tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post7789388464089377273..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: Hanna Rosin on the Prosperity Gospel and the Mortgage MeltdownUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20927180116696633752009-11-17T00:34:30.305-08:002009-11-17T00:34:30.305-08:00"Very interesting. But it wasn't the Hisp..."Very interesting. But it wasn't the Hispanic immigrants' Catholicism that caused them to believe in the Prosperity Gospel, since they found the Prosperity Gospel in Pentecostal and evangelical churches, not Catholic ones."<br /><br />Why do I have an impression that Catholic Mexicans were no saner than Penthouse-cost-al ones when it came to the recent economic mess. Someone should look at the full data. After all, just look at the history of Catholic Latin America--borrowing tremendous amounts from world banks, living beyond their means, going deeply into debt, borrowing some more, printing worthless paper money, desperately turning to neo-Marxism or neo-liberalism in search for quick fixes for long-term problems. <br /><br />But, borrowing and lending around the world would never have been so easy or crazy had it not been controlled by Wall Street moneychangers from Ivy League schools like Harvard. At least uneducated Mexican immigrants have an excuse for their stupidity. What's truly unforgivable is what the educated class of financiers did. They may have been secular but worshiped a god of their own--the vanity of their own brilliance, genius, and do-goodism all rolled into one. <br /><br />In a way, the fusion of Jesus and Donald Trump in American churches had its counterpart in "New kind of Democrat-ism" under Clinton and "compassionate conservatism" under Bush(and New Labour under Blair). It was as if we could have it all. Bountiful capitalism AND socialism, or more like capitalism AS socialism and socialism AS capitalism. Thus, it is not surprising that Obama became President: A socialist paid for and groomed by billionaire Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley Jews. Riches and social consciousness rolled into one, as in the bogus movie PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, shamefully praised even by National Review conservatives eager to believe and preach that fairytale version of capitalism as a panacea to all problems.Middletown Girlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83842724431413550912009-11-13T09:37:28.797-08:002009-11-13T09:37:28.797-08:00> Low IQ does have its advantages. <
Enjoye...> Low IQ does have its advantages. <<br /><br />Enjoyed your comment. It works as a strategy too. I often leverage my middling smarts by acting even dumber than I already am. People _do_ cut the stupid some nice breaks, plus they never see me coming. (But one must be careful not to act stupid too often, for then people tend to trample one; and one runs the additional risk of "the face becoming the mask.") This strategy best works on people who are not very bright themselves, and on very bright people who are surrounded by people who aren't bright. It tends not to work at all on bright people accustomed to being surrounded by other bright people. Like "mean girls," packs of the bright ruthlessly crush perceived deviation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-4865231694018908182009-11-12T21:48:48.869-08:002009-11-12T21:48:48.869-08:00Low IQ does have its advantages. It usually comes...Low IQ does have its advantages. It usually comes with physical brawn, high pain tolerance, little need for sleep, good distance vision, and general euphoria.<br /><br />Plus everyone loves and respects people at the low end of the IQ scale, or at least acts tolerant out of pity, and cuts them all sorts of breaks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76710897403434185952009-11-12T21:05:41.001-08:002009-11-12T21:05:41.001-08:00Korean immigrants belonging to Pentecostal churche...<b>Korean immigrants belonging to Pentecostal churches would easily disprove Rosin's silly hypothesis. The article is an attempt to shift the blame for the crisis from Wall Street's Jewish mafia.</b><br /><br />It's true that Ms. Rosin would never have written an article asking "Did Jews Cause the Crash?" and no "respectable" media outlet would ever publish if she did. However, she is not doing Chritianity or Christians a complete disservice by pointing out its dumber members and beliefs.Jimmy Crackedcornnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77982612147217147602009-11-12T16:35:16.161-08:002009-11-12T16:35:16.161-08:00If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, then ab...<i>If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, then about the most you can ever hope for would be owning a single-wide trailer to live in, and a broken-down old rust-bucket of a car to drive around town.