US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1328

On October 03 2014 04:14 nunez wrote:
hm, yes, i think that seems correct. phew.

so what you are hoping for is that the increase in money supply does not affect the price of transaction or the price level to a such a degree that it counteracts the change?

On October 03 2014 04:03 KwarK wrote:

Sure, I have no idea if she is competent or not. But I don't go "I heard about this person who was doing a job and then someone said she should do it one way but then she said she should do it another way so she must be like terrible at her job because 100 is like a way bigger number than 30" which is essentially what Gorsameth leaped to.

There was a proposal which she disagreed with for reasons which may have been good, or may not have been, I don't know, but nor does anyone else here. The only stance I'm taking here is that we're probably less informed about the issues involved in running the secret service than the head of the secret service.

Ever since Sandra Day O’Connor resigned from the Supreme Court in 2006, anti-abortion activists have been playing a game of chicken with the justices. On one side are the activists, who want to push anti-abortion laws as far as they can without getting slapped down by the court. On the other side is Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wants to let states make abortions harder and harder to obtain without actually outlawing them. For more than 20 years, Kennedy has approved literally every anti-abortion law he’s encountered, leading some liberals to fear he’d finally abandoned Roe v. Wade altogether.

Soon, however, Kennedy may finally be forced to balk. On Tuesday, the ACLU sued to halt an extreme new Alabama law targeting minors who are seeking abortions. The measure is very clearly designed to degrade and humiliate teenage girls, far beyond what any state has previously attempted (and what the Supreme Court has allowed). Alabama already requires a minor to secure parental consent before obtaining an abortion, but if she cannot—if, for instance, it was her parent who raped and impregnated her—she can ask a judge to bypass this requirement. The new law takes that judicial bypass and turns it on its head, permitting the judge to appoint a lawyer to represent the minor’s fetus and advocate for its best interests. The judge may bring the district attorney into court to question the minor. And, worst of all, the district attorney can call witnesses to testify against the minor—and in favor of her fetus.

All of this is quite heinous. But it gets much worse. If the judge rules in favor of the minor, the district attorney is now permitted by law to appeal the ruling and make his case all over again to a higher court. By letting the district attorney call an endless number of witnesses then appeal an unfavorable ruling, the law creates a loophole that could let the state delay a minor’s abortion to the point that she couldn’t even legally receive one. (In Alabama, that’s 20 weeks, unless there is a threat to the mother’s health.) If Alabama gets away with this law, in other words, it’ll have effectively nullified young women’s constitutional right to an abortion.

There’s good reason to think, however, that Kennedy won’t let Roe die on his watch. It’s certainly true that Kennedy is conservative on abortion: During his time on the court, he’s only voted to invalidate one abortion restriction. But that one restriction is telling. In the landmark 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Kennedy held that Pennsylvania couldn’t force women to receive consent from their spouses before obtaining an abortion. In a notoriously turgid opinion, Kennedy wrote that abortion “involve[s] the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Then, in what Justice Antonin Scalia later mocked as the “famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage,” Kennedy wrote: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

On October 03 2014 03:11 Sub40APM wrote:

No, I dont trust them because of their natural preference towards conservatism and protecting the assets of the elites against inflation but I trust them more to respond to data inputs than your stance of 'let everything fail'.


Where is that inflation again?

+ Show Spoiler +

On October 03 2014 05:41 IgnE wrote:


This is a completely disingenuous post. The guy already said that he thought the inflation was in real estate/equity/assets, not the traditional markers of inflation that you are presenting here. Post something about how stocks are not overbought right now (they are) or how the top-end real estate market is not experiencing significant price inflation (it is).

On October 03 2014 05:41 IgnE wrote:


This is a completely disingenuous post. The guy already said that he thought the inflation was in real estate/equity/assets, not the traditional markers of inflation that you are presenting here. Post something about how stocks are not overbought right now (they are) or how the top-end real estate market is not experiencing significant price inflation (it is).

On October 03 2014 05:41 IgnE wrote:


This is a completely disingenuous post. The guy already said that he thought the inflation was in real estate/equity/assets, not the traditional markers of inflation that you are presenting here. Post something about how stocks are not overbought right now (they are) or how the top-end real estate market is not experiencing significant price inflation (it is).

On October 03 2014 06:29 IgnE wrote:
Ok, thanks for the definitional lesson jonny.

It would be better if you guys responded to people's conceptual points instead of dodging them by arguing about how someone's definition differs from the conventional definition.

because it's not true. the inflation is just in sectors of the economy that aren't counted as "inflation..." like housing and equities. inflation is not a phenomenon that happens evenly in all sectors of the economy all at once! When you do inflationary things (like create debt ex nihilo) there will be inflation... no free lunch kids. I can't believe you've brainwashed yourself into thinking that you can do inflationary things and not get inflation. It's nuts.

