Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1946.6 | -3.6 | -0.18% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3307.5 | 2.2 | 0.07% |
| Oil (WTI) | 104.8 | 0.4 | 0.34% |
| LIBOR | 0.23 | 0.000 | -0.11% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.8 | 0.146 | 0.18% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.63% | 0.03% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 106.4 | 0.0 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 105.5 | -0.1 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.19 |
Stocks are taking a breather after setting a record yesterday. Bonds and MBS are down.
The NFIB Small Business Optimism Report hit its highest level since September 2007, but is still below neutrality, which is considered 100 on the index. Small business increased headcount by .11 workers in May, which extends the streak to 8 months. Still on average companies are not reporting increased sales, which will drive economic growth. Earnings trends are still negative as well. So overall, this report shows small business is approaching normalcy, yet the S&P 500 is at record highs. What gives? Well the S&P 500 has a lot of international exposure, which is where the growth is. Second companies with big market caps can get extremely favorable financing right now, while the smaller businesses still have a tougher time of it. And finally, all that central bank stimulus has to go somewhere, and at the moment that place is U.S. large cap stocks.
The latest Fannie Mae Monthly National Housing Survey is out, and it shows that optimism about the housing market is still close to the highest it has been post-crisis. Respondents thing house prices will increase 2.9% over the next 12 months (FWIW NAR is mid / high single digits). The number of people expecting mortgage rates to increase over the next 12 months has fallen (unsurprising given interest rates have fallen generally) and more people think it is a good time to buy than to sell. People’s expectations of their personal financial situation 12 months out seem to be deteriorating, a worrisome sign. Could be just due to the lousy Q1 GDP, but it bears watching – consumer sentiment is key to the real estate industry, and in fact KB Home CEO Jeff Metzger once said on a conference call that sentiment matters more than interest rates.
Ever noticed that the Zillow Z-Estimates rarely line up with where houses actually trade? It turns out that the Z-Estimates are within 5% of the actual value of the home just about half the time. Two years ago, Z-Estimates were too high, now they are too low. If you have a buyer who is stuck on paying no more than the Z-Estimate for a home, show them this article – the Z-Estimate is probably not realistic. Here is Zillow’s response to the article.
The Obama administration expanded eligibility for the student loan cap, where student loan repayments are capped at 10% of income. Not sure how holders of student loan debt will be treated, but I have been hearing anecdotal evidence that some hedge funds are setting up the Paulson trade in student loan ABS. Student loan debt is undoubtedly one of the biggest issues with the first time homebuyer, and until the first time homebuyer returns, the housing market (and the economy in general) will continue to punch below its weight. Of course this sort of thing simply amounts to a subsidy for higher education, and given that demand for higher education is relatively inelastic, the beneficiaries will ultimately be the universities as they can (and will) raise tuition to capture the subsidy.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Curious to see if Cantor wins his primary by less then 60%. If so, does that kill amnesty or is it full steam ahead for the GOP?
Plus…
Frist, biatches!
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“If you have a buyer who is stuck on paying no more than the Z-Estimate for a home, show them this article – the Z-Estimate is probably not realistic.”
No worries. I’d just accept the one of the likely 10 or so other offers I’d get.
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Some markets like DC, San Francisco, and NYC are in their own world and are not good proxies for what is going on elsewhere.
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” for what is going on elsewhere.”
there’s a world outside of those cities? learn something new everyday.
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Good summation on the student loan thing Brent.
Wonkblog (yes, it’s still around) had some pieces on it too.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/10/wonkbook-what-obamas-student-loan-push-would-and-wouldnt-do/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/06/09/wonkbook-obamas-plan-to-address-the-1-2-trillion-student-debt-problem/
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Some of that appreciation is central-bank driven. Central London property prices rose 17% last year (and London has been hella expensive for a decade)
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The thing is, all of this subsidization is still just income redistribution. Increase subsidies -> universities raise tuition -> everyone but the rich get a partial scholarship, so that we have a “to each, according to their need, from each, according to their ability.”
