Political Roundtable Part VIII

[montestewart]

I wear bulletproof condoms, aint no psycho shooting my piece off

You can shoot me in the head, just make sure its the less important one

Hate to break it to you, but thimbles aren't bulletproof.

But they will protect you from a pin prick.

[AFM]

That was quite good monte. I could see you and I becoming best buds.
Imagine us egging pine's house and leaving flaming shiet on his doorstep! Haw haw!

[montestewart]

That was quite good monte. I could see you and I becoming best buds.
Imagine us egging pine's house and leaving flaming shiet on his doorstep! Haw haw!

Tilt a 55 gallon drum against the front door, fill it with water from the garden hose, ring the doorbell, run. Cabbage Night. Good clean fun.

[fishercob]

Listen to this if you want to understand what the phrase "wealth gap" really means: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=3#play

History and policy matter. Telling people to just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is disingenuous.

[dckingsfan]

Listen to this if you want to understand what the phrase "wealth gap" really means: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=3#play
History and policy matter. Telling people to just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is disingenuous.

Hard to have the legal system protect those when those same folks fund the legal system.
http://tinyurl.com/nz2xvma

Locking down personal bankruptcy has been a bad idea. It allows those lending the money to be less discriminating. It drives up the costs for student loans and limits our economic expansion. And it causes issues like this. It is simply predatory.

The fix is revising bankruptcy laws in the US - which is not going to be tenable to our court system, higher education or the banks. And those three have the VERY BEST lobbyists.

SO, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

[nate33]

Listen to this if you want to understand what the phrase "wealth gap" really means: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=3#play

History and policy matter. Telling people to just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is disingenuous.

I listened to it, but I don't really understand your point. The entire tone of the podcast was that somehow lenders were being evil by garnishing the wages of borrowers in order to get their money back. It's as if the show producers believed that when people borrowed money for stuff, it was now THEIR stuff and the lenders were somehow immoral for wanting to get paid back. What exactly do you think should happen? Should lenders just give money away?

The other implication of the podcast was that racism was somehow at play. They mentioned that poor black neighborhoods had a considerably higher proportion of people with their wages garnished that poor white neighborhoods. To their credit they did also mention that white households had 5 times more wealth than black households of the same income level. Which, of course, COMPLETELY EXPLAINS why blacks are more likely to have their wages garnished.

So the only real question is, why is it that white households have 5 times more wealth than black households of the same income level? The podcast blamed Jim Crow laws for the wealth gap, but presented no evidence whatsoever. I did some brief research on Jim Crow laws and did not see any restrictions on owning property. Nearly all of the Jim Crow laws were aimed at miscegenation and keeping schools and public places separate. I did see one law in Chicago involving racially restrictive housing covenants (presumably to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods), but that was repealed by the Supreme Court in 1948 - almost 70 years ago. I saw no such laws in the South. It seems a stretch to automatically leap to the conclusion that Jim Crow is to blame for the wealth disparity. It's also notable that the black/white wealth disparity has tripled since 1984, well after the Jim Crow era.

Do you think, maybe, just maybe, there could be other causes for the wealth disparity other than pure racism? What if blacks tend to make poorer financial decisions than whites with respect to wealth accumulation? I've noticed, for example, that poor black apartment complexes tend to have some pretty nice cars in the parking lot. Economists Kerwin Charles, Erik Hurst, and Nikolai Roussanov took up this question in a 2008 study, "Conspicuous Consumption and Race." Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 1986-2002, they concluded the following:

"We show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that they are relatively constant over time, and that they are economically large."

[dckingsfan]

I listened to it, but I don't really understand your point. The entire tone of the podcast was that somehow lenders were being evil by garnishing the wages of borrowers in order to get their money back. It's as if the show producers believed that when people borrowed money for stuff, it was now THEIR stuff and the lenders were somehow immoral for wanting to get paid back.

- I didn't get that from the podcast. What I got was that the garnishment of the wages was very much a hardship that was extremely difficult to overcome. That those folks had less of a safety net to borrow against than their white counterparts.

What exactly do you think should happen? Should lenders just give money away?

- I think the onus is on the lender as much as on the borrower. That this should play out in bankruptcy court and not just in the usual courts. But I think this issue goes much deeper - I think we have tipped to far toward lender's rights vs. borrowers rights. That we excluded bankruptcy for student loans (except when they work for the government) is maddening.

