Grand political roundup

[Grefter]

Common reasoning in politics, in my experience, is to claim that changes in economic policy don't show their effects for 4-8 years; in other words, up and downturns in the economy should be traced to the previous guys in charge.  In this case, the economic troubles of today are the fault of the Clinton administration, according to this theory.

No they aren't even 4-8 years would have like 6 months worth of Clinton anyway.

Edit - Just fixing up the quote tag there because it is annoying me.

[Cmdr_King]

Hey, I didn't say it was right.  Just that it's a common argument.  Common arguments are wrong all the time.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Common argument among Republicans, I'm sure. <.< Doubt you'll see it much from nonpartisan sources. Or being bought by many independents in general (see also: why things look so horrible for the GOP in the polls right now.)

It says something that even the right-wing party here has blasted the Republican administration of for failing it up with the economy. Granted, it's pretty easy to point blaming fingers after the fact and all, but the Bush administration clearly stood by deregulation of these companies and it's not hard to see what that led to.

[Idun]

Wait what?  People not in the government are managing money retardedly in a way that was reminiscent of the .Com boom that everyone could see was a credit bubble that was going to burst.  The government in power goes to war during this period (with questionable reasons).  And this is the party NOT in power's fault?

 I never stated that. All I was saying in my mish-mash of multiple points was that back in 2001, the Republicans warned the Democrats about FM and Lehman with that hazards of their SP loanings. Coupled with that fact, we began war. During war, there should be a decrease in spending because of federal spending. But because of wrong signs sent by the Fed because of deflation of rates that confused banks into believing it would be perfectly fine to do these loans. Prices rose because demand > supply  (and main rates actually INCREASED). The people on low income couldn't afford the mortgaging they were doing. The Democrats fully supported this bailout plan (I know some voted against it) which puts the government into a free market society instead of handling regulations of the Fed and banks that got us into this predicament anyways. It's a big bundle of Democrats being too nonchalant, Republicans being for deregulation and if the Democrats are nonchalant - it's oh so much easier, and the masses not knowing how to manage their own finances. I just find it ridiculous that this information in 2001 completely slips passed a lot of people. I don't find this to be a completely "Bush Administration" issue, and I hate the terms that Bush has been in. After this war is "over," without this WM crisis, there should be a sharp increase in affordability, but nope. This is just going to be elongated. . . I feel, at least.

It's like, on the S-D graph, we're at the bottom tip. We should be gradually going upwards, but prices are falling as is demand.  Not good.

 

[Hunter Sopko]

Common reasoning in politics, in my experience, is to claim that changes in economic policy don't show their effects for 4-8 years; in other words, up and downturns in the economy should be traced to the previous guys in charge.  In this case, the economic troubles of today are the fault of the Clinton administration, according to this theory.

Not quite. That would mean the economic troubles of today are the result of Bush policy changes 4 years ago or when he took office, or maybe late Clinton when the Republicans still had firm control of the House and Congress.

I would also argue on a philosophical point that the market right now isn't staying true to Capitalist ideas. Yes, it's about making the most money, but is also about SUSTAINABLE income. Any economy where people can be making a profit and still be in trouble is a bad example of Capitalism.

[NotMiki]

Civil liberties issues aren't as urgent in the minds of the public as the economic crisis, but here's an excellent take on the 17 Uighur separatists.  Essentially, the government has been trying for a few years to find an out-of-the-way country to release them to, on assurances that the men are blameless and harmless, but no one will take for fear of offending China.  Then they turn around and stay their release, changing their story to say that the men are indeed dangerous when a court orders them released into the US.  The reason: it's easier to give damaging interviews on the inner workings of Guantanamo from Topeka than Tuvalu.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12sun2.html?ref=opinion

[metroid composite]

When AIG (?) took that 440,000$ spa retreat to "rally" their associates, I feel like that was a complete slap in the face to the government and the people giving those people the damned 75-88 bil/tril dollars . . . They should be required to pay that back ASAP. Fuckers.

I've heard people outraged about that, and I don't really see the issue.

My small studio would send all its employees to E3, which I'm sure was at least a $50,000 expenditure.  My small studio also makes a point of having a masseuse available once a week during times of heavy crunch.  (Lately we've paid for our own massages, but that's a decision that can go either way).  My small studio also makes a point of having drinks, water coolers, snacks, etc available around the office.  A lot of people seem to assume that this retreat was a response to getting the bailout; I doubt it--hotels usually need to be booked months in advance, so realistically the retreat was probably already planned and for perfectly good business reasons.

Employee health and satisfaction make a fairly big difference for a relatively small cost.  Consider, say, a senior programmer who gets paid $100,000 a year.  Paying for 30 massages for him throughout the year would be $450.  In order to make that money back, you'd only need to see a 0.5% performance increase from this programmer.

