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US Politics: YOUTUBE LINKS OR GTFO


Martell Spy

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3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-challenges-governing-presidency-234879

WHITE HOUSE
Trump vexed by challenges, scale of government
The new president’s allies say he has been surprised that government can’t be run like his business.


Inside the protest movement that has Republicans reeling
A group of former House Democratic staffers wanted to channel their post-election grief. They never imagined what would happen next.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/protest-movement-republicans-234863

Really? Bankruptcy as a business practice doesn't work when running a country? Learn something new every day. 

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12 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Y'all are missing my point.  The scientific consensus is correct until it is incorrect.  As such it is absolutely right and proper for scientists who disagree with that concensus to speak about their disagreement.  To say otherwise is to reject the scientific method.

Another example. Scientific concensus was that the expansion of the Universe was slowing until it was shown that it was accelerating.  That will be considered true unless someone shows that data or the analysis of that data to be faulty.  The Scientific Method demands falsification.

Then go ahead with that, but that's not what people who challenge climate change do. They don't demand falsification, they demand we ignore the facts. And yes that includes people who go "well we don't know the exact effect humans are having."

The scientific method is to go where the data points, it is not to disagree for the sake of disagreeing.

Beyond that, climate theory is not fucking spontaneous generation. It is not going to be proven wrong. CO2 causes warming, that's physics a fourth grader can prove. At most we will, like with Newtonian physics, find some areas to be filled in. But it is still an accurate working model that we can us. Waiting until we find something better is like waiting until the new bomb shelter is complete instead of heading for the older one even as the bomb is falling.

4 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

This guy would still be included on the believer side, when those claims about 90whatever percent of scientists believe in climate change. 

There seems to be some meaning hijacking attempt going on with the phrase "climate change" 

Changes happen in climate regardless of cause. Everyone pretty much believes we've had ice ages and such, Democrats arent smarter than anyone here. 

There's a new attempt to redefine climate change as changes directly caused by humans. I think science (or someone) should more properly make these differences in thought more apparent.

The term you are looking for is anthropogenic climate change. And scientists regularly use it. Then climate "skeptics" cry conspiracy as using a more accurate term is somehow proof of something, just like the supposed change from global warming to climate change.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/09/gop-preparing-plan-to-gut-consumer-finance-protection-bureau-roll-back-wall-street-reform/

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The memo obtained by The Washington Post offers the first peek into Republican plans to ease regulations big banks have been subject to since 2010's Dodd-Frank Act. Sent to other members of the Financial Services Committee on Monday, it outlines changes to legislation Hensarling (R-Tex.) initially proposed last year, known as the Financial Choice Act. That version of the legislation was immediately denounced by advocacy groups; it is now being revised in light of President Trump's call for sweeping changes to the way the financial system is regulated.

The Republican Party has done a lot of hatin on Dodd-Frank. I think it’s a bit appropriate to return the favor and do a bit of hatin on what appears to be the main Republican alternative, which is Jeb Hensarling’s Financial Bomb, oops I mean “Choice”, Act. Though it doesn’t seem to me that the “Choice”Act gives us peasants a lot of choices, unless standing in the unemployment line is a “choice”,though it probably increases the choices for Wall Street Bankers by a wide margin I’d imagine.

Dodd-Frank hardly perfect and there are some areas that could be improved. But, once again, we’re in a situation where the Republican alternative is likely worse. But, at least the Republican alternative, with Dodd-Frank, isn’t largely non-existent, like say the Republican Plan with respect to the ACA, where they have no utter clue what they are doing or what they are going to do.

The upshot of the Financial Bomb Act, oops I meant Financial Choice Act, is that lending institutions can escape the provisions of Dodd-Frank by meeting a simple leverage ratio of 10%.

Obviously, having a capital buffer is important for banks so that they have the resources to handle any financial shock, without going to the public looking for a bailout. Or least make bailouts less likely and smaller.

