by wj
I neglected to set up an open thread for the weekend — lulled by the fact that everybody stopped posting comments on July 3rd. Oops.
Anyway, here’s something that Thompson posted to the old thread, which seems worth a thread of its own.
thompson:
www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0706/Can-Bernie-Sanders-find-middle-ground-on-guns-video
I disagree with Sanders on a lot of his positions, but I respect both his principles and his desire to find common ground. He continues to impress me and I hope he ends up being the D candidate…I think its might (*might*) lead to having an intelligent debate during the general election, rather than the more typical talking point slinging.
Actually, I think something like a Sanders vs Cruz election would see far less debate than normal. It would be two candidates who live in totally different universes. Nothing in common among their basic assumptions, let alone anything else.
And the difference in the election would be which one could connect with the moderates and independents. Bush or Rubio, maybe even Walker, might stand a chance. But if Sanders were up against Cruz or Jindal or Huckabee? Walk in the park.
Sanders just doesn’t seem like a charismatic crowd pleaser. right now he’s preaching the gospel to a very receptive choir, but i’m not sure his gruff and tuff demeanor would attract casual voters. IMO.
which isn’t to say i don’t wish things were otherwise.
Sanders vs Christe. There’s a possibility for no-pandering, take it or leave it, debates!
Sanders is middle of the road on guns because he comes from Vermont. Vermont is very rural, not that wealthy, and in Vermont “guns” means “meat”.
Howard Dean, IIRC, got a 100% approval from the NRA on his positions re guns. If not 100%, it was well up there. Same reason.
Vermont is a funny place, it somehow mashes rednecks, hippies, libertarians, and socialism into a pretty seamless blend. If it wasn’t so freaking cold, I’d try to talk my wife into moving there.
Freedom and Unity, the Vermont state motto. Orthogonal, even opposing, impulses, held in balance. Daniel Webster’s Liberty and Union.
It’s a commonwealth tradition that goes back not just to the founding of the nation, but before. We’d do well to revive it.
I’d be delighted to have Sanders as the (D) candidate. The only downside is that it would almost insure a (R) President.
But the choir that Sanders is preaching his gospel to is a fairly large one. Lots of folks seem surprised by this, I’m not.
Sanders vrs Christie?
An Eisenhower Republican against Benito Mussolini.
How the Overton Window has shifted.
And if anyone thinks I’m calling Christie the Eisenhower R, put up the blinds and look around.
wow.
that’s some good work there, GOP Noise Machine.
cleek, do you really think that NBC News (or Gallup) counts as part of the “GOP News Machine”? Now if it had been reported on Fox, I wouldn’t argue. But that isn’t the case here.
I’d also suggest that unwillingness to vote for a “socialist” candidate in the abstract might not accurately reflect willingness to vote for a specific candidate. Especially since Sanders’ views are a fair distance from what anyone (outside the GOP base, of course) would expect from a socialist.
cleek, do you really think that NBC News (or Gallup) counts as part of the “GOP News Machine”?
That confused me at first, too. I think he means the results reflect the effects of the GOP noise machine, not that conducting the poll or publishing the results of it are the work of the GOP noise machine.
Or maybe I’m still confused, but don’t know it.
cleek, do you really think that NBC News (or Gallup) counts as part of the “GOP News Machine”?
nope.
HSH, OK that parse of the statement makes sense. Although I suspect that we are actually seeing is a remnant of half a century ago when “communist” and “socialist” were used interchangable by most of the country — and both were Bad Things. Note that this was long before there was a GOP Noise Machine.
And I would bet that only a tiny minority of the population even know what socialism actually is. Which is why I think exposure to Sanders’ actual positions (many of which look nothing like socialism, regardless of his personal use of the label) might make a difference.
Just as Democrats hope that Trump will be the R candidate?
See, I think that Bernie Sanders’ prior cheerleading for socialism and quack medicine is going to sneak up and clobber him, as far as the regard of the Reality Community is concerned.
Quack science and quack politics should be, IMO, regarded askance, irrespective of whether the person espousing said quackery has an R or a D after their name.
Quack science…. ??? Is Sanders associated with some quack science? I hadn’t heard.
…. and quack politics …a reference to supply side economics?
Just asking. Thx.
The socialism of Bernie Sanders
“Quack science and quack politics should be, IMO, regarded askance, irrespective of whether the person espousing said quackery has an R or a D after their name.”
as far as I can tell, it’s ducks all the way down.
if I can get a duck more or less to my liking on the menu, I’m happy to call it a win.
the Clintons have a bit of woowoo in their inner circle.
i haven’t been able to find anything about Sanders, though.
Actually, I think something like a Sanders vs Cruz election would see far less debate than normal.
I think both would stay on message, and their messages have 0 overlap…so yeah.
But I think Sanders/Rubio, or even Sanders/Bush, would actually have some legitimate debate. I fully expect Sanders to reliably try to engage in debate, regardless of what his opponent does. I think to some extent that’s needed.
Someone needs to be the (principled) adult in the room, stick to an actual discussion rather then empty politicking. Otherwise it ends up in a race-to-the-bottom/well-they-started-the-negative-ads soundbite fest.
I think Sanders might be that principled.
I also view it as *not impossible( that Sanders would welcome 3rd party candidates to debates. So, there’s that.
Slarti:
Just as Democrats hope that Trump will be the R candidate?
I don’t know…that wasn’t my intent, at least. I think Sanders wouldn’t have as little chance as Trump in the general election. Socialist, sure, but an honest one. Among conservatives I know, Sanders is generally referred to in ‘positive’ terms. Where ‘positive’ means he’s honestly wrong, not evil. I think he’d be relatively hard to lampoon, while I think Trump lampoons himself.
sorry, lost my link.
http://www.science20.com/alan_levinovitz/when_the_clintons_doctor_embraces_pseudoscience-152951
thompson,
I think Sanders would be pretty lampoonable,if not as deserved as Trump. He represents the step too far that McGovern represented a few decades ago.
The most effective two candidates for a Republican victory so far have been Sanders and Trump. Each makes the Republican field look centrist.
I think Sanders would be pretty lampoonable,if not as deserved as Trump.
Perhaps. I think lampooning sincere people generally ends up with a little more blowback.
Or to put it another way, it would be more politically effective to engage with Sanders on policy (which is to the left of a lot of centrist voters), than to try to score cheap political points.
But, considering the amount of pushback to the concept of a Sanders candidacy on this thread…maybe I’m just out of touch.
From BP’s link:
When push comes to shove, he is a supporter of a social democratic Scandinavian-style welfare state in the form of better education, healthcare and social service provisions for the general population (Leibovich 2007) rather than the confiscation of companies from the private sector.
Good to know Sanders, when you get right down to it, doesn’t favor government confiscation of private businesses.
Comforting.
Can someone link me to his payment plan?
to pay for his college program, Sanders proposes a tax on Wall St transactions.
for other things: increase top marginal tax rates, raise estate tax rates, close tax shelter loopholes, etc..
to pay for his college program, Sanders proposes a tax on Wall St transactions.
for other things: increase top marginal tax rates, raise estate tax rates, close tax shelter loopholes, etc..
Has anyone done the math? How many stock trades X tax rate = college for all?
For the rest of it, what marginal rate = paid for health care and child care for all?
Or to put it another way, it would be more politically effective to engage with Sanders on policy (which is to the left of a lot of centrist voters), than to try to score cheap political points.
I’d like to think so (well, sort of), but I’m generally surprised how well cheap shots play with the general public and how brazenly politicians are willing to use them in place of earnest discussion.
(By “well, sort of” I mean I’m not happy that Sanders’ positions are not more popular, but I’d be happier if people at least engaged those positions rather coming up with “clever” zingers.)
Has anyone done the math?
Does “anyone” include you?
Has anyone done the math?
not sure.
some his proposals have estimates in them. ex, the Wall St -> college paper says:
i’m sure that if they started to think he was viable, the press would get someone to run some numbers.
I think Sanders would be pretty lampoonable
A Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn by way of hippie paradise Vermont. The only guy whose hair just might be weirder than Trump’s.
The jokes write themselves, I would think.
The discussion of Sanders’ candidacy in most venues will basically be at just about that level.
He’s able to draw multiple thousands of people to his events, and it ain’t because of his natural charm and charisma. He has a constituency that is very rarely represented at any level in national politics, let alone as a Presidential candidate.
So, it ain’t all a joke.
My guess is that, somewhere along the line, Sanders will basically implode. Somebody will find something embarrassing, or he’ll have a “Yeeeaarrgh!” moment. Or, the experience of being taken even slightly seriously as a Presidential candidate will go to his head and he’ll self-immolate in one way or another.
Or, maybe I’ll be wrong, and he’ll keep it between the lines right up to the primaries. And, he’ll probably lose them, because Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn by way of hippie paradise Vermont is just a step too far for most folks.
I’m just happy that his point of view is getting a hearing. It doesn’t happen very often.
It ain’t just Tea Party folks that want their country back.
My legislation would impose a Wall Street speculation fee of 0.5 percent on stock trades (that’s 50 cents for every $100 worth of stock), a 0.1 percent fee on bonds, and a 0.005 percent fee on derivatives.
