thephan wrote:This does not fit nicely here except for class warfare quips, maybe just as good in the 'without comment' thread, but Bud Konheim, Nicole Miller co-founder and CEO, goes on CNBC and says that the U.S. poverty level is wealth in most of the world, so people should stop complaining. Classic blurring of line and screaming for a misquote (the video is hosed up at the moment or I would post it), but to confuse an amount of money with a county's cost of living is pretty messed up.

"We've got a country that the poverty level is wealth in 99 percent of the rest of the world,

"The guy that's making, oh my God, he's making $35,000 a year, why don't we try that out in India or some countries we can't even name. China, anyplace, the guy is wealthy."

Maybe all those years making sequent dresses and clutches has melted Bud's brain. I think Bow Tie Bob likely makes a fair bit more then $35K and has not felt much undo discomfort. I do not begrudge him his successes or his fortune. His struggles are really nominal. He signed up for combat duty and served, but was never deployed to Korea. The time in the military seemed to not really impress on him how the "99%" actually get by. This is the company he "co-founded" really is what his forebears created, but he took in a different direction with a new name in 1975. He should be Dartmouth smart enough to shut up.

jerseyhoya wrote:Rush Holt retiring too. NJ's delegation experiencing all sorts of upheaval.

SK790 wrote:i'm sure it has something to do with obama appointing a bunch of ambassadors who have never been to the country they are going to be an ambassador to because they gave obama's campaign a bunch of money.

i spent 20 minutes reading about the country of chad on wikipedia thanks to that chart.

drsmooth wrote:

SK790 wrote:i'm sure it has something to do with obama appointing a bunch of ambassadors who have never been to the country they are going to be an ambassador to because they gave obama's campaign a bunch of money.

i spent 20 minutes reading about the country of chad on wikipedia thanks to that chart.

I believe you've got it SK.

Thing is I'm feeling like there's not as much correlation between donation & cushiness of country as it may seem from the chart. I mean, who'd MUCH rather be in Norway than Switzerland?

And as a practical matter I want my fat cats safely ensconced in the countries where they basically eat meals with representatives and hangers-on of countries we have few critical issues with, rather than in places where you actually need people with some idea of what's going on, because shit's going on.

So I guess I still don't get the implications of the chart

TenuredVulture wrote:See, and I wonder about the political appointees who didn't give much money and took the ambassadorships to Saudi Arabia and Tanzania. I guess the Saudi posting could be useful if you're in the oil industry but Tanzania?

swishnicholson wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:See, and I wonder about the political appointees who didn't give much money and took the ambassadorships to Saudi Arabia and Tanzania. I guess the Saudi posting could be useful if you're in the oil industry but Tanzania?

Looks like the Saudi guy is more defense industry, but that can be useful too.

Tanzanian has a criminal justice background. I'm just gonna say it: my guess would be it's because he's black.

Werthless wrote:Just pretend that Mitt Romney appointed all of his Wall Street buddies to be ambassadors in the countries with the best quality of life.

Personally, I would have swapped the axes on the graph, although I understand why it's shown as is (the independent x variable "causes" the dependent y variable). People just aren't as easily able to internalize a graph that climbs up the y-axis and then moves outward. People's eyes have been trained to see data points hug the x-axis.