</i><br /><br />Unless you belong to a union, in which case you'll probably be a construction worker or auto worker and have a comfortable life.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61257818037838176852009-11-12T16:20:23.160-08:002009-11-12T16:20:23.160-08:00"If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, t..."If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, then about the most you can ever hope for would be owning a single-wide trailer to live in, and a broken-down old rust-bucket of a car to drive around town."<br /><br />I've been wondering a bit about what might mitigate the effects of low IQ. One thing I can think of is marriage. I got this idea while reflecting on my own. I like working with my hands and reading operation manuals for cars and lawnmowers but I hate everything that has to do with family finance. So I married an accountant.<br /><br />But now let's suppose my IQ was quite a bit lower than average. While this fates me to be bad at a lot of things, there is an excellent chance I will be good at one thing. So I do that, like working in a pre-1965 slaughterhouse or laying bricks and pouring cement, and look for a wife who has some basic gifts in domestic arts. Between the two of us there is enough brain power to rent a house, maintain a neat and clean household, and raise children who we entrust to the public school system for enlightenment. Our children in turn see the example of their parents and use it as a basic road map to adulthood.<br /><br />But the schools are uniformly lousy. The prevailing views on marriage are all too casual. Single motherhood is the rule not the exception on the left hand side of the Bell Curve, now. And immigrants have destroyed the monetary value of unskilled labor. So there is little hope of being a dumb, self respecting, responsible, independent citizen in our country, anymore. The road map to self-respecting adulthood is gone, and dumb people are now compelled to be infantile wards of the state.<br /><br />Back to my wife. If I hadn't married an accountant, I'd have a 600 credit score, live in an efficiency over a liquor store, and have a regular evening repast of pork and beans washed down with Old Grand-Dad. Instead, I get to live in a pleasant ranch style house with a view of the SF Bay.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-51717493421745797652009-11-12T15:35:45.749-08:002009-11-12T15:35:45.749-08:00Korean immigrants belonging to Pentecostal churche...Korean immigrants belonging to Pentecostal churches would easily disprove Rosin's silly hypothesis. The article is an attempt to shift the blame for the crisis from Wall Street's Jewish mafia.Mikenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59158168971020825802009-11-12T11:44:20.879-08:002009-11-12T11:44:20.879-08:00The 85 to 100s can't meet Thomas Friedman stan...The 85 to 100s can't meet Thomas Friedman standards (though he wants to throw a lot of Ed money at them). But they certainly can (and many do) meet the rudimentary standard of "stay out of jail, don't go bankrupt, get into a singlewide, and - maybe someday - skip the bus by having a car or having a friend who has a car." This is the fact absent a catastrophic natural disaster or an insane government.<br /><br />The under-85s, though...oh dear. Well, since some of us are quoting Jesus, here goes. "The poor will always be among us." No reputable God ever promised us a rose garden on earth.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71703634773360264642009-11-12T09:00:09.291-08:002009-11-12T09:00:09.291-08:00Anyone who beleives in the White Man's Burden,...<i>Anyone who beleives in the White Man's Burden, which is pretty much every single "progressive" and respectable republican should realize that some sort of institutional environment with simple manual labor is the only way the 'stoopid' could ever contribute as much as they consume.</i> <br /><br />Prior to 1865, that was known as slavery.<br /><br />But since about 1900, with the automation of most agricultural tasks, they can't even contribute anymore by picking cotton.<br /><br />[Yeah, I know, it's doubtful that Komment Kontrol is gonna approve of this one.]Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-88723077542832390912009-11-12T08:53:00.171-08:002009-11-12T08:53:00.171-08:00And before you say that a guy with an IQ in the 80...And before you say that a guy with an IQ in the 80-89 range could marry a girl with an IQ in the 80-89 range, and together they could pool their minimum wage incomes to realize $14,500 + $14,500 = $29,000 total income per year, allow me to remind you what actually happens at that income strata:<br /><br /><br /><b>The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Households to the U.S. Taxpayer</b> <br />April 4, 2007<br />by Robert Rector, Christine Kim and Shanea Watkins, Ph.D.