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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Helgoland]

You know, the way many here imagine the life of the super-rich reminds me of medieval dragon legends...

[Sheb]

The "eating poor peasants" part, or the "sitting of a pile of gold" part?

[Descan]

Little of column A, little of column B.

[Flying Dice]

If you want a good idea of what the super-rich are like, imagine how the people in your high school graduating class would behave and live if they had hundreds of millions of dollars. Money doesn't make people different, it just makes the good and bad points of their character much more noticeable.

[SalmonGod]

Except the good points don't tend to be conducive to expanding or maintaining significant wealth.  So the exercise is likely more accurate if you lend more weight to the bad points.

I'd like to offer a re-framing on this debate.

I don't think it's necessarily that people want more.  I think most people just want better.  They want consistent positive change and in some areas variety.  I don't see how this means that they want more stuff. 

I don't want many things.  I want a nice, up-to-date computer with good quality internet access, steady access to healthy/not-unpleasant food and comfortable shelter, access to medical care, and the ability to travel or attend a cultural event once in a while.  I don't think that's much.  When I have all those things, the only want left is time.  And I know this, because I do mostly have those things (I'd give halfway on the last two).

Now, there is of course a lot that this entails.  I have to buy new computer-related stuff with regularity.  I have to buy a new vehicle once in a while, and coincidentally it will likely be a better one when I do.  Some would interpret wanting a better computer every 3 or 4 years as wanting more.  But in terms of economic expansion or rate of resource-consumption, I don't see it that way.  I only interpret it as wanting change.  Positive change, if possible.  You could interpret my consumption of media as wanting more, but as long as it's digital, that doesn't really expand the economy or consumption of resources.

I don't understand how what your average person wants or needs necessitates infinite growth.  It does necessitate advancement, but the typical context when I hear talk about growth entails expansion, which is not the same thing.  And yes, I understand that I'm not your average person, but I don't think I'm too far from analogous to your average person.  I don't think many people really care about having a gigantic garage where they can park a new designer vehicle every year.  They just want enough to have reliable transportation, and an interest in upgrading once in a while.  And I think it's the same with most things.

[Frumple]

... of course those don't necessitate infinite growth. It's not a necessary thing in the vast majority of situations. It's not a minimum-needs thing, it's a +1. Desirable, but incredibly rarely needed to actually accomplish whatever goals you might have.

As for it not meaning they want more stuff... maybe not necessarily, but if it's hard to figure out that positive change and variety (even if in limited areas) don't entail more stuff, I'm not really sure how to better frame the discussion to elucidate. Change is generally going to mean new stuff, even if not necessarily a net increase in total stuff owned, and variety is almost certainly going to mean either new stuff or more stuff. Either way, even if you're not looking at a total increase in personally owned stuff, you're definitely looking at a total increase in societal-level stuff. If your population is growing or stuff-supply deteriorating, that means more stuff. And digital media definitely takes up more resources than you're giving it credit, methinks. It's cheaper than physical media, usually, but it's still by no means inexpensive or an example of resource paucity, from what I understand.

... that said, at least from what I've seen on the ground you're definitely rather extremely anomalous, SG. Most people I've met actually kinda' do want that massive garage with cars for every occasion, and various equivalent things. The extent they "don't care" is actually equivalent to the extent they can't figure out how to get it, not a lack of desire. It's incredibly easy to get locked into that cycle of "More stuff == more better" when you have the resources to do so -- more cars, more clothes, more houses, more whatever.

[Sheb]

Yeah. Also, SG, when we said "growth is better", we means "all other things being equal, more wealth is better". Of course, al other things are never equal. For starters, more wealth means more pressure on the environment. Also, a lot of time, policies to achieve higher growth at policies that come at the expense of workers (Although they might get it back later, in the short term there is a trade-off between growth and well-being).

[SalmonGod]

Someday I just need to accept that I'm living on the wrong damn planet, but I haven't figured out yet what exactly that will entail.  Probably nothing good.  Every time a topic like this comes up, I get "SG, you don't understand just how strange you are."

Anyway...

House Republicans just passed a bill forbidding scientists from advising the EPA on their own research

[Darvi]

Somalia?

[Baffler]

I...

*sigh*

I'd move back to Canada, but I hate it as much there as I do here, and will hate it wherever else I go. Where's the one country that just doesn't have politics?

Pacific micro-nations?

[Frumple]

Ah, 2014-2016, also known as "The Years in Which the President Vetoed Everything". How fun.

Well, assuming it gets through the senate, anyway. It's going to be a very repetitive next couple of years.

[FearfulJesuit]

At this point, I'm really sort of hoping the GOP keeps Congress in 2016, and takes the White House. The only way for America to learn why it doesn't want the Tea Party running things is to live it.

[Angle]

You're overly optimistic. They'll just blame Obama. I mean, people blame him for things that happened before he got into office, why do you think they'll stop when he leaves?

Edit: There's a meme in that...

[TheDarkStar]

You're overly optimistic. They'll just blame Obama. I mean, people blame him for things that happened before he got into office, why do you think they'll stop when he leaves?

Edit: There's a meme in that...

^{Thanks Obama...}

[GreatJustice]

You're overly optimistic. They'll just blame Obama. I mean, people blame him for things that happened before he got into office, why do you think they'll stop when he leaves?

Edit: There's a meme in that...

Like how people in 2008-2012 blamed everything on Bush?