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Open in TheBrain

dependent moral hazard

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oops 2 ideas one institit one for ppl?

THE FED 2013 DOCU: REMOVE STICK OF MKT PUNISHEMNT;

GREENSPAN --> BERNACKE “PUT” SUBSIDIZE RISK/BET, SOCIALIZE LOSS BAILOUT

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The New Republic

Noam Scheiber

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December 28, 2008

Is Long-term Capital To Blame For Today's Crisis?

Tyler Cowen has an interesting Times column arguing that the 1998 bailout of Long-Term Capital Management, the once high-flying hedge fund, is an important factor in the recent financial meltdown:

At the time, it may have seemed that regulators did the right thing. The bailout did not require upfront money from the government, and the world avoided an even bigger financial crisis. Today, however, that ad hoc intervention by the government no longer looks so wise. With the Long-Term Capital bailout as a precedent, creditors came to believe that their loans to unsound financial institutions would be made good by the Fed — as long as the collapse of those institutions would threaten the global credit system. Bolstered by this sense of security, bad loans mushroomed. ...

[I]t was important precisely because the fund was not a major firm. At the time of its near demise, it was not even a major money center bank, but a hedge fund with about 200 employees. Such funds hadn’t previously been brought under regulatory protection this way. After the episode, financial markets knew that even relatively obscure institutions — through government intervention — might be able to pay back bad loans.

The major creditors of the fund included Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers, all of which went on to lend and invest recklessly and, to one degree or another, pay the consequences. But 1998 should have been the time to send a credible warning that bad loans to overleveraged institutions would mean losses, and that neither the Fed nor the Treasury would make these losses good. ...

Fed inaction might have had graver economic consequences, especially if a [Warren] Buffett deal had fallen through. In that case, a rapid financial deleveraging would have followed, and the economy would have probably plunged into recession. That sounds bad, but it might have been better to have experienced a milder version of a downturn in 1998 than the more severe version of 10 years later.

It's an intriguing point with lots of analytic insight, but ultimately a little off the mark I think. Cowen's argument hinges on the idea of moral hazard: By bailing out LTCM, we set a precedent that investors (or at least creditors) don't have to suffer the consequences of their bad decisions. This made them even more reckless during the following decade, leading to an even bigger collapse when the music finally stopped.

But would not bailing out LTCM have really solved our moral hazard problem? Stick with the scenario Cowen lays out and ask yourself what's likely to happen when the financial authorities let a hedge fund collapse and it triggers a recession? My sense is that a huge political backlash ensues, and said financial authorities get scapegoated (even if they made the right call on the merits). Unfortunately, that also sets a precedent--this one for financial authorities--which is that, if you want to avoid being run out of town, you can never allow a financial institution to collapse on your watch.

This, in turn, creates an even bigger moral hazard problem than the one you were trying to avoid. Even with the way things unfolded for LTCM, no future creditor could be sure they'd be bailed out because the regulator was still free to make a case by case judgment, as Cowen points out. But if LTCM's collapse had triggered a recession, future creditors would be certain they'd get bailed out if their losses threatened the economy. No future regulator would want to deal with the kind of political blowback they'd be courting otherwise.

If you don't believe me, just fast forward to the present. As one shrewd money manager recently observed to me, the flack Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke took over the collapse of Lehman Brothers has basically ensured that no future Lehman Brothers will be allowed to collapse. Something tells me this person was not the only person on Wall Street to reach that conclusion.

The upshot, to me, is twofold: 1.) By the time a financial institution is so large/leveraged that its collapse would threaten the economy, it's almost certainly (but not definitely) going to be bailed out if starts to crater. This creates a moral hazard problem, but the alternative is worse in almost every respect. 2.) The trick is to prevent most institutions from becoming so large/leveraged that their collapse would threaten the economy, and to regulate the hell out of the rest.

Update: Matt Yglesias has some good thoughts about this, too.

--Noam Scheiber

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mma

Project 2025 seeks to fulfill the right-wing media dream of cutting vital food assistance

The extreme right-wing initiative proposes cuts to programs benefiting millions of Americans

Written by Casey Wexler & Reed McMaster

Published 10/29/24 mma

Right-wing media have spent over a decade attacking and calling for cuts to vital food assistance programs, with particular focus on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as “food stamps”) as well as free school lunch programs.

Now, Project 2025 — an extreme right-wing initiative organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican presidential administration — proposes fulfilling their wish of cutting off hundreds of thousands of Americans from vital food assistance.

