I’m not sure if any of you watched it, but Ben Stein was just on CNN with Laura D’Andrea Tyson and Wolf Blitzer, and not only defended the budget, but basically threw the last eight years under the bus and then, and this is what blew me away, stated that he agreed with Paul Krugman that there need to be trials for the mismanagement that led to this crisis and basically called for Hank Paulson’s head. Someone’s net worth clearly took a beating. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone as pissed as Ben Stein just was, which is really surprising because there are all sorts of reasons to be pissed off right now.
I’ve been told I have minions now, so if any of you minions have a copy of that or can youtube it, please let me know.
*** Update ***
The folks at Media Matters have a portion of the clip in question:
There was more to it than that, but you get the flavor.
amorphous
He’s slated to be starring in a new game show tentatively titled "Piss Away Ben Stein’s Money."
Just Some Fuckhead
First chance ya get, trade up to flying monkeys. Minions are lazy, underhanded and unreliable.
opium4themasses
Don’t fall for it!
TenguPhule
Good Lord, Pod People have replaced Ben Stein!
Don’t sleep!
demkat620
Hmmm, I’ve been called alot of things before but minion ain’t one of them.
I didn’t see Ben Stein. I was too busy letting Thomas Ricks & KO scare the crap out of me over Iraq.
TheHatOnMyCat
Um, which one do you want us to be?
JL
Sh*t he must have lost a lot of money or else he is still worried about his friend who is only getting 20,000 plus alimony.
Ninerdave
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Obviously.
TenguPhule
We’re all Number 3!
Except for Paul L., wilfred and BOB who are playdough.
Shawn in ShowMe
Well I’ll be damned. Clear Eyes actually works.
John Cole
Sycophants are boring. And I never said you were minions, I said I have been told I have them.
FYI- Fred from Angel is on Dollhouse and still smoking hot even though scarred.
joe from Lowell
I used to be a subordinate official.
I once told a guy, "If you think threatening to sue me is going to get the developer to repave your driveway any faster, you don’t understand what it is that an assistant planner does."
I wasn’t a subordinate official to John, though.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, that puppy I sent you is dying.
Comrade Stuck
Tell me whomst/ And this minion will fillet the bastards.
Joshua Norton
You and you fancy vegetables. Are they like scallions?
BombIranForChrist
I want to be the minion that pulls levers on things. I don’t care what it does, I just want to pull the lever and then turn, glaring at people from under my hump.
TheHatOnMyCat
@John Cole:
Crap. I was going for Number 2.
The Grand Panjandrum
Well finally! I now a minion. You know my life’s dream was to be a monbacker, but I’ll take minion.
eemom
so I’m new here, but I think this blog is, as my 10 year old son would say, totally BEAST.
I love the concept of a "born again" Democrat.
I know most folks here probably know all this already, but I’m curious about the history. Was it really just the Terry Shiavo thing that drove you over the edge? You seem so sane — how did you manage to stick with Bush through the ’04 election?
Hope this is not taken the wrong way — I’m really just interested.
JL
Monk is on. Next season is the last and I hope the producers don’t pull a Dick Wolf on us.
NonyNony
If a conservative is a liberal that’s been mugged, what do you call a conservative who’s been mugged by bankers?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
I’m already a would-be minion. I can’t handle being a for-real minion at the same time. Sorry, John.
gbear
Heck, I thought we might rate being called Maxions.
TheHatOnMyCat
A Culture Conservative.
Cris
We can choose to heartily embrace the term "minions," just as Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka’s community embraced the name "goons."
Speaking of John’s minions, though, who is this?
TheFountainHead
Goddamnit. All I really want to be in life is a fucking henchman. Is that so hard to ask?!
Joshua Norton
A useful idiot who will still vote for repugs.
Cris
"Minion" can be typed entirely with the right hand, leaving your left hand free for other mischief.
Unless you switched to a Dvorak keyboard. You weirdo.
Graeme
Last clip of Stein I was him telling everyone the banks were great and that they were undervalued. I guess he’s mad his shares dropped from $75 to $2.50. Heh.
I am intrigued, and I look forward to seeing the clip.
I don’t watch TV. I may be gen X, but TV is for old people.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Oh, what the fuck. I want to spread a little Dr. Horrible love.
The full thing on Hulu (won’t work in Canada or other non-American space. Bah!)
Act 1, Part 1 on YouTube. You should be able to find the rest there.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Ben Stein. THE Ben Stein said this.
Are we sure he doesn’t have a twin brother?
@Shawn in ShowMe: WOW.
