they should have stopped Jefferson from buying all of that worthless land.

3/23/2010 11:23:56 PM

Quote :

"Lehman Bros. / Bear Stearns"

Sorry, I asked for evidence, not the name of two companies that were bankrupt before the government could even issue TARP.

Quote :

"It would deter the use of shareholder banks as an organizational structure in the marketplace, to the favor of partnership banks, which demonstrated their ability to avoid the form of strategic stupidity that just rocked the system."

Shareholder banks have their own benefits, they failed because of lack of regulation, nothing more.

3/23/2010 11:54:01 PM

Quote :

"Sorry, I asked for evidence, not the name of two companies that were bankrupt before the government could even issue TARP. "

Were you living under a rock or something these last few years? The entire run up to the collapse of Lehman and Bear Stearns was full of debate over whether or not the government was going to bail them out. That was part of the whole debacle, the fed was going to bail out Bear Stearns, up until the last minute, when they decided instead to finance a loan to JP Morgan to buy out Bear Stearns instead. Then when everyone thought they might do something similar for Lehman, they instead sat back and watched Lehman collapse, followed thereafter by the decision to bail out AIG. Never mind the earlier takeover of Fannie and Freddie.

Note that all of that happened before TARP. You asked for evidence that some companies were left to die, others were bailed out and still others were sold off to competitors in government backed deals, there you have it, so don't pretend like the government couldn't do shit before TARP was passed.

3/24/2010 12:43:25 AM

Quote :

"Shareholder banks have their own benefits, they failed because of lack of regulation, nothing more."

Exactly. poor incentives. Exactly the same incentives faced by regulators, BTW. The only fix, I believe, would have been to allow the situation to take its course, and allow the market to self correct into one that is less dependent upon regulation, through a re-balancing in favor of partnership banking. Especially as regulation has shown itself yet again to fail just when you need it most.

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 1:05 AM. Reason : .,.]

3/24/2010 1:05:03 AM

for a minute I thought this thread was about Health care.

3/24/2010 6:29:03 AM

It is about the role of the state in designing how people will organize themselves. Thus making it relevant to discuss how the state's designed have produced poor results in other instances.

3/24/2010 10:56:05 AM

Small businesses all over the country received calls/notifications yesterday that their premiums are going up by 30%, some as soon as April 1. That encourages job creation.

3/24/2010 2:57:12 PM

^ link?

3/24/2010 3:41:53 PM

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2117-That-Didnt-Take-Long.....html

3/24/2010 3:57:21 PM

So what you're really saying is that one person on one internet forum has complained.

10-4

3/24/2010 4:43:44 PM

On a previous page I posted this source:

http://www.dems.gov/blog/the-top-ten-immediate-benefits-you-ll-get-when-health-care-reform-passes

Noting:

Quote :

"* Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans"

I didn't include this in the list of things I liked, I got called out on that. My response was that I don't believe it pretty much. And it's true, the source is from a democratic (though official) blog. It would seem now that evidence is surfacing that the bill... might not help children in any sense that we had expected.

See new source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-groups-of-people-that-still-wont-have-healthcare-coverage-2010-3

Quote :

"Children with chronic disease, who are not already covered, can be denied coverage This was a mistake in the bill, which the White House is hurrying to fix: Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday."

Won't somebody think of the children? Apparently the Democrats don't.

3/24/2010 5:15:43 PM

Quote :

"he entire run up to the collapse of Lehman and Bear Stearns was full of debate over whether or not the government was going to bail them out. That was part of the whole debacle, the fed was going to bail out Bear Stearns, up until the last minute, when they decided instead to finance a loan to JP Morgan to buy out Bear Stearns instead. Then when everyone thought they might do something similar for Lehman, they instead sat back and watched Lehman collapse, followed thereafter by the decision to bail out AIG. Never mind the earlier takeover of Fannie and Freddie."

Then that's not playing favorites, that's just not acting quickly enough. If you recall the bailout took quite a while to take effect.

Quote :

"You asked for evidence that some companies were left to die, others were bailed out"

No, I asked for evidence that the government played favorites, you still haven't provided it.

Quote :

"The only fix, I believe, would have been to allow the situation to take its course, and allow the market to self correct into one that is less dependent upon regulation"

Why lose that money? Why make real people suffer for some stupid ultra-capitalist principles that only a tiny bit of people actually believe? "Self-correction" is a euphemism for market failure.

3/24/2010 5:46:38 PM

Kris, don't play dumb. The money was already lost. You know this. Short of undoing the deals and forcing those that sold the houses to the current (now foreclosed) buyers to give the money back, there is nothing the government can do. The money was already gone. All the bailouts did was take money from the Treasury and give it to the people that lost the money. This does not negate the loss, as the Government is now poorer in equal amount to the gain of these individuals.

