Is there an offical pointless election banter thread anywhere?

[tyzack]

CNN.com: Palin\'s town charged women for rape exams

I\'m not sure what to make of this, but I guess it\'s interesting enough to post. It\'s always interesting to see which stories/rumors are just sensationalism/exaggeration and which ones actually hold water.

What do most municipalties charge? Is is universally free? Or is this a case of a news story that sounds alot more extreme than it really is?

[Gordo]

CNN.com: Palin\'s town charged women for rape exams

I\'m not sure what to make of this, but I guess it\'s interesting enough to post. It\'s always interesting to see which stories/rumors are just sensationalism/exaggeration and which ones actually hold water.

That\'s the truth right there. Between that and her views on abortion Palin seems pretty barbaric. God forbid an Alaskan 5th grade girl gets raped and becomes pregnant. Seriously Palin is twisted.

[Drew_Kingsley]

RE: The Economy

The only thing that makes me a little bit hopeful about the bailout is that W. is, to paraphrase, acting against his natural instinct. Otherwise, I have the sinking feeling that we\'re fucked.

[Klout]

i love how mccain admits that he knows nothing about how the economy works, says the fundamentals of the economy are strong, then just pulls his campaign to a screeching hault and tries to call off a debate because he supposedly is going to reach across party lines and help work on this regulation bill, after 30 years of being anti-regulation,  that is going to take 700 billion tax payer dollars and make everything all better again when he has literally NO access to or influence on the comittee that will be drafting the bill so he will essentially be in Washington with literally nothing to do besides a photo op, but still he should put his campain on hold and call off the debate or at least negotiate so palin does not have to debate. unfuckingbelievable .

[bdfreetuna]

McCain bailing on the debate = FORFEIT


and weak sauce, no doubt

[tyzack]

RE: The Economy

The only thing that makes me a little bit hopeful about the bailout is that W. is, to paraphrase, acting against his natural instinct. Otherwise, I have the sinking feeling that we\'re fucked.

So this is the "If Bush doesn\'t like it, it must be good" school of thought?

Interesting, though I think that the plan is needed. I was surpised at the political audacity of the administration last week to basically say "Give us 700 billion dollars no questions asked."

I think that the best thing to come out of the Congressional debates is that there will most likely be oversight into what the Treasury Department is doing. The limit on executive pay for bailed out companies, to me sounds much more like a "stupid thing added onto a bill so the Joe 6pack will "accept" it." Think about it, what is a few hundred million dollars (assuming 10-20 million severince packages, for 5-10 compaines, and even that is really high) compared to also three quater trillion? If my math is right, that is about 1/7000th of the total cost of the bill.

The government/admininstration still beleives that the banking sector is fundementally sound. The plan to give (well not really, but whatever) the money to the banks instead of buying out the distressed mortages and then, presumably, refinancing the loan, is  preventing an even greater breach of the basic economic system. The idea is to say "Okay, investor confedence in the banking sector has pulmated because of fears that the banks will lose alot of money with all of the mortages which they own getting foreclosed. Therefore the easiest way to fix the banking sector is to remove the mortages from the books of the banks, thereby restoring investor confience."

[bdfreetuna]

in language the average robot can understand:

if(Idea.bush(approve)) { Idea.fail(); }

[inthewhitelodge]

It seems that we are led to believe that the whole non- regulation is what got us into this whole mess. FAaaaaaaar from the truth. Actually the gov\'t had every ability to intentionally shift interest/downpmt. rates which in turn led to the massive influx of homebuyers who had absolutely no business owning homes they couldn\'t afford. Please refer to Bush\'s 2002 speech regarding this debacle. But we are led to think that the gov\'t stepping in is the answer, but we are given a shitty out to reward the rich bankers by bailing them out. How unconstitutional we\'ve become.

It seems that we are led to believe that the whole non- regulation is what got us into this whole mess. FAaaaaaaar from the truth. Actually the gov\'t had every ability to intentionally shift interest/downpmt. rates which in turn led to the massive influx of homebuyers who had absolutely no business owning homes they couldn\'t afford. Please refer to Bush\'s 2002 speech regarding this debacle. But we are led to think that the gov\'t stepping in is the answer, but we are given a shitty out to reward the rich bankers by bailing them out. How unconstitutional we\'ve become.

The Deception We\'re Being Fed

Congress must decide between:

    * Voting NO and allowing the destruction of the global financial system; or
    * Voting YES and saving the global financial system by empowering the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to provide bailouts for troubled financial institutions up to a cost of $700 billion (more likely trillions of dollars ultimately).

The Reality

Congress must decide between:

    * Voting NO and allowing the free market to liquidate bad debts and unviable companies through allowing market prices to prevail; or
    * Voting YES and empowering the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to provide bailouts for troubled financial institutions with $700 billion (more likely trillions of dollars) created out of thin air, leading to rampant inflation of the dollar at best and the destruction of the dollar at worst.

source: http://www.jbs.org

[tyzack]

It seems that we are led to believe that the whole non- regulation is what got us into this whole mess. FAaaaaaaar from the truth. Actually the gov\'t had every ability to intentionally shift interest/downpmt. rates which in turn led to the massive influx of homebuyers who had absolutely no business owning homes they couldn\'t afford. Please refer to Bush\'s 2002 speech regarding this debacle. But we are led to think that the gov\'t stepping in is the answer, but we are given a shitty out to reward the rich bankers by bailing them out. How unconstitutional we\'ve become.

