[Pops]

"Think about it..." is a stock joke at my house.

Man I love that flick, one of the few that I own and have watched over and over. I don't relate to the guy all that much - I hung up the company necktie way back. And I know the situation isn't as it first appears but I just love to see the spark when he decides he has had it to here.

LOL

[Pops]

"fitycen!? You come to my country...

LOL, it's like a TEA party recruiting video.

It has great characters, not very deep but totally recognizable; like the old fart on the golf course and even the unseen plastic surgeon. Every character is completely predictable and stereotype. Maybe one of the last movies where each character was black and white and just who you thought they "should" be rather than the Tony Soprano type of sympathetic-yet-evil-murdering-butcher with a home life, dreams, aspirations and existential angst. LOL

[Newfie]

I think I that more than a few of our participants here at PO are lashing out, or have lashed out, in their posts. Self included. It's one way we try to deal with our daily cognitive dissonance.

Never saw the movie but have always wanted to. Wonder if it will come up on Netflix?

[Pops]

I did happento see it on NF just now, but DVD only, not stream

[Subjectivist]

I remember seeing this in the theater back when it came out. I was very disappointed in it, cardboard shallow parts playing in a moderately interesting scenario. The story had a lot of potential so I blame the director for a poor delivery.

[Outcast_Searcher]

How much anger or violence in the face of everlasting and terminal oppression is appropriate?

And what "oppression" would that be in America? The well over $2 TRILLION in social programs annually, as of 2013? That a smart person who works hard can become rich and not pay 100% of their income in taxes?

You left coast types are hilarious. Talk to me when social programs don't consume the overwhelming majority of the Federal budget, in America, where those who don't want to work, complain while they receive benefits from myriad social programs, and damn those who pay for the majority of the benefits. (And of course, this doesn't even include state, local, and private programs for the "oppressed".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_pro ... ted_States

[Rod_Cloutier]

That was a great movie, as true now as when it came out.

My favorite part was when the fellow was assaulting the golfers in the private golf course. He said something like, 'Big open spaces like this should be public parks, with families having picnics, children playing, and instead freaks like you two are wearing your stupid little white caps...'

He's was right- it's insane that the ultra wealthy have vast open green spaces while the poor live in an endless inescapable concrete jungle.

[vox_mundi]

How much anger or violence in the face of everlasting and terminal oppression is appropriate?

And what "oppression" would that be in America? The well over $2 TRILLION in social programs annually, as of 2013? That a smart person who works hard can become rich and not pay 100% of their income in taxes?

You left coast types are hilarious. Talk to me when social programs don't consume the overwhelming majority of the Federal budget, in America, where those who don't want to work, complain while they receive benefits from myriad social programs, and damn those who pay for the majority of the benefits. (And of course, this doesn't even include state, local, and private programs for the "oppressed".

You must be confusing them with the social programs for the banks and DoD ...

Trillions of Dollars in Bank Bailouts: Socialism for the Rich?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sens ... in-bank-b/

The Fed's $16 Trillion Bailouts Under-Reported
http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreen ... -reported/

The media’s inscrutable brush-off of the Government Accounting Office’s recently released audit of the Federal Reserve has raised many questions about the Fed’s goings-on since the financial crisis began in 2008.

The audit of the Fed’s emergency lending programs was scarcely reported by mainstream media – albeit the results are undoubtedly newsworthy. It is the first audit of the Fed in United States history since its beginnings in 1913. The findings verify that over $16 trillion was allocated to corporations and banks internationally, purportedly for “financial assistance” during and after the 2008 fiscal crisis.

Or 2 years later ... Financial Crisis Cost Tops $22 Trillion, GAO Says
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/1 ... 87553.html

Or maybe the social welfare programs for the DoD ...

In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn't need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn't known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.

The consequences aren't only financial; bad bookkeeping can affect the nation's defense. In one example of many, the Army lost track of $5.8 billion of supplies between 2003 and 2011 as it shuffled equipment between reserve and regular units. Affected units "may experience equipment shortages that could hinder their ability to train soldiers and respond to emergencies," the Pentagon inspector general said in a September 2012 report.

Because of its persistent inability to tally its accounts, the Pentagon is the only federal agency that has not complied with a law that requires annual audits of all government departments. That means that the $8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited, has never been accounted for. That sum exceeds the value of China's economic output last year.

