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Pretty please let it be either Hillary (being investigated by the FBI) Clinton or the old man Marxist.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Signed, the Republican PartyComment
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Here's the truth of the matter.
In your opinion, did the crash result in any positive changes?
Michael Burry: Unfortunately, not many that I can see. The biggest hope I had was that we would enter a new era of personal responsibility. Instead, we doubled down on blaming others, and this is long-term tragic. Too, the crisis, incredibly, made the biggest banks bigger. And it made the Federal Reserve, an unelected body, even more powerful and therefore more relevant. The major reform legislation, Dodd-Frank, was named after two guys bought and sold by special interests, and one of them should be shouldering a good amount of blame for the crisis. Banks were forced, by the government, to save some of the worst lenders in the housing bubble, then the government turned around and pilloried the banks for the crimes of the companies they were forced to acquire. The zero interest-rate policy broke the social contract for generations of hardworking Americans who saved for retirement, only to find their savings are not nearly enough. And the interest the Federal Reserve pays on the excess reserves of lending institutions broke the money multiplier and handcuffed lending to small and midsized enterprises, where the majority of job creation and upward mobility in wages occurs. Government policies and regulations in the post crisis era have aided the hollowing-out of middle America far more than anything the private sector has done. These changes even expanded the wealth gap by making asset owners richer at the expense of renters. Maybe there are some positive changes in there, but it seems I fail to see beyond the absurdity.
How do you think all of this affected people's perception of the System, in general?
The post crisis perception, at least in the media, appears to be one of Americans being held down by Wall Street, by big companies in the private sector, and by the wealthy. Capitalism is on trial. I see it a little differently. If a lender offers me free money, I do not have to take it. And if I take it, I better understand all the terms, because there is no such thing as free money. That is just basic personal responsibility and common sense. The enablers for this crisis were varied, and it starts not with the bank but with decisions by individuals to borrow to finance a better life, and that is one very loaded decision. This crisis was such a bona fide 100-year flood that the entire world is still trying to dig out of the mud seven years later. Yet so few took responsibility for having any part in it, and the reason is simple: All these people found others to blame, and to that extent, an unhelpful narrative was created. Whether it’s the one percent or hedge funds or Wall Street, I do not think society is well served by failing to encourage every last American to look within. This crisis truly took a village, and most of the villagers themselves are not without some personal responsibility for the circumstances in which they found themselves. We should be teaching our kids to be better citizens through personal responsibility, not by the example of blame.
Where do we stand now, economically?
Well, we are right back at it: trying to stimulate growth through easy money. It hasn’t worked, but it’s the only tool the Fed’s got. Meanwhile, the Fed’s policies widen the wealth gap, which feeds political extremism, forcing gridlock in Washington. It seems the world is headed toward negative real interest rates on a global scale. This is toxic. Interest rates are used to price risk, and so in the current environment, the risk-pricing mechanism is broken. That is not healthy for an economy. We are building up terrific stresses in the system, and any fault lines there will certainly harm the outlook.
What makes you most nervous about the future?
Debt. The idea that growth will remedy our debts is so addictive for politicians, but the citizens end up paying the price. The public sector has really stepped up as a consumer of debt. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is leveraged 77:1. Like I said, the absurdity, it just befuddles me.
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And let us not forget who did and did not recently vote to audit the Fed.
Every single Democrat (except 1 who did not vote at all) voted against auditing the Fed including our own, Senators Warren and Markey.
http://cdn1.trueactivist.com/wp-cont...M-852x1024.jpgComment
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“We’ve had a lot of Democrats who claim that they’re concerned about big banks and big banks controlling things and a revolving door between Wall Street and big banks and the Federal Reserve. We’ll see if any of those loud voices — Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren — are they loud voices that really are for more oversight of the banking system?” - Senator Rand Paul
Sanders was actually one of the senators who voted for the bill.
"“Requiring the Government Accountability Office to conduct a full and independent audit of the Fed each and every year, would be an important step towards making the Federal Reserve a more democratic institution that is responsive to the needs of ordinary Americans rather than the billionaires on Wall Street.” Senator Bernie Sanders
According to the Hill, last year the White House called an audit of the Federal Reserve “dangerous.”
