patrick.net

Too bad they did not show this concern for the ACA and educate themselves prior to voting....

marcus says

I get that some democrats are outright opposed. Others are just concerned that they don't fully understand how this deal works.

We are not talking about the ACA...you are off topic.

lostand confused says

What the evil critter is asking for is no debate in congress at all. none. They get a secret document that has been negotiated in secret and backed by

indigenous says

Aren't all ducks lame?

Rand Paul is the clear choice, makes more sense than any candidate I have heard, except his father.

He has a Big Govt. job & all the perks that go along with it.
Let's elect this Socialist.

HEY YOU says

Let's elect this Socialist.

How do you figure?

CaptainShuddup says

Every state of the union he does, he come out to the podeum, starts jacking his Dick. Then when he's done doing that, he pulls out his bag of white powder and draws an Al Pachino sized coke line on the podeum, snorts it down. Then starts talking about pipe dreams. Like some coke monster mental masterbating, with no intentions of ever following through with anything they said at the time.

After every State of the Union he has never not once, ever reached out to the Senate or the house to hash out the details. There are no details, and if he has to make his shit work. He's got a long list of Daneil Grubbers to fill in the details for him.

"Those dumb dipshit Obama voting motherfuckers. "- Obama's A team

Why should he reach out to Congress when it's full of Socialist Rep/Con/Teas getting a govt. check & other benefits while destroying America accepting this taxpayer money. It might be alright if they got minimum wage. Stop! They are against minimum wage.

$460,000 subsidies going to J. Ernst's family?

Any motherfucking Rep/Con/Tea that receives one cent from the govt. should be tried as a domestic enemy..

HEY YOU says

Any motherfucking Rep/Con/Tea that receives one cent from the govt. should be
tried as a domestic enemy..

All in due time. The first priority is immediate arrest and enhanced interrogation of robert kraft, bill belicheat and tom brady.

Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is a Pending Disaster

http://robertreich.org/post/107257859130

Why does free trade need any sort of agreement, other than willing exchange by both sides?

The real problem is staring at us in the collective mirror...

This is what scares me,
Even better for global companies, the tribunal can order compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nation’s regulations. Philip Morris is using a similar provision against Uruguay (the provision appears in a bilateral trade treaty between Uruguay and Switzerland), claiming that Uruguay’s strong anti-smoking regulations unfairly diminish the company’s profits.

finehoe says

Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is a Pending Disaster

http://robertreich.org/post/107257859130

Okay, I fully accept that it looks like a bad deal, and also I always said Obama (like Clinton ) is basically just a decent republican (using 30 years ago as a model of what a republican is).

But as for Obama's motivation ? His reasons ? still questioning whether it's being slimy.

Maybe someone or some groups simply convinced him that it's better than not being in the deal (while all the other Pacific countries are). Not defending it. Just rying to understand. Is it realy what Reich said, that Obama's tryigng to contain China ?

Harry reid against fast track trade deals.
http://news.yahoo.com/harry-reid-speaks-out-against-obama-s-trade-plan-184631400.html

Say you think he farts at the same time he howls at the moon?
Or I know how about coughs and hacks because he's a smoker...

Aren't those things bad for you, and he taxed them more so people would sto... er I mean pay more for them... so he can get the tax money to pay for his smokes. That he huffs and puffs on while farts and howls at the moon.

zzyzzxx can you share the names of other sites you go to for that kind of dishonest crap ?

We all know that the economy was in freefall when he started. So the 1st, second and 4th items are hard to pin on Obama. I agree he didn't fix them or turn them around well enough. That's because even though he's virtually a republican, he is considered the enomy by today's right wing dimbulbs.

Gasoline cost + 79% ? Hmmm, that number might be alittle old. Is this from 2010 ?

Is this from 2010 ?

So what? Take the gas prices off that list since oil is now super cheap and this point is obviously not accurate anymore, the rest pretty much stands. He dismantled the middle-class and wealth disparity has been growing fastest in all recent administrations under his presidency. A good speech - he is a decent orator (more like narrator), but a terrible score card.

marcus says

zzyzzxx can you share the names of other sites you go to for that kind of dishonest crap ?

It's right there in the picture. woody typepad aka "Woody's Place where Woody shares his thoughts, opinions, commentary and humor with the blogosphere." which is ranked number 3,634,508 blog in the world according to the Alexa Traffic Rank.

It's sort of like Fox but just a little, tiny bit smaller. Say about 1000 orders of magnitude. Where zzyzzxx actually found it is a deep mystery.

mell says

He dismantled the middle-class

I don't see that, it is more of a liberal meme than fact.

