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2010 Election Results Are In
The election results are in, and there are one trillion web pages now up helping you find out what happened. The short story is that the Republicans cleaned up, although the Democrats maintain a one-seat majority in the Senate. The GOP now has 239 seats in the house, giving them a huge lead over the Dems' 183.
This DOES matter. It will directly impact laws and regulations that matter to nerds.
Living With a Nerd
Boehner has been quoted that he is more than willing to work with President Obama, as long as what they're working on is what he and the Republicans want
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
The Republicans couldn't have timed it better. Pillage the economy, let it fail just before the Democrats take office, and two years later when the Dems have halted and begun reversal of the worst economic disaster of all time, the Republicans come in, blaming the Democrats.
Err, the Democrats took over *4* years ago, not 2. They had complete control of the legislature (and hence the budget process) in 2006, only adding the executive in 2008.
Boehner? Are you kidding me? Boehner distributed campaign distributions from tobacco lobbyists to his fellow congresspeople. On the House floor. Right before a tobacco vote. I mean, there are a lot of people in Congress who are basically corporate shills, but Boehner is easily one of the worst. He's basically a lobbyist in congressional clothing.
This. Rick Boucher lost his seat in Congress. It seems like whenever I saw an article where a US politician really seemed to understand the issues that seem to matter to Slashdot readers like technology, telecoms and copyrights, Rick was in there somewhere. Even some prominent pro-Republican commentators have been saying that this is a loss.
Bets on any of the newcomers taking up the fight?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Don't forget that the right wing mouthpieces had their part in affecting the debates. The whole "death panel" debacle was completely distorted rhetoric on something very sensible and important: end of life planning and counseling. Which was proposed by a Republican and accepted until it became too much of an albatross to carry.
Classic example. The Dems had 60% of the Senate (counting the Indies). The stimulus bill included about 40% of the tax cuts that Republicans wanted. They wanted a 50/50 solution with 40% of the vote and still voted it down. A stronger Senate leader would have stripped all of their provisions out when they indicated they weren't voting for ti anyway.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
There is no solution to be found in either major political party, unfortunately.
The answer is to restore the rule of law and prosecute the banksters.
He's also on the record as being concerned that Newt Gingrich was too conciliatory back in the 1990's. Also, the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is on the record as saying that the top priority of the Republican Senate delegation is to ensure that Obama doesn't get reelected. Something tells me the people's business isn't the top of their list.
I am officially gone from
It was laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act that encouraged banks to lend to low income consumers who were high credit risks to begin with.
You're a goddamn imbecile.
The CRA had nothing, period, at all to do with the collapse at all.
I love the idea that you can 'encourage' banks to make a bunch of failing loans, which were not made under the CRA, by forcing it to make other 'bad' loans. (Note: CRA loans generally outperform other loans, simply because banks pay more attention to who they give them out to.)
It's the same way that businesses are forced to collect sales tax, so they often collect even more money from customers and throw it out afterward. That's how businesses work, right?
The CRA 'covered' about 25% of all institutes making mortgages, and maybe 1-2% were actually 'required' under the CRA, a law which is essentially pointless at this point in history, because banks don't red-line anymore.
As has been pointed out repeated, the economy failure wasn't even caused by mortgages. It was caused by banksters suddenly realizing they'd built castles in the air on total nonsense and had no idea how to value any of it, so functionally had no money on their balance books.
That realization wasn't caused by mortgage failure, it was caused by failing home prices, which meant their assets went down. Even if the American people magically had enough money to keep paying the mortgage, the collapse still would have happened unless housing prices magically stayed absurdly high forever.
You have the bankers who were too short-sighted and optimistic about how those loans would play out in some cases, and openly deceitful in passing off packaged securities to investors while understating their risks in others.
By 'openly deceitful', of course,you mean 'committing fraud on a massive never-before-seen level'.
There is such a thing as personal responsibility. Americans shouldn't have tried so hard to get the best possible homes and realized when a something was simply more than they could afford. If there weren't any homes they could afford they should have stuck with renting.
Fuck. You.
Our real estate broker is legally our agent. It is criminal fraud for them to work against our best interest. They are not allowed to sell people property they can't afford, anymore than your investment banker could sell you an investment he knew was going to decrease in value.
