Playing With Trolls

i know i have a problem. for some reason, i cannot stop myself from pretending to engage in reasoned debate with right-wing ayn rand bots. i waded into the comment thread for a health care post at political animal late last night. the discussion was nearly kaput because the thread already had more than 350 comments. so, i didn't feel too guilty about toying around with Marketeer, one of kevin drum's most persistent trolls.

Marketeer isn't terribly interesting or entertaining as a troll, but his comments always contain so very many lovely fat trout to blow to smithereens. commenter Cal Gal stated that the middle class is suffering more than the poor are when it comes to the rising costs and declining availability of health insurance. the poor are covered by medicaid. i don't know enough about the medical care available to the average medicaid recipient to determine the validity of her claim. however, it doesn't matter because Marketeer's comments were off-topic anyway. he went off on a bizarre rant about middle class profligacy. Marketeer is obsessed with the the high rate of color television ownership among the american middle class:

Marketeer, how much does a color television cost these days? [question from commenter Mnemosyne]

Beats me. I can't afford one. But I assume you are about right ($500), although a rather large segment of the middle class that is "suffering" so much right about now somehow seems to find the roughly $2000 it costs to buy flat-screen TVs, which are being sold at a rate of about 2 million units per quarter.

Plus, even the $500 you may choose to spend on the TV will have to include the $70 per month for cable service that almost all people with TVs seem to buy.

Plus, there's the interest charges on the credit card you used to buy the TV that will turn the $500 into around $1800 before it is paid off.

Plus if you choose to buy one of the 10 million units of the XBox 360s that Microsoft will be selling in the first year of that product, that will set you back another $300 (although most also get extras, making that around $400). Turn that into $1400, again, for credit card interest.

Plus, somebody's supporting the $10 billion-per-year pornography business in this country, and I suspect the "middle class" that is "suffering" is a substatial portion of that.

All in all, it's hard to say. I'm having trouble concentrating on the facts and figures, what with all the middle-class "suffering" that's going on in America right now.

this string of irrelevant inanities couldn't go unanswered. i decided to dive in and wrestle with the pigs. [the quote posted here has a number of embarrassing spelling and grammatical errors corrected]:

Beats me. I can't afford one.

televisions in the US are cheap.

television ownership in the middle class is not a measure of their ability to weather any number of medical disasters given the frequency with which people find themselves without health insurance over the course of their working lives.

you also neglect the used electronics market. one can pick up a nice color television for less than thirty dollars. in fact, if one is persistent and lives near a large metro area, a stroll through any given neighborhood on trash day will yield a working color television.

But I assume you are about right ($500), although a rather large segment of the middle class that is "suffering" so much right about now somehow seems to find the roughly $2000 it costs to buy flat-screen TVs, which are being sold at a rate of about 2 million units per quarter.

actually, a new color television can be purchased for a good deal less than $500. 27 inch color televisions can be bought at circuit city for less than $200. how many of the 2 million flat-screen TVs sold per quarter are corporate purchases?

Plus, even the $500 you may choose to spend on the TV will have to include the $70 per month for cable service that almost all people with TVs seem to buy.

not everyone who has cable gets the deluxe package. a lot of people just get basic cable because antennas suck. you also neglect to take into account that many of these $70/household bills are split between several working adults sharing apartments in large cities -- where most of the population is.

Plus, there's the interest charges on the credit card you used to buy the TV that will turn the $500 into around $1800 before it is paid off.

i thought you were trying to make the argument that the american middle class isn't suffering and doesn't need a nationalized health system because they are just so awash in the goodies of wealth and prosperity. in that case, bringing up credit card debt really doesn't bolster that argument.

i also find it amusing that you think the majority of credit card debt is incurred by frivolously purchasing expensive electronics. people also tend to use credit cards to pay their living expenses when they've lost a job, or lost some income because they got sick and missed a lot of work hours. college students struggling to pay for their $150 college textbooks resort to credit cards. people also run up credit card debt trying to pay medical bills. a lot of credit card debt is due to 30% interest rates on the original purchase plus $30 late fees. when this puts a person's balance over the limit, they get slammed with more penalties.

Plus if you choose to buy one of the 10 million units of the XBox 360s that Microsoft will be selling in the first year of that product, that will set you back another $300 (although most also get extras, making that around $400). Turn that into $1400, again, for credit card interest.

the ability to purchase a consumer electronic product that costs less than $500 dollars says absolutely nothing about a family's ability to financially withstand a medical disaster during one of those increasingly common in-between periods when they lose their insurance. cancer treatment can run into the hundreds of thousands. a hospitalization in the ICU after a bad car accident requiring major surgery will cost more than that.

there are about 300 million people in the US. 10 million units means a little under 3.5% of americans will buy the new XBox 360 in the first year. after the first year, microsoft will slash the price on the console like they did with the first one, and the used market will kick in.

