The Real Mitt Romney

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Adak

This is not being done on a fetus, this is being done to a baby, that is perfectly viable.

Two to four months premature is not viable without heroic medical effort.

[BigV]

you give far too much credit Clodfobble. I take him at his contradictory,misinformed word. I think he fits perfectly the description of an ideologue as put forth by Bill Clinton. ideology or evidence--one driven by ideology starts with the CONCLUSION and the finds evidence to support that conclusion. when evidence is more important than ideology, it is the evidence that leads to the CONCLUSION

[DanaC]

And how many late term abortions are conducted 'without good medical cause'?

[Clodfobble]

Oh, not many.

In the United States, intact dilation and extraction was made illegal in most circumstances by the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act in 2003, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.

[BigV]

that's the real mitt tomney for ya

[infinite monkey]

I don't know if that's a typo or if it means something, but 'mitt tomney' made me giggle.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

I don't know if that's a typo or if it means something, but 'mitt tomney' made me giggle.

Best to get all your giggling done, before the election, IM.

After that, if Obama wins, we'll all be quite a bit gloomier. That's the only "fair" way to endure Socialism. Everybody gets to cry and moan, because the private sector that drives our economy, will be even more crippled that it is now.

For his next term, from his many speeches and the debate, have you heard anything new from Obama? Anything that you thought was good? Because all I'm hearing from Obama is "stay the course" and "let's finish up what we started", etc.

And since what he started obviously failed, why do you support Obama? Do you really want more of the same policies that have failed so miserably to get our economy going again?

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by Adak

Best to get all your giggling done, before the election, IM.

After that, if Obama wins, we'll all be quite a bit gloomier. That's the only "fair" way to endure Socialism. Everybody gets to cry and moan, because the private sector that drives our economy, will be even more crippled that it is now.

For his next term, from his many speeches and the debate, have you heard anything new from Obama? Anything that you thought was good? Because all I'm hearing from Obama is "stay the course" and "let's finish up what we started", etc.

And since what he started obviously failed, why do you support Obama? Do you really want more of the same policies that have failed so miserably to get our economy going again?

Hey, troll. I was laughing at a typo. I don't want to discuss further, with you, my or your political beliefs. Is that not obvious? There, I've spelled it out for you.

Have your little "I'm so smart" discussions with those who are still banging their heads into the wall that is you.

Not only do I think you're trolling, I think you're so misguided as to be dangerous.

Buh-bye!

[Stormieweather]

Originally Posted by Adak

Do you really want more of the same policies that have failed so miserably to get our economy going again?

Yeah. So let's go back to the policies that got our economy in this shape to begin with. That's intelligent.

[Adak]

Originally Posted by Stormieweather

Yeah. So let's go back to the policies that got our economy in this shape to begin with. That's intelligent.

There were two critical changes that caused this economic crisis:

1) The change in the way the feds, through FAH ("Fanny Mae, and "Freddie Mac"), that loosened the restrictions on the loans that they would buy, from the banks/savings and loans.

What that amounted to was, the realtors, the banks, the appraisers, the investors, hell, even the termite exterminator, made money, as long as the feds would buy the loans. And with the restrictions removed, there was just a signature to say "I made $X about of dollars last year". <wink, wink>

The wink wink, was that the realtor or bank would tell you "that income figure is never verified". <wink, wink> There is your subprime mortgage market debacle. Why subprime? Because they brought in the highest returns.

2) The huge derivative market, and how it was unregulated, (I've marked it with bold font, below). This was a HUGE investment instrument, and affected investors (principally financial companies, world wide.

The Washington Post (not a conservative newspaper), had this to say, focusing mostly on the Wall St. finance angle. A bit long, but a good read.

What caused the crisis? Look:

●Fed Chair Alan Greenspan dropped rates to 1 percent — levels not seen for half a century — and kept them there for an unprecedentedly long period. This caused a spiral in anything priced in dollars (i.e., oil, gold) or credit (i.e., housing) or liquidity driven (i.e., stocks).

●Low rates meant asset managers could no longer get decent yields from municipal bonds or Treasurys. Instead, they turned to high-yield mortgage-backed securities. Nearly all of them failed to do adequate due diligence before buying them, did not understand these instruments or the risk involved. They violated one of the most important rules of investing: Know what you own.