It seems that we are led to believe that the whole non- regulation is what got us into this whole mess. FAaaaaaaar from the truth. Actually the gov\'t had every ability to intentionally shift interest/downpmt. rates which in turn led to the massive influx of homebuyers who had absolutely no business owning homes they couldn\'t afford. Please refer to Bush\'s 2002 speech regarding this debacle. But we are led to think that the gov\'t stepping in is the answer, but we are given a shitty out to reward the rich bankers by bailing them out. How unconstitutional we\'ve become.

Did you just quote yourself?

in language the average robot can understand:

if(Idea.bush(approve)) { Idea.fail(); }

I disagree with this desgin.

Saying that the Idea object has a reference to Bush, I think introduces extremely inefficant coupling. Using this model, Idea would have to have a reference to everyone who could possibly have an idea.

If Bush were abrasted to person then maybe Idea.descision(Bush) - assuming Bush implements "Person" or some other generic interface. Though, I still don\'t like that design.

I would, instead, put an Idea method on the Person interface. Each Person will come up with, and evaluate ideas based off their internal data/states.

If all ideas are evaluated using a step function of some sort and the data based into that function can be abstracted, then you might place Person.Idea on the interface, then a protected method, EvaluateIdea(IdeaArgs[]) on the base Person class.

Each person could build up the IdeaArgs[] and pass that to the base, or they require special Idea logic, they can override the protected method.

So I think that the correct robot function would be:
if (Bush.Idea(anIdea)) { throw IdeaNotAcceptableExecption(); }

[Klout]

this shit is kinda freakin me out I gotta admit. its really hard to understand and know what to believe but I just have a bad feeling about this.

if the economy is in crisis and on the brink of collapse ...how can the solution be so easy that the politicians can just whip up a panacea in a couple days???

doesnt make any sense

[delfunk1]

I don\'t think anyone really knows exactly how to fix it.  However I don\'t think bailing out all these companies with hundreds of billions of dollars is the answer.  Looking at the fiscal policy of our country, all we are doing is racking up major debt with this war, fannie freddie, AIG all it.  Where is all the money coming from?  Congress certainly isn\'t going to tax all of us 500 billion dollars next year.  Is the Fed going to magically create this money? Probably, then we are just devalue what the dollar is worth.  How is the Federal Reserve going to decide at what price to buy all these shitty assets?  Probably pay more than what they are worth, pumping more free money into the system.  I say let the companies fail, they invested in these crazy derivative securities that Warren Buffet doesn\'t even understand, thats the risk you take.  Sure it will suck for a little while, but I think all this inflation that being created is much worse and for longer.

[Klout]

yes I agree and thats what worries me.  We are already so far in debt.  Now they trying to pass a bill that took 24 hours to write and some guy pushes a button that transfers a trillion dollars of electronic money backed up by nothing??? it seems like its just going to make the problem worse and send inflation through the roof.  I mean 6 months ago they were handing out free money to everyone with refund checks now they are giving it out to these companies because the entire system is at risk of collapsing??? wtf is going on? seems like shit is really hitting the fan.

If it is really as bad as they say it is NOW and we make the wrong move and the root problem is not solved then we will be totally totally screwed!

Anyone know if there is any kind of real reform in the bill that will actually have long term positive impacts?

[SlimPickens]

In 2007, the government collected $2.568 trillion in taxes

[Spacey]

In 2007, the government collected $2.568 trillion in taxes

source, please.

[kindm's]

yes I agree and thats what worries me.  We are already so far in debt.  Now they trying to pass a bill that took 24 hours to write and some guy pushes a button that transfers a trillion dollars of electronic money backed up by nothing??? it seems like its just going to make the problem worse and send inflation through the roof.  I mean 6 months ago they were handing out free money to everyone with refund checks now they are giving it out to these companies because the entire system is at risk of collapsing??? wtf is going on? seems like shit is really hitting the fan.

If it is really as bad as they say it is NOW and we make the wrong move and the root problem is not solved then we will be totally totally screwed!

Anyone know if there is any kind of real reform in the bill that will actually have long term positive impacts?

I agree that it is confusing and even many of the so called experts don\'t have a full grasp.

The biggest thing to understand is that actual money never really changes hands. Really what they are proposing is BUYING debt from the banks. See Not all the banks are in trouble. The ones that were responsible are just fine, you have seen many traditional banks buy these trouble businesses in the past few weeks. What the BIG issue (and this is where it gets murky) is that because there is sooo much bad debt on the books at these companies the BANKS will not give them credit. The banks do not want to extend anymore credit to these companies because they are afraid the debts will get called in and then they have to pay out.

So the fear is that with continued failures the banks will not lend money to you, me, companies etc. That will have a huge impact on our economy because like many folks in the US most companies do not have the capitol on hand to pay salaries and bills. They get "credit/loans)" from the banks to pay the day to day operational costs and then settle up later kind of a deal. So that means business lay off people because they cannot pay them. They cannot invest in new this or that and it all spirals out from there.

That is my understanding of the issue.

In bfast terms. You get a bag from your guy on credit, he does the same for lots of other folks he knows. The guy above him gave him the weight on credit as well. So when the guy 1 up from him (The Bank) calls in the debt no one can pay. So he no longer wants to give anything out on credit. So now your guy cannot operate, you cannot operate either. It doesn\'t mean that you have no money but the operation comes to a screeching halt. The money will come in eventually (maybe as in the case of home loans etc) perhaps. But the $$$ needed to keep everyone happy is tied up.

That is it in kind of a nut shell.