Who will die for a color TV?
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Poor Janis Joplin died in September of 1970 as I recall. Back in those days, a color TV cost four or five hundred dollars, and those were 1970 dollars, which were very expensive dollars when compared to the purchasing power of today’s dollar.
Now a color TV isn’t such a big deal. You can get a nice flat panel 19″ TV for $239. I suppose that’s one of the benefits of all the manufacturing jobs disappearing: cheap labor, cheap TVs.
@1 Yep, if they keep the masses doped on mindless teevee fare, maybe they won’t riot in the streets over rising unemployment, falling wages, and unattended people dying in emergency rooms.
The ears bleed.
Back in the 90s, when Mercedes bought the rights to this song and used it in a car commercial, I laughed, I cried, I hurled.
“Now a color TV isn’t such a big deal.”
Yeah…if Janis were alive and creating a song like this today, she’d probably make reference to a home theater system with a 65″ DLTP HDTV, Blu-Ray DVR and a 5.1 THX-certified surround sound system with a 400-watt powered subwoofer.
Forget Mercedes, too. Every schmuck has one of those. Gotta be an Aston Martin or a Bentley.
@5 Pop Rabbit, who is almost 100 years old, can remember when owning a Model T and having electric lights meant you were rich.
@6
My dad’s 76 and didn’t have a phone until he was in his early 20’s.
“Not long ago, I heard an economist say, “if the consumer ever stops spending beyond his means, we’ll have a recession.””
Wendell Berry
Conservationist and Agrarian
2002
Some of us drove Porsches, even back then.
An intriguing group of “protesters” at Westlake Center today, Black Friday, holding signs that said “Buy More Stuff” and “Hurry.” Pretty funny, I thought. They seemed to have a good attitude about their mission.
@1, yeah, sure. back in those days there were still doctors who did housecalls, and many could afford medical care without insurance. but since you’re such a smart fucking young pup, perhaps you can explain why real wages have barely budged since then, despite all the enhanced worker productivity that has taken place in the intervening 50 years.
Speaking of mindless teev fare…
Did you hear about that new reality show, the real housewives of washington dc crash the white house state dinner and meet the president.
Oba-mao better get his act together or it’s four and no more.
Marvie,
You are far too removed from reality to know whether Obama has his “act together” or not. Puppy barbecuers like you scream loudly. For that reason, your volume is disproportionately high compared to your numbers.
Re 13
Or the left is too far removed from reality to know their president is incompetent and out of his depth.
Unemployment is rising at the so called end of the recession.
Obama promises to destroy American industry over the phantom of global warming, which isn’t occuring. Temperatures haven’t been rising for over a decade. ‘Climate scientists’ have been publicly exposed as lying about it, and still you idiots persist in your fantasies.
We still don’t have a coherent Obama policy on Afganistan. Maybe sometime before his first and hopefully last term is over he’ll get his act together. His inexperience and military incompetence are on full display in this instance.
1/5 of the US economy is being disrupted without time to debate it or discuss it so the annointed one can score political points. Big pharma was granted the right to keep doing business as usual. So was insurance, except now they have the full population of the US as a captive audience who could go to jail for not buying their product, and you coolaid drinkers call it reform?
Intellectual honesty would compel decent people to admit when they were wrong. Your president is wrong for any country not run by leftist morons, and you should now admit this.
@11 The answer to that, of course, is the capitalist class kept all the productivity gains of the last 40 years for themselves. The only thing that trickled down to workers was doctrinal bullshit. Why would any working class person vote for those people ?
What do you think will happen in 2010 when all those government projects begin and the job creation gets going in a big way?
Just in time for midterm elections.
And, in case you haven’t noticed, we have a new Democratic congressman in California and New York.
Both in Republican districts.
Those are the facts — and they won’t spin away.
@14 For 8 years you didn’t know what “incompetence” was while it was biting your ass.
And I haven’t forgotten the unpopular Democratic governor of New Jersey who JUST BARELY lost to a Republican and the Democrat who ran to the right in Virginia, thereby losing..
