OT: Elections/Politics thread, part 4

[MACTEPsporta]

Seriously, we've had brilliant failed Presidents and successful Presidents with more modest intellectual gifts. Like most important jobs, there is more than one model for success. The most important thing for a successful President is to get a managerial structure in place which compliments the President's strengths rather than highlighting his weaknesses.

President's success is measured mostly by the events that occur during his presidency. Many of which he has very little or absolutely no control over. Ronald Reagan is viewed as a successful president by GOP faithful and many independants. Do you think that would be the case if USSR didn't collapse? Do you think Clinton's presidency would still be as touted if Kosovo conflict turned into a full-blown international military conflict? Or if the price of gas in the nineties quadrupled?

With that said, this country is set up in the way that POTUS is often faced with decisions that can have tremendous consequences, and I would very much prefer that the person making these decisions have an IQ above that of a field mouse.

I think both McCain and Obama are way ahead of Bush Jr in this category, although people voting strictly on intellect will, undoubtfully choose Obama.

[RobVarak]

WaPo: Don't believe us, we're full of crap!

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? ... IwYjc4Y2M=

Are you suggesting, sir, that the WaPo/NY Times media axis is not as reliable as it once was? Perish the thought!

Well there is this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/busin ... ref=slogin

Editors’ Note An earlier version of this article cited two sources who were said to have been briefed on a conversation in which John J. Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, had told Vikrim S. Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, that “we need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it.” On Thursday, Morgan Stanley vigorously denied that Mr. Mack had made the comment, as did Citigroup, which had declined to comment on Wednesday.

The Times’s two sources have since clarified their comments, saying that because they were not present during the discussions, they could not confirm that Mr. Mack had in fact made the statement. The Times should have asked Morgan Stanley for comment and should not have used the quotation without doing more to verify the sources’ version of events.

Gee, ya think?

[TheGamer]

Of course this is crap and not true. But this would be the funniest thing ever.

http://www.blackbottom.com/watch.php?v=WdBJd9b9i8A

Why?

Its funny because, if it were true, it would show they didn't trust America enough to tell the truth, that they had to send Levi out to look respectable. That their thoughts would have been, America can accept her being pregnant, but not by a black kid. Its a moot point because its not true.

[Jackdog]

Of course this is crap and not true. But this would be the funniest thing ever.

http://www.blackbottom.com/watch.php?v=WdBJd9b9i8A

Why?

Its funny because, if it were true, it would show they didn't trust America enough to tell the truth, that they had to send Levi out to look respectable. That their thoughts would have been, America can accept her being pregnant, but not by a black kid. Its a moot point because its not true.

Gotcha,thanks for the explanation.

I believe if it was true we would have seen that black kid on stage the night of her spech at the RNC. Race isn't an issue in that family. They are bi-racial now.

[kevinpars]

I can't imagine anyone who has seen McCain in an informal interview setting question his intelligence - for example his appearances on The Daily Show. My concern with McCain is will we get the reasonable sounding man I have seen in interviews or the guy on the campaign trail who uses commercials that even Karl Rove says went too far?

As for Obama, I just don't get it. I can't help but feel he is a phony. If you look beyond his pretty speeches and at his record - and the people he stepped on to get where he is - it is hard to justify voting for him. Look at the biggest decision he has made so far - his choice for vice president. What kind of a new idea was that uninspired choice? I think that the Democratic party is still counting on people hating Bush so much that they will pull the lever without thinking about it - even all the women they alienated during the primaries.

[MACTEPsporta]

Race isn't an issue in that family. They are bi-racial now.

That's news to me. Who is bi-racial in her family?

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

[RobVarak]

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

Damn right! What do you know about being black in America, Jack? Hell, you may vote Republican!!

[MACTEPsporta]

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

Damn right! What do you know about being black in America, Jack? Hell, you may vote Republican!!

I am sure your close affiliation with Chester Burnett gives you the inside perspective. And, no I won't vote Republican. Or Democrat, for that matter.

[Jackdog]

Race isn't an issue in that family. They are bi-racial now.

That's news to me. Who is bi-racial in her family?

