US Politics Mega-thread - Page 105

On February 15 2013 21:00 paralleluniverse wrote:

The $1.5 trillion cut agreed to in 2011 does not include the $1.2 trillion sequester, it doesn't even include interest savings. The $1.5 trillion number comes from CBPP:

Your argument that spending hasn't really been cut because projected spending isn't real, would also imply that projected deficits aren't real either. For example, all projections of healthcare costs exceeding 1000% of GDP in the future can't be real, because the country would collapse before healthcare costs could ever get to 1000% of GDP. Therefore, the deficit problem, by this reasoning, is not real.

You also seem to think that an actual decrease in the rate of spending isn't a cut, a change in spending of less than 0 is a cut, and any change in spending greater than 0 is not a cut. In plain English, this would be right. But I don't think it's the correct way to think about in the context of the economic effects. In budget jargon, a cut is a reduction in spending from the baseline, so that an increase in spending can still be a cut if it had been projected to increase even more. Moreover, there's nothing economically special about a change in spending of 0 that justifies we call a change less than it a cut. If we expect spending of $X as determined by current policy (a baseline) and get less than it, then the role of government has in a sense been shrunk, so we can call this a cut. Or economically, we require spending of $X to fill a deficiency of demand, but then we get far less, whatever you want to call it, a cut or an increase, there isn't enough spending in the economy.

Former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) will plead guilty to conspiring with his wife to illegally spend $750,000 in campaign funds on personal expenses, including a $43,000 Rolex watch, fur coats and memorabilia associated with Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Bruce Lee, according to information obtained by POLITICO.

The charges against him will include conspiracy, making false statements, and mail and wire fraud.

Prosecutors will recommend a prison sentence of between 46 months and 57 months for Jackson Jr., as well as a fine of $10,000 to $100,000, and forfeiture of a yet-to-be-determined portion of the misspent $750,000 in campaign funds.

Jackson’s wife, former Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson, is expected to plead guilty to a tax offense, according to a source close to the investigation. At different times, she has served as her husband’s campaign manager and campaign treasurer. Both Jacksons resigned from office amid the Justice Department’s investigation into their finances.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/jesse-jackson-jr-to-plead-guilty-to-federal-charges-87716.html?hp=t1_3

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signed on to a bill legalizing hemp production on Thursday, one day after the Senate in his home state of Kentucky voted to legalize the plant.

“I am proud to introduce legislation with my friend Rand Paul that will allow Kentucky farmers to harness the economic potential that industrial hemp can provide,” McConnell said in a statement. “During these tough economic times, this legislation has the potential to create jobs and provide a boost to Kentucky’s economy and to our farmers and their families.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/mitch-mcconnell-for-bipartisan-hemp-bill-87710.html?hp=r7

NEW YORK — Some bankers hoped that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the liberal firebrand who helped create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, would be subdued in her first term as she learned the ways of the Senate. Warren’s avoidance of the Beltway media appeared to stoke these hopes.

Well, forget it.

Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, came out blazing Thursday in her first high-profile appearance as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, ripping into regulators and starkly suggesting banks might be cooking their books.

...

Warren’s tough public stance on Thursday contrasted with her overall low-key approach since entering the Senate. She has not sought the spotlight, adopting the same strategy used by other first-term senators who are already national icons, including former New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Warren’s comment at the hearing on bank accounting came after she repeatedly — and apparently rhetorically — asked a panel of top regulators to cite the last time they had hauled a big Wall Street bank into court rather than settled. There were mostly halting responses and promises to get back to Warren with more information at a later time.

That question — why there has not been more accountability for top bankers in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown — taps into a deep vein of public anger on both the left and right. And it is Warren’s most potent political weapon.

Video of Warren’s appearance at the Banking Committee got heavy traffic Thursday on Twitter and left-leaning websites. The performance suggests Warren will keep pounding bankers from her perch in the Senate for years to come, including as critical final pieces of the Dodd-Frank law covering bank risk-taking trading and other formerly lucrative activities are completed. Some bankers hoped that final rule-making process would take place far from the spotlight. Warren’s fiery questions on Thursday suggests that will not be possible.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/why-elizabeth-warren-scares-wall-street-87714.html?hp=t2_3

On February 16 2013 05:30 JonnyBNoHo wrote: If it isn't useful and wanted then cut it - if GDP falls than so be it. It will not be missed.

On February 16 2013 06:33 sam!zdat wrote:
hah! go elizabeth. jail me some bankers plz

easy to say, but it doesn't work that way. way better for capitalism if people smoke and then buy cancer drugs, than if they don't smoke and don't buy cancer drugs. Being healthy from square one doesn't make anybody any money. Capitalism never wants to do things right the first time, that's a sucker's game.

While most Republican members of Congress have been lukewarm at best to the prospect of legalizing marijuana, senators introduced a bipartisan measure this week to legalize industrial hemp. Riding on the passage of a recent Kentucky Senate bills to ease hemp growing, the state’s Republican senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul joined Oregon Democratic Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden in introducing a bill to legalize production of the strain of cannabis used in the production of goods.

Hemp is a plant in the cannabis family with significantly lower levels of the psychoactive component, THC, than most varieties that are smoked or consumed. It is used to make textiles, paper, paints, clothing, plastics, cosmetics, foodstuffs, insulation, animal feed and other products, according to NORML. Hemp is nonetheless lumped in with all other cannabis products, which are classified as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive of the five schedules designated for those substances considered dangerous with no currently accepted medical value.

The bill, which would would remove hemp from the controlled substances list and define it as a non-drug so long as it contains less than 0.3 percent THC, is a small demonstration of fading hysteria over anything “cannabis” that emerged in the era of “Reefer Madness.” It also raises questions, however, about federal support for legalizing at least those strains of medical cannabis that have very low levels of THC, as well as those chemical compounds extracted from marijuana that are low in THC.

Everyone’s being paid precisely their marginal product (their value added to their firm’s production at the margin)

On February 17 2013 07:21 sam!zdat wrote:
raise wages first, fix other problems as they fall out.

edit: lol, do classical economists really believe this??



lololololololololol

On February 17 2013 07:31 sam!zdat wrote:
Where do they think profit comes from? This boggles my mind. If that were true, why would anybody ever hire anybody? Out of the goodness of their job creating hearts? bitches need to read their das kapital, man

On February 17 2013 07:31 sam!zdat wrote:
Where do they think profit comes from? This boggles my mind. If that were true, why would anybody ever hire anybody? Out of the goodness of their job creating hearts? bitches need to read their das kapital, man

On February 17 2013 07:40 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
If we were to pay workers a rate at which marginal cost = marginal revenue we can still turn a profit based on average cost.