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I'd recommend using another word, then. "Steal" implies he had no business winning certain states.
You used "stole" in reference to the claim that the GOP was sliding towards becoming a regional (South/SouthEast) party. For full context: Quote:
I read that as an assertion that the "key states" Obama won were aberrations, and he wouldn't win them again. Depending on which states these are, and how you define "Midwest", such an assertion seems to run counter to actual electoral and demographic trends. |
Looks like the anti-ACORN bill could have massive unintended consequences. From HuffPost:
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that's pretty funny. accorn does need to be defunded but yeah umm...don't defund lockheed plzkthnx
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Which begs the question- if they're defrauding the government, how do they keep getting contracts?
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Um, they did more than screw up Steve. They were unethical, immoral and criminal.
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Well the US Government, you know that entity that relies on taxes, doesn't like funding organizations that advises people how to evade taxes. What a shocker. Yeah that bill mentioned above is just that, a bill. |
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I don't know what you mean by the last part. Yes, it's still a bill, but it's already been passed by both houses of Congress and is awaiting a Presidential signature. I find it very unlikely that Obama will veto it as Beck and his ilk would have a field day. It's a very good thing that someone is showing the effects of this bill before people tarted using it to defund a huge number of government contractors. At the end of the day I'm not sure you can find the right language to pull ACORN's funding without catching other contractors. They might have to wait until the next omnibus budget. |
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Funny...as bad as the acorn tapes are coupled with the various other serious accusations against them....there is still something, in my mind anyway, called due process. Yes it's as obvious as a spree-shooter...but we still send spree-shooters to trial before we sentence them to death/life in prison. As an aside...I've often found this to be the (unfortunate) case in sports as well. But the same thing we do for spree shooters should be done with acorn before voting on defunding measures in my book. They probably should have been investigated much sooner, but that isn't the relevant point, to me. I think this just further speaks to the ineffectiveness of these elected clowns. They haven't got an ounce of pragmatism in their bodies. They are perfectly happy to find a whipping boy like acorn where everybody can be bipartisanly against them. Acorn is probably guilty of many indefensible acts that may or may not be possible to prove. They also aren't the only one's. But their effectiveness to swindle people (i.e. taxpayers) is only possible due to there even "being" a governmental arm. They aren't (as) likely to do this to a private enterprise. Ugh...I'll just stop my rant there. Is it a wonder why many don't want these same idiots to be responsible for more? |
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If anyone in the Obama administration actually has the balls to prosecute these ACORN criminals caught in the act, then they will get due process. I'm sure Eric Holder will just pull up his panties and keep everyone in his branch away from it. |
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for sure i think Catholic Charities should be stripped! oh yeah, and if that's the "pimp" and the "prostitute" i'm LOL and guessing all the advice given to them was tongue-in-cheek (which isn't to say that the people shouldn't have had better sense than to give it, but they look hard to take seriously) |
I havnt found the part yet where Steve said that those 4 employees were immoral, unethical and criminal. Can someone point me to it?
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More talking points from pandagon please. LOL. |
The saddest part of the whole thing was the "goddamn frat boy" did more investigative journalism of ACORN than the national media.
edit: Granted, they couldn't use the same tactics per se, but the flagrance of the workers in those videos makes me think that there would be other ways to get this story. |
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So you start the post by saying you're not going into this, but then post this diatribe that is borrowed from another website and posted as your own opinion. You're a peach. |
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I'm not going to defend the actions of those employees, but let's not make this kid into Edward R. Murrow. He used the same sort of tactics that people have rightly complained that Michael Moore uses. I don't want journalistic outlets setting out to bring down organizations and then not telling the entirety of the story because it better fits their original goal |
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I'd agree with this. Much of this could have been done through traditional means to achieve the same purpose. |
That's my whole point - why did it take a stunt like this for this kind of stuff to come out? Or do people really think that this behavior was abnormal for ACORN? In the videos, the workers certainly looked comfortable giving out that kind of advice.
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It was abnormal by the kid's own admission. He apparently went to numerous ACORN offices before he got video he could use. Even out of the four videos that he's shown, two should be put into context and may be far less damning than they seem. He wanted to destroy ACORN and was willing to put in whatever time it took to get it done. Those ACORN employees fucked up and the organization is going to rightly take some lumps, but what the kid did shouldn't be mistaken for good journalism. |
Again, not saying it was good journalism. And I think we are using different scales of "abnormal"; I don't think behavior like that was standard or anything, but the ease with which that advice was given makes me suspect it wasn't the first time a conversation like that was held.
