The Trump Economy

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, GG said:

 

That's why it's not an either or situation.  Comprehensive immigration reform needs to happen and then you can leave border patrol and law enforcement tackling the serious issues.   A wall without reforming the laws in the end will be a stupid and futile gesture

 

Absolutely they both need to happen.  But, should the "reform" happen prior to enacting structural changes to better control illegal immigration then we'll simply repeat the '87 amnesty.

 

Those changes (aka the wall & enforcement improvements) don't need to be fully implemented before fixing our highly flawed immigration laws & policies; but they do need to be started in a materially significant manner as a good faith measure.

[keepthefaith]

2 hours ago, GG said:

 

The main reason the illegals are drawn to the US is purely because there's a huge mismatch between labor demand and supply.  There aren't enough Americans who are willing or able to do the work that's supplied by the foreign workforce. 

 

Not entirely true.  If illegal immigrant labor is reduced due to greater enforcement, wages for the jobs many illegal immigrants do will have to rise to attract workers.  Nothing wrong with that.  Supply and demand.  So your hotel might cost another $5 a night, your seafood dinner a couple extra bucks and the same with getting your lawn mowed.  We have millions of unemployed inner city teens and young adults in this country who don't work in part because so many jobs in particularly sanctuary cities are filled with an over abundance of non-citizen labor.  There may be some carve outs for seasonal demand that make sense but we absolutely need to reduce the unskilled labor force.  We have a 55% labor participation rate in this country among 16-24 year olds.  Park yourself in the south side of Chicago among a bunch of parents of young people and ask them how they feel about city sanctuary policies that reduce the opportunities their kids desperately need.  You'll get an earful. 

 

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm

 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

8 hours ago, GG said:

You were talking about Reagan amnesty and I was talking about Bush's proposal for legal and lengthy process for people who are already here and would not be deported in any case.

 

Do you ever take more than a second to come up with an answer without looking at the whole picture? 

 

The main reason the illegals are drawn to the US is purely because there's a huge mismatch between labor demand and supply.  There aren't enough Americans who are willing or able to do the work that's supplied by the foreign workforce.  Everybody who's put in 10 seconds of real research instead of listening to the moron Ann Coulters of this world recognize that is the problem.   And the solution isn't to punish businesses who hire these workers but to change the ***** laws that encourage legal migration, with more incentives to temporary workers. 

 

You're one of the idiots who's the first to complain about the evils of mandating a $15/hr minimum wage and then in the next breath you're supporting cutting off a major source of supply of low skilled labor.  What do you think will happen to businesses that rely on that labor pool?  Do you think they'll be able to immediately fill those jobs or will they immediately go out of business?

 

Stop listening to morons who haven't a clue and try to understand the whole picture.  There's a huge imbalance of labor supply and demand.  The immigration quotas haven't been updated in decades despite big economic growth.  US policies also encouraged destabilization of Central American countries, where ordinary citizens are starving or are robbed.  What the hell do you think will happen in that situation?  And your only solution to that is to build a ***** wall?   Seriously?

 

All of this was discussed and the outcome predicted to a tee in 2007.    And like the moron socialists on the other side you continue to believe that all you need now is a ***** bigger wall.

 

I'm not a wall freak. To me the wall is a symbol. The real meat is in punishing those businesses which break the law. And if those businesses can't adjust within the framework of the law, then they deserve to go belly up. I'm tired of our society catering to business owners who think they're above the law.

 

I know your leanings, you thought the bank bailouts were a brilliant idea. You proclaim yourself a capitalist. I call bull. You're a socialist, only you think the taxpayers and working classes should support the wealthy. 

 

And THAT is what this is about. It's about maintaining profit margins artificially for business owners rather than letting the markets and innovation handle the problem. And the cost of that policy? The watering down of our culture.  No thanks. 

[Foxx]

6 hours ago, keepthefaith said:

 

Not entirely true.  If illegal immigrant labor is reduced due to greater enforcement, wages for the jobs many illegal immigrants do will have to rise to attract workers.  Nothing wrong with that.  Supply and demand.  So your hotel might cost another $5 a night, your seafood dinner a couple extra bucks and the same with getting your lawn mowed.  We have millions of unemployed inner city teens and young adults in this country who don't work in part because so many jobs in particularly sanctuary cities are filled with an over abundance of non-citizen labor.  There may be some carve outs for seasonal demand that make sense but we absolutely need to reduce the unskilled labor force.  We have a 55% labor participation rate in this country among 16-24 year olds.  Park yourself in the south side of Chicago among a bunch of parents of young people and ask them how they feel about city sanctuary policies that reduce the opportunities their kids desperately need.  You'll get an earful. 

