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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: The political junkie POTUS prediction thread
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Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
But...But...But...there is a war going on!
Is there? When did Congress declare war? On whom?
And the other posts about this.
Is crossing into another's sovereign territory unannouced on a bombing raid a declaration of war?
(I'm thinking of the recent bombing of civilians in Pakistan)
Myrrh
Posts: 4467 | Registered: Jun 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Myrrh:
Is crossing into another's sovereign territory unannouced on a bombing raid a declaration of war?
No.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Nicole--
Re your friend:
I don't know anything about him or his case, so I'm just providing this as info, ok?
There was a similar case in the San Francisco area several years ago, also with a freelance journalist. (Blogger, I think.) It got quite involved. Court, jail, etc. I don't have time to look it up right now, but there should be info at http://www.sfgate.com .
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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The Bede's American Successor
Curmudgeon-in-Training
# 5042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
quote:
Originally posted by The Bede's American Successor:
What does this line mean from the summary of the bill?
quote:
Excludes the Federal Home Loan Banks from certain securities reporting requirements.
OK, here you go. It may take time to find the relevant parts of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 & 1934:
quote:
SEC. 205. EXCLUSION FROM CERTAIN SECURITIES REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.
[Lots of stuff deleted here]
Yea, yea, yea. I could come up with that. (Thanks for finding it though.)
The trouble is that I'm not a lawyer. Nor do I play one on TV.
Nor am I a member of Congress.
But, I do know what the financial institutions are that are under the FHL banking laws. It isn't the commercial banks, but...
.
.
.
(wait for it)
.
.
.
...savings and loans.
You remember savings and loans, don't you. They had a bit of problems in the 1980s. At one time they were highly regulated, then were cut loose to act much the same as commercial banks--but without all that nasty regulation.
Din't John McCain have some connections to S&Ls in the past?
Let's see. What was that connection?
Oh, yea. The name "Keating" comes to mind for some reason. Maybe I need to Google that?
After all, why would John McCain try to reduce regulations on S&Ls in a bill that is supposed to add regulations to the financial industry?
Could this be the reason it never saw the light of day after leaving the committee?
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This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and the wretched.
—Ezekiel 16.49
Posts: 6079 | From: The banks of Possession Sound | Registered: Oct 2003
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Bede's American Successor:
...You remember savings and loans, don't you. They had a bit of problems in the 1980s.
No, I was only born in 1992.
There was more to the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform ACT of 2005 than Sec. 205 (basically the section restricting liability for financial screwups). Maybe it failed because of this section.
I wouldn't assign fault for this meltdown solely to S&Ls. It seems more the fault of investment banks. My amateur opinion is that it's a combination of hedging credit risk allocation through "issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), as well as credit default swaps (CDS)" and an amazingly short-sighted conviction the housing market could only expand upwards.
See here.
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Any bets on whether the presidential debate actually happens this Friday?
McCain wants to postpone, supposedly to focus on the financial mess, though some folks think he wants to avoid being grilled about the financial mess. Obama is refusing to postpone; he says that the voters need to know more about whoever will be managing the mess in a few months.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
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Posted
Yes. The presidential "debate" will take place as scheduled.
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--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
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CorgiGreta
Shipmate
# 443
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Posted
New Yorker,
There is a bit of a flaw in your neat little blame analysis.
The REPUBLICANS had a safe majority in the Senate at the time.
Here is the composition of the Banking Committee:
Richard Shelby (Ala.), Chairman
Robert Bennett (Utah)
Wayne Allard (Colo.)
Mike Enzi (Wyo.)
Chuck Hagel (Neb.)
Rick Santorum (Pa.)
Jim Bunning (Ky.)
Mike Crapo (Idaho)
John E. Sununu (N.H.)
Elizabeth Dole (N.C.)
Mel Martinez (FL)
Members Democrat total-9
Paul S. Sarbanes (Md.), Ranking Member
Christopher Dodd (Conn.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Jack Reed (R.I.)
Chuck Schumer (N.Y.)
Evan Bayh (Ind.)
Thomas R. Carper (Del.)
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)
Robert Menendez (N.J.)
