1) Top 1 Top Lists of 2013 of 2013
(Feel free to use this as an open thread; no more of these unless I think of something even stupider.)
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How about “Top 10 Idiot Trolls”? I nominate Ten Years After. Several months ago, he hooted and howled when I posted that it’s easy to make 8% a year in the stock market. Actual results: A monkey who bought an S&P 500 index ETF for his 401(k) made 30% this year. MIllions of retirement funds are now MUCH healthier than they were a year ago.
@1
No way….puddibigot far out in front, and not just for sheer volume of posting, but the degree of zealous ignorance and gleeful hate is unparalleled on these threads.
Top 1 List?
Advertisers on *Rush Limbaugh Show:
1) penile enhancement ads
2) Ronco Veg-o-matic ads
*according to Rush, but what does he know…EIB anyone?
@2, and don’t forget that GOATBOY is a *GOD FEARING CHRISTIAN as well.
*Or is he SATAN’S SPAWN? Not to worry, the real GOD will sort this out shortly after the GOATBOY joins the dearly departed.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
My own contributions are over at TA .. I have a new way of saying Happy New Year every hour starting at midnight with a greeting from Israel. There is even a greeting from Tim Eyman with a phone number if yu want to call and give him money!
RR @ 1,
“How about ‘Top 10 Idiot Trolls’?”
Well…we did have the “HA Top 9 Trolls” posted earlier this year….
News for our “Top 1 troll”: make a beeline for (right wing) Luna(tic) County, New Mexico..
http://www.kob.com/article/116.....3&v=1
Just roll through a right. The troll will have the time of his life!
Yes, Luna(tic) County, NM went to Mitt Romney in 2012.
Happy New Year, fellow liberals!
@2 LS, we’re talking “Top 10” here, so after TYA there’s still 9 places left for puddy’s multiple personalities.
@4 Okay, that’s 3 more, we’ve got 5 now and need 5 more.
I nominate pudge. He doesn’t post here often, but you only need to post once to qualify as a “troll,” and he certainly is an idiot. That’s 6, need 4 more.
@6 Yeah, but this is a new year, so we start over with a new list. Otherwise, what we do to amuse ourselves?
From Daily Kos, the Wingnut Noise Machine is making a big deal of the fact President Obama skipped the Gettysburg Address commemoration this year. How many of his predecessors attended this event? The answer is here.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....tail=email
Shorter version
If the pope doesn’t stop talking like Jesus and pointing out that rich people can do so much more for the poor than they are, I’m going to stop doing what I do for the poor. Because I’m an asshole.
I wonder how much Comrade Kim Jong Un made from speculating in the U.S. stock market this year? My take was $74,583, but I’ll bet he made way more than that; I don’t have his drug smuggling and gun running income. Otoh, I don’t have to feed a starving third world army.
Even though you don’t get paid and don’t always get fed, the army is still the best job in North Korea. Freezing your ass off in an observation tower on the DMZ is way better than the coal mines.
@13 A tip of the hat and some sort of award for raising the bar in the Hypocrisy Sweepstakes to the Reuters columnist who wasted about 1500 words yesterday bloviating upon the question of whether Pope Francis is a “socialist”.
@12 It’s remarkable how much the right-wing propaganda mill seems to still rely on belches of noxious gas from Andrew Breitbart’s decaying corpse.
@17 Those fuckers would question Jesus’ birth certificate and accuse him of being a Roman.
From 1,
You misread the comment. It’s difficult for someone to make 8% each and every year in the market for decades and decades. Heck, I made 30% this year without much effort at all, but I don’t expect to make 30% each and every year, from now until infinity.
Take a look at your longterm performance over the past 30 or 40 years. If it’s an average of 8 or 9 percent, you’re doing well.
I did a little research as to the S&P 500 returns since 1974 through 2012 (assign 2013 to the mix would boost results slightly, but I’m too lazy to do the math tonight).