[fishercob]

Listen to this if you want to understand what the phrase "wealth gap" really means: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=3#play

History and policy matter. Telling people to just get over it and pull themselves up by their bootstraps is disingenuous.

I listened to it, but I don't really understand your point. The entire tone of the podcast was that somehow lenders were being evil by garnishing the wages of borrowers in order to get their money back. It's as if the show producers believed that when people borrowed money for stuff, it was now THEIR stuff and the lenders were somehow immoral for wanting to get paid back. What exactly do you think should happen? Should lenders just give money away?

The other implication of the podcast was that racism was somehow at play. They mentioned that poor black neighborhoods had a considerably higher proportion of people with their wages garnished that poor white neighborhoods. To their credit they did also mention that white households had 5 times more wealth than black households of the same income level. Which, of course, COMPLETELY EXPLAINS why blacks are more likely to have their wages garnished.

So the only real question is, why is it that white households have 5 times more wealth than black households of the same income level? The podcast blamed Jim Crow laws for the wealth gap, but presented no evidence whatsoever. I did some brief research on Jim Crow laws and did not see any restrictions on owning property. Nearly all of the Jim Crow laws were aimed at miscegenation and keeping schools and public places separate. I did see one law in Chicago involving racially restrictive housing covenants (presumably to keep blacks out of white neighborhoods), but that was repealed by the Supreme Court in 1948 - almost 70 years ago. I saw no such laws in the South. It seems a stretch to automatically leap to the conclusion that Jim Crow is to blame for the wealth disparity. It's also notable that the black/white wealth disparity has tripled since 1984, well after the Jim Crow era.

Do you think, maybe, just maybe, there could be other causes for the wealth disparity other than pure racism? What if blacks tend to make poorer financial decisions than whites with respect to wealth accumulation? I've noticed, for example, that poor black apartment complexes tend to have some pretty nice cars in the parking lot. Economists Kerwin Charles, Erik Hurst, and Nikolai Roussanov took up this question in a 2008 study, "Conspicuous Consumption and Race." Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey for 1986-2002, they concluded the following:

"We show that Blacks and Hispanics devote larger shares of their expenditure bundles to visible goods (clothing, jewelry, and cars) than do comparable Whites. We demonstrate that these differences exist among virtually all sub-populations, that they are relatively constant over time, and that they are economically large."

You didn't listen very carefully.

The journalist interviewed explicitly said that overt racism was not at play. The reason minorities have their wages garnished is because OF the wealth gap; that is to say, when bad crap happens to them, they don't have people to call on in their social networks -- family, community, etc -- who have the means to bail them out. There's wealth in the traditional sense -- your liquid or liquidatable assets -- and then there's what you could come up with beyond that if **** really hit the fan.

So if a white person with the same income gets upside down on a car loan (like the woman featured), they are much more likely to have someone in their network who can help bail them out than a black person. The woman featured lost not only the $8,000 ca --but her home -- for getting behind on a debt when her life fell apart for reasons well outside her control.

Regarding lenders: yes, people should pay their debts. But the lending industry needs to be heavily regulated, because predatory lending is a very real thing. I don't know where the line should be drawn legally, but it is immoral to take someone's house over debts accumulated on a small car loan. But high rate compound interest is a bitch.

So yes, the question is why do we have this wealth disparity. I think consumption habits do matter to a degree, but the effects of a head start simply cannot be overstated. I grew up around a lot of rich kids and I don't know any of them that are poor or homeless. Plenty aren't all that smart and didn't work very hard, and plenty have made stupid decisions, but they had a ton to fall back on. As to your suggestion that Jim Crow didn't likely have widespread economic effects on blacks, do you think laws against blockbusting and redlining just magically appeared on their own? Of course not. Blacks have been playing with the deck stacked against them since they were brought to this country in chains. This story just shows how that plays out on a day to day basis.

[nate33]

- I think the onus is on the lender as much as on the borrower. That this should play out in bankruptcy court and not just in the usual courts. But I think this issue goes much deeper - I think we have tipped to far toward lender's rights vs. borrowers rights. That we excluded bankruptcy for student loans (except when they work for the government) is maddening.

I think there is merit to this viewpoint. I'm not sure if the scale is tipped to far, but I am sure that banks have an unfair advantage with the way they have been able to socialize their bad debts via government bailouts. I also think they have an unfair intrinsic advantage at being first in line at the Fed's printing press.

[dckingsfan]

- I think the onus is on the lender as much as on the borrower. That this should play out in bankruptcy court and not just in the usual courts. But I think this issue goes much deeper - I think we have tipped to far toward lender's rights vs. borrowers rights. That we excluded bankruptcy for student loans (except when they work for the government) is maddening.

