Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Tell that to a growing underclass in Europe and North America. Right now, the poor are too busy trying to survive. Start paying them to stay home and either fuck or watch yet one more tv judge, and you'll start seeing population rates grow again. Especially if government largesse is dependent upon the number of dependents (pi).

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

It's cute that you think people in China were really only having one child.

But you're right, they ended the one child policy -- because rising incomes have had the same effect in China as everywhere else in the world and now they're worried about too little population.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Now that is what I call super heavy funk.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Among many other things, this assumes you have enough banks to take a preset slice of the financing to reach your goal. And if one bank can do it at a certain interest rate, what makes you think they all can? Are you saying if you get 2 banks at $300 million at one interest rate, they both get the same terms, but if you run out of commitments at that rate, you then move to the next set of banks at the higher rate and allocate among them?

This makes no sense to me. But, whatever. I'm just a lending lawyer.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Yeah. I got that. But flying isn't that expensive. It's expensive on shitty routes that are only serviced by a few players. A flight to Chicago (for example) is fucking cheap from anywhere that has a direct flight.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Have you been? There were exceptions, like if you were farmers and your first was a girl you could have a second. Also, if you were connected you could treat all laws as bullshit.

But it took me a few days wandering around Beijing to put something I saw into words- in the parks everywhere were grandparents with 1 grandchild. I don't know what blog told you otherwise, but the law had an effect.

Population may have been down, but that was because a 1 child rule for all those decades reduced population. I believe the sanction for a second was financial, meaning those that did squeeze out a second had money. Rising income doesn't change a society as old as China's into a place where couples do not want any kids.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You've got to admit, it sounds like there'd be a lot more work for lending lawyers.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I've been to the Foxconn facility in Schenzen that was prominent in the news not so long ago. Others who had spent far longer than the few hours I spent there said that the sea of largely female workers from the countryside that worked there were often not only children.

It absolutely did have an effect.

We'll see, but it has literally everywhere else.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Does "might have made a mistake" equal "should be the subject of three years of hearings costing many millions of dollars that go exponentially further than any investigation into 9/11, the destruction of the US embassy at Beirut, or anything else since Iran-Contra?"

If no, then I do not have a problem admitting that Hillary Clinton might have made a mistake. And the GOP doesn't understand the phrase the way you do.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

This really is not so obvious. If it were, Bernie Sanders would have sewn up the nomination back in, well, last October. (Trump would have had to fight longer, only because his tiny fists would need time to break down the pedestals that the Baby Jesus build for Cruz.)

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Speaking of which, we have been a little light on the Godfather recently, so let's take care of that right now. Make It Funky Parts 1-4. Sometimes you have to take your time and really work a groove. JB and Fela both knew that. The Daily Dose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2D2oUNTbjU

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I think he's just described a bond offering actually rather than a commercial lending deal.

Works just fine, but not the only arrow in the quiver.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Actually, among the pork rind eating, chaw chompin, genuine deeply tanned neck members of my family, Hill does ok. She seems to take most of the women and a couple of the men, with the rest being mostly trump. Bernie gets the hipster family members not these people.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Hank went to the Olympics in Beijing. He knows shit.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

when I've won an argument with a thinking entity, and then some "copy sock" tries to coat tail ride, can I fairly count 2 wins?

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

If you know you're fucked behind Door #1, and Door #2 is probably bad, but offers even some small chance of a better result, it's the only rational pick.

Careful with this. That's the Right's favorite speech in favor of "personal responsibility." I agree with you to a certain extent, but that's a third rail if there ever was one. Blame Americans, at least in part, for their own situations? How on earth would you then get them to vote for you?

Which came first? The globalism that eliminated the jobs that caused Joe Sixpack to feign injury and become a junkie, or the abundance of Oxycontin?

Much less complex is determining why Joe Sixpack decided to assign foreigners the blame for his sorry lot. Primarily because they're weak, and he feels like he can do something about them -- unlike his corporate masters who terminated his "career," against whom he hasn't a prayer.

Joe's obsolete in more ways than he'll ever hope to understand. Oxycontin = Natural Selection via Big Pharma.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

I'm seeing a lot more fervor for Trump among the upper middle class right now. That's a naturally biased view, as I tend to run into a lot of them. But I suspect it also might be something else - naked tax voting. Upper middle folks seem to think Hillary's going to increase taxes. I don't know why, as this is not a traditional Clinton position, nor is it a feature of her campaign, even in the face of Bernie demanding it from her.

