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Author | Topic: Conversations with God | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
How many of your paying customers are on drugs (bearing in mind that cannabis is legal in Colorado)?
Most of the thieves *ARE* on drugs...we can see them tweaking as they leave, and some go into our restrooms to shoot up. Phat writes:
You have a low enough opinion of them to single them out.
That does NOT mean that I hate them. Phat writes:
My position is that it isn't worthwhile taxing the rich. They'll spend a million to avoid paying a million. Nobody benefits but the lawyers. My only gripe is with a system that would raise taxes on the middle working class in order to help the lower class...while ignoring the theft at the top."Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." -- motto of the Special Olympians
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9197 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2
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I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC.
Where would Percy have gleaned this info if you had not stated it in the forum? So you respond to perceived breaches of protocol by escalating way out of proportion? Is it may be that you are embarrassed by your gross hypocrisy?
I am not a wealthy man, apart from my home being paid for, and I still have homeowner fees where I live
But no rent or mortgage payment. That is a nice privilege.Oh yeah, go fuck yourself. You are a hypocrite of the highest order. Hiding behind the veils of christianity just makes it more disgustingWhat can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Tanypteryx Member Posts: 4444 From: Oregon, USA Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC. You told us yourself Asshole! And yeah you went way beyond proper behavior at EvC, it says a lot about your character.Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned! What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. It really went outside the protocol of EvC. Not when you are the one who gave us that information!
Message 145, 12-Aug-2021 4:26 AM PDT (adjust for your own time zone), in the Bit Coin: 2 bit bubble topic (bolding added for emphasis):
PhatMouth writes: I earn roughly $27,000.00 a year. I have no real wealth except the apartment condo that my Mom left me. QED BTW, following the subtitle here, real estate, especially bequeathing the family home to your child, has been a common way to build up middle-class family wealth over generations. And it has turned into another example of white entitlement due to the practice of redlining: quote Since you like YouTube videos so much, here's one from Adam Ruins Everything that explains redlining (this was actually my first detailed introduction to the problem; before then we were aware of there being discriminatory practices in housing, but not of how those practices worked and had their effect):
Just on the financial side of it, non-whites have not only had more difficulty getting home loans and had to pay higher interests, but they were/are also systematically steered towards the riskier variable-rate subprime loans in which when the higher rates would kick in then those loans would fail. The 2008 mortgage crisis was caused in large part by subprime loans being given out even to those who did not qualify (eg, rock-bottom FICO scores) and then those risky loans were packaged and sold in mortgage bonds given the highest AAA ratings even though they were mostly filled with shit. Yeah, Margot Robbie tells us that every time we hear "subprime", think "shit." Here is her clip from The Big Short:
I've linked in scenes from that movie before. If you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it. Here again is the scene where the problem is explained. In a room full of men, no women present, it's a woman who interrupts with a question -- she's in the audience:
So back to white entitlement. In order to build family wealth in your home, you need to be able to keep it, which means that as long as there's a mortgage on it you pay it. If you default on that loan, then you lose the house including any and all equity you may have built up in it. Gone, even your down payment, which is a big hurdle for first-time buyers (as a veteran, we bought our first house with a GI loan, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to). And if they decide to run a freeway or other eminent domain project through your property, the compensation for that will be too little. Adam touches on how the lower property values and the very slow rate at which they appreciate in non-white neighborhoods not only keep you from being able to move up, but also create a lower property tax base to fund schools and other public services, which help to keep property values down. Elsewhere, it was pointed out that the lack of black family wealth keeps many from the capitalism dream of going into business -- difficulties in qualifying for business loans doesn't help. Instead, the neighborhood businesses (eg, corner stores) tend to be owned by wealthy immigrants (eg, Koreans, Muslims) who are seen as outsiders and whose profits leave the neighborhood leaving it even poorer. I already talked about a small New Hampshire town whose primary lumber industry had closed. They were able to keep going by having a local bank and local businesses (eg, grocery store, diner) who bought from local farmers. They were able to keep the town going by keeping the money circulating within the community. Then a burger chain moved in. Not only did it out compete the diner, but it bought its food from suppliers, thus cutting out the local farmers. And all its profits left town and went to corporate. Their money was leaving the community making it poorer. Same thing happens to small towns when a Walmart moves in; not only does it drive other businesses out of business and sucks its profits out of the community, but when they move in they negotiate and get all kinds of tax subsidies from the local governments, depriving them of revenue.
