Why the Right Wing Rejects Science

Most of them are just in it for the money.

“Raising campaign money is not just about winning elections and staying in power,… the Permanent Political Class has come up with all sorts of creative ways to transfer those funds into other pockets, which can be accessed to enhance their own wealth and lifestyle. And they have carved out convenient loopholes in the law that allow lawmakers to legally convert votes into cash.” EXTORTION, "How Politicians Extract Your money, BuyVotes, And Line Their Own Pockets, Peter Schweizer, HMO, NY, NY, 2013, p. 4.

 

I have found that almost all Americans, other than politicians, Left to Right would prefer having direct control of much of the revenue flowing into the structure of government and its crony capitalist satellites. There is plenty of common ground - if you look for it.

 

As global issues take over our attention during the rest of this century, we'll be forced to work with other nations in international agreements to deal with those issues. Global warming is one example. A global economy is another. No nation is capable of dealing with those issues alone. Over time, general populations of nation states everywhere will begin to value global relationships more than nation states. It's inevitable. Of course, it'll be easier for the younger generations than older ones. But it has to happen.

 

I guess my first question would be: Do the Native Americans living on reservations in CA actually have street addresses? In N Dakota, they don't--which explains why they have historically used PO Boxes instead. I'm not familiar with voting details for CA, but anyone willing to look at what's going on in N Dakota can easily see it's a Republican ploy to suppress Native American voting. Complaining about Democrats generally or CA specifically doesn't change that fact.

 

Do you apply this to war?
How about Starvation?
Is this wonderful compassion for human life still there when the human is no longer inside another human?

 

I disagree.

Trump acted like a jerk from day one of his campaign, attacking Mexicans, calling them derogatory names, etc. He never stopped. Still hasn't. Trump isn't a jerk because he was attacked by everyone. Trump is a jerk because he chooses to be a jerk. He's proud of it. If you actually like that kind of behavior in a person, that's your business. I don't. And, I'm hoping the majority of voters today agree with me.

 

Neither I or most historians agree with you. The Great Depression was caused by a stock market allowed to speculate freely without governmental regulations. Dishonest traders took advantage of that freedom to wreck the stock market & the economy associated with it. Remember Republicans were in power during the 1920s, when the lack of regulation allowed the seeds of that depression to be planted. And Hoover was in charge for the first four years after the depression hit, and, following the same economic philosophy your endorse, did nothing to help. FDR tried to help by providing regulations that were designed to avoid the same pitfalls that caused the Great Depression, but FDR had to contend with both obstructionist Republicans in Congress & the Supreme Court, as well as conservatives within his own party, so he was limited in what he could accomplish for much of a decade. WWII actually was the instrument that pulled us out of that depression. The Great Recession of 2008 was also caused by the reduction of regulations in place during the first decade of this century. When GW Bush reduced those protective regulations, our economy went into a spiral that took the subsequent Obama administration 8 years to deal with, using many of the same economists left over from the Bush administration. I disagree with you. It isn't the government causing these depressions & recessions. It's greedy, self-serving, speculators who don't care at all how their greedy actions can & do affect the economy of the nation around them. Protective regulations are necessary to protect us from those reckless Capitalists.

 

The most obvious reason is that Republicans have controlled Congress every year since 2010, and Democrats have no power to pass anything. I don't know why Democrats didn't do anything about voter suppression during the first two years of Obama's administration. Perhaps they were overconfident that they'd continue controlling Congress & had more time. Once Democrats regain control of Congress again, I hope they DO something about this issue.

 

Simply saying I'm wrong proves nothing. It's your word against mine. If you believe many voters are double voting, give me and forum readers some evidence to back up your claim.

 

First He didn't attack all Mexicans and he was quoting info from a fusion magazine report that state most of the girls coming north were being raped multiple times on the way here.

 

What you're talking about is just normal political compromise. My point was that I'm far more likely to understand your "liberal" argument than you are to understand my "conservative" one.

 

Nah, I have simply adopted your teams' standards of proof. Who needs corroborative or associative evidence then? I've said it. I demand that you accept that you're wrong. Isn't that a wonderful world I can now dictate from?

 

Now--yesterday & today--Trump is claiming Democrats are inviting illegal immigrants into America, along with several other convenient election day lies. I'm a Democrat and I don't invite any illegals into America from anywhere. I don't know any other Democrat anywhere personally, who does. Trump is a constant, consistent, consummate liar. It astounds me how anyone claiming to have any personal values can support this man with their vote.

 

Many of the illegal aliens are mexicans and they represent a hugh problem for America

 

Funny I don't recall him claiming all Democrats are

 

"Normal" compromise is a very important ingredient in any successful democracy. So is being well informed. Based on several of your posts I've read, I'm not convinced your last statement is accurate.

 

Well it's hard to test.

