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PoliGAF Interim Thread of cunning stunts and desperate punts

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G

Gaborn

Member
speculawyer said:
This is why I've never agreed with the hardcore extremist Libertarian view. Markets are always artificial constructs to some degree. If you want real free markets then you should make murder and theft legal too, right?
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Murder = intentional homicide = tangible harm. No libertarian would say murder should be legal. An Anarchist might but only trolls think they're identical philosophies. Same with theft really, property is crucial to a libertarian.

But no, we make things like fraud illegal and not depend on the market to handle it alone. And things like insurance have to be heavily regulated since they are ripe for being abused by fraud. (Just collect premiums for a while and then leave the country with all the cash when you feel you've collected enough.)
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Caveat emptor.

But markets are great ways to deal with issues and thus should be used when ever possible. For example, the CAFE standards are a terrible way of improving fuel economy standards . . . they just create an artificial mandate of improved efficiency by requiring 'fleet averages' to meet some number. The real way to improve fuel economy (a legit goal for the nation considering pollution, trade imbalance, global warming, etc.) is to raise gas taxes. The problem is that it is political suicide.
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Mostly agree actually (gas taxes are user fees, not taxes so I have less of a problem with them)
 
C

Cheebs

Member
McCain LED Obama in the saturday numbers for Gallup. 47-46. Meaning it will get closer tommorow when Obama's very good thursday dropped off.
 
P

Price Dalton

Member
Gaborn said:
The reality of today shows WHY we need to deregulate. Businesses no longer believe in consequences and that risky investments are risky. There's such a safety net that more and more well respected companies are willing to take risks. We need to allow companies to fail because they've shown an unwillingness to be responsible and we can't keep rewarding that behavior with a bailout. Ultimately, that just creates more risk, more speculation, and more collapses. Before the rules constraining businesses were created (and later repealed) it's not like huge numbers of businesses were engaging in this type of speculation, those that were taking risks would quickly fail and be replaced.

Businesses need to learn responsibility again.

Dalton - twofold, ultimately the underlying federal reserve issue, but also the willingness to take more risks believing they're too big, too invincible to be ALLOWED to fail. In other words, the previous years of regulation in specific areas made businesses forget WHY that safety net was created. So businesses started speculating and taking risks they shouldn't have when they were able to. Again, loss of responsibility.
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I'm admittedly an economics novice, but as I understand it, the architects of these failed business plans - the execs, company heads - make out like bandits even when the company fails. So what's their incentive to make sound, rational business decisions if they stand to make a lot more money a lot more quickly with risky moves?
 
G

Gaborn

Member
Price Dalton said:
I'm admittedly an economics novice, but as I understand it, the architects of these failed business plans - the execs, company heads - make out like bandits even when the company fails. So what's their incentive to make sound, rational business decisions if they stand to make a lot more money a lot more quickly with risky moves?
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Not getting hired in the first place or having the board of directors step in sooner to remove you before you do any permanent damage?

Shins - Sure I do, several in fact, but I've also got enough money to be comfortable with a decent health plan, in the US that argument is a bit less effective (though health care is so regulated costs have only gone up since the HHS was created)
 
A

Agent Icebeezy

Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
kdnxva.gif
 
A

avaya

Member
Gaborn said:
The reality of today shows WHY we need to deregulate. Businesses no longer believe in consequences and that risky investments are risky. There's such a safety net that more and more well respected companies are willing to take risks. We need to allow companies to fail because they've shown an unwillingness to be responsible and we can't keep rewarding that behavior with a bailout. Ultimately, that just creates more risk, more speculation, and more collapses. Before the rules constraining businesses were created (and later repealed) it's not like huge numbers of businesses were engaging in this type of speculation, those that were taking risks would quickly fail and be replaced.

Businesses need to learn responsibility again.
Click to expand...

There is a degree of truth to this, it applies to the mortgage brokers who have a broken sales model.

However for the banks it was a market failure caused by polluted information. They never took unnecessary risks, according to the models the risks taken were within the limits. They never took the risks because they expected to be bailed out - bailouts dilute shareholders!

Fact remains that the ratings firms failed to provide objective analysis of the instruments they were asked to evaluate. That failure propagated false information throughout the system - the securities were marked to model and the models were wrong.

