This was good enough for me to sit and transcribe a bit.

[Robb]

Matthew Yglesias on NPR this morning. The other guy in the interview is a knuckledragger, FWIW, but Yglesias kept his cool (while I was screaming in the car) and nailed it at the end, when the GOP shill said the problem with the poor is their lack of values, or something similar:

YGLESIAS: Well you know I think there are always questions of values. That's one reason why some of these phenomena -- income stagnation and so forth -- are so troubling.

We've created a society in which it isn't clear to people that hard work and discipline really does pay off -- unless you're maybe a person of extraordinary talent. I mean it's still clear that if you are the smartest computer programmer in the world, that America is a place still full of opportunities for you ...

... But what a lot of people are missing is a sense that if you stay in school, you graduate, you show up to work every morning, that you will benefit from rising wages. Instead we're seeing a huge spike in unemployment, which is out of the hands of most of the people who have been victimized; we've seen decade after decade of wages staying flat -- and I do think that tends to erode certain kinds of values, and a certain sense of solidarity and commitment to the system, in a way that creates extra problems.

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142883180/how-to-solve-wealth-inequality

[PETRUS]

1. Good observation. Thanks for sharing.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. Thank you! K&R n/t

[Robb]

3. Kick for the evening. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. K&R

[Tsiyu]

5. Only dingbats scream at the radio

which makes me a dingbat as well :P

Thanks for transcribing. Over the last ten years, I have worked so much for others and ended up with only a broken down physique and a paltry bank account.

The modern corporate ethic is to break you down, overwork you and underpay you. I have no illusions any more. I will never be loyal to this "system."

Thanks to Yglesias for saying it out loud: American labor is disgusted and demoralized.

[DiverDave]

7. Well, I guess I'm a dingbat too.

I have to shrug and point to the radio sometimes when I get caught.

[Tsiyu]

8. "Robb's a dingbat"

Old DU meme. Search and ye shall find.

On dialup I can't get on the "DUers of Reknown" thread to add it, but Robb knows.

Robb's a dingbat, but he KNOWS!!!!!






:D

[Quantess]

6. A direct smackdown of the jerk's point,

and true as well.

[fasttense]

9. A very insightful comment.

People don't wake up in the morning and say, "Today I'm going to be lazy and do nothing to lift myself out of poverty".

It is a lesson they learn from being kicked in the teeth too many times.

It's not the failing and following down that is the problem, it is the staying down that really hurts.

I've stopped listening to NPR because of the RepubliCON slant. But I'll have to look for Matthew Yglesias.

[Robb]

10. I believe he writes for Salon at the moment. (nt)

[redqueen]

11. Nicely put.

Thanks for transcribing it.

[phantom power]

12. And another thing... people see bankster criminals becoming super-rich instead of going to jail.

What is a person supposed to conclude from all of this?

[truedelphi]

13. In fact the biggest banking criminal of all

Sits at Treasury. He manipulated the TARP payments such that his friends at GS and AIG were given far more than they even needed, while he headed the NY Federal Reserve. An ordinary human would be facing RICO charges.

Then Obama makes him Secretary of Treasury. Despite the fact that Obama should have known better. And despite the protests from people in the Far East and Australia, who were all too familiar with Geithner's pattern of torturing the middle class and their recovery while helping out only the people at the very top.