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[RustyNails]

Oh man if she wins that would be glorious.

She has the good looks and personality necessary in really tight races to help one win.

Wait for the good 'ol Texan misogyny to come out during the gubernatorial race and we have ourselves a show. These morons will not be able to resist making rape and abortion comments. Wendy Davis will win.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

Chichikov can I ask why Israel doesnt have a FM? Google is not giving straight answer.

Internal politics. Leiberman resigned and the PM never gave the position to anyone else I thinks it's to hold as much power in foreign affairs as he can, nobody to go off message. They have a parliamentary system.

 

[GhaleonEB]

She'll lose, badly. 54-46.

Will help register democrats to vote and build some connections at the least, I guess.

Which I think they'd count as good progress. That Project Blue (or purple or whatever it was) initiative in Texas is aimed at increasing both Dem registration and turnout in successive elections. It won't flip overnight but if they can capture the demographic shifts and get them to the polls, things will change.

 

[jamesinclair]

For what it's worth, the US military is aware of the global threats posed by climate change and has run simulation exercises with climate scientists over last ditch plans to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. No one really expects global industrial society to undertake the complete overhaul required to stop it, but they are trying to figure out if they can prevent the worst-case scenarios. Unfortunately, it only delays the inevitable for a time and continues to propagate the myth that nothing is wrong, thus potentially preventing a reactive worldwide effort caused by significant changes. The world's oceans have likely passed the tipping point acidification wise already though and that can't really be unwound. They are evaluating the feasibility of jellyfish replacing standard marine food sources in a mass extinction event though.

Wouldn't the military solution be a nuclear winter?

 

[Diablos]

Which I think they'd count as good progress. That Project Blue (or purple or whatever it was) initiative in Texas is aimed at increasing both Dem registration and turnout in successive elections. It won't flip overnight but if they can capture the demographic shifts and get them to the polls, things will change.

Baby steps.

 

[LilZippa]

....How do people this fucking stupid get elected!?

\

...but the gut man how can he not trust it.

 

[Diablos]

“We’ll have to see what they decide, because right now they don’t know,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said of House leaders. “They’re in this ditch, and they want to get out of it, but they keep digging deeper and deeper and deeper. And this ditch is — they can hardly see out of the top of it now. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

lol. I can just hear him saying that.

 

[PhoenixDark]

Wait for the good 'ol Texan misogyny to come out during the gubernatorial race and we have ourselves a show. These morons will not be able to resist making rape and abortion comments. Wendy Davis will win.

Outrage won't save her. This isn't some normal race, it's Texas. I know a republican lost a state wide race in Indiana due to ugly comments about women, but Indiana isn't nearly as deep red as Texas, nor as extreme. Abbott is going to get away with a lot of stuff, and the more Davis complains in fundraising emails the worse she'll do.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Wouldn't the military solution be a nuclear winter?

I'd imagine the military option would be massive-scale global engineering like seeding the clouds with metal to reflect the sun's rays and stuff like that. Stuff that theoretically could work but could have serious ramifications.

 

[The Librarian]

What does PoliGAF think of this lady's plan to bring down the cost of a college education to a total of $10,000?

 

[Diablos]

What does PoliGAF think of this lady's plan to bring down the cost of a college education to a total of $10,000?

Good luck with that...

Sounds like they are gutting college in the name of affordability. Brought to you by some of the people who would rather label Obamacare as just that (something that guts a particular industry/safeguard) when it is anything but.

Didn't the nazis do the same thing? Le sigh.

 

[The Librarian]

Also, don't miss this fantastic op-ed by Steve Beshear, Democratic governor of Kentucky.

Good on him.

 

[Hitokage]

What does PoliGAF think of this lady's plan to bring down the cost of a college education to a total of $10,000?

Kamenetz's personnel flattening proposal doesn't eliminate the bulk of administrative costs at schools, but her second idea does. Kamenetz would effectively end the use of tuition dollars or public subsidies on room, board, sports, extracurricular activities and food provision. Those amenities, even living in a dorm, are luxuries at this point. If students want to pay extra to live on campus or play sports, that's their business, but there's no reason for the government to subsidize that, or for the students to take out loans for that purpose.

Colleges ought to "adopt the same strategy used by airlines: They can offer
these services and charge extra for them if students so desire," she writes. "No sports subsidized by tuition or taxpayer aid. No extracurriculars beyond what students organize themselves. There’s no food service, or to be more specific, onsite food services are provided by outside contractors with no cross-subsidy from tuition."

