesters up is ridiculous.  On MoJo this morning they played a clip of drumpf referring to his rallies as shows.  Precisely.

    And because Mrs. P wanted to watch I watched the dem town hall last night. I thought the SNL opening was better.

  8. Just read a comment about the pepper spraying  Trumpistas and Bernie bros here in Kansas City.

    “It gives a whole new meaning to Feel the Bern”

    LOL

    That it does.

    Jack

  9. Yeah…  I watched the town hall last night.  Bernie just giving his tired and oft repeated stump speeches.  Maybe his supporters are all worked up to keep from falling asleep due to boredom.  Clinton may have dodged a few questions, but she came off as sounding light years ahead of him and ready to go, IMO.

    BlueB…  nice post…

  10. It was his progressive worldview that blinded him to the problems of the VA, some veterans advocates argued, and it prevented him from seeing the problem as it emerged.

    This is a quote from Jamie’s article.  As I see it…  this is Sanders problem no matter what subject one is talking about.

  11. RR, yep.  I must admit that I had the same take on it, and Mrs. P said the same thing to me about Bernie halfway through his segment (shortly before she asked if that thing was going to last all night.  At the conclusion of it, she said it confirmed what she had thought – that Bernie’s got good ideas but she doesn’t buy that they can be paid for as he suggests.  The numbers might work when you offset premiums not paid against the tax increase necessary to pay for the program, but how are we supposed to know that?  I feel pretty confident the data is out there for him to say that it will cost the average taxpayers an additional xdx% over what they are paying now when you include health insurance premiums they are paying now.  Sounds pretty straightforward, right? wrong.  How in hell does he think that the nation’s health insurers will not go down without a fight over losing their primary health insurance business?  And he’ll get it through Congress because his coattails will usher in a Dem controlled Senate again and increase the number of Dems in the House? Based on what – the prospect that his young voters will turn out in record numbers?  Show that to me by winning purple states with big numbers.  That’s where those legislative gains will have to come from.  A close win in Michigan doesn’t convince me. I’m just not seeing it so far.

  12. I’m not too harsh about the VA “scandal” and the lack of oversight meetings.  I could be wrong, but my impression is that Senate Unamerican Activities Committee notwithstanding, the House is where the chihuahua with a sock aggressive investigatory stuff takes place.  Poobah can correct me if my impression is incorrect.

  13. Well, I don’t think the Cuyahoga is going to catch afire again. I think Cleveland will be a remarkably gracious host to the Convention. The people have worked hard on their revitalized downtown; they want to re-earn their tagline  from the 1950s, ‘Best Location in the Nation.’

    Today I renewed my membership in the City Club of Cleveland. Take a look at their events:

    https://cityclub.org/events/upcoming

  14.  
    I found the article ‘Why IBM Is In Decline’ but it is a bit bandwidth intensive, so I will provide the link and let the reader continue at their own pace.
     
    Palmisano’s 2014 interview offers some corroboration of this diagnosis. In the long interview, Palmisano never once mentions the word “client” or “trust”. He mentions “innovation” only once, and then to point out how little money it involves in the overall scheme of things. “Your innovation and long-term investments are a very small portion of the SG&A [selling, general, and administrative expenses] pot—maybe 4 percent.” Somehow IBM’s values got lost in the shuffle.
     
    In the HBR interview, Palmisano reveals himself to be a true believer in maximizing shareholder value—the very idea that even Jack Welch has called “the dumbest idea in the world.”
     

     
    Why IBM Is In Decline
    By Steve Denning, Forbes, June 3, 2014 05:53 AM
     
    It’s been a striking week for IBM. In its June 2014 issue, Harvard Business Review (HBR) published an interview with IBM’s former CEO Sam Palmisano, in which describes how he triumphantly “managed” investors and induced IBM share price to soar.
     
    But IBM also made it to the front cover of Businessweek (BW) with a devastating article. According to BW, Palmisano handed over to his unfortunate successor CEO, Ginni Rometty, a firm with a toxic mix of unsustainable policies.
     