Project 2025 calls for sweeping cuts to the food stamp program, which would eliminate food assistance for some Americans and slash the purchasing power of families

Project 2025 also aims to cut free school lunch programs, cutting children off from vital nutrition

:{
  • In 2010, Rush Limbaugh attacked school lunches and suggested hungry children should “dumpster dive.” Limbaugh provided a list of places kids could supposedly go to get meals such as their own kitchens, McDonald’s, and a dumpster, stating, “There are videos that have been produced to show you how to healthfully dine and how to dumpster dive and survive until school kicks back up in August.”}: Premiere Radio Networks, *The Rush Limbaugh Show*, [6/16/10]

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strict fr

danger of wellfare/soc safety net is ppl become dep on gov't --> tyranny plus moral decay laziness

recall ACA RR road to serfdom and death panels; recall you do not have to go back to plantation BS when white xian nat'list in fact racist to core

omg npi

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/extremist-christians/

paul r salon

progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics — especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it was less surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

One leading figure within that small group, Rachel Tabachnick, was featured in a recent webinar hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (archived on YouTubehere/maxresdefault.jpg)), as part of its Religion and Repro Learning Series program, overseen by the Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson. Tabachnick's writing on dominionism can be found at Talk2Action and Political Research Associates, and she's been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Her presentation sheds important light on at least three things: First of all, the vigilante element of the Texas anti-abortion law SB 8. Second, the largerpattern of disrupting or undermining governance, including the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, the installation of overtly partisan election officials and the red-state revolt against national COVID public health policies. While Donald Trump has exploited that pattern ruthlessly, he did not create it. And third, the seemingly baffling fact that an anti-democratic minority feels entitled to accuse its opponents — including democratically elected officials — of "tyranny."

Some dominionist ideas — such as the biblical penalty of death by stoning — are so extreme they can easily be dismissed as fringe, others have been foundational to the modern religious right, and still more have become increasingly influential in recent years. Those latter two categories are what we need to understand most, say both Tabachnick and Jackson.

"One of the things that struck me, as a relative newcomer," said Jackson, a former Congregationalist minister, "was that there was not sufficient understanding about the theological frames used by many individuals who are opposed to abortion." She continued, "I'm a strategist in a lot of ways, and one important strategy, I believe, must be to understand what the teachings and the theological frames are" on the other side. Which links directly to the question of what progressive activists need to do differently in this changed environment.

This failure to understand the nature of dominionism has hampered activists, not just in the realm of reproductive justice, but across an entire spectrum of political issues, both cultural and economic.Jackson discussed her own background, raised within a conservative Christian worldview.

"I was taught a very individualistic approach," she said, "taught that we shouldn't pay taxes, because doing so enabled people who were not working, and enables people whose lifestyle we don't agree with." There's nothing new about such views, but dominionism provides believers with an even stronger foundation for them.

Jackson describes her current understanding of religious faith as highly intersectional: "We believe that to understand the attacks on abortion also invites us — or even requires us — to look at attacks on voting, to look at attacks on immigrants, attacks on prison reform, attacks on equal pay and on and on," she said. "It's all of the same cloth: They are all attacks on humans flourishing. That's my language. The God of my understanding wants all of us to flourish in who we are."

the language of dominionism is strikingly different, to put it mildly. In her webinar, Tabachnick played a clip of one of the movement's leading figures, C. Peter Wagner, providing a definition:

Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing. And it relates to society — in other words what is talked about, what the values are in heaven [that] need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings. It says in Revelation chapter 1:6 that "he has made us kings and priests," and check the rest of that verse, it says "for dominion." So we are kings for dominion.

Later she provided a definition from Frederick Clarkson, author of the 1997 book, "Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy":

Dominionism is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological view, means, or timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.

Wagner, who died in 2016, is known as the founding father of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR), one of the two main branches of dominionism, which grew out of the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions within evangelical Christianity. Dominionists in the other branch, known as "Christian reconstructionism," come out of conservative Calvinism, with a focus on bringing government and society under biblical law. They tend to be more circumspect, often obfuscating their true intentions and avoiding the word "theocracy" in favor of "theonomy," for example. But not Wagner, as can be seen in the title of his 2011 book, "Dominion!: Your Role in Bringing Heaven to Earth." The NAR talks constantly about taking dominion over the "seven mountains" of society: education, religion, family, business, government, arts and the media.

But it's the other branch, the Christian reconstructionists, who have excelled at strategic organizing and providing blueprints across different right-wing constituencies for almost 50 years. They are the ones Tabachnick focused most of her presentation on, specifically two key figures: Rousas John Rushdoony, the movement's master theologian, and his son-in-law Gary North, a prolific strategist, propagandist and networker who was once a staffer for Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian hero.[ayn radical indiv ~ jesus charity]

Christian reconstructionism, Tabachnick explained, is "about bringing government in all areas of life under biblical law, a continuation of the Mosaic law in the Old Testament, with some exceptions." This dispensation would include, "according to Gary North, public execution of women who have abortions and those who advise them to have an abortion."

In a recent private presentation, Frederick Clarkson asked a rhetorical question: "People have long said that there should be Christian government, but if you had one, what would it look like? What would it do? Rushdoony was the first to create a systematic theology of what Christian governance should be like, based on the Ten Commandments, and all of the judicial applications he could find in the Old Testament — including about 35 capital offenses."

