He'll be prepared because he's now getting classified security briefings so that if he wins, he can hit the ground running. Which would be a great relief if didn't mean he was getting classified security briefings.
I'm thinking (and I'm sure he is) how he might be able to use those briefings to acquire some real estate on the cheap.
3: Insider trading was my first though.
I wonder if the people who go around saying things like the OP apply it in other areas of life. Is there really no grounds whatsoever for basic competence and knowledge and experience -- even if tied to shitty ideology -- to matter for the job of literally running the United States?
The idea that there's a difference between semi-competent or competent plus ideologically terrible (bad!) with ideologically terrible and completely ignorant, incompetent, and uncontrollable (worse!) seems pretty easy to apply in all other areas of life. And would for political executive office, as well, if people took the idea of governance seriously as something more than personal self-expression.
I mean, large portions of the problem with Bush II were in fact not just that he was evil, but incompetent. And Trump is maybe 40x more removed from basic policy and practical reality.
He would be a better president than anyone who has the backing of the Republican Party and acts according to their agenda.
I am very much uncertain of this! There are many ways to be awful.
I don't sign up to the OP viewpoint, but, in its favour, Bush was controllable and look where that got us.
Pretty much agree with the OP. Trump is not stupid, not insane, not relatively evil, no more dishonest than most, not particularly dangerous. Plenty of pictures of the Clintons and Trumps enjoying each others company.
I suspect that what angers many people and attracts many others is the obviousness of the performativity, that OMG Trump is running for President of the United States with tongue firmly in cheek and one middle finger rising.
We survived Shrub. They survived Obama. Lots more ruin in this declining empire.
Trump has a basic critique:Our elites are corrupt fuck-ups who work for rich people, screw over ordinary people, and couldn't manage to a Taco Bell.
They have bungled the economy, they have lost multiple wars, and they allowed 9/11 to happen on their watch.
Trump, because he is rich and successful, is not politically corrupt; he does not need to take anyone else's money. He owes no one anything.
Because he has played at the top of the game, he knows how politics and business works and because he needs nothing from anyone, he will use his skill and knowledge to help ordinary shmoes.
America's economy will work under him. America will avoid stupid wars.
This is a strong critique, because it is true. America's elites are corrupt incompetents whose only skill is funneling more money to rich people. They have lost multiple wars, bungled terrorism, and completely fucked up the economy for ordinary people.
Whether Trump is the right man to fix this is more questionable, but his critique works against Clinton. She was there for all of it and she was in favor of virtually all of it. Clinton is a corrupt, oligarchical tool who never saw a war she didn't like, and whose reign as Secretary of State was an endless series of fuck-ups.
Labor's vote, against all odds, including oligarchical frenzy, up 4% yesterday.
I ain't predicting nuthin.
I wonder if the people who go around saying things like the OP apply it in other areas of life. Is there really no grounds whatsoever for basic competence and knowledge and experience -- even if tied to shitty ideology -- to matter for the job of literally running the United States?
I think it is possible to hold office and not acquire experience.
I mean, large portions of the problem with Bush II were in fact not just that he was evil, but incompetent. And Trump is maybe 40x more removed from basic policy and practical reality.
I don't think Trump is more removed from progressive, sensible policy than Bush was. Bush was more attuned to how Texans wreck countries, sure.
I'd point out that Wilhelm II was also uncontrollable and incoherent, and thought that policy consisted solely in performance of masculinity. But analogies are banned, so I didn't say that. Also Trump doesn't seem to have profound sexual identity issues.
I wonder if the people who go around saying things like the OP apply it in other areas of life. Is there really no grounds whatsoever for basic competence and knowledge and experience -- even if tied to shitty ideology -- to matter for the job of literally running the United States?
Don't we all have the experience of being part of an organization where there are some people in their 50s and you consider them fonts of wisdom and seek out their advice, and other people in their 50s where you run the other way because they wreck shit and you would rather work with the intelligent, reasonable new 20-something? You don't automatically acquire experience for spending time alive in a job.
Though his hair probably does. God knows how it's planning to reproduce.
15.2 is true and judging by the bankruptcies Trump is in the second category.
There is current pushback on the "Bush/Cheney were incompetent" meme, but no one there has access to the offshore bank accounts.
I suspect they achieved more of what they wanted, which of course isn't necessarily what they said they wanted, than is commonly accepted.
...
I really even doubt Trump will be considerably worse for minorities than Bush or Obama, who hasn't been all that great for Afro-Americans and whose immigration and deportation policies have been scandalous.
There is something to be said "for feeling better when the President is like me, and miserable when she is different" for intersectional and complex meanings of "like me" but hey, there is entertainment in being the opposition also. Just ask me.
I assume the OP is trolling . . . but I'm willing to speak up for conventional wisdom.
I think it depends on the assumption that the American political system is such that parties are more important than individual politicians and that, in the current configuration, the most dangerous political risk is somebody who will effectively implement Republican policies. I largely share that assumption, however I am inclined to believe that (a) personalities still matter* and that (b) generalizations one makes about the American political system are based on things staying within a range of "normal behavior" and that it's very difficult to make predictions about what will happen as you leave that range**.
Even with all of those concerns, it's true that Trump would probably be less bad than Bush, but that's hardly a bold claim, since Bush was the worst president of the 20th Century***. The scary thing is that Trump has a chance of being worse than Bush was****.
Also, Ezra Klein: "Donald Trump is too gullible to be president"
Sometimes those missteps are more dangerous. Trump promoted, for instance, a graphic showing that 81 percent of white people who are murdered are murdered by black people; the real number, according to the FBI, is 14 percent. Furthermore, the graphic cited the "Crime Statistics Bureau," an organization that doesn't even exist.
"I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert," Trump said when confronted by Bill O'Reilly. "Am I gonna check every statistic?"
Well, yeah, when you're a major presidential candidate with almost 8 million Twitter followers, you are supposed to check every statistic.
* Note that the personalities of individual political leaders are still significant in parliamentary systems in which political power is structured around the party.
** While noting that the status quo is outside the "normal range" in a variety of ways.
*** Probably the worst president even, but that's partially a reflection of the fact that the president has more power now.
**** For example, if there's a another showdown over the debt ceiling, I would think a US default would be significantly more likely under a Trump presidency than it was under Obama -- and I was genuinely scared about the possibility of a default at the time.
I think it depends on the assumption that the American political system is such that parties are more important than individual politicians and that, in the current configuration, the most dangerous political risk is somebody who will effectively implement Republican policies.
This is a fair comment.
19.last: Well, lets not argue about the value and effects of a Treasury default Jubilee, but opinions do differ, and those who work for the imperial bondholders, which are all the mainstream economists, looking at you Krug, are not necessarily the ones to trust.
Christ, we are acting so fragile and yeah, conservative risk-aversive anymore. Countries default and prosper all the time, and like, the US has some advantages compared to most, and most of the world might actually benefit for a radically devalued dollar.
I would default in a heartbeat.
He would be a better president than anyone who has the backing of the Republican Party and acts according to their agenda.
I think this may be making some serious assumptions, at least as far as the second bit goes. Like almost all "lookitme I'm a CEO" people Trump is almost certainly going to show up, declare himself a "big picture guy" and appoint a bunch of people to run the actual stuff. The hopeful possibility is that he'll still be enough at loggerheads with the party establishment, and have enough connections with people on the other side, that not all of them will be far right ideologues like we would have gotten with any of the other Republican candidates. But I'm not especially convinced that that's likely.
