Pelosi wins....How does that make you feel luxury NYC RE: sellers

I'm not confusing supply side economics with re-regulation...I am pointing out that both those Reagan babies proved awful ideas in practice. I dont care what Obama's advisors backgrounds are. Nor do I understand where you get second tier Ivy. I went to Harvard undergrad and Wharton business. Do you really need the data that shows how poorly the bottom half have done since 1980? Are you fucking kidding? Further, do you think you win the argument that supply side economics worked by telling me who Obama has surrounded himself with? What the fuck are you talking about dude? You're all over the road.

FLMAO. Our tax system is flawed, our insistence on home ownership is flawed, our letting every moron vote is flawed, our leadership is flawed, BUT I WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY... this is my country beeeeeytchhhhhhhhh!

You're in league with a recognized imbecile who bought the peak in a fringe neighborhood.

Rhino can make plenty of conclusions and make up statistics to back them up. He has a history of that.

> I went to Harvard undergrad and Wharton business.

I'll take that as you confirming... no economics degree. And you only got into Wharton? You must have done pretty lousy at Harvard. But thats besides the point... seems like you actually need to take some real economics classes.

> Rhino can make plenty of conclusions and make up statistics to back them up.

Yeah, 8-9 posts, and still no actual data.

I didn't realize an economics undergrad from Harvard didn't count and that Wharton business school was a safety. I think it's time to block you and reblock licc.

"Further, do you think you win the argument that supply side economics worked by telling me who Obama has surrounded himself with? "

Nah, I win multiple arguments with that one...

"Its funny that all the righties are only marginally above average intelligence..Just stupid enough to believe all their good fortune is their own doing..and so painfully brainwashed into thinking that anything that came before Reagan is unAmerican. I liked Reagan too...as a fourth grader. Isnt it obvious by now that trickle down doesnt work?"

Or are you saying Obama is one of the brainwashed?

Its funny how so many of the folks who complain that half the electore is uninformed are usually pretty uninformed themselves...

> that Wharton business school was a safety.

For my entire analyst class it certainly was...

I've fired several Wharton MBAs, they could make a good-looking spreadsheet but were terrible at real-world investment management.

> I think it's time to block you and reblock licc.

Funny, still no data. No logical argument.

Just screaming insults then "I'm going to block you".

Do you cover your ears and shout and stick your tongue out, too?

"I've fired several Wharton MBAs, they could make a good-looking spreadsheet but were terrible at real-world investment management."

I have no problem with MBA degrees for consulting jobs, etc. I generally find the better finance types went in pre-b schoo.

B school education overall isn't so great, its more about connections, we know that... but, more importantly, you have the lowest common denominator effect. You can't get deep into finance because you have folks who never touched it in your cohort. Flip side to creative stuff. It makes everything fairly bland.

A friend of mine was one year out of undergra, started the PHD program in finance... and was teaching finance to second year (ivy) mbas.

There is a world of difference between studying economics or finance (not portfolio theory, actual math-based finance) in the economics track vs. the business track. The majority of Harvard MBAs would cry taking princeton's financial engineering track, for instance.

The case study method also looks like its going to be overhauled.

LIC: what is the mission in afghanistan? how long will it take? how much will it cost in lives ruined and dollars spent? do you care?

This is all very interesting... So because modern's fired some Wharton MBAs, I've cursed, and engineers are smart... this is somehow proof that Harvard is a second tier ivy with a bad econon department, LICC is smart for buying the top in a fringe neighborhood / denying that price to rents are unusually high, and the health care reform being considered will be far worse than the current situation. Oh and somewhereelse is right... supply side econ worked because the middle classes lot in life has improved since Reagan was elected. Now I am finally getting it.

rhino,

You forgot to add your conclusions your claim that anyone who opposes the Pelosi bill supported the war in Irag.

A Wharton MBA does not mean you know shit more than the sanitation worker collecting your trash. Just that you get paid better.

I know some smart Wharton MBAs too but a mere degree means nothing in the real world.

And according to your posted views, I don't exist. My father was an auto mechanic and somehow I managed to go to college and Harvard grad school (paying my own way the whole time, and working summers digging ditches instead of touring Europe), and now own a firm where I hire and fire Wharton MBAs. There is no upward mobility in America? Bullshit.

Thanks for the rightous rage and useless Wharton quips. Congrats on your success. This doesnt change my view that we've failed the least among us over the last 25 years. There is upward mobility here, but all I suggest is that education and health care costs are hurting that upward mobility relative to prior generations. I dont think its too awful a generalization to suggest that many in the GOP, here and otherwise, extol religion while they support bombing the shit out of infidels... and seem to harp on personal responsibility over compassion. If you are one of those using your personal story to refute the data that its become more and more difficult here in the US to overcome bottom tier socioeconomic status...well to you, your own.

