US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5933

On November 06 2016 03:32 a_flayer wrote:


I think it's called short selling or something -- it had something to do with why they installed an internet cable between two economic hubs (New York and some other place) in order to get that extra millisecond of quicker response time so they could make more profits by quickly buying and selling stocks using a computer to quickly respond to minor changes in the price of stock, thereby amplifying the change. Sometimes it can completely destroy a company's stock resulting in catastrophe. In my opinion this sort of thing completely bypasses the purpose of the stock market and gives it a life of its own.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s determination to reconnect with voters in localized, informative settings is commendable, but is in danger of being overshadowed by questions about the interplay of politics and wealthy foreign donors who support the Clinton Foundation.

Nothing illegal has been alleged about the foundation, the global philanthropic initiative founded by former President Bill Clinton. But no one knows better than Mrs. Clinton that this is the tooth-and-claw political season where accusations are going to fly for the next 19 months. And no one should know better than the former senator and first lady that they will fester if straightforward answers are not offered to the public.

The increasing scrutiny of the foundation has raised several points that need to be addressed by Mrs. Clinton and the former president. These relate most importantly to the flow of multimillions in donations from foreigners and others to the foundation, how Mrs. Clinton dealt with potential conflicts as secretary of state and how she intends to guard against such conflicts should she win the White House.

The only plausible answer is full and complete disclosure of all sources of money going to the foundation. And the foundation needs to reinstate the ban on donations from foreign governments for the rest of her campaign — the same prohibition that was in place when she was in the Obama administration.

The messiness of her connection with the foundation has been shown in a report by The Times on a complex business deal involving Canadian mining entrepreneurs who made donations to the foundation and were at the time selling their uranium company to the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company. That deal, which included uranium mining stakes in the United States, required approval by the federal government, including the State Department.

The donations, which included $2.35 million from a principal in the deal, were not publicly disclosed by the foundation, even though Mrs. Clinton had signed an agreement with the Obama administration requiring the foundation to disclose all donors as a condition of her becoming secretary of state. This failure is an inexcusable violation of her pledge. The donations were discovered through Canadian tax records by Times reporters. Media scrutiny is continuing, with Reuters reporting that the foundation is refiling some returns found to be erroneous.

There is no indication that Mrs. Clinton played a role in the uranium deal’s eventual approval by a cabinet-level committee. But the foundation’s role in the lives of the Clintons is inevitably becoming a subject of political concern.

It’s an axiom in politics that money always creates important friendships, influence and special consideration. Wise politicians recognize this danger and work to keep it at bay. When she announced her candidacy, Mrs. Clinton resigned from the foundation board (Bill Clinton remains on the board). This was followed by the announcement of tighter foundation restrictions on donations from foreign countries, which had resumed after she left the State Department.

These half steps show that candidate Clinton is aware of the complications she and Bill Clinton have created for themselves. She needs to do a lot more, because this problem is not going away.

On November 06 2016 03:35 zlefin wrote:

they do that to make a tiny bit of profit; it doesn't utterly destroy companies iirc, just maes a bit of money off the system in an unproductive way. and there are various regulations being looked at to try nad fix it.
In order to fix things, you need to understand how they work, I'm trying to provide understanding for you. I'm not the person in charge who can actually fix things.
and complaints that are incorrect don't help so much, which is why it's important to thoroughly and correctly understand the issues.

On November 06 2016 02:24 xDaunt wrote:
From the NY Times Editorial Board:



Source.

I seem to recall a certain somebody whose username began with x and ended in Daunt making the same point a couple days ago. Again, and legality aside, is this the type of stuff that we want to tolerate from our politicians?

On November 06 2016 03:14 Thieving Magpie wrote:


oBlade was trying to produce false information by sharing a graph where the last unit of measure was 2000-2010 and using that trend to suggest that debt was too high in 2016.

On November 06 2016 02:24 xDaunt wrote:
From the NY Times Editorial Board:



Source.

I seem to recall a certain somebody whose username began with x and ended in Daunt making the same point a couple days ago. Again, and legality aside, is this the type of stuff that we want to tolerate from our politicians?

On November 06 2016 03:44 kwizach wrote:

You realize this was written in April 2015, right? Before the issue was repeatedly addressed by the Clinton campaign?

Foundation officials told Reuters last year that they did not always comply with central provisions of the agreement with President Barack Obama's administration, blaming oversights in some cases.(reut.rs/2fkHPCh)

At least eight other countries besides Qatar gave new or increased funding to the foundation, in most cases to fund its health project, without the State Department being informed, according to foundation and agency records. They include Algeria, which gave for the first time in 2010, and the United Kingdom, which nearly tripled its support for the foundation's health project to $11.2 million between 2009 and 2012.

Foundation officials have said some of those donations, including Algeria, were oversights and should have been flagged, while others, such as the UK increase, did not qualify as material increases.