The art of being a leftist is to be able to bestow favors on your preferred class, while at the same time picking the pockets of your disfavored class without them knowing it.
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Seems like The Federalist has been reading ATiM:
Whenever a deranged gunman decides to slaughter innocent people, partisans always seem to unearth a few nuggets of evidence that purportedly ties the irrational murders to some completely innocuous political speech they dislike. So when a disturbed couple ambush two Las Vegas police officers, kill a bystander, leave behind swastikas (a sure sign of their opposition to higher top marginal tax rates, no?) and a Gadsden flag, before committing suicide, we are left with only one question: Why do you do it Republicans?
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Because everybody knows that all the neonazi’s need to really convince people that National Socialism works is less Federal government and freer markets! These are your people, bagger! National Socialists *HATE* big government!
Christ, it’s like I’m dealing with morons here!
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“ScottC, on June 10, 2014 at 11:55 am said:
Seems like The Federalist has been reading ATiM:”
No, it’s a reference to this PL piece:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/09/how-much-does-right-wing-rhetoric-contribute-to-right-wing-terrorism/
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That Waldman column is so pathetic. Saying it is predictable is such an understatement at this point. And the dolt challenged conservatives to cite any left-wing shoot-up. I hope someone obliged him.
It all reminds me of Tena’s ignominious flameout at PL. After she ranted and raved about how the anti-Obama and anti-Democrat rhetoric was unprecedented, and I proved her wrong ten times over, she reverted to “Well that was different, Bush and the GOP deserved it.” Blind ideology.
As I see it, the islamofascist terrorists and Obama both think America has much to apologize for and needs to be fundamentally transformed. Ipso facto his rhetoric is responsible for terrorism. That is how it works per the Waldmans out there.
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jnc:
No, it’s a reference to this PL piece:
I was being sarcastic.
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Troll, as I understand the news accounts the individuals themselves weren’t Neo-Nazis. The items found were used to mark the police as being Nazis.
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This is an interesting use of an equal protection argument:
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jnc:
This is an interesting use of an equal protection argument:
I hadn’t thought of that. Yet another reason public-sector unions are a bad idea.
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Anything that brings down the public school system is a win in by book.
besides, those places just aren’t safe.
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The key point I believe was the factual pattern of dumping all the bad teachers in specific schools.
I actually view it as overreach, much the same way that having a judge order taxes raised or monies reallocated to overcome a disparity between schools is an overreach, but it certainly flows from how the Equal Protection clause has been used previously.
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jnc:
I actually view it as overreach, much the same way that having a judge order taxes raised or monies reallocated to overcome a disparity between schools is an overreach, but it certainly flows from how the Equal Protection clause has been used previously.
I am with you on this. Probably not at all what the Equal Protection clause actually means, but we have long since dispensed with any fidelity to what the constitution was intended to mean.
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As an EP ruling, it is completely absurd.
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Worth a read.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/yes-nixon-scuttled-the-vietnam-peace-talks-107623.html
I hadn’t realized that Johnson had bugged the Nixon campaign in 1968. Hopefully that report that’s referenced will be released at some point.
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jnc:
I hadn’t realized that Johnson had bugged the Nixon campaign in 1968.
Nixon was always irritated that he got in so much trouble for doing nothing more than what Kennedy and Johnson had already done. One of the reasons he thought the press was out to get him.
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Scott & QB: Nomination for quote of the day by Thomas Jefferson
“But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining, slyly, and without alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt.”
http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/jefferson/1825.html
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jnc:
Scott & QB: Nomination for quote of the day by Thomas Jefferson
Almost like he had a looking glass into the 21st century and modern day progressivism.
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Imagine how much more damage he’d have done if he served out his term. The EPA was impeachable in and of itself.