This also brings me to a second point: half a million is peanuts when we're talking about a company the size of AIG.  I originally misread the bailout as $88 mil--which would make the retreat 0.5% of the bailout.  The ACTUAL bailout was $88 BILLION, which makes the retreat 0.0005% of the bailout.  They could have left the bailout money in a money market account for two hours, and then paid for the retreat purely with the interest made in that two hour period (Actually 1 hour 45 minutes, but whatever >_>).

If you want to be angry about something, be angry about the giant random bonuses handed out by the Lehmann brothers shortly before that company went bankrupt.  THAT has no clear business purpose, unlike a business retreat, and is actually enough money to make a significant difference ($22 million bonuses to the CEO and stuff).

[NotMiki]

The business retreat is indeed small change in terms of money and was surely planned in advance, and I'm sure it was geared at employee retention, but it has an outsize symbolic significance, and they should have known better than to go through with it.  From a serious standpoint, the retreat indicates that AIG is in the hands of people that are politically tone deaf at best and indifferent to the best interests of it shareholders at worst.  Given the current situation, it's no a stretch to say the latter looks likely, and that's a real problem.

[Grefter]

So you aren't saying it is the Democrats fault that the economic crisis happened because of their actions.  You are saying it is their fault because they let the people in power do stupid bullshit just for the sake of decentralising and neutering the government's power in an area that showed signs of being fucked up for years and was being done at the worst possible time.

Uhuh yeah I can totally see how that is their fault now and that they really should have thrown up a huge defence against it during the period where decent against the government at all was political suicide (WHY ARE YOU ARGUING ABOUT MONEYS WE HAVE A WAR WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?) and they were on a clear stage of high disapproval (Evidenced by the state of media at the time and after the fact by you know that they lost another election after that).  That is an incredibly fair and level headed reasoning to place the blame on them instead of the people actually making bad decisions.

Edit - Lets be clear here.  To go up against the Republicans on like any freaking topic for 2 years after September 11, 2001 was roughly as good a political move as suggesting that maybe we should try negotiating with the Russians during McCarthyism period.  It doesn't matter what you say or do, you are just fucked.

[metroid composite]

From a serious standpoint, the retreat indicates that AIG is in the hands of people that are politically tone deaf at best and indifferent to the best interests of it shareholders at worst.

I see your point.  Though to be fair, business people, even good ones, frequently are politically tone deaf.

Take Bobby Kotick (CEO of Activision).  He bought Activision when it had zero employees, and now it's the largest publisher and merged with Blizzard; he's arguably one of the most financially successful CEOs in any industry.  While he's not the only person in the board room, the rest of the executive rotated every 2-5 years, so he's the only consistency in the board room.

Want to know what his most famous quote is?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/12/5/

...
...
...Yeah.

Not every CEO is Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Satoru Iwata.  In fact, I get the impression most of them shrivel in the sunlight.

[Grefter]

All I can picture there is the shit you would get from your employees if you cut them out of a thing that big that was planned for a while.  The situation smells like a double bind really.

[Cotigo]

My whole problem with that sort of thing is that that stuff works fine when everything is business-as-usual; indeed, spending such a small amount of money on keeping employees happy is a good thing.  But we're in a economic crisis and can't afford to keep going about things as we normally would. To do so is just fucking stupid.

[Taishyr]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/theone718/2008/10/a-post-from-a-friend-of-mine-t.php

Gives me hope. Read the original version of this, which is now kinda buried on a different blog, but yeah.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5987804&page=1

Yay for America! Knowing that those terroristical pillowtalkers have been carefully screened, I can sleep better at night!

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-10/the-conservative-case-for-obama/
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-10-14/sorry-dad-i-was-fired

I feel for the guy.

[Idun]

So you aren't saying it is the Democrats fault that the economic crisis happened because of their actions.  You are saying it is their fault because they let the people in power do stupid bullshit just for the sake of decentralising and neutering the government's power in an area that showed signs of being fucked up for years and was being done at the worst possible time.

If this is directed at me, I'm saying it's multiple variables, coupled with supply and demand, war, and government choices and citizens' personal choices. I'm not interested in pointing fingers.

[Grefter]

That is the thing, a great number of those things are things the Government are supposed to be in control of and influence.  Economy is part of that, there is a reason they are part of it with Tax and whatnot, it isn't a closed system that they are completely outside of, they are one of the largest bodies in it (There is still to this day a degree of seperation between global and national economy), they have a lot of clout there.  I am very interested in pointing fingers when they are all pointing to one thing.

[Idun]

Pretty trustable media outlets like The Economist take a much more critical interpretation to stuff touted on popular cites like CNN and what's coming out of politicians mouths. It's more than subprime lending. And for a society that wants to tout a free market, I'd assume the gov't, as it did, would try to stay out of affairs though they picked and chose the wrong times to execute things. I think it's easy to label a gov't as the culprit of all evil. I don't look at it like that, but I don't remove what responsible it claims it holds in protecting citizens.

As far as how other countries are invested and receiving damage from our current economical state, I can't empathize. I'm not in that situation. But historically, countries have been intertwined. The US of A has been more bent on pseudo-imperalism and globalization for self sustainability as a country due to its location from other prominent countries, and I've never supported any of that.

