ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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DurianMcgregor wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

LOL
Tulsi Gabbard a dem from HI calls Trump Saudi's "bitch" on twitter Can't say I disagree.

@TulsiGabbard

Hey @realdonaldtrump: being Saudi Arabia’s bitch is not “America First.”

I feel like you could say the same thing about every American president for a while now.

You say that as if it's a defense. I can appreciate that US-Saudi relations should be more nuanced than blind hate and non-cooperation, but considering that Trump has given the Sauds a lot of morally dubious help (US bombing Yemen, selling then hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons) while getting dubious behavior in return (Khashoggi), I think Gabbard's remark is justified.

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The two primary causes of the 2008 financial crisis were
1. A Bush administration policy encouraging mortgage lenders to accept unqualified applicants — that is, those who can't reasonably be expected from their financial situation to repay the loan — if they were ethnic minorities
2. The Federal Reserve, which is also a government policy

You need both, because in a system where credit is limited, there is competition for credit such that the most qualified applicants, not merely any "qualified" applicant, is approved for credit. The Federal Reserve system, however, can create large amounts of credit for market use out of thin air. Under such a system there is no functional market competition for credit, because regardless of how many loans a bank has previously approved, approving another loan makes sense if a return is expected.

And return WAS expected — just not from those applying for the mortgages. If the government is twisting your arm to get more ethnic minority homeowners by having you accept lower quality applicants, then it only stands to reason that, after those people are approved but can't pay, that the government will act in whatever way preserves their home ownership — or at least cleans up the mess. The banks involved predicted that their financial decisions would be bailed out by an influx of government cash, funding a mandate that was, at the time, unfunded. Those banks predicted correctly, because the government also uses the Federal Reserve system to have functionally unlimited credit for responding to such issues.

The moral of the story is that, as long as the Federal Reserve exists, any stupid economic policy government dreams up, even if destined to pop like a bubble, is going to be accepted without resistance by the banking industry, because they know that the government won't allowe them to face repercussions.

You know, it is very sad sometimes how correct you are! I think that this is one of the many examples where this is sadly true.

The only minor quibble I can see is how much of the motivation was short sighted profits versus an actual reasoning that they would be bailed out on defaults. The reason I say this was that the common practice at the time was for the mortgage brokers who crafted the original mortgages to sell the mortgages in bulk to big financial institutions that would then package them all together into backing for bond type instruments. It was these big financial institutions that government ended up bailing out.

The way it worked is that these mortgage backed bonds were bought and sold daily by banks. There were regulations that at the end of each day the banks had to have a percentage of their assets in liquid form. These mortgage backed bonds qualified for this regulation as a liquid asset. The Dodd/Frank legislation tightened up this requirement, at least in part.

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DalaiLama wrote:

No Credibility. He doesn't even provide any logic for his claims - because he just copied them from wallstreetrant.com - who didn't provide any logic either. He could have said GOP economic policy X caused Y because of Z. He doesn't.


SAD.

Thank you for replying with such ferocity.

Now, despite the 'credibility' or the lack thereof of the blogger (we will never know his or her credentials to be honest), the fact remains, that historically when GOP controlled the government's three branches for more than 4 years, a financial collapse occurred.

Do you dispute this?

Because that's all I'm saying, and all he is saying. It's just history.

The rest you can refute by correlation does not necessarily equal causation, without going any deeper into any of the financial crises nor what the blogger had for breakfast. And I would be the first to concede that (causality may have been implied but not stated by the way).

An additional point were the protectionist tariffs implemented, which by all modern economic thinking is disastrous for the economy, you can thank the orange shining man for that little gold nugget, MAGA.

And forgive me for saying so, you seem to have inadequate tools to speak about the last financial crisis.

I would suggest considering why CDOs (collateralized debt obligations, derivatives) were allowed to be traded as financial instruments without holding very much collateral at all for security, then go to the Basel Agreement from there, the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act (that happened under Clinton, but was a GOP initiative passing in a GOP majority Senate and House) and the repeal of the net capital rule under Bush.

As per usual with financial crises, there is no one main cause for it, I think we can all agree on that. Nevertheless, a Dem controlled government during those times, as opposed to the laissez-faire policies of the GOP, would have prevented many of the underlying causes likely.

Since I'm awake, and entirely bored, I decided to share a story to @DalaiLama.

There was a guy once. On a dark and stormy night. Wait, nevermind, the sun was shining.

He was quite skeptical and suspicious of all things. When told the sky was blue, he researched and googled who had said so. Turns out, the top link was a random interview by a news crew of a pedestrian on some street.

Through intense research (if you want to demean research by calling this that), he found out that the man was a mere plumber, entirely unqualified to give the sky the colour blue.

He started to feverishly see if there was anyone with the dual PhD degrees of physics and medicine, specialising in optical spectroscopy and eye surgery. On planet Earth at least, there was no one, it seemed.

'Curses!' he cursed.

'Now how will I ever know if the sky is blue? Surely the plumber is wrong. I will dedicate my life to championing the colour purple for the sky. I will demean and beat up every video game forum poster who says the sky is blue, by pointing out his lack of credibility and lack of credentials! Mwahahahah'

The End

Oh, the man died a lonely death in his mum's basement. She shaved his neckbeard for the funeral though, so all good.

The Actual End

Ps. Points for anyone who can tell us why the sky isn't purple? Or indeed, why the sky should be purple?

For many NeverTrumpers, if someone were to say "if Donald said the sky were purple, the sky would indeed appear as purple for his supporters," they'd actually believe such nonsense.

Sad!

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For many in this thread, if Donald said the sky were purple, the sky would indeed appear as purple for them.

