Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

Wouldn't Bear Stearns still be around if things happened in a different order?

 

Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns made bad investment decisions and lost.

[Winstonm]

I am certain that if I ask the intelligent successful people at my conservative meeting, they will provide me with information showing that Soros is trying to take the country down, or has successfully taken other countries down, and it will be equally relatively easy to check the veracity of their statements.

 

To me, it seems pointless for me to try to prove either side of the argument to the other side; for as you won't believe any of the articles they present me with, they won't like your sources either.

 

What you must dig for are facts. Facts are not opinions.

 

PS: I can't understand the rather silly notion that a single investor can take on the weight of a nation's wealth and win the battle. That's a problem with conspiracy theories - they always require a villain with superhero attributes.

[mike777]

This in itself is an interesting topic having a lot to do with how material is received.

 

When I first heard of the Veritas tapes, I thought it was going to be Clinton's downfall, for surely some really bad stuff was being exposed.

 

But something interesting happened - eerily similar to what has happened many times before with just about any other information from the media.

 

Most right leaning people believed the Veritas tapes were the end of Clinton's career just as I did, and thought that major Democratic Party fraud was being exposed.

 

Most left leaning people stated that "this is what O'Keefe always does" - that even though the people really said damning things, that they were taken out of context, and that James O'Keefe had a long history of making documentaries that were extremely biased against the left, using half-truths and outright lies to spin a tale of deception, and that nothing that O'Keefe produced was believable.

 

While there are many polarizing issues between the right and left, there are few more polarizing than O'Keefe. I have not found one left-leaning person that gave O'Keefe a shred of credibility, and have not found one right-leaning person that didn't believe what was on those tapes. Compare this to other issues:

 

Many right-leaning people (including me) are pro-choice.

Many right-leaning people (including me) are pro-gay rights.

Some right-leaning people (including me) are considering man-made climate change.

Some right-leaning people (including me) are considering Universal Basic Income.

Go down issue by issue, and I suspect you'll get some crossover.

 

But I have yet to see any crossover on the O'Keefe materials. So it won't matter if some Americans see the Project Veritas tapes. If they are left leaning, it is my guess that they will dismiss it as nutjob propaganda.

 

There are probably few voters with no leaning. My sweetie is registered Independent but makes me look like a liberal in comparison :)

 

EDIT to add:

 

This is what Google told me about O'Keefe:

 

James Edward O'Keefe III is an American conservative political activist. He produces secretly recorded undercover audio and video encounters, some selectively edited to imply its subjects said things ...

 

Clearly that is a left-leaning view. However, given the fact that I haven't heard any conservative news outlets report that he has won some major lawsuits for slander, I have to wonder if there might be some truth in that depiction.

 

 

OK so I see your positions on several issues so I ask why do you consider yourself right leaning? I am asking what does "right" compared to "left" mean to you?

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[hrothgar]

 

anana republic or banana state is a political science term used originally for politically unstable countries in Latin America whose economies are largely dependent on exporting a limited-resource product, e.g. bananas.

 

Now I love bananas so again I wonder what the problem is. :)

 

 

If your attention span had allowed you to read the second line of said wikipedia article, you would have encountered the following sentence

 

It typically has stratified social classes, including a large, impoverished working class and a ruling plutocracy of business, political, and military elites.[1] This politico-economic oligarchy controls the primary-sector productions to exploit the country's economy.[2]

 

Had you managed to read a bit further, you could have seen the following

 

In political science, the term banana republic is a pejorative descriptor for a servile dictatorship that abets or supports, for kickbacks, the exploitation of large-scale plantation agriculture, especially banana cultivation.[2] More generally, it is a derogatory term for a country that is considered to have a weak economy, a dishonest or cruel government, and public services that do not work.[11] In economics, a banana republic is a country operated as a commercial enterprise for private profit, effected by a collusion between the State and favored monopolies, in which the profit derived from the private exploitation of public lands is private property, while the debts incurred thereby are a public responsibility. Such an imbalanced economy remains limited by the uneven economic development of town and country, and tends to cause the national currency to become devalued paper-money, rendering the country ineligible for international-development credit.[12]

[Cyberyeti]

What you must dig for are facts. Facts are not opinions.

 

PS: I can't understand the rather silly notion that a single investor can take on the weight of a nation's wealth and win the battle. That's a problem with conspiracy theories - they always require a villain with superhero attributes.

 

Soros took on the UK economy and caused a HUGE crash on the pound by short selling it, when you have 10 billion or so to use, you can do a huge amount of damage.

