U.S. Politics

[Atreides]

This. I would prefer regulations to be as local as possible.

The problem is that environmental issues that need regulating are not often purely local problems. Offshore drilling, river and groundwater pollution, runoff, air pollution just to name a few are issues that easily and often cross state, and even national boundaries. Let alone massive potential issues such as climate change. Sure, the EPA probably deals with some things which could be regulated locally, but I don't think most people who want the EPA abolished understand this.

Also FLOW, the idea that the EPA is better than the courtroom for environmental disputes due to its regulations allowing businesses to know what the rules are (as opposed to each case being settled individually) makes a lot of sense. Please, if you get a minute or two, send some letters to your party's presidential candidates and congressional leadership.

[Shryke]

What does it matter?

The banks were loaned $1.2 trillion on one day. I don't give a flying fuck if they paid it back the next day, they needed over a trillion dollars on one day alone to keep from going belly up, and they were given it despite the fact that they fucked themselves into their own predicament.

Fuck them and fuck that. Heads on fucking pikes.

So what? I mean really, big numbers but so what?

We knew the financial system was fucked. Does the price tag suddenly mean letting the financial system collapse was a better idea?

I'm with AP - you can try to minimize the numbers, but this is completely unacceptable. If you read the article, you'd know that these loans were given out so that the same banks would qualify for TARP. Congress wasn't informed of this before signing TARP because it would have scuttled the entire bill.

The fact of the matter is that this was purposely a bunch of secret moves that, in the light of day, completely change the dynamic of 2008.

What does it change? The article says:

While the TARP money helped insulate the central bank from losses, the Fed’s willingness to supply seemingly unlimited financing to the banks assured they wouldn’t collapse, protecting the Treasury’s TARP investments, he says.

Which isn't exactly a bad idea. If you are gonna be rescuing the financial system, don't be half-assed, that just wastes money.

And shit:

Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses

Quite frankly, you two freaking out over the numbers is downright silly. Who gives a fuck about the amount. If you decide you are gonna save the financial sector, you fucking do it.

No, the real issues are the ones you both completely neglected that have nothing to do with the amount, mainly the secrecy, the lack of restructuring as a condition for the loans and the way the banks turned around and fought regulations trying to prevent the collapse they caused.

Bankers didn’t mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed’s below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue.

Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.

“When you see the dollars the banks got, it’s hard to make the case these were successful institutions,” says Sherrod Brown

Also, this great point:

the real scandal isn’t so much that those banks got rescued as that the rest of the population didn’t.

For sure, the Fed and Treasury should have driven harder bargains. I think the political landscape would look different and better right now if the Obama administration had in fact taken at least one big bank into receivership. But in the crisis, money had to flow freely, and the truth is that the gifts bankers received are more a source of annoyance than a source of current problems.

What’s unforgivable is the way policymakers, both at the Fed and elsewhere, basically declared Mission Accomplished as soon as the panic in financial markets subsided and stocks were up again. When spring rolls around, we’ll reach the third anniversary of Ben Bernanke’s declaration that “green shoots” were making an appearance — and there will still be 4 million Americans who have been out of work for more than a year. Yet there has been no sense of urgency about dealing with unemployment; indeed, most of the elite conversation has been about stuff like cutting Social Security payments a decade or two from now.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/mission-not-accomplished/

[adamsputnik]

He's also "reassessing" his campaign:

ETA: I'm not sure there's enough time for another anti-Romney candidate to arise either. Also they've now cycled through everyone except Huntsman (ha!) and Santorum who with his strong beliefs about sex being only about reproduction may be too far beyond the pale even for the Republican base.

I would love to see Huntsman as the candidate - at least he'd be someone who I can feel some sort of affinity for. I don't consider myself a Republican, more Libertarian, but Ron Paul is an anachronism, and I don't like any of the moral police. And I just think he'd get stuff done because he's actually willing to be a mediating voice. Obstructionism isn't getting us anywhere except to appease the baying masses.

[awesome possum]

So what? I mean really, big numbers but so what?

We knew the financial system was fucked. Does the price tag suddenly mean letting the financial system collapse was a better idea?

Who said that?

Knowing that info might have ensured something positive was done to curb the corruption that went on and is still going on. The CEOs of every one of those banks might have been forced to resign in shame and if public outcry were enough actually made to pay for their crimes; true regulations may have been enacted that are better than the dud that is Dodd-Frank and the public eye might have remained with them, making it impossible to neuter them as Dodd-Frank has been.

But hey, if you want to defend the Fed covering up just how much of a mess they and their buddies at the banks made of our economy, have at it.

[Shryke]

You ... you didn't actually read the post did you.

/shakes head

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Also FLOW, the idea that the EPA is better than the courtroom for environmental disputes due to its regulations allowing businesses to know what the rules are (as opposed to each case being settled individually) makes a lot of sense. Please, if you get a minute or two, send some letters to your party's presidential candidates and congressional leadership.

I don't believe that all of the candidates and leadership believe in the abolition of the EPA. They do tend to believe it is doing a lot of harm in addition to the good it does.