<br /><a href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/welfare/sr12.cfm" rel="nofollow">heritage.org</a> <br /><a href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/welfare/sr12es.cfm" rel="nofollow">EXECUTIVE SUMMARY</a> <br /><br />EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: <i>...A household’s net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. If the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services alone are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $22,449 (expenditures of $32,138 minus $9,689 in taxes)...</i> <br /><br /><b>The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayer</b> <br />by Robert Rector and Christine Kim<br />May 21, 2007<br /><a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/sr14.cfm" rel="nofollow">heritage.org</a> <br /><a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/immigration/sr14es.cfm" rel="nofollow">EXECUTIVE SUMMARY</a> <br /><br />EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: <i>...A household's net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. When the costs of direct and means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services are counted, the average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes)....</i> <br /><br /><br />Three points:<br /><br />1) Note that as these IQ 80-89 folks move out of the underground economy, and into the "mainstream economy" [of welfare handouts and AA sinecures], their drain on society increases, from a net of <$19,588>, to a net of <$22,449>.<br /><br />2) Very roughly, at IQ 80-89, these folks cost the government more than three times as much [in excess of $30,000 per family per year] than they contribute back to the government [less than $10,000 per family per year].<br /><br />3) But if a population has an average IQ down around 80, then the IQ 80-89 unskilled workers actually represent the upper half of the bell curve; the lower half of the bell curve can't be reliably employed doing anything at all. [By and large, a fellow with an IQ in the 70s can't be relied upon to show up for work every day - punctual and sober and rested and ready to go - so as to push his mop down the hall, much less actually clean up anything as he pushes the mop (even on his good days).]<br /><br />Again: PLEASE WAKE UP out of this fantasy dream world that you're inhabiting, and SMELL THE COFFEE of cynicism.<br /><br />Realize now - before it's too late - the utter hopelessness of our demographic situation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-67455932546225640172009-11-12T08:40:22.364-08:002009-11-12T08:40:22.364-08:00After many years of study, I have discovered the t...After many years of study, I have discovered the true identity of God……God is Gumby!<br />You can bend, twist, and shape God into anything you want. Therefore, you can do the same with doctrine.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-70930654950473226722009-11-12T00:29:14.498-08:002009-11-12T00:29:14.498-08:00If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, then ab...<i>If your IQ is in the 80s, or even the 90s, then about the most you can ever hope for would be owning a single-wide trailer to live in, and a broken-down old rust-bucket of a car to drive around town.</i><br /><br />This is nonsense. The rural areas and small towns of inland America and Canada have lots of homeowners with IQs in the 80s. They also frequently manage to buy new cars (models like the Corolla and the Yaris have monthly payments under $200 and can be expected to operate without problems for 10 years). Stable family structure is extremely important, yes. That's how ethnic groups like the Sikhs and Jats who probably have an average IQ around 90 can even manage to own their own homes in the Vancouver area, which is now more expensive than San Francisco. An IQ in the mid-90s is good enough today to graduate from college and get a job teaching elementary or high school.<br /><br />Let's go the basic numbers. 50% of the entire population scores between 90 and 110; that means 25% of the population scores above 110 and 25% scores below 90. Is one-quarter of America -- 75 million people -- living in singlewide trailers and driving rustbucket jalopies? No, they're not, even though there are some people with IQs of 100 or better who are impoverished because of alcoholism and/or other problems.<br /><br />Are things getting worse for people on the lefty side of the curve? Yes, they are, but the idea that there is no hope for them is ridiculous. After all, as recently as the 1980s lots of them were living in good conditions.CJnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-3247988468629920052009-11-11T23:11:30.551-08:002009-11-11T23:11:30.551-08:00"For peoples with a mean IQ down around 80 [i..."For peoples with a mean IQ down around 80 [if not lower], patient hard work NEVER pays off."