I can't wait to see how the Secretary of Making Mexico Build a Wall works out.
If he were president, he'd appoint a hodge-podge of people, from centrist to horrible. They'd run the country. Some areas, more or less randomly, would preserve the status quo, and others would be wrecked. He would not do much except bluster and make big declarations. Whether or not the grandiose declarations were implemented would be nearly entirely out of his control.
The outright protofascism, encouragement of violence and open racism is considerably worse in notable respects than Bush ever was. For all the Shrub's many sins -- and they were many, including the customary aristocratic callous indifference to the poor that made Katrina such a shitshow -- running glorified Klan rallies and just outright openly declaring war on Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims wasn't among them. The excuse that's it all an act doesn't wash; the mass adoration this brought Trump from unreconstructed America has clearly proved addictive enough to keep in the running for an office on the back of what essentially started out as a confidence scam on the media that went out of control. There's no turning off the tap on a high like that, the act can and will become reality given the opportunity.
Drumpf's statements are periodically strewn with sane-sounding nuggets (such as being able to actually state that the Iraq War was a failure and that military adventurism is bad), but in the classic protean style of the protofascist, every one of them is counterpointed with something vastly more insane (he's going to whoop ISIS with one hand behind his back and murder their families and bring back every torture imaginable); making it at best anyone's guess what the policy realities would be. Combined with the overweening arrogance and blowhard posturing, if there's anyone who has a substantial chance of outdoing the missteps of the Shrub's catastrophically hollow and venal regime, it's Drumpf.
Also I think the "at least they're competent" argument has strong merits in some specific cases - namely ones where at least in general everyone agrees on the ends they're trying to achieve, and the conflicts revolve around the most efficient means to those ends. This is certainly what the DC commentariat has been insisting is the case for a good thirty years now, and is the origins of "both sides...." and "bipartisan solutions.." stuff.
The problem is that, as progressives have been pointing out for ages, this just isn't true and hasn't been for a long time now. The Republican party/conservative movement is genuinely hostile to the idea of the common good and has been for decades now. And if nothing else the nomination of Donald Trump is as strong a piece of evidence as can be imagined for it. I don't think that they'll come around to the idea, since there are too many strong incentives for them to preserve that picture even absent having to admit that they have been fundamentally wrong about everything in American politics for their entire careers. Once you grant "no seriously these people hate the idea of the common good, or solutions to collective action problems and genuinely want to govern accordingly" then the "competence at keeping the lights on" stuff starts to lose purchase.
The excuse that's it all an act doesn't wash; the mass adoration this brought Trump from unreconstructed America has clearly proved addictive enough to keep in the running for an office on the back of what essentially started out as a confidence scam on the media that went out of control. There's no turning off the tap on a high like that, the act can and will become reality given the opportunity.
This is true. I'd phrase it this way, though: there is nothing besides an act. He is entirely composed of act. Under the act is a random Joe Businessman who likes to order people around. Less destructive than having an agenda.
Shorter 19: I think that if Trump somehow becomes president, the most likely outcome is the one imagined by the OP -- that he's bad but mostly ineffectual and doesn't create major change. But, I'd argue, there's significant tail risk -- the unlikely but real chance that he would be truly horrific, and that has to be taken into account in the risk calculation.
24: It's possible, I guess, but he's about to spend the next six months (and another two months after that assuming he's elected) cosying up to the Republican party power structure. As much as they're flailing about in a panic right now they absolutely will close ranks around him soon enough, when enough time has gone by to get used to the idea.* He will absolutely be a part of that power structure, and I'm guessing he'll be appointing a Cheney-role VP candidate as well.
*McCain has already said he supports the nominee - just now, after it became undeniably clear that it would be Trump.
27: The fact that he's about feeding the ego, full stop, means that there are no constraints and no rules, no lines he'll refuse to cross to get a fix. Those are the optimal conditions for the full range of possible horrors to manifest beyond mere rhetoric; hell, various Blacks, Muslims and Hispanics have already been attacked and/or actually killed behind his bloviating just on the campaign trail, about which he gives zero fucks.
25.1: Exactly. And because of that performance, I think even with the exact same policies Trump would be worse than Bush. Imagine the immediate Post 9/11 days, but with a president who has openly called for a ban on Muslims and who had campaign rallies with calls for his followers to assault protesters. And whose protestors know he has the power to issue pardons.
Going back to the Welsh above, my problem isn't whether Trump is bad, he is obviously terrible, it is whether Clinton will be that much better.
I think we are too easily pleased anymore.
And Clinton being old, and likely picking Booker or Castro, means we will be looking at possibly 12-16 years of this banker-friendly Right-to-protect bullshit. We don't have that long.
We desperately need a disruption. I would much rather it be Sanders.
It's true that Bush was weirdly sane about not inciting violence against Muslims after 9-11.
Ha, 34 actually crossed with 31.
I don't think the italicized part in 20 is the biggest risk for the most powerful country in the world with nuclear weapons.
To be clear, say you enacted 100% of Jeb Bush's or Marco Rubio's stated policy platform (as a stand-in for the "mainstream" Republican party). That would be epically terrible! But, it doesn't mean things couldn't be worse. Many of the worse outcomes could obtain with an apparent for-real lunatic wildcard/incompetent like Trump in office. The United States has the literal capacity to destroy the world. And governance even worse than that of Tea Party loons is definitely possible.
Also, what 20 and 25 said. We haven't had anything like Trump's open quasi-fascism in office and I'm not excited about finding out ways in which it is worse even than ordinary Republican governance.
Bush actually struck me as someone who, for all his idiocies, did try to keep things together/make things better for Americans. He failed miserably at it because he was wildly incompetent, and wildly incompetent enough not to realize that he was surrounded by people who absolutely did not share that goal. But I'm absolutely convinced that he did mean what he was saying when he called out and tried to push back against anti-Latino and anti-Muslim stuff, not just (in the former case) taking good tactical advice.
Trump is too much of a narcissist to care about anything more than what makes people egg him on/chant his name (and also a crazy racist and worse about women). And the incentives if he becomes president will, given those motives, be very ugly. (But relatively early in the race his only real competition came from people who were openly malevolent/even more obvious tools of openly malevolent people, so if he ends up mostly delegating to his advisers it's going to mean Rubio-or-less-horrifying stuff coming from them.)
A Salon article from a week ago posed the question: is it possible his rambling and incoherence and forgetting what he said yesterday is an early stage of Alzheimer's? That's just Salon, granted, but Drum asked a similar question back in August
Obviously if that's the case, it's not preventing him from appealing to his audience effectively, or from shrewd reality-show divide-and-conquer tactics. But it would be a pretty catastrophic trait in a President, especially as it progresses.
Text lost in my bad HTML: and his father is on record as having had it, although diagnosed at a much later age, 87.
34: Sincere or not, he at least behaved like someone who was interested in getting Muslim votes at some point. I think it's often forgotten that that "religion of peace" quote that every Islamophobe is contractually obligated to mock once a week is a Dubya quote.
Trump behaves like he believes he can bully and overawe his way to power. It was a huge red flag that he started threatening the RNC with rioting from his followers if he was denied the nomination. When it becomes clear that he's losing the general, I think the threats and violence are likely to become his strategy. That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
Nah, he doesn't have ADHD nor Alzeimer's. He's just bluster and good at knowing that for most of us, his answers sound like everyone else's. Most people don't evaluate politicians for coherent-sounding answers - if the politician in't ranting or being charming, its just Snoopy Teacher Mode.
