Pepper sprayed for public safety.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

what percentage of Americans has a retirement fund in place when SS was started?

Do you know?

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

what percentage of Americans has a retirement fund in place when SS was started? What percentage of American had HC when HCR was passed?

I'm going to give you a google-free guess of less than 1% and roughly 60%, respectively. That being said, how is that relevant to the issue of whether the "socialist" argument works this time? I think that your oft-stated position that people who currently have good plans will suffer under the ACA may or may not be true, but I don't think the parade of horribles will hit before November. And, let us not forget, the GOP standard bearer has his own Achilles heel on health care reform in general and mandates in particular.

And a lot of us with good coverage now are happy about things that have already kicked in, and the knowledge that if we change plans, we don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

what percentage of Americans has a retirement fund in place when SS was started? What percentage of American had HC when HCR was passed?

Quick question -- who do you include among real 'mercans here? The denominator is important. Are we looking at Sarahbear's real 'mercans or Mitt Romney's?

Republican math is hard.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

I'm going to give you a google-free guess of less than 1% and roughly 60%, respectively. That being said, how is that relevant to the issue of whether the "socialist" argument works this time? I think that your oft-stated position that people who currently have good plans will suffer under the ACA may or may not be true, but I don't think the parade of horribles will hit before November. And, let us not forget, the GOP standard bearer has his own Achilles heel on health care reform in general and mandates in particular.

And a lot of us with good coverage now are happy about things that have already kicked in, and the knowledge that if we change plans, we don't have to worry about pre-existing conditions.

The number is going to be higher than that in '35. A lot of private pension plans had developed pre-Depression and crashed and burned in the depression, which was part of the reason for social security - there were a lot of people who had bum promises from private enterprises. Many unions had their own pension plan system as well, though the big trade workers tended to try to bargain for them rather than set them up in the union.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

Do you know?

i know it was really small. http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=46,7,4,2 says less than 5%.

Originally Posted by Not Bob

I have neither a kosher nor Halal hot dog in this particular hunt, though I figure that if a stone cold IRA gunman like Martin McGuinness can shake hands with Elizabeth, R. -- and if she can shake hands with a man who may have ordered the death of her cousin (who was also her husband's uncle) Lord Mountbatten -- there is always a chance of peace.

Lord Mountbatten had a boat
E I E I O
And on that boat there was a bomb
E I E I O ...

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ironweed

Lord Mountbatten had a boat
E I E I O
And on that boat there was a bomb
E I E I O ...

rather than talking about making the world better, maybe we could start taking steps to make it so?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

So are we about to hear someone who wants to be President tell us that securities law filings don't matter, and that we should ignore his role as President and CEO, those jobs don't really matter?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

So are we about to hear someone who wants to be President tell us that securities law filings don't matter, and that we should ignore his role as President and CEO, those jobs don't really matter?

Better to have signed some false SEC statements (who hasn't, amiright?) than to have been in charge when the outsourcing happens, I guess.

It's not like Wall Street types get prosecuted for anything anyway.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

Better to have signed some false SEC statements (who hasn't, amiright?) than to have been in charge when the outsourcing happens, I guess.

It's not like Wall Street types get prosecuted for anything anyway.

But now it turns out Bain was investing in outsourcing before Feb. 99. I don't get this - I assume every one of us who is involved in corporate work has done deals resulting in investment abroad, he ought to turn around and defend this as simply good business given economic dynamics. If he doesn't do that, it's just going to keep getting worse as more deals come to light.

On the other hand, either lying about his role or being a CEO who isn't aware of what's going on on his watch seem indefensible.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/10/real_estate/tax-liens/

has the CBO estimated how many homeless children the tax/penalties associated woith HCR will create? when the ignorant try to do good, it so often blows up.

Judicial tax sales and IRS liens = Apples and... Okra.

Judicial sales run on a calendar. If you don't pay r/e tax, within a few years, depending on the state, your home will go into the Sheriff's sale pool. The IRS isn't selling anyone's home for a $500 tax lien. Nor have I heard of it selling tax liens.

Also, having collected r/e taxes, delinquencies are often handled as follows:

1. Municipality gives delinquency to collector;
2. Collector tacks on 25% vig;
3. Collector puts debtor on long term payment plan;
4. Debtor stays in house.

This subverts the statutory schemes of most states, but unlike your example, most municipalities don't sell delinquencies to bottom feeders. The reason is simple: It pisses off voters and trades away a revenue stream at nickels on the dollar. Outsourcing to collectors is much more lucrative over the longer term.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

So are we about to hear someone who wants to be President tell us that securities law filings don't matter, and that we should ignore his role as President and CEO, those jobs don't really matter?

sounds like you're really struggling over who to vote for.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I am trying to figure out where we disagree most fundamentally, and I think it is this:

In my world, we have had more less steady economic progress for years, broken by the Great Recession. Thus, we've had a radically departure from what was basically working OK -- from a macroeconomic perspective, that is -- and we need to figure out how to get back on track.

