Congressman Joe "I haven't paid my child support" Walsh needs to read up on ectopic pregnancies.
Rep. Joe Walsh: Abortion never saves mom's life
What a moron.
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Congressman Joe "I haven't paid my child support" Walsh needs to read up on ectopic pregnancies.
Rep. Joe Walsh: Abortion never saves mom's life
What a moron.
Last edited by Odin; 10-19-2012 at 09:02 PM.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Chuck Todd works for MSNBC. Nate Silver works for the New York Times. Both are partisan Democrats, although Todd is occasionally, slightly, more intellectually honest than some. For good or ill, RCP just takes the polls and averages them.Originally Posted by Aramea
"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
Let's try it and find out. I'd like to know how much so-called financial investment the taxpayers in young Odin. I know young Odin isn't even close as far as the amount of taxes that he's paid in as me (at his age and currently), my siblings or my mother.
Wow, a strawman and a red herring in a single post.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Strawman, red herring or a challenge? What's your tab? What do/have we subsized? Give me a list and I'll figure out the cost. We can compare your cost to my mothers cost.
Are you sure that you're not describing Unions here?
But you just said you don't consider Social Security to be welfare!? Disability is a small part of it, and most of the people who end up collecting that small part are well in to their careers before they are eligible (ie, the 40 year old construction worker who has a ton of bricks fall on him one day)
You take out that 5% of the 5% and great, you've saved a hundred million each year so some people in a crappy situation end up in an even crappier one. I mean, you're not rushing to trade places with any of them for a little government cheese, are you?
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
Is Odin (welfare folks like Odin) one of them (a construction worker who had a ton of bricks fall on him or a young nurse like my friends wife who can no longer work because she was 90% disabled by a disease like MS or a fifty year old worker like my dad who could no longer work after having a major heart attack)?
Last edited by Classic-X'er; 10-19-2012 at 10:49 PM.
Well halleluja, you might have got past the knee-jerk and got to the evidence.
Yes, but this small difference becomes rather significant within the range of five basis points.I generally see present monetary policy as a "nothing burger" of financial asset swaps that never get into the actual economy; you see it as harmful because it lowers interest rates and that causes commodity prices to rise. I think this difference is I see no transmission mechanism whereas you see the empirical data showing correlation.
But what you call hysteria is what political economists call incentives and market expectations. In non-crisis scenarios, these "psychological" transmission mechanisms aren't done in a panicked rush but rather play out over months and years.What you see is market behavior in reaction to FED moves; I see it as shifts in portfolio preference at best and hysteria at worse. What that boils down to is duration and magnitude of market behavioral responses.
I put psychological in quotes because interest rates do have real meaning to the world of money, even if the world of money is all just kinda made up and in our heads. It is a very real, shared mythology that puts value in to a currency (any currency from beads to gold to dollars to magic pony platinum coins)
Ok, if the ratio holds then each point on the "real interest rate" board is worth about a 6% shift in commodity prices. Basic logarithmic scale.So I believe that yes, the FED actions can and do trigger gyrations in commodity market prices particularly when it acts as an amplifier of organic trends in supply/demand (e.g. China) or other hysteria (e.g. Middle East unrest); I think we're pretty close on that. However, where we differ is I believe it eventually returns to fundamentals including generalized inflation (which is necessary in a healthy growing economy) and doesn’t inflict much damage at the margin where it is responsible for the price change. Example – do people really believe that the price of sanctions on Iran will only be bared by the Iranians??? And if not, what does that have to do with Ben Bernanke?
At an effective interest rate near 0%, commodities are at a long-term equilibrium of about 35% higher than they would be with a real interest rate near 5%. In the short and medium term, they will overshoot these price shocks. Oil is particularly prone to the shocks, so it moves first, overshoots the most, and the rest follow right behind!
Follow the example and now imagine our macro-economy at a 5% interest rate. Gas is suddenly $2.30 a gallon. Milk is $2.50. The costs of the metals in your car drop 35%. The cost of the rare earth elements that make solar technology drop by 35%.