Cost Overruns. The Department of Defense (DoD) has 98 major weapons systems in its “portfolio.” According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the cost of those weapons has grown by $135 billion beyond initial estimates, just in the last two years. More than half of the jump in cost comes from increased prices, rather than increased quantities. The Joint Strike Fighter program, for example, which is intended as a replacement for all the jets used by the Air Force, Navy and Marines, was a $284 billion program – and is now expected to cost $34 billion more. The GAO reports that 80 percent of the weapons programs are paying higher unit prices than originally bid.

Even when a program is being reduced or phased out, the costs stay high. Orders for copies of the F-22 Raptor were reduced by 70 percent, but total acquisition costs decreased by only 14 percent. Per unit costs nearly tripled, from $139 million to $412 million per airplane. (For more information, see “Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapons Systems,” GAO-11-233SP, March 29, 2011, http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/317081.pdf. )

Losing Track of Inventory. The DoD Inspector General released two reports last year describing how the Army has overpaid millions of dollars for spare parts. For an $8.00 helicopter door part, for example, the Army paid $284.00. In another instance, the Army paid five times too much for a $1,500 rotor part that was already in stock in military warehouses. Sikorski, the manufacturer of the helicopter, was allowed to purchase contract items from the inventory held by the Defense Logistics Agency, and resell them to the Corpus Christi Army Depot to meet contract requirements, at an 85% markup. Sikorski made an excessive profit of nearly $1 billion between 2008 and 2010. (For more information, see: http://www.dodig.mil/Audit/reports/fy12 ... 12-004.pdf )

The DOD Inspector General and the GAO estimate that, at any given time, there is roughly a billion dollars’ worth of spare parts on order that the Department simply does not need, but the Pentagon inventory system hasn’t allow for the order to be changed. This is in addition to about $ 5 billion worth of unneeded spare parts already in the military warehouses. (For more information, see “Defense Logistics Agency Needs to Expand on Efforts to ... Manage Spare Parts,” http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10469.pdf )

Losing Track of Leases. The Department of Defense incurred $720 million in late fees for failing to return shipping containers when their leases were up. The hundreds of millions in late fees were in addition to the cost of the actual leases. Senator Tom Carper, as chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management recently wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, urging the Department to find ways to keep better track of leased property.(For more information, see: http://www.carper.senate.gov/public/ind ... containers )

Losing Track of Money. The Commission on Wartime Contracting reported last fall that there was an estimated $31 to $60 billion in DOD waste and fraud related to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The Commission further described these losses as largely avoidable. The Inspector General issued a report specifically on payments made to contractors and others in Afghanistan, without information, controls, or reporting. (For more information, see http://www.dodig.mil/Audit/reports/fy12 ... 12-023.pdf )

Shoddy Bookkeeping. The DoD Inspector General recently released a report on the Department’s inability to recoup up to $200 million in delinquent debts due to poor, but basic, record keeping. As of June 2009, contractors owed DoD $3.1 billion. About $200 million of the uncollected debt was not in dispute and was considered collectible, but DoD offices only had complete information on the contractors for about half of the accounts. (For more information, see “DFAS (Defense Finance and Accounting Service) Needs More Effective Controls Over Managing DoD Contractor Debt,” http://www.dodig.mil/Audit/reports/fy11/11-084.pdf )

*The combined FY2011 budgets of the Departments of State, Interior, Commerce, Justice and Energy equaled about $97 billion. According to the above reports, a one-year loss for the Pentagon from these identified problems equaled about $102 billion.

[Outcast_Searcher]

"Left coast types"

Falling Down is a revenge fantasy straight out of Glenn Beck's id: violent Caucasian rage against Korean deli owners, Latino gangbangers, and whoever else that dares to disenfranchise the white male. Oh, white male. Poor you.

Hilarious. You would like the film Outcast: they kill all the moochers.

I did like the film (sad as it was for the class of characters the protagonist represented). It doesn't make the facts I pointed out any less true.

[Outcast_Searcher]

*The combined FY2011 budgets of the Departments of State, Interior, Commerce, Justice and Energy equaled about $97 billion. According to the above reports, a one-year loss for the Pentagon from these identified problems equaled about $102 billion.

I don't like the defense budget either. That doesn't change the fact that supporting the financial system continues to support the roughly $2.2 trillion (as of 2013) social programs for the Americans your ilk seems to find so "oppressed".