You are wrong about the data too. When you look at time-series data, you see that individuals move up and down a lot in the US. So even if the percentages in a group look the same over a few decades, the makeup in that group has changed.

Believe it or not, there are plenty of rich that got poorer and moved down, all the while others were moving up.

I agree that health care is a problem, and needs to be fixed, I just don't agree with your solution. And I have never voted for George Bush. There, that screws up your entire model.

modern, i posted figures about mobility in the luck thread. like you, i've advanced significantly beyond my parents' SES. but that doesn't mean i'm the norm. nor are you.

It sounds like you enjoy making points with exceptions. I have read studies that parental status in the US is a better predictor of status than in many European countries. Hey, I didnt crunch the numbers myself. Nor do I care who you voted for and didnt. I think we can generally do more for the least fortunate. Health care is a priority and no change will be perfect, nor will I have the opportunity to design the plan myself.

AR,

I don't know what a "luck" thread is, but you are wrong, the US is the most economically mobile society among generations. Both up and down.

actually, it wasn't the luck thread, it became the luck thread. we hijacked GG's thread on price perceptions. and sadly, i'm not wrong. the US is not mobile, not compared to its own past, and certainly not compared to other countries. actually, right now the mobility is distinctly downward. unemployment among lower to middle-class people is much higher than that found in the upper-middle and upper clases. and when record numbers of people are unemployed for longer than 26 weeks, that can set back some for years.

AR, we are on precisely the same page on this matter. Modern, your riches to rags references are humorous, as if hedge funds blowing up and robber barons gone wrong are really pertinent.

"Modern, your riches to rags references are humorous"

Yeah, I am sure the thousands of Madoff victims whose wealth was wiped out would find it "humorous". Not to mention the thousands of Portland Electric workers whose retirment savings were wiped out in the Enron meltdown. A real yuck fest.

It is sad but true that there is much downward movement in the US. But the flip side is we are one of the few countries where most people don't give a flying f*ck if you went to Harvard or not. Compare to France, where the 90% of corporate and government leaders all went to the same elite schools.

You have a pretty big chip on your shoulder, huh? Lemme take a wild guess that you didnt go to a great school. Your dad is a mechanic. Who cares? And you are right, other than as a failure of oversight, I dont view the Madoff victims as a real focus for improving America. I'm much more worried about the cost of healthcare and the poor primary and secondary public schools. But yes, the fraud that is the asset management industry is also a problem. 2 and 20 for long-only beta and piss poor risk control. All the egos who cant manage to bring themselves to use a stop loss. 1.5% on billions for useless mutual fund managers. Its like a fucking tax on the average persons savings. Active management is generally a joke.

AR - please point me to some of your studies.

"Lemme take a wild guess that you didnt go to a great school."

Man, you are really smart at analysis. Yeah, to be honest, Harvard grad schools are overrated. How did you know?

You are just pissed because I turned down your graduate university for grad school, but at the time it was really 2nd rate.

Before AR drags up whatever links she may or may not have, read this:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3773

And I agree we have poor schools. My solution? Give the parents vouchers and let them take my tax dollars to whatever school they want. The problem is not that we don't spend enough, it is that we don't spend it efficiently.

I'm not really pissed about anything. You are generally ok. You've made this very personal. Don't presume I care very much what you think because you have your own little hedge fund and fired a Wharton grad. You seem to think your story shows that the US does enough for the lower echelons. I think AR is on target when he (she?) says we are less upwardly mobile than our history and many European countries that would suprise most.

Still lots of conclusions from rhino with no data supporting them. He really is one of the biggest jokers on this board.

cc, the mission should be to eradicate terrorist threats against the U.S. If you think that can be done with special ops hit squads and no other presence in the country, then you are as clueless as you sound.

LICC, all bullshit aside...do you not appreciate that you take more shit and lose more arguments on this board than most anybody ex Alpo Dog? Its still a mind fuck that you dont admit condos at 20-25x rent or more are not unusual historically speaking.

I wouldnt think I would need proof that supply side economics didnt work.

lic: so the mission is to eradicate terrorist threats? what about the other questions? how long? how much?

she, rhino. modern, that piece wasn't very persuasive to me. i provided links before, i could provide them again, but if you want to quote the cato organization i doubt you'd want to read what i post. that series derided in that article, the NYTimes one that became the book "Class Matters" was excellent, and very statistically thorough.

Now rhino is making things up, and still does not post anything of substance supporting his dumb arguments.

cc, you don't put a stopwatch on missions of this magnitude. Keep with your limousine liberal crowd if you don't want anyone to tell you how naive your thoughts are.

still waiting to here about how many lives afghanistan is worth. are you ready to go?

