Of Austerity and Echezeaux

Hmm, did she write that she was able to multiply 350 by 2 because she is an economist? In any case, any excuse to attack a Tory is valid.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Hmm, did she write that she was able to multiply 350 by 2 because she is an economist? In any case, any excuse to attack a Tory is valid.
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But how many times retail was it? That's the more impressive calculation.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
This is hilarious. Did she also bitch when Barack Obama drank DRC with the Queen?
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UK paid, the Brits have had an issue with it for years. Not to mention she wasn't invited.
 
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
This is hilarious. Did she also bitch when Barack Obama drank DRC with the Queen?
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UK paid, the Brits have had an issue with it for years. Not to mention she wasn't invited.
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So it's OK for a politician to drink expensive wine as long as someone else is paying? Hmm.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
This is hilarious. Did she also bitch when Barack Obama drank DRC with the Queen?
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UK paid, the Brits have had an issue with it for years. Not to mention she wasn't invited.
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So it's OK for a politician to drink expensive wine as long as someone else is paying? Hmm.
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I don't know, is the Queen a lobbyist, or a fellow head of state?
 
What's the definition of a lobbyist? Someone trying to influence a U.S. politician to do one thing or another. You don't think the head of state of another country can ever so qualify? Sure, it's preposterous to imagine that Queen Elizabeth was trying to bribe Barack Obama to do something by pouring a 1990 DRC Echezeaux. Equally preposterous to imagine Paul Ryan being effectively bribed by a 2004 Jayer-Gilles Echezeaux. Regardless, seems to me that whatever standards you apply to one situation should also be applied to the other. The fact that it's a foreign head of state surely doesn't make a difference unless you are OK with the Ayatollah sending a U.S. politician a suitcase full of $10 million in small, unmarked bills.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
What's the definition of a lobbyist? Someone trying to influence a U.S. politician to do one thing or another. You don't think the head of state of another country can ever so qualify? Sure, it's preposterous to imagine that Queen Elizabeth was trying to bribe Barack Obama to do something by pouring a 1990 DRC Echezeaux. Equally preposterous to imagine Paul Ryan being effectively bribed by a 2004 Jayer-Gilles Echezeaux. Regardless, seems to me that whatever standards you apply to one situation should also be applied to the other. The fact that it's a foreign head of state surely doesn't make a difference unless you are OK with the Ayatollah sending a U.S. politician a suitcase full of $10 million in small, unmarked bills.
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Which politician? And why small bills? You're increasing shipping costs.
 
Amazingly, I completely agree with Keith about this. Ryan's political proposals are awful, I think (I expect Keith doesn't agree with this part), but if a restaurant has a wine on its list, he has as much right to order it as anyone else. These kinds of stories aren't real politics or real ethics. They're just junk.
 
I take Keith's point to be a)people with money have a tendency to spend that money, and people with power and money tend to show off their power with money (biologists call this costly signalling)and the Queen buying Obama a ritzy bottle of wine is little different than a lobbyist buying Ryan one and b)bribery is a word best reserved for the real thing and not this kind of nonsense or we will cheapen its seriousness when it occurs.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Amazingly, I completely agree with Keith about this. Ryan's political proposals are awful, I think (I expect Keith doesn't agree with this part), but if a restaurant has a wine on its list, he has as much right to order it as anyone else. These kinds of stories aren't real politics or real ethics. They're just junk.
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Agree with Jonathan on all counts.
 
It's gossip column stuff, but if you advocate gutting health care support for seniors and drink $200 worth of wine at a sitting in public, it shouldn't be a huge shock if someone says something about it. Whether or not Obama should be drinking the queen's wine, he's not trying to remove financial support for constituents in need at the same time he partakes of the luxury.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
It's gossip column stuff, but if you advocate gutting health care support for seniors and drink $200 worth of wine at a sitting in public, it shouldn't be a huge shock if someone says something about it. Whether or not Obama should be drinking the queen's wine, he's not trying to remove financial support for constituents in need at the same time he partakes of the luxury.
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Ian,
That's still basically an ad hominem attack as the criticism addresses the person's behavior and not the content of his proposals and the value thereof. A logical fallacy is still a logical fallacy no matter how it's packaged.

Mark Lipton
 
What wine he drinks has nothing to do with his healthcare policy recommendation. What if his policy was universal healthcare.
 
Not sure I follow your point, Mark; you think the woman shouldn't have spoken as she did, because to do so was an ad hominem attack on Ryan? It seemed to me that she thought Ryan's character is at issue, so an ad hominem attack is not illogical (whether or not you think it's appropriate).
 
originally posted by Tom Glasgow:
What wine he drinks has nothing to do with his healthcare policy recommendation. What if his policy was universal healthcare.
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Well, I surmise from the article that the woman's complaint was, in simple terms, that Ryan was enjoying luxury himself, while advocating depriving countrymen of essentials. (There was some technical fluff about gift limits, but my sense was that that was not the main point). If Ryan's position were in favor of universal health care, the basis for her complaint would be weaker. Obama, of course, does advocate universal healthcare, and so Keith's comparison is, in this specific context, I believe, not apt. (If you take the point about gift limits as being central, however, it would be apt.)

I'm not sure I would do what she did, but I can empathize with her reaction.
 
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