When it becomes clear that he's losing the general, I think the threats and violence are likely to become his strategy. That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
This is a much more serious point and conversation to have than the one in the OP.
Trump will be far worse than Bush for two reasons:
1. the Congressional GOP Bush had to work with was far more moderate than the current Congressional GOP. the Tea Party came after Bush, remember. today's GOP is objectively insane.
1a. Trump's coattails would likely bring in many even crazier Republicans.
2. Bush was basically a low-achieving Republican career politician. he governed like a Republican President. Trump himself is a corrupt, self-serving, delusional narcissist with no fixed political positions and who seems to have no regard for how government works or how it is intended to work. his administration would be utter chaos - careening from one disaster to the next, guided by nothing but Trump's whims and ego.
I'm finding Lord Castock's comments pretty spot-on. The man will incite further violence during the runup to the general election. Trump, not Castock.
We can all imagine in very specific detail the ways in which your average Republican president would be horrible. We have plenty of recent experience to draw from in that regard. W was horrible, but we survived.
What terrifies me about Trump is that he could invent entirely new ways to be horrible. His supporters don't care one bit about policy, beyond vague slogans and xenophobia, so if he were elected would have carte blanche to try to implement whatever crazy-as-fuck scheme pops into his head on any given day. I don't want to find out what that looks like.
I swear, if Trump is elected, I'm going to invent a time machine, go back to the Eocene, and spray DDT on as many butterflies as I can find.
Right. I'm in agreement with title of the OP, but not the substance of the OP.
That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
Contradiction-sharpening is probably wrong as a goal, but it may be just as destructive to avoid at all costs conflict and disruption. Moments of truth are very useful and productive.
I am not going to be ruled by fear.
I, on the other hand, am not going to be crucified on a cross of gold. Me and William Jennings Bryan, we're like that.
If Trump wins he will almost certainly have majorities in both congressional chambers and the Supreme Court. The available evidence shows he is serious about deporting 11 million "illegals" and that a majority in the house support that. I don't see either Ryan or McConnel having the stones to stand against that. The house will strongly support it and the senate will be steamrolled.
A national police force will be created, with extra-constitutional powers. The court will allow it because the targets are not citizens and don't have the same rights as citizens. People will be drug from their homes and hauled away and deported with no semblance of due process. This effort will fail to even come close to achieving its goal, but it will destroy our nation in the process.
You probably think I'm an hysterical chicken little here, but Trump is genuinely serious about this and has strong support in the GOP. If he's elected, he really will try to do this.
Remember when we all used to think that the US would never officially use torture or murder its own citizens?
Remember when we all used to think that the US would never officially use torture or murder its own citizens?
I was surprised to find out everyone thought this.
At least, in situations involving international affairs.
52: Yeah, we've been doing it unofficially all along.
Yeah, I didn't have quite as horrified a reaction to the fig leaf of officiality being removed. It may be because it all happened when I was just starting to pay attention more closely to the news and didn't have a long history of preconceived notions.
That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
There are clearly people who will happily go along with it, people who are willing to sit back and watch them do that, and people who aren't remotely comfortable with it and will at least react against it in negative ways (to varying degrees). The interesting* factor in this is that I think you can make a relatively reliable prediction which group someone is going to be in by knowing their address.** I have no idea what that's going to mean, aside from the idea that there will be safe and very unsafe places for a lot of people.
*horrific, unavoidably disastrous, oh god we're all going to die aren't we.
**The last group, I'm pretty certain, is the biggest one, and I suspect you could capture most of them under the description "people who live in moderate to large cities" with, I guess, some additional "in these states" add ons, but living in an urban area is probably the biggest factor by a large margin.
52: I was certainly surprised to find out that that it wasn't obvious to people who knew about US foreign policy that we did all kinds of that stuff well before Bush as well.
It wasn't that secret or anything, after all. But I suspect it might have been one of those (many) "pfff, only frivolous hippies who hate America think that" things that almost always turn out to be entirely accurate.
52: It WAS official policy not to do these things. They are prohibited by our constitution and treaties we're party to. We officially decided to ignore both. So, yeah what I said is correct.
From what I can tell the only difference was that the official "of course we don't do that you goose" line, which they absolutely pushed hard at the beginning, fell apart in the face of very obvious photos of us doing that and (and I think this was the biggest factor) the entire right wing media and most of the foreign policy establishment openly cheering it on rather than dismissing those claims as made up or ridiculous.
I'm not pretending to be dumb, here.
56: I don't think history, as in fascism or Stalin's purges or the Cultural Revolution completely supports your urban-rural dichotomy.
That's because I was talking about the United States right now, and basing it on that, not a universal how things work theory. Also neither of those things actually match the stuff that was being talked about, it was this:When it becomes clear that he's losing the general, I think the threats and violence are likely to become his strategy. That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
What would happen if Trump made it into power and decided to go a-genociding is a completely separate issue.
Trump, today, thinks that maybe we'd be better off if we just defaulted on some debt.
that'll make us great again.
I know that the US government has covertly done these things in the past. And we ignore due process and wrongly deport people who are here legally. I'm not naive. But, we've taken it a giant step farther by concocting a legal argument to ignore the Geneva Convention and created an official policy whereby the president decides who can be extra-judicially executed.
That will be the moment of truth, whether Americans are willing to set back and let those tactics work.
I'm on the way out the door but FWIW to get those tactics to work you'd need at least for the cops to stand aside if not outright participate. I'm not seeing or hearing much among other guys in the job to make me think that's going to happen.
The thing about the fig-leaf of "We don't do that, it's illegal" on torture, is that the implication was that no matter how much we did in secret, if something got dragged out into the open, it would have to stop. The shock was when that didn't work.
Utah was an outlier among Republicans, for being opposed to Trump. Utah cops might not be representative.
And at the other end of the spectrum, here's the cops during Trump's rally in Tucson.
I'd suspect (as per my previous comment) that the tolerance you'd see would be more from smaller town sheriffs and the like. Even the recent Malheur nonsense had some police support (I think it was a sheriff in one of the adjoining counties) - just not in a way that helped.
I've been pretty surprised, at least, at the figures saying "Military officials would resign rather than carry out such illegal orders from Trump." We have built up a bit of experience on that subject!
I believe the children are our future. Hold them close at let them lead the way. They can throw the tear gas cans aside for their elders.
I, on the other hand, am not going to be crucified on a cross of gold.
There has to be SOME genuinely funny working of this to apply to Trump, but I can't quite get it there. "I will not be crucified on a cross of gold bathroom fixtures!"
71: I just thought it was funny to see it coming from a bunch of the same people who had been military leaders when Bush was (publicly!) ordering it done as well.
"This absolutely violates every principle of military professionalism and what the United States stands for and we would never do anything like it, um, again."
"If I am crucified, damn straight it's going to be on a cross of gold. And it's going to be huge! And classy!"
75: That's pretty awesome.
Ideally, that speech would be given before AIPAC.
"Crucified on a wooden cross to redeem the sins of all mankind? Tacky!"
I think the deep state would have an interesting relationship with Trump. I'd guess that he wouldn't live very long were he elected -- or that he'd learn quickly who is really in charge.
Jibber-jabber about disobeying illegal orders is really about the deep state -- about the level of cooperation he can expect.
Plus, he'd be impeached at the earliest convenience.
I'm waiting until he picks his vice president before I form a firm opinion on the OP.