This part is logically bankrupt. All it does is shift costs from the university bill to their individual monthly bill, as students will have to work more to pay rent and buy food. Granted, there's ample opportunity for students to things other than studying, but few things are worse for a student than having no choice.

 

[The Librarian]

This part is logically bankrupt. All it does is shift costs from the university bill to their individual monthly bill, as students will have to work more to pay rent and buy food. Granted, there's ample opportunity for students to things other than studying, but few things are worse for a student than having no choice.

How does her solution offer no choice?

 

[Hitokage]

How does her solution offer no choice?

Well, the alternative is having well to do parents and/or living at home and commuting, so I guess that's a choice.

 

[ivysaur12]

@jonathanweisman 4m
Vintage Ed Markey, now in Senate. "An absurd Alice In Wonderland Republican Tea Party world" has given us "Maalox moment in the marketplace"

I cannot wait until this madness is over.

 

[The Librarian]

Well, the alternative is having well to do parents and/or living at home and commuting, so I guess that's a choice.

I'm kind of lost with what you're getting at. There are apartments around all colleges, aren't there? And plenty of colleges today don't force students to live on campus, so it's effectively the same thing.

I cannot wait until this madness is over.

So glad Markey is in the Senate <3

 

[Hitokage]

I'm kind of lost with what you're getting at. There are apartments around all colleges, aren't there? And plenty of colleges today don't force students to live on campus, so it's effectively the same thing.

Apartments aren't free. Unless you have wealth, money requires work. Students working to pay bills is a negative impact on academics, like I originally said.

 

[pigeon]

Meanwhile...

A quick point worth noting from this morning's gross domestic product report. The report is largely a yawn, containing few interesting revisions to earlier estimates of economic progress in the second quarter. But there's one number that caught my attention. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has revised its estimates for the personal consumption expenditures price index. It's an important number, because this is the index the Federal Reserve targets. And remember, it's aiming for inflation of 2 percent.
Instead, the index fell in the second quarter. That is, the U.S. is experiencing deflation.
I won't overstate this. It's just one quarter, and it's evident in just one index, and even when I cherry-pick this interesting number, prices aren't really falling very quickly. The PCE deflator fell at an annual rate of only 0.1 percent in the second quarter.
But it's striking that the Fed's preferred price measure is declining at a time when the main conversation among policy makers is when and how to tighten monetary policy, rather than to make it more accommodative.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-26/where-is-the-panic-over-deflation-.html

 

[The Librarian]

Apartments aren't free.

Well, yeah, but they could cost less than living on campus depending on where the campus is. I still don't understand what you're getting at.

 

[Hitokage]

Well, yeah, but they could cost less than living on campus depending on where the campus is. I still don't understand what you're getting at.

Because you didn't read my post.

 

[The Librarian]

Because you didn't read my post.

I did read your post, you just edited after I quoted it. I still don't get the issue. If your concern is shifting the costs to individuals, then they can just choose to live on campus. They're not being prevented from doing so. Many universities don't charge you living quarters when you're not living on campus.

What is the issue?

 

[Hitokage]

I did read your post, you just edited after I quoted it. I still don't get the issue. If your concern is shifting the costs to individuals, then they can just choose to live on campus. They're not being prevented from doing so. Many universities don't charge you living quarters when you're not living on campus.

What is the issue?

Kamenetz's personnel flattening proposal doesn't eliminate the bulk of administrative costs at schools, but her second idea does. Kamenetz would effectively end the use of tuition dollars or public subsidies on room, board, sports, extracurricular activities and food provision. Those amenities, even living in a dorm, are luxuries at this point. If students want to pay extra to live on campus or play sports, that's their business, but there's no reason for the government to subsidize that, or for the students to take out loans for that purpose.

In other words, you're on your own. Poor students will have to work more. Rich students can mooch off their parents.

 

[ivysaur12]

AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Cruz emerges as GOP leader

PPP's newest national poll finds Ted Cruz is now the top choice of Republican primary voters to be their candidate for President in 2016. He leads the way with 20% to 17% for Rand Paul, 14% for Chris Christie, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% each for Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, 4% for Bobby Jindal, and 3% each for Rick Santorum and Scott Walker.

 

[pigeon]

I did read your post, you just edited after I quoted it. I still don't get the issue. If your concern is shifting the costs to individuals, then they can just choose to live on campus. They're not being prevented from doing so. Many universities don't charge you living quarters when you're not living on campus.

What is the issue?

