Behind every buzzworthy headline of the past year has been someone in charge, someone to blame, or just someone to laugh at and talk about. From the debacle of Toyota's millions of recalled automobiles, to a fed-up flight attendant with a flair for drama, we've become familiar with a few new faces in 2010, for better or for worse.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota:
When Toyoda was born into Toyota's reigning family, he probably figured he'd have a pretty nice life. Unfortunately for him, he ended up inheriting a big ol' mess of a recall situation in 2009, which continued with the February recall of many models for braking problems. That was just the start of Toyoda's Toyota headache, as millions of cars were pulled in the months to follow and investigations into the company's recall procedures were launched by Congress. It's all cool though, Toyoda totally apologized to shareholders.
Steven Slater, "JetBlue Guy":
Poor Steven Slater, JetBlue flight attendant, was so fed up with crabby, mean customers last August, he decided that if he was going to quit his job, he was damn well going to go out with pizzazz. Grabbing some beers to go and popping the emergency slide, heading for freedom and ending his career in the air instantly launched Slater into his 15 minutes of fame, becoming the hero for anyone who's ever had to deal with the hard-to-please masses.
Michael O'Leary, RyanAir CEO: Want to know a way to really get people to hate you? Charge them for the luxury of easing their bladders on flights! Or if that doesn't work and you want to save costs, why not invent some handy vertical seats, to stuff even more uncomfortable passengers on your planes? Okay okay, we've got a great one — removing the second pilot! All really, really terrific plans in 2010, thanks to Ryanair's discount CEO, Michael O'Leary.
Tony Hayward, former BP CEO:
All the troubled started in April, when an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico a Transocean, Ltd-owned and BP-leased offshore rig exploded and sank. The resulting hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that leaked into the waters of the Gulf wouldn't be plugged until August. Hayward's headache ended before that, when he was pushed aside in July. We're guessing he's not too upset about the end of that particular line of work.
Daniel Akerson, General Motors CEO:
Listen, we all want a raise. Unfortunately, the economy right now is such that lots of us aren't getting one. But that didn't prevent Daniel Akerson, GM's newly-minted CEO, from asking the government if he could give his executives some nice big salaries, while the company he runs received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund. His reasoning? They've got to be able to compete with all the other automobile fatcats and hire the best executives money can buy! After all, the recession is over, right?
John Pistole, TSA Chief:
For those of us who just looove to complain about traveling, John Pistole of the Transportation Security Administration gave us so many reasons to get grumpy in 2010. John brought us revealing full-body scanners and intimate pat downs at airports, as the TSA attempted to make the friendly skies even friendlier. Pistole proved to already cranky consumers that there are worse things than putting your liquids in plastic baggies. Much, much worse things, like having your bladder bag explode during a TSA pat-down. No one wins there. Such invasive procedures haven't prevented a things like six-inch hunting knives or loaded handguns from making it onto flights, so, rest easy.
We just can't wait to see who will raise our hackles in 2011!
...hopelessly outgunned presidential campaign as if it was a business, not even spending more money than he had in hand. C'mon now, how laughable is that in this day and age in modern America that someone who wants to run the federal government should live within his own campaign means? Just like normal people who live on a real budget with no ability to vote themselves a pay raise and a higher debt ceiling when no one is watching C-SPAN!
When the ultimate Democratic winner, in league with the extraordinary gentleman Harry Reid and the tough-talking San Francisco grandma who's House speaker, has decided to spend a gazillion more dollars than any non-federal calculator has digits to display.
These people, for Nancy's sake, are already spending the income taxes of the unborn grandchildren of those 4,000 babies that Paul delivered. A shocking realization that may be helping to fuel the recent re-examination of Ron Paul, who never met a federal dollar that needed spending -- unless it was going back to his district near Houston.
Ron Paul came within something like 1,000 delegates of catching John McCain for the Republican nomination in St. Paul. But when he finally gave up, Paul still had about $5 million left over. He's been investing it traveling around the country to speak and helping like-minded RFR's (Republicans For Real) organize all over. And, who knows, maybe sell a few books.
But now, just as his fierce supporters fearlessly predicted all along, many in American politics are coming around to think that maybe RP's crazy ideas, for example, of auditing and controlling the Federal Reserve, are maybe not quite so crazy.
Our news colleague in Washington, Don Lee, details the sea-change in opinion in a comprehensive look at the old guy's rebirth for weekend print editions, which we're sharing here this morning as a distinguished guest post for Ticket readers around the world.
And for any surviving Ron Paulites, who won't dare leave their typically snippy comments below because that would require them acknowledging that their favorite fiction about a MSM conspiracy to ignore the old guy is fiction.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Because no federal funds are involved, Ron Paul would want you to click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Or join us over here on The Ticket's new Facebook FAN page.
Here's Lee's reported news item:
For three decades, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul's extreme brand of libertarian economics consigned him to the far fringes even among conservatives. Not a few times, his views put him on the losing end of 434-1 votes on Capitol Hill.
No longer. With the economy still struggling and political divisions deepening, Paul's ideas not only are gaining a wider audience but also are helping to shape a potentially historic battle over economic policy -- a struggle that will affect everything including jobs, growth and the nation's place in the global economy.
Already, Paul's long-derided proposal to give Congress supervisory power over the traditionally independent Federal Reserve appears to be on its way to becoming law.
