EPTOr to be more on topic:
What exactly would be Clintons incentive to crack down on Wallstreet should it be called for? Somethings might be ok according to the law, doesnt make it ok in general sense.
US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6427
| Forum Index > Closed |
Read the rules in the OP before posting, please. In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. | ||
|
Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
Or to be more on topic: What exactly would be Clintons incentive to crack down on Wallstreet should it be called for? Somethings might be ok according to the law, doesnt make it ok in general sense. | ||
|
opisska
Poland8852 Posts
User was warned for this post | ||
|
oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
leftists have a manichean understanding of "wall street" as an evil existence, and associations with it are tainting. people who are more responsible understand that the financial markets are important and preserving the good aspects while pressing away the bad will benefit the vast majority, except a few truly ruthless types. most people in finance are not opposed to reasonable regulation if the political realities are such that demanding more is unrealistic. but hey, thanks for unleashing trump. less regulation obviously better for the bottomline. some sort of transformative leftist agenda is an utter lost cause at this point. world is pretty much going to decline into internally kleptocratic and externally mercantilist states, with the evils of neoliberalism replaced by good old feudalism. ~~~~~~~ russian active measures russia isn't really the key factor, even though they were involved. the key factor is the tremendous underlying vulnerability in the west, the hollow core of western liberal political society. it's obviously time to recognize the importance of cultivating and maintaining liberal values, including social democratic reforms, but who's gonna do it? leftists are more interested in destruction of a fantastical imaginary enemy, while the state is in the hands of trumpkins. the military/deep state answer to this question is available, but it'll have to come from outside of the agencies. interested people have to go into politics and effect change that way. the obama sphere of the dem party would like to elevate this type of a candidate. it is what is needed to restore confidence in public institutions and government. | ||
|
farvacola
United States18826 Posts
The Democratic Party is going to change a little, maybe more than just a little, but it'll all be ok in the end. Though yes, people are gonna hurt in the meanwhile. Rumor has it that a comprehensive Obamacare repeal package, including the pre-existing condition provision and the 26 year old child plan threshold, is already mostly completed in the House. Healthcare (and abortion) is gonna be where the pain is gonna hit first. | ||
|
Mercy13
United States718 Posts
Abstract: We estimate rates of “absolute income mobility” – the fraction of children who earn more than their parents – by combining historical data from Census and CPS cross-sections with panel data for recent birth cohorts from de-identified tax records. Our approach overcomes the key data limitation that has hampered research on trends in intergenerational mobility: the lack of large panel datasets linking parents and children. We find that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90%for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. The result that absolute mobility has fallen sharply over the past half century is robust to the choice of price deflator, the definition of income, and accounting for taxes and transfers. In counterfactual simulations, we find that increasing GDP growth rates alone cannot restore absolute mobility to the rates experienced by children born in the 1940s. In contrast, changing the distribution of growth across income groups to the more equal distribution experienced by the 1940 birth cohort would reverse more than 70% of the decline in mobility. These results imply that reviving the “American Dream” of high rates of absolute mobility would require economic growth that is spread more broadly across the income distribution. Source It includes some neat charts which are confusing at first, but convey a notable idea. This one shows that the probability that a child will earn more than their parents has fallen consistently since the 1940s: ![[image loading]](https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7637909/Screen_Shot_2016_12_13_at_10.54.42_AM.png) In sum, a person born in the 1940s to middle class parents in the 50th percentile for income would have ~90% chance of earning more than their parents, while the same person born in the 1980s would only have ~50% chance of earning more than their parents. I don't think this is too surprising because economic growth in earlier decades was a lot higher in the US. I believe this is the really interesting chart: ![[image loading]](https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Oz68RRf783d2oyS6Opm4rcPfrVc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7638163/Screen_Shot_2016_12_13_at_11.13.13_AM.png) It