The Republicans passed their horrible, evil tax plan. Guess who is going to benefit? This Koch scion.
Jesus. If all he was was a guy with bad taste with a shirt business, fine, OK, sure, express yourself, let’s see if you can make a go of it with a business selling your ugly shirts. But no, he’s just a parasite with rich relatives. He can’t fail.
Once upon a time I worried that all the right-wing militias were going to tear up this country. But it’s looking more and more like it’s going to have to be revolution against the undeserving rich, and the chickenshits who parade around with guns are going to be on the wrong side.
The shirts are fine. He’s obviously not interested in everyone being able to have the out of the box shirts though, just a certain class of people. That’s problematic as can be.
In my opinion, they’re hideous. Like, truly atrocious. Including the one he’s wearing that’s literally covered in money bags.
He is a complete Koch, isn’t he?
Ooh! Gaudy shirts featuring handcuffs! How predictive!
The shirts are, umm, original. If someone wants to make shirts like that, and sell them, they should be able to try.
The funny thing about modern capitalism is that he isn’t risking anything. He can “gamble” with his family’s money and not worry about the outcome. That would be nice if it were true for everyone.
I wouldn’t normally mock people who can’t draw, but if you’re going to present yourself as a fashion designer you shouldn’t want that scribble at 0:26 caught on video…
“Tenacity” somehow doesn’t come to mind looking at a fat rich turd on a yacht with champagne.
I wouldn’t blog on this ad, because I’d be worried it’s a joke. (I thought that Tapper interview before the Moore election must have been edited for laughter as well.)
We need a sniglet for videos that appear to be jokes, but are in fact real. Something that captures that emotional ride from laughter to depression.
So if someone sets up a company, borrows money from a bank, sells shirts, and “gambles” without worrying about the outcome – he can just let the company go bankrupt – there is a fundamental difference? Not really. Banks make stupid loans too. Even worse they gamble the depositor’s money in risky loans and investments (see 2008 economic meltdown).
Chuck its not about the mechanism. Its about the level of personal risk. Skin in the game. If you are loaded and there is no consequence for failure then there is also no courage and no commitment to success or quality.
Chuck Stanley@8: “Banks make stupid loans too. Even worse they gamble the depositor’s money in risky loans and investments (see 2008 economic meltdown).”
No, they don’t gamble depositor’s money. They create new money out of book keeping entries when they make a loan. And if their loans go bad the central bank will bail them out using money *they* create out of book keeping entries. It’s all done with keystrokes, no depositor’s money is involved.
Woody Guthrie, in his song Pretty Boy Floyd, said that some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen. Today, it should be crystal clear just who is doing the robbing.
They’ll always be Hans Miklas.
What happens to the depositors’ money then? Does the bank put it in a little piggy bank and keep it safe and waiting for the customer’s return to withdraw it? In the meantime digital bits are manipulated to loan or invest money, all they while my coins are safe in the piggy bank? Jesus I can’t believe this is happening.
The money is spent, loaned, invested, or a fraction of it is held in reserve. We all know that when we use the word “money” we are not talking about physical pieces of metal with someone’s name written on it.
When I get my “paycheck” some bank has its electronic bits adjusted to deduct that amount and another bank has its electronic bits adjusted to add that amount. Does this mean I really have no money?
Please don’t answer. Too many minutes of my life are already gone.
Just out of curiosity, is there any actual reason the tax bill couldn’t be repealed and replaced by the next congress?
I don’t have any particular problem with the way the guy expressed himself. Although the reference to yachts was a bit jarring. If that were swapped out with some other more common location and he were someone else’s kid, I’d have no idea why everyone was disturbed at what he said.
Making money while not taking unnecessary risks is what everyone would like to do. He’s able to do it because he’s got ridiculous amounts of backing for the kind of business he’s in. You know what would tell me whether this was a rich kid being an ass or someone just trying to do something they really love, however little anyone else understands it? His employees and how he’ll treat them if the business doesn’t fly. Are they risking their livelihoods on his whims like any other startup or will some of that ridiculous backing soften their landing if things go south? Also what he pays them day to day, for similar reasons.
@16
A nonzero amount of this blog’s userbase doesn’t think that it is possible to be ethically rich in the current system (I am one), and a smaller nonzero amount of this blog’s userbase considers the position of a CEO to be fundamentally unethical (I am also one).
As far as I’m concerned, his being an aloof and idle rich person pretending that he’s doing something useful and marketable is just kind of secondary and annoying compared to him being part of the problem that is capitalism and politics.