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McWing:
Imagine how much more damage he’d have done if he served out his term. The EPA was impeachable in and of itself.
True, but could the damage really have been much worse than what has happened since?
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I nominated this one a couple of weeks ago.
I’m trying to work out the moral calculus here since the group most likely to not want to bring a gay fetus to term are the people most opposed to abortion. I can’t picture Sarah Palin if Trig had been identified as a potential lesbian in utero defending her action one way or another.
yellojkt, on June 2, 2014 at 9:33 pm
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Probably not, it’s just fun to slam on the supposedly conservative Nixon.
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We’re cool with this, right?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/9317447/Gay-Danish-couples-win-right-to-marry-in-church.html
If not, why do you love to discriminate?
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McWing:
We’re cool with this, right?
Can there really be any doubt whatsoever that this is where we are headed? If the government can force a bakery to service a gay wedding, there is no reason to think that it can’t force a church to do the same thing. Despite being seemingly protected by the first amendment, the claim will be that the first amendment actually requires that the state force churches to perform gay marriages. After all, priests need to be licensed by the state to perform marriages, and so by issuing licenses to priests that “discriminate” against gays on religious grounds, the state is endorsing religious views and thus in violation of the first amendment. Hence, the state won’t be able to license anyone who refuses to perform a SSM. The argument is as predictable as it is absurd and disingenuous. And the same liberals who now say this could never happen here because of the first amendment will yawn (if not cheer) when it does.
Totally predictable.
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We’re cool with this, right?
Have I mentioned yet today that western civilization is history? Yep it is. Over.
Within ten years, what just happened in Denmark will happen here. When the kooks and freaks of the left assure you it won’t, know they are lying. What is left of the First Amendment will be no barrier. Just remember how we got here. What is unthinkable now will be mandatory in ten years.
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Corked by Scott.
Yes, it will happen exactly that way, at least in part. The kooks have already laid down the principle that homosexual rights trump religious freedom. It’s really just a short step.
They will also soon be arguing that churches are really a kind of public accomodation. After all, what if there’s only a church building or two in town … etc. etc. You didn’t build that; somebody else built that.
Oh and I forgot this piece: they will soon argue that churches that “discriminate” againt homosexuals must be denied tax exempt status. Just see the Bob Jones case and draw a straight line from there.
This is the curtain coming down on the West.
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Totally “off topic” and of no note other than that it’s one of those strange little coincidences in life: I just this morning finished reading Eugene Sledge’s With the Old Breed, his account of fighting with the 1st Marines on Peleliu and Okinawa. The second half is the Battle of Okinawa. (Horrific is an understatement.)
I had a lot of trouble even with a few maps following many of his descriptions of the terrain and locations of action on Okinawa. Low and behold, I sat down this evening and turned on the TV, and what should be playing but a cable documentary about the battle.
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And Cantor goes down!
And with an incumbent loss an angel gets his wings
/raises gadesen.
// arrested for hate crime.
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If you don’t believe Obama is actively working to destroy the USA, you are foolish or not paying attention.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/9/editorial-the-childrens-hour/#ixzz34FktLx7J
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/10/Report-Illegals-Waving-at-Agents-to-Detain-Them-Near-Border-Hoping-for-Permit-to-Remain-in-US
National Review’s editors gullibly assume that the Obamites are incompetent and foolish, not committed to the “fundamental transformation” Obama explicitly said was coming. Or perhaps they pretend for the sake of decorum and staying in the good graces of the Left establishment.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/379953/border-crisis-texas-editors
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“ABC News’s Diane Sawyer destroys Hillary Rodham Clinton on Benghazi” – Erik Wemple, WAPO
Diane Sawyer, part of the vast rightwing conspiracy.
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Whoa. Is Cantor’s loss bigger then Foley’s ’94 loss?
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Report to reeducation camp 104. Agent Smith will be there shortly to escort you.
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Majority leaders don’t lose. Not since 1899 anyway. Or whatever the year was that was making the rounds.
