House of Eratosthenes

I am reluctant to call them “tokens,” although many of them are that. “Token” has a specific implication, though, and anybody who’s been following Affirmative Action issues anytime over the last forty years or so knows exactly what it is: You put a designated-minority-class member on a panel that would otherwise be lacking in this cosmetic “diversity,” and from then on you can point to something should anyone accuse you of missing this; the token may or may not be really bringing this diverse make-up, he or she may or may not have equivalent decision-making power. But you get to point, if ever that should be advantageous. Hence the name, token. Tokens are Fausts, provided they are knowingly and willingly made into tokens. All Fausts are not necessarily tokens.

Andrew Klavan (hat tip to…somebody…insert hat tip here as soon as I remember how I found this) has a different word for them: Suckers!

I’m thinking of carrying Wall Street Journal economic writer Stephen Moore’s latest column in my pocket. Then when leftists tell me about “equality,” and “income disparity,” I can take it out, roll it up, and beat them across the nose with it shouting, “What did you do? What did you do?”
:
People like me tend to make esoteric arguments for the free market — private property is the basis of freedom, equality is the trait of slaves and so on. But it is also true that, with light, smart regulation, free markets work better than anything else. For those blacks, Hispanics, young people and single women who were convinced otherwise? Wakey-wakey, sweethearts. You’ve been had.

Let us take a gander at the cudgel Klaven would be using across those Faust-sucker faces as he shouts “what did you do?”:

For better or worse, a truism of American politics is that voters vote their pocketbooks. Yet according to a new report on median household incomes by Sentier Research, in 2012 millions of American voters apparently cast ballots contrary to their economic self-interest.

Each month the consultants at Sentier analyze the numbers from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey and estimate the trend in median annual household income adjusted for inflation. On Aug. 21, Sentier released “Household Income on the Fourth Anniversary of the Economic Recovery: June 2009 to June 2013.” The finding that grabbed headlines was that real median household income “has fallen by 4.4 percent since the ‘economic recovery’ began in June 2009.” In dollar terms, median household income fell to $52,098 from $54,478, a loss of $2,380.

What was largely overlooked, however, is that those who were most likely to vote for Barack Obama in 2012 were members of demographic groups most likely to have suffered the steepest income declines. Mr. Obama was re-elected with 51% of the vote. Five demographic groups were crucial to his victory: young voters, single women, those with only a high-school diploma or less, blacks and Hispanics. He cleaned up with 60% of the youth vote, 67% of single women, 93% of blacks, 71% of Hispanics, and 64% of those without a high-school diploma, according to exit polls.

According to the Sentier research, households headed by single women, with and without children present, saw their incomes fall by roughly 7%. Those under age 25 experienced an income decline of 9.6%. Black heads of households saw their income tumble by 10.9%, while Hispanic heads-of-households’ income fell 4.5%, slightly more than the national average. The incomes of workers with a high-school diploma or less fell by about 8% (-6.9% for those with less than a high-school diploma and -9.3% for those with only a high-school diploma).

This dovetails nicely with the bit of information found (through a bit of an off-topic bunny trail) in yesterday morning’s meandering through the latest Burt Prelutsky column.

During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.

From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.

These wide variances were driven by the fact that the stock and bond market rallied during the 2009 to 2011 period while the housing market remained flat.

Affluent households typically have their assets concentrated in stocks and other financial holdings, while less affluent households typically have their wealth more heavily concentrated in the value of their home.

From the end of the recession in 2009 through 2011 (the last year for which Census Bureau wealth data are available), the 8 million households in the U.S. with a net worth above $836,033 saw their aggregate wealth rise by an estimated $5.6 trillion, while the 111 million households with a net worth at or below that level saw their aggregate wealth decline by an estimated $0.6 trillion.

Notice that the observations made, are different. The former contrasts the demographic groups likely to have voted for His Majesty, against the general population; the latter contrasts median-area measurements like “the housing market” and households with net worth below $836k, against those on the upper side of that same line. The conclusion validated by viewing from these two vantage points, however, is common: Barack Obama is a stinky hot poison on the nation’s economy, most especially where it is supposed to benefit whatever He is calling His constituency on any given day. Working families, working folks, you, you all, everybody else, everyone, vast majority…

Of course, anyone who isn’t inclined to support Mister Wonderful, is not part of the intended audience. He’s talking to the angry people who voted for Him and His pals.

Hurley Rocks the Schoolteacher Fantasy The original Faust was not starving, he was “bored and disappointed.” The Dudley Moore and Brendan Fraser versions were sickened by a spate of unrequited infatuation, and wanted the object of affection to notice them. The Obama-voting Fausts are not starving either. They like to play it that way, and there’s some legitimacy to it in the sense that some of them are genuinely frightened of losing access to health care resources when they need them the most. But the resentment felt by the have-nots against the haves has not aged very well at all, especially here in the United States. Our is a country distinguished, almost magically, from the layers of human history that came before it. It is truly a miraculous place. Bold, italics: Our poor people are fat. That truism, all by itself, pushes us way, way outside the wildest hopes and dreams of any civilization that has ever existed before.

