The Viper Room - NO SCRUBS

[filghy2]

-Once I was selling lemonade and I raised the price but people started buying a lot less so I reduced it again.

Is that when you realised you'd be better off working as a lawyer and buying your lemonade from someone else?

The better sunk cost fallacy example for Nick would be the gambler who has lost $1000 in the casino but decides to keep gambling because he has to get the money back.

I wonder if Bill, the pudgy uncoordinated baseball player, is now making more money than Nick.

Now I'm also talking about him in the third person, so he'll be even happier.

[filghy2]

What I've basically been saying all along without coming right out and saying it is that NONE of your theories stand up when the cold, hard light of business corporeality shines in their face with the blinding intensity of a thousand suns. If economics could be broken down formulaically, we'd have no need of economists anymore, would we. But economics becomes pseudo-science when confronted by corruption, salesmanship, unscrupulous investment devices, war, dishonesty, inefficiency, or even the fury of a woman scorned.

There are a few common sense principles we've followed over here in Blowhardistan that have resulted in your country being subservient to ours, Flighty. Wherever you are, we Americans work harder than you, longer than you, and with more diligence.

I think it's time you admitted that your real occupation is a writer of trashy novels.

It's funny that you spend so much time rubbishing economic theory when you seem to have little idea what it is. I'm sure that for every aspect of human behaviour some economist has come up with a theory for it. They've even come up with a theory that fits your characteristic behaviour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

It's also odd that you subscribe to political views that assume the market is efficient even though you are obviously familiar with the many ways in which it is not efficient. I think you to have been reading too much quantum physics. Just as something can be simultaneously a particle and a wave, you seem to believe the market can be simultaneously efficient and inefficient.

If you still haven't worked out where I'm from you are obviously not a writer of detective novels.

[filghy2]

So yeah, we're a pretty abrasive lot in general, Flighty. I personally don't know anyone running a business, or even managing someone else's business, who isn't perfectly capable of getting downright nasty with someone if they're doing business like a scrub. That kind of hardass attitude gets reflected into other areas of society.

I haven't had any experience of the whole "Ugly American Abroad" phenomenon. To be frank, my friends are all reasonably sophisticated and polite and would never act abominably under any social circumstance. When I travel I'm hyper-conscious of the social expectations of the place I'm visiting, I do the reading. And in the real world, I'm actually a very quiet person, I rarely speak unless spoken to.

More quantum physics, or is it just performance art?

[Nick Danger]

I think it's time you admitted that your real occupation is a writer of trashy novels.

It's funny that you spend so much time rubbishing economic theory when you seem to have little idea what it is. I'm sure that for every aspect of human behaviour some economist has come up with a theory for it. They've even come up with a theory that fits your characteristic behaviour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

It's also odd that you subscribe to political views that assume the market is efficient even though you are obviously familiar with the many ways in which it is not efficient. I think you to have been reading too much quantum physics. Just as something can be simultaneously a particle and a wave, you seem to believe the market can be simultaneously efficient and inefficient.

If you still haven't worked out where I'm from you are obviously not a writer of detective novels.

Strip away all the personal insults and aspersions on my character and integrity from your posts, I guess what you're saying is two things, Flighty:

1. There are names for all the economic principles I'm expressing in more vivid terms, and you're able to google them.

2. Economies prosper when the government gives away money.

I guess you win, Flighty, I concede both points. With one caveat on point #2 - not for long.

[broncofan]

Is that when you realised you'd be better off working as a lawyer and buying your lemonade from someone else?

I wonder if Bill, the pudgy uncoordinated baseball player, is now making more money than Nick.

Now I'm also talking about him in the third person, so he'll be even happier.

Well yes. I got so good at the lawyering that I was able to buy three quarts of lemonade and still afford some porno at the end of the month.

So I never saw the movie Moneyball but because I like baseball I was aware of the plot. The plot involves a baseball team that hires an economics graduate from Yale to help them recruit players relying on a more advanced statistical modeling technique (sabermetrics). Not to body shame Jonah Hill who plays the main character, but he has struggled with his weight a bit, so he kind of is like Nick's friend.

