MattZ

No one's missing your point. Your point is wrong. You dont need to produce goods and services to make money. You can also make money by buying low and selling high. Or if you are a government, by borrowing money to create jobs, thereby creating wealth, and then taxing the wealth to pay off your debt. This has nothing to do with bubbles. Why do I have to do that?

I picked sticky fingers. Because even though mfwahl is correct that Gimme Shelter is one of the best intros, Moonlight Mile is one of the best outros. Tough question. (Also, no one loves Goat's Head Soup more than me, but if anyone picks that album, I'm gonna have to smack em upside the head).

What are you talking about? I have $150 in my pocket. How is that not real? Apparently not.

Let's say you buy a house for $100 by putting $10 down, and borrowing $90. Let's say that five years later you sell the house for $150, and pay the bank back their $90. Did you not just increase your own wealth on borrowed money? Of course you can grow wealth (and an economy) on borrowed money. I dont even understand what you are arguing half the time.

Fuck you, stock market.

Jnick wore me down with his passion too. I jumped in at Infinite Jest and I am wrapping it up right now. I don't know if it's the best place to start, but it worked for me. Actually, I take that back. I read a short story that he wrote about a woman in psychotherapy. I am sure jnick can point you to it. I can't remember what it was/is called. If you go the Infinite Jest route, I guess my advice to you would be: take your time. The shit that doesn't make sense will start to make sense (sort of). I almost threw in the towel at around 100pp, and didn't, and the rewards have been many.

Apparently, Mayor Bloomberg is going to temporarily (?) rename 53rd St, U2 Way. I think this is getting a wee bit out of hand.

If we took all the collective brain power wasted on labelling the situation (are we in a recession yet? yet? now? yes! depression? etc.), and instead focused it on fixing the problem, I think we'd be much closer to a solution. Humans appear to be as pathetically fascinated with putting every fu(king experience in a box that can be nicely labelled as they are with perpetuating these bubbles that inevitably burst. The markets have halved from their peak. Untold sums of wealth have been wiped out. Unemployment is rising. Inflation right around the corner. I don't care if this is a rec

Curious -- does Neko write her own tunes? I assume she does on these albums, right? Does she write the tunes that she sings for NP, too? For some reason, I thought Carl newman wrote the NP tunes. Haven't heard the new album yet, but very much looking forward to it.

never?

I like the places where the night does not mean an end; where smiles break free and surprise is your friend. And dancing goes on in the kitchen until dawn to my favorite song that has no end.

You've also still got time before the album leaks/gets released and you actually hear it and form your own opinion.

You aren't the first. I run into this a lot. Let me put it this way. I am all for letting the Bush tax cuts expire. But the "top 2%" don't exist in a vacuum where we tax them and everything goes on hunky dory as planned. The top 2% will change behaviors based on a variety of factors including the tax code. Now, whether it's my (hopefully) rare and extreme example where it ends up being a negative piece of the pie in a business's larger decision to close, or it works itself out as a cost that gets passed down in some other form (e.g., business owner cuts expenses by laying off workers to

I am pulling for you, Doctor B. Good luck.

mfwahl has made me reconsider whether I really should hate all Braves fans. That guy is ok in my book. happy birthday

I don't disagree with you. My point is that if the widget maker goes home, there's going to be a lot more people that get laid off. I never said we couldn't recover from this scenario. But if more people are laid off, and you aren't taxing the widget maker any more, you aren't recovering as quickly either. And I thought that was the goal here. I am not advocating either side. I am just pointing out that "tax the top 2%" sounds really great but it's not so cut and dry. I don't have any answers. Just pointing out the problem.

To be clear, this all started with me saying that I am a Dem. I happen to think that the top 2% should kick in more. Again, my point is that it doesn't matter what I think (or you think). What matters is what they think. And the top 2% lost quite a bit in the market over the last year, lost quite a bit in their homes, and are facing tax increases of more than $45. It's easy for me to say they should kick in more. If they do not agree, and they go home, it doesn't matter what I think. That is my point.

Does that article even address my point? I am not debating whether the haves should kick in more. I am suggesting that my employer is in the top 2%. And if his business is hanging on by a thread, and he doesn't know whether he should reinvest and stick it out, he may close up shop in the face of higher taxes or more regulation/overhead/etc. This has nothing to do with whether he is or isn't paying his fair share. If he decides to go home, so do 25 other people. Do you want me to tell him he has to keep running his business because he made enough money in the past? I dont think that's go

I'll tell you what's insane. You were busy patting yourself on the back and ended up jinxing it for everyone. I blame you for all of this. And I will never forgive you.

there's an op-ed in today's NYTimes called "The Kindle Swindle?" if anyone is interested. Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/25/opinion/25blount.html?_r=1

I dont think Jeff made the changes. I think they are alternate lyrics that Dylan had. I could be wrong, but I'd be stunned if Jeff changed Dylan's lyrics himself. That would be bad karma in my eyes. To insert your own lyrics into a Dylan song? Yikes!

It's weird that there appears to be nothing on the wilco website about this. I can't say I looked all that carefully, but I didnt see any news, any preorder link, etc.