When you’re on a this kind of a hot streak, why not start put all your chips on pink?
Then in May 2011 he (Niall Fergson) wrote for The Daily Beast about “The Great Inflation Of The 2010s.”
He actually said in the piece: “Yes, folks, double-digit inflation is back. Pretty soon you’ll be able to figure out the real inflation rate just by moving the decimal point in the core CPI one place to the right.”
This was totally incorrect. Double-digit inflation is not back. Hopefully by this point you don’t need a chart to show you that.
In February 2010 he predicted a Greek crisis was coming to America. Verdict: Wrong.
And in June 2009, he predicted a painful conflict (imminently) between monetary and fiscal policy. Verdict: wrong.
But Andrew Sullivan read Corinthians at his wedding, and Sullivan is an honorable man, so are they all, all honorable men.
Aimai
Fuck him. Aimai Harvard ’82
Patricia Kayden
And he’s married to a Black woman.
muddy
Typical that Sully would pick something from Paul.
Mike in NC
Next up, Fergie predicts a GOP Senate majority in 2014. Whee!
DougJ
@muddy:
Who was born in Somalia.
Heywood J.
There were parts of The Ascent of Money and Virtual History that were interesting, but it seems like Ferguson is getting dumber the more famous he gets.
This one’s for all the pet lovers out there.
Heywood J.
@DougJ: And was the walrus.
hoppipolla
@Aimai: word to ya mutha. Harvard ’77.
it must be said, though, the World’s Greatest University (h/t Alex Beam) has long had a record of dubious affiliations. i briefly worked at the Kennedy School, whose main building was for a time named for white-collar slimeball A. Alfred Taubman. K-School also was quick to give sinecures to cuddlebunnies like José Salinas. and my employer, the Center for Public Leadership, was academic home to Paula Broadwhosie, Petraeus’ paramour.
Baud
You can be conservative or you can be right.
The former is more lucrative.
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
Did you see the lol I made in the honor of the Bigoted Bard of Austerity.
Spaghetti Lee
There will always be a market for doomsaying. “Things are going to remain pretty much the same” doesn’t move product.
Steeplejack
@Heywood J.:
My condolences to you.
NotMax
Like the blind men describing the elephant, he takes one data point and extrapolates it to absurdity.
dexwood.
Really tired of this guy. Almost as tired of hearing/reading about him. He’s a gaping asshole. Once the mockery is done, ignoring hurts him more.
ulee
Fergson is never right and employed. I am occasionally right and unemployed. I need to work on being wrong. Wrong is the new right.
dexwood.
Moderation. Of course. You’d think one could spell a-hole in 2013 without mild censorship.
JPL
@Heywood J.: Miss Moxie and I shed a tear reading your blog. RIP Shadow.
SoINeedAName48
What the FUCK does Niall’s idiocy have to do with Sullivan other than some lame attempt at tangential guilt-association?
Gratuitous bashing – and it’s not at all becoming to a progressive site.
trollhattan
There’s a joke about an economist being someone who correctly predicted ten of the last two recessions, but I can’t draw a parallel with Ferguson because he’s no fucking economist. But, given he seems to be channeling the WSJ opinion pages who are ALWAYS shrieking about incipient hyper-duper-turbo-inflation, I’m confident he’s “good enough” to drop the pretenses and just go to work for Murdoch, already.
Pro tip: gold is very attractively priced right now.
Redshirt
I got in a fight with some Harvard Frat boys, ’91. They were dumb asses and terrible fighters too.
muddy
@DougJ: OMG do they know he’s brown?
trollhattan
@ulee:
I will so go to your seminar if you get this right. (The local Hyatt is nice for such things.)
jrg
It’s almost as if once you reach a certain level, you can’t be expected to take any responsibility at all. I wonder how long it would take me to get fired if I said “Sorry. I can’t pitch that product, the product sucks because the product manager is a fag”.
It’s insane.
ETA: SoINeedAName48 – Sullivan defended him on the dish, and has a reputation for excusing egregious crap if he knows the perpetrator.
