A thread for Democrats Only

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SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 8, 2018 6:58 PM

SECOND I'm reading the article that you linked, and like the OTHER article that you linked ("The Browning of America") I'm asking myself ...What the fuck is the author ON???

He paints an America, both before and after, that lives only in his imagination. I'll be more specific when I'm done, but this article is going to be tough going, because his premise is already fucked up.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

SIGNYM

Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:11 PM

I'm reading thru your link but fail to see how it is related to the comment by Romer. It's just sort of a picture of America, "before and after" but doesn't have anything specific about regulatory weakness in it. Did you possibly post the wrong link? If so, can you please post the correct link?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

SECOND

Wednesday, August 8, 2018 7:59 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm reading thru your link but fail to see how it is related to the comment by Romer. It's just sort of a picture of America, "before and after" but doesn't have anything specific about regulatory weakness in it. Did you possibly post the wrong link? If so, can you please post the correct link?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

It is the right link because it is linking the crash of 2008 to loosening of regulations on lenders. The lenders were withholding information about how bad the loans actually were that they were making, then profitably reselling to other financial institutions, thus screwing the buyers and everyone who was hurt by the resulting crash when the truth became known.

By the way, Paul Romer was talking about the "looting" paper which he wrote with economist George Akerlof. George got the Nobel Prize in Economics for pointing out the mechanisms that governments can use to stop Capitalists from "looting" the economy. He is the author of a landmark study on the role of asymmetric information in the market for "lemon" used cars. His research broke with established economic theory in illustrating how markets malfunction when buyers and sellers — as seen in used car markets — operate under different information. The work has had far-reaching applications in such diverse areas as health insurance, financial markets and employment contracts. There is more, Signym, but you won't be able to figure it out. You are not just pretending to be stupid in order to get me to waste my time explaining it to you.

www.berkeley.edu/news/features/2001/nobel/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

THG

Thursday, August 9, 2018 3:06 AM

Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations:

Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-sec
retly-taped-white-house-conversations-report

T

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, August 9, 2018 4:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations:

Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-sec
retly-taped-white-house-conversations-report

T

"May have", huh?

Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

THG

Thursday, August 9, 2018 5:00 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations:

Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-sec
retly-taped-white-house-conversations-report

T

Quote:

"May have", huh?

Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact.

Hey dummy. Read or follow the link. The Hill is the one who wrote the story. And since they are not a fake news outlet it's worth mentioning here.

T

6IXSTRINGJACK

Thursday, August 9, 2018 5:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations:

Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-sec
retly-taped-white-house-conversations-report

T

Quote:

"May have", huh?

Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact.

Hey dummy. Read or follow the link. The Hill is the one who wrote the story. And since they are not a fake news outlet it's worth mentioning here.

T

I didn't say it was fake news. I said it was "no news".

How irresponsible is it to say that something "may be true" rather than wait to see if it is true just to sell a few papers or subscriptions?

lol...

"Dummy" again? Why don't you pick up a thesaurus, son? Surely you can come up with a better insult than that.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SECOND

Thursday, August 9, 2018 4:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
Signym, you started with the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. I don't believe that is true.
Well, then you're religious about your politics because (for you) it's a matter of belief and not fact.

Quote:
Politics is entertainment for the masses and Democrats are the equivalent of documentary makers, while Republicans make the equivalent of Hollywood's summer movies.
Wrong. BOTH Dems and Repubs engage together in creating a Punch-and-Judy show for the masses. But while they're performing .... whatever it is that they're performing ... the oligarchs (the REAL persons in power) get to decide where manufacturing goes, what our tax rates will be, what monetary policy the central banks will follow and whether "austerity" will be visited on the populace, how much our pockets will be picked by TPTB, and where we will go to war. The Dems have not slowed down this process one jot.

Signym, that was from page one, Monday, October 9, 2017. A book has been written since then:
Tailspin: The People and Forces Behind America's Fifty-Year Fall
www.amazon.com/Tailspin-Americas-Fifty-Year-Fall-Fighting/dp/152473163
3/

Excellent books and scholarly treatises have been written about the likeliest suspects: the growth of income inequality, the polarization and paralysis of American democracy, the dominance of political money, or the recklessness that precipitated the financial crash of 2008–9 and the ensuing failure to hold anyone accountable. The story of America’s breakdown is about all of that, and more. And there is a theme that threads through and ties together all of these subplots: The most talented, driven Americans chased the American dream—and won it for themselves. Then, in a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the government that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy.

By continuing to get better at what they do, by knocking away the guardrails limiting their winnings, by aggressively engineering changes in the political landscape, and by dint of the often unanticipated consequences of the breakthroughs they pulled off in legal rights, financial engineering, digital technology, political strategy, and so many other areas, they created a nation of moats that protected them from accountability and from the damage their triumphs caused in the larger community. Most of the time, our elected and appointed representatives were no match for these overachievers. As a result of their savvy, their drive, and their resources, America all but abandoned its most ambitious and proudest ideal: the never perfect, always debated, and perpetually sought-after balance between the energizing inequality of achievement in a competitive economy and the liberating, community-binding equality of power promised by democracy. In a battle that began a half century ago, the achievers won.