But why, for what? The way household debt is coming down is through foreclosure and short-sale. Evicted ex-homeowners become renters, and they might have less debt but they still have the same out of pocket costs stifling the consumer market. Food, energy, healthcare, etc... all the things that the CPI plainly shows as on an upward trend despite deflation in luxuries... keep squeezing these consumers out of luxury and discretionary markets. Are you starting to see how the low-interest rate cycle keeps getting caught on weak demand in a weak labor market? Again, fiscal policy could probably pull us out of that spiral, but the Fed keeps trying despite it.My key point is the FED is willing to take this risk (you see it as a risk of higher, more permanent damage; I, and I believe the FED, see it as a risk of lower, transitory harm) in order to keep debt servicing as a percent of income as cheap as it possibility can in order to help bring down the still unprecedented levels of household debt.
ANYWAY! Most of the household debt destruction is related to mortgages gone bad. Student loan debt is on an upward curve, credit card debt is bouncing around a fairly steady median, and car loans haven't changed much either. Here's the big problem for the next 10-20 years: Recourse Mortgage States. See, the housing bubble didn't happen in places like Texas where the lender takes responsibility for risk. It happened in places like FL and CA where the borrower takes responsibility. Depending on the state's statute of limitations, a lender who forecloses might have decades to decide to pursue a deficiency judgment - a court order to restore that credit market debt that foreclosure had previously obliterated. Many folks will/have found themselves in the unfortunate position of servicing that old debt and worrying about rent, as well.
But what is the point again? Oh yeah, to ensure the lending of credit to credible borrowers. Except that the only credible borrowers left are the banks themselves, and they're free to play any game they like from owning other corporations, or stockpiles of materials those industries need to operate, or owning the media, or government...
Yeah, right. Remember something: it never takes a conspiracy for people to act in their own perceived interests.With what the FED is doing, I see the bigger risk than commodity bubbles is the possibility of starting another household debt binge that is unsustainable with current wage growth. The farther we get from the lesson of the 2008, the more that risk grows. I think it is unlikely unless we get another era of stupidity of the government letting the financial sector run amok again. You know, like if we had some dude from the financial sector elected President, but what's the chances of that??? Oh wait. Oh shit!
All in all, I would much prefer Ron Paul's (!) suggestion that the FED burn its $1.7 trillion and growing in bond holdings that counts as part of the national debt. Paul sees this as bankruptcy, but once it happens and we get over that stupidity (much like we got over the S&P's downgrade of US debt), maybe we'll also firgure out we need to burn those Social Security Trust bonds and all other such govt trusts where the govt owes itself and counts as part of the US debt. Gee, we just cut the federal debt $5-6 trillion. Maybe then we could put aside all this monetary policy (and, more importantly, t-bagger federal debt stupidity) and start talking about some fiscal policy that would actually get the economy growing robustly. Nay, that would be too easy.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/10...all-their.html
Technically, the member banks of the Federal Reserve are partial owners of the Federal Reserve. They have half the seats on the board, and the other half typically goes to ex-bankers who have political friends because, hey, they're the guys with the experience and knowledge!
So... why in the hell would they have an incentive to burn their stockpile of grade A bonds? That's some hysteria, right there. The prescription is fine, but good luck getting that herd of cats to sit still for the treatment. We don't even have an office or institution capable of making that happen.
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
Dude, I can't tell you. I don't know enough about Odin. I'll tell you what though, I'd hate to be in a situation where I was eligible for any kind of help from the U.S. government. You've gotta be in a pretty crappy place for anything at all to really kick in.
The vast, vast majority of transfer payments are actually Social Security re-payments: benefits to retirees, survivors, dependents, and disabled people who had previously paid in to the system.
Something like food stamps or temporary assistance to needy families is a small, small budget outlay compared to Social Security, the military, and veteran's benefits. Medicare is huge, too, but again, it is mostly going to older people who paid in their entire lives. The main reason it is so out of control is because other market and regulatory factors have combined to make American medical care ridiculously expensive yet slightly less effective than average. Some of that, in turn, comes from our food and agriculture policy... which is influenced by etc., etc., etc...
There's a lot of issues woven together, tangled up in a big mess, and we certainly aren't going to get very far by throwing our society's most vulnerable to the wolves. This is not Sparta and if you wish it was we have the Navy SEALs for you to try out for.
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
That's none of your business and totally irrelevant to what Indie and I were talking about.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Funny you should mention that. Up in Vermont they run the Spartan Death Race every year. There are folks from the special forces community who don't finish.
Last edited by Copperfield; 10-19-2012 at 11:34 PM.
