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Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

22 Responses to “Afternoon Reading”

1. franklin411 Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

   I vouch for the Blackberry story…I love mine, and I laugh at all the suckers who are still caught up in the Apple iSucker hype!

2. DL Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 2:52 pm

   Too many items on the menu.

3. Pat G. Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 2:55 pm

   I read “Stress Tests Echo ’30s Rescue” last night. We are at the same juncture now as we were 80 years ago which means we learned nothing from it then. Which just goes to prove that there is nothing new under the sun. Are we learning anything this time? I doubt it. Which means history will repeat itself another 80 years from now. And the beat goes on.

4. Mannwich Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   @franklin: Which B-Berry did you get? My B-berry curve going on two years old now. Am thinking replacing it with another B-berry or I-Phone.

5. Super-Anon Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   Those puny GDP shrinkages don’t seem consistent with the levels of unemployment they generated compared to the Great Depression.

6. franklin411 Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 3:04 pm

   @mannwich:
   If you want a phone right now, get the Curve 8900. Great screen, fast processor, fits nicely in the hand. No 3g, but you do have wifi.

   If you can wait a few weeks or months, get the new BB 9630. It has all the best features of the Bold and the Storm (touch screen for surfing, but a keyboard for typing too, 3g, compact etc..).

7. Mannwich Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 3:06 pm

   Thanks franklin. I’ll probably wait. No rush or anything. I know all the hype about the I-Phone but I have to tell you, I’m not totally buying into the hype. The phone feature seems weak to me and I prefer to have a keyboard. Oftentimes, I can hardly hear the person (who has an I-phone) clearly on the other end.

8. franklin411 Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 3:46 pm

   @Mannwich
   That’s probably the smart move. I love my curve 8900, but I’ll be jealous when the 9630 comes out!

   I’m surprised I haven’t seen this link on this website before:

   http://fixcnbc.com/

   They delivered this letter, signed by 20000 people, to CNBC’s Englewood Cliffs headquarters:

   Dear CNBC —

   “You knew what the banks were doing, and yet were touting it for months and months. The entire network was.” — Jon Stewart

   These now-legendary words were a wake-up call. We’re asking you to wake up.

   Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism – asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth. Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You’ve been so obsessed with getting “access” to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today.

   You screwed up badly. Don’t apologize – fix it!

   CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices – people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives’ feet to the fire.

   Please show us that you hear our voices loud and clear.

   Sincerely,

9. Mark E Hoffer Says:
   May 4th, 2009 at 3:59 pm

   this, from the Slate article: “”Personal finance has come to substitute for the role government should play for people,” observes Nan Mooney, author of (Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents. “In the past 20 years the myth of the person succeeding on their own has gotten bigger and bigger. This myth is dangerous. It tells you if you can’t balance everything and you are in debt, it is your fault.”

   + the pathetic ‘letter to CNBC’ is too priceless for words..

   IOW, “Someone else is Responsible for me, and my actions”, hardly~

   http://www.rif.org may assist those shirking their own Due Diligence.

10. leftback Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    @franklin: It’s hard for CNBC to hear the voice of the people when they are busy giving bl*w-j*bs to CEOs.

11. delilo Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 4:10 pm

    Whew! That was a close one, looks like the complete global meltdown has been averted. Can we cancel that porkulus bill just passed by our brilliant legislature?

12. Moss Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

    @Mark H.

    You are missing the point. People have been misled by the MSM and people like Cramer et. al. who say and promote the idea that you can do it yourself. They were sold a bogus bill of goods. Only the most curious and skeptical have survived the last 18 months. Even the person who funded his 401k for 20 years with dollar-cost-averaging got screwed by the shameless deception and theft we are witnessing. What no one told then was that everyone was out for themselves. Too many actors who had fiduciary responsibility for other peoples money broke that covenant.

13. muckdog Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    I think the iPhone is popular outside the biz world, but corporate folks are sticking with BlackBerry.

    In addition, BlackBerry is carried by multiple providers, iPhone just on ATT.

    AND… New iPhone coming out this summer, so people may be waiting until for the new phone.

    I love my iPhone.

14. muckdog Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 4:52 pm

    Hey Mark, agree that the letter you pasted seems rather hopeless. As if we’re just sitting around waiting for the government to take care of our needs and send us checks in the mail.

    But hey, if the government starts doing that, I guess we can stay home all day and read blogs and download pr0n.

15. Mark E Hoffer Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 5:23 pm

    ” Too many actors who had fiduciary responsibility for other peoples money broke that covenant.”

    Moss, no doubt. but, that art. never goes there. it’s, merely, a pean to the supposed virtues of ever more Gov’t..

    very Hegalian..
    ~~
    muckdog,

    sad, no? and that pron thing is curious, if they, the “Gov’t”, really wanted to stamp that out, they’d allow their own ‘putes searched first, instead of using it as a pretext to search yours(again)..

16. jeg3 Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    This caught my eye and raised a brow:

    Fisher’s Paradox, Debt Levels and where Unemployment levels are headed.

    Does O have his eye on the right ball?
    (right now it seems to be on the square ball created by the Financial FUBARS).

    http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/05/04/debtwatch-no-34-the-confidence-trick/

17. jeg3 Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    I see Krugman makes the same point:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/opinion/04krugman.html?_r=1

18. Pat G. Says:
    May 4th, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    @Moss

    “What no one told then was that everyone was out for themselves.” Here’s a news flash for you: that’s life or pretty much the way it has always been. What would have prevented that in the stock markets case is if the regulatory processes re; oversight had actually been engaged. Given their own devices with no one regulating of course they gamed the system to their advantage. If placed in the same situation, I would bet most Americans would do the same. They would also drive as fast as they wanted, when they wanted or where they wanted. That’s why we have cops. It’s truly a sad commentary that people who we have entrusted to do the right thing for the majority of us, for whatever reason (mostly graft) can’t. But that’s also life.

19. usphoenix Says:
    May 5th, 2009 at 1:26 am

    @BR: I don’t know about everyone else, but I got locked out of the Springsteen thread. It never came up to invite a comment. Must have happened to everyone because the comments stopped at 6 or so.

    Ironic I just posted Springsteen’s Glory Days. The Boss. I was never a big Boss fan while many others were. But as time goes by I find his work more insightful, honest and real. A true commentary. True to his roots also.

    I find it fascinating that if you retrace our music, there’s a lot there about what’s happening in America. And it’s been pointing it out for decades. Well ever since American Pie.

20. Moss Says:
    May 5th, 2009 at 7:55 am

    @mark H and Pat G.

    The problem is much more perverse than either of you admit or suggest and it has NOT always been like that nor is that the way life is. I suggest u read a book by Jack Bogle Called The Battle for the Soul of Capitalism, to get a better understanding of what the corrosion that has taken place.

21. Mark E Hoffer Says:
    May 5th, 2009 at 8:53 am

    Moss,

    I hear you, it’s been a tremendous con-job. and, I’m a big fan of Jack Bogle, you wouldn’t believe how copies of his various books I’ve disseminated in effort to peep to wake-up.

    though, past that, isn’t it, ultimately, Our own Responsibility? Seriously, some of this stuff has been going for Ages..it’s discussed, in large parts, in some of oldest Texts..

    those that were making the “Things” v. “Paper” argument in 2000, up to 2006, were derided with the worst sorts of attacks, believe me, I know..and, truly, scant comfort in being correct when the vast majority of those around you have had their faces ripped off..

    and, much to US PHX’s point, people still don’t believe that Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street” taught them 9/10ths of what they needed to know..

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