Laura W Darling
I’m switching my handle to Laura W Darling.
It’s like Wendy Darling, only with Laura first.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W Darling: Sure you mean Wendy Darling.
JL
@Laura W Darling: So who among us is Pan?
wmd
Looks like the minions are a bit slow tonight. Almost an hour without the video.
I did a cursory check of the usual inter-tubez, do not have the raw video or the software to make a youtube.
Does sound like Nixon’s old speech writer lost a bundle on bank stock.
Martin
I tried to teach both of my kids to refer to their classmates as ‘infidels’ but I could never get them to do it. My son (now 11) and I have a running discussion of what various routine jobs for supervillains would be like – general contractor, HR director, that kind of thing. When you go to hire a few hundred henchmen for your undersea fortress, do you need a health plan? What are performance reviews like? What do you do with the people that don’t pass the interview? How do you keep a secret volcano lair secret with all of those tradesmen needed to build it? Do you just kill them – or is that where your henchmen come from?
I think someone with minions could help answer these questions.
Betsy
Oh dear. This will only confirm, in my father’s mind, that Ben Stein is a free-thinking iconoclast. Ugh. He is already insufferable about quoting Stein whenever the subject of the economy or health care or whatever comes up. (Which makes no sense, because my dad is Democrat. Who volunteered for Obama for 9 months.) Now I really will never be able to persuade him not to listen to that tool.
eyeball
I prefer to think of us as gunsels.
Stein has a bit of Beria in him. He wants to see some people liquidated. He’s right — they should all get civilly liquidated, as we do here in America. Back of the line, pockets empty. His fear — a real one — is that these asshats who blew the nation’s economy apart will just lurk in the grass till they can get back on the Wall Street/K Street mammary.
This is Obama’s truest challenge — punish the oligarchs. Of course Stein has been an oligarch.
Just Some Fuckhead
Ben Stein can suck my big black cock. He is one of the idiots that helped break the fucking world. The only video of him we should be waiting to see is him in front of a firing squad, if I can be allowed to channel my inner TP for a moment. Christ, do these people have no fucking shame?
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: I was thinking Wendy O. Williams from the Plasmatics, but the ending of that story sucked.
R-Jud
@TheFountainHead:
Henchmen are made, not born, sugarshorts. Quit asking and pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
I think there is a Juicer Hierarchy that looks something like this, if you start at the bottom of the pyramid:
Lurking hordes–>Unruly mob–>Gibbering minions–>Slavering henchmen–>Spoof trolls–>Tim and Doug–>JC.
Hovering around this pyramid on a flying electrified rail car is Brick Oven Bill.
Of course, I’m only on the margin of the lurking hordes/unruly mob, so I could be way off base.
PS: Timely cartoon.
Laura W Darling
@Just Some Fuckhead: What are you? 105? The never-ending file of musical selections your psyche holds boggles my Darling little Minion Mind.
mellowjohn
thehatonmycat @ #6…
my whole world lies waiting behind door number three.
Martin
Once again proving how much conservatism is all about core principles.
Joshua Norton
Rumor hazzit that SF mayor Gavin Newsom is on Maher tonight. It hasn’t come on in San Francisco yet. Has anyone seen it?
John Cole
Speaking of minions and henchman, this is as good a thread as any to repost the rules for evil overlords.
“One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.”
TheFountainHead
@R-Jud: Thank you for that model. I’m half tempted to dust off the ‘ol Photoshop and conceptualize that.
Laura W Darling
@JL:
Joe the Plumber! Who else?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W Darling: I’m a musicologist. It’s prolly why I get so frustrated with the one-note music threads.
TheHatOnMyCat
@mellowjohn:
Laura, I think this call is for you …….
les
Loyal–to the extent such creatures can be, of course–minion here, wondering: (a) what calamity could get ubercreationionist, uberidiot Stein in touch with reality; and (b) why the fuck is it that the anti-brown, English only crowd can’t speak or understand the fucking language? It’s like they borrowed the Doughy Pantload’s dictionary. Fucking socialism, for fucking sooth. May they all be banished to the flaming blue halls of hell. There’s just really no reason that the current republican "leadership" be allowed to keep wasting the planet’s atmosphere.
Martin
Why do people keep asking that question as though the answer is going to magically change?
les
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You’re a nasty little fuckhead.
JL
@Laura W Darling: Joe Pan formally known as Joe the construction worker, Joe the Reporter and Joe the Plumber. I like it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: First time I ever saw the Plasmatics was on SNL. They scared me.
