US Politics April: A Series of Fantastically Bad Ideas

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics April: A Series of Fantastically Bad Ideas

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Fried Chicken posted:

Wall Street: The DoJ has announced an investigation into the practices of High Frequency Trading. Michael Lewis has a new book out on this topic. The news coverage about HFT as a result of these two things has been met with eye rolling and stating it is old news by Wall Street, and shock by Main street. Which is pretty much why it is a problem.

I saw an article about this on Slate yesterday where, provided I'm reading it right, the guy says "This is a serious problem, but WELP! We can't have the regulators go from being ineffective to being too harsh as a knee-jerk reaction!"

Article is located: here.

Part of the Article posted:

The debate about whether these practices are benign or harmful to markets is entirely necessary. Personally, I think that the advantages enjoyed by some high-frequency traders are incompatible with fair and open markets and should be curtailed substantially�perhaps entirely.

But there is another danger here that is getting only minimal attention: that regulators, who once again are accused of being slow to respond and insufficiently vigilant, will go to the other extreme and attempt retroactively to criminalize behavior that it was fully aware of and did nothing to prevent until public opinion shifted.

As longtime market watcher Barry Ritholtz points out, none of the flurry of revelations has cast light on any dark secrets. The cozy and financially satisfying relationship between funds dedicated to high-frequency transaction and electronic exchanges that can execute trades in milliseconds has been going on for at least the past five years.

I just can't help but feel that this is a part of a problem right there. It's not that these groups are being secretive about what they are doing. It's that there's, by intent or by chance, effective suppression of any of this stuff coming out until it's far too late. The core of the problem here, that of a crippled and ineffectual regulatory system, still won't be addressed. Save of course for the usual nutjobs screaming that they should be removed.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2014 16:16

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:12

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Bobby Jindal was on NPR's On Point this morning and was talking up both how "The Republican Party needs to improve (with me at the head)" and how his healthcare plan totally is better than Obamacare, honest.

Among his many fabulous talking points he claimed that allowing health insurance to be bought across state lines would break up the cartels.

Suuuure it will, Bobby. But they'll all be located in Deleware for some strange reason.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 16:03

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

9mm? That sissy little europellet? Looks like another RINO!

A True American Patriot would only provide .45 ACP.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 16:56

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Joementum posted:

Mitch McConnell posed a query to the facebooks.

Let's see how people answered...

To put this into perspective I live in Kentucky and was at the lab of UK's med center the other week when one of his "Protect you from OBAMACARE" ads popped up on the TV. The reaction from the people sitting in the waiting room was rather unkind.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 15:02

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

The UK hospital gets a lot of people from the surrounding areas. For many people in central and eastern KY, it's the closest place to get any serious labwork/medical care done.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 15:40

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

He's quite fluent in the GOP language.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 17:04

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Yeah, Zimmerman has a lot of ground to cover to catch up with Bush.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 18:40

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

It makes perfect sense if you remember he's being held up by the Republican party.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 18:47

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Joementum posted:

Introduced into Congress this month: H.R. 4142: the No Welfare for Weed Act of 2014.

That's some mighty fine quality States Rights right there!

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 18:58

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

I love how they're almost identical, though one is 2 years after the act and the other is one. Oh, and a change to the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008.

Extra comedy from the use of both Marijuana and Marihuana.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 19:37

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Joementum posted:

Of course, the reason that the pattern is mirrored in the Senate is because the polarization was not (chiefly) caused by redistricting.

Actually the reason is very obvious to any red-blooded american:

Clinton Did It!

# ¿ Apr 10, 2014 21:15

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Relentlessboredomm posted:

When I originally heard about the NV thing I thought it was up north in the middle of nowhere but that guy is grazing his cattle in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. He's loving insane if he thinks that would go unchallenged. Outside of the federal land in NV used by the military that's easily the most important piece of property in the region.

So that's where all the New Vegas Brahmin came from.

Seriously though, Nevada is the most federally-owned state in the union, I think.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2014 15:25

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

A surprisingly large percentage of the tax code is necessary because the past century or so of tax lawyers have come up with increasingly intricate dodges and we've had to repeatedly amend the code to take care of them. I mean, sure, some (many) of the code provisions are just raw industry handouts, but much of the really crazy and intricate poo poo exists for some at least tenable reason.

Is there any comparably complex western economy that has a markedly simpler tax code? Is the US code a giant outlier in its complexity or do we just have a relatively "normal" amount of bureaucratic creep and cruft?

The last time the tax code got a major revision was back in the 60's, I believe. Since then it's just been layer upon layer of bandaids and exceptions. The tax code has to be updated for new developments and methods, and it still has old rules in there that are effectively defunct.

And beyond all those bandaids, there's also the simple fact that it has to cover as much as possible. The number of potential variations are pretty drat insane.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 02:53

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Devil's advocate: doing so would eliminate an entire industry's worth of jobs, many of them skilled intellectual labor.

Eh, the main thing this would affect would be people with just W2s and maybe 1099s. The kind of people who are serviced by what are basically seasonal workers that the tax company train in October-December the year before on how to plug the right numbers into their software.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 19:36

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

SavageBastard posted:

That's hugely wrong. The economy was poo poo. They had won the Obamacare messaging war. They truly believed the minority voter demographic boost in 2008 was a one off fluke. They had millionaires lining up to fund superpacs while the Democrats took the high road. This was their election to lose in their minds.

Until the fantastic spectacle of the GOP primary, there was a lot of speculation that you'd get a pretty hard R swing with the election. While yes they did pick up some seats, it actually went a lot worse for them than was anticipated. This was helped of course by the right fringe going a bit extra-wacky, but it was very close.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2014 22:12

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Joementum posted:

Issa might not be in charge of the Benghazi proceedings much longer, because....

I'd guess we'll be talking about reviving the Office of the Special Prosecutor by year's end.

I wonder if I can sue the GOP when their Benghazi theatrics give me diabetes.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 21:24

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Sword of Chomsky posted:

The US government has many times in the past openly coordinated against labor movements, civil rights movements, and other left wing causes. The idea isn't far fetched at all. For you to treat is as a conspiracy theory pretty much shows you don't have an understanding of this country's history. The point being made is that those same forces generally leave right wing causes alone because they fall in line with that ideology. I'm not even making a persecution argument, just a straight fact based argument, and all you have done is open dismissal with no argument.

COINTELPRO is really the only thing that needs to be said.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 22:44

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Ultra-Right-Wing Militias are well known for their opposition to banking and financial institutes, so clearly it was because of TARP.

# ¿ May 5, 2014 23:05

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Boon posted:

I know you're probably not going to want to hear this, but they provide taxes. Majority of the taxes are paid by the wealthy, despite it not being fairly distributed, by sheer volume of their wealth they pay the most. It's often used as an argument that the rich are over-taxed which is a completely rear end backwards way to look at it. In any case, if all the wealthy (however you define it) were to up and leave, the government would be economically devastated by the loss of revenue.

Eh, even this isn't a given. After all the taxes are on economic activity. Just because they leave doesn't mean that the economic activity will stop.

Now, it might because so much of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few that it would only make the liquidity trap worse, but that's an entirely different matter.

Edit: Consider this a support vote for Fried Chicken's post earlier.

Taerkar fucked around with this message at 22:27 on May 6, 2014

# ¿ May 6, 2014 22:25

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 00:12

Taerkar: Dec 7, 2002; kind of into it, really

Amergin posted:

They provide, what, 70-71% of our income tax revenue?

Because they gobble up most of the profits of the economy. Far beyond their share of productivity btw.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 22:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Politics April: A Series of Fantastically Bad Ideas