I don't see how people expect an instant fix anyway. That's not how things work. I guess people who've learned about the "tragic historic" happenings of countries forget that they are too, fallible.

[Taishyr]

People expect an instant fix because it is what we are used to. "Take this pill and you will become better." "Buy this and you will be more popular." "This perfume/clothing/xyz is the hip new thing, buy it." We do not comprehend easily, as a result, more long-term plans and solutions. We expect to see the change automatically, we expect everything to end dramatically for our sakes so that we can say "this is when it ended".

[Dark Holy Elf]

People expect an instant fix because it is what we are used to. "Take this pill and you will become better." "Buy this and you will be more popular." "This perfume/clothing/xyz is the hip new thing, buy it."

But... none of those things work. We all figure this out by the time we're 14 years old or so. Right?

... Right?


(okay yes, pills work, though generally not instantly, and some pills (hi, diet pills!) just fail)

[Idun]

People expect an instant fix because it is what we are used to. "Take this pill and you will become better." "Buy this and you will be more popular." "This perfume/clothing/xyz is the hip new thing, buy it." We do not comprehend easily, as a result, more long-term plans and solutions. We expect to see the change automatically, we expect everything to end dramatically for our sakes so that we can say "this is when it ended".

Eeeehh, I meant moreso economically by pattern. But I get what you're saying. It's a pity then.

[Taishyr]

People expect an instant fix because it is what we are used to. "Take this pill and you will become better." "Buy this and you will be more popular." "This perfume/clothing/xyz is the hip new thing, buy it."

But... none of those things work. We all figure this out by the time we're 14 years old or so. Right?

... Right?


(okay yes, pills work, though generally not instantly, and some pills (hi, diet pills!) just fail)

Pills can act quickly. But... in general, no, not enough of us do catch on.

[AAA]

So CNN again has polls giving the win to Obama.

http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08.htm

And it seems like every other poll more or less says the same thing. In a few days we'll see what other people think, but for now I imagine it's safe to say this was not the complete turnaround that McCain needed. Not even close. So what now? Obama's ahead in every poll, he has leads in several battleground states, and all he needs is 3+the states Kerry won in 2004 to clinch the nomination. 19 days until the election, and at this point almost always the candidate who shows a lead in the polls ends up President(there's been like two exceptions).

I have no idea how McCain could come back from this mess. Bradley Effect, maybe?

Obama does seem to have a sizable amount of younger voters, who rarely turn out on election day. That might hurt him. But is it enough?

Maybe the polls will tighten up a little before Election Day, it's happened before. But the time for an October Surprise is drawing close to an end.

[Grefter]

It isn't expecting the economy to be fixed straight away, it is expecting the government not to let it get to this point in the first place.  With regards to the government believing in free market bullshit, well see the conversation I had just before with Met, the government regulates business, it is not a free market.  Stepping in and fixing that shit is what governments are for, otherwise they would run entirely outside of the economy and leave such things within the framework of the citizens.

[Cotigo]

I have no idea how McCain could come back from this mess. Bradley Effect, maybe?

Voting machine fraud and voter disenfranchisement? 

[Taishyr]

Is likely not enough to swing multiple states by over 5-8% of the vote, Zenthor. Thankfully. And the ACORN shit can bite me, looking into that one the number of issues overall is less than 100 and they're required to turn them all in, no matter if they think there are issues or not, if I remember that part correctly. (I may not. I looked it up during a moment of low stress so I'm kinda zonky on it now.) So... yeah. The ACORN accusations mostly seem to be people trying to block some of the newly registrated (I make up fun words). Again, though, not likely enough to tilt -all- the states McCain needs by enough. He might get, oh, North Carolina back this way! But not much else, I suspect.

Also, re: Grefter: Yeah, but watch the American people blame Obama for the recession in four-eight years anyway.

We have a bad habit of giving credit where it isn't due - and even worse of blame where it isn't due.

Also: I have severe doubts the Bradley Effect is actually present at all in any real gamechanging manner this election, except perhaps in states Obama wouldn't be winning anyway.

Edit: Yep, looking back over stuff ACORN -must- turn in all forms, no matter how suspicious; they themselves put the ones they found suspicious separate from the rest and sent them in, requesting officials take an extra-close look at those.

So seriously screw the media and all the people attempting to jam up all these votes. Low number of sus. votes does not merit shutting out the high number of legal ones - and "low" and "high" are understatements of degree, here.

[Cotigo]

It was a joke, Tai. 

But, yeah, the whole ACORN thing is blown out of proportion and stinks of partisan registration blocking (Nevermind the sheer irony of a Rove-backed campaign whining about voting fraud...), but... even then I'm not sure, even if the registrations were blocked, if it matters.  Obama's lead is pretty large, and even diehard conservatives like my Uncle's family and my grandmother are supporting him over McCain, if that's any indication.