 

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm

 

not necessarily. the proposed work for welfare thing has been floated again. maybe this time it has a chance?

[SoCal Deek]

11 hours ago, GG said:

 

That's why it's not an either or situation.  Comprehensive immigration reform needs to happen and then you can leave border patrol and law enforcement tackling the serious issues.   A wall without reforming the laws in the end will be a stupid and futile gesture

Give me a break! The US has very clear immigration laws right now. The problem is our neighbors are ignoring them and our government isn’t enforcing them. Before we go off and change those laws, out of nothing less than sheer political laziness, why don’t we try enforcing them for a bit? Answer: because that wouldn’t get the political class the campaign topic they use against the citizenry every few years!

[3rdnlng]

9 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Give me a break! The US has very clear immigration laws right now. The problem is our neighbors are ignoring them and our government isn’t enforcing them. Before we go off and change those laws, out of nothing less than sheer political laziness, why don’t we try enforcing them for a bit? Answer: because that wouldn’t get the political class the campaign topic they use against the citizenry every few years!

We had laws on the books that judges have made impotent, and forced us to have no other choice than to release asylum seekers into our country.

 

Traffickers are encouraging the flooding of the border with massive amounts of aliens to draw attention to them while they move their sex slaves and drugs through unnoticed.

 

The dems do not want to see the immigration problem solved. Illegal aliens or their U.S. born children add to their base. The fight over the wall and immigration can be perverted to "GOP bad". They've had success in the past in placing the blame on the Right and they'll do that as long as they can.

[GG]

3 hours ago, Joe in Winslow said:

 

I'm not a wall freak. To me the wall is a symbol. The real meat is in punishing those businesses which break the law. And if those businesses can't adjust within the framework of the law, then they deserve to go belly up. I'm tired of our society catering to business owners who think they're above the law.

 

I know your leanings, you thought the bank bailouts were a brilliant idea. You proclaim yourself a capitalist. I call bull. You're a socialist, only you think the taxpayers and working classes should support the wealthy. 

 

And THAT is what this is about. It's about maintaining profit margins artificially for business owners rather than letting the markets and innovation handle the problem. And the cost of that policy? The watering down of our culture.  No thanks. 

 

Do you even understand the words that your keyboard utters?  Supporting a Fed backstop to a massive global liquidity crisis is tantamount to socialism?   The Fed did its job as the lender of last resort.  In the crisis it extended its lending authority to non-banks that were acting as banks.  If Lehman Brothers, etc were "banks" in 2008, the massive crisis wouldn't have happened in the first place, and you'd have a real estate crash with a few banks going down.

 

I can't even begin to list the number of your false prepositions, but here's a clue.  It wasn't a true bailout of the banks, but a massive infusion of cash to keep the money flowing.  In the meantime, entire banks were eliminated, equity was completely wiped out and the system was orderly restored because it was a temporary LIQUIDITY crisis!!!  That's why the financial industry (including AIG) repaid every single penny of TARP, plus a tidy profit. 

 

The government didn't take over ownership of anyone, other than illegal takeover of AIG.   How is that me advocating socialism?   

 

You may have noted that I disagreed with how AIG was handled in tossing aside private ownership rules or how Obama threw away bankruptcy laws to strong arm the automaker restructurings.  But in your mind that makes me a socialist.  Talk about gatorific logic.

 

28 minutes ago, SoCal Deek said:

Give me a break! The US has very clear immigration laws right now. The problem is our neighbors are ignoring them and our government isn’t enforcing them. Before we go off and change those laws, out of nothing less than sheer political laziness, why don’t we try enforcing them for a bit? Answer: because that wouldn’t get the political class the campaign topic they use against the citizenry every few years!

 

Another lazy answer.  US also has very clear speeding, gun, and drug laws.  How are those working out?    In each one of those cases, the real world examples are clear indications that the laws that are on the books should be revisited because there's very little compliance with existing laws.  Usually people with half a brain know that when there's zero compliance with the existing laws, there's a bigger problem than trying to enforce a zero tolerance policy.  

 

There are almost zero examples in human history where the natural laws of supply and demand have been superseded by man made laws.

