General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThere’s something absolutely insane happening in the House of Representatives right now.
To fully appreciate said insanity, we have to take an unpleasant but brief trip down memory lane back to the darkest days of the 2008 financial crisis. Insurance giant American International Group (AIG) was on the verge of collapse, and the U.S. government stepped in with an $85 billion bailout. The risky behavior that drove AIG to the brink was largely fueled by a financial instrument known as derivatives trading.
In the wake of the financial crisis, many people were less than enthusiastic about the prospect of footing a multi-billion dollar bill every time Wall St. gambled its way into a corner. So, when Congress passed a new set of financial regulations known as Dodd-Frank in 2010, it included a provision that required banks to conduct some forms of derivatives trading in a more isolated way to reduce risk and make government bailouts less likely. Many reform advocates would have preferred much stronger protections, but given the $12.4 million in campaign contributions and $105 million in lobbying expenditures by Wall St. industry groups attempting to influence the law, it was certainly better than nothing.
Now, the House is scheduled to vote on a bill that would roll back these derivative regulations and let banks go back to the same set of rules that let them break the economy in the first place. This brings us to insane part: According to the New York Times, the bill is currently enjoying broad bipartisan support in the House. So, why is it that both parties have found a way to agree on a substantive regulatory change at a time when partisan bickering is supposedly making any progress impossible?
Its certainly not because the public is up in arms about rolling back derivative regulations most Americans have never heard of derivatives trading, let alone pressured their Member of Congress to deregulate it. No, this is happening for a very different reason: Big bank lobbyists wrote this bill.
more
http://daily.represent.us/theres-something-absolutely-insane-happening-house-right-now/
One of many, many insane things going on in the House. And Senate.
annabanana
(52,791 posts)pnwmom
(108,980 posts)spanone
(135,844 posts)pampango
(24,692 posts)Not all members of the House like what's going on. Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson said earlier this year, "Why don't we just save ourselves some time and hand Goldman Sachs a trillion dollars?"
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/10/wall-streets-best-friend-house-representatives/71046/
Miranda4peace
(225 posts)While other house democrats and republicans defend the interests of their corporate/banking bosses
mrsadm
(1,198 posts)ReRe
(10,597 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)Business News this morning saying that "we were swimming in Regulations" and that was hurting job growth.
What does that tell you? The Business Community and Wall St. are in tight with both parties. And our President makes Immelt his "Jobs Czar?" (as Immelt is amusingly called)
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/the-insourcing-boom/309166/
Also the COE
At the heart of the investment is a new global software headquarters the company is building in northern California. The facility, slated to be opened by the middle of next year in San Ramon, Calif., will hire 400 software engineers and centralize its world-wide efforts.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052970204517204577042532750345206
And the Industrial Internet
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/g-e-s-industrial-internet-goes-big/?_r=0
Mark Little, G.E.s chief technology officer, has also said that the Industrial Internet could revive G.E.s manufacturing business in the United States, though not in ways traditional manufacturers would recognize. Since G.E. wants to understand how machines behave in the field, it also needs to have its sensors on them from the earliest part of their creation.
Weve spent most of my career trying to offload manufacturing, Mr. Little said in an interview in June. Now were talking about vertical integration again. Much of the manufacturing, however, will be done by robots, he said.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/g-e-s-industrial-internet-goes-big/?_r=0
So.... if you think Immelt is not trying to change things, think again. He is the perfect person for the job Obama has asked him to do, and things are moving in the right direction.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)income taxes again?
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)Not having to pay income taxes.
Oh wait.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)what benefit to its workers is conferred by GE not paying taxes.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Ms. Toad
(34,074 posts)Which is what I assume you are referring to.
Here is a decent article sorting it out (to the extent it is public): http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/04/the-truth-about-ges-tax-bill/
If I set up my personal withholding perfectly, on April 15 I will owe the government nothing. That doesn't mean I paid no taxes for the year; I have been paying them as part of each paycheck all year long. All it means is that I don't have a balance due at the end of the year.
I'm not defending GE's tactics to minimize its US tax bill - but looking at the bottom line on the annual balance sheet: remaining balance due (or refund owed) says absolutely nothing about the income taxes paid by GE for any given year. That is what the NYT looked at.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)but how much is unknown because it is so complicated. That is not enlightening, or maybe it is.