His warnings on deficits and inflation are now Republican mantras.
And with this year's congressional election campaign looming, the Texas congressman's deep-seated distrust of activist government has helped fuel protests such as the tea-party movement, harden partisan divisions in Washington and stoke public fears about federal spending and the deficit.
"People are wondering what went wrong. And they're not happy with what the....
....government is offering up," said James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, offering an explanation for why seemingly wonkish arguments over interest rate policy and the money supply are spilling over onto ordinary Americans.
Some of Paul's most extreme views are still beyond the pale for most economists. Despite the eroding value of the dollar, no one expects the U.S. to return to the gold standard, as Paul advocates; most economists think that could wreck the economy.
In their less drastic forms, however, Paul's ideas are being welcomed by conservatives and viewed with foreboding by liberals. For conservatives, runaway inflation constitutes the biggest potential threat to the nation's future. Liberals worry that cutting back stimulus efforts too soon could slow or even halt the current recovery.
The debate over that question -- what the basic thrust of U.S. economic policy should be -- is likely to dominate the coming elections and Washington policymaking.
And so far, Paul and his fellow conservatives are on the offensive. President Obama and congressional Democrats are repeatedly pledging not to increase the deficit and to begin cutting back soon.
"I think we're going to be in for more revival of fiscal responsibility," said William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who headed the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan.
Niskanen sees the Texas Republican's increasing influence as stemming from the continued economic weakness. "To this extent, Ron Paul gains voice," he said.
Paul would go a lot further in cutting back the government's role than even free-marketers like Niskanen support. If Paul had it his way, for instance, he would do away with the Fed entirely. In his bestselling book "End the Fed," he lambasted the central bank as an "immoral, unconstitutional . . . tool of tyrannical government."
Such rhetoric might once have been dismissed as extremism.
But Paul's anti-Fed message has drawn broad support because of the central bank's failure to restrain the flood of cheap money and excessive risk-taking in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
It has stirred rallies on college campuses and supportive commentaries from Wall Street pundits. More than 300 representatives in Congress have embraced Paul's ideas for reining in the Fed.
The response "is even more than I ever dreamed," Paul said in an interview, reminiscing about one evening during his 2008 White House run when University of Michigan students chanted "End the Fed" and burned dollar bills.
Paul, a skinny 74-year-old with a hangdog expression, understands that historical circumstances have thrust his ideas to the fore. "An intellectual fight is going on," he said.
Paul traces his economic views to his frugal upbringing in Pittsburgh at the tail end of the Depression. He saved pennies from delivering newspapers and helping out his father's small dairy business.
And his first economics class at Gettysburg College was an eye-opener, Paul said. When a professor explained how banks keep only a tiny part of their deposits on hand and earn money by lending out the rest, Paul discovered one of the "tricks" of the financial system.
Beyond that, Paul's ideas are grounded in the work of economic thinkers from an earlier era who focused on problems similar to those besetting the U.S. today.
In particular, Paul is a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian theorist born at the end of the 19th century who contended that government intervention in an economy would fail because free markets were better at allocating resources and fueling growth.
Having lived through Germany's devastating hyperinflation in the early 1920s, which helped pave the way for Hitler, Mises wrote long before the Great Depression that over-generous credit policies would encourage excessive borrowing, creating a boom and then a bust.
Mises' ideas became central to what is known as the Austrian School of economics, which emphasized tight controls on credit and money supply, a strategy that discouraged financial ups and downs but tended to slow growth.
By 1940, when Mises arrived in America, most Western economists had embraced the competing theories of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, who called for government to stimulate the economy by spending on infrastructure and cutting interest rates.
Obama has largely followed the Keynesian script, as President George W. Bush did when the economic crisis broke.
Paul's once-lonely espousal of the Austrian School's ideas has gotten new impetus from conservative economists and Republican political strategists.
"A lot of good ideas were shoved aside because of the Depression and the rise of the Keynesian view of the world," said George Selgin, an economics professor at the University of Georgia.
Paul contends that Austrian economics explains the most recent financial meltdown: "It says if you inflate too much, if you have no restraint on monetary authorities, you're going to bring on a crisis." Now, Paul says, administration policies are leading the country toward disaster.
Selgin and many mainstream economists agree that pumping too much money into the economy can lead to trouble, but they say Paul goes too far.
In the 1930s, say Selgin and many other economists, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy began pulling out of the Depression thanks to federal easing of monetary policy.
The economy tipped back into depression after the reins were tightened too soon.
"In this aspect of the monetary system, he's just blown it," Selgin said of Paul.
However, like Mises, whose portrait hangs on his Washington office wall, Paul is intransigent, and that has earned him an ardent following.
"His views are strong and hardheaded, but you've got to stand firm or you'll get blown over in this world," said Mark Skousen, editor of the newsletter Forecasts & Strategies and a former economics professor at Columbia University.
-- Don Lee
Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters; Orlin Wagner / Associated Press; Associated Press (Paul argues with Mike Huckabee in a GOP primary debate).
robert shumake
John Roberts switches to FOX <b>News</b> | Inside TV | EW.com
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
Ugandan High Court Bans Publishing Lists of Gays - AOL <b>News</b>
Gay rights activists in Uganda are savoring a rare victory after the country's highest court banned the media from publishing lists of homosexuals.
Pink Floyd Re-Signs With EMI: Good <b>News</b> for the Band or the Label?
