humblingman

[humblingman]

QUESTION: Can anyone shed some more light on this? I'm particularly concerned with Section B. of the Board Memo. How much does this enable banks to interact with venture capital funds (which they mention in the fourth-sub-bullet-point of the second-bullet-point under the Executive Summary)? The memo makes it seem like these changes are somehow altering things that didn't matter in the first place, but the idea seems to suggest that commercial banks should be able to perform a whole lotta business with high-risk funds that the Volcker Rule expressly wanted off-limits to them. Would this essentially enable the commercial banks to bring quantitative practices into private equity now as well?

[humblingman]

Ignore this opinion.

Those who suggest Trump started this trade war with China have it backward. Beijing has been waging economic warfare on the United States for years — stealing our intellectual property, forcing our companies to transfer technology as a price of doing business in China and subsidizing state-owned enterprises to prevent U. S. businesses from competing in dozens of sectors of the Chinese economy. The difference now is Chinese leaders are facing a president who is willing to fight back.

I'd like to call out the three reasons stated after

Beijing has been waging economic warfare on the United States for years

Oh, it has?

stealing our intellectual property

Oh, our intellectual property, is it? Would love to know the benefits provided to all of us for our intellectual property.

forcing our companies to transfer technology as a price of doing business in China

Had no idea our companies were so active in China. Would love to know the benefits reaped by all of us from the performance of our businesses. Also, nobody forced anyone to be there.

subsidizing state-owned enterprises to prevent U. S. businesses from competing in dozens of sectors of the Chinese economy

Again, no one asked you to be there. However, this started long before Trump.

[humblingman]

US and Venezuela

This post should not be viewed as for/against Maduro, but rather an attempt to refine and inform conversations moving forward.

Anyone curious about some relevant info on US-Venezuela relations should check some of this out. Please, share any information/notes or this very post to others!

First, the US has been quite active in its application of economic sanctions on Venezuela since 2014, giving quite a bit of authority to the State Dept. and Treasury in their imposition (which appears to be at their own discretion):

https://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/venezuela/

Second, if you take a look at some of the Congressional Budget Office statements around related funding to these bills (yeah, like most legislation in the US, there’s a lot more than just economic sanctions) you have high level statements essentially speaking to direct US intervention and influence in general (something we have yet to find on the supposed Russian threat here in the US):

https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/113th-congress-2013-2014/costestimate/s21421.pdf

Third, take a look at the potential investment incentives that are going around RIGHT NOW. I can only assume that viewpoints like this will worsen the whole ordeal, giving more reason for foreign intervention and all for a quick, highly profitable investment:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-markets/venezuelas-political-crisis-spells-opportunity-for-bond-investors-idUSKCN1PI1IW

[humblingman]

The Chicago Tribune quotes the newly elected Illinois Governor, JB Pritzker, saying

Still, Pritzker said he hasn’t “taken anything off the table” involving finding new revenue to fund bonds used to pay for public works projects, though he noted there are other potential sources for money such as expanded gambling.

In fact, one of the cornerstones of the Pritzker campaign was indeed "taken off the table". JB Pritzker ran as a spoiled rich-boy (remember those phone calls with Blagojevich?) and only proves to be just that. He's sure to remain one of the richest people in the world – a true testament to his public service.

Maybe it's just a Rick Pearson thing.

[humblingman]

A reavealing display of places you wouldn't expect to find money in politics and the potently subversive influence it buys. This paper is one of the most finely-tuned analyses I've personally read on political influences building up to, during, and beyond the 2016 election.

One particularly interesting point expresses the tendency to take party ideologies for granted. Roughly summarized, this tendency goes something like "if Party A votes in its presumed direction, there is nothing of suspicion here," something which ignores the fact that each representative within a political party is actually a human being with their very own exopolitical interests – something that would only be a benign detail if our representatives were emotionless, friendless and without family.

Quotes from the paper

At the broadest level, mainstream political science and economics focus overwhelmingly on the determining role of voters and elections—and specifically, in the specialized language of these disciplines, on the role of “median voters” - to take control.

The politically relevant industrial structure is very complex and much less intuitive when looking past the giant firms that control the wires leading into our homes. To understand what happens in that arena, it is essential to distinguish the phone companies from the cable firms, and both of these from the vast array of companies dependent on the internet or TV to reach their audiences

Only recently, for example, have analysts realized that banks can not only provide campaign contributions to members of Congress, but also make direct personal loans to them at concessionary rates(Tahoun and Vasvari 2016). Such personal loans show up in no campaign finance tabulation. Neither do other aspects of the personal finances of congressional representatives that receive even less attention, such as the role their own portfolios play in their voting decisions (Tahoun and Lent 2016)

Once one acknowledges this pecuniary influence on the partisan balance, the obvious next question becomes how these alignments translate into individual pieces of legislation.

