Translation: “Come back, you coward, I’ll bite your knees off!”
Then you haven’t been paying too much attention.
Directly relevant to this post… which, in turn, was directly relevant to MY post:
C’mon, Bricker. I wasn’t speaking Urdu back there. You know perfectly well what I said.
If Bennett had monstro winnings sufficient to counterbalance the huge losses documented in the WM article (and to justify your speculation that the $8 mil in gambling losses was more of a gross than a net loss), those winnings would have to show up in his tax returns BY LAW.
This is obvious to a rational person, but apparently not to someone overly sensitive on the subject of gambling, and who cannot BEAR any concession to people he thinks are E-VIL LEFTY BENNETT HATERS.
Jeez Louise, what a weasel you are.
My Uber-Mage wants to have sex with your lowly Half-Elf.
There. I have contributed to ubergeekdom. Enjoy the weekend Leftie.
Please think this through.
Scenario 1: Bennett has winnings of $6.5 million and losses of $8 million.
Scenario 2: Bennett has winnings of $6.5 million and losses of $14.5 million.
In Scenario 1, his NET LOSS is $1.5 million.
In Scenario 2, his NET LOSS is $8 million.
In Scenario 1, his tax return shows winnings of $6.5 million and losses of $6.5 million. Because he has no reason to show any more losses – he can’t deduct them. All he does is show his losses to the extent of his winnings.
In Scenario 2, his tax return shows winnings of $6.5 million and losses of $6.5 million. Because he has no reason to show any more losses – he can’t deduct them. All he does is show his losses to the extent of his winnings.
See? No matter what his tax returns show, you’d be free to argue that he had unreported losses.
You’re not a weasel. You’re just very slow. But concentrate. This will eventually become clear to you.
I didn’t say it wasn’t at issue. I just said you’re the only one who considers the difference important. I’m pretty sure that Jackmannii would agree that even if we stipulate for the sake of argument that the losses were gross and his winnings were enough to even make it break-even, which is highly unlikely, wagering enough money to have $8 million in losses over 10 years requires a massive amount of betting and is axiomatically not frugal. It is indulgent whether he could afford it or not. Being privately indulgent while publically a moralizing scold makes him a hypocrite. Losing $8 million and winning enough to even break even at a high-stakes $500/game poker or $500/pull slot machine would require over more bets than a resonable, not problem gambler could make in a decade.
Yes, this is indeed where we disagree. I contend that, if you have sufficient assets, betting that amount of money is not something that “breaches” frugality. Frugal behavior, I say, MUST be defined as a function of income and assets. That’s why I posed the hypothetical earlier:
Person X loses $8 million, net, in one year gambling. Is he frugal?
I say the answer is we don’t have enough information to reach a conclusion. You say there’s something magical about that amount of money that, regardless of what percentage of Person X’s income and resources it represents, it’s simply not frugal.
This is a basic difference of value judgement. I respect your view, and I acknowledge it’s not without reason, but I strongly disagree with it.
I have not made that argument, Bricker.
“If a case you cannot make
Delay, deny and obfuscate.”
Two points, I want to reiterate.
First, consider the amount of time you would have to spend playing the machines to have nearly a million dollars in gross losses per year. He apparently wasn’t betting unlimited BlackJack or Roulette. He was playing the high-stakes Video Poker and Slots which have betting limits. Even if he’s placing $5K bets, he would have to spend an inordinate amount of time gambling to lose that much money. That much time spend gambling indicates a problem far more than the wins/losses.
Second point: I think frugal and gambler are mutally exclusive. I tried a IMHO poll, but got little response. Those that did respond tended to agree.
Of course. You’re far too upstanding and honest.
But the fact that someone less crupulous can make it means that there is no particular reason for Bennett to release his tax returns - they don’t prove anything, since anyone can claim he had greater losses than he actually did.
The reason I brought this up was to address your oblique comment about his failure to release his tax returns.
According to you.
But objectively - why is this so? If he enjoys the activity, and can afford it - both obviously true - then why is it a “problem?”
Again - sez you.
Are “frugal” and “season ticket holder for the DC opera” mutually exclusive?
How about “golfer?”
Boater? Yachter?
At what point do you deem paying for entertainment destroys frugality?
How about someone who hires a once-a-week maid? A daily maid? A maid and a gardener? A butler? Is there any point where they are, or are not, frugal, and why? I mean, they are paying someone to do work they could do themselves… right? That doesn’t sound so frugal.
