Author Topic: A nation of whiners  (Read 16381 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #30 on: July 14, 2008, 01:57:52 PM »
Two, how do you know Gramm doesn't make most of his purchases at flea markets, garage sales and off of Yugster like certain fat cat professors in South Florida with well performing fund portfolios?

==========================================
I don't really think this is relevant.
I am not proclaiming that my financially strapped fellow Americans are "whiners".

It was not the baker's daughter, but the Queen that annoyed people by allegedly saying, "let them eat cake".

It will no doubt cheer you up to learn that there are very, very few well performing mutual funds at present.

Compared to Gramm, I am a pauper.

My sweet little Sylvester cat was bit on the cheek by a ruffian feline several weeks ago, and then went into hiding. When she finally appeared, her cheek was infected and swollen to the size of a golf ball and she was down to six and a half pounds. The vet gave her a shot and some antibiotics and drained her cheek, and I fed her massive amounts of canned catfood, so she is up to eight pounds. But she is not yet as fat as Phil Gramm.

« Last Edit: July 14, 2008, 06:22:49 PM by Xavier_Onassis »
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #31 on: July 14, 2008, 02:45:23 PM »
I don't think his net worth is relevant either.

but back to the issue:

Quote
Indeed, Mr Gramm has the luxury of being right about a lot here. The candidates are selling an overblown narrative of Americans’ current suffering. Certainly, those who have lost jobs or homes this year have reason to be upset, and commodities prices are rising, forcing families to rethink their budgets. But even as the country teeters on the brink of recession, Americans enjoy a standard of living their parents could only dream of. Far from getting worse, life in America has gotten substantially better in the last decade by any number of indicators, and the economy is hardly a shambles. And yet, consumer confidence is plumbing surprisingly low depths.

From the article.

We are not in a recession. Americans are better off than they were a decade ago. And the problem with the economy is psychologically driven and self fulfilling.

And again, where did Gramm say inflatinary gas prices was not real?


Michael Tee

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 12605
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #32 on: July 14, 2008, 05:54:54 PM »
<<And again, where did Gramm say inflatinary gas prices was not real?>>

That's the whole point - - he DOESN'T address the major areas of discontent.  He sets up strawmen and knocks them down.  Whether America is in a repression or not.  Whether Americans' parents (of some indeterminate generation, depending on which generation of "Americans" he has in mind, some Americans' parents, for example, retaining vivid memories of the Great Depression) ever dreamed of the present generation's standard of living or not.  Whether "life" has gotten better or not.

Thus by purporting to address the current barrage of complaints over the economy but in fact NOT addressing any of the leading specific complaints, Gramm knocks the "complainers" by demolishing strawmen that they are not complaining about.  And fails to address any of the leading causes of complaint, such as $4 gas, foreclosures, unregulated loan sharks, etc.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #33 on: July 14, 2008, 06:26:36 PM »
Once more, Gramm is the clown who made it possible for Enron to rip off its shareholders and employees and customers for bazillions. It is not just that Gramm profited from this, but that he used his government position to do it and later joined the enemy as a lobbyist. He is a thieving ratbastard, which makes it particularly annoying for him to accuse his fellow more honest citizens of complaining.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #34 on: July 14, 2008, 07:00:37 PM »
And yet they are complaining. So how is his accusation false?

fatman

  • Guest
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #35 on: July 14, 2008, 07:44:03 PM »
Wall Street's Great Deflation The Nation
Mon Jul 14, 12:38 PM ET
 


The Nation -- Phil Gramm, the senator-banker who until recently advised John McCain's campaign, did get it right about a "nation of whiners," but he misidentified the faint-hearted. It's not the people or even the politicians. It is Wall Street--the financial titans and big-money bankers, the most important investors and worldwide creditors who are scared witless by events. These folks are in full-flight panic and screaming for mercy from Washington, Their cries were answered by the massive federal bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the endangered mortgage companies.
 
When the monied interests whined, they made themselves heard by dumping the stocks of these two quasi-public private corporations, threatening to collapse the two financial firms like the investor "run" that wiped out Bear Stearns in March. The real distress of the banks and brokerages and major investors is that they cannot unload the rotten mortgage securities packaged by Fannie Mae and banks sold worldwide. Wall Street's preferred solution: dump the bad paper on the rest of us, the unwitting American taxpayers.

The Bush crowd, always so reluctant to support federal aid for mere people, stepped up to the challenge and did as it was told. Treasury Secretary Paulson (ex-Goldman Sachs) and his sidekick, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, announced their bailout plan on Sunday to prevent another disastrous sell-off on Monday when markets opened. Like the first-stage rescue of Wall Street's largest investment firms in March, this bold stroke was said to benefit all of us. The whole kingdom of American high finance would tumble down if government failed to act or made the financial guys pay for their own reckless delusions. Instead, dump the losses on the people.

Democrats who imagine they may find some partisan advantage in these events are deeply mistaken. The Democratic party was co-author of the disaster we are experiencing and its leaders fell in line swiftly. House banking chair, Rep. Barney Frank, announced he could have the bailout bill on President Bush's desk next week. No need to confuse citizens by dwelling on the details. Save Wall Street first. Maybe lowbrow citizens won't notice it's their money.

We are witnessing a momentous event--the great deflation of Wall Street--and it is far from over. The crash of IndyMac is just the beginning. More banks will fail, so will many more debtors. The crisis has the potential to transform American politics because, first it destroys a generation of ideological bromides about free markets, and, second, because it makes visible the ugly power realities of our deformed democracy. Democrats and Republicans are bipartisan in this crisis because they have colluded all along over thirty years in creating the unregulated financial system and mammoth mega-banks that produced the phony valuations and deceitful assurances. The federal government protects the most powerful interests from the consequences of their plundering. It prescribes "market justice" for everyone else.

