The Good Post Gallery

[patrick1]

That argument was comprehensively debunked, destroyed and generally reduced to the status of a stock joke almost as soon as Barnett published his book. The only people who take it seriously are people who are not to be taken seriously.

Anyway, and to just go over a couple of points that are obvious rather than insightful, Britain's status as a 'superpower' (to use a ridiculous and ahistorical term in this context) was effectively ended by the First World War, even if the Foreign Office continued to believe otherwise. The repeated economic fiascoes and diplomatic humiliations of the 1920s and 1930s are testament enough. That the Empire itself was doomed was obvious to all observers by the 1930s, which is why debates on the issue tended to verge on the hysterical. The stresses and strains of the Second World War merely completed matters. Even if this were not true, of course, talk of 'decline' misses the point and shows what might be thought of as an imperialist mindset; the Post War period was one of unprecedented (and almost unbelievable for many at the time) prosperity for ordinary people in Britain. When Macmillan said that people had 'never had it so good' he was being a paternalistic dick, but he was also quite correct.

Anyway, and if we're talking about Britain in the twentieth century, It really comes down to whether you'd rather live in a slum, work in a job that may well end up killing you, be bow-legged from rickets and shorter than you'd rightfully be because of malnutrition, have no financial security whatsoever and access to only limited medical services but live in a country with vast Imperial possessions overseas, or whether you'd rather have the opposite.

[patrick1]

Interesting and informative reporting from Dibble.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/exclusive-investigative-reports/harry-reids-dirty-laundry/

By his own account Reid entered Congress a man of limited assets, drew the modest salary of a Congressman/Senator, paid for 100 semesters of college for his four sons, yet amassed a net worth over $10,000,000. Those are numbers that just don't add up.

LULZ. When Reid entered Congress in 1983 the salary of a representative was $69,800 a year, which would be $140,769.89 adjusted for inflation. By what standard is that modest?


Anywho, did some checking because this thread lacks any real analysis, and it's important to note what assets Harry Reid actually has - having assets is not necessarily the same thing as having cash at hand. It should be noted that Reid's assets are not necessarily worth $10,360,000.00 - in fact they could be less. In fact, the same source that the article in the OP mentions, opensecrets.org, specifies that range:

Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00009922&year=2010

Assets: 58 totaling $3,402,053 to $10,360,000

The $10 million figure is the high estimate, and isn't likely an accurate figure. It's likely closer to the middle - $6.8 million average according the site. That's still a lot of course.

As mentioned real-estate makes up 80% of his total assets. Real estate values can change drastically in either direction depending on the prevailing conditions, and it can be quite profitable even without insider information if you know what you're doing. On a Congressman's salary it wouldn't be unusual for someone to be able to buy some promising land on the cheap as an investment.

One real estate asset of Reid's particularly stands out - he owns 160 acres of land in Bullhead City, AZ that is valued at $1,000,001 to $5,000,000. That's almost a third of the low total and almost half of the high estimate.

Since this is his largest asset, it's the most worth investigating. I managed to dig up some history in regards to this land:

1. Reid initially purchased the 100 acres of the land somewhere between 1979 and 1982 for $150,000. (somewhere between $356,120.21 and $473,355.37) His friend Clair Haycock bought the other 60 acres in the same period for $90,000. (they actually bought it together as one parcel, and that's just how the numbers work out)

2. In 1987 Haycock turned over his interest in the land to an employee pension fund he was the trustee of.

3. In the early 1990's an investment group bought the land from Reid and Haycock for $1.3 million, but ended up defaulting and the land returned to Reid and Haycock.

4. In 2002 Haycock sold his interest in the land to Reid for a mere $10,000. The Mojave County assessor valued the whole parcel at $339,620, so Haycock's portion would have been worth ~$127,000 at the time. Six months later Reid introduced a bill that would help lubricants dealers that had their supplies disrupted by the decisions of big oil companies. Haycock runs a lubricant distribution business. The bill failed. However, this may be unrelated to the sale as records do indicate that Reid had been pushing for such legislation since the mid 90's. The pension fund was also closed out having met it's obligations, so the land being sold under market value may not have been an issue and Haycock may have just been eager to get it off the books.