It has been estimated that this legislation would raise up to $300 billion a year.
Wow. A privately employed individual puts 20K a year in a 401K, and invests in stock. Immediately, the value of that employee’s investment declines 5%. No actual gain is realized unless the stock then appreciates by 10%, because, apparently, there is a back-end tax of 5% too.
It gets worse if the stock declines in value and the employee attempts to cut losses.
I’m guessing no one has scored this proposal.
Do we have a consensus: it’s awful on its face.
Shouldn’t we expect more rigorous policy analyses from people who claim to be capable of running our country?
5%?
…because Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn by way of hippie paradise Vermont is just a step too far for most folks.
Hey, we elected a formerly pot-smoking black guy named Barack Hussein Obama in post-9/11 America. His name sounds like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. And he’s black (did I already mention that?). I hear he even attended a madrasa.
And, he’ll probably lose them, because Jewish Democratic Socialist from Brooklyn by way of hippie paradise Vermont is just a step too far for most folks.
Maybe. A lot of it depends on how long the more centrist contenders stay in the race. If Hillary has to defend the center from the likes of Webb, and defend the left from Sanders, I think Sanders has a real shot.
Like you say, he represents people that have gone unrepresented.
To me, I believe (probably imagine), voters are getting tired of scorched earth politics where the winner is the one who most successfully made their opponent out as the devil incarnate. I think someone honest and sincere could get some traction.
Again, to be clear, this is from someone that doesn’t agree with Sanders on much. I just think he talks about real things, and is additionally willing to listen to the other side and compromise.
hippie paradise Vermont
Some damn fine beers from there. Dunno if that’s due to or in spite of the hippies.
What’s a factor of 10 between friends, especially 401k speed-traders?
the value of that employee’s investment declines 5%
Mind where the dot goes.
I just think he talks about real things, and is additionally willing to listen to the other side and compromise.
That’s pretty much my take as well.
Dunno if that’s due to or in spite of the hippies.
Beer and ice cream appear to be where all demographics in Vermont converge.
5%
F’ing decimal points. That’s why I’m a lawyer and not an engineer or anything else that requires numerical literacy.
In a sudden and dramatic reversal of position, I agree that a transactional tax at this level is not oppressive. I actually favor new use/consumption taxes; however, I would use them to retire debt and cap spending at prior year levels. That is, there would not be any new spending if I were king. Congress would be allowed, subject to my kingly approval, to reallocate spending, but it would still be capped.
Also, I have real questions about whether 300 billion would pay for *all* college (Harvard or Harris County Community College?), and, once the entitlement to free college became entrenched, the tax would rise to meet costs. So, I’d fuss vigorously with this proposal but I fully retract my initial calculations.
I think that, if you are going to guarantee free college for all, you can’t be guaranteeing to pay the entire cost for whatever college the individual student wants to attend. Guarantee a place in a state college or university, possibly requiring community college first. But if the student wants to go to Harvard, they can pay the extra on their own.
That is, essentially, what California’s Master Plan for Higher Education (circa 1960) did. And, until legislative cost cutting trashed it (thanks, in part, to tax restraints enacted a decade later) by running up the costs of the state universities, it worked damn well. So it can be done
F’ing decimal points. That’s why I’m a lawyer and not an engineer or anything else that requires numerical literacy.
No worries. I am an engineer of sorts, and they bite me on the @ss on a regular basis.
As always, kudos for your graceful reply.
not an engineer or anything else that requires numerical literacy.
Eh. Just use bigger factors of safety.
Also, I have real questions about whether 300 billion would pay for *all* college (Harvard or Harris County Community College?)
he says (and i don’t have the data to check him):
he doesn’t say how the states come up with their portion.
Under the legislation, $70 billion a year in assistance – two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from states – would replace what public colleges and universities now charge in tuition and fees. The federal share of the cost would be offset by imposing a tax on Wall Street transactions by investment houses, hedge funds and other speculators.
If the numbers checked out, this would be hard to argue with. Heavy emphasis on the *if* part.
If this could be objectively scored and vetted, I’d probably be on board.
Dean Baker runs the numbers.
This tax would also tend to curb computer driven program trading aka techno-geek front running.
Baker treats the tax as .25% on each end of the trade–which I like.
He also hypothesizes a serious reduction in trade volume for argument’s sake. I think he is right to do so but I don’t think a $25 dollar tax is going to affect trading in any material way.
So, as a revenue raiser and a debt reducer–I’m on board. Up to 70 Billion out of the 358 billion a year to underwrite college education, fine by me. The rest goes to deficit reduction. And, we cap spending. So says King Andrew I.
Is Harvard a public university?
No. Harvard, like all of the Ivy League, is a private university.
a transactional tax at this level is not oppressive
It’s far better than “not oppressive” — it will dramatically reduce high-speed trading, and return some sort of sanity to our financial markets. That effect is far more important than the revenues it would raise.
Actually, I’m pretty lefty, and I think that half a percent is still too high by at least an order of magnitude. The “kill high-speed trading” transaction taxes I’ve seen proposed are more on the order of 0.01%.
note to self: to avoid redundancy, finish reading the thread before commenting
The “kill high-speed trading” transaction taxes I’ve seen proposed are more on the order of 0.01%.
Sure, but 0.5% will work 50 times better!
Today, the NYSE trading floor was shut down for over 3 hours due to some sort of computer problem. No doubt millions upon millions of stock shares went untraded as a result.
Question: how much real value was lost?
Surely, some large-scale traders would have been up a few million dollars apiece at the end of the day, without the glitch, but equally surely some other large-scale traders (the ones on the opposite side of the forgone trades) would have been down by the same amount. Meanwhile, I doubt the nation’s chickens suspended laying eggs for 3 hours, or the nation’s cows giving milk. No auto production lines got shut down, no immigrant landscapers turned off their backpack leafblowers to wait for the NYSE to re-open.
Every basis point (0.01%) of a transaction tax would probably cause a decrease in trading volume equivalent to N seconds of NYSE shutdown per day. I don’t know what N is, but I suspect the nation would survive.
–TP
These days (thanks to government regulations/requirements), the NYSE only handles a quarter of all stock trades. Down from over 80% in 2007, before the National Market System rule went into effect. As a result of that rule, most stocks are traded on multiple markets around the country.
So trading of stocks wasn’t impacted nearly as much as you might think. In fact, while the number of trades on the NYSE was, of course, way down yesterday, the total number of trades overall was actually up a little over the average volume. (All the brokers have put systems in place to route trades to whichever exchange is taking them. Not without a lot of complaining about government interference in the markets, of course.)
Not that I don’t agree that a per-transaction tax which cut down on the milli-second, computer based, trading would be a good thing. But you can’t make a case for it based on what happened yesterday.
But you can’t make a case for it based on what happened yesterday.
Can you negate a case against it? The point being that the creation of real value, which is what counts economically, was not affected (or so the argument goes, at least) by whatever trading didn’t occur, but otherwise would have (assuming there had to be some, if not as much as there would have been in the past when the NYSE was more of a factor).
So you can’t say the relative reduction in trading volume resulting from a per-transaction tax would be harmful economically. It might reduce the zero-sum portion of trading that has nothing to do with actual investment, but there’s no value in that, anyway. (Again, as the argument goes, at least.)
But you can’t make a case for it based on what happened yesterday.
I would agree, but ask, “who has made this case” on this thread?
Brokers always have and always will complain about government regulations. They brought it on themselves. Sucks to be them.
It never ceases to amaze me that when an industry routinely screws over its customers and the customers get the government to do something about it, that is “unwarranted intervention in free markets”, but when they (business interests) whine and snivel for tax breaks, subsidies, etc., somehow it’s just making everybody magically better off.
Amazing coincidence, don’t you think?
Google “Bernie Sanders orgasm”, sans quotes.
Sorry, I had neglected to check here for responses.
Just for starters, his proposal to break up big banks because…reasons is quackery.
Ma Bell was broken up using antitrust as a basis. There’s no basis for this.
Don’t like what the banking industry is doing? Try rewriting regulation. Breaking the big ones up is wishful thinking, just as (thank you) trickle-down economics was wishful thinking.
Of course, JFK’s “a rising tide lifts all boats” was not that far away from trickle-down economics in its notional & intended effect, but he had a D after his name. But: neither here nor there.
But you can’t make a case for it based on what happened yesterday.
I would agree, but ask, “who has made this case” on this thread?
I thought that’s what Tony was doing. But I may have misunderstood his post.
his proposal to break up big banks because…reasons is quackery.
Personally, I find the idea of “pick one, but only one, from either investment or retail banking” to be a pretty reasonable plan.
We all have our druthers.
Of course, JFK’s “a rising tide lifts all boats” was not that far away from trickle-down economics
The most commonly cited occasion on which Kennedy employed that aphorism was at the dedication of a dam in Arkansas. The feds had apparently provided some funds for it, and that was criticized as “pork”.
Kennedy’s response, including the “rising tides” quote, was an argument in favor of public investment in public works.
I.e., public investment of federal money in the dam wouldn’t just benefit some town in Arkansas, but also folks all across the country.