Alan
I hope you’ll be able to find the whole segment on video. Even though Stein is a loon with respect to "intelligent"design, he can be very entertaining on economic issues.
gbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:
When I see ‘Wendy Darling’, I hear The Canopener by Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians.
R-Jud
@TheFountainHead:
Please do; I could use the entertainment. It’s 3 am where I live and I am so un-tired that I’m baking cornbread. And watching the clip of Ben Stein. Bonus points if you work in a Longcat.
Dr. Rockso
41 – Sugarshorts?
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I will steal that one gladly.
TheFountainHead
@Dr. Rockso: Yeah, I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but I went ahead and took it as a term of endearment.
Just Some Fuckhead
Apparently Stein is in talks with Comedy Central for a followup game show to Win Ben Stein’s Money called I Need My Fucking Money Back Please.
JL
Who watched Monk?
NutellaonToast
Stein is just doing the old "it doesn’t fail it can only be failed" shit. He said everything was fine and it all went to shit, so obviously it’s Bush’s fault. There’s no way he was just FLAT OUT FUCKING WRONG.
AhabTRuler
@Laura W Darling: Any relation?
Wile E. Quixote
Well at least one of these assholes is going to go to jail. In an article that’s just chock full o’ money quotes this one stands out:
Of course the banks didn’t give a shit about potential mortgage fraud when they were raking in the commissions for handing out these liar loans and then selling them off as AAA investments. But now they act shocked, shocked, that their balance sheets are so much bad fiction.
Martin
I think that was Fridays, not SNL, back during one of SNLs earlier sucking periods (oh, they’ve had so many…)
And I think scaring you was much the point.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin: Yeah, yer right, it was Fridays.
Laura W Darling
@TheHatOnMyCat:
Waiting breathlessly by my phone, CatHat.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Laura W Darling:
Okay, mellowjohn, you know what to do. Don’t leave her waiting there.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, if you ain’t gonna answer eemom, I’m gonna. Christ, she makes a good faith comment along with some nice words for you and you just ignore her. At least point her to the FAQs or something.
Edit: Do you even have FAQs? You need FAQs.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TheHatOnMyCat: Sounds like you need to change yer handle to TheHatOnMyPimp.
Chuck Butcher
@R-Jud:
This list is fine and good as far as it goes, but I will accept no role other than that of Enforcer, which I am both by virtue of appearance and disposition well qualified for.
Laura W Darling
@AhabTRuler: Siblings, as anyone would guess, after witnessing our mutual constant toadying.
Tattoosydney
@Laura W Darling:
@Tattoosydney:
You’ve swapped threads!
I’ll see your slightly camp, tiny falsetto man and raise you a very camp, tall falsetto man.
TheHatOnMyCat
Funny. In a twisted way.
But I just didn’t want mellowjohn to be putting the gay moves on me. I’m not gay, I love the baby Jesus.
Er, in a spiritual way.
Dr. Squid
So that’s why he has to do recurring voice work for Fairly Oddparents.
Martin
I think John should link the story to every open thread post out of penance for voting twice for Bush.
He should also do a top 10 compare and contrast of posts pre- and post- wingnut. Surely he’s on record lambasting Democrats attempts to regulate Wall Street, or perhaps their wanton funding of volcano monitoring. I’d be curious what the complement to ‘post wingnut’ would be. I think doing it +5 or so would be ideal.
Just Some Fuckhead
@TheHatOnMyCat: I ain’t gay either. But if I was, I’d be drooling on Jon McLaughlin’s naked ass while he sang to me.
But I ain’t so it’s a moot point.
Laura W Darling
@Tattoosydney: I can not believe you would diss Simply Red and submit that in, um….submit that.
This is the only possible response I can offer to you, my odd, odd friend.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Not me. There ain’t a man pretty enough to turn me gay.
I have Jesus in my life.
No, not my yardman, goddammit!
Just Some Fuckhead
When did P.J. O’Rourke become such a dork?
YellowJournalism
Quick! Someone replace Limbaugh’s oxycontin with Nightol!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Tattoosydney: That was awesome. Thank you.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W Darling: That crossed a line.
AhabTRuler
@Laura W Darling: Toadying is an important part of any career in the Villainy Support industry.
AhabTRuler
And listen, minions, lackeys, dogsbodies, lickspittles, I don’t care what you call it. It is essential that the group organizes with the SEIU.
les
@Laura W Darling:
On the assumption that no one (possibly excepting The Editors) would do such a thing intentionally, you’re forgiven a fairly egregious error.