And as these loss bearing individuals tended to be better off than society as a whole, this transfer served to increase inequality as the poor and middle-class will be taxed to cover these wealth transfers to millionaire bond holders.

But more importantly, we should allow such corrections because otherwise we wind up with a system that is ever more unstable, with ever deeper recessions until the government is finally discredited and the currency disintegrates, forcing the system to be rebuilt from scratch (see Iceland).

3/24/2010 6:07:46 PM

Quote :

""Self-correction" is a euphemism for market failure."

Then what is a bubble?

3/24/2010 6:11:59 PM

Democrates: 1
Republicans: 0

To put it a better way...nanny nanny boo boo.

3/24/2010 7:16:14 PM

Quote :

"The money was already lost. You know this. Short of undoing the deals and forcing those that sold the houses to the current (now foreclosed) buyers to give the money back, there is nothing the government can do."

That money was lost, but the losses we faced were not all due to the bubble going down to the equilibrium, the market overreacts, and prices went below the equilibrium. It is the government's job to do what it can to keep the prices from going any further below the equilibrium.

Quote :

"All the bailouts did was take money from the Treasury and give it to the people that lost the money."

It doesn't just account for the market overreaction driving stock prices below market price, it does even more than that. It discourages people from drawing their money out of fast moving investments and putting it into safer bonds and short term reserves.

Quote :

"But more importantly, we should allow such corrections"

Now who's playing dumb. You know that these "market corrections" are a market failure to price accurately. I don't think this ultracapitalist religion of "WE'RE GOING TO HAVE INFLATION UNTIL COLLAPSE" is enough justification to have a real market failure and lose real money.

Quote :

"Then what is a bubble?"

Market failure as well.

3/24/2010 7:31:20 PM

Quote :

"employers with payrolls of $500k or more have to pay a hefty $2000/employee fine if they don't subsidize insurance."

do you have any idea how much the insurance costs per employee? I'll give you a hint: it might be more than 2000/year...

Quote :

"It would seem now that evidence is surfacing that the bill... might not help children in any sense that we had expected."

WOOPS! maybe we SHOULD have taken more time to read the bill, lol.

Quote :

"Then what is a bubble?"

A euphemism for gov't failures, lol.

Quote :

"Market failure as well."

even though bubbles are almost always caused by the gov't itself? give me a fucking break

3/24/2010 8:33:15 PM

Quote :

"even though bubbles are almost always caused by the gov't itself?"

this is such a sweeping claim that is made without much/or any substantiated facts.

3/24/2010 8:37:48 PM

ummm. the 20th century is pretty much a case in point. the housing bubble? gov't caused.

3/24/2010 8:44:22 PM

if you say so, Sweepy Sweeperson

3/24/2010 8:45:23 PM

care to show how the build-up of the bubble was not caused by the gov't? or are you just gonna call me names and run away?

3/24/2010 8:46:50 PM

you know, for someone so concerned with traditionalist and conservative values, you don't seem to defer to the established norms of logic. i'm not the one making sweeping claims. you are. the burden of proof is on you. i have a rock that keeps little baby-ninja-tigers at bay. prove to me that it doesn't.


Your turn, Sweepy

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 8:51 PM. Reason : ]

3/24/2010 8:48:55 PM

I've already shown how the housing bubble was gov't caused. I asked you to refute that. and you won't. it's ok to admit that you don't know what you are talking about

3/24/2010 8:51:40 PM

no, you did not. not since i entered the discussion, anyway. you're "proof" was citing an entire century, as if only one thing happened during those 100 years that could be directly tied into an entire collapse. that's pretty pathetic, even for you (well, maybe not for you, but for someone slightly more intelligent. but still, you get my point)

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 8:56 PM. Reason : what i'm talking about, you won't get my point]

3/24/2010 8:54:04 PM

Even if you make the false presumption that gov. caused the housing bubble, then what is the point? There are numerous examples of non-gov doing bad things, MORE numerous in fact than gov. doing bad things.

If you are going to base your political philosophy on who screws up more, the gov. comes out looking pretty good.

3/24/2010 8:58:30 PM

woops, addressed this in another thread, sorry.

simple version:
low interest rates (gov't action)
money is "cheaper"
encourages large purchases on credit... like a house.
-----------------------

overall, it's a similar cycle. the gov't lowers interests rates, which makes people spend more. this gets the economy booming. lots of spending, lots of investing. this is the creation of the bubble. at this point, it's only a matter of time before something slips, and you get the bust. OR, the gov't raises interest rates, which causes people to buy a different asset, maybe bonds. This would be an inflating of a "bonds bubble." Or maybe the gov't offers tax breaks for purchasing a car. More people then purchase cars, which can inflate a car-bubble.