Even if we were to assume they took unnecessary risks, arguing that firms of the size of AIG and Goldman should be allowed to fail is totally irresponsible considering their failures would cause a cascade shutdown of the global financial system.
 
P

Price Dalton

Member
Gaborn said:
Not getting hired in the first place or having the board of directors step in sooner to remove you before you do any permanent damage?

Shins - Sure I do, several in fact, but I've also got enough money to be comfortable with a decent health plan, in the US that argument is a bit less effective (though health care is so regulated costs have only gone up since the HHS was created)
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That does make sense, but why wasn't that happening before this crisis? Was everyone just blinded by the incredible (empty) profits?

Would removing the bailout safety net encourage boards of directors to take heed before things got really ugly? It seems like everyone was in on it - or completely naive - and making money.
 
G

Gaborn

Member
avaya said:
There is a degree of truth to this, it applies to the mortgage brokers who have a broken sales model.

However for the banks it was a market failure caused by polluted information. They never took unnecessary risks, according to the models the risks taken were within the limits. They never took the risks because they expected to be bailed out - bailouts dilute shareholders!

Fact remains that the ratings firms failed to provide objective analysis of the instruments they were asked to evaluate. That failure propagated false information throughout the system - the securities were marked to model and the models were wrong.
Click to expand...

Then perhaps they were listening to the wrong people. No company the size of AIG or Lehman Brothers should have their money so totally tied up in high risks like that.

Even if we were to assume they took unnecessary risks, arguing that firms of the size of AIG and Goldman should be allowed to fail is totally irresponsible considering their failures would cause a cascade shutdown of the global financial system.
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It'll be shut down eventually, no market can see so much irrational behavior and so many bail outs (by the way, what's Obama cutting to accomodate the further trillion we sunk into debt thanks to Dubya?) without eventually collapsing again.
 
C

ChoklitReign

Member
Cheebs said:
Well Ron Paul is extremely anti-regulation and de-regulation lead us into this crisis so I assume you would want a second great depression then. As most economic advisors would tell you, this new crisis has proved libertarianism can't function as a form of government such as Paul Kruggman.
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I can tell you're a Nader-esque liberal and I for one abhor Keynesian economics just as much as supply-side economics. Even if I don't support most of his beliefs, Ron Paul is no Herbert Hoover.

Edit: Where's JayDubya?
 
K

Krowley

Member
McCain is fumbling so badly right now that I'm actually starting to waver. I really love the guy, but he clearly has no clue on the economy. His position is changing every single day and his economic advisor's are some of the slimiest republicans around. I don't expect my president to know everything, but your advisor's need to be solid, and McCains economic people are equivalent to Bush's original foreign policy people. They're opportunists, and they have an agenda that's not very concerned with the future of the regular American people.

It's very possible that I may end up registering a protest vote for Bob Barr. If you're going to have a capitalist economy, you need to be REALLY capitalist. You can't play pretend, and then chicken out during every crisis and cut interest rates, and bail out company's and shit. A full on socialist system would be better than the kind of pretend capitalism that we've seen.

McCain's going to win my state so a protest vote won't matter much here, and I definitely still prefer him to Obama, but it's going to take a lot for him to win my confidence back in the next few weeks. Obama has handled himself quite well this week and McCain has definitely seen his credibility suffer.
 
C

capslock

Is jealous of Matlock's emoticon
Krowley said:
McCain is fumbling so badly right now that I'm actually starting to waver. I really love the guy, but he clearly has no clue on the economy. His position is changing every single day and his economic advisor's are some of the slimiest republicans around. I don't expect my president to know everything, but but your advisor's need to be solid, and McCains economic people are equivelant to Bush's original foreign policy people.

It's very possible that I may end up registering a protest vote for Bob Barr. If you're going to have a capitalist economy, you need to be REALLY capitalist. You can't play pretend, and then chicken out during every crisis and cut interest rates, and bail out company's and shit. A full on socialist system would be better than the kind of pretend capitalism that we've seen.

