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You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute / Deep thought

Deep thought

by DougJ|  February 25, 201111:52 am| 68 Comments

This post is in: David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute, Fuck The Middle-Class

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I would rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the telephone book than by the CEOs of the Fortune 500.

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Reader Interactions

68Comments

  1. 1.

    Hunter Gathers

    February 25, 2011 at 11:54 am

    You just made Free Market Baby Jesus cry.

  2. 2.

    Kryptik

    February 25, 2011 at 11:55 am

    Yeah, Doug? That’s because you’re a Communist. Don’t you know that the CEOs know infinitely better than some poor prole on the street? You want proof? They’re RICH. If they weren’t smart and better than everyone else, they wouldn’t be rich. It’s just common Calvinistic sense.

  3. 3.

    cleek

    February 25, 2011 at 11:57 am

    too bad democracy doesn’t allow such outcomes

  4. 4.

    jeffreyw

    February 25, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Gotta keep yer strength up, man.

  5. 5.

    MikeJ

    February 25, 2011 at 11:58 am

    The first 500 people in the phone book all still have landlines. Some, but not all, of the Fortune 500 CEOs aren’t idiots. The google guys are ok, but they aren’t the CEO, are they?

    On balance, having Steve Jobs in charge would be really bad.

  6. 6.

    Morbo

    February 25, 2011 at 11:59 am

    See also: Senate, U.S.

  7. 7.

    jwb

    February 25, 2011 at 11:59 am

    Actually, I’ve sometimes wondered if drawing lots wouldn’t work better than elections—especially now when so much of an election is determined by money.

  8. 8.

    McWaffle

    February 25, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    Psh, but after a few weeks you’d be saying, “Damn you, President Aaron A. Aardvark!”

  9. 9.

    Kryptik

    February 25, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    @McWaffle:

    And you think Zebediah Y. Zubrowka would do a better job? Pshaw.

  10. 10.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 25, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Even the liberal NYT is praising Chris Christie and Bobo has a slobbery op-ed about Mitch Daniels.

  11. 11.

    me

    February 25, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    @MikeJ:

    The google guys are ok, but they aren’t the CEO, are they?

    Come April one of them will be.

  12. 12.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    February 25, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    I would rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the telephone book than by the CEOs of the Fortune 500.

    I’m Abraham A. Aaronson and I approve this message.

  13. 13.

    MattR

    February 25, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    @jwb: I prefer Lewis Black’s monkey.

  14. 14.

    Chyron HR

    February 25, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Arthur Abacab is worse than Obama–he sold us out!

  15. 15.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    February 25, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    @McWaffle: Crap. Shoulda read all the way down. Damn iPad (shakes fist).

  16. 16.

    Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)

    February 25, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    Step away from the caffeine please, Doug Hill, son of Doug Hill(R)– I can’t keep up.

  17. 17.

    schrodinger's cat

    February 25, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    I thought Balloon Juice already has an overlord, Tunch.

  18. 18.

    Citizen_X

    February 25, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    Open thread? I’m gonna pretend it is, because you have to listen to the radio show posted here. Some drive-time mooks interview Donald Rumsfeld, but they happen to have Louis C.K. in the studio (whom they keep referring to as “just a local comedian”). Louis keeps on Rumsfeld about whether or not he’s an alien human-eating lizard. (Rumsfeld never answers!) Doesn’t really get more topical, and I think it may be stronger for that. The exception is when Louis asks Rumsfeld, “So what was it like when you shook hands with Saddam Hussein?”

    My first impression is that it might go down as an historical bit of political improv comedy. You will end up listening to this at some point, so you might as well go and do it now. (Note: it is 17 minutes, but worth it.)

  19. 19.

    Poopyman

    February 25, 2011 at 12:12 pm

    You want to be ruled by the Aardvark Family? Wouldn’t that be a monarchy?

  20. 20.

    Violet

    February 25, 2011 at 12:16 pm

    The first 500 people in the phone book would be bought off by the CEOs of the Fortune 500, so we’d be back to where we are now. We need a better system.

  21. 21.

    Folderol & Ephemera

    February 25, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    What’s a “telephone book”?

  22. 22.

    fraught

    February 25, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    So Bill Buckley is now a front-pager at BJ. Nice!

  23. 23.

    Joey Maloney

    February 25, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    Better the first 500 than the last 500.