Public efforts to help some of us, ultimately helps all of us.
Not really a trickle-down argument.
Kennedy did support reduction of both personal and corporate taxes, which did, in fact, seem to improve economic growth, without significantly hurting revenues (I think).
So, the Laffer curve in action.
But the reduction of the top personal rate was from 91% to 65%, and the corporate rate from 52% to 47%.
Context matters.
Google “Bernie Sanders orgasm”, sans quotes.
On this issue, I’ll just take your word for it. 🙂
his proposal to break up big banks because…reasons is quackery.
Personally, I find the idea of “pick one, but only one, from either investment or retail banking” to be a pretty reasonable plan.
We all have our druthers.
Of course, JFK’s “a rising tide lifts all boats” was not that far away from trickle-down economics
The most commonly cited occasion on which Kennedy employed that aphorism was at the dedication of a dam in Arkansas. The feds had apparently provided some funds for it, and that was criticized as “pork”.
Kennedy’s response, including the “rising tides” quote, was an argument in favor of public investment in public works.
I.e., public investment of federal money in the dam wouldn’t just benefit some town in Arkansas, but also folks all across the country.
Public efforts to help some of us, ultimately helps all of us.
Not really a trickle-down argument.
Kennedy did support reduction of both personal and corporate taxes, which did, in fact, seem to improve economic growth, without significantly hurting revenues (I think).
So, the Laffer curve in action.
But the reduction of the top personal rate was from 91% to 65%, and the corporate rate from 52% to 47%.
Context matters.
Google “Bernie Sanders orgasm”, sans quotes.
On this issue, I’ll just take your word for it. 🙂
slarti: Ma Bell was broken up using antitrust as a basis. There’s no basis for this.
Certainly breaking up AT&T on a regional basis, which is how it was done, made no sense as anti-trust. If they had forced it to split into competing organizations, that might have been a different story.
As for breaking up the big banks, ask yourself this: If you have banks which are “too big to fail,” they are, in effect, backstopped by the government. And “too big to fail” seems like as good a definition of a trust as any. So an anti-trust case could reasonably be pursued.
Not that rewriting the regulations might not be a good idea. In particular, the change which allowed banks to do both retail banking and investment banking could be backed out. That would, in fact, represent “breaking up the big banks,” would it not?
Sherman Antitrust Act, excerpted:
I don’t see how your interpretation and the above text match up. My reading of this is: businesses are prohibited from monopoly, and also prohibited from restraint of trade. I don’t see a match, really.
I’d put that more as: hiring of private business, to their profit, to help some of us, ultimately helps all of us.
But this was not the only time Kennedy used this phrase. From the JFK Library:
Sounds remarkably like arguments posed by another President (or two) we have had in recent times.
break them up because they pose a threat to our national security.
Sounds remarkably like arguments posed by another President (or two) we have had in recent times.
I guess the whole context thing didn’t really take.
I think this opens a can of worms that may best be left unopened, but obviously my opinion in this matter is not shared by at least two people in this country.
We could have an entire thread discussing what perceived threats to national security may justify government intervention, and why that might not be such a good idea in general.
Well, it’s a good idea if it’s someone else’s ox being gored, I guess.
I guess it was okay when all those oxen were gored back around 2007. Breaking banks up doesn’t mean destroying them, and I’m not seeing where it would cause the sort of turmoil and actual suffering the “too big to fail” banks caused with their sketchy investment and accounting practices.
Is one of your close family members a very large bank or something, Slart? This seems like a weird tack you’re taking on this topic.
Keep in mind that Lehman wasn’t a bank, AIG wasn’t a bank, Countrywide wasn’t a bank, Fannie and Freddie weren’t banks. The oxes that dud most of the hiring weren’t even banks.
So I’m not sure how break up the banks addresses the problem people think it is fixing.
Hiring? No goring. My phone is often overzealous. Did and dud I just type poorly.
Maybe you’re using some narrow definition of what a bank is, Marty.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (former NYSE ticker symbol LEH) /ˈliːmən/ was a global financial services firm. Before declaring bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the US (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), doing business in investment banking, equity and fixed-income sales and trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking.
and
Countrywide Financial (NYSE: CFC) has been in the mortgage business since its founding in 1969. In 2006, Countrywide raked in $4.3 billion in pretax earnings, funding $463 billion in home loans, a 7% year-on-year decline. Countrywide’s mortgage servicing portfolio, however, grew to $1.4 trillion, a 17% increase over 2005. Notably, Countrywide served the United States as the leading home lending bank and the second leading mortgage service provider.
My reading of this is: businesses are prohibited from monopoly, and also prohibited from restraint of trade.
Alas, I am stealing time from my boss, so brevity rules, but here goes:
1. I would say that Sanders approach to “breaking up the banks” is based more on systemic risk than it is on anti-trust grounds. Insofar as the failure of a few large banks could conceivably take down the economy, I would agree with him. Insofar as these firms are essentially backstopped by the fed (“too big to fail”), there should be arrangements in place to insure we do not have another failure like 2008. This would imply smaller banks or more regulation (Glass-Steagall). Pick ’em.
2. There are numerous examples of recent bank collusion (FOREX rate rigging, ATM fees, etc.). The big banks are notorious scoufflaws ($170b paid out in fines in recent years). A return to mom and pop banking is not realistic, but the huge concentration of financial and market power we see in banking is not healthy, and calling for a “breakup” of the big banks is a far cry from policy “quackery” (your term).
3. Barrier to entry. Concentration of bank assets, like concentration in any other industry will lead to abuse and restraint of trade.
Marty: Google “shadow banking”. Thx.
Sherman Antitrust Act, excerpted
At the risk of repeating myself, it’s worth noting that when many people talk about “breaking up the banks”, they are referring more to Glass-Steagall, or perhaps aspects of the Bank Holding Company Act, and less to Sherman Antitrust.
The goal being to reduce systemic and structural risk, rather than prevent monopoly.
Well, it’s a good idea if it’s someone else’s ox being gored.
I dare say there are very few policy proposals that do not gore somebody’s ox.* In any scenario where you have limited resources, this is a feature, not a bug.
*where is the oxen revolt?
If the oxen revolt, the position of major draft animal devolves on asses. So the expression probably then becomes “whose ass is grass” 😉
People are not corporations ;).
More responsively: no. If I were that well-connected, I would not be working at a senior staff engineer’s pay out of necessity. I’d be working doing what I do because I like it.
As it is, necessity and personal preference intersect.
Make no mistake: I am not claiming that there isn’t anything to do about the banking situation in this country. I am, however, doubtful that breaking banks into smaller banks is going to solve the problem.
I have absolutely no problem with new banking rules that in effect divide banks into smaller pieces. I just think the smashing the ugly stuff into smaller bits is going to address the root of the problem.
Oh. Friends of Angelo?
Again, maybe we have more problems than “too big to fail”. Maybe we have some corruption issues to address.
Which brings us all the way around to campaign finance, maybe, after we get to more overt (and less legal, strictly speaking) corruption.
Is one of your close family members a very large bank or something, Slart? This seems like a weird tack you’re taking on this topic.
I suspect not. It could the term ‘quackery’ was selected based on economic (big banks and financial concentration does no harm), practical (not likely to ever happen), or legal (not an Anti-trust issue) considerations….but it is not clear to me.
Could you expound a bit on that, Slarti?
I’d put that more as: hiring of private business, to their profit, to help some of us, ultimately helps all of us.
That’s all good, but Kennedy’s point was much broader than that.
Here is the speech.
Your friendly stock broker during a buoyant market: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”
Aftermath: “Where are all the customers’ yachts?”
Etymology of the phrase.
Some other instances of Kennedy’s use of the phrase.
I think that Bernie Sanders’ prior cheerleading for….quack medicine is going to sneak up and clobber him.
For something he wrote back in his hippy youth? Seriously? We elected an ex-cokehead alcoholic deserter from the National Guard not once, but twice.
We forgive mightily it would seem. Or, voters, as a group, find the issues (or interests) more important than the man.
I’ll go with the latter.
Since this is an open thread, here’s something a little different. Although, at that, it might impact the election as well, if it gets going.
It appears that the latest draft House bill to fund the Interior Department and the EPA included language bannng the display of Confederate symbols (e.g. the flag) of Federal land (including cmemtaries). In response to which, Republican Congressmen (from the South, of course) introduced an amendment which would have reversed that ban. http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/house-gop-may-not-have-votes-to-undo-confederate-flag-amendments-20150709
The Speaker has since pulled the underlying bill, saying “I think it’s time for some adults here in Congress to sit down and have conversation about how to address this issue. I do not want this to become a political football.” (Emphasis added.) As if it hasn’t already.
We elected an ex-cokehead alcoholic deserter from the National Guard not once, but twice.
No.
We probably elected W in 2004.
In 2000, his path to power cannot be accurately described as “being elected”.
Romney’s placing his dog in a kennel on his car roof was of pivotal importance, I seem to recall. 32 years ago.
Also, binders full of women was also of crucial importance, even though he was attempting some kind of organized affirmative action.
