That's right, but it's not business, that's our national economy. The point is China is portrayed in America as this cheap labor destination and nothing could be further from the truth. They are out to be the most dominant and largest global economy. In terms of "Business is business" this implies the United States and it's attitude towards it's industries is stuck on stupid. To let these critical industries move to China and hollow out U.S. businesses and the economy means what it implies. The U.S. will lose, the national economy will lose.
I don't see anything to imply they would disappear and their power over sovereign debt, the ability to downgrade, which affects interest rates, so much interwoven in their ratings (I think something about government, i.e. U.S. legislation proposals, removing their ratings as criteria was around but I don't know about the latest bills?) It seems generally we hear proposals, such as the ones you note, but it all is rhetoric, goes nowhere.
They should be investment cops. So, does that imply they should be funded by governments? (oh, ye taxpayer will love this idea not!)...
Somehow they need to be separate from their clients. Honestly I'm not sure how to do that, to separate out their conflict of interest. Do you create a pool, make them into government agencies (huge expense to the U.S. taxpayer for ?? benefit of Wall Street?), pull it into the Fed as a service, i.e. who pays? That stuff ain't cheap to put together? But obviously having the clients with the actual products pay them is a little beyond stupid.
In terms of lawsuits, it seems everything is always settled, the funds a fraction, more like a "kick back fee" that are awarded, takes years to get anywhere in these suits and even the governments cave and do "slap on the wrist" in terms of fines, so I don't think they will be sued to oblivion.
On the TBTF, the FDIC sounds like one idea, although this almost goes into that Resolution Trust Authority ($50B fund in the Senate),...but I have a focus on contagion, systemic risk. So, Volcker, separating out the commercial from the investment banking sounds like a start, but there needs to be more "firewalls" between institutions instead of this huge pile of dominoes. I think a hard cap in relation to GDP just doesn't sound efficient frankly, maybe some sort of regulator with 'break up' power but I think if the focus was on these inter-dependencies, seems again Glass-Steagall and Volcker are the closest to that, it's the way to go. Also, contagion from other countries, not just US banks (i.e. Societe Generale allowed to "place bets" via U.S. AIG, the peddling of toxic derivatives to all sorts of nations and towns).
But if they also regulated, heavily derivatives, that would reduce these inter-dependencies as I understand it. CDSes should not be allowed to exist in their current form. They do not make sense mathematically, from the models and they are also not baked up with capital. It's ridiculous to have those be "many to one". If corporations want insurance they should only be allowed to buy insurance on the underlying assets they actually own.
Structured Financial "Products", derivatives, CDOs, I'm sorry but if one cannot easily validate something and that's from the mathematics or computational model, right there it should not be allowed to exist. I mean legitimate mathematical models go bad and there we are, cooking with mathematical and computational fiction? Hello?
Care to create an account on EP and cross post, write directly?
You are certainly right about the ratings agencies. They are at the center of this financial crisis. The reason I hesitate to recommend what to do about the ratings agencies is because, of all the players involved, they have the least likelihood of surviving. We've already seen the muni insurers collapse, and with lawsuits inflicting potentially fatal damage on Moody's, S&P and Fitch, we need to get a better idea of their survivability. They have lost the one thing that matters most to their franchise: their credibility. The market doesn't even pay attention to them when they talk about downgrading the Aaa rating of the U.S.
One thing that needs to be done is remove the Basel II Accord reliance on public debt ratings in lieu of bank or BIS ratings and capital assessments. I don't know if the BIS is working on this formally but it has been discussed.
Should these agencies survive, their model of accepting fees from those they rate has to change. Assigning them a regulator makes sense but doesn't solve the real problem of developing independent and fearless credit analyses and ratings that are not strictly model driven.
Regarding the point on TBTF, it seems if a bank is so big the FDIC hasn't the reserves to shut it down, it is TBTF. That doesn't mean there shouldn't also be caps on asset or deposit size, and we definitely need leverage caps, but the best way to tell a bank it must reduce size is to show it would otherwise bust the FDIC. What I don't know is whether a bank can throw a $10 billion contribution at the FDIC and buy itself the right to be much bigger, but I suspect not. That just reduces their ROE and defeats the purpose anyway.
