Questions for our American friends

[rlg118]

News flash: It ain't supposed to be easy to pass laws. This is why the government was set up with checks and balances.

Regarding filibusters, this is another one of those tools which helps prevent the majority from riding roughshod over the minority - it gives those with less popular views a sense that they have some power after all. Any filibuster "reform" would be available to everyone, if passed. Whatever powers you give to one side are available, at some future time, to the other as well.

Be careful what you wish for. You just may get it.

[theequestrian]

News Flash (addendum): No it shouldn't be easy to pass legislation. It should however, at least be POSSIBLE to pass legislation. This is currently not the case. These are the same schmucks with diametrically opposed ideologies who spent time on the floor debating - among other truly pressing matters - changing the name of 'French Fries' to 'Freedom Fries' in the congressional dining room (Because the French had the unmitigated audacity to tell us that invading Iraq would devolve into a nightmare) and attempting to repeal 'Obamacare' with - at the current count - 30 separate votes (None of which had ANY chance whatsoever of overturning the legislation, and were brought to the floor for the sole purpose of currying votes with the conservative constituency)

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by rlg118

News flash: It ain't supposed to be easy to pass laws. This is why the government was set up with checks and balances.

Regarding filibusters, this is another one of those tools which helps prevent the majority from riding roughshod over the minority - it gives those with less popular views a sense that they have some power after all. Any filibuster "reform" would be available to everyone, if passed. Whatever powers you give to one side are available, at some future time, to the other as well.

Be careful what you wish for. You just may get it.

The filibuster is not in the Constitution, its a Senate rule. The Senate may change their rules at any time.

There has to be a balance between "checks and balances" and the ability to get things done. As deployed by the Republicans in 2009 and 2010, the Senate became a body which required 60 votes to do anything. The Constitution says that a Bill should pass the Senate with a majority vote, and not require a supermajority.

The folks who wrote the Constitution did require supermajorities for specifically enumerated things, for example Impeachment.

One then does wonder on what basis we require supermajorities for measures which those who wrote the Constitution did not require them for?

[DTravel]

Originally Posted by haroldeye

Were I an American I would have voted Obama. I would have voted for him because I think he was the least worse choice. I think your politicians of whatever persuasion, are just as incompetent mean minded and grasping as politicians in every country in the world (especially ours).

It would appear that you voted for him because you hate the republicans.

You are aware that the Republican party under President Bush forced thru, against all advice from everyone who had a clue about economics, the deregulation that allowed the banks to sell and bundle the very high risk mortgages whose failure was the trigger for the current recession, right?

[gtos4ever]

Originally Posted by DTravel

You are aware that the Republican party under President Bush forced thru, against all advice from everyone who had a clue about economics, the deregulation that allowed the banks to sell and bundle the very high risk mortgages whose failure was the trigger for the current recession, right?

While Gramm-Leach-Billey (repealing Glass-Steagall)was authored by Republicans it was heartily endorsed by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and signed by Clinton, not Bush. G-L-B also expanded (at Democrat insistence)the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977(Carter's pet project) which 'encouraged' banks to make mortgages available to low and middle income borrowers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E...nancial_crisis

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by gtos4ever

While Gramm-Leach-Billey (repealing Glass-Steagall)was authored by Republicans it was heartily endorsed by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and signed by Clinton, not Bush. G-L-B also expanded (at Democrat insistence)the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977(Carter's pet project) which 'encouraged' banks to make mortgages available to low and middle income borrowers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E...nancial_crisis

The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act separating investment banking from hight street retail banking was a catastrophic mistake; hardly anyone questions this now. As far as I know, the leading miscreants (thats President Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Rubin, as well as Senators Gramm, Leach and Bliley (what a name for a bent firm of solicitors that could make)) have never even commented of the denoement of their de-regulatory masterstroke, let alone apologised. At the time, deregulation was all the fashion, and regulatory frameworks were an impediment to generating profits. Both sides of the political argument had swallowed that hook, line and sinker, and all over the developed world the story was much the same, that regulation was automatically wrong and suspect.

Now we know different; but no credible replacement for Glass-Steagall has been enacted. The banking system is integral to the existence of modern trade, so it had to be bailed out using money which will ultimately all be replaced from the pockets of ordinary people. Yet what will stop a direct repetition of the false accounting, concealed losses and reckless, greedy gambling with other peoples' chips which happened before? Recent stories such as the rogue trader unmasked at UBS indicate that the structural problems remain, such as the sociopathic selfishness of key staff, who don't care what the risks are to others but simply want to maximise their own bonuses, and ineffective supervision by higher management and by regulators who do not understand the activities on the trading floor, what is being traded or how. I have not yet heard any reason why this disaster will not happen again, not 80 years from now, but next year, next month or tomorrow.

The USA needs a re-acted Glass-Steagall Act and the UK needs a similar statute to seperate merchant and retail banking by law. We will not get one because influential vested interests are opposed to it. We might get such safeguards one day, when a fresh banking collapse requires a fresh bailout and politicians who promised these safeguards (Mr Obama, that includes you) and did not deliver them are required to explain their conduct, hopefully just before they are sentenced to a firing squad. But that is an optimistic hope.

[haroldeye]

Seems that people a lot more knowledgeable than me blame that nice Mr Clinton not the Republicans. Sort of backs up my assertion.

[scoundrel]

Galanthus Nivalis.



Galanthus Nivalis in situ at Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk, UK.


The common snowdrop is an exquisitely beautiful thing and in most years it is the first flower of spring; in fact it flowers in late winter. It used to emerge in early February, but these days it emerges in early to mid-January, which suggests climate change to me.

What is the first flower of spring in the United States? Presumably, it differs depending on where you live in the country.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by DTravel

You are aware that the Republican party under President Bush forced thru, against all advice from everyone who had a clue about economics, the deregulation that allowed the banks to sell and bundle the very high risk mortgages whose failure was the trigger for the current recession, right?

Well, Bush didn't discourage it, and more importantly neither did Greenspan or other regulators

But CDOs had been around since the start of the 1980s, iirc. Among other things, it was irresponsible lending and insane leverage of banks that made so many of them 'toxic' 25 years later

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Galanthus Nivalis.



Galanthus Nivalis in situ at Walsingham Abbey, Norfolk, UK.


The common snowdrop is an exquisitely beautiful thing and in most years it is the first flower of spring; in fact it flowers in late winter. It used to emerge in early February, but these days it emerges in early to mid-January, which suggests climate change to me.

What is the first flower of spring in the United States? Presumably, it differs depending on where you live in the country.

Ah, the common snowdrop. A beautiful flower and it pains me to call it "common". Here, in the Washington DC area, we usually see the crocus come up first followed by the daffodil. The snowdrop isn't that common in the area although some people have planted them. At my old house in Virginia I had creeping phlox planted which always bloomed before the crocus.

There are others but I can't remember their names and to see them you have to go to one of the big gardens. The National Arboretum is my personal favorite.