A lot (if not nearly a majority) of my right-leaning peers support either Johnson or Paul and find Romney unpalatable. They're the future of the Republican party, and either the Republicans will adapt, or the Libertarians will emerge.Originally Posted by The Rani
~Chas'88
"There have always been people who say: "The war will be over someday." I say there's no guarantee the war will ever be over. Naturally a brief intermission is conceivable. Maybe the war needs a breather, a war can even break its neck, so to speak. But the kings and emperors, not to mention the pope, will always come to its help in adversity. ON the whole, I'd say this war has very little to worry about, it'll live to a ripe old age."
Ok, so should they be faux people themselves? Why?
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Right now, your friends represent the future of the Libertarian party.
... except, of course, a party dedicated to individualism and freedom has no buil-in organizational mechanism. In fact, electoral success might be the end of the party.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
Built-in organizational mechanisms are overrated. Ad hoc has the virtue of better accord with the way the world and people and things in it actually operate.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela, la loi ? On peut donc être dehors. Je ne comprends pas. Quant à moi, suis-je dans la loi ? suis-je hors la loi ? Je n'en sais rien. Mourir de faim, est-ce être dans la loi ?" -- Tellmarch
"Человек не может снять с себя ответственности за свои поступки." - L. Tolstoy
"[it] is no doubt obvious, the cult of the experts is both self-serving, for those who propound it, and fraudulent." - Noam Chomsky
To deal with climate change, there needs to be some kind of regulation of the fossil fuel industry, and in fact a rapid transition away from that industry toward renewable sources. Tax, credits, regulations, innovation by new companies; whatever works or whatever can be agreed to.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 10-18-2012 at 12:39 PM.
It may be true that people have predispositions in certain directions. I have always been a liberal since I had any opinions. I tend to be an idealist who is on the side of the rebels against authority, and I know that authority is not limited to what is called "government," but also applies to "the bosses" or "the traditional family" or "traditional religion" and other kinds of narrow mindedness (later including the scientific kind), etc. etc. But other people have shifted their "mentality" a lot more than I have, and young people tend to shift more than older people-- and if older people shift it tends to be to the right.
This is a dangerous aspect of idealist thinking. "Whatever it takes, even if the agreement we can reach doesn't actually address the problem, at least we got an agreement."
The carbon credit scam is the worst of cynical politics. The favored plan is to entitle current producers of pollution to an allowance of future pollution, essentially enshrining "too big to fail" and promises of subsidy for corporations causing the most environmental damage up until now.
It further fails to address emissions of ozone, carbon monoxide, mercury, PCBs, etc... and only creates an incentive for polluters to avoid producing one of the less dangerous emissions.
Soon, solar will make CO2 based fuels fairly obsolete, but a cap and trade system might just be going online at that time.
- Too Big To Fail financial policy: Protecting the ultra-rich and securing their future
- Obamacare: Protecting the corporate middle-man
- Cap & Trade: Protecting the worst polluters from competition & liability
That is the tripe crown of the corporate takeover... Now if we can just gut those benefits our payroll taxes have been funding, the workers and citizens of this once-great nation would be utterly at the mercy of the largest corporations!
Last edited by JohnMc82; 10-18-2012 at 12:59 PM.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
"The Republican Party had better change" is a mantra of the left. In reality, there are multiple variables. There is nothing more uncool among 20-somethings than being a Republican. It was that way for Xers, heavily that way for Boomers, and so on. As people get older, they become more conservative. While the Republicans must change, will change, and have been changing because of the Tea Party movement and the arrival of Generation X, they will not become the Libertarian Party. Libertarian purists will never be satisfied with anything else. And they definitely will not become what the Democrats want them to become.
Meanwhile Ruy Texiera (the author of "The Emerging Democratic Majority"), is slowly accepting the reality that "demographic destiny" means nothing if your economic policies don't work.
All of the various issues that politicians and activists flail around about mean nothing if the economy is bad. The only reason the "culture wars" could take on such significance is because the economy was extremely strong from 1983-2008 (the downward slide really started in 2000 when the dot com bubble burst, but it wasn't until 2008 that it finally hit home).