Progressive rock legends Pink Floyd have re-signed with their longtime record label EMI.
robert shumake detroit
John Roberts switches to FOX <b>News</b> | Inside TV | EW.com
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
Ugandan High Court Bans Publishing Lists of Gays - AOL <b>News</b>
Gay rights activists in Uganda are savoring a rare victory after the country's highest court banned the media from publishing lists of homosexuals.
Pink Floyd Re-Signs With EMI: Good <b>News</b> for the Band or the Label?
Progressive rock legends Pink Floyd have re-signed with their longtime record label EMI.
robert shumake
Behind every buzzworthy headline of the past year has been someone in charge, someone to blame, or just someone to laugh at and talk about. From the debacle of Toyota's millions of recalled automobiles, to a fed-up flight attendant with a flair for drama, we've become familiar with a few new faces in 2010, for better or for worse.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota:
When Toyoda was born into Toyota's reigning family, he probably figured he'd have a pretty nice life. Unfortunately for him, he ended up inheriting a big ol' mess of a recall situation in 2009, which continued with the February recall of many models for braking problems. That was just the start of Toyoda's Toyota headache, as millions of cars were pulled in the months to follow and investigations into the company's recall procedures were launched by Congress. It's all cool though, Toyoda totally apologized to shareholders.
Steven Slater, "JetBlue Guy":
Poor Steven Slater, JetBlue flight attendant, was so fed up with crabby, mean customers last August, he decided that if he was going to quit his job, he was damn well going to go out with pizzazz. Grabbing some beers to go and popping the emergency slide, heading for freedom and ending his career in the air instantly launched Slater into his 15 minutes of fame, becoming the hero for anyone who's ever had to deal with the hard-to-please masses.
Michael O'Leary, RyanAir CEO: Want to know a way to really get people to hate you? Charge them for the luxury of easing their bladders on flights! Or if that doesn't work and you want to save costs, why not invent some handy vertical seats, to stuff even more uncomfortable passengers on your planes? Okay okay, we've got a great one — removing the second pilot! All really, really terrific plans in 2010, thanks to Ryanair's discount CEO, Michael O'Leary.
Tony Hayward, former BP CEO:
All the troubled started in April, when an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico a Transocean, Ltd-owned and BP-leased offshore rig exploded and sank. The resulting hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that leaked into the waters of the Gulf wouldn't be plugged until August. Hayward's headache ended before that, when he was pushed aside in July. We're guessing he's not too upset about the end of that particular line of work.
Daniel Akerson, General Motors CEO:
Listen, we all want a raise. Unfortunately, the economy right now is such that lots of us aren't getting one. But that didn't prevent Daniel Akerson, GM's newly-minted CEO, from asking the government if he could give his executives some nice big salaries, while the company he runs received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund. His reasoning? They've got to be able to compete with all the other automobile fatcats and hire the best executives money can buy! After all, the recession is over, right?
John Pistole, TSA Chief:
For those of us who just looove to complain about traveling, John Pistole of the Transportation Security Administration gave us so many reasons to get grumpy in 2010. John brought us revealing full-body scanners and intimate pat downs at airports, as the TSA attempted to make the friendly skies even friendlier. Pistole proved to already cranky consumers that there are worse things than putting your liquids in plastic baggies. Much, much worse things, like having your bladder bag explode during a TSA pat-down. No one wins there. Such invasive procedures haven't prevented a things like six-inch hunting knives or loaded handguns from making it onto flights, so, rest easy.
We just can't wait to see who will raise our hackles in 2011!
...hopelessly outgunned presidential campaign as if it was a business, not even spending more money than he had in hand. C'mon now, how laughable is that in this day and age in modern America that someone who wants to run the federal government should live within his own campaign means? Just like normal people who live on a real budget with no ability to vote themselves a pay raise and a higher debt ceiling when no one is watching C-SPAN!
When the ultimate Democratic winner, in league with the extraordinary gentleman Harry Reid and the tough-talking San Francisco grandma who's House speaker, has decided to spend a gazillion more dollars than any non-federal calculator has digits to display.
These people, for Nancy's sake, are already spending the income taxes of the unborn grandchildren of those 4,000 babies that Paul delivered. A shocking realization that may be helping to fuel the recent re-examination of Ron Paul, who never met a federal dollar that needed spending -- unless it was going back to his district near Houston.
Ron Paul came within something like 1,000 delegates of catching John McCain for the Republican nomination in St. Paul. But when he finally gave up, Paul still had about $5 million left over. He's been investing it traveling around the country to speak and helping like-minded RFR's (Republicans For Real) organize all over. And, who knows, maybe sell a few books.
But now, just as his fierce supporters fearlessly predicted all along, many in American politics are coming around to think that maybe RP's crazy ideas, for example, of auditing and controlling the Federal Reserve, are maybe not quite so crazy.
Our news colleague in Washington, Don Lee, details the sea-change in opinion in a comprehensive look at the old guy's rebirth for weekend print editions, which we're sharing here this morning as a distinguished guest post for Ticket readers around the world.
And for any surviving Ron Paulites, who won't dare leave their typically snippy comments below because that would require them acknowledging that their favorite fiction about a MSM conspiracy to ignore the old guy is fiction.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Because no federal funds are involved, Ron Paul would want you to click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Or join us over here on The Ticket's new Facebook FAN page.