Bad debt got us into this mess so why would we want to see a revival in borrowing? Our economy won't recover to pre-meltdown levels because those levels were created by bad debt predicated on loose money and unregulated financial instruments.
We are trying to eliminate all of those. Right? So how could the economy return to pre-meltdown levels without them? Unemployment is going to be high for quite some time in this scenario because bad debt, like bad credit card debt, won't fuel a booming recovery. Do you want a recovery fueled by bad consumer debt?
and there is no electing on it. The Commonwealth of PA doesn't even have referendum.
I think many of the east coast States are set up with school boards having the authority to set school budgets and that means raising taxes. They never go lower ....moot point on that one.
I am fairly sure the State to the south of me, Maryland works the same, the State to the east of me New Jersey works the same. I think a lot of States have the same problem. California with its power of Ballot Propositions is a different animal. The last time I owned a house in CA they were passing Prop 13.
So in CA Prop 13 is probably too tight and in the east we have no way to limit the property tax increases.
Oh we vote in new school board members but they always go against their promises. Several years ago we voted in an entire new board. The old board wanted to build a new $80 million high school. New board gets in and we get a $100 million high school. I believe there are about 1,200 students (grades 9 through 12).
It is difficult for each house to be appraised for reassessment so they raise the millage. In 1996 the millage was 11.45 and in 2010 the millage will be 22.53.
So my house is assessed at a bit over $200,000. That means in 1996 property tax was $2,290 and in 2010 those taxes will be $4,506. On top of school taxes you will also have country and muni taxes.
Our house has seen our income go down by 30% in this recession. Teachers are going on strike for a guaranteed cost of living raise of 5% for the next six years. You want to get people PO'd and such stuff will do it. Taxing an illiquid asset is painful in the first place. I can't cut off a corner of my house to pay the tax, it isn't income producing. The cost to carry a house is just insanely high today.
I am reading the 08-09 budget and teacher salaries went up 5.01% and benefits went up 1.56%. Admin salaries went up 3.8%. That happened during a time that many in my town saw factories close, cut back on hours, massive layoffs. The money to pay those increases is taken and I can not say no. If I say no, if I stand firm, in the end....my property will be taken by the barrel of the sheriff's gun. The sheriff will show up to usher me off my land.
BTW in the 09-10 budget the salary increase is 12.38%.
Now do you wonder why we the populace, the non-union people get a bit prickly about their want to strike while we the taxpayers see dropping incomes.
I wish you would talk about specifics. The reason is we here on EP have been digging into the specifics on current proposals and legislation. For example, your friend doesn't mention the credit ratings agencies at all. This is becoming more and more obvious they are complicit and also obvious is they have enormous power. Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke were perpetually worried about downgrades, as in sovereign downgrades. You can see what happens to Greece with a downgrade and then we have ratings over and over on junk and this was going on long before these CDOs were being peddled.
Then, on too big to fail, what precisely should be the crtieria to break them up? A hard size cap, a percentage of overall GDP, by function, reinstate Glass-Steagall? Bernie Sanders amendment failed, but not by much. But there is nothing so far on the credit ratings agencies and supposedly this "resolution authority" is still present.
They are going to pass something and that's soon and odds are we will get a bait and switch even while the current bill is crappy.
Also, there is no audit the fed in the bill at all, which was in the House version.
This is happening despite record foreclosures here. They are making a fortune charging banks to board up houses.
Unemployment officially at 12.6% but much higher in all reality.
If they kept mark to market the banks would have willingly sold house for whatever they could to get them off the books and much of the pain would be over now instead we acted in the best interests of the banks and not the taxpayer. They have been trying to hold onto houses in a wait for housing to go up so they don't have to show a loss.
Issues like this don't get much ink.
Again people are losing the ability to pay for things but things aren't getting any cheaper. In this case because we certainly can't have the poor banks losing money.
In California, school districts cannot raise taxes without putting it to the voters. Sounds like you're saying they can just raise yours whenever they feel like it. Is that what you're saying? If so, I would resent to too.
the factory moving out of the country is a worldwide problem. The people in places like the UK are screwed and really PO'd. We are like rats now trying to figure out where the cheese is located and people fall for the "change" logo. Well there isn't any change coming from a party with a D or R in front of it. The "change" people voted for was change alright. It was changing the location of the cheese again, putting people in the administration that were already good at moving the cheese and then pontificating about how good you are at changing the cheese.
