POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

[5mn_Major]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

Disliking HRC is fear mongering? Gad! If that's the case, we're 21 threads in to the largest fear mongering in USCHO history.

But please tell me that in your opinion she would have been a better president than Trump - thus far, the least popular president in nearly a hundred years.

 

[alfablue]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm not a super big fan of banks, but I would be careful in calling for increased lawsuits on banks, etc. We don't need super incentives for people to sue banks over minor issues - along the same lines of suing restaurants for hot coffee. Its great if youre the plaintiff who gets the big payday for a weak transgression...but we the typical customers pay for that in terms of increased costs of banking services of having to put up with increases in frivolous lawsuits.

Banks as with most major organizations spend much of their SG and A on customer satisfaction and customer service. Every major corporation these days measures NPS - net promoter scores - a customer's willingness to recommend them to their friends. There are some blind spots to this...which is why we need regulation. It is regulation and its enforcement that we need to get right. Once again, it is our current governments design and ineptitude in getting the best policies that is this country's problem...not easy access to lawsuits.

Once again, people like to use corporate propaganda to say that class action suits are bad. The coffee case wasn't a woman demanding millions of dollars- she wanted McDonalds to pay for her medical bills, as her burns were REAL. The fact that McD's covered up many, many complaints about their coffee temp, and that they were going out of their way to not take responsibility at all pretty much forced the jury to award that huge settlement. It was not the plaintiff or her attorneys asking for it. It was the jury giving it to them, to FORCE them to change their behavior. Which is the entire point of class actions.

You call the problems minor. But enough minor problems add up to a major amount of money that companies are taking from their customers. Just because it's minor to an individual does not make it ok to do it.

There are not thousands of people lining up to sue banks individually. That's just BS made up numbers. But class action suits can fix the low level corruption that adds up to big things to the group as a whole. You want to deny that?

And if you want regulations to deal with it, then we need to stop voting for people who just want de-regulation for all things. Again, which is exactly what R's call for.

 

[Drew S.]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

And that addition to the debt likely was enough to end the recession where it was. Would you rather have a big depression or another $1T in debt?

You don't seem to understand the actual workings of our economy very well. The whole goal is to make sure people spend money. That spending cycle make sure that people have reasons to make *stuff*. When the banks froze up- they prevented people from buying things on credit, and that had a domino effect on many other items- as the employees of companies who used that credit no longer had money to spend

President Obama did basically a public works campaign- which injected a lot of money into the segment of our economy that spent money. That money cycled through the economy and basically opened things back up again. You can't expect anyone making over $1M to actually stimulate the economy, as there are not enough of them, and they would not spend all of the money given to them. Poor people spend money- even on stuff you don't think they deserve, like cable TV and smart phones. But when they spend that money, it keeps cycling through the economy at a good rate. Not giving it to them just keeps it in savings accounts.

I'm not criticizing him for the recession spending. I'll even give him a free pass for his whole first term. What happened his second term though? The economy was back to being in decent shape yet we're still running gigantic deficits. It can't go on forever. If we can't have a surplus(or even being close to even) when the economy is in just about as good of shape as it will ever be, when will things turn round?

Calm down with the assumptions. I don't hate poor people. I'm not even arguing what we spend the money on.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm not a super big fan of banks, but I would be careful in calling for increased lawsuits on banks, etc. We don't need super incentives for people to sue banks over minor issues - along the same lines of suing restaurants for hot coffee. Its great if youre the plaintiff who gets the big payday for a weak transgression...but we the typical customers pay for that in terms of increased costs of banking services of having to put up with increases in frivolous lawsuits.

Well you can always switch to a bank that isn't actively engaging in scum-baggery or increasing the fees to pay for such conduct. I suppose if you have money tied up in CDs or a mortgage that might not be possible but to some extent you have a choice in this matter.

Also I used to think the hot coffee thing was a frivolous lawsuit but it was a little more complicated than that in the end.

I don't disagree that Pence, Ryan, the GOP, etc feeling pain as well...would be an improvement. But that doesn't make Flake calling out Trump as a key member of his own party anything less than a great thing and still very courageous. If he called out the entire GOP, he would be categorized as a closet dem and his voice would be much less relevant than it is today.

Flake is only doing that because he knows he'll lose the primary, not for any other reason. And he actively backs everything they do anyhow.

 

[alfablue]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm a Wells Fargo customer. I got all the notices that people may have opened up accounts in my name.

Is it annoying? Yes. Does it pizz you off? Yep. Did some financial harm come to me? Nope. Not that I can tell at least.