    Ralph Zzyzzmjac changed his name two years ago. his real name is Ralph Zyzzmjac. A friend persuaded him to add a Z to be the last guy in the phone book. He’s a bachelor, a librarian working for the City of New York. For a good time he goes to the movies, alone. He’s sixty-one.
    __
    Edward Zzzzyniewski is crazy. He’s been in and out of Bellevue. He spends most of his time thinking about that bastard Zzyzzmjac, who two years ago knocked him out of last place, his only claim to fame. He broods about him—a man he’s never met—fantasizing that Zzyzzmjac is out to get him. Last year he added two Z’s t his name. Now he’s thinking about stealing a march on that bastard Zzyzzmjac. He’s sure Zzyzzmjac is adding two more Z’s this year, so he’s going to add seven. Ed Zzzzzzzzzzzzniewski. That’d be nice, he decides.

    Cuz I luvs me some John Varley.

  24. 24.

    Elizabelle

    February 25, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Would go with a random 500.

    Naive, but I think you’d find more ethics and less greed with a random sample.

    Probably an Alvin Greene or two.

    Whatever the Harvard Business School teaches, it does not seem to be good for sustainability.

  25. 25.

    Sly

    February 25, 2011 at 12:29 pm

    @Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods:
    Abraham A. Aaronson thinks he knows best how to fix our economy, but he’s nothing but a tax and spend liberal who wants to give your money to welfare queens and public employees.

    (Paid For By the Friends of Aaron A. Aaronson)

  26. 26.

    Berial

    February 25, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    If that’s the way it worked all CEO’s would be named A A. A, with the lower tier being named AA A. AA. You can’t win as long as money can buy power and they start with 100,000x as much money as everyone else.

  27. 27.

    loretta

    February 25, 2011 at 12:31 pm

    Top 500 CEOs – the world’s biggest idiots, cheats & thieves. An immediate story comes to mind – a top CEO recently rewarded himself (via the board that showed a stock increase of 38% in 2010 after laying ofg 40% of the workforce and scaling down the marketing budget) a million dollar CASH bonus, along with 4 other principals getting slightly less, even after the company showed a loss in its revenue.

    In real life, if you lose money you cannot give yourself a raise.

  28. 28.

    jwb

    February 25, 2011 at 12:44 pm

    @loretta: They really do make their own reality.

    The ones I really hate are the guys who buy up some successful business that makes good products; they come in and find ways to cut corners resulting in shitty products but the firm increases profits temporarily on the basis of brand reputation, so the stock price goes up, the execs cash out before the company comes crashing and burning to the ground, taking the workers and shareholders down with it. I don’t really feel that bad for the shareholders, who should have been paying attention, but the workers really don’t deserve it.

  29. 29.

    Morbo

    February 25, 2011 at 12:46 pm

    I’m really lucky that it’s lunch time because I was sitting here laughing my ass off at Louis CK on the Opie and Anthony Show participating in an interview with Donald Rumsfeld. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

  30. 30.

    WereBear

    February 25, 2011 at 12:47 pm

    No no no, if you want a benign dictatorship, you gotta go with the last 500 names.

    These aren’t spoiled brat Abrams and “I never waited in line” Aaronsons, nossir!

    Your X’s and Y’s and Z’s are people who understand patience. They’ve spelled their names for people a thousand times. They’ve learned to keep their temper when people constantly mispronounce their name. And they all know each other from grammar school; waiting in the back of the line for something to happen.

    Your X’s and Y’s and Z’s are people who know how to fly under the radar, too. Always in the back of the room, able to work together, unlike the goody-two-shoes Andersons who are stuck in the second row.

    If we are going to take our country back, we need Edward “Woody” Woodrow and Susan “Sparky” Zelnick!

  31. 31.

    ppcli

    February 25, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @Violet: Naw. Cheaper to just buy the phone book company and list their names first.

  32. 32.

    MikeJ

    February 25, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    @WereBear: Elmo Zumwalt thanks you.

  33. 33.

    Benz

    February 25, 2011 at 12:52 pm

    Doug, you’ve hit it out of the park.

    Someone in Wisconsin should make this deep thought into a poster. Better yet, the Democrats should all be using this as their message, verbatim and saying this line over and over.

  34. 34.

    Benz

    February 25, 2011 at 12:54 pm

    Seriously Doug, someone MUST send this clever line to the Democratic party.

    I’m not f*cking joking. This is just too clever than what the Democrats could ever come up with.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    February 25, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    I would rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the telephone book

    Which telephone book?
    Because if you choose the one from my hood you’re gonna be praying for the Galtian Overlords of yesteryear compared to what these ignorant sonsabitches decide.