JPL
@ulee: Heritage Foundation might be looking for a new hire and the good news is that you have to be wrong all the time.
Ted & Hellen
@SoINeedAName48:
LOL.
Oh, and fuck off.
oldster
@SoINeedAName48:
No, Ferguson’s idiocy has a *lot* to do with Sullivan, because Sullivan once again showed his true colors in his response to Ferguson’s idiocy.
If any one else–say, a liberal, an ordinary American, or someone who was not part of the Oxford Harvard Anglo Pundit Aristocracy–had spouted the homophobic garbage that Ferguson had, then Sullivan would have attacked them relentlessly. Because we all know what a great advocate and defender of gay people Sullivan is.
But no: when one of his close personal friends does it, then all is forgiven. After all, they have known each other since Oxford. After all, they both have connections to Harvard. After all, they are both rich, right-wing, Thatcher-loving pundits.
In which case, Sullivan is happy to betray the cause of gay rights. His first allegiance is to being a Tory hippy-puncher; everything else is less important.
Sean
@SoINeedAName48:
U R dum
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SoINeedAName48: and it’s not at all becoming to a progressive site.
We are becoming a fellow considered unworthy of a dinner invitation.
Mnemosyne
My credit union is currently offering an APR of 1.75% on car loans. No, that is not a typo.
That’s exactly how wrong Ferguson was.
Amir Khalid
@oldster:
I haz a confused. I thought Andrew Sullivan’s first allegiance was to Margaret Thatcher as the object of his Mummy issues.
Yatsuno
@SoINeedAName48: Noted, your concern has been.
(Sully has howler monkeys. Who knew?)
khead
@Heywood J.:
Sorry for your loss.
Patricia Kayden
@SoINeedAName48: Sullivan tried to cover for Ferguson because he’s the godfather of one of Ferguson’s children. Sullivan would have been better off just saying that although they’re friends, he condemns Ferguson’s homophobic comments.
Patricia Kayden
@Heywood J.: She was a beautiful cat.
Narcissus
OT: Anyone else watch Person of Interest?
Soonergrunt
@SoINeedAName48: You haven’t been around here long, have you?
schrodinger's cat
@Heywood J.: {{{Heywood J}}}. My friend has a black kitteh called Shadow, she is 18 and looks just like your Shadow. RIP Shadow, she had a long and a good life.
dexwood.
@Heywood J.:
The ultimate responsibility of all pet caregivers. Tough. My sympathies.
beltane
@Yatsuno: Even better, passive-aggressive howler monkies.
muddy
@Narcissus: I do, but I’m online at the same time, so half watching? I have fun exhorting Jesus to kick ass. “Give him a good smack, Jesus!” etc.
Frankensteinbeck
You don’t understand. Hyperinflation MUST be around the corner, because the country is ruled by a man who doesn’t believe fucking over the poor is The Right Thing To Do! Gutting social spending is a moral imperative, and immorality leads inevitably to a tragic fall.
Yatsuno
@beltane: Fits Sully like a glove. Oh wait he doesn’t use those. My bad.
(I kan haz Moore Award naow?)
eemom
@Aimai:
@hoppipolla:
Yale ’84 here, and damn them for that David Brooks bullshit which prevents me from pointing and snickering.
Eric
@Narcissus: Yes i do. Dvr-ing the season finale. They have gotten quite a lot better with the writing and moral ambiguity.
p.a.
Ferguson may stay lucratively employed despite a history of fail, but let someone point this out while interviewing him in the national media (not bloody likely I know) and they would be gone before the weekend- too partisan, don’t ya know.
Nutella
Ferguson’s been shrieking about evil, evil deficits causing runaway inflation since, oh, about January 20, 2009.
During the Bush II administration he lectured the great unwashed in patronizing tones that deficit spending is the economically wise and sophisticated thing to do.
Whatever could have made him change his mind about this issue? I’m sure it was a careful and thorough course of deep economic study and research. Right?
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Fix’d. Seriously, that’s the root of the “hyperinflation” meme: Zimbabwe and the US both have black presidents, Zimbabwe has hyperinflation, therefore hyperinflation is just around the corner for the US! I mean, just look at the guy in charge, amirite?
