All absolutely true and I agree. But it's also not accurate to say that the CRA had nothing to do with the situation.
No, I just have a problem with people trying to point at one thing or blame one party for the problem. The economy is too big to get that screwed up by one thing alone. It takes a lot more than one piece of legislation to screw things up this bad. The whole "blame the CRA" and "blame the GLBA" things have become rampant. People always oversimplify things they don't understand, especially when they can make it serve their interests.
It looks like the CRA actually had quite a lot to do with large numbers of sub prime mortgage securities being improperly rated and sold. Which is the basis of the current financial crisis after the people who obtained those loans began to default on them devaluing those securities. The bottom line is that legislating that banks take on increased risk in order to provide loans to people who are unlikely to be able to pay them back was a bad idea. The banks tried to offload that risk onto other investors and because of the misrating of the mortgages they succeeded.
That's only one part of the puzzle here. Yes, the CRA encouraged more risky loans, but that alone wouldn't have caused the problems. The banks aren't stupid and they don't plan to lose money on their loans. Nobody forced them to make the loans. They'll only make those risky loans when they think they are covered by insurance. That's what AIG was doing with credit default swaps.
The problem there was that those were deregulated back in late 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed AIG and others to insure these securities without any disclosure or even a capital reserve requirement, things that are standard for insurance companies.
So, thinking they're covered, the banks start throwing money at everyone, and raking in huge profits on these securitized loan packages that nobody seems to really understand even now. They did it for the same reason that they always do things. Profit. Unfortunately, when the housing market went south, AIG had no way to cover those securities, and thus the banks were screwed.
Compound that with the problems with the ratings agencies and their symbiotic relationship with the financial institutions, the problems with trading software, the rampant speculation even by large institutions, bizarre assumptions about the housing market, and other issues that we probably haven't figured out yet, and you can see that it's not nearly as simple as pointing at the CRA as the source of the problems.
You're also making the assumption that you'll get more out of the government for $100 than you could get out of the free market. This seems like a very strange line of thinking.
Not so strange when you think about how the "free market" just managed to pick our pockets for nearly a trillion dollars. That doesn't even include their ill-gotten gains while they were creating this mess. I wish people would quit trying to imply that it's a choice between government and the free market. There is no free market. If there was, it wouldn't work because it requires people to be fully informed, which won't happen because there's too much interest in using misinformation for personal gain.
We've never had a free market. We never will have a free market. Stop trying to hold it up as the alternative to government. Bureaucracies can do certain things very well. Better than publicly traded businesses in many cases, because their incentive is to do the job rather than to hit a quarterly profit estimate. It's the perverse incentives that have been created in our markets that have contributed to the problems we're having now. I don't see how thinking that we're going to solve anything that way either.
Neither major party candidate has mentioned addressing the crushing national debt or deficit spending.
I found this game really informative, and disturbing.
It could probably be written better, but the concept is great.
I agree. I tried it out. I almost want to make it a mandatory thing for all voters to play at least once before voting. Not that it would necessarily change your candidate preference, but because it would make you really look at the kind of trade-offs that have to be made rather than just listening to candidates talking about how they're going to do this, that and the other, while giving very little information about what, specifically, they would cut or fund, and how that would affect the overall bottom line.
Ron Paul said that we shouldn't be putting our military in harms way in foreign countries, that we shouldn't be warmongering like the other candidates in the presidential debate. Huckabee and Thompson had just made statements about introducing speed-boat personel "to the 40 virgins they've been waiting to meet". Brit Hume cut Paul short and shouted him down with, "Who is war mongering, Senator?" Now tell me who is batshit insane?
I'm not saying that I don't agree with some of their platform. I think that going to war in Iraq was insane in itself, as is continuing to stay there.
To be honest, I didn't pay a lot of attention to Ron Paul. He doesn't have a chance in hell of winning. He won't even be on the ballot here, so I couldn't vote for him anyway. Until we fix our election laws and methods, it will probably always be that way.
What I'm saying is that they need to come up with a clear, understandable plan for how to implement their ideas for economic and social policies without screwing everything up. I know that that's what a lot of other people I know think of when they think of libertarian candidates. That they'll want to scrap everything and start over. That's not how it would work, but we need to hear how it could work.
I think that it is obvious that the "being an empire" thing is not worth the money that it costs.