But the "Handmaid's Tale"-style extremism of dominionists' ultimate vision shouldn't really be our focus, Tabachnick told Salon. "Nobody cares about the theocratic, draconian future envisioned by reconstructionists because they don't believe it will happen," she said.

What's happening right now, however, is that this ideology has had tremendous impact on more immediate politics. "Christian reconstructionism is the merger of a distinct brand of Calvinism with Austrian School economics," Tabachnick said. "In other words, it's an interpretation of the Bible grounded in property rights." The results have been far-reaching:

For more than 40 years, its prolific writers have provided the foundations and strategic blueprints for the attacks on liberation theology and the social gospel, as well as many other streams of Christianity which do not share the Reconstructionists' belief in unfettered capitalism as ordained by God and its fierce anti-statism.

The larger religious right's attack on public education, thesocial safety netand most government functions are largely grounded in the writings, strategies and tactics formulated by reconstructionist writers. Reconstructionism is not the only (and certainly not the first) source of interposition and nullification in this country. However, much of what is currently being taught today about using interposition to undermine the legitimacy of government is sourced in reconstructionism.

This idea of "interposition" comes through what's known as the doctrine of the "lesser magistrate," which we'll return to below. But its significance — especially in the post-2020 Republican Party — has only recently become apparent. Reconstructionism's initial appeal was more immediately, as Tabachnick explained in the seminar:

What Rushdoony provided is a package that included attacking what these fundamentalists hated and feared most in society, often expressed in terms of "This is communist. This is socialist." But Rushdoony provided a way to sacralize these ideas, and at the same time not just tear down the old order, but provide a blueprint for the new order.

Everyone didn't have to agree on the blueprint, she said: "Rushdoony's ideas went out in bits and pieces. The Christian right leaders took what they wanted and discarded what they didn't."....

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BBB manchin wants work req tho proved not to work strict fr also corps want workers dependent/compliant:

aha note gop sez ppl lazy and moral hazard of soc safe net  but at same time quash vax mask Mandate EVEN WHEN LOCAL PPL /REPS VOTE FOR THEM, THEN PPL QUIT CRAPPY  LOW WAGE DANGEROUS JOBS

Dartagnan

and

Daily Kos

October 24, 2021

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/unemployment-2655355131/

The business owners whose blood, sweat, and tears—or at least their fancy, high-priced educations, family connections and access to venture capital—built this country, dammitwere hellbent and determined to show American workers who was boss. This COVID-19 nonsense was not going to interfere with their profits any longer. It was time totake a stand.

So they all had their administrative assistants conference in their favorite state legislators, the same ones who helpfully passed legislation a few years back, keeping pesky unions out of their states. They called in their chits for all those campaign contributions to the governor. They called their Republican House reps and senators. Damn that Fauci, they complained. My business is hurting. No more lockdowns, no more of this "social distancing "crap. This state is going to open for business and I don't want to hear another word about body counts or stressed hospitals. I need workers and I need them now. I paid for your damn campaigns, so do something!

And those state representatives and senators leapt into action. In a matter of a few weeks we saw state after state brimming with self-appointed medical experts in their legislatures, railing about the tyrannical mask mandates and business lockdowns. CEOs and white-collar professionals cracked their whips—many still from the comfort of their fine second homes and pools. And thus the support staff, the retail clerks and the service workers, many of whom who had once been adoringly lionized as "essential" at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, were told it was time to return to work. And for added good measure, Republican governors in those statescut offtheir unemployment aid. That'll show them, they thought ...

But strangely enough, not all of those workers heeded the call. In fact, a good many of them quit.

As reported by Alyssa Fowers and Eli Rosenberg, writing for The Washington Post:

Kentucky, Idaho, South Dakota and Iowa reported the highest increases in the rates of workers who quit their jobs in August, according to a new glimpse of quit rates in the labor market released Friday.

The largest increase in the number of quitters happened in Georgia, with 35,000 more people leaving their jobs. Overall, the states with the highest rates of workers quitting their jobs were Georgia, Kentucky and Idaho.

As The Post points out, the interesting thing about this data is that service-sector jobs are most highly concentrated in urban areas. So why would people be quitting their jobs at such astronomical rates in such relatively rural states as Kentucky, South Dakota, Iowa and Idaho?

Fowers and Rosenberg offer a clue:

Employees quit or were hired at rates matching or exceeding the national average in the ten states with the highest rates of new infections that month: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee.

So the highest rate of turnover in August—employees quitting or getting hired—was found in the states which had the highest rate of COVID-19 infection for that month. Logically, that seems to make sense. Workers who live in one of those states were also likely to have a governor or, in the case of Kentucky, a Republican-dominated legislaturewho opposed business closures, even while the delta variant ravaged the state's population. Such workers were essentially forced by these states policies to return to work if they could not work from home.