Yatsuno
@eemom: I told you the Marine got into Yale Law right? Fucking proud of that big lug I iz. :)
JPL
@Narcissus: Michael Emerson portrayed a character on The Practice that stored body parts in his freezer. He’s a great actor but unfortunately, I’m shallow enough not to forgive him. I watched the first two seasons of lost but couldn’t get over. my biases when he appeared.
Suffern ACE
The doom and gloom. But if he gets it right just once, his star will shine forever. Like Peter Schiff who had that viral video in 2008 where he was arguing with Ben Stein about the mortgage crisis. He gets to walk around the libertarian world still as the guy who called the crisis right! Although he had predicted disaster every year since 1982.
Soonergrunt
@Yatsuno: I see what you did there.
And I’ve got that creepy shaky thing in the spine going on because of it.
Bastard.
ulee
@JPL: But I’m right sometimes. I fear this disqualifies me.
catclub
@Mnemosyne: Wow. I was impressed by the furniture place saying no payments for 5 years.
Yatsuno
@Soonergrunt: Ifn ya DIDN’T see it, I wasn’t trying hard enough. :)
GMann
If someone could clue me in on the whole Corinthians things at weddings I’d appreciate it. . . I had to listen to a pile of that shit after the guy got a little pissed that we asked for an Elvis impersonator to marry us. . . I didn’t know you had to not only pre-schedule Elvis, but that you got to pick which Elvis you wanted. . .
Would have chosen the fat sequined white jumpsuit Elvis. . .
If the limo wasn’t comfortable it would have sucked.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: I think either he or one his minions reads this blog and the comments.
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: The mortgage we’re getting is 3.25% with no closing costs.
Mnemosyne
Totally and completely OT, but we’re getting an interesting and unusual sound in the Valley tonight — thunder.
If we get a genuine thunderstorm, that might almost make up for the freakin’ weather migraine that I started getting when the clouds rolled in.
noodler
OT but, Hey there Juicers,
I passed my Arabic Final at FSI! The DOS methodology leaves a little to be desired, but it worked well enough. A few more training classes before I head to post, including a course called “Crash/Bang” where teh syllabus clearly states: “You may receive a neck injury during certain high impact portions of the course” Fun!
eemom
@Yatsuno:
Splendiforous! You should be proud.
Hell, I didn’t get in there….had to drag my ass to fucking “Ivy of the South” for law school. Speaking of [choke] the so-called “Greeks.” And rich entitled assholes.
Heliopause
@muddy:
Without seeing the original reference I can’t say for sure, but many weddings I’ve been to had a reading from 1 Corintians 13, which is standard-issue stuff about love.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
1 down, a few million to go. On my way out of work, someone was doing the “Obama is buying all the bullets.” With the help of someone else, we managed to convince the guy that no, it wasn’t Obama, it was the bullet horders. Small steps, small victories.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
No, I’m sorry. Yes, there’s a lot of racism (including in the white old boy’s club of the national news media) in the hatred of Obama, but this goes much farther back than that. This is Reagan’s message, and the reason they want him back so badly. He told the whole country that fucking over the poor was morally right, and assholes embraced that message as the core of their politics. Inflation was part of that argument. Inflation was Carter’s fault for trying to help people.
It did help that many of those assholes think ‘the poor’ = ‘black’.
Scamp Dog
@Heywood J.: I have a ten year old Border Collie. She’s still going strong, but she’s probably lived 2/3 of her life, assuming things go well. So I will eventually face your situation, not too long from now.
Condolences on your loss. Shadow looks like a handsome cat, and he made himself a place in your heart.
Narcissus
PoI tonight was the best TV I’ve seen in years, is why I bring it up.
Darkrose
@Heywood J.: My condolences. She seems like a fine lady indeed.
El Cid
A preening, pseudo-intellectual douchebag. He doesn’t care whether his arguments are or aren’t correct. He cares only if they sound right.