Here's Lee's reported news item:
For three decades, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul's extreme brand of libertarian economics consigned him to the far fringes even among conservatives. Not a few times, his views put him on the losing end of 434-1 votes on Capitol Hill.
No longer. With the economy still struggling and political divisions deepening, Paul's ideas not only are gaining a wider audience but also are helping to shape a potentially historic battle over economic policy -- a struggle that will affect everything including jobs, growth and the nation's place in the global economy.
Already, Paul's long-derided proposal to give Congress supervisory power over the traditionally independent Federal Reserve appears to be on its way to becoming law.
His warnings on deficits and inflation are now Republican mantras.
And with this year's congressional election campaign looming, the Texas congressman's deep-seated distrust of activist government has helped fuel protests such as the tea-party movement, harden partisan divisions in Washington and stoke public fears about federal spending and the deficit.
"People are wondering what went wrong. And they're not happy with what the....
....government is offering up," said James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, offering an explanation for why seemingly wonkish arguments over interest rate policy and the money supply are spilling over onto ordinary Americans.
Some of Paul's most extreme views are still beyond the pale for most economists. Despite the eroding value of the dollar, no one expects the U.S. to return to the gold standard, as Paul advocates; most economists think that could wreck the economy.
In their less drastic forms, however, Paul's ideas are being welcomed by conservatives and viewed with foreboding by liberals. For conservatives, runaway inflation constitutes the biggest potential threat to the nation's future. Liberals worry that cutting back stimulus efforts too soon could slow or even halt the current recovery.
The debate over that question -- what the basic thrust of U.S. economic policy should be -- is likely to dominate the coming elections and Washington policymaking.
And so far, Paul and his fellow conservatives are on the offensive. President Obama and congressional Democrats are repeatedly pledging not to increase the deficit and to begin cutting back soon.
"I think we're going to be in for more revival of fiscal responsibility," said William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who headed the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan.
Niskanen sees the Texas Republican's increasing influence as stemming from the continued economic weakness. "To this extent, Ron Paul gains voice," he said.
Paul would go a lot further in cutting back the government's role than even free-marketers like Niskanen support. If Paul had it his way, for instance, he would do away with the Fed entirely. In his bestselling book "End the Fed," he lambasted the central bank as an "immoral, unconstitutional . . . tool of tyrannical government."
Such rhetoric might once have been dismissed as extremism.
But Paul's anti-Fed message has drawn broad support because of the central bank's failure to restrain the flood of cheap money and excessive risk-taking in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
It has stirred rallies on college campuses and supportive commentaries from Wall Street pundits. More than 300 representatives in Congress have embraced Paul's ideas for reining in the Fed.
The response "is even more than I ever dreamed," Paul said in an interview, reminiscing about one evening during his 2008 White House run when University of Michigan students chanted "End the Fed" and burned dollar bills.
Paul, a skinny 74-year-old with a hangdog expression, understands that historical circumstances have thrust his ideas to the fore. "An intellectual fight is going on," he said.
Paul traces his economic views to his frugal upbringing in Pittsburgh at the tail end of the Depression. He saved pennies from delivering newspapers and helping out his father's small dairy business.
And his first economics class at Gettysburg College was an eye-opener, Paul said. When a professor explained how banks keep only a tiny part of their deposits on hand and earn money by lending out the rest, Paul discovered one of the "tricks" of the financial system.
Beyond that, Paul's ideas are grounded in the work of economic thinkers from an earlier era who focused on problems similar to those besetting the U.S. today.
In particular, Paul is a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian theorist born at the end of the 19th century who contended that government intervention in an economy would fail because free markets were better at allocating resources and fueling growth.
Having lived through Germany's devastating hyperinflation in the early 1920s, which helped pave the way for Hitler, Mises wrote long before the Great Depression that over-generous credit policies would encourage excessive borrowing, creating a boom and then a bust.
Mises' ideas became central to what is known as the Austrian School of economics, which emphasized tight controls on credit and money supply, a strategy that discouraged financial ups and downs but tended to slow growth.
By 1940, when Mises arrived in America, most Western economists had embraced the competing theories of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, who called for government to stimulate the economy by spending on infrastructure and cutting interest rates.
Obama has largely followed the Keynesian script, as President George W. Bush did when the economic crisis broke.
Paul's once-lonely espousal of the Austrian School's ideas has gotten new impetus from conservative economists and Republican political strategists.
"A lot of good ideas were shoved aside because of the Depression and the rise of the Keynesian view of the world," said George Selgin, an economics professor at the University of Georgia.
Paul contends that Austrian economics explains the most recent financial meltdown: "It says if you inflate too much, if you have no restraint on monetary authorities, you're going to bring on a crisis." Now, Paul says, administration policies are leading the country toward disaster.
Selgin and many mainstream economists agree that pumping too much money into the economy can lead to trouble, but they say Paul goes too far.
In the 1930s, say Selgin and many other economists, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy began pulling out of the Depression thanks to federal easing of monetary policy.
The economy tipped back into depression after the reins were tightened too soon.
"In this aspect of the monetary system, he's just blown it," Selgin said of Paul.
However, like Mises, whose portrait hangs on his Washington office wall, Paul is intransigent, and that has earned him an ardent following.