Apparently the dude who beat him is a libertarian economist.
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I just nutted.
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Much bigger. I’m not sure how much of a role Democrat crossovers played. But NRO says Cantor outspent Brat 2.5 mill to 40k, which is incredible.
Shockwaves have to be running through RINOstan on the Potomac.
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Is Denmark one of those European countries where tax funds are directly distributed to the churches? That’s the only halfway reasonable argument I can think of for it.
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Nova, I’m probably going to vote for the actual libertarian in that race.
Brat pretty much identified with the Tea Party, so it’s a clear win for them.
I think his web page is crashed due to traffic as well.
http://davebratforcongress.com/
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I think this is a perceptive observation about Hillary.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380050/krauthammers-take-hillary-clintons-dead-broke-comment-reveals-her-intrinsic
She’s a fundamentally weak and insecure person. Through marrying Bill, found a permanent way to surround herself with sycophants and find people to give her power and position, but she’s weak and without a core. She’s a 24/7 fake, and that’s exhausting.
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Local opinion on Cantor:
“The old order is fading. The old coziness and sense of entitlement is gone”
http://www.styleweekly.com/richmond/what-happened-to-eric-cantor/Content?oid=2085165
That sounds about right to me.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/postmodern-conservative
Some pretty interesting discussion of conservatism here. I think “postmodern conservatism” is mostly an unfortunate label. I get it but am still thinking about what I make of it. I am a little puzzled by the usage and view of “foundationalisms” in the one column Hancock column discussing the terminology.
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Nova, apparently Brat’s political career started as an EW Jackson supporter.
“Nordvig saw Brat speak at a fundraiser for E.W. Jackson, the conservative Virginia minister who nabbed the state’s GOP’s nomination for lieutenant governor in last year’s election, only to be trounced in the general election by Democrat Ralph S. Northam.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/meet-david-brat-the-man-who-brought-down-house-majority-leader-eric-cantor/2014/06/10/ed7f6406-f0fc-11e3-bf76-447a5df6411f_story.html?hpid=z2
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Diane Sawyer, part of the vast rightwing conspiracy.
Sawyer worked for Nixon. Just sayin’.
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From last fall, an interesting read on yet another Obama attempt, not highly publicized, to use the unconstitutional regulatory state to fundamentally transform America.
Its tedious terminology notwithstanding, the proposed rule signals a momentous change in policy. When the Fair Housing Act was passed, “fair housing” meant “non-discrimination” in the various transactions that housing encompasses, from selling a house to securing a home mortgage loan. Over the years, however, fair housing has evolved in the law such that it now means something far more ambitious: “fair housing choice,” with its focus on “fair housing issues,” which include not only “evidence of illegal discrimination” but also, and more important, various “barriers” that the rule says are “related” to race, color, and national origin, and explain segregated living patterns….
For this vision of America to become a reality, Donovan emphasized to the conventioneers, HUD must “maximize the impact [that federal grants] have on communities.” Municipalities may find that they have to modify zoning and other land-use decisions in order to accommodate construction of affordable housing units in the communities, mostly white, that HUD wants remade. And because HUD is seeking to leverage decisions involving a community’s assets, it appears ready to intrude far more deeply than it already has into state and local governance.
This intrusion from Washington is one reason to take issue with the rule. And there are others. The rule states that “tenant selection and assignment policies should be designed to reduce racial and national origin concentrations, including racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, and to reduce segregation and promote integration.”
In other words, the “rule” requires precisely what anti-discrimination laws in housing were designed to prevent, namely steering people of certain races/ethnicities into certain areas.
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Obama and his comrades are hostile to this country and are exerting themselves in every way to destroy what is left of it. Honestly, everything makes complete sense once you accept that truth. They say transform, I say destroy. Same thing.