In your world, things have been going to hell for years, in a handbasket, and we have been in denial, papering over problems and trying to avoid the inevitable day of reckoning. Things need to get even worse before they can get better, and anything that doesn't involve grappling with our most fundamental problems and making some radical changes is counterproductive because it distracts us from the deep shit we're in.

Now, I don't really think there's much point in arguing about whether things were basically good or basically bad before the Great Recession, partly because I've overstated our differences above and we surely both will agree that there was some good and some bad and the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but more fundamentally because to me the important question is not whether we're all swimming our way to heaven in gravy or riding the shitter down to hell, but what we can do on the margin, right now, to improve things as we go. Which is to say, I'm more focused on the question of how we respond to the specific economic problem we have now.

What I hear you saying is, there's no demand, but everyone is broke so there isn't going to be any demand anyway, so let's talk about spurring investment. (At a macro level, this is silly. We are richer than we have ever been before.) But that's not an explanation for why things are different the last few years.

Here is Krugman's story, which makes a lot of sense to me:

Why is that not right?

I agree with Krugman's suggestion that unconventional purchases of debt by the govt may be helpful. We've already wildly expanded the FHA's exposure, the Fed's bond holdings. Why not go further and create a massive federal "bad bank" to run off the bad mortgages? We could fix housing tomorrow by setting up a shit bank and letting it convert all the distressed mortgages to longer term, more manageable debt.

But the rest of Krugman's suggestions are hollow. The govt can't create employment for all the workers being laid off in the private sector. The best it can do is maintain its own employment rolls, which isn't enough, and arguably damages the private sector over the longer term.

Krugman and his ilk seem to think inflation is the only humane option. They seem to think its painless. That debasing the value of someone's savings is somehow different than simply allowing them to collapse. This is bizarre.

If you have $500k, and due to govt policies allowing us to endure a collapse (think Hayek, or Mellon in the Great Depression), it drops to $200k, is this different than if due to a policy which causes hyperinflation (Keynes) the real purchasing power of your $500k becomes $200k?

You'll argue, no doubt, that we will never get hyperinflation, so we should run deficits for as long as it might take. Perhaps that's right. But it seems to me there's a better answer. Instead of dicking around and trying to inflate ourselves out of the debt overhang, why not just agree to shrink it? I know your answer to this: "We can't just tell creditors to take less." Putting the fact we did exactly that with GM aside, that's technically true. But we can get there by allowing this Depression to do what Depressions should: Force creditors to write off more debt, freeing more discretionary income.

The only way to get creditors to concede portions of what they're owed is through fear. Let things falter as they ought to and you will see banks engage in broad principal write-downs. You'll see Congress allow student debt to be discharged at least in part.

Lenders will loan to people coming out of bankruptcy, whereas a guy in deep debt struggling to stay current will receive no such offers. That's us right now. We can't get a fresh start because we're not working to remove the debt overhang aggressively enough. If our aim is to clear the decks of debt, why do it indirectly via monetary policy? Why not put the fear into investors that causes them to start conceding on the debts owed? There's certainly no moral argument against it. He who invests in something that made loans to dicey credit risks deserves to lose his ass.

The best course is a giant debt workout. It's faster and far more efficient than the current stumble>print>rally>stumble>print>rally scenario we have.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

But now it turns out Bain was investing in outsourcing before Feb. 99. I don't get this - I assume every one of us who is involved in corporate work has done deals resulting in investment abroad, he ought to turn around and defend this as simply good business given economic dynamics. If he doesn't do that, it's just going to keep getting worse as more deals come to light.

On the other hand, either lying about his role or being a CEO who isn't aware of what's going on on his watch seem indefensible.

It's never a good position to be in to have to be running away from your record. That he has to do that on health care was reason to doubt his viability in the first place. Having to do it on a second front is certainly not good for his campaign.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

sounds like you're really struggling over who to vote for.

I had a period where I was. I do not like Obama's record on the War on Drugs, on drone strikes, on indefinite detention and I don't think he's done enough for the economy and hasn't pushed the fed enough.

I think Romney has the potential to do more for the economy and on pushing the Fed by virtue of reducing the heckler's veto from the hard-money economic fringe of the Republican party. I fully expect that a Romney administration would open both the fiscal (i.e., military and other handouts) and monetary spigots.

But (1) the fiscal spending will be exactly in the wrong places and done via costly trade offs, especially for social security, (2) I can't accept the rest of the crap that an unconstrained Republican government would do, and (3) Romney will be as bad or worse on the police state issues.

If I thought the Dems would take both houses of congress, I might be more open to it, but that isn't going to happen, while the opposite might.