NY Post: Stan Van Gundy’s lack of interest in Knicks’ coaching job goes beyond talent problem

Ok, well no one said we need to send kids back to school. School is not essential to the economy. Kids should stay home.

Wait wait wait, so in this “send everyone back to work before we have hold on the virus scenario because yolo” scenario…we’re telling the same people we might be sending to their deaths “good luck with that whole childcare thing, you’re on your own.”

Likewise, not everyone will go back to work. If you have asthma, lung issues, lupus, are above 60… Whatever. You draw a line. On one side, you need to stay home. On the other, go to work and keep the economy floating.

You should listen to The Daily podcast this morning. They have on a physician talking about how this idea is a complete and utter fantasy. Like I mentioned, kids come home to their vulnerable parents/grandparents, vulnerable populations need essential services delivered, people live in close quarters, etc.

I would almost prefer if everyone making this argument would drop the pretense, as Dan Patrick did last night, and admit they’re sacrificing the vulnerable to get the stock market moving again.

I’d like to see that citation. I am fairly certain they did not run a scenario in which we first quarantine everyone for two weeks and then execute the strategy. I thought it was an either/or.

We haven’t been quarantining for anywhere close to the amount of time it takes to make a dent in this thing! The hospital numbers are still increasing. We haven’t touched the peak yet. We’ve effectively done very, very little so far. Make no mistake, this would be a complete change in strategy, not a reevaluation based on the results of quarantining–we haven’t seen those yet!

Brian,

I’m glad you posted the Van Gundy article. One thing about Stan van Gundy, he seems to just call a spade a spade. It’s not a shock that people think the Nets have more talent than the Knicks or that our organization is dysfunctional. It’s not even wrongs (although there seem to be some ways in which the organization is improving). His family comments are interesting. They suggest that his brother would like to coach again and would consider the Knicks.

Oh, and forgive me for discussing basketball at a time like this.

That’s because we won the war! That’s how you end a depression: global warfare. And at the end, the victor is rich from the spoils and its economy is fixed.

Dude, we weren’t the Nazis. The US didn’t get any “spoils of war” from WWII, unless you think great-uncle Tony’s Luger propped up the economy. Seriously, what the hell? The exact opposite occured: via the Marshal Plan and the Japanese occupation we spent fucktons on victory. The point remains: we can freeze the markets. We can institute price controls. The government can literally pay workers who are out of work – the Tories are covering 80% of salaries! – and force companies who take government help to not fire workers. These aren’t innovative ideas! The US has taken steps like this before and they’ve been effective. We are not doing these things because Republicans are more committed to their ideology than to survival. And oddly, more committed to their ideology than to electoral victory.

It’s not a binary choice, we don’t have to choose between dealing with the virus and the economy.

van Gundy, saying what we’re all thinking. Gives you some hope, you know?

they’re sacrificing the vulnerable to get the stock market moving again

I will admit that is what Trump is doing. That’s never been what I’ve been proposing. Since some readers get that, I’m sorry friend but I trust the fault lies in you for conflating our positions.

I’m saying “this is what we must consider”, y’all are replying “what Trump’s doing is wrong.” Trump’s plan is crony capitalism; it’s socialism for corporations instead of labor. He’s trying to help the market. The market is not the economy.

I think everyone’s economic outlook here is too rosy. You think it’s 6 months of pain until everyone finds new jobs. I’m saying we’re looking at 10-20% of the people in the current economy being left behind forever. A game of musical chairs in which the chairs don’t ever come back.

I’mma close up shop on this one, unless anyone wants to talk about what I’m actually saying and reply with evidence or arguments about our economy’s ability to survive a months long shotdown. I think Grocer has some good points on that which I disagree with but would discuss. But it’s a new day and a new thread. I’m sure we can find something else to discuss in lockdown.

Dude, we weren’t the Nazis. The US didn’t get any “spoils of war” from WWII, unless you think great-uncle Tony’s Luger propped up the economy. Seriously, what the hell? The exact opposite occured: via the Marshal Plan and the Japanese occupation we spent fucktons on victory.

Grocer (and to a lesser extent Z-Man who also ridiculed this point without understanding it), during World War II the US supplied the Allies and got paid in gold. And the Allies were flush with gold having taken all of Germany and Austria’s after WWI, who themselves had become flush leading up to the war. The spoil of the war was the gold reserve we amassed. We became the largest holder of gold in the world. In fact, we held so much gold that we owned more of the world’s wealth than any nation in the history of mankind. Because of this, the world needed to link its currency to ours, and the benefits of that have been immeasurable. It’s why we built the economy we did.

That was the spoil of war.

I gotta say: most of the people here who call other people stupid are doing so because they don’t understand what the person is saying. It’s ok to say “what do you mean by that?” instead of saying “lol you’re an idiot.”

“ The US didn’t get any “spoils of war” from WWII “

C’mon man, really? Control of half the globe politically and economically for 75 years doesn’t count?

Hubert is 100% on point for recognizing that we have to factor in the effects of a probable depression and the global conflicts to follow into any decisions we make to combat the immediate threat.

Like many lurkers on this site, I check in every day because I enjoy hearing takes on stuff from people who are frankly more interesting than most of the people I know in real life:). There’s smart f**king people on both sides! I want to know what knickerblogger as a whole can come up with as a solution to the biggest challenge of our lives

Z man and Hubert are part of what makes this site indispensable and both were compared to Reub in the last thread. Really?

C’mon guys, I need the f**king site to keep my sanity during the best of times. I don’t want to lose it to covid 19

I

Hubert’s argument is certainly valid, but what the Trump admin is doing is not what Hubert is suggesting. He realizes this, so I’m not really speaking to him here.

Point is, the government is not doing enough, not even close, and they’re choosing the “overrun the hospitals and deal with the bad optics of the corpses” instead of “make tough sacrifices to balance safety and economic concerns.” They’re behaving like fucking ghouls.

I don’t expect either of my parents to survive this.

The spoil of the war was the gold reserve we amassed.

Arguments about hard currency aside, this contributed little to the US economy (did it even account for the loans?), didn’t offset any of the US war spending and had no impact on the large amounts we spent in the aftermath to rebuild Europe and Japan*. Which is sort of the point, we can do these things without ‘war spoils.’ If the Fed can drop 3.5 trillion in the markets on short notice, we can help out people who’ve lost their jobs.

*The dollar becoming the world’s reserve currency had a hell of a lot to do with our winning the war and being the largest capitalist economy going, and next to nothing with gold reserves which no one was actually treating forget it, don’t want to start a fiat vs hard battle, Strat’s having a tough time and it’ll give him an aneurysm. Feel better Strat!

We can’t continue to print money and pay people forever.

It’s not going to work. There’s no right answer here. There’s death pain and then there’s economic depression pain. Until people come to grip with the fact that those are the choices, you can’t compute it. That’s why everyone is busy trying to blame someone.

If China’s numbers are actually down, which I personally don’t believe. It is only because they made the choice to literally weld doors shut and sacrifice people going insane, committing suicide, or starving in their homes.

There is going to be major sacrifice. If we were smart, the country wouldn’t have ran up $24 trillion in debt the past 15 years and would be debt free. Then, we could lock everyone in their homes and do a huge stimulus package to pay everyone to sit still. America has been financially inept for years because it has chosen to be. We are reaping what we have sowed and are 100% getting what we deserve in inflexibility. This is the price you pay for irresponsibility and having criminals being politicians.

New day, new thread! I posted something like this earlier but it was swallowed by my shoddy internet.

The Met Opera is doing daily live streams of (already performed) performances! For free, the important bit is that it’s free. Front page on their website, ‘preview’ on their various streaming apps, no need to register. They’re putting one up each day at 7:30 (pm, est) and leaving it up for 20 hours (the link, they aren’t going to cut you off if you’ve already started it). Last week was excellent! This week is all Wagner. Because what we really need in these trying times is Wagner. This is the part where I’m desperately wishing for an eyeroll emogi.

Anyway, it’s pretty great stuff and it’s probably outside the day-to-day of some people here so if you’re looking to break up the monotony of self-isolation/binge watching TV, I strongly recommend this free as in beer thingy. It’s also a quite pleasant thing to put on when you start cooking, and if you’re the sort of person who frowns on TV at the dinner table you can just tell yourself it’s dinner theater.

Hubert: I gotta say: most of the people here who call other people stupid are doing so because they don’t understand what the person is saying. It’s ok to say “what do you mean by that?” instead of saying “lol you’re an idiot.”

That’s one explanation. The other is that you are actually an idiot. I’ll take door #2.

We can’t continue to print money and pay people forever.

I suppose we’ll see! The UK has similar levels of debt relative to economy size, and they’ve made an open-ended commitment to covering 80% of worker’s pay. There’s no actual real world evidence (for a country in our position vs say, Zimbabwe) that debt levels are any sort of problem, so I suspect they’ll manage better than we will. Besides, we can find plenty of debt-financed money for giant tax cuts, bailing out the stock and bond markets, ect. We just don’t want to do it for regular Americans. It is a choice, but it’s not a die starving or sick choice.

BTW, you’re right about the China numbers. They’re claiming not a single member of the PLA came down with it, which is ha, dubious at best. China has a lot riding on the appearance of having done well dealing with coronavirus, and to all appearances it is working well for them in terms of filling the void that lack of US leadership has left.

Fetch: Hubert is 100% on point for recognizing that we have to factor in the effects of a probable depression and the global conflicts to follow into any decisions we make to combat the immediate threat.

DUH!!!!!!! REALLY????? Could there possibly be a more inane point being made? Even the dumbest poster of all time on this site would know that tradeoffs between saving lives now and limiting the economic pain tomorrow should be considered.

Hubert’s endless blathering makes two salient but painfully obvious points:
1) shutting down the economy indefinitely to “flatten the curve” can have irreparable and potentially catastrophic consequences for the national and global economy
2) that possibility should be considered in determining how we should proceed.

His historical references are useless. There is virtually no way to superimpose anything but the, again, painfully obvious policy directives onto this situation. It’s about as apples and oranges as you can get. It boils down to a question of “when” and “how” we do things. Hubert says things like this:

Likewise, not everyone will go back to work. If you have asthma, lung issues, lupus, are above 60… Whatever. You draw a line. On one side, you need to stay home. On the other, go to work and keep the economy floating.

This is about as simplistic of a point as you can possibly make. OF COURSE you should do this at some point! Who the fuck is arguing that you shouldn’t? I.e. that you should one day say “OK all’s well, everyone back to work!”

I don’t see a single thing that Hubert has said that elevates the conversation, other than “Here’s an alternative on the “low near-term floor, high long-term ceiling” side of the debate. Anyone here with half a brain could do that.

