Ten or twelve partners? Is that really the average? I've had about thirty, and that's with three periods of monogamy two, five, and ten years long. So not counting the monogamous periods, about one partner per month, obviously some short term relationships were significantly longer than this and some much shorter, and I'm not counting the occasional dry spell. And all along I thought I was a nerdy dweeb who didn't get a lot of sex. There must be a hell of a lot of people waiting until marriage and never, ever cheating to offset all the people having lots of sex, which I categorize as over 100 sex partners.
Either that, or people lie on surveys to sound more chaste than they are.
A Republic, in case you didn't know, is a type of Democracy.
I agree that Obama is in bed with the 'bankster class,' and that we are a plutocracy.
What I don't understand is how you can go from claiming we are a plutocracy run by the 'bankster class' to claiming the rich are the 'productive class' and we should be glad they pay our salary. Which is it?
When you get more, paying more is fair. The rich get more from the social contract than the poor, and they benefit more from government programs. The rich have bought policies that have transferred wealth to themselves, but we do live in a democracy and we can vote to have them pay for what they receive from society.
There's an easy way to pay less taxes: don't take more than your share of the wealth. As a society, we get to collectively determine what is right and wrong, for us as a people. If we determine that having certain people making thousands of times what others make is wrong, then it is wrong (for our society) and you either accept that or find another society.
That being said, I'd rather see a progressive tax on wealth, not income. If you have a high income, but spend it all, you don't get taxed as much as if you hoard your income in order to accumulate power over other people.
Interesting, he says this: "Of course it wasn’t the CRA that caused everything. The CRA was a factor in lowering lending standards. This was a necessary, although not sufficient, cause for the mortgage mess."
The CRA was one factor out of many that led to lowered lending standards, and those lowered standards were only a small part of the recent financial crisis. Get it? He says the lowered standards were a necessary but not sufficient condition. And the lowered standards were only partly caused by the CRA. Naked shorting and derivative gambling were the far larger part.
I'd say your article just proved that the CRA played only a very small part in the recent financial crisis.
That's funny because I see small community banks all over the country that have never had to merge with another bank, acquire a non bank business, or grow beyond their two or three small branches. Some have been in business for decades. And even though they don't need to abide by the CRA, they do, because it is the right thing to do for the communities those banks serve.
No, banks do NOT have to abide by the CRA. But all this is besides the point, at least if the point we are arguing is whether the CRA had anything to do with the financial collapse.
Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?
The evidence strongly suggests the latter. First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.
Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending. Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending.? CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."
Sorry, the CRA is a red herring that has nothing to do with the financial collapse, it is just another dirty trick the right uses to absolve itself of blame and lay it at the feet of liberals.
Hmm, that's funny. I thought I destroyed your argument. I certainly don't see where you destroyed anything.
Just to be clear, you mentioned Clinton in your first post in this thread. And can you link to the post where you mentioned Gramm-Leach-Bliley? I can't seem to find where you mention that.
Democrats and Republicans play Good Cop/Bad Cop to the working class, in order to gain compliance for their corporate masters. The good cop is not my friend. But I won't be voting for the bad cop, because in reality, he's much, much worse than the good cop.
I'd say not realizing how stupid you look is a universal human flaw. For example, look in a mirror. Sometimes when there are two choices, they are not in fact identical. Some people are worse than others. Some political parties pander to the rich more than others.
Blindly supporting one party with rah-rah boosterism is pretty foolish. But so is cynically claiming that there is no difference between the two. In fact, I'd say the cynicism is worse, because it isn't just stupid, it's lazy.
Have you ever considered what being so cynical gets you? You don't have to work for any cause, because they all suck. You're never wrong, hey, you didn't vote for the guy. You get to look like you have something to say, without having to come up with a cogent argument. You get to have that edgy, disaffected goth teen angst vibe, which is soooo sexy to the ladies.
Heck, your brand of cynicism is starting to sound pretty good.