I think there is merit to this viewpoint. I'm not sure if the scale is tipped to far, but I am sure that banks have an unfair advantage with the way they have been able to socialize their bad debts via government bailouts. I also think they have an unfair intrinsic advantage at being first in line at the Fed's printing press.

And now the federal government is trying to figure out how to solve the problem they have create with student loans.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-anyone-be-eligible-for-student-loans-1449436508

The federal government first strengthened the bankruptcy laws. Then the provided loans to anyone. That lead to massive loan defaults and rising college costs. This is sooooo the law of unintended consequences.

[nate33]

- I think the onus is on the lender as much as on the borrower. That this should play out in bankruptcy court and not just in the usual courts. But I think this issue goes much deeper - I think we have tipped to far toward lender's rights vs. borrowers rights. That we excluded bankruptcy for student loans (except when they work for the government) is maddening.

I think there is merit to this viewpoint. I'm not sure if the scale is tipped to far, but I am sure that banks have an unfair advantage with the way they have been able to socialize their bad debts via government bailouts. I also think they have an unfair intrinsic advantage at being first in line at the Fed's printing press.

And now the federal government is trying to figure out how to solve the problem they have create with student loans.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/should-anyone-be-eligible-for-student-loans-1449436508

The federal government first strengthened the bankruptcy laws. Then the provided loans to anyone. That lead to massive loan defaults and rising college costs. This is sooooo the law of unintended consequences.

I object to the term "unintended". There were obvious consequences to these decisions - consequences that would enrich banks and please Democrat donors and voters from the universities. There was nothing unintended.

[Zonkerbl]

Apropos of the above conversation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

If memory serves, people discovered that you could go into the "redlined" neighborhoods and actually make money lending to people but you had to use a relationship-based business model rather than a data-based one. The commercial banking industry relies on arms-length credit transactions - the kind you can make after going through a data-collection process that takes no longer than a few months.

Our community banking system takes a completely different approach - everybody who comes in gets a small loan. The folks who pay it back on time get another, slightly larger loan. And so on and so forth. The whole model is based off of building a relationship with your clientele and serves as an excellent way to provide access to finance to small businesses and just so happens to be pretty helpful to down and out neighborhoods as well.

[dckingsfan]

Apropos of the above conversation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

If memory serves, people discovered that you could go into the "redlined" neighborhoods and actually make money lending to people but you had to use a relationship-based business model rather than a data-based one. The commercial banking industry relies on arms-length credit transactions - the kind you can make after going through a data-collection process that takes no longer than a few months.

Our community banking system takes a completely different approach - everybody who comes in gets a small loan. The folks who pay it back on time get another, slightly larger loan. And so on and so forth. The whole model is based off of building a relationship with your clientele and serves as an excellent way to provide access to finance to small businesses and just so happens to be pretty helpful to down and out neighborhoods as well.

The new banking rules don't help the community banking system (I think the community banking system is superior for small businesses).

[dobrojim]

Saying that "Don't have babies out of wedlock" is a bit too simplistic. There are responsible parents r--male and female--who have chosen to have children out of wedlock and are doing an excellent job of raising their children. And then there are married couples who have raised kids that turn into mass murders. There's a lot that goes into why an individual turns to a life of violence. You can't simply blame it on unmarried people with children.

Kids with married parents, black or white, are almost never in poverty. Kids with unmarried parents usually are. Poverty is clearly correlated with all kinds of social dysfunction. Just because there are exceptions to the trend, doesn't mean the trend doesn't exist.

Couldn't agree more. Poverty is a major driver of our social dysfunction. I'd love to see elected leaders, presidential candidates and other decisionmakers come forth with a concrete and realistic plan for tackling the issues of poverty and inequity, especially their impact on our education system.

But what is the cause and what is the effect? Do people not get married because they are poor?
How does mass incarceration affect this statistic?

[dobrojim]

excuse the diversion but why do we profile these terrorists like celebrities on tv?
we should go dark on the terrorists, and keep the focus on the victims. terrorist name and country of origin is good enough.

Fear sells. Sadly it's that simple.

It worse than that. Fear shuts down higher level brain functions.

[pineappleheadindc]

Donald Trump. SMH.

[popper]

Kids with married parents, black or white, are almost never in poverty. Kids with unmarried parents usually are. Poverty is clearly correlated with all kinds of social dysfunction. Just because there are exceptions to the trend, doesn't mean the trend doesn't exist.

