The godfather of "too big to fail" has made a turnaround too big to miss. Share this Email on Facebook
Dan,
The godfather of "too big to fail" mega-banks has made a turnaround too big to miss.
Sandy Weill successfully lobbied Congress to tear down the walls between Main Street banks and Wall Street -- the safeguard established by the Glass-Steagall Act. He then proceeded to build Citibank into the financial behemoth Citigroup.
But now, after tens of thousands of progressives called for an end to the mammoth banks that Weill's lobbying helped create, Weill came out on national television against the very changes he had advocated, which helped create the "too big to fail" financial giants:
What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking...Have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that's not too big to fail.
Of course, that is precisely what Glass-Steagall had done, and in doing so gave us more than a half-century without a significant financial crisis, laying the foundation for the most consistent economic growth in our nation’s history. When an original architect of "too big to fail" declares a need to end the system he helped create, we know our pressure is working. Now, we need to keep up the momentum.
Join the fight now. Sign our petition today to end "too big to fail" mega-banks, and protect our economy from another meltdown.
Weill's about-face sent shockwaves through the financial world. But in the world in which you and I live, his new tune is the same song people like us have been singing for a long time.
These banks got so big that when their immensely risky investments went bust, they brought down our economy with them. And instead of demanding a return to the commonsense and time-tested Glass-Steagall law, President Bush and Congress just handed the banks big bailouts.
Progressives knew that was a bad deal, and we started fighting it. Now our fight is gaining traction with the consummate Wall Street insider. That means we need to press our solution hard enough for them to hear us on the rest of Wall Street -- and in Washington.
We should never let these behemoth banks hold our economy hostage again. It's time to end "too big to fail," and it's time to speak out.
Sign the petition today calling for an end to "too big to fail" banks that put our economy in danger.
Sandy Weill's latest comments are the clearest sign yet that our pressure is making a difference. Now's the time to keep that pressure up.
Thanks for uniting as a progressive,
Russ Feingold
Founder
Progressives United
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Sunday, July 29, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
FIRST SET OF FACTS
While held in Los Angeles County Sherriffs’ custody in the summer of 2010 (the exact date of this incident is uncertain and must be pinpointed in the discovery phase), after I had already been strip searched upon entry of the Los Angeles County Lynwood Jail, days later I was transported under close officer supervision to the Sherriff Department’s own lockdown section of the downtown medical emergency room. Once there, the supervising officers took me behind the metal bars, which only open electronically, into their high security emergency room, and they kept me handcuffed to medical gurneys the entire time period. When exiting the sherriffs’ emergency room section, I was kept in handcuffs all the way to the transporting bus, the whole time on the bus back to Lynwood, and all the way back to inside the Lynwood facility.
During the trip back, the officers that were transporting me and a few other women from the sherriffs’ emergency room rolled the front windows othe transport bus considerably down when going full speed down highways back to Lynwood causing strong, whipping winds to continually blow harshly into the faces of us women in the back seat. The wind was blowing my hair, and my hair was getting stuck in my eyes. I complained to the transporting officers a couple of times about how my eyes were hurting from the whipping wind blowing my hair into my eyes, but these complaints were completely ignored. I complained again about the problem, this time a little louder. A “female Doe” officer responded by abusively yelling “SHUT UP!” Shortly thereafter, I informed the abusive officer that I felt her yelling was misconduct and that I intended to report it as soon as I had a chance.
When we all arrived back at the Lynwood facility, the “female Does” took us inside a room and then we were all loudly ordered to take off all of our clothing, including our bras, underwear and tampons. We then were ordered completely to bend over with our legs spread apart for an uncomfortably extended period of time and to fully expose our private areas. While we were kept bent over with legs spread apart stark naked, Officer “female Doe” who was directly behind me made lewd, unnecessary, offensive comments such as “Look how clean her pussy is.” The officers abusively yelled at us throughout the majority of this unnecessary full cavity strip search. I along with the other ladies were publicly humiliated, degraded and traumatized from that unconstitutional search.
Other inmates informed me that usually when they returned back to the Lynwood facility after an officers’ fully supervised visit to the sherriffs’ lockdown section of the emergency room, they usually were not subjected to unnecessary full-cavity strip searches upon reentering Lynwood, but on rare occasions they were. I have also read in the Los Angeles Times that inmates in the mens’ sherriffs’ jail downtown are publicly complaining that they also are being unconstitutionally victimized by needless, sporadic full-cavity strip searches. During the other occasions they returned me to the Lynwood facility after an officers’ fully supervised visit to the sheriffs; lockdown section of the emergency room, I normally was not subjected to a strip search upon reentering Lynwood. Therefore the specific full-cavity strip search that I went through as described above was part of an unconstitutional pattern of the Los Angeles Sherriffs’ subjecting inmates of both genders to unnecessary full-cavity strip searches that are degrading, humiliating, embarrassing, distressing and traumatizing. When inmates are subjected inhumanely to full-cavity strip searches after they have already had one and were under full supervision the whole time until the second, unnecessary strip search, that constitutes a violation of American citizens’ constitutional rights to regulated searches. When Los Angeles County Sherriffs’ officers arbitrarily choose to subject inmates to these unnecessary strip searches while under color of law, they are violating the American Constitution. There was no excuse for the officers to have put me through such an unconstitutional full-cavity strip search, nor is there any excuse for the officers to be continually subjecting other inmates to these unconstitutional strip searches in their Los Angeles lockup facilities. This must be stopped. I demand justice for that specific unnecessary strip search and the unfair, unconstitutional pattern the Los Angeles County Sherriffs have of sporadically and unnecessarily subjecting me and other people held in their custody, who were already strip searched upon initial entry to their lockup facilities, to additional unnecessary, degrading full-cavity strip searches.
While held in Los Angeles County Sherriffs’ custody in the summer of 2010 (the exact date of this incident is uncertain and must be pinpointed in the discovery phase), after I had already been strip searched upon entry of the Los Angeles County Lynwood Jail, days later I was transported under close officer supervision to the Sherriff Department’s own lockdown section of the downtown medical emergency room. Once there, the supervising officers took me behind the metal bars, which only open electronically, into their high security emergency room, and they kept me handcuffed to medical gurneys the entire time period. When exiting the sherriffs’ emergency room section, I was kept in handcuffs all the way to the transporting bus, the whole time on the bus back to Lynwood, and all the way back to inside the Lynwood facility.
During the trip back, the officers that were transporting me and a few other women from the sherriffs’ emergency room rolled the front windows othe transport bus considerably down when going full speed down highways back to Lynwood causing strong, whipping winds to continually blow harshly into the faces of us women in the back seat. The wind was blowing my hair, and my hair was getting stuck in my eyes. I complained to the transporting officers a couple of times about how my eyes were hurting from the whipping wind blowing my hair into my eyes, but these complaints were completely ignored. I complained again about the problem, this time a little louder. A “female Doe” officer responded by abusively yelling “SHUT UP!” Shortly thereafter, I informed the abusive officer that I felt her yelling was misconduct and that I intended to report it as soon as I had a chance.
When we all arrived back at the Lynwood facility, the “female Does” took us inside a room and then we were all loudly ordered to take off all of our clothing, including our bras, underwear and tampons. We then were ordered completely to bend over with our legs spread apart for an uncomfortably extended period of time and to fully expose our private areas. While we were kept bent over with legs spread apart stark naked, Officer “female Doe” who was directly behind me made lewd, unnecessary, offensive comments such as “Look how clean her pussy is.” The officers abusively yelled at us throughout the majority of this unnecessary full cavity strip search. I along with the other ladies were publicly humiliated, degraded and traumatized from that unconstitutional search.
Other inmates informed me that usually when they returned back to the Lynwood facility after an officers’ fully supervised visit to the sherriffs’ lockdown section of the emergency room, they usually were not subjected to unnecessary full-cavity strip searches upon reentering Lynwood, but on rare occasions they were. I have also read in the Los Angeles Times that inmates in the mens’ sherriffs’ jail downtown are publicly complaining that they also are being unconstitutionally victimized by needless, sporadic full-cavity strip searches. During the other occasions they returned me to the Lynwood facility after an officers’ fully supervised visit to the sheriffs; lockdown section of the emergency room, I normally was not subjected to a strip search upon reentering Lynwood. Therefore the specific full-cavity strip search that I went through as described above was part of an unconstitutional pattern of the Los Angeles Sherriffs’ subjecting inmates of both genders to unnecessary full-cavity strip searches that are degrading, humiliating, embarrassing, distressing and traumatizing. When inmates are subjected inhumanely to full-cavity strip searches after they have already had one and were under full supervision the whole time until the second, unnecessary strip search, that constitutes a violation of American citizens’ constitutional rights to regulated searches. When Los Angeles County Sherriffs’ officers arbitrarily choose to subject inmates to these unnecessary strip searches while under color of law, they are violating the American Constitution. There was no excuse for the officers to have put me through such an unconstitutional full-cavity strip search, nor is there any excuse for the officers to be continually subjecting other inmates to these unconstitutional strip searches in their Los Angeles lockup facilities. This must be stopped. I demand justice for that specific unnecessary strip search and the unfair, unconstitutional pattern the Los Angeles County Sherriffs have of sporadically and unnecessarily subjecting me and other people held in their custody, who were already strip searched upon initial entry to their lockup facilities, to additional unnecessary, degrading full-cavity strip searches.
