For the record . . .
Morgan Warstler sent me a list of economists supporting Mitt Romney for President. For some reason my name is on the list—presumably a prank on someone’s part. I can’t imagine why anyone would care who I support for President, but for the record I have not endorsed anyone. My endorsement will occur the first Monday in November.
Update: I should emphasize I am not accusing the Romney campaign of deception. This obviously doesn’t help them. They contacted me today and told me that I had replied affirmatively to a call for support. Don’t know how that happened—perhaps something to do with the “out of office” automatic reply? They removed my name.
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29. August 2012 at 06:29
The Romney campaign has declared that it is not bound by facts. Therefore, the fact that you didn’t endorse Romney is no barrier to Romney saying you endorsed him.
29. August 2012 at 06:46
“My endorsement will occur the first Monday in November.”
Tuesday. Unless MA is very different from CA.
29. August 2012 at 07:02
Evan Soltas’ new piece in Bloomberg View on Apple and patents. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-08-29/patent-law-needs-update-in-age-of-apple.html
Nugget: “There is no social value in games of intellectual-property Monopoly (a game under patent since 1935).”
29. August 2012 at 07:05
“The Romney campaign has declared that it is not bound by facts.”
When did they do that?
29. August 2012 at 07:07
If your name is on this list, there is a good chance that many other economists are on this list who don’t support Romney.
I live in California and because of the electoral college which is a relic from the slave era, my vote doesn’t count for President in the general election. What I will do is vote third party to make a political statement.
29. August 2012 at 07:14
I see a Daniel Sumner, not a Scott Sumner, from UC Davis. Did they change it?
29. August 2012 at 07:15
In Republican America, endorsement builds you!
29. August 2012 at 07:18
(I forgot to mention that in Obama’s America you didn’t build that endorsement)
29. August 2012 at 07:30
Saturos…were you picking nits with foosion’s comment ? Or did you really not know about what he was talking about ?
In case it is the later…Here is what he was talking about.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/were-not-going-to-let-our-campaign-be-dictated-by-fact-checkers/261674/
There is no doubt the repubs are lying when it comes to the welfare ads.
29. August 2012 at 07:31
@Saturos,
You’re right. It’s been updated and Scott’s name was removed. But I don’t think it was an identity mix-up; when Scott’s name was listed, it clearly said Bentley and not UC Davis.
29. August 2012 at 08:12
I wasn’t surprised to see Scott’s name on the list as I thought I remembered him arguing in favor of Romney on the blog in the past. But maybe that was only at the primary stage.
29. August 2012 at 08:23
Interesting. Who else is on that list that didn’t say they wanted to be there?
29. August 2012 at 08:27
Bill Ellis:
There is a difference between saying you don’t want your campaign to be dictated by fact checkers, and saying you don’t want your campaign to be fact based.
I am not saying Romney’s campaign is fact based (that would be hilarious), I am just saying that the quote you provided is not an admission of any sort that the Romney campaign is not fact based.
If I said “I am not going to let PhD biological chemists and nutritionists dictate what food I cook and eat in my own home”, I would not be saying that I do not want to have any knowledge of nutrition. It is me saying I am in charge of what goes into my body.
29. August 2012 at 08:42
Hey, if the Romney campaign endorsed Market Monetarism and Ryan wasn’t for whatever basket-case commodity-ish gold standard nonsense, it’d make me a lot happier about his candidacy.
Maybe putting Scott Sumner on the list was someones way of saying Romney’s like an etch-a-sketch, and he’ll talk nice about hard money now, but after the general election…
29. August 2012 at 08:49
Bill Ellis, OK now Romney and his slips are no longer even funny, they’re just sad.
29. August 2012 at 10:53
Bill Ellis,
NOISE.
The fact is the law says clearly: get a job > over training for better job
it says this so poor people WORK first, LEARN later.