It’s a well-known principal that no Congress can bind a future Congress — short of passing a Constitutional amendment that gets ratified. Legislation is always subject to amendment or repeal. I think Democrats should compile as comprehensive a list as possible of all of the GOP atrocities that they intend to reverse upon taking over Congress. Sure, Trump would wield his veto pen like crazy, but then the Democratic candidate in 2020 should make completion of the reversals his or her main platform.
If that video gets enough flak, Trump supporters will start buying those shirts en masse just to spite “the liberals”.
That could become a business model.
Don’t business models generally require you to actually receive promised payments?
No, there is no actual reason only a practical reason: Democrats are fucking incompetent fools, who care more about looking good, agreeable, and bipartisan rather than doing good.
Ummm gross shirts.
@15:
There is no such reason. The US public must demonstrate that all of the harm the GOP is doing to further enrich very rich people will not be accepted by the public.
If the bill is signed into law and takes effect in January 2018, and is not reversed until 2019, it will still cause about 5,000 deaths (by taking healthcare away from 4 million people by then). If it isn’t reversed until 2020, it will cause about 13,000 deaths. By 2021, the bodycount from the bill will be about 28,000*.
Similarly, the GOP’s taking healthcare away from 9 million kids and prenatal care away from hundreds of thousands of adults by refusing to authorize funding for the CHIP program for the past several months will cause another >500 deaths per year* if it is not stopped.
That’s the scale of economic violence that nearly all of the Congressional GOP and Trump want to inflict on the USA.
*Numbers based on https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/115th-congress-2017-2018/reports/53300-individualmandate.pdf and http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/1867050/changes-mortality-after-massachusetts-health-care-reform-quasi-experimental-study , not including the additional deaths due to any cuts to Medicaid & Medicare or due to any recession / depression the bill might trigger.
**Number based on https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2978187/ .
Wow, what a leader! What a visionary!! I want him for president! This guy is the bestest!!
FYI
“Betsy DeVos announces less relief for defrauded student loan borrowers” https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/betsy-devos-announces-less-relief-for-defrauded-student-loan-borrowers/
…and I agree the Democrats cannot be trusted to reverse these shenagians.
Hmm photshop her image on someone who is burning a stack of korans?
What struck me was the contrast between the pudgy/normal looking Koch and the obvious paid models. So the subtext is saying that he is selling a shirt that won’t make you look any better but will enable you to hang out with society’s stereotypical idea of beautiful. All pre-packaged and ready for sale.
In other words, the company is a vanity project. Why do scions so often turn to marketing fashion/lifestyle?
Chuck Stanley wrote:
There’s plenty of difference. Banks often ask for collateral or co-signers for loans when the “somebody” is a nobody. That’s how people lose their cars, homes, and other possessions when their business fails. The bank knows that most new businesses fail, and they make sure they get paid regardless. That can mean taking the house of a nobody who couldn’t pay their small business loan, or taking a small loss on the junior Koch’s vanity project to ensure you can make money from the senior Koch’s big projects.
It’s called an LLC and it means you don’t have personal liability.. It’s basically the most popular form of small business now. Jesus.That’s how people don’t lose their cars, homes, and other possessions when their business fails. And they fail all the time. Oh and FYI – the business for the subject video is an LLC.
Those shirts are ugly, just like the toad who ‘designed’ them. Luckily since I don’t frequent yachts, board meetings, or discoteques I will never have my retinas seared with those awful garish prints. He reminds me of Augustus Gloop in the original Willy Wonka. Oompah loompah doompity doo, I’ve got another riddle for you.
Interestingly, the video scene accompanying the first mention of these (very silly looking outside of a landlocked mid-continent luau) shirts in relation to yachts showed a view of a boat actually underway and no one aboard was wearing one of those poor shirts. The framing of the picture showed a boat not far off shore and the people aboard were all standing, employing their sea legs, and clad in very middle of the road attire.
There was then a cut to a scene of a boat that was not underway and was obviously secured at dock. The camera was closely zoomed so as to show as little of the surrounding marina as possible. The pitifully promoted accoutrements then filled most of the frame. The hearty sailors, seated and holding drinks that are not sloshing about with the tossing of the boat which is not making any sort of headway on rough or calm seas, are engaged in what is presented as meaningful and productive talk. Of which we have no access to. One could likely conjecture that they were discussing the great deal they got renting a moored vessel for the hour or two it took to record this fraction of their promotional video.
I call bullshit on the entire production. I also call bullshit on the value of gaudy and tasteless attire. As well as on the notion that donning such attire has a useful impact on people who have the sense to avoid such foolishness. Finally, I cast maximum asparagus at those who pollute the local view and venue with such incoherent disguise.
All this video actually portrays is the idea that a hypnotic fascination with what you wrap yourself in is a planned setup; see, springtime is just around the corner and you’ll just have to buy a whole new wardrobe?!
(something about wrappers and candy bars . . . )