No, the collapse is not bipartisan. I love how you try to prove that it was all Clinton's fault, and when that is proven ludicrous, fall back to the default position of Conservatives everywhere: "but the other side is just as bad!"
I don't think you actually believe that. I think you think liberals are hippie commie scum. But if you can't win an argument, at least sow the type of cynicism that keeps people from voting, because when the common man does not vote, the rich and their Republican lapdogs win.
No, they aren't. My little community bank (not a credit union, a bank) does not do mergers, acquisitions, or expansion. They serve one community and have for the last fifty years. They still follow the CRA, even though not following it would cost them nothing. And they are still in business.
The Fair Housing Act made it illegal, but the CRA added regulatory teeth and oversight. Of course some people think the CRA 'contributed' to the crisis, these are people who are against any government regulation. But the facts show they are wrong, the CRA did not contribute to the financial mess we are in now. Simply do a google search on "defaults on CRA mortgages" and you will find that CRA mortgages were less likely to default than non CRA mortgages.
Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending.? CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."
Also, only 1 in 4 sub prime loans were made under the CRA:
Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Finally, even with the CRA, were loans made to comply with it, or just to make money?
Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?
The evidence strongly suggests the latter. First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.
In that case, consider my point proven. People care more about what some random stranger they will never again see in their life thinks about them than they do about making over a month's worth of salary in one sitting. It doesn't matter why people want to be good, and of course people want to be good for selfish reasons, are there any other reasons, really? The fact is that people want to be good more than they want to be selfish.
So unless a bank can grow, merge and acquire other businesses, it will fail? A bank can't just, you know, be a bank? My little community bank doesn't do any of those things and, gosh! they still choose to follow the CRA and they are still in business.
Your childish sarcasm doesn't prove you right. The CRA is voluntary. Unless you can point to something in the CRA saying there will be criminal or civil charges for not complying, then compliance is voluntary. If you want to get special treatment from the government, you can follow the CRA and get it. But if you don't nothing will happen to your existing business. Nothing.
Sory, said CRA when I meant fannie/freddie. The fact is that Fannie/Freddie and CRA loans had lower rates of defaults than unregulated loans. The banks did this to themselves, not because of government pressure, but because of stockholder pressure and pure greed.
So, your argument is moot. Nothing in this line of debate can possibly lead to the conclusion that Democrats had anything to do with the financial collapse brought about by deregulation.
Compliance is voluntary. Not complying will not bring penalties to existing bank business. Trying to claim otherwise is stretching the definition of 'required.'
If you'd bothered to read the article, you'd know that before the CRA, banks were simply red-lining minority communities. The CRA was necessary to enforce equal opportunities.
You also have not addressed the blatant untruth that Fannie, Freddie, or the CRA had anything to do with the financial crisis. CRA based loans were far less likely to default than the majority of high risk loans during the crisis. It was the unregulated loans the banks voluntarily took on that sank them.
What about the experiments performed in India with rural poor, where the people did not know the experimenters, did not see each other, and the money at stake was at least a month's wages? Those seemed to show the same effect, and there was no motivation to 'look good' to anyone.
That is only one game theory experiment. In some games, players are completely anonymous and yet people still tend to behave fairly. In other games that are more like real life, like the Public Goods game, people actually incur harm to themselves in order to punish unfairness in others. The more like real life you make these games, the more fairly people behave.
No, person A does not just like gambling. There are plenty of other variations on this game that prove that. Some do use multiple rounds, but that is clearly explained to the participants. Look up game theory if you want to know more, you don't have to just speculate without any information.
*sigh* That link does not back up the claim that "Some disasters are caused by policy change due to political pressure." Even if it did, you have not proven that Clinton had anything to do with it. The article itself says nothing about the where the new directions came from. It does say that compliance with the CRA is voluntary.
I don't think you understand how economics works. Your entire argument makes no sense and sounds like parroting back poorly understood propaganda.