The problem with withdrawing from the World is that nature abhors a vacuum. If the United States isn't the global interventionist superpower then who is? I doubt you'll see another Democracy step forward and assume the role -- and given the choice between the US or Russia/China I'll take the US any day of the week.
I'll take anyone that doesn't screw it up so badly. We've pretty much handed Iraq and most of its oil to Iran on a silver platter. Not sure how that helps us.
So the current Republicans didn't reduce the government when they had control of the whole thing, so you will lend your support to turning the whole thing over to the Democrats?
Your logic seems to be, "If I can't have a smaller government, might as well make it be as large as possible."
Actually it's more like, "If I can't have a smaller government, might as well have a big one that actually helps everyone rather than just the wealthy."
Please define "in charge". Do you mean the presidency, control of congress, both? And I never said that everything was the Democrats' fault, or that Republicans are staunch advocates of small government. In fact, it's their abandonment of that ideal that has partially led to their problems getting elected lately.
Right, so why should we want to vote for them? They seem to just make things worse. National debt has skyrocketed since Bush Jr. took charge. Government has only grown in that time too. Republicans were in charge of house, senate and presidency for the first 6 of those years too. So what do the Republicans actually have to offer us? I sure can't see any benefits.
The problem with libertarian candidates is that while the premises of the party seem fair and reasonable on the surface, the candidates themselves all seem to be batshit insane. I think the real problem is that while we might be able to agree about how things should work, there's never any real plan for how to get there from where we are now, without utterly devastating the country in the process. If they could come up with some comprehensible plan for doing so, and a candidate that can speak like Obama, then they might have a shot.
Most of the credit should probably go to Perot who single handedly made that a major issue in the campaign and more or less got Clinton elected. Even though he didn't win, he showed that balancing the budget was a very important issue to a large number of voters.
I'd say Perot deserves some credit for making it an issue, but let's be realistic here. Actually getting it done was the hard part. Congress likes to spend.
And for the people screaming REPUBLICANS FUCKED AMERICA UP, who's in control of the House and Senate, and has blocked nearly every one of Bushes econ related bills for the last 4 years:)
You are aware that the Republicans have controlled the house and senate for six of the last 8 years, right? The democrats only got control of the house after the 2006 election, and the senate is a virtual tie with 49 each and a couple independents.
I wish Obama would just come out and say we're leaving Iraq. We lost. Iran won. End of story. I don't see how we're going to salvage anything over there now. We just need to seriously get to work on alternative energy research to get our oil needs dramatically reduced as soon as possible. That's the only thing that is going to help us in the long run. Everything else is going to be either very expensive, or more likely very expensive and very bloody.
So where in the Constitution does it allow Congress to give away its power to declare war to the President, or give away its power to coin money, or give away its power to appropriate $700 billion?
The Constitution is flawed in that all 3 branches of government break their oath to it constantly.
Meaning the people that keep electing them are flawed.
Obama's so-called "tax cuts" are actually an increase. This year I'm paying approximately $2000 more since Bush's budget has been phased-out. Obama will offer a $1400 decrease, which means I'm still paying $600 MORE than what I paid last year.
Of course, to be honest, since I paid $15,000 in income tax last year, that +/- 600 is not a big difference. I think it's ridiculous that we Americans pay enough taxmoney to buy a new car every, single, year. At least with a shiny-new car I can use it to get to work or pick-up chicks. What has the government done for ME, personally, that's worth 15 grand?
(And don't say roads; money for roads comes from gasoline tax, not income tax.) (Or SS or Medicare; that too is separate from income tax.)
Haven't you been paying attention? We got to invade Iraq, remember? That's nearly a trillion dollars right there. Then there's all the homeland security stuff, a whole new bureaucracy to bring us things like xray vision scanners and more airport guards to scan your shoes. We get all kinds of cool things for our money!
Washington Mutual made the 30 years loans, kept many of those loans on their own books, and had every incentive to see how well an individual could pay off their mortgage.
However in an environment of rising real estate prices managers got better bonuses selling bad loans, than caring about risk. Now Washington Mutual is gone.
Perhaps when companies don't care about the welfare of employees, employees stop caring about the welfare of the company.
Or perhaps finance companies did some kind of financial equivalent to software metrics, which managers then optimised for:
Part of the problem was that the ratings agencies botched the ratings horribly. The question is whether it was due to problems with their models, their software, or their symbiotic relationship with the banks. From what I gather, the banks basically tell them how to rate the securities. So these high-risk securities were still being given AAA ratings that didn't reflect their true risk. It's actually more complicated than that, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, but suffice to say, when the money was flowing, people weren't looking too closely at these things.