<br /><br />Depends on how you define "pays off." If that means joining the middle class, making the mortgage on a mini-mansion, successfully managing your own investment protfolio, etc. then the statement is pretty accurate.<br /><br />I think a better definition of "pays off" would be positive returns on investments of time, self-disciple, and effort. In that sense, hard work, as compared to any of the available options, generally does pay off. Crime, especially for stupid people, is a notoriously bad career choice, simply from an economic (forget moral or legal) perspective. Welfare or begging have the advantage of keeping you out of jail, but the opportunities for advancement are limited. All things considered, stocking shelves at WalMart or bagging groceries at Publix, and showing up regularly and soberly to do so, is far more likely to pay off.<br /><br />Some people imagine that there are few fates worse than living in a singlewide and driving a rustbucket. Actually, life can get a lot worse than that, as most of the working poor, dimmwitted though they may be, often recognize. If you sleep under a bridge or in a drainage tunnel long enough, a singlewide starts looking pretty sweet.Black Seahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16347464061061628147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20253867932813435862009-11-11T21:44:33.144-08:002009-11-11T21:44:33.144-08:00Religion can be uplifting and supportive materiall...Religion can be uplifting and supportive materially as well as spiritually. Anybody who doubts that should look at Dagger John.Lost Pilgrimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00527327195071733310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-76000432356287903062009-11-11T21:26:14.180-08:002009-11-11T21:26:14.180-08:00Peanut butter? For Cripessake at least spread it o...Peanut butter? For Cripessake at least spread it on something, like a chocolate bar. How do you expect to get any nutrition?Lost Pilgrimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00527327195071733310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-10212367786794709072009-11-11T21:15:01.614-08:002009-11-11T21:15:01.614-08:00The Demographic situation is the disaster. Religio...The Demographic situation is the disaster. Religion is a lagging indicator. Dumb people have dumb religions. If the religion doesn't start stupid, they pull it down. Hell, they'll follow coke dealers who realized that hustling magic is more profitable.<br /><br />If all the NAMs converted to Judaism, the stereotypes assigned to Jews would change fast.<br /><br />Lucius is (very unfortunately) correct. The dumbest half of blacks live their lives as if they were retarded. Black men in prison have lower death rates than free blacks. Anyone who beleives in the White Man's Burden, which is pretty much every single "progressive" and respectable republican should realize that some sort of institutional environment with simple manual labor is the only way the 'stoopid' could ever contribute as much as they consume. Otherwise they live like Central Americans and Black Africans.robnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20978111843124635142009-11-11T20:52:44.326-08:002009-11-11T20:52:44.326-08:00Again, you just don't seem to realize [yet] ju...<b>Again, you just don't seem to realize [yet] just how awful our demographic situation really is.</b><br /><br />Oh I can out doom-and-gloom you any day of the week, buddy. It's not that I don't grasp the societal implications of having an ever larger number of people with sub-90 IQs. It's that, at the individual level, I would never tell someone that hard work and knowledge will never do them any good. I wouldn't tell them that because it isn't true.Jimmy Crackedcornnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-44298544407464608902009-11-11T19:18:25.783-08:002009-11-11T19:18:25.783-08:00I flunked Dr. Bill's intro soc class back in t...I flunked Dr. Bill's intro soc class back in the day....<br />Wiess '79Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24019277414389255192009-11-11T18:21:04.196-08:002009-11-11T18:21:04.196-08:00Glaivester:
Baptist, Congregationalist, and to a...<i>Glaivester:<br /><br /> Baptist, Congregationalist, and to a lesser extent Methodist, churches could be considered a third branch, and probably should be considered separately.<br /><br /></i><br /><br />Please explain this third branch.David Davenportnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90960679806804846542009-11-11T16:52:24.026-08:002009-11-11T16:52:24.026-08:00Jesus: "For the Love of Money is the Root of ...<i>Jesus: "For the Love of Money is the Root of All Evil".</i> <br /><br />Actually that was <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/108/54/6.html#10" rel="nofollow">Saul of Tarsus</a>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71338167976877837862009-11-11T16:02:35.146-08:002009-11-11T16:02:35.146-08:0016 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The g...16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:<br /><br />17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?