To be sung to the tune of “Raspberry Beret”. Felix Salmon, Reuter’s official finance blogger, is unkind to “Conspiracy Jack” Welch:
…When someone of Welch’s stature accuses a sitting president of deliberately manipulating economic statistics for political purposes, just a month before an election, you have to live in a pretty astonishing bubble of flattery and denial not to know exactly what’s going to come next. The thing about Twitter is that it has a way of piercing such bubbles…
A humble man, in such a situation, might have backtracked, realizing that he had gone way too far. But Jack Welch is not a humble man, and so instead he decided to bluster his way through. Hence the bizarre references to Soviet Russia and Communist China, and the way in which he describes his critics as “mobs of administration sympathizers”. (In fact, of course, only in highly autocratic societies could a business leader expect respectful agreement at all times, no matter how stupid his statements.) Hence the brazen — and clearly false — declaration that the reference to “these Chicago guys” in his tweet was in no way about the Obama administration or the White House. And hence his decision to depart the reality-based outlets of Fortune and Reuters, and move instead to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, where he can offer up his opinions to the right-wing echo chamber rather than to the public at large. Welch’s choice to appear on the WSJ editorial page — underscored by a declaration that he’ll get better “traction” that way — is a demonstration that Welch is embarking on a new career as a mascot of the right, rather than trying to stretch out his fading post-retirement career as would-be management guru. Welch has chosen the WSJ editorial page much in the way that he hand-picked the Office of Thrift Supervision to supervise GE Capital back in the day: it’s the place where he’ll get maximum adulation and minimum pushback…
Both Wonkette‘s Jesse Taylor and Salon‘s Alex Pareene take foul-mouthed delight in mocking the Daily Caller’s lament about “Hollywood elite liberal MPAA censorship” of the upcoming Breitbart hagiography. Wonkette:
Sorry, kids, but Pixar’s newest release, Hating Breitbart, will be rated R, so you will have to either sneak in with fake IDs or wait for it to appear on Encore in, oh, three months. The Daily Caller smells a conspiracy!…
Marcus told TheDC that a significant anticipated audience for his film, religious and social conservatives, would be turned off by an R-rated movie that would otherwise reinforce their core beliefs.
“They just won’t organize groups to go see it,” he said.
__
If you would go see the exact same movie with the exact same number of “fucks” in it if the movie were PG-13, a word of advice to you: get the fuck over your fucking self, you fucking fucks.
Pareene:
… It is good to know that while Breitbart may be gone, his impossible to parse, stream-of-consciousness style of rhetoric lives on. If you’re going to give this film an R, it should be because of reverse-racism from black members of Congress, and not because almost every other sentence Andrew Breitbart said was “fuck you.”
Anyway the film originally had nine swears, and now it has four, but the MPAA thinks that is still too many… One “fuck” is an automatic PG-13. Any additional “fucks” are an automatic R. This is why “Waiting for Guffman” and “Once” are both oddly rated R. (Not even “The Pat Tillman Story” — a documentary about a much more interesting and worthy figure than Andrew Breitbart — won its ratings appeal.)
Finally, remember that proposed Randroid-wetdream “liberty city” in Honduras? Barely a week later, the NYTimes reported that the proud Galtian independents were already turning on each other:
Plan for Charter City to Fight Honduras Poverty Loses Its Initiator
MEXICO CITY — Paul Romer is a respected economist with an unconventional plan to lift people out of poverty. And in Honduras, he thought he had found a government eager to put his ideas into practice. But now, Mr. Romer, an expert on economic growth, is out of his own project, tripped up by the sort of opaque decision making that his plan was supposed to change…The tipping point came with the announcement a few weeks ago that the Honduran agency set up to oversee the project had signed a memorandum of understanding with its first investor group. The news came as surprise to Mr. Romer. He believed that a temporary transparency commission he had formed with a group of well-known experts should have been consulted. He withdrew from the project….
The investor group is led by Michael Strong, an activist who has worked in the past with libertarians like John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods. He promises that his investors include Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and Central American investors, but when pressed for details, named only one Guatemalan businessman….