Politics: in the 2000 United States Republican primary campaign, George W. Bush's campaign screened advertising including a "warning" from John McCain's "conservative hometown paper" that "It's time the rest of the nation learns about the McCain we know." The paper (The Arizona Republic), however, went on to say, "There is much there to admire. After all, we have supported McCain in his past runs for office."[25]
49 minutes ago ·
49 minutes ago ·
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Assault rifle ban
Once, federal law would have kept Holmes’ hands off a superdeadly weapon like the AR-15. In 1994, under President Bill Clinton, Congress outlawed the manufacture and possession of assault weapons, but the statute had a 10-year expiration date.
IN 2004, it went off the books to cheers from the NRA, led by LaPierre, who keeps Washington in line and who went to ground Friday, declining comment “until all the facts are known.” As if they aren’t already.
Obama postures as supporting a new assault weapons ban but has done exactly nothing to restore the prohibition. Nor has he moved to close the loophole that allows for gun purchases without background checks at weapons shows.
His statement about the Aurora massacre was a dodge. Obama said in part: “If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy, it’s the reminder that life is very fragile, our time here is limited and it is precious, and what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things which so often consume us and our daily lives.”
With all due respect, the presidential takeaway should have been a drive for strengthened gun control, if only for the assault weapons ban. In righteous anger, Obama should have confronted the NRA’s political might regardless of polls that show a strong sentiment against restoring the prohibition.
So, too, Romney, who was no less saccharine than Obama in discussing Aurora and is no less craven on gun control. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed a state assault weapons ban and defended tough anti-gun statutes. Then, as a presidential candidate, he joined the NRA and has since professed fealty to the group’s positions.
Through their inaction and their silence, Obama and Romney have fallen into line with all those who enabled Holmes to take hold of that AR-15 and will enable others to do so in the future unless America’s political leaders develop the courage to fight to save lives.
IN 2004, it went off the books to cheers from the NRA, led by LaPierre, who keeps Washington in line and who went to ground Friday, declining comment “until all the facts are known.” As if they aren’t already.
Obama postures as supporting a new assault weapons ban but has done exactly nothing to restore the prohibition. Nor has he moved to close the loophole that allows for gun purchases without background checks at weapons shows.
His statement about the Aurora massacre was a dodge. Obama said in part: “If there’s anything to take away from this tragedy, it’s the reminder that life is very fragile, our time here is limited and it is precious, and what matters at the end of the day is not the small things, it’s not the trivial things which so often consume us and our daily lives.”
With all due respect, the presidential takeaway should have been a drive for strengthened gun control, if only for the assault weapons ban. In righteous anger, Obama should have confronted the NRA’s political might regardless of polls that show a strong sentiment against restoring the prohibition.
So, too, Romney, who was no less saccharine than Obama in discussing Aurora and is no less craven on gun control. As governor of Massachusetts, he signed a state assault weapons ban and defended tough anti-gun statutes. Then, as a presidential candidate, he joined the NRA and has since professed fealty to the group’s positions.
Through their inaction and their silence, Obama and Romney have fallen into line with all those who enabled Holmes to take hold of that AR-15 and will enable others to do so in the future unless America’s political leaders develop the courage to fight to save lives.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Romney, king of liars.
The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law is “killing jobs.”
No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to bring old news up. Of course there is.
No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to bring old news up. Of course there is.
Romney the worst of the worst liars.
The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law is “killing jobs.”
No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to being old news up. Hope you agree.
No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to being old news up. Hope you agree.
The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law is “killing jobs.” The...
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Dan Ziferstein No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
37 minutes ago · Like
Dan Ziferstein And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to being old news up. Hope you agree.
Like · · Share
Dan Ziferstein No. Not a matter of opinion. A fact. Half the quote is left out, the part that says it's what some other guy said. I can't remember any public figure lying this egregiously. And that's a word I never use. Romney and his people lie like a rug and never look back. Again, you won't find anything approaching this level of dishonesty anywhere in politics in the last fifty years. It's a completely unique kind of treachery.
37 minutes ago · Like
Dan Ziferstein And the job killing issue is nowhere near as consequential as the issue of honesty and integrity. In any case this mega-gaffe will be forgotten, but not by me. I will hate this man til the day I die. His off hand attitude toward civilians amounts to a personal slight. The kind that cannot be forgiven. The smug bastard. Corporations are people my friend indeed. I'm not your friend. That expression has a tone to it that is meant to offend. The guy doesn't use words right. Sport? I thought he was in sport? But he wasn't in sport. Is our children learning?
Which brings up another low quality in reporting. Nearly everything is forgotten, considered old news. Obama's Reverend Wright connection is a rarity. Nearly every other display of weakness or stupidity is treated as old news, of no further value. So nobody reminds us of Harry Reid's silliness over transferring prisoners, or Biden's amazing most blacks are dirty and can't talk right gaffe, though Biden's general lack of self control is often referred to by comics. Etch a sketch, who let the dogs out, America the Beautiful, the dog on the car roof... God this is exhausting. Don't tell me you haven't thought pretty much the same thing. Obama's cling to guns and religion, Hilary Clinton's under fire remarks, just fade away. Don't get my point? Think it has no real value? Why!? It's good stuff. And don't tell me there's no way to being old news up. Hope you agree.
Supreme court disagreement
So called friends please comment, in full agreement of course. Why can't judges agree if there's any science to it? Because there isn't. Judging is bunk. Anyone with a photographic memory and journalistic skills can do it. It's ALL AGENDA DRIVEN!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Broccoli obsession
Here's what I still do when I feel like it, like my dad did with his free time, which he had plenty of as an overpaid professional. All respect.
This debate is about the affordable care act and the liars on the supreme court.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE draws an analogy to the car market. He claims, falsely, that an individual "is not 'active in the car market,'" simply because he or she may someday buy a car.
But he is lying. Individuals ARE active in the health market because there is a certainty that they will someday have medical care. Everyone is GUARANTEED costly emergency care whether they pay for it or not. So in fact everyone participates in health care except Christian Scientists, because they will all have care available to them whether they buy insurance or not. You may pretend there is an inconstancy there, but there isn't. I can see it too, but it won't work as a refutation. It's just a small problem in the presentation. Be nice. Don't bullshit just to win. Nothing is at stake.
And no one should get a free ride at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price. The Commerce Clause addresses this unfair burden on medically insured citizens.
The inevitable need for medical care and the guarantee that costly emergency care will be provided when required are conditions nonexistent in any and all other markets.
----- Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Medical care is unique in this regard, and THE CHIEF JUSTICE is fully cognizant of this absolute fact.
That is so of the market for cars, and of the market for broccoli as well. And tofu, Governor Jindal. Although an individual might buy a car or a crown of broccoli one day, he will be obliged to pay for it.
He will get no free ride or food, at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price.
This is incontrovertible. As in, there's no good argument. No argument at all. And it's not rocket science. Medical care is the ONLY product available for free. That inequality, that unfairness, has now been redressed by Obamacare, warts and all. Bite me!
This debate is about the affordable care act and the liars on the supreme court.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE draws an analogy to the car market. He claims, falsely, that an individual "is not 'active in the car market,'" simply because he or she may someday buy a car.
But he is lying. Individuals ARE active in the health market because there is a certainty that they will someday have medical care. Everyone is GUARANTEED costly emergency care whether they pay for it or not. So in fact everyone participates in health care except Christian Scientists, because they will all have care available to them whether they buy insurance or not. You may pretend there is an inconstancy there, but there isn't. I can see it too, but it won't work as a refutation. It's just a small problem in the presentation. Be nice. Don't bullshit just to win. Nothing is at stake.
And no one should get a free ride at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price. The Commerce Clause addresses this unfair burden on medically insured citizens.
The inevitable need for medical care and the guarantee that costly emergency care will be provided when required are conditions nonexistent in any and all other markets.
----- Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Medical care is unique in this regard, and THE CHIEF JUSTICE is fully cognizant of this absolute fact.
That is so of the market for cars, and of the market for broccoli as well. And tofu, Governor Jindal. Although an individual might buy a car or a crown of broccoli one day, he will be obliged to pay for it.
He will get no free ride or food, at the expense of another consumer forced to pay an inflated price.