    The key to Palmisano’s success in “managing” investors at IBM was—and is–“RoadMap 2015”, which promises a doubling of the earnings per share by 2015. The Roadmap is what induced Warren Buffett to invest more than $10 billion in IBM in 2011, along with many other investors, who were impressed with the methodical way in which IBM was able to make money. (Buffett’s investment was striking because of his long-standing and publicly announced aversion to investing in technology, which he confessed he didn’t understand.)
     
    After all, IBM under Palmisano had doubled earnings per share in Roadmap 2010, and now it is “on track” to do the same by 2015 under the leadership of Ginni Rometty, another long-time IBMer, who took over as CEO in 2012. She has embraced the Roadmap with as much gusto as her predecessor.
    Yet for critics of IBM like BW, “Roadmap 2015” is precisely what is killing IBM.  According to BW, IBM’s soaring earnings per share and its share price are built on a foundation of declining revenues, capability-crippling offshoring, fading technical competence, sagging staff morale, debt-financed share buybacks, non-standard accounting practices, tax-reduction gadgets, a debt-equity ratio of around 174 percent, a broken business model and a flawed forward strategy.

     

  15. God, Marco is such a shitty Senator.  WaPo has an article today about his obstruction of Obama’s proposed ambassador to Mexico.  He cites O administration obstruction over its perceived tardy request to Mexico to extradite El Chapo to the US.  Marco, do a little homework.  Here, start with Newsweek. Ummm, Roberta Jacobson is an Assistant SoS for Latin American Affairs.  Extradition would be negotiated upon a DoJ request.

  16. Marco has always impressed me as the glib student repeating back to the teacher what he thinks the teacher wants to hear.  He borrows from other brighter students and passes it off as his original ideas and then doesn’t bother to show up for tests.  Everything about him comes across as privileged and lazy.

     

  17. Thanks for your post today, BB.

    By the way, for all contributors, to speed up publishing pending posts I finally found a tool for getting automatic email notification once you submit them. Still helpful to send a note directly as backup, but not entirely necessary.

    Anyone who would like to become a contributor of new post threads, let me know, there are no rules we’ve come up with so far: help@craigcrawford.com

  18. Is there an enthusiasm gap? Does it explain the primary registration numbers we are seeing in several states: GOP up, Dems down (did better in Florida last cycle even though there was no contested primary!).

    According to Florida Department of State, the number of Republicans registered in time to vote in the primary has gone up just over 3 percent since the 2012 election, increasing from 4,137,890 to 4,276,104.

    Democrats, however, have seen a slight drop during that same period. Even though there was no contested primary election in 2012 for the Democrats, the number of Florida residents registered as Democrats has since dropped by 0.2 percent, from 4,581,056 to 4,569,788.

     

  19. I saw that train ride opener and trouble in river city at 15 on a boat bout midway, San Francisco to Sydney bound….

    Sam the Sham, being deceased, probably won’t mind if his song gets played at a political rally.

    More Beach music

  20.  
    Even Jack Welch sees the light…
     
    Moreover in the years since Jack Welch retired from GE in 2001, GE’s stock price has not fared so well: in the decade following Welch’s departure, GE lost around 60 percent of the market capitalization that Welch “created”. It turned out that the fabulous returns of GE during the Welch era were obtained in part by the risky financial leverage of GE Capital, which would have collapsed in 2008 if it had not been for a government bailout.

    In due course, Jack Welch himself came to be one of the strongest critics of shareholder value. On March 12, 2009, he gave an interview with Francesco Guerrera of the Financial Times and said, “On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy… your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products. Managers and investors should not set share price increases as their overarching goal… Short-term profits should be allied with an increase in the long-term value of a company.”

     
    The Origin Of ‘The World’s Dumbest Idea’: Milton Friedman
    By Steve Denning, Forbes, June 26, 2013 11:37 AM
     
    No popular idea ever has a single origin. But the idea that the sole purpose of a firm is to make money for its shareholders got going in a major way with an article by Milton Friedman in the New York Times on September 13, 1970.
     
    As the leader of the Chicago school of economics, and the winner of Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976, Friedman has been described by The Economist as “the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century…possibly of all of it”. The impact of the NYT article contributed to George Will calling him “the most consequential public intellectual of the 20th century.”
     