shows how the probability that children born in the 80s make more than their parents would be different if economic growth in the 80s was the same as the 40s (pink line) and if income growth in the 80s was distributed the same way it was in the 40s (green line). I think this is persuasive evidence that people at the top of the income ladder have managed to capture most of the recent income gains (this has been pretty well established elsewhere) which has prevented people in the middle class from achieving upward mobility. My takeaway is that this is a good argument for a more progressive tax system, and it's pretty depressing that Trump supports a tax plan that gives 50% of the benefits to people in the top 1% for income, which is likely to be paid for by cuts to social services which benefit the middle class and working poor. | ||
|
kwizach
3658 Posts
On December 15 2016 15:16 GreenHorizons wrote: Forgetting for the moment that they weren't "one time" gigs, and that the difference with Kanye is that if he sent out a tweet saying he was performing for free pretty much anywhere, it wouldn't be mostly empty. On December 15 2016 15:25 LegalLord wrote: We have a few of the Hillary Clinton speeches. She says some things that are insightful (into her own thought process that I disagree with in general), but far from exclusive or remarkable. It's basically just having a chat about foreign policy and foreign economic policy in particular. Nothing I would pay a quarter of a million dollars to hear. Furthermore, the talks were damn repetitive, which makes it questionable why you would need to hear a lot of them. No, it's clearly more than that. GH has good insight there into what he thinks it is. The reason speakers like HRC get paid a lot of money for their speeches isn't that the speeches contain something incredibly insightful that the audiences are dying to hear. It is that they are well-known public figures, usually recognized for their accomplishments, who enhance the prestige of the organization able to invite them to speak, and allow it to grant its employees/affiliates/etc. the occasion to see and listen to someone famous/important. This is why actors, sport stars, media personalities, etc., command fees just as impressive as Clinton and other major political figures. And of course, it can also be seen as a sympathetic gesture, but that doesn't mean there's anything nefarious going on, or a corrupting influence at play. | ||
|
kwizach
3658 Posts
On December 15 2016 18:32 Acrofales wrote: Why did you just spend the last 2 pages defending Russia in ways that range from "I'm not sure they did it" to "but Kennedy did it too"? Regarding whether Russia did it or not: you're reading articles that only go off the technical aspects and I agree, they only tell you so much. Presumably that's why the CIA seem confident that Russia did it to get Trump elected, whereas the FBI isn't. The CIA may be assumed to have human sources within Russia, tasked with finding this sort of thing out. It may not be the cold war anymore, but clearly there's still a use for spies. And spying on Russia is kinda the CIA's thing. So while the technical evidence only points to Russia probably doing it, there's probably other evidence that we are not privy to that points to exactly who and why. Or this is more WMD bullshit. That is also possible. As for the "hypocrisy": is it possible that these are not all the same people? For starters, Kennedy is dead... Yes, the "debate" right now between the agencies isn't whether or not Russia was behind the hacks, but why they did it. The evidence that it is behind the hacks, through Cozy Bear and Fancy bear, is apparently overwhelming -- some of it having been verified and confirmed by independent cybersecurity actors, and additional confirmation having come from traditional intelligence sources. There have also been several reports indicating that U.S. officials have been struggling for a few months in private to determine how to respond publicly to Russia's involvement, clearly indicating that it isn't a post-election fabrication. Arguments about partisanship in blaming Russia shouldn't be used to obscure the reality of the situation, which is that the hacks happened and that Russian services are responsible. | ||
|
{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