Couldn't agree more. Poverty is a major driver of our social dysfunction. I'd love to see elected leaders, presidential candidates and other decisionmakers come forth with a concrete and realistic plan for tackling the issues of poverty and inequity, especially their impact on our education system.

But what is the cause and what is the effect? Do people not get married because they are poor?
How does mass incarceration affect this statistic?

Jim - The cause is men and women having sex (and babies) out out of wedlock and the effect is a breakdown in the social order. It has nothing to do with poverty. It has everything to do with morality and the lack of education. Somehow certain members of society and the media have deceived our young people into thinking that it's ok to produce babies out of wedlock. In the past such behavior would have been stigmatized, but not anymore. Progressives are so much smarter than the many generations that preceded them. No need for moral standards anymore. As I mentioned on this thread two years ago, I moved most of my after tax assets overseas knowing that an immoral populace would beget a failed economy and nation. It's sad. Maybe you can start or contribute to a movement that will re-stigmatize immoral behavior. Otherwise, there is no hope.

[nate33]

Kids with married parents, black or white, are almost never in poverty. Kids with unmarried parents usually are. Poverty is clearly correlated with all kinds of social dysfunction. Just because there are exceptions to the trend, doesn't mean the trend doesn't exist.

Couldn't agree more. Poverty is a major driver of our social dysfunction. I'd love to see elected leaders, presidential candidates and other decisionmakers come forth with a concrete and realistic plan for tackling the issues of poverty and inequity, especially their impact on our education system.

But what is the cause and what is the effect? Do people not get married because they are poor?
How does mass incarceration affect this statistic?

Worthwhile questions. I don't know the answer to the first, but my assumption is that the arrow of causation is that married people avoid poverty, not that wealthy people get married. Most people don't have any money when they get married. Once they do, they can combine incomes into the same household, and share household errands that would otherwise cause one to miss work. Being married (or at least co-habitating) is economically efficient and therefore likely to produce more wealth.

On your second question, it seems likely that incarcerating violent people may reduce the marriage rate since there will be fewer males available on the mating market, but the effect works both ways. People who get married are less likely to commit crime.

We address this problem by introducing a counterfactual life-course approach that applies inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) to yearly longitudinal data on marriage, crime, and shared covariates in a sample of 500 high-risk boys followed prospectively from adolescence to age 32. The data consist of criminal histories and death records for all 500 men plus personal interviews, using a life-history calendar, with a stratified subsample of 52 men followed to age 70. These data are linked to an extensive battery of individual and family background measures gathered from childhood to age 17—before entry into marriage. Applying IPTW to multiple specifications that also incorporate extensive time-varying covariates in adulthood, being married is associated with an average reduction of approximately 35 percent in the odds of crime compared to nonmarried states for the same man. These results are robust, supporting the inference that states of marriage causally inhibit crime over the life course.

[nate33]

Donald Trump. SMH.

I'm assuming you are referring to his call to stop all immigration from Muslim countries.

It's worth noting that he is calling for a temporary stop until our immigration system can be re-evaluated. Is that not a rational course of action given that there have now been multiple terrorist attacks on American soil perpetrated by Muslim immigrants? And there have been dozens more that have been thwarted by law enforcement. And we have seen a pattern in Europe of terrorist activity perpetrated by Muslim immigrants or their next of kin.

Why is it such an awful thing to re-evaluate our immigration policy? The mere mention of it brings forth Hitler comparisons. It doesn't make any sense. Our immigration policy has undergone several major changes throughout our history. At times, it had a preferential treatment for Europeans. At times, it restricted almost everyone to give us time to assimilate. Starting in 1964, it was changed again to give preferential treatment to "chain migration". Now that we have plenty of data on how that has worked, what's wrong with assessing the results and deciding as a nation if we want that policy to continue. And if so, what tweaks are needed?

What has been the track record of immigrants in America? Does it vary by region where the immigration came from? How are they doing economically? How are the second and third generation immigrants doing? How are they assimilating? How are they performing in schools? What is their violent crime rate? How has it changed our culture? What cultural changes can be expected in the future as their percentage of the population increases? Are additional immigrants even needed based on our current economic conditions?

Why can't these questions be asked?

[Induveca]

Donald Trump lost any appeal with the call for an outright ban (with me at least, and I was a fan). Hope he goes down in flames now, and fast.

Last thing we need is outright hate speech.