I kind of expect someone disagreeing with a quote to at least look at the context. Do you think quoting the entire section would have gotten a better reaction?
I looked at the context—the quote was made while Levine was talking about Puerto Rico. It still does not make sense. He might have meant it as a fancy way of saying that if nobody cares then nobody cares, but that’s a trivial observation.
He’s mostly describing what’s going on, not giving advice on what should be done. And the TLACs he’s discussing are not populist.
(This may be clearer in context.)
“clearly define the classes of people whom it is socially and politically acceptable not to pay back.” sounds to me like a populist suggestion.
To the extend that you quoted him out of context, that’s still an issue with the quote.
I kind of expect someone disagreeing with a quote to at least look at the context. Do you think quoting the entire section would have gotten a better reaction?
I generally do think that quotes in this thread are supposed to be able to stand alone.
Lumifer probably still would have objected.
I looked at the context—the quote was made while Levine was talking about Puerto Rico. It still does not make sense. He might have meant it as a fancy way of saying that if nobody cares then nobody cares, but that’s a trivial observation.