Greta
Posts: 3677 | Registered: Jun 2001
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The Bede's American Successor
Curmudgeon-in-Training
# 5042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
quote:
Originally posted by The Bede's American Successor:
...You remember savings and loans, don't you. They had a bit of problems in the 1980s.
No, I was only born in 1992.
And I'm RooK's father.
quote:
There was more to the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform ACT of 2005 than Sec. 205 (basically the section restricting liability for financial screwups). Maybe it failed because of this section.
Wanting to re-deregulate S&Ls again would be a good reason to think twice about the bill. Then again, it could be a case of "just wait, there's more!"
Like I said, I'm not a lawyer or a law maker. It is just that this part jumped out at me when reading the summary.
(My one rich relative was the CEO of a failed S&L back in the 1980s. It only barely went negative for a short time, but that was all that was needed for the feds to swoop in and sell off the pieces to the greedy vultures circling about. By the time the sale happened, the S&L was back on the plus side, but that didn't stop the sale. In other words, everyone knew that it was a basically sound institution, and the commercial banks wanted to pick up some assets cheap. So, yea, I have reason to remember the S&L meltdown in the 1980s.)
quote:
I wouldn't assign fault for this meltdown solely to S&Ls. It seems more the fault of investment banks. My amateur opinion is that it's a combination of hedging credit risk allocation through "issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), as well as credit default swaps (CDS)" and an amazingly short-sighted conviction the housing market could only expand upwards.
Other than Kerry Killinger (WaMu) jumping on the sub-prime bandwagon, this wasn't a particularly "S&L" event. WaMu's "problem" was that they felt they were large enough to not have to bundle up their loans and sell them off; if Killinger had sold off WaMu's sub-prime loans to the investment banks like other financial institutions, Killinger would probably still be at WaMu today (and looking like a genius).
Most of WaMu is doing just fine, thank-you-very-much. They have more reserves on hand than necessary, just to cover possible bad sub-prime loans (although no one is sure if the amount is enough). Unlike most CEOs, Killinger did not have a golden parachute strapped on when the board of WaMu pushed him out of the plane and put WaMu up for sale. And, the vultures are circling, waiting to see what the federal bailout will be.
Where have I seen something like this before?
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This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and the wretched.
—Ezekiel 16.49
Posts: 6079 | From: The banks of Possession Sound | Registered: Oct 2003
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Zorro
Shipmate
# 9156
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Posted
Gort quote:
No, I was only born in 1992.
When in 1992? You know you shouldn't be on the ship if you're under 16, Gort. Bed and bath by 9 and all that ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Zorro.
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It is so hard to believe, because it is so hard to obey. Soren Kierkegaard
Well, churches really should be like sluts; take everyone no matter who they are or whether they can pay. Spiffy da wondersheep
Posts: 2568 | From: Baja California (actually the UK but that's where my fans know me from) | Registered: Mar 2005
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
As everyone knows McCain tried to prevent this crisis about two years ago.
McCain-the-senator was quite sensible on trade, as Republicans go. He was in favour of international free trade (including international migration which is a necessary corollary of it) and light but tough regulation of finance markets. He was also a fan of unemployment insurance (though his plan for it was over-complex, presumably in an attempt to avoid looking like welfare or anything that Democrats might have supported, and if implemented it might have a side-effect of paying employers to sack older and less-educated workers first)
Sometime between about June 1007 and June 2008 someone locked that sensible McCain in their basement and replaced him with McCain-the-Conservative-Campaigner. A sort of zombie or golem that shuffled around the country repeating tired old xenophobic right-wing nonsense about the nasty Mexicans taking all the nice white folk's jobs. And he manages to blame the credit crisis on the banks and banking regulators (though he isn't sure whether the regulators are too tight or too loose) but also to want to give trillions of dollars of your taxpayers money to those same regulators to give to those same banks. And this new fake McCain is offering you the worst of all three worlds. He seems to want to cut back on free trade AND cut back on welfare AND increase taxes to pay off the bankers.
It looks increasingly as if McCain-the-Conservative-Campaigner is just a stalking horse for the old, tired right wing. And God forbid, for Sarah Palin. Mrs Palin is talking as if she is the real candidate, not McCain. And with his poor health, and the way he has lost the plot recently, that looks more and more realistic.
