USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE Winter 2023: change thread titles constantly, almost on a daily basis

«‹›201 »

Zero_Grade: Mar 18, 2004; Darktider 🖤🌊

~Neck Angels~

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

Tim Kaine is making "an announcement about his future in the Senate" tomorrow morning.

Speculation is that he might retire and 2024 would be an open seat.

He's relatively young for the Senate at 64, so if he does retire I've would imagine he's got his eyes on the governor's seat again. I suppose he could also be thinking about taking a shot at President in '24, but I don't see him as the type to directly challenge Joe like that.

I would think Virginia could do better than him as Senator, but their recent electoral history is sending a mixed message.

Zero_Grade fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jan 19, 2023

# ? Jan 19, 2023 22:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 8, 2024 18:58

projecthalaxy: Dec 27, 2008; Yes hello it is I Kurt's Secret Son

With the climate change and world war 3 and so forth all being helped along by the annihilation of the world economy it might be bold to assume theres such a thing as "history books" in 2073.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 22:50

Foxfire_: Nov 8, 2010

BDawg posted:

I swear I saw an article this week or last where they said they all but had it figured out.

Someone unofficially saying "we've all but figured it out _{(that it was Alito or Thomas)}" doesn't seem at all inconsistent with a final report that goes " :shrug:

it's impossible to ever know"

# ? Jan 19, 2023 22:51

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

Foxfire_ posted:

Someone unofficially saying "we've all but figured it out _{(that it was Alito or Thomas)}" doesn't seem at all inconsistent with a final report that goes " it's impossible to ever know"

Yeah, the common ground shared by those two announcements is that they did figure who it is internally and then either realized, or were told, that the political reality means it can never be published

Alternatively, they truly didn't find the culprit. Coincidentally, the investigation only covered the justices' staff, not the justices themselves, or their spouses

# ? Jan 19, 2023 22:55

Staluigi: Jun 22, 2021

Randalor posted:

I figure I'll ask here because I can't seem to find a general "US Economy and You" thread, but in the event the US does default (and considering the Freedom Caucus, it actually stands a pretty good chance of doing so this time round), what does that mean for the regular person, and how would that affect the US dollar in relation to other countries currencies?

Little late to this but it'll gently caress the rest of our lives up hard and probably crest into new economic "lost generations" who have to live in the shadow of some big time wealth and prosperity erasure that hits down hard

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:10

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

projecthalaxy posted:

With the climate change and world war 3 and so forth all being helped along by the annihilation of the world economy it might be bold to assume theres such a thing as "history books" in 2073.

Yeah the profits from these opportunities and emerging markets will vastly outpace physical publishing

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:13

selec: Sep 6, 2003

haveblue posted:

Yeah, the common ground shared by those two announcements is that they did figure who it is internally and then either realized, or were told, that the political reality means it can never be published

Alternatively, they truly didn't find the culprit. Coincidentally, the investigation only covered the justices' staff, not the justices themselves, or their spouses

Cops don�t do well with real whodunnits, especially when the major suspects aren�t even on the radar. The court is a laughable institution anyway so all this checks out.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:15

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

-Blackadder- posted:

I can't seem to find the drat article I saw it in (it mentioned something about someone "seeing things for how they are") but the concern I keep seeing is that the GOP aren't just the dumb kid running at the brick wall this time.

McCarthy's actually trying some new strategy, I can't remember the details, something about insulating SS.

Whatever it actually is I can't imagine it'll actually work, McCarthy is by far and away one of the absolute dumbest people in Congress.

Doesn't matter. As soon as payments get missed on any US debt, that's a crisis.

We actually had a pretty good demonstration of the kind of chaos that can result just a few months ago, when a newly-elected conservative governor in a South Korean province decided to refuse to pay some debt that had been taken out to subsidize the construction of a Legoland.

The result was a months-long credit crisis across the entire country. local governments couldn't take out any more debt because they couldn't get anyone to buy it. Banks stopped offering some types of loan to anyone, including private companies and individuals. Skyrocketing interest rates made the remaining kinds of loan nearly unaffordable, and many major companies were soon at risk of bankruptcy due to a liquidity crisis as loans were no longer available.

