An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slave-driver

September 21, 2005 8:25 PM

Still Broke? Things getting worse? Well you should follow your own advice! Continued from.
posted by lalochezia (41 comments total)

Fun links, thanks. Anyone know if this is in log-linear somewhere?
posted by Rothko at 8:32 PM on September 21, 2005

But if there are tax cuts then the economy will grow.
posted by billysumday at 8:32 PM on September 21, 2005

Thank God for W's fiscal sanity.
posted by Kwantsar at 8:40 PM on September 21, 2005

There's a good Minutemen song in this somewhere. D. Boone would piss himself.

I may be shot for this, but I've always believed in National Socialism. (Without the racism, of course.) And don't EVEN invoke the Godwin thing on me. It just works, ok?
posted by snsranch at 8:44 PM on September 21, 2005

Anyone know if that second link's chart is in inflation-ajusted dollars? I think not, which throws a monkey-wrench in the analysis.
posted by teece at 8:47 PM on September 21, 2005

Then again, maybe we shouldn't pay off the debt...

[/devil's advocate]
posted by gsteff at 8:51 PM on September 21, 2005

national socialism? isn't that, like, totally hitler?
posted by slogger at 9:01 PM on September 21, 2005

snsranch: Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but AT LEAST it's an ethos...

[/obligatory Lebowski reference]
posted by anomie at 9:01 PM on September 21, 2005

I don't know about you guys, but I already know how to pick fruit and grow veggies. Hell, I can raise pigs and chickens too.
AND I already (mostly) own my own land.

Why is this important? Three words. The Grapes of Wrath.

Think about it.
posted by snsranch at 9:03 PM on September 21, 2005

Hey, if you read the first page top to bottom, things look like they're getting better! FOUR MORE YEARS! And Praise Jebus.
posted by Eideteker at 9:04 PM on September 21, 2005

national socialism? isn't that, like, totally hitler?

That depends on how well you can see through semantic propaganda.
posted by Jimbob at 9:06 PM on September 21, 2005

P.S. "The Grapes of Wrath" are four words. "Dustbowl" is one word. "The Ghost of Tom Joad" is five words. It's also a Rage Against the Machine song. "Rage Against the Machine" is four words.

I don't know how many words "Bruce Springsteen" is.
posted by Eideteker at 9:08 PM on September 21, 2005

Adolf might have gone the right way had he not got all whacked on meth. Stupid fucker.

BTW, I don't mean to derail or be stupid, but it's obvious to me that it might be time to put on the seat belts in preparation for a bumpy ride.

Interesting post and comments too.
posted by snsranch at 9:09 PM on September 21, 2005

Like Hitler, I am anti-semantic.
posted by Kwantsar at 9:09 PM on September 21, 2005

Eideteker; YOU WIN! It took you exactly 5 minutes to figure that out and respond!

Shall I start now with the anti-semantic propaganda?
posted by snsranch at 9:17 PM on September 21, 2005

Adolf might have gone the right way had he not got all whacked on meth. Stupid fucker.

Huh? Hitler was deeply anti-semitic (along with the rest of Christian Germany) LONG before he became a meth addict. If he went the other way on THAT, he would not have come to power.

And he was not a stupid fucker. More of an evil, treacherous fucker. Although the drugs and STD's did make him pretty stupid there at the end I guess
posted by anomie at 9:22 PM on September 21, 2005

anomie: Yes, I agree. I was just trying to illustrate in a very loose and, what I thought was funny, way, that Adolf was a stupid fucker for poorly representing the possibilities of the implementation of National Socialism. That's all.

Oh, the possiblilities were endless too, but his racism was his ultimate downfall. Had he embraced ALL of the available people (Jews, Gays, Gypsies), he might still be in power today.
posted by snsranch at 9:30 PM on September 21, 2005

Hey, the trains ran on time in Italy. Fascism can't be all that bad.
posted by Rothko at 9:32 PM on September 21, 2005

I'd rather the trains run late if I am to be loaded up on the cattle cars they pull.
posted by maxsparber at 9:37 PM on September 21, 2005

Rothko, hey man, I can't promise that!

Fair taxation and real representation might be cool though.
posted by snsranch at 9:40 PM on September 21, 2005

Hey Rothko, good point.


Oh wait, I'm sorry, blatant trolling does not equal making a good point, my mistake.

Hey Rothko, way to be a troll.
posted by oddman at 9:44 PM on September 21, 2005

Oh fer fucksake, I WAS KIDDING in response to snsranch's comment.
posted by Rothko at 9:46 PM on September 21, 2005

Does anybody have a chart of the derivative of the chart rothko linked to? That would actually be a lot more interesting.
posted by I Love Tacos at 9:48 PM on September 21, 2005

Ditto Rothko, jesus WTF?