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If an unintended consequence of the bill passing is the defunding of KBR, I'm all behind it now!!! :D
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pot - kettle. Fuzzy and all. |
Sounds like ACORN needs to go. As someone who believes generally in their cause--organizing unempowered individuals to make sure that they have a say in our democratic republic--I think that they are doing more harm than good.
[some pithy joke about the acorn being rotten and it is probably best just to cut down the oak instead of pruning branches] |
I don't wish any ill will on ACORN or anything, and I hope the organization succeeds in whatever goals it has set out. But I am against funding them. Not necessarily for this video, but I'm just not a fan of funding these groups at all through the government. It should be done privately by people who are passionate about the cause. Just as any other organizations looking to push a cause of their own.
As it's been mentioned, a lot of questionable groups receive money. I also believe that if you went in with a hidden camera enough times, you'd find almost any large organization with some less than stellar employees. Those against ACORN have made no push to remove tax shelters for many churches who have aided and abetted pedophiles for years. What ACORN did is wrong, but I don't put it on the same level as helping priests fuck kids. |
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Considering all of the monies coming back from tax hideouts and such I think relying on the philanthropic or well off already to prop up all/most charity or grassroots organizations is a bad bad idea. |
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I'm with you here. The less of these types of things being funded by our elected geniuses the less opportunity/cover for fraud that is available to organizations that do need to be funded (or paid for services, etc.). |
Looks like Acorn is suing the pimp and prostitute film duo. This is going to be awesome.
ACORN Vows 'Serious' Internal Probe, Sues Filmmakers - Political News - FOXNews.com Quote:
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It's not entirely a charity. I believe most of the money it gets from the government is for services rendered. To some degree it's just another government contractor hired to privatize government services. |
Disappointing to see this information. Government watchdog says it's "highly unlikely" that government will recoup all money loaned out on TARP bailout deals.
Government Watchdog: 'Extremely Unlikely' Taxpayers Will Recoup TARP Money - ABC News |
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Nate Silver, obviously a conservative, thinks its a bit closer than you think: FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Generic House Polling Suggests the Republicans Could Regain the House in 2010 Quote:
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It doesn't affect any point made, but that article isn't by Nate Silver. It's by one of the other guys.
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Only disappointing if you actually, at any point, believed that the government would would recoup all the money. The fact that they have not gone over the original $700B is a minor miracle to me. |
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I havnt seen you applauding when some of the money has come back however, hrrmmmm, that is convenient. |
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Yea! Partial wins! Give me a break. If the government hands out $XXX and gets back less than that amount when we were promised a break-even or profitable scenario, that's not good. Worse yet, we've now found out that many of these banks used the money for profit-making activities rather than the purpose they were specified. That makes the pill even harder to swallow. |
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What does this have to do with Obama? |
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We can't be critical of policies that were created by the Bush adminstration and the Democratic Congress (including Obama who supported TARP) in this thread? |
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According to you, several times in this thread, no, we can't talk about past presidents. |
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I didn't say we couldn't talk about it. If it's an issue relevant to both Obama and another president, then it's certainly relevant. I've been critical of Obama and Bush for pushing through this TARP crap before. I'm not sure why now should be any different. |
its all about the MBBF Convenience rule of topic discussion and fact dropping.
Well the TARP supporters cant prove a negative so when we say that it SAVED A DEPRESSION, you will always be able to say, no it didnt, the depression never would've occurred anyways. Ahhhh, to look at things with such a spin and to be so fiscally responsible at exactly the wrong time. yes, we should be happy that we're getting money back and the money we are getting back is coming back with profit attached AND the warrants very likely will be worth more than we got them for in 10 years (or sooner) so yes, Id say yes, MBBF, I know its not convenient to ignore the funds flowing back with % attached but yes. |
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Why would anyone in their right mind celebrate a net loss? |
net loss = cost to save our country...
so you weigh that. IMO the cost, or what will be the eventual cost (which could be a net gain in the long run) was well worth it thus far. |
no way of knowing if it's a net loss yet - the warrants haven't been exercised, or even been given time to play out in a bull market.