Obviously, complying with the CRA is a trade off. You completely ignore one side of the trade off to make it seem that banks were 'forced' to comply. Well, if complying did not gain them a benefit, they wouldn't do it. A bank failing to comply with the CRA is only at a disadvantage if complying with the CRA is a good thing for the banks, right?
I don't understand your argument about advantages and disadvantages piling up. How and why do they pile up, and what exactly are they? I don't think you can point to an example of a bank failing because it did not comply with the CRA.
What that actor said in that movie did not drive opinion, it mirrored what people were already thinking. Making money is not a good thing or a bad thing, just like making automobiles is neither a good thing or a bad thing. How you make them (polluting and unsafe versus environmental and safe) and what you do with them (mowing down pedestrians or driving victims to a hospital) is what makes the difference between good and bad.
Credit unions are owned by the members they serve. They are non profit. There is simply no way the NCUA would play along with shenanigans like this, who would benefit?
Trying to pin this on one party is only missing the point if both parties were equally to blame. Were they?
Wait a second, that link is for a Frank speech in 2003, from a hearing on an administration proposal to change the CRA. It says so in the first sentence!
So, in 2003, you are claiming that Bush objected to a Bush administration proposal?
Slashdot Mirror
Ten or twelve partners? Is that really the average? I've had about thirty, and that's with three periods of monogamy two, five, and ten years long. So not counting the monogamous periods, about one partner per month, obviously some short term relationships were significantly longer than this and some much shorter, and I'm not counting the occasional dry spell. And all along I thought I was a nerdy dweeb who didn't get a lot of sex. There must be a hell of a lot of people waiting until marriage and never, ever cheating to offset all the people having lots of sex, which I categorize as over 100 sex partners.
Either that, or people lie on surveys to sound more chaste than they are.
A Republic, in case you didn't know, is a type of Democracy.
I agree that Obama is in bed with the 'bankster class,' and that we are a plutocracy.
What I don't understand is how you can go from claiming we are a plutocracy run by the 'bankster class' to claiming the rich are the 'productive class' and we should be glad they pay our salary. Which is it?
When you get more, paying more is fair. The rich get more from the social contract than the poor, and they benefit more from government programs. The rich have bought policies that have transferred wealth to themselves, but we do live in a democracy and we can vote to have them pay for what they receive from society.
There's an easy way to pay less taxes: don't take more than your share of the wealth. As a society, we get to collectively determine what is right and wrong, for us as a people. If we determine that having certain people making thousands of times what others make is wrong, then it is wrong (for our society) and you either accept that or find another society.
That being said, I'd rather see a progressive tax on wealth, not income. If you have a high income, but spend it all, you don't get taxed as much as if you hoard your income in order to accumulate power over other people.
Ah, sorry, I was just following back up this chain, not looking in all the side branches.
Interesting, he says this: "Of course it wasn’t the CRA that caused everything. The CRA was a factor in lowering lending standards. This was a necessary, although not sufficient, cause for the mortgage mess."
The CRA was one factor out of many that led to lowered lending standards, and those lowered standards were only a small part of the recent financial crisis. Get it? He says the lowered standards were a necessary but not sufficient condition. And the lowered standards were only partly caused by the CRA. Naked shorting and derivative gambling were the far larger part.
I'd say your article just proved that the CRA played only a very small part in the recent financial crisis.
That's funny because I see small community banks all over the country that have never had to merge with another bank, acquire a non bank business, or grow beyond their two or three small branches. Some have been in business for decades. And even though they don't need to abide by the CRA, they do, because it is the right thing to do for the communities those banks serve.
No, banks do NOT have to abide by the CRA. But all this is besides the point, at least if the point we are arguing is whether the CRA had anything to do with the financial collapse.
From here: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=did_liberals_cause_the_subprime_crisis
Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?
The evidence strongly suggests the latter. First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.
Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Most important, the lenders subject to CRA have engaged in less, not more, of the most dangerous lending. Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending.? CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."
Sorry, the CRA is a red herring that has nothing to do with the financial collapse, it is just another dirty trick the right uses to absolve itself of blame and lay it at the feet of liberals.