This is incontrovertible. As in, there's no good argument. No argument at all. And it's not rocket science. Medical care is the ONLY product available for free. That inequality, that unfairness, has now been redressed by Obamacare, warts and all. Bite me!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Godfather 2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Godfather Part II[1]
Original film poster
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by Francis Ford Coppola
Gray Frederickson
Fred Roos[2]
Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola
Mario Puzo
Based on The Godfather by
Mario Puzo
Starring Al Pacino
Robert Duvall
Diane Keaton
Robert De Niro
Talia Shire
Morgana King
John Cazale
Marianna Hill
Lee Strasberg
Michael V. Gazzo
Music by Nino Rota
Carmine Coppola(additional music)
Cinematography Gordon Willis
Editing by Barry Malkin
Richard Marks
Peter Zinner
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)
December 20, 1974
(US)
Running time 200 min
Country United States
Language English
Sicilian
Budget $13 million
Box office $193,000,000
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed byFrancis Ford Coppola and partially based on Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, The Godfather. The screenplay was once again written by Coppola and Puzo. The film stars Al Pacino,Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, Morgana King, John Cazale,Marianna Hill, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg. The film is in part, both a sequeland a prequel to 1972 The Godfather film, presenting two parallel dramas. The main storyline, following the events of the first film, centers on Michael Corleone (Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone crime family, trying to hold his business ventures together from 1958 to 1959; the other is a series of flashbacks following his father, Vito Corleone (De Niro), from his childhood in Sicily in 1901 to his founding of the Corleone family in New York City.
The Godfather Part II was released in 1974, and went on to receive tremendous critical acclaim, with some even deeming it superior to its predecessor.[3] The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture. This made Part II the first film sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and it remained the only sequel to do so until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the award in 2003. The film also received Academy Awards for Best Director for Coppola, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro and Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola and Puzo. Pacino won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and received a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Actor.
The Godfather Part II, like its predecessor, is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made[4] and it remains a highly influential film in the gangster genre. The film was ranked as the thirty-second greatest film in American cinematic history by theAmerican Film Institute in 1997 and it kept its rank 10 years later.[5] It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 for being "culturally significant".[6]
A sequel, The Godfather Part III, was released 16 years later in 1990.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
3.1 Additional/deleted scenes
4 Box office
5 Reception
6 Awards and honors
6.1 Honors
6.1.1 American Film Institute
7 References
8 External links
[edit]Plot
In the town of Corleone, Sicily, in 1901, Vito's father Antonio Andolini and his brother Paolo are killed on the orders of the local Mafia chieftain, Don Ciccio. Vito's mother goes to Ciccio to beg him to let young Vito live. He refuses, saying that Vito will someday come back for revenge. Vito's mother then holds a knife to his throat, sacrificing herself to allow Vito to escape, as Ciccio's gunmen shoot her dead. With the aid of some townspeople, Vito takes a ship to New York City. Arriving at Ellis Island, an official registers him as "Vito Corleone" and he is quarantined for smallpox.
In 1958, Michael Corleone deals with various business and family problems at his Lake Tahoe, Nevada, compound during an elaborate party celebrating his son Anthony's First Communion. Michael meets with Nevada Senator Pat Geary, who despises the Corleones. Geary, aware that Michael plans to gain control of another Las Vegas casino, demands a high price and kickbacks for a new gaming license, while insulting the Corleones and Italians in general. Michael offers Geary nothing.
Michael meets Johnny Ola, the right-hand man of Jewish gangster, Hyman Roth, who tells him that Roth would not object to Michael's attempting to gain control of the extra casino. His sister, Connie, recently divorced, is planning to marry a man of whom Michael disapproves. His brother and underboss, Fredo, is having trouble keeping his drunken wife, Deanna Dunn, under control; Michael's men have to haul her away. Michael meets with a drunken Frank Pentangeli, who took over the old Corleone New York territory after caporegime Peter Clemenza's death. To maintain a smooth business relationship with Roth, Michael refuses to allow Pentangeli to kill the Rosato brothers, who, backed by Roth, are attempting to intrude on Pentangeli's territory. Pentangeli leaves after arguing with Michael.
Later that night, an assassination attempt is made on Michael. He tells family consigliere Tom Hagen that the hit was made with the help of someone close. Michael then insists that he must leave and entrusts Hagen – Michael had excluded him from the Roth and Pentangeli negotiations – to protect his family. As Michael suspected, the assassins are found dead.
In 1917, Vito Corleone, now married and living in a tenement with his wife Carmela and son (Santino), works in a New York grocery store owned by the father of his close friend Genco Abbandando, who looked after him after he came to New York. The neighborhood is controlled by a member of the Black Hand, Don Fanucci, who extorts protection payments from local businesses. Abbandando Senior is forced to fire Vito and give his job to Fanucci's nephew. One night, Vito's neighbor Peter Clemenza asks him to hide a stash of guns for him, and later, to repay the favor, takes him to a fancy apartment where they commit their first crime together, stealing an expensive rug.
Michael drives to Hyman Roth's home near Miami, and tells Roth that he believes Pentangeli was responsible for the assassination attempt. Traveling to Pentangeli's home, Michael lets Pentangeli know that Roth was actually behind it and that Michael has a plan to deal with him, but needs Pentangeli to cooperate with the Rosato brothers in order to keep Roth off guard. When Pentangeli goes to meet with the Rosatos, their men garrote him, claiming to have been sent by Michael. However, the attempted murder is interrupted by a policeman.
Elsewhere, Tom visits one of the brothels owned by the Corleone family, where Geary has been found in a room with a dead prostitute. Geary says he cannot remember what happened, and Hagen says he will cover up the death as a token of the Corleones' "friendship" with the senator.
Meanwhile, Michael meets Roth in Havana, Cuba, at the time when dictator Fulgencio Batista is soliciting American investment, andguerrillas are trying to bring down the government. Roth is celebrating his birthday with business partners, splitting up territory in Havana and telling them that Michael and the Corleone Family will be taking over the operation when he dies, when Michael reveals to Roth and others that he is hesitant to invest after having seen a rebel kill several of Batista's policemen in a suicide bombing, convincing him that Fidel Castro is capable of taking over. Roth privately requests Michael's investment once again.
Fredo arrives in Havana, carrying the money promised to Roth; Michael confides in him that it was Roth who tried to kill him and that he plans to try again. Michael assures Fredo that he has already made his move and that "Hyman Roth will never see the New Year." Instead of turning over the money, Michael asks Roth who gave the order to have Pentangeli killed. Roth avoids the question, instead alluding to the murder of his old friend and ally Moe Greene – who Michael ordered to be killed years previously – saying, "This is the business we've chosen. I didn't ask who gave the order because it had nothing to do with business!"
Michael asks Fredo to show Geary and other important American officials and businessmen a good time, during which Fredo pretends not to know Johnny Ola, Roth's right-hand man. Later in the evening, however, Fredo drunkenly comments that he learned about the place they're in from Johnny Ola, contradicting what he told Michael twice earlier. Michael realizes that his own brother is the family traitor and dispatches his bodyguard to kill Roth. Johnny Ola is strangled with a wooden coathanger, but Roth, whose health is failing, is taken to a hospital before he can be assassinated. Michael's bodyguard follows but is shot and killed by police while trying to smother Roth with a pillow.
At Batista's New Year's Eve party, at the stroke of midnight, Michael grasps Fredo tightly by the head and kisses him harshly on the lips, telling him "I know it was you, Fredo—you broke my heart." Batista announces he is stepping down due to unexpected gains by the rebels, and the guests flee as Castro's guerrillas pour into the city and the people begin celebrating. Michael appeals to his brother to join him in leaving the country, but Fredo runs away frightened.
Michael returns to Las Vegas, where Hagen tells him that Roth escaped from Cuba after suffering a stroke and is recovering in Miami. Hagen also informs Michael that Kay had a miscarriage while he was away. Michael angrily asks if it was a boy which Hagen replies that he doesn't know.
In New York, in 1920, Don Fanucci has become aware of the partnership between Vito, Clemenza and Sal Tessio. He collars Vito in his delivery truck and tells him that he knows the trio has recently committed a robbery. He demands that they "wet his beak" or the police (on Fanucci's payroll) will arrest Vito, and his family will be ruined. Clemenza and Tessio agree to pay, but Vito - guessing that Fanucci's grip on his ghetto was only one man deep - asks his friends to allow him to convince Fanucci to accept less money, telling them, "I make him an offer he don't refuse. " Vito manages to get Fanucci to take one hundred dollars instead of the original six hundred he had demanded ($50 from each of his friends, but holding his own back - money he took back after killing Fanucci anyway). Immediately afterward – despite having earned Fanucci's respect and an offer of employment – Vito shoots him dead in a darkened stairway outside Fanucci's apartment during a neighborhood festa, and escapes across the rooftops. Later, on the steps of his tenement building, he sits with his family, cradling the newborn Michael in his arms. The screen fades to black as this hinge point was the intermission in some cinema performances.
