Welcome to the Belle Epoque!

[greymouse]

I see my favorite economist, Paul Krugman, has a post on his New York Times blog site on " Life in Belle Epoque America" (it means "Beautiful Era" and refers to the period between 1871 and 1914 in France when the Moneyed lived exceedingly well and conspicuously, publicly spent lots of money on Courtesans.)
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...gion=Body&_r=0
It links to an article on the Atlantic magazine website "How Sugar Daddies are financing College Education"
http://www.theatlantic.com/education...cation/379533/
which talks about the Seeking Arrangements website that facilitates (for about ten times the cost of a P411 "membership") Sugar Daddies meeting the right Sugar Baby seeking to trade being nice to the gentlemen for tuition and living expenses. Not a new subject here in Commercial Sex World but beginning to be noticed out the Real World where we all have to live. The Atlantic article dispensed with the "Sugar" adjective and talked about "daddies" and their "babies" to the point where something that seldom happens occurred: I experienced the sensation of being creeped out. I personally prefer "Payers" and "Payees" or Clients and Sex Workers if you are feeling upscale and euphemistic.

The Atlantic article had 1165 comments when I first clicked through to it and had four more by the time I got to the comment thread. That is fairly impressive even by our local standards. I'm not inclined to go too deep into that thread since most internet call and response events quickly turn into a series of virtual fist fights as the boys let their primate dominance genes take over their keyboards. You would think that there must be a potential goldmine in reviving the neighborhood amateur boxing gym except it appears that the percentage of cyber warriors willing to take a real world punch, even with a padded glove is pretty small.

About Sugar Babes: I have known a couple of ladies in the local corner of Sex World who put themselves through college thusly. One of them may have gone back to it. If so I wish her and Mr. Money all the happiness or at least good sex in the world and would like to thank the Mr Moneys in the past for their contribution to polishing up these fine ladies' personas and contributing to their overcoming the narrow prejudice against by the hour(s) sex work.

There is a lot to say relative to Sugar Babes who actually are college students. If memory still serves in 1965 I spent a total of $940 for a Long Semester's worth of education at UT Austin. The Good Old Days of tax payer financed higher education,gone now to be replaced by student loans equivalent to something between the price of a new car and the price of a condominium, or not being able to go to college or maybe a little or a lot of sex work.

The disappeared tax payer subsidy is mostly thanks to the Republican Party's efforts on behalf of their owners in the 1 Percent and fractions thereof, not that the other conservative party also beholden to the same campaign contributions donor base put up much of a fight.

The somewhat ironic thing is that the One Percenters who have pressed for all and any subsides to those less moneyed than themselves to be ended are also the Sugar Daddies benefiting from the available of good looking but not independently wealthy young ladies who are willing to F-word their way to an entry ticket to the competition for the good life. Coincidence or Plan? What do you think?

[Centaur]

The Belle Epoque was a time of relative cultural enlightenment and an unprecedented peace following the Napoleonic Wars, not reality TV and Orwellian government. Sorry to rain on Krugman's parade (really, because he's insightful, but his analyses are usually flawed IMO).

[greymouse]

Originally Posted by Centaur

The Belle Epoque was a time of relative cultural enlightenment and an unprecedented peace following the Napoleonic Wars, not reality TV and Orwellian government. Sorry to rain on Krugman's parade (really, because he's insightful, but his analyses are usually flawed IMO).

Can't agree that the Professor's analyses are "usually flawed". That aren't always perfect, none are, but on economics he is usually right although he does tend to provoke "Krugman Derangement Syndrome" in people who make fools of themselves trying to prove that he is wrong. Your response isn't quite an ad homonym brick but it doesn't have any substance.

Nothing to say about the rising tide of college cost relative to non-One Percenter means and the resorting to sex work coping mechanism it reveals?

[Centaur]

Originally Posted by greymouse

Can't agree that the Professor's analyses are "usually flawed". That aren't always perfect, none are, but on economics he is usually right although he does tend to provoke "Krugman Derangement Syndrome" in people who make fools of themselves trying to prove that he is wrong. Your response isn't quite an ad homonym brick but it doesn't have any substance.