Like Ford, he apparently did not know which side of the English muffin to butter.
Re 16
Oh yeah, those jobs that begin in 2010. At a cost of some $500,000 per job in taxpayer money. Or it would be with a responsible adult as president. As it is we’re selling our souls and our future to the Chinese in federal debt that in one year of Obamunism will equal all 8 years of Clinton and 4 of Bush deficit.
I’m not talking politics. I’m talking about the future of the country and how your ideologue leftist president is alternately selling it away and throwing it away.
Re Rabbit rantings
I consistently criticized Bush for his attacks on civil liberties and for his fiscal lunacy in beginning bank bailouts. Your closemindedness is blinding you to reality.
@19 Assuming your figure is correct, and I don’t assume anything where you’re concerned, that money also pays for concrete, steel, and equipment; and we get infrastructure for it that would cost the same whether it was built with stimulus money or gas tax money. Dolt.
You’re the kind of idiot who argues that WPA projects of the ’30s shouldn’t have been built because the money was spent to put unemployed people to work. Why does your ilk hate the unemployed?
One of those ’30s job-creation programs was the Columbia River dams. If you think the dams were built to generate power, you’re wrong. When the dams were built, nobody knew what to do with the electricity. Then World War II came along and that electricity made the aluminum and nuclear bombs that won the war. Good chance we would’ve been up shit creek if that massive generating capacity hadn’t been sitting there.
The facilities at Camp Long in West Seattle were a WPA project, and have provided recreation to Seattle citizens for 75 years. I’d say the taxpayers got their money’s worth out of it.
The Golden Gate bridge was a Depression job-creation project. So was Timberline Lodge at Mount Hood, and most of the facilities in most of our national parks.
And what is the Republican legacy on public infrastructure projects? Initiative 912, that’s what. You fuckers tried to repeal a 5-cent gas tax increase to repair our crumbling highways and bridges even though you wouldn’t have got 1 cent of it at the pump — it all would have gone to increased oil company profits. The right has no credibility in any debate about public infrastructure spending. Zip. Zero. Nada. None.
@19 “I consistently criticized Bush for his attacks on civil liberties and for his fiscal lunacy in beginning bank bailouts.”
And I criticize you because you don’t get a fucking thing right. The bank bailouts is the only correct thing Bush did in his entire 8 years. Apparently the economic havoc his policies wrought was so frightening it scared even him into rationality. But not you — you can’t even get that right.
lostatsea
I’m old enough to have learned that attempting reasoned debate with people like like you is a waste of time. Obama has not even been in office a full year, yet you folks on the right attribute endless blame to him without acknowledging the remarkable mess he inherited from the debris of your ideology. I won’t argue with you, because you don’t listen and you don’t hear. I will say with regard to the odds of Obama succeeding as president, despite what was handed to him, that I’m pretty comfortable that he will be reelected. Sleep well, lost, sleep well.
@22 Obama has to make painful decisions on hard issues with no good alternatives, so he may be unpopular after 4 years in office; but he’ll be reelected anyway because the 2012 election will be between him and a baboon. The way things are shaping up, the McCain campaign — as bad as it was — probably will be the high water mark of the GOP for some years to come.
By his own figures nearly half of the jobs “saved or created” (in that lovely new Orwellian turn of phrase the Messiah uses) are in education. How exactly do steel and concrete figure into a teachers’ day bunny?
For the rest the projects were ‘shovel ready,’ for a reason. They stank. Or the cost benefit analysis didn’t support them. In any case these projects hadn’t been started because states or localities didn’t consider them worth the money.
Just so you know, general leftists, I agree with you on the political future. Obama is a shyster whose snaky charm will almost certainly win him a second term. Combined with the natural cylcle of recovery after recession for which he’ll get the unearned credit he will almost certainly win. Damn. Damn. Damn. This used to be a decent country.
By his own figures nearly half of the jobs “saved or created” (in that lovely new Orwellian turn of phrase the Messiah uses) are in education. How exactly do steel and concrete figure into a teachers’ day bunny?