Michael returns to his compound in Lake Tahoe, declining to go into the same room as his wife and instead asking advice from his mother. In Washington, D.C., a Senate committee, of which Geary is a member, is conducting an investigation into the Corleone family. They question disaffected "soldier" Willi Cicci, but he cannot implicate Michael because he never received any direct orders from him.
In New York, in the early 1920s, Vito has become a respected figure in his community. He intercedes with a slum landlord who is evicting a widow. Vito offers the landlord extra money to let her stay, but the man becomes angry when Vito demands that she also be allowed to keep her dog. A few days later the landlord, terrified after finding out who Vito is, calls on him and announces that the widow can stay, along with her dog, at a reduced rent.
When Michael appears before the Senate committee, Geary makes an announcement generally supportive of Italian-Americans and then excuses himself from the proceedings. Michael makes a statement challenging the committee to produce a witness to corroborate the charges against him. The hearing ends with the Chairman promising a witness who will do exactly that, who turns out to be Pentangeli. Michael and Hagen observe that Roth's strategy to destroy Michael is well planned. Fredo has been found and persuaded to return to Nevada, and in a private meeting he explains his betrayal to Michael; he was upset about being passed over to head the family, and helped Roth, thinking there would be something in it for him. He swears he didn't know they wanted to kill Michael. He also tells Michael that the Senate Committee's chief counsel is on Roth's payroll. Michael then disowns Fredo and privately instructs bodyguard Al Neri that " nothing is to happen to him while my mother's alive. "
Pentangeli has made a deal with the FBI to testify against Michael, believing Michael was the one who organized the attempt on his life. He is considered very credible, since as a caporegime there is no insulation between Michael and himself. At the hearing in which Pentangeli is to testify, Michael arrives accompanied by Pentangeli's brother, brought in from Sicily. Upon seeing his brother, Pentangeli recants his earlier written statements, saying that he runs his own family, thereby derailing the government's case. The hearing ends in an uproar with Hagen, acting as Michael's lawyer, irately demanding an apology.
In a hotel room afterwards, Kay tells Michael she is leaving him, taking their children with her. Michael at first tries to mollify her, but when she reveals to him that her "miscarriage" was actually an abortion to avoid bringing another son into Michael's criminal family, Michael explodes in anger and slaps her in the face.
In 1925, Vito visits Sicily for the first time since leaving for America, now accompanied by all four of his children. He is introduced to the elderly Don Ciccio by Don Tommasino – who initially helped Vito escape to America – as the man who imports their olive oil to America, and who wants his blessing. When Ciccio asks Vito who his father was, Vito says, "My father's name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you!" He then stabs the old man to death. In the resulting gun battle, Tommasino is shot, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Mama Corleone dies and the whole Corleone family reunites at her funeral. Michael is still shunning Fredo, but relents when Connie implores him to forgive their brother. Michael and Fredo embrace, but as they do so, Michael exchanges glances with Al Neri.
Michael Corleone, Tom Hagen, Al Neri and Rocco Lampone discuss their final dealings with Roth, who has been unsuccessfully seeking asylum from various countries, and was even refused entry to Israel as a returning Jew. Michael rejects Hagen's advice that the Corleone family's position is secure and that killing Roth and the Rosato brothers is an unnecessary risk. Later, Hagen visits Pentangeli at the military base. He leads Pentangeli, a student of history, into a discussion on how families were organized likeRoman legions, which ends with Hagen's veiled assurance that if Pentangeli were to commit suicide then, just as the Romans did after a failed plot against the Emperor, his family would be spared and taken care of. With Connie's help, Kay visits her children but cannot bear to leave them and stays too long. When Michael arrives, he closes the door in her face.
In 1925, Vito and his young family board the train to leave Corleone, as family and friends wave.
The film then reaches its climax in a montage of assassinations and death:
As he arrives in Miami to be taken into custody, Hyman Roth is shot in the stomach and killed by Lampone, who is immediately shot dead by FBI agents.
Frank Pentangeli is found dead in his bathtub, having slit his wrists.
Finally, Neri shoots Fredo in the head while they are fishing on Lake Tahoe, as Fredo is saying a Hail Mary to help catch a fish. Michael watches from his den.
The final scene takes place as a flashback to December 1941 as the Corleone family is preparing a surprise birthday party for Vito.Sonny introduces Carlo Rizzi (who would later be complicit in Sonny's death) to Connie. Tessio comes in with the cake, and they all discuss the recent attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Michael shocks everybody by announcing that he has dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marines. Sonny is furious with Michael's decision, Tom incredulous, and Fredo supportive. Vito arrives (offscreen) and all but Michael leave the room to greet him.
The Godfather Part II[1]
Original film poster
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by Francis Ford Coppola
Gray Frederickson
Fred Roos[2]
Screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola
Mario Puzo
Based on The Godfather by
Mario Puzo
Starring Al Pacino
Robert Duvall
Diane Keaton
Robert De Niro
Talia Shire
Morgana King
John Cazale
Marianna Hill
Lee Strasberg
Michael V. Gazzo
Music by Nino Rota
Carmine Coppola(additional music)
Cinematography Gordon Willis
Editing by Barry Malkin
Richard Marks
Peter Zinner
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)
December 20, 1974
(US)
Running time 200 min
Country United States
Language English
Sicilian
Budget $13 million
Box office $193,000,000
The Godfather Part II is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed byFrancis Ford Coppola and partially based on Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, The Godfather. The screenplay was once again written by Coppola and Puzo. The film stars Al Pacino,Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Talia Shire, Morgana King, John Cazale,Marianna Hill, Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg. The film is in part, both a sequeland a prequel to 1972 The Godfather film, presenting two parallel dramas. The main storyline, following the events of the first film, centers on Michael Corleone (Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone crime family, trying to hold his business ventures together from 1958 to 1959; the other is a series of flashbacks following his father, Vito Corleone (De Niro), from his childhood in Sicily in 1901 to his founding of the Corleone family in New York City.
The Godfather Part II was released in 1974, and went on to receive tremendous critical acclaim, with some even deeming it superior to its predecessor.[3] The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture. This made Part II the first film sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and it remained the only sequel to do so until The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won the award in 2003. The film also received Academy Awards for Best Director for Coppola, Best Supporting Actor for De Niro and Best Adapted Screenplay for Coppola and Puzo. Pacino won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor and received a nomination for theAcademy Award for Best Actor.
The Godfather Part II, like its predecessor, is widely considered to be one of the greatest movies ever made[4] and it remains a highly influential film in the gangster genre. The film was ranked as the thirty-second greatest film in American cinematic history by theAmerican Film Institute in 1997 and it kept its rank 10 years later.[5] It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 for being "culturally significant".[6]
A sequel, The Godfather Part III, was released 16 years later in 1990.
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
3.1 Additional/deleted scenes
4 Box office
5 Reception
6 Awards and honors
6.1 Honors
6.1.1 American Film Institute
7 References
8 External links
[edit]Plot
In the town of Corleone, Sicily, in 1901, Vito's father Antonio Andolini and his brother Paolo are killed on the orders of the local Mafia chieftain, Don Ciccio. Vito's mother goes to Ciccio to beg him to let young Vito live. He refuses, saying that Vito will someday come back for revenge. Vito's mother then holds a knife to his throat, sacrificing herself to allow Vito to escape, as Ciccio's gunmen shoot her dead. With the aid of some townspeople, Vito takes a ship to New York City. Arriving at Ellis Island, an official registers him as "Vito Corleone" and he is quarantined for smallpox.
In 1958, Michael Corleone deals with various business and family problems at his Lake Tahoe, Nevada, compound during an elaborate party celebrating his son Anthony's First Communion. Michael meets with Nevada Senator Pat Geary, who despises the Corleones. Geary, aware that Michael plans to gain control of another Las Vegas casino, demands a high price and kickbacks for a new gaming license, while insulting the Corleones and Italians in general. Michael offers Geary nothing.
Michael meets Johnny Ola, the right-hand man of Jewish gangster, Hyman Roth, who tells him that Roth would not object to Michael's attempting to gain control of the extra casino. His sister, Connie, recently divorced, is planning to marry a man of whom Michael disapproves. His brother and underboss, Fredo, is having trouble keeping his drunken wife, Deanna Dunn, under control; Michael's men have to haul her away. Michael meets with a drunken Frank Pentangeli, who took over the old Corleone New York territory after caporegime Peter Clemenza's death. To maintain a smooth business relationship with Roth, Michael refuses to allow Pentangeli to kill the Rosato brothers, who, backed by Roth, are attempting to intrude on Pentangeli's territory. Pentangeli leaves after arguing with Michael.
Later that night, an assassination attempt is made on Michael. He tells family consigliere Tom Hagen that the hit was made with the help of someone close. Michael then insists that he must leave and entrusts Hagen – Michael had excluded him from the Roth and Pentangeli negotiations – to protect his family. As Michael suspected, the assassins are found dead.
