Dr. Tough posted:

Forbes has some genuinely bad writers.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntam...artner=yahootix

Zeroisanumber posted:

Jesus. How did this get printed. Even for a magazine that spends its every waking moment fellating the rich this comes off as some bullshit that the dimmest scions of old money wealth talk about when they're halfway through a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.

Install Windows posted:

It didn't get printed, he's a strictly online writer. Forbes will let pretty much anyone write for their online service.

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Is that nutjob implying that aviation technology has been advanced solely by private industry? Like, has he never heard of World War I, World War II or the Cold War?

Slo-Tek posted:

Thing is, war, and especially secrecy is poo poo for technological innovation. What war does is jack up production, which can drop the unit cost, but it doesn't result in more/better poo poo faster. The span from 1940 to 1950 resulted in a lot fewer major technological discoveries than the 1950-1960 time period, in aeronautics and everything else. During war, you decide "jets are interesting, but gently caress it we have a war to win, build more Merlins and 4360's. But when you don't have to bend your entire economy toward building 100,000 1940's vintage bombers, you can spare a little juice for super-science.

VideoTapir posted:

"Exponentially"

I do not think this word means what he thinks it means.


I'm also reminded of something Chris Hedges has mentioned every time he's spoken in the last few years: capitalism is going to crash into the limits of our natural resources. Even if that retard's pipe dream came true, it's just pushing the opening date for Thunderdome closer.

Slo-Tek posted:

Thing is, war, and especially secrecy is poo poo for technological innovation. What war does is jack up production, which can drop the unit cost, but it doesn't result in more/better poo poo faster. The span from 1940 to 1950 resulted in a lot fewer major technological discoveries than the 1950-1960 time period, in aeronautics and everything else. During war, you decide "jets are interesting, but gently caress it we have a war to win, build more Merlins and 4360's. But when you don't have to bend your entire economy toward building 100,000 1940's vintage bombers, you can spare a little juice for super-science.

quote:

What do you suggest I do about it?

I’m sick of feeling self-conscious every time someone brings up the burden of student loans. I dread being asked what I plan to do after graduation about paying them back. Sometimes I lie. Sometimes I make up a line about praying I find a great job or can pay off my loans by working for the government.

But I’m sick of lying. I’m sick of feeling ashamed for being privileged.

I am in graduate school and am debt free. I have Baby Boomer parents who work hard and did much better than they ever expected in their careers. They wanted to pay for my college and graduate school. They demanded to pay for my college and graduate school.

I work hard. I earned partial scholarships in college and graduate school. I work a part-time job, babysit, and go to school full-time. I am earnestly applying for jobs and I look forward to a career in public service.

I want to stop lying about the suits I buy for my internship. I want to stop saying they are hand me down’s from my cousin. I want to be able to say thank you when I receive a compliment on them. I was taught that you should always dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I want to be taken seriously at my internship and look professional—and I have the resources to buy nice-looking suits and have my hair professionally highlighted.

I’m tired of justifying my address and the backlash I receive when I tell people I am a student and live in a high-rise apartment. I’m tired of the looks my doorman gives me when he hands me my package (of work clothes) delivered from J.Crew.

So stop making me feel like I’ve done something wrong. Stop making me feel like I am less deserving. I didn’t ask to be born into this kind of circumstance and I’m tired of being judged for it.

I’m not asking for sympathy, I’m asking for people to lay off. There is always enough money in my bank account and I’m not sorry that is my situation. I understand the value of a dollar. I am not wasteful. I understand the overwhelming financial burdens of others and I highly encourage people to openly bitch about it. That blows. But your situation doesn’t change my situation. I am responsible and fortunate for the resources I have. I’ll respect your background if you respect mine.

Y-Hat posted:

Is it OK to post Thought Catalog garbage here?

Being Privileged Is Not A Choice, So Stop Hating Me For It

Y-Hat posted:

Is it OK to post Thought Catalog garbage here?

Being Privileged Is Not A Choice, So Stop Hating Me For It

Y-Hat posted:

Is it OK to post Thought Catalog garbage here?

Being Privileged Is Not A Choice, So Stop Hating Me For It

cafel posted:

The author should have titled this "I have serious self esteem and self worth issues: Please validate me'. It reads like an OP in E/N.

Y-Hat posted:

Is it OK to post Thought Catalog garbage here?

