Politics
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp…
"You must always remember that the president is about 6."
This advice was offered more than 100 years ago by a British friend of Teddy Roosevelt's. The nation has matured since then, and so has the presidency. Now the president is about 12.
- TheBlueOne0
"Free Markets" and "Financial Capitalism", or why whatever these assholes say about "capitalism", markets and invisible hands, it has absolutely nothing to do with letting markets freely operate. Ever.
http://www.democracynow.org/2010…
"...we have to understand...a lot of these banks, are not interested in the particular structure of any of these markets. I think it’s a lot of mistake people make when they think about how these bankers are working. We think that they’re actually interested in the markets. We think that they’re—no. What they’re after are very large pools of cash for themselves. They’re after accumulating huge pools of money that they can do with whatever they like on a day-to-day basis. Right? And so, Goldman, in 1991, came up with this idea of the commodity index fund, which really was a way for them to accumulate huge piles of cash for themselves. It wasn’t really about the markets, anyway. The market was just an excuse. And so, the fact that they threw these wheat markets out of whack didn’t really matter to them.
How did this work? Instead of a buy-and-sell order, like everybody does in these markets, they just started buying. It’s called "going long." They started going long on wheat futures. OK? And every time one of these contracts came due, they would do something called "rolling it over" into the next contract. So they would take all those buy promises they had made and say, "OK, we still—we’re just going to—we’ll buy more later. And plus we’re going to buy more now." And they kept on buying and buying and buying and buying and accumulating this unprecedented, this historically unprecedented pile of long-only wheat futures. And this accumulation created a very odd phenomenon in the market. It’s called a "demand shock." Usually prices go up because supply is low, right? That’s the idea. There’s not a lot of supply, so the price goes up. In this case, Goldman and the other banks had introduced this completely unnatural and artificial demand to buy wheat, and that then set the price up. Now, a lot of people are saying, "Oh, it was biofuel production. It was drought in Australia. It was floods in Kazakhstan." Let me tell you, hard red wheat generally trades between $3 and $6 per sixty-pound bushel. It went up to $12, then $15, then $18. Then it broke $20. And on February 25th, 2008, hard red spring futures settled at $25 per bushel. This is completely beyond the pale, particularly at a— in 2008, it was the greatest wheat-producing year in world history. The world produced more wheat in 2008 than ever before.
And here’s the other outrage of it, which is that at the time that Goldman and these other banks are completely messing up the structure of this market, they’ve protected themselves outside the market, through this really almost diabolical idea called "replication," which is what I discovered when I was looking into how they had structured this. What they do—let’s say, Juan, you want me to invest for you in the wheat market. You give me a hundred bucks, OK? Well, what I should be doing is putting a hundred bucks in the wheat markets. But I don’t have to do that. All I have to do is put $5 in. Good-faith promise. And with that $5, I can hold your hundred-dollar position. Well, now I got ninety-five of your dollars. What am I going to do with them? Well, what Goldman did with hundreds of billions of dollars, and what all these banks did with hundreds of billions of dollars, is they put them in the most conservative—no fools, they—they put them in the most conservative investments conceivable. They put it in T-bills. And then what did they do? Well, now that you have hundreds of billions of dollars in T-bills, you can leverage that into trillions of dollars. This is what I’m talking about, large pools of cash for themselves. And then they take that trillion dollars, they give it to their day traders, and they say, "Go at it, guys. Do whatever is most lucrative today." And so, as billions of people starve, they use that money to make billions of dollars for themselves. And the result was, as the price went up, that there were food riots around the world. there were food riots in more than thirty countries. The global price of food rose over 80 percent. This had an effect not only on wheat, but on corn, on soy, on cooking oil, on rice. You know, people talk about globalization. "We don’t need to set prices or have tariffs, because we’re globalized. You know, people can buy their wheat, anyway." Well, gee, guess what happened. When the price of wheat started to go through the roof, something new, which was something old, came up, called "nationalism," and people said, "OK, sorry, we’re closing our wheat, and we’re setting up tariffs." And you had—you had riots. You had hunger. You had a disaster. You had a global disaster, because, remember, in America, we’re spending maybe 15 percent of our weekly paycheck on food, right? I mean, maybe you remember, a couple years ago, why was that dozen eggs so expensive? Why was that milk so expensive? Why was that meat so expensive? That’s 15 percent. For most people on the earth, they’re spending more than 50 percent of their daily income on their daily bread. And when their daily bread moves up 80 percent, they’ve just moved right into the ranks of the food insecure. And it was not only in Burkina Faso. This was in America. You had 49 million hungry families in America. You had one out of five children in America at soup kitchens. You had a million hungry people in Los Angeles.So, I mean, it is unconscionable that Wall Street has completely lost touch with the reality."
- No, but let's focus on the size of Obama's head. Because that's really important for you fuckers in the Clown cars.TheBlueOne
- BIG HEAD, you too eh?********
- sounds a lot like cap and trade********
- They just don't care anymore, it is like a game to these bastards.DCDesigns
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US State Dept Sends Mosque Imam to Mideast
http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.c…WASHINGTON– State Department officials on Monday confirmed Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque, will soon be going on a trip of the Middle East and the U.S. government will be picking up the tab.