If some clown opened up a Wells Fargo savings account in my name, and it's sitting there empty, it annoys me but it hasn't harmed me. Furthermore, in the perverse world we live in you might actually see a benefit to your credit worthiness if you have an extra credit card account opened up, as odd as that sounds. You get punished when you close the account, but benefit when it's opened.

That's pretty weak. You do realize that it has an impact on your credit score, right? Which will alter what interest rates you will be given for various credits you open up. You will have harm. If you want to ignore that, go for it. But because you want to ignore it does not mean everyone else should.

You are allowing people to commit fraud. And are ok with it. awesome.

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

And how did Obama do? We could spend all day rehashing how we've gotten to this point, but it really doesn't matter. Nothing is going to change what has already happened. My question is how do we fix it going forward? Are there any democrats right now calling for a balanced budget or fiscal sanity? If there are I must have missed them. Neither party wants to step up to the plate as far as I can tell.

First, If Bush had continued the Clinton path of decreasing deficits and then using the resulting surpluses to pay down the debt, then Obama would have had even more tools to fight the Great Recession than he had available to him. We wouldn't now be $20 trillio in debt because we would have started with a much lower debt to begin with. But no, surpluses are bad, and that money must be returned to the people in the form of tax cuts. Of course, some of the people should get more of those tax cuts, though.

Second, The Great Recession. The largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and some evidence even now indicates that it's affects have been harsher, and lingering longer, than those of the Depression did. Brought to you by the recipients of those Bush tax cuts. What was Obama supposed to do, push greater austerity like the European countries were doing? Whose economy has recovered faster?

But no, both parties are the exact same. Not a sliver of difference between them. Only one wants to take yer gunz away.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

That's pretty weak. You do realize that it has an impact on your credit score, right? Which will alter what interest rates you will be given for various credits you open up. You will have harm. If you want to ignore that, go for it. But because you want to ignore it does not mean everyone else should.

You are allowing people to commit fraud. And are ok with it. awesome.

I'm not ignoring anything. I haven't been harmed at all. And if you want to prosecute and throw in jail the clowns who committed these acts, no objection from me.

 

[unofan]

What's really funny about that statement is the justification that cutting the corporate rate by over 10% is going to result in everyone getting raises on average of $4000/year.

In my experience working, there's no way that if the corporate tax rate goes down, that anyone will get a raise. None. The people who benefit are the same ones who get the profits when the workers are NOT given record profit sharing when there are record profits.

Same thing can apply to "more jobs" because of lower taxes. That does not pass a simple logical economics test- you only need to add employees when demand for your product goes up. Otherwise, it's management's job to reduce the number of employees via various efficiencies.

If you want the average American to get $4000/year, directly lower their taxes by $4000/yr. Otherwise, all forms of "trickle down" have been shown to be totally uneffective. They have never worked, once.

I have a feeling that the $4000 figure is technically correct (the best kind of correct), but in an intentionally grossly misleading manner. Figure it gives the person with a small investment portfolio $500 more in investment income. It gives $0 to the person with no investments. It gives someone in the 90th percentile $4000. It gives someone in the top tenth of one percent $10,000,000 in additional income.

This is a situation where mean and median do not align. The mean may very well be $4000, but the median is likely to be $0 or a couple hundred at most.

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I've got an idea. How about we handle this the way it should be handled. Maybe the Treasury department or Congress or the state banking regulators step in and punish these banks and the bankers? I'm no great fan of our government's regulatory features, but they have their place. Leaving the regulation of corporations up to trial lawyers is not the way it should be handled.

What effin' fantasy world are you living in, anyway?

 

[alfablue]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm not criticizing him for the recession spending. I'll even give him a free pass for his whole first term. What happened his second term though? The economy was back to being in decent shape yet we're still running gigantic deficits. It can't go on forever. If we can't have a surplus(or even being close to even) when the economy is in just about as good of shape as it will ever be, when will things turn round?

Calm down with the assumptions. I don't hate poor people. I'm not even arguing what we spend the money on.

The deficits continued to go down. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...e-cut-our-deficits-three-fourths-obama-state/

Again, given the TRENDS, it would have likely ended up as a surplus, like Clinton had. But when you start in that big of a hole, it takes time to dig out of it. The patterns were pretty clear.

The last 3 R presidents showed a decent increase in deficit spending, with no real stabilization of the overall economy. The last two D presidents had a sharp increase in deficits and then a gradual decline, and a stabilized economy. https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1960_2021USb_XXs2li111mcn_G0f

 

[jerphisch]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

One feeds the other. They cannot be separated.

Did the annual deficit increase or decrease under Obama? Was it a small change or a significant one? Answer the question. While both lead to an increase in the debt, the amount of increase is not the same, stop pretending like it is.