Look at the tables on this page, I see no indication that the middle class is disappearing.

https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

As you know inequality is another matter, which certainly grew under O's watch, but economics is not a zero sum game.

I like that "Americans in poverty +23%" part.

I thought the Fox News folks said, Americans don't HAVE poverty. Because they usually have refrigerators, and TV's.

It's hard for conservatives to work out a consistent story on poverty, is it getting better or worse?

My theory is conservative rules work like this:

When discussing anyone (but particularly Democrats) DOING something about poverty, it's getting better. So we don't need to do anything.

When discussing Obama, well everything gets worse as long as Obama EXISTS, therefore cook up whatever figures needed to claim it's getting worse.

Easy!

You have to throw in the government transfers to the lowest quintile as that does not show up in any gov't stats. IOW the lowest quintile is a lot richer than the stats state.

indigenous says

mell says

He dismantled the middle-class

I don't see that, it is more of a liberal meme than fact.

Look at the tables on this page, I see no indication that the middle class is disappearing.

https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/household/

As you know inequality is another matter, which certainly grew under O's watch, but economics is not a zero sum game.

Yeah it depends on how middle-class is defined. I usually refer to the wage-slaves, which are either upper middle-class or even considered upper class by some, but certainly they are much closer to the poor house then to the uber-wealthy. Those are disappearing, the lower middle-class which is often already government dependent is doing ok. That's not a sustainable model though.

mell says

Yeah it depends on how middle-class is defined. I usually refer to the wage-slaves, which are either upper middle-class or even considered upper class by some, but certainly they are much closer to the poor house then to the uber-wealthy. Those are disappearing, the lower middle-class which is often already government dependent is doing ok. That's not a sustainable model though.

The point is that the middle class is doing better than the past, those are the numbers...

This meme adversely taints many people's thinking.

The overarching driver of the world economy is the American economy, the most successful in history.

The Fed's QE amounts to 6% of the money supply, IOW the market will trump the Fed and even the government spending. Until 2030.

indigenous says

mell says

Yeah it depends on how middle-class is defined. I usually refer to the wage-slaves, which are either upper middle-class or even considered upper class by some, but certainly they are much closer to the poor house then to the uber-wealthy. Those are disappearing, the lower middle-class which is often already government dependent is doing ok. That's not a sustainable model though.

The point is that the middle class is doing better than the past, those are the numbers...

This meme adversely taints many people's thinking.

The overarching driver of the world economy is the American economy, the most successful in history.

The Fed's QE amounts to 6% of the money supply, IOW the market will trump the Fed and even the government spending. Until 2030.

They are doing worse if they are not receiving any government transfer money due to inflation and accumulated debt from education and rising taxes. If you want an economy that was doing well - albeit in unsustainable overdrive - you have to go back to the late 90s and the internet bubble. You don't see any of that today but they would show more irrational exuberance if they could.

mell says

They are doing worse if they are not receiving any government transfer money due to inflation and accumulated debt from education and rising taxes.

The tables are inflation adjusted. Don't know on the taxes.

mell says

If you want an economy that was doing well - albeit in unsustainable overdrive - you have to go back to the late 90s and the internet bubble. You don't see any of that today but they would show more irrational exuberance if they could.

It seems to me that all irrational exuberance is caused by central banks, I have even read that the tulip bubble was caused by them.

As you know, that is not a problem if the Fed does not meddle with it's cronies and the market.

But again the driver is the American economy almost twice the Chinese economy.

indigenous says

It seems to me that all irrational exuberance is caused by central banks, I have even read that the tulip bubble was caused by them.

That's BS. Everyone knows the tulip bubble was caused by the CRA

You mutts will not let go of the CRA thing, despite the fact that I have proved your ignorance over and over.

indigenous says

You mutts will not let go of the CRA thing, despite the fact that I have proved your ignorance over and over.

Your definition of proved doesn't match anyone else on the planet's definition of the word.

bob2356 says

Your definition of proved doesn't match anyone else on the planet's definition of the word.

indigenous says

bob2356 says

Your definition of proved doesn't match anyone else on the planet's definition of the word.

If you feel it's true than it must be true. After all if a butterfly flaps it's wings in america it COULD cause a typhoon in the pacific. I read that on a blog so it must be true.

BTW here is the explanation not that one of you mutts could be bothered to listen, if you are really interested read his book.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/A6ghZDMQaZo&list=UUsgWR55UyAiFarZYl1u1l9Q

BBTW did you ever read the great deformation that you claimed you would, what 9 months ago? The only thing I see you post is carping, snide remarks.

indigenous says

BTW here is the explanation not that one of you mutts could be bothered to listen, if you are really interested read his book.