Obama’s admin has SPECIFICALLY increases the chance for states to favor Learning > Work
This is unacceptable. It is not done for any reason other than not forcing people to take shitty jobs they hate and feel good about it.
My plan for a Guaranteed Income to Auction the Unemployed solves for this, because people can choose amongst their favorite shitty job.
There is NO excuse for anyone who claims to be a real progressive, to give anyone the opportunity to not work.
It raises distrust amongst the people glad to help as long as they are 100% SURE the progressive focus is stopping abuse, not enabling it.
Politifact is giving Obama benefit of doubt. It should be skeptical.
—–
If progressives ran govt. like entrepreneurs run businesses, desperate everyday that it will fail and their project will be shut down, progressives would accomplish far more.
29. August 2012 at 10:57
@ChacoKevy and Saturos. I happened to have the list open in a tab from yesterday. Both Scott Sumner from Bentley and Daniel Sumner from UCD are listed. So they’ve obviously updated it.
If they did so proactively after seeing Scott’s post, that’s pretty cool.
29. August 2012 at 13:40
The Romney claim is…. “Obama waived the work requirement.”
Truth is…
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-santorum-welfare-obama-20120828,0,1255653.story?track=rss
See…He is not removing the work requirement at all…he is but letting the states make it work better. Libertarians should applaud it.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/20120829_Santorum__Romney_campaign_noses_grow_longer_over_welfare-to-work.html
And this is just a short list… there are many more.
Funny how the corporate media fully owned by the hallowed “Hegemony” is coming out so strongly against their candidate on this issue…
29. August 2012 at 14:33
Bill Ellis,
What makes you think the Hegemony is coming out against their candidate on this issue?
Don’t think that the Democrats are not firmly in the pocket of the Hegemony. Goldman Sachs is an equal oportunity exploiter.
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
More prodonky groups at the top of the list than Pachy-files.
29. August 2012 at 15:10
Bill-
The entire July 12 HHS memo is about waiving the work requirement. Section 402(a) requires states to submit written outlines of their welfare plans containing a long list of plan details. HHS still requires the written outline, but waived one plan detail: the work requirement. This is the shameless part: HHS concluded that since states don’t have to list the work requirement on their written outlines, they didn’t have to follow the work requirement at all (the substantive work requirement rule in Section 407 cannot be waived, hence the skulduggery).
Try to tell the IRS that if they extend or waive a procedural rule, you don’t have to pay taxes. That’s what HHS did.
By the way, HHS also approved Nevada’s waiver application, which asked to exempt some welfare recipients for a period of time beyond 407s requirement and use “more time” for others.
You should not accept as truth what the LA Times, NYT, Daily Kos, and Huffington post are arguing for.
29. August 2012 at 15:32
The memo is here if you’d rather rely on your own senses.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201203.html
29. August 2012 at 18:07
Doug M,
I too see both parties as owned by corporate interests. I have always maintained that Obama is an establishment corporatist Dem…and that the repubs painting him as radical socialist while presenting themselves as defenders of the free market and the American way… was laughable.
The only difference between the repubs and the dems is that the Dems have a sense of a modern American version of “Noblesse oblige” and a social contract…while the Rebubs have a mythology of an American Meritocracy and reject the morality of a social contract.
It is an important difference.
They both not only work for the elite….they are part of the culture of the elite.
If you think the culture of the elite is monolithic you are making a mistake.
That “Hegemony” line was for Morgan…didn’t ya get it ?
29. August 2012 at 18:15
Bababooey and StPaulite
I read the memo …I encourage everyone to read it.
It makes Romney’s claim look even more absurd. You would have to read it and willfully ignore large sections of it to agree with Mitt.
29. August 2012 at 19:23
Bababooey and StPaulite,
I am trying to understand your point of view…
First…With out debating what the changes do or don’t do…
You think to consider for approval, experimental, pilot, or demonstration projects …is the same as Romney’s claim that “Obama ended welfare work requirements” ?
From your link….
