True, when one considers that the origins of the political party system in this country come down to the federalist vs the anti-federalist argument (and to some extent still do to this day), its safe to say that the Republican and Democrat parties have switched positions originally held (republican's obviously stemming from the whig party who stemmed from the federalist party).Armadillo said:
Gas Bandit's Political Thread III
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
- Status
A
Armadillo
You mentioned governors and senators talking of revolution and secession as being "treasonous." I merely posted quotes from someone of a similar bent, someone you seem to admire. At what point did I say that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, or Bachmann were in Jefferson's league? Hint: I didn't. Those four are idiots, Jefferson was a genius.DarkAudit said:
My goodness DA, you really think people on the right are treasonous for their opposition? I find that funny, since it's what Republicans in the Bush regime often said about the left. Now that a democrat is in power we're just going to forget how awful that was, and start doing it to the right? And this is coming from a left leaning democrat!
I just don't get why you hype the teleprompter. Whoever was operating it made a mistake, Obama caught it within seconds. If you, or I, or Reagan, or anybody had been giving that speach, we all would have done the same thing as Obama. The only way to avoid such a mistake would be for Obama to memorize all his speaches - and I somehow don't think that's the best use of his time, do you?GasBandit said:
She's making profits of $500,000 dollars a year? Yea, I'm sorry, she's rich. That's a lot of anybody's money. And she'll only be paying more in taxes in 2011. Oh, and by the way, we get an approximate answer for what percentage of small businesses make more than $250,000 dollars a year. In the article, Geithner estimates 2%, the Bush administration had put the number at 7%, a non-partisan group puts it at 3%. Yep, it'll be the end of small businesses for 3% of them to have their taxes increased to what they were under Clinton.
Oh, and Gas - I thought you hated it when there were spurrious Nazi comparisions? So why do you put up a photoshop of Nancy Pelosi in an obvious Nazi uniform?
GasBandit
Staff member
It might actually be, heh. The joke is not that he uses a teleprompter, all presidents have used one at some point since its invention. The joke is how terrible he is when DEPRIVED of it.Dieb said:
She's making profits of $500,000 dollars a year? Yea, I'm sorry, she's rich. That's a lot of anybody's money. And she'll only be paying more in taxes in 2011. Oh, and by the way, we get an approximate answer for what percentage of small businesses make more than $250,000 dollars a year. In the article, Geithner estimates 2%, the Bush administration had put the number at 7%, a non-partisan group puts it at 3%. Yep, it'll be the end of small businesses for 3% of them to have their taxes increased to what they were under Clinton.[/quote:36tnh3iu]
What non-partisan group? And have sources for these estimates?
Because it's a shop of a shop, from back in the day on Fark. The "original shop" was this:
And was posted damn near every time dubya made a speech.
I sometimes wonder if we even see the same reality. I mean, how do you explain his debate performances, his town hall meetings, his hour long press conferences? Whatever, we've had this argument before.GasBandit said:
It's all from the article you linked, which didn't provide links for what it said. The nonpartisan group is the Joint Committee on Taxation. Here, I'll quote the whole paragraph for you:
So just because some random Farkers do crazy things, you should emulate them?
A
Anubinomicon
GasBandit said:After having this graphic thrown up every election for the last 8 years by hysterical loons like you, you can kindly stfu
Actually you fail hard on this right here....The public opinion is what that image was showing, not elected officials.
GasBandit
Staff member
We must be watching different speeches, cause he's had some .Dieb said:
It's all from the article you linked, which didn't provide links for what it said. The nonpartisan group is the Joint Committee on Taxation. Here, I'll quote the whole paragraph for you:
[/quote:qx0dtjma]S'what I get for skimming. But it doesn't say at what point Bush said 7. It may have been that at one point there were 7 or more percent in the nebulously defined "top brackets," but perhaps that number has gone down due to economic conditions.
