Thursday, September 24, 2015

Congressional Resemblance to Goldwater Republicans is Minimal

Abstract:  Barry Goldwater warned of the danger to the Republican Party represented by various special interest religious groups.  As we have seen, no-one listened and the GOP is in a state of wide-spectrum chaos.  Discussion continues on where agreement can be found between the Left and Right rather than continually returning to things which are constant and unproductive battles.


Discussion with my conservative friend regarding CEO swine cakes revealed there seems to be adequate governance regarding Wall Street money people but the Justice Department is failing or not doing enough to pursue them.  This is a general conclusion and more research is needed to get specific about it.

The driving question is where do you attack the problem of swine cakes on Wall Street.  Some percentage get weak and succumb to the greed.  Is the answer additional governance.  Does the SEC have sufficient governance to empower it but lacks the will to pursue.  Where is it specifically as going to full-auto for a firefight to shoot anything which moves isn't going to do it.

So the general conclusion was the problem lies primarily with the Justice Department and possibly additional governance is required to empower the SEC at some future time.  This extends the discussion to a closer for this segment that the first responsibility is to put out fires and catch the major offenders.  The secondary responsibility is to review what is necessary to keep the fires extinguished but without destroying a system of fair profit.

The case was clear with my friend and the Left and Right have no disagreement.  Light a fire under the Justice Department and make this happen.  That there is no disagreement leaves little to discuss as it moves from discussion to an action plan and that only requires a flare and a match.

(Ed:  flares don't need matches)

Yah, I know.  It just sounded cooler.  Matches won't be around much longer as a book of matches is the most cost-effective terror weapon the world has ever known.  If you wrap some aluminum foil around the head of a match and then hold a lit match under the foil, when it goes off your li'l rocket will go seven-eight meters, easy.  It won't hurt anything, it's just a trick.  Yer match rocket takes off with a whoosh and leaves an impressive smoke trail.  Always fun at parties ... so long as no-one is blinded by one.  Try to avoid that.

If you like that, you'll love flash paper but it's probably banned by now.  Bookies loved the stuff because the could make the evidence poof almost instantly.

(Ed:  is there an actual point to this exercise?)

Well ...


The point of main interest was not the above.  Once it was clear the Left and the Right should be able to make a deal, the interest is not so much in the content of the deal but rather why it hasn't happened already.  That goes back to Goldwater's warning and we saw today Mike Huckabee accusing Obama of being a false Christian or something absurd of that nature.  Goldwater is reputed to have said 'nuke them until they glow' and likely Huckabee would have been an excellent target for him as a destroyer of the GOP.

Note:  that quote is said to have come from dirty politics rather than Goldwater's lips.  That's left to the interested student.

(Ed:  Democrats don't do that)

Oh really.  In the Kennedy / Nixon debates, Democrats somehow arranged to get more candlepower for the lighting.  They thought this would make Nixon sweat more than Kennedy and make him look bad on TV.  You saw who won.


Capital gains tax is one of the most divisive issues in Washington as it almost invariably gets politicized and Congress hasn't done much better than simple trench warfare in years.  Lots of people gets wasted and lots of money gets spent but nothing much happens.  So, we're clear the process within Congress sucks tar balls.  The point of interest on this matter is whether it's possible to find an accord or if it's deliberately obstructiveness within Congress.

Note:  let that fall on both teams as each is quite good at hamstringing the other (Euros:  freezing each other).

The discussion revealed little disagreement on this matter as well and this is a spectacular revelation because of the previously-observed obstinacy in Congress.  The Right acknowledges there is gaming of the market and the capital gains tax is an effective mechanism for regulating it.  The Left does not dispute the right of anyone to make a fair profit as this brand of socialism doesn't mean people have to live in grey pajamas and live on porridge.  The emphasis is on fairness because right now it is not and there is agreement on the Right that it's not plus this area as a specific and effective way to bring fairness about.  So long as the gamers are prevented from their speculations, then the fair profit for everyone else is improved and indirectly for anyone in the country.

Here on the Left, we regard this as a major strategic initiative for America and my friend is not some armchair intellectual quoting economics references but rather he is an active futures trader and he's good at it.  At least he seems to be as I've known him for quite a while and I've yet to see him wearing grey pajamas and eating porridge.  This area of capital gains and the abuses within it are personally familiar to him.


In summary, the Left has no wish to constrain a fair profit but we have an exceptional priority for putting shitbags in jail.  Agreement with the Right on this, even if only on a conceptual basis, shows me Congress is not getting it done.

People get fascinated by the Presidential contest but there's not one to consider the President doesn't write the law, he only signs it.  If Congress doesn't send the President good work then the President either goes cowboy with Presidential Executive Orders or he takes a four-year vacation.

Note:  it's observed masculine pronouns are used in the above but there is no suitable pronoun in English for 'man or woman' as there's nothing which means 'he or she.'  Many instead use a plural (i.e. they) but that's rubbish grammar and it doesn't solve the problem, it dodges it.  I will take the cop the language is inadequate and it's perfectly true.

Some years ago, 'na' was suggested as the 'he or she' pronoun.  That was some years ago and you see how much it's used.  I've never seen it anywhere but the original suggestion.

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