    Friedman’s article was ferocious. Any business executives who pursued a goal other than making money were, he said, “unwitting pup­pets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.” They were guilty of “analytical looseness and lack of rigor.” They had even turned themselves into “unelected government officials” who were illegally taxing employers and customers.
     
    How did the Nobel-prize winner arrive at these conclusions? It’s curious that a paper which accuses others of “analytical looseness and lack of rigor” assumes its conclusion before it begins. “In a free-enterprise, private-property sys­tem,” the article states flatly at the outset as an obvious truth requiring no justification or proof, “a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business,” namely the shareholders.
     
    Come again?
     
    If anyone familiar with even the rudiments of the law were to be asked whether a corporate executive is an employee of the shareholders, the answer would be: clearly not. The executive is an employee of the corporation.
     
    An organization is a mere legal fiction
     
    But in the magical world conjured up in this article, an organization is a mere “legal fiction”, which the article simply ignores in order to prove the pre-determined conclusion. The executive “has direct re­sponsibility to his employers.” i.e. the shareholders. “That responsi­bility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while con­forming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom.“

    What’s interesting is that while the article jettisons one legal reality—the corporation—as a mere legal fiction, it rests its entire argument on another legal reality—the law of agency—as the foundation for the conclusions. The article thus picks and chooses which parts of legal reality are mere “legal fictions” to be ignored and which parts are “rock-solid foundations” for public policy. The choice depends on the predetermined conclusion that is sought to be proved.

  21. KumCho and I, both Democrats, had no desire of having our remains handled by Florida’s largest industry. Seriously, that was not the most important reason, ability to evacuate from our waterfront condo as we aged was.

    Seeing the mess that Republicans have made of Florida’s exceedingly fragile ecosystems breaks my heart. Although our property was waterfront, we didn’t touch the mangrove shoreline or have docks or boats. We did have great blues, egret, ospreys, manatee by the family, dolphin, mullet, sea grass. In other words, we did not destroy the habitat that protected the shoreline while providing us enjoyment and creatures, life itself.

  22. SJWNY

    Would you mind talking more about your experience as an Occupier.   We had some sporadic Occupy activities in Sonoma County.  Most of the folks were activists here already.   There was some activity around foreclosures and evictions but nothing permanent.

    The big issue here remains housing of all kinds   The  County has been intractable about changes to the building codes that would make some types of housing more affordable.  Really they can’t figure out regulations for composting toilets…if you aren’t on the sewer lines  you have to have a septic system –how 19th century

  23. Trump’s opening act for his rallies said that Bernie needs to have a come to Jesus moment and that he doesn’t believe in God.

    BoyHowdy  by election day Trump will have offended pretty much everyone but old mean scrawny  guys with beer bellies and nothing to do but spit and talk about how much they love white America

  24. I rate the gap as the Trump factor – welcome to the boardroom. Registration drives on college campuses may figure in – after all, aside from such esteemed smaller institutions in FL (e.g. Stetson), which are numerous, there are three very large campuses – UF (49,000), FSU (41,000) and UCF – which is the largest university in the nation at just north of 60,000 and has the second largest undergraduate population at just over 57,000.   Of course you’d think you’d see a rise in Dems given Bernie’s support among the young, but I figure Donnie is pulling in the Monday evening TV crowd (or whatever day the apprentice airs).

  25. I wrote part one of what will become a multi part creation:  The Disappearance of Work  and Whiskey Jack came in with a pertinent comment that applies here as well:

    Just ran across this and it looks very on topic.http://thereformedbroker.com/2016/02/25/abundance/————————————-“There’s too much of everything and it’s not good for anyone. It’s hurting everyone. Paradoxically, abundance is now the enemy. This sets us apart from virtually every other society throughout history.You can blame the Federal Reserve’s loose money policies if you’d like. There is over-investment in every industry. It’s killing confidence. Nothing is worth what it used to be. We haven’t adjusted to this reality yet.Unlimited music, nine dollars a month.Unlimited movies and TV shows, thirteen dollars a month.Unlimited news and journalism, zero dollars a month.Facebook is free. Twitter is free. Snapchat is free. Instagram is free. Youtube is free. Video game apps are free. Texting is free. Sexting is free. Skyping is free. Chatting is free. Why would you spend money on anything? Where do you think people spend their time now? Endless entertainment and content, for almost nothing.”—————————