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Phat writes: First of all, I am NOT criticizing the poor. You most certainly are. This is absurd. Instead of moving the discussion forward you're making us remind you of what you just said in recent messages. This is you in Message 419:
While trying not to lump (or stereotype) ALL of these homeless as being the same, I will say that the facts indicate a majority of them are hooked on Fentanyl or Meth...among the percentage that commits crimes against property (and person). I challenged this statement in Message 424 and guess what? No response. I grant that your statement contains some ambiguity and is open to a couple interpretations, but when presented the opportunity to clarify what you meant you were a no show. Of course Theodoric called you out on your lack of compassion for the homeless and the poor. Then, right after responding that you're "NOT criticizing the poor" you continue criticizing the poor and homeless by including thieving in your characterization:
That being said, I have come a long way towards empathy for the poor....even the thieves. This subdiscussion began about the homeless, so don't leave the homeless out of the discussion. You originally said "homeless and poor", and now you're ignoring the homeless and are just referring to the poor. I'm not sure if you're just using the poor as shorthand to refer to both the poor and the homeless or whether you're actually trying to remove the homeless from the discussion. I'm fine with talking about both the poor and the homeless, but not with removing the homeless from the discussion. So just to be clear, we're talking about both groups. When you say you have more empathy now for the poor (and the homeless), it's apparent in your messages. You might think you're hiding how you really feel, but you're not.
My only gripe is with a system that would raise taxes on the middle working class in order to help the lower class...while ignoring the theft at the top. You're lumping two very different problems together. One is that raising taxes on the rich is very difficult because they lobby Congress for favorable tax treatment, and they can provide a level of monetary support that helps get people elected. Only getting money out of elections would allow tax policy to become more fair, but that's not going to happen. Helping the poor and homeless is another matter. Do you like turning your grocery store into a sort of bunker? If that's your preference then continue voting against the more costly solutions that would actually put a serious dent in homelessness and poverty. But if such policies were put in place then you wouldn't need all these technological defensive mechanisms. Let's see how far your compassion has come. Trump in his speech yesterday said he wants to remove the homeless from cities and put them in tent cities in "large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities." I hope this is a solution you reject because it is the opposite of compassion. It's also fantasy wishful thinking. There are no "large parcels of inexpensive land in the outer reaches of the cities." Where do you think the nearest parcel of inexpensive land is to New York City? Or Denver? Tell me where the "large parcels of inexpensive land" are outside Denver. I bet you'll have to go way outside Denver to find cheap land, like up by Wyoming or something. So the idea is completely impractical. But it's impractical for another reason. Let's say a tent city is set up for the poor and homeless 50 miles outside Denver. What would you say temperatures at night are out on the prairie in the summertime. You know they can dip below freezing in the summertime and that in the wintertime it's far worse, right? And what about the economy in this tent city? Where are they going to get jobs? Food? Water and electricity? Garbage pickup? Policing? Healthcare? Then there are the authoritarian aspects. I don't think we've done anything like this on a large scale since we locked up Japanese Americans in internment camps during WWII, not to mention confiscated their possessions and businesses. All the authoritarian ideas come from your conservative buddies, like anti-abortion laws that all the conservative states have implemented or are in the process of implementing. They're criminalizing pregnancy. And they're also doing it in a racist fashion, because minority women whose pregnancies end prematurely are charged with crimes far more often than whites. You conservatives are such wonderful people, and you know that's true because it's what you keep telling yourselves. Anyway, the tent cities idea leads to another issue, that the problem with too large a segment of conservatives, and you're one of them, is that they hear some cockamamie idea on a YouTube video or in a speech by someone who makes it sound convincing, like Trump, usually involving urban and surrounding areas because that's were most people live, and they get all gung ho about it and ask, "Why aren't the Democrats implementing this solution?" because tend to be the dominant party in more urban areas. The truth is that in many cases conservative politicians don't have a solution, they just have a story that many of their constituents find convincing and is often very authoritarian. But, like you, they accuse the Democrats of being authoritarian. Conservatives seem to think authoritarianism is anything the Democrats do after winning an election.