On the contrary. I explained exactly why Thomas Piketty's analogy, and Krugman's agreement with it, to the French Bella Epoque is flawed. He draws a single parallel. That hardly supports a direct analogy. I never said he was wrong. You may wish to avoid putting words in other people's mouths if you wish to elide logical fallacies yourself. I said his analyses are often flawed. Specifically I find he allows his imagination to get carried away from him. It is both his distinguishing strength and his single most systemic defect as an economist. He's brilliant, but he's a dreamer. Pointing out someone's flaws is some distance from labeling someone deranged, but dismissing someone who does point them out as deranged is rather the definition of an ad hominem argument...unless you were making a combinatorics joke, in which case I salute your esoteric sense of humor.

Originally Posted by greymouse

Nothing to say about the rising tide of college cost relative to non-One Percenter means and the resorting to sex work coping mechanism it reveals?

I suspect - and I may be wrong - that, given your apparent penchant for buzzwords such as the statistically errant phrase one-percenters (despite the fact that it appears nowhere in Kitchener's article or Krugman's commentary on it), your gratuitous thumping of the Republican Party Is Almost Wholesale to Blame for the Decline of Higher Education flashcard (they're but one of many significant factors), and your pushing of the Overton window with your offhand remark about the other conservative party, that a debate with you is more likely to be a game of political football than a dispassionate discussion of economics. My lack of love for the GOP does not, in this case, alter the fact that I have precisely zero desire to engage with someone who shoehorns talking points into every discussion. It's nothing personal, that's simply not why I'm here on this board. When I do want that sort of discussion, I visit appropriate online venues or make the gauche faux pas of raising the specter over dinner with friends.

[kfort12]

Originally Posted by greymouse

The somewhat ironic thing is that the One Percenters who have pressed for all and any subsides to those less moneyed than themselves to be ended are also the Sugar Daddies benefiting from the available of good looking but not independently wealthy young ladies who are willing to F-word their way to an entry ticket to the competition for the good life. Coincidence or Plan? What do you think?

Of course it was a plan! It's an irrefutable fact that the "one-percenters" you consistently refer to arranged several clandestine meetings throughout the late 1980's with this goal in mind; astronomically increase college tuition while simultaneously maintaining a false culture of necessitating a university education. These sagacious gentleman accomplished this feat simply to provide an affordable, bountiful supply of 18-22 year old ass in 2014.

But don't take my word for it, I'm merely a "four-percenter!"

[greymouse]

Originally Posted by Centaur

I suspect - snip-snip-snip-snip-snip-snip-snip-snip-snip that a debate with you is more likely to be a game of political football than a dispassionate discussion of economics. My lack of love for the GOP does not, in this case, alter the fact that I have precisely zero desire to engage with someone who shoehorns talking points into every discussion. It's nothing personal, that's simply not why I'm here on this board.

I'm not engaging in a debate with your polysyllabic self, we are passing the time until someone with something interesting to say about the relationship between the increasing expropriation of the most of the increase in national income by the 0.1 or 0.01% and the availability of smart and pretty sex workers turns up and says it. Commercial Sex is all about money. If everyone had plenty of it there would not be very much of it. Do you think that if you did not provide money that ladies hereabouts need they would receive you in hopes of hearing you say "combinatorics"?

My last paid visitor and I had a nice conversation Friday about Charles Babbage, the arguable father of the Idea of programable computers. While getting dressed after the sex. She always surprises me by how much she knows about so many things. One of the reasons I enjoy her company, that and the NQNS oral and the anal. Perhaps she enjoys my conversation, she might enjoy, to some extent, the sex even but I'm quite sure she would not have been there were it not for the stack of bills in the binder clip. Or if the Indifferent Heavens had been kinder to her by not allowing the Undeserving Rich to grin the middle class quite so hard.