What precipitated these NINJA ( No Job, No Asset ) loans?
I have a hard time putting this on the backs work working- and middle-class people who bought homes "they couldn't afford". If there's a foreclosure, and the loan officer and Joe Sixpack are staring at each other, saying, "we got both got each in trouble, we didn't know any better" I would blame the banker more. It's the banker's job to know good risks. He's been making loans for years. How many times does a person buy a home in their lifetime? 2 or 3, max? I expect more out of the banker than Joe Sixpack.
The short answer is that the banks thought they were covered by insurance if the borrower defaulted, and since so much money was being made through securitization of loans, they were just making as many as they could, knowing that they were just going to sell them off to someone else. They've racked up massive profits from doing just that for years now. I posted earlier about this. You'll have to excuse the somewhat flame-ish tone of the post:) The NPR link is to an audio interview that explains why the insurance didn't pan out and the banks started failing. Couple other links in there to wikipedia for more info too.
Now if we could just clean out the assholes who caused this current economic meltdown that started at Freddie and Fannie.... Sens Dodd (Banking Cmmt Chairman) and Obama (#2 lifetime money take in only four years), Rep Frank (Chief House cheerleader for subprime lending while fucking the guy in charge of subprime lending for close to decade while overseeing em), etc.
Wrong. The CRA may have encouraged more lending to people on the low end of the pay scale, but it certainly isn't responsible for lenders handing loans out like halloween candy to anyone and their dog, with no proof of employment, collateral, etc. Banks aren't that stupid. They believed they'd make that money back one way or another. Either the person pays, or they're insured. That's one big area where things went wrong. Remember AIG? Remember credit default swaps? Remember whoderegulated those so that AIG and the banks didn't have to disclose any info about them, and AIG didn't have to maintain a capital reserve to cover them like any normal insurance company would? Remember who else supported this?
And that's just the beginning too. There are a lot of factors involved. It's just stupid to try to point to one thing and pin everything on it. There were horrible assumptions made about the real estate market, serious problems with the ratings models used for these securities, huge increases in speculation, and problems with trading software that helped to compound the problems. And that's just some of what we know now. There's probably a lot more factors that we'll learn about over the next year or so too.
It does exist, and is even appropriate in some cases. I happen to think that it's being used much more than it should be allowed to, but that's my opinion. The point is that it is a judge that decides when it's appropriate and when it's not. The records must be kept regardless. Destroying or hiding public records should not be allowed in any case. Whether it's republicans or democrats doing it, it needs to stop.
The opposing argument is that the Executive may get better advice, when the adviser speaks freely — knowing, his speech is protected. Limiting advice-giving to in-person verbal communications would severely impact the efficiency, but you would like all other communications (phone-calls, e-mails) recorded and available for scrutiny by political enemies.
But, regardless of whether you agree or not, the point stands — Sarah Palin is quite computer-literate, certainly more so, than her counter-part.
The obvious and undeniable issue of lack of accountability seems to be of far greater concern than the possibility that an executive won't get the best advice due to advisers' fears that their advice might be made public. I would think that such advice, while probably beneficial to the executive, is probably not very defensible as being in the public's interest. I'm far more concerned that the executive ends up having practically unlimited ability to cover up any and all evidence of corruption, as well as making it impossible for the public to learn what is being done or why, without strict laws making executive communications a matter of public record, with the usual exceptions.
That Bill Clinton has sent only two e-mails in his 8 years of Presidency — while presiding over an 8-trillion dot-com bust — does not bother Obama's fans, they would've lined up behind either of the Clintons for President in a heartbeat. But that McCain, who is physically unable to type due to injuries, uses his wife's help with computers, is fair target of ridicule for them. Sure...
That's because the partisans that backed Clinton are just as stupid and hypocritical as the partisans that backed Bush or Palin when they've used the same tactics. We need more accountability, not less. If it's recorded, it should be preserved, with stiff penalties if someone destroys public records.
I think the point is that nobody batted an eye when the Clintons told everybody that OOPS! thousands of emails were just, oh, I don't know, lost somehow between the time that they were subpoenaed and the time they went to collect them.
