Politics

:D THE STIMULUS IS WORKING LIKE A CHARM :D http://www.smartmoney.com/Investing/Economy/Dow-8000-5-Reasons-Driving-the-Rally/ ...or rather, WSJ's SmartMoney reports 5 reasons for the rally, including "Team Obama". Yes, specious reasoning aside, multiple forces are working to change the economy for the better. I'm really glad to see this. Is this just temporary, or is the economy actually beginning to recover?

I think we are in a depression. There is no formal definition, but... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKMkV532Xkq0&refer=home With such a large decrease in just one quarter and with all the company and bank failures, it should be easy to call this one.

Anyone catch Frontline tonight on PBS? I know it varies when it's actually shown, so if you haven't gotten it yet you might get it Wednesday or Thursday night. The episode has already been posted, though, and it's available for viewing online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/ I thought it was awesome, and it's going to be a real sore point for just about everyone who watches it -- Obama supporters, pure-market economics supporters, Bush supporters, Clinton supporters -- everyone takes a hit here. I love it when the truth bites hard. My only complaint about it was that it was a bit too one-sidedly against the Bush administration in…

”Same-sex marriage” comes to Iowa: Please bear in mind that Iowa is a heartland state, not a coastal state like California or Massachusetts. As such, the corny folks of I-O-Way must be wise to the rights of others besides the straights. Is this a sign of things to comes?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090404/pl_nm/us_obama_europe Wow. The dream of hippies everywhere, and Obama is actually going to try for it. This is unprecedentedly awesome.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5355NK20090406 This is awesome. Iran gets the fuel they need for their experimental nuclear reactors, and uranium enrichment remains under strict control. It's win-win!

I was wondering what the fine people of this forum think about regulation. I know roughly the idea of capitalism is to create a fair and free playing ground. It seems to me the train of thought is you either have capitalism or socialism. What if you could make both parties happy and make regulations. Not just any regulations but something that will really cut down on greed and bad management of capital. We have regulations I know, but we don't really enforce them. These days companies don't even have to answer to the president. Really reward good behaviour, and make it difficult to be bad companies. I m not saying "tell them how to run a business". They…

We have an interesting mix of views on the role of government, so I thought I'd start a thread on the topic, to try and better understand where (at a base) most people are coming from. A government seems responsible to govern conduct to protect people from each other and at times, themselves, and at times steer the "shape" of a society to protect the "moral integrity" of the whole or at least provide incentives/disincentives to things we consider generally beneficial. At it's loosest it seems to be that the guiding principle for new laws is "popular consent, without gross infraction to case law or constitutional rights" where there isn't a huge burden to prove the…

We can play the guessing game without knowledge of the variables they'll use to make it happen, but in the end I think the problem will be solved in a way that no one here would normally suspect. A innovative way that confounds our expectations (lacking access to their plans). Unfortunately, it seems Obama will keep a few nukes in stock. He said he would not drop U.S. weapons unless other nations agreed to do the same, a tenet of old-school arms control, and promised to "maintain a nuclear deterrent that is strong, safe, secure and reliable." Even so, it will be a huge step in a better direction. That philosophy is riddled with lack of foresight …

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/01/jillette.skid/index.html I really respect Penn. And this is another one of those articles where he expresses his own inability to know what the outcome will be given a paritcular set of circumstances. This article is him expressing that Obama is doing something that Penn philosophically agrees with, but rather than outright attacking Obama for it (actually he roundly compliments Obama, if somewhat sarcastically) he points out that what Obama is doing could actually work. This is more than I've seen from any other free market libertarians, who seem to be foaming at the mouth ranting over Obama's perceived madness. …

Apparently the administration is going to seek executive compensation limits for all financial services companies in the US. Even ones that aren't receiving bailout money. No, really. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/us/politics/22regulate.html?ref=business Some of the stuff they're talking about in there makes sense, such as commodities trading exchanges for derivatives and so forth. But setting artificial limits on pay doesn't sound like a good idea to me. We want these companies to be competitive with each other, that's part of the point. And if we're going to have executive compensation limits here, why not all American companies? Isn't the re…

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html?_r=2 Is this a partisan move, or one towards better transparency? Personally I opt for the latter, and am glad to see these sorts of things exposed.

Pelosi and Reid are up to it again. Apparently they're going to get revenge on Republicans for the amendment proposal on gay marriage by proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the 22nd amendment, which limits presidents to two terms in office. Very unfortunate. Story here.

