jjamie12
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Posts posted by jjamie12
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Fine, but as a comparative number to, say, the past year or two,, that revision is pretty astonishingly off, no?
I don't think so, LA. Most economists (at least the ones I've read or heard) think about the initial jobs report as something that you can either add 80K or subtract 80K from. I haven't looked at the revisions from this year or last, but I think if you go back over time, you'd see that 58K one way or the other would be something that happens somewhat frequently.
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A similar article from CNN in August.
http://www.cnn.com/2...-russia-detroit
Was Mitt Romney right about Detroit and Russia?
FTA:
Romney had different ideas than the president about the war on terror, and he also had outspoken ideas on Russia, which he told Wolf Blitzer on CNN in March of 2012 was "without question our number one geopolitical foe."
His statement drew snickers in Washington and complaints in foreign policy circles that he was stuck in the Cold War.
"You don't call Russia our No. 1 enemy -- not al Qaeda, Russia -- unless you're still stuck in a Cold War mind warp," President Barack Obama said at the Democratic National Convention last September.
The president probably still wouldn't call Russia this country's top foe. But now that Russia has given NSA leaker Edward Snowden a year of asylum, and the two countries can't find accord on Syria or Iran, he might choose not to put the line in his convention speech.
"Now is the time to fundamentally rethink our relationship with Putin's Russia," Sen. John McCain said upon hearing news of Snowden's asylum. "We need to deal with the Russia that is, not the Russia we might wish for. We cannot allow today's action by [Russian President Vladimir Putin] to stand without serious repercussions."
"Russia has stabbed us in the back," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat. He called on Obama to protest by demanding the upcoming G-20 summit for world economic powers be moved away from Russia.
Romney's much-cited New York Times op-ed argued the car industry should be shepherded into a managed bankruptcy and not propped up with taxpayer dollars.
The headline of Romney's op-ed in November 2008 was "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." That headline followed him all the way to November of 2012 when he lost the election.
Romney's argument in the opinion piece was directed at the car industry, but it foreshadowed last month's news that the Detroit the city, once the powerhouse of the American economy, was going bankrupt.
Mitt Romney has spent his life being right about most everything he's put thought into. It's not surprising that he would be right about these particular things, too.
But his wife has a horse and he isn't 'relatable', so we didn't vote for him.
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i read "the common picture of the fast food worker is inaccurate...". did you read something else?
I just read a WSJ editorial that directly contradicts this article.
From WSJ and According to BLS:
71% of min wage workers in the restaurant industry are under the age of 25.
47% are teenagers.
57% of industry workers are students. (Gee, I wonder why the average hours worked per week in the article is 26.4?)
Because of the above (most especially the third point), that "yearly income of the average worker" of $12K from the article just doesn't makes sense. It makes even less sense to compare it to the poverty line of $11K.
Just thought I'd throw it out there to anyone who wishes to be informed.
I realize that the article is talking about 'fast-food' vs. the industry. You must also realize that any changes to law aren't going to only apply to 'fast-food' places.
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http://www.grantland...option-football
Great article about Marrone and the uptick in use of "Package Plays" in the NFL. Something to look for on Game Day.
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this article talks about the biggest reason for higher estimates: http://m.usatoday.co...le/news/2021963. "much of the reason for higher claims cost is that sicker people are expected to join the pool..." wow. imagine that. a healthcare system that takes care of and insures the sickest patients. just ridiculous! we should be cherrypicking the healthy to insure. it's much cheaper and we can make more profit.
It's a good thing birdog1960 can read these articles now to tell us that our health insurance costs are going to go up.
If only someone could have predicted that before this law was passed on the (erroneous) premise that it would lower premiums.
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I didn't give it the name "Black Culture". Black men such as Bill Cosby, Don Lemon, Michael Eric Dyson, Damon Young, John McWhorter, Thomas Chatterton Williams, and hundereds of other black intellectuals have. They have done so because they have seen the overwhelming majority of their racial group participate in this culture.
The above do not define the entirety of 'Black culture' as simply the poor traits that you've confined this discussion to.
You have taken the worst traits of individuals and defined it as the entirety of the 'Black culture'.
There's a difference, and it's important.