The South Korean federal government was able to avert a full-blown crisis by rapidly plowing a ton of money into the market and issuing various guarantees, but the country isn't out of the woods yet, as the shock threatened to destabilize a real estate market that was already in a risky state as (like the US) South Korea was intentionally driving up interest rates in hopes that it would counteract inflation.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/10/legoland-south-korea-bond-market-crisis/

quote:

Imagine the turmoil if a newly elected president of the United States announced that the U.S. government would no longer honor any outstanding Treasury bills because most of them were issued under his profligate predecessor. That�s essentially what Kim Jin-tae, the governor of South Korea�s Gangwon province, did. In doing so, Kim sparked a nationwide credit crisis that is spreading internationally, in the most farcical and unnecessary economic self-destruction this side of Liz Truss.

Enhancing the absurdity is the origin of the crisis: Legoland Korea, a theme park based on the familiar brick toys. Gangwon, a sparsely populated, mountainous region east of Seoul, had tried since 2010 to build a Legoland near the resort town of Chuncheon. After years of delay caused by a discovery of ancient artifacts in the construction site and allegations of bribery and kickbacks, the theme park finally opened on May 5.

To construct Legoland Korea, the Gangwon provincial government established a special purpose entity called Gangwon Jungdo Development Corp. (GJC), owned 44 percent by the province and 22.5 percent by Merlin Entertainments, the British company that owns the rights to Legoland. To fund the construction, GJC, through a subsidiary, issued bonds worth 205 billion won (about $150 million). The bonds were backed by the GJC-owned real estate for the theme park and its surrounding area, as well as a guarantee from the Gangwon provincial government, then led by liberal Gov. Choi Moon-soon. Korea Investors Service, the South Korean affiliate of Moody�s, gave the GJC bonds an A1 rating, the highest rating available for corporate bonds.

But Legoland Korea struggled out of the gate, too far from Seoul and too expensive for what was on offer, and it did not generate enough revenue to honor the bonds. Also, as South Korea�s real estate market softened, the value of the real estate backing the bonds began falling below the amount of the debt. As the first due date for the bonds was approaching on Sept. 29, GJC was in talks to extend the deadline with BNK Securities, the underwriter for the bonds. Negotiating for such an extension is a tense affair but a relatively common one. GJC was close to buying itself a three- or four-month reprieve, by prepaying BNK four months� worth of interest that it would additionally owe by extending the due date.

Then came the disaster. Out of the blue, on Sept. 28, Gangwon�s newly elected conservative governor, Kim Jin-tae, announced that he would not honor the government�s guarantee. Instead, GJC would enter into bankruptcy, meaning that creditors would receive pennies on the dollar. BNK Securities declared a default on the GJC bonds and sought assurances that Gangwon would pay back the 205 billion won, but the government gave only a vague promise that it would honor the guarantee without giving a specific date. By mid-October, the GJC bonds were downgraded to junk status.

Kim�s declaration was brutally unnecessary. He claimed that he was trying to reduce the debt left behind by his liberal predecessor who, according to Kim, irresponsibly embarked on a white elephant project in Legoland Korea. But Gangwon�s decade-long pursuit of building a Legoland had always been a bipartisan affair, linked more to a hope of revitalizing the province than to any political faction. As a legislator representing Chuncheon, Kim was a vocal advocate for the theme park, claiming in 2014 that he would �jump into the Soyang River� along the city if South Korea�s Cultural Heritage Administration blocked the project because of the ancient artifacts discovered at the construction site. Nor was the bond amount anything excessive. Gangwon�s annual budget is over 17.7 trillion won (about $13 billion), in which a debt of 205 billion won is but a line item. Nor was the provincial government being asked to pay the entire 205 billion won in one shot; it only had to assist GJC in paying the extra interest it would have incurred for extending the bonds� due date.

By itself, extending the due date for the bonds would have cost Gangwon a bit, but it would have stayed contained. Kim�s move, however, has shattered trust in government bonds. In the South Korean bond market, a local government guarantee was previously enough to ensure a bond got the highest rating, approaching the safety of South Korea�s national government bond. By withdrawing Gangwon�s guarantee, Kim demonstrated that a local government�s guarantee could evaporate for a purely political reason.

This would be a reckless move under any circumstances but nearly suicidal in the current economy. In order to curb inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been aggressively raising the benchmark interest rate to remove liquidity from the market. The Bank of Korea, South Korea�s central bank, had to follow suit to prevent a rush of capital flight from South Korea to the United States. The result is a financial market starved of capital, with companies struggling to keep up with the sudden jump in the interest rate. Kim�s declaration all but threw a match into the dry winter forest that was the South Korean bond market.

