Frazz by Jef Mallett for October 19, 2024

If it is adjusted to 197 million Nancy Pelosi will not be amused.

Nancy Pelosi bailed out as speaker before the roof could fall in on her. Mike Johnson will be the one who suffers if the US financial crisis cannot be solved.

Look carefully, Kid. If accurate, there’s a long roster of millionaires and worse with questionable histories.

Free Silver!

Before that Honoré de Balzac said “The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.”

Only in French, because he was annoying like that.

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which rests upon them.” – William Jennings Bryan

Skip this kid ahead to High School already.

William Jennings Bryan said a lot of silly things.

People that get rich honestly tend to be more philanthropist and kind than selfish antisocial money hoarders.

Well, you can make $200 million honestly (I’m adjusting for inflation). I would cite Shohei Ohtani, Taylor Swift and J.K. Rowling as well-known examples who’ve made that much honestly. It’s a silly statement by the man who later fought evolution in the Scopes trial, and was a long time advocate of bimetalism, a rather questionable economic concept.

Just because someone famous (or not) says something, doesn’t make it true.

Per an internet source $1 million in 1900 in terms of compensation/payment would be $263,430,656.93 in today’s dollars. So other than some athletes and entertainers (who actually had to work for it) I think the quote holds water. Most everyone else who got that much got it off the backs of others’ labor.

Ah, we all want to be rich, but envy makes us see everyone who is rich as evil. There are a lot of people with lots of money who aren’t any more evil than the next guy. Can’t make a lot of money honestly? Well, maybe not, but did you hear about the philosopher who roamed the world looking for an honest man?

And here we usually think better of Caulfield.

Now, I will agree that Taylor Swift is enormously talented. And I would also acknowledge very freely that whe works really hard at what she does. But in a rational world, is a pretty woman writing songs, and dancing and singing them, in flashy, rather revealing costumes, even admitting that she does it all really well, really worth what our world pays her? But I do remember my mother trying to show me the reality of economic life when I was trying to understand the value of our house. “It’s worth exactly what someone will pay for it,” she said, and would not budge on giving me a number.

Wrong

William Jennings Bryan was not knowledgeable about economics.

Also: Does stealing second base count?