Michael Kinsley’s column quoted upthread explains why this conveniently crafted omission doesn’t exonerate him from the charge of hypocrisy. I am reminded of the old joke about the town scold nodding and approving a fire-and-brimstone sermon… until the preacher strikes a nerve, at which point the scold mutters that he has “quit preachin’ and started meddlin’”.
Again with the straw man. Restraining one’s personal appetites short of the point where one has blown eight million dollars on them is rather less demanding than a “monastic choice of lifestyle”.
See? You’re suggesting that regardless of the spender’s wealth, $8 million over the course of years is AUTOMATICALLY non-frugal.
I contend that while it’s true $8 million FOR ME would be neither frugal nor moderate, it’s not true that $8 million for ANYONE is characterized that way.
So let’s debate that simple proposition: Person X loses $8 million gambling in one year.
I contend he may still be characterized as frugal and moderate. We don’t have enough information to reach a conclusion one way or another.
Your walls are breached and open. Your crops are burned. Your men are dead or fled or lie bleeding around you. You’ve put on a dress and tried to flee. It’s over. Give it up.
I’m not “suggesting” any such thing. I am stating it as an obvious truth (assuming the absence of out-of-left-field undercutting circumstances such as lifetimes extended to the point where “the course of years” can span centuries, hyperinflation reducing the sum of $8 million to the level of petty cash, or some such).
Right. As I say, this is where we disagree. To my way of thinking, it’s obvious that measuring frugality depends on measuring how you spend what you have. There is no reasonable absolute.
I don’t see either of us budging on this point. I concede your view is not unreasonable – I just don’t agree with it.
Does this debate imply that at some time or the other all people are hypocrites? For when ever we do things against our better judgement and do wrong (as all do at sometime),we are going against what we teach, or believe,(in one way or the other). Perhaps that is why the writer who quotes Jesus as saying," judge not lest you be judged" is reminding people that no one is perfect?
Bricker said earlier in this thread that $8 million was no big deal for Bennett to blow gambling, comparing it to Bricker losing $8 thousand.
I believe it was mentioned previously that Bennett’s purported income over the period he lost $8 million was $58 million. So he torched about 14% of his income for that period. Let us assume that a moderately successful attorney might haul in $1 million over a decade’s time. If that attorney spent 14% of his income on gambling, that’s $140 thousand down the tubes. Does the attorney’s family think he is being frugal and moderate?
Bricker had this to say early in the thread about Scott Plaid: “who has yet to learn to shut his idiotic pie-hole… (or whatever the on-line analog for that might be) when he knows nothing.”
Ah, the irony. (I can hear Bricker now. “NO! That’s not irony! It doesn’t meet the criteria I have set down for irony!”)*
Must be hell having his arguments blow up in his face, and wind up running around frantically trying to defend a vanished credibility - in a Scott Plaid thread, of all things.
*for the excessively literal-minded, this is not intended as a direct quote, but as anticipatory mind-reading.
A moderately successful attorney makes only $100,000 per year in your world?
I have, up until now, taken this $8 million loos figure as gospel, without doing any research. However, in an effort to find cites for your claim of a $58 million income over the relevant period, I discovered an interesting fact.
Bennett did not lose $8 million.
From MSNBC:
So that $8 million is not a loss out of his (alleged) $58 million salary. It’s total losses, including loss of money he won earlier.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
Um… whose arguments have blown up in whose face?
Now we have (if I accept your figure) an income of $58 million and a loss of “over $1 million”. Let’s say 1.5 million. Percentage-wise, 2.6%. For your hypothetical attorney, $26,000 over a decade’s time, or $2,600 per year lost to gambling.
From the U.S. Dept. of Labor: "Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of lawyers in 2002 are given in the following tabulation:
Management of companies and enterprises $131,970
Federal government 98,790
Legal services 93,970
Local government 69,710
State government 67,910
Unless one is specifying some especially lucrative subspecialty (which I did not), my hypothetical figure was perfectly reasonable. And you appear ignorant of basic working conditions for many in your own field.
As for Bennett supposedly losing less than 8 million, I’ve never heard of Bennett denying his total losses. Is that the best you can do for a “cite” - some guy named Green supposedly alleging that Bennett won a bunch of dough, too? (based on reports that Bennett was into $500-a-pull slot machines, I kind of doubt he was a big winner).
Maybe in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of heavy gamblers, one can start out with $50 grand, run it up to $100 grand, lose the $100 grand - and then claim “Well, I won 50K and lost it, so I broke even.” Who knows?
Try coming up with something approaching a respectable cite.
And, for that matter, remove your head from your ass before the pressure buildup results in a massive explosion that we will all regret.
Well, OK. I don’t know if I agree that a “moderately successful” lawyer, at least financially, works for the government; I was picturing private practice. This cite shows the difference. Your cites are - with one exception that’s OVER $100K, all goverment/legal aid… not private practice.
Where’s your cite? I gave you something. You tell me what your unimpeachable source is: you’re the guy making the claim that he lost $8 million.
[quote]
Bennett may have had a lucky night here or there, but after untold thousands of spins, the fixed nature of the slots likely caught up with him: Bennett almost certainly lost between 2 percent and 10 percent of the millions he bet.
Cites so far…
Wow, he once won $60,000? I’ll wait for you to do the math on what percentage of $8 million that is.
This is evidence of what - that he risked as much as 80 million and "only" lost 8 million? More evidence of his frugality and moderation?
The $8 million loss figure has been widely reported, in Washington Monthly and numerous other media. It’s not a figure that I (as you suggest) grabbed out of thin air.
You’re still grasping at straws (and strawmen). The only argument left is just how big a hypocrite Bill Bennett is. And how laughably prolonged your denial will be.
Sure, $8 million has been widely reported. What has not been widely reported, and what I’m demanding a cite for, is that the $8 million is a NET loss.
In your example above, you suggested a scenario: start with $50,000, win $50,000 more, then lose it all. You scoffed - rightly - at someone who might characterize that as a zero net loss.
But I’m saying you’re calling that a $100,000 loss. And that’s laughable as well. If that happened, it’s rightly characterized as a $50,000 loss – even though $100,000 was “lost”.
So - from those “wide reports”, which ones clarify that the $8 million is a NET loss?
Actually, you have cites that speculate it ain’t. But in what way is it relevant whether it’s total or net? That’s still a chunk of change and by the very nature of video poker and slots, it’s a sure thing that net is a significant part of that.
I see that reading comprehension is a struggle for you. I said no such thing.
I was providing an example of the type of creative accounting that people with a gambling habit exhibit. One wonders if any of Bennett’s little band of defenders/enablers are playing this game. Judging from your posts alone, much squirming and weaseling has been done to prop up his sagging image.
Apparently you do not bother to read and comprehend your own cites or your own posts these days.
You are now treading the line between pathetic and blithering idiocy.
Where’s your cite that says Benntt’s $8 million was a NET loss?
I have something - not rock-solid, I grant, but something from an MSNBC interview, which means it’s not wildly out there – that says his net loss was not $8 million, but “over $1 million”.
If I play $1000 on video poker - that is, load a machine with $1000 and play one thousand times at a dollar each, with absolutely correct strategy, what is my expected loss? Surely you don’t contend it’s $1000. Do you think it’s $900? $800? What?