patrick.net

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