The foundation has declined to describe what sort of increase in funding by a foreign government would have triggered notification of the State Department for review. Cookstra said the agreement was designed to "allow foreign funding for critical Clinton Foundation programs" to continue without disruption.

The State Department said it has no record of being asked by the foundation to review any increases in support by a foreign government.

Asked whether Qatar was funding a specific program at the foundation, Cookstra said the country supported the organization's "overall humanitarian work."

"Qatar continued supporting Clinton Foundation at equal or lower levels" compared with the country's pre-2009 support, he said. He declined to say if Qatar gave any money during the first three years of Clinton's four-year term at the State Department, or what its support before 2009 amounted to.

In another email released by WikiLeaks, a former Clinton Foundation fundraiser said he raised more than $21 million in connection with Bill Clinton's 65th birthday in 2011.

Spokesmen for Hillary Clinton's campaign and Bill Clinton did not respond to emailed questions about the donation.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that major donors to the Clinton Foundation may have obtained favored access to Clinton's State Department, but has provided little evidence to that effect. Clinton and her staff have dismissed this accusation as a political smear.

Last month, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman ordered the Donald J. Trump Foundation to stop fundraising in the state, saying it had not registered to solicit donations.

On November 06 2016 04:06 xDaunt wrote:

The date's irrelevant. And they still haven't made proper disclosures as is evidenced by the failure to disclose a $1 million gift from Qatar.

On November 06 2016 04:17 ChristianS wrote:

The date seems relevant, given that the article you linked argues the Clintons need to offer a clear plan for how they'll avoid conflicts of interest with CF donors. They've since done exactly that.

On November 06 2016 04:17 ChristianS wrote:

The date seems relevant, given that the article you linked argues the Clintons need to offer a clear plan for how they'll avoid conflicts of interest with CF donors. They've since done exactly that.

On November 06 2016 04:17 ChristianS wrote:

The date seems relevant, given that the article you linked argues the Clintons need to offer a clear plan for how they'll avoid conflicts of interest with CF donors. They've since done exactly that.

On November 06 2016 03:36 oBlade wrote:

My ass, what kind of casuistry is this? My graph stops at 2010 to hide that the national debt disappeared since then? I explicitly linked usdebtclock.org which shows the national debt now at nearly $20 trillion. This is higher than before. That means it has gone up (by trillions), which is assuredly the opposite of down.

You're looking at a graph of the deficit showing there's no surplus and not putting together that that means increasing debt?

On November 06 2016 04:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Since English doesn't seem to be your first language, I will understand why you don't understand mathematics.

On November 06 2016 04:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:
The US has a total debt.

Each year, that total debt can either increase, or decrease, depending on expenditures.

During George Bush's time, the debt was increasing by 7%-9% per year spiking to 11%-18% during the recession (this is when the bailouts were happening)

As banks, and factories were being saved/allowed to fail expenditures were getting cut, as could be seen by the decrease in yearly debt increase. Sure, 18% was added to the debt in 2008, but only 13% was added by 2010, and only 9% in 2011 as companies kept getting bailed out. (This is where your graph stops, which you have to make it stop here otherwise people would see your malicious deception)

There is total debt accumulated, and there is amount added to the debt. Eisenhower and Truman were able to shrink the debt by less than 2% but otherwise every president has been adding to the national debt since the founding of the United States. This means that majority of the debt is actually the work of past administration, and not current ones. So what's the best way to track who's responsible for what? You track the yearly increase or decrease in debt--as that is the money you've added to or removed from the national debt, the rest were added by previous administrations. So let us look at that.

In 2012, at the end of Obama's term, the debt was only increased by 8%, which is at the same rate as Bush had been doing it before the recession when everyone thought the US Economy was invincible. The yearly increase in debt has been shrinking even more since then with only 4% added in 2013, 6% added in 2014, and a mere 1.8% added in 2015.

So though the total debt is high, actions to shrink down our expenditure has been miles ahead of the Bush administration and much closer to the Clinton Administration's expenditures--the highest surplus in US history.

For context, bailing out the banks affected the national debt much less than almost any given year in the Reagan Administration where he added as much as 20% to the debt.

On November 06 2016 04:18 xDaunt wrote:

No, they very clearly haven't done it given the Qatar story.

On November 06 2016 04:00 Thieving Magpie wrote:


Since English doesn't seem to be your first language, I will understand why you don't understand mathematics.

On November 06 2016 04:27 oBlade wrote:

This is too funny for me not to keep you in the dark as to why.


The conversation before you butted in was RealityIsKing said the debt doubled, hunts said it decreased. All I did was expose reality I am not having the argument about whether Obama did better or worse than he should have, I was clarifying what reality is. The graph is not misleading, it's just the first I saw that explained the difference between up and down.