Those people forced back to work in an unsafe environment simply decided to quit—many of them likely before ever venturing back into their workspace. After all, they saw a job the other day that was offering more money. Or their next-door neighbor's cousin got a job that pays more and allows them to work from home. The Post article quotes Nick Bunker, an economist for the job search portal Indeed, who notes that the high quit rate in these red and rural states "may be a sign there's more competition in those parts of the country than other parts."

The other interesting point aboutallof the states having both the highest level of turnover and the highest infection rates? They are all so-called"right to work" states,where legislatures passed legislation to disincentivize and discourage unions.So these workers have essentially no protection, no one to turn to for help remedying unsafe conditions, and no collective bargaining power; they can, for the most part, be terminated at will. That's what "right-to work"has always been about.

As one commenter to The Post story points out:

So, when you have a crappy job, for crappy wages, and a crappy employer who doesn't value you at all, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a labor market situation that actually encourages you to look for work elsewhere--what do you think is going to happen? The 'Great Resignation' is largely about working class people attempting to use what little leverage they have in order to make a moderately better wage for themselves in a mostly hostile, oppressive national work environment.

For employers, the downside of "right to work"— one they never saw coming—was the fact that workers in those states had little, if any, incentive to stay, especially when once-in-a lifetime opportunities arose for them to leave, while competition for higher wages and better working conditions further drove that exodus.

Some employers are responding by antagonizing would-be applicants.

In Missouri, a group of businesses, still frustrated by labor shortages more than three months after the state cut off the $300-a-week federal jobless checks, paid for billboards in Springfield that said: "Get Off Your Butt!" and "Get. To. Work."

The state has seen no growth in its workforce since ending emergency benefits.

"We don't know where people are," said Brad Parke, general manager of Greek Corner Screen Printing and Embroidery, who helped pay for the billboards. "Obviously, they're not at work. Apparently, they're at home."

The attempt to force workers back to dangerous, unsafe pandemic working conditions—brought on by short-sighted Republican policymakers for political ends—has collided with a culture where workplace protections and the ability to bargain have been completely devalued (also by Republican politicians), leaving workers as essentially dispensable commodities.

No wonder they're quitting for greener pastures in those states. Republican elected officials and their business donors in those same states have no one to blame but themselves. They created this environment, and now they're going to have to cope and adjust with workers who want more out of their jobs … and know they can get it. They have to keep up and do better, or see their businesses go under.

Funny how that worked out.

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621 gop govs cut 300$ b/c of bogus worker shortage (vs child care schools out, do dangerous work for low wages)

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621 aha // to deficit bogeyman to prevent spending $ on ppl, infra, social safety net. educ see 2 santas BS

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https://www.mediamatters.org/sinclair-broadcast-group/sinclair-infrastructure-coverage-centers-corporate-front-groups-pushing

zach p

Sinclair Broadcast Group has in recent days aired misleading criticism of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposals from organizations that are corporate front groups or push an anti-spending austerity agenda. But the facts and commentary from economists and other experts show that much of this criticism is disingenuous.

Sinclair sought commentary from pro-austerity organizations funded by corporations and right-wing donors

On March 30, Sinclair’s morning program The National Desk -- which airs on 68 Sinclair-owned or -operated local television stations -- interviewed Manhattan Institute senior fellow Brian Riedl, who opposed spending trillions of dollars on infrastructure and was critical of including spending to combat climate change. Anchor Jan Jeffcoat chose not to disclose the Manhattan Institute’s funding from the fossil fuel industry and other corporate interests.

Also on March 30, Sinclair chief political correspondent Scott Thuman included commentary in his report from Elaine Parker, chief communications officer of the Job Creators Network, which aired on dozens of Sinclair TV stationsbefore re-airing on The National Desk the next morning. Thuman failed to disclose that Job Creators Network is a conservative organization and a corporate front group for wealthy donors.

On April 1, Sinclair national correspondent James Rosen included commentary from Adam Posen of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in his report on Biden’s infrastructure plan, which also aired on dozens of Sinclair stations before re-airing on The National Desk. But Rosen failed to mention the pro-austerity nature of the organization and its namesake.

These pro-corporate Sinclair guests’ commentary on Biden’s infrastructure bill was misleading or lacked full context

The Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl claimed the price tag for Biden’s infrastructure plan is “just too big” to pay for and that Biden’s plan to rate the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28% “would return us to the highest corporate tax rate in the OECD,” referring to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. He also said: “The bill will simply not be paid for. Like a lot of what we’ve had with the stimulus, a lot of it's just going to go on the national credit card. So whether you think the infrastructure is helpful or not helpful, it’s probably going to be paid for mostly on the national debt if it’s enacted.” But Riedl’s comments are misleading at best and flat-out wrong at worst.

Job Creators Network’s Elaine Parker hid the context of the business tax deduction she warned about removing when she said: “This is actually going to hit right at the heart of small businesses with that repeal of that 20% tax deduction. … That is the very tax deduction that helps the smallest of the small businesses, the heart of the middle class, and the employees who work for them.”