I love how people always say things like this. Republicans got pissed about Clinton's behavior. Probably independents did as well. I'm always pissed when they pull that kind of shit. Of course Bush has done the same and Republicans give him a pass on it too. So I guess it just reinforces my beliefs about how idiotic the partisans on both sides are.
Oh, and by the by? Never was any ramifications for Clinton's behaviour. That means that legally what he did was ok. Amazing what saying "Oops!" can do for you.
It is amazing. But apparently the Bush administration took the lesson to heart and did the same thing. They used personal accounts and just happened to lose thousands of emails. No consequences there either. Accountability doesn't seem to exist.
There's also the really silly fact that any of these conversations via email that must be retained can take place over the phone or face-to-face and there is no requirement that everything the President says ever must always be recorded.
Not everything gets recorded. But what does get recorded must be preserved. If you don't want it preserved, then don't record it. That presents problems as well though, because the the people involved want to be able to hold others accountable as well. That means recording things. I think we need to make stronger laws in this area. Laws with big, sharp, scary teeth.
Yes, seriously. Just recall Bill Clinton's jockeying to dodge Congressional subpoenas and invoking Executive Privilege left and right...
Ok, and how does that help your argument? Are you saying it was ok for Clinton to do that? Is it ok for the Bush administration to do that? Are you saying that we shouldn't be able to hold people in executive positions accountable? What, exactly, is your point?
Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.
So being a good sport and praising the other team is a bad thing now? Doesn't surprise me really. Looking at partisan politics today, it's all about backing your team no matter what and bashing your opponent at every opportunity, as you just illustrated. It's killing our country and reducing the level of debate to a shouting match between drunken idiots. Please refrain from joining the melee.
Seriously? Infringe on their executive's domain? The executive is still answerable to the public, and while there are exceptions for what can be subpoenaed, the executive does not get to decide unilaterally what meets those criteria. Everything is archived, and then there is a process by which the decisions are made based on the arguments of both sides.
Slashdot Mirror
All absolutely true and I agree. But it's also not accurate to say that the CRA had nothing to do with the situation.
No, I just have a problem with people trying to point at one thing or blame one party for the problem. The economy is too big to get that screwed up by one thing alone. It takes a lot more than one piece of legislation to screw things up this bad. The whole "blame the CRA" and "blame the GLBA" things have become rampant. People always oversimplify things they don't understand, especially when they can make it serve their interests.
Read up yourself.
I did. Which is why I'm familiar with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act and you are not.
And that still doesn't explain things. repost
It looks like the CRA actually had quite a lot to do with large numbers of sub prime mortgage securities being improperly rated and sold. Which is the basis of the current financial crisis after the people who obtained those loans began to default on them devaluing those securities.
The bottom line is that legislating that banks take on increased risk in order to provide loans to people who are unlikely to be able to pay them back was a bad idea. The banks tried to offload that risk onto other investors and because of the misrating of the mortgages they succeeded.
That's only one part of the puzzle here. Yes, the CRA encouraged more risky loans, but that alone wouldn't have caused the problems. The banks aren't stupid and they don't plan to lose money on their loans. Nobody forced them to make the loans. They'll only make those risky loans when they think they are covered by insurance. That's what AIG was doing with credit default swaps.
The problem there was that those were deregulated back in late 2000 by the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which allowed AIG and others to insure these securities without any disclosure or even a capital reserve requirement, things that are standard for insurance companies.
So, thinking they're covered, the banks start throwing money at everyone, and raking in huge profits on these securitized loan packages that nobody seems to really understand even now. They did it for the same reason that they always do things. Profit. Unfortunately, when the housing market went south, AIG had no way to cover those securities, and thus the banks were screwed.
Compound that with the problems with the ratings agencies and their symbiotic relationship with the financial institutions, the problems with trading software, the rampant speculation even by large institutions, bizarre assumptions about the housing market, and other issues that we probably haven't figured out yet, and you can see that it's not nearly as simple as pointing at the CRA as the source of the problems.
You're also making the assumption that you'll get more out of the government for $100 than you could get out of the free market. This seems like a very strange line of thinking.
Not so strange when you think about how the "free market" just managed to pick our pockets for nearly a trillion dollars. That doesn't even include their ill-gotten gains while they were creating this mess. I wish people would quit trying to imply that it's a choice between government and the free market. There is no free market. If there was, it wouldn't work because it requires people to be fully informed, which won't happen because there's too much interest in using misinformation for personal gain.