Oh wait, I'm sorry, blatant trolling does not equal making a good point, my mistake.

Are you still waiting for your nurse to administer your nightly valium? Relax.

And BTW, my apologies to lalochezia, my original idea was that the shit might be hitting the fan. This economy is already fragile and going south. Hence the "Grapes of Wrath" and National Socialism, both of which were big deals during the last depression.
posted by snsranch at 9:52 PM on September 21, 2005

"I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

- E. Ripley
posted by Darkman at 10:03 PM on September 21, 2005

All this talk of guns and iron is the cause of my drinking.
posted by mds35 at 10:09 PM on September 21, 2005

My first question stands, assholish accusations aside.
posted by Rothko at 10:09 PM on September 21, 2005

Hey, the trains ran on time in Italy. Fascism can't be all that bad.

No there is no causal relationship between fascism and effective public transportation.
posted by nervousfritz at 10:17 PM on September 21, 2005

My first question stands

There's a link to the Excel file on the bottom of the page, Rothko.

Does doing it yourself present any major obstacles?
posted by Kwantsar at 10:23 PM on September 21, 2005

You could even adjust for inflation, if you felt like it.
posted by Kwantsar at 10:25 PM on September 21, 2005

Does doing it yourself present any major obstacles?
posted by Kwantsar at 1:23 AM EST on September 22 [!]

Not at all. I should read the footer more often. Thanks for your generous help.
posted by Rothko at 10:25 PM on September 21, 2005

All this drinking of talk and iron is the cause of my guns.
posted by Balisong at 10:37 PM on September 21, 2005

No there is no causal relationship between fascism and effective public transportation.

But if there were, I would be a lot less gung-ho about monorails.

Go monorail!
posted by davejay at 10:39 PM on September 21, 2005

sns, National socialism "It just works"? Where has socialism ever worked in the west?

5 minutes doesn't count.
posted by 517 at 10:56 PM on September 21, 2005

I went and made your graph, Rothko, and your graph, I Love Tacos, but then Mathematica crashed before I got them exported, and I don't think I feel like creating them again. Because A), I don't care all that much, and B) the picture shown isn't nearly as neat when you get further into the data, and C) I'd have to go mark the graphs up with presidential periods to really get the full picture, and I don't want to right now.

But it's not that hard, and as Kwanstar pointed out, you have access to the Excel file.

I think this JMiller is just a student or something.
posted by teece at 11:05 PM on September 21, 2005

Is there an updated graph? The linked one is dated July, 03.
posted by Gyan at 12:55 AM on September 22, 2005

OK, here's an updated version of the second link.
posted by Gyan at 1:06 AM on September 22, 2005

Ah thanks, Gyan.
posted by teece at 1:09 AM on September 22, 2005

Hey, here's a crazy idea. What if the government stops spending money it doesn't have? Abolish this whole credit thing? I mean, if I were to max out my credit card limit I couldn't just ask them to raise the limit, no matter how good of a reason I have. Why shouldn't this same rule apply to the government, especially considering they don't seem to know where the money is best spent at?

And while we're on the subject, what about those ridiculously overpriced machine parts we've been buying? Why pay $2,000 for the same part you can buy at a local hardware store for 50 cents?
posted by deusdiabolus at 2:44 AM on September 22, 2005

what about those ridiculously overpriced machine parts we've been buying?

Most of those claims fall into two categories, both of which are variants of "myth."

First, there are accounting artifacts. The famous $400 hammer is one of these -- the Navy bought some simulation equipment for jet trainers, and the company had to go off and invent parts of it so they were allowed to charge R&D expenditures. The way you did this at the time was to take the R&D costs and divide them equally among all the items that were being bought. So an umpty-thousand-dollar piece of electronic widgetry had just shy of $400 in R&D costs added to it, and the hammer included to open the crates had, you guessed it, just shy of $400 in R&D costs added to it.

Second, the things being bought aren't what the busy little reformers tell you they are. The $640 toilet seat is one of these. You see some clear-eyed reformer talking about it and holding up a toilet seat like you'd get from Home Despot, but that's just bullshit -- the toilet seat was from an aircraft, where it makes sense to have a ludicrously expensive toilet seat if that shaves half an ounce from its weight. If you want to buy a toilet seat for a 757, that'll set you back $720 from Boeing. If you want an Airbus toilet seat, that'll cost you from $388 to $1447. The $1200 coffee maker is another example of this; IIRC, it actually refers to an airliner beverage cart with a coffeemaker as part of it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:37 AM on September 22, 2005

It also (IIRC) includes black-budget items; they cook the books on publicly-known projects to balance out the seekrit death rays and such.

Which is, basically, free license to rip off the taxpayer, but nobody seems to be bothered much about that sort of thing.
posted by ook at 8:26 AM on September 22, 2005