The result is a new, divided America. On one side are the protected few—the winners—who don’t need government for much and even have a stake in sabotaging the government’s responsibility to all of its citizens. For them, the new, broken America works fine, at least in the short term. On the other side are the unprotected many, who rely on government, as they always have, to protect and preserve their way of life and maybe even improve it. That divide is the essence of America’s tailspin. The protected overmatched, overran, and paralyzed the government.

Signym was that too abstract? It didn't point the accusing finger at the GOP. The blame is placed vaguely on "government" in order to not offend Republican book purchasers. Here is a solid example of how government works in practice when the Republicans are in charge:
https://goo.gl/2D21kZ

Under Obama, the for-profit college DeVry University agreed to pay $100 million to settle a lawsuit with the Federal Trade

SECOND

Thursday, August 9, 2018 4:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Omarosa may have secretly taped White House conversations:

Former Trump staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman might have secretly recorded private conversations in the White House out of fear for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, The New York Daily News reported Friday

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369689-omarosa-may-have-sec
retly-taped-white-house-conversations-report

T

Quote:

"May have", huh?

Probably shouldn't report on it unless you know for a fact.

Hey dummy. Read or follow the link. The Hill is the one who wrote the story. And since they are not a fake news outlet it's worth mentioning here.

T

I didn't say it was fake news. I said it was "no news".

How irresponsible is it to say that something "may be true" rather than wait to see if it is true just to sell a few papers or subscriptions?

lol...

"Dummy" again? Why don't you pick up a thesaurus, son? Surely you can come up with a better insult than that.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Joe said that if Trump asked, he would return the favor. It hasn’t happened yet, but it is news:

Sacha Baron Cohen tricked disgraced former sheriff Joe Arpaio into saying he'd take a blow job from President Trump.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

SIGNYM

Thursday, August 9, 2018 9:03 PM

SECOND, with all due respect, I have to point out that not only do you put words in MY mouth, you put words in the mouths of authors who (a) clearly don't mean what YOU say they mean and (b) aren't even here to defend themselves. Specifically ....

Quote:
It didn't point the accusing finger at the GOP. The blame is placed vaguely on "government" in order to not offend Republican book purchasers.

Even just the little snippet that you quoted* ...

Quote:
... the growth of income inequality, the polarization and paralysis of American democracy, the dominance of political money, or the recklessness that precipitated the financial crash of 2008–9 and the ensuing failure to hold anyone accountable.

That part about "failure to hold anyone accountable"? That happened specifically under OBAMA, son. IF the author hadn't intended to blame Democrats SPECIFICALLY for their part in this cluster-fuck, he would have left that part out.

*BTW, it would be extremely helpful if you indicated where you're quoting someone else, and where you're writing for yourself. You DO know how to use the quotation function, right?

Now, let's go back to my contention AND the data behind it

Quote:
BOTH Dems and Repubs engage together in creating a Punch-and-Judy show for the masses. But while they're performing .... whatever it is that they're performing ... the oligarchs (the REAL persons in power) get to decide where manufacturing goes, what our tax rates will be, what monetary policy the central banks will follow and whether "austerity" will be visited on the populace, how much our pockets will be picked by TPTB, and where we will go to war. The Dems have not slowed down this process one jot.

Let me repeat that: The Dems have not slowed down this process one jot.

You can point to small "DEM" examples like Obama busting small for-profit colleges, but what happened to the BANKS?

Something similar happened under Reagan it was called the Savings & Loan Crisis. And during the Savings & Loan debacle of 1985-1995 (Reagan) there were

Quote:
over 30,000 criminal referrals ... over 1,000 felony convictions in cases designated as “major” by the Department of Justice .... [with] a list of ... the 100 worst fraud schemes. They involved roughly 300 savings and loans and 600 individuals, and virtually all of those people were prosecuted. We had a 90 percent conviction rate, which is the greatest success against elite white-collar crime (in terms of prosecution) in history.

https://billmoyers.com/2013/09/17/hundreds-of-wall-street-execs-went-t
o-prison-during-the-last-fraud-fueled-bank-crisis/

Now, what happened to the banks under OBAMA? He continued the process, begun under GWB, of disgorging TRILLIONS of dollars into bank coffers to make them whole. But no arrests were made of high-level Wall Street bankers, even though they were selling financial products that even THEY knew were full of shit.(= fraud) The only prosecution that I recall was of Angelo Mozilo, at Countrywide, a nonbank lender. Instead, Obama engineered a $25 billion settlement with the banks - less than a slap on the wrist considering the trillions of dollars that the government disgorged - which our [then] fearless leader Kamala Harris signed on to. After that, I never voted for Kamala again.

Lanny Breuer, the person under Obama responsible for prosecuting bankers for fraud, not only refused to prosecute the architects of the 2008 debacle, he also refused to prosecute HSBC for money-laundering in an unrelated case. (Very similar to refusing to prosecute Hillary).

Quote:
In response to the DOJ's excuse-making that these criminal cases are too hard to win, numerous experts - Senators, top Hill staffers, former DOJ prosecutors - emphasized the key point: Obama officials never even tried. ... Jeff Connaughton, wrote a book in 2011 - "The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins" - devoted t

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