Immediately, South Korea�s local government projects ground to a halt. As Gangwon did, South Korea�s local governments issue bonds with their guarantees attached to them in order to build infrastructure, public housing, and other large-scale projects. But Gangwon�s default made those guarantees worthless overnight. On Oct. 27, reports emerged that Incheon Housing and City Development Corp., a publicly owned company responsible for urban renewal for South Korea�s third-largest city, had abandoned a plan to issue bonds for affordable housing construction, as it expected no buyers. Out of the 60 billion won (about $44 million) worth of bonds issued by Gwacheon Urban Corp. (GUC) for public housing construction in a wealthy suburb of Seoul, 40 billion won in debt could not find a buyer�the first time in history that GUC failed to sell out its bonds.

But the fallout is not limited to local government bonds; it impacts the whole of South Korea�s bond market, worth more than $2 trillion. Corporate bonds are considered less safe than local government bonds. If few buyers are brave enough to buy local government bonds under these conditions, even fewer buyers can muster enough courage to buy corporate bonds. One of the safest corporate bonds in South Korea is issued by Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO). The returns for KEPCO�s three-year bond had climbed from 2.184 percent to 5.825 percent since the beginning of this year. But in its latest issuance, the KEPCO three-year bond worth 200 billion won (about $146 million) could not find a buyer.

Domestic trouble has led to international trouble. On Nov. 1, South Korea�s Heungkuk Life Insurance Co. declined to exercise the call option on its dollar-denominated bonds worth $500 million. Although the bonds� term was 30 years, South Korean issuers have almost always exercised the call option to buy back the bonds after a shorter amount of time�usually between five and 10 years. The last time a similar non-call occurred was in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis. The non-call crashed the value of Heungkuk Life�s bonds, as it signaled to the market that the company could not come up with the money to buy back the bonds. Worse, Heungkuk Life�s non-call dragged down the value of other bonds issued by South Korean companies generally�and even bonds issued by other large Asian companies such as AIA Group and the Bank of East Asia in Hong Kong. As the shock rippled through the international bond market, Heungkuk Life abruptly made a 180-degree turn and said it would borrow money to exercise the call option after all, reportedly under heavy pressure from South Korea�s financial regulators. Such back-and-forth, however, does little to restore international investors� trust in bonds issued by South Korean companies.

Unable to find liquidity either inside of the country or out, South Korea is now facing a nationwide credit crunch. South Korean financial institutions have stopped offering auto loans, as interest rates have climbed to a prohibitive level. Many of South Korea�s housing redevelopment plans, which often cost hundreds of millions of dollars to turn old houses into new high-rises, are being suspended because they cannot find financing, putting enormous pressure on South Korea�s real estate market, which has been losing value at a record pace. On Oct. 20, Lotte Engineering & Construction, the construction arm of Lotte Group, South Korea�s fifth-largest chaebol, or family-owned conglomerate, had to take out an emergency loan of 500 billion won (about $365 million) from its affiliate Lotte Chemical amid speculation that it was facing a potential bankruptcy along with several other large construction firms.

To prevent the credit market from seizing up completely, the South Korean government stepped in by providing a liquidity facility of more than 50 trillion won (about $35 billion). The Bank of Korea also injected 42.5 trillion won (about $31 billion) to stabilize the short-term bond market, and South Korea�s five largest banks also pledged to provide up to 95 trillion won (about $67 billion) in liquidity. There is an absurdist quality to these measures: On the one hand, the Bank of Korea has been aggressively raising the benchmark interest rate to curb inflation by reducing liquidity, but on the other hand, the South Korean government is injecting liquidity to the market to stave off a total economic collapse.

Although the measures did calm the market somewhat, South Korea is not out of the woods yet. The country�s credit default swap premium, a measure of likelihood for a national-level credit event (such as a moratorium or other failure to pay back debt), is 75.61 basis points as of this writing, the highest it has been in nearly seven years.

Clearly, Kim Jin-tae did not understand the implications of his own action. The far-right politician is not known for his economic erudition, as he gained notoriety by being the standard-bearer for impeached President Park Geun-hye and claiming that the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, in which South Korea�s dictatorship massacred thousands of pro-democracy protesters, was a North Korean insurrection. As the Legoland bond debacle spread, Kim issued a statement in which he complained that Gangwon never defaulted on the bonds and only sought to restructure GJC�apparently unaware that the latter would automatically lead to the former. Belatedly, the provincial government allocated a special budget to pay the entirety of the bonds, which only served to remind everyone how unnecessary it was for Gangwon to complain about the debt amount in the first place.