He is the living definition of pseudo-intellectual, and instead of the large world population of historians and economists etc. who give a shit, we get assholes like this rewarded, promoted, funded, listened to, etc.
Fuck him.
Yatsuno
@eemom: I think the 178 on his LSAT helped. But all he’s been doing for the last year has been law school prep. He feels like he’s done his first year already and he hasn’t even started. I’m just beaming like a proud papa. :)
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I know it’s been an obsession of the right for a long time, but I think they’ve been able to sell people on the fear of it right now because Obama=Mugabe. Otherwise I have no idea how anyone with half a brain can look at the constantly sinking interest rates and think that hyperinflation is right around the corner.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: Also, the only bad economic thing that can ever ever happen is hyperinflation.
It’s all they can imagine. If they imagine some nightmare world where not just numbers and people they know but they lose their jobs, there must be overinflation somewhere, because what else could it be?
Their economic imagination consists of an image of wheelbarrows full of cash to buy bread and Samuel Jackson riding into their neighborhoods atop a dusty ‘technical’ (i.e., North African civil war term for pickups with weapons mounted in the back) demanding taxes to pay for all the blacks and their free babies.
SFAW
Harvard? I think I’ve heard of that place. Isn’t that a well-known “legacy” and “special kids” school, on the banks of the Muddy Charles? I hear they have good crew teams. As long as Harry Parker is around, that is.
SFAW
Offspring of a female MIT EE, 1940s-vintage (back when women – or wimmins, maybe – weren’t supposed to “do” engineering)
PS: the “special” above is not in the sense of “Special Ed.”
muddy
@Heliopause: I’m always just prejudiced against Paul in general. :) ETA now that I think of it Sully too.
? Martin
I don’t mind that Niall is still employed by Harvard. Lord knows I know my fair share of always wrong and just plain asshole faculty. But generally we just shun them. So my real gripe with Niall is that, due simply to his Harvard employment, the rest of the world doesn’t shun him as his colleagues almost certainly do.
SFAW
@schrodinger’s cat:
Nice job on the poster, except for one thing:
“Long Run”? He’ll be forgotten about a year after Obama leaves office. Well, unless Niall does something noticeable, like blow up a building. But the duration of his fame for his economics and/or insights? About the same as a mayfly.
? Martin
@SFAW: I think the slur you’re aiming for is “school where the upwardly mobile failures of the last generation send their kids to become the upwardly mobile failures for the next generation”
Another Halocene Human
@SoINeedAName48: There, there, Andy, if you concern troll hard enough I’m sure everyone will forget about you and Nially-poo’s youthful dalliances with white supremacy.
Schlemizel
@Heywood J.:
You may have seen the obit I wrote last week for my honey. I still miss her but it is better than it was. I am sorry for your loss. I hope you can smile when you remember that fine girl
Schlemizel
I think there is something odd with this dang chromebook
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: I’m wondering if he has reaching duties. Yeah two chairs, but as a celebrity professor he can’t be asked to shape the minds of our precious future elite? Otherwise, we might need to have Linda Feathergill plant some hemlock in her garden.
Yatsuno
@El Cid: Inflation has much more of an impact for the wealthy. Imagine all those sweet sweet investments losing value because the dollar is weakening. Not to mention all those loans those ungrateful poors have just losing their principal costs! Inflation is the largest ebil to the 1%. It cuts into buying that third yacht for Buffy for her Sweet Sixteen cotillion, and we certainly can’t have that now can we?
SFAW
@? Martin:
Maybe it’s me, but I usually associate the word “slur” with untruths.
But thanks for your explication. I found it helpful.
Heliopause
@muddy:
That’s fine with me but, honestly, I don’t understand why anybody prefers putative Jesus to the documented Paul. Jesus said and did some monumentally assholish things that for some reason don’t register, while Paul, granting his many shortcomings, arguably penned the noblest passage in the entire Bible.
liberal
I think the truly scary thing here isn’t so much hatred of Obama, but that these guys—who are supposed to understand how the monetary system works—don’t understand how it works.