If he gets in (looking increasingly unlikely) I hope the old McCain will get let out of the closet and replace Zombie McCain. But I have little hope of it. I have a bad gut reaction to people who want to avoid debate. McCain has brought up the old nonsense about suspending "politics" during a crisis and all parties getting together "for the good of the country".
With any luck, he only said that because he knows he has nothing interesting or useful to say on the banking crisis so he wants to keep his mouth shut and to shut Obama up as well because he knows he will look bad if they debate it. I'm worried that he might really mean what he said.
That is how authoritarian dictators talk. You can't suspend politics. If this is a crisis, then you need to decide what to do to get yourselves through it. Making those decisions is politics. If the arguments don't go on in public, they will go on in private. If you don't make the decisions yourselves, someone else will make them for you.
There is no single "good of the country". People have different interests. Politics is about people with conflicting interests getting along without killing each other. To do that they need to express those interests. Democracy isn't just a kind of politics. Democracy is politics done right. If you don't have democracy you have tyranny - even if its a tyranny of well-meaning experts. A "crisis" is exactly the wrong time to suspend or postpone debate.
Senator McCain may or may not believe in free trade, but his pathetic performance this week makes it look very much as if deep down inside he doesn't believe in democracy and free speech. When things get serious he thinks the people should shut up and let their elders and betters decide what's best for them behind locked doors.
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Of course the original source of all this mess is the liberal Democratic social policies that required banks to lend to non-credit worthy borrowers. In other words this whole crisis is brought to you by the Democratic Party.
Bollocks. Every single rich country that is of any significance in the world economy is in the same situation (except Japan which has had near-zero economic growth for a long while because they never really recovered from the last crash). So whatever caused it, it wasn't local politics in the USA, or any other country. If that is how conservatives really look at these issues, then no wonder they have no believable policies,.
The three main roots of the crisis are the coincidence over the last few years of the drastic oil-price rise (which might arguably have been exacerbated by the invasion of Iraq and continuing refusal to deal seriously with Iran, but basically is because demand is growing faster than supply); the downslope of the house-price boom-and-bust cycle (which UK and a few other countries have got worse than you do - this is a case of the Americans copying our bad habits, one of which is the banks freely choosing to lend to non-credit worthy borrowers because they thought they could make a profit that we - its the Brits that invented the overdraft and floating-rate mortgages and interest-only mortgages); and the over-leveraging of business investment. All those three chickens came home to roost at once, and that triggered the credit crisis.
There's an argument that the complexity of structured credit and debt made the crunch worse than it might have been. There's another argument that it made no difference or even improved things for a while. That's an argument that someone legislating about bank regulation ought to have. And it is an argument - for example the banks (and lots of politicians) are demanding that they should be let off having to use fair-value mark-to-market accounting - some other people might think that this crisis would have been avoided if they had been using it for the mast ten years. And banks are also asking for looser regimes on capital ratios.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
FactCheck.org has reported the truth about this supposed attempt of McCain to stop the FM greed train. FWIW
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
Here's a story from the New York Times that discusses the original proposal by the Bush administration for the reform of 2005. At the end, the article quotes Barney Frank saying that quote:
These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Hey New Yorker, how about some evidence of the nasty Democrats forcing those poor, poor banks to make loans to bad credit risks? Hmm?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
I'm not sure that McCain made the right move, but Bill certainly thinks it was sincere:
quote:
ABC News' Nitya Venkataraman Reports: Former President Bill Clinton defended Sen. John McCain's request to delay the first presidential debate, saying McCain did it in "good faith" and pushed organizers to reserve time for economy talk during the debate if the Friday plans move forward.
Full Story.
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey New Yorker, how about some evidence of the nasty Democrats forcing those poor, poor banks to make loans to bad credit risks? Hmm?
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I'm not sure that McCain made the right move, but Bill certainly thinks it was sincere:
I think we all appreciate the high regard you have for President Clinton and his honesty. Nonetheless, President Clinton has a very complex attitude about Obama and his run for the Presidency which makes it very difficult to interpret what he is trying to accomplish in anything that he says or does wrt the current eletion.
