Dow Status Check

"As the economy plummets, the crime rate does the opposite."

This statement isn't even true.

The last recession in the United States was 2001-2003, a time when the crime rate was plummeting.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 11:33 AM

"The smart money knows that a far left liberal is now a shoe in for president and that together with a liberal majority congress, he will destroy the free market economy in this country."

Obama is not President. He is merely RUNNING for President. I love how you can blame the economic meltdown on someone who has no leadership capacity at the moment instead of the person/people who HAVE been running the country for the last 8 years. THEY are the people who have ruined the free market economy, not someone who has yet to be voted into office, and even if they do, will not for another 4 months.

Your powers of reason are severely handicapped.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 1:34 PM

I'm just happy to see you've already give the election over to Obama, Ironballs.

He is our only hope of getting out of this alive.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 2:07 PM

Let's see here:

McCain's economic advisers are:

*Carly Fiorina, who almost destroyed the onetime best technology company in America...Hewlett Packard and

*Meg Whitman, who took ebay, the best dot come player in the industry and turned it into a mediocre franchise that has no growth and is laying off 10% of it's employees.

Obama's advisers are:

*Larry Summers, the renowned economist and former President of Harvard who probably knows more about this crisis than anyone and

*Warren Buffet, the smartest (and richest) man in the business.

Who would you choose based on the people these men have chosen to surround themselves??

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 2:47 PM

"But all the people who purchased at higher prices than your friend since 2001 will be completely screwed."

Yup, my old landlord probably thought he was screwed too when he thought he overpaid for his West End Avenue townhouse 20 some odd years ago...he paid 450K, which was a rather large sum.

When I had to move out (thus the move to Park Slope) and he sold the building last year for 8 million, I don't think he felt particularly screwed...

Not everyone isn't able to look long term, Ironballs.

The majority of NYC home buyers bought to live in their home.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:01 PM

I have an idea of what depression means.

Your attitude and comments here, Ironballs would indicate you suffer from it a lot more than our economy does right now.

Do you ever say ANYTHING positive?

Your comments are about the most depressing thing being spewed right now.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:21 PM

In better news today, Connecticut is the third state in the country to allow same sex marriage!!!

Yeah!!!

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:23 PM

I'm not saying this to gloat, but to give credence to the fact that some short-sighted commenters here (Ironballs) doesn't see the big picture and is one of those people who buys into everything they say on Fox news. It's amusing actually that he would discredit someone for reading the NYTimes, when the stuff he spouts off comes right from Bill O'Reilly's sermons.

I would like to point out that I received a very hard earned (but substantial) raise this week. So while we might be in touch economic times, it is very, very ignorant to suggest that there aren't a lot of hard working people in this city doing quite well for themselves.

Now get back to work!

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:31 PM

Maybe my boss gave me a raise because she thinks Obama is going to be President, Ironballs?

Or does it only work when spouting bad news??

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:33 PM

Oh and the DOW is up 75 right now...

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:35 PM

And I rather prefer TinTesticles for you...

BTW, that was a good one Dave!!

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 3:43 PM

At least Obama didn't pick his running mate purely on the basis of getting elected.

Especially considering age/health concerns.

Very reckless behavior. Doesn't show a lot for McCain's patriotism either that he'd choose someone who is most loved by the most uneducated of our society.

McCain is no saint. Cheated on his wife, took down a few planes due to reckless (again) behavior and not a while lot to show for almost 30 years in the Senate, except a State now battered worse than others with regard to the housing crisis, education, drop out rates, immigration and teen pregnancy.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 4:26 PM

Biden is an intelligent and well-respected person. That's the difference. Not a prop. McCain doesn't even like Palin, from a source I heard.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 4:51 PM

I thought this was interesting...

This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
9/13/08

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who
are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it,
perhaps this list will help.

·White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like
Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that
of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to
judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even
as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly
typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

·White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin"
redneck," like Bristol Palin"s boyfriend does, and talk about how if
anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk
about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a
responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather
than a thug.

·White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges
in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed
out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a
community college), and no one questions your intelligence or
commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this
would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only
got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

·White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a
town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a
state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the
island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and
people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black
U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar,
means you're "untested."

·White privilege is being able to say that you support the words
"under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough
for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be
immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the
pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn"t
added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals
and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which
you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a
dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

·White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not
make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able
to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party
that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was
"Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your
family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to
a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of
school, people immediately think she"s being disrespectful.

·White privilege is being able to make fun of community
organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for
the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour
workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy
and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town
mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a
class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

·White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't
even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your
running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the
ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made
them give your party a "second look.."

·White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support
your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or
being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being
black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political
machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

·White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years
whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely
criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an
explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring
Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in
speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God"s punishment
on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just
a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a
black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S.
Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of
U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its
effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates
America.

·White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when
asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for
asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely
refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O"Reilly
means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly
intellectual and nuanced.

·White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW
has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being
black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a
"light" burden.

·And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could
possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with
George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is
skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and
the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because
white voters aren"t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know,
it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of
the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 4:59 PM

Speaking of, where is Biff Champion...? No where to be seen today...

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 5:22 PM

Perhaps they're off playing with BTG?

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 5:38 PM

So dittoburg, I'm going to ask you one question and then I'll drop it...

If Obama had a 17 year old son or daughter, and they got pregnant (out of wedlock) during his campaign, do you really believe that he would win, or come even remotely close?

Of course it's not as simple as skin color, but it certainly plays a part. Wish it weren't the case, but it is.

I do not consider myself or many other posters on this blog simple minded...I think we've got some really intelligent people posting here, and lots of them have really great (albeit different) ideas on many different subjects.

To call us/me simple-minded because we happen to find something interesting is incredibly closed-minded.

Posted by: 11217 at October 10, 2008 6:00 PM