And how dare you all accuse me of being entitled? I paid the payments on my apartment long before I inherited it. Yes, I am privileged as are you, Brian. The actual point was that if not for that condo you'd be on the edge of homelessness, just like the people you detest. Most poor or homeless people if given an apartment free and clear would be doing fine. You mention debt ceilings and the global financial system, but they aren't part of this subdiscussion. Don't change the subject, especially not involving something you know little about except what you hear on YouTube videos. Despite how much journalism has suffered over the past decade or two, there are still gold standard sources of information out there that you're not availing yourself of. You know which ones they are. They're the ones conservatives call "fake news media." --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Phat writes: I was just mad that you somehow knew that I had inherited my condo. You posted about it in Message 145:
I earn roughly $27,000.00 a year. I have no real wealth except the apartment condo that my Mom left me. It scares me and this is one reason I keep researching the solvency of the United States. The French and Indian War was very costly to Great Britain and doubled its national debt. Conventional wisdom at the time was that the debt must be paid off or at least paid down, and they felt it only fair that the American colonies be taxed to pay for that war. This alienated the American colonies and resulted in the Revolutionary War, which doubled their national debt again. There are two lessons here. One is that debt can be a good thing. For example, debt allows people to buy a house and live in it for years before paying off the mortgage. Of course there is such a thing as too much debt, but as I've explained to you at least several times (and received no response), the United States is nowhere close to having too much debt right now. There is no solvency issue. You have to stop listening to YouTube videos, or at least start examining them critically. All those YouTubers are in competition with each other for audience, and they do this by trying to tell the most compelling stories possible, which is only possible if they make stuff up. "The election was stolen" is compelling stuff, it's got a third of the country all riled up, but it's a lie. "We have a fiat currency backed by nothing" is another compelling story, which happens to be true, but everything they say about the dangers of fiat currencies are lies. The second lesson is that when solving problems you shouldn't adopt solutions that make the problem worse. --Percy
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Tanypteryx Member Posts: 4444 From: Oregon, USA Joined: Member Rating: 5.1
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Persy writes: The second lesson is that when solving problems you shouldn't adopt solutions that make the problem worse.* This is an incredibly powerful statement! This single sentence sums up the problems our country and OUR government have encountered since President Braindead Reagan joined forces with the evangelicals. Over the past 40 years that antigovernment movement has morphed into an obstructive, anti-fact, anti-science, pro-really-stupid-conspiracy-nonsense, anti-future cult, that is intentionally mismanaging all the agencies of OUR government, THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT to skim off all their budgets and misdirect their funding. The so-called conservatives are wholly owned and controlled by the ultrawealthy and they have spent 40 years spreading fear of various bullshit conspiracy theories about "liberals," and are continuing to do everything they can to make every single issue into a problem and to make ever problem worse. I ran across this about an older more accurate description of "liberals." quote Actually, this is Brin in a broader context critiquing (on Facebook) an interview with Peter Thiel on the dangers of progress - The tech billionaire discusses Silicon Valley, Christianity and apocalypseBY MARY HARRINGTON quote [end of rant] *May I use your quote, please?Stop Tzar Vladimir the Condemned! What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.2
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Helping the poor and homeless is another matter. Just using this one phrasing as a springboard. Sorry!1 Helping the poor and homeless has been going on for centuries with soup kitchens and handing out blankets. That just puts a rather flimsy band-aid on the problem. It's easy to administer "first aid" to the most immediate concerns, such as hunger and the need for warmth. It is an entirely different matter to reduce or even remove the cause of that need. And that solution requires so much more than the mere bandaids of soup kitchens and handing out blankets. And that is where we always fail.
FOOTNOTE 1
German can be a bit of fun for Americans because they have borrowed so much American English into their language, often in unintentionally humorous ways (eg, a single-strap backpack called a "Bodybag") -- see this ex-pat video for more such examples, 10 SHOCKING Things Germans Say That Americans Find Hilarious! ; English examples come from a decades-old article about American sales pitches that didn't translate well in other countries such as the Chevy Nova (in Spanish, "no va", doesn't work, doesn't run), "travel in leather" (in Spanish, travel naked), a Coca-Cola slogan that in Chinese says that it will bring your ancestors back to life. And what German woman could you have ever convinced to use the American product hair product, the Mist Stick (in German, "Mist" is manure)? My own personal German moment was from a local German shopping center in the early 1970's (which included a German cinema that I used to use all the time since it had the only German content in my area). 1970s, more than two decades before the Internet and YouTube. Now you can watch all those "Heimat" ("homeland", ie country life in Bavaria) films on YouTube. In a store in that shopping center I saw a German candy bar called "Zit". But one borrowed word that the Germans really love is "sorry". All the German equivalents ("Verscheidung", "Entschuldigung") imply that the person saying it is somehow admitting to some kind of fault or guilt on their own part. "Sorry" doesn't do that. Which is why the Germans love it so much. Now you can try to emphasize with the customer without admitting to somehow being at fault for their dilemma.
Edited by dwise1, : ZIT and chocolate candy ... Edited by dwise1, : footnote to include the German candy bar, "Zit".