The GOP's most likely path for repealing Obamacare immediately eliminates hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenue that would otherwise be available to fund their replacement plan. The large tax cut, which would go disproportionately to high earners, will seriously handcuff lawmakers as they try to cobble together a replacement plan to cover the millions of Americans dependent on Obamacare for health insurance, health care policy experts say. With Republican Party's strict anti-tax orthodoxy, it is difficult to envision the new GOP-controlled Congress raising taxes down the road to fund their Obamacare replacement. So while the current plan of repeal and delay contemplates a future replacement plan, the lost tax revenues is perhaps the most telling sign that a viable replacement may be either impossible to achieve or a meager substitute. So far, congressional leaders have signaled they're eying a version of the 2015 bill that delayed some aspects of Obamacare repeal for two years, but dismantled its taxes right away. Not only would that mean a major tax break for the high-earners, with cuts that are directed towards individuals making more than $200,000. It would also shut down right off the bat a potential revenue source for whatever alternative -- if there ever is one -- that GOP lawmakers settle on. “If all the taxes in the ACA are repealed as part of a reconciliation bill, that could be hugely consequential,” said Larry Levitt, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “If you take all that revenue off the table, it means a replacement bill has to be very scaled back relative to the ACA or they have to find money from somewhere else to pay for it, both of which would involve difficult trade offs.” The tax cuts for the high-earners come in the form of an additional Medicare tax on high-earners and a tax on net investment income, which would be repealed immediately, under the 2015 rubric. The legislation, which was passed via the procedural maneuver known as reconciliation, also repealed taxes on the health care industry. All told, $680 billion in tax revenue would be eliminated if GOP lawmakers pushed through the same bill they used a year ago, according to a Brookings report. From a political sense, it’s easy to see why getting rid of the taxes is appealing to Republicans. As a Ryan Ellis, former tax policy director for Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, put it to Politico, the tax cuts are “the best part about repealing Obamacare.” “Because on the health care side of it, you have this complicated ‘replace’ that you have to turn to after that, but on taxes, it’s all easy — it’s all dessert,” he said. From a policy standpoint, it puts an additional hurdle in front of GOP lawmakers as they hammer out a replacement plan. Not only will they have to agree on what that plan should look like, but how to fund it. Source | ||
|
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
Perhaps a few well-placed insults/snubs. Putin cares alot about Russia's image/prestige; making them seem 2nd/3rd rate nobodies seems like it'd be the right kind of insult. | ||
|
Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On December 15 2016 15:43 ChristianS wrote: So what is it? It's apparently not an actual quid pro quo, so it's just... what? Wall Street hoping that when she's in the White House she'll remember that one time she got $250,000 from GS? What are they actually hoping to receive? No, nevermind, somehow I've actually let you guys bait this discussion of Trump picking our pockets into a "but Hillary though!" discussion. I guess my guard was down because I didn't expect GH of all people to be the one defending Trump on corruption and shilling for big corporations. There is nothing a woman could do that these guys won't twist into something evil. It's in their nature. Evidence is meaningless to them if it gets in the way of their conclusions. | ||
|
Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:19 zlefin wrote: In terms of retaliation; I'm not sure what to do to russia. Could just mark it up as business as usual and do more espionage without anything clear or specific. Perhaps a few well-placed insults/snubs. Putin cares alot about Russia's image/prestige; making them seem 2nd/3rd rate nobodies seems like it'd be the right kind of insult. If Russia is allowed to decide who wins the presidency, what's to stop them doing even more attacks on the US? What does Russia have to do to warrant physical response? Or will they just annex American territories one at a time knowing the US is too cowardly to do anything about it. | ||
|
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:24 Thieving Magpie wrote: If Russia is allowed to decide who wins the presidency, what's to stop them doing even more attacks on the US? What does Russia have to do to warrant physical response? Or will they just annex American territories one at a time knowing the US is too cowardly to do anything about it. russia didn't decide who won the presidency; they did some espionage which had a mild effect on the outcome of a very close election. Espionage by hostile powers is a routine part of life w bad people. I don't think it warrants a physical response (assuming that means military). I'd rather respond economically, diplomatically, or with our own espionage. any attempt to annex US land would be a laughable pathetic failure, so it's not really apropos. basic strategy: we should choose a battlefield where we have an advantage. in this case battlefield would refer to whether we retaliate militarily or with espionage or what. your response seems kinda cray cray; as what russia did here is very far from trying to annex us lands. | ||
|
Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On December 15 2016 18:58 Silvanel wrote: Modern corruption doesnt look like some shady narco deal going on in the middle of night in some junkyard or quarry. No cash is directly exchanged. It happenes in front of everyone. For example: one party gives contract to company owned by wife/daughter of some official and in return that party wins bid to supply government with hardware or software or perform some analysis. There isnt even need for explicit agreement, You scrach my back i scrach Yours. Or to be more on topic: What exactly would be Clintons incentive to crack down on Wallstreet should it be called for? Somethings might be ok according to the law, doesnt make it ok in general sense. That's not corruption, that's literally how majority of business is run since humans first learned to communicate with each other. Trusting someone and hence willing to make trades and deals with that person does not equate to corruption. Corruption is also not you perceiving that an individual might or might not do something you disagree with in a possible future. You can't leave something corrupt when the corrupt action hasn't happened yet. I literally don't think you understand the meaning of the word corrupt and that you simply equate any exchange you disagree with as a mental shortcut to mean corrupt. | ||
|
Danglars
United States12133 Posts
On December 15 2016 17:43 Tachion wrote: This is so silly to me. Not knowing how to behave or conduct yourself in a given situation should not be a boon. Showing composure and restraint should, at the very least, be expected of someone in a position of such dignity. Pence, despite lying and denying blatantly obvious facts for 90 minutes, was said to have been favored in the VP debate for his calm and collected demeanor over Kaine's belligerent outbursts. Yet Trump is praised for the exact opposite? There is some weird mental twister shit going on in some peoples heads. Composure and restraint had their day and will have it again. The fact beneath all that is when the distinguished tone yields two important messages: First is we're going to govern for what experts in DC think you should care about and support, regardless of the campaign promises made otherwise. Second is we're going to lie to your face every two or six years to convince you we're the only ones you should send back. You're right it *shouldnt* be a boon in a functioning political system and society. But when all you're getting is lies and all your concerns are blown off routinely (while you chuckle with your D.C. buds at those ignorant hicks), can you understand that the first person that confirms, "This is awful and worth getting mad about!" instantly resonates. Tea Party epic-rant style. Secondly, to your post, "denying blatantly obvious facts for 90 minutes" is square one for why Trump won. People like Tachion will sneer that Pence is a factless dishonest debater. If you thought Kaine was lying and Pence was mostly in target, sorry you've missed the obvious you're too dumb to understand he did nothing but this for ninety minutes you neanderthal. The tornado accused the hurricane of "weird mental twister shit." It's politics. People are upset with establishment status quo. They sent in an extremely flawed guy that at least thinks it's worth getting mad about, as opposed to the people that will accuse them of "mental twister" for judging things differently. | ||
|
Thieving Magpie
United States6752 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:29 zlefin wrote: russia didn't decide who won the presidency; they did some espionage which had a mild effect on the outcome of a very close election. Espionage by hostile powers is a routine part of life w bad people. I don't think it warrants a physical response (assuming that means military). I'd rather respond economically, diplomatically, or with our own espionage. any attempt to annex US land would be a laughable pathetic failure, so it's not really apropos. basic strategy: we should choose a battlefield where we have an advantage. in this case battlefield would refer to whether we retaliate militarily or with espionage or what. your response seems kinda cray cray; as what russia did here is very far from trying to annex us lands. They've already began to annex EU lands so it's not that out of the ordinary. But seriously, what "spy shit" could we do to hurt Russia? The answer is nothing. And they will continue to attack the US because Americans go crazy over everything and are gullible as the day is long. If America cannot retaliate through hacking then what could we do to stop Russia from escalating? | ||
|
Uldridge
Belgium4765 Posts