63: Oh, I am sure that we are already gauging the various responses as to their adequacy, and appropriateness to the level of the threat. The OP and Castock's impassioned beseeching demonstrate that there are differences. History also tells us that by the time Trump is in a position to build the wall it will be too late.
My claim is that the adequate response is for the center to move radically left, Sanders, because the center moving right only enables the fascists. We don't have much time.
The Clinton campaign, and HRC herself is already on the phone to the Bush family*. She can't stop herself, these are her instincts, and she will lose.
*link on request
"My cross will be bigger than you would believe - you're going to get tired of crucifixions! I've built skyscrapers! It'll be solid goldleaf! And Mexico will pay for it!"
Holy shit. If you want the difference between bad mainstream Republican and bad Donald Trump, there it is. You get extremely terrible ideas with the former but not oh hey let's blow up the world economy because I am a complete uncontrollable ignoramus.
The need for the US to default on debt isn't merely a mainstream Republican view, it's more-or-less unanimous. I mean, they had votes and everything.
Or, if you prefer, lying about wanting to default on the debt is the unanimous choice of the Republican Party. Either way, there's no reason to believe Trump is anywhere but the Republican mainstream on that issue.
85 - there is a big difference between the debt ceiling issue, which is what you're referring to, and a demand that the US can simply unilaterally renegotiate payments on its bonds. The former is terrible policy that was being used for political leverage. The latter is simply deeply insane and wrong. That's the difference -- bad policy vs. insanely bad policy.
85: Except they were mostly arguing that their ridiculous brinksmanship wouldn't actually lead to a default on the debt because the entire US government would just stop existing before that happened and something something magic something.
Actually openly, explicitly advocating a default as an actual policy is insane.
Jesus. If every country in the rest of the world was scared by Trump before....
Trump has the best chances - both in the general election and for his freedom of action as a president - if the world is thrown into chaos. He seems to be actively working toward that.
Marshall is obviously correct when he says:
To be clear, this will never happen.
I don't want to disillusion anyone, but Trump is lying.
MHPH compares dishonestly advocating for default to advocating for default while saying something magical will intervene to prevent default. Both are pretty nuts, but if I'm forced to choose, it seems the latter ranks higher on the insane-o-meter.
Halford and MHPH agree. I'm going to assume that is a good proxy for correct.
I mean, I also independently agree.
91: Ah, but did you factor in that Moby also agrees?
I'm also very good at anticipating things.
90: They were saying that the brinksmanship would get resolved and anyone saying that there would be a default if they kept grandstanding was lying - as in "No the government has plenty of money and debt payments will and should still be its number one priority - it's everything else that the Tyrant Obama! would strip of funding." (And they weren't necessarily wrong about it being the immediate priority, just hoping that no one noticed that the alternative would be pretty disastrous all on its own, and as likely to lead to defaulting on the debt immediately afterwards as anything else.)
The quote from WJB is ontopic, since bimetallism was really about allowing inflation when grain prices were in deflation.
Y'all do realize that advocating inflation is calling for a disguised form of default? Y'all do remember what FDR did in his first years, devaluing the US currency value by at least one third (imposing a haircut on bondholders)?
Clinton in 1993 learned that his most important constituency was the bond market, and Obama reaffirmed the subjection in 2009, but I hope that the rest of us haven't decided that we work for Government Sachs.
It's worth recalling just how nice those Clinton years were the first time around. I was working full time with benefits before I could even tell everybody I was dropping out of graduate school. Those were the days.
Someone more appropriate go ask Rauchway to please weigh in on this over at CT. Or maybe I will open the book.
What exactly do you think Krugman in talking about when he advocates a sovereign currency because it allows the possibility of competitive devaluation?
So exactly what are the differences between devaluing the dollar 20% and demanding bondholders take a 20% haircut?
Cause devaluations happen all the fucking time, like the Plaza accords.
80.4: Cheney announced he's supporting Trump. Trump could choose him as VP, to bring in those that prefer the devil that they know.
So exactly what are the differences between devaluing the dollar 20% and demanding bondholders take a 20% haircut?
Why don't you google that and get back to us.
100: Happy too
1st link, pdf: A Model of the Twin Ds:Optimal Default and Devaluation
Abstract:
Defaults are typically accompanied by large devaluations. This paper characterizes jointly optimal default and exchange-rate policy in an economy with limited enforcement of debt contracts and downward nominal wage rigidity. Under optimal policy, default occurs during contractions and is accompanied by large devaluations. The latter inflate away real wages thereby reducing involuntary unemployment. By contrast, under fixed exchange rates, optimal default takes place in the context of involuntary unemployment. Fixed-exchange-rate economies are shown to have stronger default incentives and therefore can support less external debt in the long run than economies with optimally floating rates.
Trump may or may not be crazy and ignorant, but he is very obviously not uniquely so.
From the above 101:
"It displays the median excess depreciation of the nominal exchange rate around 116 sovereign defaults that occurred in 70 countries over the period 1975 to 2013"
So exactly what are the differences between devaluing the dollar 20% and demanding bondholders take a 20% haircut?
Maybe that no one is calling for a 20% devaluation of the dollar?
98.3: The debt is denominated in dollars. Everyone knows that they get paid back in dollars, and that the dollar exchange rate floats and that there is inflation. (And this cuts both ways for bond holders -- inflation has dropped considerably since 2007. I don't know what's happened to the exchange rate on average.) Nobody knows that the US might default.
I'm not sure that any country in the entire history of countries has ever defaulted just for kicks. Maybe Ecuador a couple of years ago?
103: Krugman and many others are calling for a higher rate of inflation.
How many years of 4% inflation does it take to match a 20% devaluation?
I think they are.
I have been calling for enough devaluation to stop the destructive capital inflows from the developing world for about ten years.
Protecting the bond market is the Empire talking. Have you forgotten your Piketty on 19thc Britain already?
105.2: about five years, maybe a bit less. And it would have many other benefits, and none of the harm of a massive default.
I'd suspect (as per my previous comment) that the tolerance you'd see would be more from smaller town sheriffs and the like.
Exactly. Keep in mind that nationwide brown people are something like 28 or 30 percent of the police and it's much more pronounced in a lot of the big cities. Dallas and Houston are 55-60 percent white, Chicago and NYPD are only about 50. LAPD is even less.
but of course there is a crucial difference between devaluation and inflation which bob (and Trump) just can't grasp.
104: It is not just for kicks.
The current circuit, simplified example, is that:
China produces commodities for export to the US, taking advantage of the favorable exchange rate, which also helps hold down Chinese wages
The US sends its consumption dollars to China, with a huge cut to the domestic 1%, Waltons
Chinese elites park their profits back in US assets and the domestic SWF, helping keep US interest rates down and bond prices high.
The solution by our wholly bank-owned elites is to call for China to raise its interest rates because we want to keep the cash from the rest of the world flowing in.
You keep using the word "default" without knowing what it means.
A default usually happens by international consensus, when at a stroke of the pen a currency is "rebalanced" relative to the currencies.
The United States did an outright default under Bush, repricing those thirty year bonds bought under Reagan/Volker with high double digit interest rates.
There was little fanfare or panic.
Christ, you don't know what a default is either. I knew it.
Or a commodity. China barely exports any commodities. Certainly not to the U.S.. China imports commodities, it exports finished goods.
Maybe 110.2 isn't called a default, but 110.3 is a very common behavior, or used to be.
Debt instruments of a sovereign nation really have to be somewhat risky for a healthy political economy not controlled by finance capital.