"His views are strong and hardheaded, but you've got to stand firm or you'll get blown over in this world," said Mark Skousen, editor of the newsletter Forecasts & Strategies and a former economics professor at Columbia University.
-- Don Lee
Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters; Orlin Wagner / Associated Press; Associated Press (Paul argues with Mike Huckabee in a GOP primary debate).
robert shumake detroit
robert shumake
John Roberts switches to FOX <b>News</b> | Inside TV | EW.com
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
Ugandan High Court Bans Publishing Lists of Gays - AOL <b>News</b>
Gay rights activists in Uganda are savoring a rare victory after the country's highest court banned the media from publishing lists of homosexuals.
Pink Floyd Re-Signs With EMI: Good <b>News</b> for the Band or the Label?
Progressive rock legends Pink Floyd have re-signed with their longtime record label EMI.
robert shumake
John Roberts switches to FOX <b>News</b> | Inside TV | EW.com
John Roberts, the veteran newsman who co-hosted CNN's American Morning for three years, is joining the competition. “We are excited to welcome Jo...
Ugandan High Court Bans Publishing Lists of Gays - AOL <b>News</b>
Gay rights activists in Uganda are savoring a rare victory after the country's highest court banned the media from publishing lists of homosexuals.
Pink Floyd Re-Signs With EMI: Good <b>News</b> for the Band or the Label?
Progressive rock legends Pink Floyd have re-signed with their longtime record label EMI.
robert shumake
Hello Friends. Every now and then I will share with you the work of other bloggers that I enjoy reading. This one, Brian, "Mr. Wise Guy" happens to be a close personal friend of the family and one of my favorite writers. Be sure to check out his blog at http://lifeis21.blogspot.com
Happy Holidays: A Survial Guide
As the leaves begin to turn and that summer's breeze becomes a winter's chill, I begin to get that feeling that I always get around this time. Its an odd mixture of both glee and dread because while its beginning to feel a lot like Christmas......its beginning to feel A LOT like Christmas.
A HoliDAY In The Life Of Mr. Wise Guy : A Guide For Survival.
It all starts out so simple...
Momma Wise Woman in the kitchen cooking up good food early in the morning.
Poppa Wise Guy on the couch.
So innocent.
As Alvin & The Chipmunks perform a stirring rendition of Jingle Bells, I sit thoroughly satisfied by the thought that for at least one day out of the year I can sit back and relax and have no worries besides who will try and beat me to the macaroni and cheese for seconds.
It starts out so simple....
But then
You add
The family.....
12 Wise Guys Eating....
I was watching the Discovery Channel one night before bed (because sometimes I do that...the voiceover actors voice is as soothing as VaporRub...but I've digressed) and I learned something very interesting. The Relative or the FreeLoaderus Judgementalist as they are commonly referred to in the scientific community, is an elusive beast. That being said, the Freeloaderus Judgementalist can not resist the lure of free food or free money. So holidays are the most dangerous times for us regular folk. I can still feel the tossing and turning of my stomach as I looked out the window and saw them coming one by one, being carried by the nostrils via the food aromas eminating from the Wise Guy home. As I open the door to greet cousin after cousin that I havent seen since LAST holiday, no sugar plum fairies danced in my head. By the end of the night they will have eaten them all.
11 Wise Guys Asking Dumb Questions:
While the Freeloaderus Judgementalist ravenously packs its gullet with the feast you have prepared, you will undoubtedly be forced to endure the same "thought provoking" questions. You know the ones I'm talking about. They are the Freeloaderus Judgementalist equivalent "Nice weather we're having" or "How about those Chicago Bears?" Those dreadful questions where nobody cares about the question or the answer...just senseless conversation to cover up the clinking of knives and forks hitting plates they dont own and feeding stomachs that didnt bother to bring any food to contribute. The family favorite would have to be the classic, "So, Mr. Wise Guy, when are you going to get married?" A question that perplexes me considering I haven't even been able to drink long enough for that novelty to first wear off. I usually just reply with a joke, all the while knowing that with the amount of food they consume, garbage the produce and trouble they create, when i do get married the Freeloaderus Judgementalist will most likely be the last to know.
10 Wise Guys Drinking...
Its the same story every year, and yet, I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching it play out. No matter what event it might be, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Independence Day, it never fails that within about twenty minutes of the designated start time (and since black people are always late... this fact is even more entertaining) someone will be drunk. And not just that "I'm a little dizzy so I should sit down" drunk, but that "Lets all just look away and pretend that he didn't just say that" drunk. Yes, in the Wise Guy family there is a third lethal vice of the Freeloaderus Judgementalist. While most zoos tell you not to feed the animals, my advice to you if you ever have the pleasure of joining in our festivities, is to never EVER let them drink. Yes, this pack of wild boose hounds will wander (or stumble) aimlessly about the gathering loudly taking offense to things you said (or they imagined you said) back in 1987. Some of these boose hounds will readily remind you of every reason why their life has been so much harder than yours, somehow forgetting you all crawled from the same swamp. Others will bounce from person to person telling stories with points that never seem to show up to an audience that never seems to stay. My advice....never make eye contact.
