You know RS, this would be funny if there weren’t actual people being harmed by buying the over-priced gold from Goldline. Whether or not we think they are insane for listening to Beck, or, God forbid, believing him; seeing someone who has lost hundreds, if not thousands, is not pleasant. What do you say to someone who is trying to sell you gold based on the valuation Beck or Goldline has given them?
It reminds me of the Millerites of South Carolina in the early 1800s. They were convinced the world was going to end & so sold all their property & went unto the mountain to wait. When the end didn’t come, they were destitute.
The short answer is that when you see gold or coins advertised on Beck or full page ads in newspapers or magazines; you think how much that advertising is costing and avoid the product entirely.
BTW, I enjoy your take-offs of the early comics/TV. You have talent and a good eye for getting the laugh.
It is sad people are being ripped-off by Goldline, but what can you do? Especially because many of them seem to subscribe to the notion that gold will always go up in value (I have a feeling many of them believed that about real estate, as well, and lost money there). I have tried to explain to a Teabagger that the price of gold is set just like any other stock or commodity, and it depends on how much of it is bought or sold on a given day. He didn’t get that, preferring to believe the price of gold was set by some kind of international gold commission and can never drop below a certain price. I don’t know where he got this nonsense, but it was probably from Beck or one of his right-wing media pals. These are the sort of deluded people Beck takes adavantage of — they’re buying these overpriced gold coins and they have no idea what they’re doing, and the MSM has no interest in trying to educate these suckers.
Believe me, I wish I knew how to reach them, but they don’t listen, or read. They just get angry that you dare challenge the honesty of their little tin media gods. Unfortunately, they are going to have to find out for themselves when they try to resell those gold coins.
Could you have shown your “Teabagger” a list of the historical prices? There was a huge drop in the early 1980s. The gold/Armageddon advertising has been around since at least then. And not wishing to be disagreeable, but if Beck or Goldline ever even hinted that gold prices couldn’t fluctuate, the FTC would be on them like…
I wish I had just five minutes of Michelle Bachman’s time. I’d ask her about the privatization of Social Security. I’d ask what we’d say to a person who sank his retirement into (ostensibily) solid stocks like Enron or WorldCom which went bust due to fraud. Or even GM, Bank of America, BP, Citi, or GE which have been hammered without (necessarily) any criminal conduct. What do you say to the guy? Tough? Where’s the Security in Social Security then?
Back to it; what do we say to someone who is now destitute because they sank their retirement funds into over priced Swiss Francs or overgraded Morgan Dollars? They’re broke & what do we do? Can we turn our backs on them?
It’s the same issue as the Health Insurance. One can claim not to want to buy Health Ins. and run the risk, but in the event of a serious illness, the rest of us are left with only two choices, paying for the uninsured or turning our backs. You remember the film of the guy whose house burned ’cause he hadn’t paid the neighboring community for fire protection. Do we want to local hospitals/ambulances keeping such a list?
The Teabagger freely admitted that gold prices fluctuate, but still insisted there was some sort of international agency (he didn’t know the exact name) that set gold prices and there was a level below which gold prices couldn’t fall. As I said, I don’t know where he got this idea, but he’s one of these guys who thinks Snopes is a dirty liberal conspiracy to make conservatives look bad, at least when they disagree with him, so it’s hard to find any authority he’ll believe.
I wish somebody in the MSM would ask the hard questions of the fringe-right nuts that now comprise most of the GOP, but rarely does that happen. Instead, corporate shills like David Gregory play it all as ‘he said, she said’ as if each viewpoint had some validity, in spite of the facts, in spite of the economic meltdown caused by Bush Republican policies. Gregory & his colleagues often let Republicans bluster their way through a non-answer, and then focus like a laser beam on the ‘liberal’ Democrat, unless, as it frequently is, a Blue Dog Dem who agrees with the Republican. Remember when Dukakis was pestered with questions about his opposition to the death penalty, but no one asked Bush Senior why he supported it? Our MSM take it for granted that most conservative positions are legitimate and well-reasoned, but bring up universal health care or getting out of foreign occupations that we are borrowing money to fight, and it’s Marxian anti-free market apostasy of the first order. (When was the last time any of these mopes ever questioned the idea that US workers had to ‘compete’ with slave labor in China?) Of course, this mostly has to do with the mega-corporations that sign the hosts’ paychecks, but it’s aggravating as hell nonetheless.
Unfortunately, in order to have a civilized society, we have to cover the mean-spirited Teabagging idiots as well as everyone else, if for no other reason than that we are not the selfish, stingy little children that they are. We know that when everyone does better, we also do better and the country does better; but when money is concentrated in the hands of a few who use it to buy politicians, then you have a plutocracy and the majority suffers, as they are now.