For the rest the projects were ‘shovel ready,’ for a reason. They stank. Or the cost benefit analysis didn’t support them. In any case these projects hadn’t been started because states or localities didn’t consider them worth the money.
Just so you know, Proud, I agree with you on the political future. Obama is a shyster whose snaky charm will almost certainly win him a second term. Combined with the natural cylcle of recovery after recession for which he’ll get the unearned credit he will almost certainly win. In addition Bush’ lackluster performance as president and the bad luck of economic cycles left Obama in a spot I don’t envy one little bit. He has the welfare of an entire country in his job description in difficult times and a good man would be in tough shape about now. It’s a darn good thing he isn’t one, for his sake.
@25 Got any specific examples with hard data to back this up, or are you regurgitating the NewsMax propaganda line?
@24 Obama won’t win a second term if you Republicans come up with a better candidate and program. If you don’t whose fault will that be?
By the way, never did see a single answer about Obamas’ jobless recovery, his worthlessness as a military decision maker, or his leading the charge on the extremely expensive hoax of global warming. Typical, I suppose from liberal arts students who never took courses in logic.
Since every single one of the premises of your comment @28 is bullshit, why should anyone bother to respond to it?
Re 24
On that I completely agree. Republican or Democrat whichever party convinces the electorate that the best interests of the country lie with them will win. The best way to do this is by creating a real platform of workable and sound ideas and articulating them well. Republicans have done a lamentable job of this the past 12 years and have paid the price politically.
And a slight case of insomnia has made me more irritable than usual, for which loss of tact and general rudeness I apologize to any whom I have offended.
But enough of that, Rabbit. Have a good night.
@12 Dear me, Marvie-Poo…how conveniently you’ve forgotten when Mary Carey wheedled her way into one of George and Laura’s do’s at 1600 Pennsylvania.
Of course, she did sort of have “credentials”, having filed to run for Governor of California. I’ll betcha by now Arnold wishes she’d won.
Proud to be an ass said:
“…but since you’re such a smart fucking young pup, perhaps you can explain why real wages have barely budged since then, despite all the enhanced worker productivity that has taken place in the intervening 50 years.”
Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t think anyone would confuse me with a “young pup.” Real wages haven’t risen because technology is replacing humans (like ATMs replacing bank tellers) and capital has the ability to go where labor is cheapest. Improving technology means many workers are fucked and some will do well.
I think all you guys are giving the government too much credit for being able to do anything about the economy. It has to work itself out over time. Government intervention slows the painful process.
re 19: Pardon me if I don’t agree with you that you are the arbiter of reality.
Each soldier or ‘troop’, as you righties like to reductively label them, costs a million dollars a year to keep in Afghanistan.
$500,000 is a bargain compared to that. And if the job lasts 11 years at a modest $50,000 a year, you make a profit.
What kind of profit do you make on tens of thousands of permanently injured soldiers that the country has to pay billions for to support. Wars thatt you idiots started.
Reality. Please.
lost @ everywhere
Just more complaints. Not a single idea on how to make things better. Typical.
And, by the way, retooling the economy to use less energy is economic stimulus and will create jobs. You think our buildings will magically insulate themselves? Or the windmills are grown from aluminum seeds?
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your bellyaching.
Please.
Continue.
lost @ everywhere
I want to apologize for the tone of my last comment. That wasn’t productive. I’m trying to learn how to use positive re-enforcement to encourage good behavior.
So here’s the deal.
You share one idea, I’ll buy you a beer (or soda if you’re dry). One beer per idea (remitted one per week, I’m a lightweight).
It doesn’t even have to be an original idea. Just any idea.
Some notion, no matter how outlandish, how novel, how bizarre, how obvious, that would measurably improve something.
And I promise, swear to God, that if you post some bullshit like “tort reform”, I won’t even criticize. I’ll just nod encouragingly.
My goal is to train you how to think constructively.
incorrect @ 33
Where did you learn this gem? Bob Jones University School of Economics?