So just because some random Farkers do crazy things, you should emulate them?[/quote:qx0dtjma]Fight moonbattery with moonbattery, I say. And DarkAudit is definitely completely submerged in his kool-aid.
How is that failing? I'd bet dollars to donuts DA was right there chuckling along with that picture, but now that he's on the other side of it, suddenly it's not funny to him any more.Anubinomicon said:
Link time -
Just for information's sake, a look back at Dubya's first 100 days.
Remember the recent outrage that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times? Yeah, turns out it wasn't true.
Obama says that he wants an internal review to figure out what when wrong in the NYC photo op the other day. I don't think we really need one, do we?
When it comes to his handling of state secrets, Obama has been given a "D" grade by fellow Democrat Russ Feingold.
A recent Rasmussen poll shows that 77% of U.S. voters say that they prefer a free market economy over a government-managed economy.
Cuba pulls a Madagascar.
Obama wants 1.5 billion to fight Swine flu. The hog industry is furious over the swine flu because it is killing their sales, even though the flu has nothing to do with eating pork products.
In Washington DC you can get a ticket for parking your car in your own driveway.
GasBandit
Staff member
Do you count each individual thrust of the pelvis as a full count of intercourse? It may seem like a trivial distinction to you, but people are talking about bringing up other people on charges, and so the exact number of times something happened and what constitutes one something and what constitutes the termination of that something and the beginning of the next something then becomes a bit of a sticking point.TeKeo said:
If anyone is going to be charged for this, its going to be because of actual military records of what went on, not the NYTimes choice of words when reporting news or Fox's choice of words when reporting on said reporting of news.GasBandit said:
Waterboarding simulates drowning. Every "pour", as Fox describes it, is an individual simulation of drowning as the cloth around the subject's face becomes wet and clogs his breathing passages as the pressure on his lungs is artificially increased by the angle of the board he is tied to.
Whether they did it 183 times in 5 sessions, or once in 183 sessions really makes no difference, because they simulated drowning him 183 times, and despite Fox's continual attempts to re-re-define torture so we "didn't really do it", that remains the same.
Those aren't speaches, those are blooper reels. You can make blooper reels of ANY politician that would be just as bad. Seriously Gas, have you ever just sat down and watched, say, one of his press conferences? He's a damn fine speaker, with or without a teleprompter.GasBandit said:
I wasn't trying to make a point about Bush, I was just making the point that, even if we use the 7% number, that's not a huge amount of small businesses getting tax hikes here. I'm agnostic over which estimate is the best, as without links explaining HOW each group came up with their estimates, you can't exactly judge their accuracy.
Ummm, no, it is true. I guess it depends on how you define each instance of waterboarding - is it each application of water (after each one they'd take time off before the next) or is it each session (of which there were, in fact, only five that month). And it's not like the 183 number came out of thin air - it's in the memos themselves! I say it doesn't bloody matter. Why?
Because even under the Bush Administration's rules, IT WAS TORTURE. If you did the math in those memos of how many times water could be poured on a detainees face each month, you get a maximum number of 90. Go back to my big post for backing. Kinda a bit less than 183, isn't it?
Well, yes, but not because he relased the torture memos or anything. Feingold gave Obama a "D" because he hasn't been nearly forthcoming enough! That Obama has been WAY too into using the "state secrets" defense, according to Feingold.
-- Wed Apr 29, 2009 3:15 pm --
Actually Gas, this is an argument why even ONE instance of waterboarding is torture. It's like rape - no matter how many times you insert your penis into a girl during rape, it's still rape. The Bush administration tried to argue that if you only inserted up to 90 times a month, it isn't rape - and then went ahead and inserted 183 times.GasBandit said:
Utter strawman.GasBandit said:
You haven't any basis for claiming that the NYTime's usage of the word "waterboarding" is the legal basis on which anyone will be charged.
You don't even have any basis for claiming that the official charge will be on counts of "waterboarding", or "torture sessions" or "instances of torture" or "individual torture techniques employed".