5. In 2003 Reid - at the time a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's transportation subcommittee - acted on a request from the town of Laughlin, NV,which borders Bullhead City, and secured $500,000 to do a preliminary study on building a new bridge between the two towns. In 2006 he sponsored an earmark for $18 million to build the bridge. The bridge is actually close to his land, and the bridge would likely make the value go up.

Sources:
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/Senate/Nevada/Harry_Reid/Scandals/Bridge_Earmark/
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/28/nation/na-reid28


So Reid's history with the land isn't entirely spotless, but it isn't definitely damning either. Haycock selling him the land for less than market value could have been greasing his palms for legislation, but given that there are records that Reid was already pushing for that legislation it could be unrelated. The bridge earmark certainly benefits Reid personally, but the bridge apparently does have legitimate support from a Nevada town so his support for it was not necessarily tied to his interest in the land. His ethics in regards to this land isn't entirely clear.

However, this does show some things that address the question asked in regards to Reid in the opening of this thread:

Reid's single largest asset by far was purchased before he entered Congress in 1983. Costing $356,120.21 and $473,355.37 in today's dollars, it's clear he had a good amount of money before he entered Congress. He also couldn't have gotten insider information from being in Congress when purchasing the land either. Potentially he might have gotten info at the time from being the Nevada Gaming Commission chairman, but anyone would have had access to the knowledge that Laughlin is a casino town and that buying nearby land would be a potentially good investment.


I'm going to err on the side of him probably not having used insider knowledge and that he's largely just a savvy real-estate investor.

[patrick1]

Well who cares about rural white men anyway?

Obama and the Democrats owe them nothing. They've done nothing for this country but stoke race and class resentment at home and serve as cannon fodder for unnecessary wars abroad. They hate minorities, gays, pretty much anyone who isn't like them.

Romney and the Republicans don't owe them anything either. Guys like Romney would just as soon replace them with robots. Or if you can't get a robot, get some little Chinaman to do the same job for a tenth the cost. Cap their SSI benefits. Make it impossible for them to afford to retire and next to impossible for their kids to go to college. They'll still vote for the "working man's" party (even if most of them are laid off).

And they'll go on living in their alternate reality where they think the rest of us are mooching off them and that they're always being cheated and put upon. They always point their pitchforks at the wrong people. Schoolteachers. Black single moms. Do they really think they're to blame for the fact that a high school education doesn't get you into the middle class anymore? They ought to pick on somebody their own size for a change. Like their fellow white men - the ones who laid them off, for example.

^This post is the embodiment of out of touch, arrogant, smug dickishness. Attitudes like yours are the main reason why more and more working-class white people are voting Republican, or at least, not voting Democratic (often not even voting, period). How can you have a Party of the People when the party leaders and activists mock, sneer at, or worse, actively endorse policies that all working people suffer from?

Hate to break it to you, buddy, but the Democratic Party's emphasis on "Third Way" policies of vague "social progressivism", combined with accommodation and deference to the Reaganite program on the most foundational economic issues, insure that the vast majority of Americans of all colors, creeds, sexual orientation, genders, ethnicities, and ages will have their standard of living decline.

Yeah, social issues are important, but they must be tied to economics at their core-otherwise, you will have growing inequality, a country of haves and have nots. But hey, if one half-black man can become President, and if gays can marry in a few states, and if the Fortune 400 includes a few more highly educated white women, and if your party pays lip service to "social justice" in its rhetoric, while taking the positions of 90s Republicans in practice-the right-wing neo-liberal economic policies are worth that trade-off, eh?

The point is, a lot of poor and working-class white people feel forgotten by the Democratic Party, and rightly so. Yeah, there's racism and cultural ignorance among segments of the population there, but you can just as easily say that for "educated"  middle and upper class white counterparts (who, I'd argue, are better at hidingt heir racism, not that they have less of it). 

So why pick on poor whites-in particular, poor rural whites? Because they vote Republican? Or maybe it's something else entirely; maybe their voting Republican is an indicator of the Democratic Party's abandonment of economic, bread-and-butter issues, in favor of a harsh "meritocracy" that a token number of non-whites would participate in, but would not fundamentally alter power relations.