I want to know what knickerblogger as a whole can come up with as a solution to the biggest challenge of our lives

lately i’ve been able to curb a bit my insatiable desire for chocolate and weed…truth is – i just can’t get high enough to wash this situation from my mind…this is some seriously sobering shit going on right now…

still going through my cabinets – found some old flour with an expiration date of 2011…yeah, probably not so good anymore…hard to describe the amount of joy i feel from getting my home better organized…too funny – hubert banged that shit out in a day, it’ll take me at least two weeks to get it all together…

honestly fetch – i feel small and unable to effect very much in this situation beyond myself and those whom i love…so, that’s what i’m really focused on…trying to be a good son, god dad and friend…selfish thinking no doubt…

came across this the other day which i may look in to more closely…it’s some “happiness” course which Yale put together and is offering for free:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being?ranMID=40328&ranEAID=EHFxW6yx8Uo&ranSiteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-.uLuPn2MieBhuQZx7IMA2Q&siteID=EHFxW6yx8Uo-.uLuPn2MieBhuQZx7IMA2Q&utm_content=10&utm_medium=partners&utm_source=linkshare&utm_campaign=EHFxW6yx8Uo

take care and stay well fetch…

Basically we can’t print money forever. We have been fiscally irresponsible for the past x years and this is what occurs when there’s a catastrophy and you actually don’t have money. We are Rome.

The Western Empire fell to the barbarians (which is just code for ‘not-Romans’), but it’s worth remembering that the Eastern Empire carried on for, oh jeez, quite a long time. Long enough to develop quite a convoluted bureaucracy, some might even call it byzantine. I mean eventually we’ll run out of trees? But again, there are no examples of a country in our position having actual debt caused difficulties. The Romans got into a tough scrape because they were using hard currency which does lead to issues like that but we’re not talking about that sort of thing out of deference to Strat. But we can, in fact, take significant steps to alleviate the some of economic pain caused by our desire to avoid an overwhelming death toll. Our leadership (and much of the citizenry) simple do not want to for ideological reasons.

This isn’t going to last for forever. We can provide government support for the 4-6 months or whatever it is we need to. We’ve done far more in the past. The idea that we are facing death via disease or death via starvation is false. We simple do not wish to make that choice. But, here’s a thing. Even if that were the choice we were facing, death via disease is worse. Death via disease will lead to, inextolerably, an economic crash. Even if we were to end up in some sort of debt related problem, that would be the least bad outcome.

Grocer: he dollar becoming the world’s reserve currency had a hell of a lot to do with our winning the war and being the largest capitalist economy going, and next to nothing with gold reserves

I wonder if both World Wars not being fought on America soil (Hawaii wasn’t even a state when it was attacked!) or the decision not to enter the war until 1941 (and then taking an additional couple of years to methodically ramp up for it while being relatively safe from imminent attack) had anything to do with it….just a thought!

found some old flour with an expiration date of 2011…yeah, probably not so good anymore

I was gonna say ‘flour can keep for years, it’s probably fine’ then realized that’s horrible advice and I’d prefer you didn’t get food poisoning.

honestly fetch – i feel small and unable to effect very much in this situation beyond myself and those whom i love…so, that’s what i’m really focused on…trying to be a good son, god dad and friend…selfish thinking no doubt…

That’s not selfish, that’s what everybody should be doing. All the time really. There’s not a lot we as individuals are actually in control of. It’s scary, but it’s normal and fine. Keep on keeping on.

You can come back from economic hard times. You can’t really bounce back from death.

Let’s just be very clear about the choices this administration is making. They were late to identify the crisis, did very little to encourage or enforce distancing, and are going to call it off way too soon. When millions of bodies start piling up I don’t want to hear “well there was nothing we could have done.”

There WAS something they could have done. They chose not to do it. They had news cycles to win. This is their legacy, how this turns out. If we go Italy, it’s on them. I’m sure we’re in good hands with the completely unqualified nepotism hire who couldn’t even run a newspaper with any degree of competency.

To supplement Grocer’s post about the Met live streaming from its archives, a friend of mine ( ok I’m a shill, but his info is quite worthwhile) issues emails where he advises of a variety of different theatrical and music events that are live-streaming. Pre-Covid, he would inform about live events and couple each event with worthwhile nearby restaurants.
His email service is by subscription and is free.
Here is a link
https://mailchi.mp/dae5bc4c654f/go-out-2804630?e=4e87eb20b9
Inspired by the discourse on this board and tired of binge-watching TV, I have started to take
free online courses in statistics and probability.

Thanks geo. May your supply of chocolate and weed be never ending!

Grocer, wiser words… thanks for your thoughts.

We’ve talked about schools, and businesses, so here’s another sector to consider:

With 12.3 million paid workers, the nonprofit sector employs more workers than several major U.S. industries. Nonprofits employ twice as many workers as the nation’s transportation, wholesale trade, and finance and insurance industries and 80% more workers than the nation’s construction industry.

Nobody really knows what’s going to happen, but earlier estimates put about a third of museums likely to close for good if this continues for even a little while. Giants like the Met (with a billion-dollar endowment) may be able to weather the storm, but most others operate right on the thin line in the best of times, and with some of the lowest-paid staff outside of the service industry (i.e., getting laid off is a disaster). And given that museums depend largely on ticket sales (gone), and they and most other non-profits depend on donations (which are going to be in, um, short supply during an economic crash and human health catastrophe), it’s not a sector that’s going to spring back, either. Museums and their ilk may ‘just’ be entertainment, but other non-profits are a big part of what’s left of (or replaced) our social safety net for helping the most vulnerable — a proportion of the population that feels like it might be growing as fast as the virus itself.

Hard to believe the NBA shut down only 12 days ago….

Thanks Bo, bookmarked that link.

Grocer,
It is an email service. In order to get updates, one has to subscribe. The link to do so is at the bottom.

I thought everyone might enjoy this, Trump orders increased production of spray tan
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/trump-invokes-defense-production-act-to-mass-produce-gallons-of-spray-tan

the public health risk no one’s talking about: what my pin-straight hair is going to look like, especially over my ears, if I don’t get a professional haircut within the next 2 weeks

Former Johnnie Lee Green passed away from the Coronavirus. Dang. Dude wasn’t even 50.

No pre-existing medical conditions for Lee Green either.

Let’s all go back to work doe!

“Point is, the government is not doing enough, not even close, and they’re choosing the “overrun the hospitals and deal with the bad optics of the corpses” instead of “make tough sacrifices to balance safety and economic concerns. They’re behaving like fucking ghouls.”

The citizenry of NYC, Westchester, Nassua, Suffolk, Bergen and Hudson counties should be under the Wuhan protocols. Non essential personnel should be under complete lockdown. In Wuhan ONE member from each family was allowed on the streets every other day to get all the families needs. The shut down the epicenter of the epidemic in 6 weeks.

The citizenry deserves a substantial non-zero amount of the blame for being such arrogant New Yorkers and not listening to common sense ideas.

H. L. Mencken once wrote….” Nobody ever went broke betting against the intelligence of the American Public”

Interesting factoid on a Sam Harris/ Peter Attia co-podcast yesterday. Within the country of Italy:

Your mortality rate in Milan (deaths per capita) is 40 times the mortality in Rome and 300 times that of Sicily. Different areas of the same country should have different regulations.

The citizenry deserves a substantial non-zero amount of the blame for being such arrogant New Yorkers and not listening to common sense ideas.

Oh absolutely.

I’m seeing mouth breathers on my Facebook page TODAY who are like “what’s the big deal, this is just like the flu, why are we doing all of this.”

There’s more stupid out there than virus.

JK, you gotta curate your FB feed a little bit.

MORE good news….

Mets’ Noah Syndergaard needs Tommy John surgery after tearing UCL

I’m fine with canceling the baseball season

“I’m fine with canceling the baseball season”

Me too…. but neither he nor Severino will be back in form befog the ASB… and his contract runs out at the end of next and the Mets will be looking at paying him a mega extension after 10 starts coming off TJS…. good luck with that.

Z-man: That’s one explanation. The other is that you are actually an idiot. I’ll take door #2.

Z-Man your rage is pretty alarming. And frankly you seem kind of obsessed with me. I hope you feel better, man. You otherwise seem like a nice guy.

I looked at Syndergaard’s stats and forgot why he missed 2017. Oof:

After missing a start with what was diagnosed as biceps tendinitis, Syndergaard refused to undergo an MRI. That proved to be a costly mistake, as he tore his right lat in his next start against the Nationals.

refused to undergo an MRI

Metsy

But again, there are no examples of a country in our position having actual debt caused difficulties.

This would be my issue with your argument, Grocer. It takes our position for granted.

I’m always looking for the discounted risk. This one’s pretty huge. If we lose our position, we can turn into Greece pretty quickly with that kind of philosophy.

Interlude:

was driving back from target this morning and had a thought…that thought was that the word shit is just so much more effective in communication than using the word stuff…stuff just sounds lazy…shit has an almost lyrical quality…it’s also got a whole lot more meanings…

i remember as a kid, mom was pretty blunt and plain spoken, got to say of all the cuss words available – asshole seems to be her favorite…

my dad was just foul…never forget one time we were hiking in some cliff dwelling canyon place in new mexico…i remember there was trees and a river there at the bottom…the river ran red…for those familiar with the area – it’s a sight to see…even more startling …i think i was just turning 17…always been a bit of happy go lucky person…dad had this biker/mountain man look to him, he had my by about 5 or 6 inches in height… dad and i were walking along this really pretty place and he suddenly stopped and looked at me all serious and all: are you trying to mindfuck me son?

i was so startled, i’m pretty sure i didn’t even answer the question…

all this to say – been watching the weather a bit more closely lately – hoping the fire of the sun will help and come burn this shit away…

I gotta give the ringer a ton of credit for this one:

Readily available across the web, high-level swimming videos are the perfect distraction in this strange time. And there’s no better place to start than the rise of Ian Thorpe and Michael Phelps.

https://www.theringer.com/2020/3/24/21191822/social-distancing-diaries-olympic-swimming-ian-thorpe-michael-phelps

Very, very watchable.

I think the 4×100 relay in 2008 is on the shortlist for the greatest moment in American sports history

Hubert: Z-Man your rage is pretty alarming. And frankly you seem kind of obsessed with me. I hope you feel better, man. You otherwise seem like a nice guy.

I am. Apologize for being an asshole in the past. And say less dumb shit. That should do it.

If we lose our position, we can turn into Greece pretty quickly with that kind of philosophy.

The position being a large economy who controls their own currency. It’s not a position we can involuntarily lose. Greece is a small economy that does not control their own currency, who suffered the additional bonus of tourism being a significant part of their economy at the moment of an economic downturn. In the case that the US ends up in a situation like Greece did, it’s going to be because of far worse problems than too much government debt. There are no examples of a country in anything remotely like the position the US is in that has experienced anything like what you are worried about.