South Korean media have compared Kim to disgraced former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, an apt analogy. For purely political reasons, both leaders caused an entirely gratuitous self-inflicted wound to their countries� economies, destroying trust in what was supposed to be a sure thing�pension funds for Truss, government-backed bonds for Kim. The same lesson applies to Britain, South Korea, and everywhere: Electing bad politicians leads to a bad economy.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:26

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

I'm of the belief that the banks would literally assassinate someone like MTG before she could cause a default but I do get that we're in an era where the conservatives are so loving dumb that they can really gently caress things up because they're huffing their own farts, as the UK and SK messes indicate.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:32

selec: Sep 6, 2003

Jaxyon posted:

I'm of the belief that the banks would literally assassinate someone like MTG before she could cause a default but I do get that we're in an era where the conservatives are so loving dumb that they can really gently caress things up because they're huffing their own farts, as the UK and SK messes indicate.

Is there anybody you think was assassinated by The Banks in the recent past? Like past 50 years?

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:34

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

selec posted:

Is there anybody you think was assassinated by The Banks in the recent past? Like past 50 years?

Jay Billington Bulworth

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:36

selec: Sep 6, 2003

Jaxyon posted:

Jay Billington Bulworth

I don�t think anybody is going to assassinate a politician for going too far right in America anymore, is my point. They can crash this poo poo, and there�s enough of a vulture faction that would make money off of it that this too would be processed and regurgitated and eventually endorsed by democrats 20 years later.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:38

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

selec posted:

I don�t think anybody is going to assassinate a politician for going too far right in America anymore, is my point. They can crash this poo poo, and there�s enough of a vulture faction that would make money off of it that this too would be processed and regurgitated and eventually endorsed by democrats 20 years later.

~The Money~ is conservative because it makes people lots of money and they don't care about the human cost. US debt default would have a huge human cost but the amount of money made from a us debt default would be tiny compared to the losses.

# ? Jan 19, 2023 23:43

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

Foxfire_ posted:

Someone unofficially saying "we've all but figured it out _{(that it was Alito or Thomas)}" doesn't seem at all inconsistent with a final report that goes " it's impossible to ever know"

the wording of the announcement strongly suggests the justices were exempted from the investigation

# ? Jan 20, 2023 00:09

lobster shirt: Jun 14, 2021

projecthalaxy posted:

With the climate change and world war 3 and so forth all being helped along by the annihilation of the world economy it might be bold to assume theres such a thing as "history books" in 2073.

look on the bright side, a us default could potentially crash the economy so hard that every country in the world smashes through their paris accord targets

# ? Jan 20, 2023 00:16

Charliegrs: Aug 10, 2009

Am I crazy for thinking that it would have made more sense for the Dems to just vote for McCarthy on the first round of voting? I mean yeah it was hilarious to watch the Republicans look like total jackasses for a week but all it ended up doing was empowering the mega chuds. Now you got people like MTG and Gosar on a bunch of committees. If the Dems just threw in their votes for McCarthy from the very beginning the wackos wouldn't have any leverage over him. And let's face it McCarthy was the best speaker they were going to get out of the Republicans.

# ? Jan 20, 2023 00:33

Eric Cantonese: Dec 21, 2004; You should hear my accent.

I don�t think the Dem base and the supposedly undertapped demographics that centrist Democrats are accused of neglecting would take too kindly to their representatives voting in a Trump-apologist like McCarthy. Those Freedom Caucus nutcases were always going to have leverage given the small GOP House majority.

# ? Jan 20, 2023 00:42

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; I’m just saying I would like to see a man beat a woman in a cage. Just to be sure.

Charliegrs posted:

Am I crazy for thinking that it would have made more sense for the Dems to just vote for McCarthy on the first round of voting? I mean yeah it was hilarious to watch the Republicans look like total jackasses for a week but all it ended up doing was empowering the mega chuds. Now you got people like MTG and Gosar on a bunch of committees. If the Dems just threw in their votes for McCarthy from the very beginning the wackos wouldn't have any leverage over him. And let's face it McCarthy was the best speaker they were going to get out of the Republicans.

they're not going to vote with him on policy(unless it's a military funding bill!) so the fight would have just happened on a different thing, and it's funnier to watch it happen on the very first order of business

# ? Jan 20, 2023 00:51

-Blackadder-: Jan 2, 2007; Game....Blouses.

McCarthy definitely gave them a hell of a lot more than they would've had with just a slim majority though.

Pelosi had that place on lock with the previous rules she put in place.

McCarthy threw all that away and just effectively handed the keys to the Jonestown faction of the party.
https://twitter.com/newrepublic/status/1615837745976418305

# ? Jan 20, 2023 01:00

Charliegrs: Aug 10, 2009