On December 15 2016 21:52 Mercy13 wrote: + Show Spoiler + An interesting paper on how inequality relates to upward mobility for the middle class was released recently. Abstract: We estimate rates of “absolute income mobility” – the fraction of children who earn more than their parents – by combining historical data from Census and CPS cross-sections with panel data for recent birth cohorts from de-identified tax records. Our approach overcomes the key data limitation that has hampered research on trends in intergenerational mobility: the lack of large panel datasets linking parents and children. We find that rates of absolute mobility have fallen from approximately 90%for children born in 1940 to 50% for children born in the 1980s. The result that absolute mobility has fallen sharply over the past half century is robust to the choice of price deflator, the definition of income, and accounting for taxes and transfers. In counterfactual simulations, we find that increasing GDP growth rates alone cannot restore absolute mobility to the rates experienced by children born in the 1940s. In contrast, changing the distribution of growth across income groups to the more equal distribution experienced by the 1940 birth cohort would reverse more than 70% of the decline in mobility. These results imply that reviving the “American Dream” of high rates of absolute mobility would require economic growth that is spread more broadly across the income distribution. Source It includes some neat charts which are confusing at first, but convey a notable idea. This one shows that the probability that a child will earn more than their parents has fallen consistently since the 1940s: In sum, a person born in the 1940s to middle class parents in the 50th percentile for income would have ~90% chance of earning more than their parents, while the same person born in the 1980s would only have ~50% chance of earning more than their parents. I don't think this is too surprising because economic growth in earlier decades was a lot higher in the US. I believe this is the really interesting chart: It shows how the probability that children born in the 80s make more than their parents would be different if economic growth in the 80s was the same as the 40s (pink line) and if income growth in the 80s was distributed the same way it was in the 40s (green line). I think this is persuasive evidence that people at the top of the income ladder have managed to capture most of the recent income gains (this has been pretty well established elsewhere) which has prevented people in the middle class from achieving upward mobility. My takeaway is that this is a good argument for a more progressive tax system, and it's pretty depressing that Trump supports a tax plan that gives 50% of the benefits to people in the top 1% for income, which is likely to be paid for by cuts to social services which benefit the middle class and working poor. Interesting. Also, this guy talking about the state, which has nothing to do with the recent attention he has gained (or at least not directly), makes for an interesting argument in why the state fails on another level. You could hypothesize that the way society is structured at the present time is extremely flawed (and I've been of this opinion for some while). The captitalistic beast is just unsaturable. Recently I've seen this, which is dated, but still interesting: Peter Schiff at Occupy Wall Street. He addresses an issue which I don't seem to grasp: if progressive taxation prevents him from earning over 1M a year, for example, why would he still run his business after it revenues over 1M? I think this is a mindset that is inherently unconstructive and completely egoistical (which is his own pejorative I guess). But why is the idea of constant indefinite growth such a dogma? Why can't steady state systems be in place or even become mandatory for certain sectors? (for instance in the food industry, the medical sector, or more generally, the providing sectors). This way you can split of necessities versus luxuries. The necessities grow to a level of saturation (instead of excess) and can sustain their employers and employees and all the costs associated with it and grows with the need of the population (biggest factor would be growth). The sectors providing luxuries can grow indefinitely depending on the demand of the customer, but should be taxed progressively imo without feeling the need to close their business because of the cutoff of "not being able to earn more". I think the biggest problem, however, are the financial institutes that go under the guise of "providing funds and jobs" by investing and growing, but fail to mention they progressively have a bigger chunk of the money in their hands the longer they get to keep doing what they're doing. If I'm leaping too far into conspiracy territory for someone though, I'd like to be set straight by telling me what is wrong with my assessment of how I see things at the moment. | ||
|
Acrofales
Spain17983 Posts