 

[trixR4kids]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm not criticizing him for the recession spending. I'll even give him a free pass for his whole first term. What happened his second term though? The economy was back to being in decent shape yet we're still running gigantic deficits. It can't go on forever. If we can't have a surplus(or even being close to even) when the economy is in just about as good of shape as it will ever be, when will things turn round?

You keep acting like this is some huge problem that's gonna come crashing down on us when there's no proof that it's an issue at all. The debt is primarily held by us.

 

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

What effin' fantasy world are you living in, anyway?

Not living in a fantasy world at all. I got started in this debate this morning because I was mocking the fantasy world where Scooby apparently resides. You know, the one where Trial Lawyers Make the World Safe for Democracy. If the concert version ever makes it to my city, maybe I'll use one of those Ticketmaster vouchers to go see it.

 

[unofan]

Class actions, like all lawsuits, have their place and serve a legitimate need to try to force companies to toe the line with respect to policies, manufacturing, etc...

But we also have a real problem with class actions in this country where we basically have lawyers who do nothing but those types of claims and move from industry to industry looking for ways to use the power of numbers to basically extort money from corporations. There is a line out there between abuse of these types of actions and legitimate use.

If an individual has a legitimate claim against a Wells Fargo or Equifax, there are no end of lawyers who will be willing to take it.

Baloney. The claim for any one person is $50. No attorney is going to take that when it'll cost them a couple hundred in time and overhead at the absolute minimum.

 

[Drew S.]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

First, If Bush had continued the Clinton path of decreasing deficits and then using the resulting surpluses to pay down the debt, then Obama would have had even more tools to fight the Great Recession than he had available to him. We wouldn't now be $20 trillio in debt because we would have started with a much lower debt to begin with. But no, surpluses are bad, and that money must be returned to the people in the form of tax cuts. Of course, some of the people should get more of those tax cuts, though.

Second, The Great Recession. The largest economic downturn since the Great Depression, and some evidence even now indicates that it's affects have been harsher, and lingering longer, than those of the Depression did. Brought to you by the recipients of those Bush tax cuts. What was Obama supposed to do, push greater austerity like the European countries were doing? Whose economy has recovered faster?

But no, both parties are the exact same. Not a sliver of difference between them. Only one wants to take yer gunz away.

No objection from me at all on the first part. As I said to Alfa, I don't fault Obama for the recession spending and deficits that resulted. Once things were halfway decent again though he should have pushed for a budget that was at least close to breaking even.

There is no doubt that republicans are more at fault than democrats for what has gone wrong this century, but what are democrats trying to do right now to fix it? It seems like both parties have completely given up. That is the point I'm trying to make.

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

I'm not criticizing him for the recession spending. I'll even give him a free pass for his whole first term. What happened his second term though? The economy was back to being in decent shape yet we're still running gigantic deficits. It can't go on forever. If we can't have a surplus(or even being close to even) when the economy is in just about as good of shape as it will ever be, when will things turn round?

Calm down with the assumptions. I don't hate poor people. I'm not even arguing what we spend the money on.

It would be, but you elected Donald Trump, and whattaya know........................................tax cuts for rich people!!!! More deficits!!!!!! Increased debt!!! Yay!!!.

 

[unofan]

We don't need super incentives for people to sue banks over minor issues - along the same lines of suing restaurants for hot coffee.

Maybe because it wasn't about merely hot coffee, but coffee so hot and well above accepted industry standards, that she got third degree burns in less than 5 seconds.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

The rule on Capitol Hill is if you're a Democrat you have to pay for your legislation (Obamacare). If you're a Republican you do not (Bush Tax Cuts, Medicare Prescriptions Part D).

Those are the rules.

 

[rufus]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

Not living in a fantasy world at all. I got started in this debate this morning because I was mocking the fantasy world where Scooby apparently resides. You know, the one where Trial Lawyers Make the World Safe for Democracy. If the concert version ever makes it to my city, maybe I'll use one of those Ticketmaster vouchers to go see it.

Really? let regulations fix it?

When this entire argument begins with Republicans just voting to do away with regulations that might help fix it.

So we need more regulations and enforcement to stop this sorta thing from happening. But you vote for republicans who want to do away with even the regulations we currently have, let alone implement more.

I ask again, what sort of effin' fantasy world do you live in?

 

[Drew S.]

Re: POTUS 45.21 STAND for our great National Anthem

You keep acting like this is some huge problem that's gonna come crashing down on us when there's no proof that it's an issue at all. The debt is primarily held by us.

The bigger problem is the interest on the debt. Once you reach a certain level it is very hard to service. In a lot of ways we are in unchartered territory where our economy is so big.