[Kaitlyn S]

Soros took on the UK economy and caused a HUGE crash on the pound by short selling it, when you have 10 billion or so to use, you can do a huge amount of damage.

There are at least ten hedge funds managing 30 or more billion dollars including one that manages more than 100 billion, but I don't see Ray Dalio screwing with a country for a quick kill.

These are the actual assets; with leverage, you can control much more than that as the futures and derivatives markets will let you control many dollars worth of currency for each dollar you have invested.

 

Now, if it were in another sovereign entity's best interest to screw with your currency, they could invest in a hedge fund whose interest aligned with their own giving them very much money to play with. However, in most cases, a country would want a trading partner's currency to increase, making the manipulating country's exports more attractive.

[Kaitlyn S]

OK so I see your positions on several issues so I ask why do you consider yourself right leaning? I am asking what does "right" compared to "left" mean to you?

----

Funny you ask, because I've made these positions well known in another group and am still considered an alt-right wing nut.

 

I consider "right" to be the ideology put forth by conservatives. I'm lumped in that group because I am in favor of small government, people's power > states' power > federal power, few regulations, and the idea that those who work and/or innovate should be rewarded, and that the Constitution should be interpreted the way our Founding Fathers would be expected to interpret it, and the whole idea of government "taking care of people" is not at all appealing to me. (Yes, I see the contradiction - I support UBI because I feel automation will make it so that there aren't enough jobs to go around; but the UBI level should be low enough such that those that never work are going to have a fairly low standard of living.)

 

I consider "left" to be the ideology put forth by progressives.

[Winstonm]

Soros took on the UK economy and caused a HUGE crash on the pound by short selling it, when you have 10 billion or so to use, you can do a huge amount of damage.

 

That is fantasy. Short positions do not cause crashes; they are rewarded by them.

[mikeh]

Soros took on the UK economy and caused a HUGE crash on the pound by short selling it, when you have 10 billion or so to use, you can do a huge amount of damage.

 

As I understand what happened:

 

1. The UK joined the ERM at a time when UK inflation was roughly triple German, and the ERM was basically, as far as the UK was concerned, an agreement to keep the Pound trading within a narrow range against the Mark. It was a decision driven in part by pride, and was very controversial at the time.

 

2. German unification was happening and causing significant inflationary pressures in Germany, which reacted by tightening fiscal policy and increasing interest rates

 

3. Increased interest rates drove up the mark, including against the pound.

 

4. US dollar was depreciating, and many UK exports were priced, on the international market, in dollars, so the value of exports was declining, causing economic problems in the UK and adding to the downward pressure in the rate against the mark

 

5. The pound was driven to and should have fallen below the low end of the ERM band, but the ERM required that the UK government intervene.

 

6. It tried to make the pound more attractive to investors by raising the base rate (the UK version of the Fed rate) to 10%, which had an understandably bad impact on the ability of borrowers to borrow or to service debt, thus creating downward pressure on housing prices, and slowing business activity

 

7. Soros, in particular, was alive to all of these factors and was willing to bet virtually all of his and his clients' money by shorting the pound

 

8. when the pound dropped to the low end of the range, the Bank of England began buying large sums of sterling by spending foreign reserves, but Soros was selling pounds faster than the Bank was buying them, so the efforts to intervene, which could never have been a permanent solution (given the structural problems within Germany and the UK and the US) were having no effect. So the Government announced an increase in interest to 12 % and then, the same day, to 15%. Imagine what that did to the economy.

 

9. The market did not react favourably, apparently because the market consensus was that the government could not have the political will to implement the promise to jack the rates up as promised.

 

10. Faced with the prospect of frittering away foreign reserves and crushing the economy via interest rate hikes, none of which were sustainable and none of which afforded any solution to the long-term problems with staying in the ERM, the government backed down and announced the end of the UK participation in the ERM. This allowed the pound to seek its new, market-driven, value, rewarding the short-sellers.

 

11. The reality that the decision was prompted by the short-selling allowed the politicians to avoid admitting that the ERM was a blunder, and that the exit, and resulting devaluation, were inevitable, and to cast Soros as the villan

 

12. The exit from the ERM, and the devaluation of the pound, has been credited by a number of economists for creating a significant economic expansion in later years.

 

13. The reality appears to be that Soros's actions precipitated a decision that ought to have been made earlier (one prominent cabinet member had resigned earlier because he felt that staying in the ERM was a disaster waiting to happen), and that would have been inevitable, and with worse consequences, if it happened later.

 

14. The UK departure led to restructuring of the ERM to permit other economies, such as Italy, to breach the low end of the band without having to embark upon ruinous and likely futile government intervention. However, there seems little reason to think that Germany, or other more solvent players, would have amended the ERM either at all or in time to ward off the UK collapse that was basically inevitable.

 

 

 

Thus, it is arguable that Soros was a vulture who took advantage and caused great harm, and it is arguable that he not only made a lot of money for himself and his investors, but that he forced the UK government to do the right thing, even if for the wrong reason, and that the UK economy was, within a few years, greatly enriched.

 

Whichever way you look at it...he was open and transparent about what he was doing and why. Had he been wrong...had the UK economy been strong enough that it could have stayed within the ERM, he would have lost a huge amount of money, and probably the ability to persuade others to trust him with their money. I don't see how one can equate this with being 'sleazy' either way.

[Kaitlyn S]

That is fantasy. Short positions do not cause crashes; they are rewarded by them.

A short could cause a crash if it causes enough margin calls. Derivatives and futures can be so leveraged that a small move can trigger a margin-call forced sale, which causes another one, etc.

 

Someone planning to do damage to profit from his positions can place these shorts at times of low activity so that they can cause drops of several points triggering more margin calls.

[hrothgar]

A short could cause a crash if it causes enough margin calls. Derivatives and futures can be so leveraged that a small move can trigger a margin-call forced sale, which causes another one, etc.

 

Someone planning to do damage to profit from his positions can place these shorts at times of low activity so that they can cause drops of several points triggering more margin calls.

 

This is nonsense and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of margin calls and short positions.

(At the most basic level, margin calls are triggered when traders have short positions in a stock that is appreciating)

 

Some researchers have made claims that a so-called "bear raid" can drive down the real value of a firm, through this impact the share price, and create a positive feedback loop however the dynamics are nothing like the ones that you are suggesting.

[Zelandakh]

And Kaitlyn, fwiw I'm disgusted by the vitriol being hurled in here against you. Shows the true character of those people.

Aside from being throwaway tweets with no basis in any sort of reality, what do these links have to do with the character of anyone here? Why not take one of these "issues" and present the evidence in depth to support it? This is precisely the issue with so much of what comes from the far right, it is all soundbite and no substance. The strategy is akin to throwing a truckload of grenades out and hoping the pin falls out of one or two of them. Even if it not, there are good chances that the enemy will either be running for cover for a short time or at least have to clear the grenades out of the way.

 

You may have noticed that I rarely throw vitriol around. On the other hand I find it frustrating that some posters type only propoganda and will prefer to move to the next subject rather than engage and have no problem in calling them out on occasion. I would like to think you would not be joining that list but as of now I will regard anything you post as liable to be falsified in much the same way as I approach AIU's posts. Hopefully you will prove me wrong in this respect over the coming days and weeks.

[kenberg]

Ok, I have made up my mind about the candidates for the school board vacancies. Now if only I could decide on the candidates for president.

Joking.

 

We are going to have some work to do putting things back together after this election. I hope it can be done, and I hope we do it. Of course not everyone on the WC lives here, but I hope they wish us well. Those who do live here, well, they live here and I hope they see a reason to get through this.

[Winstonm]

A short could cause a crash if it causes enough margin calls. Derivatives and futures can be so leveraged that a small move can trigger a margin-call forced sale, which causes another one, etc.

 

Someone planning to do damage to profit from his positions can place these shorts at times of low activity so that they can cause drops of several points triggering more margin calls.

 

 

Your information source has a fictionalized notion of the markets and how much influence one person can have.

[helene_t]

We are going to have some work to do putting things back together after this election.

With several Western countries, including USA, being infested by fascist movements on the brink of grabbing power, maybe it helps a little to listen to the imprecions of someone who studied democracy's response to crises in places like Indonesia and Canada, where it survived, at least for now: http://www.npr.org/2016/11/04/500216279/how-can-we-solve-democracys-problems

[barmar]

I am certain that if I ask the intelligent successful people at my conservative meeting, they will provide me with information showing that Soros is trying to take the country down, or has successfully taken other countries down, and it will be equally relatively easy to check the veracity of their statements.

 

To me, it seems pointless for me to try to prove either side of the argument to the other side; for as you won't believe any of the articles they present me with, they won't like your sources either.

Carl Sagan had a quote that's apropos: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

 

A single investor taking down an entire country is a very unlikely event. The market is just too big for one guy, even a billionaire, to have that much influence. So you can't just say "People on both sides of the debate have made their case, it's pointless for me try to to prove which one is true." The ones who are making the case for the more incredible claim have a higher burden of proof.