Point is – you’re creating your own definition and then insisting it’s the right one.
And the only result is to further clarify your position in the Class Mammalia.
Ad hominem.
It’s a problem becaues he made tons of money being a moralizer and professional finger-wagger touting his superiority because he follows the tenents of the book he wrote. Yet he was hypocritically spending a whole lot of time gambling.
Considering that he wired for money on at least one occassion, he gets a check on one of these. I’d be more than surprised if he didn’t have more. These are signs. I can’t make a professional diagnosis. I’m neither a counselor nor his counselor; but I think you’re being intentionally obtuse to pretend that losses of that magnitude reflect a signifcant amount of time and money and betray the family values and virtues he so publically promotes. Afterall, if you’re spending days shoveling coins into slots, you’re not being a mench to your kids and wife, are you?
I think yours is the only definition of “frugal” that can include $8 million dollars lost gambling.
Here’s quote from Michael Kinsley that pretty much sums up the issue:
[quote]
Empower America, one of Bennett’s several shirt-pocket mass movements, officially opposes the spread of legalized gambling, and the Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, one of Bennett’s cleverer PR conceits, includes “problem” gambling as a negative indicator of cultural health. So, Bennett doesn’t believe that gambling is harmless. He just believes that his own gambling is harmless. But by the standards he applies to everything else, it is not harmless.
Bennett has been especially critical of libertarian sentiments coming from intellectuals and the media elite. Smoking a bit of pot may not ruin their middle-class lives, but by smoking pot, they create an atmosphere of toleration that can be disastrous for others who are not so well-grounded. The Bill Bennett who can ooze disdain over this is the same Bill Bennett who apparently thinks he has no connection to all those “problem” gamblers because he makes millions preaching virtue and they don’t.[/qutoe]
Well, since his alleged hypocrisy is what we’re trying to prove, I’m not sure you can use it as proof of anything just yet. I agree he made tons of money being a moralizer, and he spent a whole lot of time gambling. I don’t that those two things together constitute hypocrisy, and I don;t agree that they constitute a problem. You can’t just restate your conclusions as your premise and prevail in a debate.
How do you figure that? He wired money to pay his debt. That means he had money in the bank to wire; he didn’t lose his last dollar. Nor does your #2 mean "your last dollar, in cash, that you have physically on you. People - especially high stakes gamblers - do not carry around their stakes in cash.
Do you have any specific evidence that Bennett would answer “yes” to any of your questions? If not, then it’s simply speculation on your part.
Ah… another tack. Now you’re claiming that the TIME Bennett spent gambling was so great that he failed in his duties as a husband and father? That’s a new argument. It’s difficult for me to leap from one argumentative strand to another without resolving the first. So - if you will concede that we can simply agree to disagree on “frugal” having some sort of hard-line cutoff point, we can proceed to this argument next.
Except that whenever I try to pin down just what sort of spending, and what sort of activities, destroy frugalism, you slip away without answering.
Have you read this entire thread?
I ask because the Kinsley argument has been discussed, and my rebuttal of it made, several pages back. For you to offer the same quote again, without any effort to address the points I made rebutting it, suggests to me that you’re not familiar with this whole thread.
To my knowledge, you’re the only one claiming that spending any dollar amount at or over $999,999.99 on entertainment within a short period of time can be compatable with frugality. We can start with this as a baseline, and then see whether $999,999.98 on entertainment within a few years can be compatible with frugal.
I expect that most people’s definition of frugal is ‘not more than I personally spend’, personally.
Bricker Let’s say I like Bennett made a ton of money being a moralizer. Later it’s found out during that time, my wife and I were swingers. We practiced safe sex with consenting adults, but had lots of sex with people who were not our spouses; together and separate. No one is sick, nor feels damaged by the events; in fact my wife and the other couples say they all enjoyed it.
Clearly I don’t consider adultry to be a problem and it’s not illegal in the state that I live and practiced in.
In my books and speeches, I never mention marriage or vows specifically, but I do mention a need for virtue. I however do understand what my audience would consider to be virtous behaviour.
Am I a hypocrite? If not, why not? If so, why isn’t Bennett?
We have enough here to fund the entire Irony Bank for a year.
Nope. Ad Mustelinae.
Have fun while I’m on vacation. Keep those beady little eyes open, and don’t get your bushy tail caught in any slamming doors.