And the Peterson Institute’s Adam Posen left out necessary context when he warned: “This is the first truly credible inflation threat in decades.” But senior economists have pushed back against this kind of fearmongering over inflation.

Economists and other experts agree Biden’s infrastructure spending plan is needed and beneficial

The fact is, massive investments in infrastructure are badly needed. An April 2 New York Times article explained: “Roadways and bridges are still in use decades after the end of their projected life spans. Sewer and water systems are aged and decaying. And a changing climate threatens to worsen old vulnerabilities and expose new ones.”

Reuters reported that the American Society of Civil Engineers said that “surface transportation, water systems, and schools are the most in need of help,” and that the U.S. “needs to spend $2.59 trillion in the next 10 years to fix existing infrastructure.” Biden’s infrastructure plan includes money for both existing and new infrastructure, such as energy and housing.

Economists from financial analysis firms have predicted that Biden’s infrastructure plan will create millions of jobs over a period of several years. Axios reported that S&P Global “predicts Biden's infrastructure plan will create 2.3 million jobs by 2024” and “raise per-capita income by $2,400.” And as USA Today reported, Moody’s Analytics expects Biden’s infrastructure plan to be more beneficial in the long term:

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, says the projects won't begin in earnest until 2023. He expects the economy to grow just 1.3% from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022, with the Biden plan adding nothing to the gains.

…

Over a longer period, Biden’s plan would be a big positive, economists say. Zandi expects it to add about half a percentage point to growth in 2023 and 1.6 percentage points the following year. The blueprint, he reckons, would add about 1.4 million jobs in 2024 and 1 million jobs in 2025.

By 2030, the economy would be about $700 billion, or nearly 3%, larger than it would be without the upgrades and an additional 2.7 million Americans would be working, Moody's figures show.

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convention commie apocalypse

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/kimberly-guilfoyles-rnc-speech-was-6-minutes-of-sheer-hell-ill-never-get-back-gop-strategist/

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https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/kimberly-guilfoyle-2020-rnc-speech-transcript

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:05)

Good evening, America. I’m Kimberly Guilfoyle. I speak to you tonight as amother, a former prosecutor, a Latina, and a proud American, and yes, a proud supporter of President Donald J. Trump. Why? He is the President who delivers for America. He built the greatest economy the world has ever known, for the strivers, the working class, and middle class. As Commander in Chief, he always puts America first. President Trump is the law and order President.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (00:41)

Now, Presidential leadership is not guaranteed. It is a choice. Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Socialistswill fundamentally change this nation. They wantopen borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle, and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:14)

As a first-generation American, I know how dangerous their Socialist agenda is. My mother, Mercedes, was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream. Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human sex drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border. The same Socialist policies which destroyedplaces likeCuba and Venezuela must not take root in our cities and our schools.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (01:58)

If you want to see the Socialist Biden/Harris future for our country, just take a look at California. It is a place of immense wealth, immeasurable innovation, and immaculate environment, and the Democrats turned it into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets, and blackouts in homes. In President Trump’s America, we light things up. We don’t dim them down. We build things up, we don’t burn them down. We kneel in prayer and we stand for our flag.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (02:42)

This election is a battlefor the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture? Thecosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, who blame America first? Do you think America is to blame? Or, do you believe in American greatness? Believe in yourself? In President Trump? In individual and personal responsibility? They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want toenslave youto theweak, dependent, liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (03:44)

From the beginning, when President Trump spoke about making American Great Again, he was speaking about thatshining city on a hill and restoring thebeacon of light that once shined so bright. His promise was to put America first and he has. When President Trump cut middle class taxes, putting tens of thousands of dollars back in the pockets of working class Americans, that beacon began to flicker once again. When President Trump commanded the defeat of ISIS,took out al-Baghdadi and Soleimani and paved the way for peace in the Middle East, that beacon started to glow. When he negotiated historic trade deals with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China, bringing back thousands of manufacturing jobs to America, that beacon shined bright once again for the world to see.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (04:45)

America, it’s all on the line. President Trump believes in you. He emancipates and lifts you up to live your American Dream. You are capable. You are qualified. You are powerful and you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny. Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you.Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. Don’t let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: (05:25)

Like my parents, you can achieve your American Dream. You can be that shining example to the world. Manifest and be the change in this country that you dream, that you hope, that you believe in. Stand foran American President who is fearless, who believes in you, and who loves this country and will fight for her.President Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America and ensure that every citizen can realize their American Dream. Ladies and gentlemen,  leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American Dream, thebest is yet to come!