“What that bill is about is about Congress supplanting its judgment as to what monetary policy should be. Congress shouldn’t be telling the Fed what to do with monetary policy.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-actio...t-the-fed-pushComment
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Socialism and Marxism are entirely different. Israel is a socialist country with components of Marxism. But it is a democracy. We have had elements of socialism in the US for much of our history. Most conservatives are so culturally illiterate that they do not understand the difference between political and economic systemsOriginally posted by Unregistered View Post
CujoComment
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Conservative or not, many voters don't know the difference either so thank for the lesson. I appreciate when a candidate uses the word socialism to describe his view point and a as a simple statement of fact. It garners the word some respect as opposed to it being used as a slur.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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In Marxist theory, socialism, also called lower-stage communism or the socialist mode of production, refers to a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that supersede capitalism in the schema of historical materialism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social..._of_production
In classic Marxist theory, Communism is the final stage of the evolution of human socioeconomic relations. In the Marxist model, the feudal state is overthrown by the rise of the bourgeoisie, ushering in the capitalist epoch. Capitalism is then overthrown by the rise of the proletariat, which ushers in not communism, but the Socialist state. Each previous step is the necessary precondition for the next.
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-diff...-and-communism
Marxism is the system of socialism of which the dominant feature is public ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.
http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/wh...arxism-faq.htmComment
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The main aim of this article is to present an appreciative and critical account of the contribution of Marx and Engels to the socialist movement. It will not deal with the `Marxism' that has been developed by various writers, leaders, parties and movements that have used, extended, and in some cases distorted, the writings of Marx and Engels for their own purposes.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/e...cal-evaluationComment
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No way! In the bluest of blue states???
"Boston is No. 1, but nobody’s celebrating this ranking.
The city has the highest rate of income inequality among the 100 largest cities in the country, according to a new analysis of 2014 Census data by the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research organization in Washington D.C.
Households in the top 5 percent of earners in Boston made at least $266,000, nearly 18 times as much as households in the bottom 20 percent. The income gap continues to grow in Boston, which ranked fourth in 2012 and third in 2013, according to Brookings."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/...?event=event25Comment
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The Boston Globe criticizing the DNC???
"Sunday night’s presidential debate should be the most closely-watched meeting of the party’s candidates this year. But once again, thanks to the Democratic National Committee’s schedule, debate viewership will not be even close to what it could have been.
The 2016 Democratic presidential contest has been never been more competitive. This week, new polls showed former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont statistically tied in Iowa. The contest has become increasingly intense, with both Clinton and Sanders releasing new television ads this week that needle each other for the first time.
This alone would mean that the next Democratic debate could be the most important yet in the contest. What’s more, this is the last debate before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary.
But not only will this debate air at 9 p.m. on Sunday, in the middle of a three-day weekend, but it will also run during National Football League playoff games and — dare we say — a new episode of PBS’s popular series, “Downton Abbey.”
It’s not new for debates to run on a busy weekend night. But this is by design: Of the six DNC-sanction debates, three take place on a weekend night. The last one took place on a Saturday night six days before Christmas.
Ahead of that December debate, the Globe interviewed DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She said television stations dictated the debate times.
But apparently the Republican National Committee did not have the same problem: Just two of the 10 Republican debates will take place on a weekend. And there’s still more sense in the timing of those weekend debates: Those occur days before the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries.
When these debates air matters a lot in ratings. When the first Democratic debate aired on CNN on a Tuesday, 15.6 million watched. When the last two debates aired on CBS and ABC on Saturday nights, the ratings were 8.5 million and 7.85 million, respectively.
Compare this with the Republican debates, which have been a ratings bonanza (thanks mostly to the front-runner, Donald Trump). The Republican debate on Las Vegas in December (on a Tuesday) had 18 million viewers.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/poli...ng_Most_Viewed..Comment
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For practical purposes, a distinction without a difference.....Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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