I've said it before. In the twenty some years I've lived in my house...I've watched my school taxes rise 800%. There is nobody I know that has seen their income rise like the school taxes.
Your salary examples are about right for my State. I don't know where these school teachers live that are starving but it isn't in my State.
There are 565 different school districts, they all have taxing authority and there is no other government entity to oversee them. They are milking us dry. Every, every, every year I fret and worry about having enough money to pay this years school taxes.
Try living in a heavy manufacturing town that is mostly Unions. I am sure you will awaken to find that greed isn't the sole property of only non-union people.
While Caterpillar was still big in this town, you could push a broom for $20 an hour. And that was in the 1980's. Add to that their bene program/taxes/workers comp, etc. and that broom pushing cost about $55 an hour.
They all complained so much for so long that Caterpillar picked up and moved south.
I can tell you that the town was not very sympathetic to their constant whining attitudes. There was no "faux" news in those days and we had one newspaper. A liberal paper. It was what we say them saying and doing on their picket lines. They had it better than 80% of the people living in the town and they were a spectacle to see as they picketed for more...and more...and more. That was until the golden goose picked up and left town.
I have and they are all very, very well decorated. Decorated is not really the word I want but when a school auditorium has the same acoustical arrangement as the Metropolitan Opera..something is going on.
My wife was renting the auditorium at a new school this week. Off the cafeteria (well it is now called food court) is a Greek Theater. The nice grass that needs to be manicured by a grounds keeper.
The natatorium in my kids school was built against the will of the people. You know, those are the folks that pay the property tax to fund such things. The weight room rivals the best private gym in town. The $100K artificial turf football field, etc. And the kids in school, well thanks to that well connected non-profit program called CPM....75% of the high school kids don't know their multiplication tables.
I have a relative that was a school administrator and retired. He retired in 1980 at age 58. His defined benefit plan has allowed him to travel the world over the past twenty years and lives in a $800,000 house. Not bad for an educator and it was all nicely funded through taxes. Currently he is in Scotland for a month. I say he should get a raise.
Believe me, I would be all over it, in 2 seconds, as I would hope more EPers are critical readers and they too would vote something to unpublish if it was bogus/fiction. As noted in a previous post, we have bogus financial news continually, even in the New York Times, Washington Post Dean Baker is screaming today on this one, Brad Delong does almost daily call outs on the financial/economic press) and HuffPo has more than once been used as a lobbyist plant (for shame! They supposedly edit and approve everything!)
But comments I want to foster more use and discussion and I sure don't want to end up like the Political partisan blogs, where they just spam for their agenda and name call anyone who disagrees with it, facts, statistics be damned!
...if you want to call that particular guy misguided and misinformed, but not a troll, but I think it's hair-splitting. By the way, I was not implying you did anything wrong by failing to disallow his post.
I thought for sure, because I and ZeroHedge made fun of it immediately, there would be a slew of funnies on the SEC porno surf (reality is they are way statistically below the jerk off percentage at work, nationwide, literally!).
I don't know if it's because searching on keyword porn immediately pulls up all sorts of nasty or what, but I could not find one funny thing out there! Where are the comedians, that is really a scream story. (and one that is not relevant, in spite of the headlines really).
That said, on the Wham-O spoof, that Chinese interview is very real. Check it out. China wants our best industries, advanced R&D, tech and they have captured them to boot. They don't want our crappy low skilled industries, i.e. toys. That interview is real and check out the attitude.
Not the last version I reviewed. We're got our classic "compromise" coming in the Senate and I'll bet dollars to donuts it's corporate lobbyist loophole ridden. I suggest we all try to find out what the latest is, but be aware, even in a debate on the house floor, at the last minute, one can get a "managers amendment" which is passed by "voice vote" and it can change a bill entirely. Also, even after a bill is passed, they will send "conferees" to "resolve the differences" between the Senate and House version. Literally, after amendments have passed by an overwhelming majority in both houses, these conferees have and can rip out those amendments. They did this on H-1B amendments in a bill a couple of years ago.