The truly middle class people I see on a regular basis seem confused by Trump. They don't know who they want to vote for this fall. And I think they know, either way, the forces making things tougher for them are going to keep doing so, regardless of who's in office -- stumbling into the knowledge the President doesn't have much control over the economy.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

When you talk about the people you encounter, it's a helpful reminder to avoid the suburbs.

Not that I really need one.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

The rich can afford a lot of kids; the dumb and poor will have them anyway. Those of us in the middle are doing the serious population control.

I'm assuming writers will use Gatsbyesque to describe things a lot in 10-20 years. That seems mean to Fitzgerald. I'm thinking more a combination of Rich Kids of Instagram and those People of Walmart websites. Choose your ugly... 90 IQ trust fund brats in day glo orange Lamborghini Gallardos in West Egg, or the face-tattooed, seventy-times pierced, morbidly obese crowd scoring oxys on the street corners of the Wasteland.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

I actually find the people I run into posts hepful.

I know the folks I run into have a uniquely Massachusetts mix (PhDs mean squat around here) and upstate NY mix (A little Genny with those pork rinds?). It's good to know what the suburban Philly or hipster Minnesota crowd is thinking. And suitably frightening to hear what white people in Texas think.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Your numbingly stupid mantra that globalism somehow destroyed the working class, driving them into Trump's arms, is not only misguided, it is frankly immoral. It is immoral because it perpetuates a lie: that the white working class that finds itself attracted to Trump has been victimized by outside forces. It hasn’t. The white middle class may like the idea of Trump as a giant pulsing humanoid middle finger held up in the face of the Cathedral, they may sing hymns to Trump the destroyer and whisper darkly about “globalists” and — odious, stupid term — “the Establishment,” but nobody did this to them. They failed themselves. If you spend time in hardscrabble, white upstate New York, or eastern Kentucky, or West Texas, and you take an honest look at the welfare dependency, the drug and alcohol addiction, the family anarchy — which is to say, the whelping of human children with all the respect and wisdom of a stray dog — you will come to an awful realization. It wasn’t Beijing. It wasn’t even Washington, as bad as Washington can be. It wasn’t immigrants from Mexico, excessive and problematic as our current immigration levels are. It wasn’t any of that. Nothing happened to them. There wasn’t some awful disaster. There wasn’t a war or a famine or a plague or a foreign occupation. Even the economic changes of the past few decades do very little to explain the dysfunction and negligence — and the incomprehensible malice — of poor white America. So the gypsum business in Garbutt ain’t what it used to be. There is more to life in the 21st century than wallboard and cheap sentimentality about how the Man closed the factories down. The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale communities is that they deserve to die. Economically, they are negative assets. Morally, they are indefensible. Forget all your cheap theatrical Bruce Springsteen crap. Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs. Forget your goddamned gypsum, and, if he has a problem with that, forget Ed Burke, too. The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good. So does OxyContin. What they need isn’t analgesics, literal or political. They need real opportunity, which means that they need real change, which means that they need U-Haul.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Sure, but better that Sebby run into those people and report back than I have to spend any time with them myself.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

With this I would not generally disagree.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

I don't traffic in morality. That's a slippery metric. But if you think the white working class has not been victimized by globalization, you're being anti-factual.

They're dumb. Of course they failed themselves. But something precipitated it.

When globalization shut down the low skill job engine of manufacturing, it gave a not exactly brilliant population lots of free time. Idle hands, devil's work... Yes. They are to blame. But so are we. As Adder noted yesterday, we who knew better allowed the forces of globalization to savage them and did nothing to assuage the inevitable consequences. (Not that we could have, exactly, but we didn't even try.)

The National Review has been making this argument for some time. But it's unrealistic. One could say the same thing about the squalid inner cities. What do we do? Drive through the Camdens and Appalchias of the world and tell people "You're fucked. Get out! And stop reproducing!"

Agreed. But again, what are you going to do with these communities? Tell them they no longer have a vote because they're obsolete?

You need to read this article.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

Thanks for the article recommendation. I'll take a look. Heck, if it contains some good stuff, I may even quote it (or the article it quotes) and pretend that I wrote it myself.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

So you know my family in upstate NY?

If you see my cousin Bob, remind him that there's no point in plowing the back 40 where his Dad used to dump the chemicals from the plant, and that if he does plant it, he ought to make sure it's just used for animal feed and nothing goes to people.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Precisely. It's done all the time with convertible daily resent preferred, which is nothin more than a cp derivative. I've also done deals over terms ranging from weekly to 45 years. And why is this so dramatically different than slicing up a securitization by credit risk, offering different returns for tranches with more or less risk.