It’s just amazing how seemingly trivial bullshit can sneak up and ruin your entire presidential campaign. Don’t like it? Then stop participating in it.
If those were the worst of Bush’s sins, we’d have not done so badly.
Because they’re fiction. But they sound true; therefore must be true.
Frankly, I expected less credulousness.
I am, however, doubtful that breaking banks into smaller banks is going to solve the problem.
If the problem is “too big to fail” (i.e. systemic risk), I’m pretty sure it will. It won’t end stupid or corrupt practices all by itself, but it will keep that sort of thing from occurring in individual institutions large enough to have major effects on financial markets and the overall economy.
Mom & pop banks may well be largely a thing of the past, but regional banks aren’t. On top of that, Glass Steagall.
We elected an ex-cokehead alcoholic deserter from the National Guard not once, but twice.
If those were the worst of Bush’s sins, we’d have not done so badly.
Because they’re fiction. But they sound true; therefore must be true.
Please elucidate. Obviously these are incidents put in the worst possible light – as one expects of political rhetoric – but are they actually untrue?
Did GWB not use coke?
Did GWB not drink heavily?
Did GWB not depart the NG without leave, in circumstances which might have been called “desertion” if they had happened to someone whose superiors did not favor him (or actively disliked him)?
It may be that all of these are complete “fiction,” in which case doubtless you can set the rest of us right. Otherwise . . .
Romney’s placing his dog in a kennel on his car roof was of pivotal importance, I seem to recall. 32 years ago.
It may have gotten a good deal of press, but no, it was not “pivotal”. Now the treatment of Al Gore by the national press could arguably have been “pivotal”. Bob Somersby has done a lot of work on that one.
Or the swift-boating of John Kerry. Disparaging, certainly did not help…but “pivotal”? Against a sitting president in war time? I do not believe so.
Trivial bs can have unintended effects, but there needs to be a wider context to make it “pivotal”.
Because they’re fiction.
They are not, but I defer to Dr. Ngo above.
Don’t like it? Then stop participating in it.
Hey, who started this?
Romney’s “47% comment” caught on tape might have been ‘pivotal’, also his Benghazi ‘you didn’t call them terrorists!’ F-up in the 2nd debate. But probably not, at least not directly.
IMO if Romney had a ‘pivotal’ failure, it was that he told so many lies that even the usually-supine MSM started calling him on it. In the end, the Romney campaign was lying to itself about polling, so probably misdirecting their efforts.
Or it just could have been demographics and incumbency.
Comment on the banks: tiny local banks have great customer service, but not enough branches to be convenient.
Somewhat larger regional banks are my preference, but they tend to get eated by mega-banks, and which point they’ll start getting obnoxious with service charges and other BS, and soon I’d say “screw you, I’m moving my account”.
This has happened multiple times. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times…?
I opened an account at United Jersey however many years ago. United Jersey had already bought Lenape Bank, a small local bank, by then. United Jersey then bought New Jersey rival Summit, taking the Summit name thereafter. Then Fleet bought them. Everything thing remained fine to that point. Then came Bank of America, buying Fleet. That’s when the bullsh1t with the fees started.
I didn’t leave, but I’m very careful about how I manage my account now that I’ve inadvertently become a mega-bank account-holder.
our accounts went from NCB -> CCB -> SunTrust, thanks to buyouts. luckily, SunTrust has been OK so far.
Did he? You have some kind of reliable source for this information? If he did use cocaine, did he do so on enough occasions to be labeled a “cokehead”?
These things matter, or don’t matter, to the extent that they’re real.
As far as “deserter”, there are various & conflicting stories to the effect that he fulfilled all of his obligations (or not) to the TANG. TANG thought he had.
I had good reasons for doing so. These very ones, in fact, that we’re discussing.
I have no particular use for Bernie Sanders. He isn’t the worst guy to ever run for President, nor is he one of the best. He just has some handy baggage of the sort that gets dug up by, well, people like yourself.
And, to be honest, by people like me.
It’d be nice to have elections free of irrelevant bullshit, but the irrelevant stuff sometimes is too shiny for us to resist.
Did he? You have some kind of reliable source for this information?
Bush himself.
many, many times he non-denied doing pot and coke saying he didn’t want his past ‘mistakes’ to be used by today’s kids as an excuse for them to use drugs.
I like Bernie Sanders a lot, but I see him as a single-issue (or single-sector-of-issues) candidate, focused on economic inequality and bad finance, who was in the right place at the right time to pick up the Draft Warren contingent when it became sufficiently clear she wasn’t running.
This is important stuff. But it’s not the only stuff. In particular, his liberal supporters run white, and Sanders’ intuition tends to reduce problems of racial prejudice and inequality to economic unfairness, a reduction that black and Latino voters generally do not buy. This may actually not be such a big problem in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it will hurt him in Democratic primaries and caucuses after that, especially in the South and West.
Hillary Clinton seems to be doing well with these constituencies so far, in the absence of a Barack Obama for this cycle. Minority turnout will also be critically important in the general election, and a candidate who doesn’t excite them will be a problem for the Democrats.
I may vote for him in the primary just to keep a spotlight on economic redistribution. But it will depend on what the strategic situation looks like by the time of the primary.
For our household banking, we use a medium-sized regional bank. It has lots and lots of branch offices – probably 5 or 6 within a couple of miles of my home and work.
They hold my car loan, also.
They’re great.
I also have a rainy-day savings account and a credit card from a local credit union.
They held my last car loan.
I’m not a gazillionaire. Big banks have no interest in me, and I have no interest in them. I can’t imagine what they have to offer me that I can’t get, with less (read: zero) hassle and expense from my local bank.
As far as our mortgage goes, I think we’re on our 5th or 6th mortgage service company at this point.
Regarding GW Bush’s life history, as best I can tell it’s uncontroversial that he was an alcoholic for most of his adult life until he was 40-ish.
Then he quit.
All of which I don’t really give a crap about, per se. I know more drunks – active and recovering – than I can shake a stick at. Good for him for quitting.
Likewise about the blow, given his age group and socioeconomic bracket I’d be surprised if he hadn’t snorted a few lines at some point.
Above and beyond the “per se” thing, when I compare video of him speaking, say, when he ran for governor of TX, vs when we ran for POTUS or during his time in office, I quite frankly think there is evidence of some level of cognitive impairment. The man didn’t used to be such a clumsy speaker, in later years (i.e., as of about 2000) he just seems addled.
Whether that’s the effect of decades of alcohol abuse or some other issue, I have no idea. He wouldn’t be the first, and will not be the last, person to have any of those issues while holding responsible office.
Personally, I’m happy to let GW Bush recede into the shadows of history.
It’d be nice to have elections free of irrelevant bullshit, but the irrelevant stuff sometimes is too shiny for us to resist.
Agree, especially with the “sometimes” as I believe I have taken pains to point out.
Likewise about the blow, given his age group and socioeconomic bracket I’d be surprised if he hadn’t snorted a few lines at some point.
Particularly considering the uncontroversial fact of his alcohol abuse on top of all that.
I never gave a crap about either of those things, either. I didn’t like the fact that he didn’t seem too bright and his world view seemed to be formed largely from his having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, three up his arse, and two sticking out of each ear.
He was the poster boy of privilege – born on 3rd base, and such.
Probably didn’t own up to being a cokehead, I am guessing. That’s more a matter of oppositional embroidery, unless I have missed something crucial after all these years.
His alcoholism is a matter of public record. Whether that makes him a drunk or not is really a matter of how you want to look at “drunk” as a potentiality or an ongoing expression. Certainly every self-aware alcoholic is cognizant that they are drunk waiting to happen.
Nixon was a drunk who hadn’t quit drinking. And that may have affected his decision process, for all I know. It’s almost a gimme.
I note in passing that this doesn’t seem to bother the folks who voted for Ted Kennedy year in and year out. Nor did Ted’s prior sins, nor (even more importantly) did his ongoing sins of drunkenness and molestation. Nor did it bother people inclined to vote for JFK or RFK. Even Joe Kennedy’s encouragement of the Nazis didn’t deter folks from voting for the Kennedys.
This is all just a conversation that it’d be nice for us to, individually, look into. That our documented waitress sandwich is more forgivable than the other guy’s purported and thinly documented AWOL. Or that our binders full of women are pivotally important, while…you get the picture.
And the like. I really cannot lecture others while looking at reality through my own lens and filter, but sometimes it’s useful to observe that we all have those.
Every one of us.
IMO if Romney had a ‘pivotal’ failure, it was that he told so many lies that even the usually-supine MSM started calling him on it.
I’d say rather that Romney’s pivotal problem (not sure I would say “failure”) was that he had to run so hard away from his historical positions in order to win the nomination. Which made if essentially impossible to plausibly tack back to the center for the general election.
Regarding huge vs tiny banks, I would note this. The convenience factor was a lot greater when you needed to have access to an ATM in lots of places, because most economic activity was done in cash.
But today, when most of it is done with credit cards, you don’t really care that much about whether your bank has a branch and an ATM somewhere. Tiny bank or huge, they all issue Visa or Mastercards, which are accepted pretty much everywhere.