I thought we had read Graeber, or Lazzarato.
Oh, fuckoff ajay, like an Ipad or Home Depot hammer isn't a commodity.
Usually the idiocy emerges when the commentariat is embarrassed.
I'm starting to understand why Brad went on a several month rage against Graeber.
114: no, an iPad is not a commodity. Nor is a hammer. And debt instruments are inevitably risky even if they have PD of zero.
These are facts, Otto. I looked them up.
It is interesting to me as to how the left blogosphere were somewhat receptive to the trillion dollar platinum coin, and weren't appalled at Krugman's posts about Cyprus and Greece, yet are dumbfounded by talk of haircuts.
This is not just because it comes from Trump.
I'll have to think.
No the US will not become an overnight financial pariah. Sky falling bullshit. They'll eat their losses, as they always have.
Wikipedia: Commodity
"In economics, a commodity is a marketable item produced to satisfy wants or needs. Often the item is fungible. Economic commodities comprise goods and services."
Jesus
And Walt Someguy holds his tongue, watching which way the wind blows
If we're going to argue about the meaning of words, can't we argue about something more fun, like whether or not it's really "cheating" if you do it in the butt?
And Walt Someguy holds his tongue, watching which way the wind blows
Are you calling him out as a pussy
119 - it's not cheating if it's only a commodity in the butt. Clear as a moral rule can be.
116: I literally just made this joke in the Toast comments.
118: you actually had to look that up on Wikipedia to work out what it meant, and you still got it wrong. Bless your heart.
119: Are you trying to catch me in something, having made a complete jackass of yourself upthread and prior threads? You usually don't respond.
Marxist do have a broader definition of commodity, believing that much product differentiation is not determined by socially necessary use-value.
On the butt question, doesn't the answer vary by gender and sexuality?
bah 124 to 120. Are the numbers changing?
Terrific, one of the FPPs has started gaslighting bob.
Not really following 125. If you do "it" in the butt aren't you by definition cheating regardless of gender or sexuality because there is human contact with the butt of another in a situation of sexual attraction.
My position is that use of a commodity in the butt of another is not cheating, because it is not doing "it," and "it" cannot merely be use of a commodity in the butt. If there is non-commodity human-to-butt-contact in connection with use of a commodity in the butt, that would qualify as cheating, but use of a commodity in the butt alone does not. I think my position is correct.
Put differently, "contact between the skin of an individual and the butt of another in a situation of sexual attraction suffices to constitute cheating." Use of a commodity in the butt does not suffice, though it may be an ancillary part of a human to butt contact that is cheating.
Wait, is that what "crack whore" means? I've been doing this wrong.
Has anyone contacted Chuck Tingle about the potential for exploring financial markets in some future work of fiction? We're getting perilously close to his territory.
Obviously if any human contact with somebody else's butt is cheating, then gender and sexuality don't matter when determining if doing it in the butt is cheating. But, that's assuming the answer from the start instead of debating it.
Touching the Butt of Another was not a high point of Levinas's work.
"contact between the skin of an individual and the butt of another in a situation of sexual attraction suffices to constitute cheating."
So, technically, rimjobs aren't cheating?
Well, I suppose that was only a sufficient condition and not a necessary condition, but it's deployed as if it were a necessary condition when discussing the conjuncture of butts and commodities.
The Butt Conjuncture was not a high point of Ludlum's work.
Isn't the external surface of the tongue skin? Maybe it isn't, actually, I guess I'm not sure.
Although 135 contemplates an astonishingly precise rimjob.
Sketch out your non-cheating scenario where there is human-skin-in-the-butt-of-another-human-in-context-of-sexual-attraction but no cheating. I'm intrigued, but don't see how it could work in practice.
Maybe I should clarify the rules by adding that the sexual attraction has to be mutual. E.g., imagine that a proctologist is attracted to you, and touches your butt in an "in the butt" way. But you don't know that the proctologist is attracted to you and mistakenly believe that there is nothing but pure professionalism going on. That is not reasonably described as cheating.
However, if you and the proctologist are mutually attracted, and there is skin-to-butt contact, it's totally cheating.
135, 138 - I was thinking for purposes of the statute you probably need to define "skin" as including the exterior of the tongue. As well as hair, eyes, etc., though obviously those are less important in practice.
What if you and the proctologist are mutually attracted, but in obedience to professional standards the proctologist is wearing gloves at all relevant times?
What about accidental skin-to-butt contact? Surely cheating should involve a deliberate action.
As well as hair, eyes, etc., though obviously those are less important in practice.
Are there butterfly kisses and eskimo kisses for the butt? Hershey's kisses? It's got a flared base.
138: histologically the surface of the tongue is not skin. But legally it may well be.
That is not reasonably described as cheating.
I don't see why it can't be asymmetrically cheating on the proctologist's part and not on yours.
Although 135 contemplates an astonishingly precise rimjob.
The requirement for strict precision is an added thrill. Should accessing the relevant areas prove difficult, latex gloves may be found useful.
There is a Supreme Court case holding that tomatoes are vegetables rather than fruit (it was a tariff issue), so there's precedent.
I don't see why it can't be asymmetrically cheating on the proctologist's part and not on yours.
Insurance rules.
However, if you and the proctologist are mutually attracted, and there is skin-to-butt contact, it's totally cheating.
What if you and the proctologist are mutually attracted, and there is a skin-butt conjuncture, but the conjuncture does not occur from, but merely in accordance with, the attraction?
147: unless this was in the context of butts, I'm not sure how this is germane.
"Trying to make sense of Donald Trump's comments can be a risky business, but it is actually possible that he got it right and the NYT's Neil Irwin got it wrong on dealing with the national debt."
143 - Remember, 119 asked " whether or not it's really "cheating" if you do it in the butt?"
So, we're discussing "in the butt," not merely any contact whatsoever with a butt. And as far as I know there is no situation where human skin is in the butt of another in the context of mutual attraction that can reasonably be described as "accidental." Even if one does not mean to have skin "in" the butt of someone one is sexually attracted to, merely being in a situation where it is possible that skin inside the butt of your sexual attractee might occur clearly suffices to establish at least reckless intent to cheat.
142 is a tough question. I think gloves on and NO unprofessional behavior means no cheating, even in the context of mutual attraction. But that's a genuinely tough one.
If it is cheating, and you've convinced me that it is, the question remains as to whether or not is it a lesser offense.
Apparent the wind blows towards butts.
153 - Good point and that goes to the heart of the issue. But the answer seems pretty clear. Don't we intuitively understand in the butt as a *greater* offense if not the greatest possible -- at least in a world with readily available birth control?
And this seems true across all genders and sexualities -- MM, FF, MF -- in the butt seems like the top-level cheating possibility in all contexts. Or am I missing something.
I knew someone would make that joke. I'm glad it was you, Moby.
152 takes a hard line on this issue. From a legal point of view (i.e. reasonable doubt) it is viable, but we are addressing this question from a philosophical standpoint. Absolute truth should be our guiding star! And I would say that accidental contact in the buttular area is at least conceivable if not likely. Rugby scrum? Improbable slip-and-fall incident?
And as far as I know there is no situation where human skin is in the butt of another in the context of mutual attraction that can reasonably be described as "accidental."
It's as if you've never seen a work of pornographic slapstick.
Rugby scrum? Improbable slip-and-fall incident?