You know RS, this would be funny if there weren’t actual people being harmed by buying the over-priced gold from Goldline. Whether or not we think they are insane for listening to Beck, or, God forbid, believing him; seeing someone who has lost hundreds, if not thousands, is not pleasant. What do you say to someone who is trying to sell you gold based on the valuation Beck or Goldline has given them?
It reminds me of the Millerites of South Carolina in the early 1800s. They were convinced the world was going to end & so sold all their property & went unto the mountain to wait. When the end didn’t come, they were destitute.
The short answer is that when you see gold or coins advertised on Beck or full page ads in newspapers or magazines; you think how much that advertising is costing and avoid the product entirely.
BTW, I enjoy your take-offs of the early comics/TV. You have talent and a good eye for getting the laugh.
Comment by db — December 16, 2010 @ 5:38 am
Thanks for the compliments, db.
It is sad people are being ripped-off by Goldline, but what can you do? Especially because many of them seem to subscribe to the notion that gold will always go up in value (I have a feeling many of them believed that about real estate, as well, and lost money there). I have tried to explain to a Teabagger that the price of gold is set just like any other stock or commodity, and it depends on how much of it is bought or sold on a given day. He didn’t get that, preferring to believe the price of gold was set by some kind of international gold commission and can never drop below a certain price. I don’t know where he got this nonsense, but it was probably from Beck or one of his right-wing media pals. These are the sort of deluded people Beck takes adavantage of — they’re buying these overpriced gold coins and they have no idea what they’re doing, and the MSM has no interest in trying to educate these suckers.
Believe me, I wish I knew how to reach them, but they don’t listen, or read. They just get angry that you dare challenge the honesty of their little tin media gods. Unfortunately, they are going to have to find out for themselves when they try to resell those gold coins.
Comment by RS Janes — December 16, 2010 @ 6:24 am
Could you have shown your “Teabagger” a list of the historical prices? There was a huge drop in the early 1980s. The gold/Armageddon advertising has been around since at least then. And not wishing to be disagreeable, but if Beck or Goldline ever even hinted that gold prices couldn’t fluctuate, the FTC would be on them like…
I wish I had just five minutes of Michelle Bachman’s time. I’d ask her about the privatization of Social Security. I’d ask what we’d say to a person who sank his retirement into (ostensibily) solid stocks like Enron or WorldCom which went bust due to fraud. Or even GM, Bank of America, BP, Citi, or GE which have been hammered without (necessarily) any criminal conduct. What do you say to the guy? Tough? Where’s the Security in Social Security then?
Back to it; what do we say to someone who is now destitute because they sank their retirement funds into over priced Swiss Francs or overgraded Morgan Dollars? They’re broke & what do we do? Can we turn our backs on them?
It’s the same issue as the Health Insurance. One can claim not to want to buy Health Ins. and run the risk, but in the event of a serious illness, the rest of us are left with only two choices, paying for the uninsured or turning our backs. You remember the film of the guy whose house burned ’cause he hadn’t paid the neighboring community for fire protection. Do we want to local hospitals/ambulances keeping such a list?
Sorry for being so off topic.
Comment by db — December 16, 2010 @ 2:24 pm
The Teabagger freely admitted that gold prices fluctuate, but still insisted there was some sort of international agency (he didn’t know the exact name) that set gold prices and there was a level below which gold prices couldn’t fall. As I said, I don’t know where he got this idea, but he’s one of these guys who thinks Snopes is a dirty liberal conspiracy to make conservatives look bad, at least when they disagree with him, so it’s hard to find any authority he’ll believe.
I wish somebody in the MSM would ask the hard questions of the fringe-right nuts that now comprise most of the GOP, but rarely does that happen. Instead, corporate shills like David Gregory play it all as ‘he said, she said’ as if each viewpoint had some validity, in spite of the facts, in spite of the economic meltdown caused by Bush Republican policies. Gregory & his colleagues often let Republicans bluster their way through a non-answer, and then focus like a laser beam on the ‘liberal’ Democrat, unless, as it frequently is, a Blue Dog Dem who agrees with the Republican. Remember when Dukakis was pestered with questions about his opposition to the death penalty, but no one asked Bush Senior why he supported it? Our MSM take it for granted that most conservative positions are legitimate and well-reasoned, but bring up universal health care or getting out of foreign occupations that we are borrowing money to fight, and it’s Marxian anti-free market apostasy of the first order. (When was the last time any of these mopes ever questioned the idea that US workers had to ‘compete’ with slave labor in China?) Of course, this mostly has to do with the mega-corporations that sign the hosts’ paychecks, but it’s aggravating as hell nonetheless.
Unfortunately, in order to have a civilized society, we have to cover the mean-spirited Teabagging idiots as well as everyone else, if for no other reason than that we are not the selfish, stingy little children that they are. We know that when everyone does better, we also do better and the country does better; but when money is concentrated in the hands of a few who use it to buy politicians, then you have a plutocracy and the majority suffers, as they are now.
Comment by RS Janes — December 16, 2010 @ 6:32 pm