Another Halocene Human
@Suffern ACE: Well, taking the other side from Ben Stein in an argument about finance is the closest thing there is to a sure bet, at any rate.
And you are right about Schiff.
liberal
@Heliopause:
Wasn’t Paul the one who really gets the credit for spreading Christianity at the beginning?
For that alone he should be damned.
El Cid
@Yatsuno: But the fear isn’t confined to the wealthy (even if we assume some of the poors think they’ll be wealthy some day).
Literally, hyperinflation is the only really bad economic thing that they know of.
Therefore it is applied to each and every situation because all they have is a hammer.
Another Halocene Human
@noodler: Good for you! I only know one phrase in Arabic, so here goes: Salaam aleikum, noodler!
different-church-lady
Fuck him. DCL: New England School of Photography ’84
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid: They don’t just think runaway inflation is around the corner, they think it’s happening now and all the numbers are rigged to hide it.
They’ll cite specific sectors where prices have gone up, like food or education, to prove it. But if prices are just going up for specific classes of goods and services, that presumably isn’t because of money-printing, it’s because of something to do with those particular things.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Heliopause:
Whoah, Nelly. You do realize those words in red aren’t actual quotes, right? And that all the NT books were written in all caps with no punctuation, no paragraphs and no chapter/verse markings?
Just saying.
schrodinger's cat
@Yatsuno: Keynes affectionately called them rentiers. Ferguson is a hired lackey of the rentiers. I have a ppt buried somewhere that Niall F. gave predicting hyperinflation in the US. Research was sponsored by Pete Peterson.
burnspbesq
Honorable and stupid are not mutually exclusive.
However, in the case of Mr. Ferguson, I think neither condition is in play.
I think the word I’m looking for is “mendacious.”
Another Halocene Human
@Suffern ACE: There’s hemlock growing in Hemlock Gorge, by Echo Bridge, in Newton. No need to grow your own.
El Cid
@Matt McIrvin: I know.
In fact, I’ve talked with people who talk about inflation and literally mean that they don’t have enough money for something.
Like, they’re not even alleging that the price of something has literally risen.
Their not having enough money for something becomes ‘inflation’.
Not kidding.
schrodinger's cat
@SFAW: Thanks!
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
A) Old conservatives (so, the Village) vividly remember the inflation problems of the 70s.
B) They know in their guts that helping the poor will lead to disaster. Someone on their side said the word ‘inflation’ and they ran with it. Once a shibboleth is established, it is True and needs no proving.
C) Math is hard.
D) As @El Cid said, wheelbarrows full of valueless dollar bills are scary, invoke Nazis, and generally are the kind of image they want to associate with liberal policies so they can feel adult and responsible when they’re being juvenile and selfish.
E) Mugabe is the cart pulling the horse. The vast majority of them have no idea who he is. Inflation for helping poor (irresponsible black) people was already a bugaboo, and Limbaugh’s job is to go ‘See? This other black guy caused inflation!’
noodler
@Another Halocene Human: Good for you! Phase one, enjoy the sindbad video. Glad to see another FSO BJ reader. Where’s your post?
Heliopause
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Whoah, Nelly, you do know what the word “putative” means?
Heliopause
@liberal:
Are you advancing the “Bully Pulpit” version of Christianity?
Cacti
But without upper middle class twits like Sully and Ferguson, who would give us such bold political insights as…
Black people are dumb.
and
Keynesian economics are wrong because Keynes was a fag.
? Martin
@SFAW: Well, there are certainly untruths to it. I wouldn’t consider Aimai to be an upward failure, nor would I consider Obama.
Plus, there’s still Yale and a few others as places for the upward failures to target. Locally, USC is surprisingly good at attracting them as well.
Yatsuno
@? Martin: I’m not sure, but from what I understand Stanford manages to avoid the whole mishegas of having legacies sour their reputation. How they get rid of the stench of Condolezza Rice is a different matter.
Berkeley isn’t in much of a better situation. That law school will always have a nasty stain until they fire John Woo.
