The Official Obama Scorecard Thread

[CaneBrain 95]

crosspost from the debt thread in OT:Apparently, if Congress fails to figure out a deal, the President has a few arcane, legal options:http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/28/balk....html?hpt=hp_t2"Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there's a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.Ironically, there's no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds."Trillion dollar coins! Problem solved!

[FCP Bob 1,321]

crosspost from the debt thread in OT:Apparently, if Congress fails to figure out a deal, the President has a few arcane, legal options:http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/07/28/balk....html?hpt=hp_t2"Are there other ways for the president to raise money besides borrowing?Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there's a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.Ironically, there's no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds."Trillion dollar coins! Problem solved!

The major problem I see with this idea is the high cost for vending machine companies to convert their existing machines over to take the new coin.

[Dagata 0]

The major problem I see with this idea is the high cost for vending machine companies to convert their existing machines over to take the new coin.

This. and of courseOceans 14

[hblask 1]

It'll be interesting to see how the Democrats blame this one on Bush.After all, we recovered (at least that what Obama keeps telling us) and had all-Democrat rule since the recovery.Ready, set, spin!

[FCP Bob 1,321]

It'll be interesting to see how the Democrats blame this one on Bush.After all, we recovered (at least that what Obama keeps telling us) and had all-Democrat rule since the recovery.Ready, set, spin!

Would be nice for intelligent people to take the politics out of this stuff and stop the blame game but of course that will never happen. It was his fault no it was your fault no it was their fault. What you should take from it is that this recession was different and far worse than anybody thought. From Conservative David Frum's TwitterdavidfrumdavidfrumSeems economic growth in US is again grinding to a halt. Obviously what we need to do is stop the govt from buying stuff and paying people.

[Balloon guy 158]

davidfrumdavidfrumSeems economic growth in US is again grinding to a halt. Obviously what we need to do is stop the govt from buying stuff and paying people.

What's better?To have an economy that is based on normal market actions?Or to have an economy dependent on massive government spending?

[hblask 1]

Would be nice for intelligent people to take the politics out of this stuff and stop the blame game but of course that will never happen. It was his fault no it was your fault no it was their fault. What you should take from it is that this recession was different and far worse than anybody thought. From Conservative David Frum's TwitterdavidfrumdavidfrumSeems economic growth in US is again grinding to a halt. Obviously what we need to do is stop the govt from buying stuff and paying people.

I think the federal government has a brake pedal. You can let the economy go, or you can step on the brake with bad policies. I don't think the govt can accelerate growth except by slowing it down less. So to the extent that policies hamper growth, it is their fault. This goes back a decade.My main point, though, was to watch the hilarity of the Dems trying to pin this on Bush. It should be humorous.

[CaneBrain 95]

My main point, though, was to watch the hilarity of the Dems trying to pin this on Bush. It should be humorous.

I know because they should be pinning it on the private sector for causing the collapse of 2008.

[hblask 1]

I know because they should be pinning it on the private sector for causing the collapse of 2008.

You know, it's curious that the sector that had a major collapse was the sector that was micromanaged by the federal government and had rules that encouraged ridiculous risks.But yeah, it was the private sector. Must be all those farmers and steel-workers and fry cooks doing their job wrong.Or maybe mis-regulation of the mortgage industry had just a tiny, tiny bit to do with it.

[CaneBrain 95]

You know, it's curious that the sector that had a major collapse was the sector that was let run amok by the federal government and had no rules that un-encouraged ridiculous risks.But yeah, it was the private sector. Must be all those farmers and steel-workers and fry cooks taking loans they should not have.Or maybe de-regulation of the mortgage industry and, more importantly, de-regulation of securities generally had a lot to do with it.

fypthe fact that you (and so many others) still feel that the mortgages themselves were the biggest problem is depressing. We have housing bubbles all the time. We don't usually wildly exacerbate them with what imo was widespread securities fraud.

[hblask 1]

fypthe fact that you (and so many others) still feel that the mortgages themselves were the biggest problem is depressing. We have housing bubbles all the time. We don't usually wildly exacerbate them with what imo was widespread securities fraud.