The only places that I have noticed where you still need cash are:
– toll roads and bridges
– parking meters
– some stalls in my local Farmers’ Market
– donations to panhandlers
And parking meters increasingly take credit cards as well.
The only places that I have noticed where you still need cash are:
card rooms
I note in passing that this doesn’t seem to bother the folks who voted for Ted Kennedy year in and year out.
I note in passing that most of the folks that hold elected office at the federal level are wealthy.
Also, that a lot of booze, and other things, seem to be consumed in DC.
Also, that young staff and interns are famously fair game for sexual harassment and exploitation in that same city.
Opportunity, as they say, attracts opportunists. Power attracts people who like power.
A lot of people who hold federal office are self-aggrandizing blowhards with serious impulse control issues. It seems to go with the territory. And, the amount of money and juice that is available to them doesn’t seem to improve their natures very much.
To be honest, it would probably turn my head.
There actually is a reasonable argument to be made that a desire to hold elected office should almost automatically disqualify you from doing so. IMO.
Unfortunately, we gotta work with the sausage makers we have, rather than the ones we wish we had.
In any case, there are flaming assholes on every side of every aisle. It’s actually harder to find folks who aren’t jerks than the other way around.
Toll roads on the US East Coast have mostly gone over to a common wireless transponder system; some are even in the process of ditching the transponders and just having accounts that get deducted when they OCR your license plate.
There are some small cash-only businesses around here. Some ice-cream stands, in particular; some others allow cards but have a minimum purchase for that. The parking meters that have to be fed with quarters are rapidly disappearing.
The only places that I have noticed where you still need cash are:
card rooms
If you hire musicians, they will very much prefer to be paid in cash, thank you very much.
Also, as a pro tip, if you hire musicians for a function where food will be served, feed them the same stuff you feed everybody else. Trust me, everybody will have more fun.
/offtopic
Also, many supermarkets, drug stores and big-box chain stores provide a free cash-back option as a convenience at the checkout lane, which reduces the need to find an in-network ATM just to keep carrying enough cash to get by.
As far as “deserter”, there are various & conflicting stories to the effect that he fulfilled all of his obligations (or not) to the TANG. TANG thought he had.
Here are my opinions about that.
1. I don’t know whether he fulfilled his obligations. I suspect they were loosely defined, so there is room for discussion.
2. I dislike the fact that he was ale to use his family connections to get into TANG and avoid Vietnam. And please don’t tell me that didn’t happen. No one who was of military age at that time can honestly deny that. The scramble for these spots was amazing. OTOH, this was commonplace behavior, he was what, 20-21 years old, etc.
3. I despise the fact that Bush, at a much later time in his life, like many others, seemed to be completely unreflective about this. The fact is that Vietnam was fought with conscripts. Every privileged young man who avoided combat was sending someone else in his place – someone who was equally unhappy about the prospect. Not to recognize that shows a certain lack of character, to say the least.
Not, by the way, that Joe Kennedy Jr. was killed in action, and that JFK did see combat in WWII. Could they have been shuffled off to some safe post somewhere? I don’t know, but I suspect the answer is yes.
Do I feel strongly about this? Yes I do. In the mid-70’s I had a conversation about the war with a recent law school graduate. He felt the war was worthwhile and told me he “Would have loved to serve, but was busy going to law school.”
There you have it.
Credit unions are good, if you can get into one. Most places have one or two that will allow anyone living nearby to open an account.
Toll roads on the US East Coast have mostly gone over to a common wireless transponder system
Which is great . . . unless you are a driver from across the country who doesn’t have a transponder. Or an account to deduct your fee from.
Actually, I am particularly irritated by Interstate highways which are toll roads. They’re funded, in substantial part, by my Federal taxes. But somehow I still have to pay to drive on them, so the local state governments can get money from me, rather than raise taxes on their residents.
/rant
I note in passing that this doesn’t seem to bother the folks who voted for Ted Kennedy year in and year out.
I note in passing that I was referring to myself, a person who never voted for Ted Kennedy, though I may have had I the opportunity.
Then again, Ted Kennedy had a track record as a legislator that I would have found generally appealing, so I may have voted for him in spite of his privilege and his past sins. To say those things didn’t bother the people who voted for him is an act of mind reading.
In Bush’s case, the “born on third base thing” is the beginning of a known expression that goes on “and thinks he hit a triple.” That was the vibe I got from GWB. His privilege didn’t imbue him with an air of dignity, worldliness, or erudition. He was cocky and relatively thoughtless, IMO. As it turns out, he pretty much sucked as a president and left the country with a number giant, stinking piles of sh1t to be cleaned up.
But, yeah, we all tend to overlook the bad parts of the people we otherwise like for whatever reasons. It would be nice if we were offered perfect people to vote for, not just according to our political preferences, but in every other way.
With that, if you particularly liked GWB, feel free to explain why.
I don’t particularly like GWB, nor do I particularly dislike him. He was for me, at the time, preferable to a guy who wasn’t any smarter and who was also born with silver spoons all over. And who is, currently, worth in excess of $200 million.
Nor do I have any kind of idea whether he thinks he hit a triple. Once a politician starts saying things to the effect that they don’t think they really deserve to be elected, the electorate will line up and make it so. Or at least, there’s that danger.
WRT people who in general are seeking high political office, I agree with russell in that there must be something inherently wrong with them, or at least disjoint from ordinary folks, of which I count myself a member.
My only point, here, is that sins of great family wealth are important when it’s G. W. Bush, but less important when it’s Al Gore, or John Kerry, or JFK, or FDR. And, to be sure, the converse also holds.
1. I don’t know whether he fulfilled his obligations. I suspect they were loosely defined, so there is room for discussion.
2. I dislike the fact that he was ale to use his family connections to get into TANG and avoid Vietnam. And please don’t tell me that didn’t happen. No one who was of military age at that time can honestly deny that. The scramble for these spots was amazing. OTOH, this was commonplace behavior, he was what, 20-21 years old, etc.
3. I despise the fact that Bush, at a much later time in his life, like many others, seemed to be completely unreflective about this. The fact is that Vietnam was fought with conscripts. Every privileged young man who avoided combat was sending someone else in his place – someone who was equally unhappy about the prospect. Not to recognize that shows a certain lack of character, to say the least.
I think Slarti’s point is that folks who were perfectly willing not only to tolerate the Kennedy boys and Bill Clinton but to admire/revere them are in a poor position to make moral judgments about anyone. I think that is a fair point.
Disagreeing about policy is a different thing entirely.
That said, I think GWB did use National Guard service to avoid Viet Nam; he should have owned up to it and Byomtov is fairly critical that when someone like Bush evades service, someone else is sent. Republicans made precisely that point about Clinton, but it fell on leftish ears differently back then.
If H Clinton gets the nomination, her defenders will have zero credibility in making moral judgments of others. A more ethically challenged, unaccomplished human being is hard to imagine as a viable candidate for president.
I meant that Bymotov’s criticism was fair. Syntactical dyslexia.
WRT people who in general are seeking high political office, I agree with russell in that there must be something inherently wrong with them, or at least disjoint from ordinary folks, of which I count myself a member.
Me, too. I don’t know what it is – need for approval or attention. They’re a bunch of weirdoes, in one way or another.
If H Clinton gets the nomination, her defenders will have zero credibility in making moral judgments of others
uh huh.
say, guess who’s leading the GOP race right now! hint: it ain’t Pope Francis.
say, guess who’s leading the GOP race right now! hint: it ain’t Pope Francis
Cleek, beats me. Trump? Feel free to rewrite my sentence and insert Trump for H Clinton. I will agree with both statements. You?
BTW I have been asked in this thread whether I had family connections to the banking industry. So, I’m going to list my immediate ancestry. If we go back far enough, there may be wealth to be found, but I honestly don’t know of any relations who are of more than modest means.
Father: mobile home salesman, earning at peak a middle-class income on which he supported a family of 6 children.
Father’s parents: grandfather was a logger who was killed in a trucking accident within a week or so of having to ship off for the Army, WWII. Grandmother was a housewife who managed to keep her four kids fed by teaching piano, after grandfather was killed. She later met a man who worked on the railroad and who could better support her family, who became surrogate father to my dad and his brothers, and with whom she had three more children. Both grandma and grandfather are dead, and papa Curt is also dead.
Great-grandparents were of modest means, at best. Although g’grandfather was I think once mayor of Escanaba, Michigan. At some point, he and his brothers founded a town in upper Michigan that bears my family name, but it’s really more of a wide place in the road, and unincorporated.
No inheritance was forthcoming from that branch of the family, I shouldn’t have to add, nor was one in any way expected.
Dad eventually obtained a college degree in history (several years after I graduated college), and did some research in France before founding (with his wife) a business that attempts to address learning impairment in children. Mom and dad divorced shortly after I got out of college, and dad remarried some years later. Dad and wife (still married!) are retired, and raise sheep and other critters in Indiana. There’s some income from that, but it’s the kind that more or less offsets expenditures.
Mom was a housewife at first. She later found work in city offices and even later did work for switchboard-concern-like organizations, and received some substantial training in counseling and social work (but no degree). She counseled drug and alcohol addicts until she retired, recently.