In 1917, Vito Corleone, now married and living in a tenement with his wife Carmela and son (Santino), works in a New York grocery store owned by the father of his close friend Genco Abbandando, who looked after him after he came to New York. The neighborhood is controlled by a member of the Black Hand, Don Fanucci, who extorts protection payments from local businesses. Abbandando Senior is forced to fire Vito and give his job to Fanucci's nephew. One night, Vito's neighbor Peter Clemenza asks him to hide a stash of guns for him, and later, to repay the favor, takes him to a fancy apartment where they commit their first crime together, stealing an expensive rug.
Michael drives to Hyman Roth's home near Miami, and tells Roth that he believes Pentangeli was responsible for the assassination attempt. Traveling to Pentangeli's home, Michael lets Pentangeli know that Roth was actually behind it and that Michael has a plan to deal with him, but needs Pentangeli to cooperate with the Rosato brothers in order to keep Roth off guard. When Pentangeli goes to meet with the Rosatos, their men garrote him, claiming to have been sent by Michael. However, the attempted murder is interrupted by a policeman.
Elsewhere, Tom visits one of the brothels owned by the Corleone family, where Geary has been found in a room with a dead prostitute. Geary says he cannot remember what happened, and Hagen says he will cover up the death as a token of the Corleones' "friendship" with the senator.
Meanwhile, Michael meets Roth in Havana, Cuba, at the time when dictator Fulgencio Batista is soliciting American investment, andguerrillas are trying to bring down the government. Roth is celebrating his birthday with business partners, splitting up territory in Havana and telling them that Michael and the Corleone Family will be taking over the operation when he dies, when Michael reveals to Roth and others that he is hesitant to invest after having seen a rebel kill several of Batista's policemen in a suicide bombing, convincing him that Fidel Castro is capable of taking over. Roth privately requests Michael's investment once again.
Fredo arrives in Havana, carrying the money promised to Roth; Michael confides in him that it was Roth who tried to kill him and that he plans to try again. Michael assures Fredo that he has already made his move and that "Hyman Roth will never see the New Year." Instead of turning over the money, Michael asks Roth who gave the order to have Pentangeli killed. Roth avoids the question, instead alluding to the murder of his old friend and ally Moe Greene – who Michael ordered to be killed years previously – saying, "This is the business we've chosen. I didn't ask who gave the order because it had nothing to do with business!"
Michael asks Fredo to show Geary and other important American officials and businessmen a good time, during which Fredo pretends not to know Johnny Ola, Roth's right-hand man. Later in the evening, however, Fredo drunkenly comments that he learned about the place they're in from Johnny Ola, contradicting what he told Michael twice earlier. Michael realizes that his own brother is the family traitor and dispatches his bodyguard to kill Roth. Johnny Ola is strangled with a wooden coathanger, but Roth, whose health is failing, is taken to a hospital before he can be assassinated. Michael's bodyguard follows but is shot and killed by police while trying to smother Roth with a pillow.
At Batista's New Year's Eve party, at the stroke of midnight, Michael grasps Fredo tightly by the head and kisses him harshly on the lips, telling him "I know it was you, Fredo—you broke my heart." Batista announces he is stepping down due to unexpected gains by the rebels, and the guests flee as Castro's guerrillas pour into the city and the people begin celebrating. Michael appeals to his brother to join him in leaving the country, but Fredo runs away frightened.
Michael returns to Las Vegas, where Hagen tells him that Roth escaped from Cuba after suffering a stroke and is recovering in Miami. Hagen also informs Michael that Kay had a miscarriage while he was away. Michael angrily asks if it was a boy which Hagen replies that he doesn't know.
In New York, in 1920, Don Fanucci has become aware of the partnership between Vito, Clemenza and Sal Tessio. He collars Vito in his delivery truck and tells him that he knows the trio has recently committed a robbery. He demands that they "wet his beak" or the police (on Fanucci's payroll) will arrest Vito, and his family will be ruined. Clemenza and Tessio agree to pay, but Vito - guessing that Fanucci's grip on his ghetto was only one man deep - asks his friends to allow him to convince Fanucci to accept less money, telling them, "I make him an offer he don't refuse. " Vito manages to get Fanucci to take one hundred dollars instead of the original six hundred he had demanded ($50 from each of his friends, but holding his own back - money he took back after killing Fanucci anyway). Immediately afterward – despite having earned Fanucci's respect and an offer of employment – Vito shoots him dead in a darkened stairway outside Fanucci's apartment during a neighborhood festa, and escapes across the rooftops. Later, on the steps of his tenement building, he sits with his family, cradling the newborn Michael in his arms. The screen fades to black as this hinge point was the intermission in some cinema performances.
Michael returns to his compound in Lake Tahoe, declining to go into the same room as his wife and instead asking advice from his mother. In Washington, D.C., a Senate committee, of which Geary is a member, is conducting an investigation into the Corleone family. They question disaffected "soldier" Willi Cicci, but he cannot implicate Michael because he never received any direct orders from him.
In New York, in the early 1920s, Vito has become a respected figure in his community. He intercedes with a slum landlord who is evicting a widow. Vito offers the landlord extra money to let her stay, but the man becomes angry when Vito demands that she also be allowed to keep her dog. A few days later the landlord, terrified after finding out who Vito is, calls on him and announces that the widow can stay, along with her dog, at a reduced rent.
When Michael appears before the Senate committee, Geary makes an announcement generally supportive of Italian-Americans and then excuses himself from the proceedings. Michael makes a statement challenging the committee to produce a witness to corroborate the charges against him. The hearing ends with the Chairman promising a witness who will do exactly that, who turns out to be Pentangeli. Michael and Hagen observe that Roth's strategy to destroy Michael is well planned. Fredo has been found and persuaded to return to Nevada, and in a private meeting he explains his betrayal to Michael; he was upset about being passed over to head the family, and helped Roth, thinking there would be something in it for him. He swears he didn't know they wanted to kill Michael. He also tells Michael that the Senate Committee's chief counsel is on Roth's payroll. Michael then disowns Fredo and privately instructs bodyguard Al Neri that " nothing is to happen to him while my mother's alive. "
Pentangeli has made a deal with the FBI to testify against Michael, believing Michael was the one who organized the attempt on his life. He is considered very credible, since as a caporegime there is no insulation between Michael and himself. At the hearing in which Pentangeli is to testify, Michael arrives accompanied by Pentangeli's brother, brought in from Sicily. Upon seeing his brother, Pentangeli recants his earlier written statements, saying that he runs his own family, thereby derailing the government's case. The hearing ends in an uproar with Hagen, acting as Michael's lawyer, irately demanding an apology.
In a hotel room afterwards, Kay tells Michael she is leaving him, taking their children with her. Michael at first tries to mollify her, but when she reveals to him that her "miscarriage" was actually an abortion to avoid bringing another son into Michael's criminal family, Michael explodes in anger and slaps her in the face.
In 1925, Vito visits Sicily for the first time since leaving for America, now accompanied by all four of his children. He is introduced to the elderly Don Ciccio by Don Tommasino – who initially helped Vito escape to America – as the man who imports their olive oil to America, and who wants his blessing. When Ciccio asks Vito who his father was, Vito says, "My father's name was Antonio Andolini, and this is for you!" He then stabs the old man to death. In the resulting gun battle, Tommasino is shot, confining him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
Mama Corleone dies and the whole Corleone family reunites at her funeral. Michael is still shunning Fredo, but relents when Connie implores him to forgive their brother. Michael and Fredo embrace, but as they do so, Michael exchanges glances with Al Neri.
Michael Corleone, Tom Hagen, Al Neri and Rocco Lampone discuss their final dealings with Roth, who has been unsuccessfully seeking asylum from various countries, and was even refused entry to Israel as a returning Jew. Michael rejects Hagen's advice that the Corleone family's position is secure and that killing Roth and the Rosato brothers is an unnecessary risk. Later, Hagen visits Pentangeli at the military base. He leads Pentangeli, a student of history, into a discussion on how families were organized likeRoman legions, which ends with Hagen's veiled assurance that if Pentangeli were to commit suicide then, just as the Romans did after a failed plot against the Emperor, his family would be spared and taken care of. With Connie's help, Kay visits her children but cannot bear to leave them and stays too long. When Michael arrives, he closes the door in her face.
In 1925, Vito and his young family board the train to leave Corleone, as family and friends wave.
The film then reaches its climax in a montage of assassinations and death:
As he arrives in Miami to be taken into custody, Hyman Roth is shot in the stomach and killed by Lampone, who is immediately shot dead by FBI agents.
Frank Pentangeli is found dead in his bathtub, having slit his wrists.
Finally, Neri shoots Fredo in the head while they are fishing on Lake Tahoe, as Fredo is saying a Hail Mary to help catch a fish. Michael watches from his den.