It's crazy that you think the financial sector had few regulations. It is one of the most regulated industries in the country after health care and education.Why do these "market failures" keep happening in the industries with the most government involvement? Just another coincidence?I guess that's an improvement from the old "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but the "just another coincidence" theory is getting old, too.If the refs at a basketball game stop calling fouls on one team and that team starts committing more fouls, is that a failure of that team's strategy or a failure of the referees?The bolded confirms that -- the referees looked away while the players did what the referees allowed and even encouraged.

[CaneBrain 95]

I agree that regulations are only good if people are willing to enforce them. I wish the GOP (the refs in your scenario) had not just decided to let business do their thang. I'm sorry if I didn't make this clear but not having any rules and not enforcing any rules end up amounting to the same thing---a lack of regulation by the government. If I have 1000 rules and enforce 7 of them, sure it may appear I actually have lots of regulation but, in reality, I don't.However, this oversight by the GOP from 2002-2008 is still small potatoes compared to the most powerful part of the private sector knowingly breaking and bending every rule we had. The way you try and excuse people committing fraud by saying that "regulations by the government made them do it" is ridiculous.

[SilentSnow 1]

It's crazy that you think the financial sector had few regulations. It is one of the most regulated industries in the country after health care and education.Why do these "market failures" keep happening in the industries with the most government involvement? Just another coincidence?I guess that's an improvement from the old "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but the "just another coincidence" theory is getting old, too.If the refs at a basketball game stop calling fouls on one team and that team starts committing more fouls, is that a failure of that team's strategy or a failure of the referees?The bolded confirms that -- the referees looked away while the players did what the referees allowed and even encouraged.

Once again you have things wildly wrong. The reason these industries are highly regulated is because they are complex and tend to be the most criminal. They are constantly finding new ways to rip people off and put the nation at risk. You contradict yourself. Your basketball analogy is an argument in favor of more regulation, not less. Also, the analogy implies that the financial industry is composed of criminals that must constantly be watched. Well, I guess I might be able to agree with that part. 6 of the main causes of the financial crisis were--Repeal of the Glass-Steagall act. That's right. LESS regulation directly helped lead to disaster by greatly increasing the ability of companies to take on risks they had no ability to properly manage.-Credit default swaps. You should go read the entire wikipedia article about them. Summary- an absolute disaster in every way and one of the main causes of the crisis. Here's a paragraph you should particularly note-"Mindful of the concentration of default risk as one of the causes of the S&L crisis , regulators initially found CDS's ability to disperse default risk attractive.[40] In 2000, credit default swaps became largely exempt from regulation by both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which was also responsible for the Enron loophole ,[4] specifically stated that CDSs are neither futures nor securities and so are outside the remit of the SEC and CFTC."-Derivatives. See CDS. Also almost completely unregulated and incredibly risky when used to acquire risk and not hedge against it. When the "value" of derivatives is worth much more than total world wealth then you know that things went insanely wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Total_wo...s_1998-2007.gif-Housing Crash. This was a part of the problem, but the idea that the government caused it is extremely misleading. The overwhelming majority of bad loans were made by corrupt private banks that were not required to by the government. The only thing the government could have done to stop it would have been to put in place much stricter regulations, something you are opposed to. -Energy/Resource cost increases. This one wasn't caused by too little regulation, but it didn't help that energy companies literally got to write the government policies in their favor. -Criminal behavior by the financial industry in general. Thanks to the new financial options that became widespread, simple theft and fraud was much easier to disguise. There was quite a lot of this as well.

[Balloon guy 158]

I agree that regulations are only good if people are willing to enforce them. I wish the GOP (the refs in your scenario) had not just decided to let business do their thang. I'm sorry if I didn't make this clear but not having any rules and not enforcing any rules end up amounting to the same thing---a lack of regulation by the government. If I have 1000 rules and enforce 7 of them, sure it may appear I actually have lots of regulation but, in reality, I don't.However, this oversight by the GOP from 2002-2008 is still small potatoes compared to the most powerful part of the private sector knowingly breaking and bending every rule we had. The way you try and excuse people committing fraud by saying that "regulations by the government made them do it" is ridiculous.