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hmm dunno if story of metaphor/schema, both?

the duty of the strict father is to instill/enforce strict discipline/control/ sacrifice vs short term childish sinful  hedonism; law and order, hierachy vs those uppity AA and women hippie antifa

capitalism built on myth/story /schema of spot transaction/barter, not found in real world?

aha: trump is just apotheosis: invis hand me vs we short vs long term: $ = winner, vs losers who deserve poverty, corruption/crony capitalism is natural inevitable outcome

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// metaphor; immune sys digestive sys goes on overdrive?

aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction [extraction  is just a more extreme form where other has no power] INEQUALITY

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now  self-ish vs larger complex system/ long term; also zero sum

long term means more entities,  more events thus more complexity (tho a story can simplify/screen/ change emphasis, make a pattern (even where none exists, eg qanon) thus meaning, which then acts as term screen filter to repell conflicting/anomalous/dissonance info ); but fills vacuum need, that previously would have been filled by experts/textbooks/teachers/leaders/pastors?

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aha: reduction = retaliation = transaction

terministic screen/tunnel vision limits to small number of visible things right here and now vs larger complex system/ long term

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/americas-enemies-perceive-weakness-in-donald-trump-foreign-policy-expert-explains-how-the-president-squandered-us-exceptionalism/

no lnx audio

c de v

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opposite of rugged self determine

wm barr 25 yo living in folks basement? // ok to leave plaNTATION

mcconn /trump sit on hands on 3rd covid bailout bill tho election looming? b/c?!  trying to force biz/schools to open

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aha: concept of control = freedom, loss of control = slavery

commies want to control your mind, your actions, your energy use (as a way of controlling your behavior)

control is also law and order, which the strict father must impose/ punish transgression because children / POC do not have discipline (or intelligence) to control their own actions/base impulses

order is enforcement of hierarchy; the job of the strict father is to instill discipline in sons who can handle it and marry off daughter, outsource/delegate  the job of control/disc of women

eg

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/rnc-review-speakers-described-an-alternate-reality-in-which-chaos-and-violence-of-the-trump-era-is-joe-bidens-fault/

no lnx twt

RNC review: Speakers described an alternate reality in which chaos and violence of the Trump era is Joe Biden’s fault

Written by Igor Derysh / Salon August 25, 2020 Commentary

The first night of the Republican National Convention featured a diverse lineup that defended President Donald Trump from charges of racism, even as other speakers sought to stoke racial fears and push conspiracy theories.

The convention, largely consisting of a mix of live and pre-taped speeches before an empty auditorium, appeared to take place in an alternate reality where Trump had successfully beaten back the coronavirus pandemic, and where the protests, violence and racial division seen during Trump’s presidency would only get worse Democratic nominee Joe Biden is elected. It was a wildly dishonest night, with the New York Times fact-checking team counting at least 30 false and misleading claims.

“This one half-night of Republican programming so far has been exponentially more dishonest than the entire four nights of the Democratic convention,” wrote CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale.

While Republicans insisted that their convention would be optimistic, and headliners like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina delivered speeches on the promise of America that could have taken place under any other Republican president, the tone of the night was dark and the theme was racial fear-mongering.

The night kicked off with a speech by Charlie Kirk, founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point USA, who described Trump as a “bodyguard of Western civilization” — a common white nationalist dog whistle — who is defending America against a “vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values.”

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio gave a speech riddled with falsehoods accusing Democrats of stoking “crime, violence, and mob rule.” Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of Trump’s most loyal followers in Congress, bizarrely warned that Democrats will “disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home, and invite MS-13 to live next door.”

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who threatened Black Lives Matter supporters with guns, delivered a gloomy, downbeat chat accusing “radical Democrats” of trying to destroy the suburbs.

“They are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning,” Patricia McCloskey said. “This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness and low-quality apartments into thriving suburban neighborhoods.

“These are the policies that are coming to a neighborhood near you,” she added. “So make no mistake: No matter where you live, your family will not be safe in the radical Democrats’ America.”

These divisive speeches were interspersed between people of color who insisted that neither Trump, the Republican Party nor the nation had a problem with racism.

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Former NFL player Herschel Walker — who once played for the New Jersey Generals, a long-gone USFL team owned by Trump — said it “hurt my soul” to hear people call Trump “racist,” noting their long friendship. Haley, speaking of her own experience as the daughter of Indian immigrants, said that “America is not a racist country” but a “work in progress.”

Scott, the night’s keynote speaker, [heh appt by nikki] delivered a powerful speech on the promise of America and his own experiences with racism. Scott urged viewers to “not look simply at what the candidates say” before listing a number of remarks made by Biden to suggest that he, and not Trump, would ignore minority communities. Scott repeatedly insisted that Biden wants to turn the U.S. into a “socialist utopia,” which would be news to Biden and the progressive primary challenges who repeatedly criticized him for being too conservative.

But while the headliners tried to ignore the division stoked by Trump since long before he launched his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, former Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, stole the show with stunningly dark and loud diatribes that prompted viewers to question whether cocaine was involved.

