Yup. I like a well crafted lyric, but if a song's lyrics suck, 99.9% of the time I can block them out and just enjoy the melody. Tank Park Salute is about as poignant of a song on that subject as you'll ever hear.
Makes sense. I lived in Cincinnati for a number of years and we kept an eye towards Chicago, especially Touch and Go Records. Afghan Whigs were the local heros so you throw some Sub Pop in there as well as Fugazi. Acoustic was not my thing nor was Phish, etc. but the record store types were hung up on Archers of Loaf, Poster Children and Slint.
And here's where the Argentina correlation breaks down in oh so many ways. 1. We are nowhere near "completely broke." 2. Do you really think the United States is running the risk of having all of our wealthy citizens either a) taking all of their money out of the country or b) leaving the country altogether?
Japan can probably be better compared with Mexico were 1 party ruled for 70+ years similar to Japan were 1 party controlled the government for most of post WW2 years. Korea would probably be a better example (post 1980's) but as nicephobas points out, how close a relationship between Government and business do we really want? Would you be ok with Korean style relationship? Then again some people would argue that our government and Wall street have a similar relationship. Well I guess my point on the Middle East would work better since the relationship between the government and big business would be very close, I mean they tent to be family members in charge of both.
Believe it or not there was a time when Argentina also wasn't "completely broke". As recently as WWII and its aftermath, immigrants looked at Argentina as a land of opportunity in equal terms to the US. It was one of the richest countries in the world at the time. But since then Argentina is a case study of what happens when the Big Government and the "Tax the Rich, give benefits to everybody else" crowd takes over with little or no opposition. I don't think it will happen in the US, for two main reasons: 1) first of all you still have respect for your institutions. Americans would never stand for the type of thing Peron did and Kirchner is doing. They didn't let Roosevelt pack the court, and they wouldn't allow a president to do it today, no matter how popular he/she was. 2) And second because thankfully you do have people who think, and who will say enough is enough. And if the left goes too far -or the right for that matter- they will vote them out of power. As long as those two things remain true, I don't think the US can ever turn into Argentina.
This is the old man college rock bravado. If you want to talk economics do it in the appropriate thread.
Whatever. When it comes to that genre, some of you guys have a very limited frame of reference. Leon Gieco kicks all the aforementioned musicians' collected asses. Awesome lyrics too, but you need to learn Spanish.
Another study which proves Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2112482
The paper supports President Obama's 2008 statement to Joe the Plumber that stronger growth occurs when economies "spread the wealth."
I think the issue comes from were you do the cut off, CNN did it at 250K (and I think that is the number Obama uses for the "top 1%" meaning the cut off where he wants to raise taxes.) So is not 10% vs 90%; I think is more like 5% vs 95% not sure what the divide is at 250K http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/07/news/economy/tax_cut_deal_obama/index.htm
Sure we do. College rock twenty years ago had no internet. You found out about bands through other bands, radio and magazines. You had a limited scope but were happy to find something good. The Gieco videos have poor sound but it may be my computer. You have given me some good wine and food tips in the past so I trust this as well.
Well, unfortunately neither the sound systems nor the recording methods in Argentina during the 70s/80s were ideal, to say the least. Let me try to get some studio versions. Not that the studio recordings were up to par either back then in Argentina compared to England or the US, but certainly they were better than the live recordings. Gieco is often called the Argentine Bob Dylan, although I think he's not just a better singer (who isn't?) but even a better songwriter, which is saying a lot. There are similarities in the fact that both are versatile folk singers -in Gieco you get a lot of regional Argentine folk music influence in addition to blues and rock- as well as socially insightful lyrics. A lot of his songs are ballads telling stories about real people. Let me post a couple more of his songs, using studio versions. This is a song about a poor boy's Christmas: This next one is a ballad about a boxing prospect from a poor province who is brought to Buenos Aires by a self-serving promoter, and you can really see the regional influence of the "Chamamé" music from the province of Corrientes: But the first song I posted yesterday, "Solo Le Pido A Dios" is his biggest hit and one of my favorites, a very simple song, a personal challenge not to be indifferent to the sufferings of people - pain, injustice, war and so on. It's become a bit of an anthem for our generation. The first verse says it all. (My translation): "I only ask of God That pain won't find me indifferent That the dried up death won't find me Alone and empty not having done enough" I found a studio version, sorry about the images, they are rather graphic and random, but it's the best musical version I could find.
I was introduced to stuff like Robyn Hitchcock by school friends. Tapes were the currency! and the epic pop song
Economists' humor. It's really quite good. http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.it/2012/09/econotrolls-illustrated-bestiary.html
As a more-or-less academician, I liked the Market Monetarists' favorite dead economist: Favorite dead economist: No one. The spot is being reserved for Scott Sumner, along with thousands of life-sized terra cotta grad students.
This thread is proof that not all thread-jacks are bad Reading that Superdave is a huge fan of Billy Bragg really didn't come as any surprise whatsoever. Kind of fits his political leanings in a way. I also didn't get the Robyn Hitchcock comparison either, more apples and oranges in almost every way. That said, Hitchcock was absolutely fantastic. I guess if one was looking for an artist or band that was similar to Billy Bragg in the realm of the message they were delivering it was hands down Paul Weller and The Jam. Both wrote songs that were geared around England/Britain and the social political challenges they were facing. Both Bragg and Weller were able to write songs that delivered the message without directly shoving it down your throat. Subtlety in song writing goes a long way to creating great songs imho. My contribution to the Billy Bragg video exhibit: and since I mentioned The Jam, why not:
Another nail in the coffin of wingnutonomics: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/09/25/tax-the-rich-kill-the-economy-heres-proof-it-doesnt-work-tha/ "...would cutting taxes on "job creators," as Gov. Romney proposes, rather than raising taxes on "the rich," as the President proposes, actually boost economic growth? No -- at least not according to the Congressional Research Service. Last week, in a headline that seemed about to spark a firestorm on the Internet (until Governor Mitt Romney's "47%" video preempted the pundits' attention), the CRS took up the question of whether "reduced [tax rates on the wealthy] would increase economic growth, increase saving and investment, and boost productivity." Their conclusion: It wouldn't. To the contrary, after 20 pages of charts, graphs, and economic navel-gazing, the CRS came to a startling (to some) conclusion: A review of 65 years of tax and economic data running from 1945 (when top capital gains and top marginal income tax rates topped 90%) through 2010 (by which time the top income tax bracket had declined to 35%, and the capital gains rate had fallen to 15%) shows no "conclusive evidence ... to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth." Rather, the "data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth." These reductions did, however, result in "increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. The share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession." To summarize: Lowering taxes on the wealthy makes the rich richer, and doesn't do anything to boost economic growth." Not that objective reality will persuade the True Believers, of course.
"Have you ever written a song so epic that by the end of the song, you were actually influenced by yourself at the beginning of the song?" - Stephen Colbert to the band Rush