  26. Wow, there are some ugly Americans at the Trump rallies  and they all want to slam the door on anyone trying to come here.   They ooze hatred for anyone who is different and not a Christian.  Of course, the Trump Christian is somewhat different than most Christian sects in the US

     

    Boy Clinton doesn’t have anymore feet to shoot herself in …love the latest Where was Bernie? duh right behind you. Who was responsible for that line. Bernie should do a “where’s wa;ldo kind of thing…..where’s Bernie?

  27.  
    Former Citi Vice Chairman Robert Rubin, Target of DoJ Investigation, is Too Big to Jail
    Posted on March 14, 2016  by  Yves Smith
     
    The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission released a raft of documents from its 2010 investigation, including interviews with senior government officials like Alan Greenspan, Hank Paulson, and Sheila Bair, as well as other individuals deemed to be prominent like Warren Buffett and subprime short-seller Steve Eisman. It’s hard to see the justification for keeping information from private individuals under wraps for this long.
     
    Here is a juicy tidbit flagged by Fortune, on the long-standing stealth power in the Democratic party, Robert Rubin, singularly responsible for its strong dollar (as in anti labor) and bank friendly policies:
     

    According to the minutes, the commission voted on September 29, 2010, on whether to refer persons related to an item titled “Potential Fraud and False Certifications: Citigroup” to the office of the Attorney General of the United States. The staff notes that describe the item names Rubin, along with then Citi CEO Charles Prince, as having potentially violated the law. At the meeting, the commission’s general counsel Gary Cohen said that what the commissioners were voting on was just a referral and “not a recommendation for prosecution.” The vote was unanimous to refer the Rubin matter among the commission members present at the meeting, 6-to-0.
     
    A spokesman for Rubin says, “We hadn’t heard anything about this and have no knowledge of it.” Fortune reached out but was not able to contact Prince. The Department of Justice declined to comment…..
     
    By late summer 2007, Citi’s direct exposure to subprime bonds was $55 billion, according to the crisis commission. The staff notes of the commission say that “based on FCIC interviews and documents obtained during our investigation, it is clear that CEO Chuck Prince and Robert Rubin . . . knew this information.” It says the two top officials were made aware of the extent of Citi’s exposure “no later than September 9, 2007.”
     
    Yet, according to the commission, on October 15, Citi executives told analysts on a call that the bank’s total exposure to subprime was just $13 million, or 76% less than it actually was. Two weeks later as pressure began to build on Citi, and values in the mortgage market fell, Citi told the market that its actual subprime exposure was $55 billion, and that its losses from mortgage-related assets could already be as big as $11 billion. Prince also announced he was resigning.

     
    On the surface, this seems to be quite damning, in that the FCIC apparently found a smoking gun that implicated the very top executives at Citi, including Prince and Rubin, as hiding massive Citi subprime exposures. And this was not just any old subprime, but $40 billion by-then-understood-to-be-particularly rancid CDOs. And that evidence was strong enough to secure a 6-0 vote of commissioners who were present, at a body that had been designed to come to loggerheads and even had a dissenting report issued by Republican commissioners in opposition to the official document.

  28. oh  my — some Trump supporters heard yelling at protestors go to Auschwitz

     

  29. Someone should tell Marco the NH primary is over or is he is Chardon Ohio

  30. Romney is traveling with Kasich but not endorsing   another reason why people think he is a worthless git

  31. kgc, endorsing? how yesterday.  new craze is anti-endorsing, aggressive “vote for anybody but x”.  must be we’ve entered the mirror universe.