Guilfoyle, who earns $180,000 per year from the Trump campaign, shouted an amped-up speech into the empty auditorium comparing Democrats to socialistsin Cuba and Venezuela. Guilfoyle, who was formerly married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, claimed that Democrats (including her ex-husband, apparently) had turned California into a “land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes.”

“They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live,” she warned. “They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.”

“Biden, Harris and the rest of the socialists will fundamentally change this nation,” she continued. “They want open borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.”

Donald Trump Jr. gave a speech touting his father’s response to the pandemic, albeit one that was entirely detached from reality.

He claimed that the president had “acted quickly,” even though Trump spent the crucial early weeks downplaying the threat, and that the administration had delivered supplies to “hospitals that needed them most,” even though the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general found rampant shortages of vital supplies. Six months into the pandemic, such equipment remains in short supply.

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The night also featured segments in which Trump hyped hydroxychloroquine, a drug that has repeatedly been found ineffective in treating the coronavirus, and a video that touted Trump’s “rapid policy changes” in the face of the pandemic.

MSNBC broke away from the broadcast to fact-check the claims.

“To say that 170,000 souls lost in our country up to now is a success by any measure is fantasy,” Dr. Vin Gupta, a disease expert at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said during the segment. “It’s disrespectful to the families who lost loved ones, to frontline clinicians who put their lives at risk. It’s just fantasy. It’s propaganda.”

During another segment, Trump spoke with a group of Americans who had been freed from overseas prisons, including pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested by Turkey during President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s purge following an unsuccessful coup attempt.

“To me, President Erdogan was very good,” Trump told the pastor, who was detained for two years.

Though all of the major news networks break away during portions of the convention for analysis and ads, Fox News host Sean Hannity warned his viewers that “the media won’t cover large parts of the RNC that we’ll be showing.”

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Twitter users couldn’t help but notice that Fox News actually aired fewer segments from the convention than CNN and MSNBC. Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, tweeted his complaints at Fox News.

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“Can’t believe I have to watch the convention on @CNN,” he wrote. “Unbelievable.”

==

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

In economics, moral hazard occurs when someone increases their exposure to risk when insured, especially when a person takes more risks because someone else bears the cost of those risks. A moral hazard may occur where the actions of one party may change to the detriment of another after a financial transaction has taken place.

A party makes a decision about how much risk to take, while another party bears the costs if things go badly, and the party isolated from risk behaves differently from how it would if it were fully exposed to the risk.

Moral hazard can occur under a type of information asymmetry where the risk-taking party to a transaction knows more about its intentions than the party paying the consequences of the risk. More broadly, moral hazard can occur when the party with more information about its actions or intentions has a tendency or incentive to behave inappropriately from the perspective of the party with less information.

Moral hazard also arises in a principal-agent problem, where one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the principal. The agent usually has more information about his or her actions or intentions than the principal does, because the principal usually cannot completely monitor the agent. The agent may have an incentive to act inappropriately (from the viewpoint of the principal) if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned.

Example:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Many originators of subprime loans may have suspected that the borrowers would not be able to maintain their payments in the long run and that, for this reason, the loans were not going to be worth much. Still, because there were many buyers of these loans (or of pools of these loans) willing to take on that risk, the originators did not concern themselves with the potential long-term consequences of making the loans. After selling the loans, they bore none of the risk so they did not care about long-term value.[citation needed]

History of the term:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

According to research by Dembe and Boden,[1] the term dates back to the 17th century and was widely used by English insurance companies by the late 19th century. Early usage of the term carried negative connotations, implying fraud or immoral behavior (usually on the part of an insured party). Dembe and Boden point out, however, that prominent mathematicians who studied decision-making in the 18th century used "moral" to mean "subjective," which may cloud the true ethical significance in the term. The concept of moral hazard was the subject of renewed study by economists in the 1960s,[2][3] beginning with economist Ken Arrow[4], and then did not imply immoral behavior or fraud. Economists use this term to describe inefficiencies that can occur when risks are displaced or cannot be fully evaluated, rather than a description of the ethics or morals of the involved parties.

Rowell and Connelly [5] offer a detailed description of the genesis of the term moral hazard, by identifying salient changes in economic thought, which are identified within the medieval theological and probability literature. Their paper compares and contrasts the predominantly normative conception of moral hazard found within the insurance-industry literature with the largely positive interpretations found within the economic literature. Often what is described as "moral hazard[s]" in the insurance literature is upon closer reading, a description of the closely related concept, adverse selection.

Finance[

In 1998, William J. McDonough, head of the New York Federal Reserve, helped the counter-parties of Long Term Capital Management avoid losses by taking over the firm. This move was criticized by formerFed Chair, Paul Volcker and others as increasing moral hazard.[6][7][8][9] Tyler Cowen concludes that "creditors came to believe that their loans to unsound financial institutions would be made good by the Fed — as long as the collapse of those institutions would threaten the global credit system."[7] Fed Chair, Allan Greenspan, while conceding the risk of moral hazard, defended the policy to orderly unwind Long Term Capital by saying the world economy is at stake.[10][6]

Economist Paul Krugman described moral hazard as "any situation in which one person makes the decision about how much risk to take, while someone else bears the cost if things go badly."[11] Financial bailouts of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of potential losses. Lending institutions need to take risks by making loans, and the riskiest loans usually have the potential for making the highest return.

