WatchAs I suspected, there are too many radical extremist Tea Party types who will not raise any taxes under any circumstances for any reason. (read will never allow Democrats any compromise)
Thus the Republicans are bluffing without even holding any cards.
Bring on the fiscal cliff. Maybe some good old fashioned suffering will keep people from voting for Republicans in 2014.
Unfuckingbelievable.
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47 male
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JohnLaw says
Nope, this is just more propaganda you were spoon fed and now you believe.
The most bank failures did not happen in 2008 and 2009. The most bank failures happened before there were any banking regulations. There used to be a 20 year cycle of boom and bust and the bust was always accompanied by a few rich individuals stealing all the money and the bank collapsing afterwards. THIS IS THE FREE MARKET!!!! Look it up. It's in all the history books.
Bankruptcy does not self-regulate corporations, in fact it frees individuals within those corporations to rape and pillage and disappear while the corporation, a fictional person that YOU helped give rights, takes all the consequences.
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El Cerrito, CA
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Let's just stick with the old programs: 'You don't tax me and we can all spend as much as we feel like'. Along with 'let's lend other peoples money to fools who can't pay it back, and when the fools overpay we'll call it growth'.
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iwog says
I can't comprehend how somebody can trust a government who, ostensibly was supposed to regulate the finance business, to do anything other than what the lobbyists tell them to do. From Robert Rubin on down, the Federal Government has done whatever Goldman Sachs has asked them to do. Meanwhile, the crooks that caused the problems in the housing run up are not prosecuted, but rather bailed out! There were plenty of regulations in place. I would have loved to seen the FDIC step in and hold Citi, GS and JPM in receivership. Instead, Hank Paulson stepped in and saved his buddies at GS. Bernanke and Geithner were complicit. In the aftermath, the FED ... the institution largely responsible for the credit crisis is given more power to regulate? Your trust in the government to administer justice is what I don't comprehend. As long as it is team blue/red/purple, then I guess corruption is ok.
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David Losh's website
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Vicente says
There is already a Military Budget in the Senate, that so far no one has objected to.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/house-senate-defense-conference-agrees-on-631-billion-measure.html
Boehner is having a hard time reigning in the no tax people. We need to raise taxes, to go along with the spending cuts that are on the table.
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JohnLaw says
Sure you can. It's easy!!! All you have to do is know some history.
Study the financial markets before the New Deal and after the New Deal. An honest appraisal of genuine free market conditions will destroy everything you believe. What you have now is a dishonest appraisal minted by the Heritage Foundation.
Everything else is a bunch of crap. You want a bunch of people in jail without even being able to state their crimes.
Go head!! I dare you!!! What should the CEO of Goldman Sachs be charged with? Name it and the specific actions that make him guilty.
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iwog says
Your evading the question.
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JohnLaw says
I NEVER evade questions.
You did not ask a question.
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iwog says
I'm not a lawyer, but as a taxpayer I would expect the government to investigate and prosecute. There were literally 1000s of people prosecuted for fraud during the 90s Savings and Loan debacle. Like I said ... Eric Holder, calling Eric Holder!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/04/14/business/20110414-prosecute.html
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iwog says
I'll be more direct.
How can you trust a government who, ostensibly was supposed to regulate the finance business, to do anything other than what the lobbyists tell them to do?
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JohnLaw says
There are large numbers of government banking regulations that were wiped out after the S&L collapse. Republicans made sure of it.
So I was right wasn't I. You want people put in prison without even knowing what they should be charged with. Calling Eric Holder for what? So you can get justice for perceived crimes instead of actual crimes?
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iwog says
You obviously did not read the article. Justice has not even created an investigative task force as they did in the 90s S&L crisis. Its pretty obvious to most people that there was wide spread fraud going on throughout the housing bubble.
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JohnLaw says
Because they go against lobbyists all the time. Banks opposed the CFPB heavily and gave Republicans millions of dollars to prevent it. Democrats forced the issue and forced banks to accept it.
Republicans continue to try and destroy the agency, but so far they have failed.
That's why. You believe in rhetoric. I believe in verifiable history. Why do I trust government to go against the wishes of powerful lobbies? Because sometimes they do! You just have to stop voting for toxic and destructive Republicans.
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iwog says
Like Barney Frank, Robert Rubin, Frank Raines and Christopher Dodd?
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47 male
Lafayette, CA
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JohnLaw says
Really???? You think it was obvious?????
