Things Noticeable this week

[vannax]

Originally Posted by 9876543210

Greenman,



1) Well, I've known about Bernie for a long time now (at least five to ten years). He's appeared on Thom Hartmann's radio show on Fridays and has answered questions from listeners in all that time. So, at least to me, he's not new.

2) Well, miracles do happen. If he won, what would you then think?

3) I also wish he were younger but we can't do anything about that. Whats more important is what he's saying. Thats primarily what I agree with.

Chump would be a disaster. There is no doubt in my mind of that.

I don't see that we in the US have any choice about Bernie. It really gets down to one thing. If you are happy with the way things are then vote for Hillary. But if your not then Bernie is the only choice.

Hillary won't change a thing. She's already bought and paid for by the financial institutions so she won't go after them.

It wouldn't surprise me one iota if one of Bernie's first initiative's is to break up the big banks (which must happen or we're all in big trouble again).

Hillary would only go after them (maybe) if they crash the economy again. But would she put any of those crooks in jail? Probably not. Obama didn't. Why would she? Most of them are personal friends and big donors.

The mortgage meltdown was caused by legislation forcing banks to lend.
That's why Canadian banks didn't need a bailout.
Sanders and his huge tax increases would be a disaster.
What America needs is to shrink the federal bureaucracy by about 90%, secure the borders and pay off it's deficit.

[Dave998]

Originally Posted by vannax

CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC all have parent companies who are big Democrat supporters.
That makes them left-wing media.

Name names, please. Who are the large shareholders? Don't they all make donations to both sides, just to cover all the bases? BTW, by your broad-brush generalization standard, Trump is a left-wing candidate.

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by vannax

The mortgage meltdown was caused by legislation forcing banks to lend.

Nope. It was caused by the banks waving lots of money at the legislative branch so they'd remove legal limitations on how risky the banks' investments (i.e. things like home mortgage loans) could be.

What America needs is to shrink the federal bureaucracy by about 90%, secure the borders

Do you understand that those two goals are mutually exclusive?

[rupertramjet]

Originally Posted by Dave998

BTW, by your broad-brush generalization standard, Trump is a left-wing candidate.

Along with his mates Attila and Adolf!

[mizlaplan]

Something noticeable at the moment is the title screen on VEF.
Broken-up and blocky.
Gentlemen, batten down the hatches.

[Mal Hombre]

Originally Posted by mizlaplan

Something noticeable at the moment is the title screen on VEF.
Broken-up and blocky.
Gentlemen, batten down the hatches.

I had that last night,I shut down the browser,Re started it,It was back to normal.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by 9876543210

Hillary would only go after them (maybe) if they crash the economy again. But would she put any of those crooks in jail? Probably not. Obama didn't. Why would she? Most of them are personal friends and big donors.

"Put them in jail" is an appealing thing to say, but there's the small question of "for what crime"?

Making a bad loan is not a crime. Nor is a business failure. Nor is raising money from the public for a bad idea.

Right now, the companies that are most likely to go bust are all in the oil patch, and related businesses. They raised lots of money from investors, who have and will lose much of it.

Should that be a crime?

My own sense of Sanders is that while his broader narrative is appealing -- a vague sense that "the system is rigged"-- he has very little understanding of how the American economy works, and no idea of how it might work better.

Both of these things are knowable. There _are_ things we might do to make the economy work better, and be more fair.

Here's one idea, a battle that was fought back in the 1990s: require that all securities transactions take place on exchanges, with full and immediate reporting.

If you watch "The Big Short", you may have noticed that none of the securities that they were trading CDOs, CDSs, were traded on exchanges-- rather, they were being bought directly from banks, with no reporting to anyone else.

People have long suggested that this is a bad idea. It is.

A very simple fix for that problem would be to require exchange trading for everything.

So far as I'm aware, no one takes that position in this campaign.

Sanders also makes the populist mistake of saying "I'll give you this goody and make that bad guy pay for it". This is always misleading. Tax money goes into a big pot and spending comes out of the same big pot.

So Sanders' "Tuition is free, and Wall Street will pay for it", is really deceptive policy.

[Rogerbh]

Have the rating agencies improved since 2008?

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Have the rating agencies improved since 2008?

Yes, they're somewhat better, but they matter much less. They don't have nearly the same business rating obscure bits of financial engineering; the exotic CDO structures that were sold on their ratings are pretty scarce now.

[Trip]

SWAT Police surrounded my apartment building early AM.
As I exited the security gate in my truck they stopped me.
They needed my security pass to enter the building, and held me
to the elevator and security doors for more than 4 entries.
After I told them I would be late for work, they blew that off,
and continued to use me for more access. When they finally cut
me loose, I was more than 20 minutes late for work.
An hour into my work shift got an email from the landlady.
Evidently there was a suicide on the roof gym.