Second… Would you personally allow the states to modify the work requirement if it was part of a more effective way of getting people off of welfare ? Or would you force them to to stick to Federal regs even if the states thought they had a better way ?
Of course we we don’t want to just trust states do we ? (Massachusetts might just want to coddle the lazy ! ) So how about we make them PROVE through experimental, pilot, or demonstration projects that their Ideas will work ?
I really don’t understand why Libertarians and other State’s Righters can rationally be against the Obama wavier.
If this was a repub plan the Heritage Foundation would be declaring it a state’s rights victory. (“course they were for health care mandates befor the were against them too. )
29. August 2012 at 22:03
Kevin Dick, so the Romney campaign are reading this blog? That speaks in their favor!
30. August 2012 at 04:55
Bill read this very carefully and then apologize:
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/14578
Kaus points out that the HHS memo announcing that Sebelius could allow waivers from work for “job training,” “job search” or “pursuing a credential” unquestionably constitutes “a weakening of the work requirement.” He adds that it’s also “unfair to the poor suckers who just go to work without ever going on welfare — they don’t get subsidized while they’re ‘pursuing a credential.'””
Both the Times and an HHS memo cheerfully propose allowing hard-to-employ “families” — which are never actual families, by the way — to be “exempted from the work requirements for six months.” Or more than six months. It’s up to Sebelius: “Exempted.”
and the the crushing blow to your level of research depth:
A 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office found that some states were accepting such non-work substitutes from welfare recipients as “bed rest,” “personal journaling,” “motivational reading,” “exercise at home,” “smoking cessation,” “weight loss,” and “helping a friend or relative with household tasks and errands.”
—–
Bill, look I’m a states rights guy, and welfare itself should be completely OPTIONAL, here is your block grant money, you get no more, now if you want to have welfare, you MUST demand they work.
Once the federal govt. gets involved guys like me become authoritarian dicks ruining your day.
—-
The LAW was written to force welfare recipients to work, not journal, or have bed rest, or get educated.
—-
Of course Team Romney is reading this blog.
1. Cut public employees at F, S, L levels with the same structure as “race to the top”
2. Outsource $500B in public employee compensation to $100B in new tech revenue – win silicon valley
3. Choke off union donations for 2016.
4. Fed provides cover fire if things slow down along the way – keep that price level steady
30. August 2012 at 06:27
Morgan …you are an idiot.
30. August 2012 at 06:40
Scott, I would be interested in your opinion of the relative likelihood of either candidate pushing for a more aggressive fed.
Romney has Mankiw on his team, but Romer wasn’t able to budge Obama, and Mankiw may end up similarly powerless — Romney’s biggest problem is going to be that a lot of his base are inflation hawks.
30. August 2012 at 07:29
Bill,
if you can’t defend yourself, you have no business calling Romney a liar.
BREAKING:
NEWGEO gets very close to my discussion of the hegemony:
http://www.newgeography.com/content/003056-the-unseen-class-war-that-could-decide-the-presidential-election
It is more nuanced, I factor out public employees, but it is nice to see people start to view this as a TRIPOLAR fight.
Once you realize it is a battle between the 50% of the 1% who go liberal, the public employee unions VS the big fish in small ponds all over America…
YOU SEE the best strategy for the C power is NOT blind adherence to the B power – it has crushed them and made the 1% richer.
We should all be careful to think discuss things in a TRIPLOAR mindset.
30. August 2012 at 07:57
“We should all be careful to think discuss things in a TRIPLOAR mindset.”
America’s constitutional voting system tends toward flattening out all conflicts and making them bipolar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
Note that I posted the memo itself, you posted, what? An Ann Coulter column, quoting a Mickey Kaus column… Do your own analysis!
30. August 2012 at 07:58
Forget politics, take a bit and read this instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Private_Memoirs_and_Confessions_of_a_Justified_Sinner
You think you’re on the side of the angels, do you…?
30. August 2012 at 11:37
Moragn, if you can’t understand simple logic that… makes you an idiot.