Again, if people are charged with counts of torture, meaning "sessions of torture", then its up to the courts to determine what that means, based on actually military records of what occured, not the NYTimes and not Fox.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, of course all that is true, but true to political nature, this trial is already being carried out in the court of public opinion before the first subpoena is even drawn up.TeKeo said:
They are blooper reels OF his speeches. Yes, he's a spellbinding orator with a teleprompter. Without it, he tends to get into trouble. Either by stumbling and bumbling or by letting the mask slip. And yes, other presidents have made gaffes as well, not even near the least of which was Obama's predecessor. But part of the whole Obama "thing" was how much "better" a speaker he was. Ironically, liberals were even throwing around the term "Reaganesque" to describe him as such a great communicator, when the reality is he very quickly flounders when things start to go off script.Dieb said:
There are roughly 24 and change million businesses in the US, and only 17,000 of them have more than 500 employees. 7% of 24 million is about 1.68 million companies. Is anyone else reminded of the recent hubbub that new york city is entirely dependent upon 41,000 taxpayers to survive financially?
That's what I was getting at.
That wasn't the argument I was making. The question I was raising was it 5 or 183. The times wanted to blare a large number to cause outrage, and its fans are scoffing "semantics" when the definition that led to that number is questioned.
That wasn't the argument I was making. The question I was raising was it 5 or 183. The times wanted to blare a large number to cause outrage, and its fans are scoffing "semantics" when the definition that led to that number is questioned.[/quote:1313rjuz]GasBandit said:
Oh God, you didn't even TRY to grappel with my argument, did you? I'll get to the rest of your post later tonight when I have time, but I can't let this pass. So let me put it simply for you (in caps ftw): THE NUMBER 183 MATTERS BECAUSE BUSH SAID IT MATTERS. It was the AUTHORS of the memos who said that each case of water being poured onto a subjects head must be counted; and it was the AUTHORS who said this number couldn't exceed 90 in a month. Call each instance waterboarding, call each session waterboarding, it DOESN'T MATTER. 183 is relevent because of how much greater than 90 it is - showing how depraved the Adminstration was, even by it's own (incredibly lax) stadards!
Stumbling and bumbing are not "letting the mask slip". They are the inevitable consequence of talking in public without a prepared speach. As I said, you can make blooper reels like that about ANYONE in the public eye - I mean, have you ever tried public debate or the like? It's damn hard. And even the people best at it are going to make verbal miscues. Like Reagan - I'm sure you could make a blooper reel about him. Doesn't mean he wasn't a great communicator.GasBandit said:
But you didn't answer my question. So I'm going to go ahead with the assumption that you've never actually listened to any of his unprepared remarks - things like press conferences and town hall meetings. Hell, he just gave one of each today, here's a link to the press conference (). Watch even part of it (it's an hour long) and tell me that man can't communicate very effectively without a teleprompter.
The whole point of this, originally, was Obama's promise that 95% of people would get tax cuts. You can debate the soundness of such a plan, but if only 7% of small business owners are getting taxed (and that's the high estimate) I think we can safely say Obama is keeping his campaign promise.
....what? Did I say that? I wasn't arguing morality. Are you arguing that taxes are only moral if they affect more than 50% of the population?Covar said:
You're not usually this silly, GB. The point, in any case, is that if waterboarding is torture (which, being a good pinko Canadian, I believe it is), then doing it once is enough to get you charged. All the rest of the chest-beating about numbers is just Americans being adolescent (as so often happens).GasBandit said:
Did you read anything else I wrote? The argument was whether Obama was keeping his promise of giving tax cuts to 95% of the population. With the highest estimate of small business owners (a group that's going to be richer than average) who will have higher taxes being 7%, I think we can safely say Obama will keep his promise.Covar said:
Moreover, looking at that quote of mine....where do I say anything of morality? It's a statement of fact. 7% is not a lot. You're the one who brought morality into it. Also, you didn't answer my question - are taxes only moral if they affect more than 50% of the population.