I know, right? :)

That orange man is made of Teflon, I swear. Nothing sticks to him. All the dirt and grime just slides off, with some lame excuses about 'locker-room talk'.

It also causes cancer. Like the donald.

I wonder what kind of mental acrobatics you have to perform if you are a Christian Trump supporter?

Oh wait, this is a good list from a professor of theology in an ivy-league college, darthmouth:

Trump's commandments, i.e. the evangelicals new code of ethics:

1. Lying is all right as long as it serves a higher purpose
2. It’s no problem to be married more than, well, twice
3. Immigrants are scum
4. Vulgarity is a sign of strength and resolve
5. White lives matter (much more than others)
6. There’s no harm in spending time with porn stars
7. It’s all right for adults to date children
8. The ends justify the means

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rojimboo wrote:

Trump's commandments, i.e. the evangelicals new code of ethics:
1. Lying is all right as long as it serves a higher purpose
2. It’s no problem to be married more than, well, twice
4. Vulgarity is a sign of strength and resolve
6. There’s no harm in spending time with porn stars
7. It’s all right for adults to date children
8. The ends justify the means

If you omit the two entries involving identity politics, it looks a lot like stuff lefties have believed for a couple decades now. Why are you opposed to modernizing reforms to the Evangelical movement?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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rojimboo wrote:

Trump's commandments, i.e. the evangelicals new code of ethics:
1. Lying is all right as long as it serves a higher purpose
2. It’s no problem to be married more than, well, twice
4. Vulgarity is a sign of strength and resolve
6. There’s no harm in spending time with porn stars
7. It’s all right for adults to date children
8. The ends justify the means

If you omit the two entries involving identity politics, it looks a lot like stuff lefties have believed for a couple decades now. Why are you opposed to modernizing reforms to the Evangelical movement?

aaaaand...Brilliant!

By the way, how is adults dating children, 'modernizing' the Evangelical church?

Surely that's going backwards...?

Anyways, I personally have no huge problems with anything on that list, except maybe the children part (ewww).

Then again, I wouldn't like a guy, who approves of those things, to lead a nation.

And I definitely wouldn't find him likeable.

The whole point of course is that Christian voters demonised sinful Democrats, but can't see the massive piece of dead wood stuck in their eye.

It's just nice to see their hypocrisy so fully exposed, it's quite yummy actually. Yum yum yum.

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rojimboo wrote:

Since I'm awake, and entirely bored, I decided to share a story to @DalaiLama.

There was a guy once. On a dark and stormy night. Wait, nevermind, the sun was shining.

He was quite skeptical and suspicious of all things. When told the sky was blue, he researched and googled who had said so.

Change that to say "When told that the sky was orange during 2007-2008, and he knew from personal business experience, and lots of deep analysis conducted in the intermediate period afterwards, that this was not so."

Picture the year 2048, and reading on the internet that in 2016-2018 Trump was popular with everyone, and how much silicon valley, and celebrities loved him, and that the resistance marches were a myth. From your own personal experience in the present, what sort of "expert" would convince you?

If economies were such simple things, we wouldn't need investment brokers.

It wasn't the collapse of Lehman Brothers that destroyed the economy. The economy was weak and fragile after that, but still hanging on with hope of a turn around. It was the intentional collapse of Washington Mutual by the Fed that shattered the economic will of the nation and plunged it into darkness. Without that, the economy would have teetered and slowly absorbed the losses from lending. There was a lot of expert analysis during that time, investigations and court cases.

I could try to find online sources for you, but it isn't anything I've done much internet sleuthing on. At the time of the financial crisis, I was running a multi-state company that had just started branching out into international business. The complete lack of consumer and investor confidence ended up doing more damage than anything else at that time.

The loose money supply wasn't just a federal issue. It was prevalent in some of the states as well, with banks being pressured to loan out as much money as possible for local real estate. There were banks telling people to forge information on their loan applications so they could borrow more money than their income and credit would allow. The mindset was the rising house price would offset the loan prices, and get the buyer and the bank off any potential hook.

Any economic bubble can bring optimism, but unless there is some productive growth, it won't be sustained and there will be a collapse. The laws at the the time can play a small part, but they aren't the cause or the cure. They can certainly make things better or worse, but they are rarely the underlying cause.

It's all fun and games and opinions vs opinions until lots of people's jobs depend on your business decisions, and your understanding of the economy is key to making good business decisions.

If you want a better perspective on the internet "expertise" vs real world experience - have some conversations with successful stockbrokers, CPAs and Hedge Fund managers about "the economy" then compare the tone and content of what they talk about with what "experts" claim to know.

The online experts are often like the NYT 30 minute Path of Exile play test vs Mathil's understanding.

Mrs. Maccioni's Fruitcake
The Chef
EGIDIANA MACCIONI of Le Cirque

Servings
Serves eight.

Ingredients
1 cup mixed candied fruit
1 cup raisins
6 tablespoons cognac
2 and a 1/2 sticks (10 ounces) butter, plus extra for pans
2 cups all-purpose flour plus extra for pans
4 whole eggs, separated
3 egg yolks
1 and a 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Cooking Instructions
Soak the candied fruit and raisins in the cognac overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 2 loaf pans, about 10 by 4 by 4 inches.

Place the 7 egg yolks, butter, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, and whisk until pale and creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk the 4 egg whites until stiff. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Drain the cognac from the dried fruit, and toss the fruit and zest in the flour until coated. Gently fold the fruit and flour into the butter-egg mixture until combined. Fold in the beaten egg whites. Transfer the mixture to the 2 prepared pans, and bake for about 1 hour, or until cake is golden brown and a wooden skewer inserted in center comes out dry.