Another key provision of the Financial Bomb Act, oops damn I slipped up again I meant “Choice” Act, would be to send all failing financial institutions to bankruptcy court, under a new bankruptcy code meant specially for financial institutions, evidently

Even if we were to accept the leverage ratio as being the only metric to monitor or care about, Hensarling’s proposed 10% leverage ratio is too low. The Minnesota Plan To End Too Big To Fail recommends a leverage ratio of 15% (but it also retains some key concepts from Dodd-Frank, like living wills and stress test, and keeps the Risk Weighted Assets concept). Anat Admati, who perhaps is the strongest proponent of a simple leverage ratio believes it should be around 30%.

It’s true that Dodd-Frank seemingly has a lower Leverage Ratio (at 6%), but the Leverage Ratio isn’t the only metric that Dodd-Frank uses. For instance, it uses things like like liquidity coverage ratios and risk weighted assets.

Liquidity coverage ratios are important because during a financial shock lending institutions would have to convert their assets into money to pay off short term creditors. This would obviously be more difficult to do if a lending institution’s assets were mostly illiquid.

From a theoretical, standpoint, risk weighting is sound as some financial assets are more risky than others and accordingly it doesn’t make sense to treat every asset or asset class as being the same. But risk weighting in practice is complicated because it’s not always easy to determine in practice. And having a too low denominator can give the appearance of having sufficient capital, which may not be the case. Hence critics say that using a simple leverage is easier and more efficient. However, making a simple liquidity ratio calculation isn’t so simple either. Mainly because it is often dependent on accounting choices. And banks can game the the liquidity ratio by investing in riskier assets.

In reality both leverage ratios and risk weighting are probably needed. For one, it’s hard to game one ratio with making the other look worse.

Other than using one simple metric to gauge a lending institution’s ability to withstand a financial shock(and again, if that is the only metric in use, it’s likely too low), the other problem with Hensarling’s Plan is that it likely isn’t credible, in the sense, it will end “too big to fail”. While sending troubled institutions to bankruptcy court is the preferred method (which Dodd-Frank acknowledges, despite what conservatives may say), the fact is that it may not be possible that every failed institution can be sent to bankruptcy court during a financial crises. Particularly if those failed institutions are large and very interconnected. The freeze up of those institutions assets during a bankruptcy proceeding, while a financial crises is unfolding could prove to be disastrous. In such a situation, politicians might feel compelled to get another bailout. And if the people that run lending institutions know that the idea of sending every institution to bankruptcy proceedings isn’t credible, then the Wall Street crowd may very well engage in risky behavior, knowing that a bailout would likely be forthcoming.

In short, Hensarling’s Plan seemingly suffers from a time inconsistency problem.

Now Dodd-Frank tries to deal with these issue by 1) living wills and 2) the Ordinary Liquidation Authority. Now, I think there are some decent arguments that these things may not get the job done. In fact, the whole idea of no bailouts may not even be realistic. And if that is the case, then maybe the best solution is just to start focusing on getting the SIFI’s to slim down, by imposing higher capital requirements or taxes.

Living Wills make lending institutions plan their own death, so to speak. They are likely to make bankruptcy proceedings go faster and more orderly, making the use of bankruptcy court more likely. Hensarling’s plan would make it possible for SIFI’s from having to do them. In the case that bankruptcy proceedings aren’t doable, the living wills would likely be helpful in order to wind up failed institutions under the Orderly Liquidation Authority.

The Orderly Liquidation Authority is the last line of defense in those situations that bankruptcy court isn’t appropriate. It gives government regulators one more tool. Conservative critics will argue that the Orderly Liquidation Authority will perpetuate bailouts. Well maybe. But, I’m pretty sure the “bankruptcy only” option, particularly without living wills, will in fact perpetuate bailouts. I don’t think we can be extremely confident that even a new bankruptcy code, written specifically for financial institutions, will be able to handle all situations, particularly during a financial crises when things are happening extremely fast. If we truly can’t defeat bailouts, then perhaps the wisest thing to do is just to encourage SIFI’s to get smaller.

And lets remember some context here. Republicans have been saying that Dodd-Frank has been killing lending. But, that doesn’t seem to show up in the data very well. And to some extent the whole point of Dodd-Frank was to restrain lending growth a bit by getting rid of risky practices.

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I agree.  You see my point.  My frustration is that when someone points out contradictory data or says this is going to be difficult to predict due to the increible complexity of the issue, with data, they are accused of "denialism". 