 

9 hours ago, keepthefaith said:

 

Not entirely true.  If illegal immigrant labor is reduced due to greater enforcement, wages for the jobs many illegal immigrants do will have to rise to attract workers.  Nothing wrong with that.  Supply and demand.  So your hotel might cost another $5 a night, your seafood dinner a couple extra bucks and the same with getting your lawn mowed.  We have millions of unemployed inner city teens and young adults in this country who don't work in part because so many jobs in particularly sanctuary cities are filled with an over abundance of non-citizen labor.  There may be some carve outs for seasonal demand that make sense but we absolutely need to reduce the unskilled labor force.  We have a 55% labor participation rate in this country among 16-24 year olds.  Park yourself in the south side of Chicago among a bunch of parents of young people and ask them how they feel about city sanctuary policies that reduce the opportunities their kids desperately need.  You'll get an earful. 

 

https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm

 

 

The trouble with your example is that sanctuary cities are also the places where labor laws are the toughest and it's almost impossible for large companies to hire illegals in the industries that you cite.  The jobs are in fact filled largely by immigrants, but almost always they're not by the wall jumpers.

 

Your Chicago example is quaint, but it will take much more than raising the landscapers' pay rate to get the inner city youth into the workforce.

 

10 hours ago, Taro T said:

 

Absolutely they both need to happen.  But, should the "reform" happen prior to enacting structural changes to better control illegal immigration then we'll simply repeat the '87 amnesty.

 

Those changes (aka the wall & enforcement improvements) don't need to be fully implemented before fixing our highly flawed immigration laws & policies; but they do need to be started in a materially significant manner as a good faith measure.

 

That's the point of comprehensive reform.  Both need to be implemented.   But it's a political pawn where Dems have the upper hang at the moment.

 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

12 minutes ago, GG said:

I can't even begin to list the number of your false prepositions, but here's a clue.  It wasn't a true bailout of the banks, but a massive infusion of cash to keep the money flowing.  In the meantime, entire banks were eliminated, equity was completely wiped out and the system was orderly restored because it was a temporary LIQUIDITY crisis!!!  That's why the financial industry (including AIG) repaid every single penny of TARP, plus a tidy profit. 

 

Oh how wonderful!

 

And what happened to the people that brought that crisis about? What about all those smartest guys in the room that CAUSED the problem in the first place? Jack diddly. They were SAVED by taxpayers. There's a DIRECT equivalence between that crisis and this one.

[GG]

5 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:

 

Oh how wonderful!

 

And what happened to the people that brought that crisis about? What about all those smartest guys in the room that CAUSED the problem in the first place? Jack diddly. They were SAVED by taxpayers. There's a DIRECT equivalence between that crisis and this one.

 

Explain how people who lost billions and were exiled from management and society were saved by the taxpayers?

 

The people who created the financial crisis were EVERYONE who were involved in any real estate transaction between 2001 and 2006.  

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

2 minutes ago, GG said:

 

Explain how people who lost billions and were exiled from management and society were saved by the taxpayers?

 

The people who created the financial crisis were EVERYONE who were involved in any real estate transaction between 2001 and 2006.  

 

Not to mention all those brilliant guys who created the financial instruments that allowed crap mortgages to be hidden among good ones in bundles.

 

Did any one of them see the inside of a  jail cell? The corruption in finance is ATROCIOUS, and because they have money they have an iron grip on politicians. As such, they walk around as free men today.

 

[GG]

Just now, Joe in Winslow said:

 

Not to mention all those brilliant guys who created the financial instruments that allowed crap mortgages to be hidden among good ones in bundles.

 

Did any one of them see the inside of a  jail cell? The corruption in finance is ATROCIOUS, and because they have money they have an iron grip on politicians. As such, they walk around as free men today.

 

 

WTF are you talking about?  There was nothing illegal in the creation of the financial instruments.  You would have a valid argument that it was unethical and with very lax oversight by everybody, but it wasn't illegal.  The illegal stuff was happening on the ground with false representations on mortgage documents.   Now run along and round up the thousands of real estate agents and bogus mortgage brokers.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

WTF are you talking about?  There was nothing illegal in the creation of the financial instruments.  You would have a valid argument that it was unethical and with very lax oversight by everybody, but it wasn't illegal.  The illegal stuff was happening on the ground with false representations on mortgage documents.   Now run along and round up the thousands of real estate agents and bogus mortgage brokers.