We've never had a free market. We never will have a free market. Stop trying to hold it up as the alternative to government. Bureaucracies can do certain things very well. Better than publicly traded businesses in many cases, because their incentive is to do the job rather than to hit a quarterly profit estimate. It's the perverse incentives that have been created in our markets that have contributed to the problems we're having now. I don't see how thinking that we're going to solve anything that way either.
Neither major party candidate has mentioned addressing the crushing national debt or deficit spending.
I found this game really informative, and disturbing.
It could probably be written better, but the concept is great.
I agree. I tried it out. I almost want to make it a mandatory thing for all voters to play at least once before voting. Not that it would necessarily change your candidate preference, but because it would make you really look at the kind of trade-offs that have to be made rather than just listening to candidates talking about how they're going to do this, that and the other, while giving very little information about what, specifically, they would cut or fund, and how that would affect the overall bottom line.
Ron Paul said that we shouldn't be putting our military in harms way in foreign countries, that we shouldn't be warmongering like the other candidates in the presidential debate. Huckabee and Thompson had just made statements about introducing speed-boat personel "to the 40 virgins they've been waiting to meet". Brit Hume cut Paul short and shouted him down with, "Who is war mongering, Senator?" Now tell me who is batshit insane?
I'm not saying that I don't agree with some of their platform. I think that going to war in Iraq was insane in itself, as is continuing to stay there.
To be honest, I didn't pay a lot of attention to Ron Paul. He doesn't have a chance in hell of winning. He won't even be on the ballot here, so I couldn't vote for him anyway. Until we fix our election laws and methods, it will probably always be that way.
What I'm saying is that they need to come up with a clear, understandable plan for how to implement their ideas for economic and social policies without screwing everything up. I know that that's what a lot of other people I know think of when they think of libertarian candidates. That they'll want to scrap everything and start over. That's not how it would work, but we need to hear how it could work.
I think that it is obvious that the "being an empire" thing is not worth the money that it costs.
The problem with withdrawing from the World is that nature abhors a vacuum. If the United States isn't the global interventionist superpower then who is? I doubt you'll see another Democracy step forward and assume the role -- and given the choice between the US or Russia/China I'll take the US any day of the week.
I'll take anyone that doesn't screw it up so badly. We've pretty much handed Iraq and most of its oil to Iran on a silver platter. Not sure how that helps us.
So the current Republicans didn't reduce the government when they had control of the whole thing, so you will lend your support to turning the whole thing over to the Democrats?
Your logic seems to be, "If I can't have a smaller government, might as well make it be as large as possible."
Actually it's more like, "If I can't have a smaller government, might as well have a big one that actually helps everyone rather than just the wealthy."
Please define "in charge". Do you mean the presidency, control of congress, both? And I never said that everything was the Democrats' fault, or that Republicans are staunch advocates of small government. In fact, it's their abandonment of that ideal that has partially led to their problems getting elected lately.
Right, so why should we want to vote for them? They seem to just make things worse. National debt has skyrocketed since Bush Jr. took charge. Government has only grown in that time too. Republicans were in charge of house, senate and presidency for the first 6 of those years too. So what do the Republicans actually have to offer us? I sure can't see any benefits.
The problem with libertarian candidates is that while the premises of the party seem fair and reasonable on the surface, the candidates themselves all seem to be batshit insane. I think the real problem is that while we might be able to agree about how things should work, there's never any real plan for how to get there from where we are now, without utterly devastating the country in the process. If they could come up with some comprehensible plan for doing so, and a candidate that can speak like Obama, then they might have a shot.
Most of the credit should probably go to Perot who single handedly made that a major issue in the campaign and more or less got Clinton elected. Even though he didn't win, he showed that balancing the budget was a very important issue to a large number of voters.
I'd say Perot deserves some credit for making it an issue, but let's be realistic here. Actually getting it done was the hard part. Congress likes to spend.
And for the people screaming REPUBLICANS FUCKED AMERICA UP, who's in control of the House and Senate, and has blocked nearly every one of Bushes econ related bills for the last 4 years :)
You are aware that the Republicans have controlled the house and senate for six of the last 8 years, right? The democrats only got control of the house after the 2006 election, and the senate is a virtual tie with 49 each and a couple independents.
