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The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
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Almostbanned
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
She's right. Sorry but as a whole you can't compare the 19 year olds of 1944 with the 19 year olds of 2009. We as a society have failed to produce the same quality of character in our children. Sure there were bad people around then, and there are good people around now, but as a whole we have (thanks to liberal po-mo education and its consequence and judgment-free style, coupled a medicate-first therapy culture and boomer-age helicopter parents who would rather be BFFs with their kids than disciplinarians) produced a generation completely ill-equipped to deal with reality.
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Mediahohoho
02/13/09

@Almostbanned: Well, you're certainly right about 19-year-olds today not living up to the standards of yesteryear and completely unable to sacrifice for their ideals.

[www.huffingtonpost.com]

But what are you going to do when your role model is Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney.
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
1. nooner mentioned that the liquor store was indian because indians have replaced jooss as the clever, rising merchant class, now that joos are almost white people

2. nooner wrote the sully/suley column in a desperate bid to be more irrelevant more quickly, wrapped in cute, than that other old, deaf blind beeyotch modo
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City_Dater
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
And all the CEOs toddling off into the sunset with their "bonuses" after running companies into the ground are callow Gen X and Gen Y youths?
After she finishes yelling at those kids to get off her lawn, Peggers should just pour another glass of bargain wine and stop columninizing once and for all.
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lawyergay
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
I find that it really helps to imagine everything Peggy Noonan says or writes emanating from a stainless steel vent installed in a two inch thick sheet of Lexan in the waiting room of some sort of facility for the criminally insane. Who's on which side of the glass? It's not clear.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
I want Sully to fly Octomom, loaded with 8 passengers, out of LaGuardia, up over the Bronx, where 100 geese are hovering, ready to hit smack her in the tits. I want him to glide her face-down into the Hudson, and then step out onto the safety of her well-inflated lips.
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forwardmotion
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
What about has been, one trick pony columnists? Are they Sully or Suleman, which we now know are the Only Two Categories available to all of humanity?
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Wrapitup
02/13/09

@forwardmotion: Good point. Noonan's article has a lot of black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking.
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DahlELama
02/13/09

@forwardmotion: @Wrapitup: I'm all for objective, wide-range journalism, but do you really expect all articles to be all encompassing? If you write an article about how the country is obviously changing because Obama was elected, and you mention the voices of people who strongly oppose Obama for counterpoint, is it a crappy article because you haven't sufficiently covered everyone who doesn't vote, or wanted Hilary but settled for Obama because he won the Democratic nomination?
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forwardmotion
02/13/09

@DahlELama: I expect an article to be well written to the point where the article isn't another simplistic either/or set up designed to "energize" a conservative marketing base in order to make her a buck. I have no idea why you continue to defend her or her writing. You can't be for Noonan and also for objective, wide-range journalism.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's Friday and I must go get my drink on.
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SidAndFinancy
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
Yes, the generation that came of age during the Vietnam years has certainly never been considered anything but selfless.
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Nice Beaver
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
Sully, as representative for all of us cool, modest, competent, tough in the good way, steely-eyed rocket men, should be allowed to kick one of Suley's babies. One of the bigger ones.
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OrneryBabe
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
Things I never thought I'd ever say: I agree with much of what Noonan wrote about Angelina 2.0. Shoot me now. However, I am missing the point of mentioning that the liquor store owner is from India.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
02/13/09

@OrneryBabe:

Well, that's what the Simpsons would do. She's hip.
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Colander
02/13/09

@OrneryBabe: Imagine the anxiety she would feel if you mentioned that to her.
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PandoraSpocks
02/13/09

@OrneryBabe: I liked it, too.
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Wrapitup
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
"style of manhood-of-personhood"? What is that? So manhood doesn't just come in sizes any more and now there's styles too? I'll take the big one with the pink bows.
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saythatscool
02/13/09

@Wrapitup: You look adorable in pink bows! I want the one with a shark tooth necklace.
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Wrapitup
02/13/09

@Wrapitup: Oh I get it now, it's more like " a certain style of manhood" comma "personhood".

Whatevs, my je ne sais quoi big manhood still comes with pink bows and, just to piss off Noonan, I'm adding polka dots and little teddy bears.
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
02/13/09

@Wrapitup: now i luv u even more

also, re above, "t all levels of society, there seems to be this idea that people shouldn't have to pay for their bad decisions. It should be the exact opposite -- then maybe people wouldn't make so many of them. ... starting with the lying thieving bastards in charge of the banks and brokerages who packaged and sold worthless slices of worthless shit squared
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markscottmusic
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
I'm on board with DahlE above and (I'm throwing up in my own mouth a little as I write this) with Peggy. There are too many people whining, and not enough doing something. If your company goes bankrupt, if you can't pay your mortgage, if you have too many kids you can't afford, you don't look to the government for a hand out. There's no guarantee your life will always be on the up swing. If things go bad, face up to your part in it. It's a shame about people losing their jobs and their homes, but who decided to buy a house they couldn't afford, have kids they couldn't raise, refuse to save any money for a rainy day 'cause you wanted a flat screen TV. At all levels of society, there seems to be this idea that people shouldn't have to pay for their bad decisions. It should be the exact opposite -- then maybe people wouldn't make so many of them.
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FormerEnglishMajor
02/13/09