On the other hand, as you have pointed out, the danger from the virus is very real, as is the danger from what we must to to contain the virus. We can take concrete steps to alleviate the second while we are in pursuit of the first. What you are concerned about is triggering what to all appearances is a bogey-man, while we are facing two very real crises*.

To your credit Hubert, I believe you are legitimately concerned about this. Many are! But considering how quick they were to throw trillions of debt-financed money at the markets (plus debt-financed tax cuts for the wealthy, ect ect) I do not believe that the powers that be are concerned about this. They refuse to act out of purely ideological reasons. Like the lovely Lt. Gov. of Texas, they are completely prepared to sacrifice people to save the economy**.

*Another word I’ve had to learn how to spell. Thanks, world.

**Which makes no sense. If we don’t contain it the rest of the world will cut us off, which will crash the economy anyway. Also, cannot be good for their election prospects.

Z-man: I am. Apologize for being an asshole in the past. And say less dumb shit. That should do it.

We all get that rush when someone challenges us. I’m no stranger to it. Raven got me worked up last night, for sure. Someone calls you out, you rise up. But for me, at least, it ends when I go to sleep. Every day I log in is a clean slate, and I usually feel a little embarrassed for getting so worked up the night before. Let’s let it go. You’re a good man.

Hubert: we can turn into Greece pretty quickly with that kind of philosophy.

Case in point. This is nothing but hyperbole . Greece was in the lottery of the EU standings in good times. We have enormous resources built in to our economy, beginning with vast agricultural, geological, technological and geographical advantages that Greece never had…well maybe they did back in the days of Aristotle.

It’s not a position we can involuntarily lose.

I don’t know, man…. I think we can lose it in the next 6 months if this virus goes sideways on us.

(Obviously it would take longer than that, but the die could be cast.)

JK, you gotta curate your FB feed a little bit.

delete facebook

I am.

now, that was kind of vague…was the answer for:
a). barely able to contain an “alarmingly” rage which boils within you
b). obsessed with hubie beyond any kind of regular normal annoyance and dislike
c). feeling better – from whatever
d). a nice guy (we already know you’re a good guy, maybe not so important to be nice too)
e). all of the above

I mean, look. Yeah, sure, there are hard decisions that will need to be made that balance health concerns and economic concerns. I don’t think anybody is denying that.

But I think it’s time even for Trump supporters to come out and say that the idea of going back to work in a week, the “Kill Granny” plan, is not the correct balance. It would be a massive tragedy. It’s a horrible idea. Trump needs to hear this from somebody besides “the libs.”

I hope his supporters can be honest about what a huge and devastating mistake he’s making.

geo: now, that was kind of vague…was the answer for:
a).barely able to contain an “alarmingly” rage which boils within you
b).obsessed with hubie beyond any kind of regular normal annoyance and dislike
c).feeling better – from whatever
d). a nice guy (we already know you’re a good guy, maybe not so important to be nice too)
e). all of the above

lol

man that fucker is evil – picked easter as his timeline for when all will be good…so freaking sad…wish he would just stick to leg humping the rich and redneck…leave the folks of faith the hell alone…

I hope his supporters can be honest about what a huge and devastating mistake he’s making.

– larry hogan – maryland governor
– not sure his name- but: “3rd ranking”(?) republican senator

that asshole is going down, and sadly he’s going to try and take a lot of folks with him…

Z & G, don’t get too caught up in the literal comparisons between our economy and Greece. The only point of the comparison is that a government that prints its own money can be called upon to pay its debts. It doesn’t matter if one economy is vastly stronger than the other if the amount of debt is equally vastly larger. It’s the ratio that matters.

To believe we can never be called upon to pay our debts means you believe we’re invincible to all aggressive actors. I don’t believe that.

As for your other point, Grocer, I agree (and further think it’s blindingly obvious) that if we’re going to print money it should be for the labor force, not the corporations.

hey hubie…for some reason i’m having a heck of a time finding the resource – but, do you have a link to the debt the united states has to other countries…i used to know it, but, it’s been a while since i cared and i can’t find it now…

I don’t, geo. I know Japan has the most and China has the 2nd most. Both over $1TN (which is about 5%). The UK is a very distant third… I have no idea how much they hold, or who comes after them,

A lot of the implications of what you do depend on your status relative to what other countries are doing. Everybody’s currency is going to take a hit in a global pandemic. International commerce is such that countries are more interdependent than ever before. An economic collapse in the US would decimate China and Europe, and by extension Russia and all of their friends. The people of USA and Europe are the great consumers that drive the global economic engine. That isn’t true of Greece, Argentina, or any country that went into hyperinflation/deflation catastrophe in recent years.

In my opinion, the key to digging out of the 2020 depression (and for sure it will be that for a period of time) is to restart the engine of consumer demand. Hard to say whether printing money and waiting longer will backfire but I think it’s wiser to roll the dice on that than to prematurely relax extraordinary social distancing measures and risk an even longer double dip at the cost of thousands of lives. The rest of the world will wait patiently for the Great American Consumer to start buying shit again, they have no choice.

JK47: But I think it’s time even for Trump supporters to come out and say that the idea of going back to work in a week, the “Kill Granny” plan, is not the correct balance. It would be a massive tragedy. It’s a horrible idea. Trump needs to hear this from somebody besides “the libs.”

From his POV:

he barely has a nonzero chance of being reelected if he listens to the doctors.

so he rolls the dice on the hurricane not making landfall in the high impact area. he probably has decent odds; these things are hard to project. He can make the wrong decision and be bailed out by a gust of wind.

And if he does get bailed out by luck… If he’s the guy who defied the experts, saved the economy, and benefits from an outcome that’s not statistically improbable… he’s invincible.

so from that warped perspective, one in which he has no duty to serve his country and only his reelection matters, he’s making the right call.

One very underrated part of Obama’s plan to dig out of the banking crisis was ARRA. Considering that congress and this monstrosity of a president have been sitting on an infrastructure bill, one way out of the crisis would be to invest heavily in high-speed rail, charging stations, erosion control, etc. Not necessarily a Green New Deal, but something along those lines. First we need a president who doesn’t think that if the wind calms, your TV won’t work.

Hubert: so he rolls the dice on the hurricane not making landfall in the high impact area. he probably has decent odds; these things are hard to project. He can make the wrong decision and be bailed out by a gust of wind.

It would take more than a “gust of wind” to bail him out. It would take a collective miscalculation by the entire world community of infectious disease experts. It is a near mathematical certainty that pulling the plug on social distancing in 2-3 weeks will like blowing oxygen on a smoldering fire.

Trump is the mayor of Amity, all he needs is the blazer with the little anchors printed all over it.

went to target this morning with the mask and gloves on…was kind of surprised to see that a lot of folks weren’t really geared up – but, considering how quickly masks disappeared recently, may not really be so unexpected…

store looked in better shape for supplies than it did last week, right now it’s the only store i’m going to, and, my trips should be less frequent going forward…picked up a few items for mom…thankfully she already mostly has everything…

got an idea from my sister…she’s a serious extrovert, when we were talking she mentioned going to the park to meet a friend, both of them brought their own chairs and stuff…

figure i can do the same and just sit outside of mom’s garage and just keep my distance…mask up, glove up and spray myself and a few supplies down with lysol…

It would take more than a “gust of wind” to bail him out. It would take a collective miscalculation by the entire world community of infectious disease experts. It is a near mathematical certainty that pulling the plug on social distancing in 2-3 weeks will like blowing oxygen on a smoldering fire.

Trump is the mayor of Amity, all he needs is the blazer with the little anchors printed all over it.

+1

Which is why blowback from his actual supporters is the only thing he’s really going to understand. I get it, some people love the tax cuts and the cultural stuff but this is horrific for all of us. It’s a terrible idea in ways that go far beyond partisan concerns.

You can’t BOTH get a late start and ALSO pull the plug early on social distancing and hope you’re just gonna get a lucky break and it doesn’t turn out too bad. It WILL turn out bad.

I just had to lecture both of my parents about social distancing and break it down for them that if they go to a hospital with this their old asses are going to die. They will be denied a respirator and will die gasping for air in a hospital hallway. This isn’t fucking fun and games.

I just stocked up at Sam’s…they had everything I needed but dishwasher pods. Plenty of TP though!

It would take a collective miscalculation by the entire world community of infectious disease experts.

Yes, that’s the “gust of wind” that he’s counting on. He’s betting on the experts being wrong bc this is hard to project.

It would take a collective miscalculation by the entire world community of infectious disease experts.

Yes, that’s the “gust of wind” that he’s counting on. He’s betting on the experts being wrong bc this is hard to project.

In this case, the gust of wind would have to be something like more people stayed home than experts anticipated.

JK47: I just had to lecture both of my parents about social distancing and break it down for them that if they go to a hospital with this their old asses are going to die. They will be denied a respirator and will die gasping for air in a hospital hallway. This isn’t fucking fun and games.

You think that’s hard, try talking your 20yo kid out of getting together with his HS friends who are all home from college until next fall.

$6 trillion stimulus coming….

bidiong the not so great:
$6 trillion stimulus coming….

And that’s just for Boeing.

“From his POV:

he barely has a nonzero chance of being reelected if he listens to the doctors.”

If they went to a “full Wuhan” quazi martial lay enforced stay at home order it would be over in 6 weeks.

Besides that his recent polling is exceptional:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_of_president_trumps_handling_of_the_coronavirus-7088.html

https://news.gallup.com/poll/298313/president-trump-job-approval-rating.aspx

Note in the latest week according to Gallup Trump has picked up 8% among Independents and 6% among DEMOCRATS. That hardly implies a close to zero chance of re-election….

“Full wuhan” isn’t the call right now, Bob. The doctors are telling him to shut it down for months. That’s the scenario I didn’t think he could get reelected in.

But I admit I had not looked at his polling numbers in a long time. You’re right, they have spiked. I’ll take the L on that.

I know Japan has the most and China has the 2nd most. Both over $1TN (which is about 5%). The UK is a very distant third… I have no idea how much they hold, or who comes after them,

But it isn’t as if they are going to suddenly doorstep us. They hold US debt the same way Americans hold US debt: Treasury bonds. And Americans hold a fuck load more US debt than anyone else does. Also we can literally print money to pay them off when they come due. Long term I guess folks could stop, you know, buying US debt, but since it is the least risky financial instrument in the world I don’t think fears that we are anywhere near some sort of debt spiral are a concern at this point. Particularly in light of the harm not bolstering folks finances is going to cause.

Trump is getting a “rally around the flag” effect right now that will vanish real quick if a million plus bodies start piling up.

And that’s just for Boeing.

and it’s insane. it’s enough money that if you just gave it directly to people we’d be fine for months re: rent, bills, ect.