With so few details made public, even the normally pro-government newspapers in Honduras have begun to question whether there is any real money behind the project.
Opponents on the left have been filing challenges with the Honduran Supreme Court against the charter cities plan. The news of the investment deal brought more…
If it weren’t for the poor Hondurans who’ll probably be dispossessed even if this Randroid turkey never lurches past the bribes’n’blueprints stage, it would be thoroughly enjoyable to watch a bunch of Social Darwinists demonstrate the flaws in their philosophy on such a real-world scale.
******
Apart from this evening’s debate, what’s on the agenda today?
Mustang Bobby
Just another day in paradise here as a nameless/faceless gov’t bureaucrat, hoping to get through the day without bumping into the furniture.
Anyone else think that tonight’s debate could be a preview of a presidential debate in 2016?
TheMightyTrowel
I will leave work before 9pm. I will leave work before 9pm. I will leave work before 9pm. I will leave work before 9pm. I will leave work before 9pm.
Oy.
Villago Delenda Est
The wingnuts, they are so fucking stupid. Fuck off, you fucking fucks, indeed.
yopd1
Will Daryl Issa investigate the those who divulged top secret operations in Libya. Oh, he was the one who did it. Fast and furious my ass.
raven
@yopd1: Your link sux.
Schlemizel
@Mustang Bobby:
Zero chance of a Ryan/Baden match up in 16.
Its been nice that during the last few hours the FPers have managed to pull themselves away from freaking out about the debate, freaking out about the freak out and freaking out about being mean to that delicate flower L’il Andy. The Rmoney campaign has just had what should have been two horrible days on the campaign. The biggest flip-flops yet, the body of a dead seal washing up on Willard and several other ‘gaffs’ but you wouldn’t know that if you counted on the threads here. Maybe we can finally get back to circulating stories of GOP graft, corruption and incompetence.
gene108
Their philosophy cannot fail. It can only be failed.
NotMax
@Mustabg Bobby
Snowball’s chance in hell.
Biden turns 70 next month.
Ryan, with a little bit of luck, turns to toast tonight.
Cliff in NH
Of course he moved to Faux News, it’s what everyone predicted the coward would do.
Oh, you forgot to mention who owns the WSJ these days?
Cmm
Hey, I think I figured out what a “squeegee hotspot” is….remember that business that recently (during the conventions maybe?) issued homeless people wireless hotspot equipment so they could make money circulating on the street offering wireless access in return for a donation? I am thinking squeegee wireless is street entrepreneur NYCers doing the same thing…
Also, is it okay to think that Sully is a pretentious twat? Nothing irritates me more than his religious wanking and posts of poems, and his use of that photo of the oh so tasteful aisle of sunflowers from his wedding to illustrate every other gay marriage post.
Valdivia
Jeff Zeleny of the NYT trolling that Romney is getting crowds of 15k people. Really? I loathe the Village.
kay
@Valdivia:
Obama’s still up in Ohio and 5-6 points here is a big lead. Our early vote numbers are “fantastic” according to my regional voter protection lead, and he doesn’t use words like “fantastic” often. He’s grim and serious, all bidness.
Obama/Brown are a good match. Obama brings out AA and young people, and Brown brings out labor. They need each other, and they both have big ground campaigns.
Also, OH media have turned on Mandel (Brown’s opponent). He had a series of terrible interviews, and and now they’re openly mocking him. They debate on the 15th.
dmsilev
@Cmm:
It’s not only ok, it’s necessary.
kindness
I’m waitin’ to see what happens to my Giants. I am shocked to see they came back from 0-2. It’d be nice to see them go longer in the playoffs but I honestly don’t think they are a World Series caliber team this year. Nice for n. Cal anyhow.
I want to see Joe Biden smack that smirk off Ryan’s face. Too violent imagery? for a liberal probably. for the primitive inside of me, it would be fun though.
