Jim

Oh boy. That is nothing short of grim. I'm not sure what way is out for them right now. It ain't going to be pretty.

Good luck with the shoulder. Generally, aluminum fatigues after less stress cycles than steel, which is why a aluminum tube needs to be of greater diameter than a comparable steel tube. It's all in the quality of frame making, however. I've just found aluminum frames much stiffer with a higher transfer of road vibration for my liking. I've had more than one axle break with little consequence

Ouch! Sorry about that mate. With a well used, 20 yr old bike metal fagigue is not out of the question - it happens. I had a Level II seperation after having a wheel suck in a RR track at 20 mph - that wasn't pretty. After a year of PT and I still couldn't lift my arm above my shoulder w/o significant pain my doctor recommended a Distal Clavicle Resection. Me: What's that Doc: We saw off the last 3 inches of your clavicle. Me: What about that joint function? Doc: Oh, that's a useless non-weight bearing joint. I went for a second opinion - and it was the same. Had the operation and never looked back. Sometimes I forget which shoulder it was - except for the cool lighting bolt scar. The docs said that Level II's can be the worse as they are difficult to heal. If your bump from the Level III isn't too bad they may just suggest PT and I've heard there is a good success rate. Gone to an orthopedic yet?

Touche

I read this article at lunch - what a bunch of wackos! The lead local wacko is from Bainbridge and somehow he came to the unfounded conclusion that his daughter died from a vaccine. While not impossible - there's nothing to back up his assertion. Definately a weird bunch.

Dude. WTF?

JayB regularly posts thoughtful detailed, posts, chock full of plots, data, and citations. You, j_bot and other assclowns have nothing to post in response other than "you are wrong" coupled with lame insults and inanities. JayB may have the patience and feel it is worth replying to you as he does, but I don't. Lick sack is about all you really warrant for a response and your dancing gigolo video is just proof positive of that, not that further proof was required. Actually, j_b has done a stand-up job of refuting most of Jay_B's cherry-picked distortions, statistical shell games, and ideological parlor games masquerading as "reason". While I tend to agree with some of the basic concepts you and j_b are trying to explain - you both do he does a horrible job of making an argument -

Wait. I thought we were the best at what we do in WA.

Oh. Now I understand. Maybe it was because your explanation was fragmented among 20 some odd posts. I've stitched them together here and now the narrative regains its wholistic clarity. Thanks.

HELLO FELLOW BRO I HAVE ALREADY INITIATED THE TRANSLATION OF JB TO ENGLISH AND ANSWERED THIS 4 POSTS BACK I can only assume at this point that the handwaving thing is contagious and spreading? I apologize for my irrelevant rambling.

I don't have a comprehensive plan.......... Well, you proposed taxing the richest 200 Greeks as a solution - just asking for the details behind this brillant plan. Nothing more. Waiting. Or have you abandoned that concept already?

I'm just waiting for ONE succinct and coherent reply.

structural change is parlance for enforcing the neolib agenda of slashing social services while making the peons pay for the crisis engineered by elites and their puppets. I think the more thoughtful response would have been -"Can you provide details on what you mean?" Well sure - cut the Pentagon budget by 25%, provide meaningful finanical sector oversight, do away with ALL the Bush tax cuts. That's a start. Now, without the use of the following adjectives: peon, elite, thug, goon, noecon, liar, and, oh jeesh, whatever.....you can provide some rational on how you would restructure Greece's debt by taxing the 200 richest as you suggested.

You mean personal attacks and erratic hand waving aren't enough of a response to your questions, thoughts or suggestions? You want meaningful discourse? LOL Good luck with that Jim. It's going to be a long road back for Greece, which is why we need to get our financial house in order now, and not wait until it's so very painful. Back to work for me. But I'm always up for being entertained. And yes, a long row to hoe for Greece. And I agree, we need to make structual changes back here as well.

We seem to get to this point relatively quickly. Again and again. You brougt up the idea of more heavily taxing the 200 richest in Greece. I suggested a tonge-in-cheek one-off tax. So I asked what exactly was your approach to what you offered - now we're off to you asking about my 401k(?). So, what exactly are you proposing? Just looking for some details because it's not clear to me.

Ok then. Your version is.....? do I have a few days to put my expert report together or will soundbites suffice? Kind of interesting how "government spending is responsible for budget shortfall" doesn't elicit as much as a pip of questioning from you but "elites don't pay their fair share" is somehow a big point of contention. Handwaving will suffice as usual. Other than maybe Angela Markel, economists saw Greece heading for the iceberg long before the Wizards of Wall Street pulled off their inside job. The level of debt just wasn't sustainable even in the good times - oh yea - good book-keeping goes a long way. When the government changed hands in 2009 the debt went from 8% to 12% overnight! Hate that!! You offered the 200 taxpayers up - just asking for the details on how you see this playing out - waiting for the details as usual.

Might me more stable, eh?

Ok then. Your version is.....?

Well - at the end of the day consumption can exceed production only as long as there's a store of real wealth somewhere that can cover the difference - so it doesn't really matter if you're wasting money building pyramids or paying 3x as much as necessary for basic municipal services. The ride may be a bit different, but in the end you'll be swirling down the same drain. you'd first have to demonstrate there isn't a store of wealth sufficient to pay for services. 200 individuals own more than the remaining of Greeks yet they pay little to no taxes. Again, there are at least 2 components to a budget: spending AND revenue. OK, let me see here. Using the conservative debt level of $300B divided by 200 individuals equals a mere tax burder per person of $1.5B. Problem solved!

Holy cow. I'll take the horse any day. How the heck are they going to make payments on those bonds with those rates? Yikes. Pretty big hole to dig out of. We may need to tweak our rates soon but this is pretty crazy.

at least if they're all hopped up on oxycodone they won't have an appetite for big macs? Amazing how many heath crises can be packed into one thread!!

Can you say Guilded Age II. Comments from Moyers in a recent speech. Yet the isolation continues – and is celebrated. When Howard came down to New York last December for what would be my last interview with him, I showed him this document published in the spring of 2005 by the Wall Street giant Citigroup, setting forth an “Equity Strategy” under the title (I’m not making this up) “Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer.” Now, most people know what plutocracy is: the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy. Plutocracy is not an American word and wasn’t meant to become an American phenomenon – some of our founders deplored what they called “the veneration of wealth.” But plutocracy is here, and a pumped up Citigroup even boasted of coining a variation on the word— “plutonomy”, which describes an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer and that government helps them do it. Five years ago Citigroup decided the time had come to “bang the drum on plutonomy.” And bang they did. Here are some excerpts from the document “Revisiting Plutonomy;” “Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper… [and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years.” “…the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the United States – the plutonomists in our parlance – have benefitted disproportionately from the recent productivity surged in the US… [and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor.” “… [and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. Because the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact.” Worth a read: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/27/960695/-Revisiting-Bill-Moyers-Welcome-to-the-Plutocracy!-speech-

Similarly: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/03/opinion/03krugman.html?_r=1&ref=columnists

No - wish we were. Been 18 yrs since I've been on that route.