 

^ justification of corruption.

 

 

[DC Tom]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

WTF are you talking about?  There was nothing illegal in the creation of the financial instruments.  You would have a valid argument that it was unethical and with very lax oversight by everybody, but it wasn't illegal.  The illegal stuff was happening on the ground with false representations on mortgage documents.   Now run along and round up the thousands of real estate agents and bogus mortgage brokers.

 

And attorneys, and title companies, and loan officers, and the people at HUD and Treasury who weren't (and still aren't) enforcing the law.  The financial industry may actually be the most blameless of everyone involved.  

 

But especially the mortgage brokers.  "Bogus mortgage broker" is redundant - I've never even heard of an honest one.

 

 

[GG]

1 minute ago, DC Tom said:

 

And attorneys, and title companies, and loan officers, and the people at HUD and Treasury who weren't (and still aren't) enforcing the law.  The financial industry may actually be the most blameless of everyone involved.  

 

But especially the mortgage brokers.  "Bogus mortgage broker" is redundant - I've never even heard of an honest one.

 

 

 

Please don't ruin Joe's narrative.  He's on a roll.

[DC Tom]

2 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:

 

^ justification of corruption.

 

 

 

^ Expression of idiocy.

 

How do you think the real estate industry works?  I mean, in its entirety, what do you think happens when someone buys a house from someone else?

 

The corruption is invariably local.  The financial industry is too closely regulated for national organizations to practice meaningful corruption. 

 

 

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

3 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

And attorneys, and title companies, and loan officers, and the people at HUD and Treasury who weren't (and still aren't) enforcing the law.  The financial industry may actually be the most blameless of everyone involved.  

 

But especially the mortgage brokers.  "Bogus mortgage broker" is redundant - I've never even heard of an honest one.

 

 

Is it fair to say that the instruments created by the "wizards" were the very thing that enabled crooked mortgage brokers to continue to sell the bad mortgages well beyond any limit that they should have been?

 

 

[DC Tom]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

Please don't ruin Joe's narrative.  He's on a roll.

 

Yes, he is.

 

The stories my wife tells me about closings...really, for all the changes since 2008, not a damn thing has changed.

[GG]

5 minutes ago, Joe in Winslow said:

Is it fair to say that the instruments created by the "wizards" were the very thing that enabled crooked mortgage brokers to continue to sell the bad mortgages well beyond any limit that they should have been?

 

 

 

Ever hear of the expression to give you enough rope to hang yourself?

 

What happened between 2001 and 2006 is the closest thing to economic libertarianism as you will ever get in finance.  The feeling was that the new financial products diversified the risks so far and wide that the only way that the system would collapse is for everyone to underestimate the interconnectedness of the money flows.  NOBODY understood just how much exposure the "banks" still had to real estate even though everyone thought the banks sold off that exposure.

 

Learn this stuff before you spout.  You're the one proposing more socialist control.

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by GG

[DC Tom]

1 minute ago, Joe in Winslow said:

Is it fair to say that the instruments created by the "wizards" were the very thing that enabled crooked mortgage brokers to continue to sell the bad mortgages well beyond any limit that they should have been?

 

 

 

Sure.  Just like it's fair to say the instruments created by Remington are the very thing that enable white supremacists to shoot up mosques. 

 

Mortgage brokers have no skin in the game.  The job is to match people to loans and take points.  They have nothing to do with CDOs.

 

You don't actually what those "instruments" are, do you?

[DC Tom]

1 minute ago, GG said:

 

Ever hear of the expression to give you enough rope to hang yourself?

 

What happened between 2001 and 2006 is the closest thing to economic libertarianism as you will ever get in finance.  The feeling was that the new financial products diversified the risks so far and wide that the only way that the system would collapse is for everyone to underestimate the interconnectedness of the money flows.  NOBODY understood just how much exposure the "banks" still had to real estate even though everyone thought the banks sold off that exposure.

 

Learn this stuff before you spout.  You're the one proposing more socialist control.

 

 

More accurately, no one understood how much exposure banks had to borrowers who over-borrowed, through their own negligence or being defrauded or blackmailed into it (e.g. Countrywide.)

 

Really, the three parties most directly responsible are Washington Mutual and Countrywide - who rightfully went out of business, and some of whose executives were rightly jailed - and HUD, for completely neglecting to enforce regulations concerning settlements.  Of course, no one was held responsible for that.