I get only a small bit of SSI now and will be off of it shortly because I'll be working more hours starting in November, supervising the afternoon shift. You make it sound like getting government money is so awesome and everybody wants to do it, which says more about you than anything else.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Even better, you can train part time and play Spartan for one weekend out of the year! No real commitment! It does look really cool, though. The first time I read about that was probably the first time I was interested in any sort of race.
But warriors have kids. They have widows. The lucky & skilled ones have pensions to be paid for. Fighting in the economic jungle or the terrorist infested mountains, sometimes American warriors get unlucky and need a little help before they can get back to the cause. There's a lot of metaphors and things to think about there, but the point is we're better than Sparta, and we're a lot stronger than they ever were.
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 newsmax.com
Obama told a crowd of some 9,000 in the battleground state of Virginia that Romney was backtracking on his conservative-leaning promises.
"He's forgetting what his own positions are, and he's betting that you will, too. I mean, he's changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping, we've gotta ... name this condition that he's going through," Obama said.
"I think it's called Romnesia" he said to hoots and applause from the crowd.
Obama took the riff on amnesia to great length, describing "symptoms" that coincided with Romney's positions on abortion and taxes for the wealthy.
"If you say you'll protect a woman's right to choose, but you stand up at a primary debate and said that you'd be delighted to sign a law outlawing ... that right to choose in all cases — man, you've definitely got Romnesia," he said.
"If you say earlier in the year you're going to give tax cuts for the top 1 percent, and then in a debate you say, 'I don't know anything about giving tax cuts to rich folks,' you need to get a thermometer, take your temperature, because you've probably got Romnesia."
Really? Why? Cause we're so good at creating bad TV and cronic health conditions? Sparta at least knew exactly what it stood for. What do you suppose America (fuck yeah!) stands for these days?
I'm a US/State of Minnesota taxpayer which makes it my business and it's relevant to our (Ours as in your's and Indie's...and me) discussion.
America still stands for freedom! Fuck yeah!
From Odin's posts, I know he's working and doing what he can to support himself. He has a damn job.
The truth of the matter is that most of your (and my) state and federal dollars don't go toward Odin or anyone in his situation, which is temporary. So he needs a hand up. In the long run, he'll be paying in like the rest of us, because the vast majority of people do--even if you speyshul people don't like to acknowledge it.
It is so tiresome to listen to people bitch about taxes when they're lower now than anything my GI parents paid and paid willingly. What a bunch of entitled wimps. Like you suffer so much. You ::sniff:: work so hard. What a bore.
Look where all this talking got us.
Damn I love that song. Great album, but I really, really love that song.
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
There is a political downside to dumping the cross-generational debt that we "use" to fund pensions. Right now, it may be the only thing that is keepping SS viable as a concept. Sure, older folks see value, since they are already or will soon be collecting. The young, not so much. If you pull away the debt prop, and the young say, "Hey, this is unfair because I have to pay for all this now, but I'll never see my kids or their kids doing it. Let's just kill this, and try something else." Except, there is no "something else".... All in all, I would much prefer Ron Paul's (!) suggestion that the FED burn its $1.7 trillion and growing in bond holdings that counts as part of the national debt. Paul sees this as bankruptcy, but once it happens and we get over that stupidity (much like we got over the S&P's downgrade of US debt), maybe we'll also firgure out we need to burn those Social Security Trust bonds and all other such govt trusts where the govt owes itself and counts as part of the US debt. Gee, we just cut the federal debt $5-6 trillion. Maybe then we could put aside all this monetary policy (and, more importantly, t-bagger federal debt stupidity) and start talking about some fiscal policy that would actually get the economy growing robustly. Nay, that would be too easy.
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2012/10...all-their.html
Once the Trust Fund is zeroed-out (even agreeing that this is not an actual destruction of wealth), and the program is ended, how can it be restarted when it becomes obvious why it exists in the first place.
Extremely risky!
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.
I've read that something like 80% of Aspies are unemployed. And folks like KIA, Glick, and Wallace dare accuse ME of being a lazy slacker? I HAVE a fucking job! I pay sales taxes and FICA.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Note that I said RIGHT-Libertarians, I don't consider you a Right-Libertarian, I put you in the Left-Libertarian category with Justin and Rags.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Thanks.
If I ever made one I would put that album on my top 10 albums of the 1990's list. And the song White Discussion may be my favorite individual song from the 1990's.
It fits so many topical situations such as above.:
