Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

2. How many others apart from Geezer were gifted family money sufficient to buy land at the outset of their career?

Geezer was not gifted anything by his family other than a safe and religious home life. My father was a house painter and never contributed a dime toward my education.

Capitalism sold itself the noose by which it will hang. Which is a shame, because I'm not sure the coming replacement will be better. But it will certainly be different.

That is just Marxism, pure and simple.

Ultimately, federal abuse of power is a pretty theoretical concern. We have actual, real, current, severe problems brought about by the fact that we're so damn worried about government overreach that we've let commerce run wild. Private concerns have abused private data about us far more than government ever has. Nobody is spying on you, unless you possibly are a security concern. No militias need be formed. All of that is justified by the stale and abstract ivory-tower egghead nonsense Geezer put forth. We have data now. We don't need paranoid guesses at what could possibly happen when we know what actually is happening.

This is what a Marxist sounds like when he has no facts to refute simple truth.

Power corrupts. And hack has admitted on many occasions that the government is more powerful than any "commercial" venture if for no other reason than that it has the inherent right to use physical force to achieve its objectives. Hack, do you really believe that Robert McNamara was evil when he was the head of Ford Motor Co, but somehow became benign when he joined the government? Where did he do the most damage with his power? What about your friend Dick Cheney. He was in the private sector and the public sector. Where did he do the most damage?

But, I'm relieved that "No militias need be formed..." WTF ?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Tillerson, Mattis, and Mnuchin part of a 'suicide pact"? WTF? Story claims that they have made it known that if one is fired, the other two will immediately quit

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tillerson-mattis-mnuchin-forge-suicide-pact-in-the-event-trump-wants-one-of-them-gone-report/article/2636550

[froot loops]

Thankfully they had that going for them that Rex wouldn't resign, what would the republic do without him?

[hack]

That's what you said happened when you graduated.

Marx said it. His solution to the problem was complete nonsense, but he understood the problem very well. Capitalism is in the process of proving him right.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Kellyanne was on Fox & Friends this morning and blamed Obama for the Vegas shooting (essentially). She said "his ATF" made a decision to not regulate bump stocks in 2010.

Has any President so thoroughly detested and resented his predecessor?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Good article on Tillerson's tension with Trump. Basically boils down to: he can no longer hide the fact that he thinks Trump's an idiot and Trump has noticed

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/us/politics/tillerson-trump-secretary-state.html

[Wild Hoss]

Lets stick a pin in that, and revisit the topic in about three years.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[The Oracle]

Which one?

[Da Geezer]

Marx said it. His solution to the problem was complete nonsense, but he understood the problem very well. Capitalism is in the process of proving him right.

Well, then, if Marx's solution was wrong, what is the solution, or, to be fair, what comes closest to a solution?

[Da Geezer]

A big case coming to the SC this term is Gill v. Whitford in which the plaintiffs want the SC to mandate a form of proportional representation. WSJ article:

https://choiz.me/post/22099141 (avoiding paywall)

from the article:

Second, such a standard would likely require bizarrely configured gerrymanders in order to achieve the judicially determined political balance. Americans have been sorting themselves into political enclaves for decades, as Bill Bishop documented in his 2008 book, “The Big Sort.” Mr. Bishop noted the increasing trend of counties to be carried by one party or the other by larger and larger margins. From 1976 to 2004, the proportion of Americans living in counties that were carried by landslide margins (20% or more) in presidential elections increased from 26% to 48%—even though 1976 and 2004 were close elections with similar popular-vote margins (2.1% and 2.4%, respectively).

Others have carried this analysis forward, giving the phenomenon the academic moniker “spatial polarization.” David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report observed last March: “More than 61 percent of voters cast ballots in counties that gave either Clinton or Trump at least 60 percent of the major-party vote last November. That’s up from 50 percent of voters who lived in such counties in 2012 and 39 percent in 1992.”

This case is a classic Blue-team v Red-team clash. I expect Kennedy will side with the Blue team since it allows the judicial branch substantially more power than the elected branches, something he usually votes for.

[hack]

Well, then, if Marx's solution was wrong, what is the solution, or, to be fair, what comes closest to a solution?