Part of the effect of bundling living costs into tuition is to ensure that low-income students can receive subsidies for food and shelter through the standard loan apparatus. Yes, removing them would allow people to leverage existing assets, or attempt to find arbitrage, but it would also increase costs for the most vulnerable, who don't have the resources to bargain.

Like a Republican health care bill, this cuts costs by removing subsidies for things rich people don't use. Those are the specific costs we want to keep!

 

[The Librarian]

Part of the effect of bundling living costs into tuition is to ensure that low-income students can receive subsidies for food and shelter through the standard loan apparatus. Yes, removing them would allow people to leverage existing assets, or attempt to find arbitrage, but it would also increase costs for the most vulnerable, who don't have the resources to bargain.

Like a Republican health care bill, this cuts costs by removing subsidies for things rich people don't use. Those are the specific costs we want to keep!

In other words, you're on your own. Poor students will have to work more. Rich students can mooch off their parents.

Oh, I see now. Aside from that, what do you think of it?

 

[empty vessel]

What does PoliGAF think of this lady's plan to bring down the cost of a college education to a total of $10,000?

As Hitokage said, shelter and food aren't options. You aren't bringing the cost of something down just by changing the entity billing you for it. In fact, in this circumstance, school food and shelter is undoubtedly cheaper than real world food and shelter. So she is proposing raising the cost of education in this regard, not lowering it.

In most economic theories nations follow, countries can't spend too much money because they will run into debt. Yes you can build all of this crazy shit, but eventually you will have to pay it back. You can't spend a shit ton of money while trying to control inflation at the same time. Debt prevents that because while you may always be able to reach a nice median between inflation and spending, you will always have to worry about debt. This is why nations usually focus on having other nations invest in their economies so they can build up trade (it one of the reasons at least). Since MMT removes debt would it make a nation need other nations less than they do now?

Whether monetarily sovereign governments issue debt or not I don't think really matters, except to the extent that people point at it to scare others into cutting government spending in a depressed economy. In other words, the debt of a monetarily sovereign country is mostly an illusion. All debt is is a government-provided risk-free savings account for wealthier people in the society. Would eliminating that program free up some fiscal space? Sure, but not much. And it is the fiscal space--the economic room the government has to increase the private sector's net financial assets through additional spending without causing inflation--that controls what capacity governments have to spend.

Outrage won't save her. This isn't some normal race, it's Texas. I know a republican lost a state wide race in Indiana due to ugly comments about women, but Indiana isn't nearly as deep red as Texas, nor as extreme. Abbott is going to get away with a lot of stuff, and the more Davis complains in fundraising emails the worse she'll do.

No doubt. Republicans are rewarded for being misogynistic in Texas, which might just be the worst state in the entire nation.

 

[Hitokage]

Oh, I see now. Aside from that, then what do you think of it?

I don't disagree that structural reforms are necessary, but even the other points have a Republican tinge to them.

 

[Diablos]

AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

lol this is pretty funny but if history is an indication, typically this early on these polls are meaningless.

I think the GOP Primary will boil down to Rubio, Paul, and provided he sells his soul and has some luck (i.e. GOP starts placing less importance on places like Iowa), Christie.

Cruz will be the village idiot of all the GOPers in the primary season alongside Santorum (should he run, and I'm fully expecting it).

 

[Karakand]

I don't disagree that structural reforms are necessary, but even the other points have a Republican tinge to them.

Well it is a WaPo article.

 

[The Librarian]

Well it is a WaPo article.

You hatin' on Wonkblog?

I don't disagree that structural reforms are necessary, but even the other points have a Republican tinge to them.

I don't see many of them as bad after I've read the entirety of Dylan Matthew's "The Tuition is Too Damn High." Certainly interesting ideas at the least, especially the three-tiered approach.

 

[Chichikov]

Chichikov can I ask why Israel doesnt have a FM? Google is not giving straight answer.

The outgoing (fascist, racist, asshole, cunt) foreign minister is on trial for fraud, money laundering and witness tampering and Netanyahu is keeping the position open for him.
It can be explained by parliamentary coalition mathematics, but honestly, it cannot be explained well, maybe the conspiracy theories that Lieberman has some blackmail worthy stuff on Netanyahu are true.

 

[APF]

Isn't the question whether removing that subsidy is a net gain/loss in comparison to the lowered administrative costs?

 

[pigeon]

lol this is pretty funny but if history is an indication, typically this early on these polls are meaningless.

I think the GOP Primary will boil down to Rubio, Paul, and provided he sells his soul and has some luck (i.e. GOP starts placing less importance on places like Iowa), Christie[

Sure, but who cares about what it boils down to? The FROTH is what's entertaining!

