U.S. Politics

[Shryke]

It doesn't quite work that way though. While the GOP machine will line up behind their candidate, as will many voters, and no one will go Democrat, many will stay home because they find nothing appealing in Romney (or whoever).

[Shryke]

They're a huge drag on the economy, massive, really.

Frankly, I think we'd have been just fine if we let these fuckers burn to the ground. Given that the top 20% own almost all stocks and bonds, we really saved that small portion of the population from collapse. Everyone else in the US, on the other hand, got fucked.

They aren't a huge drag on the economy. The financial system underpins a modern economy. Without it, the economy grinds to a halt.

Of course, that doesn't mean everything they've been up to has been good. Most of the growth in the last few decades has been in shifting money around in ways that are of no benefit to the economy as a whole. That doesn't mean the other shit they do (and have been doing for ages) isn't incredibly important.

HAHAHAHA, wait, so let me get this straight, they had to keep this secret in order to keep people from freaking out about these banks 3 years after the catastrophe? I mean, you can have your cake and eat it, but you can't claim it's the best cake in the world and then hide the fucking recipe. If Ben Bernanke, after having his wife comb baby oil into his beard, gets in front of the US and declares how sound all the Fed member banks are, but then hides anything contrary to his pronouncements, I am calling bullshit. They're either sound or they're not.

I never said they had to keep it a secret for 3 years. Please stop this strawman bullshit.

I said they probably felt they needed to keep it a secret when it was done to keep the markets (and the populace/politicians) from freaking out and doing ... something drastic. And yes, they did hide which banks were in trouble because they didn't wants runs on those banks to happen. late-2008 was a pretty panicy time. After that I imagine it was just one of those things they didn't want catch heat for doing. Hence the attempts to hide what happened.

None of that means they weren't concerned about the financial sector. Hell, most of it is because they were worried about the financial sector. Lenders of last resort, by definition, have to be fast with few questions. And that often means no dithering from other parties (ie - congress)

You can, I'm sure, form your own opinions on whether they were correct in thinking they needed that secrecy.

[Shryke]

You act as if JP Morgan, Citi, et al are the only financial institutions the country has, and without them, we're all doomed. There are plenty of other financial institutions in this nation that could have taken over for them. We'd have been fine.

Frankly, I think this has a lot to do with what we now consider human nature: that in a panic, we'll all run around killing each other. I don't think that's the case.

Yeah, but it wasn't just JP Morgan that was gonna go down. That was the whole problem. One bank going down is bad but not a catastrophe. The issue was the way they'd been working for the past bunch of years, one of them going down takes the rest of the financial sector with them. you were looking at a huge cascade effect.

Shit, we can again go back and just look at the commercial paper market as lockesnow mentioned. That would have been enough for catastrophic badness.

I know some people love to try and downplay the issue in hindsight because they didn't like TARP or whatever, but let's not fucking kid ourselves here. The financial sector fucked itself up really really badly. This was a 100% real crisis.

There was no growth over the last few decades. It was ALL an illusion. You know that.

And like I said, the "growth" was just the top 20% possession of pretty much all our stocks and bonds.

The bottom 80% probably would have felt the collapse, but the only thing we really saved was the value of that 20%'s wealth.

There was growth. Just because a very small group of people absorbed it all doesn't mean it didn't happen.

When is it appropriate for this to become open? One year? Two? Because if the Fed had its way, this would have been secret until you and I were both dead. Why keep it secret now? What's the problem with the system that they are deliberately hiding?

I already gave you some ideas for why they might have been hiding it. As for how long it should have been hidden (if at all)? Certainly not this long I think everyone agrees.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

However, the resistance to Keynesian economic theory is relatively new, coinciding roughly with the election of a Democratic president.

That's simply not true. Neo-classicist/Chicago School economist Milton Friedman has probably been the economist most influential within the GOP, going all the way back to Reagan making him his economics advisor, and before. And Friedman was perhaps the world's pre-eminent economist opposing Keynesian-based stimulus theory. So the opposition to government spending more money on programs as a way to stimulate the economy goes way back to at least that point. Claiming it is something that began with Obama's election, or that is limited to times when Democrats are in power, is simply not true.