Hmm, that's funny. I thought I destroyed your argument. I certainly don't see where you destroyed anything.
Just to be clear, you mentioned Clinton in your first post in this thread. And can you link to the post where you mentioned Gramm-Leach-Bliley? I can't seem to find where you mention that.
Democrats and Republicans play Good Cop/Bad Cop to the working class, in order to gain compliance for their corporate masters. The good cop is not my friend. But I won't be voting for the bad cop, because in reality, he's much, much worse than the good cop.
I'd say not realizing how stupid you look is a universal human flaw. For example, look in a mirror. Sometimes when there are two choices, they are not in fact identical. Some people are worse than others. Some political parties pander to the rich more than others.
Blindly supporting one party with rah-rah boosterism is pretty foolish. But so is cynically claiming that there is no difference between the two. In fact, I'd say the cynicism is worse, because it isn't just stupid, it's lazy.
Have you ever considered what being so cynical gets you? You don't have to work for any cause, because they all suck. You're never wrong, hey, you didn't vote for the guy. You get to look like you have something to say, without having to come up with a cogent argument. You get to have that edgy, disaffected goth teen angst vibe, which is soooo sexy to the ladies.
Heck, your brand of cynicism is starting to sound pretty good.
No, the collapse is not bipartisan. I love how you try to prove that it was all Clinton's fault, and when that is proven ludicrous, fall back to the default position of Conservatives everywhere: "but the other side is just as bad!"
I don't think you actually believe that. I think you think liberals are hippie commie scum. But if you can't win an argument, at least sow the type of cynicism that keeps people from voting, because when the common man does not vote, the rich and their Republican lapdogs win.
Fair enough.
No, they aren't. My little community bank (not a credit union, a bank) does not do mergers, acquisitions, or expansion. They serve one community and have for the last fifty years. They still follow the CRA, even though not following it would cost them nothing. And they are still in business.
The Fair Housing Act made it illegal, but the CRA added regulatory teeth and oversight. Of course some people think the CRA 'contributed' to the crisis, these are people who are against any government regulation. But the facts show they are wrong, the CRA did not contribute to the financial mess we are in now. Simply do a google search on "defaults on CRA mortgages" and you will find that CRA mortgages were less likely to default than non CRA mortgages.
From the first article that comes up:
Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, offers the killer statistic: Independent mortgage companies, which are not covered by CRA, made high-priced loans at more than twice the rate of the banks and thrifts. With this in mind, Yellen specifically rejects the "tendency to conflate the current problems in the sub-prime market with CRA-motivated lending.? CRA, Yellen says, "has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households."
Also, only 1 in 4 sub prime loans were made under the CRA:
Second, it is hard to blame CRA for the mortgage meltdown when CRA doesn't even apply to most of the loans that are behind it. As the University of Michigan's Michael Barr points out, half of sub-prime loans came from those mortgage companies beyond the reach of CRA. A further 25 to 30 percent came from bank subsidiaries and affiliates, which come under CRA to varying degrees but not as fully as banks themselves. (With affiliates, banks can choose whether to count the loans.) Perhaps one in four sub-prime loans were made by the institutions fully governed by CRA.
Finally, even with the CRA, were loans made to comply with it, or just to make money?
Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?
The evidence strongly suggests the latter. First, consider timing. CRA was enacted in 1977. The sub-prime lending at the heart of the current crisis exploded a full quarter century later. In the mid-1990s, new CRA regulations and a wave of mergers led to a flurry of CRA activity, but, as noted by the New America Foundation's Ellen Seidman (and by Harvard's Joint Center), that activity "largely came to an end by 2001." In late 2004, the Bush administration announced plans to sharply weaken CRA regulations, pulling small and mid-sized banks out from under the law's toughest standards. Yet sub-prime lending continued, and even intensified -- at the very time when activity under CRA had slowed and the law had weakened.
