Comments by "L.W. Paradis" (@l.w.paradis2108) on "Saagar Enjeti: Park Avenue GOES ALL IN For Joe Biden As The GOP’s Only Path Forward Becomes Clear" video.

  1.  @mmolchin  That's easy. Socialism for Wall Street, straight from the Federal Reserve.
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  2.  PINKYCULTURE  Yeah, heavily armed, massively stupid vigilantes are just what we need! /s (In the meantime, rational people are looking for a place to emigrate to, just in case.)
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  3.  @mmolchin  Thank you for taking the time to post definitions, too. People have fanciful notions about what those words mean.
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  4.  @rifleman4005  How is the U.S. doing? Great if you never compare it to any other developed nation anywhere in the world, including the rest of the English-speaking world, to control for differences in culture, especially where tolerance of bizarre and inexplicable inequality is concerned. When you have to point to Zimbabwe, you are really scraping . . .
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  5.  @mmolchin  But do you understand the mentality of the lower-middle class in the white-flight suburbs? Do you understand their image-tending? Why do you think Biden was SO "tough on crime?" As was Harris. The lower-middle class want most of the Trump policies, and insist on a much more suave image. Tweeting matters. Black lives, not so much.
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  6.  @mmolchin  All true.
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  7.  @2FINE4YOUBABYGIRL  In fact, no one who does not have two solid years of living expenses in cash equivalents, in addition to an emergency fund, and a guaranteed base income (T bonds, that sort of thing) can be considered secure. That usually means being really, really resourceful and astute, and lucky -- or having a financial net worth of a million per person in the household, and little or no mortgage on where you actually live. That is what financial advisors tell their rich clients, so that they never have to sell off assets at distressed prices. Because most people, even affluent people, one day will.
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  8.  @Oignion  Ah! You beat me to it. Power still comes from the barrel of a gun. Nothing ineffable going on.
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  9.  @rifleman4005  I won't argue with anything you said in your opening paragraphs, as it is either a non sequitur or pointless (and by the way, what is it to me that corporations with zero profits can spawn billionaires, and control what I have access to, without my being consulted? Is there some reason I should be impressed, or celebrate that?) But what in the world makes you think I worship government? Why would I ever think government "cares" about me in any sense? The very same corporations, where I have no vote, run the government, too. Most of what the US has achieved is thanks to its geography, which has allowed it to grow a powerful army without being challenged, which in turn allowed it to extract wealth from the rest of the world. We can measure the wealth extraction using its own numbers: the national debt in foreign hands, and the trade imbalance. Of course it is much more than that -- a lot of raw materials were extracted very cheaply from the Third World, for generations, apart from extracting slaves -- but those two very current numbers start to paint a more nuanced and intriguing picture. They make you start to ask questions, instead of parroting the same nonsense every day.
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  10.  @2FINE4YOUBABYGIRL  I think that used to be true. Now, few people below the top 10% are secure, and those who are, usually sacrificed quite a lot to get there. The Federal Reserve Board's survey of U.S. households has been breaking up the top quintile into the top 10% and the next 10% for purposes of analysis since the Clinton years, for good reason. People may have a preferred socio-economic identification that does not match their circumstances. Image-tending was always important. Social media fuels it like crazy.
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  11. @SD I think your experience speaks to the present moment.
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