The final scene takes place as a flashback to December 1941 as the Corleone family is preparing a surprise birthday party for Vito.Sonny introduces Carlo Rizzi (who would later be complicit in Sonny's death) to Connie. Tessio comes in with the cake, and they all discuss the recent attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Michael shocks everybody by announcing that he has dropped out of college and enlisted in the Marines. Sonny is furious with Michael's decision, Tom incredulous, and Fredo supportive. Vito arrives (offscreen) and all but Michael leave the room to greet him.
Godfather II trivia
Troy Donahue as Merle Johnson
Dominic Chianese as Johnny Ola
Amerigo Tot as Michael's bodyguard
Joe Spinell as Willi Cicci
Bruno Kirby as Young Peter Clemenza
Frank Sivero as Young Genco Abbandando
Maria Carta as the mother of Vito Corleone
Giuseppe Sillato as Don Francesco Ciccio
Roman Coppola as Young Santino Corleone
John Megna as Young Hyman Roth
Julian Voloshin as Sam Roth
Larry Guardino as Vito's uncle
Danny Aiello as Tony Rosato
John Aprea as Young Salvatore Tessio
Leopoldo Trieste as Signor Roberto
Salvatore Poe as Vincenzo Pentangeli
Harry Dean Stanton as FBI agent
James Caan as Sonny Corleone (cameo)
Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio (cameo)
Gianni Russo as Carlo Rizzi (cameo)
James Caan agreed to reprise the role of Sonny in the birthday flashback sequence demanding he be paid the same amount he received for the entire previous film for the single scene in Part II, which he received.
Marlon Brando initially agreed to return for the birthday flashback sequence, but the actor, feeling mistreated by the board atParamount, failed to show up for the single day's shooting; Coppola rewrote the scene that same day.
Richard Castellano, who portrayed Peter Clemenza in the first film, also declined to return, as he and the producers could not reach an agreement on his demands that he be allowed to write the character's dialogue in the film. Clemenza's role was subsequently filled by Frank Pentangeli.
Troy Donahue, in a small role as Connie's boyfriend, plays a character named Merle Johnson, which was his birth name.
Two actors who appear in the film played different character roles in other Godfather films; Carmine Caridi, who plays Carmine Rosato, also went on to play crime boss Albert Volpe in The Godfather Part III, and Frank Sivero, who plays a young Genco Abbandando, appears as a bystander in The Godfather scene in which Sonny beats up Carlo for abusing Connie.
Among the Senators in the hearing committee are film producer/director Roger Corman, writer/producer William Bowers, producer Phil Feldman, and science-fiction writer Richard Matheson.
Dominic Chianese as Johnny Ola
Amerigo Tot as Michael's bodyguard
Joe Spinell as Willi Cicci
Bruno Kirby as Young Peter Clemenza
Frank Sivero as Young Genco Abbandando
Maria Carta as the mother of Vito Corleone
Giuseppe Sillato as Don Francesco Ciccio
Roman Coppola as Young Santino Corleone
John Megna as Young Hyman Roth
Julian Voloshin as Sam Roth
Larry Guardino as Vito's uncle
Danny Aiello as Tony Rosato
John Aprea as Young Salvatore Tessio
Leopoldo Trieste as Signor Roberto
Salvatore Poe as Vincenzo Pentangeli
Harry Dean Stanton as FBI agent
James Caan as Sonny Corleone (cameo)
Abe Vigoda as Salvatore Tessio (cameo)
Gianni Russo as Carlo Rizzi (cameo)
James Caan agreed to reprise the role of Sonny in the birthday flashback sequence demanding he be paid the same amount he received for the entire previous film for the single scene in Part II, which he received.
Marlon Brando initially agreed to return for the birthday flashback sequence, but the actor, feeling mistreated by the board atParamount, failed to show up for the single day's shooting; Coppola rewrote the scene that same day.
Richard Castellano, who portrayed Peter Clemenza in the first film, also declined to return, as he and the producers could not reach an agreement on his demands that he be allowed to write the character's dialogue in the film. Clemenza's role was subsequently filled by Frank Pentangeli.
Troy Donahue, in a small role as Connie's boyfriend, plays a character named Merle Johnson, which was his birth name.
Two actors who appear in the film played different character roles in other Godfather films; Carmine Caridi, who plays Carmine Rosato, also went on to play crime boss Albert Volpe in The Godfather Part III, and Frank Sivero, who plays a young Genco Abbandando, appears as a bystander in The Godfather scene in which Sonny beats up Carlo for abusing Connie.
Among the Senators in the hearing committee are film producer/director Roger Corman, writer/producer William Bowers, producer Phil Feldman, and science-fiction writer Richard Matheson.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Life is unfair.
SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2012
Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
WELL, YES, SORT OF. HOWEVER, LARRY, THEY CERTAINLY they didn't work fifty times as hard. THEY WERE GIFTED, AND THAT MEANS BORN, GOD GIVEN TALENTED. THATS WHY THEY SUCCEEDED SO MIGHTILY.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. YOU PAINT US AS IDIOTS. YES THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE DOES. BUT THEY DO NOT STRUGGLE. GET THAT DISTINCTION DOWN PAT. CHANGE YOUR MIND.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
WELL, YES, SORT OF. HOWEVER, LARRY, THEY CERTAINLY they didn't work fifty times as hard. THEY WERE GIFTED, AND THAT MEANS BORN, GOD GIVEN TALENTED. THATS WHY THEY SUCCEEDED SO MIGHTILY.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. YOU PAINT US AS IDIOTS. YES THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE DOES. BUT THEY DO NOT STRUGGLE. GET THAT DISTINCTION DOWN PAT. CHANGE YOUR MIND.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Work, wealth and luck
SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2012
Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. YOU PAINT US AS IDIOTS. YES THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE DOES. BUT THEY DO NOT STRUGGLE. GET THAT DISTINCTION DOWN PAT. CHANGE YOUR MIND.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. YOU PAINT US AS IDIOTS. YES THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE DOES. BUT THEY DO NOT STRUGGLE. GET THAT DISTINCTION DOWN PAT. CHANGE YOUR MIND.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Bite.Me
SUNDAY, JULY 8, 2012
Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
POSTED BY ZIFERSTEIN AT 3:11 PM
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Is life unfair. Dennis Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
PURE BULL CRAP. How do he KNOW that. He don't know me like that. American commies fought Hitler you dumb jerk.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.
---- Michael Lewis
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
ITS A MISTAKE. OF COURSE THEY WORK HARD, EVERYONE WORKS HARD. HE REALLY DOESN'T BELIEVE THAT. HE THINKS, LIKE HERMAN CAINE, THAT IF YOU'RE POOR YOU LACK CHARACTER AND YOUR LAZY.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
WRONG. A LOW LIFE TRICKY ARGUMENT. WE ALL WORK HARD. THAT INCLUDES THE AFFLUENT. NOBODY IS FOOLED!
NOBODY CLAIMS THE AFFLUENT DONT WORK HARD. THAT IS A LIE ABOUT PROGRESSIVES. A VICIOUS CALCULATED LOW LIFE LIE!!!
For the left, affluence is won, not earned.
NO. ITS JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE DAMN IT!!
Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
EARN THEIR WEALTH. DID GATES EARN SEVENTY FIVE BILLION. The answer is NO!
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent.
PROVE IT. POOR PEOPLE WORK TWO JOBS NEITHER OF THEM MUCH TO THEIR LIKING!
FUCK YOU! That's my best argument. I give UP!!
While, of course, there are hardworking poor people.
VERY FEW. MOST POOR PEOPLE ARE SLACKERS.
in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
NO. ITS ABOUT TALENT. VALUES AND HARD WORK ARE PREDOMINANT IN WORKING CLASS FAMILIES. GOOD DAY TO YOU SIR!! HOW DARE YOU SAY that about my working class parents. Apologize you god damned fucking BASTARD!!
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
HERE WE GO MALIGNING AVERAGE PEOPLE WHO GET LITTLE FROM THEIR WORK BUT EXHAUSTION AND A PAY CHECK. AS OPPOSED TO RICH PEOPLE WHO LOVE WHAT THEY DO AND ARE BOUYED UP BY SUCCESS, MONEY, ADMIRATION AND EVERYTHING THAT GOES WITH IT.
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example.
FUCK YOU AND YOU SOCIAL STUDIES NOBEL,
Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional.". Like vacations and dinners they call work. Fuck YOU DENNIS!
WELL, DENNIS, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
AND IT GETS WORSE. WE'RE ALSO MISERABLE. ANGRY, RESENTFUL AND UNHAPPY.
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be.
REALLY? EVERY POLL? Fucking creep. Suck my DICK!
PLUS IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. THE SADDER YOU ARE THE MORE ATTRACTED YOU ARE TO THE LEFT.
This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
SHUT THE FUCKING FRONT DOOR.
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
POSTED BY ZIFERSTEIN AT 3:11 PM
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Prager gets it wrong
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent. While, of course, there are hardworking poor people just as there are Wall Street CEOs who do not deserve their "golden parachutes," in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional."