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Good Salon piece:
“Cantor’s demise brings huge lesson: Here’s why the Tea Party is so coddled
The GOP pays attention to its base because it votes in primaries. The Democratic base is ignored because it doesn’t
David Atkins
Wednesday, Jun 11, 2014 08:45 AM EST”
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/11/cantors_demise_brings_huge_lesson_heres_why_the_tea_party_is_so_coddled/
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First, a question:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/09/us-usa-arizona-immigration-idUSKBN0EK23N20140609
Did those sent to Nogales for processing have no one meet them at the bus stop? If so, why?
Second, a comment: that R base turns out and D base does not is the great explainer of current electoral politics. Someday this will change because it always does, but for now it is all a pundit needs to know.
Third, a reply to the thread title: Zillow is not accurate to within 20% in Austin, Houston, San Antonio, or DFW.
Fourth: if it has not been done, JNC, I will forthwith change the quote. The current one was for Father’s Day so I will bring it back on Friday.
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Mark:
Second, a comment: that R base turns out and D base does not is the great explainer of current electoral politics.
Assuming it is true (I haven’t seen any evidence that it is), what exactly does it explain about current electoral politics?
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Why isn’t the D base the Ds who vote? Answer: because leftists need to foster the conceit that the far, far left is the norm and the only legitimate locus of thought.
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Come on. The notion that the dem base doesn’t vote in primaries is preposterous. It is virtually a self contradiction.
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jnc: (from Salon):
It is the clearest demonstration yet of how and why American politics continues to drift inexorably to the right on all but a few social issues.
I’ve said it repeatedly in the past, but this notion that American politics “continues” to drift to the right is an article of faith on the left for which there is very little tangible evidence. It is a piece of propaganda invented by the professional left, designed to make progressive politics normative while portraying conservative politics as somehow radical.
Democrats reliably vote in presidential elections, but tend to skip voting in midterms and are practically electoral truants in mid-cycle primaries.
What is the evidence of this? He presents none whatsoever. I’m highly skeptical that it is true.
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I think it was a protest vote that actually panned out.
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I’m so old I remember when the NYT considered Cantor a rabid conservative!
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/us/politics/cantors-loss-a-bad-omen-for-moderates.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-thecaucus&_r=0&referrer=
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George, I think Cantor was the Dewhurst of VA. No one trusted him.
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Cantor is now an acceptable R to the NYTs b/c he lost.
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Scott — Charlie Cook on midterm drop off.
http://cookpolitical.com/story/5776
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NoVA, thanks for the Cook link – I was not going to go looking for wont of time.
QB, you made a logical point. I used “base” for each party not to mean which voters most reliably show up but which most reliably vote one party. I reliably show up. I also reliably vote 3 party. Therefore, I am not in a party’s base. Two of my daughters always vote D. They only show up in POTUS races. They are D party base.
George, reading that WSJ article made me like Brat. Is that what WSJ intended?
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nova (and Mark):
Thanks for the Cook link.
According to this Nate Silver piece, 2010 was the only time in the 44 years prior (no data for before ’66) that R primary voters outnumbered D Primary voters. For most of that time D primary voters substantially and routinely outnumbered R’s. That runs completely contrary to the notion that the R base turns out for primaries but the D base does not. To be fair, the gap between the two was clearly trending down for the entire period before closing completely in 2010, but Silver’s explanation is pretty basic and convincing:
With closed primaries dominating the political landscape, long-term trends in self-identified partisan affiliation suggest that fewer people are eligible to vote in partisan primaries. According to the General Social Survey, more than 47 percent of Americans self-identified as Democrats in 1972 (the inaugural year of the General Social Survey). That number declined to about 30 percent of Americans in 2006, before bouncing back up six percentage points with the Obama election in 2008. Republican self-identification, on the other hand, rose through the 1970s and the 1980s, peaking at about 33 percent in the early 1990s before experiencing a parallel decline to Democratic self-identification in the last two decades (with a small resurgence during the Bush presidency).