Ms. Toad
(34,074 posts)it is unknown because it is not public information. I have no idea how complicated their tax return is.
I was correcting a mistake the NYT reporter should not have made. What you owe (or get back) at the end of the year has nothing to do with how much you paid in taxes for the year. What the article reported was GE's balance due or refund for the year - which has nothing to do with how much it paid in taxes for the year.
If it is appropriate to slam GE, it ought to be done using facts - not fiction. That is my only point.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)coming back to America.
He focused on Africa, Saudi Arabia, South America, China, Russia. But, he spent much time on Africa talking about the vast resources there for GE.
Fuchishima and the GE Nuke Plant plus GE's other Nuke plants were not brought up for discussion.
He also talked about how North America will be Energy Independent due to pipelines serving Mexico/US/Canada. We will be able to share Oil, Natural Gas, and Tar Sands which all serve different purposes.
"Frack Baby..Frack!"
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)Just so ya know.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Just that he's a "What's Good for GE is Good for the World" kind of guy and and seems more grounded than Jack Welch...but, he's not for the working man or woman and his priority is GE. I think he was a poor pick for Obama. But, he likes the guy....so there's what it is. And...Immelt is very personable...but he's a Corporation. first.
lark
(23,105 posts)This is the exact same guy who moved every bit of GE's x-ray technology and mfg. to China just a few years ago. So he moves one part here, he moves more away. Yes, it was a huge mistake making the GE guy the jobs guru when GE is extremely well known as an outsourcer and is a company that pays .00 in taxes. Again, Immelt was an extremely poor choice for this position, basically a stick in the eye of the American workers.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)of the 140,000 domestic employees of GE - all of whom happen to pay federal income taxes.
The manufacturing world is undergoing great change - automation is still too expensive in china in many plants because cost of labor is so low. As their standard of living grows, so will automation. Who knows automation more than anyone? US employees do. That puts us (and GE) in a unique position in terms of global manufacturing.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)That's fewer than one month's hiring in the country.
GE is not a patriotic company. We know all about the cost of labor in China.
We need to make sure that GE pays enough taxes to the US government on the products it produces in China at low cost to make up for the lost taxes that the US would receive from the workers in the US if they had those jobs.
We should not allow companies to produce in China at slave labor wages and then come to the
US and use our public infrastructure, our roads, our internet, our police and fire departments, etc. in selling its cheap products without making up the value of the tax revenue that the US loses with each job exported to China or some other cheap labor country.
Income taxes assessed on working people in this country are (or used to be) a major source of tax revenue at all levels of our society and government.
When a company like GE moves jobs out of the US and into China or from a facility that hires and pays employees to an automated facility, it decimates our tax base.
We need a tax base that forces companies like GE to pay their fair share to keep our country going.
After all, the major purpose of our huge defense costs is not to protect my tiny three-bedroom house in a modest area of a big city but rather to protect the trade routes for huge conglomerates like GE. They should pay the defense bill. They should also pay the bill for Social Security. Because a lot of those benefits are going and will continue to go to former GE employees.
GE is just one company that is destroying our country with its short-sighted greed.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)But I doubt you'd stand in front of them and say those things. It's easy to rail on the internet.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)How many employees does GE have worldwide? What percentage of their employees are in the US? The rich claim to be job creators, but they are not creating jobs in the US. That's for sure.
For a company with the earnings of GE, they do not employe very many Americans.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)Just check out the jobs site.
tblue37
(65,395 posts)cui bono
(19,926 posts)sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)The day Chinese labor costs and the standard of living of the people begin to reduce the bottom line, GE will head elsewhere in search of cheap labor it hasn't been able to profitably eliminate through automation. I hope to never see the day that business model puts American workers in the unique position of being cheaper than Chinese labor.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)Technological advances and automation are obviously the enemy. We win through innovation, by leveraging technology. Why do you think Obama is pushing so much for a new way of education. Times have changed - the work force needs to change with those times. We can't just hire people to sit around and do nothing.
quakerboy
(13,920 posts)You missed the point, but thats to be expected. You seem to be GE good- criticism of GE bad oriented. Innovation and advancing technology can be wonderful if it is used to benefit people. If the only recipients of its benefits are the extremely wealthy, then it really is at best a neutral, and maybe it is a bad thing. Potential means very little if it is never realized, or if it is misused.