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perhaps because the net loss is relatively minor compared to what would have/could have (depending on how you want to view it. i'd say would as would some others, but i know people that use could) been. |
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I assumed that we wouldn't see any of the 700 billion, so it's a pleasant surprise to get anything back, IMO. |
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Briefly, at best, by propping up failure that we're already seeing repeated (or am I the only person who drives past dozens of "own a home, no money down" signs every day?) Was an expensive mistake that will ultimately prove futile, an opinion that I'm at least equally certain of as you are the "well worth it" part. |
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Agreed on this. Nothing fundamental has changed. We bailed out the banks, who now know they can do whatever and if it doesn't work out the government will bail them out again. The guys that nearly drove this economy off a cliff took home their millions / billions laughing all the way to the bank. What's to stop them from doing it again? Maybe one good is that Ford seems to be in a decent position, having come through without needing federal assistance. |
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I assure you that no one is getting a 0 DP loan EXCEPT through the USDA, whose ratios make it so that even with the slightest bit of other debt, makes it a DNQ or possibly a V.A. loan, and these are available in very limited regions. The advertisements are just to get people through the door so that they can than gameplan with them on how to actually, really, buy a home. That, my friend, is a fact. |
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And they shouldn't exist period. That is also a fact. Surely you can't honestly believe anyone involved with this in DC is actually smart enough to prevent the same mistakes that were made? Or even better, combine them with new ones. After all, it's only taxpayer money, when this is botched they'll just come back & get more. |
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All I know is you brought up 0 DP loans and theyre almost completely nonexistent eventhough that's your cornerstone of that particular post that lessons werent learned. The USDA ratios are so tight that I'd feel more confident giving them a 0 DP loan than I would a FHA 3.5% DP loan or even some people's 10%DP loans but you dont care about that because what you really wanted was to say that no one should get a 0 dp loan eventhough the USDA default rate is unbelievably low in comparison. I believe the people in DC saved us from the 2nd Great Depression so where do you want to go from here? |
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If you're saying that with a straight face then there's really not much common ground to travel that I can see. You see saviors, I see utter idiots that are far closer to deserving to be rounded up and shot than to garner even faint praise. Kind of difficult to traverse that sort of gap. |
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agreed Jon
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Well color me impressed. Oh, wait ... scratch that. |
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I will state that those companies that did go insolvent and required our assistance should have been saved, and then disbanded when the trouble was over. It would have to be done in a way that didn't dramatically alter our economy and wouldn't instill panic. I feel for the smart banks who played by the rules and don't get to take over the marketshare that they should have by being smarter than their competitors. |
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Yeah, but do they mean TARP or ARRA? I originally thought TARP was mostly a psychological thing (if the populace see that something's being done, they'll be less likely to panic) but the greatest influence was due to two actions by the Fed: 1. Arranging bank takeovers by the strongest banks (i.e. JPM, BofA, Citi). 2. Loosening lending as much as possible to unfreeze the credit markets (this was actually lots of little actions). Actually, if anything stopped the Second Great Depression, it was probably the actions taken by the Fed and the European Central Bank just after the failure of Lehman to stop a massive and electronically-triggered run on banking institutions as a whole. Left unchecked, this would clearly have rendered most institutions completely illiquid (if that's a word). To me, neither did ARRA stop (nor will it stop) the Second Great Depression. What it'll do, in the best case scenario, is cushion the blow of what's going to be a multi-year "non-technical" recession. |
I think you are right to ask flere, and I think they'd say it was TARP which was main thing that preventing crisis.
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That's not to say I disagree with Jon on the point that most of the people in DC who drove this stuff through the legislative process should be taken out and shot.
I'm not a big fan of TARP because of the lack of oversight and accountability built into the bill ("Hey, let's give Hank Paulson $700 billion to give his friends on Wall Street!"). I'm not a fan of the Waxman energy/climate bill due to its single-minded attention to coal (even to the exclusion of, say, natural gas, to say nothing of "clean" energy sources). I'm not a fan of cash-for-clunkers because it effectively let people trade in their older SUV for a newer and slightly more efficient SUV. And while I like the idea behind ARRA, plenty of it leaves a lot to be desired, as will any appropriations bill that's essentially a free-for-all for Reps to get projects for their constituents. |
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I know I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but sometimes I wonder if you value the expertise of anybody else, or if you just think that you're always right, even about subjects where you don't have the specialized education and training? I mean, are you the sort of person who thinks they can diagnose what's wrong and how to fix it better than a doctor? Do you go to a lawyer for legal advice (wills etc) or just draw that stuff up yourself? Why is this any different? |
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Yes. He is that kind of person. And if you don't agree with him, then you are committing treason and should be shot. |
C'mon DT, you're smart...
:D |
I'm not advocating believing someone just because they have a degree, let me make that clear. But I think if you have a panel of 100 economists and 80 of them agree that TARP saved us from what would have been a much worse situation then it's incumbent on you as an intelligent person to think "hmm, maybe those 80 people know more about this than me."