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

Really? You poll any Native Americans on that? I am willing to bet they wouldn't agree with you. Americans still show a massive amount of disrespect and racial insensitivity towards Native Americans.

I really find it hard to believe the NFL hasn't forced the Washington Redskins to change the teams name. Hell many memebrs of Congress are season ticket holders. I wonder how many black members of Congress even think it's offensive? They have too remember the uproar about Sambo's restaurant chain in the 70's. Sambo's used a cartoon image of an African-American boy. http://www.cnn.com/US/9801/28/sambo.revival/ That resturant chain was pressured to dump it. Yet we still have the Redskins and MLB's version of Sambo with Chief Wahoo. The Indians had this logo until 1950. http://www.sportslogos.net/images/logos ... bs/720.gif This is the current one. http://www.sportslogos.net/images/logos ... bs/738.gif

This professor nailed it.

A Native American professor at my college had once on his office door a collection of mock logos based off of the Cleveland Indians logo. It was all the same face, but different features were changed to make it offensive to a variety of races (African Americans - black face with a large, flat nose and large lips, Latinos - a sombrero was added, Asians - think Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, etc.). Basically, the point was why were these mock logos offensive, but not the Indians' logo?

I could go on but you get my point.

[Jackdog]

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

Damn right! What do you know about being black in America, Jack? Hell, you may vote Republican!!

Looks like Carol and I have sold out.

[MACTEPsporta]

And here it comes:
$700 billion dollar mortgage bailout proposal -
http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/20/news/ec ... 2008092009

That's about the cost of war in Iraq in the last five years. Talk about putting the next administration on the ropes.

Here are the positives:
1) rates will be lowered which will eventually lead to a revival of real estate market. In fact we might even see a quick boom shortly, as some speculators will view this as the last chance to buy low. That's not going to last, though;
2) government can make a bunch of money in a few years, because they are paying close to nothing now;
3) stock market will benefit, I am troubled to say for how long and to what extent, as I believe there will be some serious issues.

Negatives:
1) inflation will surely rise, as this bailout will be made with "printed" money. Consequently dollar will fall further and it may just do in UK, as they are in trouble already, and that, in turn, will have reprocussions in the US as well;
2) other industries will suffer from disbalance of debt, so expect a lot of bankrupcies;
3) I don't know how comprehensive the plan is, but when something of such magnitude is drafted in a short period of time, problems with clearity of the rules will surely apply. Here are the questions that will create some turbulence: Who will qualify for money injection? What is the cut off point? How much government will intervene with each particular company, and what conflict of interests may arise from that? What if loan terms are not met?

[matthewk]

I hate the idea of a bailout. Bush is doing the wrong thing here IMO (Take note Dems, I am NOT siding with Bush here).

I don't the housing market should be revived artificially like this. This is what got us into trouble in the first place. Low rates and deals encouraging taking on stupid risks. The only thing throwing a ton of money (OUR money, BTW) at the problem will do is prolong the issue. So now we'll be right back here in a couple of years, but probably even worse off than now.

They should let the market correct itself and make the bad lenders suffer for their irresponsible actions. In the case of Fannie & Freddie I don't think they had much choice, but now it sounds like they want a pile of cash so they can start throwing paper liferafts out to every firm that is failing.

If they print money for this, the money we currently hold is devalued. The other way is to raise our taxes, which takes money out of our pockets. I really detest that we (the responsible ones) are going to have to pay for the misdeeds of others.

[kevinpars]

You know what amazes me most about reading back through the last few pages here is the outrage that people still feel for Clinton's blowjob. Here we have an administration in office that outed a CIA operative in a time of war and in the name of politics and yet all I heard was crickets when that went down. Suffice it to say if Valerie Plame and her husband had been Republican supporters and outed during a Democratic presidency, there would have been calls for justice and even the death penalty. Ah well, I guess it is all water(boarding) under the bridge.

[wco81]

They're not only trying to rescue the housing market.

They're trying to rescue the whole banking system. Not just here but all over the world. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed, a lot of central banks in other countries would have failed. They were the ones buying a lot of our debt. Eliminate that source and we'd have even bigger problems.