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A few things:
1. I don't think TYTT or 3rdnlng are racists.
2. The words you use matter.
3. When you take some of the worst traits about individual people and give it the name 'Black' culture, you are (intentionally or not), at a bare minimum, inferring (if not outright saying it) that those poor traits are 'Black' in nature. That's not OK.
4. By definition, 3rd, if you are Black, you are part of Black culture. Your argument about being African-American or Black but not participating in Black Culture is just silly. By your own silly arguments, you should be able to see that the very idea of 'Black Culture' being reduced to the above mentioned traits is silly.
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if it were all about the money, why would he even go to med school at all?
No one thinks it's ALL about the money. YOU refuse to accept the idea that money is PART OF the incentive to be a doctor. Blindly dismissing the very idea that health care quaility *might* be affected becase of changing incentives ignores everything we know about human nature.
As soon as you admit this very obvious thing, we can all (maybe) start to have the very real discussion about how big of an issue it might be.
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you cons just refuse to believe that people actually do noble and extraordinary things for reasons other than financial gain. why is that so difficult for you to accept? or is it that it doesn't neatly fit in your philosophy?
Jesus Effing Christ. NO ONE believes that there are NO "..people who do noble and extraordinary things for reasons other than financial gain".
Part of the incentives for people going into medicine is financial. It is YOU who can't accept that when you lower those incentives you will, BY DEFINITION, decrease the incentive for people to go into medicine. Since you refuse to accept that very basic and obvious truism, we can't ever get past that to have the real and important discussions. You're the problem. Not 'them'.
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That sort of thing happens a LOT in DC. I know one guy who worked for a large contractor for a couple years, then they encouraged him to create his own start-up consulting company. Then - long story short and lots of shady maneuvering omitted - the large contractor ended using this guy's "minority-owned small business" as a front to bid on small business set-asides they wouldn't get otherwise, requiring the guy I knew to do nothing more than stand there and be black.
So - black folks are still being exploited by white people with some help from the construct of laws?
Weird.
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...and it doesn't matter, people's group plans will not cease to exist Jan 1...
Except we now know (some even predicted that this would happen... imagine that) that this is absolutely false. Plenty of people's group plans are going to cease to exist and they'll be forced to the individual exchanges.
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...Tecnically, the President was not lying, these things changed before the ACA and will continue to change after.
That is not what the President meant or inferred. Nor was that how the 'the people' understood it with respect to passage of the ACA. In fact, one of the only ways this thing was passed was under the guise of "don't worry, nothing is going to change for those of you who currently have insurance". That was always clearly wrong. At best, the President doesn't/didn't understand how the market would react to this massive bill.
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the drug bill passed during the bush administration specifically disallowed medicare from negotiating en masse for drug prices. look it up. (here's that bleeding heart liberal, bruce bartlett commenting on that bill: http://www.forbes.co...e-bartlett.html) that's a subsidy. and big pharma is still saying "thanks george! you know your people when you see em".
can we agree that the scientists that make the discoveries and enable the development of new wonder drugs rarely make the big bucks (see the thread on science majors for unsolicited opinions)? can we agree that they almost always give up rights to intellectual property when they sign on (as they do at govt orgs and universities)? can we agree that it would be possible to give them the same or better incentives at the nih of nsf to do the same work but focused on the development of drugs/ devices/procedures that are generally agreed to likely be cost effective and beneficial to society rather than patent extenders or me too's? i suppose we'll agree to disagree.
Yes. Everything you said is, theoretically, possible. Great job.
I tried. I really did. I'll stop now.
So you've determined that inventors and cutting edge scientits are also good business people? Further you've determined that good business people aren't central to supply, marketing, and distribution?
Nope. None of that matters. Profit-driven medicine is evil and nothing good ever came of it. Furthermore, we can (and should!) completely take away the profit motive and employ some scientists in government and NOTHING will be different! We'll get the same amount of innovation, it will just cost less! AND the scientists will be the ones with the cool cars! Won't it be great?
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so what happens if we stop? ya think big pharma folds it's tents and goes home?
Can we at least agree that, at a minimum, that this would provide less incentive to create new drugs?
Further, can we both agree that, by definition, this will mean that we'll get less innovation because of it?
Right?