GasBandit
Staff member
The country that unleashed Celine Dion and Bryan Adams upon the world is in no position to act superior on the subject of torture! :finger:Lamont said:You're not usually this silly, GB. The point, in any case, is that if waterboarding is torture (which, being a good pinko Canadian, I believe it is), then doing it once is enough to get you charged. All the rest of the chest-beating about numbers is just Americans being adolescent (as so often happens).GasBandit said:
I reject the notion that the waterboarding of terror subjects has or will make things "more dangerous" for our own soldiers. Afghanistan and Iraq were never that big on formalities like the Geneva Conventions or human rights in general to begin with. But the question also remains, where is the line? Is it completely unacceptable to use any method that puts the prisoner under physical or psychological duress to extract information? Because someone, somewhere, will undoubtedly consider it torturous. Heck, during the abu gharaib rigamarole, we were being lambasted for making guys stand in pyramids while naked, or for making them be close to women or dogs. I guess we better just break out the feathers for tickle time and hope for the best, hm?
I actually meant those as two separate occurrences. He stumbles and bumbles OR lets the mask slip. As in, when questioned about his tax ideas, ad-libbing "I just want to spread the wealth around," thus letting the mask slip on his true intent of outright income redistribution.Dieb said:
I can't watch it, it's marked private for some reason.
The whole point of this, originally, was Obama's promise that 95% of people would get tax cuts. You can debate the soundness of such a plan, but if only 7% of small business owners are getting taxed (and that's the high estimate) I think we can safely say Obama is keeping his campaign promise.[/quote:1qj8qd3s] Did you see today that the magic number got lowered to 200,000? It just keeps getting lower and lower. For couples filing jointly it's 250 grand, working out to 125 grand each. See my first link below.
Link time! Sorry for the delay... unfortunately, work kept me pretty busy today.
House approves Obama's 3.4 trillion dollar budget, eager to pave the way for national health care. No republican voted in favor, 17 democrats also voted against. Nancy Pelosi says, "Today, for the first time in many, many years, we have a president's budget ... that is a statement of our national values." REALLY? Bigger government ... redistribution of wealth ... government dependency ... government control of the private economic sector ...funding "green" industries based on the global warming hoax ... replacing the free market system with government controls and regulations ... our national values?
North Korea responds to the UN's stern letter about their missile launch: DIAF. They know the current leaders of the "free world" are lacking in testicular fortitude.
The GDP fell more than expected first quarter.
Obama announces that Chrysler will be placed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. That's Obama's decision to make? I thought he wasn't interested in running the automakers? And I'm so glad we had to waste billions in bailouts before we ended up doing what Charles Krauthammer and George Will recommended last year. But then, of course, they didn't have in mind divvying up the carcass between the government and the unions, now did they?
Less than one quarter of US voters identify themselves as Republicans. Can you blame them? What we need now is a charismatic Libertarian.
Citigroup is asking the government for permission to pay some of its "key" employees big bonuses. What is wrong with that statement?
What is one of the main priorities of our Department of Labor? Ensuring that illegal aliens get paid. Nice to know they have their priorities in order.
Here's an interesting little tidbit of information to chew on: Goldman Sachs' new top lobbyist was recently the top staffer to Barney Frank.
Government officials in Minnesota are asking internet service providers to cut off access to Internet gambling sites.
Some donors to Arlen Specter are asking for him to return their political donations, now that he has switched parties.
New York Daily News is accepting your own photoshopped version of the NYC photo op. Now doesn't this make the Pentagon look silly as hell?