McCain's going to win my state so a protest vote won't matter much here, and I definitly still prefer him to Obama, but it's going to take a lot for him to win my confidence back in the next few weeks. Obama has handled himself quite well this week and McCain has definitly seen his credibility suffer.
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Well a 'full-on socialist' government is what you're going to get if this bailout goes through.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
ChoklitReign said:
I can tell you're a Nader-esque liberal and I for one abhor Keynesian economics just as much as supply-side economics. Even if I don't support most of his beliefs, Ron Paul is no Herbert Hoover.
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His economic policy is more deregulation. Deregulation is the cause of this crisis. End of story.

quadriplegicjon said:
what happened on friday?
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Thursday:
Obama 50.2 - McCain 44

Friday:
Obama 50.6- McCain 43.6

Saturday:
Obama 46.2 - McCain 47.4

It rolls into a 3 day average of 49-45.
 
K

Krowley

Member
capslock said:
Well a 'full-on socialist' government is what you're going to get if this bailout goes through.
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I agree. It's socialism for the rich and I hate that much worse than socialism for the poor.

It's terrible that we are in this position and McCain is just fumbling around here with no real answers. He doesn't even have wrong answers, he just has nothing much to say and wants to distract people away from this as quickly as possible. It's embarrasing. I just have this "fuck the system" feeling building in me right now. I will probably vote libertarian, just to register my feeling that the government is fucked and has no buisness being involved in anything.
 
S

syllogism

Member
Cheebs said:
His economic policy is more deregulation. Deregulation is the cause of this crisis. End of story.


Thursday:
Obama 50.2 - McCain 44

Friday:
Obama 50.6- McCain 43.6

Saturday:
Obama 46.2 - McCain 47.4

It rolls into a 3 day average of 49-45.
Click to expand...
How do you figure it's exactly 49-45
 
C

Cheebs

Member
syllogism said:
How do you figure it's exactly 49-45
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I don't. openleft.com does takes both rasmussen and gallup's and breaks it down into daily numbers for months on end now. Thats where I got it.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Cheebs said:
His economic policy is more deregulation. Deregulation is the cause of this crisis. End of story.


Thursday:
Obama 50.2 - McCain 44

Friday:
Obama 50.6- McCain 43.6

Saturday:
Obama 46.2 - McCain 47.4

It rolls into a 3 day average of 49-45.
Click to expand...
Remember, two weeks ago OuterWorldVoice correctly predicted Obama's bounce this week. But the second half of that prediction is McCain would pull ahead after another week or two, before the final stretch.

No need to panic. It's all part of the plan.
Cheebs said:
I don't. openleft.com does takes both rasmussen and gallup's and breaks it down into daily numbers for months on end now. Thats where I got it.
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Can you post links when you post that stuff?
 
C

Cheebs

Member
GhaleonEB said:
Remember, two weeks ago OuterWorldVoice correctly predicted Obama's bounce this week. But the second half of that prediction is McCain would pull ahead after another week or two, before the final stretch.

No need to panic.
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I am not panicking at all, I am just posting it because I know many at gaf will freak out when Obama's lead is down to 1 or 2 tomorrow.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
Cheebs said:
I am not panicking at all, I am just posting it because I know many at gaf will freak out when Obama's lead is down to 1 or 2 tomorrow.
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Didn't mean to imply you were. My message was for them*.






*I count myself among them.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
Soybean said:
Man, what would cause a swing of such epic proportions on Saturday?
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DailyKos had a swing towards in their individual days as did Rasmussen today. Just not as large. But its clear McCain made up ground on saturday.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Soybean said:
Man, what would cause a swing of such epic proportions on Saturday?
Click to expand...

The mavericks got all mavericky and mavericked up the place maverick-style.

Or it could be just an outlier or something. We'll know tomorrow. I've heard here that Obama usually does better on weekdays, though.
 
C

Cheebs

Member
syllogism said:
Uhh those seem wrong. They seem to assume the real results are always integers.
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Well Gallup has stated Obama's biggest day this week was friday. And before that it was thursday in terms of individual days. Even discounting openleft's estimates going by those 2 statements from Gallup the only explanation for the drop was McCain had to lead in Sat's numbers. No matter what math you used, McCain very likely lead on Sat.

But I wouldn't panic. His numbers will drop again tomorrow. Wait and see where it is at the debates.
 
