urbanSTL

I always love when Baby Boomers lob criticism at Millennials. We're going to be the ones working our entire lives to pay for the unfunded pension liabilities they built up and the wars they sent several thousand of us off do die in. Some appreciation wouldn't hurt.

Ebsy wrote:I always love when Baby Boomers lob criticism at Millennials. We're going to be the ones working our entire lives to pay for the unfunded pension liabilities they built up and the wars they sent several thousand of us off do die in. Some appreciation wouldn't hurt.

OMG no! I'm not a baby boomer! Not even close! Seriously, they are the worst! I truly believe things will improve as they slowly die off!

Now on the other hand, you want some "appreciation" huh? What the ***** are you talking about? Are you really so narcisstic to think that nobody gave a ***** about anything or other people until you came along? That everyone was a wicked evil bastard in an unfair evil world until you came along and tweeted how compassionate and fair you are?

I did bong hits for about seven years on a sofa. I worked bad jobs. No help from anyone. But never once did it occur to me that my particular situation was somebody else's fault. I never blamed a guy in a suit walking to work. Made fun of him probably but never truly blamed someone else or tought there was any correlation between what I'm doing and what some other person is doing. You were just free to do whatever you wanted. And THIS is where things have changed. Everyone is so sanctimonious and smug and up in other people's business. If one guy has $24 and some other guy has $11 then somehow it's an unequal and unjust world that isn't fair and the whole system needs to be scrapped. We have bought the class warfare bullsh*t completely and it has really damaged everyone psychologically. I've been railing against trustfund kids since they began to destroy Chicago in the early 1990s. But the way discussions are framed now...it's just sad and pathetic. If I recall, like, jocks and severe masculinity were the enemy not too many years ago. But now the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction and everyone is just a big ***** p**** now.

This whole ***** up situation has been explained and more thought out by other people with more time than me.

^So do you think any discussion of growing income inequality is simply jealously from lazy pot smokers who want what the rich guy has?

That's a very simplistic way of looking at it.

I'm fine with the wealthy having more than me. They earned it or were lucky enough to be born into or marry into it.

But I won't sit still while they buy our government lock, stock and barrel. I won't sit still while they gin the system to make it near impossible for them to lose money while the rest of us have to pay for their reckless and sometimes illegal behavior.

People are mad because they see the American dream slipping away no matter how hard you work for most of us while the wealthy and connected never have to worry thanks to their purchase of politicians.

If that's the dreaded class warfare that we aren't supposed to talk about for fear of insulting the precious ears of the Koch Brothers then call me a warrior!

^ That's one of the more bizarre and nonsensical profanity-laced rants I've seen lately, so congrats on that. But what are you actually trying to say?

It's sad to see how much we have gone down the tubes in the last ten years. Life in America is nearly unrecognizable from ten years ago. Nobody seems real happy.

The thing is it seems people say this every other decade. I agree that the past decade's been brutal for the reasons roger stated (most of which I think can be traced back to economic decline/stagnation), but that's just the way things are. I didn't live through the 60s/70s but from what I've heard, read, and seen it seems like sh*t was worse back then--kids getting killed in a pointless war (or by the National Guard), economy going down the tubes, massive social upheaval/racial tension/generation gap, one major political leader assassinated after another, cities decaying, and to top it off Watergate destroying public trust in the government. Makes the 2000s/10s seem pretty tame by comparison IMO.

Economic and racial inequality are real issues. They're not made up by politicians fomenting "class warfare." The 08 crisis thrust all of this ugly stuff in the open. We're seeing the results of that.

southsidepride wrote:^So do you think any discussion of growing income inequality is simply jealously from lazy pot smokers who want what the rich guy has?

That's a very simplistic way of looking at it.

I'm fine with the wealthy having more than me. They earned it or were lucky enough to be born into or marry into it.

But I won't sit still while they buy our government lock, stock and barrel. I won't sit still while they gin the system to make it near impossible for them to lose money while the rest of us have to pay for their reckless and sometimes illegal behavior.

