The shallow depths of the apparent deep.

From a recent chat :

Fuzzy-Wuzzy : What does MP think about what’s going on in his homeland?
British Square : See the logs

pete_d: Speaking of politics back home, what’s the latest from your contacts back in Romania re: protests against ‘legalised corruption’i
mircea_popescu: Nuland-Sorosii wasting their US Fed acct on the local whores, more or less.

Fuzzy-Wuzzy : Half a million people in the streets – must be a big expense account!
British Square : I’m not sure how expensive bored baristas with aspirations of 15 seconds of fame on the nightly news really are. Especially Romanian ones. Average wage there for that demo is what, 1500 RON a month ?iii

So let’s do the math. There were protests in Bucharest and across the country last week. The vox populi reported 500k around the country and 250k in just the capital. Calling those guesstimates generous by a factor of two,iv saying that the protests lasted for five full days, that 10% of the protesters in Bucharest were outright paid or otherwise incentivisedv for eight hours a day and that the rest were mere sheep, and that the average wage of a paid protestor was half the national average,vi we find :

250`000 * 0.5 * 0.1 * 5 * 8 * 1500 / 160 = 4`687`500 RON = $1`117`030 USD.

A million bucks. That’s it! Cheaper and more effective than paying spamsites to make news for you, but isn’t it still outrageous how manifestly weak and impoverished the purportedly powerful of the nouveau regime are in the face of a few numbers ?

___ ___ ___

  1. That old corruption will never be eliminated piece I brokenly translated from Romanian to English is timelier than the folks on the cobblestoned street know, and it’s doubly lulzy for the proclaimed left-leaning politics of the unyielding PSD.
  2. Victoria Nuland was Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State under Bahamas and is now another useless old bitty. George Soros is a currency trader par excellence and shameful distributor of his winnings.  
  3. The national average in RO is ~3000 RON per month, or just $715 USD. Combined with their generally-impressive-for-eastern-block-country mastery of English, it’s little wonder they’re an emerging IT power.
  4. Putting the figures more in line with my contacts in Romania. Yes, I also have contacts in Romania.
  5. Eg. Yazaki. N.B. That the left calling anything “fake news” gives you every grounds to believe that it’s true. To them, “fake” is anything they don’t want to believe is true because it threatens to break the surface tension of their delicate snowflake bubbles.
  6. Which is generous for a bored barista, but let’s find the upper bound of the piggy here.

14 thoughts on “The shallow depths of the apparent deep.

  1. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    you arbitrarily pick 10% for the number of protesters that were paid – this is based on what exactly?

    and 10% of the kids in the crowd getting compensation does not exactly make it a Soros-coup as El Chapo MP would like you to believe

  2. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    if it’s only 10% of the kids apparently getting $$ – does that delegitimize the rest of the crowd and their genuine support for the cause?

  3. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    no it doesn’t – because 10% of the players in the World Cup are on the fake

    and it’s apples to oranges. because that’s one player on a soccer team – or 20,000 of 200,000 at a anti-government demonstration

    • Pete D. says:

      All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players. I guess I see both as apples.

      But are you saying the World Cup is legitimate ? If the definition of legitimate is “in accordance with established rules, principles, or standards,” how is it that a poisoned well is still ok to drink from ?

  4. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    millionaires playing kickball in front of thousands of paying spectators is a different stage than hundreds of thousands of citizens taking to the streets to voice their disdain with administration policies

    • Pete D. says:

      Different stage, same game : winning. Both sets of players honestly and whole-heartedly believe in their cause and their purpose, despite the fact that their ranks are tainted, and yet it’s all for the glory of the team owners. On one stage, the team is owned, whether it knows it or not, by the mafia. On the other stage, the team is owned, whether it knows it or not, by an even shadier cadre.

  5. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    the 190,000 people that showed up to protest for five days unpaid are owned by no shady cadre except a belief in honest democratic institutions. some people do in fact actually have morals and values and have not become completely jaded to the prospect of genuine resistance through peaceful protest

    • Pete D. says:

      And some hundreds of pro footballers (and millions of young hopefuls) do in fact actually have morals and values and have not become completely jaded to the prospect of genuine resistance through peaceful footie. So what of it ? No one’s saying that the majority aren’t well meaning. What I’m saying is that their good intentions are besides the point. What matters, at least to my mind and this is likely where we disagree, is who is pulling the strings, who is calling the shots, and why.

      To see peaceful protests and sports matches as anything other than the same apples is but domain dependence.

  6. Fuzzy Wuzzy says:

    this has nothing to do with athletes and you are intentionally misdirecting the conversation and creating a straw man

    the good intentions are not beside the point at all. they are the only thing that matter. the fact that the majority are well meaning is the entire story. it is not a few potential, unproven, unfounded paid protestors. that is meant to avert your eyes and distract you from what is happening on the ground.

    • Pete D. says:

      I’m not misdirecting anything. I’m merely expanding the scope of the conversation and drawing parallels where I see them. Anyways, I think we’ve both had our fill here. Until next time. Cheers.

  7. […] other invariably indebted journosaurs, particularly of the Jizmodo variety who chirp “OMG A MILLION DOLLARS ISN’T CHUMP […]

  8. […] in the 1960s, you see, mass delusion as to American exceptionalism and “fake news” were the norm, and mathematical reality was by then even well divorced from the […]

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