Warren Buffet says there is a class war in progress and that the rich are winning. I believe him. The majority continuing to lose the war has consequences - like on-line shopping for mistresses with high SAT scores and social graces. No reasonably person with something in demand to trade for money is going to prefer 20 or more separate negotiations a month, every month to a single negotiation that provides the same income, potentially for years. So the war winners (so far) get their choice of those well endowed by Nature but under financed, as they do with politicians.

However, the same economic grinding of the Majority makes some very fine ladies available to the rest of us that would not be on offer if this was a well run social democracy with free education available on merit only. Also some ladies might prefer to negotiate over and over with potentially dangerous men in order to avoid a virtual barcode on their buttocks, unlike most politicians who gladly trade a place on the property inventory for campaign contributions.

It was Gore Vidal who said that we had "two conservative parties and I don't like either of them very much". They are not quite identical however and like a choice between being hanged and being shot most of us have a preference even if it is the least bad option. Sometimes something to bring a smile to one's lips happens even in money dominated politics, like the House Majority Leader being defeated by a college professor who didn't bother to campaign. Schadenfreude. That's a 25 dollar word to counter your twenty dollar word counting the five dollar surcharge for being German:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9B-ZoS0wvU

Something to listen to while waiting for the person with something interesting to say to arrive.

[Centaur]

Originally Posted by greymouse

I'm not engaging in a debate with your polysyllabic self,

Very good, insult my vocabulary. You're just getting rolling with the defensive bridling. Keep it up and you may yet bore me to death.

Originally Posted by greymouse

we are passing the time until someone with something interesting to say about the relationship between the increasing expropriation of the most of the increase in national income by the 0.1 or 0.01% and the availability of smart and pretty sex workers turns up and says it.

The rich get richer and the richer bring more bread to the table in the dance between the sexes predating recorded history and the human species itself. Correlation is not causation.

Originally Posted by greymouse

Commercial Sex is all about money. If everyone had plenty of it there would not be very much of it. Do you think that if you did not provide money that ladies hereabouts need they would receive you in hopes of hearing you say "combinatorics"?

Hey, you made the derangement joke. Don't put that one me

Originally Posted by greymouse

My last paid visitor and I had a nice conversation Friday about Charles Babbage, the arguable father of the Idea of programable computers.

Nope, Gottfried Leibniz beat him by about a century. Planned his binary computer and everything. But Leibniz is used to getting short shrift for his discoveries by dilettante students of history.

Originally Posted by greymouse

While getting dressed after the sex. She always surprises me by how much she knows about so many things.

One would think you would learn better eventually. Persistent underestimation is usually a sign of prejudice.

Originally Posted by greymouse

One of the reasons I enjoy her company, that and the NQNS oral and the anal. Perhaps she enjoys my conversation, she might enjoy, to some extent, the sex even but I'm quite sure she would not have been there were it not for the stack of bills in the binder clip. Or if the Indifferent Heavens had been kinder to her by not allowing the Undeserving Rich to grin the middle class quite so hard.

You're capitalize them now? Sorry dude, Zuccotti Park is over.

Originally Posted by greymouse

Warren Buffet says there is a class war in progress and that the rich are winning. I believe him. The majority continuing to lose the war has consequences - like on-line shopping for mistresses with high SAT scores and social graces. No reasonably person with something in demand to trade for money is going to prefer 20 or more separate negotiations a month, every month to a single negotiation that provides the same income, potentially for years.

That depends entirely on whether they're amendable to the terms of the arrangement. Life is not a practice problem in a freshman econ textbook. Unless you think the barcode you mention is a rational choice.

Originally Posted by greymouse

So the war winners (so far) get their choice of those well endowed by Nature but under financed, as they do with politicians.

The solution is clear: pay politicians more! #DrippingSarcasm

Originally Posted by greymouse

Also some ladies might prefer to negotiate over and over with potentially dangerous men in order to avoid a virtual barcode on their buttocks, unlike most politicians who gladly trade a place on the property inventory for campaign contributions.

If you wanted to hawk your political pablum, why not just start a thread in Sandbox or the National Forum on that actual topic?