You quoted a NY Times article as your source? Was the writer a PhD economist with research credentials?

What's next, you going to quote Jayson Blair or Janet Cooke as your sources?

you are a jerkoff....are you going to fight? any family members? otherwise, who's full of shit?

how much are you willing to pay for this? do you have any money left?

what is the description of someone who is happy to watch other's fight for him and others pay for it?

cc, so you were for a military response, but you have some number of American lives that you think is acceptable to put at risk, but above that number is not acceptable and we should pull out, regardless of the threat. What number is that cc?

bring back the draft and lets see what happens. this is such bullshit it makes me want to scream.

Nice non-response.

no more american or afghani lives. we fucked up. we blew it. not one more life.

yep...the taliban will have major reprisals. thousands if not hundreds of thousands will die. how many will it be if we keep this going for another five years and then leave? more.

but speaking of non responses....when are you enlisting, you piece of shit?

nice non response.

modern, the ny times gave a number of people a year off to research the subject and write the series. the resulting book was excellent and well-reviewed. condescending much?

and i wasn't impressed with the one-page analysis you provided.

But you were for a military response. You said so earlier. So what number of American lives were you willing to put at risk before you hit the number and then propose that we run away, regardless of the threat?

fuck you, you hypocritical lying piece of shit. you want us to stay there forever. but you nitpick me? fuck you.

Because that is a ridiculously stupid argument. You can't be in favor of military action unless you are in the military fighting in a combat zone?? Just dumb.

its been eight fucking years and we haven't figured it out. how many more, stupid?

and...yeah....things would be quite different if assholes like you had to fight or send family members to fight. this mercenary bullshit does not make sense in a democracy.

AR, you dont understand, America is great with little room for improvement, because Modern was born of a mechanic and managed to not only turn down Wharton, but fire its graduates. In this way, America has nothing to learn.

i have no interest in fighting in afghanistan nor do i wish any one i know to fight there.

So cc is in favor of having some American soldiers die but when things get rough we should run away and let the terrorists and the Taliban take over and pose a deadly threat against American citizens and global stability. And then when I disagree with her, cc can curse at me some more to feel better.

CC we have to fight big ground wars, because then the govt has something to show off to its people. If we confined ourselves to covert wars against terrorists, how could we take bows?

as noted, you are a dumb fuck. no...i said that we should have taken out osama--once we didn't we should have left. tell us about how the fucking taliban pose a deadly threat against american citizens and global stability.

and if you really believe that, you should be willing to fight and pay for it.

i don't.

and by the way asshole, i am not a her.

Oh sorry, soldiers that cc doesn't know can go fight in Afghanistan, but after a certain number of casualties or time has passed, we have to leave regardless of the threat to America and its citizens, and as long as no one that cc knows has to go there. You are a disgrace.

what's your answer, stupid? more lives, more money? we fucked up, big time. really, big time. we really, really fucked up.

how many more lives do you want to sacrifice in the name of ?

as i said a moment ago:

what is the description of someone who is happy to watch other's fight for him and others pay for it?

You think we can covertly sneak around a place the size of Afghanistan and be effective and disrupting the terrorists, and adequately hold them off from Pakistan? You don't think the Taliban is a threat to Pakistan, and that if Pakistan fell, the U.S. wouldn't be in greater danger? You don't think the Taliban provide support for Al Qaeda?
I love how people who know nothing about the threats and problems in the Middle East are telling others what we should be doing.

So it only took a real economist one page to debunk an entire book written by a bunch of journalism school graduates? Impressive.

One of the sad things about the US is the lack of rigorous analysis in policy discussions, as most people depend on newspaper journalists for their "facts".

no...read what i say, you fucking moron.

its over....we lost...its done

time to come home

are you willing to fight there? are you willing to pay for others to fight there?

CC, havent you been on here long enough to know that LICC is really the bottom of the barrel? You can show him a graph, and he will insist you made it up...and you want to argue with him about something this moral and nuanced. Save yourself.

The answer is to employ a better strategy and better tactics.

Go ahead- curse at me some more like a little girl.

you;re right but i am extremely frustrated by our situation there. what we did to the afghani people is shameful beyond belief.

you see...this idiot represents a lot of idiots. god help us.

rhino, how many more arguments do you have to lose before it sinks in that, even though you graduated from an ivy, you aren't very smart?

fuck you...when are you going to fight? or pay for it?

If I bought a condo in LIC at the top and was upside down on my mortgage...A real estate board is the last place I would be. I would be too ashamed. What could be a worse indictment of my real estate judgement than that? Why would I bring to bear my decision on a board?