  36. 36.

    Davis X. Machina

    February 25, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    In other words, the New Hampshire lower house.

  37. 37.

    KG

    February 25, 2011 at 12:59 pm

    @Violet: I think Plato came up with a better system, but it’s only worked, in theory, once, and then Alexander went and got himself killed trying to conquer the world.

  38. 38.

    Comrade Dread

    February 25, 2011 at 1:01 pm

    Doug, I’ve long believed that we would have a better overall government if a computer just pulled 535 random names off the registered voter list and assigned them a job as President, Veep, Senator or Congressman for a one year term with a mandatory psych evaluation before they were sworn in.

  39. 39.

    Southern Beale

    February 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    I’m still waiting to find out what that 1 weird old tip is to have a tiny belly. They never tell you, you have to read five chapters of crap. I gave up.

    Anyone know?

  40. 40.

    cyntax

    February 25, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    “How many people have you met who’ve been hanged?”

    Ah, it’s great when fate transpires to put Louis CK and Rumsfeld on the same radio show.

  41. 41.

    Southern Beale

    February 25, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    I would rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the telephone book than by the CEOs of the Fortune 500.

    Oh yeah that reminds me: remember when Bush was supposed to be our “first MBA president”?

    LOL LOL LOL

    How’d that work out for ya, America?

  42. 42.

    Southern Beale

    February 25, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    I’ve long believed that we would have a better overall government if a computer just pulled 535 random names off the registered voter list

    Two words: jury duty.

    Kinda scary thought.

  43. 43.

    ppcli

    February 25, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    @WereBear: Actually I think the Overlords may have already anticipated Doug’s suggestion and taken measures. That’s why they made Aaronson an unperson. Along with Jones and Rutherford.

  44. 44.

    A Commenter at Balloon Juice (formerlyThe Grand Panjandrum)

    February 25, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    I’m still waiting to find out what that 1 weird old tip is to have a tiny belly.

    Eat less than Tunch.

  45. 45.

    Comrade Dread

    February 25, 2011 at 1:19 pm

    @Southern Beale: Meh, not really. It would certainly be a lot more entertaining when we got the inevitable congress composed of fundamentalists and atheists, actual Marxists and libertarian anarchists, gays and redneck hillbillies.

  46. 46.

    joes527

    February 25, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    The first 500 names in the phone book elected Scott Walker, both of the Pauls and this guy.

    Pass.

  47. 47.

    gelfling545

    February 25, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    @Southern Beale: In my county we’re now suffering the effects of having elected a county executive who promised to “run the county like a business” and has yet to discover that you can’t run something like a business that isn’t one. Why people always fall for this I do not know.

  48. 48.

    ppcli

    February 25, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @gelfling545: Quite true. Somehow “Let’s run the county like a county” doesn’t pull in the votes, even though you would think it hard to argue with.

  49. 49.

    Glen Tomkins

    February 25, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    That phonebook thing — been done.

    It’s called Athenian democracy.

    After going around the pike a few thousand times with monarchy and tyranny, aristocracy and oligarchy, and representative democracy — the Athenians settled on participatory democracy.

    If you elect people to important posts, they found that representative democracy quickly evolves back to oligarchy (money has always talked since the day it was invented), so to keep public offices from being bought, they filled them by lottery. They didn’t have a phonebook, so they had to make up and maintain a list of citizens from which to draw names at random.

    Unfortunately they didn’t trust their system completely enough. They left one office, that of strategos, or general, elective. That bought them an empire, and that never ends well.

  50. 50.

    jwb

    February 25, 2011 at 1:31 pm

    @gelfling545: The same reason they fall for the argument that we should run the government like a family or the federal government should be run like the state government. When people confront something unknown, the initial attempt to make sense of it is always to find an analogy to the known. Nothing wrong with that in principle, so long as you stay alert for the moments that the analogy fails and make adjustments accordingly. But once the analogy fails, many will insist on blaming the unknown for refusing to behave the way the analogy says it should; then, you are in a heap of trouble.

  51. 51.

    sparky

    February 25, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    so, Buckley instead of Vidal. maybe it IS a center-right blog after all. ;)

  52. 52.

    Southern Beale

    February 25, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    @gelfling545:

    you can’t run something like a business that isn’t one. Why people always fall for this I do not know.