Mom’s parents were a postal carrier (who will be 102 years old this September!) and an Irish Catholic housewife who never worked outside the home. None of their ancestors were of any financial means that I am aware of.
So, that’s the degree to which family money influences my opinions and outlook, and has lofted me into my current position in society.
Actually, I am particularly irritated by Interstate highways which are toll roads. They’re funded, in substantial part, by my Federal taxes. But somehow I still have to pay to drive on them, so the local state governments can get money from me, rather than raise taxes on their residents.
/rant
Here’s the toll schedule from DelDot. About a 25-mile stretch of I-95 runs through Delaware, but they grab a toll from thousands upon thousands of travelers going up and down the East Coast every day. The thing is, you’re really being charged for the mile and a half between the toll plaza and the Maryland border, because you can use I-95 to go just about anywhere in Delaware without paying the toll. It’s the people just passing through who pay.
I-95 Newark Toll Plaza
Cash E-ZPass
2 Axle (Car, Van, SUV, Motorcycle, Pickup) $4.00 $4.00
3 Axle (includes trailer) $6.00 $6.00
4 Axle (includes trailer) $7.00 $7.00
5 Axle (includes trailer) $9.00 $9.00
6 Axle (includes trailer) $11.00 $11.00
At least the NJ Turnpike runs almost the entire length of the state, and you can’t use any of it without paying a toll, which is based on how many exits your trip comprised. That seems, if not desirable, at least fairer.
BTW I have been asked in this thread whether I had family connections to the banking industry.
Well, not really. I jokingly asked if one of your immediate family members was a very large bank, like, literally, which is obviously impossible. (Why, yes! My sister is Wells Fargo!)
I figured you didn’t come from money. Most engineers don’t. I would know. That’s why I thought it was weird that you seemed to take the suggestion of breaking up the mega-banks so personally, what with all the ox-goring.
The thing is, you’re really being charged for the mile and a half between the toll plaza and the Maryland border
I-95 in NH, I’m looking at you.
I think they must run the whole freaking state off of that 10-mile stretch of highway.
If H Clinton gets the nomination, her defenders will have zero credibility in making moral judgments of others. A more ethically challenged, unaccomplished human being is hard to imagine as a viable candidate for president.
As a partisan, and a semi-socialist, I can live with that. If she is the Dem nominee, she will get my vote…not because of her personality, integrity, honesty, or whatever yardstick you want to pull out…
…But because she shall represent a coalition of various interests that I prefer, since I feel obligated to choose, to run this country.
The rest is highly entertaining and gets my blood boiling every once and a while, but it is not of the highest importance.
I figured that, but sometimes I like to put an exclamation point on things.
Not that I have any particular disregard for wealth. I could think of a few things that I could do with a bit more in the way of ready cash. Plus, where I grew up there were quite a few millionaires, so it was impossible, nearly, not to know someone whose parents were very rich. Some of them were nice people, and some of them were snobs. It was a mix.
Trump would definitely fit the sentence.
But is he really a viable candidate? Or just someone whose name recognition is putting him (marginally) in the lead of a very large field? I certainly hope for the latter, but confess I wouldn’t bet the ranch on it.
…what with all the ox-goring.
Yes. It’s time to give them a rest and let the asses have their turn.
I hope that he is not. Because that would say something about a goodly fraction of the country that I, personally, hope is not true.
also, Ted Cruz needs to be put on the ethically-challenged list.
also, Ted Cruz needs to be put on the ethically-challenged list
I’m no Cruz fan, but are you saying that his ethics are in question because of bulk buying of his book?
That’s it?
Seems like a bit of a reach to me.
no, there will be no gray here. all ethical infractions are equal affronts to the Great Gods of Ethical Standards. Cruz has transgressed and shall forever carry the Mark Of Shame.
See, I read cleek’s comment as that Cruz was ethnically-challenged.
I blame myself.
no, there will be no gray here. all ethical infractions are equal affronts to the Great Gods of Ethical Standards. Cruz has transgressed and shall forever carry the Mark Of Shame.
Fair enough. Pretty much everyone but you and I are screwed, eh? And I’m not entirely sure about you.
…apropos of little
Come all you bold sailors that follow the Lakes
On an iron ore vessel your living to make.
I shipped in Chicago, bid adieu to the shore,
Bound away to Escanaba for red iron ore.
Derry down, down, down derry down.
…great song – “Red Iron Ore”
carry on
As a draftee, I’m pretty keenly aware that a $50,000 bounty was offered for anyone who could bring evidence that W ever trained with the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group after his initial check-in with Lt. Col. Turnipseed, and that reward was never claimed.
Whatever skeletons any one of us might have in his or her closet, they could disappear if our Dads could pay Harriet Miers’s retainer and give her a decade to clean up the record before they became an issue.
It’s too late to care specifically about the hapless Shrub. It’s never too late to be appalled that the laws in the United States seem mostly not to apply to persons sufficiently wealthy or well-connected.
Where do you think this $300bn would come from? In so far as it’s raised by a transaction tax on shares, much of the incidence would be initially on share prices, and subsequently on IPO prices – the price you’d be willing to pay for a share would be reduced by the present value of the transaction tax on all future trades in that share.
You could stop high-frequency trading with this sort of tax, but why would you want to? HFT is what you get when you replace human traders with computers. You can switch back to using humans if you like: the result would be higher commissions to pay more bankers.
There’s no reason why you have to allow High Frequency Training in order to get computer (rather than manual) trading.
The funds which make money on millisecond trades would be unhappy. But the shops which serve customers who merely want to buy and sell shares in companies? The companies which run mutual funds? Not that much impact.
And I’m not convinced the impact on share prices would be all that much. Not least because, outside HFT, most people just don’t trade that often. Which means that most shares actually don’t trade that often. Ergo, not that much total transaction tax over the life of the share.
McKinney,
Thanks for the agreement. As to Gore, let me note in his defense that he, unlike W, did not think the war was a good thing. That is, as I understand it, he would have preferred that no one go and fight, while W was all for the great adventure, even later, so long as he didn’t have to go. To me, that is a big difference.
PaulB,
I don’t think the price would be reduced by the PV of all taxes on future trades. Even if you assume that the incidence is on the buyer I think it would be only the amount of a single occurrence. After all, by assumption, the buyer never has to pay it again. And if you change the assumption about the incidence, the same thing happens in a more complex way.
Slartibartfast: And the like. I really cannot lecture others while looking at reality through my own lens and filter, but sometimes it’s useful to observe that we all have those.
Every one of us.
With this I can agree. But I balk at labeling as “fiction” well-documented, if somewhat exaggerated, claims that there is evidence for, i.e., that GWB was an alcoholic, used coke, and had an iffy service record in TANG. (They didn’t officially consider him a deserter, it’s true, and I don’t think they should have. But as a clerk in the military in that era I have some familiarity with the discretion offered by apparently black-and-white military regulations, and a few years back, when I went more closely through the available internet documentation on GWB’s National Guard service, it was clear to me that a chain of command who had it in for him – or even had no particular interest in protecting him? – could have reasonably brought such charges against him.) If you want to carp at such exaggerations, and use tu quoque argumentation (“So’s your old man!”), as above, fine. Just stop short of implying that these epithets are lies and that all who repeat or believe them must be either fools or liars.
Meanwhile, I was also for some years a resident of the state of Michigan, and I hereby pronounce as “fiction” the preposterous idea that there is, or ever was, such a town as Slartibartfast, MI!
Paul B,
Pick up a copy of Michael Lewis’ book, “Flash Boys” for a good read on HFT. Warren Buffet’s partner, Charlie Munger has some choice things to say about HFT here.
(They didn’t officially consider him a deserter, it’s true, and I don’t think they should have. But as a clerk in the military in that era I have some familiarity with the discretion offered by apparently black-and-white military regulations, and a few years back, when I went more closely through the available internet documentation on GWB’s National Guard service, it was clear to me that a chain of command who had it in for him – or even had no particular interest in protecting him? – could have reasonably brought such charges against him.)
This is still true, though there have been a few recent move – fiercely resisted, I might add – to reduce command discretion in the UCMJ. See e.g. 2012’s removal of disposition authority in sexual assault cases from junior unit commanders up to senior commanders, or ongoing debate about whether this sfould be even further removed. The ’50s saw some reform of the UCMJ which afforded more rights to the accused (e.g., the right to legal counsel, which I may add was fiercely resisted), but it also saw an expansion of the commander’s tools to render justice less uniform (although in what might seem like a contradiction, it’s broadly acknowledged that this was generally actually a good thing). The degree to which command discretion colors persecution or non-persecution of offenses can make the most outrageous examples of prosecutorial or administrative discretion for alleged police misconduct look almost fair and unbiased, essentially for the same reasons there are problems in that area. A lack of UCMJ action for an alleged offense in the military is nothing resembling proof of innocence – it’s only proof that command did not choose to take action, for whatever reason and regardless of whether or not any actual misconduct occurred.
There’s no reason why you have to allow High Frequency Training in order to get computer (rather than manual) trading.
You can have electronic execution without HFT. But the market-making algorithms which have made spreads so narrow are built around HFT.