I wish Obama would just come out and say we're leaving Iraq. We lost. Iran won. End of story. I don't see how we're going to salvage anything over there now. We just need to seriously get to work on alternative energy research to get our oil needs dramatically reduced as soon as possible. That's the only thing that is going to help us in the long run. Everything else is going to be either very expensive, or more likely very expensive and very bloody.
So where in the Constitution does it allow Congress to give away its power to declare war to the President, or give away its power to coin money, or give away its power to appropriate $700 billion?
The Constitution is flawed in that all 3 branches of government break their oath to it constantly.
Meaning the people that keep electing them are flawed.
P.P.S.
Obama's so-called "tax cuts" are actually an increase. This year I'm paying approximately $2000 more since Bush's budget has been phased-out. Obama will offer a $1400 decrease, which means I'm still paying $600 MORE than what I paid last year.
Of course, to be honest, since I paid $15,000 in income tax last year, that +/- 600 is not a big difference. I think it's ridiculous that we Americans pay enough taxmoney to buy a new car every, single, year. At least with a shiny-new car I can use it to get to work or pick-up chicks. What has the government done for ME, personally, that's worth 15 grand?
(And don't say roads; money for roads comes from gasoline tax, not income tax.)
(Or SS or Medicare; that too is separate from income tax.)
Haven't you been paying attention? We got to invade Iraq, remember? That's nearly a trillion dollars right there. Then there's all the homeland security stuff, a whole new bureaucracy to bring us things like xray vision scanners and more airport guards to scan your shoes. We get all kinds of cool things for our money!
Washington Mutual made the 30 years loans, kept many of those loans on their own books, and had every incentive to see how well an individual could pay off their mortgage.
However in an environment of rising real estate prices managers got better bonuses selling bad loans, than caring about risk. Now Washington Mutual is gone.
Perhaps when companies don't care about the welfare of employees, employees stop caring about the welfare of the company.
Or perhaps finance companies did some kind of financial equivalent to software metrics, which managers then optimised for:
Part of the problem was that the ratings agencies botched the ratings horribly. The question is whether it was due to problems with their models, their software, or their symbiotic relationship with the banks. From what I gather, the banks basically tell them how to rate the securities. So these high-risk securities were still being given AAA ratings that didn't reflect their true risk. It's actually more complicated than that, and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, but suffice to say, when the money was flowing, people weren't looking too closely at these things.
What precipitated these NINJA ( No Job, No Asset ) loans?
I have a hard time putting this on the backs work working- and middle-class people who bought homes "they couldn't afford". If there's a foreclosure, and the loan officer and Joe Sixpack are staring at each other, saying, "we got both got each in trouble, we didn't know any better" I would blame the banker more. It's the banker's job to know good risks. He's been making loans for years. How many times does a person buy a home in their lifetime? 2 or 3, max? I expect more out of the banker than Joe Sixpack.
The short answer is that the banks thought they were covered by insurance if the borrower defaulted, and since so much money was being made through securitization of loans, they were just making as many as they could, knowing that they were just going to sell them off to someone else. They've racked up massive profits from doing just that for years now. I posted earlier about this. You'll have to excuse the somewhat flame-ish tone of the post :) The NPR link is to an audio interview that explains why the insurance didn't pan out and the banks started failing. Couple other links in there to wikipedia for more info too.
Now if we could just clean out the assholes who caused this current economic meltdown that started at Freddie and Fannie.... Sens Dodd (Banking Cmmt Chairman) and Obama (#2 lifetime money take in only four years), Rep Frank (Chief House cheerleader for subprime lending while fucking the guy in charge of subprime lending for close to decade while overseeing em), etc.
Wrong. The CRA may have encouraged more lending to people on the low end of the pay scale, but it certainly isn't responsible for lenders handing loans out like halloween candy to anyone and their dog, with no proof of employment, collateral, etc. Banks aren't that stupid. They believed they'd make that money back one way or another. Either the person pays, or they're insured. That's one big area where things went wrong. Remember AIG? Remember credit default swaps? Remember who deregulated those so that AIG and the banks didn't have to disclose any info about them, and AIG didn't have to maintain a capital reserve to cover them like any normal insurance company would? Remember who else supported this?
And that's just the beginning too. There are a lot of factors involved. It's just stupid to try to point to one thing and pin everything on it. There were horrible assumptions made about the real estate market, serious problems with the ratings models used for these securities, huge increases in speculation, and problems with trading software that helped to compound the problems. And that's just some of what we know now. There's probably a lot more factors that we'll learn about over the next year or so too.