Just because the world isn't perfect doesn't make it a conspriacy against you and yours, BTW.

[Outcast_Searcher]

That was a great movie, as true now as when it came out.

My favorite part was when the fellow was assaulting the golfers in the private golf course. He said something like, 'Big open spaces like this should be public parks, with families having picnics, children playing, and instead freaks like you two are wearing your stupid little white caps...'

He's was right- it's insane that the ultra wealthy have vast open green spaces while the poor live in an endless inescapable concrete jungle.

Because lying on a couch should have the same rewards as working 100 hour weeks, risking a lot, and producing something many other people want?

Maybe in the far left theoretical world, but in the real world, not so much.

[vox_mundi]

*The combined FY2011 budgets of the Departments of State, Interior, Commerce, Justice and Energy equaled about $97 billion. According to the above reports, a one-year loss for the Pentagon from these identified problems equaled about $102 billion.

I don't like the defense budget either. That doesn't change the fact that supporting the financial system continues to support the roughly $2.2 trillion (as of 2013) social programs for the Americans your ilk seems to find so "oppressed".

Just because the world isn't perfect doesn't make it a conspriacy against you and yours, BTW.

When did I say anything about a conspiracy?

Maybe in the far left theoretical world, but in the real world, not so much

Is the Dept of Defense Inspectors General office part of the theoretical far left world?

Because lying on a couch should have the same rewards as working 100 hour weeks, risking a lot, and producing something many other people want

Based on that statement I'm thinking you never actually met a CEO. Because their work week is a lot closer to 30 hours.

The minimum wage slave that works three jobs without benefits needs a 100 hours.

Betting other people's money and livelihoods is not risk taking - it's called gambling.

And what do 'Credit Defalt Swaps' - produce?

Maybe Falling Down is a great 'dark comedy' but the question ..

...How about on a personal level? How much anger or violence in the face of everlasting and terminal oppression is appropriate? Is simple frustration, bad luck, and fate ever a reason for lashing out. Can we simply lash out and be forgiven? Must we always be in control of our instincts?

...got me to thinking of the folks in the back seats of flight 9525.

Do you think they gave a rat's ass whether the co-pilot was having a bad hair day while the Alps zipped past less than a hundred feet below their window?

Maybe it's just karma.

[Outcast_Searcher]

When did I say anything about a conspiracy?

It seems to me you were implying a conspiracy, (the usual far left "the rich elite are out to get everybody, and have all the power", but that's just one man's opinion.

Because lying on a couch should have the same rewards as working 100 hour weeks, risking a lot, and producing something many other people want

Based on that statement I'm thinking you never actually met a CEO. Because their work week is a lot closer to 30 hours.

No, I haven't met a lot of CEO's. But I DID meet a lot of hardworking senior management at IBM. Funny thing. Their level was strongly correlated with hard work and very long work weeks, as they got successful. Not necessarily intelligence, but still hard work seemed to play a serious part.

Are you implying you DID know a "lot" of CEO's, personally?

And CEO's working 30 hour workweeks is based on WHAT? Your personal bias, aided by MSNBC I'd bet? I searched on CEO work week, and the first hit I got was: http://www.businessinsider.com/top-ceo-schedules-2013-4

Summary -- examples of people working more like 70+ to closer to 100 hour workweeks as CEO's. But let's not let the real world get in the way of MSNBC and the left coast, right?

The minimum wage slave that works three jobs without benefits needs a 100 hours.

Yeah. Sure. Well, in my world, there are a HELL of a lot more minimum wage folks at McDonald's, or the Waffle House, etc. who stand around a lot and complain about "the man" for 40 hours at most, than those who work anything remotely like 3 jobs. (I know quite a few of such people. I hobnob with them as a customer, since I tend to look and dress and talk much like them).

So in an MSNBC world, you can imagine all sorts of people working three minimum wage jobs (instead of making ANY attempt to, say, get some more education), but in the real world where atoms and people exist, I very doubt this is very common -- unless you can show me CREDIBLE citations from research (as opposed to far left whining).

[Rod_Cloutier]

Because lying on a couch should have the same rewards as working 100 hour weeks, risking a lot, and producing something many other people want?

Maybe in the far left theoretical world, but in the real world, not so much.

What??? This whole film was about the complete insanity of the modern world.

What side are you on buddy? (Sanity or the business as usual insanity)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOUdakr ... ilpage#t=0