A small startup news site run by a former communications director for Mitt Romney in Iowa reported on Thursday that a Secret Service agent, near the end of the 2012 presidential cycle, divulged details of the president's schedule to a Romney staffer.

The report, from the website Inside Sources, cites two Romney staffers "who witnessed the events in question." The sources told Inside Sources that the married-Secret Service agent, who was not identified, was motivated by his flirtation with the female staffer to disclose the information and on a separate occasion gave joy rides in Secret Service cars with lights flashing. This all happened in a key battleground state in October 2012, according to the report.

Inside Sources reported that the schedule provided by the agent was received with skepticism by the Romney campaign but it was eventually proven to have been accurate.

The Inside Sources item came the same week that The Washington Post has been publishing reports on new details about Omar Gonzalez, the White House fence jumper who made it deep into the presidential mansion despite official reports that he had not. As a result of those reports, Julia Pierson stepped down as head of the United States Secret Service.

Former 2012 Romney staffers reached by TPM said they had not heard anything like what was reported in the Inside Sources piece, which was cited by The Hill and Business Insider on Thursday and was picked up by the Drudge Report.

On October 03 2014 02:32 bookwyrm wrote:
Hey kwizach and Sub40, y'all wanna explain to me how in your world it's possible to get something for nothing? Please, demonstrate how a REAL intellectual supports his points! How can QE both DO SOMETHING, and BE FREE? Since this is clearly what you believe. Or if not, please explain what, on your view, are the dangers of "unconventional monetary policy", since the dangers I have identified are obviously very stupid and ignorant

On October 03 2014 02:38 bookwyrm wrote:


by structural reforms you mean austerity? that's not structural reform, that's just abandoning the old structural reform half-measures (social democracy) without any replacement.

our country is full of people who believe that there are magic, monetary solutions to real world problems. Like... kwizach and sub40



because it's not true. the inflation is just in sectors of the economy that aren't counted as "inflation..." like housing and equities. inflation is not a phenomenon that happens evenly in all sectors of the economy all at once! When you do inflationary things (like create debt ex nihilo) there will be inflation... no free lunch kids. I can't believe you've brainwashed yourself into thinking that you can do inflationary things and not get inflation. It's nuts.

and since as One Of Them pointed out, the point of the policy is to encourage banks to loan more, which WOULD be inflationary, which they aren't doing because they are just using the money to speculate and finance stock buybacks and shit like that, if the policy were having its intended effect* there WOULD be inflation in the sense of the measures that you are talking about. YOU never responded to THIS point that I made (I don't think you are going to allow yourself to understand it) so don't feel all high and mighty, son. You don't get to accuse me of not responding to your points when actually I DID respond and you just ignore my response...

the sad thing is I used to think you guys were cool and smart and stuff. but it's okay, I know that really deep down you're just scared and clinging on to whatever certainty is left to you in the world

*(supposedly intended effect, actually the intended effect is to create more wealth for rich people which is exactly what it is doing)

An unnamed man claiming to be a member of Congress made his way into a secure area backstage at an event President Barack Obama attended last week, an unidentified White House official told Bloomberg.

The impostor claimed he was Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-N.J.), according to the official. The man was asked to leave the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation awards dinner after another member of the White House staff recognized that he was not actually the congressman. The man left without incident and was not detained.

According to Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary, the man went through security clearance and was fully screened.

The term "self-made" is somewhat subjective in the world of wealth. Sure, there are billionaires who came from true poverty to strike it rich. But plenty of other so-called self-made rich people started out with affluent families and elite, expensive educations.
.....
To try to fill in the gray areas, Forbes has come out with a "self-made score" for its billionaires. It's like a sliding scale of self-madehood. A score of 1 means they inherited everything. A score of 10 means they grew up poor and overcame "significant obstacles."
.....
Of the current Forbes 400, there were 34 with a top score of 10; 64 with a score of 9; 130 with a score of 8; 37 with a score of 7; and only 10 with a 6. On the inherited side, there were 28 with a score of 1; 24 with a 2 score; 19 with a 3; 20 with a 4; and 34 with a five

Yet Forbes said that wealth in America has become far more meritocratic over time. It said that in 1984, "less than half of those on The Forbes 400 were self-made; today, 69 percent of the 400 created their own fortunes."

A 2012 analysis by the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy said that 40 percent of today's American billionaires inherited a "sizeable asset from a spouse or family member."