Why is it that you have to post videos instead of simply offering an argument yourself? I don't have time to watch your idiotic videos....

"Why is it that you have to post videos instead of simply offering an argument yourself? I don't have time to watch your idiotic videos.."

Did you eat a lot paint chips as a kid?

If you really have a short attention span then just listen to 20 minutes to 22 minutes.

Or this:

Did the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) Lead to Risky Lending?
Online access to NBER Working Papers denied, you have no subscription

Sumit Agarwal, Efraim Benmelech, Nittai Bergman, Amit Seru
NBER Working Paper No. 18609
Issued in December 2012
NBER Program(s): AP CF
Yes, it did. We use exogenous variation in banks' incentives to conform to the standards of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) around regulatory exam dates to trace out the effect of the CRA on lending activity. Our empirical strategy compares lending behavior of banks undergoing CRA exams within a given census tract in a given month to the behavior of banks operating in the same census tract-month that do not face these exams. We find that adherence to the act led to riskier lending by banks: in the six quarters surrounding the CRA exams lending is elevated on average by about 5 percent every quarter and loans in these quarters default by about 15 percent more often. These patterns are accentuated in CRA-eligible census tracts and are concentrated among large banks. The effects are strongest during the time period when the market for private securitization was booming.

And this:

At the same time, political movements promoting home ownership and income transfers to the poor in the form of subsidies for home ownership gained wider support. Community activist groups such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) that had long advocated lowering lending standards to those in poor, and often black, neighborhoods found a champion in newly elected President Clinton. Under Clinton, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was strengthened and Fannie and Freddie where mandated to increase the number of subprime mortgages on their books or that they guaranteed. To do so, they dramatically lowered their mortgage lending standards for everyone (3 percent down payments, no documents of income, etc.).

In exchange for lowering their mortgage standards, the GSEs – by then privately owned – were exempted from normal capital standards and implicitly guaranteed by the government – made explicit when they were later declared bankrupt. In July of 1999, President Clinton bragged that: “Over 95 percent of the community investment … made in the 22 years of that [CRA] law have been made in the six and a half years that I have been in office.”3

The final plank in this tawdry story – which was much nastier than summarized here – was the need for the Federal Reserve to approve bank mergers and acquisitions on the basis, in part, of an assessment of the acquiring bank’s performance in achieving CRA goals of increased subprime lending. Banks joined with the likes of ACORN in order to expand such lending, in exchange for which such organizations supported the banks’ merger and acquisition applications.

It is acceptable to invest in riskier assets if banks increase their capital cushion appropriately. In the days of largely unregulated banking and no deposit insurance, banks held capital of 40 to 50 percent of their assets in order to convince depositors that they were safe. But today’s regulated banks were able to manipulate their mortgage business (via the GSEs and securitization) to avoid any regulatory requirements to increase capital. Bank shareholders were willing to go for the expected higher, but riskier, return and creditors were willing to let them because of deposit insurance and the expectation of a government (tax payer) bailout if things went wrong, as they subsequently did.

The government could not require banks to increase their capital against riskier mortgages without undermining its policy of promoting (subsidizing) those mortgages, a conflict of interest with devastating consequences.

The otherwise inexplicable collapse in lending standards and the financial crisis that followed is explained by the economic rent sharing collaboration between political groups like ACORN, the government, the GSEs, and the emerging megabanks to promote home ownership among those previously unable to qualify for a mortgage. The government and its political supporters achieved their political objectives via mortgage subsidies without adding line items to the Federal budget, until the bailouts were needed. Fannie and Freddie gained huge profits for a while, and high salaries and employment for political friends, backstopped by government guarantees.4 Megabanks achieved (bought) the Fed’s approval of their merger goals while shifting the risks onto the taxpayers. Is that sleazy or what? It is called crony capitalism to distinguish it from the real thing.

http://www.compasscayman.com/cfr/2014/10/31/Charles-Calomiris-and-Stephen-H--Haber--Fragile-By-Design-/

And 45 minutes later, here is Bob's response:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Re72di5phM0

So Tat:

indigenous says

We find that adherence to the act led to riskier lending by banks: in the six quarters surrounding the CRA exams lending is elevated on average by about 5 percent every quarter and loans in these quarters default by about 15 percent more often. These patterns are accentuated in CRA-eligible census tracts and are concentrated among large banks. The effects are strongest during the time period when the market for private securitization was booming.

Excellent--so please explain how this 5% increase in lending in ONLY the CRA-eligible census tracts led to the housing bubble.

Focus on how it caused housing prices to rise in non-CRA areas where the bubble was most prevalent.