Quick Anecdote for Reactions

[Brassmask]

I drove over to the bank to get some cash this morning and as usual, I just flipped on the radio to hear what the local right-wingnutters were saying on talk radio.  There's this younger guy in the morning who is out to make a name for himself.  Ben Ferguson is his name.  He's usually pretty standard and easily ignored by myself.

But I have to admit that I was utterly blown away by what he was saying when I tuned in.

Real quick stuff he said:

1)  He had a friend of his on the phone with him.  His friend, as Ben stated, is "pretty well-off".  He asked his friend how much it cost him to fill up when he bought is big ole SUV in 2003.  His friend stated "about $50 or so".  "How much now?" Ben asked.  "I just filled up from E.  It as $114."  His friend had to go but Ben kept talking about him and what they had talked about before.  He said his friend "could afford it but just didn't want to".  His friend had said (according to Ben) that there was simply other junk he'd rather be spending $114 on.

2)  The kicker for his friend was that when he went to look at new vehicles with better mileage, the dealerships were offering HALF of what he thought the SUV was worth!  One of the guys had told him that there was little to no resale value on them because they got such terrible mileage.  OH OH!

3)  Ben said that he had been in DC for some conference thing and had talked to a CEO for some car company and that CEO (on background!) said that dealerships were telling him and other execs that they had people coming in literally weeping, begging the dealership to work out a deal with them to trade out of their trucks and SUV's because they were paying more for gas a month than the payment!  And that most people were wanting to trade because they feared that their SUV would soon be repo'ed!

4)  Lastly, and most shockingly to me, Ben Ferguson (right-winger) said that if "you guys" (the listeners) hadn't started saving your money as much as possible lately, "you should start today!" because this economy is "heading in a very ugly direction".  A right-winger talking down the economy?  What is this world coming to?

It's just anecdotal and I'm curious about r-wing reactions to such.

Thanks!

[Plane]

The invisible hand at work.

The majic of the market getting ahead of Cafe standard requirement.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Imagine how SAFE these guys feel sitting in their SUVs. And now that they must keep them sitting in the driveway, they are EVEN SAFER.

The basic cry of the right winger has always been "It's all about ME: MY safety, MY tax cuts, MY gated community, MY vacation home, the unbelievable cunning by which I avoided automobile cafe standards by driving a truck that was in reality, a car, MY privileged mover and shaker status".

[Plane]

Imagine how SAFE these guys feel sitting in their SUVs. And now that they must keep them sitting in the driveway, they are EVEN SAFER.

The basic cry of the right winger has always been "It's all about ME: MY safety, MY tax cuts, MY gated community, MY vacation home, the unbelievable cunning by which I avoided automobile cafe standards by driving a truck that was in reality, a car, MY privileged mover and shaker status".

That is what liberals have always said yes.

It has never been my experience that Liberals were more generous than Conservatives , but what do I know?

[Michael Tee]

Stop it, Ben, you're breaking my heart.

[Xavier_Onassis]

It has never been my experience that Liberals were more generous than Conservatives , but what do I know?

======================================================
Could it be that the Liberals you seem to know are apparently the figments of Rush's imagination, and do not actually exist?

[Brassmask]

The realities are that liberals understand that everything in the world is interconnected.   When we drill in Alaska, that affects everything.

Balance is the reality of the world.  Overruling nature and balance leads to chaos.  We've been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 100 years or so and so nature is now balancing that with higher temps and harsher weather.

When we dump garbage in the ocean that kills tiny sea creatures that large sea creatures eat.  When those large sea creatures can't eat, they die and when they die we can't fish them out to eat ourselves.

When the ocean temps go up because of our aforementioned CO pumping, we're killing ourselves by killing sea life and melting ice caps and changing weather patterns.

Conservatives are only concerned with their small circle of life and due to their religious beliefs have a low self image and believe that the small and measley human race can't have such a giant impact on a whole planet that their lord and saviour created.

[Plane]

No, I mean that surveys of Liberals find them to be tightfisted mizers.

The stats of willing giveing make conservatives look good.

But this of course requires reality based thinking , which liberals are better at talking about than doing.

[fatman]

Stop it, Ben, you're breaking my heart.

Welcome Back MT

[Michael Tee]

Thanks, fatman. 

[BT]

Conservatives are only concerned with their small circle of life and due to their religious beliefs have a low self image and believe that the small and measley human race can't have such a giant impact on a whole planet that their lord and saviour created.

Way to make friends and influence people.

Makes me want to change my ways and rethink this whole interconnectedness thing.

There is a saying in some circles. Think globally, act locally. So being concerned with their small circle of life might just be the act locally part of the equation.

just a thought for your consideration.

[Amianthus]

We've been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 100 years or so and so nature is now balancing that with higher temps and harsher weather.

Volcanoes and most animals have been "pumping carbon dioxide" into the atmosphere for far longer than 100 years.

[Plane]

We've been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 100 years or so and so nature is now balancing that with higher temps and harsher weather.

Volcanoes and most animals have been "pumping carbon dioxide" into the atmosphere for far longer than 100 years.

I note that every bit of "fossil fuel" was at one time atmosphereic carbondioxide. Fixed by anchient plants and bacteria it became buried and trapped away from the environment , where was this stuff before it was sequestered this way?

[Brassmask]

Volcanoes and most animals have been "pumping carbon dioxide" into the atmosphere for far longer than 100 years.

True enough.  The only difference is now we, the animals, have industrialized our production of it thus giving us the ability to pump far more than we ever have before in history.

[Amianthus]

True enough.  The only difference is now we, the animals, have industrialized our production of it thus giving us the ability to pump far more than we ever have before in history.

I read that humans produce something like 2-3% of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And there have been spikes as large as the current spike well before there was any human industry.