But remember, it has to be in the context of mutual sexual attraction. If you're mutually sexually attracted to another rugby player and you're putting yourself into a position where you can get full skin-into-butt, I think even that qualifies as reckless cheating. Same with an improbable slip and fall -- it's not just that someone's butt has accidentally fallen on your thumb, but you are with someone, there's mutual attraction, and their butt falls on your thumb. A non-reckless person who wants to avoid cheating would take precautions to avoid having the butt of the attractee fall on his thumb.
And as Nosflow points out above "mutual" sexual attraction isn't really the right way to put it. If you're attracted to the rugby player and put yourself in a position for skin-in-butt contact, you're cheating, even if the butt entry isn't specifically intended and even if the other rugby player is not attracted to you. But the other rugby player is not cheating.
YOU PEOPLE ARE DISGUSTING!!!
There ya go
Same with an improbable slip and fall
The question is, what precautions would a reasonable person have taken in these cases? Is this negligent skin-butt contact or is it a true accident?
Will must have some experience parsing the vagaries of tortious buttsex.
I'm really glad this got away from politics and onto (into?) butts, because I was getting tempted to say something intemperate. Maybe later when I've had another g&t.
in the butt seems like the top-level cheating possibility in all contexts
Then why do they call it the "bottom"?
Has anyone contacted Chuck Tingle about the potential for exploring financial markets in some future work of fiction? We're getting perilously close to his territory.
Also he's really descending into a really impressive level of metafiction at this point. At some point this stuff becomes actual serious literature, right? I can't wait till some of those conservative think pieces about how the title to some paper at the MLA proves that civilization is in decline as the result of elitist academic postmodernists and we should all be very conservative catholics with distressing sexual insecurities have to be about papers on Chuck Tingle.
*"This erotic tale is 4,100 words of sizzling human on gay sentient business strategy action, including anal, blowjobs, rough sex, and butthole investment love."
168 was me, being pounded in the butt by forgetting the "Name" entry.
"Reamed By My Reaction To The Title Of This Book" is without a doubt the best Tingle title yet.
"Turned Gay By The Existential Dread That I May Actually Be A Character In A Chuck Tingle Book" has a weird appropriateness to it as well.
I genuinely do wonder how much money this guy is making, because it's clearly either "very little" or "massive amounts".
I'm surprised that it isn't "... A Buck Trungle Novel" but what do I know.
I think "modestly well" is also plausible candidate for how well he does. Plus it's probably reasonably cheap in Billings.
Someone just reminded me of this great moment.
The response from the hosts is, in retrospect, a really good explanation of why American politics is so awful: they really are worthless, worthless people.
In this case though I predict that people will remember that a lot of progressive/left wing voices were pointing out that Trump was absolutely seriously 100% a serious contender in the Republican primary a long time ago and take very seriously the things they say in the future absolutely nothing will change and in a year or two there will be another substantial example of this exact same thing that will also be immediately forgotten.
Why do we assume proctologists are married or partnered? Is it still cheating for both parties if one is not? This might be a night where I need to find some librarians to fight.
Not assumed. A single, unprofessional proctologist can put his or her finger into the butt of someone he or she is sexually attracted to without cheating at all. If the finger-receiver is also unattached, the finger may be received without cheating -- even if the mental state of the finger-receiver is prurient.
Assume a spherical proctologist and a spherical (or at least round) sphincter.
Nothing against consensual butt stuff, but I really hope this thread is as close as I ever have to get to a proctologist, single or otherwise. (And if not, please please please not an attracted one.)
proctologist, single or otherwise
Proctologist three-ways are way better in theory than in execution.
Thanks, apo. The voice of experience is always helpful for someone looking to make a decision about something like that.
Don't women have colons? Or something? The butt and the mouth have to connect somehow.
Okay, I know I said I wanted to argue but 180 is making me think that maybe I actually don't.
178: as the bard said, just like picnics and lobster.
180: Mmmmffmffmmmrrmrmm. MMhmmmfmm,
Do proctologists do colons or just prostates.
For business or pleasure, Mobes? I'm sure they contain multitudes.
Wikipedia says we're all using deprecated terminology and they call themselves colorectal surgeons, but not in a way that only they're allowed to use that phrase and we outsiders are not I don't think.
Anyway, Moby, if you have a problem with your prostate you should see a urologist. If your proctologist keeps claiming to be dealing with it, he or she probably just has a crush on you but your imaginary friends will back you up when you have to explain that to your wife.
Thorn's comment has made me realize that my mental archetype of a proctologist is male. But surely there must be lady proctologists as well.
I'm five years away from being pestered to do the butt cam.
189: Lady fingers, they're called.
I'm pretty sure (for a lay person below the age of needing to know) that the butt cam is for colon abnormalities, so very much in the sphere of a spherical proctologist(e). Popular culture has led me to believe that prostate checks are part of routine medical exams for men, but I certainly hope you would know better than I.
I'm still to young for that also. But I may Google for a good lady fingers just in case.
Well, when your prostate/colon/marriage end up broken, don't come running to me.
I promise. Goodnight. I'm barely keeping awake.
And it's not even 10:30. Maybe I am old enough to need a professional look at my butt.
193: routine after a certain age, but even then only every several years. Unless you have specific risk factors.
OT: this seems like stretching the idea of free speech too far: http://ksnt.com/2016/05/06/jury-anti-abortion-activists-letter-to-doctor-not-a-threat/
Castock is completely right, and MHPH and MAE are making strong points too.
I'm going to very unhumorously point out that this is one of those times when Unfogged's extreme whiteness is a major strike against the blog's ability to assess reality.
Also, I'm not going to argue gswift's observation of his own reality, but I am going to point out that ICE (the immigration police who would naturally be Trump's "deportation force" if he is elected) hates the current President with a passion, and their union has actually sued him over the enforcement of immigration law.
I don't think all law enforcement officers would support Trump by any means, but I certainly do think there is a large chunk of ICE officers (and probably some CBP too) who are champing at the bit to enact President Trump's policies.
(If the above sounds cranky it's because I have spent the last three days in probably the least Witt-friendly city in America. And now I'm spending five hours in the airport. With slot machines. :::spits:::)
I believe that Bring It On established a scenario--cheerleading lifts--in which accidental and accidental-on-purpose skin in/on butts moments may occur.
Here's a great 6-minute interview with a journalist who has been covering Trump for 20 years. Crisp and to the point. Pulls no punches.
202: I've watched that movie with the director's commentary track on. He was convinced it was totally punk-rock.
Speaking of Chuck Tingle, have we discussed his masterful response to being nominated for a Hugo by the Puppies?
It's a niche interst, but I enjoyed Gay T-Rex Law Firm: Executive Boner.
Tingle is nothing if not a master of niche marketing.
Also why do we talk about someone being the butt of a joke if we tell a joke about them? The target of a joke is what we mean. And on any firearm the butt is in completely the opposite direction from the target.
208 This thread is low on straight men, so I will play one for ajay -- the butts where were you shot your arrows (ooer missus) and so the butt itself is the target. There is a street op the road from here called The Butts.
There used to be a shopping centre in Reading called the Butts Centre, as Asilon will confirm, but I believe they've renamed it or blown it up or something.
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I really should do that e-gate residency card thing here. The law of averages has finally caught up with me and I'm in Arrakis and waiting on a very long line at passport control.
This thread is low on straight men
Perhaps, but remember: Straight men can enjoy buttsex too.
