US Politics Mega-thread - Page 565

On October 24 2013 08:04 farvacola wrote:
In all honesty, I file away anything that looks remotely like "restore America's respectability on the international stage" as political garbage no matter who says it

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp was found liable for fraud on Wednesday on claims related to defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit, a major win for the U.S. government in one of the few big trials stemming from the financial crisis.

Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan found the Charlotte, North Carolina bank liable on one civil fraud charge. Countrywide originated shoddy home loans in a process called "Hustle" and sold them to government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government said.

The four men and six women on the jury also found former Countrywide executive, Rebecca Mairone, liable on the one fraud charge facing her.

A decision on how much to penalize the bank would be left to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it would ask Rakoff to award up to $848.2 million, the gross loss it said Fannie and Freddie suffered on the loans.

Bank of America bought Countrywide in July 2008. Two months later, the government took over Fannie and Freddie.

"The jury's decision concerned a single Countrywide program that lasted several months and ended before Bank of America's acquisition of the company," Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson said. "We will evaluate our options for appeal."

On October 24 2013 07:26 Wegandi wrote:


You do know Economics as a profession is a logician based field, right? Or are you saying that from the 1700s to the early 1920's all of Economics was wrong? Similarly, you can't use the same methodology that physics and other 'hard' sciences use because you're dealing with human beings, who have their own motivations, and influences. How can you use math for instance, to understand how power dynamics influence decisions (re: things like Stanford Experiment). You're expecting people in positions of power to act benevolently on the behalf of 'the people', when they have no incentive and are rewarded for doing exactly the opposite. You can't model those things with math. Also, Austrian Economics doesn't outright reject empiricism. We reject that empiricism can inform theory, before theory informs empiricism. You can't base theories off empiricism is what we are saying, not that empiricism itself is to be completely discarded. In fact, if you bothered to do any investigation you could easily listen to some of Rothbard's lectures he used to give in which he gives many empirical examples of things like preference (e.g. at the first American Austrian Economics conference there were two stores side by side in the same small town. One had far higher prices than the other, but yet was in business all the same. Why? Because half the town hated the one store, and half the town hated the other store, out of personal spite.) This is why when people say things like 'perfect markets' as a theory to describe Austrian Economics I can only laugh. None of us believe in that silly Walrasian non-sense. It's a strawman you use to try and discredit something you're personally against.

If anything Keynesian and Neo-Classical economics is more Walrasian than it isn't which is pretty ironic considering the excuses you guys use against AE.

Kirzner does a good job here: http://www.econlib.org/library/NPDBooks/Dolan/dlnFMA3.html#Part 2, Essay 2

On October 24 2013 08:39 Souma wrote:
farv's last line pretty much nails it right on. No matter how lackluster Obama may seem on various issues, as long as Republicans support even worse candidates, Democrats and most moderates will rally behind theirs.

Republicans will be wise to run with Chris Christie in 2016, or Hillary will win by a landslide.

I won't be voting for Hillary though. -_-

On October 24 2013 09:30 rod409 wrote:
What specific things would you guys want Obama to do? I don't think you can put together a huge list that he would actually be able to accomplish and I feel like most of the thread would have felt disappointed by anyone in office, and by anyone I even mean ourselves.

On October 24 2013 09:53 Nyxisto wrote:


I can only speak from a foreigner-perspective, but i would have expected quite the opposite from what he's doing regarding foreign policies.
I'm disappointed by all the drone-striking going on, Guantanamo still open, hunting down Whistle-blowers and free press (especially because Obama implicitly said that he would strengthen Whistle-blower rights before he got elected). And of course the whole NSA mess.

A worsening hunger strike and a fresh plea by President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison fell on deaf ears in Congress Friday, as the House of Representatives voted to keep the increasingly infamous jail open.

The House voted to make it harder for Obama to begin shifting inmates, adding a restriction to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014 that bars any of the roughly 56 prisoners who have been cleared by military and intelligence officials to be sent to Yemen from being transferred there for one year. Some 30 other Gitmo inmates of the 166 kept there have also been cleared for release.

On October 24 2013 10:36 rod409 wrote:


With regards to Guantanamo he isn't doing nothing but there are probably executive actions he could take.


link

For the NSA, I think if I was president in 2009 and could eliminate/change it how I wanted I would be worried about how much political capital I would need to do that. I would also worry about being labeled as soft on terrorism when the public finds out what I did. There is also the chance a terrorist attack happens and even though it may have nothing to do with NSA, I take heavy blame which takes away any chance I have at passing other legislation. I'll leave this hypothetical for you guys to think about.

You can pass any one item on the list but everything else will be kept the same for at least the next 15 years

1. Immediate job stimulus
2. Eliminate Obamacare
3. Make abortions illegal in all trimesters
4. eliminate the Federal Reserve
5. pass heavy environmental legislation
6. reform the tax code however you want
7. campaign finance reform
8. immigration reform
9. pass a budget that eliminates the deficit by 2025 through whatever cuts and/or taxes but no real reform
10. change NSA/foreign policy as you see fit

On October 24 2013 11:50 zlefin wrote:
getting rid of the fed seems silly; how would that work? It seems if you try to back your currency with something, then if whatever the backing is changes in value, that would cause large economic swings; there's also a shortage of things that would actually work as backing, there's just not enough gold in the world to back a modern economy with it.
At any rate, i'm against getting rid of the fed when it seems to be one of the most responsible and competent parts of government (current situation).

As to military; certainly USA could survive just fine with almost no military, not sure how the rest of the world would take that; that'd be quite a bit of chaos I'd imagine, hehe.

On October 24 2013 07:46 Sermokala wrote:
The guy doesn't want war and is willing to give up everything to avoid war. That isn't necessarily bad foreign policy but if you lack any sort of a stick you need to be good on the carrot.

there really isn't much to justify how hes fucked up egypt though. that country is going to come and bite us in the ass in a few years. And he hasn't really done anything about the NSA leaks damaging our standing abroad. Neither is really things he caused so you can't put all the blame on him but hes failed to make the situation any better.