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
Oh yeah. I’m worth it.
Tattoosydney
@Laura W Darling:
The ways of gay music are mysterious indeed….
and you have given me an opportunity to post this!
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sorry, I missed it.
Eemom- Terri Schiavo was the breaking point, but there were a whole host of issues, including the bankruptcy bill, abu gghraib, and a host of other stuff. I had always been pro-choice and anti-death penalty and appalled by the war on drugs, so who knows.
I am not really sure what finally did it, but I was going to register independent in 2007 because I just couldn’t take it anymore, and then Graeme Frost happened and that was enough to make me register Democratic to atone. It really hasn’t been that difficult a transition, as I soon discovered the Democrats ignore the progressive wing almost as much as the Republicans. The odd thing is I find myself agreeing with the progressives more than I ever thought I would.
R-Jud
@Chuck Butcher:
Excellent catch. I’ll direct your suggestion to Mr.* TheFountainHead, who is putting together a visual representation for us.
@AhabTRuler:
Zoinks, I forgot about lackeys, lickspittles, and dogsbodies.
(*or Ms./Mrs.)
kommrade reproductive vigor
Good Lord, he’s turning into his dad.
/Lookism.
Tattoosydney
@Just Some Fuckhead:
She made me watch Mick Hucknall… I had to respond somehow, and I couldn’t find a video of a big, steaming falsetto, ginger poo.
John Cole
Did anyone see Maher? Two great lines-
“Dick Armey- always loved that name, although I guess it could double as the name for the whole Republican party.”
“It never ceases to amaze me how deep the douchebag bench is for the Republicans. Get rid of newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay, bring in Bobby Jindal and Eric Cantor from the bench.”
Also, if you notice, PJ O’Rourke didn’t say word one about the budget. The worm has turned.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole: Dammit John, I had a really good line I was gonna use.
Laura W Darling
@Tattoosydney: That is two times funny because IIRC, John once said in a thread that he looked like Drew Carey and of course we have his post of earlier today to back up that assertion!
It’s so cosmically cool how all these disparate threads start to weave themselves together if you
drinkstay around the blog long enough in any given day.Just Some Fuckhead
@Tattoosydney: I can’t stand Simply Red either.
Chuck Butcher
You gonna get it crazy tonight?
TheOfficialHatOnMyCat
What is happening to Stein? Is he turning into Goldwater?
Barry looked around in his dotage and realized that he had made a living out of the conservative schtick, and then saw the circus of fools that was following him, and said, "Stop acting like a bunch of jackasses!"
Whereupon, of course, the fools declared him to be crazy, and ran away. Is this Stein’s fate now?
jcricket
This is what the polls point out. On issue after issue, people are already liberal/Democrats, they just don’t know it yet.
It’s partly Democrats fault, but also the GOP has painted a pretty "good" (bad) caricature and convinced people the Democrats stand for something far different than they actually do.
jcricket
Do you know that old line about there being no athiests in foxholes? I think Ben Stein is proof there are no libertarians in depressions/market panics.
Laura W Darling
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Ouch, Fuckhead, just Ouch.
I can’t believe I missed Maher for this.
Bad Horse's Filly
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’ve always said that Mrs. Fuckhead was a lucky woman…glad to read I wasn’t wrong. ;-)
Comrade Stuck
@TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:
It’s worse than that. I would say about half of the GOP is saying the other half is crazy and running away from each other. In a year or two, the Carnival will come full circle and start the Deja Vu all over again. Unless baby jeevus intervenes and picks the next Reagan, we are looking at the Permanent Ground Hog Day Party.
Tattoosydney
@Laura W Darling:
I thought we were just warming up… there must be other things you like that we can mock.
JGabriel
TheHatOnMyCat:
Pedophile then, eh?
Buzzkill.
.
JGabriel
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Birth. SA2SQ.
.
DougJ
I’m still worried about Ben’s gold-digger friend in Irvine.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bad Horse’s Filly: Yeah, and I never knew what you meant until just now. :)
Tattoosydney
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I thought he was always a dork and an ass – the problem is that he also stopped being funny at some point during the W years.
1jpb
I’d recommend against taking Stein too seriously.
Not long a go he did an hour long interview w/ Lamb on Cspan. That interview (because of multiple follow-ups and Lamb’s occasional tactic of asking for clarification when he thinks he hears incompatible comments) showed that Stein sometimes plays a character when he’s in the media. Some of his comments are creations rather than core principles. It was shown that he would manipulating reality so that he could come up w/ anecdotes to support the particular self-image or policy view he was trying to advance.