  32. KGC

    I saw a video clip of it.  Raised Nazi salute directed at the protestors by someone exiting the rally who then yelled “Go to Auschwitz”

  33. Hi Katherine Graham Cracker,

    The main draw for Occupy in my area was affordable housing. You have to understand we have hundreds of old homes that were bought as “investments” by out-of-staters then abandoned. Of course the neighborhoods go from bad to worse. The Occupy movement morphed into a group of very good people who rehabilitate these homes into affordable living space. These homes are in my neighborhood, btw. Back in the day I was part of a group that took over city hall;took over the bank headquarters; occupied the main square. I know these efforts sound silly & get dismissed, but dammit, we did something. Housing should be affordable. Education should be free, from cradle to grave. Healthcare isn’t an option. It’s life! I get miffed when people dismiss Occupy; it served a very good purpose in publicizing the 1% vs the 99%. A big shoutout here to Keith Olbermann. He was at Current during 2011 & did a yeoman’s job of describing, understanding & publicizing what Occupy was about. He respected the movement while others in media ridiculed it. Good man, big heart. He got it.

    I will always remember 2011 as the year I got my ass kicked. For the better. Wiunion, Occupy. The People United Will Never Be Defeated. / Amen.

  34. Boy, the Haitian people sure don’t like the Clintons. Wowser!

    Comment of the day goes to BlondeW re: DST is for poor people to feel jet lag. 🙂

     

  35. You realize Ivanka Trump converted to Judiasm, and, a lot of his top employees are Jewish, right?

    His rhetoric may be attracting some wackados, but they aren’t all like that.

    There are a lot of people who are just fed up with the people in Washington for whom Bernie is too far left (or who think he’s an outright dirty, pinko, commie). They want jobs, they want something better than the mess made by Obamacare, they want to see the top shoulder more of the tax burden.   If he would stop feeding the beast…but that’s not likely to happen.

    And who benefits from this? Ted Stinkin’ Cruz.

     

  36. Flatus – Thank you for keeping one, small piece of the Earth pristine. The animals thank you, too.

  37. Milton Friedman made three particularly huge errors.

    First, he opposed regulation of the market place – including financial institutions, on the silly proposition that regulations distort markets. So, what ? If a regulation distorts in an undesirable way, tweak it. Big deal.

    Second, he presumed in his economic modeling that everyone enjoyed equal access to economic & business data. Read Mr. Tampa’s 1:21 pm comment on citi bank, above, to see how outlandish that presumption is.

    Third, Friedman presumed that everyone has equal access to markets, and in equal ways. That may have been the case for people buying and selling at the street corner lemonade stand. He made this error when seats on the exchanges cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, the cost of Spot Oil contract would have been $50,000, and the cost of a Spot Silver contract would have been $20k – $80k. How many people in the 1970s could put that kind of money into an investment ?  How many of us have room and facilities at home for keeping 50 head of cattle or 10 tons of frozen OJ ?

    The only thing people have equal access to is time. We all have that. Until we don’t.

  38. Once upon a time if the animals were uncomfortable, they could just move to a more desirable area.  Unfortunately human beings are not only encroaching on the places where they currently live, but the cities we build are blocking their paths to the land, food, and water they need when those things disappear in their current habitat.  End result we are slaughtering species up and down the food chain and then the garbage we dump is poisoning them.

    Even for those who don’t “believe” in climate change (as if you get to have an opinion about science), you would think they would at least acknowledge the destruction and at least give up fossil fuels.

    Oh well, Earth was a nice place to live.

  39. You don’t have to do the complex math to know that Friedman illogically presumed that the real world would act the same way his models acted.

    Huge mistake number four : He assumed that human economic choices are reasonable, rational, logical. Well, people may have reasons for their actions, but the reasons are usually invented a posteriori, and often have nothing to do with either economic efficiency, economic utility, or economic possibility. E.g. 1. ‘We bought the Pontiac because it was red; the color of the Prius reminded me of a medicine my mother used to force me to swallow.’ E.g. 2. ‘I’m voting for cruz, because we’re both Hispanic.’ E.g. 3. ‘Cane sugar is sweeter than beet sugar.’

    Americans make hundreds of millions of economic decisions daily, and damned few are any more reasonable than, ‘I like the color blue.’

  40. Some Americans are making economic choices between blood pressure medicine, food, or, heat.  That’s the real crime.

  41. For people who cannot pay for food, medicine or heat there are programs to help, some public some private.    If you know someone in that  situation, give them the number of your county’s social services agency for assistance in finding help.    It’s terrible that they cannot afford it, it’s criminal they are doing without.