Ayn Randy
Saw a Facebook post tonight that said any self-identified Christian who supports President Obama isn’t a real Christian. I haven’t gone to church in years, so I’m not sure what the Sunday sermons are like anymore, but apparently they are vile, mean-spirited and sound like something out of Limbaugh’s opening monologue.
As someone who is still a believer and thinks that we could contain many of the country’s evils through charity and forgiveness, it saddens me so that many apparently mistake the Bible as something to bludgeon people over the head with about how they are destined for hell.
Mnemosyne
@Ayn Randy:
Just in case you (or anyone else) are unfamiliar with Fred Clark at Slacktivist, I recommend you check his blog out. He proves that Facebook post wrong with everything he writes.
mouse tolliver
@oldster:
Sullivan is what Armistead Maupin would call an A-Gay. These were a clique of snobby, judgemental assholes from the Tales of the City series.
scav
@Heliopause: He might possibly have penned a single beautiful passage, but that doesn’t absolve him of the rest of them, nor his not living up to his putative one-off, his general Paulish behaviors and devotees that followed.
dance around in your bones
As usual, haven’t read any comments yet, but had to link this.
Sorry if already linked (nah, not really).
SFAW
@? Martin:
Yes, I meant to exclude Aimai from the broad-brush, thanks for correcting my error.
Aimai
@hoppipolla: a classmate used to call the k school ” the school for mid career dictators.”
pseudonymous in nc
I’m not going to accuse Niall Ferguson of picking the godparents of his children solely because they have prominent media positions, but his children do have some fairly prominent media types as godparents.
Aimai
@SFAW: it’s cool. Harvard has the same number of embarrassing students as any other school. We really don’t think of ourselves as any different than any other place. I’m personally pissed off at ferguson, the entire Econ dept, Larry summers Et al. Because they are dragging down our reputation but its no worse than any large university. Univ of Chicago, for example, had some stunningly awful people. Ditto Stanford.
SFAW
@Aimai:
My kid brother went there. He clued me in to the disaster known as Milton Friedman, long before it became obvious to the rest of the rational world.
SFAW
@Aimai:
Except for MIT. Unless you consider “weird” to be the same as “embarrassing.” [No, I don’t think you do, just trying to pick nits, or split hairs, or somethin’.]
dance around in your bones
David Sedaris is being hysterically funny on The Daily Show, discussing what people wear to his book signings and the informal poll questions he asks them, like “Would you share a piece of pie with another guy?” as a signifier of……something.
Origuy
@GMann:
I think it’s a reference to Corinthians 13; I read it at my sister’s wedding.
different-church-lady
@Aimai: Yeah, except didn’t we just see Harvard bragging about how few applicants they accepted this past year? That means they’re hand selecting all these awful people for some reason…
? Martin
@Yatsuno: Well, Berkeley doesn’t do legacies. But yeah, Yoo was a stunning error on their part. Law isn’t my bag, so I don’t know what Berkeley’s speciality is, but it might have made some sense to bring him there.
Stanford I think manages to avoid it because their influence tends to be on the tech industry more than on wall street or law or government, and those segments all have their own internal codes of conduct. Tech isn’t perfect, but doesn’t have that history of falling upwards (Meg Whitman excepted). And while the tech network is important for advancing, it’s much more personal – you still need to prove yourself.
Bottom line, I think the measure of how much an institution hews to ‘tradition’ correlates to how much of this shit we see. Stanford is relatively forward thinking. They don’t get bogged down in what happened last generation. I think that’s key. And I think that applies very broadly. Penn State tripped over that very problem – Paterno was too highly revered that it made everyone at the institution blind. You can trace a lot of problems at other universities to the same sort of thing. Within UC, Berkeley is definitely the problem child in the ‘tradition’ category. Everyone really kind of hates them because they tend to be such smug assholes.
? Martin
@different-church-lady: And not just that, but institutions like Harvard have their pick of faculty as well. Less prestigious institutions often have to take chances on unknowns or folks with some fault. But Harvard has little such competition. No need to fill the faculty ranks with assholes, or fill the student ranks with children of assholes.