And I’m not convinced the impact on share prices would be all that much. Not least because, outside HFT, most people just don’t trade that often. Which means that most shares actually don’t trade that often. Ergo, not that much total transaction tax over the life of the share.
If shares don’t trade much, how are you going to raise $300bn with a FTT?
I don’t think the price would be reduced by the PV of all taxes on future trades. Even if you assume that the incidence is on the buyer I think it would be only the amount of a single occurrence.
OK, you don’t. What do you think is wrong with appendix A of this paper?
That paper is looking at the use of a transation tax for a) tax revenue generation and b) discouraging excessive leverage. It does not (unless I missed something) look in detail at its desirability/efficacy in reducing High Frequency Trading.
P.S. Did you read the final paragraph of the Conclusions and Policy Recommendations? Which (unless I am seriously misunderstanding it) does not appear to suggest that there would be a huge negative impact on markets — although greater for narrow-margin markets, such as currencies and futures
PaulB,
OK, you don’t. What do you think is wrong with appendix A of this paper?
Given the constraints of the initial assumptions (always key when assaying economic papers), why nothing. However, one could apply the same logic to fixed per share transaction brokerage fees to demonstrate….
“that the marginal proportional reduction in price from the tax is greater the lower is the initial tax rate.” (quoting from the appendix)…
Which, I guess, is some kind or argument that we should have higher brokerage fees. Or something.
The conclusion of the paper seems fairly reasonable (such a tax may lead to minor market distortions), but I question the assertions regarding “cost of capital” since investment capital is overwhelmingly sourced from savings, retained earnings, or the bond market, none of which would be subject to the FTT.
Perhaps you could take on this paper.
Thanks.
“What do you think is wrong with appendix A of this paper?”
Well, I need a little time to absorb it all, but at first glance it looks to me like equation A.1. assumes your conclusion.
But I’ll try to look more closely.
what value is created by high frequency trading, and for whom is it created?
the final paragraph … does not appear to suggest that there would be a huge negative impact on markets
Yes, it says a 1-2bp FTT would not have a huge impact. Sanders is proposing a 50bp FTT.
“that the marginal proportional reduction in price from the tax is greater the lower is the initial tax rate.” (quoting from the appendix)
That’s just an aside saying that increasing the rate of FTT has less price effect the higher FTT was previously.
re. your remark about the bond market; Sanders proposes an FTT on bond trading also. In any case, I think it a bad thing for the tax structure to favour debt over equity.
…at first glance it looks to me like equation A.1. assumes your conclusion.
It assumes that a share is worth the (risk-adjusted) present value of its future cashflows, from which my and its conclusion follows. It would be heroic of you to disagree with that assumption.
what value is created by high frequency trading, and for whom is it created?
HFT reduces market spreads, which is beneficial for investors generally. Against that, it takes roughly $1bn a year out of the market. It’s certainly worth considering market reforms to reduce that, so long as they don’t result in too much widening of spreads. However, it certainly isn’t worth taking $300bn annually out of the market to stop HFT taking $1bn.
If HFT is so innocuous then why would somebody spend $300 million to build a “wire”(now outmoded) in a straight line from Chicago to New York? How can an activity that one firm famously claimed to “never have a losing day in 4 years” be called “trading”?
I found this to be a fair summary of the issues from a market standpoint.
The larger standpoint remains. The financial sector is growing as a % of total GNP. With the decline of retail trading, it is the playground for the well off and big institutions. Government policy and regulations have played a central role in promoting this trend.
This sector of the economy is coddled and sheltered. It needs to be taxed more.
oops…wrong link. Try this one:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-06/high-frequency-trading-all-you-need-know
about the bond market; Sanders proposes an FTT on bond trading also. In any case, I think it a bad thing for the tax structure to favour debt over equity.
But if the impact would be greater on bonds, wouldn’t that favor equity over debt (bonds)? Which, I agree with you, would be a good thing.
it is the playground for the well off and big institutions. Government policy and regulations have played a central role in promoting this trend.
This sector of the economy is coddled and sheltered. It needs to be taxed more.
Why not remove the policies and regulations that are playing a central role in this trend? Why not stop coddling and sheltering the financial markets?
Why not remove the policies and regulations that are playing a central role in this trend? Why not stop coddling and sheltering the financial markets?
But that would remove the excuse for fixing the problems by creating new problems that, in turn, will need to be fixed.
oops….I see I linked to the wrong article above. Try this one:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-06/high-frequency-trading-all-you-need-know
Why not remove the policies and regulations that are playing a central role in this trend? Why not stop coddling and sheltering the financial markets?
Indeed, why not? Politically, I would tend to think that the elites would rather pony up a bit more tax than agree to change the rules, but you have a good point.
Politically, I would tend to think that the elites would rather pony up a bit more tax than agree to change the rules, but you have a good point.
I’d agree that’s what they’d prefer…but I’d rather undermine the corporate/government entanglement, rather than further bake it into the system.
But it would be a tough row to hoe, and all that.
I have no issue with characterizing Bush as a non-drinking alcoholic. I don’t have problems with characterizing his service with TANG as less than completely shiny. I don’t even have a problem with rumored use of some unspecified frequency of cocaine use.
I do have problems with exaggeration, claims of fact based on rumor, and the like. Anyone with an appreciation for accurate representation of history, particularly historians, should as well.
If there are no filters, then Obama is a secret Marxist homosexual coke-headed pot-addled Kenyan.
You’ve caught me out, doc!
Bush could have simply said “i never used coke”. he didn’t. instead, he played coy; alluded to ‘youthful indiscretion’ and ‘mistakes’; said he didn’t want to talk about it any more than that so as not to make people think “hey, if the President did that, how bad can it be?”
there is really no doubt that he used coke. and he never tried to give any doubt. he just refused to answer directly.
Sounds like a slam-dunk case to me, cleek.
it is.
I am sympathetic to Slart’s objecting to the characterization of GWB as a “cokehead.” That implies something more than simply having done some coke, which I don’t doubt much that he did. Lots of people have done coke without being cokeheads. I think the alcoholic part of his history is fairly uncontroversial, though.
All of which is trivial in comparison to his actual crappiness as a president, which we are unlucky enough to have knowledge of, now that it’s no longer the year 2000.
Yes, this is exactly my point.
This, too, I agree with 100%.
Lots of people have done coke without being cokeheads…
True. And we still have a 5th Amendment (the Roberts Court notwithstanding), and yet some believe, with some degree of reason, that OJ was guilty, and Bush did coke.
And we had to endue 8 years of the most execrable political leadership that cost unnecessary deaths in the 10’s of thousands and trillions of dollars in lost economic output.
So I shall sigh like Al Gore, don sackcloth and ashes, take a drink, and climb down a little (not too much, mind you-a little) from the original characterization.
One can always go back to the old standbys: Liar and war criminal.
I do have problems with exaggeration, claims of fact based on rumor, and the like. Anyone with an appreciation for accurate representation of history, particularly historians, should as well.
As I do. OTOH, I’m capable of making allowances for political rhetoric, and of realizing that for much of history we don’t have “facts” that would be provable in a court of law.
If there are no filters, then Obama is a secret Marxist homosexual coke-headed pot-addled Kenyan.
Explain to me again how these outright fabrications – “fictions,” if you will – are exactly equivalent to calling GWB a cokehead (exaggeration) drunk (fact) draft-dodger (hostile interpretation of actual evidence).
That tu quoque just won’t hunt.
calling GWB […] drunk (fact)
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but my understanding, perhaps wrong, is that GWB is a recovering alcoholic.
My understanding is that its incorrect, and in poor form, to call a recovering alcoholic a ‘drunk’.
I could be wrong about any of that, none of this is stuff I’m particularly informed about, but that’s just what my understanding is.
True, a recovering alcoholic is not correctly called a drunk. But an alcoholic, before he starts recovering, is a drunk.
So I suppose whether it is a correct characterization depends on whether the author is using present or past tense. Ain’t grammer wonderful?
It depends on what the definition of is is.
My understanding is that its incorrect, and in poor form, to call a recovering alcoholic a ‘drunk’.
Apologies. The appellation should have been dry drunk.
Apparently lost in all this back and forth is the central claim in my original posting that these sorts of politically driven claims, charges, and slanders are rarely “pivotal” in a national election. There are exceptions, but not many. People may say they voted against a candidate based in these kinds of politically driven attacks, but in reality they most likely would have voted against them in any event.
You may return to your normal programming.
another of my posts gots eaten…..dang.
Fixed
Considering how BushCo abused and confused past/present tenses in their claims that “everyone knew Saddam had WMDs”, it’s completely fair to call Dubya “a drunk”.
And I predict that 100s of thousands of fewer fatalities will result.
the central claim in my original posting that these sorts of politically driven claims, charges, and slanders are rarely “pivotal” in a national election.
This is a point I agree with. It always saddens me to watch the press careen from one irrelevant accusation/revelation to another.
Rather than, you know, in depth reporting on things like policy differences.
Apparently lost in all this back and forth
As to the point getting lost…hyperbole draws focus. Sometimes that draws focus to the point you’re trying to make, sometimes it draws focus away.