Even to the extent you want to generalize tax cuts as somehow equating to spending, and therefore "Keynesian", you're still off. Keynesianism is a demand-side theory that could support demand-side tax cuts. But Democrats have been lambasting Republicans for supporting supply-side tax cuts (versus demand-side) ever since Reagan, ridiculing that as "trickle-down" economics. So to claim that the GOP's opposition to Keynesian theory is something that has only arisen since Obama has been in power, or that only arises when a Democrat is in the White House, stands history on its head.

In any case, you argued above that despite GOP rhetoric and claimed political successes, the actual policies that have been implemented over that period have moved this country further to the left. We've also seen both the deficit and the debt as a percentage of GDP rise to a level not seen since the height of WW2, and without the prospect those WWII-era folks had of the war ending and spending dropping dramatically. Every estimate out there says that it is just going to get worse.

So if you're looking for a reason for the harder stance emerging among the GOP, there it is. We've finally woken up to what you knew all along -- that despite the rhetoric, you guys have actually been winning where it counts -- in legislation. And we've got a bunch of outside events that occured signalling that the time to fix this is growing short. We have international debt crises, the threat of financial armageddon domestically, worries about slipping into another Great Depression, etc., all of which are naturally going to make people pay more attention to this stuff. It's not that it is Obama now -- it is the magnitude of the economic events that have occured.

Rank-and-file GOP'ers are frustrated with the kind of Republiicans you guys love -- the Maine sisters, Bob Bennet, Charlie Crist etc., who "work with" you, are willing to "compromise and be reasonable", etc. All that has gotten us is you guys winning incrementally. As you may have noticed, a lot of the ire of the tea parties was directed at establishment Republicans, precisely because of that perception that they were simply too liberal. One interesting fact about the 2010 elections wasn't just that more Republicans got elected than at any point since the 1920's, but that it elected a more conservative group overall, by booting out some GOP incumbents and replacing them with more conservative people, or by electing more conservative people in primaries.

What I think is interesting about that is that the same thing has been happening to some extent within the Democratic party as well. As world economic conditions have grown worse, and concerns over the future grown greater, many Democrats have been pushing for a harder move to the left. They think the government needs to be even more active, with some supporting nationalization of banks, airlines, and other industries. And again, this is because of economic conditions and events of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression, which also led to a fundamental transformation of the economy.

Perhaps my favorite GOP radio guy is Dennis Prager, and he has said that he prefers clarity to compromise in difficult times. I think he is absolutely correct. The "middle road" some want to take inevitably results in higher spending without the taxes to support it, because that's the easiest position for politicians to take in the short term. So, we need to have a fight with some clarity on the two sides so that voters are presented with a clear choice. Are we going to have significant cuts in spending, or not? A lot of people have blasted Republicans for not being serious about cutting spending, claiming that they'd never take the political hit for opposing entitlements, etc. Well, Ryan and the House GOP proved them wrong, and gave that as an issue to Democrats to use in 2012 if they so choose.

I'm fine with that. The GOP may lose on that point, because maybe when forced to choose, voters ultimately will be unwilling to reform significantly those entitlement programs. But I'd rather at least try to make a clear case to the voters and lose, then just keep things going incrementally in your direction. Because to me, that's a guaranteed loss.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Republicans absolutely still support Keynesian government spending as long as it's on defense. The hypocrisy is stunning.

No, it isn't. It is one thing to support defense spending because you think it is necessary for its own sake. That is not the same as supporting it just because you think it stimulates the economy. Moneterists, Chicago-school, Keynesians, or even Marxists may support defense spending for reasons that have nothing to do with economic theory. Anyway, as you point out, Republican support of defense spending has been consistent across Administrations, which means the argument that Republicans oppose Keynesian theory only when Democrats are in power is still wrong.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Heh. For Republicans, Fox News can be as much poison as promise.

I agree that Baier talking about Romney's comments off camera was not cool. And I generally like Baier.

Seriously, though...all this talk about conservative unrest over Romney will, I think, evaporate if he moves to - and remains at - the front of the pack.

