5544

So it sounds like the president, right now, can just unilaterally seize any foreign owned assets in the US due to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act? I guess they just have to be able to argue that the owners were involved with “armed hostilities”?

Anyway, what we did to Afghanistan’s treasury should be a war crime.

5545

More of AOC proving she does not belong in this thread.

5546
5547

Someone pointed out recently that smart people can be really dumb when they get out of their lane.

That’s been Noam Chomsky for like 50 years now.

5548

Here’s one from Target, which is very wrong for several reasons, including Holocaust appropiation.

5549
5550

That is…not a good idea.

5551

5552

Yup, that is a dumb take.

5553

Yeah that seems like wishing on a monkey’s paw for Trump to go up against Clinton secure in the knowledge that would guarantee her victory.

5554

Tell me you refuse to take Republicans seriously when they tell you their policy goals without…

you know the rest.

5555

Was this guy asleep the past couple of decades?

5556
5557

Not sure why this kind of alternate history counts as dumb liberal shit. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on my wishlist.

5558

The researchers found that the typical rich American is, in their words, the owner of a “regional business,” such as an “auto dealer” or a “beverage distributor.”

This shocked me. Over the past four years, in the course of doing research for a book about how insights buried in big data sets can help people make decisions, I read thousands of academic studies. It is rare that I read a sentence that changes how I view the world. This was one of them. I hadn’t thought of owning an auto dealership as a path to getting rich; I didn’t even know what a beverage distribution company was.

What are the lessons from the data on rich earners?

First, rich people own. Among members of the top 0.1 percent, the researchers found, about three times as many make the majority of their income from owning a business as from being paid a wage. Salaries don’t make people rich nearly as often as equity does.

This guy has an econ PhD from Harvard and wrote the Economist’s 2017 book of the year.

5559

I didn’t even know what a beverage distribution company was.

Seriously?

5560

Who is the author? It’s paywalled.

5561
5562

Is this an example of a liberal saying stupid shit, or an economist saying stupid shit and also happening to be liberal?

Because economists say stupid shit all the times.

5563

Ah ok. Never heard of him. From the excerpt you posted, it does sound like he’s a bit blinkered, though his specialty is big data sets and not microeconomics. Is he a liberal? From the limited searching I did, I couldn’t find his ideological affiliation, but I could be missing something obvious. But a statement like “salaries don’t make people rich nearly as often as equity does” is practically the rallying cry of the Occupy movement. I guess it’s dumb that he’s treating it like an epiphany, but that’s basically the entire schtick of all NeverTrumpers. I’m not saying he is one, but treating as epiphany stuff that liberals have been saying for decades is their thing, and isn’t usually indicative of liberal stupidity.