Writing loans to people without a job is legal. Selling mortgage bonds to pay for those loans is legal. Rating a shit mortgage bond AAA is legal.
Where is the crime? You still don't get it. YOU CAUSED THIS!!!!! YOU and your FUCKING REPUBLICAN PARTY tore down all the government protections that made these three actions legal and profitable. YOU created the housing crisis!!! YOU YOU YOU!!!! IF you demand prison terms for the causes of the financial crisis, put yourself in prison first. YOU voted for the people who created it. YOU joined the movement that deregulated the markets. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE!
When we talk about fraud, we talk about legalized fraud that Republicans supported over many decades. Breaking the law wasn't necessary. You helped make it all possible.
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Alameda, CA
Boner isn't the issue really. Too many of the house districts are gerrymandered to the point where the representative has nothing to fear from a democrat (and thus nothing to gain by moderating), but DOES have to fear a primary challenge from the right (where s/he will be called a sellout, a RINO, etc.). The awful redistricting the Republicans imposed after the 2010 elections doesn't just allow them to lose the popular vote and keep a majority, it also makes it impossible for them to govern responsibly if they wanted to...
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JohnLaw says
What do any of these people have to do with writing mortgages to people without jobs and selling mortgage bonds to suckers with bullshit AAA ratings?
Show me a single connection.
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treatmentreport's website
iwog,
Robert Rubin got rid of Glass–Steagall and got 120M payout by being a Citi board member.
I would argue that getting rid of Glass–Steagall enabled selling of mortgage bonds with bullshit AAA ratings.
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iwog says
The sat on the Congressional committees responsible for regulating the finance industry during the biggest credit debacle in history. All the time, taking millions in campaign contributions from the very institutions they were responsible for overseeing. Frank Raines was in charge of a government agency that was cooking the books under his watch.
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treatmentreport says
Works for me, however the assertion is that Robert Rubin should be put in jail. I don't think lobbying to repeal a law is a criminal act. It also supports my point that the free market is almost always the problem and government is almost always the solution.
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Lafayette, CA
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JohnLaw says
So what?
Seriously, so fucking what? YOU WANT REGULATIONS REMOVED!!! It's part of your religion. Why are you complaining about it?
If you want the financial industry regulated, you should be a heavy supporter of the Democratic party.
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iwog says
I never asserted this. I was merely pointing out members of team blue who were working for the banks while they were supposed to be representing the interests of the public. You brushed all members of team red as being the bogeymen, I merely pointed out the hypocrisy in that statement.
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treatmentreport's website
iwog,
Democratic party was just as responsible for the housing crisis as the Republican party. 90's stock market bubble happened under Clinton. Bush had to deal with the blowup, just as Obama is dealing with Bush's unfunded wars and tax cuts.
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iwog says
My religion has nothing to do with this conversation.
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iwog says
I think finance was better under Glass-Steagall. I would definitely support that. Also, I have a great deal of respect for Sheila Bair for trying to standup to Hank Paulson. I also have respect for Members of Congress such as Maria Cantwell who voted against TARP.
My beef is with the thinking that Members of Congress who take political contributions from businesses they are charged with regulating is okay with you. I know its legal, but seriously, wouldn't you consider it a bit of an ethics breach?
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treatmentreport says
I'm not going to defend Democrats for drinking the kool aid since 1980 and going along with right wing free-market idiocy. They screwed up.
However it is ONLY Democrats who want to reign in banks and large corporations. It is ONLY Democrats who want limits and oversight. It is ONLY Democrats who could have pretended the mortgage crisis.
Republicans are standing next to the fire with buckets of gasoline and saying "ELECT US!"
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JohnLaw says
Everything that comes out the right wing "debate" on economics is religion. It has no basis in fact and is easily destroyed. It is all dogma.
There is a place for a debate on campaign contributions, but it's not now. The Republicans on the Supreme Court have effectively stopped campaign finance reform. Until Republican power is eliminated, there will never be any way to prevent money from corrupting politics.
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iwog says
So is left wing collectivist thought. Doesn't make either one right or wrong. Merely one's opinion. To judge it as right or wrong is not your place.
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JohnLaw says
Sure it's my place. I don't want to see this country any more screwed up than it already is.
There is no such thing as left wing collectivist thought. It's a lie and a fiction. EVERYTHING and I do mean EVERYTHING that any Democrat in the federal government is advocating right now can be found being supported by Republicans a few decades back.
Go ahead and test me if you dare.