S

SpeedingUptoStop

will totally Facebook friend you! *giggle* *LOL*
AniHawk said:
The mavericks got all mavericky and mavericked up the place maverick-style.

Or it could be just an outlier or something. We'll know tomorrow. I've heard here that Obama usually does better on weekdays, though.
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Which means a Tuesday election day is money in the bank!
 
S

syllogism

Member
Cheebs said:
Well Gallup has stated Obama's biggest day this week was friday. And before that it was thursday in terms of individual days. Even discounting openleft's estimates going by those 2 statements from Gallup the only explanation for the drop was McCain had to lead in Sat's numbers. No matter what math you used, McCain very likely lead on Sat.
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Even their Rasmussen spreadsheet makes no sense. It's just a guess.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
AniHawk said:
The mavericks got all mavericky and mavericked up the place maverick-style.

Or it could be just an outlier or something. We'll know tomorrow. I've heard here that Obama usually does better on weekdays, though.
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And the polls are going to bounce around on the news of the day. If you subscribe to the notion that the bad stock market boosted Obama as people worried, then the rebound may have reversed some of that effect as well. Or, just noise. Let's see where we are at when the first debate starts. Just a few days now. :eek
 
W

WickedAngel

Banned
AniHawk said:
The mavericks got all mavericky and mavericked up the place maverick-style.

Or it could be just an outlier or something. We'll know tomorrow. I've heard here that Obama usually does better on weekdays, though.
Click to expand...

Old people don't have anything to do on the weekend but sit there and wait for polling.
 
3

3rdman

Member
Gantz said:
they can pretend to be black but would never vote for a black man :lol
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Hold on to your racism accusations...As an American born of Cuban descent, I can tell you first and foremost that Cubans are some of the least racist people I know. Hell, half (or more) of Cuba is made up people of African descent so you argument doesn't hold water.

Cubans here in Miami are ruled by a very corrupt local government made up of ex-aristocrats from Cuba. Add to this mix the "original sin" for Cuban-Americans (The Bay of Pigs) and you've got a very loyal and reactionary Republican base.

...but racism has nothing to do with it.
 
S

smurfx

get some go again
3rdman said:
Hold on to your racism accusations...As an American born of Cuban descent, I can tell you first and foremost that Cubans are some of the least racist people I know. Hell, half (or more) of Cuba is made up people of African descent so you argument doesn't hold water.
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i bet black cubans get treated much more differently than white cubans. ;)
 
S

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
3rdman said:
Cubans here in Miami are ruled by a very corrupt local government made up of ex-aristocrats from Cuba. .
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Why do you guys put up with that shit?

Those people have actively prevented both reform and capitalism from flowering in Cuba with their lobbying and bs belief that they will "get their shit back" when "Castro falls." It seems apparent to me (white Scottish guy who's never set foot in Cuba and probably doesn't really know what he's talking about) that the demonization of Cuba has been super counter-productive.
 
S

Stoney Mason

Banned
Tamanon said:
Wait, are people surprised now that McCain does better on the weekends? That's been the trend this entire political season!
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To be fair I always thought it was going to tighten up weekend or not. The real position of the race is most likely tied or Obama up like 1 or 2 on the national polls. I don't have confidence in the kos poll. The big story this entire week anyway will be the debate and the leadup to that will have a leveling effect I'm guessing as the analysis shifts back to horse-race style.
 
Y

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
OuterWorldVoice said:
Why do you guys put up with that shit?

Those people have actively prevented both reform and capitalism from flowering in Cuba with their lobbying and bs belief that they will "get their shit back" when "Castro falls." It seems apparent to me (white Scottish guy who's never set foot in Cuba and probably doesn't really know what he's talking about) that the demonization of Cuba has been super counter-productive.
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It's been 50 years. It's time for plan b.
 
K

Karma Kramer

Banned
Stoney Mason said:
To be fair I always thought it was going to tighten up weekend or not. The real position of the race is most likely tied or Obama up like 1 or 2 on the national polls. I don't have confidence in the kos poll. The big story this entire week anyway will be the debate and the leadup to that will have a leveling effect I'm guessing as the analysis shifts back to horse-race style.
Click to expand...

Yep... good analysis.
 
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