I don’t trust Stein’s opinion because I wouldn’t be surprised to see him reverse himself tomorrow (and then reverse himself back sometime in the future) if he concluded that there was some tactical advantage to changing his publicized POV.
Laura W Darling
@Just Some Fuckhead: Christ. I came back to suggest we end the thread with her comment, it was just that good.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W Darling: Right? I’ve been threatening to go to bed for what now, three hours? And I’m gonna wind up still being here when CL wakes up.
Laura W Darling
@Tattoosydney:
Universes full, I am sure. But if I revealed them all tonight, what incentive would any of us have to come back tomorrow night, huh?
Gotta keep the mystery alive.
Martin
Who’s that? I like to know who my neighbors are.
Chuck Butcher
Mahr 10PM HBO-W
DougJ
@Martin
See this.
Ninerdave
Plasmatics Video from ’82. I remember being 12 and seeing this on MTV and thinking there is no cooler band in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q401R0JtuFw
Conservatively Liberal
Thug! I want to be one of John’s Thugs. According to the PUMAnutz, with Obama taking over, thug is where it’s at if you are an Obama supporter.
Ah wanta be a JT fer the JC at the BJ y’all.
Werd. Also too. Ubetcha.
AnneLaurie
When he found a sugar mama who’d move him into the Predator Class. (Is it still hypergamy when he’s the trick?) Give him this much credit, O’Rourke was always pretty straightforward about what he was looking for; he just had the brains to draw attention from the aristos by gently mocking their little foibles rather than frantically sucking up to them like all the other wannabes. Kind of the late-20th-century version of Elizabeth Bennet snagging Darcy — of course the O’Rourke version is much tackier than Miss Austen’s, but that’s (a) real life and (b) our coarse modern age.
As for Ben Stein, NutellaonToast has it right. Ben’s religion says that bad things only happen to bad, weak, stupid people who don’t plan in advance; therefore, anything bad that happens to Ben must be someone else’s fault. Just as the closeted Republicans are always whining, "Why do all these homosexuals keep trying to suck my d**k?", Ben is now whining, "Why do these financial criminals keep trying to steal my wallet?"
Ninerdave
@Conservatively Liberal:
I’m just a humble, lovable shoeshine boy.
Montgomery Burns
I like the personal touch that you can only get with hired goons!
phil
actually what I and a growing number of Americans care about is that your party signed into law an 800 million dollar stimulus bill without eventwading it.
Well john you don’t have to apologize to me. I know you’ve lost your integrity somewhere in the past couple years and don’t care what I think.
But even a scumbag like you is likely to have kids some day and you’ll have to explain to them why they have to kiss the ring of the Chinese government as we rack up absurd amounts.
You rightly condemned the 300-400 billion dollar deficits under bush.
Even under saviors most faborable estimates youre now you’re defending multi trillion dollar deficits and taxes on charitable giving. As I said before carter had higher approval ratings at this point and look how that turned out for us. People haven’t caught on just yet but it’s early and they will. Unfortunately well be drowning in so much debt it’ll probably won’t make a lick of difference. Well be spending a year just to service the debt let alone any government programs.
But "you won" right jon? And thats all that ever mattered to you anyway. Explain it to your kids some day john. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled with dads explanation.
Atlas shrugs.
TenguPhule
Try $5+ trillion over eight years.
Math, you do not has it.
phil
Tenguphule,
You’re the party of annual multi trillion dollar deficits now.
Live it love it own it.
We are quickly turning into a banana republic but you won so who cares right?
Tell it your kids someday scum bag.
Atlas shrugs parasites.
AhabTRuler
Coincidence? I think not.
J’accuse!
Conservatively Liberal
Shorter Phil: fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop fwop. . .
You haven’t popped one off yet? Poor guy, it must be all chapped and dried out by now. Calluses? Doesn’t surprise me one bit. While it is true that sand will give you better traction, lotion would smooth things out a bit.
A manly lotion? For someone like you I would recommend AstroGlide. I hear lots of men prefer using it and it sounds like something that would be right up your alley.
BongCrosby
Right on cue, Phil walks into the party to piss in the punch bowl.
Ron
I seem to recall a few points in the election where Stein was awfully critical of the current GOP. He’s still an ass for (among other things) making that ridiculous movie about ID, but he still seems to occasionally be able to come out against the republicans for stupidity of theirs.
D-Chance.
