patrick.net

Second of all, and I did skim the article now, James Altoucher is and always will be a grande douchebag. Almost in the class of Tom Friedman, although Friedman really is in a class of his own.

Altoucher is largely right about War, WMD, and Voting, and has some points about College and Homeownership. But quite a few people were right, or had good points, and it did not take them until 2012 to say it.

Where was Altoucher when the War lies, WMD lies and the housing bubble all happened? Oh, yeah, he was working for a hedge fund. And I don't see his thinking having improved much since then.

Third, I think it is useful to have a confessional about what lies people fell for. Might make people think twice next time (Iran?).

But Altoucher is such a douche I just recoil instinctively at the guy.

I like him so little that I just realized he could have a new pet name: The Alt-doucher.

tts says

Things didn't start to get out of hand until crony capitalism started to get entrenched in our country, which started back in the 80's with Regan.

I share your dislike of Crony Capitalism, but it's as American as apple pie. It didn't start with Reagan (although Reagan made it worse, yes).

Rin says

Unfortunately, the current white collar W-2 crowd will refuse to admit that they don't really use much academic know-how on their jobs. And thus, a type of enforced class separation is in effect.

Absolutely. I currently do a job I could have done with no more than a high-school education, but I needed a $50k piece of paper to get me past the artificial "economic moat."

But as they say, the most lucrative things in life are a racket at some level.

freak80 says

I share your dislike of Crony Capitalism, but it's as American as apple pie. It didn't start with Reagan (although Reagan made it worse, yes).

Yea there has always been some corruption. If you want to go back in time to the Gilded Age you could definitely argue that this has happened before. In "modern" times though, and by that I mean post early 1900's, there is definitely a huge difference in the before/after levels of corruption for when Regan showed up.

Fell for: IRA, 401k, Stockmarket, Engineering will never be outsourced, and working for big company = job security.
Didn't Fall for: God, Santa, Tooth Fairy, WMD in Iraq, or Trickle down economics.

GameOver says

Hooray! The BAN has been LIFTED! I've done my time and now I'm ready to be re-inserted into society (or some other place?).

Thank you Warden Patrick!

I declared a general amnesty for the more than 3,000 spammers and the 7 users banned for repeated insults to other users. Hopefully this is not a mistake.

Wow, immediately got spammed and banned the spammer. That didn't take long!

Wow, immediately got spammed and banned the spammer. That didn't take long!

What spammer? Sounds like there's a story behind this.

Some Latvian-origin IP address selling viagra. There are lots of those.

BA house at the peak of the market (ouch)

Nearly a decade of STEM graduate school
(Wow, if I knew then what I know now...)

401k