(Honestly, if I could draw up my ideal admissions policy, it’d be to add a single 5 minute interview with their parents. I’d weed out every asshole kid that way, guaranteed. You can spot the problems a mile away just through a little small talk with mom and dad.)
RaflW
@dexwood.:
Hear, hear! Ridicule for another few days, and then drop kick him into ignore-land.
Steeplejack
@Narcissus:
Hell, yes! Thursday night has become my must-see TV night. Person of Interest has reached an awesome level of quality, and Elementary is perking along quite nicely now, after a slightly stumbling start. I recommend both shows.
? Martin
Speaking of universities…
Suzanne
Am I qualified to tell Sullivan and Ferguson to fuck themselves even though I only went to a state school on scholarship?
? Martin
@Suzanne:
I think that makes you exceptionally qualified.
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: A cocktail party would be perfect for that. A little booze and the assholes are really evident. We had an executive that used to take his senior staff out for lunch with drinks on him, got to hear all the dirt after about a hour.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
The funniest part is, in their native country, neither Sullivan nor Ferguson would be considered upper middle class. They had to move away in order to achieve that.
Suzanne
@? Martin: Well, then, from one National Merit Scholar to….well, whatever they are, I studied art and architecture, and I still manage to be right more often. AND I can paint my own selfie and get you out of a building that catches on fire. NYAH NYAH.
dance around in your bones
Woo Hoo! Galaxy Quest is on again!
The hell with Niall and Sully.
Violet
@Suzanne: Of course. But you’re not qualified to be invited to their next soiree. State university grads aren’t the right sort of people.
eemom
@dance around in your bones:
Aha! So glad you’re here….I just watched Streetcar with my visiting 81 year old mom…..and for some unfathomable reason, she is unable to relate to my melting madness for young Marlon.
Oh my GOD he was hot.
dance around in your bones
@eemom:
Really? She couldn’t get into THIS?
Oh well, you and I can melt together :)
eemom
feh, she keeps getting hung up on how bad the Stanley K character was — which for that matter, has happened amongst some of the good folks here when we’ve discussed this matter before.
Am so glad that YOU at least appreciate that raw sexuality, burning forth from a screen more than half a century after being recorded on indifferent black and white film, is not something one encounters every day.
[swoon]
The prophet Nostradumbass
@mouse tolliver: and would call your namesake a “twink”, I’m sure.
dance around in your bones
@eemom:
Yeah, Stanley Kowalski was a bad dude, but what does that have to do with Marlon?! Marlon played him with a smoldering sexuality that almost burns up the screen.
You may not agree with this bit, but I remember Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise having a similar effect despite being a total shit in the end. Not that he’s on Brando’s level, but he definitely made me think “I’d do him”. Despite being old enough to be his mother :)
Roy G.
@Yatsuno: Stanford does have the Hoover Institute attached to it, remora-like. Von Rumsfeld and other assorted neocon criminals are currently in their protective care.
Imo, Stanford’s escape of the legacy Ivy League taint is that they produce smart assholes, a la Peter Thiel.
eemom
@dance around in your bones:
Oh yep indeedy, I would quite agree with that.
I could also proceed from there into a discussion of other selected “I’d SO totally do him” performances….with due regard for the fact that none will ever measure up to that Brando gold standard. Stellaaaaa…..
dance around in your bones
@eemom:
Umm, Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke
Sean Connery in Thunderball made me all squishy as a teenager.
I could go on, I won’t go on.
Bruce S
@eemom:
“recorded on indifferent black and white film”
Black and white film is hardly “indifferent” and Streetcar’s cinematographer was one of the best in the business.
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid:
As opposed to “workers are not getting paid enough”, which seems to be wrongthink.
The Other Bob
So inflation for houses = good, but inflation on everything else = bad? We could use some more inflation, then maybe we would have somewhere other than the stock market to put our money.
I did not realize so many Harvard grads are here. I feel so inadequate.
libarbarian
Come on. Stop picking on Sullivan.
jayjaybear
@Yatsuno: Nah…I’m always up for some Sully barebacking snark. That never gets old. :)
Uncle Cosmo
(slightly o/t)
Hyperinflation Cassandras like Fergie are probably getting a cut (directly or indirectly via their stink tanks) from the clowns like Beck hawking precious metals at monster markups. Pure symbiosis.