In my scenario, the allocation of risk is determined by the return the lender is willing to accept. Risk is parceled out in accord with the interest premium if takes to fund each successive layer.

I've done this deal for 25 years, with investment banks and commercial b anks, back when it made a difference, insurance companies, vc. and pe. Terms have been everything from overnight working capital to bridge financing, waste control tax-exempt products, and just because it was cheaper than straight debt or equity. I've done it as direct deals, packaged them as collateralized trusts, and floated them publicly. I've done tax-exempt and taxable, special purpose and general credit.

But what do I know. I'm just a simple country tax lawyer.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Ah, very good! And if you turn that into a metaphor...?

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

They aren't that hungry yet.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

I crap bigger'n you.

Re: Give me a job, give me security; give me a chance to survive.
 

You should also read this week's Economist. Lots of interesting articles about Brexit. Sunderland, where Nissan built a plant employing 7000, voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. Cornwall did too - even though its economic problems go back to the 1980s and the collapse of
mining, and it gets around $130M a year of EU subsidies- because the Brexit campaign fraudulently promised that all that money would be replaced.

It reminds me of nothing more than Kentucky and the Tea Party. Gimme my check, now get the gummint out of here until my next check.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

So, I didn't really listen in macroeconomics. When someone says the economy really did well under President ____, what is the implication? Is it spending to stimulate jobs/ cash flowing, or cutting back to fight down inflation? Or is the economy really not under anyone's real control?

What does a president really do?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

What do any of us really do? Mix Bloody Marys at a nearby parade and post holiday-appropriate funk? Yes. A special Daily Dose for the 4th. Parliament with Gloryhallastoopid (Pin the tail on the funny):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gZtmBZuNMc

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

It's like when a camp counselor says "whew none of my kids got lost."

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Good point.

It also ignores the fact that not every credit is one which every bank wants. But that doesn't matter. Do the smaller banks get to opt out of the shittier credits?

I think for the right deal, in the right situation, it could work. But there's no way it works if you force it on every deal.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Because there isn't more or less risk! You're forcing a pricing model based on nothing other than what you think should happen.

If I were a bank that could take more than $300 million, why the hell would I agree to take a slice of a loan at a lower interest rate on a credit I think requires a higher interest rate? Because it's good for smaller banks? Because you said so?

In all those instances, you did the deal because there was a market for it. You're trying to force a market for a product when it doesn't necessarily have one.

I'm sure you're the most sophisticated of attorneys. But that doesn't make your idea a good one.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

In my practice, the only people in their right minds who lend to my clients are either Venture Lenders or private equity funds with wild structures, equity kickers, and often technically usurious rates on their financing.

A healthy economy needs many arrows in the quiver. I'm a big fan of evening the playing field for billion dollar banks as opposed to 100-billion dollar banks. But restricting product offerings is not part of that equation for me.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Uh...it comes to bite you in the ass?

Unless you're now arguing that the increased costs associated with less frequently traveled routes should be spread across all airlines, I don't really understand your point. Air travel is very cheap to places that do not have the costs associated with connecting flights. It's not because there is a tremendous amount of competition. Competition helps, obviously. But the reason why it's cheap to fly to Chicago and not Cincinnati is because there is way more traffic to Chicago, resulting in larger planes and a bigger hub, etc.--all the economies of scale shit that make the per person costs lower.

From this string, your argument would be to force the bigger airlines to give up those economies of scale ("Then I guess we'll just have to outlaw loans that big") and spread costs from the crappy routes to consumers of the cheap routes.

You want to reduce loan size to help smaller banks compete. But all you're saying is that bigger banks must subsidize smaller banks. Just say that. Don't act like you have a market-based solution to the problem.

TM

Question
 

Given that I have generally changed my mind about what causes terror in the name of Islam, does anyone have thoughts on this?

The six attackers in Dhaka, Bangladesh "all in their late teens or early 20s, were products of Bangladesh’s elite, several having attended one of the country’s top English-medium private schools as well as universities both in the country and abroad.

Among them was the son of a former city leader in the prime minister’s own Awami League, the governing party.

“That’s what we’re absolutely riveted by,” said Kazi Anis Ahmed, a writer and publisher of the daily newspaper The Dhaka Tribune. “That these kids from very affluent families with no material want can still be turned to this kind of ideology, motivated not just to the point of killing but also want to be killed.”

That children of the country’s upper classes appear to have joined militant Islamists in an act of such brutality highlighted the radicalization among the largely moderate Muslim population here, a process that has accelerated in recent years."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/wo...=top-news&_r=0

TM