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, only twice since 1972 has the GOP had a higher percentage turnout of registered party members than the D’s, in 2000 and 2012 (by only 1% and 2% respectively). Notable, of course, is that in 2012 the GOP had a contested presidential primary and the D’s did not, which presumably would tend to drive GOP participation up relative to D participation.
With regard to the Cook piece, he was talking about mid-term elections, not primaries, so I don’t think his data is particularly relevant to the claim made in the Salon piece. He seems to be saying simply that the demographics that are most likely to turn out for mid-terms are also the most likely to vote Republican. That may be true, but doesn’t substantiate the notion that the D’s don’t pay attention to their base because the D base doesn’t vote in primaries.
Mark – I still remain curious about what exactly you think this claim, if true, explains.
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Mark – I still remain curious about what exactly you think this claim, if true, explains.
What claim? That Rs will do better in non-presidential years and Ds in presidential years? That has been explained by others. It will not be permanent nor will it even be immutable but it is currently conveniently the case, for pundits. What else?
Addendum: I see that I was not clear about the distinction between presidential years and midterms. Sorry. Later I was more to the point in my reply to QB.
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MArk:
What claim? That Rs will do better in non-presidential years and Ds in presidential years?
No, the Salon claim that the GOP base votes in primaries, and the D base does not. The Salon writer thinks that this (mythical, from what I can tell) phenomenon explains the fact that (in his view) national politics is perenially pushed rightward. I thought you were echoing/responding to what the Salon writer was saying. I guess you had something else in mind.
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I’ve actually come around a lot to your view on “rightward”. I think there has been some right pushback against a tide of movement to the left over the last century, but that the drift has generally been toward accumulation of power in DC on the one hand, and toward a more consuming welfare state on the other.
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Mark:
I’ve actually come around a lot to your view…
It’s not often that I hear that. My time here has not been wasted!
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My plan for Iraq, floated at The Fix in 2007, was for the US and allies to back the Kurds and ignore the rest of Iraq. I think I was right. The Kurds drink and smoke and their women show their faces and they like us. They also can take care of themselves and don’t need propping up like a bunch of stooges.
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No. Pissed about Cantor losing and, more importantly, upset about Immigration reform defeat that Cantor’s collapse implies.
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Ace brings the funny.
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I’d love to know what you guys consider part of “the more consuming welfare state” if you take the ACA out of the equation.
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LMS, I think the progression from “The Square Deal” to “The New Deal” to “The Fair Deal” to The War on Poverty” moved the US more toward a consuming welfare state than you are crediting. Since then, there has been a “rightward” reaction, but it has not moved any major distance except in terms of AFDC reform during the Clinton Admin. Then we have ACA. I am a supporter of many of the welfare state programs now, but I am not blinded to the history that from 1907 to 2014 we have moved from virtually no welfare state to a more consuming one.
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lms:
I’d love to know what you guys consider part of “the more consuming welfare state” if you take the ACA out of the equation.
I actually wrote a post on this very thing a few years ago. The list is absolutely immense.
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Well, the Turks, Syrians and Iranians hate them. Sounds like a win/win.
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Medicare (avg. beneficiary receives 2-3 times what they contributed), Medicaid, Soc.Sec.(it’s going to be underwater now or shortly), Ag Dept., VA, Commerce Dept. Energy Dept., Def. Dept., and there are others.
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Mark,
moved the US more toward a consuming welfare state than you are crediting
I’m not saying anything or giving credit one way or another I was just curious what is typically considered part of the welfare state to conservatives. McWing gave me a better idea of what they’re thinking.
I’m a supporter of some but others not so much…………….the war on poverty has been a pretty big boondoggle IMO but I think SS and Medicare have been pretty successful. I think we need to find more contemporary solutions to our problems but I’m also doubtful there’s any will to recognize problems in an honest and practical way any more. I’m not impressed with either party or their “leaders” right now, but that’s nothing really new to me.