    Good lord but I have that old canard. Everyone repeats it, even Democrats. No one ever fucking stands up and says WHY? WHY do you want to run government like a business? It’s NOT a business! Nor should it be! Then government would be COMPETING with business and that’s illegal!

    I’ve written about that a lot. It’s just infuriating.

  53. 53.

    Martin

    February 25, 2011 at 1:46 pm

    @MikeJ: Actually, Jobs would be awesome. People don’t seem to realize that Apple cares vastly more about the customer experience than the myriad of vendors that sit alongside Apple. Those other guys make money – it’s their job to adapt.

    Steve Jobs would make everything about the voter and tell corporations to solve their own fucking problems.

  54. 54.

    Maude

    February 25, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    @jwb:
    Donald Trump hopes it works for him.

  55. 55.

    Maude

    February 25, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    @Martin:
    Disagree about Jobs.
    Apple has off shored it’s labor and did have child labor.
    Apple is sitting on a huge pile of cash. It is just like any major corporation. They do customer service, but some repairs can be pricey.

  56. 56.

    Sentient Puddle

    February 25, 2011 at 1:52 pm

    @Southern Beale: I remember that old crank Jerry Brown actually saying it in an interview, and making the point rather succinctly. Dog bless his soul.

  57. 57.

    gbear

    February 25, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    I say use a business directory. At least government would get our cars started on cold mornings.

  58. 58.

    catclub

    February 25, 2011 at 2:13 pm

    @jwb: I think you are referring to Chainsaw Al I forgethislastname, who did that to various companies.

  59. 59.

    catclub

    February 25, 2011 at 2:17 pm

    @Southern Beale: I have that belly. my solution appears to be portion control, exercise, and careful choice of grandparents.

  60. 60.

    Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly Known as Chad N Freude

    February 25, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    If the government were run like a business, it would strive to make a profit. This would be done by . . . Snarky conclusion left to the imaginations of my betters on this blog.

  61. 61.

    cmorenc

    February 25, 2011 at 2:30 pm

    @Doug Hill :

    I would rather be governed by the first five hundred people in the telephone book than by the CEOs of the Fortune 500.

    I get the point you’re making here, I really do. However, for the suggested tradeoff to result in a better rather than a (possibly much) worse result, you’d need to be at least mildly selective in which place the phone book you used was for. There are quite a few communities across our country where 80% of the first 500 names in the phone book are dumber than dirt and don’t control much of anything, and the remaining 20%, who are smarter only by comparison with the 80%, are dominated by a tiny handful of folks who are essentially small-time, local variants of the Fortune 500 CEOs you’re replacing. That’s a bargain?

    Think, for example, how many towns in Alabama you’d be better off trading 500 Fortune 500 CEOs for their first 500 in the phone book.

    For the first 500 names in the Portland, Oregon phone directory, I would gladly make that trade. For the first 500 names in the Andalusia, Alabama phone book, well…I’m not so sure ’bout that.

  62. 62.

    fucen tarmal

    February 25, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    you know what this means;

    no-bid contracts for AAAA towing!

  63. 63.

    Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods

    February 25, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    @Sly: The following is a paid political announcement: Aaron A. Aaronson SAYS he’s for family values, but how much do we REALLY know about Aaron A. Aaronson.

  64. 64.

    Quaker in a Basement

    February 25, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    Sure. People whose last names start with A hate Ameri…uh, the United States.

  65. 65.

    Splitting Image

    February 25, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    You do realize that people named Abdul, Ali, Abdullah, and other variations thereof are starting to dominate the first pages of the phone directories in more and more cities, don’t you?

    Doug, why do you want to implement sharia law in the U.S.?

    And why did William F. Buckley want to do it, for that matter?

  66. 66.

    Ryan

    February 25, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    Adams… Adamle… Adamowski… Adamson… Adler… Anderson… Bueller…

    Bueller…

    Bueller…

  67. 67.

    Martin

    February 25, 2011 at 4:38 pm

    @Maude: Offshore of labor isn’t to reduce costs – it’s to reduce time to market, which is vastly more important. The big advantage of China is the ability to have all of your suppliers in such close proximity that you don’t have the kinds of production and supply chain issues that routinely beset other industries. That’s why everyone is there – China’s economic zones are the modern equivalent to River Rouge – but for a whole host of tech companies. The US needs to figure out how to deal with that.

  68. 68.

    ruleoflaw

    February 25, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    If I change my name to Aaron Abaas, can I be the president, please?

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