But you didn't provide any contradictory data, nor did you merely focus on how difficult it is to make predictions. What you did was (in a nutshell) say the issue is too complex to really know anything for certain, thus sowing doubt about the scientific concensus. Now you're even debating the very nature of a scientific concensus.
That's exactly what denialism is. To suggest there is far more doubt than there really is, often by using pseudo-scientific arguments. Then muddying the waters to obscure -for instance- the difference between a prediction and an analysis. Next you might be trying to argue about what the word "theory" is supposed to mean.
No offense, but that's all bullshit, and I'm sure that on some level you know that. To some extent it's the same reasoning used to debate climate change, evolution, the age of the Earth or whatever truth is inconvenient. The first step is always to cast doubt on the science. The second step is to pretend the doubt is enough to debunk the scientific theory and thus that other theories are perfectly valid.
If you keep it up I'll have to call you Dr Banjo... (vimeo: /73449483)

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Presumably we all have seen more than one article that describes the contraction already being felt in the very many businesses and industries that depend on corporate / tourist travel?  Article such as this one -- which is, ahem, behind the NY Times pay wall, so do as you will with that info:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/business/trumps-travel-ban-hits-close-to-home-for-corporate-travelers.html

There are a lot of links within that article. 

The point, however, is this affects very seriously very many of these 'red' states, which would include Utah and Florida.  Literally, the jobs of very many of the residents depend on these big corporate international conventions and tourism.

 

 

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Within the debate going on here about whether or not climate change impacts political and other violence: what is being left out is that many of those responsible for the 'official' line of climate change denial etc. taking place BECAUSE of human impacts of fossil fuels and the rest, do in reality know it's true and believe it.  They are buying up as much of the water and arable lands as they can, while investing in renewable energy technologies, but in the MEANTIME PLAN TO CASH OUT AS BIG AS THEY CAN UNTIL THE UTTER COLLAPSE OF ALL DENIAL AND THUS COLLAPSE OF THE OIL, ETC. INDUSTRIES.  It is the most utterly cynical and ruthless and inhumane strategy ever, even beating out the Hansa League way back when.

Also this is a way to deal with the overpopulation of the planet -- all these deaths from starvation -- for which, of course then, their hands are clean.  Because of course we cannot even mention that the world over populated and we need to reduce it.  Without these methods of course, the only other ways to reduce population is birth control and women's civil liberties and we cannot have that because it violates religious and individual rights.  Though yah, it's OK to have millions and billions starve, die of heat and cold, and even more quickly from having no decent water to drink.  That's religious and respectful of individual civil liberties all right.

Overpopulation is the elephant in the room in all these discussions and never mentioned for the above reasons.  That is the real denial one may well think.  It's not much leap from not enough living wage jobs to go around, as in Egypt, to too many people, period.

 

 

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That was the Bush era thing. Team Bush said they were sceptical of climate change, refused to implement Kyoto etc, and then after leaving office they turned round and admitted they lied for political and commercial purposes. We'll be seeing something very similar here.

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Serious question: Has Trump signed any bills from Congress yet? 

By this point, the last several Presidents have all gotten at least semi-major pieces of legislation completed. Trump hasn't gotten any yet; but beyond that I'm not sure if he's actually signed anything at all. I know there was that bill using the Congressional Review Act to roll-back Obama's coal regulations, but did Trump ever actually sign it? If so, that's one; but has there been anything else?

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Just now, Fez said:

Serious question: Has Trump signed any bills from Congress yet? 

By this point, the last several Presidents have all gotten at least semi-major pieces of legislation completed. Trump hasn't gotten any yet; but beyond that I'm not sure if he's actually signed anything at all. I know there was that bill using the Congressional Review Act to roll-back Obama's coal regulations, but did Trump ever actually sign it? If so, that's one; but has there been anything else?

I don't believe so. It's been EO madness since the inauguration. Congress? We don't need no steenkin' Congress... 

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31 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Presumably we all have seen more than one article that describes the contraction already being felt in the very many businesses and industries that depend on corporate / tourist travel?  Article such as this one -- which is, ahem, behind the NY Times pay wall, so do as you will with that info:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/business/trumps-travel-ban-hits-close-to-home-for-corporate-travelers.html

There are a lot of links within that article. 