The only issue that rivals the economy is war (but still in second place). Part of the reason that Ronald Reagan was so successful and so popular was that he and other Republicans had learned from Viet Nam, and wanted to avoid more wars at all costs. Hopefully the Republicans will have learned that lesson again. Even though they'll always be tougher on national security, putting soldiers on the ground has to be an absolute last resort. The public doesn't much mind bombing, as proved by Reagan's action in Libya, Clinton's action in Bosnia, and the various bombings of Saddam Hussein. The first Gulf War was popular because it was limited, and over quickly. Republicans had been against "nation building" until George W. Bush changed it. If the Republicans are smart they'll keep all of that in mind. I strongly doubt they'll go for any more ground wars any time soon.
Long story short though: "It's the economy, stupid".
"I see you got your fist out, say your peace and get out. Yeah I get the gist of it, but it's alright." - Jerry Garcia, 1987
"Capital requirements" are not the same thing as "reserve requirements." Capital requirements are mostly about deposits and assets owned. The thing is once a bank is of sufficient size, it really doesn't give a darn about how much deposits it has when making or not making a loan; once a bank reaches a certain size, it really doesn’t lend out its deposits. Again, the only thing that drives a bank lending officer to make a loan is finding a willing and credible borrower, period; adjusting for capital and reserve requirements not only comes later but its done by a different bank department and usually automatically by computers. Something that comes first is not dependent on what comes later.
Just as an aside, what the bank does when it issues a loan is it creates new money. It's double entry accounting - it credits the borrower's account while simultaneously assigning the borrower with a financial liability. Bank deposits or reserves are NOT lent out. When the borrower pays the loan off, the money returns to the ether from which is was originally issued. The difference is the interest that has to be paid on the loan; where does that come from? This is where people like Steve Keen freaks out about the banks eventually soaking up every dollar in the economy because of the interest that has to be paid. He forgets that there is an entity, the federal govt, that can put new dollars into the economy for people to obtain and among many other things use that money to pay banks the interest on the loans they took out. This is a long and somewhat advanced topic that we have not yet arrived at; I just mention it now to give you a sense of where the rabbit hole leads if you're willing to take the "red pill."
With QEs, we are talking about increased bank reserves as a result of their selling securities to the FED and the conjecture that banks then turn around and lend those increased bank reserves to your "Fund Managers and such." Both borrowers and lenders are important but the guy with da money usually calls the shots. Do you have any shred of evidence that the banks have increased their lending to "Fund Managers and such?"
I'm not asking if oil, gold, stock prices have gone up, I'm asking for evidence of the transfer mechanism of bank lending their increased reserves to "fund managers and such" who then bided up those asset prices.
If you can't show that mechanism, then maybe there's something else going on?
You seem to almost get there with this -
but here's where you go off-track -.. I'm not even implying that there is "more capital" in the System. I am saying that many of these Asset Prices are higher than they would be without some of the Fed Policies
that ARE INTENDED to push capital(eg: sidelined capital) out along the Risk Curve.
Take the red pill and you'll come to it - the FED doesn't give a shit about pushing the risk curve. Two reasons why. First, the FED knows the world is full of mostly clueless people who are going to do what they are going to do.... and 99% of them will loss their asses doing it. For better (i.e. wealth effect) or worst (i.e. collapsing bubbles), however, who cares? That's not the important reason for the FED.
The real reason is that the FED is focused on something else; and, everything other than that something else is just collateral damage/benefit to a relatively insignificant part of the population. You know what the FED’s real focus is? Pssss, it’s reducing the cost of debt service. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out why; it’s just a lot of hooey gets in the way of seeing the simple truth.
What especially confuses this for most people (particularly the truly clueless still looking for inflation-just-around-the-corner) is the inability to discern the different types of inflation and their unique causes. Anyone who thinks gas prices are up at the pump because of Ben Bernanke’s QEs is someone who is overdosing on the “Blue Pill.”
Of course, you start thinking about this stuff too much, then this guy will show up at your door –
"Hello, Mr Anderson, have you been sufficiently adding your voice to the inflaiton/big govt hysteria?"
