Re: Ticket terrorists

[Alan McKendree <amck@thenetdr.com>]

>Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2002 09:08:58 EST
>From: Deliphus01@aol.com
>
>I have a little more faith in people than that, misplaced as it may be. I
>hope they would rise above the temptation to make money...after all, this is
>the lowest of motivations.

By what standard of measurement?

>[scramble for supplies] I could make the same sort of argument
>about same people who buy up the front for every show on the tour and keep
>local fans from getting up there (that would be plenty of people on this
>list). You're longing for that elusive "level playing field" that Kevin Mc
>imagines exists (but doesn't in real life).

??? I can't imagine what part of my position is at all like Kevin's.  I'm
the *last* person you'll hear calling for some sort of managed "level
field".

>No, sorry but I'm going to have to disappoint you there. The focus in my
>store is low prices. I don't make a ton of money as a result, but I feel good
>when I go home and my customers love the place.

It's good that you feel you don't need to make any more money.  I'm just
glad Henry Bessemer, Thomas Edison, John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and
many more inventors and industrialists felt differently so we could be
having this conversation by computer instead of by tin cans and string.

>I'm not a very good capitalist, I guess. But I am true to what I believe, for
>whatever that may be worth.

True, you're quite mixed.  You don't like laws restricting freedom but you
behave as though there were a 100% income tax on your store gross above a
certain level.

>  Hillary took the best running shot in recent
>> memory at socializing the whole industry, but fumbled.
>
>"Fumbled" due to an orchestrated campaign by the insurance industry in a
>successful attempt to save their asses. More shame to them, and to those
>Americans who bought into it.

Pooh.  Had you followed up on the reading recommendation in my recent post,
you would also have found this:  "The Clintons demagogically campaigned
against the 'insurance industry', while backing -- and with the backing of
-- those large fish that were preparing to swallow the minnows. This
strategy, invisible to the media (who in those days rather liked the image
of Hillary versus the fat cats) was neatly summarized by Patrick Woodall of
Ralph Nader's Public Citizen: 'The managed competition-style plan the
Clintons have chosen virtually  guarantees that the five largest
health-insurance companies -- Aetna, Prudential, Met Life, Cigna, and The
Travelers -- will run the show in the health-care system.'
And Robert Dreyfuss of Physicians for a National Health Program added, 'The
Clintons are getting away with murder by protraying themsels as opponents
of the insurance industry...'"
   -- Christopher Hitchins, _No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of
William Jefferson Clinton_, p. 56.

Cheers,

Alan

"Never never hesitate, communicate, communicate..." --Pete Townshend