On December 15 2016 18:58 Silvanel wrote: Modern corruption doesnt look like some shady narco deal going on in the middle of night in some junkyard or quarry. No cash is directly exchanged. It happenes in front of everyone. For example: one party gives contract to company owned by wife/daughter of some official and in return that party wins bid to supply government with hardware or software or perform some analysis. There isnt even need for explicit agreement, You scrach my back i scrach Yours. Or to be more on topic: What exactly would be Clintons incentive to crack down on Wallstreet should it be called for? Somethings might be ok according to the law, doesnt make it ok in general sense. I think it really depends on where you come from. Some of the anti-corruption rules in Brazil are exceedingly harsh. For instance, as an employee of the company I worked for, I was not allowed to recieve any gifts ever from employees of companies we had business dealings with (either buying or selling stuff). That, btw, includes Christmas and Birthday gifts. To me, having grown up in the Netherlands, that seems bizarrely strict. It's really very normal in the Netherlands for business contacts to give each other gifts. Hell, they can do so explicitly to say thank you for the business opportunity! And by all indications, corruption in the Netherlands is not a big deal at all. However, you have to put it into context. The very reason why this is a fairly normal thing in the Netherlands is because corruption is a non-issue and thus a gift is simply a gift. The very strict regulations in Brazil are because corruption is a HUGE deal there, and therefore while a gift might simply be a gift, it is very likely that it is actually part of a corrupt business dealing. Therefore, rather than poor money into investigating gifts, it is simply forbidden to give/receive gifts from business partners. Also note that in practice, corruption simply happens in Brazil: the rules as described above are there, but all sides blatantly ignore them (not at my position in my company, but I know enough sales reps to hear stuff). Now I don't know where the US would fall on a scale with Netherlands on one end, and Brazil on the other. My bet would be somewhere more towards the center, but on the NL side of things. Spain would probably be more on the Brazil side of the center. However, that is the context in which tit-for-tat should be seen. Often strong friendly relations make for good business relations: you trust each other and therefore know that awarding some big business dealing to each others' companies will end well. That for me, is not an issue of corruption, but simply of human business dealings working the way they do. Of course, finding a place to draw the line between normal business dealings and corruption is not always easy. | ||
|
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:36 Thieving Magpie wrote: They've already began to annex EU lands so it's not that out of the ordinary. But seriously, what "spy shit" could we do to hurt Russia? The answer is nothing. And they will continue to attack the US because Americans go crazy over everything and are gullible as the day is long. If America cannot retaliate through hacking then what could we do to stop Russia from escalating? what EU lands have they annexed? they can't escalate much cuz they don't have the power to actually do much more than some moderate-grade espionage. And I'm sure we could do quite a bit of spy stuff to hurt Russia if we felt like it. the question is whether the move benefits us compared to alternatives; and how it all plays out in the geopolitical stage. re: corruption there's some good sites that cover corruption rates in various nations. I forget what they're called. | ||
|
Silvanel
Poland4726 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:31 Thieving Magpie wrote: That's not corruption, that's literally how majority of business is run since humans first learned to communicate with each other. Trusting someone and hence willing to make trades and deals with that person does not equate to corruption. Corruption is also not you perceiving that an individual might or might not do something you disagree with in a possible future. You can't leave something corrupt when the corrupt action hasn't happened yet. I literally don't think you understand the meaning of the word corrupt and that you simply equate any exchange you disagree with as a mental shortcut to mean corrupt. I dont know how it is in US, but if such collusion would be proven in Poland person in question would go to jail. Thats exactly what corruption is. Sadly the situation i gave as example is very hard to prove so in Poland such people are usually hit with "criminal mismangament of public funds". I really dont get how public official giving preference to someone because they do buisness with their family member is ok in Your book. | ||
|
ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On December 15 2016 23:22 Thieving Magpie wrote: There is nothing a woman could do that these guys won't twist into something evil. It's in their nature. Evidence is meaningless to them if it gets in the way of their conclusions. GH has always rather favored accelerationism from the comfort of ultra liberal Washington. If you think about it, getting a nice dinner from your employer/ a prospective employer or business contact is pretty much on the same order as a 250k speaking fee or what an academic might get as a honorarium relative to the receiver's earnings and the giver's means. And it's not like Clinton didn't make speeches to many different groups, many of which had conflicting interests. | ||
| ||