My god, you just continually miss the point. Torture makes life more dangerous for our soldiers because our conduct towards prisoners is THE number one recruting tool for Al Queada in Iraq. But don't trust me on it - trust David Kilcullen, recently David Petraeus' Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser in Iraq. How many of the thousands of American deaths in Iraq are due to torture, we'll never know - but we DO know that when captured, insurgents in Iraq cite Abu Gharaib and Gitmo as the reason why they decided to fight the US far more than any other factor.GasBandit said:
There's nothing wrong with some physical or psycological distress when interrogating a prisoner, and your strawman of "someone would consider it torture!" is rediculous. No one is saying the FBI engaged in torture for instance - but no one is saying they are treating their prisoners with kid gloves. The line of when it becomes torture is fairly clear, set down in treaties and court precendents. It basically boils down to inflicting pain, physical or mental, so severe that the subject's will is completely broken. There's no doubt we went far over that line - hell, according to one prominant Bushie, it was the point!
But hey, keep on dismissing all of this as "tickling with feathers". You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. I'd rather believe the survivors of Pol Pot's death camps when they call waterboarding torture. I'd rather look at the literally dozens of cases where US courts have called waterboarding torture, versus none where they did not. I'd rather look at the precedent of the war crimes trials of Gestapo officers in Norway who were executed for using "enhanced interrogation" techniques (the methods they used were identical to what we did...except not as severe, they didn't waterboard for example). But Dick Cheney says we didn't torture - as a good libertarian I'm sure you'll just take the government's word on that.
Weird, I got that link on the front page of youtube just yesterday. Anyway, a different link.
It's been 200 grand for single filers, 250 grand for joint filers, for a long time now. Certainly since well before the election.
Yep, back when "Big Balls Bush" (as I like to call him) was President, the North Koreans wouldn't have DREAMED of pissing off the West. They'd never have set off a nuclear bomb as a test, for example. Wait a minute....
Chapter 11 for Chrysler was not, in point of fact, technically Obama's decision to make. What WAS his decision to make was whether to lend them more money in order to pay off some of their creditors - and Obama decided not to do that. Without that money, they were forced to go into bankrupcy, they had no choice. And in case you're wondering, the bailout of Chrysler is looking pretty damn good these days - the few more months out of bankrupcy allowed Chrysler to work out a merger with Fiat that's going to go through while it's in Chapter 11. And the government looks like it's going to get it's money back. But hey, this is exactly like Venequela somehow! Damn that socialist Obama!
The fact that Citigroup cannot exist as a company without government assistanceis what's wrong. Which is horrible - we should never have let banks get too big to fail. This failure of regulation goes back decades though - both Reagan and Clinton helped us to get to this point. Now that we're here, however, the consequences of letting Citigroup fail are incredibly dire - much worse than the consequences of TARP and our governments actions since then.
But hey, the only way we could avoid having banks and other instituitions that are too big to fail....would be for the government to regulate them. And we all know what you feel about government regulation. So which do you prefer, Gas - more regulation in the future, or more bailouts?
GasBandit
Staff member
Stop fapping to my political thread.DarkAudit said:
That sounds more like "how many American deaths are due to sensationalist media with a leftist axe to grind, preferably against the skull of the hated emperor Bush, no blood for oil, whaargarbl."Dieb said:
Is it? They were howling bloody murder when bethonged women were touching Abu Ghraib detainees. Other such playful activities such as barking dogs, putting women's clothes on the detainee, showing the detainee homosexual pornography, and pretending to baptize the detainee were all instances of "abuse." Pretty much anything we do short of giving them a fruit basket and sending them home gets us bitched out, it's all bullshit.
I was unaware Al Qaeda had signed those treaties or recognized the decisions of those courts as binding.
Have we started using red hot pokers? Pulling fingernails? Amputating? Cutting? Lashing? Bludgeoning? Denying medical treatment? We haven't even denied them access to korans and prayer rugs. Feh.