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
Yesterday Gallup was at Romney +6. Today (now including the first day of post-debate polling) it's Romney +7. And Romney is at 52%, the first time either candidate has been over 50. There are also indications that the Obama campaign is abandoning VA, FL and NC, and falling back to IA, NH, OH and NV as their last stand.
"I see you got your fist out, say your peace and get out. Yeah I get the gist of it, but it's alright." - Jerry Garcia, 1987
Funny tweet
Only a Democrat could prevent a depression, end a war, get bin Laden and double the Dow then be told he can't run on his record.
— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) October 17, 2012
- but unfortunately all too true and telling of how many idiots there are in the US.
I like his inspirational poster as well -
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
You really only have the foggiest clue of what you're talking about. You keep retreading the basics that aren't in debate, misrepresenting the statements of those who understand more than you, and you manage to do it all with the most condescending tone I've ever heard.
"Arrogance and ignorance go in hand"
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
From the Gallup crosstabs:
Obama Romney Margin East 52 48 O+4 Midwest 52 48 O+4 South 39 61 R+22 West 53 47 O+6
Romney could be 90% in the south but it wouldn't win him the election.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
Chas might be right, but chalk up another sensible post for JPT.
Come to think of it, wasn't it Chas who told me it wasn't the only one?
What I notice for sure, is there are a hell of a lot more Libertarians and libertarian-leaning folks online than in society as a whole. Is that because they tend to be younger?
Last edited by Eric the Green; 10-18-2012 at 01:38 PM.
The South is certainly the Achilles Heel of our country. We'd be so much better off without it.
Gallup is still the outlier. We'll see if that continues.
Where are you getting those numbers? They appear to come from this desperate and poorly-reasoned blog post on Daily Kos. If you really want to believe that Romney could win the popular vote by 7% and lose the electoral college...I don't know what to tell you.
Furthermore, I see Democrats bringing up this line of reasoning all the time, but it's counter-factual. It is the Democrats whose popular vote margins are more heavily concentrated in small geographic areas. Specifically, in places like NYC, Chicago, L.A., etc.
And furthermore, the South includes VA, FL and NC, states Obama won in 2008. Bottom line, if Gallup's numbers are correct, Romney will win the electoral college by roughly the same margin Obama did in 2008. He will win Ohio and probably take NV, WI, IA, NH and maybe more.
"I see you got your fist out, say your peace and get out. Yeah I get the gist of it, but it's alright." - Jerry Garcia, 1987
http://www.gallup.com/poll/158048/ro...ly-voters.aspx
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
This is why it is likely for Obama to get re-elected at the same time Republicans retain the House.
Ok, but Romney isn't winning by 15 in FL, NC, and VA. He's winning those by 1 or 2 (within the margin of error) and dominating by 30 in Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. It's no contest in places with the highest rates of religious fundamentalism, obesity, and the lowest rates of education.And furthermore, the South includes VA, FL and NC, states Obama won in 2008. Bottom line, if Gallup's numbers are correct, Romney will win the electoral college by roughly the same margin Obama did in 2008. He will win Ohio and probably take NV, WI, IA, NH and maybe more.
Maybe you and Ferris skipped too many classes on politics?
Last edited by JohnMc82; 10-18-2012 at 02:18 PM.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
I think you're starting to crack up. I could say worse things about CA, which has 12% of the nation's population and went for Obama by 24 points in 2008, but I won't.
What you would know if you took "classes on politics" is that electoral votes are assigned by congressional districts, which are assigned by population. Even though most states are winner-take-all, the fact that the voting population is split up into 50 subdivisions, with electoral votes according to their population, is enough to ensure that a different outcome between the electoral college and the popular vote is only possible in an election so close and so unlikely that it has only happened once in 56 tries. If Romney wins the popular vote by 7 points, he will win all or most of the current toss-up states.
Last edited by JustPassingThrough; 10-18-2012 at 02:31 PM.