The return of the market over that time period was an average of 11% with a standard deviation df 15.2%. I suppose there is somebody out there who stuck with the program and got those results, but I’ll bet most folks would have abandoned the market for CDs or other “safe” investments in the bad times of the Seventies and Eighties. That means they would NOT have enjoyed the results of the S&P over the years. With a standard deviation of 15.2%, the market would have scared the crap out of a lot of investors, and they would have abandoned the stock market. Investing in equites is not for sissies.
As for this year, I’ve done very well. I will maintain my privacy, but I will say that I am up well over $100,000 for the year.
Roger, what you’re really angry about the most is that someone thinks you’re NOT the smartest guy in the room. Having been a lawyer and long-term government employee, you think everyone should kiss your butt and hang on your every word.
But there are those who ignore your enormous ego and self-agrandizing ways, and that REALLY, REALLY pisses you off.
Oh, BTW, Happy New Year, Roger.
@19 I didn’t misread anything. You misspoke. I said it’s easy to make 8% and you derided that. And I do mean decade after decade! Of course I don’t promise 8% every year, nobody can do that, but you can average 8% a year. If you made 30% this year, then you’re covered for the next two years and then some — you don’t have to make a cent until mid-2016.
@19 “Take a look at your longterm performance over the past 30 or 40 years. If it’s an average of 8 or 9 percent, you’re doing well.”
I started in 1984 with $4,000, added $2,510 more in 1985, and $900 more in 1986. Without adding any more money, that $7,410 of IRA contributions was $96,812.91 as of Dec. 31, 2006.
Mrs. Rabbit and I made additional IRA contributions in 2007, 2008, and 2009 that brought our total IRA contributions to $19,908.64. As of tonight, our IRAs are worth $173,401.47.
I’ll let you do the math.
@21 Man, have you ever misread my posts! You are dumber than a brick. This is a liberal blog, we’re all commies and socialists here, remember? I’m pissed, all right, but it has nothing to do with ego.
What I’m pissed about is how our system coddles the rich and fucks the working classes. I post flippant comments about flipping stocks because the system pisses me off that much. It’s flatass wrong to give huge tax breaks to people who do nothing but push money around in unproductive circles while soaking the workers who actually produce all of this country’s wealth. It’s absurd that I get to pay an effective 6% tax rate on the nearly $75,000 I made this year by flipping stocks when working stiffs making less income pay several times as much.
What I do is useless, pointless, meaningless, and unproductive; so why am I being coddled like that? Because I’m operating under the rules written by the rich for their own benefit, and I just happen to be an unintended beneficiary, that’s why. It’s not like Wall Street wants me to take this money from them, they just can’t stop me, that’s all.
I’m not against capitalism, but I don’t like the fact that corporate profits now take 11% of GDP (the postwar average is 6%), and meanwhile corporate taxes are at an all-time low.
America’s workers are getting fucked over, pure and simple. The system has become so skewed in favor of rich capitalists, and the disincentives for working have become so severe, that I’ve stooped to mocking work to make my point: It’s out of control and America needs a drastic realignment of the system of dividing up economic rewards between capitalists and workers.
You just don’t get it, do you? It’s so easy for me to make money I don’t have to work for, and I pay so little taxes on it, that it actually pisses me off because it’s unfair to workers.
Want to know what pisses me off even more? I’ll tell you. For years, the capitalists have whined and cried that they need more tax breaks so they’ll have money to invest that creates jobs. So Congress — venal Republicans and stupid Democrats — gave them tax breaks on top of more tax breaks. Now the richer are richer than ever before — and what do they do with the money?
Well, here’s an example. Some rich guy paid $48.8 million for a chunk of concrete with graffiti painted on it.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news.....68791.html
They probably tore a whole building down to remove that piece of concrete, because graffiti is at ground level, where schmucks with cans of spray paint can reach, on the foundation blocks. And to get a foundation block with graffiti on it out of a building so you can sell it for $48.8 million means you have to rip the whole fucking building down.
This thing is sitting in a mansion, penthouse condo, or office somewhere. The identity of the buyer is a secret, but it’s undoubtedly a bankster or hedge fund guy or vulture capitalist who flips companies after asset-stripping them and raiding the employees’ pension fund.