Weird, I got that link on the front page of youtube just yesterday. Anyway, (different press conference). I also noticed he said he believes that waterboarding is torture and torture is wrong, but ducked the question about the previous administration's culpability in it. The closest he comes is to saying "it was a mistake." Maybe it won't get legs after all. I also had to roll my eyes at the softball "what enchanted you most" questions bandied up by the still obviously adulating press corps. Reminded me of Baba Wawa asking "what kind of tree would you be?" Be all that as it may, yes he spoke well. He can't screw up every time, but he does screw up a lot. And you can be sure he had a good idea what was going to be asked in the way of topics and had his answers (and non-answers) ready ahead of time.
[quote]Did you see today that the m...w. Certainly since well before the election.I'm pretty sure I heard different, higher numbers bandied about before the election (and granted, lower numbers bandied about by erroneous commercials from the opposition).
Yep, back when "Big Balls Bush" (as I like to call him) was President, the North Koreans wouldn't have DREAMED of pissing off the West. They'd never have set off a nuclear bomb as a test, for example. Wait a minute....[/quote:3jaif3w4] Surely you don't mean that saber-rattle of a fake nuke test that didn't even break 1 kiloton?
Are they going to get "their" money back? Even if they do, quite a few shareholders and creditors will not... and it would kind of amount to robbing peter to pay paul. It still begs the question, why did we need a multibillion dollar bailout and an immense expansion of government power to decide to do what would have happened naturally without them? It's a little more like Argentina than Venezuela, though.
Now that's a mischaracterization of my stance. I've always said the proper role of government is to 1) maintain law and order and 2) insure competition. I agreed with the breaking up of AT&T to make the baby bells, for example. Maybe a breakup could work here as well... but that's different from direct de facto government control of banks, which is what we have here now.
-- Fri May 01, 2009 2:19 pm --
Link time -
The GOP is "rebranding" themselves, and the interesting bit about it is that the new agenda is leaving things like gay marriage and abortion by the roadside.
We might end up having to pay back some of these tax credits.
Turns out that airing "Lie to Me" instead of the Obama speech was a good ratings decision for Fox.
It looks like the Obama administration isn't going to be able to release all of the detainees from Gitmo.
Good news: the Senate defeated the "cramdown" bill yesterday.
How 8 billion is small and 100 million is big.
A hospital in Nashville has agreed to pay a former employee $70,000 in damages for denying him time off so that he could make a pilgrimage to Mecca.
....WHAT!??!?! Are you saying that it was "sensationalist leftist media" that's responsible for insurgents killing American troops, because they exposed the abuses that were carried out by the Bush administration? Are you serious? Am I reading that right? It's not the fact we horribly abused prisoners, it's the fact someone published it? I mean, ignore the fucking fact that people in the middle east don't get their news from American sources - are you really going down the path of blaming the expose rather than the crime?GasBandit said:
In any case, David Kilcullen said, in his book, directly, that what we did at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo has killed American troops. By, as I said, recruiting many of the insurgents that we are fighting. If David Kilcullen is willing to publish this assertion, you can be sure that it is what David Petraeus thinks. Who am I going to believe here, David Petraeus or some guy whose only response is to gurgle like a Murloc. Hmm, I wonder.
Completely ignore what I said about the FBI. They've been interrogating prisoners, including middle eastern terroists, for decades, and no one accuses them of torture. How can we have an argument if you don't listen to what I said? In any case, what happened at Abu Ghraib was abuse, even according to the defenders of torture, because those prisoners had no information. They were put into naked pyramids, threatned with dogs, etc etc for absolutly no reason outside of sadism. Are you really trying to defend Abu Ghraib? Even Charles Krauthammer won't go that far.
IT DOESN'T MATTER. Torture is not about THEM; it is about US. Some lines you don't cross, no matter how evil the other side is. Because we don't want to sink to their level. The UN Convention Against Torture (signed and championed by Ronald Reagan, that well known leftist) explictly applies universally, doesn't matter if the other side of the conflict has signed it or not. Torture is also specifically against US law in all cases. It's also, in a different law, specifically a war crim under US law (as we've talked about before). I mean, Jesus, with the silly argument of "Al Qaeda hasn't signed those treaties!" why shouldn't we go on and do whatever you define as "real" torture, the amputation, pulling fingernails, whatever?