    There are emergency funds for people on the brink

  42. Any chance Molly Ivins is a functional zombie who can write for this year?

    Many a time freedom has been rolled back – and always for the same sorry reason: fear.

    Some days, I’d feel better with Punxsutawney Phil in the Oval Office – at least he doesn’t lie about the weather.

    The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain relish for confusion.
    Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/molly_ivins.html

  43. I miss Molly.  She would have a had hayday writing about our new guvnuh, Wheels, and his prez candidate, untrusTED.

    And now some triple-k asshat has endorsed Hillary.  Why do they think anyone wants their approval?

    Jamie is correct; things differ from state to state.

  44.  
    Jamie,

    I see that you found a way to call Sanders a communist, “running on a Castro plan for the economy.”

    I am glad to see that Mr. Brown is a true Wall Streeter.  What about an Abundance of thing that we need to live, like clean air and water that we can drink without fear. Health care that is affordable.  Of the last 11 Presidents, from Eisenhower to Obama, Eisenhower had the greatest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) CPI-U 2014 adjusted, growth of 32.64% for his 8 years.  On a CPI-U 2014 adjusted basis, Eisenhower also reduced the Federal Debt by 2.565%.  During the Eisenhower administration the average tax rate of the lowest bracket was 20% on taxable income below a CPI-U 2014 adjusted $34,000.  The average tax rate for the highest bracket was 91.125% on taxable income over a CPI-U 2014 adjusted $3,400,000.  Over 91% tax rate for the highest bracket and over 32% GDP growth with a balanced budget and we were running a trade balance.  He also started the interstate highway system and do not forget that Doctors made house calls.

  45. KGC

    The trouble with TX is that it goes on forever with lots and lots of space in between places where some people can manage to live as opposed to those big places where everyone wants to live.  Delivering services at the best of times is dicey and most of the small places aren’t particularly endowed with funds, rights, or even the means to live for those scratching out a living and those people tend to be poor and Hispanic.  When you add in a severely right wing government and a weak for show only governor, it is not kind.

     

  46. This Putin pull out from Syria could get interesting.  If they do, they may have quietly washed their hands of Assad which could be scary for a whole lot of reasons.

     

  47. Even the Texas state government has programs and they are available everywhere- the help is there.

  48. I really really hate the endless pimping of upcoming segments on Rachel Maddow’s show

    just f’ing do it

  49. PIT

    lol

    I know for a fact  you have quoted Ritholtz management blogs when it suits your purpose and now you write them off as mere wall street when it doesn’t.

    Josh Brown is a long time left of center blogger and partner in Ritholtz wealth management  He is a one smart cookie way smarter than you or I. So when he throws something out there that is off the wall I pause to listen. I may not agree but I do try to see where he is coming from.

    Jack

  50. KGC

    If one is really poor there is help and if you make enough money to qualify for federal subsidized insurance But for those caught in between where the states are suposed to expand medicaid you are screwed. Sure there is temporary help but next month rolls around and the same problem. I’ve got  a neighbor with the food rent or medicine choice. Most times it is the medicine that goes.  The biggest problem with Obama care is the reliance on the states to take care of the poorest. Some states never have and never will.

    Jack

  51. Jack-ma is a great state for medical coverage.  We have health care alliance offices whee they assist in filling out applicstions for health care. I have full coverage and just today the director was telling me that in many states I would get nothing. This conversation with her arose from questioning her about the questions posed to hillary last night    She , knowing the system  well, thoought hillary answered quite well

  52. Although one of my sons is an economist, he has since redeemed himself by joining the working world and leaving the “dismal science” behind.  Myself, having lived a couple of careers, am able to say the economists are wrong most of the time.  But that happens when forecasting.  I can do a heck of a good job looking at the past.

    The past week has been a lot of fun for me.  My close friend, Republican, and I, Democrat, had a lot of fun catching up on a lifetime of life and memories.  I recommend the exercise for everyone.  But, keep the politics to a minimum, the good memories to a maximum, and be a visitor in your own world so you can share new experiences together.

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