Great question. We do have more moderate approaches to capitalism in other places, like Canada. Germany is an economic powerhouse thanks to manufacturing, and its citizens have government policy to thank for that. Plus they're manufacturing good products, not trying to squeeze out profits from increasingly bad products. The French have an amazing quality of life and a healthy skepticism of any financial product they cannot understand, though they may not have a sustainable approach either. Korea has global-class companies because the government intervenes. etc. etc. Many models, many countries. Many different local realities. Many things from which we can learn.

Finding a solution is always a lot harder than spotting a problem, but if I were to do one thing, it's to knock out most of the financial sector. Make banks be banks again -- lending against the spread, 3-6-3 model, nothing else. Investing can be left to investment funds. Eliminate all exotic securities, so that our MIT PhD brainiacs will be incentivized to join the real economy and not investment banks on proprietary accounts. I recognize that some derivatives play a positive role. Comapnies should be able to hedge on currency risks because that meets a legitimate real-economy need. Short sellers can be the conscience of the market by knocking out charlatans. If there's a way to strike the right balance, do it, but, failing that, getting rid of securities activity other than trading commodities, currency, bonds and equity would be a net positive.

The second thing I would do is get rid of the oversight mismatch of global companies in a state-centric world. We'll probably never go for global oversight bodies with real sovereignty, but that's what it would take to properly understand multinationals. So if we're gonna stay state-centric, then throw up some borders around companies. Dial back some elements of globalization, mostly via extreme transparency and capital controls. The IMF is no longer fundamentalist about capital controls. That's the direction we're going. I don't know that it'll work, but that's what's likely to be tried.

[iam416]

A portion of the German manufacturing powerhouse is under a bit of duress -- automotive. They're behind the US in both green and autonomous technologies (owing, IMO, in no small part to the US venture model). They will, of course, capitalize on US efforts to make electric cars fully market viable. The autonomous technology is going to be really problematic for Germany/EU in terms of both technology and massive regulatory hurdles.

That is, of course, just an example that I happen to find it interesting. Doesn't really support or not support whatever the hugely macro discussion happens to be.

But, least, yay US VC!

[THE_WIZARD_]

Wow you sound so smart!

sent with love

[hack]

A portion of the German manufacturing powerhouse is under a bit of duress -- automotive. They're behind the US in both green and autonomous technologies (owing, IMO, in no small part to the US venture model). They will, of course, capitalize on US efforts to make electric cars fully market viable. The autonomous technology is going to be really problematic for Germany/EU in terms of both technology and massive regulatory hurdles.

That is, of course, just an example that I happen to find it interesting. Doesn't really support or not support whatever the hugely macro discussion happens to be.

But, least, yay US VC!

Didn't know. That's interesting. They are greening the hell out of their electricity sector, but lagging in that aspect. Interesting. I personally would view autonomous and green as two separate things. I don't know that I would want to be out ahead on autonomous. I don't know if it's a net positive to have a marginally safer transportation network in exchange for a collapse in employment. I am not personally a believer that the universal basic income approach will be a good patch.

[Ghengis Jon]

A big case coming to the SC this term is Gill v. Whitford in which the plaintiffs want the SC to mandate a form of proportional representation.

This is a great case with both great expectations and great risk of screwing up. John Ryder is a excellent writer but his flawed premise is clearly based on his unrepentant conservative viewpoint.

"Instead of representing a community that is mostly compact and cohesive, the lawmaker would be selected according to a statewide partisan balance determined by the court. Such an approach can only heighten the already intense partisanship of contemporary politics."

Read: The current system that favors my party is better than anything else which would make matters worse.

The biggest problem I see is that the party in power at the time of the census gets to rig the system. So how do you fix it?

People can be non-partisan only when they want to be. The key is finding people willing to be non-partisan. Find honest people who are willing to be non-partisan. Find people like Neil Armstrong (may he rest in peace) who was willing to put what is 'right' above what is 'right for me'. Those are the people that should lead the district drawing. We should look for people that lead by example, not people that should be made an example of.

Look at the district shapes. The more convoluted, the more the gerrymandering. Find an independent commission and limit the district shapes to having a maximum of, say, six sides. Both sides of the aisle would piss and moan about that restriction - but its my opinion that if both parties would be against something as unfair to 'their' party, then it must be on the right track.

Perhaps we should hire people with no skin in the game to redraw districts. Maybe Cambodian political scientists. Anyone other than Democrats and Republicans.