Have we started using red hot pokers? Pulling fingernails? Amputating? Cutting? Lashing? Bludgeoning? Denying medical treatment? We haven't even denied them access to korans and prayer rugs. Feh.[/quote:23b2n0ig]
So you explicitly think you're better at defining torture than people who have survived Pol Pot's death camps? Wow, I know you had an ego, but shit. You know nothing about this topic, it's obvious. Calling the case of Gestapo officers getting the death penalty for methods we used a "non sequitur" is amazing. You've got some picture of Hollywood-style torture in your head, and ignore all the actual evidence. So, was John McCain tortured? Ok, he was denied medical treatment - something we probably haven't done. But that's not what made him crack - that wasn't even close to the worse thing done to him.
What DID make him crack was prolongued "stress positions". You know, like what we did. It was extensive solitary confinement. You know, like what we did. It was repeated beatings (something that also goes on your list of "real" torture). You know, like what we did.
The simple fact is if you read about what we actually did (instead of your vague imagination of tickling, apparently) and thought some foreign country had done it to one of our troops, you would call it torture. Everyone would. I know this because everyone has - in the case of John McCain and many other POWs. But keep on looking the other way, Gas. Keep on ignoring the mountains of evidence of what we actually did.
Right, he was just lucky this one press conference. Tell you what, find me a public appearance, a press conference, a town hall meeting, a debate (not just a blooper reel) where he doesn't communicate effectively. I know I could find half a dozen where he DID do well without any effort whatsoever.
As opposoed to the saber-rattle of a rocket launch that failed completely? The point is that North Korea likes to rattle its saber rather ineffectivly every once in awhile - it has nothing to do with who is in the White House, and it CERTAINLY isn't because they think Obama is weak.
Who is the "they" in that sentance? I guess you might have been talking about my use of the word "they" in my response - there, I meant Chrysler, or more specifically the CEO and other decision makers at Chrysler. If so, they didn't loan Chrysler any money, so it doesn't really matter. Shareholders will get almost completely wiped out - that's what happens in a bankrupcy. Creditors will get some of their money back but not all - that's what happens in a bankrupcy. We needed the bailout to buy time to let a merger with Fiat take place - if Chyrsler hadn't gotten that bailout it probably would have resulted in a Chapter 7, ie liquidation, bankrupcy.
See, I didn't know that! Something we can agree on - insuring competition is a good thing for Government to do. Right now, a breakup of Citi or the other huge banks won't help - we'd just have a lot of little insolvent banks instead of a few bigs ones. In the future, once the banking crisis is over, THEN we should breakup Citi and the others - so we won't have to do this craziness ever again.
The biggest question is how. The AT&T breakup did encourage competition. And of course, it happened at a great expense. Especially on AT&T's part.Dieb said:
You think Citigroup is going to just say yes to the breakup? That they're going to happily become the sacrificial lamb for better competition? Those who are at the top want to stay at the top. They aren't going to go down without a costly fight.
J
JCM
K
Kitty Sinatra
I imagine it's just a matter of passing the right law. Then they'll be forced to break up. Will there be enough politicians who want to do so and are willing to take the heat from such intervention, though? That may be the deciding factor.Futureking said:
It's yet again a strong case for smart regulation in the first place, since regulation is aimed at the industry as a whole instead of a specific target. 'Course, that means the politicians have to stand up to every player in the industry, which probably feels even more daunting.
That's the hard part. Not to mention that Republicans will think of it as a Democrat conspiracy plan to nationalise the banks. And that Democrats will think of it as a Republican conspiracy plan to please their other corporate overlords.Gruebeard said:
- Status