As your friendly neighborhood admin, I'm the one who goes through the anonymous comment moderation queue. I try not to screen on opinion, as long as it's not too nutso, more looking for referrer spam and so on. The reason is these people do just drive by, i.e. don't really join in, register and so on. That said, you can see there is some sort of serious outrage against public union employees as of late.
I'll only come down hard on something when I know it's a corporate agenda push or truly just a disaster in sheep's clothing and only when it's repeatedly pushed regardless of facts and stats.
Like the VAT thing. Out in "other sites", I have never seen such a misrepresentation of what a VAT even is. The right refusing to acknowledge it's regressive properties, the left refusing to acknowledge it's at the border adjustment properties (which makes it useful for trade deficits). It would be nice to argue the facts at least.
In fact last night Saturday Night Live did a skit (which I'll include next week) that was heavily negative on unions. Not saying SNL gets their facts right, seems only John Stewarts and Co. do that before poking fun.
But there is some sort of intense outrage/anger against public union people and it just doesn't make much sense to me, when the rest of the U.S. should be pushing up, pushing for those same benefits and wages.
If they want to attack a group for outrageous pay ripoffs one would think it would be the "executive class". Good God, there is an outrage.
Anyway, trolls? Eh, try misguided and misinformed. It's clearly coming from somewhere, some sort of major attack on public unions.
Consulting for ML's CMA account in 1997, I asked a IT manager how M: could skirt the rules of Glass Stegull so casually. Keep in mind, we are a couple of years before Graham-Leach. The manager said,
"We just thumb our noses at Glass-Stegull"
He went on to explain how ML allows its clients to invent any kind of transaction they can wet-dream. The relevance to IT was that this activity (a fig leaf term), was blowing out all the DASD channel I/O to the point where they needed much more high-throughput DASD.
The 'reform' Bill promises a return to Glass Steagull. How will GS fix these sick scenes? All of this is not new, its is part of the sickness we call Capitalism.
That's right, but it's not business, that's our national economy. The point is China is portrayed in America as this cheap labor destination and nothing could be further from the truth. They are out to be the most dominant and largest global economy. In terms of "Business is business" this implies the United States and it's attitude towards it's industries is stuck on stupid. To let these critical industries move to China and hollow out U.S. businesses and the economy means what it implies. The U.S. will lose, the national economy will lose.
I don't see anything to imply they would disappear and their power over sovereign debt, the ability to downgrade, which affects interest rates, so much interwoven in their ratings (I think something about government, i.e. U.S. legislation proposals, removing their ratings as criteria was around but I don't know about the latest bills?) It seems generally we hear proposals, such as the ones you note, but it all is rhetoric, goes nowhere.
They should be investment cops. So, does that imply they should be funded by governments? (oh, ye taxpayer will love this idea not!)...
Somehow they need to be separate from their clients. Honestly I'm not sure how to do that, to separate out their conflict of interest. Do you create a pool, make them into government agencies (huge expense to the U.S. taxpayer for ?? benefit of Wall Street?), pull it into the Fed as a service, i.e. who pays? That stuff ain't cheap to put together? But obviously having the clients with the actual products pay them is a little beyond stupid.
In terms of lawsuits, it seems everything is always settled, the funds a fraction, more like a "kick back fee" that are awarded, takes years to get anywhere in these suits and even the governments cave and do "slap on the wrist" in terms of fines, so I don't think they will be sued to oblivion.
On the TBTF, the FDIC sounds like one idea, although this almost goes into that Resolution Trust Authority ($50B fund in the Senate),...but I have a focus on contagion, systemic risk. So, Volcker, separating out the commercial from the investment banking sounds like a start, but there needs to be more "firewalls" between institutions instead of this huge pile of dominoes. I think a hard cap in relation to GDP just doesn't sound efficient frankly, maybe some sort of regulator with 'break up' power but I think if the focus was on these inter-dependencies, seems again Glass-Steagall and Volcker are the closest to that, it's the way to go. Also, contagion from other countries, not just US banks (i.e. Societe Generale allowed to "place bets" via U.S. AIG, the peddling of toxic derivatives to all sorts of nations and towns).