If you think by ignoring my superior arguments and restating your demented ones that that some how gives the the right to demand an apology from me… That makes you an idiot and a social moron.
I stomped you. Now when you lay at my feet… you claim I can’t defend myself.
You are a joke…An obnoxious clown…
30. August 2012 at 11:44
StPaulite, RE Duverger’s law
Proportional representation is not workable the way our system is set up. It can work in a Parliamentary system.
I am all for trashing our system and adopting a parliament
30. August 2012 at 16:15
If a candidate endorses NGDPLT, will that endorsement come earlier?
30. August 2012 at 22:00
Mitt Romney and the Republican leadership have criticised Bernanke for doing too much in the area of monetary stimulus, while market monetarists believe that he has done too little. Many Republicans, including Ryan, favor going back to a gold standard. It is clear that NGDP targeting will have a much better chance of becoming reality if Obama and the Democrats remain in power. Therefore any market monetarist who is serious about NGDP targeting needs to support Obama and the Democrats.
30. August 2012 at 22:08
“Scott, I would be interested in your opinion of the relative likelihood of either candidate pushing for a more aggressive fed.”
Romney and the Republican leadership have criticised Bernanke and the Fed for being too agressive on monetary policy.
Obama and the Democrats have not.
And Mitt has indicated that he will replace Bernanke. The replacement will almost certainly favor a less expansionary policy. Ryan is likely to have a lot more influence on macroeconomic that Mankiw and the Republican leadership will demand it.
For any economist favoring expansionary monetary policy Obama and the Democrats are by far the lesser evil.
30. August 2012 at 22:21
“The Romney claim is…. “Obama waived the work requirement.”
Truth is…
Some ADDITIONAL truths:
1. Two of the governors who requested the waivers are conservative Republicans.
2. Romney, when he was governor of Massachussetts, also requested a waiver.
Romney is lying and knows he is lying and does not care. He figures that with the huge sums of money he is getting from the plutocracy, he can keep repeating the lie until people believe it.
The truth is that Romney is a pathological liar.
30. August 2012 at 22:24
“Don’t think that the Democrats are not firmly in the pocket of the Hegemony.”
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Romney wants to give the rich, including himself, huge additional tax cuts.
Obama wants to raise the taxes on the rich, including on himself.
See a difference?
30. August 2012 at 22:28
Still another additional truth:
“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers,” Romney pollster Neil Newhouse said at a panel organized by ABC News.”
31. August 2012 at 12:22
Bill, until this isn’t true:
some states were accepting such non-work substitutes from welfare recipients as “bed rest,” “personal journaling,” “motivational reading,” “exercise at home,” “smoking cessation,” “weight loss,” and “helping a friend or relative with household tasks and errands.”
Anything that gives blue states more flexibility = you are wrong.
To be true, Obama would need to make no changes, or even better, rule out any past deviations at all.
Serious question Bill:
Do you PERSONALLY believe that Obama really wants to keep the most stringent demanding parts of Welfare Reform in place?
I’m really asking. Do you think he views the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to?
Or do you think he views them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?
Because the law views them as people who will be lazy.
And that isn’t up for debate. The law ended welfare as we knew it, the basic assumption about assuming lazy > noble changed Bill
31. August 2012 at 15:55
Morgan…
I don’t see how those things could move more people off Welfare than a work requirement…As the HHS memo requires. SO they will be eliminated.
But If they did…I would be for them.
Not you ? You would rather have more people forced to work to get tax payer money than to have them self sufficient?
How is that not slavery ?
A Completely illogical insulting prejudiced statement…A perfect example of your self-axiomatic “thinking” that blinds you.
(Making up axioms does not make you right. But you seem to be bewildered when when others don’t except them.)
I am sure Obama is aware of the econ 101 definition of full employment.
…Were the Traditional natural rate of unemployment is made up of some portion of people who are between jobs… as happens in any dynamic economy…and a portion that does NOT WANT TO WORK.