Free Republic, which is one of the biggest hard-conservative sites out there, has actually banned any statements in support of romney. So there certainly are some conservatives really pissed at him.

On the other hand, I think that group is much smaller than it believes itself to be. When push comes to shove, you're going to find very few conservatives refusing to vote for Romney if he is the nominee. On the other hand, though, I suspect there is something close to a majority of Republicans -- perhaps more than a majority -- who would prefer almost any other nominee. His best hope is that at least two more conservative opponents remain in the race for as long as possible to split that vote.

[TerraPrime]

Free Republic, which is one of the biggest hard-conservative sites out there, has actually banned any statements in support of romney. So there certainly are some conservatives really pissed at him.

Yes, I can see how that site came up with the first half of their name.

[Maithanet]

Going back to the then-and-now comparison of the Clinton scandal, it is difficult to say how it would play out now. The intense media glare would certainly be stronger than what Clinton faced in the 90s, but it might not have had the longevity that it did then. The Clinton Allegations first came to light in January 1998. Clinton admitted to the affair in August of 1998. The Impeachment vote was February of 1999. I don't think the current 24 news cycle would have the patience for that. There would undoubtedly be plenty of useless stories of beautiful women who's lives are falling apart during that one year window, and I think the media glare would move on, unless the story just moved faster than it did then (which might have happened).

The two biggest American news stories of the 90s were undoubtedly the Clinton impeachment and the OJ Simpson trial. In my opinion, nothing in the 2000s even comes close. I suppose you could count 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, but those are such different animals it seems very strange to compare. My point is that while the media would undoubtedly eat up a story involving sex, the president and abuse of power, I'm not sure it could remain focused on that kind of scandal the way it could in the 90s.

[Shryke]

Basically, I am questioning "the rest of them".

Oh, they would have gone down too. The whole thing was a clusterfuck of spread out risk. They disguised higher risk and then spread it around. This means as the dominoes start falling, other gruops lose their investment and go down too, credit markets tighten up as people freak the fuck out, which causes even more people to go under and the economy goes into the shitter hard.

Isn't the fact that we're facing enough deflation so that QE has no effect on the inflation rate kind of imply that the "growth" in prices was more or less without a ground? I'm writing this on the run, apologies if this doesn't make sense.

The US is not facing deflation. You'd be in way worse shit if you were. And we're not talking about prices, but about wealth. GDP. All that shit. There's been major gains in the economy, it's just that they've all gone to the top 1% while the bottom 80% of so have seen their wages and such (adjusted for inflation) decrease.

That's my biggest issue with this: it's been years, and unless the banks are in as much trouble as they were, there shouldn't a problem. Of course, if they are in trouble...

They may still be in trouble, but I wouldn't call it definitive. It's just as likely the Fed is trying to cover it's ass to avoid political fallout like the kind we are seeing right now. Just because you did unpopular tihngs you thought were necessary doesn't mean you want anyone to know you did those unpopular things after all.

The banks though may well be in trouble what with the Eurozone going to hell and all.

[The Progressive]

It seems that people like Coco tends to forget the inconvenient fact that hundreds of banks, big and small, have failed due to the 2008 financial crisis.

Without TARP and the subsequent qualitative easings, the credit crunch and runs on banks would have caused a second Great Depression.

[TrackerNeil]

That's simply not true. Neo-classicist/Chicago School economist Milton Friedman has probably been the economist most influential within the GOP, going all the way back to Reagan making him his economics advisor, and before. And Friedman was perhaps the world's pre-eminent economist opposing Keynesian-based stimulus theory. So the opposition to government spending more money on programs as a way to stimulate the economy goes way back to at least that point. Claiming it is something that began with Obama's election, or that is limited to times when Democrats are in power, is simply not true.

Even to the extent you want to generalize tax cuts as somehow equating to spending, and therefore "Keynesian", you're still off. Keynesianism is a demand-side theory that could support demand-side tax cuts. But Democrats have been lambasting Republicans for supporting supply-side tax cuts (versus demand-side) ever since Reagan, ridiculing that as "trickle-down" economics. So to claim that the GOP's opposition to Keynesian theory is something that has only arisen since Obama has been in power, or that only arises when a Democrat is in the White House, stands history on its head.