 

You are mistaken. Actually, Obama achieved a zero illegal immigration from Mexico during his second administration. This a little known fact, but it's the truth. I believe there was some illegals from Central America remaining, but not Mexico. Like many of Trump's allegations, the one saying thousands of Mexican illegals were getting in during Obama's term, are lies.

 

Agreed.

 

Of course.

 

You are wrong. And you suffer from TDS. Stay out of the CNN/MSNBC echo chamber and think for yourself.

 

It is indeed a little known claim

But since illegal aliens are free to come and go across the open border they may have looked at the slumping obama economy and said no mas and just stayed home

 

That's more BS. The GD was caused by Smoot-Hawley and the newly formed Fed tightening the money supply at exactly the wrong time. It was exacerbated by the Soviet Style programs of FDR. FDR's programs never did bring unemployment under 15%. That's some successful economic policies. You know nothing of economic history. Where did you "learn" all this BS ?? Probably our university system.

The Great Recession had nothing to do with the reduction of regulations. Which regulations are you referring to ?? Read the following and learn something.


The housing bubble and financial crisis are actually two different things although the collapse of the housing bubble resulted in the financial crisis. The housing bubble was caused by the lowering of lending standards due to the HUD requirement that Fannie and Freddie make a set percentage of loans to low income borrowers. This policy was initiated by Bill Clinton and was based on an interpretation of the Community Reinvestment Act. At the end of Clinton's term that percentage was 50%. This was increased to 55% by the Bush administration. The lowering of the lending standards was used by unscrupulous mortgage lending firms like Countrywide and New Century to make many other high risk loans. Adding to the housing bubble was the easy money policy of the Fed which made loans easier to afford due to low interest rates. The housing bubble suddenly burst in 2008. This was similar to the dot.com bubble which burst in 2001 and recovered from by 2003 but why was the financial industry so terribly affected this time.


The financial crisis triggered by the housing bubble collapse was the result of a combination of financial and banking regulations going back to 1936 (See the list below). Mortgage backed securities have been around for years before the 00's. They are securities formed by conglomerating home mortgages and are a way for investors to earn a return through the housing market. They have historically been very safe investments. The HUD housing policies however resulted in a portion of the MBS's created in the 90's and 00's to consist of the subprime and other low standard loans. The Basel rules were based on the assumption that securities consisting of home mortgages were of very low risk. Therefore the reserve requirements for MBS's were set at a very low rate of 5%. This meant that for every $50K of MBS's that a commercial or investment bank had it could make loans totaling $1M. Since banks make money from loans they would use the investment vehicles with the lowest reserve requirement. And very many of them did. They bought AAA rated MBS's (the ratings were determined by the National Ratings Agencies - Fitch, Moodys, and Standard and Poors). This was required by gov regulation. But the ratings agencies were not doing due diligence on the make up of the MBS' which was unknown to the banks involved who trusted the ratings and Basel guidelines. Collapse of the housing bubble caused foreclosures in the subprime mortgages especially. This created fear and uncertainty in the value of the MBS's even though they were still paying ~ 90% of their returns. The market price dropped (in some cases a price could not be determined because no one was interested in buying). This is where the mark to market rule came in resulting large paper and consequently the banks reserves falling below the already low 5%. The bailout from the gov started out as TARP which was passed to buy up all these MBS's which had now large paper losses due to mark to market. It was quickly changed however to give money directly to the banks so that they could bring their reserves up to the 5% level. Bear Stearns was bailed out but Lehman was allowed to fail. This resulted in uncertainty and the credit markets froze (none of the banks wanted to lend to other banks who might not be bailed out). Some commercial banks like WaMu also had MBS's in reserve and ended up being taken over.



The analysis of what happened is contained in the book by Friedman and Kraus – “Engineering the Financial Crisis” – 2011. As can be seen these rules were issued over the years with no analysis on how they might conspire together to set up a catastrophic house of cards situation due to the homogenization of asset mix held by many of these investment houses. Collapse of the housing bubble which affected these assets including MBS’s (whose contained loans were still paying at ~ 80%) then lost value due to the market price dropping way below value triggering large paper losses due to mark to market accounting rules. This reduced the capital and lending capacity of the banks due to Basel I and the Recourse Rule (an adoption in the U.S. of part of what later became Basel II), which specify those capital requirements. The conflation of all of this resulted in the financial (really the banking) crisis. The authors also show that the repeal of Glass Steagal had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Glass Steagal prevented the mixing of private deposits with investments and that was not a factor. Here are the set of regulations:




1. SEC Regulations from 1936 requiring mandated minimum ratings for a growing number of institutional investments.


2. SEC decision in 1975 to confer NRSRO on the big three ratings agencies.


3. Basel 1 from 1978 which established favorable risk weighting for mortgages and GSE issued MBS’s.


4. Mark to market accounting established by FAS 115 in 1993 and refined by FAS 157 in 2006.


5. HUD targets for mortgages to low-income families in the late 1990’s resulting in reduction of down payment requirements for the GSE’s.