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- If you support unions you hate kids! You are a gullible person, deathboy.DrBombay
- way to generalize doc. i just agree with the dad in this. perhaps you should get past the title.********
- You posted it with no context, what did you expect?DrBombay
- didnt think about it. just posted it. maybe a summation from me wouldn't do it justice.********
- corporations cut corners for workers unions make sure workers are kept safe74LEO
- is a union a corp? seems so stupid that they dont say ok hrie more nurses if you want. but let your union memebrs help if they can or are willing********
- they can or willing. thats it. no politics or voting necessary. its terrible leveraging on union part********
- luckyorphan0
NBC/WSJ Poll:
Jet Blue Nation
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_…"The poll contains this interesting finding: The GOP has a HUGE generic-ballot edge in the South (52%-31%), but it doesn’t lead anywhere else. In the Northeast, Dems have a 55%-30% edge; in the Midwest, they lead 49%-38%; and in the West, it’s 44%-43%. Yet do keep this caveat in mind: Many of the congressional districts Republicans are targeting outside of the South resemble some of those Southern districts they’re hoping to win back in November -- where you have whiter and older voters. Think Stephanie Herseth's seat in South Dakota; Tim Walz' seat in Minnesota; Leonard Boswell's seat in Iowa; and Ike Skelton's in Missouri."
- i hate polling data. its only good for marketing. and marketing in politics is lame, like kissing ass********
- also a lot of republicons are putting on the sheep outfit and registering democrat.74LEO
- i hate polling data. its only good for marketing. and marketing in politics is lame, like kissing ass
- DrBombay0
Tea Party groups out against net neutrality
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillico…
Fucking idiots.- hey i have to agree with doc. i must go agaisnt my capitalist ways. but i take comfort knowing the seed money was tax payer for such so all is good********
- tax payer for most telecoms. still tough situationto maintain a healthy balance********
- Ridiculous. the're so in the pocket of corporations—This makes is obviousBrokenHD
- Its called Astroturf, pendejosBrokenHD
- hey i have to agree with doc. i must go agaisnt my capitalist ways. but i take comfort knowing the seed money was tax payer for such so all is good
- 74LEO0
^
Of course. So is Steve Jobs and bill gates. look at the flash player issue. A huge victory against net neutrality.
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44% approval rating, nice work Barry!
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11398…
Even better, American confidence and belief in the major news networks, 25%.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/14213…
18 to 29 year olds, LOL!
Generation Y, was I born?- You keep drinking that ABC, MS(NBC) and CBS kool-aid though.********
- Ohh yeah and CNN.********
- Who are you talking to you fucking freak?DrBombay
- You keep drinking that ABC, MS(NBC) and CBS kool-aid though.
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- georgesIII0
Aren't you guys tired yet??
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go fuck yourselves
- utopian0
Liberty1955 was outraged when Newt Gingrich called unemployed people lazy earlier this week. The Watertown, NY, resident received his last unemployment benefits check last week. 'I don’t know how anybody could think it’s an unreasonable measure especially when so many people are out of work and people are clinging to keep their houses. Then we have Newt Gingrich saying he thinks they’re lazy. I was outraged that these guys don’t read history,' he said.
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Alvin Greene Update: Indicted On Porn Charges, But Planning A Relaunch
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/…Alvin Greene, the Democratic party's U.S. Senate candidate from South Carolina, was indicted Friday on felony charges for showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.
- TheBlueOne0
SACRED GROUND ZERO LAND
CANNOT LET SATANIC MUSLIMS DEFILE HOLY GROUND RESERVED FOR STRIPPERS, FAST FOOD, CORPORATE COFFEE DISPENSERIES & OLGA'S BODY WORK & MASSAGE ESTABLISHMENT. THIS SHIT IS AMERICAN. BOO-YAA.
- Hey have fun with that one, come November.********
- You keep playing it up you racist fuckTheBlueOne
- All of the people opposed to that mosque have never been to NYC.DrBombay
- Hey have fun with that one, come November.
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- So you don't want Reid to go? I want want Reid to go. He;s a fucking coward.TheBlueOne
- hes an idiot but he knows how to politic. angle is an idiot and doesnt. between the 2 ill take the angle becuase she cant do harm with no ability to politic********
- harm lacking a strong ability to politic, and she will have heavy haters if she won making it impossible********
- So you'll take ineffectual over ideology? No wonder I don't want to live in your AmerikkkaTheBlueOne
- inffectual is better then a idiot that could change things for the worse.********
- inteliboy0
Being on QBN, amongst those in the creative field who see the 'beauty' of things, you'd think this a place of well thought out views, opinions and understanding of the world around us (hey, we're in advertising right?)...
JazX completely shits all over this ideal.
Now I remember why I avoid this thread...
- Stick around, he's going to post some more pictures of minority stereotypes soon...TheBlueOne
- ..it'll be a fucking hoot.TheBlueOne
- at least jazx isnt pretentious. probably, brings in some funny humor now and then.********
- nothing is more waste of time then politics. lump sum of crap********
- So, stereotyping people is funny to you? No wonder I think you're an asshole.TheBlueOne
- ukit0
So what's the point of all this hysteria over the mosque? Is the decision making process of NYC officials not good enough? Are you looking for the federal government to pass a law forbidding its construction?
So funny, cause I thought the new thing was that the federal government MUST keep its hands off state and local decisions at all cost. Isn't that sort of the defining ideal of the whole tea party/ neo-libertarian/ Ron Paul fanboy movement?
Or was that just for stuff that you personally don't want them involved with, like the Civil Rights Bill? But when it is something you care about, you're all over it?
I'm half hoping Republicans do take back the House. Sure, as a demonstration of the country's collective intelligence, it'll suck, but on the other hand, it'll be fucking hilarious watching the total lack of reasoning ability, intellectual inconsistency, and rank stupidity of the kind displayed by the right-wingers in this thread play out on the national stage. And they'll be led by a guy whose named sounds like "boner."
- < That sign suggests that the US should be as repressive as Saudi Arabia.luckyorphan
- DrBombay0
All of the poeple opposed to that don't live in the area. Closest one is Peter King and he is a mook anyway.