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if this is true, then why foot drag on refi's as is alleged? why push people into forclosure, when by your reasoning refi would be better for everyone? because, at the time, it was not. boa found they could do better going through the foreclosure process or cornering people into higher rate internal refi's that save the homeowners nothing then offering refi's through the gov't program that they were contractually obliged to assist with.in regards, to your first paragraph, i guess your arguing that because $25 billion isn't a relatively large hit to companies with bigger balance sheets than a large number of nations, that it's not much money. and by extension, not important....too big to fail indeed - that's the problem.
Everything I wrote was in response to the later theme in this thread that developed that "The Banks MUST have been doing something wrong, why else would they settle?" As folks have been trying to point out to you: Because it made more sense, business-wise to settle than to fight it. Everyone wins.
In response to the earlier portion of your post -- You actually answered your own question: Because it's more profitable to lend to the same borrower at a higher rate than at a lower rate. IE: "Internal" refis vs. HAMP refis. By the way, I'm not excusing B of A's alleged misdeeds on the referened CNBC article. If those allegations turn out to be true, I hope they come down extremely hard on them. My guess, though, is that the allegations are somewhat overblown and what we're really talking about are low-level managers of the people who deal with the customers and paperwork put into place some bad incentive structures, and/or were responding to incentive structures of their own that weren't thought out properly. I'd be HIGHLY surprised, if, for instance, there was a directive coming from a position of any relative authority that said "Don't process HAMP applications, let them sit in a stack and then lie to customers about it".
Also, part of the huge problem with the early stages of HAMP was they way that (surprise, surprise!) the gov't designed the program. To keep it simple -- The reason the early HAMP (and other HAMP-type programs) didn't work was because the risk continued to be with the banks that originated that modification, whether or not they sold the loan or whether or not they followed the guidelines properly. When the gov't finally came out with the HAMP 3 (or whatever iteration it was) they finally got it correct by having the risk of the loan going into default ultimately come down to whomever bought and owned the loan.
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so far, the settlement from all banks involved has been about $25 billion. in what universe is that a pittance? and that's before these new allegations even came to light. you think maybe there's a chance more suits are to follow? and neither side in the settlement apparently agreed with you that robosigning was nonsense.
See, this right here is the problem. i don't think you understand what you're talking about. I might be wrong, but the settlement you've been referencing all along was $9.3 BN, NOT $26. I *think* the $26 BN you're now talking about was a reference (I think -- since it doesn't seem like you fully understand how all this works, it's really hard to know exactly what you're trying to say) to the amount of $$ available to banks for the HAMP program.
Even if it WERE $26 BN, you still don't seem to understand that $26 BN actually IS a pittance. The three main banks (JPM/Wells/B of A) made $44.7 BN in 2012. So you might look at this and say "See! This fine (even though that's not the right amount) was more than half a year's income for those greedy evil banksters... I'm glad the gov't is sticking it to them!" That's exactly what the AGs want you, Mr. Joe Public to think. What you, Mr. Joe Public doesn't understand is that they've been putting money away for years to pay for these settlements that they knew were coming and that the $44.7 Bn they made in 2012 on top of the billions and billions of dollars they've made over the past 3-4 years is over and above the 'huge' penalty they now face. This wasn't their first rodeo, cowboy.
See how nice that is for everyone? Attorneys General, knowing their case is not nearly as strong as their inflammatory statements, love to throw a shiny object in front of the people so they're convinced "something is being done!" Not to mention the mileage that these AG's get out of this settlement when they inevitably make their Congressional/Senatorial/Gubernatorial run a few years from now. And Banks, God bless 'em -- They know how this works, too: It looks bad for them, even though they didn't *really* do a whole lot wrong, so they're willing to settle for a relative pittance (for them). The last thing any of these people want is a long protracted legal battle. The Banks because it's bad for their Brand. The AGs because they know that they probably won't win, or, at the least, won't win in any significant way... Isn't it great?
the checks ranged from 300-125000 dollars in this smaller settlement.. recission of foreclosure was also included in some cases. that's a pretty big deal if you were foreclosed against. think the banks would have done that on their own? http://occ.gov/topic...-practices.html
This isn't the 'smaller' settlement. This is the settlement that you've been talking about, no?