Matt McIrvin
@Mustang Bobby: I was thinking last night’s debate. If Romney wins, Elizabeth Warren would make a good insurgent candidate in the ensuing environment. (If Obama wins and people aren’t so pissed off in four years, we might be better off running, say, Kirsten Gillibrand.)
pattonbt
Just a bit of advice for those invested in the VP debate. Heres how it will go down….
Ryan wil pretty much suck, Biden will be mostly deferential (in a kindly, humorous more well knowing uncle sort of way), a bit more spirited and on point.
Media will call it for Ryan.
Polls wont care one way or another.
Just know, Ryan will win this debate no matter the substance. And fo all thats worth it will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Its a VP debate. They never mean anything. So just watch for fun, but ignore the outcomes.
And by chance Biden does so extremely well and Ryan does so poorly that the media has to call it for Biden, it will mean the same – nothing.
Just breathe deep and remember, its a VP debate.
mai naem
@Valdivia: I was listening to an Ohio Romney rally yesterday and you could hear the awe/surprise in his voice when he was talking about the crowd.
I am a little worried about these high expectations for Biden. It isn’t that I don’t think he can do well but Lyin’ Ryan could do really well as well in which case Ryan would of course be proclaimed at the big winner.
Morning Ho had a pic of Lyin’ Ryan holding up a dumbell. Guess it’s from Time magazine. There’s just so much you can say about Ryan holding a dumb-bell. I just bet its a 300 lb dumb-bell.
amk
so lurv the sweet schadenfreude.
1badbaba3
Awesome sunrise in Terry Camp Land. Now about those freezing temps in early frakkin’ October…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@mai naem:
Now I’m going to have to look through Time Magazine when I go shopping this morning, just to see if he actually makes a claim about it.
SFAW
As you’ve been told before, ad infinitum:
Galtian Social Darwinism cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Oh, and that Jackoff Welch guy? Yeah, he sorta did a good job at GE. Not as impressive as what Lou Gerstner did at IBM, but that’s a pretty high bar.
But with Jackoff: when you tell people that the “bottom” 10% are going to get fired every year, no matter how well any of those “bottom” 10% performed – well, that certainly motivates them, especially in a down economy. But motivating through fear is not exactly a solution. A technique, perhaps, but not a plan or solution.
With any luck, Suzy will have an affair with Larry Ellison, and Jackoff will challenge Larry to a steel-cage match.
(Apologies for the tech-weenie inside baseball.)
raven
Oh no, worried democrats!
SFAW
@mai naem:
And he did 783 curls with it, with each arm, before breakfast.
At least, that’s how he remembered it.
1badbaba3
Tt@raven: Those can’t be real Democrats. They must be independents.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SFAW: What a 300-lb dumbbell might look like.
Ash Can
@SFAW: And when he gets called out on it, it’ll be “oh, I forgot; that was my brother who did that.”
ericblair
@SFAW:
This is one of the goddamn stupidest management “techniques” out there, and that’s saying something. First of all, it says nothing about the caliber of the actual workers: I’m sure there’s a bottom 10% of Blue Angels pilots, but so? Maybe we’ll replace them with the top 10% of the East Podunk Flying Club and Bait Shop. That will improve things.
Also, it sure does a number on teamwork, since it’s usually a lot easier to sabotage someone else into the bottom 10% than raise yourself up. It’s odd that senior management forgets this, since they’ve usually used this technique heavily in crawling up from middle management.
Baud
@ericblair:
I can envision it working in the first year of a new CEO’s tenure, but to fire 10% of your workforce every year strikes me as a horrible management practice for the reasons you said.
sherparick
Welch was meant for WSJ and Faux news which hold it as doctrine that CEOs are never to be criticized or treated with than reverential deference that they deserve as our Galtian overlords.
Ash Can
@pattonbt: What we can be sure of is that Ryan will lie. Pathologically. Hopefully Joe will be ready for it, and will treat it as such.
arguingwithsignposts
@Baud:
If most CEOs cared about those reasons, then yes, it would be a horrible management practice. These days, most of the big-time CEOs only care about stock value, specifically, their stock value. Oh, and golden parachutes.