[patrick1]

Great post Gully. The culture of fear in this country is bad.  The guns are supposed to make these people feel safe but the ones with an armory seem to most frightened of all.

Do the people mocking this idea believe that no one should be able to carry a gun onto school grounds? 

Yes. Absolutely.

So this is an argument for pacifism then?  That's a fine view to have, but it's far from obviously the right one.

Why would anyone need a gun (or at least a loaded one. I could accept unloaded ones used for demonstrations, etc) in a school?

If you are so paranoid about mass shooters tearing about kids that you think is the best solution is to arm people, especially teachers then the shooters have already won. You are creating the world they live in. Congratulations.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure the shooters have won anything either way, and I wouldn't call it paranoid when these things actually do happen. 
And when it does, it's understandable that people want to feel that their children are protected. 

Yes. And the best way for this to happen? Stop talking about guns. Stop having guns. Stop dreaming guns. Stop identifying guns as some sort of part of one's identity. Stop with this whole ridiculous macho fantasy about white boy saving the day from Crazed Psycho (TM) by slugging him with perfect aim and precision during what would be probably the most intense seconds of your life. I'm not American, but if I were, I would want protection from gun nuts far more than the likes of Crazed Psycho (no offense to him, I don't know him personally). Why? Because it is the guns discourse which is so poisonous and absurd and has absolutely nothing to do with the prospects of security and everything about the fear and paranoid which seep into every conversation about guns by gun nuts. Want proof? Gun sales going through the roof after Sandy Hook and the threats to take the toys away is proof enough. It is also shows that this nothing, nothing to do with the practical uses of guns, which legislation can always protect, but about perverse masculinity and fear. And neither of those things would make me feel secure [/rant over].

[patrick1]

Only in America would people watch a sporting event...and not just accept that there are commercials in between...but even make a point of watching them.

Of the 174 total minutes in the game, 60 of them are dedicated to commercials.  Only 11 minutes, out of 174 total, were actual gameplay.

So, over a third of a football game is spent watching commercials.  Only 6% of a football game is spent watching football.

Which is a lot like life, I suppose.  You waste about a third of it sleeping, and about 6% really doing anything that makes the whole damn thing worthwhile.

[patrick1]

I think that it's wrong to dismiss the argument that the taboo on using chemical weapons is worth maintaining. That said, the information that's available to the public fails to provide a coherent case for intervention and doesn't provide a clear answer to a few serious objections.

First, the probability of at least some civilian casualties in the aftermath of a strike is high. Assad may even move civilians to likely target zones prior to an attack or fabricate reports of deaths. Besides adding to horrific body count, this presents a high risk of negative political ramifications for the United States in Syria and across the Middle East.

Second, if our attacks do weaken Assad's regime - which, prior to the Ghouta attack, had begun to gain a clear advantage over rebel forces in much of the country - we run the risk of A) drawing out a war that Assad will eventually win anyway, B) pushing Assad's forces into a desperate situation in which they resort to killing more civilians with conventional weapons or further chemical attacks, or (less likely) C) giving the rebels enough of an advantage that they triumph and either lose control as the country fails into chaos, or proceed to massacre Alawites and other groups that have allied themselves with Assad in their victory.

It's also plausible that our strikes won't have much effect at all. If Assad, his allies, and his forces emerge unscathed and undiscouraged, what kind of message would that send? It certainly wouldn't strengthen the taboo against using chemical weapons. Whatever happens, are we prepared to take ownership of the situation that we'll now have had a significant role in creating? Like any good liberal internationalist, I would say that we should. If we don't have the stomach for all that entails, which we (including myself) clearly do not, we probably shouldn't do anything in the first place.

I wouldn't want my Congressional representatives to rule out intervening before they have reviewed all of the information that will be made available to them. Members of Congress should enter the administration's briefings with both open minds and historically-informed skepticism. I would also want them to weigh alternatives to cruise missile strikes. It's not as if intervention is the only response that has been proposed. But as long as we in all of our ignorance are debating this among ourselves, I'm not going to accept the administration's case on blind trust.