Same thing with AIG, which was in 130 countries, insured a lot of financial institutions.

Some are predicting a big money center bank like B of A or Citi might go under. There are also fears about many smaller banks. FDIC has over 100 banks on their watch list.

When Lehman went under, some money market funds saw the value of shares go under $1.

If they did nothing, there could have been bank runs all over the world. This cleansing process that people talk about -- letting the weaker companies fail -- might make people feel better about some companies getting their comeuppance.

But this kind of economic Darwinist cure wouldn't have punished just those who made bad decisions. It would have hurt everyone. The economy is heavily dependent on the banking system. Bank failures would have taken down a lot of other companies and businesses with them.

The damage would not have been limited to just a few bad actors.

Paulson and Bernanke are pushing this because they detected imminent danger. Now it may be that in this rush, the solution they come up with has a lot of unintended consequences. I'm sure they're aware of this possibility but they must think that the risk of not doing something now is worse.

Some argue for instance that a lot of these banks could have taken their medicine months ago, writing off more of their losses than wait until now, hoping the situation improves.

You can say that maybe a big undertaking like this should be deferred to the next administration instead of being done now, in the last two months of this administration.

[Teal]

Race isn't an issue in that family. They are bi-racial now.

That's news to me. Who is bi-racial in her family?

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

I love it that people think that bi-racial either means black, or it doesn't mean anything. Sheesh.

[Teal]

You know what amazes me most about reading back through the last few pages here is the outrage that people still feel for Clinton's blowjob. Here we have an administration in office that outed a CIA operative in a time of war and in the name of politics and yet all I heard was crickets when that went down. Suffice it to say if Valerie Plame and her husband had been Republican supporters and outed during a Democratic presidency, there would have been calls for justice and even the death penalty. Ah well, I guess it is all water(boarding) under the bridge.

What the hell are you talking about? Reading back through the last few pages of this thread gave you some idea that someone was still talking about Clinton's BJ? Where'd you read that? The rest of the post is really nonfactual, as well. The last line is just...well...par for the course, actually.

[Jared]

Yeah...the bailout sucks. The taxpayer essentially will be taking responsibility for a bunch of crappy loans that the recipients don't have the money to pay off. $800 BILLION is a lot of money...and my guess is that the government will be paying more than fair value for them, essentially having the gov't take the hit for all this bad paper, not the banks. We're going to end up paying for this.....

(Though I'm not sure if there are any better alternatives...)

For all the free market fundamentalists out there, these are the consequences of deregulation. People cheat the system, make lots of money, and then when the s*** hits the fan, we end up paying for it. We end up w/a system where we privatize profits and nationalize losses.

[Teal]

Yeah...the bailout sucks. The taxpayer essentially will be taking responsibility for a bunch of crappy loans that the recipients don't have the money to pay off. $800 BILLION is a lot of money...and my guess is that the government will be paying more than fair value for them, essentially having the gov't take the hit for all this bad paper, not the banks. We're going to end up paying for this.....

(Though I'm not sure if there are any better alternatives...)

For all the free market fundamentalists out there, these are the consequences of deregulation. People cheat the system, make lots of money, and then when the s*** hits the fan, we end up paying for it. We end up w/a system where we privatize profits and nationalize losses.

But the answer isn't to socialize the system, and that's where we're headed...fast. All these bailouts give the government much more control than they should have. And I'd be more in favor of government regulations, if government hadn't been in the pockets of these bailed-out entities in the first place. The only reason they're being bailed out is because it bails THEM out.

[wco81]

McCain was a big proponent of deregulation when he was on the Senate Commerce committee (I believe he was chairman).

But this week, he was talking like he was some pro-regulation liberal.

That's when he wasn't blaming the whole problem on Obama and those other Washington insiders, of which he wasn't a member.

Under the Bush admin. the regulators were more enablers. Under Christopher Cox, the SEC allowed the banks to increase leverage from 12 to 1 to 30 to 1 like Lehman or even higher ratios.