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
[I think we all appreciate the high regard you have for President Clinton and his honesty. Nonetheless, President Clinton has a very complex attitude about Obama and his run for the Presidency which makes it very difficult to interpret what he is trying to accomplish in anything that he says or does wrt the current eletion.
--Tom Clune
Does that mean you think Bill is trying to sabotoge Obama's campaign?
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Thank you. Now was that so hard?
Folks, he seems to be right.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Ho hum.
The CRA was passed in 1977.
There have been a lot of Republicans in Congress since then. And some Republican Presidents you might have heard of called Reagan and Bush.
None of them saw fit to change the law.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Thank you. Now was that so hard?
Folks, he seems to be right.
Dang cross-posts. That was to New Yorker.
Fucking politicians. They're such a bunch of collective circle-jerks. I've been ignoring them too long to my peril. Damn.
(Augh! How can the two minutes to CHANGE a post have already passed, but the two minutes to post again NOT have already passed?!)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Does that mean you think Bill is trying to sabotoge Obama's campaign?
I do rather suspect that. But it's hard to be able to distinguish between just being unable to get over being pissed off and actively working to undercut the campaign, especially when it's slick Willie who's doing the deed...
--Tom Clune
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
There hasn't been a President Clinton since 2001. We have presidents, not kings, and they cease to be presidents when they cease to be presidents. He is former president Clinton, and Mr. Clinton. He is not President Clinton.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Folks, he seems to be right.
Thank you.
quote:
There hasn't been a President Clinton since 2001. We have presidents, not kings, and they cease to be presidents when they cease to be presidents. He is former president Clinton, and Mr. Clinton. He is not President Clinton.
I thought that they kept the honorific title for life?
Back to the history of all this mess even CNN is hinting that Frank and Dodd might have some blame - while still bashing Bush, but of course!
Of course, how we got here is important. But more important is what do we do - or not do? I don't know that I like the bailout. Even if the theory is correct it will probably turn into the biggest pork barrel in history, correct?
And, apparently the public - Republican and Democrat alike - is not in favor of the bailout.
Meanwhile McCain it seems to me scored one on Obama returning to DC and encouraging Obama to do the same, to which Obama replied call me if you need me. And Obama seems to have scored one on McCain over not postponing the debate. The politics continue.
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
There hasn't been a President Clinton since 2001. We have presidents, not kings, and they cease to be presidents when they cease to be presidents. He is former president Clinton, and Mr. Clinton. He is not President Clinton.
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
I thought that they kept the honorific title for life?
Nobody EVER follows it anymore, but the Proper Rule is, former presidents and vice presidents are properly referred to by the highest title they held besides the presidency (or vice presidency). Therefore we have:
Governor [George W.] Bush (shortly ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
Governor [Bill] Clinton
Ambassador [George H.W.] Bush
Governor [Ronald] Reagan
Governor [James Earl] Carter
Mr. [Gerald] Ford (he was a Representative)
Senator [Richard M.] Nixon
Senator [Lyndon Baines] Johnson
St. John... sorry, Senator [John F.] Kennedy
General [Dwight D. "Ike"] Eisenhower
Senator [Harry S] Truman
Governor [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt
Secretary [Herbert] Hoover
Governor [Calvin] Coolidge
Senator [Warren G.] Harding
Governor [Woodrow] Wilson
Mr. Justice [Wililam Howard] Taft
.... and on down to
General [George] Washington
[ 25. September 2008, 16:24: Message edited by: Laura ]
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
That's really interesting Laura. Especially as former presidents seem to be addressed as "President - " if not "Former President - "
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Nobody EVER follows it anymore, but the Proper Rule is, former presidents and vice presidents are properly referred to by the highest title they held besides the presidency (or vice presidency).
I have never heard this. Do you have a source? Not that I doubt you, I'd just like to see it. I have always thought it would be more classy to say, "please call me Mr."
e.g.
Report: "President Clinton?"
Bill: "Please, just Mr. Clinton is fine."
or
Sean Hannity: "Mr. Speaker."