 

[PhoenixDark]

Pretty sure Rubio is irrelevant now that the Hispanic vote isn't even being courted anymore.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Well, yeah, but they could cost less than living on campus depending on where the campus is. I still don't understand what you're getting at.

Strongly depends on where you live. People going to Virginia Tech can get a nice place for $300 including utilities. Living in Richmond Virginia and going to VCU will cost at least $400 base rent if you aren't living in a shithole. And if you're going to GMU or any of the community colleges in the DC metro area, housing is overall more expensive than NYC. Student housing provided off-campus is generally poor quality and takes advantage of students. If your choice of college is dependent on your rent that negatively impacts any academics.

 

[Plinko]

AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Wow, Cruz AND Paul leading the way? I think I hear the music from Hilary's campaign party already.

Seriously, though, neither of those two will be the guy. These polls are really meaningless.

 

[Karakand]

You hatin' on Wonkblog?

WaPo is like The Economist, something you should read, but with your baloney sensors on full. (Coincidentally--entirely I'm sure--both periodicals were enthusiastic supporters of the Invasion of Iraq.)

For example, the think tank that put out that paper was an enthusiastic supporter of "reforming" social security and Medicare. Of course such a "moderate" organization wasn't presented as a bastion of sensibility in comparison to cockamamie Republican governors like Rick Perry, Rick Scott, and Scott Walker (those names flow together rather well) by this particular wonk blogger.

 

[Avon Barksdale]

AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

itshappening.gif

 

[Diablos]

Pretty sure Rubio is irrelevant now that the Hispanic vote isn't even being courted anymore.

There's enough time for Rubio to go out on a limb and start being all quasi bi-partisan, courting Democrats for some kind of DREAM Act compromise on his own accord. Mid/late 2014 and early 2015 is the best time to start. Remember, Americans have short memories. Not quite time to make his move. I fully expect it though.

Worst case scenario they'd make Rubio a VP nominee.

 

[The Librarian]

WaPo is like The Economist, something you should read, but with your baloney sensors on full. (Coincidentally--entirely I'm sure--both periodicals were enthusiastic supporters of the Invasion of Iraq.)

You must not read a lot of Wonkblog, then.

 

[BSsBrolly]

My premiums are going up a whoping $1.91 per pay period in 2014. Talk radio told me they would skyrocket...

 

[TCRS]

so the senate is voting on something to do with gubbermint spending:

http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/

 

[Diablos]

My premiums are going up a whoping $1.91 per pay period in 2014. Talk radio told me they would skyrocket...

hahaha.

Also:

Anyone thinking Noem would be a strong VP candidate as well? A bit too early to run for President but she could someday. I realize she's in the vein of Bachmann and co., but most men would agree she's hot as hell. Certainly better looking than Palin, even, and we all know how much conservative men and "soccer moms" loved that shit.

 

[bananas]

hahaha.

Also:

Anyone thinking Noem would be a strong VP candidate as well? A bit too early to run for President but she could someday. I realize she's in the vein of Bachmann and co., but most men would agree she's hot as hell. Certainly better looking than Palin, even, and we all know how much conservative men and "soccer moms" loved that shit.

She's got that "look" in her eye.

That crazy look.

 

[The Librarian]

She's really pretty in that photo.

 

[Shadow Hog]

She looks like a slightly younger Palin with no glasses, honestly.

 

[Tamanon]

I fail to see how putting a woman in the Veep slot solely based on her looks makes any sense. She's been a representative for 3ish years now, and has done nothing to distinguish herself.

 

[pigeon]

You must not read a lot of Wonkblog, then.

I'm generally pro-Wonkblog, but it's important to recognize that Ezra doesn't just work off charts. Wonkblog is Obama's primary leak distributor, just as Politico handles that work for the Republican leadership. So it IS worth remembering, whenever a post that doesn't have a graph in it comes up, that there's at least some chance somebody at White House did at least the talking points for it.

On topics where he's presenting data I think Wonkblog is fairly sound though.

 

[The Librarian]

I'm generally pro-Wonkblog, but it's important to recognize that Ezra doesn't just work off charts. Wonkblog is Obama's primary leak distributor, just as Politico handles that work for the Republican leadership. So it IS worth remembering, whenever a post that doesn't have a graph in it comes up, that there's at least some chance somebody at White House did at least the talking points for it.

On topics where he's presenting data I think Wonkblog is fairly sound though.

You mean posts Ezra makes? Cause I don't notice that in many of the posts.