In all of these cases you have a gov't action which causes people to do more of something than they normally would. This causes a "distortion." The distortion, ultimately is an incorrect valuing of something. This distortion makes it seem like a better investment or use of money to do something than it normally would, and it almost feeds itself then. Thus, a bubble forms.


^ seriously, how is it fucking false that the gov't created the housing bubble? it's patently obvious how it occurred.

Quote :

"There are numerous examples of non-gov doing bad things, MORE numerous in fact than gov. doing bad things."

yes, because truly only companies have engaged in wholesale genocide and the like. the only reason you might be able to say non-gov things are "more numerous" is because there are more non-gov things than not. When you look at the severity, though, gov't almost always takes the fuckin cake.

3/24/2010 9:02:30 PM

[Edited on March 24, 2010 at 9:11 PM. Reason : no. i'm no economist and you aren't either. and the argument would be stupid. as most are with you.]

3/24/2010 9:11:16 PM

so, you can't refute it, lol

3/24/2010 9:13:55 PM

i'm still waiting for someone to refute my magic rock that repels baby-ninja-tigers.

3/24/2010 9:17:53 PM

Quote :

"Then that's not playing favorites, that's just not acting quickly enough. If you recall the bailout took quite a while to take effect. "

Oh please it has nothing to do with not acting quickly enough. Bear Stearns was failing with plenty of warning, and they had all the money ready to bail them out. Then they decided instead to fund a loan to a competitor to by them up instead and refused the bail out money they already had ready. That isn't failing to act quickly, that's picking winners and losers.

Lehman was the same way, plenty of advance warning, and they somehow managed to scrape together the money to bail AIG out at the same time they were letting Lehman fall. Again, that's not failing to act quickly enough, that's playing favorites again.

And again, that doesn't take into account the buy up of Fannie and Freddie.

3/24/2010 9:18:27 PM

^^ I would like to purchase your rock.

3/25/2010 12:21:03 AM

^ i think the government should subsidize that purchase since we are not talking about healthcare at all anymore.

3/25/2010 12:27:24 AM

GOP succeeds in forcing another House vote on health care

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/25/health.care.main/index.html?hpt=T1

3/25/2010 7:37:27 AM

The health care reform is already signed into law. The smaller sidecar bill of improvements may get dragged out a week or two if the GOP wants to play their grind everything to a halt game, but all activation dates for the HCR are set into place already by the main bill having already become law and the sidecar will pass regardless, so as far as the health care reform implementation this is pretty meaningless. Interestingly though its putting the GOP on the side of keeping the "cornhusker kickback" alive and the dems fighting to remove it which I'm not sure is a position the GOP will find to be all that defensible.

3/25/2010 8:04:10 AM

Yea I was a bit confused if this just affected a smaller bill or not. Definitely a misleading title

3/25/2010 8:20:02 AM

NPR is being a little confusing too.

The name they use for the main health care reform legislation that has already been signed into law and that is supposed to insure 32 million people is the health care reform bill.

The name they use for the little sidecar bill of improvements (that even if it somehow were magically defeated for good wouldn't change the fact that health care reform is already law) is also called by NPR the health care reform bill.

3/25/2010 8:42:48 AM

gop is just offering up awkward amendments


like no ED prescriptions for sex offenders.... I can see the ads already.

3/25/2010 8:53:49 AM

If they believe in the policy they could have created it as s separate bill, it they hadn't created it just to try to send the side car bill back for another vote in the house b/c a small change was made in the senate, they could have so easily made this policy law. But that wasn't what they cared about in the slightest. But if the GOP wants to keep voting and fighting to keep the cornhusker kickback & special deals in the reform pack while the Dems fight to get it out, then by all means, let them do so. I can see those ads coming up too.

3/25/2010 8:58:19 AM

As well as lowering rates on student loans. . .cute.

3/25/2010 8:58:55 AM

What's killing me is that there's no mention that I've seen of just having Biden override the Parliamentarian.

They don't have to send the bill back to the House. If they're going to do that then they need to actually start considering some of these other amendments that they're ignoring just to get it pushed through.

3/25/2010 9:41:35 AM

Any thoughts on the FSA limitations? Doesn't seem like it will be cheaper for people if they can't put as much money away pre-tax to pay for medical procedures/expenses. $2500 limit doesn't seem like a lot if you have a family. Also not being able to use the funds for OTC medicine seems illogical, since using OTC medicine can curtail Dr. visits.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/03/23/health.reform.consumer.impact/index.html

3/25/2010 10:35:46 AM

The GOP is just trying to drag this out, hoping to cause as much political damage to the democrats as they possibly can. Unfortunately for them, it's going to end up backfiring. Almost all the recent polls indicate that more people are in favor of the bill passing than those who are opposed. After nearly a year of bellyaching, turns out that people actually still want what they said they wanted back on November 4, 2008.