But if they also regulated, heavily derivatives, that would reduce these inter-dependencies as I understand it. CDSes should not be allowed to exist in their current form. They do not make sense mathematically, from the models and they are also not baked up with capital. It's ridiculous to have those be "many to one". If corporations want insurance they should only be allowed to buy insurance on the underlying assets they actually own.
Structured Financial "Products", derivatives, CDOs, I'm sorry but if one cannot easily validate something and that's from the mathematics or computational model, right there it should not be allowed to exist. I mean legitimate mathematical models go bad and there we are, cooking with mathematical and computational fiction? Hello?
Care to create an account on EP and cross post, write directly?
Numerian here.
You are certainly right about the ratings agencies. They are at the center of this financial crisis. The reason I hesitate to recommend what to do about the ratings agencies is because, of all the players involved, they have the least likelihood of surviving. We've already seen the muni insurers collapse, and with lawsuits inflicting potentially fatal damage on Moody's, S&P and Fitch, we need to get a better idea of their survivability. They have lost the one thing that matters most to their franchise: their credibility. The market doesn't even pay attention to them when they talk about downgrading the Aaa rating of the U.S.
One thing that needs to be done is remove the Basel II Accord reliance on public debt ratings in lieu of bank or BIS ratings and capital assessments. I don't know if the BIS is working on this formally but it has been discussed.
Should these agencies survive, their model of accepting fees from those they rate has to change. Assigning them a regulator makes sense but doesn't solve the real problem of developing independent and fearless credit analyses and ratings that are not strictly model driven.
Regarding the point on TBTF, it seems if a bank is so big the FDIC hasn't the reserves to shut it down, it is TBTF. That doesn't mean there shouldn't also be caps on asset or deposit size, and we definitely need leverage caps, but the best way to tell a bank it must reduce size is to show it would otherwise bust the FDIC. What I don't know is whether a bank can throw a $10 billion contribution at the FDIC and buy itself the right to be much bigger, but I suspect not. That just reduces their ROE and defeats the purpose anyway.
Bad debt got us into this mess so why would we want to see a revival in borrowing? Our economy won't recover to pre-meltdown levels because those levels were created by bad debt predicated on loose money and unregulated financial instruments.
We are trying to eliminate all of those. Right? So how could the economy return to pre-meltdown levels without them? Unemployment is going to be high for quite some time in this scenario because bad debt, like bad credit card debt, won't fuel a booming recovery. Do you want a recovery fueled by bad consumer debt?
Of course China wants our best industries? Why would they want our worst ones? Business is business.
and there is no electing on it. The Commonwealth of PA doesn't even have referendum.
I think many of the east coast States are set up with school boards having the authority to set school budgets and that means raising taxes. They never go lower ....moot point on that one.
I am fairly sure the State to the south of me, Maryland works the same, the State to the east of me New Jersey works the same. I think a lot of States have the same problem. California with its power of Ballot Propositions is a different animal. The last time I owned a house in CA they were passing Prop 13.
So in CA Prop 13 is probably too tight and in the east we have no way to limit the property tax increases.
Oh we vote in new school board members but they always go against their promises. Several years ago we voted in an entire new board. The old board wanted to build a new $80 million high school. New board gets in and we get a $100 million high school. I believe there are about 1,200 students (grades 9 through 12).
It is difficult for each house to be appraised for reassessment so they raise the millage. In 1996 the millage was 11.45 and in 2010 the millage will be 22.53.
So my house is assessed at a bit over $200,000. That means in 1996 property tax was $2,290 and in 2010 those taxes will be $4,506. On top of school taxes you will also have country and muni taxes.
Our house has seen our income go down by 30% in this recession. Teachers are going on strike for a guaranteed cost of living raise of 5% for the next six years. You want to get people PO'd and such stuff will do it. Taxing an illiquid asset is painful in the first place. I can't cut off a corner of my house to pay the tax, it isn't income producing. The cost to carry a house is just insanely high today.
I am reading the 08-09 budget and teacher salaries went up 5.01% and benefits went up 1.56%. Admin salaries went up 3.8%. That happened during a time that many in my town saw factories close, cut back on hours, massive layoffs. The money to pay those increases is taken and I can not say no. If I say no, if I stand firm, in the end....my property will be taken by the barrel of the sheriff's gun. The sheriff will show up to usher me off my land.