The point, however, is this affects very seriously very many of these 'red' states, which would include Utah and Florida.  Literally, the jobs of very many of the residents depend on these big corporate international conventions and tourism.

 

 

Yep, as a Central Florida resident, I can confirm that the number of tourists are definitely down this year. Serves us right, to be honest. Just as an anecdote, the other day I was accompanying relatives to one of those discount Disney ticket kiosks and the guy selling the tickets was dressed head to toe in Trumplethinskin paraphernalia, MAGA hat and a hideous shirt showing the Annoying Orange's face and all. So this Latin American family showed up, presumably to purchase tickets, but as soon as they took one look at the Drumpf guy they BOLTED for the exit in disgust. 

So yeah, Florida: Shooting ourselves in the foot since 2000.

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5 minutes ago, Lyin' Ned said:

Yep, as a Central Florida resident, I can confirm that the number of tourists are definitely down this year. Serves us right, to be honest. Just as an anecdote, the other day I was accompanying relatives to one of those discount Disney ticket kiosks and the guy selling the tickets was dressed head to toe in Trumplethinskin paraphernalia, MAGA hat and a hideous shirt showing the Annoying Orange's face and all. So this Latin American family showed up, presumably to purchase tickets, but as soon as they took one look at the Drumpf guy they BOLTED for the exit in disgust. 

So yeah, Florida: Shooting ourselves in the foot since 2000.

Holy cow!

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

Serious question: Has Trump signed any bills from Congress yet? 

By this point, the last several Presidents have all gotten at least semi-major pieces of legislation completed. Trump hasn't gotten any yet; but beyond that I'm not sure if he's actually signed anything at all. I know there was that bill using the Congressional Review Act to roll-back Obama's coal regulations, but did Trump ever actually sign it? If so, that's one; but has there been anything else?

He has signed exactly one as far as I can tell. He had to sign the piece of legislation that gave Mattis a wavier. 

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

 

That was the Bush era thing. Team Bush said they were sceptical of climate change, refused to implement Kyoto etc, and then after leaving office they turned round and admitted they lied for political and commercial purposes. We'll be seeing something very similar here.

Oh how I miss the good old days of 07 and 08, when Republicans believed that climate change was real and the government should take some actions on it.

Sigh...

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5 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

With the show resolving the story this year and 7 years since the last book, I can't imagine the author will complete the books.  He seems completely uninterested. 

You can do what I do and hope that the book is not as fuck-all stupid as the show. Though I tend to agree about the overall prognosis.

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2 hours ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

For @Happy Ent

 

I give up. I have never, ever followed any line of reasoning even close to that. (I love Pinker to death, but I am not swayed by appeal to authority either.)

Now the case against Bannon is based on, and I shit you not, “a passing reference” to Evola (who, I kid you not, “inspired” the Italian fascists from the 70s). Wow. By that reasoning, I am a fascist. Anybody who ever used the koncept of the Great Lie (die große Lüge) quotes Mein Kampf and is therefore a fascist.

Look people, I don’t give a flying fuck about who thinks Bannon is a fascist. If he were one, I’d be perfectly happy. I consider fascism a completely legitimate political position, that I just strongly disagree with, much like Communism or Islamism.

But I want to understand what Bannon thinks. I want to hear his world view, preferably in his own words. This is because I care about ideas. I don’t want to know who labels whom with that. That game is not about ideas, but about social signalling. Most people are stupid and care only about that. It forms an important role in society. And I’d be happy if many people virtue signalled their distaste for fascism, or any other totalitarian ideology, because I share those views. Please go ahead and do that, on Facebook or Twitter, or even here. To me, it’s just noise. I don’t care. You are all intellectual children to me.

I’m not interested in hearing somebody represented by their bad arguments. I want to hear good arguments. In particular, from people I disagree with. I want the steel-manned version of Bannon’s arguments. I want to know the best interpretation of what he wants and why he wants it. I completely realise that I am in the minority with that desire – most of you care about identifying the worst representation of the other side. I don’t, in fact I find that psychological mechanism extremely unbecoming and highly unenlightening. Surrounding myself with bad arguments make me stupider (but strengthens my social cohesion). I want to surround myself with good arguments makes me smarter (but weakens my social cohesion).