Also, as an occasional straight man, can I note wrt the OP that if Trump were elected, the response before he took office would be a run on Wall St. followed by runs on London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hong Kong and anywhere else you can buy or sell a security that would make 1929 look like a minor blip. In office, he would either have to spend 4 years watching somebody try to deal with this to the exclusion of all else, or the business community would create a shadow government to address it with essentially the same result.
You spoilin' for a fight with a librarian, Thorn? Because I've just been on a long line and now my driver doesnt know the way to my flat so I'm feeling kind of ornery.
That sounds annoying! I don't know what I have to fight about, but I'm always game. (Or not, actually. It depends.)
And now my AC is not working as well as before!
I feel your pain, except in the sense it's only 50 degrees regular here and I have a working (as of last fall anyway) central air system.
This article is crap. https://theintercept.com/.../beyond-schadenfreude-the-specta.../
Why it is crap is an interesting issue. It isn't that the pundits getting Trump wrong isn't worth remembering. But it ignores the fact that plenty of people were right about Trump from the start. The MSM doesn't want to pay any attention to such people. It also acts like the remedy to the people being so very very wrong is that they should apologize, like they apologized for helping lie the country into the Iraq war. A real remedy would be to get them fired. Ignoring them in the future is really the least we can do.
Rats I see the thread has moved on. Still I want to make one other point.
You shouldn't believe ANYTHING Trump says.
Even paying attention to the words coming out of his piehole is too much.
At the risk of having my butt punished for violating the analogy ban: Listening to Trump is like listening to the patter of the three card monte dealer while his confederate is trying to pick your pocket.
This is the link right? Something screwy happened (something shortened the link to where it wouldn't actually work?)
Even if they didn't get fired it would be nice (for once) if instead of just looking baffled and trying to make up explanations for what happened (usually ones consistent with the picture that led them to make the bad predictions in the first place) they just went and asked the people who saw things more clearly what they were seeing that made the difference. It's not always reliable, but as far as I could tell in the case of Trump pretty much everyone - even the right wing loonies* - who predicted this did it for basically the same reason: the Republican party base is composed mainly of nasty bigots operating on resentment and a whole media sphere dedicated to increasing that resentment and isolating them from any actual sources of information about the world, and amount to what you'd get if you started with Limbaugh's stuff and moved further to the right/nastier.
*though they put it in nicer more positive terms
They are in the business of selling soap. Was soap sold? Yes it was. They were successful.
It's apparently a lot easier to sell soap by telling people what they want to hear.
Well sure, but there's nothing preventing them from knowing anything at all about the soap they're selling. They could have just as easily reported on Trump as a flamboyant but potentially moderate figure with a skill for hyping up crowds or something, which probably would have made him disappear overnight. Instead they went with full scale point-laugh-and-repeat-everything-he-said stuff, assuming for some reason that the worst things he was saying would, when publicized, make his campaign fall apart, when actually that was exactly the stuff something like a third of the country was very interested in hearing (and so it helped him massively).
Yeah that was the link I had in mind. Thanks
I agree vehemently if we could pay a little more attention to sane, grounded people it would make a world of difference.
225- I find myself indulging in conspiracy theory as a result. I halfway think that the MSM and Republican elites are playing Brer Rabbit with the Trump phenomenon and it will turn out they were fine with him all along when he takes office. (I will fully believe the conspiracy if Trump is elected and not assassinated.)
227: The assassination is the key to the whole conspiracy. Trump will choose the favorite of the republican establishment as his vp. Then he is assassinated by a mysterious radical who is murdered by a Trump fanatic before his trial. The Republican establishment gets their president and shaken by grief the country unites behind his agenda.
227: The assassination is the key to the whole conspiracy. Trump will choose the favorite of the republican establishment as his vp. Then he is assassinated by a mysterious radical who is murdered by a Trump fanatic before his trial. The Republican establishment gets their president and shaken by grief the country unites behind his agenda.
All the butt stuff was worth it to see bob break his usual act in 163.
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Whoa. Hold the phone IANAL but this seems like kind of a really big deal.
In effect, the move by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- the biggest that the agency has made since its inception in 2010 -- will unravel a set of audacious legal maneuvers by corporate America that has prevented customers from using the court system to challenge potentially deceitful banking practices...
The new rules would mean that lenders could not force people to agree to mandatory arbitration clauses that bar class actions when those customers sign up for financial products.|>
Yeah, if that sticks, it is a huge deal.
I enjoy 228 but something nags at me. I don't think in a real right-wing conspiracy that a billionaire could be considered an expendable patsy. Though I admit if Trump chose an establishment VP I'm sure the establishment would be too tempted. That's why I think he won't chose an establishment favorite.
230: You seemed to have missed :There ya go"
163 was also performative, though ironical and not so personal.
Since I believe sex in all its manifestations, intricacies, and roles is always always an interpersonal and usually asymmetrical (though not in a gendered way) expression of dominance, control, cruelty and sadism/masochism, iow, sex is violence, the only forms of sexual humour I find tolerable are the most transgressive, because they don't attempt to disguise its purpose and ultimate nature. In a Freudian sense, hiding the violent nature of sex and other drives are what civilization and culture are for.
I don't seek out the transgressive material, and it doesn't turn me on, but it can make me laugh in a bitter ironical way, much in the way Nick Cave's O'Malley's Bar makes me both laugh and cower before universal human nature.
But maybe this is also a performance, ogged thinks so, but where's my Cioran.
The only reason to take them in is to vomit them back up. As a statement
I think you are generally sincere bob and I can believe you were kidding when you called them disgusting.
Still I feel like you should be a little more forgiving of people here. You don't act or think like a normal person, and so we have trouble interpreting the things you say.
I feel like I have some trouble relating to normal people too, so I have some sympathy, but I'm not expecting to make friends. I think neither one of us is really looking for that.
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Work advice- I'm editing a book in my field which basically involves knowing experts and getting them to write stuff for you for free. Surprisingly people are quite willing to do this, or tell their trainees to do it. One person who agreed to write a key early chapter is someone who used to work with me, trained by one of the senior faculty at my place. He agreed early on to write along with his trainees, kept me updated, asked for a short extension which he said was to get colleagues to do an initial review which would improve quality and save me time. At the end of that extension, though, he completely stopped responding to emails. Sent him a reminder every week for four weeks, no response. Finally called him Thursday and got him on the phone, he said oh yeah, I'm done, I'll send it to you tonight. As you might have guessed, nothing came.
So what do I do next? Of course he's under no obligation to deliver it other than giving his word and not being a liar. Do I try to lean on him by mentioning it to his former adviser (who's also writing the Forward) who could contact him for me? Ask more openly, Hey, what's going on here? Just give up? It pretty negatively affects the final quality of the book, leaves a big hole that's too late to fill with an alternative (due to publisher end of the month.)
One other author did the same thing (minus the lying on the phone), but I don't know him as well so don't have many options there. I wonder how often it is that someone writes a chapter then decides that they'd rather submit to a journal as a review where it would get more exposure.
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Since we are having fun, my freeze-dried funnybone, in this thread:
One of my formative experiences was in college, when the experienced cherry-plucker who had been chasing me for several months, one of several projects, on the fourth sustained attempt, looked up at me from between my knees, smiled and batted her eyes, and said softly:
"You can do anything you want to me."
(I have learned later that this, in various other forms and degrees of acquiescence, passivity, receptivity, generosity, kindness and modes of differing enthusiasm, is not a radically rare sexual role, nor is it always gendered or heteronormative)
And my own thought, when I managed to get some blood to my brain, was:
"What the fuck would getting turned on by her statement do to me? What would I become? What was she trying to turn me into?"