There’s only one kind of person who pays $48.8 million for a chunk of concrete that was tagged by a vandal who’s now dead from a drug overdose: A guy spending someone else’s money.
That $48.8 million didn’t build a factory, buy equipment, or create a single job. Neither did the $74,588.57 I sucked out of Wall Street this year. So why is that guy getting tax breaks? Why am I paying ridiculously low taxes?
Enough already! A system like this is seriously fucked up. I’m not saying we should get rid of capitalism, I’m saying we should reform it. We need to restore wages to their rightful place in our society. Workers create all the wealth and their compensation should reflect that fact. Without work, nothing is produced, and there is no wealth for anyone. Investors in wealth-producing endeavors should get compensated, too, but flippers who don’t produce a damn thing don’t deserve a damn cent.
At the very least, investors and financiers and flippers should pay the same tax rates on their take as everyone else. Taxing work at double the rate paid by owners of capital is immoral. In fact, many of the rich who own most of the capital pay little or nothing in taxes, because they resort to legal and illegal tax dodging.
How can a liberal like me not be pissed off by this system? It’s so bad, and so unfair, that it pisses me off even when I benefit from it.
Do you get it now? Nah, you’re a stupid troll, no amount of explanation will ever penetrate your skull. I’m wasting my time writing this.
If you think this liberal blog is bad, you should read some of the investing blogs and see the comments posted by the kind of people who patronize such blogs under articles about raising the minimum wage. It’s truly pathetic.
These people have no problem with getting rich off the $1-a-day labor of women and children working long shifts in sweatshops that collapse or burn down around their ears. They’d reinstate slavery in our country if they could.
If you post a comment suggesting the federal minimum wage should be raised from $7.25/hr to the $9.00/hr proposed by President Obama they’ll call you a communist.
What’s more, this crowd also thinks they should pay no taxes. Not satisfied with the absurd tax breaks they already get, they argue that corporate profits, capital gains, dividends, rents, and interest income should all be tax-free. They think only workers’ wages should be taxed.
Who wouldn’t be pissed off about that?
That’s the kind of people I take money from, and I’m proud of it! I’m doing society a favor. I’ll put it to much better use than they ever will.
@22 To you, too. 2014 is shaping up as a tough nut. I’ll probably make only 15% next year. You can make your 8% if you buy a market index ETF, go to sleep on Jan. 1, and wake up on Dec. 31.
Happy New Year, everybody!
Now the Home Depot founder is going after the remarks on unregulated capitalism by Pope Francis I. He said it could be scaring away potential donors to the fund to renovate St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.
http://thinkprogress.org/econo.....sm-hurdle/
@29 Well, that shows how much we can depend on the charity of the rich to feed the hungry, doesn’t it?
If we listen to them, and replace food stamps with private charity, they’ll be in a position to tell us what we have to believe, what we’re allowed to say, and for whom we must vote.
It isn’t charity anymore when billionaires want to write the Pope’s speeches for him.
There’s another reason for sucking money from Wall Street. If you can grab enough you don’t have to work for these bastards on their terms and conditions anymore.
@24 By my calculations, to turn $7410 into $96,812 in 20 years, the compounded annual returns would have to average roughly 14.5% over that period.
You said, “If it’s an average of 8 or 9 percent, you’re doing well.” Well, it so happens I left 8 or 9 percent in the dust. And I’m not doing anything that pension managers all over the country aren’t doing, too. Like I said, making 8% is easy. Hell, I’m getting 3.7% from dividends alone, so I only need 4.3% from capital gains to make 8%. I sometimes see a stock go up 4.3% in two or three days!
You are so full of shit.
Rightwing liars tell us our nation’s pensions are insolvent. That’s bullshit. That’s a fucking lie they’re peddling in their attempts to dispossess the working classes. Nobody should believe it.
What people should believe is that the capitalist-owning class is making a killing and workers aren’t being paid enough.
How much interest does your bank pay on your deposits? 0.1%?
Let’s see, if I’d deposited $7,410 on Jan. 1, 1986 and left it there
20 years, at today’s bank interest rates, on Dec. 31, 2006 I’d have gotten my $7,410 back plus $142.06 of interest. I’d have $7,552.06.
If the bank earned the same return with my money that I did, the bank would make $89,260.85 by investing my money. No thanks, I don’t like that deal, I’ll invest it myself. I don’t need a bank’s help with this.
The same thing happens when you hire an insurance company to invest your money for you. When you buy a whole life policy, or an annuity, or some other savings-type product from an insurance company, you pay them a sales commission, management fees, and their profit. When you buy these financial products, what do they do with your money? They invest it in the stock market! You see my point? You’re paying them a hell of a lot of money to do what you can do yourself, and you end up poorer as a result.
People who sell investment advice want you to believe this is complicated. It’s not. You buy stocks of big companies that make lots of money and pay dividends which they raise every year.
The best time to buy stocks, of course, is during depressions and market crashes, but those don’t happen very often, so the next best time to buy stocks is during corrections and market dips, which usually happen at least a couple times a year.
Then you sit on it for 20 or 30 years, reinvesting the dividends in more stock, and the only time you sell a stock is if the business goes to shit or management cuts the dividend. This is so simple a grade schoolers can do it, and you can’t miss.
Can anything go wrong with this investing strategy? Yeah, I can think of two things that could go horribly wrong. One, an asteroid hits Earth and wipes out all life. Two, an all-out nuclear war wipes out all life. If either of those two things happens all stocks will become worthless, including mine along with everyone else’s. I don’t lose sleep worrying about it, though.
I actually need the Republicans. When they threatened to default the national debt in 2011, the stock market went down 20% and I bought cheap stocks. When they shut down the government in November, the market went down 3 or 4 percent and I got some more stock at a discount. Every time reckless and irresponsible Republicans drag our country to the financial brink, the stock market goes down and I get more discounts! If you didn’t know me as well as you do, you might suspect I’m paying this guys to do this shit. Which makes me wonder if Wall Street guys are paying them to do this shit. I really don’t care why they do it, I’m just glad they do. It doesn’t really hurt anything, not for long anyway, and it helps me make more money. So, I’m only against Republicans; I don’t want them to go away. It would be a disaster to have no Republicans stirring the pot, scaring people, and mucking things up. They’re useful in somewhat the same way maggots are.
I’ve been drinking tonight. Even rabbits drink on New Year’s Eve. But unlike you humans, we’re coherent even when we’re loaded. And we don’t run over humans on our way home.
The rich tell us they need special tax privileges the rest of us don’t get so they’ll have money to invest in businesses that create jobs. This is what they actually do with their money:
“Police say a chase that led to a Ferrari racing at 100 mph through downtown Olympia before crashing into a parked car and a home began when an officer saw the car traveling at 50 mph in the city … a terrified male passenger who … called 911 to say the driver wouldn’t let him out … jumped from the car when it momentarily slowed … [and] suffered minor injuries. [The driver’s] lawyer … said his client is a local business owner ….”
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....sexml.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Just ask yourself one question: Where are the jobs they promised us? Huh? I say it’s time to revoke their special tax privileges.
Idiots With Guns, Ver. 2.013
This gun nut couldn’t leave 2013 without a parting shot:
“Police in Mountlake Terrace say a 20-year-old woman was taken to a Seattle hospital after her husband apparently shot her accidentally while handling a handgun he recently received as a gift.”
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....-gun-gift/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: My advice is don’t marry a gun nut if you value your life. He’s probably a Republican (most gun nuts are), so you don’t want him anyway.
The SENILE one came out of the fog and got one right!
Hmmm… Those gun nuts we learned about in 2011, 2012, and 2013 were from the DUMMOCRETIN side of the aisle SENILE and very STOOOOOOOOPID Wabbit!
Try again!
Meanwhile Obummercare kicking Obummer’s 2012 voters in the pocketbook!
My my my… A DUMMOCRETIN Preacher calling DUMMOCRETIN libtard led NYC a plantation. They are only 8 years behind Puddy!
http://www.breitbart.com/Breit.....plantation
@40-43 Yawn. No sign of intelligent life here this morning. Everyone must be hung over.
Hey Rog, I’m going to take a little more risk this year. I’m going to take about $120,000 in my 401k out of the stable fund, where it is making only 2.5% and spread it amongst 10 different mutual funds. Enough of this 2.5% bullshit – its been steady and risk free but I’m tired of it. I got another 5 years to retire early at 54, so I’m taking more risk….I had no balls before. Oh, and Puffy, go fuck yourself!
@45 I think macroeconomic risk has declined to where investors no longer need fear taking routine investing risks, but don’t take this as a license to gamble on speculative stocks. Since 2009 I’ve moved into conservative “grandma” stocks like Procter & Gamble, Walgreen, Verizon, etc., and that has been a winner. I don’t like mutual funds; most of them underperform the market, and you’d be better off in a market index ETF. However, I’d reach for a little more and go with ETFs targeting market sectors that aren’t overvalued yet and don’t have macro problems. Avoid utilities, REITs, and MLPs. Most experts recommend industrials, materials, and cyclicals for 2014. I’ve always liked energy and still do; their product won’t go out of style. But you have to be selective within the energy sector. Prior to 2007-2008, I did well in oilfield services stocks, but since 2009 my preference has shifted to oil majors. I currently own Chevron, British Petroleum, and Occidental, and I think all three are still buyable at their current prices. I wouldn’t overweight any sector, though; make sure you diversify with no more than 15% of your money in any sector.
Looks like a mass murder wannabe is loose in Seattle:
“Police said more than 750 people were celebrating New Year’s Eve at Neighbours, 1509 Broadway, when someone poured gasoline on a carpeted stairway leading to the second level of the bar, and ignited it.”
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....-hill-bar/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I hope they find this perp quickly.
@29 At least this time around, when schmoozed by a rich guy or a right-wing politician, Dolan didn’t respond by immediately putting his foot in his mouth.
@46 I have a really bad attitude about REITs. They’re non-productive resource-eaters designed to suck the blood out of other enterprises or (as in the case of Weyerheuser) eat their own entrails to give their managers one last wallow in the trough. We were once advised to “take a look” at REITs and I quickly found that the one which at the time was the darling of the investment-manager/”financial-advisor” community was run by a wingfuck who made a practice of firing anyone he suspected of being inadequately “Christian”.
I’m laid up recovering from surgery, so the wife and I spent New Year’s eve sipping some good wine and watching Ken Burns’ “Prohibition”. In the last installment (entitled “A Nation of Hypocrites”) it depicted the leader of the WCTU, in the face of a national crime wave and more drunkenness and debauchery than America had ever seen, steadfastly proclaiming the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act to be an unqualified success, and crying bitter tears in the gallery as the House voted overwhelmingly to send the amendment to repeal to the states for ratification. We couldn’t help but see the parallel with today’s die-hard defenders of “austerity” and “getting government off the backs of business” as the answer to everything.
48)Langone and his friends probably wished their money could buy a papal election, but the Conclave is hard to predict, with a saying “anybody who goes into the Conclave a Pope, comes out a Cardinal”. One of the first things asked of a new Pope, is if they want the job.
Interesting reuse of a bunker. In Hamburg, there was an old FlakTower/Air Raid Shelter that was built impervious to air raids, and even attempts by Allied Forces to demolish them after the war failed. One is now being resurrected as a renewable energy bunker, including Solar Energy.
http://inhabitat.com/former-ai.....n-hamburg/
What Works, What Doesn’t Work, Dep’t
What worked: Government-run post office
What didn’t work: Private delivery services
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....ice#r=most popular
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hey righties! Tell us again how gummint is always inefficient and incompetent, and private enterprise always does a better job than public servants!
53)Also, isn’t the USPS in the Constitution?
@54. Doesn’t matter, they are union and must die, according to conservatives. The constitution is like the bible, it only matters when the narrative supports the agenda of conservatives. See the pope for confirmation.
Factoid: America’s 4 largest surviving banks have booked $214 billion of profits since Lehman Brothers collapsed 5 years ago.
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....rest-rates