GCrites

effect

I didn't say it, the article did.

I read the whole thing. There are some excellent insights in the article, distilled in a manner that could explain to a lot of Americans (ones that don't 'get it' yet) why things aren't like 1964 any more and that we can't go back. One key point in the article was made about how Obama doesn't buy into the American Dream since he comes from a Kenyan background. The people that can't relate to him (and there are a lot of them) were raised with the American Dream-style sense of entitlement. While Obama's heritage may be part of it, the fact is that he knows that the dream is over. He is incapable of pretending or lying that it is not, unlike other politicians. Kind of like how Carter refused to come up with scams to temporarily relieve energy issues or surgarcoat what was going on with them. The people got rid of him for that. During the 2000s, nobody was willing to say that all this creative financing stuff was BS except professors and a few personal financial advisers (mostly small town ones). The meltdown actually had to happen for people to listen. What other financial and cultural crises will be allowed to happen after so many stick their fingers in their ears and yell "na na na na na na na"?

The Dispatch claimed that it was moving toward the center around the time Obama won. Looks like that's over.

Excellent piece.

Gun control doesn't seem to be much of an issue in this election since it turned out that Obama has showed no signs of "coming for people's guns" and Bush's lead ban that could have outlawed lead ammo and even kid-size dirt bikes has failed to go into effect so far.

I've actually considered getting a Jitterbug on several occasions.

I hate cell phones so much that I can only bring myself to have a stupid phone from 2004.

^For a long time I thought overtime was pretty ridiculous. So you're going to pay someone 1 1/2 to 3 times as much for work time where their productivity is constantly dropping and their chance for mistakes and injury increase dramatically? Then I realized that so much of a full-time worker's pay consists of their benefits (especially healthcare) that it's still cheaper to pay them twice as much cash for crummy "tired guy work" than it is to hire another person. The more overtime worked, the higher health and workers' comp insurance rises since all that work makes people unhealthy and dangerous, the effect snowballs. More people have to be fired to keep the 80 hour a week guy going. Meanwhile, high paid white collar workers have to spend more time on e-mail and other BS rather than actual work since they lost their middle managers and clerical staff. Eventually, you're paying them a ton of money to do work that could be done more cheaply and efficiently by someone else. But at least you didn't have to pay a second person's healthcare. This is why employer-paid health care is stupid. It fosters a culture where people are pushed to the max so much that their health goes in the crapper while creating unemployment at the same time. Other countries know this. Somehow it goes right over America's head.

STEM and the trades.

Portland is growing because people from Ohio leave to move there. Ask a native Portlander what they think of the Midwestern horde that has filled the city. Same thing is going on in Brooklyn.

ColDayMan, is there a certain trigger that makes you lose it? Is it Tuesdays?

Oh so that's why auto-tune is so "cool". It's expensive like an Escalade and jewelry.

Thing is though, Americans didn't start getting fat on a wholesale level until the '90s.

I can already hear that Jimi Hendrix song that's in every Vietnam movie.

^ So mayors are dropping the F-bomb now.

I don't like it when chicks have bruises.

^ 80/20 rule: 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers.

Cigarettes started smelling a lot worse after they went "fire safe" two years ago.

The Columbus police have a serious ghetto bird fetish. Those things are so damn expensive to run (the bare minimum would be $1000 an hour but could be up to $5000 and hour), require several helicopter pilots on standby at all times and go though extensive pre- and post- flight checks. This is second hand info, but a few weeks ago someone was breaking into cars near Grandview and they sent the thing out. You hear them all the time and they make the city look bad, even though they might only be chasing a 10-year-old spraying graffiti on an underpass Every time a suburbanite or exurbanite hears those rotors spin they get a stiffy because that's not happening where they live. The police/sheriffs out there there usually only get to use their land-based transportation, the BMV system and forensic accountants to catch their criminals. The sad part is that I bet a lot of these young thugs think it's really awesome that they got the police to chase them with a helicopter and will try to do it again.

Right, in Columbus my commute is from Bexley to 5xNW. I can take Livingston to DT to Vine/Goodale, Main to DT to Vine/Goodale, Barnett Bryden to DT, 70 to 315 to King, Nelson to 5th to Northwest and probably a couple others. I get to shake things up whenever I feel like it. Cincinnati has scenery though. So much of Columbus is driving past bland warehouses.

Good point MayDay, I was out in Licking County on my motorcycle last Sunday. Round a bend and there's a jam up of minivans and SUVs. What could it be? Oh, I've hit the Fall Fun Strip Mall of corn mazes, pumpkin patches, goat cheese and facepainting. There's one on the left with spillover parking to the right. Ride a little further and there's another one of these joints on the left. Oversize daily transportation vehicles as far as they eye can see. Then a smaller market on the right that seems to merely sell pumpkins and other veggies. Of course that one only seemed to attract regular automobiles. The big vehicles would slow but not stop.

I like this bar alright, but didn't like saying the name. I always pictured the characters from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride making a wrong turn into there and having misadventures.

With so few businesses per capita located in UA, that Giant Eagle may really do well with it's expanded product line. On the other hand, they might not sell a whole lot of rattlesnake to Arlington locals.

As we all know, in the past GM felt that local rail systems were enough of a competitor to warrant purchasing them and shutting them down. In recent years, Wall Street has rewarded companies that have shed subsidiaries to focus on "core competencies", which can easily transform into myopia. So yes, it is a bit of a stretch, but some of the best marketers in the world (the ones working for GM) know that young people are hungry for rail, have a distaste for automobiles and the debt required of most of them to purchase a new car.