Easy mark, bamboozled by a grown infant rapist racist with Narcissistic Personality Disorder

New York may have done a terrible job in the beginning but we’re covering all the bases now:

https://nypost.com/2020/03/24/nyc-declares-war-on-rim-jobs-in-graphic-health-department-memo/?utm_campaign=iosapp

**“so he rolls the dice on the hurricane not making landfall in the high impact area. he probably has decent odds; these things are hard to project.”**

He tried projecting hurricanes already.
He was bad at it, but couldn’t admit it.

Grocer, I’m pretty sure I did the math wrong (that is a fuckton of zeroes), but I get a little over 18k per person in the US. Which means since I have a wife and child, we’d get $54,000! I am all in on this.

yes, let’s just nationalize them, build a better highway and rail system – and, send me the money…

bob, who in fact is not from neptune city, new jersey, for the life of me, i can’t remember why i’ve been there before – you seem a whole lot smarter than the average bear…

trump makes our fearless owner jimmy larry d. seem like a good guy…he neither passes the eye or stat test…

you also seem like a decent enough human being…you know, it’s hard to really know one another in this environment, but, your thoughts, words and behavior are pretty consistent over a period of time…i totally believe you have to believe it’s essential people are accountable and responsible for their words and actions – whether that’s a result of some kind of faith or simple common courtesy…

i don’t know, maybe this is just a donkey versus elephant thing…i can almost kind of get that…although, trump even makes donald sterling look kind of okay from an ethical and moral standpoint…that’s not good…

he is damned by his own words…what’s crazy about that – it is literally like every day he does it too…

maybe your words would be a little better received (i don’t think you really care about that kind of stuff – nor should you) from a pachyderm’s point of view…

“bob, who in fact is not from neptune city, new jersey, for the life of me, i can’t remember why i’ve been there before”

Jersey Shore Medical Center is the only reason to be in Neptune.

And Americans hold a fuck load more US debt than anyone else does.

Do you have a source for this? I thought it was the opposite. Most US government bonds are owned abroad.

i think it was in fact a nightclub…i was at monmouth, and it was one of the longer drives i would take to hang out…there were plenty of bars in long branch, but no real clubs…

i went there a couple of times on my own, a couple of times with friends…i remember my favorite song to listen to heading down there was luther when his was with change…

The fed holds a shit ton of the debt, which is essentially Americans holding the debt.

“trump makes our fearless owner jimmy larry d. seem like a good guy…he neither passes the eye or stat test…”

I would dispute this quite strenuously. There is a boatload of stats that support Trump.Trump IMO is a prick and a despicable human. That is easy to stipulate. That is hardly disqualifying to be president. Clinton was spewing jizz wads all over the oval office and was credibly accused of rape (certainly worse than anything Trump has done, but that did not stop him from being an above average executive.

Trump has accomplished things Democrats used to aspire to:

No foreign excursions. No assassinations of US citizens without due process. Drawing down on foreign excursions.
Improve the status of blacks and hispanics (all time record low unemployment among these groups).
Spear headed legal reform to release (mostly minorities) with excessive sentences for non-violent crimes.

And other things most objective Americans should be in favor of:

Vanquished the JV (Isis) team and tier Caliphate…
Took out two awful terrorists
Lorded over the most booming economy in the history of the country.
Made the Euros put up more money for their own defense.
Addressed the untenable situation with China
Opened a dialogue with NK

And did all this while being harassed By Mueller when the only person that actually colluded with a foreign national to influence the out come of the 2016 election was Clinton and withstood the lol impeachment inquire.

Solid! Yo!

“Easy mark, bamboozled by a grown infant rapist racist with Narcissistic Personality Disorder”

That’s quite the inane word salad you’ve concocted there self proclaimed boy genius…….

Survival of the fittest ?
Or
One for All and All for One ?
I’ll go with the French (Dumas).
Feels more decent to me.
Even if its fiction.
And as another French(Camus) wrote in his book ‘the plague’:
“It may seem a ridiculous idea, but the only way to fight the plague is with decency.”

Karl-Antony Towns’ mother has been diagnosed with the coronavirus and is currently in a coma, the NBA star revealed in an emotional Instagram video late Tuesday night.

As an outsider I find this fascinating. Owner of one of the most profitable franchises in the NBA vs. the president of America. Both Laissez-faire-ish in terms of governing, along with some personal takes.

I personally believe it is the same principle: The Knicks is great is because it’s New York; The US is going well it’s because it’s the US. Trump has the leverage to do the things he did because the USA backs him up not because he gets things done. There are all kinds of accomplishments any president could achieve in their term if you count them now, just because it’s the US. Coming from where I am, hearing Chinese state media boosts our dear leaders’ accomplishments day by day 365 a year all my life for Jiang, Hu, and Xi, I have taken dislike for any leader who does the same, no matter these things are his doing or not.

Because no matter how great they are, they did not stop things from happening, or worse facilitated them. 911, or Iraq, or 2008 recession, or COVID-19, or tiananmen, or whatever. You only need to judge a nba team with its win-loss record. I really wish the world is that simple.

Karl Anthony Towns’ mother diagnosed with Covid and in a medically induced coma: https://www.instagram.com/tv/B-JMTMeJhi6/?igshid=8fmvf0f35qld

Bidiong, since you didn’t provide a source I looked it up. Per Wikipedia “At the end of 2018, debt held by the public was approximately 76.4% of GDP,[7][8] and approximately 29% of the debt held by the public was owned by foreigners.[9]”. The 29% is less than than I thought but still a lot more than you implied. There is some government debt that is from one part of the US government to another, but it’s small compared to th US debt held by the public. See

Clippers owner Ballmer buys the Forum from MSG for $400M

Hopefully this is a consolidation before a sale………………..

Somewhat off-topic:
According to reports, Dolan settled his cluster of litigation with Balmer and will sell the LA Forum to him. It begs the question, what was the catalyst? Leon Rose mediating? A sudden change in character due to current events?

Bob beat me to it. Choice 3, the optimal one.

Unfortunately Spain turns into Italy day by day…

Stay strong knickheads!
This shit ain’t over till it’s over.

bobneptune:
There is a boatload of stats that support Trump.Trump IMO is a prick and a despicable human. That is easy to stipulate. That is hardly disqualifying to be president. Clinton was spewing jizz wads all over the oval office and was credibly accused of rape (certainly worse than anything Trump has done, but that did not stop him from being an above average executive.

Trump has accomplished things Democrats used to aspire to:

No foreign excursions. No assassinations of US citizens without due process. Drawing down on foreign excursions.
Improve the status of blacks and hispanics (all time record low unemployment among these groups).
Spear headed legal reform to release (mostly minorities) with excessive sentences for non-violent crimes.

And other things most objective Americans should be in favor of:

Vanquished the JV (Isis) team and tier Caliphate…
Took out two awful terrorists
Lorded over the most booming economy in the history of the country.
Made the Euros put up more money for their own defense.
Addressed the untenable situation with China
Opened a dialogue with NK

And did all this while being harassed By Mueller when the only person that actually colluded with a foreign national to influence the out come of the 2016 election was Clinton and withstood the lol impeachment inquire.

I supposed enough people could be sold on these largely bullshit takes (I won’t waste my time refuting most of the points you make, hopefully you are intelligent enough to acknowledge that each is refutable) to get him re-elected. But the primaries are suggesting that conservative Dems, independents, and centrist Republicans are motivated and likely to fall Biden’s way, including Obama voters who couldn’t pull the lever for Hillary. I think Biden will win convincingly by taking most of the swing states Clinton lost.

As of last year Dolan really, really didn’t want to sell the Forum to Ballmer. He even backed an insane mayoral candidate in Inglewood who believes in ‘biblical governance’ just because he was pissed at the current mayor for backing Ballmer’s revitalization plan.

I wonder what changed. Don’t think that Dolan is suddenly ‘poor’ but he probably wasn’t very liquid before the sale. Any idea what he would need all that cash for?

Really hoping it’s a consolidation like Bob said. Would be the best off season in Knicks history if true.

I stopped communicating with a good friend a few years ago over “politics”…probably the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have…we still talk occasionally, but the conversation is much more brief and light/superficial…

it started with obama… man did he hate that man…then he started spouting some of the trump rhetoric…

I just was never able to see his point of view…he’s a puerto rican dude from new york (lives in florida now)…

actually have another hispanic friend (who I’ve grown apart from – for other reasons though) who’s mom and dad are from nicaragua (same place mom’s people are from) whom strongly support trump…

really surprised and disappointed “brown” folks would have some of those same views as trump…can’t understand how they don’t understand – trump ain’t your friend and he ain’t on the side of women and folks of color…

I’ll normally stay away from politics just because it, much like folks’ faith, money in the bank and their sex lives are none of my business really…

I guess differing views regarding some political and social issues triggers trust issues for me…

a despicable human

That is hardly disqualifying to be president.

i think it should be…i’d take less competence and a stronger ethical base any day…

“I supposed enough people could be sold on these largely bullshit takes (I won’t waste my time refuting most of the points you make,”

C’mon…. Bullshit takes???? Of course you will demure because the facts on the ground are indisputable and make you look silly. If you have an contrary argument BASED ON FACTS NOT SMARM bring it. it is perfectly demonstrable the economy was flying beyond any reasonable definition, minority unemployment was at record positive levels, he spear headed judicial reform that largely helped minorities, vanquished the JV Caliphate etc, etc, etc….

Facts are damn nasty things

“i think it should be…i’d take less competence and a stronger ethical base any day…”

I assume you voted for Bob Dole and Bush 41 then, correct?

“really surprised and disappointed “brown” folks would have some of those same views as trump…can’t understand how they don’t understand – trump ain’t your friend and he ain’t on the side of women and folks of color…”

Are all “brown” folks supposed to see life through the prism of your eyes… how unbelievably condescending. You are somehow surprised that people who fled the Sandinista’s somehow aren’t crazy about the party that took the suction cups off Fidel’s regime…. WOW

Trump has done more for citizen and legal resident brown folks than any president since the 1960’s…. Jesus.

A funny gallow’s humor sort of anecdote today.

As I have said many times here I have been in total lock down here in Palm Beach county for 3 weeks. Never set foot out of our home and the wife gave up bridge 2 weeks ago. I’ve been assiduous at reducing risk. I’ve had the groceries delivered and I haven’t left the house.

Well I finally ran out of blood pressure med and had to go to publix to get a refil. I figured I’d go exactlt when they open at 9 am to try to minimize risk.

I get there and there is one old 85-90 year old coot in front of me….. fine. I give him a wide birth…. maybe 10-12 feet and the store is so empty I can still hear the dialogue between him and the gal at the counter….

“How can I help you sir,” says the pharmacist….

Old coot replies (and I shit you not), “I’m here to pick up my Z-Pack and hydroxy Chloroquine…”

I about platzed…..