When the economy is running at full tilt that portion that does not want to work is usually estimated to be around 2-3%. Societies will always have a small cohort of people that don’t want to work.
Bad economies are not caused by a sudden loss of work ethic. Unemployment rates don’t go up because a lot of people suddenly decide to be scumbags.
But that is the ugly “logic” that underlies your conservative attitudes about the unemployed.
There are always 2-3% of folks that don’t want a job and they need to be forced to work…you want treat everyone who does not have one like them… Righteously Punishing for the sins you imagine they have.
Anyway… allowing a few states some temporary hair brained Ideas to go along with developing Ideas that can work…Is a world away from the GOP claims that Obama gutted an eliminated the work requirement for welfare.
The Original point was the GOP is lying…And that is true.
31. August 2012 at 19:43
No Bill, if they will not work, we will starve them out, we will reprogram them, we wil make examples of them.
We will draw a line in the sand, and we’ll never give an inch.
Your job as a progressive i to ACCEPT this, an work with it. What kind of caring helpful society can you construct when everyone is satisfied when the Puriatn work ethic is demanded?
Look man, you are NOWHERE near proving Romney is lying.
We don’t accept a “natural rate” of unemployment BECAUSE lazy don’t want to work.
We assume it because they are generally WORTHLESS.
This isn’t the same thing – we STILL want to torture the worthless, we want them to be frog marched to $1 per hour jobs (that we subsidize with my GI) we want it for many reasons, mainly because it feels good,
31. August 2012 at 20:03
“I’m really asking. Do you think he views the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think he views them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?”
Morgan: do you think the conservative Republican governors
views the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think they view them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?
And do you think that Romney, when as governor of Massachussetts he requested an excemption, viewed the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think he viewed them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?
The point is what Obama thinks, the conservative Republican governors think, and Romney thought are irrelevant to this issue. Obama only indicated that requests for exemptions WOULD BE CONSIDERED if the states could demonstrate that the deviations would not result in fewer people being moved from welfare to work.
Romney, in this ad is lying and knows the is lying. He even knows that high information voters who are not ideologues know he is lying, but he does not care. He is counting on the belief that the huge amount of money his plutocrat sugar daddies are giving him will make it possible for him to keep repeating the lie until low information voters believe it.
31. August 2012 at 20:07
“we STILL want to torture the worthless, we want them to be frog marched to $1 per hour jobs (that we subsidize with my GI) we want it for many reasons, mainly because it feels good”
Morgan: at least you do not claim that what you are advocating is tough love intended to help these people become independent, like a lot of other conservatives do. You pathlogically hate these people and are candid enough to admit it.
31. August 2012 at 20:08
OOps! I used the nickname I use on non-economic sites. The two messages from Captain Video are from me.
31. August 2012 at 20:11
“This isn’t the same thing – we STILL want to torture the worthless, we want them to be frog marched to $1 per hour jobs (that we subsidize with my GI) we want it for many reasons, mainly because it feels good,”
Morgan: At least you do not claim what you are advocating is tought love, that it is intended to help these people learn to stand on their own feet, like a lot of other conservatives do. You pathelogically hate such people and are candid enough to admit it.
31. August 2012 at 20:25
“Do you think he views the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think he views them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?”
Morgan: Do you think that the two conservative Republican governors who requested exemptions view the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think they view them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?”
And do you think that Mitt Romney, who also requested an exemption when he was governor, viewed the recipients as folks who will layabout if not forced to? Or do you think he viewed them as trustworthy noble people who should be given the benefit of the doubt?”
The point is that what Obama, the Republican governors, and Romney think about these people is irrevant here because the Obama administration only AGREED TO CONSIDER, and did not approve, requests for exemptions if the states could demonstrate that the exemptions would not reduce the amount of people who would return to work.