It does exist, and is even appropriate in some cases. I happen to think that it's being used much more than it should be allowed to, but that's my opinion. The point is that it is a judge that decides when it's appropriate and when it's not. The records must be kept regardless. Destroying or hiding public records should not be allowed in any case. Whether it's republicans or democrats doing it, it needs to stop.
The opposing argument is that the Executive may get better advice, when the adviser speaks freely — knowing, his speech is protected. Limiting advice-giving to in-person verbal communications would severely impact the efficiency, but you would like all other communications (phone-calls, e-mails) recorded and available for scrutiny by political enemies.
But, regardless of whether you agree or not, the point stands — Sarah Palin is quite computer-literate, certainly more so, than her counter-part.
The obvious and undeniable issue of lack of accountability seems to be of far greater concern than the possibility that an executive won't get the best advice due to advisers' fears that their advice might be made public. I would think that such advice, while probably beneficial to the executive, is probably not very defensible as being in the public's interest. I'm far more concerned that the executive ends up having practically unlimited ability to cover up any and all evidence of corruption, as well as making it impossible for the public to learn what is being done or why, without strict laws making executive communications a matter of public record, with the usual exceptions.
That Bill Clinton has sent only two e-mails in his 8 years of Presidency — while presiding over an 8-trillion dot-com bust — does not bother Obama's fans, they would've lined up behind either of the Clintons for President in a heartbeat. But that McCain, who is physically unable to type due to injuries, uses his wife's help with computers, is fair target of ridicule for them. Sure...
That's because the partisans that backed Clinton are just as stupid and hypocritical as the partisans that backed Bush or Palin when they've used the same tactics. We need more accountability, not less. If it's recorded, it should be preserved, with stiff penalties if someone destroys public records.
I think the point is that nobody batted an eye when the Clintons told everybody that OOPS! thousands of emails were just, oh, I don't know, lost somehow between the time that they were subpoenaed and the time they went to collect them.
I love how people always say things like this. Republicans got pissed about Clinton's behavior. Probably independents did as well. I'm always pissed when they pull that kind of shit. Of course Bush has done the same and Republicans give him a pass on it too. So I guess it just reinforces my beliefs about how idiotic the partisans on both sides are.
Oh, and by the by? Never was any ramifications for Clinton's behaviour. That means that legally what he did was ok. Amazing what saying "Oops!" can do for you.
It is amazing. But apparently the Bush administration took the lesson to heart and did the same thing. They used personal accounts and just happened to lose thousands of emails. No consequences there either. Accountability doesn't seem to exist.
There's also the really silly fact that any of these conversations via email that must be retained can take place over the phone or face-to-face and there is no requirement that everything the President says ever must always be recorded.
Not everything gets recorded. But what does get recorded must be preserved. If you don't want it preserved, then don't record it. That presents problems as well though, because the the people involved want to be able to hold others accountable as well. That means recording things. I think we need to make stronger laws in this area. Laws with big, sharp, scary teeth.
Yes, seriously. Just recall Bill Clinton's jockeying to dodge Congressional subpoenas and invoking Executive Privilege left and right...
Ok, and how does that help your argument? Are you saying it was ok for Clinton to do that? Is it ok for the Bush administration to do that? Are you saying that we shouldn't be able to hold people in executive positions accountable? What, exactly, is your point?
Actually, no, I'd like to know, that who I'm voting for will be who hands the power over to the next president-elect. I don't want an opportunist, who "adapts and changes" with the latest breeze.
So being a good sport and praising the other team is a bad thing now? Doesn't surprise me really. Looking at partisan politics today, it's all about backing your team no matter what and bashing your opponent at every opportunity, as you just illustrated. It's killing our country and reducing the level of debate to a shouting match between drunken idiots. Please refrain from joining the melee.
And if you want to look forward, Sarah Palin — McCain's choice for a vice-president — is an avid e-mail user and has even come under criticism, as she found a creative solution to get around the law, with which the lawmakers aim to infringe on their executive's domain.
Seriously? Infringe on their executive's domain? The executive is still answerable to the public, and while there are exceptions for what can be subpoenaed, the executive does not get to decide unilaterally what meets those criteria. Everything is archived, and then there is a process by which the decisions are made based on the arguments of both sides.