US Politics Mega-thread - Page 615

On November 07 2013 11:45 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

I'm not sure about the intermediaries bidding up prices aspect, but the other two complaints, that GS creates bubbles to sell at higher prices, or that GS takes junk and falsely repackages it as something great, don't sound correct.

At First Glance, Economy Grew More Than Expected In 3Q

The U.S. economy grew at a better-than-expected 2.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Thursday morning.

That's a bit faster than the 2.5 percent pace of the second quarter. According to the BEA, consumer spending, inventory investment and exports helped fuel slightly stronger growth.

As we wrote earlier, economists had been expecting to hear that gross domestic product growth slowed from July 1 through Sept. 30, to a 2 percent annual rate. Their prediction may still turn out to be correct: The GDP data will be revised twice; one time each in the next two months.

Also Thursday morning, the Employment and Training Administration said that 336,000 people filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week. That was down 9,000 from the week before.

On November 08 2013 09:55 Danglars wrote:

Yes, neoliberal free-market ideology has overtaken the world. Obama's a big subscriber.

Now go on back to answering every argument with straw men.

On November 08 2013 09:37 Danglars wrote:

The legal wordings and areas for interpretation will have the effect of increasing frivolous lawsuits. The danger of legal liability for hiring LGBT employees will discourage their hiring in a clandestine manner. The lengths to which you have to cover you own ass to avoid lawsuit is too much.

Punishment culture, not anti-discrimination culture. I wouldn't mind seeing another one genuinely aimed at fairness, as advertised. I want to see employment for everbody increase, and misguided efforts that will hurt the very groups it tries to protect is a step back.


Powers given to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Love 'em.

On November 08 2013 09:37 Danglars wrote:

The legal wordings and areas for interpretation will have the effect of increasing frivolous lawsuits. The danger of legal liability for hiring LGBT employees will discourage their hiring in a clandestine manner. The lengths to which you have to cover you own ass to avoid lawsuit is too much.

Punishment culture, not anti-discrimination culture. I wouldn't mind seeing another one genuinely aimed at fairness, as advertised. I want to see employment for everbody increase, and misguided efforts that will hurt the very groups it tries to protect is a step back.


Powers given to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Love 'em.

On November 08 2013 09:55 Danglars wrote:

Yes, neoliberal free-market ideology has overtaken the world. Obama's a big subscriber.

On November 08 2013 15:36 HunterX11 wrote:


Obama is a neoliberal though. Saying he is a socialist is no more sensible than saying he's a Muslim or a Kenyan or a Reptilian or an Illumintaus or whatever.

On November 08 2013 12:19 xDaunt wrote:

I wouldn't worry about "frivolous" lawsuits. The language here mirrors Title VII, which governs all of the other anti-employee discrimination laws. Courts will apply the same tests that they have developed over the past 40 years or so in those cases to any cases arising from this new statute. In short, the law will be very favorable to the employer, making it very difficult for the employee to prevail. Trust me. Plaintiffs -- particularly employee plaintiffs -- who file "frivolous" lawsuits regularly get their asses handed to them in court.

By this reasoning, shouldn't we want to reduce frivolous lawsuits already being filed by women and blacks and Jews and other people with these special rights denied to straight white Christian men?

Arguing for greater governmental control in the area of health care and health insurance is a very socialist attitude, for better or for worse. Europe and Great Britain might say for the better. You don't even have to go farther than Harry Reid to express a great optimism that this is a natural first step towards single payer. All that is very different than religious attitudes or group membership.

On November 08 2013 17:05 Falling wrote:

Is it though? Is healthcare considered a means of production? I certainly wouldn't see publically funded healthcare (which can actually be privately provided as in Canada) as the next stage towards communism. If anything, an adequate healthcare system steals the thunder of any potential proletariat revolution that would seek to establish state capitalism and thus preventing them from abolishing the state altogether. Or is it simply socialist because it is publically funded which would put Medicaid and Medicare in the same category?

On November 08 2013 16:39 Danglars wrote:

Arguing for greater governmental control in the area of health care and health insurance is a very socialist attitude, for better or for worse. Europe and Great Britain might say for the better. You don't even have to go farther than Harry Reid to express a great optimism that this is a natural first step towards single payer. All that is very different than religious attitudes or group membership.

On November 08 2013 12:19 xDaunt wrote:
I'm sorry, what rights are you talking about in current law?

On November 08 2013 17:57 IgnE wrote:


What do you want Danglars? Revolution? or a little private healthcare and gay rights for the people?

On November 08 2013 16:39 Danglars wrote:
I was hearing from a lawyer saying just the opposite, but he does not do the same kind of cases originating from a EEOC complaints. I don't know if you're more acquainted with that area and have followed or tried cases. Maybe I'm just suffering from the recentism (as wikipedia would call it) of the Title VII Criminal Background Checks. I'm not convinced as yet that legislating new attitudes into effect will combat the apparently pervasive gender identity discrimination in hiring and firing practices.

And I'm not talking about multiple frivolous lawsuits by same people. My word choice was bad. It's the burden on employers to guard themselves against false accusations, particularly those employers who cannot afford to wage the court battle. Sears and its lack of females at the highest rungs was seen as discriminatory at one point in time. I don't want any repeats with an activist EEOC and not enough homosexuals or transgendered persons in management (belying discriminatory hiring practices).

I've had enough problems dealing with ADA "job discrimination" to make anybody's head spin that isn't a lawyer. Protecting your ass in that avenue is a pain as well--a major EEOC pain.

On November 08 2013 19:13 Falling wrote:

Well I would not make a hard rule and say that assuming a counterfactual history where there is no Medicare or Medicade, there would necessarily have been a revolution in the US (or Canada.) But I would make the case that a certain level of fluidity in dealing worker's rights, the providing benefits, and eventual recognition of unions made it less likely for a revolution to occur.

On November 09 2013 00:22 xDaunt wrote:


I've done a lot of employment law in the past, most of which revolved around representing employees in these types of suits. It really isn't hard for the employer to protect himself from false accusations. As long as the employer keeps good employee records and has a system in place to deal with employee complaints (and maintains it in good faith), it is pretty easy to show and prove that the employer had a legitimate reason for doing whatever it did or demonstrating that there was no discrimination. With disgruntled employees in particular, the employer has plenary authority to create his best evidence that he'll use in court, because the employer has free reign to insert all sorts of negative shit into the employee's file.

More importantly, it is surprisingly hard for the employee to prove discriminatory motive or animus (ie, showing that the employer hates blacks, women, muslims, whatever). Basically no one throws around the N-word or other slurs at people at work. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but the employee will very seldom have smoking gun type evidence that shows that the employer did something adverse to the employee for a forbidden reason. Even getting good circumstantial evidence is hard. As such, the vast majority of these cases that are filed in court get kicked out on summary judgment when the employee is unable to show any evidence of forbidden animus. Again, the presumption in most states and under federal law is that employers are free to fire their workers (or take any other adverse employment action) for any reason -- good, bad, or none whatsoever -- so long as the employer does not do it for one of the very specific reasons forbidden by the anti-discrimination laws.

The ADA is a different animal, because it requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for disabled employees. It's a lot easier for employers to get tripped up there.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the system is too employer friendly or anything. My only point is that employers can't really lose these lawsuits unless they fuck up. The employer always holds all of the cards. If the employer loses, the employer almost certainly deserves it, either because he violated the law or because he was an idiot (usually it's a combo of both). If you think about it, this is how it should be.