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The majority isn't always right. |
Of course not, but more often than not if you take the side of the majority of highly educated people on a subject, you'll be right. I've never studied DNA and don't have a clue about the science behind it, but I'm going to go with the majority of scientists who believe this or that on the topic.
It's also worth noting that those who said TARP was unnecessary (guys like Laffer) were the ones who said that the market was fine and would continue to go up a year ago when we were at 14,000 on the DOW. |
Then again I've also seen quite a few of these allegedly reputable economists acknowledging that they're pretty much just guessing themselves. I suspect at least those who've been that honest wouldn't be offended by my disagreement.
All in all, I figure them to be about as reliable as TV weather forecasters & take them with about the same grain of salt. As I recall one memorable instance, someone called to ask when the talking head was "coming over to shovel this four inches of partly cloudy off his doorstep". |
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A weatherman isn't a bad example. While they have a large error rate, they still have a much higher rate of success than a guy who looks at the sky and tells me next week's forecast. |
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I think you linked to show how wrong Laffer was but what you actually did was show how spot on Peter Schiff has been for a long time. This is a guy who has been preaching what big government does to the economy well before the AIG/housing mess ever started. (both Bush and Obama) I believe he is running for Senate in Connetticut against Linda McMahon and Chris Dodd. Of course one of those morons will end up winning instead of somebody who actually thinks about what they are saying. A lot of people look at him as a huge bear on the market but it sure would be nice to have some of those in Congress when it comes to spending OUR money. |
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Yes, I've been a fan of his for a while. I wasn't always sure whether he was right , but he was able to articulate his argument time and time again in the face of "brilliant economists" who could do nothing but laugh. I suspect the laughter you saw from a lot of those people was not really due to thoughts of absurdity...I suspect they realized his argument was more technically correct and they were laughing it off as a "holy crap we cannot be THAT screwed...CAN WE?" That's why I'm with JiMGa on "economists". Take them with a grain of salt until they collectively prove otherwise. |
I can get a good look at a T-bone steak if I stick my head up a cow's ass, but I'll take the butcher's word for it.
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Although I think it's way to early to consider Linda Mac the presumptive GOP nominee (the RINO claims could be fairly made) you could probably do worse than a successful business person in Congress. Granted, considering who she'd be replacing the bar would be set pretty low but still. Supposedly some of the better business decisions made by the WWE in recent years have come from her rather than VKM. |
My problem isn't whether or not TARP saved us from a depression, my problem is that they did not also fix the underlying issues, nor punish the folks that got us into the problem in the first place. I'm fine with propping up AIG, but remember the bonus fiasco? The people who drove AIG to the brink and nearly killed our economy made a KILLING, with or without those bonuses. Who went to jail over this? Who paid fines? What regulations were changed and oversight added to stop them from doing it all again tomorrow?
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Also a fact: my parents just moved here and bought a house. The mortgage company pre-approved them for about twice what they thought they could afford and what they were planning to spend. They were smart, but that's exactly the type of credit giving that got us in here. Yes, some things were tightened up in regards to WHO could get credit, but not much was tightened up on HOW MUCH they could get if approved. |
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i agree |
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Well thats been going on forever so I dont know what to tell you about the equation. Some people that Ive met have such fear of a the mortgage payment that they'll only take on a mortgage that is far far far below what they can actually afford....so Ive seen it go the other way too {shrug} Point being Jon's insinuation was wrong. |
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+eleventy zillion |
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Made me LOL. |
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had they not played the lotto would they all have been bankrupt? me guess not |
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Wasn't us all becoming bankrupt just a campaign scare-tactic though to help win the election? |
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The fundamentals of the economy were strong. |
Wait, Bush wanted Obama to win?
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Speaking of campaign promises...
AP sources: Gitmo closing goal of Jan. may slip AP sources: Gitmo closing goal of Jan. may slip - Yahoo! News And why might Obama's campaign promise to close Gitmo in 12 months not happen... Quote:
It's Bush's fault. Works everytime, but c'mon...that's lame. |
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I really don't think Bush cared much one way or the other, he was just ready to get the hell out of DC and let whichever fuck up won have it. |
Yeah, everybody knows it's Clinton's fault.