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be. This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent. While, of course, there are hardworking poor people just as there are Wall Street CEOs who do not deserve their "golden parachutes," in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional."
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be. This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
Is life unfair. Dannie Prager strikes out again.
Are the "Less Fortunate" Less Fortunate?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
ShareThis
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
For the left, affluence is won, not earned. Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent. While, of course, there are hardworking poor people just as there are Wall Street CEOs who do not deserve their "golden parachutes," in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional."
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be. This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
ShareThis
In his front-page-of-the-business-section "Economic Scene" column in The New York Times last week, Eduardo Porter wrote, "The United States does less than other rich countries to transfer income from the affluent to the less fortunate."
Think about that sentence for a moment. It ends oddly. Logic dictates that it should have said, "transfer income from the affluent to the less affluent," not the less fortunate.
But for Porter, as for the left generally, those who are not affluent are not merely "less affluent," they are "less fortunate."
Why is this? Why is the leftist division almost always between the "affluent" and the "less fortunate" or between the "more fortunate" and the "less fortunate"?
To understand the left, one must understand that in its view the greatest evil is material inequality. The left is more troubled by economic inequality than by evil, as humanity has generally understood the term. The leftist divides the world not between good and evil but rich and poor.
Because inequality is the chief moral concern of the left, the words "less affluent" or even "poorer" do not meet the left's moral needs. It needs to believe, and to have others believe, that what separates economic classes is not merely how much material wealth members of each class have. Rather, it is the amount of good and bad luck -- "fortune," as the left puts it -- that each class has.
This is how the left justifies high taxes. Isn't it only fair and moral that as much money as possible be taken from the lucky and given to the unlucky? After all, the affluent didn't achieve affluence through harder work, but through greater luck.
To acknowledge that most of America's affluent (meaning those who earn over $200,000) have attained their affluence through hard work is to undermine the fairness issue at the core of the left's understanding of economic inequality and justification for confiscatory taxes.
For the left, affluence is won, not earned. Indeed, English is one of the few languages that even has or uses the word "earn" in regard to income. In Romance languages such as French, the verb meaning to earn is "gagner," which means "to win." In terms of language, in America, people earn their wealth, while in most of Europe and Latin America, people win it.
The fact is that, except for those very few whose wealth is overwhelmingly or entirely inherited, the more affluent have usually worked harder than the less affluent. While, of course, there are hardworking poor people just as there are Wall Street CEOs who do not deserve their "golden parachutes," in America, differences in income exist largely because of the values and the hard work of those who make more money.
In this regard, The Washington Post reported the findings of Harvard professor Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics:
"People who make less than $20,000 a year ... told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional."
But for the left, it's all about "fortune."
Every poll about the left, the right and happiness reveals that the further left one goes, the less happy the person is likely to be. This is one of the reasons: If you really believe that people wealthier than you are just luckier than you, how can you not be angry, resentful and unhappy?
On the other hand, there are tens of millions of conservatives who make much less money than others -- yet feed their families, own a house and a car, have decent children, derive great meaning from their religion and live in the freest country in the world -- who never call themselves "less fortunate." They call themselves fortunate.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Declaration of Independence
Like most attack ads, it also contained a few facts that the rebels didn't want to face. You remember the part where the Declaration says King George "has incited domestic insurrections among us..."? John Lind points out that what the rebels were really upset about was that the King had "offered freedom to the slaves." "Is it for them to say that it is tyranny to bid a slave be free?"
Lind goes on to mock the founders for writing noble words stating, "all men are created equal" and asserting "Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" and then in the same document, complaining about the King for encouraging the slaves to rise up.
Lind goes on to mock the founders for writing noble words stating, "all men are created equal" and asserting "Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" and then in the same document, complaining about the King for encouraging the slaves to rise up.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Sarah Palin
Reagan Speech Writer Agrees Palin A Disaster
October 24, 2008 · 4 Comments
Peggy Noonan was the much valued speechwriter for darling of the Republican Party Ronald Reagan, as well as the creator of such memorable lines as “a thousand points of light” and “read my lips: no new taxes” for George Bush the First.
No friend of Obama or the Democrats, she has been scathing in her assessment of the candidacy of Sarah Palin. Here are a few excerpts from her opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on October 17, 2008: “Palin’s Failin.”
But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for?
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don’t, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
While I don’t agree with a great deal of what Peggy Noonan says and believes, I think that she is spot-on in her assessment of Palin. And it is precisely this conclusion, that Palin is by no means qualified to be Vice President – or God forbid – President, and that her selection reflects so badly on John McCain that it could well cost him the White House.
Categories: Bush · McCain · Palin · Palintology
Tagged: Bush, george bush, McCain, no new taxes, Palin, peggy noonan, Politics, thousand points of light
October 24, 2008 · 4 Comments
Peggy Noonan was the much valued speechwriter for darling of the Republican Party Ronald Reagan, as well as the creator of such memorable lines as “a thousand points of light” and “read my lips: no new taxes” for George Bush the First.
No friend of Obama or the Democrats, she has been scathing in her assessment of the candidacy of Sarah Palin. Here are a few excerpts from her opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on October 17, 2008: “Palin’s Failin.”
But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for?
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don’t, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
While I don’t agree with a great deal of what Peggy Noonan says and believes, I think that she is spot-on in her assessment of Palin. And it is precisely this conclusion, that Palin is by no means qualified to be Vice President – or God forbid – President, and that her selection reflects so badly on John McCain that it could well cost him the White House.
Categories: Bush · McCain · Palin · Palintology
Tagged: Bush, george bush, McCain, no new taxes, Palin, peggy noonan, Politics, thousand points of light
Monday, July 2, 2012
John Roberts
The First Elite Conservative To Say Enough
[Re-posted from earlier today.]
Mulling over the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Obamacare this weekend, it occurred to me why this remains a BFD. It's not that we now have a reprieve for the idea of universal healthcare in the US. Or even that we have an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that could eventually mean some non-trivial ratcheting back of the federal government's powers vis-a-vis the states. It is that a creature of the conservative movement, one of its youngest and most intelligent stars, saw the radicalism of the four dissenters ... and balked.
He balked, it appears, because of his attachment to the court as an institution, because he was unwilling to trash its reputation by embroiling it in a deep and bitter partisan grudge-match in the middle of a presidential campaign - when there was a plausible way out. He was also applying the logic of judicial restraint with respect to legislative wishes, interpreting the law to be as constitutional as it could possibly be deemed (i.e.in this case, viewing the mandate as part of the Congress's tax power). In these two ways, Roberts upheld a form of conservatism that is not synonymous with the interests of the Republican party at any given moment. Which is so unusual these days one wants (pathetically) to stand up and cheer.
One of the most strikingly anti-conservative aspects of today's allegedly conservative movement, after all, is its contempt for institutions, especially elite institutions that in any way limit the scope of fundamentalist ideology. And so Newt Gingrich's crucial innovation was throwing out the politeness and manners and decorum and rules and traditions of the House of Representatives in order to gain power by populist demagoguery. You can see his legacy in Tom DeLay's implementation of the Medicare D entitlement under Bush, an essentially lawless and rule-free process that made a mockery of parliamentary procedure. You saw this contempt for the rule of law, if it got in the way of desired policy, in the torture policy under Bush, cynically making the patently illegal "legal" through cynicism and double-speak.
Similarly, McConnell's use of the filibuster is essentially a display of contempt for the American constitutional system, rigging the system to nullify legislative majorities and to conduct politics as a zero-sum war for power, rather than as a means to debate, discuss and implement necessary changes in an evolving society. The give-and-take of American constitutionalism has been essentially reduced by the GOP in the last two decades to take-and-take-some-more. They impeached one successful president, in an act so disproportionate to the offense (and the offense was real; Clinton was a shameless perjurer) that it helped gut any bipartisan functioning of an institution designed for deal-making across the aisles or within them. They treated the 2000 election, when Bush lost the popular vote, as a landslide mandate election - again with no deference to the other side or sense of governing as one nation.
After Bush vs Gore and then Citizens United, I think Roberts saw the full political and constitutional consequences of a radical Court vote to gut the key legislative achievement of a duly elected president and Congress. In other words, he put the institutions of American government before the demands of partisan power-mongering. And he deftly nudged the issue back into the democratic process, where it more comfortably belongs.
I cannot say this is the moment the fever broke. The "movement right" is still furious at Roberts, pushing Romney as the principle-free instrument of their next round of institution-smashing (Medicare). But that a conservative placed the country's institutional stability before ideological fervor is so rare at this point it deserves some kind of praise. It's a start. If the GOP is beaten this fall, it may even be seen as the moment the tide began to turn, and conservatism began to reach back toward its less feral traditions and ideas. But I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
But at some point, conservatism must re-emerge, if only because we so desperately need it. Conservatism is, after all, a philosophy that tends to argue that less equals more, that restraint is sometimes more powerful than action, that delay is often wiser than headlong revolution. It reveres traditional rules and existing institutions, especially endangered elite institutions that the Founders designed to check and cool the popular will. Roberts took a small step toward resuscitating that tradition last week.