9 Family Secrets
Of course no family gathering that involves this much free food and alcohol can be without a few loose lips. If conflict is the essence of all drama then family might very well be one of its synonyms. It never fails that sooner or later just seeing one another isn't enough of an elation for the Freeloaderus Judgementalist. For this animal boredom breeds invention and before long the nasty rumors about Uncle Wise Man or Cousin Wise Girl began to fly. I try not to get involved. When the buzzing of the rumor mill begins to get too loud I just find a quiet place and hum the 12 Days Of Christmas, it doesn't work, but when you do it you look just crazy enough that nobody will actually bother you.
8 Closet Cousins
Not much to be said about the situation, but we all know that cousin whats his name's FRIEND who happens to be a BOY is in fact his BOYFRIEND. And the only thing its raining in their "shared apartment" is men.
7 Games of Spades
After good food and bad manners comes the obligatory game of Spades in the black family. The rules are simple: 1. Tell as many jokes as you have in your soul to tell 2. Talk more trash that Oscar The Grouch 3. ALWAYS partner with someone over 35 (and if they call cigarettes "smokes" or "squares" you've already won the game) 4. And above ALL ELSE ...if you value your life. DO NOT RENEG.
6 Awkward Moments
Guess whos coming to dinner...
If she can't use your comb you can bet it will be an awkward moment bringin her home
If that baby is ugly....its gonna be an awkward moment.
When that separated couple gets back together trying to make it work again for the holidays...you can bet its gonna be an awkward moment.
....The Wise Guy Family...providing more awkward moments than an episode of Maury Povich.
5 Nosey Aunties
Of all the animals sitting in your house eating up your food and breathing your air, there will be one alpha and all powerful being who holds the power over all of them. She is the reason why scientists even added the Judgementalist to the relative's name. She is the reason your cousin has that eating disorder and will never get married. Like a black hole, this aunt will suck both the life out of the party and the dignity out of anyone who entertains her self-righteous opinions. She always knows exactly where you are going wrong in live, possessing near psychic powers when it comes to your life. However, just like psychics being blind to their own fortunes, she will always be ignorant of the mess her own family is in. You can handle her two ways: Allow her this moment of victory so she can feel some sort of security in her insecure life, or just ignore her. I'M WARNING YOU...at no time is it advisable to get into a confrontation with this beast. When cornered they become very dangerous.
4 Disliked In-Laws
If family gatherings were Hollywood movies then in-laws would no doubt be the villians. Sure most of them are great. Sure most of them are tolerable (albeit in small doses), but just like every movie generation has its Ike Turner or Darth Vader (or Albert "Mister" Johnson for all you Danny Glover and The Color Purple Fans), every generation of family has that one in-law. They are the ones that everyone in the family dislikes and dislikes everyone in the family just as much. Fake smiles and the high pitched "I'm so happy to be here" voices masks their contempt for everything the family stands for. Equally fake smiles and half hearted hello's give away most of the family's disposition to the newly acquired "bad taste" . Of course, nobody dares to stir up trouble with the loved one who's made the bad choice and of course they are the only ones oblivious to the glacier that forms in any room their spouse enters. But, in keeping with code, we all stick to Momma's Wise Guy's, "If you like em I love em" ethic. But this year I propose a change in doctrine. "If you love em....YOU love em".
3 Wise Guys Afraid To Grow Up
It could very well be the saddest part of the holiday festivities. Theres nothing worse than seeing a 45 year old man who behaves like a 15 year old boy. No job, no prospects, no plan. These Freeloaderus Judgementalists are at sharp disadvantage in the wild, because they depend on your kindness (or pity) to survive. When they first arrive, and believe me they will be the FIRST to arrive, their antics are amusing. However, as time passes you are forced to realize that their playful nature isn't because they are just young at heart, but because they never really grew up. Armed with nothing more than a sharp wit and a dull dream, these injured Freeloaderus Judgementalists live for the holidays and spend the rest of the year licking their wounds.
2 Snobbish Brothers...
Have you seen my new car? I just got a new job making $$$$. My house is so big that when you come visit I'm gonna have to give you a tour! Your life is nice, but let me help you become the man that I AM. If you have ever heard any of these, you have been caught in the web of the Snobbish Brother. I don't know what it is about these creatures but they all share a few characteristics that are older than time itself. First, no matter what the situation, they will always feel as if they are the person equipped to give advice or critique you never really asked for. Secondly, they live in a very impersonal world. (Usually, they are married to that villianous in-law, and if that is the case, then maybe that new found frigidity comes from constantly sitting next to glaciers). The only thing smaller than their understanding for human relationships is their willingness to change. The only thing greater than their egos are....well....nothing? It is that arrogant "Mine is bigger and better than yours" attitude that the family is forced to suffer in silence, although this attack is usually focused squarely at the younger brother. However, all is not lost with the snobbish brother. When caught alone or having a personal problem of their own, the brother can be truly fragile and naturally human and above all, a great brother. And those moments can redeem him from all past offenses.
1 Thankful Wise Guy...
Whether it be my drunk Uncle Roscoe or a brother who thinks he's more that what he is, These are the people that define the twisted little ball of holiday cheer I am. When I just take a step back and look at them all its easy to see why I love them...and why I fall in love with each and every one of those creatures every year. As I look out the window on this holiday, I'm beginning to become anxious to see the familiar faces carried in by the loving aromas of my mothers kitchen. And as the leave begin to turn and the summer's breeze becomes a winter's chill, I once again get that feeling that I always get around this time. I can see my reflection in the window and can't help but smile. Even a Scrooge has his moment. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...yes, a LOT like Christmas.
