Words from the wise - a few comments from the WaPo about trump's plan to overhaul Medicaid, etc.

[erronis]

From a friend.

“The modern conservative is not even especially modern. He is engaged, on the contrary, in one of man’s oldest, best financed, most applauded, and, on the whole, least successful exercises in moral philosophy. That is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. It is an exercise which always involves a certain number of internal contradictions and even a few absurdities. The conspicuously wealthy turn up urging the character-building value of privation for the poor.”

— John Kenneth Galbraith (1908 - 2006)

(From his speech “Wealth and Poverty,” National Policy Committee on Pockets of Poverty, 13 Dec 1963)

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.”

— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)

“You can have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few or democracy. But you can’t have both.”

— Louis Brandeis (1856—1941)

(Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1916-1939)

[Irish_Dem]

1. The US is the richest country in the history of the world.

We will now be told that it does not have the money to fund the safety net for old age.
The safety net we all paid for during our working lives.

The billionaires will now take all out of our money under the further pretense of "privatization."

Yet of course there is plenty of money for billionaire tax cuts.
For the salaries, perks, pensions for privileged politicians.

And trillion dollar boondoggles to get a man on Mars.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

7. All thanks to STUPID and morally bankrupt Trump voters. nt

[Irish_Dem]

8. And Putin's help.

There is more than enough blame to go around.

[Frank D. Lincoln]

9. Trump voters are inherently stupid; Putin has no ability to make them that inherently stupid.

Let me give you an example.

There's a manager where I work at who voted for Trump. When I told him that Trump was going to implement Project 2025 when he returns to power, this manager told me not to worry. He said he had done his research on Project 2025, told me that he himself was strongly against it, but that there was no cause to worry because Trump said he was not involved with it. I didn't even bother to try to explain how obvious it was that Trump lied when he said that. If he couldn't figure that out even after doing "research," then he's a lost cause.

[Irish_Dem]

10. But stupid people are not inherently evil.

Putin/Trump/GOP took stupid Americans to the dark underbelly of human nature.

[ShazzieB]

17. That's truel

I definitely believe that a LOT of people who voted for Trump are stupid, gullible, unimaginative, and very poorly informed, but not evil. I think a lot of them lack the initiative to fully inform themselves, which an unattractive trait but not one I would necessarily consider evil.

There are a lot of selfish, stupid people who are Trump supporters.

[10 Turtle Day]

21. They wear their ignorance like a badge of honor

And will double down when presented with facts.

[ShazzieB]

18. That's truel

I definitely believe that a LOT of people who voted for Trump are stupid, gullible, and very poorly informed, but not necessarily evil.

Trump himself is undoubtedly evil, as are many of those close to him. I believe some of his supporters are evil, but I think a lot of them are just stupid, gullible people who have been taken in by his promises to "fight" for them and make things "better." It's a damned shame that so many people are that stupid, but much as we may deplore it, they are.

Dismissing them all as evil is too easy for me, a vast oversimplification that I'm not comfortable signing on to.

[AncientOfDays]

29. Stupidity IS inherently evil

Just not deliberately so.

[Irish_Dem]

30. I do not agree.

Some of the nicest people I have ever met are low IQ.

[AncientOfDays]

31. Perhaps I should say...

Deliberate stupidity is inherently evil.

[milestogo]

2. Trump is the nastiest man in the history of the world.

Yes there are other horrible leaders, past and present. But the word nasty seems like it was made for him.

[Hekate]

3. KnR

[Blue Full Moon]

4. Organized selfishness is fascism.

[maxsolomon]

5. How are those from the Washington Post?

They appear to be 3 quotes from Galbraith, Keynes, and Brandies.

And they're not about Trump's overhaul plans, either.

[Martin68]

13. maxsolomon, you don't seem to be aware of the Post as a source of brilliant commentary and historical perspective.

there are very few media sources where you would find those quotes of that caliber.

[erronis]

16. The quotes were within some of the comments to the article in the WaPo

They were extracted from the comments and made into the OP.

[markie]

6. ....

[calimary]

11. Some really great quotes here!

[Martin68]

12. Brilliant quotes. Thanks for sharing. I'm not cancelling my Wapo subscription in spite of the cowardly failure to

throw their weight towards Biden (which wouldn't have made an iota of difference in the outcome of the election). It is one of the last remaining sources of we-informed, intelligent reporting and commentary.

[H2O Man]

14. Recommended #100

[Mountain Mule]

15. As a patriotic American who is dependent on medicaid/medicare for my healthcare

I would just like to say that I'm happy to lay down my life so that Musk and other zillionaires can get a much needed tax break. And I am delighted with my fellow Americans who voted for expletive deleted in order to bring us to such a sorry pass.

[Karma13612]

23. I hear ya

I’m 70, and rely on SS and Medicare. I happen to be very happy with my Aetna Medicare Advantage plan, much to the dismay of many here.

Fingers crossed we survive this next 4 years.

[OhioBack2Blue]

19. This is exactly why, in some respects, I thought WE were the ones that were out of our minds.

“Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all.”
— John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)

I said something similar to a friend just before election day when she asked me how I was feeling about the election. I said:

You want me to put my hope in a bunch of white men and women who have attacked every single minority in the US with vicious hate, and I am one of them, a group of people who are racist, sexists, ableists, misogynists, anti-LGBT, anti-trans,etc. ..... yeah, no, I do not have a lot of faith they will care about us at all.

[tirebiter]

20. FDR was a capitalist. A liberal capitalist. He was president of a liberal democracy.

[HAB911]

22. Ayn Rand

is celebrating with champagne, down below

[spanone]

24. K&R

[DemonGoddess]

25. K&R

[niyad]

26. DESTROY, not "overhaul". Use the correct words,, wapo, you complicit

mouthpiece for that destruction.

[Ranting Randy]

27. Thanks, I needed those.

[Abolishinist]

28. I checked out the quote attributed to Keynes, and found the following...

"I queried a number of Keynesian scholars. Their responses are below, listed alphabetically."

https://stevecotler.com/2009/07/07/keynes-nastiest-wickedest-capitalism/

Thomas Cate, professor of economics, Northern Kentucky University, specializing in the economics of John Maynard Keynes:
“I do not believe that this quote is by Keynes. It appears to be a re-wording of something said by Adam Smith about the business community.“

J. Bradford DeLong, professor of economics, University of California at Berkeley, and former deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury:
“I’ve never seen it.”

Alexander Kirby, Associate Professor of American History and Government, University of Wisconsin-Stout:
“Beats me, which is why I’d never use it in a scholarly source.”

Michael S. Lawlor, Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University, co-author of New Perspectives on Keynes (1995):
“The quotation you cite is unfamiliar to me.“

N. Gregory Mankiw, Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University, and former chief of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors (he even has a dog named “Keynes”!):
“I don’t know where the quotation comes from.”

Allan Meltzer, University Professor of Political Economy, Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business:
“I read most of Keynes’s published papers. I never saw it.”

Donald E. Moggridge, Professor of Economics, University of Toronto:
“The quotation is fabricated.“

James M. Rock, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Utah:
“I think it is bogus.”

Robert Skidelsky, Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick and author of a prize-winning, three-volume biography of Keynes:
“One of the fictions.”

Luigi Zingales, Robert C. McCormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business:
“I have never heard of it.”