Perhaps only a man, she might say, much as men have been for thousands of years for the women who desire them.
Consider this metaphor my own dirty joke.
Dear god I hope 238 was not answering 237.
I like bob a lot. I didn't mean act to suggest that bob is either performative or a troll or anything. But there is definite style that one comes to expect from a bob comment and there's something tickling about seeing bob do something else, probably for the first time for me.
I wonder how often it is that someone writes a chapter then decides that they'd rather submit to a journal as a review where it would get more exposure.
I bet not as often as someone just deciding not to write something at all.
Is it possible to find an article that covers the same ground (ideally from the same guy) and getting permission to reprint it?
238 is a good comment, and I sympathize with the situation described. But, Bob, I think you're misunderstanding the statement, "You can do anything you want to me." I think that's best treated as a performative utterance -- which is to say that what is important isn't the literal meaning of the words, but what is implied by the act of saying them (and,. while the two overlap, they are clearly different).
[J L] Austin defines "performatives" as follows:.
(1) Performative utterances are not true or false, that is, not truth-evaluable; instead when something is wrong with them then they are "unhappy", while if nothing is wrong they are "happy".
(2) The uttering of a performative is, or is part of, the doing of a certain kind of action (Austin later deals with them under the name illocutionary acts), the performance of which, again, would not normally be described as just "saying" or "describing" something (cf. Austin 1962, 5).
Anyway, lying about writing or having good intentions about writing that you fail to meet (and that in retrospect seem comically optimistic) is only less common than the same things about sex because fewer people try the former.
242: Like when that guy said "My house is your house" but still got mad when I took out a home equity loan on it.
237: I'm confused, do you think the person wrote something but just isn't giving it to you (e.g. wants to do some last minute polishing), or that they just haven't written it and are lying? In the latter case, it doesn't much matter what you do since it's too late.
Both people who stopped responding were quite detailed as far as where they were in the process- in the case of the one I know less well they sent me a quite detailed outline and preliminary references, coordinated with a co-author. The one I know better gave me updates too as far as how much was done, a summary so the forward could refer to it, the fact that it was fine and colleagues were reviewing it. If neither actually wrote anything it was quite an involved series of lies.
Is the publisher deadline really a hard deadline? My inclination would be to step up harassment a bit, while simultaneously (and without telling the relevant people) getting the publisher to push back their deadline a bit.
That's not a bad idea if I could get some assurance he'd actually do it if he had more time. He's already about 6 weeks past the first deadline I gave. Do I offer that up front, basically calling his lie by saying that I think he didn't really write it yet?
"I got a six week extension, but the publisher said if we don't have drafts in by then, he's going to drop this project and go back to Ann Coulter's book of free form verse in support to Donald Trump."
Lie. Tell him that another chapter author came and told you he had started but not finished and needed two weeks (or whatever). Let him know that he could take that time to polish, but after that you'd be reformatting without him and modifying flow, etc, to cover the hole
Have you asked the forward-writer for advice? Just say, I'm having trouble getting these last two people to finish, what should I do? Should I worry that they're not going to submit at all? Maybe they'll say "oh, X always does things at the very last moment but gets it done" or "ugh, X spent the last two years of grad school lying about how much of their thesis was done" or whatever. Also maybe they'll volunteer to look into it.
I've heard stories about a Harvard math prof who is always late submitting recommendation letters and has been known to call places to ask "what's the real deadline." Which is to say, there's a nontrivial fraction of academics who will just assume that the first deadline is just made up and isn't really that important. So I think what I'd do (after getting advice from someone who knows these people) is:
1) Harass the people again and tell them the deadline from the publisher and that you absolutely need it a little in advance of that so that you can get edit everything together.
2) Tell the publishers that you're having trouble with the last few people, and may need a brief extension. Basically just the feel them out on whether that's reasonable or crazy.
3) Once the chapters come in (assuming that's before the original publisher deadline), ask for an extension of however much time it will take you to put everything together.
237: Here's how this process looked from the other side: boss agreed to write a book chapter, then forgot about it until the reminders came in. He then sent 20 postdocs short sections to write based on his outline (assembled pff the top of his head, possibly). They were late. He asked one to review the sections and compile them. A few needed to be rewritten entirely for grammar, content, or plagiarism (WTF, postdoc?). That took another couple of weeks. Finally, it was sent to the very annoyed book editor at three times the proposed page limit (think 100 pages vs 30).
I suspect you'll get stuff, just very late. Ask for very rough drafts as "placeholders." Use the excuse that you need to tie chapters together and make sure there isn't inadvertent subject overlap (or gaps).
Do you have backup options for writing, for example, someone with name recognition plus a postdoc you know could write a draft quickly? I'd have jumped at the chance to knock out a chapter in a week or two as a free publication. It's a dick move to contact someone's former advisor for leverage, even for the same project (not a dick move to mention that you're struggling with getting a draft from this person, just to expect the former advisor to lean on him). Hi, 252. That's more detailed than mine. Not dickish.
I think every editor is late getting drafts to publishers, so cosign 247.
Which is to say, there's a nontrivial fraction of academics who will just assume that the first deadline is just made up and isn't really that important.
When speaking colloquially, 1/1 isn't really what people think of as a fraction.
Not sure I got 237, but I hope it was in response to the butt stuff subthread
Maybe that's the subject of the book.
"Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight"
On googling, that title has already been used. Never mind.
Overall it's not in bad shape. Started at 19 chapters + The forward, expected couple to drop and two did. Of 17 remaining, have 12 in, two promised next week, one I'm coauthor, two mentioned above.
254.3 I could almost do it myself, as with several chapters, but that's already happened with the one I'm helping to write.
How did we get from 119-257 and no one made the apposite "that would have to be in the butt, Bob" joke? Was that fruit hanging too low? Or are standards slipping around here? And should someone look in on apo and check if he's okay?
253.1 is right. This situation is so incredibly typical as to be comical except when it's your ass on the line. And I have no idea whether nagging actually works. Unfortunately, I have no advice. You have no real leverage. It's most likely that he's been lying the whole time and has decided to wash his hands of it. It's a time-honored strategy to ignore all communication when you've utterly failed to do something.
15 out of 19 seems incredibly good to me.
This seems like the appropriate thread to note that this evening I was spending time with my grandparents, when my grandma asked how old I was now. Upon hearing my answer, she reminded me I'd have to start getting my prostate checked soon.
Thanks, Gram!
So even the few who don't drop out of grad school end up spending their professional lives occasionally acting just like someone dropping out of grad school. Sad!
Thanks J, Robot, I would have completely forgotten about it but for your hate.
My current hate is cow-orkers whose native language is not English and are working in an international context who use the verb "to table" in an email and then tell you to Google it when you point out the ambiguity. Fuck you, clown.
And it was ambiguous in context, I wasn't just being a pedant.
"Table" means entirely different things in American and British English, so unless you have prior agreement on which you're using it's always going to be ambiguous.
266: I thought of you when I saw the Komen thing on FB where you can change your profile to say "I ❤️ Mom" plus a pink ribbon. I feel like maybe they could incorporate more elements, but it's a good start.
"Table" means entirely different things in American and British English
Or, as one website apparently described them by analogy with Chinese, "Simplified English" and "Traditional English".
|| So, Sanders will be speaking 2 blocks from my office on Wednesday morning. |>
270: red, white, and blue background at minimum seems to be in order. Probably with some camo in there somewhere.
I wasn't just being a pedant.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