In that case, consider my point proven. People care more about what some random stranger they will never again see in their life thinks about them than they do about making over a month's worth of salary in one sitting. It doesn't matter why people want to be good, and of course people want to be good for selfish reasons, are there any other reasons, really? The fact is that people want to be good more than they want to be selfish.
So unless a bank can grow, merge and acquire other businesses, it will fail? A bank can't just, you know, be a bank? My little community bank doesn't do any of those things and, gosh! they still choose to follow the CRA and they are still in business.
Your childish sarcasm doesn't prove you right. The CRA is voluntary. Unless you can point to something in the CRA saying there will be criminal or civil charges for not complying, then compliance is voluntary. If you want to get special treatment from the government, you can follow the CRA and get it. But if you don't nothing will happen to your existing business. Nothing.
The test subjects were anonymous, was that so hard to pick up from 'did not know the experimenters, did not see each other?'
Sory, said CRA when I meant fannie/freddie. The fact is that Fannie/Freddie and CRA loans had lower rates of defaults than unregulated loans. The banks did this to themselves, not because of government pressure, but because of stockholder pressure and pure greed.
So, your argument is moot. Nothing in this line of debate can possibly lead to the conclusion that Democrats had anything to do with the financial collapse brought about by deregulation.
Compliance is voluntary. Not complying will not bring penalties to existing bank business. Trying to claim otherwise is stretching the definition of 'required.'
If you'd bothered to read the article, you'd know that before the CRA, banks were simply red-lining minority communities. The CRA was necessary to enforce equal opportunities.
You also have not addressed the blatant untruth that Fannie, Freddie, or the CRA had anything to do with the financial crisis. CRA based loans were far less likely to default than the majority of high risk loans during the crisis. It was the unregulated loans the banks voluntarily took on that sank them.
What about the experiments performed in India with rural poor, where the people did not know the experimenters, did not see each other, and the money at stake was at least a month's wages? Those seemed to show the same effect, and there was no motivation to 'look good' to anyone.
That is only one game theory experiment. In some games, players are completely anonymous and yet people still tend to behave fairly. In other games that are more like real life, like the Public Goods game, people actually incur harm to themselves in order to punish unfairness in others. The more like real life you make these games, the more fairly people behave.
No, person A does not just like gambling. There are plenty of other variations on this game that prove that. Some do use multiple rounds, but that is clearly explained to the participants. Look up game theory if you want to know more, you don't have to just speculate without any information.
*sigh* That link does not back up the claim that "Some disasters are caused by policy change due to political pressure." Even if it did, you have not proven that Clinton had anything to do with it. The article itself says nothing about the where the new directions came from. It does say that compliance with the CRA is voluntary.
What were you trying to prove, again?
I don't think you understand how economics works. Your entire argument makes no sense and sounds like parroting back poorly understood propaganda.
Obviously, complying with the CRA is a trade off. You completely ignore one side of the trade off to make it seem that banks were 'forced' to comply. Well, if complying did not gain them a benefit, they wouldn't do it. A bank failing to comply with the CRA is only at a disadvantage if complying with the CRA is a good thing for the banks, right?
I don't understand your argument about advantages and disadvantages piling up. How and why do they pile up, and what exactly are they? I don't think you can point to an example of a bank failing because it did not comply with the CRA.
What that actor said in that movie did not drive opinion, it mirrored what people were already thinking. Making money is not a good thing or a bad thing, just like making automobiles is neither a good thing or a bad thing. How you make them (polluting and unsafe versus environmental and safe) and what you do with them (mowing down pedestrians or driving victims to a hospital) is what makes the difference between good and bad.
Credit unions are owned by the members they serve. They are non profit. There is simply no way the NCUA would play along with shenanigans like this, who would benefit?
Trying to pin this on one party is only missing the point if both parties were equally to blame. Were they?
Wait a second, that link is for a Frank speech in 2003, from a hearing on an administration proposal to change the CRA. It says so in the first sentence!
So, in 2003, you are claiming that Bush objected to a Bush administration proposal?