It's the first seagull spotted after a decade or two on the open seas.
(Photo: John Roberts at the age of 29, associate counsel at Fielding and Co, by Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images. And Edmund Burke.)
[Re-posted from earlier today.]
Mulling over the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Obamacare this weekend, it occurred to me why this remains a BFD. It's not that we now have a reprieve for the idea of universal healthcare in the US. Or even that we have an interpretation of the Commerce Clause that could eventually mean some non-trivial ratcheting back of the federal government's powers vis-a-vis the states. It is that a creature of the conservative movement, one of its youngest and most intelligent stars, saw the radicalism of the four dissenters ... and balked.
He balked, it appears, because of his attachment to the court as an institution, because he was unwilling to trash its reputation by embroiling it in a deep and bitter partisan grudge-match in the middle of a presidential campaign - when there was a plausible way out. He was also applying the logic of judicial restraint with respect to legislative wishes, interpreting the law to be as constitutional as it could possibly be deemed (i.e.in this case, viewing the mandate as part of the Congress's tax power). In these two ways, Roberts upheld a form of conservatism that is not synonymous with the interests of the Republican party at any given moment. Which is so unusual these days one wants (pathetically) to stand up and cheer.
One of the most strikingly anti-conservative aspects of today's allegedly conservative movement, after all, is its contempt for institutions, especially elite institutions that in any way limit the scope of fundamentalist ideology. And so Newt Gingrich's crucial innovation was throwing out the politeness and manners and decorum and rules and traditions of the House of Representatives in order to gain power by populist demagoguery. You can see his legacy in Tom DeLay's implementation of the Medicare D entitlement under Bush, an essentially lawless and rule-free process that made a mockery of parliamentary procedure. You saw this contempt for the rule of law, if it got in the way of desired policy, in the torture policy under Bush, cynically making the patently illegal "legal" through cynicism and double-speak.
Similarly, McConnell's use of the filibuster is essentially a display of contempt for the American constitutional system, rigging the system to nullify legislative majorities and to conduct politics as a zero-sum war for power, rather than as a means to debate, discuss and implement necessary changes in an evolving society. The give-and-take of American constitutionalism has been essentially reduced by the GOP in the last two decades to take-and-take-some-more. They impeached one successful president, in an act so disproportionate to the offense (and the offense was real; Clinton was a shameless perjurer) that it helped gut any bipartisan functioning of an institution designed for deal-making across the aisles or within them. They treated the 2000 election, when Bush lost the popular vote, as a landslide mandate election - again with no deference to the other side or sense of governing as one nation.
After Bush vs Gore and then Citizens United, I think Roberts saw the full political and constitutional consequences of a radical Court vote to gut the key legislative achievement of a duly elected president and Congress. In other words, he put the institutions of American government before the demands of partisan power-mongering. And he deftly nudged the issue back into the democratic process, where it more comfortably belongs.
I cannot say this is the moment the fever broke. The "movement right" is still furious at Roberts, pushing Romney as the principle-free instrument of their next round of institution-smashing (Medicare). But that a conservative placed the country's institutional stability before ideological fervor is so rare at this point it deserves some kind of praise. It's a start. If the GOP is beaten this fall, it may even be seen as the moment the tide began to turn, and conservatism began to reach back toward its less feral traditions and ideas. But I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here.
But at some point, conservatism must re-emerge, if only because we so desperately need it. Conservatism is, after all, a philosophy that tends to argue that less equals more, that restraint is sometimes more powerful than action, that delay is often wiser than headlong revolution. It reveres traditional rules and existing institutions, especially endangered elite institutions that the Founders designed to check and cool the popular will. Roberts took a small step toward resuscitating that tradition last week.
It's the first seagull spotted after a decade or two on the open seas.
(Photo: John Roberts at the age of 29, associate counsel at Fielding and Co, by Harry Naltchayan/The Washington Post via Getty Images. And Edmund Burke.)
For those who love freedom, as opposed tom those who presumably hate it.
It was Reagan and his Great Britain colleague Margaret Thatcher, who turned back the tide of Keynesian government FINE-TUNING and CENTRAL PLANNING confronting the constant chorus of pessimistic criticism from distinguished Ivy League establishmentarians such as Samuelson, Solow, Tobin, Thureau, Galbraith, Kennedy and others who had wrapped themselves in the smug self-knowledge that economics could ONLY be MANAGED by distinguished university dons; free markets and the UNFETTERED actions of ORDINARY people in commerce, trade, and finance was a dangerous thing, something that must be TIGHTLY controlled, lest it lead to CHAOS.
Economic Freedom
For those who love economic freedom
It was Reagan and his Great Britain colleague Margaret Thatcher, who turned back the tide of Keynesian government FINE-TUNING and CENTRAL PLANNING confronting the constant chorus of pessimistic criticism from distinguished Ivy League establishmentarians such as Samuelson, Solow, Tobin, Thureau, Galbraith, Kennedy and others who had wrapped themselves in the smug self-knowledge that economics could ONLY be MANAGED by distinguished university dons; free markets and the unfettered actions of ORDINARY people in commerce, trade, and finance was a dangerous thing, something that must be TIGHTLY controlled, lest it lead to CHAOS.
It was Reagan and his Great Britain colleague Margaret Thatcher, who turned back the tide of Keynesian government FINE-TUNING and CENTRAL PLANNING confronting the constant chorus of pessimistic criticism from distinguished Ivy League establishmentarians such as Samuelson, Solow, Tobin, Thureau, Galbraith, Kennedy and others who had wrapped themselves in the smug self-knowledge that economics could ONLY be MANAGED by distinguished university dons; free markets and the unfettered actions of ORDINARY people in commerce, trade, and finance was a dangerous thing, something that must be TIGHTLY controlled, lest it lead to CHAOS.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Supply side economics
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
The True Story on How Economics Works June 17, 2004
By Michael Gordon
Format:Hardcover
Robert Bartley, former editor of the Wall Street Journal (may he rest in peace), has written one of the best accounts of the 1980s economic policies, explaining what led to the economic growth, and what can be done to re-create these policies once again.
Many people who claim to oppose supply-side economics never explain how the theory works. The notion that Reagan's tax cuts were mere "trickle down" economics is buttressed by the fact that no one claims that the money will "trickle down." That is not how the economic philosophy works in theory or in practice. Instead, the theory considers high taxes to be another example in which a high cost placed on a product or service is likely to result in fewer interested buyers. Similarly, high marginal tax rates are more likely to stiffle growth since the reward for working additional hours is diminished. Those with small businesses, or those who invest, may decide that the extra work will not translate into higher returns, and thus may produce less. That is not good for the economy because this stiffles economic growth, and is a recipe for stagnation, which is exactly what happened in the 1970s. So reduce taxes to create more growth. The marginal rate fell from 70% to 28% during Reagan's tenure.
The other part of Reagan's program was to have a tigheter monetary policy. By tightening the dollar, it would reduce inflation. Thus, tighten the dollar, reduce inflation, and reduce taxes, and create growth. That is exactly what happened. During Reagan's tenure, inflation went down and growth went up. THIS IS AN INDISPUTABLE FACT.
The left does not like this theory because it contradicts the notion that government has an effect in creating economic growth.
The True Story on How Economics Works June 17, 2004
By Michael Gordon
Format:Hardcover
Robert Bartley, former editor of the Wall Street Journal (may he rest in peace), has written one of the best accounts of the 1980s economic policies, explaining what led to the economic growth, and what can be done to re-create these policies once again.
Many people who claim to oppose supply-side economics never explain how the theory works. The notion that Reagan's tax cuts were mere "trickle down" economics is buttressed by the fact that no one claims that the money will "trickle down." That is not how the economic philosophy works in theory or in practice. Instead, the theory considers high taxes to be another example in which a high cost placed on a product or service is likely to result in fewer interested buyers. Similarly, high marginal tax rates are more likely to stiffle growth since the reward for working additional hours is diminished. Those with small businesses, or those who invest, may decide that the extra work will not translate into higher returns, and thus may produce less. That is not good for the economy because this stiffles economic growth, and is a recipe for stagnation, which is exactly what happened in the 1970s. So reduce taxes to create more growth. The marginal rate fell from 70% to 28% during Reagan's tenure.
The other part of Reagan's program was to have a tigheter monetary policy. By tightening the dollar, it would reduce inflation. Thus, tighten the dollar, reduce inflation, and reduce taxes, and create growth. That is exactly what happened. During Reagan's tenure, inflation went down and growth went up. THIS IS AN INDISPUTABLE FACT.
The left does not like this theory because it contradicts the notion that government has an effect in creating economic growth.
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