Posted on 03/11/2005 9:27:36 PM PST by The Loan Arranger
You ignore almost everything I post and then try to prop up your crazy positions by lying. Wanna talk about LIBERAL TACTICS? Go take a long look into the nearest mirror and you'll see someone who personifies them and in spades. You're the one who keeps trying to change the topic,weasels,twist,turns,name calls,and bloviates.
Lanny Davis,is that you? Naaaaaaw...even Lanny knows more than you do. :-)
Is this still going on? I can't determine what the point of conflict is exactly? Can someone fill me in?
I think that the point was that today's prices inflated more than at any other time and that the divide in salaries is larger today;or something like...which I have repeatedly disproved.
I don't know about inflation, but I seem to recall reading that the divide in income (not salaries) is larger today than at any time since the mid-20s.
Having said that,even IF what you think your remember...so what?
As I posted earlier, in 1890,when there were far less regulation and we were still on the Gold Standard, Marshall Field earned $600.00 an hour, whilst his shop girls,after three years of being in his employ,earned from $3.00 to $5.00 a week.
Today,people do NOT live in abject poverty,as they did back then and everyone's standard of living is better.
Except for a few pockets of very, very poor people, we have pulled ourselves out of the kind of poverty that existed in the early part of the 20th century. For example, the phrase "A chicken in every pot" seems silly today, since the vast majority of people can afford chicken.
That said, I think that stats have gotten a bad reputation. They are, at their very heart, quantifiable data. People have used them to poor advantage, but good stats remain an accurate measure.
And those chicken weren't like the extremely large ones we take for granted today.
Lots of "old" things seem "silly" today,because of all the advances that have been made. For example,when I was a bitty girl,one of my most favorite fairy tales,"BOIL LITTLE POT,BOIL" had to do with the a disguised fairy asking a little girl to bring her strawberries in the dead of winter.
That's a no big deal today.
Yes, when I run for office my slogan will be, "Kobe steak on every plate."
I just did a google search regarding the divide between rich/poor and was surprised at how little there was on it in terms of domestic data. The concern has re-focused on international policy -- divide between rich and poor nations.
All that said, this is America and everything is never "okay." There are always problems that need to be addressed. The real problem on this board (and else where) is that people have forgotten the fact that, as Americans, that's what we do. We find problems and try to fix them. It's what seperates us from other countries/cultures that simply seek to maintain a status quo, no matter how crappy the status or quo happen to be.
America is different and always has been. :-)
Kobe is okay. Not that different from a very good aged American cut. I've never actually paid for it and I'm not a "foodie," so my impressions may be wrong. There is a mystique around it and its price, so people playing with monopoly money (expense accounts) tend to order it and then talk about it later. But then, so much of the food available today is "beyond" me and my pedestrian tastes. It's comparable to listening to a $5,000 stereo system and a $10,000 stereo system. I can't "hear" the price differential.
There's a newish,supposed Austro-Hungarian restaurant in Manhattan,opened by some "in" chef/restaurateur. My daughter thought that maybe we should try it,last Christmas. I took one look at the menu and said "OVER MY DEAD BODY!". I have no idea what the prices were like (they aren't posted on line),but the crazed "fusion",thoroughly mucked up,stupid dishes weren't worth any amount of money !
Then there's a chi-chi restaurant in Anna Maria ,Fla,that got five gold spoons ( whatever that is supposed to mean.) and is supposedly "wonderful". I took one look at the menu ( this was in real life,so I saw the prices. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!), shuddered at the idiotic addition of ingredients to things I make expertly, and refused to eat there.
I LOVE good food, don't shy away from what some might think is expensive, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for insanely expensive garbage,just because some idiotic food critic has decided something is "in".
The prices are set by monopoly money/expense accounts. For instance, nobody has actually paid for a meal out of their own pocket at Four Seasons since 1978.
Expense accounts would seem to function on their own parallel economy. A friend of mine who is a chef at a very good restaurant in a very good hotel, claims that he can tell the state of the economy by the dishes ordered and the people paying for them.
Your friend is telling you the truth. I've heard the same thing from others.I think it's true and not an urban legend.
The restaurant thing is all anecdotal economics, which can be fun. For instance, I'm one of the last of the "city walkers" who never tire of just roaming aimlessly around the city. So there is plenty of material there. What I've noticed recently is an abundance of townhouses for sale as well as empty railroad flat type apartments along with empty store fronts. Which leads me to conclude the economy is not as good in NY as people claim and people are cashing out while they can. These are two opposing pictures, which I find fascinating.
You want a practical solution, that is the debtor works off his debt. But what if the debtor refuses to do that ?
Further, prison may be good because the lender does not get his money back which enforces a discipline on the lender and also on the debtor.
I don't want people working as virtual slaves for a lender. I want people to think about what the heck they are doing before they even get into that position.
You haven't read a word I've written. I've constantly asked you to - read what I write. And in every reply, you don't. What do you want me to say?
A) as I understand it, this legislation was brought forward on the pretence of stopping 'convenience bankruptcies', those filed by people with means to pay, but who simply find it convenient to renege entirely, presumeably because as long as they are wealthy, they suffer no ill consequences from the filing. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
B) there's a far greater danger that people face, and it's coming up soon for annual filers - government taxes, and the personal income tax. We don't work for ourselves, for literally months out of the year. We work so that Ted Kennedy can sponsor liberal giveaways. And, yes, we work to sponsor our military, and those services we do appreciate, many of them. But there should be fewer, and far more volunteerism in the place of government agencies and departments. And what's worse, we didn't ask to borrow. People who do not like paying interest, in principle, as it were, have NO CHOICE in the matter of being indebted, in this way, simply because they are citizens. The effect is the same.
I've answered every one of your posts to me;specifically;you have ignored every single one of the facts I have posted or twisted a few cherry-picked bits and pieces !
You haven't answered a single query I've asked you.
Right now,it doesn't matter one whit,not one,what you say.
I didn't lie in the first place. Your temper is that of a liberal, in all this. And I take it that's how you wish to leave it.
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