I’m going back to writing in “none of the above” or third party. I gave up on local politics in 2010 and now I’m giving up on national politics. I wish what happened to Cantor would happen to a few “D” leaders…………….I loved it and would love it even more if we could get rid of the old guard. Also, doubtful.
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lms:
I’m not impressed with either party or their “leaders” right now, but that’s nothing really new to me.
I don’t understand how you can be “not impressed” with either party or their leaders, but then still advocate for the government to be such a central part in planning and managing things. The functions of government cannot be divorced from the very unimpressive people who inhabit it. There are many reasons I am libertarian, but one of them is that I don’t trust any politician to make the kinds of decisions that liberals (and to some extent conservatives) would have them make.
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Nick Gillespie and myself agree w/you LMs.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/11/now-let-s-replace-all-the-other-big-spending-eric-cantors.html
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Scott, I’d forgotten about that post and agree that a lot of that is out of hand, but I don’t think it can all be blamed on progressives or Dems or what have you. I remember a story after Katrina that Southern States (Republican controlled) lobbied and received a bit of a retroactive insurance policy (Federal) for flooding. I don’t have the inclination to look it up but it was something along those lines.
I read some of the comments in that thread and number one, I used to spend a lot more time here and did more research so appeared smarter than I really am, and I miss Ash, Mike and Kevin.
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lms:
ut I don’t think it can all be blamed on progressives or Dems or what have you.
No doubt that R’s have been complicit, too. But it is the realization of progressive ideology. (Hence my belief that it is the right that has been pulled to the left, and not vice versa.)
I miss Ash, Mike and Kevin.
Me too. You should work on bringing them back.
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Scott
I don’t understand how you can be “not impressed” with either party or their leaders, but then still advocate for the government to be such a central part in planning and managing things.
I don’t think I do believe that or even advocate for that. I do believe there are some instances when the “free market” and our better angels can’t or don’t adequately provide solutions to problems that affect a large number of citizens such as health care, disability, education, some environmental concerns and yes even old age.
I’ve always believed that the decent and well meaning politician is a rarity.
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lms:
I’ve always believed that the decent and well meaning politician is a rarity.
Then why would you entrust to them the responsibility to “provide solutions to problems that affect a large number of citizens such as health care, disability, education, some environmental concerns and yes even old age”?
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Scott
But it is the realization of progressive ideology.
I’m sure that’s partially true but I also think a lot of it has to do with political pay back and special interest. Unfortunately, there is a lot of actual corruption, which is more of a human endeavor than a political one.
You should work on bringing them back
Kevin shows up occasionally and the others are completely outside of my sphere of influence, which I believe I have used up!
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lms:
Kevin shows up occasionally and the others are completely outside of my sphere of influence, which I believe I have used up!
I think you underestimate your allure. 🙂
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Scott
Then why would you entrust to them the responsibility to “provide solutions to problems that affect a large number of citizens such as health care, disability, education, some environmental concerns and yes even old age”?
Because I think they’ve gotten some of it right, or close to it anyway historically, but I believe SS and Medicare could both be revamped to keep up with the current economic reality of the country. I think that what happens is the bureaucracy becomes too top heavy over time and the political will to do the right thing, from both sides, disappears eventually because of electoral expediency.
But I also think that without some form of environmental, health and educational influence at the national level we would be living in a country where only the strongest survive. That’s not my idea of a country I would be comfortable living in.
Has the government gotten too big in terms of huge, unmanageable entities? I think so, but how do we find people willing to take that on at the political level without completely undoing the good intentions that are the foundation of some of these programs? That’s where I give up. Those people don’t generally win elections, or the ones that do win pretend to be someone they’re not to get elected and then do just the opposite.
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Lol Scott. I do have two new admirers at the gym now. Of course they’re both 66 and one has a heart condition and the other has emphysema, which isn’t funny obviously, but they’re also both very conservative……………..which is just exhausting. 🙂
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