Clippers owner Ballmer buys the Forum from MSG for $400M

Hopefully this is a consolidation before a sale………………..

Sell the TEAM!!!!! Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!Sell the TEAM!!!!!

I think this is just the normal shit these people do in these times. The forum is a sunk cost in a time of social distancing. $400mm is a great price (MSG bought it for $23mm and spent $100mm on renovation). That’s a lot of cash to redeploy at a great time to have cash.

I supposed enough people could be sold on these largely bullshit takes (I won’t waste my time refuting most of the points you make, hopefully you are intelligent enough to acknowledge that each is refutable) to get him re-elected. But the primaries are suggesting that conservative Dems, independents, and centrist Republicans are motivated and likely to fall Biden’s way, including Obama voters who couldn’t pull the lever for Hillary. I think Biden will win convincingly by taking most of the swing states Clinton lost.

It certainly won’t be a landslide, but yeah, I don’t know how you can possibly look at Clinton’s narrow loss in 2016 (despite her positive/negative differential being highly negative, while Biden’s are basically even), the Blue Wave in 2018 made up of specifically the moderate voters who didn’t go for Clinton showing up in force to vote Democrat and then those same moderate voters coming out in big numbers in the primary for Biden and think that the odds don’t support Biden right now. Certainly doesn’t mean that he has it on a lock, of course, but the odds are in Biden’s favor. Heck, Biden really just needs to win three states that Clinton lost (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) to win and he’s currently polling ahead of Trump in all three (plus North Carolina, where he actually has a bigger lead than he does in Wisconsin). It’s not like Trump is turning any blue states red in November, so it’s just about whether Trump can hold on to half of those four battleground states that he won in 2016 (Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina). If he does, he wins. If he loses three of them, he loses.

bobneptune: C’mon…. Bullshit takes???? Of course you will demure because the facts on the ground are indisputable and make you look silly. If you have an contrary argument BASED ON FACTS NOT SMARM bring it. it is perfectly demonstrable the economy was flying beyond any reasonable definition, minority unemployment was at record positive levels, he spear headed judicial reform that largely helped minorities, vanquished the JV Caliphate etc, etc, etc….

Facts are damn nasty things

You are such an easy mark, bob. Here’s a fact for you from the Associated Press:

“The most dramatic drop in black unemployment came under Obama, when it fell from a recession high of 16.8 percent in March 2010 to 7.8 percent in January 2017.”

What’s your response to that one, genius? Come up with a good (and if possible, non-racist) answer and I’ll happily engage you on the next point, although why bother, since your head is so far up Trumps ass that you are totally devoid of objectivity.

Trump has done more for citizen and legal resident brown folks than any president since the 1960’s…. Jesus.

i.e. those genetically low-IQ brown folks just aren’t capable of understanding how great Trump has been for them!

Someone so focused on “facts” should maybe do a better job of explaining in specifics how “Trump has done more for citizen and legal resident brown folks than any president since the 1960’s.”

Also, seems to me Bob’s phrasing it that way to exclude the whole Dreamer saga and Trump’s disgusting rhetoric about illegal immigrants. Kind of hard to see Trump as a champion of the “brown folks” when you take into account his talking points on the shithole countries full of rapists. Or are we pretending he never said any of that?

it is perfectly demonstrable the economy was flying beyond any reasonable definition, minority unemployment was at record positive levels

It’s also perfectly demonstrable that he became president in the middle of an economic cycle that was brought about by federal policies (from outside the executive branch) long before he was elected. Unemployment is a lagging indicator that points to activity from years past.

That’s quite the inane word salad you’ve concocted there self proclaimed boy genius…….

Right, because telling you that you’ve been thoroughly programmed by Fox News means I’m declaring myself a genius. Uh huh.

bobneptune: “How can I help you sir,” says the pharmacist….

Old coot replies (and I shit you not), “I’m here to pick up my Z-Pack and hydroxy Chloroquine…”

I about platzed…..

Ha! I did get a good chuckle out of this, under the presumption that you will be fine, of course.

This is a president who visibly smirked when told that Mitt Romney was quarantined for Covid-19. And when asked “What do you tell people who are scared?” replied “You’re a terrible reporter”

But hey, that’s just Trump being Trump.

“You are such an easy mark, bob. Here’s a fact for you from the Associated Press:

“The most dramatic drop in black unemployment came under Obama, when it fell from a recession high of 16.8 percent in March 2010 to 7.8 percent in January 2017.”

Are you actually a middle school principal or am I mistaken, because if that is the case it explains the low math scores nationwide. I know you can’t possibly be this willfully obtuse. Using your statistics:

Black unemployment stats 1/2017 = 7.8%

Black unemployment stats 3/6/2020 = 5.8% hispanic unemployment stats 3/6/2020 = 4.1%

Even the slowest of the slow boys knows 5.8% <<<<<<< 7.8% by a factor of about 25%

Feel the pwnage my friend!

And doing a deeper dive just to show how duplicitous you are and willfully deceptive I looked at the black unemployment rate under Bush 43 in January of 2007… you know what it was…. 7.9%

So to recap…. Black unemployment was at 7.9% under Bush 43 in january 2007 before the great recession. and peaked at 16.8% in 2010. After 8 years of Obama he left with in the same place as it was with BUSH pre financial crisis.

You cherry picked a point in the great recession to give the maximal spin to your argument while being disingenuous and neglecting to mention Obama's great success returned black unemployment rates to the point they were previously in 2007 under a moron. Great argument.

So yes…. I AM A PROUD MARK who is dumb enough to understand clearly a 5.8% black unemployment rate is much , much better than a 7.8% unemployment rate!!!!!

I see my friend you are going to have to learn the hard way to avoid debating me on facts like meat shuns the grinder…….

Seriously, didn't they teach you in principal school that 5.8% <<<< 7.8% …. you know…. that decimal thingy maths stuff?

Yeah…. I’m the one who is a drone…. got it…. seriously thanks for the heads up.

Here’s a breakdown of US debt in case anyone is still interested. Numbers from last year. Fun facts: SS Admin holds more than any other specific entity (SS collects more than they pay out and they park the extra in bonds), intragovernment holdings account for around a quarter over all. Foreign entities hold around a third. Japan is the largest of these, China is the second largest, together they hold around a third of that category, so around 1/6 of the total together. If you bundle together the SS assets and the bits held by pension funds, it comes in at just below half the total. So almost half of US debt is the US retirement fund. When conservatives occasionally froth about wanting to default on the debt that is why.

Why no one should worry about foreign debt:
US debt comes in the form of Treasury bills, notes, bonds, inflation protected securities and special state series. Everybody owns the same shit. The US didn’t sidle up to China and Japan in an alley all “I just need enough to make it till the first, you know I’m good for it.” It will pay out to them the way it pays out to everyone else. The US will never be involuntarily incapable of paying. We can always print cash and hand it out.

There’s a Getty quote, “If you owe the bank 100 dollars that’s your problem, if you owe the bank 100 million dollars that’s the bank’s problem.” There is nothing wrong with foreign governments owning US debt. Every single bond is a reason for them to want our economy to stay stable and strong. It’s more complicated, naturally, but it doesn’t come with many downsides in our case.

A guide to word salads:

Easy mark – person easily deceived or swindled, a term used for the targets of con men

bamboozled – fooled, the verb form describing what happens to easy marks

by a grown infant – he’s physically mature, but mentally the equivalent to a human child aged 2 or 3

rapist – he self-admittedly grabs women by the p*ssy

racist – he’s called Mexicans criminals, currently inciting violence against Asians, and supported white nationalists

Narcissistic Personality Disorder – clinical disorder in the DSM, refers to people who only care about themselves and no one else, cannot handle criticism, and have an inflated sense of self-importance

This is a president who visibly smirked when told that Mitt Romney was quarantined for Covid-19. And when asked “What do you tell people who are scared?” replied “You’re a terrible reporter”

But hey, that’s just Trump being Trump.

Heck, forget his initial reaction, look at what the piece of shit said when Romney tested negative, “This is really great news! I am so happy I can barely speak. He may have been a terrible presidential candidate and an even worse U.S. Senator, but he is a RINO, and I like him a lot!”

“It’s also perfectly demonstrable that he became president in the middle of an economic cycle that was brought about by federal policies (from outside the executive branch) long before he was elected. Unemployment is a lagging indicator that points to activity from years past.”

A 3 year lag??? How convenient……

Great fed policies long before Trump came to office? Is that why GDP shrank to 1.6% in 2016 after 8 years of the previous administration’s economic policies? 2.4, 2.9 and 2.3% the next 3 years.

Deregulation, increasing fossil fuel exploration and tax reform get’s no credit for that? After GDP tanked in 2016 it was just getting revved up for a post Obama expansion? Really?

you hate to see it

bobneptune: Feel the pwnage my friend!

lol

You continue to prove that you are a mouthbreathing racist fox news shill. How much of a racist do you have to be to manipulate the conversation like you did? So Obama inherited a horrible recession created by his predecessor’s deregulation of the financial industry and his policies (specifically ARRA Bank and Auto bailouts) got the nation back on track including for black citizens, then Trump comes in and undoes whatever Obama did and actually increases the income gap between whites and blacks via a huge corporate socialism campaign that increased the national debt and plundered the environment. Never mind that Russia, Iran, Turkey and the Taliban are all dominating the middle east scene, Iran is building nukes again, North Korea is testing missiles again and world leaders (including our allies) are mocking our president left and right. Never mind that he said there are “good people” mixed in with a crowd chanting “Jews will not replace us!” as he defended monuments to those who committed treason and killed thousands in the name of keeping the ancestors of millions of southern citizens enslaved, and then disenfranchised, poor, uneducated, subservient and terrorized.

And yeah, bob, if Trump inherited the mess that Obama inherited and the black unemployment rate went from from 16.8% to 7.8% in eight years, I’m suuuuuuure you’d say “well, it’s only back to where it was prior to the banking crisis!” And if Obama had subsequently gotten it from 7.8 to 5.8 I’m suuuuuuure you would have said “great job Obama, I was totally wrong about you! That’s WAY better than the 9 point drop that Trump accomplished!”

Seriously, are you the person that yelled “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”? Because you sound that brainwashed, stupid and racist.

Bob started here trolling ruruland over Carmelo Anthony.

Then he turned to scolding us over nit-picking Phil Jackson.

Now he’s found Trump to be contrarian over.

He likes to argue, not because he thinks he’s right but because he wants other people to be wrong. I don’t really get it, but there’s about 9 years worth of it in the archives.

I should note the percentages in my previous post are of public debt, not debt as a whole, with the exception of almost half being retirement funds.

Is that why GDP shrank to 1.6% in 2016 after 8 years of the previous administration’s economic policies?

That happened because people freaked out that Trump got elected.