And yet the lefty-Faust fantasy of the never-ending revolution, with the Robin Hood busting open the Sheriff of Nottingham’s coffers of ill-gotten coins, to be scooped up by the poor put-upon peasants for whom he so tirelessly toils, endures. With all of the inter-class resentment, burning white hot, also never-ending. Day after day, year after year, it’s always the last moment of darkness before the dawn, we’re always just on the cusp of spreading around the lucre, making everything “equal” and “fair,” comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

But in the same way Faust’s bargain didn’t work out for him in the long run, it doesn’t work out here either. The comfortable get more comfort, and the afflicted suffer greater affliction. Robin Hood, it seems, is stealing more coins from the peasants, and splitting it with the Sheriff.

The Syria silliness ties in with this, in the sense that we now have iron-clad proof that the Bush-era war protests had nothing whatsoever to do with opposition to war, and were all about getting democrats elected. That isn’t true across the board, though: The true grassroots people, here and there, may genuinely believe in the anti-war premises. And they may be genuinely angry about what’s going on now, like they were then. But they’re the non-organizing subclasses. The candlelight vigils and the marches and the protests aren’t quite happening. And the anger isn’t quite so personalized. George W. Bush was this icon of evil, Barack Obama somehow is this golf-playing nice guy trying to reform a slimy sinister Washington that’s doing all this bad stuff, and “doing the best He can.”

It’s sickening watching this sales job go “forward,” again and again, spinning its little cycle. The government, someone once observed, is a problem masquerading as its own solution. Example: Why is health care so hard to get hold of nowadays, anyway? Has it always been like that? You don’t have to talk to anybody with too much hair growing out of the ears to find out: Em, no. The market got screwed up after our government started “fixing” it. Then someone made a Faustian bargain. And now, when you go get a new job, you’re almost more worried about the health care “benefits” than you are about the base salary. A lot of people getting those new jobs have reason to be. And in the Obamaconomy, they’re the lucky ones.

The solutions are put in place, and they achieve the exact opposite of what they were supposed to. The “Fausts” can be counted-on, apparently, to fail to notice this, just like a bowling ball dropped can be counted-on to reach the ground. A new round of solutions is proposed, assured to make the existing problems worse, and the Fausts fall in line yet one more time as the comfortable become more comfortable and the afflicted become more afflicted. On and on it goes. Nobody’s got a reason to slow down, let alone stop, since the comfortable have a livelihood going on it, and the afflicted fail to remember. You fall for it once, then twice, you may as well fall for it a thousand times.

I think Ayn Rand wrote something down about this. Let me look it up…ah, here it is…

It only stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

The biggest lie in what we now call liberalism is that the expressions of concern are sincere. There are people in the anti-war movement who care about wars not happening where they can be avoided — but they are not the coordinators. There are people in it who care about the suffering of those who can’t get health care, but they are not the organizers. There are people who care about women and ethnic minorities being under-represented in positions of prestige, leisure and power. But they do not decide the policy. They’re all a bunch of Fausts, and at the end of it, not only do they fail to achieve their goals, they also fail to achieve the respect from their peers and their communities, for having at least tried.

Seems to be that last failure that perplexes them most of all. But they deserve to achieve that less than anything else. It’s hard to look respectable with a hook sticking out of your mouth.

“The biggest lie in what we now call liberalism is that the expressions of concern are sincere.”
Like “Someone should put a bell on the cat…. for the slow and toddler mice”?
I NOW call it “progressiveism” with the same snark voice I use for “new catchwords” intended as dog whistles, somehow implying superior politically correct response concerning The Emperor’s New Clothes. It’s still “the left”. It’s still Socialism, Communisim’s little sister before
Facism, then tyranny, give it a face lift, and a boob job, respectively.

No matter, I believe there’s a whole new basket of material surrounding “Mr. Gore’s Wild Ride” (to the arctic with his select group of Three Men in a Boat) I believe there’s a new trend market for Ice cubes (extra Virgin), “Imported” from the Arctic. (Just add water, freeze, and serve)
Hey, it worked for Pepsi’s economic challange with bottled water and “access” to “Russian” vodka.

Sadly, I’ve missed this years NY Fashion Week opportunity to hype Capt.Arctic Imported Ice Cubes at all those celebrity side parties. The “Well then, let them eat cake…” selfies would have been priceless.
- CaptDMO | 09/08/2013 @ 18:11

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The FaustsSunday, September 8th, 2013

The Fausts
Sunday, September 8th, 2013