The reality is that Romney is lying and knows he is lying. He even knows that high information voters who are not ideologues know he is lying, but he does not care. He is counting on the belief that the huge amount of money his plutocrat sugar daddies are giving him will make it possible for him to keeep repeating the lie until low information voters are deceived.
31. August 2012 at 21:03
Full Unemployment Hawk
Morgan: At least you do not claim what you are advocating is tought love, that it is intended to help these people learn to stand on their own feet, like a lot of other conservatives do. You pathelogically hate such people and are candid enough to admit it.
Now if you only you welfare advocate types would admit that you hate wealthy people who don’t buy into your guilt trip, then you and Morgan can have an EQUALLY open and honest discussion.
But as of now, you present progressive taxation and welfare as helping “society”, sometimes in the form of “more roads and more single mothers with delinquent kids benefits the wealthy”, and other times in the guilt trip form of “the wealthy should pay their fair share”.
31. August 2012 at 21:09
FEH, you are off your rocker.
I couldn’t care less WHO requested an exemption – I look at a laundry list of past reasons exemptions, and I ask myself:
Is Katherine Sebelius to be trusted? No.
Should we expect any modification which grants Katherine Sebelius greater authority indecision making to lead to more people being forced to work tomorrow, rather than an “investment” made in them, or an excuse granted to them today? No.
She is who she is. Obama is who he is. When the lazy are SCREAMING they hate Obama, you will count me convinced.
When the Katherine Sebelius has a reputation for tough love and gives speeches warning against the dangers of sympathy, rather than empathy, and she asks daily for proof we are not geting rooked….
THEN, you can convince me.
I have seen years and years of your arguments lead to bull sh*t like Obama’s weatherization cluster f*ck – his best example of shovel ready jobs… blew $5BILLION and did nothing and I saw it up close and personal.
FEH, I’m a very easy guy to get support for govt. programs from.
You just have to run them with employee costs like WalMart – with customer service like Amazon.
The EXACT moment when Katherine Sebelius is as calculating and customer (payer) focused as the Waltons and Bezos – you can have as much govt. as you want.
So IF you don’t take the trade, if you don’t own up about who Obama is and what Sebelius is about, I don’t for a single second think you argue in good faith.
Romney is right, we shouldn’t TRUST these people to spend their days proving to the customers that they are desperate to deliver.
And since we shouldn’t grant them our blind support, and THEY KNOW we think they are not to trusted.
Well then, if they really wanted to get the job done, they’d make sure they did whatever it took to be believed.
Otherwise, OCCAM says they are lying.
—–
in business, if you really want to get a deal done, you’ll bust your ass to give the other guys exactly what he wants.
Katherine Sebelius asking us to trust her doesn’t come close to proving she REALLY wants to do what you claim.
31. August 2012 at 21:23
FEH,
i don’t hate anyone.
I KNOW that YOUR SIDE will get the biggest opened wallet, the MOST CASH, the MOST SAFETY NET when you don’t try to wave away the “3%” but instead go on a personal jihad to alter them with maximum prejudice.
I KNOW a non-homogenous society has low trust levels.
I KNOW public examples of others not like you taking advantage is more obvious than amongst those just like you.
And I know you know it is to, so when you come around banging the cup for alms, I look at your pitch and I tell you why you are a shitty salesmen.
Which you are.
If you are REALLY trying no matter what to help the poor, you will be much tougher on the poor. You will work tirelessly to end the 3% i(t is more).
Deep inside I do believe you and your ilk are good people, I do believe that after you get you world dashed, and dashed again, and dashed again…
when you FINALLY TRULY have to choose between helping them on my terms, or not getting any help at all – I know you’ll give in and do it my way.
Until you have no other choice though, you will always opt for trying to re-enforce your own world view.
But until then, I wish, you’d just act like a businessman trying to get a deal done, and give me what I actually want, so you get what you want.
1. September 2012 at 06:36
Morgan…
You need help…I want to help…
I have never encountered a more pathetic person than you.