It is also illegal for banks to make loans they know can't be paid off. It is illegal for them not to clearly explain the terms of any loans they are issuing.
But people were 'helped' through the process by people who, under law, were required to tell the truth, and under law were required not to give them loans they knew would fail, or even required to be on their side and instead told the people to lie or even just took blank applications, had the person sign it, and lied themselves.
Then there's all the people who made the situation worse by refusing to continue making mortgage payments they could easily afford simply because they owed more than the house was worth. I consider them every bit as greedy and immoral as most of the bankers we love to vilify.
Ah, the last Republican talking point. So, statically, the one out of ten thousand people who are doing this are important? Becuase no one's actually doing this.
And immoral? Corporations have no morality, I don't really see why anyone has any morality when dealing with them. Corporation kick people of their house all the time when moral people would not. When dealing with corporations, you do the terms of your agreement, nothing more.
Those people are agreeing with the terms of their loan agreement. Either they pay the money, or the bank gets the house. Those were the terms from the start. Perhaps I should quote you 'No matter how sleazy the salesman, you're at least partially to blame if you fall for a scam.'
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Since you are correctly blaming congress for the mess our economy is in, let's look at the exact cause. It was the passing of the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 that law repealed part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company.
When that bill passed the Republicans had both the house and senate, however only 7 out of 45 Democratic senators and 51 out of 206 Democratic house representatives voted against the bill. Leaving me with only one conclusion that BOTH PARTIES ARE TO BLAME.
This partisan blame game is counter-productive and is used to manipulate the populous into voting against "the other party". We need to keep an eye on our own elected representatives and make sure that their vote represents the views of their constituents. Quit drinking the party politics kool-aid and think for yourself. The other senators and representatives represents their voters not you! So regardless of your political leanings you need to encourage your senator to work together and create legislation that represents the best interest of the country and quit sabotaging the country in hopes of placing blame on the other party.
For example look at health care reform. The overwhelming majority of the nation feels that something needs to be done to improve accessibility to quality health care. The house democrats decided to allow themselves to be extorted into giving ridiculous concessions to fellow Democrats in order to win enough votes to overcome an expected Republican filibuster. Thanks to Nancy Pelosi's hubris we have a health care reform bill that may overwhelmingly be good for the nation, but the Republicans have no vested interested in it and will always use it as some political football.
The Republicans are just as bad. They are willing to let this country go down the tubes in order to win the next election. They acted like a 5 year throwing a tantrum and obstructed every bill that came up for vote. Imagine what the health care bill would be like if the Democrats didn't need to overcome an expected filibuster. Too bad the Republicans will never vote for a bill that made the other party look good. Even bills that they themselves used to push when they had control of the house.
The only good thing that came from the election is that the Republicans control the House and the Democrats control the Senate, so now they have to actually make compromises in order to pass anything. Also Republicans are in the driver's seat in the House and can be held just as accountable as the Democrats for anything that happens from this point on.
I also won't be surprised that the economy will miraculously improve now that the Republicans have no reason to talk down the economy. Thanks to the corporations, we have a consumer based economy and as soon as people feel good about using their credit cards the faster the economy will "improve".
We need more national political parties. The picking the lessor of two evils is not working.
To recap: Both parties to blame. Two-party system sucks. The election ended yesterday so STFU and get back to tech news.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
That's not true; the mandate PROTECTS insurance companies.
If insurance companies can't deny coverage based on pre-existing problems, AND there's no mandate to have insurance, what's to stop people from waiting until they're sick to have insurance?
The entire idea of insurance is that you continually pay into it, and the risk is shared over many people, sick and well. Without the shared risk, only the sick will pay into it, and it quickly goes bankrupt.
Put down the partisan talking points for a second and think about it.
sig?
It happened. All you need for proof is the fact that Boehner apologized for doing it, years after the fact Unless you think Bloomberg is too lefty a news site for you.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
The Dems had 60% of the Senate (counting the Indies).
Only from July 7,2009 when Al Franken was sworn in, up until August 25, 2009, when Ted Kennedy died. And the month long senate recess began on August 7.