Raptorfence
Regarding the Brietbart movie, did these guys forget that Mel Gibson’s torture-film, “Passion of the Christ” was rated R? It was a Christian duty to go see it. I readily admit Brietbart fans aren’t in the same catagory as religious zelots, but if the cause requires a blockbuster, then it will happen, R rating or no.
El Cid
This appears to me to be more a project of the new post-coup government and its backing large landholder families and business dynasties to get out of the jurisdiction of the rest of Honduras.
It’s got a loftier theme, but it’s mainly about trying to create areas in which there is never any chance that Hondurans under any future government can extend democratic control over these rich people in these areas.
Cassidy
I’m gonna do some slight spamming over the next few months and I apologize in advance. My Firefighter class has to do a service project as part of our course. It’s not in the curriculum, but our Chief thinks it’s important to remind everyone we’re supposed to be role models and public servants; I agree with the sentiment. So, my class has chosen this one. I personally don’t have any attachment to lung cancer other than my continual fight to quit smoking, but this is what my class voted on. We’re doing the “Fight for Air” climb in February 2013 and between now and then we’re trying to raise $100 or more per person. If you have some spare change that you haven’t allotted for political races, would you consider it? Thank you.
Your donation buys you a small part of misery on my part. We’ll be climbing 42 floors/ flights of stairs in full bunker gear and air pack.
Frankensteinbeck
I believe this was #3 on my list of possibilities for the Perfect Libertarian City, and the one I marked as by far the most likely: Galtian Overlords turn out to be WATB who take their ball and go home when they find out they don’t all agree on everything. Libertarianism isn’t just a failed philosophy, it’s wildly unrealistic and collapses in seconds in the real world.
@pattonbt:
You have a point. The media love them some Ryan. If Biden beats Ryan like a redheaded stepchild (and I’m a redheaded stepchild, so I know!) odds are 66% the coverage would be ‘Ryan was so knowledgeable and dreamy, while Biden was a silly old man!’ The media lives in its own bubble. It’s not certain, though, so we’ll see.
@ericblair:
Not really. Remember, they think this technique made them awesome Galtian he-men who are responsible for all the value of the company. It logically follows that a company filled with hyenas who only tear each other apart and call it Teamwork will be an unstoppable shark soaring on silent wings through the business jungle and killing what it eats. Or something.
bemused
@mai naem:
When my husband and I saw this, we thought it was a spoof at first but it’s not. We both thought Ryan looked ridiculous.
Hill Dweller
Initial unemployment claims fell to 339,000 last week, the lowest since Feb. 2008.
R-Jud
@mai naem:
I picked up a 300-lb barbell yesterday (okay, 297 lbs/ 135 kg). Are you saying Paul Ryan can’t out-lift a GIRL?
Jennifer
Sorry, kids, but Pixar’s newest release, Hating Breitbart, will be rated R…
Rated R for RAGE.
1badbaba3
@mai naem: Paul Ryan is powerlifting Chris Christie? Okay, now I’m impressed.
ericblair
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, no, no. Teamwork is Good! It says right there in the briefing you get at the start of every fiscal year. Communicate! Share intellectual capital! Lots of smiling people of multiple races, genders, and undergarment choices shaking hands for no particular reason!
Management does notice that things tend to go smoother when the grunts are cooperating instead of putting on an Orc version of Glengarry Glen Ross. However, what works best for the organization as a whole doesn’t mean that particularly enterprising people can’t exploit it and use trust to shiv other people in the back and work themselves up the ladder.
Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
@El Cid:
This is an interesting theory. Is it only a feeling, a hunch, or have you heard this or read about it somewhere? If so, I’d like to see it, too. Either way, it kind of makes sense, though it’s depressing as hell that these leeches would think that way. Shit, it’s hard to see what more the really rich people in Honduras could ask for; there’s no social safety net. There is some kind of social security program, though I don’t know anything about it. I feel fairly sure that a whole lot of the people who live way out in the sticks don’t get it. People who don’t have running water or lights, and who have to walk or ride a horse hours to the nearest approximation of a town aren’t going to be getting their checks in the mail. I’d be amazed if they ever get any mail at all. And if they got a check, they wouldn’t have any easy way to cash it; and some live so far outside any kind of money economy that they would hardly have any use for actual money anyway. The economy for a lot of these people is corn, beans, chickens and pigs.