This seems a little silly even by California standards. Apparently the state is considering a ban on black-painted automobiles because they allegedly produce higher CO2 emissions. You know, I realize the EPA doesn't test A/C output impact on fuel efficiency, but if they're right then how come I've never seen or heard anything about this? Sure it's a logical enough guess, but it does seem to be predicated on some assumptions, and California isn't exactly Florida or Nevada. Not only that, but the suggestion of the board that's making this recommendation is that other dark colors be made available as alternatives. I mean, if you're going to make a law for what…

I was hesitant about posting anything on this, as I wasn't sure how national this story has become. Locally, they're making a stink about it. The MIAC (Missouri Information Analysis Center) is a fusion center, according to Wikipedia, that merges information from Homeland security and I guess a host of various agencies, including the Missouri Highway Patrol, for fighting the war on terror. Well they released a report, The Modern Militia Movement which supposedly dishonored Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin by mentioning that militia members often sported their names on bumper stickers and the like, and supposedly suggested these symbols as a "mark" for militi…

There's a lot of talk on the news about tuition fees in Britain. The majority of university Vice-Chancellors want to raise the cap on fees to nearly double the current amount, while some want the fees to be limitless. How do you think this will impact the science sector in the UK? From my own perspective, I probably wouldn't have entered science if my total debt from university would be in the region of £60k. With some universities pushing for up to £20k a year, will this be reasonable for students from low-income backgrounds? I can't imagine that a prospective student from a low-income background would want to apply for a science degree if this happens. Imagine f…

For ages, both government and religion have had their fingers all over marriage. In the US, we are supposed to have freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Accordingly, the state has its own marriage "ceremony" related to the signing of papers, lawyers, judges, and whatnot, and there is a completely separate marriage ceremony that is generally done in some church or other religious setting. But these are two separate things, the legal portion of marriage and the religious portion. And they are independent of each other -- the religious ceremony is not legally binding, nor does the legal ceremony have religious significance. This immediately suggests that …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032003089.html Seriously, do these people just want us to hate them? Okay, so not only are they so incompetent that their company imploded, but they paid the wrong amount in taxes, and now they want that money back, after they've already been bailed out with government money. I think it's time for AIG to die.

A pilot was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Italian court. What did he do? He let the plane crash. More specifically, he prayed instead of taking any emergency actions to save the lives of the 16 people he let die. Is 10 years a bit harsh considering that he may have actually believed that praying would help? Is it just right? Is it not enough considering he did nothing to try to make the situation better?

I'm pretty sure that most everybody in this forum is too conservative to even give this idea a second thought. However, the truth is that most everywhere you go, medical prices are inflated due to inefficency, 20-30% unpaid medical bills (in public hospitals), and who knows what else. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070901/hl_afp/uspoliticshealth_070901162222 Apparently, Arnold has embarked on his own campaign to do universal health coverage, giving the rest of the world another reason to move to California besides the year-round 70 degree weather. Apparently, Massachusetts has already established it. Might be something to study up on. I wonder if Hillary will t…

I'm a mortgagor. On a near daily basis I receive a stream of offers to refinance. Many of them take the form of: A lender pretending to be my current mortgage lender A lender pretending to be a government agency A lender pretending to be a credit monitoring agency, noting I should refinance to keep my credit score up I really have to wonder why, after this giant debacle, lenders are still allowed to get away with this crap. I open every single one of these offers because I'm worried they might contain important information from my mortgage lender or the government agency that manages my loan. I think it'd make an awful lot of sense to require that sol…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29913195/ I support this. "Freedom Tower" seems like a Bush era doublethink sort of name. One World Trade Center does a much better version of communicating the whole "rise above" mentality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/politics/17obama.html Overall I must say I'm quite happy with the damage control Obama is providing for the bailout. Clearly there were a multitude of issues with it when it was passed. In my opinion Obama is doing a great job trying to address them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/25/AR2009032502311.html Geithner and Bernanke's plan for expanding oversight of the US financial system was made available today: The main changes appear to be seeking authority to seize other financial institutions which aren't banks... namely any institution trading in financial derivatives, hedge funds, and major insurers. They also seek to impose uniform standards on all of these institutions, including banks. This seems like exactly what's needed per Greenspan's post mortem of his bad decision making: Clearly Geithner and Bernanke have a substantially different view (now) of how t…

This is a few months old at this point, but I'm not sure how I missed it: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/judge-sufficien.html The saga of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation v. Bush continues. Basically, two guys working for an Islamic charity were accidentally sent a top secret document which shows they were being spied on by Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. They sued. Previously a federal judge ruled Bush was guilty, but the case was appealed and has now reached the district court level (i.e. one level below the Supreme Court) A US district court judge has ruled sufficient evidence exists for the case to continue. I wonder if it will reach…