Nevertheless, any “measure of inflation” that excludes “the volatile food & energy sectors” is utter bullshit for anyone lacking a six-figure income. Who gives a rat’s ass that today’s $400 flatscreen is bigger & better than one priced at $800 four years ago if it costs twice as much to run it–& twice as much to put food on the table and heat in the house?
And don’t get me started about the career criminals that run health care & health insurance–particularly the fatcat MDs who get fatter ordering bushels of tests at inflated prices from facilities they themselves own in part or full…
My financial planner admitted to me, under direct questioning, that the real rate of inflation is something like 8%. I still think that’s an underestimate.
El Cid
@Matt McIrvin: Remember, the inflation of the 1970s which had the establishment in an uproar was the wage-inflation cycle, which of course had to be crushed, being wages, and the other inflation is now the same in their minds.
So, any time people might start making more money across the board, as opposed to the John Galt heroes they individually imagine themselves to be, it’s horrible, so they oppose it.
They equate everyone earning more money and benefits as the same thing as a wage-inflation spiral, so they don’t want it.
El Cid
@Uncle Cosmo: Generally you want the notion of ‘inflation’ to be longer-term than, say, an energy shock such as a momentary disruption in oil supply or processing.
It’s real, it’s money, I pay it too, I’m not a six figure income, and I see the reasonableness of separating out (which is not the same as ignoring) things like energy and service and food variations from ‘consumer price inflation’.
Of course, maybe people feel better if there is a single, solitary number they can use to determine whether or not they’ll be able to survive over the next few months.
Heliopause
@scav:
I assure you that I’m not some sort of big booster of the man. I was responding to an insinuation that the Pauline portion of the Bible is somehow more dastardly than the rest of it (it isn’t).
Matt McIrvin
@El Cid: I’ve heard this more than once specifically in connection with minimum wage hikes or minimum-income programs: “Why wouldn’t raising the minimum wage just cause inflation that would exactly cancel out the benefit so that we end up where we started in the first place?”
I agree that there’s the potential for that causing some inflation. I would reverse the burden of proof and ask why they think the inflation would be sufficient to exactly nullify the higher wages, since I don’t see any accounting identity that states that it has to be (especially since the only wages directly affected would be those explicitly keyed to the minimum wage, which tend to be lower-paying jobs: the net effect would be to flatten the income distribution a little).
Also, as usual with these arguments, they’re assuming frictionless prices. It’s a lot like the thought experiment that Keynes’ “in the long run we are all dead” quote comes from. If everyone’s wages were exactly raised by the same factor N, and if we then allowed enough time for all prices to adjust as a result, we might end up exactly where we started. But that isn’t what’s being proposed, and, besides, even in that case people might be able to afford more stuff in the short run.
Uncle Cosmo
@El Cid: Let me address your points in detail:
No argument. Two words: moving average. Something every econ major learns about. (Two more words: seasonal adjustment.)
If the “volatiles” are separated out for purposes of determining cost-of-living adjustments, they are being ignored. It’s not like someone living on SS can say, Dang, the price of natural gas just went through the roof! Guess I won’t be heating the house this February! (Actually, they can…they just can’t expect to be in decent health come March.)
Considering that “a single solitary number” pretty much describes the way COLAs are determined, it’s just a tad more serious than “feeling better,” wouldn’t you think?
El Cid
@Uncle Cosmo: The legal determination of COLA is utterly different from what people can think about.
I can think about anything at all, and those thoughts may or may not be reflected in cost of living adjustment calculations.
Whether or not SS COLA’s are determined solely by CPI or other determinants is a political choice, not an economic or statistical choice.
Heywood J.
Hey, I just wanted to thank all of you for your kind words and condolences regarding Shadow. This is one thing I genuinely love about the internets — the abundance of kind people who truly love and appreciate animal companions. Thanks again.