I’m sorry…. of all the LOL’s… I like this one best:

“racist – he’s called Mexicans criminals, currently inciting violence against Asians, and supported white nationalists”

Inciting violence against Asians……

I guess the world’s scientists were racists against Egypt when the named The West Nile Virus, or racist vs all those white people in upstate NY (Cocksackie Virus) are the white people in Conn (Lymes disease) or those bloody Aussies in Brisbane (Hendra Virus) or the entire middle East (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome) … should I continue???

Look be all the China apologists you care to but the CCP is responsible for withholding information that certainly would have changed the course of the disease….. they own it.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076323/third-coronavirus-cases-may-be-silent-carriers-classified

Cliffs…. when China was reporting 80,000 cases they had an additional 43,000 positive tests from asymptomatic patients who were shedding virus and quarantined. Withholding those 43,000 from the WHO and the world certainly had an impact on global response.

EAT it CCP

“That happened because people freaked out that Trump got elected.”

WOW…. all the tanking was in the last 7 weeks of 2016, ehhhhh have a citation?

and they missed a pretty good run in the stock maket for 3 years idiots……

gish galloping

Trump didn’t start calling it “Chinese virus” until the shit started hitting the fan and he knew he needed to toot on the old dog whistle. All of a sudden it became very important to call it Chinese virus, important enough that he crossed out “corona” and replaced it with “Chinese” in his prepared remarks.

He likes to argue, not because he thinks he’s right but because he wants other people to be wrong. I don’t really get it, but there’s about 9 years worth of it in the archives.

Seems right to me. Just because his ‘data’ is pulled from Fox News* doesn’t mean he isn’t arguing just because he likes arguing.

*I really liked that shout out to Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour a few threads back. Because Tucker Carlson def is the person who will stand up for (the right shade of) people.

I’m also sure that if Obama was president right now, the bobn’s of the world would give him a pass on how the coronavirus affected the economy, just like they gave him so much credit for getting the economy back on track after reining in the banking crisis.

For the record, I’m fine with the way Trump has focused on renegotiating trade agreements and getting NATO members to pay more. Pretty much everything else is in the “win now, lose later” category. And his being a reprehensible asshole and buffoon with no moral compass has hurt the fabric of this country. What has Trump done that a “civil” Republican couldn’t have done..Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Mike Pence, John Kasich, etc.?

Hey, every time I post a link, the site refuses to post my comment and fully erases it. What’s the deal with that?

Mike Pence is an evil, craven stooge. He was among the first politicians to sign the “no climate tax” pledge fostered by Americans for Prosperity, a Koch-funded “think tank” that poisons American discourse as much as any.

[link to New Yorker article redacted so this thing actually posts]

During the campaign, Trump said that Republican rivals who attended secretive donor summits sponsored by the Kochs were “puppets.” The Kochs, along with several hundred allied donors, had amassed nearly nine hundred million dollars to spend on the Presidential election, but declined to support Trump’s candidacy. At one point, Charles Koch described the choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton as one between “cancer or heart attack.”

Marc Short, the head of legislative affairs in the Trump White House, credits Pence for the Kochs’ rapprochement with Trump. “The Kochs were very excited about the Vice-Presidential pick,” Short told me. “There are areas where they differ from the Administration, but now there are many areas they’re partnering with us on.” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, who has accused the Kochs of buying undue influence, particularly on environmental policy—Koch Industries has a long history of pollution—is less enthusiastic about their alliance with Pence. “If Pence were to become President for any reason, the government would be run by the Koch brothers—period. He’s been their tool for years,” he said. Bannon is equally alarmed at the prospect of a Pence Presidency. He told me, “I’m concerned he’d be a President that the Kochs would own.”

Pence is insidiously evil. Don’t let his soft-spoken nature fool you.

I’m only referring to the move away from civility. Pence would be a rignt-wing idealogue, but has a sense of decency and morality aside from his stands on specific issues (like promoting conversion therapy for gay people) that are morally abhorrent. But he wouldn’t be doing the “Little Mike” and “Sleepy Joe” and “the Fake News is the enemy of the people” stuff. That counts for something.

For the record, I’m fine with the way Trump has focused on renegotiating trade agreements and getting NATO members to pay more.

Me too? He got NATO members to agree to future funding levels that they had previously agreed to. He hasn’t managed to secure any new trade agreements beyond what’s essentially an extension of NAFTA. All of this is fine. He’s an incompetent negotiator, so I’m fine with him managing to not get taken to the cleaners by other countries in these specific instances, the way he is in so many others.

The Honorable Cock Jowles:
Hey, every time I post a link, the site refuses to post my comment and fully erases it. What’s the deal with that?

Finally my longstanding request was approved! 😉

I mean, the reason most of white middle America developed a guttural aversion to the Democratic party is detailed above:
– A belief that only your view is correct, ethical, and tolerant (ha)
– The notion that you can only support the Republican party and Trump if you’re racist, unethical, and stupid.
– The holier than thou attitude
– Willingness to personally despise people with conservative attitudes to the point where you lose people ‘as close as a brother’???
– The non-stop mocking of conservatives in the media, Trump on CNN… do you not realize people think you’re mocking them too? (cue Don Lemon laughing at southerners)

Whatever, this always falls on deaf ears, and then the liberal is all shocked when most of the country votes against them.

I have reason to hate both parties, and the fact that tribalism is so bad, is that people are genuinely shocked and concerned if you hate their party, and try to convince you otherwise. If you don’t see the deep issues with the Democratic party now, you won’t see it if I point it out. We already pointed out the Republicans’ issues above.

Grocer: Me too?He got NATO members to agree to future funding levels that they had previously agreed to.He hasn’t managed to secure any new trade agreements beyond what’s essentially an extension of NAFTA. All of this is fine.He’s an incompetent negotiator, so I’m fine with him managing to not get taken to the cleaners by other countries in these specific instances, the way he is in so many others.

Whatever the outcome, the positions are fine. The new NAFTA is improved over the old, if only marginally. And the China deal is certainly better than what existed previously. NATO is way down the chain and can be repaired after Trump gets the boot…even with Boris in charge in the UK.

I also don’t have a huge problem with the idea of a border wall/barrier/fence on its face…not my thing, but whatever. It’s the xenophobia and racism that Trump fans to rally the worst elements of his base to a fever pitch.

As to COVID-19, I wonder if bobn can tell us which previous president was responsible for determining the name by which a disease would be called. Did Obama come up with “West Nile”?

has a sense of decency and morality

in the shallowest possible way — no thanks

There is nothing moral about his stance on protecting Koch Industries from environmental taxes and fines. And that’s what he’s there for.

Great fed policies long before Trump came to office? Is that why GDP shrank to 1.6% in 2016 after 8 years of the previous administration’s economic policies? 2.4, 2.9 and 2.3% the next 3 years.

Focusing on GDP in 2016 is like cherry picking unemployment data from 2010. It was a weird year.

Regardless, how would tax reform help African Americans specifically? It’s always been a weird claim that he makes. The reality is unemployment was doing great, and African Americans themselves have been increasing their educational attainment in order to participate in the economy more, so credit to them not him, wouldn’t you say?

Trump’s been good for the economy African Americans are increasing their inclusion in the higher end of the American economy = Trump has been great for African Americans? I mean, I guess so, but indirectly. He hasn’t specifically done anything to target UE in the AA community, so why hang your hat on it?

wetbandit: I have reason to hate both parties, and the fact that tribalism is so bad, is that people are genuinely shocked and concerned if you hate their party, and try to convince you otherwise. If you don’t see the deep issues with the Democratic party now, you won’t see it if I point it out. We already pointed out the Republicans’ issues above.

I don’t hate the party or its members per se. Trump is NOT a traditional Republican, he has hijacked the party. Guys like Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, Joe Scarborough, Justin Amash, Michael Steele, George Will, Nicole Wallace, etc. etc., ranging from moderate to arch-conservative, have no place in the party of Trump. There are millions of Republicans who feel this way,

There are also WAY more people who are racist, unethical and stupid (and you can add xenophobic, homophobic and misogynist) in Trumps following than in the following of any other political wing. They tend to vote Republican anyway, but they have a voice that is far more empowered and likely to affect policy decisions.You can believe otherwise, but lots of those middle-America white folks agree with this and will vote for Biden on this basis.

The Honorable Cock Jowles: in the shallowest possible way — no thanks

There is nothing moral about his stance on protecting Koch Industries from environmental taxes and fines. And that’s what he’s there for.

But if it wasn’t him, it’d be someone else with an R after his name. Koch has pretty much all of them in his pocket.

**”I mean, the reason most of white middle America developed a guttural aversion to the Democratic party is detailed above“**

White people sending the country into the garbage because Democrats are “holier than thou” may be an accurate description of what happened, but are you actually here to defend it?

no

but it does make us rethink our discourse. Every major news network IS fake news. Every paper is either bankrupt or partisan. Democrats keep pushing the ‘all white people are racist’ crap. White liberals on twitter are the worst, I don’t even get it, everything is privilege, and the 1619 project is bullshit- our country is not founded on racism and slavery. It just isn’t.

Democrats have to shape up, or even “not Trump” won’t be enough to rally behind.

Socialism sucks, it just sucks, never worked, and is against every success this country enjoys, and is also completely at odds with everything America has stood for: come to this country, work your ass off, make money and live as you want. (neither party is good at this)

Business can be good or bad. Billionaires can be good or bad. They just are. And part of having a free market is having people who do very well, and businesses become very powerful. That’s ok, we just need safeguards and limits. To rail against every company, rich person, and white person is alienating and antithetical to this country.

I can go on and on about Bernie, AOC, and the other drivel I keep seeing, and NO I AM NOT OK WITH REPUBLICANS.

how unbelievably condescending.

that’s funny…i am incredibly condescending and critical of both myself and others…i just try my best to hide it all behind pleasantries…

i’m surprised you’re the first person to mention it 🙂

i know it must come out in my writing (plus some other weird shit that i way too eager to share with you all)…

thankfully though, i got a pretty low need for external validation, so – what others think is interesting, not necessarily always that important to me…one of the reasons i believe strongly in folks being able to have their own opinions and beliefs…

due to the basic nature of this site and people (a place for folks to get together and discourse), i understand a good bit of what we do is debate…

i like it when folks say what they’re really thinking and feeling…i wonder though how much of what you say is belief, and, how much is a desire for discourse…doesn’t really matter, but, one of the most enjoyable things about knickerblogger is getting to “really” know everyone a little better…

speaking of which bob, you’re a racing guy aren’t you? did you see the “after action” write up on the santa anita track?

also – favorite tracks in the country?

i think i remember strat mentioning saratoga as a really beautiful course…

most of my regrets in life relate to things i chose not to do…always wish i had taken the time to go inside the monmouth track and take a look, walked by it a few times on weekend hikes from monmouth to the water…i just walked around it and stared at it…

i’ve never been to a horserace before…i’d like to though at some time…

Donnie Walsh: White people sending the country into the garbage because Democrats are “holier than thou” may be an accurate description of what happened, but are you actually here to defend it?