Your parents really fucked you up. You were raised with a strict code, when you pleased them you were rewarded…when you stepped out of line…even a little bit you were punished…Publicly humiliated…
You still have those memories of humiliation flash into your head…you will never shake them…
AND YOUR ARE GRATEFUL FOR IT.
You are a demented sadist. It is love to you.
My job Moragn…is to help you.
1. September 2012 at 08:12
Bill, I had the worst grades and still was kept in the honors classes. Even though I was in the bottom 25% of my class, I got into the college (wake forest) of my choice in my junior year of high school.
When I was younger, the strict parents came over and told my parents I was a bad influence on their kids.
At fifteen, I begged my parents to let me move to NYC, live with another family, and attend Bronx Science. They were pretty open-minded, they let me follow the Dead when I was 16, but movig to NY on my own at 15 – no dice.
Back in the early days of computers, it wasn’t exactly War Games, but I knew who Capt. Midnight was and called John Glenn on the Senate floor from the pay phone in my Jr. High and handed it to my Vice Principal as he walked by. Even with BBSs, I couldn’t enough daily paper news to read in 1988 in Canton Ohio, until I saw an AP wire in newspaper’s editors office.
My poor parents while proud of me then and now, were so happy to see me leave the nest finally at 18, they cheered and handed me a wad of cash when I enrolled for summer school before my freshman year.
Five colleges, five years. No degree. US Rep to World Debate Council. But I hardly ever saw the inside of a classroom. But I lived in the library. I signed up for classes to meet professors I wanted to know and bounced colleges to debate.
In short Bill, I was a horrible infovore snot nosed malcontent party animal from a giant loving family in the most normal city in the US.
And, while I always understood the value of hard work and long hours, I witnessed in both my hard striving parents, I never did anything but coast until I got my first real professional job at 22 writing junk mail. Nothing was ever a challenge, nothing was real, and then suddenly I had to use paper and ink to get people to send me money.
And from that moment on, I worked 80-100 hours a week.
Bill, the system wasn’t set up to challenge me as a kid, and I’d likely have lived tragic life if not for the Internet which presents suddenly an INFINITE SUPPLY of personal challenge and opportunity.
This thing, this Internet was built for me. It saved me. And now that it exists, it is the ANSWER for 100% of the people.
I’m certainly not a sadist, but I understand that the opposite of rhetoric is the rudeness of truth.
This isn’t to say everything said rudely is true, it is to say, if you say everything rudely, the least rude thing is the truth.
The guys who GET HUNG UP on my rude language are showing they are so hooked on rhetoric, they don’t think critically.
This is a soft analogy but it is shit talk during athletic play. It knocks lose those guys that are all body (rhetoric) and not also mind (truth).
Bill, I told you above how I think you end up achieving your goals, and you responded by showing us how you imagine someone becomes like me.
So, I explain all this to say your A creates B skills aren’t very strong.
I’d appreciate if you’d explain WHY making everyone WORK for a bossy boss – even while make sure their needs are covered, is wrong in your personal judgement.
You don’t have to explain how you were raised, but if it helps the story, please feel free.
1. September 2012 at 09:00
Morgan Warstler,
I don’t read all your comments. Maybe it’s the prose style that I find a little too difficult to cut through so I don’t always take the effort. It’s not that I think you are rude; it’s that I find you a bit too cryptic sometimes. I did read the last one and it made perfect sense to me. It wasn’t rude and despite that it was completely devoid of rhetoric. And it also rang completely true and therefore was quite convincing. As a debater, I’m sure you can appreciate that.
It’s clear to me that you are perfectly capable of helping yourself. In fact, if I understand what you’ve been posting here, self-reliance is high on your value hierarchy. I’m also not suggesting you even need to help yourself.
But, rather than helping yourself, perhaps you could help someone like me. Consider it an act of kindness. Write a bit more like you did in that last comment, or at least occasionally translate your normal style so that older readers like me can better understand you.
Thanks.
Viv