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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dwise1 writes:
Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, loves to apologize - and not just when he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He apologizes for racism, sexism, etc. I'm surprised he doesn't apologize for the weather. But one borrowed word that the Germans really love is "sorry". All the German equivalents ("Verscheidung", "Entschuldigung") imply that the person saying it is somehow admitting to some kind of fault or guilt on their own part. "Sorry" doesn't do that. Which is why the Germans love it so much. Now you can try to emphasize with the customer without admitting to somehow being at fault for their dilemma. But, as an older indigenous lady said, "If you step on my foot, I appreciate you saying you're sorry but you also have to get off my foot.""Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." -- motto of the Special Olympians
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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There you go again, ignoring Message 441 with its rebuttals. In some future message you'll again raise the same points as if they hadn't already been rebutted. Hey, no problem. Have we told you how much we love how you keep resetting the discussion to square one? Or how great we think it is that discussion with you on this and related topics never makes any progress? Can you tell us again how so many of the poor and homeless are drugged-up thieves, and how important it is that we return to the gold standard? Oh, wait, don't tell us, post videos. We love your videos.
Sorry for the sarcasm. Here's an article I thought might interest you. It's about shoplifting becoming an increasing problem for retailers and the strategies they're employing. Interestingly it mentions crime rings, but not the poor or homeless:
I don't know which of those products is weirder to lock up. 50 years ago I once wore Old Spice on a date and my girlfriend told me never to wear it again because it reminded her of her grandfather, who I think was born in the last decade of the 1800s. How is Old Spice still around? It occurs to me that I probably haven't been clear about my position on shoplifting. I'm of course against it, and I'm for punishing the perpetrators. But I'm against scapegoating the poor and homeless, and I very much doubt that having been unable to make a decent living or retain adequate living quarters that they then suddenly become clever and relentless criminals. Naturally they're part of the crime equation because that's what desperate people do, but I'm against punitive conservative solutions that are either counterproductive (criminalizing being poor or homeless) or absurd (tent cities on cheap land just outside the cities). --Percy
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9197 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
Shoplifting is an issue, always has been, always will be. But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be. It seems to have been a made up excuse by Walgreen's to exit "undesireable" areas.
How Walgreens manufactured a media frenzy about shoplifting What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Theo writes: In the Denver Metro area, the Safeways(and grocery stores in general) who are on or near major bus lines are by far the hardest hit by shoplifters, the majority of whom are on foot, though a smaller minority are driving nicer cars than you or I own! The latter are likely organized crime. Shoplifting is an issue, always has been, always will be. But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be. Thats not what we observe nor what our security sees. They travel to all of the stores and have identified the same suspects again and again. (this irritates me greatly, by the way) The average loss at one of my employers stores is $2500.00 a day. At the store I work at, the figure is closer to $3,500.00 a day. It seems to have been a made up excuse by Walgreen's to exit "undesireable" areas. A company needs no excuse to exit The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022 We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9197 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.2 |
Make your compa y provide actual data. What is current shrink? What is historical shrink? Claims or worthless data is what is reliable.
This is reputable evidence that Walgreens lied. Do you dispute that?What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Phat Member Posts: 18345 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
I had reliable data. I got it from the Store Director.
This is reputable evidence that Walgreens lied. Do you dispute that? Your article has a few specifics which I will address.
How Walgreens manufactured a media frenzy about shoplifting Tesnim Zekeria and Judd Legum: So there you have my response. Edited by Phat, . Edited by Phat, . The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894). When both religious and non-religious people reach the same conclusions then you know religion isn't the reason.--Percy Democrats should not be the only party. Respect the two-party system. -Phat, in December 2022 We see Monsters where Science shows us Windmills.~Phat, remixed
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ringo Member (Idle past 440 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Phat writes:
Hmm.... If you were planning bus lines, wouldn't you want them to cover ALL of the city?
In the Denver Metro area, the Safeways(and grocery stores in general) who are on or near major bus lines ... Phat writes:
IF that was true (which seems unlikely, considering the source is you), it would suggest that shoplifters are poor (which doesn'r come as a big surprise).
... are by far the hardest hit by shoplifters, , the majority of whom are on foot... Phat writes:
If shoplifting is the worst organized crime you have, my heart doesn't bleed for you.
... a smaller minority are driving nicer cars than you or I own! The latter are likely organized crime. Phat writes:
As I have pointed out before, the drug store where I used to work has REDUCED its anti-shoplifting measures, apparently because fixating on shoplifters is counter-productive.
Theodoric writes:
Thats not what we observe nor what our security sees. But it is not a crisis as they made it out to be. Phat writes:
Sure it does. We have had a lot of trouble around here with retail stores exiting "undesirable" indigenous people. (Some of them may even have come on the bus, horror of horrors!) A company needs no excuse to exit undesireable unprofitable areas. Of course, you can't do that any more (which people like you can not be made to understand). The store owners want to masquerade as human beings, so they want a good image for their stores.Come all of you cowboys all over this land, I'll teach you the law of the Ranger's Command: To hold a six shooter, and never to run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns. -- Woody Guthrie
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