Being Privileged Is Not A Choice, So Stop Hating Me For It

MisterBadIdea posted:

Eh, it's okay. Nowhere near as funny as the immortal "If Only We Could Be Boring."

Bubbacub posted:

Didn't know what that was so I looked it up. Holy christ, that's incredible.

Y-Hat posted:

Is it OK to post Thought Catalog garbage here?

Being Privileged Is Not A Choice, So Stop Hating Me For It

Alter Ego posted:

I had an aunt once who suffered from this. She was convinced that there were con men living across the street from her and used to sleep with a pair of hedge clippers in her bed so they couldn't rape her while she was sleeping.

Seriously, if he's so paranoid about his clothes, then I'm guessing he's basically GOB Bluth ("...f-king $3000 suit! COME ON!"). If he's so dumb he can't just say "I was lucky enough to come out of school without any debt", then I don't know what to tell him.

JDM3 posted:

I have no idea why, but when I read it I pictured a woman. Not going to bother checking for pronouns, etc.
*EDIT* had to check....

Not that it matters, but unless this guy is the king of tinted-hair "so secure gender wise that he babysits" metrosexuals, it's a woman. Makes it no less irritating, but it does change things a bit.

flatbus posted:

I actually read it as a guy who always paid someone to highlight his hair with Douchenozzle Bleach streaks before going to interviews with a new suit.

quote:

Wake up people!

I’ve become aware of a book on the history of World War II written by Robert Welch who founded the John Birch Society back in 1958. This book is based largely on the explosive allegations it contains about the alleged crimes of General Dwight Eisenhower in the war in Europe, which have never been properly investigated. To stop the treason of today, which will continue unless we stop the modern-day traitors destroying our country now by economic and political means, we should read the book, “The Politician”, (see the Internet and JBS.org). We need to understand such critical history exposing the treason against the U.S., including the thousands of our prisoners of war that Eisenhower allowed Joseph Stalin to kidnap to the Soviet Union for forced labor. Eisenhower stood on Lenin’s tomb and was given the highest honor of the Soviet Union. That reportedly came with an annual monetary payment. We must use historical understanding to stop the current treason now upon us – wake up people!

Sincerely,

Ed Nemecheck
Landers, California

quote:

According to some theories, Tony Blair (former British Prime Minister) supported the United States in Iraq not only because he wanted to preserve the special relationship, but also because he believed going to war was morally right. He supported the war without regards to his party’s support.

The Iraq war is in no way, shape, or form, similar to the government shutdown, but Blair’s approach to it is still one to be admired. Boehner needs to forget about being in good standing with Republicans, and do what is morally right for this country.

Niall Ferguson posted:

You may ask: Why have I taken the trouble to do this? I have three motives. The first is to illuminate the way the world really works, as opposed to the way Krugman and his beloved New Keynesian macroeconomic models say it works. The second is to assert the importance of humility and civility in public as well as academic discourse. And the third, frankly, is to teach him the meaning of the old Scottish regimental motto: nemo me impune lacessit ("No one attacks me with impunity").

quote:

For too long, Paul Krugman has exploited his authority as an award-winning economist and his power as a New York Times columnist to heap opprobrium on anyone who ventures to disagree with him. Along the way, he has acquired a claque of like-minded bloggers who play a sinister game of tag with him, endorsing his attacks and adding vitriol of their own. I would like to name and shame in this context Dean Baker, Josh Barro, Brad DeLong, Matthew O'Brien, Noah Smith, Matthew Yglesias and Justin Wolfers. Krugman and his acolytes evidently relish the viciousness of their attacks, priding themselves on the crassness of their language. But I should like to know what qualifies a figure like Matt O'Brien to call anyone a "disingenuous idiot"? What exactly are his credentials? 35,550 tweets? How does he essentially differ from the cranks who, before the Internet, had to vent their spleen by writing letters in green ink?

quote:

VW imposing 'dictatorship'

I own a 2012 Passat, made here in Chattanooga. It's a great car but probably my last. Forget the debate over "is the UAW good or bad." Didn't VW know that Tennessee is a right-to-work state when they came here? Sounds to be that they are trying to force a union on the workers and our state as a condition for future growth and employment. Isn't that in violation of the right-to-work laws? I thought the Germans had given up "dictatorship" back in the '40s. Guess not.

GORDON SMITH, Signal Mountain

quote:

Liberals are waging a war on the weak
A weak moral code is responsible for the divide between rich and poor

We hear from all sides that America is becoming “two nations.” The upper class of highly educated professionals is flourishing — rich and getting richer. But many in the working class are struggling — dropping out of the workforce and leading increasingly dysfunctional lives. The middle class is shrinking and beginning to show similar signs of dysfunction.