Life is... The happiest Holiday of all
Reach out to Brian "Mr.WiseGuy" and let him know if you enjoyed his blog or leave comments here. Thanks
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Behind every buzzworthy headline of the past year has been someone in charge, someone to blame, or just someone to laugh at and talk about. From the debacle of Toyota's millions of recalled automobiles, to a fed-up flight attendant with a flair for drama, we've become familiar with a few new faces in 2010, for better or for worse.
Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota:
When Toyoda was born into Toyota's reigning family, he probably figured he'd have a pretty nice life. Unfortunately for him, he ended up inheriting a big ol' mess of a recall situation in 2009, which continued with the February recall of many models for braking problems. That was just the start of Toyoda's Toyota headache, as millions of cars were pulled in the months to follow and investigations into the company's recall procedures were launched by Congress. It's all cool though, Toyoda totally apologized to shareholders.
Steven Slater, "JetBlue Guy":
Poor Steven Slater, JetBlue flight attendant, was so fed up with crabby, mean customers last August, he decided that if he was going to quit his job, he was damn well going to go out with pizzazz. Grabbing some beers to go and popping the emergency slide, heading for freedom and ending his career in the air instantly launched Slater into his 15 minutes of fame, becoming the hero for anyone who's ever had to deal with the hard-to-please masses.
Michael O'Leary, RyanAir CEO: Want to know a way to really get people to hate you? Charge them for the luxury of easing their bladders on flights! Or if that doesn't work and you want to save costs, why not invent some handy vertical seats, to stuff even more uncomfortable passengers on your planes? Okay okay, we've got a great one — removing the second pilot! All really, really terrific plans in 2010, thanks to Ryanair's discount CEO, Michael O'Leary.
Tony Hayward, former BP CEO:
All the troubled started in April, when an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico a Transocean, Ltd-owned and BP-leased offshore rig exploded and sank. The resulting hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil that leaked into the waters of the Gulf wouldn't be plugged until August. Hayward's headache ended before that, when he was pushed aside in July. We're guessing he's not too upset about the end of that particular line of work.
Daniel Akerson, General Motors CEO:
Listen, we all want a raise. Unfortunately, the economy right now is such that lots of us aren't getting one. But that didn't prevent Daniel Akerson, GM's newly-minted CEO, from asking the government if he could give his executives some nice big salaries, while the company he runs received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Fund. His reasoning? They've got to be able to compete with all the other automobile fatcats and hire the best executives money can buy! After all, the recession is over, right?
John Pistole, TSA Chief:
For those of us who just looove to complain about traveling, John Pistole of the Transportation Security Administration gave us so many reasons to get grumpy in 2010. John brought us revealing full-body scanners and intimate pat downs at airports, as the TSA attempted to make the friendly skies even friendlier. Pistole proved to already cranky consumers that there are worse things than putting your liquids in plastic baggies. Much, much worse things, like having your bladder bag explode during a TSA pat-down. No one wins there. Such invasive procedures haven't prevented a things like six-inch hunting knives or loaded handguns from making it onto flights, so, rest easy.
We just can't wait to see who will raise our hackles in 2011!
...hopelessly outgunned presidential campaign as if it was a business, not even spending more money than he had in hand. C'mon now, how laughable is that in this day and age in modern America that someone who wants to run the federal government should live within his own campaign means? Just like normal people who live on a real budget with no ability to vote themselves a pay raise and a higher debt ceiling when no one is watching C-SPAN!
When the ultimate Democratic winner, in league with the extraordinary gentleman Harry Reid and the tough-talking San Francisco grandma who's House speaker, has decided to spend a gazillion more dollars than any non-federal calculator has digits to display.
These people, for Nancy's sake, are already spending the income taxes of the unborn grandchildren of those 4,000 babies that Paul delivered. A shocking realization that may be helping to fuel the recent re-examination of Ron Paul, who never met a federal dollar that needed spending -- unless it was going back to his district near Houston.
Ron Paul came within something like 1,000 delegates of catching John McCain for the Republican nomination in St. Paul. But when he finally gave up, Paul still had about $5 million left over. He's been investing it traveling around the country to speak and helping like-minded RFR's (Republicans For Real) organize all over. And, who knows, maybe sell a few books.
But now, just as his fierce supporters fearlessly predicted all along, many in American politics are coming around to think that maybe RP's crazy ideas, for example, of auditing and controlling the Federal Reserve, are maybe not quite so crazy.
Our news colleague in Washington, Don Lee, details the sea-change in opinion in a comprehensive look at the old guy's rebirth for weekend print editions, which we're sharing here this morning as a distinguished guest post for Ticket readers around the world.
And for any surviving Ron Paulites, who won't dare leave their typically snippy comments below because that would require them acknowledging that their favorite fiction about a MSM conspiracy to ignore the old guy is fiction.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Because no federal funds are involved, Ron Paul would want you to click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. Or join us over here on The Ticket's new Facebook FAN page.
Here's Lee's reported news item:
For three decades, Texas congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul's extreme brand of libertarian economics consigned him to the far fringes even among conservatives. Not a few times, his views put him on the losing end of 434-1 votes on Capitol Hill.
No longer. With the economy still struggling and political divisions deepening, Paul's ideas not only are gaining a wider audience but also are helping to shape a potentially historic battle over economic policy -- a struggle that will affect everything including jobs, growth and the nation's place in the global economy.