"I see you got your fist out, say your peace and get out. Yeah I get the gist of it, but it's alright." - Jerry Garcia, 1987
It showed a revealing difference between Boomers and Xers. Boomers, although older, were at 50-50 in this poll from a few days ago, while Xers gave Romney +10, 55-45. So, the more idealistic generation is keeping more of its original liberal preference so far. That could bode well for the Millies also keeping more of their liberal preference as they age, as they have so far in this poll. And keep in mind that right now this Gallup poll is still a Pro-Romney outlier.
No, it happened four times IIRC: 2000, 1888, 1876, and 1824. If the Republicans come close, they can also cheat and win that way, as they did in 2000 and 2004. btw all four of these electoral college wins were Republican/conservative wins. So if it is reversed for Obama in 2012, that would be a change. It would certainly show the power of a demented South to tip the popular vote of the country.
But I agree, if Romney maintains a 7 point lead nationally, he won't be able to hold onto the lead in the close swing states.
Edit: What amazes me is that some swing voters can find Romney unattractive for most of a year, and then on the basis of one performance suddenly find him acceptable and continue to do so for 15 days. Will he really maintain this, despite Obama's improved performances, his own declining performances, and an improving economy, over the next 20 days?
The horror of another Republican takeover is pretty hard to contemplate, I must admit. After all we went through.
Last edited by Eric the Green; 10-18-2012 at 03:05 PM.
You're the perfect example of why I clued Princeofcats in that this was a sensitive topic for many - that recognizing the reality of our monetary system is not really as much an intellectual exercise as it is an emotional one. Most people and entire economic schools (e.g. Monetarist to Austrians) have been brainwashed for decades with false mythology, and when someone points that out, their coping mechanism for trying to defend their crumbling worldview is to lash out with personal attacks rather than attempt any rational counter-argument because, well, they don't have one.
I know this is exceedingly difficult for you, Indy. The MMT community is full of former Austrians and they often talk about how very difficult it was for them to let go of such myths as fractional reserve banking or that smug feeling of pounding the table as the only one in the room that grasps that hyperinflation-is-just-around-the-corner. But not one of these former Austrians regrets taking the "Red Pill" and they do bring to the community some valuable insights.
Rather than do the usual personal attack, please try a cogent counter-argument again. I know your last attempt ended in defeat (there is no alternative ending), but it probable is the primary route most have taken, including myself (I went kicking and screaming), to finally arrive at reality. I know it's difficult, but I’m sure you too, if you make it, will be glad you did.... maybe even thank me.
Last edited by playwrite; 10-18-2012 at 04:43 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service
“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke
"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman
If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite
California has its own pathologies, but having spent my entire life south of the Mason Dixon I'm more familiar with the local ones. Where else do you get people who honestly believe God created the world as it is 6,000 years ago, or that dinosaur bones are a trap set by the devil to lead innocents in to the sin of believing evolution?
The refusal to accept facts isn't limited to biology, and it is worn as a badge of pride.
Oh, Bush spent trillions on the national credit card then bolted out the door with his friends? Better blame Obama for stabilizing the economic chaos Bush left behind!
Republicans haven't tried to outlaw abortion in 30 years of campaigning on it? Well, if we elect them again, I'm sure they'll do it this time!
Republicans explode the deficit to pay for their tax cuts and wars? This guy is different and he'll totally balance the budget without giving us details of the plan. Sure.
See, I don't think all conservatives are bad people. Most of them have really high ideals and an optimistic outlook on the world. But they're starting to sound like that doe-eyed lover who keeps going back to an abusive spouse. "I know they've broken promises in the past and treated me wrong, but this time is different!"
Ok, but how many of the elections have come down to such a wide regional gap? It can be as unlikely as you want without context, but we have a specific context to work with here. The states Romney are currently leading in are blowouts, but they don't offer many electoral votes.What you would know if you took "classes on politics" is that electoral votes are assigned by congressional districts, which are assigned by population. Even though most states are winner-take-all, the fact that the voting population is split up into 50 subdivisions, with electoral votes according to their population, is enough to ensure that a different outcome between the electoral college and the popular vote is only possible in an election so close and so unlikely that it has only happened once in 56 tries. If Romney wins the popular vote by 7 points, he will win all or most of the current toss-up states.
Those words, "temperate and moderate", are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
'82 - Once & always independent