In any case, you argued above that despite GOP rhetoric and claimed political successes, the actual policies that have been implemented over that period have moved this country further to the left. We've also seen both the deficit and the debt as a percentage of GDP rise to a level not seen since the height of WW2, and without the prospect those WWII-era folks had of the war ending and spending dropping dramatically. Every estimate out there says that it is just going to get worse.

So if you're looking for a reason for the harder stance emerging among the GOP, there it is. We've finally woken up to what you knew all along -- that despite the rhetoric, you guys have actually been winning where it counts -- in legislation. And we've got a bunch of outside events that occured signalling that the time to fix this is growing short. We have international debt crises, the threat of financial armageddon domestically, worries about slipping into another Great Depression, etc., all of which are naturally going to make people pay more attention to this stuff. It's not that it is Obama now -- it is the magnitude of the economic events that have occured.

Rank-and-file GOP'ers are frustrated with the kind of Republiicans you guys love -- the Maine sisters, Bob Bennet, Charlie Crist etc., who "work with" you, are willing to "compromise and be reasonable", etc. All that has gotten us is you guys winning incrementally. As you may have noticed, a lot of the ire of the tea parties was directed at establishment Republicans, precisely because of that perception that they were simply too liberal. One interesting fact about the 2010 elections wasn't just that more Republicans got elected than at any point since the 1920's, but that it elected a more conservative group overall, by booting out some GOP incumbents and replacing them with more conservative people, or by electing more conservative people in primaries.

What I think is interesting about that is that the same thing has been happening to some extent within the Democratic party as well. As world economic conditions have grown worse, and concerns over the future grown greater, many Democrats have been pushing for a harder move to the left. They think the government needs to be even more active, with some supporting nationalization of banks, airlines, and other industries. And again, this is because of economic conditions and events of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression, which also led to a fundamental transformation of the economy.

Perhaps my favorite GOP radio guy is Dennis Prager, and he has said that he prefers clarity to compromise in difficult times. I think he is absolutely correct. The "middle road" some want to take inevitably results in higher spending without the taxes to support it, because that's the easiest position for politicians to take in the short term. So, we need to have a fight with some clarity on the two sides so that voters are presented with a clear choice. Are we going to have significant cuts in spending, or not? A lot of people have blasted Republicans for not being serious about cutting spending, claiming that they'd never take the political hit for opposing entitlements, etc. Well, Ryan and the House GOP proved them wrong, and gave that as an issue to Democrats to use in 2012 if they so choose.

I'm fine with that. The GOP may lose on that point, because maybe when forced to choose, voters ultimately will be unwilling to reform significantly those entitlement programs. But I'd rather at least try to make a clear case to the voters and lose, then just keep things going incrementally in your direction. Because to me, that's a guaranteed loss.

I can't really dispute any of this...well, except the stimulus part. In this context, it doesn't matter whether it's supply-side, demand-side, in-side or out-side. A tax cut is no different from a spending program; each pumps money into the economy and must be paid for by some means. But I'm not getting any further into that debate here.

What puzzles me is that Republican voters have this idea that knocking off "the Maine sisters" and Bob Bennett - whoever said Democrats liked him? - while retaining the likes of Paul Ryan and John Boehner will really move them closer to the conservative ideal. Boehner and Ryan, along with Cantor and McConnell, all voted to borrow money to expand an entitlement program, which seems to me like a Reese's Cup of evil to the right-wing mind. Each voted to spend hundreds of billions invading and then rebuilding Iraq without trying to raise a single thin dime of additional revenue. The same folks who presided over the Republican spending spree of the aughts are the ones the Tea Party put at the helm in 2010. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric. These guys are pleased to spend money the nation doesn't have as long as that spending benefits the GOP. That's not clarity over compromise; that's churning the deck without just getting rid of the bad cards.

[TerraPrime]

Nothing has changed except the rhetoric. These guys are pleased to spend money the nation doesn't have as long as that spending benefits the GOP.