Liberal opinionmakers bemoan this inequality, which they tend to view solely in economic terms. Yet ironically — even as they call for more wealth redistribution and job training — they fail to see the responsibility they bear for the social conditions in which many of our society’s less fortunate members now flounder.

Since the 1960s, America’s elite — on the campus and in the media, government and nonprofit sectors — has led a crusade for social and cultural “liberation.” In the process, it has jettisoned once-clear standards of conduct, substituting a fluid new moral code that champions self-actualization and “choosing your own values.”

In a recent issue of First Things, R.R. Reno, the journal’s editor, listed the multiple arenas in which America is seeing the relaxation or abandonment of once-universal norms: from sex and marriage to the legalization of gambling, marijuana and assisted suicide. On all these fronts, moral restrictions are being dropped in the name of expanding freedom for all.

Affluent, college-educated people — the top 20 percent — can generally handle the new smorgasbord of choices, thanks to their education, their grasp of risk and the social capital that helped them achieve success in the first place. But the poorly educated and vulnerable, who often lack these resources, cannot.

Reno cites statistics that prove his point. For example, upper-class Americans have developed a “relatively disciplined approach to drugs,” he says. But parents who dropped out of high school are twice as likely to have children who use marijuana as are parents with college degrees. The less educated a person, the more likely he is to be a frequent gambler.

Today, freedom for the strong is coming at the expense of the weak, Reno concludes. Our society, despite professed concern for the less fortunate, is waging a “war on the weak.”

In our newly liberated world, the biggest advantage the strong have may be their ability to manipulate the complex, open-ended moral code that is replacing the straightforward rules that once guided life. Think of the movie “Cinderella Man.” Russell Crowe’s character, a down-and-out boxer in the Depression, admonishes his son — who has stolen food for his hungry family — that stealing is wrong, no matter the circumstances. The boy is ashamed. He doesn’t need a complex explanation.

Today, however, the language of right and wrong is evaporating. In its place, we promote subjective rules for living, open to endless interpretation. “Make healthy choices,” we tell our youngsters. “Value diversity.” Do things that are “in your comfort zone.” People with the education and ability to conjure prosocial meaning from these therapeutic buzzwords feel in control of their moral lives. Others, who need a clearer compass to navigate life’s shoals, are set adrift.

The consequences have been most dramatic in the arena of sex and family formation. On these issues, we live in a moral Wild West. “Decide for yourself when you’re ready” for sex, we tell our kids. Sex of any kind is OK so long as it’s “safe” and there’s mutual consent.

As a group, America’s upper class has managed to hold family life together despite this relaxed sexual ethic, as Charles Murray documented in his 2012 book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.” But the bottom third of the population is collapsing into social disarray.

In 1960, notes Murray, only 2 percent of all white births were out-of-wedlock. Today, it’s about 8 percent for white college graduates, but an astonishing 60 percent for white high school dropouts. Most college grads still marry, and their divorce rate — after rising — has declined to 1970s levels. But, among the bottom third of Americans, marriage is becoming rare and divorce rates are sky-high.

Our college-educated elite “talks the talk of the ’60s, but walks the walk of the ’50s,” in Reno’s words. Yet it refuses to criticize the self-destructive conduct of others. That’s because the one nonnegotiable principle of the flexible moral system is nonjudgmentalism.

This is deeply selfish, says Reno. Our elite has crafted “a nonjudgmental ethic suited entirely for itself,” he says, while deconstructing the moral code that once sustained the weak. “One of the most fundamental forms of greed that has emerged in the last fifty years is cultural and moral,” he says.

Even if we could magically equalize incomes, our nation would still be marred by the kind of inequality that matters most: cultural and moral inequality.

Katherine Kersten is a senior fellow at the Center of the American Experiment. The views expressed here are her own. She is at kakersten@gmail.com.

Mo_Steel posted:

Emphasis mine. Poor people are poor because they are immoral idiots who can't handle their lives unless society imposes upon them sexual norms and legally enforced morals. They are morally and culturally inferior to rich elites.

quote:

Abstract
Seven studies using experimental and naturalistic methods reveal that upper-class individuals behave more unethically than lower-class individuals. In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals. Mediator and moderator data demonstrated that upper-class individuals’ unethical tendencies are accounted for, in part, by their more favorable attitudes toward greed.