Anyway, I don’t see what more the richest people could really want in Honduras. It’s true, they can’t treat campesinos like serfs or even slaves, and make them work for nothing; they can shoot them on a whim still, if they really want to, and they might have to bother with some kind of perfunctory “investigaation”. But beyond that, they can do about anything they want to anybody and get away with it. I can only guess that they won’t be happy until they can get the campesinos to be their slaves, and can shoot them without anybody asking anything about it at all. It’s sad. There are so many really wonderful people there. But the people at the top of the top of the heap have no sense of civic duty–or often, even any common decency–at all. Maybe that’s what draws all these pathetic American would-be Galtian supermen: It’s a place where you really can grind everybody around you into the ground if you want to, in a way that you can’t here–at least for now…
Frankensteinbeck
@ericblair:
I counterargue that management knows that the WORD teamwork is good. They would also like some ‘synergy’ and ‘world class solutions’. The hyena with the biggest bloody chunk of his packmates in his teeth is a ‘team player’.
SFAW
@ericblair:
You left out “Our employees are our greatest asset!”
DEC used to believe that, or at least act like it/they did, but that was before Bob Palmer, that Galtian superstud, ran the show.
SFAW
@Baud:
In a rational world, or at least a rational American business environment, you would be absolutely correct.
However, given that (at least) 27 percent of the country is insane (or exceedingly stupid or both), plus an additional 20-plus percent will vote for for Romney just because they hate the HNIC, or hate the Dems, or hate the left, or hate the niggers/spics/kikes/fags/poor/etc., or hate the “other” (whomever that may be TODAY), or because they think THIS TIME Rmoney means it when he talks the centrist talk, then I am afraid that you are sadly mistaken.
ETA: “Awaiting moderation”? Why, whatever for? Thinking, thinking ….
schrodinger's cat
@Cmm: You forgot the endless pot smokers are wonderful posts and the meaning of “real” conservatism posts.
danielx
In yet another sign that irony is truly dead, I offer this little gem: CEO to workers: I may fire you if Obama is re-elected.
A related riddle: what’s the meaning of the phrase mike foxtrot alpha, in military parlance?
Phylllis
@Cassidy: I’ll chip in from the home computer this afternoon.
Yutsano
@Cassidy: I will demand pictures. And please do remind us next week, I’m dead ass broke until Monday.
Ruckus
@Jennifer:
Rated R for RIDICULOUS.
Actually it’s Rated FR for FUCKING RIDICULOUS. But they couldn’t figure out how to have an FR rating without rating the rating itself.
FIXT for you
Ruckus
@Anatoliĭ Lъudьvigovich Bzyp (formerly Horrendo Slapp, Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
That is a very nice summation of the majority of the 1%. They have everything else, now they want not just our working hours but to own and completely control humans.
It’s the last thing left to buy.
Ruckus
@danielx:
It’s been a few decades but my guess is Major Fucking Asshole.
On a somewhat related note I am getting to the point right now that all I really want to do is stand on some high ground somewhere and shout FUCK all day. It seems as constructive as any other endeavor I seem to be capable of these days.
Another Halocene Human
@Schlemizel:
Well said. Where’s ABL–you think the Uterati would want to weigh in on the abortion flipflop of the decade.
Emdee
Anyone else been around long enough to remember when Jesse Taylor was all of Pandagon, and to share the workload, he invited this college kid named “Ezra Klein” to join it? It was pretty much all snark and hilarious. (Not that Pandagon’s not still important, but I miss the humor.)
SFAW
@Emdee:
“Long enough” to remember Jesse at Pandagon? That’s like asking if anyone here has been around long enough to remember Cole’s conversion. It was all of, what, four years ago? (Jesse, not Cole.)
Yeah, I’m so old I can remember when not all Rethugs were insane. But that memory is getting a little hazy, you young whippersnapper.