Already, Paul's long-derided proposal to give Congress supervisory power over the traditionally independent Federal Reserve appears to be on its way to becoming law.
His warnings on deficits and inflation are now Republican mantras.
And with this year's congressional election campaign looming, the Texas congressman's deep-seated distrust of activist government has helped fuel protests such as the tea-party movement, harden partisan divisions in Washington and stoke public fears about federal spending and the deficit.
"People are wondering what went wrong. And they're not happy with what the....
....government is offering up," said James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, offering an explanation for why seemingly wonkish arguments over interest rate policy and the money supply are spilling over onto ordinary Americans.
Some of Paul's most extreme views are still beyond the pale for most economists. Despite the eroding value of the dollar, no one expects the U.S. to return to the gold standard, as Paul advocates; most economists think that could wreck the economy.
In their less drastic forms, however, Paul's ideas are being welcomed by conservatives and viewed with foreboding by liberals. For conservatives, runaway inflation constitutes the biggest potential threat to the nation's future. Liberals worry that cutting back stimulus efforts too soon could slow or even halt the current recovery.
The debate over that question -- what the basic thrust of U.S. economic policy should be -- is likely to dominate the coming elections and Washington policymaking.
And so far, Paul and his fellow conservatives are on the offensive. President Obama and congressional Democrats are repeatedly pledging not to increase the deficit and to begin cutting back soon.
"I think we're going to be in for more revival of fiscal responsibility," said William Niskanen of the Cato Institute, who headed the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan.
Niskanen sees the Texas Republican's increasing influence as stemming from the continued economic weakness. "To this extent, Ron Paul gains voice," he said.
Paul would go a lot further in cutting back the government's role than even free-marketers like Niskanen support. If Paul had it his way, for instance, he would do away with the Fed entirely. In his bestselling book "End the Fed," he lambasted the central bank as an "immoral, unconstitutional . . . tool of tyrannical government."
Such rhetoric might once have been dismissed as extremism.
But Paul's anti-Fed message has drawn broad support because of the central bank's failure to restrain the flood of cheap money and excessive risk-taking in the years leading up to the financial crisis.
It has stirred rallies on college campuses and supportive commentaries from Wall Street pundits. More than 300 representatives in Congress have embraced Paul's ideas for reining in the Fed.
The response "is even more than I ever dreamed," Paul said in an interview, reminiscing about one evening during his 2008 White House run when University of Michigan students chanted "End the Fed" and burned dollar bills.
Paul, a skinny 74-year-old with a hangdog expression, understands that historical circumstances have thrust his ideas to the fore. "An intellectual fight is going on," he said.
Paul traces his economic views to his frugal upbringing in Pittsburgh at the tail end of the Depression. He saved pennies from delivering newspapers and helping out his father's small dairy business.
And his first economics class at Gettysburg College was an eye-opener, Paul said. When a professor explained how banks keep only a tiny part of their deposits on hand and earn money by lending out the rest, Paul discovered one of the "tricks" of the financial system.
Beyond that, Paul's ideas are grounded in the work of economic thinkers from an earlier era who focused on problems similar to those besetting the U.S. today.
In particular, Paul is a disciple of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian theorist born at the end of the 19th century who contended that government intervention in an economy would fail because free markets were better at allocating resources and fueling growth.
Having lived through Germany's devastating hyperinflation in the early 1920s, which helped pave the way for Hitler, Mises wrote long before the Great Depression that over-generous credit policies would encourage excessive borrowing, creating a boom and then a bust.
Mises' ideas became central to what is known as the Austrian School of economics, which emphasized tight controls on credit and money supply, a strategy that discouraged financial ups and downs but tended to slow growth.
By 1940, when Mises arrived in America, most Western economists had embraced the competing theories of Britain's John Maynard Keynes, who called for government to stimulate the economy by spending on infrastructure and cutting interest rates.
Obama has largely followed the Keynesian script, as President George W. Bush did when the economic crisis broke.
Paul's once-lonely espousal of the Austrian School's ideas has gotten new impetus from conservative economists and Republican political strategists.
"A lot of good ideas were shoved aside because of the Depression and the rise of the Keynesian view of the world," said George Selgin, an economics professor at the University of Georgia.
Paul contends that Austrian economics explains the most recent financial meltdown: "It says if you inflate too much, if you have no restraint on monetary authorities, you're going to bring on a crisis." Now, Paul says, administration policies are leading the country toward disaster.
Selgin and many mainstream economists agree that pumping too much money into the economy can lead to trouble, but they say Paul goes too far.
In the 1930s, say Selgin and many other economists, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. economy began pulling out of the Depression thanks to federal easing of monetary policy.
The economy tipped back into depression after the reins were tightened too soon.
"In this aspect of the monetary system, he's just blown it," Selgin said of Paul.
However, like Mises, whose portrait hangs on his Washington office wall, Paul is intransigent, and that has earned him an ardent following.
"His views are strong and hardheaded, but you've got to stand firm or you'll get blown over in this world," said Mark Skousen, editor of the newsletter Forecasts & Strategies and a former economics professor at Columbia University.
-- Don Lee
Photo: Larry Downing / Reuters; Orlin Wagner / Associated Press; Associated Press (Paul argues with Mike Huckabee in a GOP primary debate).
robert shumake
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