In the mean time, yes, you can hire people to sit around and do nothing. If you have a successful company making an item with 2000 workers, and selling them for $50 each, and then you find a way to make the process more efficient, so that you can make the same items just as fast with only 1000 workers, and you still sell them for $50 each, you can afford to pay 1000 workers to sit around, and maintain the exact same profit margin as before.
Or you can pay 2000 workers twice as much per hour for half as many hours, and not effect your profit margin.
And if you outsource half of that work to china and pay the workers 1/8th of what your paid your old unwanted American workers, you can again hire yet more people to sit around doing nothing, without effecting your profit margin.
Or you can increase the wealth funneling to the capitol and upper management, and just turn lots of workers out in the cold.
Its a choice.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)Why would anyone want to sit around, do nothing, and get paid for it? Is that somehow a sign of progress and an expression of freedom? Is that what this country is all about?
Automation requires manpower. It just requires an elevated skill set. That requires a desire to progress and learn. If there is no desire to progress and learn, then that's their prerogative. Don't expect much from that kind of attitude.
quakerboy
(13,920 posts)For instance 2+2=4 is a very simple concept, and yet it is correct. And better yet, when you use it, it fairly reliably works...
There are less hours of work required to make the same widget, and then even fewer than that due to outsourcing. Resulting in fewer jobs available to people who want to work in the USA. However, the worker who is creating more widgets in less time is being paid less, not more.
As to your strawman.. yeah... Find me that person. People want to work. They would just like to be paid a living wage to do so. That is getting harder and harder to find. Fewer jobs plus lower pay results in a society in trouble.
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)And innovation cannot be explained using elementary arithmetic. Economics is complex and unpredictable.
I don't feel sorry for able bodied, able minded workers who fight change, don't progress, and then complain about a living wage.
The missing link is education.
quakerboy
(13,920 posts)to say that you dont feel sorry for able bodied able minded workers who complain about a living wage.
Most of them would be happy to progress and to change. They would just like to share in the benefits of progress and change along the way. That is the key missing part. And the part that you repeatedly ignore.
DocMac
(1,628 posts)if we had national healthcare? Yeah, all those people who work for insurance companies would be without a job...and paying taxes.
I'll take a stick in both eyes for that, even though others will lose jobs.
As you say, automation has been poking eyes out for years.
tblue37
(65,395 posts)That won't exactly provide a lot of JOBS, will it?
Chico Man
(3,001 posts)If you want hand built jet turbines powering your airplane using hammers and screwdrivers, go for it. I'll go with the advanced technology, thanks.
Bonhomme Richard
(9,000 posts)And we ain't the ones paying them.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)When they don't listen to the people. I just read it last night and then I see this post today with what Congress is doing and watched GE/CEO Jeff Immelt on Bloomberg Business not having a second thought about what went on when his GE Capital had to be bailed out.
==========
Chris Hedges
Our Invisible Revolution
Corporations, freed from all laws, government regulations and internal constraints, are stealing as much as they can, as fast as they can, on the way down. The managers of corporations no longer care about the effects of their pillage. Many expect the systems they are looting to fall apart. They are blinded by personal greed and hubris. They believe their obscene wealth can buy them security and protection. They should have spent a little less time studying management in business school and a little more time studying human nature and human history. They are digging their own graves.
Our shift to corporate totalitarianism, like the shift to all forms of totalitarianism, is incremental. Totalitarian systems ebb and flow, sometimes taking one step back before taking two steps forward, as they erode democratic liberalism. This process is now complete. The consent of the governed is a cruel joke. Barack Obama cannot defy corporate power any more than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton could. Unlike his two immediate predecessors, Bush, who is intellectually and probably emotionally impaired, did not understand the totalitarian process abetted by the presidency. Because Clinton and Obama, and their Democratic Party, understand the destructive roles they played and are playing, they must be seen as far more cynical and far more complicit in the ruination of the country. Democratic politicians speak in the familiar I-feel-your-pain language of the liberal class while allowing corporations to strip us of personal wealth and power. They are effective masks for corporate power.
The corporate state seeks to maintain the fiction of our personal agency in the political and economic process. As long as we believe we are participants, a lie sustained through massive propaganda campaigns, endless and absurd election cycles and the pageantry of empty political theater, our corporate oligarchs rest easy in their private jets, boardrooms, penthouses and mansions. As the bankruptcy of corporate capitalism and globalization is exposed, the ruling elite are increasingly nervous. They know that if the ideas that justify their power die, they are finished. This is why voices of dissentas well as spontaneous uprisings such as the Occupy movementare ruthlessly crushed by the corporate state.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/our_invisible_revolution_20131028
Laelth
(32,017 posts)And I'm supposed to be shocked that something insane is happening?