Newt: "Please, just Mr. Gingrich."
I like Newt and think he has some of the best solutions out there to a whole slew of issues. But, I cringe when I hear him referred to as Mr. Speaker. He ain't anymore (sad to say).
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Bede's American Successor
Curmudgeon-in-Training
# 5042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey New Yorker, how about some evidence of the nasty Democrats forcing those poor, poor banks to make loans to bad credit risks? Hmm?
Forbes
Investors Business Daily
City Journal
Thomas Sowell
These are all editorials. So you have a choir singing the same song. Where are the facts behind their statements?
For example, City Journal, makes this claim without providing proof (emphasis added):
quote:
Nevertheless, until recently, the CRA didn't matter all that much. During the seventies and eighties, CRA enforcement was perfunctory. Regulators asked banks to demonstrate that they were trying to reach their entire "assessment area" by advertising in minority-oriented newspapers or by sending their executives to serve on the boards of local community groups. The Clinton administration changed this state of affairs dramatically. Ignoring the sweeping transformation of the banking industry since the CRA was passed, the Clinton Treasury Department's 1995 regulations made getting a satisfactory CRA rating much harder. The new regulations de-emphasized subjective assessment measures in favor of strictly numerical ones. Bank examiners would use federal home-loan data, broken down by neighborhood, income group, and race, to rate banks on performance. There would be no more A's for effort. Only results—specific loans, specific levels of service—would count. Where and to whom have home loans been made? Have banks invested in all neighborhoods within their assessment area? Do they operate branches in those neighborhoods?
This paragraph needs more unpacking. I find it disturbing that this editorial supports subjective reality over hard facts.
Did the CRA actually say you had to take someone with a bad credit score and let that person borrow as much as someone with a good credit score, everything else being equal?
For example, when buying our condo, my profession—and typical contract work—worked against us, even though I make twice what my partner does a year. His credit numbers were higher than mine because he had been in a single job for about 10 years and was making loan payments, while I had very little credit history at the time we applied for the loan (going through a bankrupcty in 1990). For the first year we had a higher interest rate until we could refinance.* Everything was done by the numbers, not subjective criteria.
So I find it difficult to see how objective criteria in and of itself caused the problem.
Besides, these risky loans weren't only made in poorer neighborhoods, were they?
So, where are the facts to back this up—not claims made in editorials?
*Our real estate agent pointed out that our condo was worth at least 20% more than we purchased it for in the year 2000. We bought from an estate. We had a 10% down payment at the time. In another year, after paying for a new appraisal when refinancing, we showed that we had well over 25% equity. This allowed lowering the interest rate by about 2%, and let us go to a 15 year loan instead of a 30 year loan. I'm not saying anything in this paragraph that you can't find on-line, if you know where to look.
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This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and the wretched.
—Ezekiel 16.49
Posts: 6079 | From: The banks of Possession Sound | Registered: Oct 2003
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Do you have a source? Not that I doubt you, I'd just like to see it.
The source is the always correct Miss Manners, a.k.a. Judith Martin. There's a link to a redacted version of the article here but I can't seem to locate the full text at the moment. Basically, the rule comes from the principle that there is only one president or vp at a time, and only one can hold that title.
Interestingly, the only president I've heard correctly referred to in that way is General Eisenhower.
[ 25. September 2008, 17:34: Message edited by: Laura ]
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
Regarding Mr. Clinton's comments: I have no doubt that Senator McCain is entirely sincere in his wish to change the narrative flow of the campaign, given his falling poll numbers.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Organ Builder
Shipmate
# 12478
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Posted
Now that a bail-out deal has been reached, anyone care to place bets on the Debates taking place--or their outcome?
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How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.--E.F. Benson
Posts: 3337 | From: ...somewhere in between 40 and death... | Registered: Mar 2007
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Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
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Posted
Well it seems pretty obvious to me at least that McCain's real objective in trying to skip Friday's debate was to postpone the VP debate and give Palin more time to prepare (because that was his proposal, skip Friday, and have the first Presidential debate the day the VP debate was scheduled, and postpone the VP debate until a later time.)
So who knows what he'll try now?