Edit: Now I see what you're talking about -- You're talking about the settlement where the bank's agreed to refi people rather than foreclose on them -- They agreed to put aside $26 BN or so to do the re-financings. That wasn't a 'fine', though. That's the banks re-financing under-water mortgages and such. Banks will, generally, come out way ahead on that deal, too because they'll continue to earn interest and fees on those loans that they modify. See the shiny object theory from above.
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i took tasker's point to be that defensibility was not an issue. that's what he challenged me on. i say it's a big issue. especially in this case for the reasons outlined. but i'm not at all sure why anyone reading the exchange would miss that. are you on the wrong page?
One could easily take the opposite position of yours and say: "Well if the case against these companies is so strong and the American people have been so harmed, why would the AG's settle for such a relative pittance"?
Didn't the settlement amount come out to something like $800 per foreclosed customer or something?
Ultimately no one can really get past the truth that 99.99% of the people who were foreclosed on weren't paying their mortgage and, independent of all the other robo-signing nonsense, that's what matters.
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No, read John Adam's post (#49) above. Tea Party isn't endorsing them, it is more like they are claiming association with the movement. One huge mistake they made was not making it clear that Bachmann, Palin, etc do not speak for the party...
If what you say is true then why didn't they 'make it clear'? I don't buy the idea that Bachman and Palin hijacked the Tea Party. If the 'Tea Party' didn't like them, I'm quite confident 'they' would have made those feeling clear, and in a very public way. It's not like these folks are afraid to speak their mind...
The problem is that the Tea Party's general platform on economic matters is very rigid (which is fine) with little room for compromise (Really smart people might even argue that 'compromise' is what got us in the 'debt mess' in the first place). It's not surprising, though, that people who are generally rigid in their thinking on economic matters would also be generally rigid in their thinking on social issues, as well. Throw in the general notion that Fiscal Conservatives tend to be (note I said 'tend', I didn't say that all) Socially Conservative and, voila -- You've got rigid social conservatives representing the Tea Party, alienating lots of people with their perceived crazy.
I understand why you and 3rdnlng and a few others *want* the Tea Party to be what you want it to be, I just think you'd have better luck with the Libertarians.
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The left has consistantly tried to brand the Tea Party as racists, far right evangelicals, and any extreme they can think of. Simply put, if you read the various Tea Party mission statements you will find that they explicitly state that they take no position on social issues. They are concerned with national debt and are big on the Constitution.
The only issue with this is that, no matter what is in any of the various Tea Party mission statements, they are backing people that are absolutely taking positions on social issues, oftentimes in a really clumsy and alienating way to people who might otherwise vote for those people. People will always associate any 'party' with the people they back. The Tea Party is no exception to that.
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You know my son jeffrey is moving up at the parks department.
If that doesn't work out, I hear that Bloomingdale's has a wonderful executive training program.
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Who cares if it's really him? It's all about framing the issue for maximum political gain. Isn't that way the left wing media kept posting that picture of the 12 year old?
I kind of always assume that every media outlet does whatever they think will get them the most eyeballs/clicks/$$.
What do you think? These pictures have already been posted in this thread and the myths discussed.
Hate It Or Love it, I thought you were just goofing around until you posted an ACTUAL picture of the 12 yr old Trayvon...
If those pictures have already been posted in this thread and discussed, why are you re-posting them?
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Trayvon the 12 year old. I think he was going by the name of "Bambi" then.
Wait... You're not joking? You really think that picture three posts up is Trayvon Martin? Or are you just playing a Game?
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From a purely legal standpoint I've seen nothing that establishes Zimmerman's guilt for murder 2 beyond a reasonable doubt.
I don't know all the legalese, but I can't possibly imagine myself convicting him. (Of course, that assumes that there is nothing new discovered at trial).
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Wish I could say the same for yours.
Or you don't live in a place where people walk behind you.
Really? That's what you've got? Slap your forehead all you want, people 'walking behind you' isn't the same as 'being followed'. I suspect you know that already, though.
Wealthy people seen begging, standing in soup lines
in Politics, Polls, and Pundits
Posted
You've got it wrong. The 'morons' here have been arguing that President Obama's plans will actually hurt the poor and middle class. That has been a consistent theme here. So far, you'd have to say they were right. The wealthy are doing just fine. It's the poor and middle class that have gotten squeezed, just like folks here predicted.