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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Pull Up a Chair: Fantasy Brunch
Late for brunch, I guess. Love Eleuthera. Is that N Palmetto Point? You can’t get my fantasy brunch there, though. Lox, smoked sable, smoked whitefish platter w/ bagels and cream cheese, coffee, fresh squeezed OJ. And maybe some hash browns. None of that’s on offer here at the moment, though. Sigh.
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RalphKramden commented on the diary post Trillion Dollar Coin: Posts on Legality and Constitutionality by letsgetitdone.
OK, let’s say this is legal, according to the letter of the law. Isn’t there another, psychological dimension to this? Isn’t money (especially fiat currency) only worth something because people think it should be worth something?
Will the trillion dollar coin work in this dimension? Will people “believe in it”?
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RalphKramden commented on the diary post Egypt Tries to Broker Cease Fire and Truce in Gaza. Israel Responds Provocatively by EdwardTeller.
My point was that this rocket was coming from Egypt, not Gaza.
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RalphKramden commented on the diary post Egypt Tries to Broker Cease Fire and Truce in Gaza. Israel Responds Provocatively by EdwardTeller.
How can there be an article about Egypt as a peace broken without noting this?
Rockets landing in Israel’s Eshkol fired from Sinai http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/11/17/272802/rockets-from-egypt-hit-israels-eshkol/ -
RalphKramden commented on the blog post Nate Silver Is The Lovechild of Harry Potter & Hari Seldon
Great. 80%. You a gamer? How many time have you rolled a 1d6 and gotten a “1″ instead of a 2 through 6? That’s 83%. But if that happens, everyone will say “Silver’s a fool”. BS.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Economists: 2013 Another Weak Year for the US Economy
I agree with a lot of this, especially repairing the hemorrhaging of public sector jobs which would do a lot to improve the employment situation. The dot-com bubble, though, was the equivalent of a stimulus with VC and stock market money. It employed lots of people who wound up producing nearly nothing.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Economists: 2013 Another Weak Year for the US Economy
I wonder whether weak but steady economic growth is preferable to how better employment numbers are reached than in the Clinton or W years. Those economies surged because of bubbles, and evaporated with attendant pain. This economy might not be dependent on a bubble (if the stock market isn’t already in that state).
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Corporate Profits Zooming as Job Growth Lags
There’s another connection that bears mentioning. With the inflation rate so low, there’s little incentive for corporations to risk much of anything. If the Fed allowed a bit of inflation to creep in, businesses wouldn’t be so complacent about sitting on their cash.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Homeland Sec Napolitano: 50,000 Dead in War on Drugs Is Not a Failure
Although a lot of the direction of this thread has been too tin-foil hat for me, I suggest the way forward is one state ballot initiative at a time, until the Feds cave.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Homeland Sec Napolitano: 50,000 Dead in War on Drugs Is Not a Failure
“do you consider it to be worth a “try”?” Who, me? Hell yes. That’s not the question at issue, though.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Homeland Sec Napolitano: 50,000 Dead in War on Drugs Is Not a Failure
Well, it’s not the producers who are fighting, it’s the suppliers. They were killing each other for “turf” over alcohol during prohibition. But my question is if drugs were legalized in the US, would the violence among the cartels and between cartels and law enforcement in Mexico stop? Not a rhetorical question – I don’t know the answer.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Homeland Sec Napolitano: 50,000 Dead in War on Drugs Is Not a Failure
I don’t think the 50,000 number is a result of law enforcement, it’s capitalist competition in action, isn’t it?
At this point, if all drugs were legalized in the US tomorrow, would this violence end? Or would the cartels still be “competing” with each other with the same level of violence? -
RalphKramden commented on the blog post Israeli-Palestinian Talks At UN Seek to Defuse Statehood Effort
David, can you elaborate on why and how “achieving some status as a state” would “force negotiations on a level playing field”? As far as I can tell, getting GA “recognition” wouldn’t change the de facto playing field one whit.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Early Morning Swim: Mitt Romney May Have Committed Voter Fraud, Reports Rachel Maddow [VID]
“Brian McNiff of the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Elections Division told TheDC that the state will not investigate the matter.”
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post Political Dynamics on Deficits All Moving To the Right
The only thing that will move the needle further to the left is the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, to get us back to a sane fiscal footing. The deficit IS alarming – it should be alarming to those on the left as well as the right. The question is – do we cut to achieve balance or do we set taxes at a proper level. Restoring the taxes of the 90s (not the 70s!) is the “left” position, and I’m glad Obama espoused it.
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RalphKramden commented on the blog post FDL Movie Night: A Christmas Story
Flick Lives!
(Who woulda thunk it?)
I’ve never been able to see the film all the way through. I grew up listening to Shep on WOR since I was about 10 years old, and I heard all these stories “in the original”. The movie doesn’t seem to measure up to my childhood memories.
I did get my Dad to take me to the Limelight club when I was 13 to see Shep’s Saturday night show. He was an uptown guy, mortified to be in the Village with his kid in a bar amongst the hippies, but he took me.