-Laelth
n2doc
(47,953 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)That does not surprise me. As has been well documented by me and others, the Democratic Party has never been liberal, as a whole.
http://laelth.blogspot.com/2011/01/turning-american-ship-of-state.html
-Laelth
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)That's what the article posted says.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
RC
(25,592 posts)They take junk from all over, often worth nothing, next to nothing and trade them back and forth till they have a paper value and nothing else, then find a mark to buy them. And they do not even use their own money to do it. They use their customer's money. Make a profit, keep it. Lose and the customer pays.
LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)IthinkThereforeIAM
(3,076 posts)... reading most information on derivatives can be hard to understand for anyone that isn't a number cruncher. I know I may have some rotten tomatoes tossed at me, but Lyndon LaRouche has railed against and warned of the impending derivative collapse for years, before it happened. Not that I hang out at his web site. A big culprit in creating/allowing derivatives trade is/was Phil Gramm, former Senator from Texas and now a UBS Bank officer. Go figure...
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)LuvNewcastle
(16,846 posts)If I had the money, I'd move the hell out of this country. The next depression is going to be a killer.
EnviroBat
(5,290 posts)That prospect is becoming a more frequent topic of discussion between my wife and I. What used to be little off-the-cuff statements are evolving into actual plans to sell the house, pay off some debts, and get the hell out of this corrupt-ass country.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)not dominated by the same global financial interests that are making the planet a living hell. You might just as well stand your ground and fight here.
mountain grammy
(26,623 posts)Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, etc.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,015 posts)is "in charge"!
diva77
(7,643 posts)could not find name of the bill in the article -- do you have it (so I can call my congressperson and rant!!) ...thanks!
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)Three links. The media isn't revealing the name/# so we can call out our Reps on it. I don't know how to find it without going through every listed bill.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)The other may be " H.R. 2374, titled the Retail Investor Protection Act" http://www.law360.com/securities/articles/484575/house-passes-bill-delaying-dodd-frank-retail-investor-rule which the House passed last night.
diva77
(7,643 posts)tavalon
(27,985 posts)I do know what derivatives are and in great and excruciating detail why it took the global economy (by way of the behemoth US) to the brink. What concerns me is I should be shocked and I'm not. At all.
JimboBillyBubbaBob
(1,389 posts)The only kiss involved is where Congress and Wall Street tell us peons to kiss their big collective ass!!!
Southside
(338 posts)Life was simpler when I was a low information voter. It is very scary when republicans and democrats broadly agree on something. That is usually bad for the left.
Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)"Theres something absolutely insane happening in the House of Representatives right now."
unblock
(52,248 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Fuck any "Democrat" that signs on to this bullshit.
Paper Roses
(7,473 posts)Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)ancianita
(36,066 posts)DhhD
(4,695 posts)happened in Cyprus.
A Levey on Uninsured Accounts:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130326/fitch-downgrades-cyprus-banks-default-categories
A Confiscation on Uninsured Deposit Accounts:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/banks-confiscation_b_2957937.html
What? We need to keep money under the mattress at home now?
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Glaisne
(515 posts)What could possibly go wrong? Is this a great country or what?
packman
(16,296 posts)"Broad bill is currently enjoying broad bipartisan support in the House. So, why is it that both parties have found a way to agree on a substantive regulatory change at a time when partisan bickering is supposedly making any progress impossible?"
Of course it's enjoying (love that word, reminds me of children sucking on ice pops) broad bipartisan support. The new members of Congress probably read the history of what happened and said something along the lines of "Hey, why can't we do this too?". Money does make any progress(?) possible and the more monies, the more progress.
They are making another money pie in the House and want to stick their thumbs in it.
Now for your musical break, here's Liza and Joel to sum it up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=rkRIbUT6u7Q
blue-wave
(4,356 posts)watch out!!!! The big banks have 10's of TRILLIONS of dollars in derivative exposure. This is a huge, huge debt bubble that if burst, will be catastrophic. There is not enough money left in all of the once great middle class to bail them out this time. Here's a link that explains this ponzi scheme and the exposure by the big banks.