@37 More likely from Mistress Ophelia’s Academy of Bondage and Discipline.
@36 “I want to apologize for the tone of my last comment.”
Why? He’s a rightwing whiner. He deserves every kick you give him and then some.
I want to make it clear that I’m opposed to killing wingnut traitors. We have more fun by keeping them alive.
@8…and that is exactly what happened.
and now we have a govt spending beyond its means – can anyone guess where that is going to get us? Hell, we already cant even negotiate a trade deal with China because they own our debt and could refuse to keep buying it.
The idiots on both sides of the aisle in DC have fucked us all.
lebowski @ 41
I was in highschool during the anti-Japan hysteria. Japan owns the USA. They could crash the dollar. Etc, etc. I took it pretty seriously at the time. Then nothing happened.
As a layperson, I really don’t know what to think of all this stuff.
But on a positive note, our interdependence with China makes it less likely they’ll mess with us. Mutually assured destruction for the third millennium, replacing nukes with trade imbalances.
I think it’s okay to obsess about these things. I’d merely suggest that taking the long view may help with perspective.
Jason Osgood,
When they put energy creating windmills near Martha’s Vineyard; the Kennedys stop complaining about other people using energy while they fly private jets; Al Gorebasm reduces his home electric bill and stops using worthless carbon credits he buys from himself; then you can ask for suggestions from anyone on the right. Until then bellyache at your own risk.
Jason Osgood,
You seem to forget, your side bragged Bragged BRAGGED you could do everything better. You side told the American populace to vote for their ideas. Now that we who think right see many of them failing… why do we who think right have to provide new ideas for your benefit?
Nancy Stretch Pelosi bragged that she would make her Congress the most ethical ever. Marvin recently posted over 25 peeps are under ethics investigations while Ms Speaker is at the helm. So much for that worthless argument.
We see how Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm has placed ideologues into CZAR positions with leftist pinhead ideas. Chris Stefan loves those CZARs. Senators are complaining those CZARs have no congressional oversight. Yep we see that with many of those pinhead ideas. Those leftist pinhead ideas cost Van Jones his job. Those leftist pinhead ideas cost Yosi Sargent his job. The jury is still out on Mao loving Anita Dunn.
See? Fool, you couldn’t stare at your crotch and count your nuts.
The horseshit in 43/44 is a perfect example why your crowd will always fail.
Fool Yosi Sargant still has a job at NEA just not so visible a job. Anita Dunn took a scheduled exit out of her job which had NOTHING to do with Faux News and her Mao remarks. And Van Jones? What a bad guy – trying to get Americans jobs in new green industries.
You forgot one – that guy at the Education Dept who your ugly crowd tried to smear with that NAMBLA crap. He still has a job too.
See how feckless you are? You think if your crowd repeats that vile bullshit on enough websites like this one things will turn around. Goebbels tactics. The BIG LIE.
YOU WILL FAIL – AGAIN…
Whatafool ylb arschloch is,
Where did Puddy say Anita Dunn lost her job? URL Citation Time & Date Stamp
You betcha Yosi is in a low level job now. Sweeeeeeeet. Using the department for political activities.
Van Jones, what a tool. His own commentary sunk that moron. A 9/11 Truther too. Glad you support 9/11 Truthers ylb arschloch. What a laffer your are moe-ron.
Puddy didn’t forget Kevin Jennings. You brought him up fool. Glad you did. The issue was sketchy over the kid being 15 or 16. Butt, his NAMBLA pronouncements are well documented. So how much did you pay for “Queering Elementary Education” by Kevin Jennings?
Now Puddy has license to bring to the forefront Kevin Jennings own words. Glad you opened the door ylb arschloch. Of course a pervert such as yourself would approve of Kevin Jennings trumpeting the “positive qualities” of Harry Hay when he said this about Harry Hay… “one of the people that always inspired me is Harry Hay.” You know your hero Harry Hay ylb arschloch. Being the porn guy with the whack left eye, you cheered when you learned Harry said “I also would like to say at this point that it seems to me that in the gay community the people who should be running interference for NAMBLA are the parents
and friends of gays. Because if the parents and friends of gays are truly friends of gays, they would know from their gay kids that the relationship with an older man is precisely what thirteen-, fourteen-, and fifteen-year-old kids need more than anything else in the world. And they would be welcoming this, and welcoming the opportunity for young gay kids to have the kind of experience that they would need.”
