Quote of the Day

The Urban Land Institute's Ed McMahon explains to the Washington Examiner why it is the D.C. economy continues to boom:

It makes sense -- as the economy has grown worse in other parts of the country, we hire more and more people here to figure out how to fix it.

Comments

[The Immaculate Trouser]

Dead on, if by "it", Ed means the problems of politicians rather than the country.

[juris imprudent]

That really should've come from The Onion.

[Dilbert 10/18/1994]

"How will the work get done with no employees?"

"I'd better form a task force to study that."

[The Gobbler]

I honestly believed that Ed was dead.

[The Immaculate Trouser]

What gives you the impression that he's not?

[Obligatory]

Ed is dead.

[Zombie Ed]

http://www.falsefactscomic.com.....your-brain

[Barely Suppressed Rage]

Who the hell would have predicted that Ed would outlive Johnny?

Hiyo!!

[cynical]

Really, if a Republican candidate wanted to start shit, he could break out a Perot-style chart just showing the relative economy of the country and Washington D.C.

[OO]

that chart exists!
http://www.seeingtheforest.com.....t_ever.htm

[Brandybuck]

What a profoundly disengenuous chart, the epitome of lying via statistics. Where are the job gains? Job losses are cumulative, and without job gains to counteract the losses, the blue half should continue sloping downward.

[Dick Fitzwell]

Brandybuck is right--job losses are cumulative. People who are a little light on intelligence (Maddow comes to mind) might look at the "bikini graph" and think that Obama has undone all of the misery that Bush started.

Again, job losses are cumulative. Here is the correct way to interpret the statistics.

This is the correct way to interpret the statistics.

[cynical]

Aside from being disingenuous, it's also not the chart I was describing.

[L]

That made my head hurt.

[rac]

I live in the DC area, and I find it to be accurate, though obscene.

[?]

Really, if a Republican candidate wanted to start shit, he could break out a Perot-style chart just showing the relative economy of the country and Washington D.C.

Net loss.

99.9675% of Democrats' voters and half of Republicans' think that DC's hoard is the just spoils of its divine meritocratic right.

Oh look, Brookings in the Post: "A study recently released by the Brookings Institution affirms the region's educational primacy..."

It's almost like they expected someone might Perot-chart this someday, and provided a handy citation to deflect it. And it only takes one, endlessly re-cited.

[cynical]

"99.9675% of Democrats' voters and half of Republicans' think that DC's hoard is the just spoils of its divine meritocratic right."

Maybe. I think people are looking for someone to blame, and Washington is a convenient enough target even in the absence of evidence.

[sarcasmic]

It makes sense -- as the economy has grown worse in other parts of the country, we the federal government continues to hire more and more people here to figure out how to fix it make it worse by taxing away resources while creating thousands and thousands of pages of burdensome regulation.

[R C Dean]

I prefer:

It makes sense -- as we hire more and more people here to figure out how to fix the economy, it has grown worse in other parts of the country.

[Hey - OOO!!!]

We just hired 100 people yesterday. 50 to dig ditches and another 50 to fill them in. Progress!

[OO]

as long as it aint the same ditches we be all good babieeeee

[cynical bastard]

Hire 50 more to toss in bureaucrats, and I might get behind this project.

[Abdul]

Shit, you can fix any problem if you throw enough bureaucrats at it.

Unprotected pitchforks, active volcanoes, toxic waste. . .

[Coeus]

...starving zoo animals, horny rioting prisoners, potholes...

[Kyle Broflovski]

This isn't paradise and you know it! The people here are starving and dying! The whole world has used Washington D.C. as a dumping ground for their political waste. Even the pages are corrupt.

[0x90]

"It makes sense..."

The foghorn of approaching idiocy.

[Oso Politico]

One of the first pieces of advice I received when I began working for Aramco in Saudi Arabia was this: They have hired you to do a job, and just hired two more people to keep you from doing your job.

[Spartacus]

There is no problem a government bureaucracy cannot make progress on, as long as it gets more people and a bigger budget every year. That's what it takes to keep solutions just around the corner.

[ChrisO]

They've already figured out to fix the economy here in Northern Virginia. Make everyone a defense contractor!

After all, it's just a matter of how to make the magic money tree drop more fruit.