It wasn't just people taking out mortgages they couldn't afford. It was Wall Street getting over-leveraged -- taking on obligations they couldn't afford.

This hyper-leverage was very profitable for Wall Street, until homes stopped growing in value. If it was just bad loans, the economic impact would be much more limited. But all the derivatives and securities based on these bad mortgages multiple the magnitude of the problem several fold.

Some are going to make out from this rescue too.

[MACTEPsporta]

Race isn't an issue in that family. They are bi-racial now.

That's news to me. Who is bi-racial in her family?

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

I love it that people think that bi-racial either means black, or it doesn't mean anything. Sheesh.

You need to pay more attention to what you are responding to. If you take your time and scroll up, you will find that the conversation started with the post that had a video of a black kid stating he is the father of the unborn child, that Bristol Palin is carrying. Still feel like sheeshing?

And, as a sidenote, there are a few notable race theories in the world, and the one that dominated for the longest period of time, is the simple three-race theory, where a person is either white, black (includes Australian aborigenes), or asian (includes american Indians).

[RobVarak]

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

Damn right! What do you know about being black in America, Jack? Hell, you may vote Republican!!

I am sure your close affiliation with Chester Burnett gives you the inside perspective. And, no I won't vote Republican. Or Democrat, for that matter.

I was talking about JackDog. I was implying that I'm pretty sure that he may have a better perspective on being black in American than you do.

[MACTEPsporta]

Damn right! What do you know about being black in America, Jack? Hell, you may vote Republican!!

I am sure your close affiliation with Chester Burnett gives you the inside perspective. And, no I won't vote Republican. Or Democrat, for that matter.

I was talking about JackDog. I was implying that I'm pretty sure that he may have a better perspective on being black in American than you do.

Mmm.. I see. I just thought we have reached a new level of familiarity, you know, with the whole "Ukrainian employee" and all. My apologies.

[matthewk]

But this kind of economic Darwinist cure wouldn't have punished just those who made bad decisions. It would have hurt everyone. The economy is heavily dependent on the banking system. Bank failures would have taken down a lot of other companies and businesses with them.

The damage would not have been limited to just a few bad actors.

How does throwing money we don't have at the problem not hurt everyone anyways? Plus, this only encourages them to perform similar stunts in the future because we've done nothing to "teach them their lesson" so to speak. It also does not fix the root cause of what has gotten them into this mess.

I also said that I don't think they had much choice when it came to Freddie & Fannie. That's a whole different problem that needs to be dealt with. Right now I'm more afraid of how many more companies the government is going to bail out.

[matthewk]

You need to pay more attention to what you are responding to. If you take your time and scroll up, you will find that the conversation started with the post that had a video of a black kid stating he is the father of the unborn child, that Bristol Palin is carrying. Still feel like sheeshing?

It was made clear by Gamer (who posted the initial link) that this was not true. After that post was your response, hence Teal's interpretation.

[Teal]

That's news to me. Who is bi-racial in her family?

EDIT: Found it. You must be talking about his Indian roots. That's very different than being black in America, though.

I love it that people think that bi-racial either means black, or it doesn't mean anything. Sheesh.

You need to pay more attention to what you are responding to. If you take your time and scroll up, you will find that the conversation started with the post that had a video of a black kid stating he is the father of the unborn child, that Bristol Palin is carrying. Still feel like sheeshing?

And, as a sidenote, there are a few notable race theories in the world, and the one that dominated for the longest period of time, is the simple three-race theory, where a person is either white, black (includes Australian aborigenes), or asian (includes american Indians).

Yes, I still feel like 'sheeshing'. It may come as quite the surprise, but I've read this whole thread and kept up with it. I've paid plenty of attention; you don't need to be making assessments based upon information you don't have. Your remark is still one for scrutinizing, because you act as if there's some sort of different level of race for blacks, and for everyone else.

And for the record, the whole 'white' thing...it's not a 'race'. That's ludicrous. I've got all sorts of different backgrounds running through my veins, but am forced, since I am not black or hispanic, to declare myself 'white'. I'm anglo, spanish, and other sundry sorts. I just 'look' white, so I'm declared to be.