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iwog,
I do admire you for being one of the "truest of the bluest" I've had the pleasure to engage with. At least you are passionate about it! lol
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JohnLaw says
I'm not really a liberal. Politics have gotten so insane lately that all discussions are about reality versus fiction. The debate in America is so far away from ideology that it doesn't even matter in most cases.
But thanks. ;)
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treatmentreport's website
iwog,
Democrats bend too easily. Examples of that are ObamaCare and Frank-Dodd. Both did not go far enough to reform either health or financial industry. Also, Obama completely gave in on the tax cuts at the end of 2010. He should have let them expire.
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Yes Democrats bend too easily. They have all the human flaws of classical politicians.
Republicans in their current incarnation are a religious cult. They do not tolerate differing opinions nor do they compromise. They see defeating the opposition as the only legitimate goal and they will sacrifice all ideological positions to accomplish this.
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Scottsdale, AZ
robertoaribas's website
the GOP is not a fit party; it is basically the american version of the taliban these days...
I'm not a true liberal, I own a bunch of guns and I'm no hunter, I'm vegetarian...
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Washington, DC
Current Republican doctrine demonizes government as the only power able to regulate and tax unearned income and prosecute fraud. This inverts the idea of free markets away from the classical meaning of markets free from unearned economic rent, to connote today’s arena free for predatory rentiers.
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iwog says
Be serious, both parties are bought and paid for. The republicans are just more open about it.
Dodd-Frank is at best window dressing. It won't solve any of the baseline problems that led to the 2008 crises. The tbtf banks are bigger and more leveraged than ever. I also notice the implementation of big chunks of Dodd-Frank has been delayed yet again until 2014. Implementation of regulations is under the Administrative branch of government, aka the Obama white house. Although in all fairness SOME of this is the result of the favoured republican trick of cutting agency funding to prevent regulations they can't legislate away from being implemented or enforced.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (aka repeal of Glass-Steagall) was a totally bipartisan bill heavily supported by the Clinton administration, especially by Bob Rubin ( the man who Clinton called the "greatest secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton", who surprise, surprise went on to make over 100 million working for Citigroup, which couldn't have existed without repeal of GS. Conflict of interest, I think not). Clinton said Glass-Steagall was "no longer approproate" when he signed the repeal into law. That's not a ringing endorsement for "reigning in the banks" by the democratic team.
What to charge the bankers with? FRAUD. When you sell a product you know to be defective it's fraud, plain and simple. If you truly believe the smartest people on the planet (by their standards) didn't know they were selling bad loans to investors then I have a lot of Florida swamp land to sell you. The only reason it didn't happen is the tbtf banks would have needed even bigger bailouts to stay in business after the smoke cleared. Lots bigger bailouts.
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David Losh's website
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robertoaribas says
Which translates into liberal. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
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treatmentreport says
Republicans weren't going to extend federal unemployment (weeks 27-99) into 2011 without the tax cuts for high-earning households being extended too.
Keeping the tax cuts on everyone for another 2 years wasn't a big deal in the scheme of things. $160B in lost revenue. Can you find it in this chart:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FGTCMDODNS
?
Actually, raising taxes on everyone in 2011 would have problem resulted in more recession, more layoffs, and less tax revenue, compared to what recovery we did get that year and this.
This economy is still really screwed up.
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Bellingham, WA
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It wasn't all the leveraging that caused the problem, it was the abandonment of lending standards that allowed the masses to lever up along with the pros, 2003-2007.
All this suicide lending pushing trillions into the economy during the Bush Boom was like starting a new heroin and/or meth habit.
Felt great for a year or three, but the kicks got less and less, and quitting was out of the question since it was the flow of mortgage money that was giving us what velocity we had in the 2000s. . .
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treatmentreport's website
Bellingham Bill,
Obama is either a poor negotiator or he is much more of the centrist than everyone thought. He does not follow through on what he campaigned on.
It could be a little bit of both.
Raising taxes in 2010, in my opinion, was critical to bringing wealth disparity back in balance. Now it's even worse than two years ago and we have the same arguments. Oh, if you raise taxes, you risk going into recession. You will not know the effect until you do. In my opinion, raising taxes on the concentration of wealth at the top might actually force that capital to be put to work rather than be hoarded as is happening right now.
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No. When you're only looking at the tax side of the equation, government spending is fixed. You aren't putting any taxed revenue to work, because the government will just borrow the money to spend it if you don't tax it. You're right that much of that money is being hoarded, which is an important consideration in deciding where to tax, but that's not sufficient to make a tax stimulatory.