BTW in the 09-10 budget the salary increase is 12.38%.
Now do you wonder why we the populace, the non-union people get a bit prickly about their want to strike while we the taxpayers see dropping incomes.
I wish you would talk about specifics. The reason is we here on EP have been digging into the specifics on current proposals and legislation. For example, your friend doesn't mention the credit ratings agencies at all. This is becoming more and more obvious they are complicit and also obvious is they have enormous power. Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke were perpetually worried about downgrades, as in sovereign downgrades. You can see what happens to Greece with a downgrade and then we have ratings over and over on junk and this was going on long before these CDOs were being peddled.
Then, on too big to fail, what precisely should be the crtieria to break them up? A hard size cap, a percentage of overall GDP, by function, reinstate Glass-Steagall? Bernie Sanders amendment failed, but not by much. But there is nothing so far on the credit ratings agencies and supposedly this "resolution authority" is still present.
They are going to pass something and that's soon and odds are we will get a bait and switch even while the current bill is crappy.
Also, there is no audit the fed in the bill at all, which was in the House version.
Everything is relative.
Rhode Island Rents Skyrocket
This is happening despite record foreclosures here. They are making a fortune charging banks to board up houses.
Unemployment officially at 12.6% but much higher in all reality.
If they kept mark to market the banks would have willingly sold house for whatever they could to get them off the books and much of the pain would be over now instead we acted in the best interests of the banks and not the taxpayer. They have been trying to hold onto houses in a wait for housing to go up so they don't have to show a loss.
Issues like this don't get much ink.
Again people are losing the ability to pay for things but things aren't getting any cheaper. In this case because we certainly can't have the poor banks losing money.
In California, school districts cannot raise taxes without putting it to the voters. Sounds like you're saying they can just raise yours whenever they feel like it. Is that what you're saying? If so, I would resent to too.
the factory moving out of the country is a worldwide problem. The people in places like the UK are screwed and really PO'd. We are like rats now trying to figure out where the cheese is located and people fall for the "change" logo. Well there isn't any change coming from a party with a D or R in front of it. The "change" people voted for was change alright. It was changing the location of the cheese again, putting people in the administration that were already good at moving the cheese and then pontificating about how good you are at changing the cheese.
I've said it before. In the twenty some years I've lived in my house...I've watched my school taxes rise 800%. There is nobody I know that has seen their income rise like the school taxes.
Your salary examples are about right for my State. I don't know where these school teachers live that are starving but it isn't in my State.
There are 565 different school districts, they all have taxing authority and there is no other government entity to oversee them. They are milking us dry. Every, every, every year I fret and worry about having enough money to pay this years school taxes.
I AM TIRED OF IT!!!!!
It is what can be seen and not the unseen.
Try living in a heavy manufacturing town that is mostly Unions. I am sure you will awaken to find that greed isn't the sole property of only non-union people.
While Caterpillar was still big in this town, you could push a broom for $20 an hour. And that was in the 1980's. Add to that their bene program/taxes/workers comp, etc. and that broom pushing cost about $55 an hour.
They all complained so much for so long that Caterpillar picked up and moved south.
I can tell you that the town was not very sympathetic to their constant whining attitudes. There was no "faux" news in those days and we had one newspaper. A liberal paper. It was what we say them saying and doing on their picket lines. They had it better than 80% of the people living in the town and they were a spectacle to see as they picketed for more...and more...and more. That was until the golden goose picked up and left town.
I have and they are all very, very well decorated. Decorated is not really the word I want but when a school auditorium has the same acoustical arrangement as the Metropolitan Opera..something is going on.
My wife was renting the auditorium at a new school this week. Off the cafeteria (well it is now called food court) is a Greek Theater. The nice grass that needs to be manicured by a grounds keeper.
The natatorium in my kids school was built against the will of the people. You know, those are the folks that pay the property tax to fund such things. The weight room rivals the best private gym in town. The $100K artificial turf football field, etc. And the kids in school, well thanks to that well connected non-profit program called CPM....75% of the high school kids don't know their multiplication tables.