Personally, I'd abolish the EPA's rulemaking authority. Actually, I'd abolish all rulemaking authority of administrative agencies. You want something that looks like a law, make a law. Those agencies can draft all the rules they want, but they shouldn't become enforceable until they are approved by Congress and signed by the President.

[Atreides]

That begets the question, who is more liable to make better rules? Congressmen who can be bought in write certain rules/exemptions in rules etc, or EPA bureaucrats who can be lobbied with the promises of high paying jobs after they leave government, provided of course that they write rules a certain way. I guess its lose-lose. But as of right now I think its best to keep the administrative agencies making the rules, at least until Congress proves that it can function. Poor Congress doesn't seem to want any more responsibilities right now, after all doing their job just takes away time that could be spent bloviating and fundraising.

[C S]

This. I would prefer regulations to be as local as possible.

Atreides gave a good response, but I'll add one thing. Often, in small towns, there is one company that is the primary employer. This company has so much leverage that it can get away with a whole lot by threatening to move. State and Federal oversite of the local regulators helps to keep this in check.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

That begets the question, who is more liable to make better rules? Congressmen who can be bought in write certain rules/exemptions in rules etc, or EPA bureaucrats who can be lobbied with the promises of high paying jobs after they leave government, provided of course that they write rules a certain way. I guess its lose-lose.

It's not just that, though. If you have an agency whose primary function is to make rules, it is going to be predisposed to write more rules. The predisposition should be neutral -- write new rules only if/when they are necessary. In any case,

But as of right now I think its best to keep the administrative agencies making the rules, at least until Congress proves that it can function.

The AA's would still write the rules. It's just that they'd have to be passed by Congress first. No matter how convenient or inconvenient that may be, I don't think it is right to have unelected people passing what amount to laws. There is a very specific procedure set out in the Constitution for how we are supposed to make laws, and unelected bureaucrats are not it.

Constitutional reasons aside, one of the virtues of this is that given the amount of work Congress has to do, I imagine such agencies would try to be as concise as possible, writing new rules only when the need is clear and has political support, so that the rules make it through the Congress.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Atreides gave a good response, but I'll add one thing. Often, in small towns, there is one company that is the primary employer. This company has so much leverage that it can get away with a whole lot by threatening to move. State and Federal oversite of the local regulators helps to keep this in check.

And that still doesn't address the problems with courts and individual juries setting those standards. Even at the state, county, or city level, governments at that level passing clear ex ante regulations isn't a terrible idea. But when you have unelected juries decided on standards after the fact, that's a whole other problem. You could literally have two juries in the same city come to two different conclusions over the exact same level of pollutants, and there's likely not a damn thing to be done about it. The only people who should support that kind of scheme are Luddites.

[Shryke]

What should regulation be a function of the elected body? They apparently passed that off on another better informed on the subject body. I would think for a reason.

Stuff like the EPA ultimately gains it's authority from Congress and the White House. Just not directly. There's nothing wrong with that.

[awesome possum]

You ... you didn't actually read the post did you.

/shakes head

Why would I need to? I got the gist right away.

It doesn't matter how badly the banks fucked up our world, because we were going to change their diapers no matter what so we should stop complaining about the cloud of shit-smell in the air.

[TerraPrime]

Those agencies can draft all the rules they want, but they shouldn't become enforceable until they are approved by Congress and signed by the President.

Well, who am I to stop you, of all people, from adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to the functioning of our government.

Snark aside, I do think this idea has some merit, because often, the agencies become the personal playground of the current occupant of the White House. See, for instance, the dismantling of the environmental regulations under Bush the Lesser. They were doing so well/atrociously, that their own EPA chief resigned. So yes, if rules have to be confirmed by Congress, at least there's some concern about meeting resistance from the other point of view.

(Incidentally, this is also another reason why I scoff at people who say that there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to Presidential election).

It's not just that, though. If you have an agency whose primary function is to make rules, it is going to be predisposed to write more rules. The predisposition should be neutral -- write new rules only if/when they are necessary.

That seems eminently easy to solve: they are only to draft rules when they can convince the Congress that new rules are needed. It will, of course, delay the process of new regulations that may be needed for a timely crisis, but them's the breaks.

Constitutional reasons aside, one of the virtues of this is that given the amount of work Congress has to do, I imagine such agencies would try to be as concise as possible, writing new rules only when the need is clear and has political support, so that the rules make it through the Congress.

Oh yes, the Congress is very busy affirming this day for that purpose and to write laws to protect the sanctity of the American flag, etc.

Fuck that noise. Those people can work a little harder/efficiently, far as I'm concerned.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

The best part is to see you justifying this by saying that "Oh, they paid it back!!!", completely ignoring, you know, opportunity cost. That's what interest is, remember? What interest was char-- oh wait.

The article actuall does discuss opportunity costs -- the extra profits garnered by Wall Street firms from these sweetheard loans. According to the article, those profits totaled $13B.