●Fund managers made this error because they relied on the credit ratings agencies — Moody’s, S&P and Fitch. They had placed an AAA rating on these junk securities, claiming they were as safe as U.S. Treasurys.

• Derivatives had become a uniquely unregulated financial instrument. They are exempt from all oversight, counter-party disclosure, exchange listing requirements, state insurance supervision and, most important, reserve requirements. This allowed AIG to write $3 trillion in derivatives while reserving precisely zero dollars against future claims.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission changed the leverage rules for just five Wall Street banks in 2004. The “Bear Stearns exemption” replaced the 1977 net capitalization rule’s 12-to-1 leverage limit. In its place, it allowed unlimited leverage for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. These banks ramped leverage to 20-, 30-, even 40-to-1. Extreme leverage leaves very little room for error.

•Wall Street’s compensation system was skewed toward short-term performance. It gives traders lots of upside and none of the downside. This creates incentives to take excessive risks.

• The demand for higher-yielding paper led Wall Street to begin bundling mortgages. The highest yielding were subprime mortgages. This market was dominated by non-bank originators exempt from most regulations. The Fed could have supervised them, but Greenspan did not.

• These mortgage originators’ lend-to-sell-to-securitizers model had them holding mortgages for a very short period. This allowed them to get creative with underwriting standards, abdicating traditional lending metrics such as income, credit rating, debt-service history and loan-to-value.

• “Innovative” mortgage products were developed to reach more subprime borrowers. These include 2/28 adjustable-rate mortgages, interest-only loans, piggy-bank mortgages (simultaneous underlying mortgage and home-equity lines) and the notorious negative amortization loans (borrower’s indebtedness goes up each month). These mortgages defaulted in vastly disproportionate numbers to traditional 30-year fixed mortgages.

●To keep up with these newfangled originators, traditional banks developed automated underwriting systems. The software was gamed by employees paid on loan volume, not quality.

●Glass-Steagall legislation, which kept Wall Street and Main Street banks walled off from each other, was repealed in 1998. This allowed FDIC-insured banks, whose deposits were guaranteed by the government, to engage in highly risky business. It also allowed the banks to bulk up, becoming bigger, more complex and unwieldy.

●Many states had anti-predatory lending laws on their books (along with lower defaults and foreclosure rates). In 2004, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency federally preempted state laws regulating mortgage credit and national banks. Following this change, national lenders sold increasingly risky loan products in those states. Shortly after, their default and foreclosure rates skyrocketed.

Bloomberg was partially correct: Congress did radically deregulate the financial sector, doing away with many of the protections that had worked for decades. Congress allowed Wall Street to self-regulate, and the Fed the turned a blind eye to bank abuses.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by Adak

...And since what he started obviously failed, why do you support Obama? Do you really want more of the same policies that have failed so miserably to get our economy going again?

You mean, despite fighting against a congress that would not let President Obama pass a universal cure for cancer if it meant one more person might vote for him, getting the country away from the cliff and having steady job growth for the last 30 months and going from 10% unemployment to 7.8, after the congress above voted against all the jobs bills, including the ones they proposed as well as the VETERANS Jobs bill.
Fuck Romney, Ryan, the right and the tea party. They would kill their own mothers to keep the black guy from getting another term/

[DanaC]

Fuck yeah, Shel, say it like it is.

[Adak]

Gas was at $1.84 per gallon, when Obama was sworn in. (Nationwide average).

Gas today is at $3.81 per gallon (Nationwide average).

Source: http://fuelgaugereport.aaa.com/?redi....com/index.asp

Of course, California has Democrats running our State, with no concern for working people, so our current gas price is $4.59 per gallon.

All prices are for regular gas.

[Adak]

How Biden can beat Ryan, in Thursday's big debate:

1) Be different! Have a Biden vs. Biden debate!

2) Slip Ryan a roofie, before the debate!

3) Tell the moderator, his dog ate all his debate notes.

4) Get an earpiece from the secret service, and get coached by a roomful of government and debate experts, live.

5) Pray to St. Jude the Apostle, the patron saint of Lost Causes - REAL hard.

Because Ryan is going to kick Biden's ass!!

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by Adak

Because Ryan is going to lick Biden's ass!!

Fixed it for ya. He's already had a lot of practice with Mitt.