I have a relative that was a school administrator and retired. He retired in 1980 at age 58. His defined benefit plan has allowed him to travel the world over the past twenty years and lives in a $800,000 house. Not bad for an educator and it was all nicely funded through taxes. Currently he is in Scotland for a month. I say he should get a raise.
Believe me, I would be all over it, in 2 seconds, as I would hope more EPers are critical readers and they too would vote something to unpublish if it was bogus/fiction. As noted in a previous post, we have bogus financial news continually, even in the New York Times, Washington Post Dean Baker is screaming today on this one, Brad Delong does almost daily call outs on the financial/economic press) and HuffPo has more than once been used as a lobbyist plant (for shame! They supposedly edit and approve everything!)
But comments I want to foster more use and discussion and I sure don't want to end up like the Political partisan blogs, where they just spam for their agenda and name call anyone who disagrees with it, facts, statistics be damned!
...if you want to call that particular guy misguided and misinformed, but not a troll, but I think it's hair-splitting. By the way, I was not implying you did anything wrong by failing to disallow his post.
I thought for sure, because I and ZeroHedge made fun of it immediately, there would be a slew of funnies on the SEC porno surf (reality is they are way statistically below the jerk off percentage at work, nationwide, literally!).
I don't know if it's because searching on keyword porn immediately pulls up all sorts of nasty or what, but I could not find one funny thing out there! Where are the comedians, that is really a scream story. (and one that is not relevant, in spite of the headlines really).
That said, on the Wham-O spoof, that Chinese interview is very real. Check it out. China wants our best industries, advanced R&D, tech and they have captured them to boot. They don't want our crappy low skilled industries, i.e. toys. That interview is real and check out the attitude.
:)
Not the last version I reviewed. We're got our classic "compromise" coming in the Senate and I'll bet dollars to donuts it's corporate lobbyist loophole ridden. I suggest we all try to find out what the latest is, but be aware, even in a debate on the house floor, at the last minute, one can get a "managers amendment" which is passed by "voice vote" and it can change a bill entirely. Also, even after a bill is passed, they will send "conferees" to "resolve the differences" between the Senate and House version. Literally, after amendments have passed by an overwhelming majority in both houses, these conferees have and can rip out those amendments. They did this on H-1B amendments in a bill a couple of years ago.
As your friendly neighborhood admin, I'm the one who goes through the anonymous comment moderation queue. I try not to screen on opinion, as long as it's not too nutso, more looking for referrer spam and so on. The reason is these people do just drive by, i.e. don't really join in, register and so on. That said, you can see there is some sort of serious outrage against public union employees as of late.
I'll only come down hard on something when I know it's a corporate agenda push or truly just a disaster in sheep's clothing and only when it's repeatedly pushed regardless of facts and stats.
Like the VAT thing. Out in "other sites", I have never seen such a misrepresentation of what a VAT even is. The right refusing to acknowledge it's regressive properties, the left refusing to acknowledge it's at the border adjustment properties (which makes it useful for trade deficits). It would be nice to argue the facts at least.
In fact last night Saturday Night Live did a skit (which I'll include next week) that was heavily negative on unions. Not saying SNL gets their facts right, seems only John Stewarts and Co. do that before poking fun.
But there is some sort of intense outrage/anger against public union people and it just doesn't make much sense to me, when the rest of the U.S. should be pushing up, pushing for those same benefits and wages.
If they want to attack a group for outrageous pay ripoffs one would think it would be the "executive class". Good God, there is an outrage.
Anyway, trolls? Eh, try misguided and misinformed. It's clearly coming from somewhere, some sort of major attack on public unions.
Consulting for ML's CMA account in 1997, I asked a IT manager how M: could skirt the rules of Glass Stegull so casually. Keep in mind, we are a couple of years before Graham-Leach. The manager said,
"We just thumb our noses at Glass-Stegull"
He went on to explain how ML allows its clients to invent any kind of transaction they can wet-dream. The relevance to IT was that this activity (a fig leaf term), was blowing out all the DASD channel I/O to the point where they needed much more high-throughput DASD.
The 'reform' Bill promises a return to Glass Steagull. How will GS fix these sick scenes? All of this is not new, its is part of the sickness we call Capitalism.
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