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On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Organ Builder:
Now that a bail-out deal has been reached, anyone care to place bets on the Debates taking place--or their outcome?
The debates will go ahead. McCain will try to convince the voters that he put his responsibilites ahead of his ambition by suspending his campaign. Obama will try to convince them that McCain pulled a political stunt. Unless either fall flat on their face after tomorrow McCain's supporters will say he won and Obama's supporters will say that Obama won.
The more interesting scenario is if they both fall flat and look like fools. Then the public can take a long look at Ron Paul and Bob Barr.
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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tclune
Shipmate
# 7959
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
Well it seems pretty obvious to me at least that McCain's real objective in trying to skip Friday's debate was to postpone the VP debate and give Palin more time to prepare (because that was his proposal, skip Friday, and have the first Presidential debate the day the VP debate was scheduled, and postpone the VP debate until a later time.)
So who knows what he'll try now?
Politico reports that Barney Frank suggested, tongue-in-cheek, that Congress ask for Palin's expert help on some of the more difficult aspects of the financial instruments. Maybe McCain will take him up on it...
--Tom Clune
[ 25. September 2008, 19:17: Message edited by: tclune ]
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Posts: 8013 | From: Western MA | Registered: Jul 2004
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Eanswyth
Ship's raven
# 3363
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Posted
Here is a clip from Dave Letterman on the night John McCain cancelled due to suspending his campaign. He makes an interesting point that if a president is unable to perform his duties, his vice-president should be able to fill in for him. So if McCain had to rush off to Washington, why is Palin not able to carry on in his stead?
I think it dovetails Obama's remarks upthread about a president being able to work on more than one thing at a time.
Posts: 1323 | From: San Diego | Registered: Sep 2002
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
Then the public can take a long look at Ron Paul ....
They did.
He got rightly whipped.
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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The Bede's American Successor
Curmudgeon-in-Training
# 5042
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Atheist:
Anyone enjoyed this clip yet?
Honey, this is old news. The Seattle PI has had it posted all day.
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This was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride of wealth and food in plenty, comfort and ease, and yet she never helped the poor and the wretched.
—Ezekiel 16.49
Posts: 6079 | From: The banks of Possession Sound | Registered: Oct 2003
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The Atheist
Arrogant Bastard
# 12067
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Bede's American Successor:
Honey, this is old news. The Seattle PI has had it posted all day.
Damn time zones...
Pretty funny though.
Posts: 2044 | From: Auckland | Registered: Nov 2006
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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Hey New Yorker, how about some evidence of the nasty Democrats forcing those poor, poor banks to make loans to bad credit risks? Hmm?
Forbes
Investors Business Daily
City Journal
Thomas Sowell
More spin.
For example, from the Forbes article:
quote:
Further promoting a sense of security, every major financial institution in America--both commercial banks and investment banks--was implicitly protected by the quasi-official policy of "too big to fail." The "too big to fail" doctrine holds that, when they risk insolvency, large financial institutions (like Countrywide or Bear Stearns) must be bailed out through a network of government bodies including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Federal Reserve.
Too big to fail, FDIC, etc. did not apply to Bears Stearns. It was all in the news at the time at how the Treasury Secretary, Paulson, was implicitly extending government guarantees to a section of the financial markets that HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY HAD IT.
They hadn't had it because they were not banks and were not permitted to operate in the fields that banks and mortgage lenders did. That was the deregulation presided over by the Republicans. Unfortunately, it allowed these corporations to act in areas where they could cause a lot of damage without making them adhere to the good practices banks were required to by regulation.
He may be right or wrong about Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. But even if he were, this does not explain the additional 700 billion we will be forking out beyond the Freddie Mac takeover.
Posts: 2994 | From: Minneapolis, Minnesota USA | Registered: Jun 2005
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Choirboy
Shipmate
# 9659
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Posted
Oh yeah - and this business about how dangerous it is to lend your money in certain neighborhoods, and redlining and all? What utter crap!
The boatloads of empty foreclosed homes are in the suburbs!
Posts: 2994 | From: Minneapolis, Minnesota USA | Registered: Jun 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Thank you. Now was that so hard?