Of course, this is the same Benjamin Stein who wants "God spaketh and the universe poofeth into existence in just six days" taught as a valid scientific theory in your child’s classroom…
Steeplejack
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Second on the flying monkeys vs. basic minions. Zombie brooms carrying pails of water are good too.
Steeplejack
@BombIranForChrist:
LOL! "From under my hump . . ." You can’t buy memories like that.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
Most of these questions are handled tangentially in The Venture Brothers–"henching" as a career, medical coverage from the League of Calamitous Intent, etc., etc.
gex
I just don’t know what to make of this. This man was cheerleading the financial machinations that have lead to this disaster the whole way. I guess now that he’s hurting it’s time to do something. When it was just other people, well… The market’s the market. What are you going to do?
Now can we get this idiot to start seeing clearly about creationism now?
gex
@John Cole:
Well the DFHs do have a pretty impressive record. On the environment. On abuse of Patriot Act surveillance of domestic liberal groups. On food safety. On Iraq. And that’s just at the top of my head, very late on Friday. I’m missing a bunch of items I’m sure.
bago
Dick Army? What’s his wife’s name? Vagina Coast Guard?
/peter
dianne
The fact that you like Little Feat and came to see the light re: dems vs repubs has made you one of my favorite blogs.
We are lucky to have you. I love Tbogg, too, but his music list every week has bands I’ve never heard of. I feel so uncool.
JenJen
@John Cole: Yeah, PJ O’Rourke was just flat-out impotent on Maher’s show. I found it to be a little jarring.
My favorite funny from Maher tonight: "So, I went to my ATM, and made a deposit. It moaned."
slightly_peeved
How much did you hate Eyes Wide Shut then?
Personally, I considered myself more of a goon, or maybe a flunky, than a minion.
numbskull
I still have the CBS Sunday Morning piece seared in my memory, the one where Li’l Benny is begging us all to remain calm, telling us that the bad loans were such a tiny, tiny part of the economy, how there were too many checks and balances for anything to REALLY go wrong. He advised us all to just keep on keepin’ on. After all, it wasn’t going to be HIS portfolio that would take a beating, right? Right?
It’s the last time I’ve allowed Benny’ blatherings on my TV. Given how wrong this asshole has been for how long, I simply do not understand why he is allowed anywhere near a microphone or a wordprocessor.
He’s aggressively stupid.
As others have written, the ONLY reason his widdle panties are in a knot is because HIS wallet has finally been hit. Typical.
Marshall
Maybe this will help.
Svensker
@Tattoosydney:
Awrite, you just pissed off my husband, cuz I woke him up laughing so hard.
Shinobi
It’s interesting to see how quickly Mr. Stein switches sides when it is in his interest. I wonder, what would he have to lose to change sides on evolution?
jcricket
The guy’s still an apologist for Nixon, for crissakes, I think we can safely say that he’s not someone to be listened to with any seriousness.
klroutt
Hello. I found your blog while trying to research some contact info for Mr Stein. I did not see the CNN piece last night but let me explain why I was writing to Mr Stien to maybe give some insight on his comments.
Several months ago (I do not have the exact date — possibly over a year ago), Mr Stein did an essay on Marketplace in which he described the US economy and specifically the Dow as horrifically over-inflated (the Dow had just crossed the 13,000 mark as I recall, but again I am not sure on this exact point).
His essay made an analogy between the economy and a film (The Garden of the Finzi Continis) where the main characters delude themselves that they are insulated from destruction of their society just outside their garden gate.
Mr Stein goes on to lay out a well-thought argument about why cooler heads in US financial markets needed to prevail before the bubble burst and what might need be done in its aftermath.
This essay has been on my mind for a number of months (even before the election). And in most recent days I recall his comments as eerily prophetic. My impression has been that Mr Stein is politically conservative. Perhaps I am wrong. If he is conservative, however, I found this original essay quite eye-opening. Those many months ago, I thought Mr Stein brave to speak his mind during a time when no one wanted to say "The R-word" lest that scare everyone that the sky was falling. And I decided today to try to write to Mr Stein and Marketplace to ask that he do some type of follow up.
Thus, knowing the essay, I do not find his remarks last night surprising at all. In fact I find them quite consistent with the warnings he tried to give quite some time ago. I am only surprised to find that today, when I sit to write him, he had indeed had some more to say just last night. And to a perhaps wider audience than Marketplace.
Martin
@DougJ:
Oh, that… shit, that describes about half of my neighbors. Seriously.
The part you don’t want to hear – most of these people made money, even with housing prices where they are today. Orange County scammed the country and won. Again.