Why not class warfare?

in the 50s, the rhetoric of the usa's successful, easeful, triumphant, modernised, integrated utopia was i. pervasive (= cold war propaganda) and ii. a cultural disaster (a few tv images of racist cops in birmingham loosing dogs on black school kids, and half the white suburban kids raised on the utopian rhetoric were flung into anti-american turmoil => the 60s)

lies also always corrode the system that requires them to survive (another potent example: eastern europe 20 yrs ago)

“Felony convictions have some pretty serious job implications for someone in Mr. Erzinger’s profession, and that entered into it,” Hurlbert said.
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2010/11/08/how-to-buy-your-way-out-of-a-felony-charge/
On July 3, Erzinger was driving his black Mercedes in Eagle, Colorado, and ran over a cyclist — New York physician Steven Milo — from behind. Erzinger immediately drove away from the scene of the crime, eventually stopping in a parking lot on the other side of town, where he called the Mercedes auto assistance service and asked that his car be towed.
i mean, in bonfire of the vanities, at least the guy had to cover up what he did.

A little confused -- it sounds like the prosecutors made the decision so the perpetrator would be in a position to pay restitution in a civil suit, which isn't a totally terrible reason.

sure it is!

sounds to me like they didn't want to prosecute because a felony on you can be, like, a problem for a big shot.

god forbid someone rich should go to jail for a little hit and run. he has money to manage!

norton and ariely's survey about the optimum distribution of wealth has been making the rounds lately. good to hear from them directly

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-norton-wealth-inequality-20101108,0,1887934.story

If Americans say they want a country that is more equal than they believe it to be, and they believe that the country is more equal than it actually is, the question becomes how we lessen these disparities. Our survey didn't ask what measures people would be willing to support to address the wealth gap. But to achieve the ideal spelled out by those surveyed, about 50% of the total wealth in the United States would have to be taken from the top 20% and distributed to the remaining 80%.

that'll be the day

pshaw, simply invest what you were left with in burger king stock, reginald

teach the (poor) children well, their father's hell, can slowly go by . . .

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/03/working-class-kids-middle-class-fit-in

also, go krugman

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/envy-versus-anger/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/nyregion/at-nail-salons-in-nyc-manicurists-are-underpaid-and-unprotected.html

great timing

love, britain

(the answer is that I'd be amongst the first lot against the wall, obv)

On my feed of that article is the most appropriate accompaniment, that weird picture of John Travolta (with his name on a folding chair in case you didn't recognize him - uh oh) with a threatening pointy jet in the background. Anybody else have this?

Thank goodness for the perspective in the Times letter column from Charlie of Boston who knew all about this already because he's so smart:

Charlie Boston Yesterday
Its a well-written piece, but is it really necessary? Any thinking person could see what's happening in these shops just walking by-- it's plainly obvious and has been for many years. Anyone who pays $10 to a business for an hour of human labor is either willfully exploiting another human, or in deep, deep denial.

Reply 177 Recommend

Well Charlie, I'd say that somebody who goes to the trouble to post a variant of "is this really news" is kind of a dope since you could have done the next step and figure that your post is clearly just as inevitable as the originating article, and therefore just as unnecessary. "It's plainly obvious" as you would say.

Can you and Charlie have this conversation elsewhere

Yeah the active conversation on this thread is being interrupted.

http://media.gotraffic.net/images/i_Yu58B.xZ_A/v1/-1x-1.jpg

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/05/grim-racist-methods-of-one-brooklyn-landlord.html

real estate agent and landlord using a pseudonym explains his business (maybe this has been mentioned on another thread since it involves class and race)

We’re small, so we look into places that haven’t caught on — we just did a place on Nostrand Avenue. People are not even there yet. We put in $600,000 and everyone was laughing at us. “It’s crazy, you’re over there. A building for yuppies, white people? It’s not going to work.” The building was full of tenants — $1,300, $1,400 tenants. We paid every tenant the average of twelve, thirteen thousand dollars to leave. I actually went to meet them — lawyers are not going to help you. And we got them out of the building and now we have tenants paying $2,700, $2,800, and they’re all white. So this is what we do.

I swear that where I live there is a conspiracy to make real estate speculators rich. Architecturally significant homes are selling for $100,000 or less. Because it is a majority black area, they can go on FB or anywhere else and lie and say it's a ghetto. I know the neighbors, it's NOT a ghetto. These people are sitting on goldmines, but their homes are valued at one hundred grand or less.

I have come to despise white people because of the greed I have seen.

http://justinkan.com/fun-with-magic

a+ find

"christ, what an asshole"

is that satire? what is that? i'm dumb.

(i don't have a smartphone, which might explain why that link mystified me.)

i don't think that's a real phone service

http://getmagicnow.com/

huh i stand corrected. uber seemed like magic to me at first too

it's real

https://twitter.com/justinkan/status/612481525813133312

Cortana needs to up her game or Clean Bandit are jumping ship

they accept bitcoin, awesome

would exploit

http://www.theawl.com/2015/06/the-members-only-penthouse-for-millennials

i will not make class warfare on 龜 if he gives me his TV.

“I was at dinner at La Esquina with friends, and we were all talking about how much we wanted a black card,” McFarland told the New York Times in December 2013. “So, that night, I did a ton of research on how to add a magnetic strip to a metal card without demagnetizing it and ruining data,” he said. “I got ahold of a place in China that could embed the magnetic strip onto the metal, and I had one made.”

Most coverage of Magnises thus far has focussed on this: that it is “the hot new way to spend money among NYC’s young elite,” as the New York Post described it last August. The Magnises card—which is, of course, black—is not actually itself a charge card, but can be used, for two hundred and fifty dollars per year, following an application process heavily reliant on referrals, in place of one’s normal debit or credit card; it is, essentially, a clone of an already existing card.

pathetic

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/us/for-offenders-who-cant-pay-its-a-pint-of-blood-or-jail-time.html?_r=0

MARION, Ala. — Judge Marvin Wiggins’s courtroom was packed on a September morning. The docket listed hundreds of offenders who owed fines or fees for a wide variety of crimes — hunting after dark, assault, drug possession and passing bad checks among them.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.”

For those who had no money or did not want to give blood, the judge concluded: “The sheriff has enough handcuffs.”

The record at the county jail shows that no one was taken into custody that day. The court clerk said in a brief interview that there had been no intention of jailing anyone; Mr. Crocker said this was because everyone decided that having blood taken was better than going to jail.

However, Sara Zampierin, a lawyer at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that in the handful of instances she reviewed of people who gave blood, none had received the $100 discount they had been promised.

wow

https://i1.wp.com/www.pressandjournal.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/03/Tweed13.jpg?w=2667&ssl=1

not sure about that tie

is that tie purple?