Folks, he seems to be right.
Four op-eds from right-wing sources, three being extremely light on the numbers and the fourth focussing on one specific program IIRC in one part of the country? A pretty low bar there.
Off the top of my head, a simple rebuttal:
1: The CRA only required banks to apply the same lending criteria in all communities. If someone had a history that indicated they were a bad risk then the CRA didn't force lending to them. If they were on low income the CRA didn't force the banking system to lend to them.
2: New Yorker is specifically pointing out some of the lowest value houses as being the cause of the problem. Riight. Especially as it's not a large proportion of the total. To me that doesn't pass the smell test.
3: The CRA has nothing to do with subprime. Banks needn't have made subprime loans at all (and shouldn't have). And it's subprime where the really bad credit risks were. Possibly CRA made subprime worse because it meant that black neighbourhoods as well as white ones were drawn in.
4: The biggest probem is in that well-known ghetto known as Orange County.
5: IIRC, the default rate recently (as in in the last couple of months) on the homes affected by the CRA was 3%. This was higher than the national average - which was 2.6%. Go look at the Flippers and the McMansions if you want actually high default rates combined with a lot of cash.
If you want an act to blame that a Democratic president signed, try the repeal of Glass Stegal by Clinton and the Republican congress.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
The more interesting scenario is if they both fall flat and look like fools. Then the public can take a long look at Ron Paul and Bob Barr.
Cloud-cuckoo land. Only political hacks and his friends and relations have ever heard of Ron Paul, and no-one who matters is going to vote for him. And not even most of the political hacks have heard of Bob Barr.
Bob who? He wouldn't get three seconds of airtime even if the main candidates withdrew. He may be a nice bloke and I'm sure he had friends down home in Iowa opr wherever he came from but his campaign is only of significance to tinfoil-hatted gunwanking blackhelicopterite conspiracy-theorist readers of brain-dead survivalist blogs who still think that civilisation is going to crumble in the great Y2K disaster, but that it hasn't happened yet because it is still 1998 because the Jewish Marxist Green UN New World Order ule in Washington are faking the calendar. and the government is lying about the date.
You are more likely to see Nancy Pelosi as President than either of those two losers.
You are more likely to see President Hillary Clinton by a write-in vote.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemrw:
I'm sort of sort of surprised that the British folks on this thread haven't said anything about this:
Team Obama flies to the UK in pursuit of crucial votes
Anyone have any thoughts?
On what? That Gwynneth Paltrow is (a) a Democrat, (b) often in London, and (c) quite good-looking? Which of those is news?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by New Yorker:
The more interesting scenario is if they both fall flat and look like fools. Then the public can take a long look at Ron Paul and Bob Barr.
Cloud-cuckoo land. Only political hacks and his friends and relations have ever heard of Ron Paul, and no-one who matters is going to vote for him. And not even most of the political hacks have heard of Bob Barr.
Bob who? He wouldn't get three seconds of airtime even if the main candidates withdrew. He may be a nice bloke and I'm sure he had friends down home in Iowa opr wherever he came from but his campaign is only of significance to tinfoil-hatted gunwanking blackhelicopterite conspiracy-theorist readers of brain-dead survivalist blogs who still think that civilisation is going to crumble in the great Y2K disaster, but that it hasn't happened yet because it is still 1998 because the Jewish Marxist Green UN New World Order ule in Washington are faking the calendar. and the government is lying about the date.
You are more likely to see Nancy Pelosi as President than either of those two losers.
You are more likely to see President Hillary Clinton by a write-in vote.
Some jokes just fall flat........
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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New Yorker
Shipmate
# 9898
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Posted
Our glorious representative democracy at its best.
The money quote:
quote:
When asked by Bloomberg News about whether the process has been secretive, Obey bluntly replied “You're damn right it has because if it’s done in the public it would never get done.” He wanted to “avoid his colleagues’ ‘pontificating’on the content of the legislation” because “that’s what politicians do when this stuff is done in full view of the press.” He said “we've done this the old fashioned way by brokering agreements in order to get things done and I make no apology for it.
Posts: 3193 | From: New York City | Registered: Jul 2005
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