Of course, the federal government has to step up to the crisis, but the crucial question is how government can respond in the broad public interest. Bernanke knows the history of the last great deflation in the 1930s--better known as the Great Depression--and so he is determined to intervene swiftly, as the Federal Reserve failed to do in that earlier crisis. By pumping generous loans and liquidity into the system, the Fed chairman hopes to calm the market fears and reverse the panic. So far, he has failed. I think he will continue to fail because he has not gone far enough.

If Washington wants real results, it has to abandon the wishful posture that is simply helping the private firms get over their fright. The government must instead act decisively to take charge in more convincing ways. That means acknowledging to the general public the depth of the national crisis and the need for more dramatic interventions.

Instead of propping up Fannie Mae or others, the threatened firm should be formally nationalized as a nonprofit federal agency performing valuable services for the housing market. That is the real consequence anyway if the taxpayers have to buy up $300 billion in stock.

The private shareholders "are walking dead men, muerto," Institutional Risk Analytics, a private banking monitor, observed. Make them eat their losses, the sooner the better. The real national concern should be focused on the major creditors who lend to Fannie Mae and other US agencies as well as private financial firms. They include China, Japan and other foreign central banks. Foreign investors hold about 21 percent of the long-term debt paper issued by US government agencies--$376 billion in China, $229 billion in Japan.

It is not in our national interest to burn these nations with heavy losses. On the contrary, we need to sustain their good regard because they can help us recover by bailing out the US economy with more lending. If these foreign creditors turn away and stop their lending now, the US economy is toast and won't soon recover.

Americans should forget about whining; it's too late for that. People need to get angry--really, really angry--and take it out on both parties. What the country needs right now is a few more politicians in Washington with the guts to stand up and tell us the hard truth about out situation. It will be painful to hear. They will be denounced as "whiners." But truth might be our only way out.

The Great Deflation

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #36 on: July 14, 2008, 08:51:35 PM »
Quote
Democrats and Republicans are bipartisan in this crisis because they have colluded all along over thirty years in creating the unregulated financial system and mammoth mega-banks that produced the phony valuations and deceitful assurances.

Sheesh. what fun is shared guilt?

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #37 on: July 14, 2008, 10:15:36 PM »
And yet they are complaining. So how is his accusation false?

===============================
His accusation was that they were "whining". As a rule, whining means "unwarranted complaining".
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #38 on: July 14, 2008, 10:24:40 PM »
As a rule, whining means "unwarranted complaining".

Whining is "loud complaining" not "unwarranted complaining".
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

fatman

  • Guest
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #39 on: July 14, 2008, 11:40:28 PM »
Sheesh. what fun is shared guilt?

I think the point is that it's not supposed to be fun, and that all parties are at fault.  I posted the article because I liked and in general agree with it, though I'm not wild about the idea of nationalizing Freddie and Fannie.  But then again, perhaps if it had been nationalized, we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in now.  I see no reason why my tax money should go to prop up investors, lenders, and borrowers who made extremely bad decisions.  That some of the people are undoubtedly innocent doesn't negate the fact that when I bought my home, I researched the financing, saved the money (delayed gratification is a rather obsolete term these days), and didn't buy into the housing the bubble.

The plus side is that my mortage is less than most people's rent, even with the taxes added on it comes out to just under $600 a month.

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #40 on: July 15, 2008, 04:06:48 PM »
Whining is "loud complaining" not "unwarranted complaining".


No, it isn't.

Whining is not any louder than any other complaining.
Whining is like bitching or fussing: unwarranted, or unproductive complaining.

Gramm was not alluding to the volume of the whiners, but the lack of justification for whining.
He said nothing about decibels, did he?
« Last Edit: July 15, 2008, 04:08:32 PM by Xavier_Onassis »
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #41 on: July 15, 2008, 05:12:26 PM »
Whining is not any louder than any other complaining.
Whining is like bitching or fussing: unwarranted, or unproductive complaining.

From the dictionary:

Quote
whine

v., whined, whin?ing, whines.

v.intr.

   1. To utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint.
   2. To complain or protest in a childish fashion.
   3. To produce a sustained noise of relatively high pitch: jet engines whining.

v.tr.

To utter with a whine.
n.

   1. The act of whining.
   2. A whining sound.
   3. A complaint uttered in a plaintive tone.

Nope, nothing in there about "unwarranted".
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 27916
    • View Profile
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #42 on: July 15, 2008, 06:58:33 PM »
2. To complain or protest in a childish fashion.

Is to complain in an unwarranted manner.

Do you seriously believe that Gramm was annoyed by the pitch or volume of the complaints?
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

BT

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 16143
    • View Profile
    • DebateGate
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 3
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #43 on: July 15, 2008, 07:14:27 PM »
Quote
Do you seriously believe that Gramm was annoyed by the pitch or volume of the complaints?

No. He was annoyed by certain people talking down the economy for political advantage.

Amianthus

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7574
  • Bring on the flames...
    • View Profile
    • Mario's Home Page
  • Liked:
  • Likes Given: 0
Re: A nation of whiners
« Reply #44 on: July 15, 2008, 07:39:03 PM »
2. To complain or protest in a childish fashion.

Is to complain in an unwarranted manner.

"Childish" is not "unwarranted" either.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)