Now, that's a lot of money to me. But i strongly suspect the average person would be shocked to learn that the total, net cost of those Wall Street giveways, including opportunity costs, was less than $50B -- about double what GM and Chrysler got, but less than 20% of what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack got, and about 5% of the cost of Obama's stimulus bill. So the claim that "Wall Street got all the money, and Main Street and the little guy got nothing" simply isn't true. Shit, the amount of extra federal money for unemployment benefits alone was more than what Wall Street got.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't oppose all those bailouts and handouts on pure principle anyway.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Well, who am I to stop you, of all people, from adding an extra layer of bureaucracy to the functioning of our government.

Extra layer? Where? Congress already exists, so you'd have no more bureaucrats involved than before. The only difference is who casts the actual votes. Actually, you could remove all the APA rules relating to agency rulemaking, which would lop off a gigantic chunk of the bureaucracy. The EPA and other agencies would become advisory bodies only, greatly simplifying their roles.

Snark aside, I do think this idea has some merit, because often, the agencies become the personal playground of the current occupant of the White House. See, for instance, the dismantling of the environmental regulations under Bush the Lesser. They were doing so well/atrociously, that their own EPA chief resigned. So yes, if rules have to be confirmed by Congress, at least there's some concern about meeting resistance from the other point of view.

That seems eminently easy to solve: they are only to draft rules when they can convince the Congress that new rules are needed. It will, of course, delay the process of new regulations that may be needed for a timely crisis, but them's the breaks.

But the regulatory process is a horrible method for responding to crises as it is. Because of APA requirements, rule making, from drafting, notice and comment, required waiting periods, etc., is too long to serve as crisis response. When there is a crisis, it is Congress that must enact that legislation, just as it was Congress that passed TARP, etc., because rulemaking is just too slow.

The most common argument against this is "well, there are just so many regulations coming into being through the rulemaking process that Congress can't possibly take the time to pass them as legislation." To which I'd respond that if we're writing so many new laws/pseudo-laws that Congress can't even keep up, how the hell is the citizenry supposed to?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Yeah, but Shryke didn't ;)

By the way, this pretty much sums up what I think.

I'm not really against you on this, Coco. While I believe that you should be allowed to make shitloads of money in a capitalist system, the downside is that you should have to bear the consequences of losing it as well. TARP gnaws at me on principle, though I kind of take a grudging agnosticism on it because a lot of people I respect say that the average person would have been completely fucked had the system collapsed. To me, the real question is how we manage to get to that point in the first place, because I firmly believe that absent government-created incentives that encourage speculation, the risk would never have risen to that level.

I am glad that Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns bit the dust, though. That's at least some lesson for the rest of them.

[lokisnow]

I hate TARP but it was necessary to restore the commercial paper market. People think the crisis wasn't going to effect them, but millions and millions of salaried employees were not going to get a paycheck at the end of that month without TARP passing--that would have caused a real catastrophe.

[Shryke]

Why would I need to? I got the gist right away.

It doesn't matter how badly the banks fucked up our world, because we were going to change their diapers no matter what so we should stop complaining about the cloud of shit-smell in the air.

You didn't get the gist at all. If you had, both yours and Cocos replies wouldn't look so goddamn silly. Neither you not Coco are apparently capable of reading a whole post so here, I'll quote the relevant part again:

Quite frankly, you two freaking out over the numbers is downright silly. Who gives a fuck about the amount. If you decide you are gonna save the financial sector, you fucking do it.

No, the real issues are the ones you both completely neglected that have nothing to do with the amount, mainly the secrecy, the lack of restructuring as a condition for the loans and the way the banks turned around and fought regulations trying to prevent the collapse they caused.

You see, when you actually aren't a douche and read entire posts, you learn things. Crazy that.

But please, far be it from me to stop your guys "ignorant righteous indignation" train. BIG NUMBERS BAD!!!

[Shryke]

Yeah, but Shryke didn't ;)

Um, yes I did. Again, you need to actually read people's posts. I fucking quoted that section of the article.

$13B in profits for those loans is fairly paltry. I mean, sure, it'd be better if they'd done it differently to not prop them up for no reason, but let's get some fucking perspective here.

I mean, really AP and Coco, how hard is it to actually read a post before you freak the fuck out? This is pathetic.

I'm not really against you on this, Coco. While I believe that you should be allowed to make shitloads of money in a capitalist system, the downside is that you should have to bear the consequences of losing it as well. TARP gnaws at me on principle, though I kind of take a grudging agnosticism on it because a lot of people I respect say that the average person would have been completely fucked had the system collapsed. To me, the real question is how we manage to get to that point in the first place, because I firmly believe that absent government-created incentives that encourage speculation, the risk would never have risen to that level.

I am glad that Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns bit the dust, though. That's at least some lesson for the rest of them.

Through the use of new, fancy and opaque financial instruments that promised higher returns but in actuality just disguised higher risk.

[awesome possum]

You didn't get the gist at all. If you had, both yours and Cocos replies wouldn't look so goddamn silly. Neither you not Coco are apparently capable of reading a whole post so here, I'll quote the relevant part again:

You see, when you actually aren't a douche and read entire posts, you learn things. Crazy that.

But please, far be it from me to stop your guys "ignorant righteous indignation" train. BIG NUMBERS BAD!!!

That's cute.

When you can actually get through a series of posts with someone without resorting to cheap insults, maybe you'll start to be treated like a big boy around here.