So you think the Afghani women would rather we not have fought off the Taliban? You really are an elitist disgrace.

Keep making things up and making dumb conclusions with no factual support, if that makes you feel better rhino.

modern, read the book. no. he didn't debunk it.

how can you presume to judge when you haven't read it? narrow-minded much? i read a tremendous amount of work by economists, journalists, social scientists, etc. i selected the work class matters because it was glibly referred to in your source, and then not refuted at all. the book is well researched, covers numerous areas related to class, and to me was very convincing and well-defended.

of course it doesn't support your hypothesis. and i freely admitted that you wouldn't be likely to appreciate my sources. for that reason.

you dumb fuck...the so called elected gov't puts them down just like the taliban.

try to get your facts straight.

its real fucked up there....and we did nothing to make it better.

how much are you willing to pay to keep it going?

i'm not going to bother asking whether or not you;re personally willing to fight because i think we've already established the answer to that.

Modern made good, so America works perfectly. His dad was a mechanic you know. People just need to work harder.

Sorry, I have a stack of books to read right now, most recent just received today from Amazon:

"Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood that Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum"

What we have established is how dumb your argument is.

really....when did we establish that?

how much are you willing to pay for fighting in afghanistan? have we established that yet?

Rhino,

You don't get it. There are facts that support the theory of economic mobility in the US. The 2 biggest determinants are growing up in 2 parent households, and getting an education. You can do both of those without a lot of money, which is why there are a lot of people from middle-class backgrounds who become wealthy. Hard work is not the solution. Smart work is.

cc is for putting American citizens at risk of terrorist attacks if it costs to much to take military action against the terrorist threats. Absolutely shameless.

According to rhino's unsubstantiated theory, we need to tax, tax, tax and the government needs to spend and get bigger in order for people, who are not responsible for their own lives, to be upwardly mobile.

how much are you willing to pay, you cheap fuck?

modern, a great deal of the data sets for those studies demonstrating social mobility don't include people born after the 1950s. through the 1970's mobility in the US was increasing. after that, not so much. and i can cite to dozens of academic sources that say that. but you won't believe them, so why should i bother.

the access to education and a 2-parent family? you don't see any irony in that?

How can you argue against at least providing health insurance for children? That is beyond me. Surely you don't blame their poverty on them.

Let's put some numbers behind what we're willing or not willing to borrow for whatever we're doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

500 billion over ten years is a conservative estimate, right?

If that 500 billion saved 100,000 potential U.S.-terrorist-victim lives -- a wild overestimate -- then that'd be $5,000,000 per life. Except for the post-9/11 hysteria, when else have we been willing to spend that kind of money per life?

how about 5,000 lives? that $100 million per? how much will lic kick in for this?

NWT,

The EPA, for instance, uses around $4-5 million per life in their cost/benefit analysis of regulations. And I am sure that there are many examples of regulations where the costs per life saved vastly exceed that.

Looked it up, the EPA in 2008 was using $7 million per life.

If 100,000 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks, the effects globally would be devastating and go well beyond a head count. I expect anyone smarter than a moron to be able to realize that.

still waiting on what your contribution will be.

The dude is upside down on this mortgage...what do you think his contribution will be?

so...by his own definition a democrat? busy spending other people's money?

> I have read studies that parental status in the US is a better predictor of status than in many
> European countries.

Yup, and you made that claim before, it got challenged, and, of course you didn't produce there either. Sound familiar?

> Hey, I didnt crunch the numbers myself.

Yes, we know you don't have the numbers. You just made it up.

I forget how we became such good friends. What is it that you believe again? I supplied a quote. Go check back.

Yes, and no data. We all got that already. It seems to be your routine.

This is my routine? How so? Are you in league with licc now? I showed him multiple annotated and sourced graphs to demonstrate that price to rent ratios were historically high and he refused to absorb them. I am not going to make the same mistaken effort with you. If you feel that america is as upwardly mobile as it has always been and more so than most European nations well bully for you.

Are you going to pretend that if I supply the link to the report that you'll read it? What's the point? And no I didn't write the essay. Have you authored anything on the topic that I should be aware of?

rhino supplied a chart with second hand data that was off point. Now I realize that he is just not smart enough to understand that. I provided sourced primary information of prices and rents from different points in time to prove him wrong. Of course, he can't take that so he goes off and lies and curses at everyone. No adequate support for his wrong arguments, and then nastiness, seems to be his SOP.

so...now that you're back...how much are you willing to contribute?

now that you are back . . . when are you going to stop asking stupid questions?
Why don't you answer mine - how many American soldiers were you willing to put at risk before you then decided we need to run away from the threat? How many American citizens' lives are you willing to put at risk by having us run away?