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/derivatives/bank_exposure.html
dorkulon
(5,116 posts)Corruption is THE problem in both parties.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)Civics class papers, to be precise. I've been positively impressed with what I see. It's ANYTHING but heartening - the work I see - but I see more positive than negative work (effort) from the students. What sorta bothers me is the descriptions kids learn as to how our system of government works - or is SUPPOSED TO work.
What DO our freshest citizens know about Derivatives, and why they should matter to them? I'd bet most of these students don't even have a clue to what the definition of "derivative" might be. And I'm not EVEN talkin' about what derivative might mean IN the realm of banking (or congress).
gopiscrap
(23,761 posts)arthritisR_US
(7,288 posts)Swede Atlanta
(3,596 posts)that difference is sometimes difficult to see when it comes to some issues.
This is a good one in point. The banks and financial institutions should be subject to MORE control and not less. We should have laws that throw the CEO, all executives and the Board in prison (hard time) when they screw up again. The only alternative is to make them divest and restructure a la Ma Bell into regional or state banks and then regulate the heck out of them.
I am not going to go through this again with the cheats, scoundrels and criminals walking off with billions of dollars of taxpayer money in "bonuses" and leaving the rest of the country in the dust.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)It has metastasized and spread to every nook and cranny. Any semblance of the governing legislative institution previously described in the Constitution, has been mutated beyond recognition or any meaningful use to the rest of humanity.
- And it's time to put it out of our misery.
K&R
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)what is in it.
Thanks for any links to that information.
Uncle Joe
(58,365 posts)Thanks for the thread. n2doc.
obxhead
(8,434 posts)There are no party lines.... for the most part.
Profit over people is the standard.
SleeplessinSoCal
(9,123 posts)In 2008 Greenspan disavowed his own ideas about regulation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=0
Now he's embraced them again in "The Map and the Territory". A veiled excuse to rob the middle class.
In 2009 an op-ed in The Economist reminds us of how some react to down markets via book sales of "Atlas Shrugged". Why does this neophyte economist who wrote novels fill the space where Libertarians' hearts should be?
http://www.economist.com/node/13185404
I can't tell which group is more dangerous through their ignorance Ayn Rand acolytes or Christian Dominionists.
ThoughtCriminal
(14,047 posts)Quatloos!
neffernin
(275 posts)is about the best thing I think we can all hope for.
DallasNE
(7,403 posts)For nothing. Corruption rules and will until we have public financing of federal elections.
polynomial
(750 posts)about government shutdowns, bailouts, and secret derivative profiteering markets that continue through this time is so persistent, annoying and pathetic. Yet there they are the same old same old political people explaining the same old issues the same old way.
That famous phrase what the American people want. Since America is considered a super power, America should also be considered super stupid. Think about it, America is exceptional? Sure, being a super power and half the consumers are at the poverty level or just floating above it. That is a proud exceptional feature.
Or better yet, a very exceptional feature to argue about being healthy with the best way to do it. Well at least the Democratic Party is trying to make healthcare better. The Republican Party appears to want to scrap healthcare but everyone must have a right to life. LOL. Republicans are making so much noise about the internet sites that dont work for healthcare.
Imagine all the noise that is in the legislation currently in motion as laws the Republicans made. There is an incredible amount of system jamming, undermining, counterproductive, bank scams, home title fraud, credit card theft, and the best of the best the argument about the deficit with the medias help. Just think, all these politicians know exactly when the debit level is reached. The shutdown or who profiteered.
Isnt it so stupid to argue about the necessary increase in debit level when those Congress persons know very well, the money is spent. What is insane is the media plays this insane self-inflicted conditional double negative logic after what appears to be too many commercials. The popular saying by journalist there are a lot of unanswered questions here.
Tigress DEM
(7,887 posts)Jim Himes Democrat (Elected 2009), CT House district 4
Jim Himes can be contacted at 202-225-5541.
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Sean Maloney Democrat (Elected 2013), NY House district 18
Sean Maloney can be contacted at 202-225-5441.
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Bradley Schneider Democrat (Elected 2013), IL House district 10
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David Scott Democrat (Elected 2002), GA House district 13
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blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Can't you see? The market is practically begging for them!
bobGandolf
(871 posts)who support this bill.
Just goes to show, the lobby money talks to both democrats and repugs.