He might be doing very well indeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball_(film)


Hey Nick, I grew up in California, have lived in a bunch of places but am permanently in Pittsburgh, PA now. I never lived in Australia, but I visited it twice and since filghy is from Australia I tried to show my knowledge of two or three phrases I've heard. That's it.

Here is my anecodote of the day:

I don't know what it says about me but I've known a ton of trust fund kids. My undergraduate degree was at a private school that was a reservoir for wayward young adults whose parents had money. About 30% of the students went there to do schoolwork and there were some athletes on scholarship who were serious but the school was a who's who of third generation money and its effects.

I was there because I didn't know if I wanted to go to college at the time and thought it would be a fun place to go to school. It was but you've never seen such spoiled, ridiculous behavior. Twenty year olds who somehow got to college and couldn't write complete sentences, kids who wore lacoste shirts with the collars up, and expensive cars. Anyhow, if you think this is a country of self-made people or that only self-made people have money you're crazy (data might be better than either of our anecdotes.

After college I spent a year in NYC and it took me five months to find a job. I had good grades and internships on my resume. I ran into a kid who used to wear a trucker hat and was about as dumb as dumb can be and he gave me his card. He was a senior finance something or other at a firm. There is no chance he had some hidden talent or charisma or anything other than family pull.

[broncofan]

Strip away all the personal insults and aspersions on my character and integrity from your posts,

In filghy's third post on this page he has quotes from two consecutive tweets you made. The two posts really do like they were written by a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde. I also think you've been inconsistent about the existence of market failures but it also seems like your tolerance of corruption as just a way of doing things depends on who the corrupt party is.

[Nick Danger]

In filghy's third post on this page he has quotes from two consecutive tweets you made. The two posts really do like they were written by a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde. I also think you've been inconsistent about the existence of market failures but it also seems like your tolerance of corruption as just a way of doing things depends on who the corrupt party is.

Eh, "tolerance" is an odd word to use when it comes to corruption. Corruption just is. On the odd occasion, it's worked to my advantage, but mostly it's something to contend against. I'm much more tolerant of it when it's conservatives who are corrupt. Liberal corruption strikes me as much more hypocritical considering their altruistic platform.

It's also odd that yinz guys seem to read my posts like the New York Times fact-checking department. All I was saying in your so-called Jeckyl & Hyde "tweets" is that Americans are abrasive, but I personally have not witnessed any of us being assholes in other people's countries. Let's talk about THAT for 5 posts!

In any case, I am driving back to Utah today, Bronco, leaving in about 4 hours. Time to get my share of all that stimulus money. The western USA is going to be teeming with hot-rod teenagers who suddenly have $1400 burning a hole in their pockets, so you assholes may be an asshole light for a while. No worries though, just argue amongst yourselves.

[broncofan]

It's also odd that yinz guys seem to read my posts like the New York Times fact-checking department. All I was saying in your so-called Jeckyl & Hyde "tweets" is that Americans are abrasive, but I personally have not witnessed any of us being assholes in other people's countries. Let's talk about THAT for 5 posts!

If I say tweets when I mean posts maybe I lose the right to nitpick but those two posts strike an odd contrast even if you can reconcile them.

I am upvoting your post for the correct use of yinz. Made me laugh but I thought what filghy thought when he quoted both and I've taken your explanation into account. I'll think about it.

[filghy2]

I also think you've been inconsistent about the existence of market failures but it also seems like your tolerance of corruption as just a way of doing things depends on who the corrupt party is.

To sum up Nick's worldview in one sentence: everyone lies and cheats as much as they can, but that's how capitalism works so the government should just stand back and let it happen. That seems a long way from the free market ideal that self-interest serves the public interest because businesses are all competing to provide the best product.

[filghy2]

Anyhow, if you think this is a country of self-made people or that only self-made people have money you're crazy (data might be better than either of our anecdotes.

There some data here. It looks like an American's lot in life is more likely to be influenced by their parents' income than in most other countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioe..._United_States
https://voxeu.org/article/intergenerational-mobility-us