<br /><br />18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.<br /><br />19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.<br /><br />20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?<br /><br />Luke 12: 16-20Dutch Boyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02687679491743923216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42876891662099159202009-11-11T14:10:29.604-08:002009-11-11T14:10:29.604-08:00Did Judaism cause the crash? Materialism, dual mo...Did Judaism cause the crash? Materialism, dual morality, group differences in IQ and behavioral genetics at 11. Try and imagine the kerfuffle.Svigorhttp://majorityrights.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-11844280113962811622009-11-11T12:48:12.499-08:002009-11-11T12:48:12.499-08:00I do like a lot of the explanations HBD has to off...<i>I do like a lot of the explanations HBD has to offer, but for God's sake I'll never understand the attitude that genetics is all there is. For any given level of IQ, the harder you work and the more knowledgeable you make yourself, the better in life you will do. I mean would any of you not send your child to school because his IQ was X, and therefore he is destined to do as well as the average person with an IQ of X no matter what he learns or how hard he tries?</i> <br /><br />You still aren't sufficiently cynical [yet].<br /><br /><i>the more knowledgeable you make yourself</i> <br /><br />People with IQs in the 80s CAN'T make themselves more knowledgeable - they are incapable of learning to read, much less actually reading and then gaining any sort of insight from what they've read.<br /><br /><i>as well as the average person with an IQ of X</i> <br /><br />Actually, I was being kind when I asserted that folks with IQs in the 80s & 90s might aspire to owning their own single-wide trailers and their own rust-bucket automobiles.<br /><br />When you're dealing with populations that have an average IQ down around 80 [as appears to be the case for two very large groups of folks in the USA], then half of them have IQs in the 70s and the 60s [or even lower than that], and for that half of the bell curve, there's no hope at all - necessarily they will have to be cared for by private charities or public welfare [to include some form of public housing].<br /><br />Again, you just don't seem to realize [yet] just how awful our demographic situation really is.<br /><br /><br />PS: For the record, I am not at all certain that folks in the IQ range 80-89 can even reliably [under the best of circumstances] manage to make the monthly payments on a single-wide mobile home.<br /><br />My guess would be that even in that IQ range, you're looking at fairly substantial government subsidies [either directly, or indirectly] to get them into their singlewides.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-8957695864104700042009-11-11T11:58:17.087-08:002009-11-11T11:58:17.087-08:00"Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with ..."Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with thick black hair combed back. In his off hours, he looks like a contented tourist, in his printed Hawaiian shirts or bright guayaberas. But he preaches with a ferocity that taps into his youth as a cocaine dealer with a knife in his back pocket. “Fight the attack of the devil on my finances! Fight him! We declare financial blessings!"<br /><br />It is occasionally amusing to observe this country as it slowly, steadily turns into a Carl Hiassen novel.Mr. Anonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-43689811675731730692009-11-11T11:58:09.170-08:002009-11-11T11:58:09.170-08:00The point of the oikophobic Atlantic article is to...The point of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oikophobia" rel="nofollow">oikophobic</a> Atlantic article is to attack the West's crumbling bedrock, Christianity. Christianity built the wealth of the West by paradoxically (and not ironically) living within its means. We no longer know how to do this. The West began to seriously lose its way about the time Darwin, Freud and Marx moved into the ranks of the elite's spiritual void – percolating downward into less sophisticated minds over the course of many generations.<br /><br />Jesus was asked why some were born with so much and others so little. He used the parable of the seeds thrown on the ground. Some seeds fell on rocky soil, others on rich soil and others in between. Western people understood this for centuries. After the Enlightenment the edifice began to collapse and here we are. Total Equality. But, man, its expensive isn't it?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com