People are mad because they see the American dream slipping away no matter how hard you work for most of us while the wealthy and connected never have to worry thanks to their purchase of politicians.

If that's the dreaded class warfare that we aren't supposed to talk about for fear of insulting the precious ears of the Koch Brothers then call me a warrior!

Basically, I agree with you 100%. I just blame a failed government instead. I won't sit still either. Either way, we're all losers.

wustl_eng wrote:^ That's one of the more bizarre and nonsensical profanity-laced rants I've seen lately, so congrats on that. But what are you actually trying to say?

Yeah it was bit crazy and all over the place. I'm trying to stop.

If our leaders are at fault about everyday life then why in the hell do we keep voting these bone heads into office? I'm not a what have you done for me lately person nor am i person to believe money leads you to happiness.I think its all about what we make of our lives we can blame baby boomers for much of the wrong doings of the past and today however if us younger people aren't willing to be apart of wanting to clean house then guess what we're stuck with status quo. America has very deep heavy issues ranging from laws to basic citizenry jobs passports discrimination among each other bad transportation bad business's high crime sub par to awful education and so much more i don't care to list here. Too me Americans are the most self righteous bigoted people on this planet. Americans always have to feel self entitled too and about everything that's just my opinion Why in the hell is this country so concerned about skin color where a person works how much money they make where do you live what kind of beer you drink what type of underwear do you wear and so forth. Once the rankings of everything little thing stop such as ranking cities and such and a real value of being a proud american begins to take place this country will continue to go down hill. We need to fix the real problems in this country and stop sending whatever money we have left to countries that don't like us.

leeharveyawesome wrote: Now on the other hand, you want some "appreciation" huh? What the f*** are you talking about? Are you really so narcisstic to think that nobody gave a f*** about anything or other people until you came along? That everyone was a wicked evil bastard in an unfair evil world until you came along and tweeted how compassionate and fair you are?

No, I think the Silent generation was very civic minded and their efforts following the Great Depression built the middle class in this country. The remaining Silents have my respect and I find that I relate to them more than I do my parents and other Baby Boomers. I blame the Baby Boomer generation for most of our current problems, because they have been the ones running the show since Reagan was elected.

leeharveyawesome wrote:I'm sure everyone has seen the SNL spoof of a generic STL morning new show. Here it is if you haven't.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was really a commentary on just how stupid everything has become.

I saw it as a bunch of elitists dumping on the midwest again. They could have made almost the exact same skit without the various "St. Louis is a sh*t hole" insinuations. God forbid anybody have to come to "this part of the country" (though it's a sentiment I totally expect from a pretentious d-bag like James Franco—I know he probably had nothing to do with the writing but I can't stand him). The funniest part was the suggestion that racial relations are any better in Chicago. So have they done a sketch about Eric Garner being choked to death yet? And the subsequent massive protests going on in NYC? Doubt we'll be seeing that sketch.

I'm guessing that Jon Hamm would have objected to that line if he were the guest host

In 2014, every post, picture, tweet and sketch about Ferguson is stored and accessible on the internet. Forever. Whereas the strife in other cities (Cincinnati in 2001, LA in the 90s, the South in the 60s) was released in bits and pieces doled out by a centralized media, this story about St. Louis is being published by thousands of people out in the open for the whole world to see. Everyone when researching St. Louis will inevitably be finding information about Ferguson, which will make it harder to lure new jobs and new people to the city.

Will the internet make it harder for STL to recover from this situation?

This was cut from the broadcast, right? It probably seemed funny to NY writers until NY had a similar or worse event than the Ferguson non-incitement.

matguy70 wrote:It WAS cut from SNL - and not played as planned

unfortunately that doesn't matter nowadays. it's all over the internet. it may as well have been aired.

I am getting the feeling that the likelihood of negative economic consequences is becoming less likely if for no other reason than the issues that occurred here have been found to be more the norm than the exception nationally. Non-locals might not understand the local wrinkles that play into everything and only the national narrative. Its more than any criticism of the area at this point from people not in the area is looking more like the pot calling the kettle black.