@markscottmusic: DING DING DING! Right answer!
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Mediahohoho
02/13/09

@markscottmusic: I agree with you as far as my own personal ethics are concerned. But let's face it, our entire economy is--and has been for the past 30 years--based upon encouraging people to buy that which they could not afford. Enslaving people in crippling debt is a mainstay of the U.S. banking industry. Couple that with non-reality-based mortgage lending and racketeering-style student loan sharking and the moralizing falls kind of flat. In absolutely no level of our economy is responsibility encouraged.

Personally, I'd love to have a job calling up the CEOs of the incredibly irresponsible banks and asking when we taxpayers can accept payment, then berating them and threatening to raid their personal accounts and ruin their futures the way their minions do to little people.
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kimsama
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
What is "sanctimonious old biddy," Alex? .
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ADismalScience
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
Things were better before all these selfish kids came in and ruined everything. They're obsessed with welfare, the jerks! It's all on a plate for them!

Wait - what was the Great Society? How much money did Reagan spend?
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kimsama
02/13/09

@ADismalScience: "Get off my economy!" (shakes fist)
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Lymed
02/13/09

@ADismalScience: But if every woman has 14 children, we can save social security and the Great Society!
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geekish
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
She had needs and took proactive steps to meet them, and those who don't approve are limited, which must be sad for them.

I'm sorry but I just kind of love this line. I love it a lot, in fact.
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ihateyourescalade
02/13/09

@geekish: Hate the word "proactive."
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FormerEnglishMajor
02/13/09

In reply to The Recession Is Because We Have Too Many Octomoms and Not Enough Sullys
I agree with her. That 25-year age gap between "Sully" and "Suley" is just 1 generation - 25 years where we've gone from "doing our job" to "what's in it for me".
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Robert Synnott
02/13/09

@FormerEnglishMajor: Because... greed is a new invention. Yep. The other Great Depression was caused by naughty kittens hiding all the money.
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FormerEnglishMajor
02/13/09

@Robert Synnott: Well, if you really want to go into the Great Depression vs. 2008 credit crisis, I am happy to discuss Smoot-Hawley, the lack of a welfare "safety net" for those who became unemployed, the gold standard and the decision to shrink money supply during the 1930s, etc. I work in finance so please, I would be delighted.

But can you really say you don't think that today's generation is vastly more "what's in it for me" than the one Sully hails from? Where children have gone from "seen but not heard" to the de-facto rulers of their households? Where every musician and actor and actress actively looks for sponsorships/party-hosting opportunities?

I know my grandparents' ethic. They were typical for their time - work hard, fly right. And I know the average teen/20s ethic today - do as little as you can, get what you can. I'm not saying there were not greedy 1930s-era people, or that there are not hard-working 20-somethings. But the AVERAGE adult - from the 1930s, or from Sully's coming-of-age in the 1960s - had to work harder, and be less self-absorbed, than the AVERAGE young person does today.
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ihateyourescalade
02/13/09

@FormerEnglishMajor: I agree with you, though the "what's in it for me" ethos started in the 1960s. Just another thing we can thank the Baby Boomers for.
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Uncle_Billy_Slumming
02/13/09

@FormerEnglishMajor:

Yep. We always say there's nothing new under the sun, but there are certainly many things under the sun that disintegrate over long periods of time. These generations *are* worse than previous generations.

Excuse me now while I go find a rabbi to bless my mortgage pig.
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lil red
02/13/09

@ihateyourescalade: I don't know about that. I think the "what's in it for me?" generation was a bi-product of Reagonomics. In the 70's I was just a little wipper snapper and went to private schools, but we were taught at home and in school that you had to work for your place in the world.
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FormerEnglishMajor
02/13/09

@lil red: I do think it was a 1980s thing. "Wall Street" the movie would never have flown in the 1970s. To my mind, it started mid-to-late 1980s, got worse in the Clinton years (when "I didn't inhale" and "I never had sex with that woman" meant excuses and obfuscation were A-OK even at the highest levels!), and accelerated from there.

@ihateyourescalade: The 1960s were not the "greed" part of the equation, but I DO agree that they were a factor because of the "if we're young that's all that's important and we know just as much as you" and the "live for the moment" ethos that has taken over.

No one thinks about the future. Buy the house, who cares if the ARM adjusts in 3 years? Buy the flat-screen, take the vacation - who cares that you borrow against your home equity?

ViSA (formerly BankAmericard) and American Express only began in 1958. In the 1970s, and I still can't believe this happened, banks sent out ACTIVE CREDIT CARDS to people in mass mailings who hadn't ordered them. Then came Reagan. What a mess.
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bytememehard
02/13/09

@ihateyourescalade: Ever hear of Sodom and Gomorrah?
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