Seriously, it doesn't look like closing Gitmo will mean much because too many other facilities with the same rules still are open. Shameful. |
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no, according to people smarter than you and I in regards to these things, no. That Gitmo crap sucks! Michigan will take those people in a heartbeat and build a Supermax to boot. |
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Of course closing Gitmo in 12-months was always just a campaign stunt. Obviously as the terrorists are handled differently now, Gitmo was going to close sooner or later anyway. In any event, many other facilities? Which ones? |
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I'd love to see the evidence for this. Sure AIG was headed down the tubes, and Countrywide was in trouble, but Bank of America had no problem buying Countrywide, and Wells Fargo had no problem buying Wachovia. There were certainly institutions in trouble, but that just created opportunity for other institutions to step in and use their excess cash to pick them up and make themselves stronger. Buy low sell high, remember? And all the American automotive makers were in deep trouble and ready to go bankrupt, except Ford figured out how to make it on its own when they didn't like the strings attached to government money, didn't they? As was discussed at the time, investment in infrastructure to create jobs to help offset the troubles in other areas was a pretty good idea, but handing cash over to the people driving us off a cliff was a big, giant, costly band-aid that still left the cliff there, we just yanked the car back up the hill a bit. Part of capitalism is letting companies fail, which just creates opportunities for stronger / newer / leaner / whatever companies to fill the void left behind, if any. |
wells fargo was the exception to the rule, and their digestion of wachovia hasn't been completely without pain.
BoA overreached with all of its acquisitions (which were driven in part by conversations with the fed where they were assured that the fed wouldn't let them fail) and they're having major digestive problems with those acquisitions now. |
Well they had a gun to their head to buy Merrill.
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You would agree with Paul Krugman from the New York Times who recently argued (in the link) that most economists had gotten so divorced from reality that it's really no surprise that they had little inkling about the extent of the financial crisis that was going to befall the U.S. and the world when it did. To me, that makes many of their pronouncements on TARP just as suspect. Quote:
:+1: No one ever got to the bottom of the bad assets. No changes to regulation have been made (or are going to be made). Many financial institutions are back already to trading significant amounts of their money in very risky vehicles. The SEC (which, based on the evidence coming out after the Madoff trial, should just close up shop) has no more balls than before the crisis. But, if you really want to make your blood boil, read/listen to this report from NPR's acclaimed Planet Money team (excerpts below): Quote:
The bolded bit is just wrong, wrong, wrong: everybody knows what the problem is, everyone knows what the fix for the problem should be, and everyone knows it won't happen because members of the House will not give up the power of their committee chairmanships. At this point I formally do not need any more proof that the U.S. House is not only a completely dysfunctional organization, but is actually a detriment to success in this country. |
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Yeah, the lack of jail time, asset seizure, and just general smackdown is horrific. I knew this would be a joke when they basically let Madoff's direct family keep too much. Those fucks should all be in jail, along with the heads of numerous companies, as well as their underlings. I mean, you'd prosecute someone for stealing Lunchables, but these guys commit fraud in the millions to billions range and it's a collective meh. |
Gitmo makes me mad, mainly cause most of those guys in there should have been executed in 2002ish. Its unacceptable for them to still be in a state of flux 8 years later.
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On not nearly enough sleep I won't begin to pretend to go along with every conclusion he draws, I'd do well to be able to follow the storyline of a nursery rhyme atm much less an eight pager on economics. But there sure seemed to be a number of good points in there & it was definitely good linkage. I think it really comes back to what I was saying earlier about the weatherman thing, that it seems pretty clear that economists give us educated guesses at best but what Krugman points out several times is that even the education behind those guesses is legitimately suspect when viewed in the cold wind of reality versus the rarified air of academia. |
You've got the gist of the article. I think you'll appreciate the detail when you have more rest and more time.
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I was wondering where The Afoci has been. |
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If you were running a gambling operation in your home, the cops would bust down the doors, seize everything in your home, cuff you and drag you away to jail. Bilk tons of people out of billions and you get to camp out in your Penthouse apartment, cut juicy deals to help your family, and allow them to maintain their comfy lifestyle. I just don't get it. If I got caught with stolen property, I nor anyone in my family would get to keep it. But when it comes to money and these guys, it seems to be a finders keepers policy. |
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absolutely...ridiculous |
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Other than the obvious carnage created by con artists like this...the fundamental difference in how they, and their families, are handled is the type of stuff we really need to be worried about, IMO. It's the type of stuff that launches complete anarchy, revolts, overthrows, etc. Imagine the type mob rule you'd see if actual townhalls turned into militia seizures and the like. I really think this country is on its way to seeing this happen on a small scale if we have a double dip recession and continue to see these types of things unfold. |
couldnt help but laugh at the commentary of the Gator's game when they mentioned that Tebow was "actually born in the Phillipines." I immediately thought how upset the birthers should be :)
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