Worse than that, the USA today poll shows that only 31% of people think the bill made the "wrong changes", so good luck to the GOP with their "repeal and replace" strategy. The dems may lose some seats in November, but its highly unlikely they'll lose their majority in either the Senate or the House. The GOP is being controlled by the lunatic fringe right now, and it's only going to get worse for them.

3/25/2010 10:36:23 AM

Quote :

"Any thoughts on the FSA limitations? Doesn't seem like it will be cheaper for people if they can't put as much money away pre-tax to pay for medical procedures/expenses. $2500 limit doesn't seem like a lot if you have a family. Also not being able to use the funds for OTC medicine seems illogical, since using OTC medicine can curtail Dr. visits."

I thought that was odd as well - but then it also shows that the average amount put into FSAs by people currently is only $1,400.

3/25/2010 10:42:15 AM

Quote :

"I thought that was odd as well - but then it also shows that the average amount put into FSAs by people currently is only $1,400."

FSAs are stupid and should be replaced by HSAs anyways. Still, its a good way to point out how backwards alot of the things in the bill are. Of course the other thing they could do is make all healthcare costs for all individual tax deductable, but that would save too much money and make too much sense.

3/25/2010 10:53:33 AM

My assumption is that they're limiting the FSA accounts to $2500 because they assume people shield money through those accounts and would like to tax the money before it's used on things like OTC medicines.

$1400 may be the average, but that would be due to people having little to no contributions because they missed the enrollment deadline, didn't understand what it was for, etc.

^Why are FSA's stupid? Maybe I don't understand how it differs from the HSA.

3/25/2010 10:56:35 AM

I cant speak for his opinion, but mine is they encourage waste bc you lose the amount every year, unlike HSAs.

3/25/2010 10:59:15 AM

i'm sure someone already posted this but it is an interesting read (i think)
http://www.fed-soc.org/debates/dbtid.35/default.asp

3/25/2010 11:00:47 AM

Quote :

"I cant speak for his opinion, but mine is they encourage waste bc you lose the amount every year, unlike HSAs."

Right. FSAs, you lose the money in your account at the end of the year. HSAs are just a bank account you put money into pre-tax. its always yours and you can spend it on any medical related expenses. if the IRS catches u spending it on something not medical you get dinged. But like i said, its pretty silly to not just make health expenses deductable and avoid the added overhead of a second bank acount, IRS management, etc... Not to mention you'd help people who dont currently qualify for HSAs.

[Edited on March 25, 2010 at 11:12 AM. Reason : jk]

3/25/2010 11:11:31 AM

Yeah, exactly. HCFSA and DCFSA both have caps and are taken on a tax-free basis, but you lose the money if you don't use it during the year or a few months into the next year, and you have to file claims on time. It doesn't make much sense to me. I used to work with this kind of thing, and people would ask "uhh, so where does the money go?" I never got a good answer to that. I think it just goes back to the company, but either way, it's bullshit.

Just make it so individuals can purchase private plans on a tax-free basis, similar to how an employer would, as I think ^ is suggesting.

3/25/2010 11:37:34 AM

Quote :

"even though bubbles are almost always caused by the gov't itself?"

The tech bubble? Dutch Tulip bubble? Bubbles are caused by herd behavior, not the government.

Quote :

"care to show how the build-up of the bubble was not caused by the gov't? or are you just gonna call me names and run away?"

You know this is a fallacy. You make an argument and it must be true unless someone disproves it? Come on.

Quote :

"I've already shown how the housing bubble was gov't caused."

Where? Let's do one a bit older, that has more study. Let's look at the Tulip bubble or the Dot Com bubble.

Quote :

"overall, it's a similar cycle. the gov't lowers interests rates, which makes people spend more."

Then how do you explain all of the bubbles that happened before the establishment of the Fed?

Quote :

"Oh please it has nothing to do with not acting quickly enough. Bear Stearns was failing with plenty of warning, and they had all the money ready to bail them out. Then they decided instead to fund a loan to a competitor to by them up instead and refused the bail out money they already had ready. That isn't failing to act quickly, that's picking winners and losers."

Isn't it just as likely that the government didn't have the right money set aside to handle all of those in a more structured manner yet. If what you are saying is true, and the government had some secret list of favorite companies, why did they set up a fair system for companies to get money later?

Quote :

"plenty of advance warning"

Plenty? Should I remind you that we are talking about legislation?

3/25/2010 6:17:49 PM