So, to be clear, are you saying that the GOP factions who line up behind the likes of Boehner and Ryan are politically stupid to be deceived by fanciful rhetorics, or are you saying that they lack the political acuity to discern facile re-packaging to take advantage of political fads?

That's not clarity over compromise; that's churning the deck without just getting rid of the bad cards.

I hear that if you churn enough, you'll get a Santorum.

[SpicyTurkey]

It seems that people like Coco tends to forget the inconvenient fact that hundreds of banks, big and small, have failed due to the 2008 financial crisis.

Without TARP and the subsequent qualitative easings, the credit crunch and runs on banks would have caused a second Great Depression.

By bailing them out you are merely applying a band-aid to a festering wound.

[SpicyTurkey]

The banks though may well be in trouble what with the Eurozone going to hell and all.

The FED is contemplating on bailing them out.

[The Progressive]

Oh I wished that they (the banks) were nationalized instead.

But that would make all the GOP/teabaggers/libertarians shit in their pants.

[SpicyTurkey]

Oh I wished that they (the banks) were nationalized instead.

But that would make all the GOP/teabaggers/libertarians shit in their pants.

Great idea. How about you let them own your house too.

[sologdin]

well, if the public provides assistance to homeowners to prevent foreclosure on their homes, what is the objection to some public ownership of the edifices aforesaid, other than teabaggery?

[The Progressive]

Lol, do you think the banks would accept polar bears as mortgate payment, spicy turkey?

[TerraPrime]

Great idea. How about you let them own your house too.

Why? Did Lev commit unwise business practice that was enabled by paid-for lobbying for deregulation, and that unwise business practice has endangered not only his own financial solvency, but which also put the entire country's financial health at risk, thus necessitating the government spending tax money to stabilize his personal finance?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

What puzzles me is that Republican voters have this idea that knocking off "the Maine sisters" and Bob Bennett - whoever said Democrats liked him? - while retaining the likes of Paul Ryan and John Boehner will really move them closer to the conservative ideal. Boehner and Ryan, along with Cantor and McConnell, all voted to borrow money to expand an entitlement program, which seems to me like a Reese's Cup of evil to the right-wing mind.

You are exactly right. And the best answer I can give is that you have to start somewhere. Finding a politician who stands his or her ground regardless of the political wind is very difficult. The whole issue of a prescription drug plan for seniors was something Bush (no conservative he) pushed, and it was a contentious issue in the 2002 election campaign. The belief of some Republicans was that the political winds being what they were, some plan was going to be passed, or they were going to get clobbered in the 2002 midterms. Democrats were making it a central issue in those midterms, and Republicans were nervous. So, they supported Bush's less expensive plan over a more expensive plan offered by Senate Democrats. I've posted the links and projected costs for the different plans previously. But in short, the GOP supported it for purely political reasons.

Now, that sucks if you're a conservative. But lots and lots of Republican politicians defected on that vote. The more troubling votes were when most Republicans held firm but some would side more often with Democrats. And those are the ones you try to replace first, if you can.

The other answer is that political winds change. The country is in much worse economic shapen now than we were in 10 years ago. Republican politicians in 2002 felt that had to support a prescription drug plan for seniors or get killed in the midterm general elections. But now, with the advent of the tea party and more forceful conservatism from others in the party, the political winds have changed so that those politicians are worried about not even making it through the primary if they vote for too much spending.

Each voted to spend hundreds of billions invading and then rebuilding Iraq without trying to raise a single thin dime of additional revenue. The same folks who presided over the Republican spending spree of the aughts are the ones the Tea Party put at the helm in 2010. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric. These guys are pleased to spend money the nation doesn't have as long as that spending benefits the GOP.

That's not a fair characterization. Republicans are more willing to spend money on things they believe benefit the country as whole, subject to the political realities of that time. It's just that they and the Democrats have different idea about what those things are. And just because you're willing to spend money on the things you believe are necessary doesn't make you a hypocrite for opposing spending on other things. Likewise, Democrats aren't being hypocritical when they argue that we should spend less money on defense because we can't afford it, while still advocating more spending on other things. It's just a matter of legitimate disagreement on priorities.