Plus, somebody's supporting the $10 billion-per-year pornography business in this country, and I suspect the "middle class" that is "suffering" is a substatial portion of that.

sigh. magazines and movie rentals are inexpensive. the ability to purchase pornography does not negate the terror of a medical emergency while uninsured. it does not compare to the experience of facing the loss of one's home and savings because of a major illness or accident.

All in all, it's hard to say. I'm having trouble concentrating on the facts and figures, what with all the middle-class "suffering" that's going on in America right now.

you clearly don't know what you're talking about.

i can't say that i expected a serious reply to my comment. the total absence of attention to any of the points i made when Marketeer finally got around to responding was still surprising. it was more-topic than his original rant, if that's possible:

a new color television can be purchased for a good deal less than $500

I believe the original question was "how much does a color television cost these days?" Show me where it asks, "What is the least you can spend to get any color television?"

spacebaby, reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

people also run up credit card debt triyng to pay medical bills. a lot of credit card debt is due to 30% interest rates on the original purchase plus $30 late fees. and when this puts a person's balance over the limit, they get slammed with more penalties.

This would be a fantastic argument if the issue were whether credit card companies should be prevented from holding guns to people's heads and coercing them into consumer debt.

Personal responsibility is not your strong suit.

there were flinch-inducing spelling errors and a whole lot of other embarrassments in that comment. new rule is not to drink and post anymore.

And here we have, at long last, an honest explanation for the avalanche of fallacies, factual errors, sloppy reasoning, emotional imbalances and general stupidity on this site.

Forget about spelling, spacebaby. Your problem is far deeper and more serious -- logical reasoning is not your strong suit.

this was such a pathetic reply that i wondered if i should waste time writing a response that probably wouldn't be read, and if read, still wouldn't get a reply. nevertheless, since i invested the time writing the first comment, i did a follow-up:

a new color television can be purchased for a good deal less than $500

I believe the original question was "how much does a color television cost these days?"

and i answered that question. i linked an ad at the circuit city website for a 27 inch color television priced under $200. care to address anything else in my comment, or are you just going to ignore every other point i made?

what does the ability to purchase a consumer electronic good for less than $500 have to do with the ability to weather a $100,000 medical bill following an accident during one of those awesome between-job uninsured periods?

Show me where it asks, "What is the least you can spend to get any color television?"

you implied that the 98% rate of television ownership by american middle class households said something about whether they are suffering economically. the point i thought you were making was that the ability to purchase consumer electronics meant they had scads of money lying around to frivolously spend on luxuries.

you were the one who brought up color televisions as evidence that the typical middle class family has a vast store of disposable cash. again, having $200-$500 to spare for a television or an XBox is not a measure of the ability to pay an unexpected $100,000 medical bill, or $1500 every month for a family health insurance plan.

spacebaby, reading comprehension is not your strong suit.

debate isn't yours either. insulting the other party to a debate is not a sound argument for your position. you implied that ownership of a color television was a sign of financial health. because new and used color televisions can be purchased for less than $200, your argument is not valid. you also never answered my question regarding how many of the expensive flat screen model sales are due to corporate purchases.

This would be a fantastic argument if the issue were whether credit card companies should be prevented from holding guns to people's heads and coercing them into consumer debt.

the credit card companies could also be forced to show more personal responsibility in choosing whom to offer credit. instead, they stupidly give college students with no income $2000 credit limits. then they whine about bankruptcy laws keeping them from rightfully collecting on accounts they never should have offered in the first place.

Personal responsibility is not your strong suit.

who said i ever got in trouble with credit card debt? i've never walked away from a bill in my life, so my credit rating has always been excellent. can you offer a reply to my comment that doesn't consist of attacking me personally or voicing baseless and inaccurate assumptions about my personal life decisions?

And here we have, at long last, an honest explanation for the avalanche of fallacies, factual errors, sloppy reasoning, emotional imbalances and general stupidity on this site. [reference to my apology for not proof-reading my first comment, which had a lot of egregious errors.]

it's not fair of you to hold up my comment as representative of the entire community here. please point out where my comment was representative of all the factual errors, sloppy reasoning, emotional imbalances and general stupidity you see on this site all the time.

do you have a personal problem with an adult consuming a legal substance on his or her own time? why does it have anything to do with the points i made or the personal and intellectual worthiness of other people who comment here? spelling and grammatical errors make for a bad presentation of an argument, but they don't make the argument invalid. i apologize for not proof-reading. it was late, i was tired, and i was tipsy.

Forget about spelling, spacebaby. Your problem is far deeper and more serious -- logical reasoning is not your strong suit.

you have yet to offer an argument refuting anything i said. as far as i can tell, your 'argument' amounts to little more than incorrect assumptions about my financial decisions, my mental capacity, my emotional stability, and my intelligence as well as that of the rest of the community here. in fact, you spend so much time speculating about these things that you never made an intellectually honest effort to respond to a thing i said.

still no reply. now, should i escalate by stalking him and reposting this comment and demanding that he reply to it and address to my critique of his rant about middle class profligacy? do i even have time for this? i ought to be studying for my finals.