Mo_Steel posted:

Niall Ferguson posted:

The second is to assert the importance of humility and civility in public as well as academic discourse.

Bradley Allen posted:

Three years after the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act, most of the website troubles finally have been ironed out. People are now able to log on to the government's ACA website and to most of the state health-insurance exchanges. The public has grudgingly come to accept higher insurance premiums, new taxes and increases in part-time workers who were formerly full-time. But Americans are irate anyway—because now they're seeing the health-care law's destructive effect on the fundamental nature of the way their care is delivered.

Even before the ACA's launch in 2013, many physicians—seeing the changes in their profession that lay ahead—had begun talking their children out of going to medical school. After the launch, compensation fell, while nothing in the ACA stopped lawsuits and malpractice premiums from rising. Doctors must now see many more patients each day to meet expenses, all while dealing with the mountains of paperwork mandated by the health-care law.
The forecast shortage of doctors has become a real problem. It started in 2014 when the ACA cut $716 billion from Medicare to accommodate 30 million newly "insured" people through an expansion of Medicaid. More important, the predicted shortage of 42,000 primary-care physicians and that of specialists (such as heart surgeons) was vastly underestimated. It didn't take into account the ACA's effect on doctors retiring early, refusing new patients or going into concierge medicine. These estimates also ignored the millions of immigrants who would be seeking a physician after having been granted legal status.

It is surprising that the doctor shortage was not better anticipated: After all, when Massachusetts mandated health insurance in 2006, the wait to see a physician in some specialties increased considerably, the shortage of primary-care physicians escalated and more doctors stopped accepting new patients. In 2013, the Massachusetts Medical Society noted waiting times from 50 days to 128 days in some areas for new patients to see an internist, for instance.

But doctor shortages are only the beginning.

Even before the ACA cut $716 billion from its budget, Medicare only reimbursed hospitals and doctors for 70%-85% of their costs. Once this cut further reduced reimbursements, and the ACA added stacks of paperwork, more doctors refused to accept Medicare: It just didn't cover expenses.

Then there is the ACA's Medicare (government) board that dictates and rations care, and the board has begun to cut reimbursements. Some physicians now refuse even to take patients over 50 years old, not wanting to be burdened with them when they reach Medicare age. Seniors aren't happy. Medicaid in 2016 has similar problems. A third of physicians refused to accept new Medicaid patients in 2013, and with Medicaid's expansion and government cuts, the numbers of doctors who don't take Medicaid skyrocketed. The uninsured poor now have insurance, but they can't find a doctor, so essentially the ACA was of no help.

...
With an average of $300,000 in student loans, eight years of college and medical school, and three to seven years as underpaid, overworked residents, a prospective physician in the ACA era would be starting a career at age 30 in a job that requires working 70-80 hours a week in an assembly-line fashion to earn perhaps $100,000 a year. No wonder so many qualified individuals these days are choosing careers on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley instead of medicine.

OwlBot 2000 posted:

ObamaCare 2016: Happy Yet? The website problems were finally solved. But the doctor shortage is a nightmare.

quote:

EL PASO - Years into the Presidency of Barrack Obama and his promise of healthcare to everyone in America seems to be going well. But some, like Aaron Smith, seem to express reservations.

"It's sort of a blur." Smith, a 45-year old doctor, said. "My daughter took her first steps into this world. That was in Albany. I don't know where I am."

Smith is one of reportedly thousands of doctors stranded like this. They move in familiar places, the hearth, the store, and the dusty back rooms which go ignored for six days of the seven. But those places slowly twist all wrong and they find themselves in new places. Sick places. Smith finds himself treating diabetic immigrants who, just months ago, would have died foreign and alone in a strange place. But he too is a stranger.

"I speak Spanish now." Smith says, glancing at his watch with darkened eyes. "I don't want to speak [Spanish] anymore." He goes through motions, prodding a dying foot with his rubber hammer.

Accounts of the disappearances are as such: You look away, glance down at your life for a moment, and then your husband is missing. Your wife. He has been spirited away in service. The Congressional Budget Office says that most of the funding for Obama's new health plan has been used for transit- Cars and their ilk to carry lovers to their home. But not all of these stories have a happy ending.

"It's not familiar here." Dana Sioban, a 35-year-old nurse practitioner. "My dog is here and my house is full of messages, but I stay in the yard and my brother must watch me sleep."