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6 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

But I want to understand what Bannon thinks. I want to hear his world view, preferably in his own words. This is because I care about ideas. I don’t want to know who labels whom with that. That game is not about ideas, but about social signalling. Most people are stupid and care only about that. It forms an important role in society. And I’d be happy if many people virtue signalled their distaste for fascism, or any other totalitarian ideology, because I share those views. Please go ahead and do that, on Facebook or Twitter, or even here. To me, it’s just noise. I don’t care. You are all intellectual children to me.I

Well shit, I think that's going to be kind of hard to parse, as the man is a propagandist at heart. or at least that seemed to be his primary role in the run up to the election. He hosted a Breitbart based radio show on Sirius XM. 

http://investor.siriusxm.com/investor-overview/press-releases/press-release-details/2015/Stephen-K-Bannon-to-Headline-New-Morning-Show-Breitbart-News-Daily-Exclusively-on-SiriusXM/default.aspx

 

I have to imagine they have archived or podcast versions of at least some of those shows, but I haven't had any luck finding them for free, and I'm sure as hell not going to pay for them.

Here's a partial listing of Breitbart articles with his name on the byline...

http://www.breitbart.com/author/stephen-k-bannon/

 

/Have fun, I guess

 

 

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18 hours ago, Zorral said:

We have never had a potus endorsed by the KKK before little hands.  Griffith, Dixon etc. tried to get Wilson to endorse them but he wouldn't play that game for them.

He's gonna unleash 'em, and we're going to see a return to the horrors of the Jim Crow years, for there will be no legal repercussions and they want to go huntin' so bad!  Their trigger fingers are itching, itching, itching to turn those big expensive guns on black homse, schools, churches and communities in a communal orgy of blood and terror.

 

 

18 hours ago, Altherion said:

I wouldn't bet money on it. It is true that there is a non-trivial number of individuals who are decently armed, trained in the usage of their weapons and extremely distrustful of the government, but should the executive branch allow them to act without repercussions, the other two branches will step in. Congressional Republicans are barely on Trump's side to begin with and if there is an escalation of violence, they will not protect him. Of course, it is possible to fall back on Mao's slogan regarding the origins of political power, but I really don't think Trump wants to go that way.

 

Doubtful as this is to come to fruition, I wish them luck.  The number of actual members of white supremecist groups is quite small, and the number of those who would be willing to 'go huntin' is even smaller.  The notion that there would be no legal repercussions is laughable, and lets not forget, they are not the only one who are armed.

 

 

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

March, 2015. 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/28/politics/hillary-clinton-email-timeline/

 

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2013

March 20, 2013 -- Gawker reports that based on emails retrieved by a Romanian hacker called "Guccifer," Clinton used the "clintonemail.com" domain name in emails to advisers and friends. Because her original address is revealed in the article, Clinton changes her email address.

July 2013 -- Clinton's email server is changed once again to be backed up by a McAfee-owned company.

September 2013 -- National Archives and Records Administration clarifies that personal email can only be used in "emergency situations" and that emails from personal accounts should be captured and managed in accordance with agency record-keeping practices.

I guees it depends how you want to frame it.  

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Who were they supposed to move on to? Sanders was an Independent fringe protest candidate that had shocking success and O'Malley was the "pick me for VP" candidate. 

That's not my job to determine.  had they not placed all their eggs in the Hilary basket for a couple decades, they wouldn't have been faced with such a bare cupboard.  That's exactly the kind of stuff they should be focusing on.

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It worked well....for Trump. 

I'm not defending Clinton, I'm arguing that the strategy of "vote for me because I'm the lesser of two evils" has been shown to be effective in several Presidential election cycles. For both Republicans and Democrats.

I don't even really know what you're arguing now.

Like I said, if I were the dems, I wouldn't be betting on that strategy.  Assuming you're right that it worked for Trump and not Hilary, i don't see how that refutes the point I'm making. in fact, it seems to validate it.  They tried it, it didn't work, they should try and do better.

 

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