The GOP was only controlling the house and senate in 2 of those years, at the beginning.And I remember that Bush made 7 different attempts to have the financial situation in the housing market scrutinized but was denied by the dems in power.I of course am going by memory on the Bush thing, and irregardless I don't excuse him for identifying something wrong and not making it job one to address it because of the importance.But the dems had the power to put a stop to the whole thing before the peek through 2010 even if Bush wanted to protect the financial idiots who crashed things and didn't do anything.So let's not lay this all on the GOP like the poor dems were waiting on the sidelines wanting to help but were stopped by rich republicans who didn't care if their districts housing markets were about to collapse.

[CaneBrain 95]

The GOP was only controlling the house and senate in 2 of those years, at the beginning.And I remember that Bush made 7 different attempts to have the financial situation in the housing market scrutinized but was denied by the dems in power.I of course am going by memory on the Bush thing, and irregardless I don't excuse him for identifying something wrong and not making it job one to address it because of the importance.But the dems had the power to put a stop to the whole thing before the peek through 2010 even if Bush wanted to protect the financial idiots who crashed things and didn't do anything.So let's not lay this all on the GOP like the poor dems were waiting on the sidelines wanting to help but were stopped by rich republicans who didn't care if their districts housing markets were about to collapse.

Assigning Barney Frank and House Democrats a small, but significant slice of responsibility would be perfectly reasonable.

[hblask 1]

I wish the GOP (the refs in your scenario) had not just decided to let business do their thang.

[citation needed]The regulators at the time included a bunch of Obama's pals, like Geithner.

[hblask 1]

If I have 1000 rules and enforce 7 of them, sure it may appear I actually have lots of regulation but, in reality, I don't.

So if the referees in a football game stop calling holding, and the linemen start holding, is that a failure of the linemen or the referees?Because this started with you claiming it was a failure of the free market, but now you seem to be contradicting that.

[hblask 1]

The GOP was only controlling the house and senate in 2 of those years, at the beginning.And I remember that Bush made 7 different attempts to have the financial situation in the housing market scrutinized but was denied by the dems in power.I of course am going by memory on the Bush thing, and irregardless I don't excuse him for identifying something wrong and not making it job one to address it because of the importance.But the dems had the power to put a stop to the whole thing before the peek through 2010 even if Bush wanted to protect the financial idiots who crashed things and didn't do anything.So let's not lay this all on the GOP like the poor dems were waiting on the sidelines wanting to help but were stopped by rich republicans who didn't care if their districts housing markets were about to collapse.

Here, let me jog your memory about

.

[brvheart 1,759]

Here, let me jog your memory about

.

Oh shit.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Here, let me jog your memory about

.

I watched just a few minutes, but it seems that Pelosi was talking about the private financial sector in general and the Republicans were talking specifically about regulating Frannie/Freddie, no?

[CaneBrain 95]

I watched just a few minutes, but it seems that Pelosi was talking about the private financial sector in general and the Republicans were talking specifically about regulating Frannie/Freddie, no?

exactly. Fannie and Freddie were a tiny piece of the puzzle and completely uninvolved in the more damaging part of the crisis---the securitization and re-insurance of B- loans rated incorrectly at AAA.

[CaneBrain 95]

So if the referees in a football game stop calling holding, and the linemen start holding, is that a failure of the linemen or the referees?

Yeah, now the analogy doesn't work. Lineman holding in a football game and people committing fraud is like comparing apples and elephants.

[brvheart 1,759]

Isn't that the whole point of an analogy?

[hblask 1]

exactly. Fannie and Freddie were a tiny piece of the puzzle and completely uninvolved in the more damaging part of the crisis---the securitization and re-insurance of B- loans rated incorrectly at AAA.

So yeah, the referees refused to do their job, despite the R's best attempts to get them to do so. What part of that are you missing?

[hblask 1]

Yeah, now the analogy doesn't work. Lineman holding in a football game and people committing fraud is like comparing apples and elephants.

Only by degree. That's the point of analogies, to change the scale of an issue to make it more understandable.EDIT: Brv beat me to it.