Well, I'm going to take the possibly contrarian and perhaps hopelessly optimistic view and suggest that Ferguson has been a catalyst for a larger part of the world to speak out against what I will diplomatically call, a failure of public leadership, almost everywhere. What happened in Ferguson is certainly not isolated to Ferguson.

The worldwide protests are about much more than any of the individual situations in my opinion. Much of what has held the St. Louis region back stems from this failure of leadership, in a lot of ways. The good & bad of the situation is that real change is hard to effect without significant disruption, here or anywhere, and often times positive opportunists (entrepreneurs, community developers, social leaders, et al,) see disruptive situations as opportunities for growth.

Locally, there are a lot of stakeholders in the St. Louis region who have a lot to lose if things don't get better, and realistically until the s*it hit the fan, they really didn't have to address much of the regions problems, but we all do now. Short term, its not a good situation, don't get me wrong. But for everyone who wants to see real change in St. Louis (and around the country/world), then optimistically, based on nationwide reaction, what happened in Ferguson has a chance to someday hopefully (soon) galvanize that change.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... c4a7d.html

Looks like AB is moving their sales and marketing to NY and out of St. Louis. No mention on how many people will be moving.

One thing to note is that almost the entire executive management is foreign, so I wonder if they just had enough of St. Louis and wanted to move to NY with the rest of the company which is already based there.

Wonder how much the negative news STL has had in the past year was part of the reason for this move.

^ i honestly don't think recent events had anything to do with it. they've been exporting the company slowly since taking over. i'm pretty confident that they've always intended to leave as little here as possible—the only reason they're still around is that the brewery itself is a huge asset.

roger wyoming II wrote:^ not sure about what the economic toll may turn out to be but we are fragile.... we are a marginal region for attracting capital and transplants to begin with so any negative publicity probably won't help; secondly, we are the only region thus far that has had the visual imagery of fire and brimstone. (Except Oakland, where that sort of thing is more or less is expected.)

I was thinking the same thing. We need to condemn the looting and fires of course, but point to our remarkable peaceful young people that brought this nationwide problem to everyone's attention. I'm hoping leaders will step forward and initiate changes that address the policing issues, but also the economic and social justice disparities between haves and have nots that have been simmering under the surface. Then we'll be seen as the great problem solver -- a place not afraid to expose and solve big issues.

AB moving sales and marketing to new York is not cause of Ferguson or murders it is cause NYC is a big media hub and air travel hub. We need a air-port with more international flights badly.

http://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst ... tyle/8817/

I'm happy with our position at 14th, which means that 86 of the other 100 cities on the list did worse in terms of facilitating an active lifestyle. We're ranked better than Denver, Kansas City, Austin, San Francisco, Louisville, Indianapolis, etc.

I imagine that we were helped by our unusually high number of golf courses per capita.

Ebsy wrote:http://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst ... tyle/8817/

I'm happy with our position at 14th, which means that 86 of the other 100 cities on the list did worse in terms of facilitating an active lifestyle. We're ranked better than Denver, Kansas City, Austin, San Francisco, Louisville, Indianapolis, etc.

I imagine that we were helped by our unusually high number of golf courses per capita.

I see by reading their methodology, that they divide by the number of people in the "city" and not the metro area. This is the flip side of unfair crime ranking. In this case, St. Louis (and Cincinnati) are ranked better than they should be due to the small number of people in the denominator vs. other "cities". Same reason we rank high in lists of most libraries per person, churches per person, etc.

Why doesn't some reputable statistics department such as Wash U, or someone like Nate Silver, call out their lazy colleagues and insist that any ranking of "cities" needs to normalize away all the major dissimilar drivers that contaminate the distinctive feature they claim to be highlighting? Otherwise, many "city" per person rankings degenerate to list of cities that are a small core portion of their metro areas, and nothing more. Nobody could make a logical decision based on these statistical miss-rankings, and would be severely disappointed if they moved from Scottsdale to St. Louis or Cincinnati expecting a similar leisurely golf lifestyle based on this [mis]ranking.

Lazy methodology for the win then?