Taxpayers, depositors, and other creditors often have to shoulder at least part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by lending institutions.[12][13][14][15]

Many have argued that certain types of mortgage securitization contribute to moral hazard. Mortgage securitization enables mortgage originators to pass on the risk that the mortgages they originate might default and not hold the mortgages on their balance sheets and assume the risk. In one kind of mortgage securitization, known as "agency securitizations," default risk is retained by the securitizing agency that buys the mortgages from originators. These agencies thus have an incentive to monitor originators and check loan quality. "Agency securitizations" refer to securitizations by either Ginnie Mae, a government agency, or by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both for-profit government-sponsored enterprises. They are similar to the "covered bonds" that are commonly used in Western Europe in that the securitizing agency retains default risk. Under both models, investors take on only interest-rate risk, not default risk.

In another type of securitization, known as "private label" securitization, default risk is generally not retained by the securitizing entity. Instead, the securitizing entity passes on default risk to investors. The securitizing entity, therefore, has relatively little incentive to monitor originators and maintain loan quality. "Private label" securitization refers to securitizations structured by financial institutions such as investment banks, commercial banks, and non-bank mortgage lenders.

During the years leading up to the subprime mortgage crisis, private label securitizations grew as a share of overall mortgage securitization by purchasing and securitizing low-quality, high-risk mortgages. Agency Securitizations appear to have somewhat lowered their standards, but Agency mortgages remained considerably safer than mortgages in private-label securitizations and performed far better in terms of default rates.

Economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics described moral hazard as a root cause of the subprime mortgage crisis. He wrote that "the risks inherent in mortgage lending became so widely dispersed that no one was forced to worry about the quality of any single loan. As shaky mortgages were combined, diluting any problems into a larger pool, the incentive for responsibility was undermined." He also wrote, "Finance companies weren't subject to the same regulatory oversight as banks. Taxpayers weren't on the hook if they went belly up [pre-crisis], only their shareholders and other creditors were. Finance companies thus had little to discourage them from growing as aggressively as possible, even if that meant lowering or winking at traditional lending standards."[16]

Moral hazard can also occur with borrowers. Borrowers may not act prudently (in the view of the lender) when they invest or spend funds recklessly. For example, credit card companies often limit the amount borrowers can spend with their cards because without such limits, borrowers may spend borrowed funds recklessly, leading to default.

Securitization of mortgages in America started in 1983 at Salomon Brothers and where the risk of each mortgage passed to the next purchaser instead of remaining with the original mortgaging institution. These mortgages and other debt instruments were put into a large pool of debt, and then shares in the pool were sold to many creditors.

Thus, there is no one person responsible for verifying that any one particular loan is sound, that the assets securing that one particular loan are worth what they are supposed to be worth, that the borrower responsible for making payments on the loan can read and write the language in which the papers that he/she signed were written, or even that the paperwork exists and is in good order. It has been suggested that this may have caused the subprime mortgage crisis.[17]

Brokers, who were not lending their own money, pushed risk onto the lenders. Lenders, who sold mortgages soon after underwriting them, pushed risk onto investors. Investment banks bought mortgages and chopped up mortgage-backed securities into slices, some riskier than others. Investors bought securities and hedged against the risk of default and prepayment, pushing those risks further along. In a purely capitalist scenario, the last one holding the risk (like a game of musical chairs) is the one who faces the potential losses. In the sub-prime crisis, however, national credit authorities (the Federal Reserve in the US) assumed the ultimate risk on behalf of the citizenry at large.

Others believe that financial bailouts of lending institutions do not encourage risky lending behavior since there is no guarantee to lending institutions that a bailout will occur. Decreased valuation of a corporation before any bailout would prevent risky, speculative business decisions by executives who conduct due diligence in their business transactions. The risk and the burdens of loss became apparent to Lehman Brothers, which who did not benefit from a bailout, and other financial institutions and mortgage companies such as Citibank and Countrywide Financial Corporation, whose valuation plunged during the subprime mortgage crisis.[18][19][20]

Insurance industry

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What Is a Moral Hazard? - Investopedia

www.investopedia.com › Personal Finance › Insurance

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1.

:{Jun 25, 2019 - :{Moral hazard:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: is the idea that a party protected in some way from risk will act differently than if they didn't have that protection. We encounter ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Moral hazard - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Moral_hazard

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2.

:{In economics, :{moral hazard:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: occurs when someone increases their exposure to risk when insured, especially when a person takes more risks because someone ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

History of the term · ‎Finance · ‎Insurance industry · ‎Economic theory

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