White people sent America into the garbage. Wow.

You realize the only difference between you and the people you hate is you filled in the blank with a different word, right?

Yes Hubert, that’s the kind of racist shit liberals say that you don’t realize is racist at first, but then…. oh, wow, all white people huh? It’s like all the liberals who changed the definition of racism to exclude anyone of color… like, whut?

Pretty much all of the countries with the highest ratings for quality of life are what we’d call “socialist” countries by our standards. So there’s sort of a sleight of hand with the “socialism has never worked anywhere” argument.

I’m to the right of Bernie and AOC and I find the Bernie wing of the party to be pretty annoying sometimes, but even the left wing of the party calls for policies that are basically just New Deal Liberalism. Nobody’s hankering for a planned economy or anything like that. They’re advocating for a more tightly regulated capitalism with protections for workers and a robust social safety net.

You can mix a hyper-capitalist society with socialist public services, South Korea for instance does it quite well.

And the China deal is certainly better than what existed previously.

There is no there, there, as they say. The US says China agreed to certain things, China has no comment. China says the US agreed to certain things. Some of those certainly happened! At this point they got Trump to stop fucking around without doing anything themselves. We’ll see. It’s a lot like when China provisionally agreed to buy a few billion worth of West Virginia coal. That did not happen, and that agreement was a lot more solid than this one is.

Trump’s support is pretty much entirely from white people. That’s why white people get the blame. It’s just the simple fact of the matter. White men, in particular, but white women going for Trump in 2016 was a major factor in him winning. Luckily, white women broke Democrat big time in 2018, so hopefully that’ll follow in November. “It’s racist to say white people are to blame for Trump winning when the vast majority of his support was white people” is an approach to take, I guess, but it’s not a particularly well-founded one.

Bondy says that Fizdale thinks the Knicks need shooting upgrades to move to the next level. Ya think?

Can’t read the article myself, at my limit of free ones.

Hillary and most Democrats campaigned against Trump’s personality instead of against his positions. They lost doing that. Many people concluded that they stood for nothing.

“It’s racist to say white people are to blame for Trump winning when the vast majority of his support was white people” is an approach to take, I guess, but it’s not a particularly well-founded one.

To be scrupulously fair, there are plenty of folks who would proclaim with glee that saying “black people vote for Democrats” is a racist take, in some sort of belief that they’ve uncovered some sort of hypocrisy*. It’s moronic, and indicative of a extremely warped idea of what racism is, but it is consistently moronic and warped.

*This has happened to me in person, at family gatherings. Some people on the right genuinely seem to believe that talking about race or difference at all is inherently racist according to the ‘SJWs’. I can’t imagine that this started out as a genuine belief, but AFAICT it is now accepted as fact by a fairly large swath of people. This is why they think that BLM ect is racist.

“Every major news network IS fake news”…….puhleez…enough with the drama…

news is fucking news…true/false/whatever…small town news/major news…the people who create it have a job to create content to make you watch or read it and then buy shit that’s advertised in between the words…period…like it has always been….we do with it whatever we want…if you decide it’s all fake…good for you……blah blah blah blah blah…

Trump’s support is pretty much entirely from white people. That’s why white people get the blame. It’s just the simple fact of the matter. White men, in particular,

This was Bloomberg’s unethical argument for stop and frisk, right? Substitute crime for Trump’s support, and black for white.

crime in NYC is pretty much entirely from black people. That’s why black people get the blame. It’s just the simple fact of the matter. Black men, in particular,

Believe me, and please hear me: I am NOT calling out reverse racism or saying “woe is the white man.” I don’t believe in that shit.

I’m just saying I’ve been sitting here for the last 4-6 years noticing everyone has the same argument they’re just filling in blanks with different words.

This was Bloomberg’s unethical argument for stop and frisk, right? Substitute crime for Trump’s support, and black for white.

Except it’s factually true for trump support, and not true for crime. This is what I was getting at, kinda. You’ve taken Donnie Walsh’s argument that the country has gone to shit, pulled out the part that was about who voted for Trump, turned ‘white people voted for Trump’ into ‘all white people’ which isn’t what he wrote and isn’t what he implied, and decided that was racist. On top of that, you’ve taken a factual statement with no policy power and said it’s the same as the reasoning behind an actually racist policy that was never based in reality but had very real effects.

You’re right that people do this kind of mental gymnastics all the time! It’s not the fault of the original statement. It’s bullshit in their own heads. There’s no way for whoever is on the other side of it to win. There’s no rhetorical shift, no change that will affect how the people who think this way think.

Democrats keep pushing the ‘all white people are racist’ crap… To rail against every company, rich person, and white person is alienating and antithetical to this country.

“Yes, this is 100% true. I believe all of this unequivocally.

I am also a very smart person who should be taken seriously. Please listen to what I say.” -wetbandit

On top of that, you’ve taken a factual statement with no policy power and said it’s the same as the reasoning behind an actually racist policy that was never based in reality but had very real effects.

Fair point. It’s not like Brian was using that as justification to throw Trump supporters against the wall!

Grocer: Except it’s factually true for trump support, and not true for crime

* it actually was true for murders committed at the time of “stop and frisk.” The issue isn’t so much with the statement as with the draconian policy decisions based on the statement.

bobneptune: Look be all the China apologists you care to but the CCP is responsible for withholding information that certainly would have changed the course of the disease….. they own it.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3076323/third-coronavirus-cases-may-be-silent-carriers-classified

Cliffs…. when China was reporting 80,000 cases they had an additional 43,000 positive tests from asymptomatic patients who were shedding virus and quarantined. Withholding those 43,000 from the WHO and the world certainly had an impact on global response.

EAT it CCP

I couldn’t care less about the CCP. But what about the 18 million Americans of Asian descent? Do they deserve the violence and racism leveled against them? Easy to be flippant when not on the receiving end.

“Chinese virus” is a very typical Stephen Miller as Goebbels kind of framing. It’s clever in its own miserable way.

You call it “Chinese virus” to shift blame to the Other.
Decent people say “hey that’s fucked up, that’s going to cause harassment of Asians” which of course happens.
Dumb turds say “Well herp a derp nobody gets made when you call it Chinese food.”
Culture war activated, now the MAGAs are all like “can you believe these snowflakes, they think the word China is racist, I mean the virus came from China amirite”

And now we’re talking about that instead of the President’s massive fuckups.

Touche, Miller/Goebbels. Touche.

John Calipari has apparently suffered symtoms of dementia due to COVID-19-related stress…

lol, Z-man. I though this was pretty interesting.

Democrats keep pushing the ‘all white people are racist’ crap. White liberals on twitter are the worst, I don’t even get it, everything is privilege, and the 1619 project is bullshit- our country is not founded on racism and slavery. It just isn’t.

I have never heard even the most leftist elected Democrat say “all white people are racist.” AOC, Rashida Tlaib, you name them, never said it.

As for the 1619 Project, be honest, did you read one word of it? It was scrupulously backed up with citations to historians and other experts, so I’m surprised you find it lacking in credibility. If you did read any of it, can you please point me to the specific parts you objected to so I have a better idea of your qualms? Thanks!

This is an instant classic, the guy’s Trump impression is so spot on

https://mobile.twitter.com/jlcauvin/status/1242515702688485376

John Calipari has apparently suffered symtoms of dementia due to COVID-19-related stress…

Come coach him then, John!

Here’s a breakdown of US debt in case anyone is still interested.

you rock senor grocer…The U.S. debt was $23.4 trillion as of Feb. 19, 2020.

– The public holds $17.1 trillion of the national debt. (73%)
> intragovernmental holdings totaled $5.9 trillion or 26% of the debt
> The Federal Reserve holds 11%
– Foreign governments and investors hold 39% of it
– Individuals, banks, and investors hold 17%
– Mutual funds hold 9%
– State and local governments own 5%
The rest is held by pension funds, insurance companies, and Savings Bonds

*** i think i’m having a math crisis – i can’t get it to 100% 🙂 ***

Current Foreign Ownership of U.S. Debt
– Dec. 2019, Japan owned $1.15 trillion
– China which owns $1.07 trillion of U.S. debt
– United Kingdom is the third-largest holder with $332.6 billion
– Brazil is next, holding $281.9 billion
– Ireland with $281.8 billion
– Luxembourg is fifth at $254.6 billion

we’re in hock to fucking luxembourg…

The Bottom Line
Many people believe that much of U.S. debt is owed to foreign countries like China and Japan. The truth is, most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds. This means U.S. citizens, through their retirement money, own most of the national debt.

U.S. national debt is the sum of these two federal debt categories:

Public debt – held by other countries, the Federal Reserve, mutual funds, etc.
Intragovernmental holdings – held by Social Security, Military Retirement Fund, Medicare, and other retirement funds.

i got something for you work at home folks…so, last couple of days have been doing more work from home…

two discoveries of which i have made:
1). my chair at my desk in the house just ain’t cutting it man…time for a trip to office depot…looking forward though to getting some work station thing set up in my garden – that’ll be fun…

2). alcohol is about to be once again on the lunch menu…damn, it’s been at least 20 plus years since i felt like it might be okay to enjoy an adult beverage midway through my work day…yeah, no doubt, i’m making it a point to squeeze a beer in to lunch tomorrow…

Geo, I understand your math but not your conclusion. From your numbers foreign governments and individuals hold 39% of 17.1 Trillion in debt which is 6.7 trillion dollars owed to them. That’s more than US intragovermental debt of 5.9 trillion dollars. So how can you say “ The truth is, most of it is owed to Social Security and pension funds“ when more is owed to foreign entities alone, much less US based individuals?

i’m gonna be honest knick fan in nj – the numbers weren’t so well laid out in the article…

my interpretation is that foreign govt’s and them folks actually own about 9.3 trillion of the total 23.4 trillion debt…

numbers definitely don’t add up though – or, they do and it’s that the terms themselves are all messed up and co-mingled…i guess the real point of the whole story is that china doesn’t really own us…

get in line motherfuckers…

if they start calling for their money, maybe we can just not answer the phone and they’ll think we’re not home, or moved or something…

Hopefully China doesn’t have our home numbers, since we are mostly working from now. 🙂

Since we’ve been squabbling a lot lately here on KB, let’s try to find some common ground.

I am going to offer a non-controversial opinion, and we can all agree to agree about it.