6. Recourse Rule issued by the FED, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and the Office of Thrift Supervision.






Here are some excerpts from an editorial from the WSJ:



Tim Geithner, then head of the New York Fed, opined that "financial market data" gave off no sign of trouble. Kevin Warsh, a fellow Fed governor, agreed: "Capital markets are probably more profitable and more robust . . . than they have perhaps ever been." What idiots. And yet they were right. Jobs, consumption and stock prices were holding up smartly despite the well-recognized turn in housing markets. Then came the financial panic. Did the housing bubble cause the panic—or was the panic somehow separate, making everything worse, including the housing crunch? Good question


Gratifying, then, is the attention showered on a recent book by Jeffrey Friedman and Wladimir Kraus, "Engineering the Financial Crisis." Their work is refreshing for many reasons: It does not assume the housing bubble is the whole story. It allows that honest ignorance (especially about the interaction of complex regulations) might explain the behavior of bankers and regulators. It asks especially interesting questions about the triple-A mortgage derivatives at the heart of the financial meltdown


Basel tried to make banks safer by prescribing capital levels, and by steering them toward "safe" assets. Experience had shown that mortgage-backed securities were among the safest, safer than business and consumer loans and even whole mortgages. So the Basel rules strongly favored mortgage-backed securities. Alas, this became an incentive to over-produce these assets until they became very dangerous indeed to the entire financial system (a formula also implicated in Europe's sovereign debt crisis).


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204468004577166723093578272.html


Google – The Meltdown Remains a Whodunit


Here is a Reading list for you - The top 8 are in my unofficial order of importance:



Engineering the Financial Crisis - Friedman & Kraus - 2011

Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac - McDonald - 2012

Senseless Panic - William Isaac - 2010

Bad History, Worse Policy - Peter Wallison - 2013

“Government Housing Policies in the Lead-up to the Financial Crisis: A Forensic Study” - Pinto
http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploa...-to-the-Financial-Crisis-Word-2003-2.5.11.pdf

What Caused the Financial Crisis - Edited by Friedman - 2011

Reckless Endangerment - Morgenson - 2011

Bull by the Horns - Sheila Bair - 2012

Lehman Brothers - A Crisis of Value - McDonald - 2015

Back to Work - Bill Clinton - 2011

All the Devils are Here - McLean - 2010

The Housing Boom and Bust - Dr. Thomas Sowell - 2009

Getting Off Track - Taylor - 2009

Bail Out Nation - Ritholtz - 2009

The Great American Bank Robbery - Sperry - 2011

Shakedown - Malanga - 2010

A Capitalism for the People - Zingales -

Debacle - Norquist - 2012

America's Ticking Bankruptcy Bomb - Ferrara - 2011

 

Trump thinks everything of value revolves around himself or money. I disagree on both points. I haven't found anything Trump advocates as something I agree with. The tax cut was for the ultra wealthy, not for me. His increase in military spending is unnecessary and wasteful. His manic obsession with immigration is totally unnecessary, and a political issue based on a whole collection of lies. We don't have a crisis of immigration except thru the eyes of Trump. Obama reduced Mexican illegal immigration to zero during his second term. Also, Trump's success in creating jobs is his only positive, but Obama created MORE JOBS THAN TRUMP in the same time period during his last 21 months in office. But Trump & his supporters never give credit to Obama for anything. Trump is exhausting. His behaviors are grueling and nasty. Most of his policies are for his base rather than the benefit of the country. Trump has no values other than himself & money & winning, even when winning has no identifiable value. You may not like MSNBC, but they care more about America than its President does.

 

Absolutely. We make regulations, because people will NOT regulate themselves.

The reason we have drug regulations is that without that regulation, drug companies would be experimenting on US. They would HAVE to (as corporations), because they would know that other drug companies would out compete them by doing far less testing and thus being faster to the market.

We have water quality regulation, because corporations WILL pour their garbage into our rivers to the point where they will light on FIRE!!! We tried that - remember???

The "striving" part has absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with regulation. We KNOW what human behavior is, because we get to watch it before we make ANY regulation. We do NOT make regulation until we find that without it, great harm is being done.


Then, you switch to religion (v science?). But, religion IS ABOUT SCIENCE to many citizens of the USA. Religion assaults the very foundations of all biology. It assaults our educational institutions for teaching about how humans work and how our universe works.

Then, YOU decide that the vast majority of climatologists are monumentally wrong!!!

What distracted YOU from science?

It certainly has nothing to do with scientists wanting control of the world. There is absolutely NO WAY to substantiate that kind of nonsense. And, I note that you don't try.