Given the centrality of partisan conflicts and stalemates to legislative outcomes in recent decades, explaining successful legislation involves accounting for how enough votes break off from their usual (partisan)alignments to pass a bill. In our view, this is one place where political money really shows up as important. Not surprisingly, many of the papers that find that money does matter test whether enough of it can change legislators’ earlier stances, with broader alignments taken as a given

In another paper, they show that after 2002 the mortgage finance industry mounted a concerted effort to target political contributions to legislative districts with high rates of subprime borrowers, once again underscoring “the important role of both constituent and special interests in housing and housing finance public policy during the subprime mortgage credit expansion from 2002 to 2007”

Congressional families that preyed together stayed together: Representatives who themselves or with their spouses were heavily down in the market were much more likely to support the bailout, even controlling for campaign contributions

Tahoun and Lent also show that banks in which powerful members of the banking committees held stock received proportionally bigger allocations of TARP funds than other banks and got the funds on average more than a month and a half earlier and on better terms

Mian et al. do not inquire further into the roots of the Democrats’ favorable view of the bill. In particular, they do not analyze whether contributions from the financial service industry and real estate had any influence on the party’s representatives or leadership

Firstly, as some congressional representatives complained at the time, what the bill centrally provided for were net transfers to financial institutions, not homeowners. That is, the bill’s main beneficiaries were plainly not Americans in trouble with their mortgages but financial institutions, including many that may have had little or no interest in mortgages per se, but which had huge interests in preventing a collapse of the world financial system

Strikingly, total contributions for the 2007–08 cycle made to congressional Democrats from finance and real estate substantially exceeded those made to Republicans. It seems clear that Mian et al.’s finding that political money drove the Republicans on the mortgage relief vote, along with their claim that ideology and constituency propelled the Democrats, should not be accepted. They didn’t follow the money closely enough.

[humblingman]

In an article that is going on 5 years old, it continues to clearly illustrate how the priorities of Chicago polticos fall very far from the needs of Chicago residents. It seems that the expecations of CPS crumbling in on itself was accepted decades ago and, with what's happening both on the state and local level, seems more and more inevitable as time goes on.

Instead, the worst and most pressing problems of Chicago residents is swept under the rug (and how much room is left??) while more high-rises go up, investments flow to tourist-centric developments, and Chicago billionaires spend mind-boggling amounts of their own cash to become another typical politician. And so it goes...

[humblingman]

While there’s plenty to think about here, @nytimesheadline isn’t pointing out that the lead investor of this company is the Chinese State itself. Not that this makes things any better, but the company certainly isn’t trying to hide their “authoritarian” motives.

In fact, here in the US our “high-tech authoritarian future” is comparably underway – the only difference is it’s completely privatized (though thoroughly subsidized by public tax dollars).

Might be worthwhile to continue with the US status of such things before worrying about the affairs of other countries.

[humblingman]

A structure offering 250 units at $350 a month for those that needed it most was shut down last winter when the owner claimed bankruptcy. A non-profit bid on the building while promising to keep all 250 units at the same price and it seemed like all was settled – until CityPads (whose slogan is “your story begins here”) Chicago put an offer over that being asked for the building.

The 250 units is being slashed to 90 larger units with 30% being claimed “affordable” (by the Chicago Housing Authorities standards, that’s far from the Hotel’s current going rate of $350). Most residents residing in the Wilson Hotel are not there on CHA vouchers – most use social security or cash-on-hand when paying rent.

There was someone willing to pay for the building, to maintain the building at the asking price, promising to keep true to affordable housing in its truest sense. CityPads offered more, and has no plans to offer affordability to anyone, especially not those residents who will soon be looking for a affordable long-term home in a city that has little to offer.

[humblingman]

It’s amazing how money makes these Progressives!

[humblingman]

Surprised to realize that I'm only just now reading something like this. It's not dismissive to today's opioid epidemic, but as the author points out, it's hard not to be considering the USA's history with such issues.

[humblingman]

Here's what's driving that unemployment rate down. With the top job, requiring a Bachelor's degree (and all the debt that entails) paying less than $30,000 USD per-year and the others not requiring a college degree paying just under $25,000 per-year.

Note the title of this article. This is where we're going. Your tax dollars subsidizing big business with minimal (and arguably completely negative) impact on anyone or anything in the immediate local area and all of the (inarguably positive) impact going to the big business.

[humblingman]

It's amazing how money makes these Progressives!

[humblingman]

Well, it looks like military grade assault vehicles aren't the only thing police departments are taking from the Fed.

[humblingman]

Sadly, there are no surprises here.

[humblingman]

Tim Kane – Super Hawk

On tonight's Newshour, Tim Kane spoke some seriously hawkish statements. Among these:

The principle state adversary of the USA is Russia.

My son and his entire battalion were on the border of Russia to help our allies there protect themselves from Russian invasions of their sovereignty.

This is a dangerous nation we're dealing with...

This is some pretty intense language to be using, and the first that I would personally say is on par with statements made at the peak of the Cold War years.

Remember: This whole Russian conspiracy is around supposed "Russian __media influence__" on the 2016 US Presidential Elections. That's it. Commercials, "Fake News" and what-have-you, but nothing explicitly illegal by any means.

The source of the DNC emails has never been confirmed, and the only evidence put forth by the US suggests the hacks occurred somewhere in Russia. Yep – somewhere in Russia. In fact, there's a detailed explanation on just how general and broad this accusation is here.

Please, be sure to remember this to anyone you hear parroting this warmongering.

[humblingman]

While there's many good points made here, I'm surprised there's absolutely no mention of the monolithic Apple – the company who arguably made the digital medium-transition a relevant aspect of the modern economy.

[humblingman]

Article Quotes

"That is, they are essentially using the research and intellectual property generated by government-funded organisations such as universities for free. A robot tax would be one way of correcting this free-rider problem, but Varoufakis prefers the idea of what he calls a “universal basic dividend” (UBD)."

"This would mean that companies floated on the stock exchange would be obliged to set aside a certain percentage of their shares to be held in common for all of us through the government."