Here it is…

Chris Thile is a great mandolinist, as he showed from his living room today.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=Qiija5dBBIw

How about first album or record you ever bought? I’m not sure what that would be for people who came of age post vinyl.
Mine are Tony Orlando and Dawn Greatest Hits #soembarrased and Ben from the Jackson5
Rock albums were Destroyer, Boston and Leftoverture (Kansas)

Agree. Concur. Thumbs up. I love Chris Thile. I was a bit late to the game, found him via Goat Rodeo, which I think is some of the most amazing music ever made. Perhaps not quite in the Knickerblogger wheelhouse based on ongoing music discussions, but damn I recommend it (that’s especially for you, Geo). I was drawn in by YoYo, via my son’s perverse interest in the instrument. But they’re all some of the most amazing musicians.

Goat Rodeo, for those who are neophytes, is apparently a military term meaning a zillion things have to go right for a mission to be successful.

Kris Kross, age 6

The first album I ever bought was Harry Chapin’s Sniper and Other Love Songs. Caveat: I had three older siblings who bought most everything else, including my older brother who sold bootleg 8-track tapes, so there was plenty of supply of good ’60s and ’70s shit in the house at all times.

i burned too many brain cells to remember the first album I bought with my own money….likely some elton john or beatles…or the 1969-70 Knicks Championship season LP…but I think I got that for my birthday from somebody…

our country is not founded on racism and slavery

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH THIS IS THE HOTTEST TAKE

God, this no sports thing is getting brutal. There’s very little refuge from absurdist politics, relationship talks, and parenting foibles now.

I found myself following nfl free agency today and actually being thankful for it. That and rewatching the Sopranos is all I’ve got.

The first album I ever bought with my own money was a weird one, “Dirk Wears White Sox” by Adam and the Ants. It wasn’t even an Adam and the Ants album that had a hit on it, it was their debut album from 1979, and it got re-released by Epic in 1983 after “Goody Two Shoes” was a hit. That’s the version I bought. It’s pretty bad but I still have my vinyl copy.

Not only was it the first record I ever bought, for many years it was the first record alphabetically in my collection. A few years ago it got beat out when I acquired AC/DC “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.”

*”Agree. Concur. Thumbs up. I love Chris Thile. I was a bit late to the game, found him via Goat Rodeo, which I think is some of the most amazing music ever made. Perhaps not quite in the Knickerblogger wheelhouse based on ongoing music discussions, but damn I recommend it (that’s especially for you, Geo). I was drawn in by YoYo, via my son’s perverse interest in the instrument.*”

Yeah, me too. I saw him at the Disney Center playing Bach with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer (He was playing the harpsichord parts on his mandolin). I didn’t realize he sang too. He is a supremely talented musician. (and one of the few good things to be coming out of this sequester is that the incredibly talented are sharing themselves with the world from their living rooms.)

First album I ever bought was The Mob Rules by Black Sabbath when I was 12. Not their best album, but it had Ronnie James Dio on vocals. Up until that point in 1981 all I ever heard was disco and whatever rock music happened to hit the top 40 radio stations at the time, since I never had control of the radio. I heard a Sabbath song from the soundtrack to Heavy Metal (the animated movie) and thought, I need to hear more of this angry abrasive stuff!

Then over time I learned that the sonic fire and fury of metal had roots in classical music. In my opinion, Gustav Holst’s piece “Mars the Bringer of War” was a metal song that happened to be made with a classical orchestra in the 1910s. That crescendo that reaches its peak at the 4:20 mark gives me shivers whenever I hear it. Give me a powerful soaring brass section or overdriven electric guitar and I’ll give it a listen.

I was 10 and bought Soup by Blind Melon (compact disc). It was the only Blind Melon cd at the store so I grabbed it. Got home and was absolutely gutted that ‘No Rain’ wasn’t on there. Kid Dink did not know that bands could have multiple albums.

I was 10 and bought Soup by Blind Melon (compact disc). It was the only Blind Melon cd at the store so I grabbed it.

“Galaxie” is a jam

thanks for the chris tile link donnie…

it’s funny raven, kind of like how people get amazed by musicians – someone whom is able to create music does the same thing to me…it’s hard to describe…I tend to stare like I’m just seeing fire for the very first time…

I’ve witnessed a lot of cool musical moments over the years…rolling up on War, around ’98 or so, playing at some park in st. pete, florida right by the water was pretty crazy – hey, that music in the distance sounds a lot like War – hey, that is War, was one of the most fun…

one of the most amazing things though I’ve ever witnessed was on the pier at monterey…it was about 11pm or so and I was just walking around looking for a place to smoke…the whole pier was closeing/closed down at the time…at the end of the pier is a bunch of restaurants and this adjacent dock/smaller pier where the bay cruises would take off from…

on the walkway which connected the two piers was this grand piano, looked completely and totally out of place, especially late at night with the lights down lower…

as I was trying to catch a little sneaky smoke break, this young man sits down at the piano and starts playing some elton john stuff and then starts playing what sounded like classical music…

it was beautiful and totally unexpected…what really transfixed me though – was watching this older, very clean and proper looking Asian couple standing behind the young man just absolutely beaming with pride…

damn near brought me to tears to listen to him play and watch his parents look on with such unbridled joy…

I believe my first album purchase was gaucho – steely dan…

the cuervo gold, the fine colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing

oops, meant to initially reference magicians instead of musicians above…yeah, I’m gonna blame that one on auto-correct, and not the fact that I most likely just zoned out a bit while typing 🙂

Cool stuff guys. I think the Heavy Metal movie was how I first became actively aware of Hendrix. The ad seemed to be always on playing All Along the Watchtower. It’s also my first “mishearing” of his lyrics. It look me years (and hearing Dylan’s version) to realize it was not “said the Junkie to the Thief” but “Joker”

Nick C.: How about first album or record you ever bought? I’m not sure what that would be for people who came of age post vinyl.

Mine was Appetite for Destruction. I enjoyed it for a few days, too, before my parents took it away.

My first album was Tiffany. Will now delete myself.

Although I Think We”Re Alone Now has special relevance at the moment.

I don’t remember the order, it was around the same time. But my first vinyl was White Snake’s White Snake, and first cassette was Permanent Vacation. My sister was 3 at the time, and she came into my room, said “I don’t like this”, reached up and grabbed the tone arm. It wasn’t love.

numbers definitely don’t add up though – or, they do and it’s that the terms themselves are all messed up and co-mingled…i guess the real point of the whole story is that china doesn’t really own us

It’s confusing, and it isn’t helped by the numbers coming from different times. But basically, yes, China only holds a little bit in a relative sense. The other important thing is that China can’t just come calling, they didn’t lend us money, they just bought a bunch of bonds they same way you can. They have zero leverage over the US (in terms of debt anyway).

My first album was Tiffany. Will now delete myself.

That album was good tho.

“The Gambler” is a pretty dark song. ‘Cause every hand’s a winner / And every hand’s a loser / And the best that you can hope for / is to die in your sleep.

Get rid of the first line and it’s about being a Knicks fan.

First Cassette (age 4): MORE OF THE MONKEEYS GREATEST HITS
First CD (age 9): Four pack of UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK, WILDFLOWERS, DOOKIE and VITALOGY
First LP (age 15): SUPERFUZZ BIG MUFF

Latest LP (age 35): Mint Mile’s beautiful new record AMBERTRON

Hmm. As a kid in the 60’s I listed to a lot of my parents’ records. My mom loved late 50’s and early 60’s stuff like The Beatles, Stones, Buddy Holly, Elvis, etc. My father was an old school C&W guy, so the only artist of his that I liked was Hank Williams.

The first album bought specifically for me as a kid was probably Elvis’ Golden Records. The first 45 single bought for me (or maybe by me) was “Rock Around the Clock,” by Bill Haley and the Comets.

The first record I bought on my own with my own money was probably Kiss Alive circa 1975 (when I was 12/13).

I totally redefined what I was listening to in college, esp. when I first heard Never Mind the Bollocks in early 1982…that blew open a new door.

One of the first albums I bought was probably Chicago: The blues today.

When I was growing up, 45’s were more popular than albums. I had a great Beatles and Beach Boys collection . Also Turtles, Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons, Four Tops, the Supremes, and Temptations from Motown. The summer I graduated from high school my dad ( an OCD neat freak) threw out my entire vinyl collection.

Bo, yeah, I forgot. My mom had one or two albums by the Four Seasons. Weirdly, my mom did not like the Beach Boys. I don’ t know why, but I love ’em, esp. “I Get Around.”

I still have my 70’s copies of Elvis’ Golden Records and Kiss Alive. Just pulled them both out. They’ve survived a lot of moves over the years and remain the oldest vinyl in my collection, though I’ve played neither in a very long time…

Speaking of “I Get Around,” watch Dennis Wilson steal the show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDIBMaCTwFw

The first record I purchased was a 45 of Billy Preston’s Outa Space, an instrumental that got a lot of air play back in the day. I was an aspiring keyboard player and thought Billy was the shit.

now that’s an interesting question – our fave album our parents had…

I remember really enjoying some album by blood, sweat and tears

dang, even as a kid I was morbid:
Give me my freedom for as long as I be
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
And all I ask of dying is to go naturally, only want to go naturally
Don’t want to go by the devil, don’t want to go by the demon,
Don’t want to go by Satan, don’t want to die uneasy,
Just let me go naturally
And when I die and when I’m gone,
There’ll be one child born, there’ll be one child born in this world to carry on, carry on

The summer I graduated from high school my dad ( an OCD neat freak) threw out my entire vinyl collection.

yeah, that’s something you’ll never let go…I still hold a bit of a grudge from mom throwing away my monster models and my comic books…she thought they were rotting my soul 🙂

i had a bunch of early 70’s hulk comics that got tossed…still trying to let go of that 50 years later…

Although I Think We’re Alone Now has special relevance at the moment.

what goes around – really goes around…

I started buying vinyl again recently after setting up the turntable and unleashing my collection from the garage…I just bought Foo Fighters- There is Nothing Left to Lose …limited edition pressing…nice…

Whenever I hear I think we’re alone now…I crank it…love that song…

…..and my mom also tossed my comic book collection…lost all my “richie rich…poor little rich boy”‘s and of course my favorite “Sgt Rock” ones…really bummed me out..

Owen:
My first album was Tiffany. Will now delete myself.

Although I Think We”Re Alone Now has special relevance at the moment.

I didn’t buy that album but I definitely sat by the radio waiting for it to come on and hit the record button on my tape deck.

Honestly until you mentioned Tiffany I forgot that was a thing I even did.

Sorry to hear about you guys having stuff thrown out. The only thing I lost that way was a bb gun an uncle bought me. My mom tossed that one.

We were forced to sell off a bunch of stuff prior to moving to TN in 1977. My prize possession was a cheap Huffy 10 speed I’d bought with money I got helping an uncle paint my grandmother’s house. I was forced to sell that to help fund our move b/c we were poor and could only take one pickup truck’s worth of stuff with us.

We were pretty poor after my parents divorced. We went from a housing project in Massachusetts to a trailer park in Tennessee!

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