 

The problem comes when you're already biased one way. Your preconceptions blind you to how incredulous some of these claims are.

[kenberg]

With several Western countries, including USA, being infested by fascist movements on the brink of grabbing power, maybe it helps a little to listen to the imprecions of someone who studied democracy's response to crises in places like Indonesia and Canada, where it survived, at least for now: http://www.npr.org/2...cracys-problems

 

I listened to most of it. The reason it is "most" rather than "all" is that the internet connection (tv, phone and internet actually) has been crashing, starting yesterday and going on today. It's back up again now, as you see.

 

Generally I liked what I heard until it crashed. So did Becky. At first, not so much. I'll explain.

 

 

When he started speaking of crises in Canada, I thought surely he was referring to the Quebec movement for secession. He did mention that issue, but much later. The internet crash came just a little after that point so I'll have to get back to it.

 

He mentioned that Canada has more foreign born citizens, percentage-wise I suppose, than France. This did not surprise me. When he compared Canada with the U.S., he switched the basis of comparison. Canada has more Syrian refugees than the U.S. Yes, I knew that, but if he is going to compare the percentage of foreign born when comparing with France, perhaps he should keep the same basis of comparison when comparing Canada to the U.S.? But ok, he is trying to make a point. This shifting of the bases of comparison weakens his point for me, but I live with it.

 

I largely agree with his overall thinking, and I will listen to the rest of his talk. And maybe to the other TED talks of the same collection as well. He speaks of optimism, I don't really share it, but no matter, we had better get to work on the assumption that we can handle our problems and with the intention of doing so. The alternatives are pretty grim.

[Kaitlyn S]

The ones who are making the case for the more incredible claim have a higher burden of proof.

That in itself is open to interpretation. For example, IMO the person who assumes that a politician is NOT corrupt is trying to make the more incredible case and needs the higher burden of proof. That would probably not be the popular opinion.

[kenberg]

I am certain that if I ask the intelligent successful people at my conservative meeting, they will provide me with information showing that Soros is trying to take the country down, or has successfully taken other countries down, and it will be equally relatively easy to check the veracity of their statements.

 

To me, it seems pointless for me to try to prove either side of the argument to the other side; for as you won't believe any of the articles they present me with, they won't like your sources either.

 

Completely independently of whether this is a conservative view or a liberal view, I hope you will consider how it sounds to a person without strong ideological leanings. It comes across as:

 

"I have sources that I won't tell you about that have told me things that I am not saying that could be checked and shown to be true but nobody will believe me even though I am right".

 

I talk often with people who think differently than I do, on various topics and in various directions, and we have interesting discussions.Such discussions don't go like this one has been going. I actually enjoy hearing from people who think differently than I do, but this is going nowhere fast.

 

It is just a fact that views such as "Soros is trying to take the country down" are going to be a tough sell. For example, I have no idea how I might argue that he is not trying to do so. But I also don't know how i would argue that Paul Ryan is not trying to take the country down. I don't know how I would argue that the Clintons didn't kill Vince Foster. Or kill Justice Scalia.. or, or , or. You get the idea. It's a fool's game to try to rebut every extreme idea.

 

I trust that you already know that Barack Obama is gay and Michelle is a transvestite?

[diana_eva]

What's a decent source to follow results? News coverage over here is crap.

[hrothgar]

What's a decent source to follow results? News coverage over here is crap.

 

The Atlantic has a good live blog https://www.theatlantic.com/liveblogs/2016/11/election-results-trump-clinton/505442/

 

I'm fond of the Keeping It 1600 podcast and they're going to be live streaming on FB

 

I am watching PBS on the TV

[diana_eva]

The Atlantic has a good live blog https://www.theatlan...clinton/505442/

 

I'm fond of the Keeping It 1600 podcast and they're going to be live streaming on FB

 

I am watching PBS on the TV

 

Thanks

[hrothgar]

Thanks

 

Oh yeah, I am also streaming Rick and Morty!

 

Everyone get schwifty!

[Kaitlyn S]

I trust that you already know that Barack Obama is gay and Michelle is a transvestite?

No, I didn't know that, but I don't think I'll post that because my detractors will point out that kenberg isn't a reliable source :D

[Kaitlyn S]

I trust that you already know that Barack Obama is gay and Michelle is a transvestite?

No, I didn't know that, but I don't think I'll post that because my detractors will point out that kenberg isn't a reliable source :D