“Pothead” is less of an outright fabrication than “cokehead”, I submit. We have photos and testimonials.
“Homosexual” is just about on equal footing with the Dan Rather incident. Again, we have people who are on record on a topic; whether they’re who they say they are and in a position to know is another question altogether.
Allegation is a funny thing.
And no, it’s not tu quoque when I show you how silly some of this crap is by counterexample.
No one made any claim of “exactly equivalent”, here. I’m making a point. Probably badly, given how it doesn’t seem to be taking. Otherwise, see my above comment about illustration by counterexample.
Or may have resulted. Or shall have resulted. Or even daidn’t result.
Verb tenses are hard even for the sober.
It assumes that a share is worth the (risk-adjusted) present value of its future cashflows, from which my and its conclusion follows. It would be heroic of you to disagree with that assumption.
OK. I see the math. But I’m still dubious about the damage. Narrow spreads are nice, but not of any huge value to infrequent traders. And, to be a touch cynical, Wall Street’s concerns over looking out for anyone’s wellbeing but its own are laughable. These are people who happily take exorbitant “management fees” for throwing investors’ money away, churn customer accounts and who knows what else, and suddenly the big concern is that the guy buying 100 shares of Microsoft might pay a few cents more than absolutely necessary?
it certainly isn’t worth taking $300bn annually out of the market to stop HFT taking $1bn.
Well, that depends, doesn’t it, on where the $300bn goes and what the return is, including to those it comes from?
On second thought.
It assumes that a share is worth the (risk-adjusted) present value of its future cashflows, from which my and its conclusion follows. It would be heroic of you to disagree with that assumption.
That PV depends, from the buyer’s POV, on his own trading strategy. A buy-and-hold investor has a higher PV than an active trader, because the next tax is far in the future. Doesn’t that make the b-and-h guy likely to outbid the trader?
In the extreme case, where the buyer never sells, the tax is assessed only once. So I think the model in the appendix is, while technically OK, somewhat simplistic about the effects.
Assuming rationality, aren’t people looking for the best return they can get, taking risk into consideration? So, even if the best return isn’t as good as it would be without the tax, it’s still the best return, right? And it doesn’t have to come from the same strategy or investment it otherwise would have, either. As discussed, the tax would favor longer-term investment over frequent trading.
I’d rather see that than an income tax that did nothing to favor longer-term investing (something more likely to consider real value creation) over manipulation of market imperfections.
So in the best case, the effect of this tax would be to eliminate almost all trading, so that it would collect only a tiny fraction of the advertised revenue. In doing so, it would take most of the liquidity out of the market, and hence hit equity values anyway.
This proposal is just the wrong way to achieve whatever it’s supposed to achieve. If you want to stop HFT abuses, regulate the exchanges so that they can’t give privileged access. If you want to fund the government at the expense of bankers and hedge funds, tax their profits more. But don’t take a hammer to the mechanism by which companies raise capital – that hurts the wrong people.
Paul, if that were true, then there would nave been almost no liquidity in the market before high frequency trading with computers came along. Somehow, I don’t remember that being the case.
Paul,
I’m not claiming that it would eliminate all trading, “best case” or not. I’m just suggesting that the effect is perhaps a bit more complex than that derived by assuming shares trade on a regular basis.
I don’t want to “take a hammer to the mechanism by which companies raise capital.” I have too much experience rising capital myself. But I think the link between HFT, indeed, between active trading, HFT or other, and raising capital is fairly attenuated. I’d like to see some evidence of the size of the effect of a transactions tax on raising capital before I get too wound up about it.
What I mean is that I understand the idea, but wonder how badly companies raising capital really get hit by a very slight decline in the price of their stock on the secondary market.
Please stop the nonsense. Trading shares back and forth is not “raising capital”.
Exempt from the tax stock sales by the companies the stocks are in. That’s the only time capital is raised.
But, more seriously, the ability to trade stocks after the fact does play into the ability of companies to raise capital by selling stock, even if the subsequent trading raises no capital, in and of itself. I’m just not buying the idea that a 0.5% transaction tax is going to kill the market. If anything, it would make it more sane, IMO.
These declarations that you don’t believe in the predicted effects of an FTT sound a bit like people on the other side of the aisle disbelieving in AGW.
If you could raise $300bn a year with this sort of tax, which you can’t, the money would have to come from somewhere. It certainly won’t come from buyers suddenly being willing to pay more for shares than they think they’re worth. Initially it would come from hitting the value of the shares already in the market, and over time, it has to come from capital raising. Where else?
You can of course take away the profits of HFT guys, plus the money they spend making them. That’s at the cost of destroying liquidity. Investors will pay more for liquid than illiquid assets, so that’s another hit on share prices.
Paul, if that were true, then there would nave been almost no liquidity in the market before high frequency trading with computers came along. Somehow, I don’t remember that being the case.
Previously liquidity was provided by market makers (“specialists”). They couldn’t operate with this tax. And previously, spreads were about a hundred times larger.
You may be right about the cost of “specialists.”
But the reason for specialists was to provide a place to buy and sell; to match buyers and sellers. Comnputers can provide that intermediary. (And they don’t need to make a profit and earn enough to support a family.) In fact, computers were already on the way to making specialists obsolete well before HFT reared its ugly head.
The only real difference, I suspect, would be a rise in “limit orders” (do not buy/sell beyond this price) vs “market orders” (buy/sell at whatever price it takes to make the trade). That because, especially with low volume shares, the person making the trade runs a risk of seeing way out of pattern pricing with market orders. But otherwise…?
As for the tax, the take from it would drop really fast, of course, because the HFT folks would cease trading. But the tax take is not the point.
Accomplishing the reduction/elimination of HFT wouldn’t take a very high tax — the whole HFT business model depends on trading enormous volumes while exploiting tiny price differentials. So the cost of a small tax to those making any normal (i.e. not HFT) volume of trades could be miniscule.
Sure, you could have the impact you predict if you set the tax high. But that is not necessary to achieve the desired end.
If we’re arguing about the $300B to be raised, that’s a horse of a different color. I’m not saying that will ever happen.
What bobbyp said.
“So in the best case, the effect of this tax would be to eliminate almost all trading, so that it would collect only a tiny fraction of the advertised revenue. In doing so, it would take most of the liquidity out of the market, and hence hit equity values anyway.”
Hanh?
It wouldn’t eliminate my trading. And I certainly never think to myself that a single cent of my stock transaction finds its way to the underlying company whose shares I’m buying, and that is doubly true now that companies waste, in most cases, their accumulated capital by buying back shares to juke their executive perks.
When I started purchasing shares 35 years ago, I admit to experiencing a warm, fuzzy feeling that I was somehow contributing to capital formation.
Then I grew up.
I’ve got a $100 bill that says very little, if any at all, trading would be eliminated.
The winning and losing side of this bet will be subject to a nominal tax, but don’t let that stop anyone from taking the other side of the wager.
Winnings in Vegas and casinos around the country are subject to federal and state taxes. Losses are not deductible, as they are, partially, in the stock market, that I know of.
I’ve observed absolutely no let up in betting on the casino floor. I’ll bet if I shouted a bullhorn while standing on the floor of one of the big casinos that from this minute on, gambling winnings would be subject to a further 1% federal tax, not a creature would stir, not even a mouse.
Well, maybe a blue-haired elderly in tennis shoes would throw a roll of quarters at me, but only because I was standing in the way of the drinks caddie.
How do you think Donald trump became so wealthy, though not as wealthy as his bald-faced lies might suggest?
I’ve got a $100 bill that says very little, if any at all, trading would be eliminated.
I’ll take part of that action — IF you include HFT in that trading. Because I think it would, and would be intended to, eliminate most of that trading.
But if you mean trading by folks who intend to hold the stocks for a while (i.e. at least until the next dividend payment, or next quarter, or longer), I’d agree that it would make no idfference.
$300bn is Bernie Sanders’ number – we got into this subject talking about his policies. Am I suppose to know that he’s only joking?
Comnputers can provide that intermediary.
Yes, they can and they do. But no one is going to make markets at a realistic spread if they have to pay 50bp on every transaction. Intermediaries have to be able to trade in and out.
I’ve observed absolutely no let up in betting on the casino floor.
That comparison doesn’t work. Most gamblers are having fun, not expecting to make a profit.
Am I suppose to know that he’s only joking?
No. I don’t know if he’s joking, either. But, once I tell you I don’t think it’s a realistic number, you’re supposed to know that I don’t think it’s a realistic number. Pretty straightforward if you ask me.
The Count linked to an article about the average time a US stock is held, and how precipitously that time has fallen in recent years. Somehow people managed hold stocks much longer in the most successful economic times this country has ever known, sixty or so years ago.
I don’t claim to know what percentage tax on stock transactions would stifle worthwhile trading, but I have to think there’s some number that would largely put an end to what it almost entirely arbitrage, by way of exploiting market imperfections mostly having to do with informational assymetries, without significantly damaging the ability of people to invest in value-producing activities.
It sounds like your concerns are more about the welfare of brokers than the welfare of investors, PaulB, but I can’t be sure.