This is what you jock strap ylb arschloch. Peeps who support peeps in pedophilia. Go for it ylb arschloch. It’s definitely your style here bring the dumbest brick around. The facts are incontrovertible. These are friends of ylb arschloch. Now Puddy truly sees what Marvin said about your comments regarding North Pasadena.
Yep, a really useless tool.
Hey Puddy. Hope you’re enjoying the holidays.
Wow. That’s some collection of non sequiturs. I’m sorry, but I’m having trouble understanding you.
I think you’re trying to say that The Right is fresh out of ideas. That’s cool.
I feel bad. I didn’t mean to leave you out. Should you ever have an original idea, I’ll buy you a beer too. You know how to reach me.
Non sequitors Jason? Those issues were relevant yesterday, and are still relevant today. Let’s see the “beautiful, important” progressives change their live style first then you can come to the common folk and express your “outrage”.
Puddy has placed many ideas on this blog. My latest was how to remove the Taliban and Al Qaeda from the mountainous caves in the winter. Did you miss that idea too? You can always revisit Puddy’s ideas just by contacting the HA arschloch, the monomaniacal unemployed chronological idiot, ylb arschloch, who captures all PuddyMissives with his tctmgr database. Go on, grow some mar-buls and ask him Jason. He’s a good libtardo, so he’ll do your bidding.
46 – Nothing but a jackass fantasizing yet again.
48 – and again…
The silly delusion that he scribbles anything worth paying attention to never stop. What a miserable fool.
Have you ever noticed how little you write that isn’t trying to insult someone?
Marvin,
ylb arschloch was aptly named by Puddy. He projects hate in everything he writes. That’s what happens when you wake up one day and realize role reversal has occurred. You now wear the skirt and lace panties. All you have left is hate Hate HATE. That’s why ylb arschloch calls intelligent black people monkey lovers.
Yes ylb arschloch, the truth to you is a fantasy. Those are the peeps you jockstrap, so the baggage is on your back moe-ron. Everything Puddy placed in #46 is unadulterated truthfulness.
That’s why you are the dumbest libtardo brick here.
SUCKS TO BE YOU Sucka!
14 lost
Yeah, riiiight. We’re not exactly taking advice from those who were bleating cheerleaders for a president who proved his, his administration’s, and his party’s incompetence and unfitness to govern.
Our incompetent president is so out of his depth that he rescued the economy from a depression, passed the health care reform bill Americans have been waiting decades for, approved most progressive budget bill in a generation, got a Supreme Court nominee confirmed, lifted the ban on stem-cell research, passed a national service bill, passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, passed new regulations of the credit card industry, passed new regulation of the tobacco industry, achieved some key counter-terrorism successes, and helped improve the nation’s standing on the world stage.
What could he have achieved if comptent?
@49….you got a job yet? have you even started looking? ya, I didnt think so.
@54…rescued the economy from a depression? wow, what the fuck are you smoking? last I checked, we just spent over a trillion dollars and are still sliding downhill…how the hell you figure we are gonna pay all that money back?
when the piper comes calling for that cash, we are all fucked.
maybe oblama could ask china for another loan? hahhah….the dems and reps done fucked as all.
Puddy @ 48
Relevant? I don’t see how.
And your big idea is that I should contact your nemesis to ask him to present your ideas? Um, okay.
I am encouraged that you thought about how to remove the Taliban. Thus far, the strategy from The Right has been to allow al Qaeda safe passage (to escape) and funding our enemies.
I’m so thrilled that you have a plan, I’m willing to fund it. I’ll kick in $100 towards your travel expenses for you go to Afghanistan and show them how to do things. Your personal involvement is sure to get fast results.
Bravo for you!