AT&T, Comcast Say GOP Tax Bill Will Mean $1,000 Bonuses for Employees

The Fed is taking less of their money. It's not a gift. Literally taking less money from them. Why does this cause butthurt?
They're taking more money from the non-rich and/or cutting services that the non-rich need in order to take less from the rich to do the tax cuts. They are in fact taking so much they're going to put us far deeper in debt to do it. At least Dems want to tax and spend in order to pay for things rather than just create more debt.

I also approve of successful businesses being able to turn a profit. Go capitalism.
You think putting the country into trillions more debt to make already profitable companies more profitable is capitalism? And you approve of that?? Even the rentiers under the feudal system knew those sort of policies were disastrous.
 
I think you're mixing things a bit on this point. The recession can more reliably be traced back to Clinton.
The laws that allowed the bubbles in housing and finance to occur were passed under Clinton but Bush could've put the brakes on any time he wanted. There was nothing about those changes that guaranteed the creation of those bubbles and Bush and his cronies often went out of their way to prevent state and govt. regulators from doing their jobs which might've either stopped a bubble from forming entirely or at least popped it early. That is why it's Bush's bubble rather than Clinton's.
 
Any business out there that knows their head from their ass, with a 21% corporate rate they better do anything they can to retain all the employees they can. I bet in the next 2 years companies are going to be hiring like crazy.
Tax cuts don't stimulate job growth. Bush did them and even after 10yr job growth never really appeared.

Job growth comes from economic system growth. Basically if the economy is only growing at about the rate of inflation you'll see little to no job growth increase. Its also worth considering that we're at essentially "full employment" anyways right now.

The real problem isn't job growth rates. Its that most of the jobs that have been created for a long time now pay poorly and have little to no benefits. They're subsistence level jobs that offer little to nothing in the way of extra income to spend on goods and services which is why so many have no savings, are high in debt, and are usually 1 paycheque away from losing everything.

edit: strictly speaking the tax bill actually provides incentive to do more outsourcing since corps will now be able to collect 10% annual returns tax free on foreign factories and offices.
 
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The laws that allowed the bubbles in housing and finance to occur were passed under Clinton but Bush could've put the brakes on any time he wanted. There was nothing about those changes that guaranteed the creation of those bubbles and Bush and his cronies often went out of their way to prevent state and govt. regulators from doing their jobs which might've either stopped a bubble from forming entirely or at least popped it early. That is why it's Bush's bubble rather than Clinton's.
I feel like you're practically denying culpability here. Yes, no argument from me that Bush sure as hell didn't help the situation, but to try and blame the 2008 crash on Bush's tax cuts is nuts. Here's a quick summary for Clinton:

"Among his biggest strokes of free-wheeling capitalism was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a cornerstone of Depression-era regulation. He also signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which exempted credit-default swaps from regulation. In 1995 Clinton loosened housing rules by rewriting the Community Reinvestment Act, which put added pressure on banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods."

He blew the lid wide open to make conditions ripe for the crash to occur. I mean he literally undid Great Depression era legislation that was established to prevent this very thing from happening. You say "there was nothing about those changes that guaranteed the creation of those bubbles", except maybe Wall Street's stellar history of regulating itself? Blaming Bush for the crash is like blaming a crappy night watchmen for a burglary when the owner had already unlocked the door to the warehouse, left it lit and wide open, and turned off all the security cameras and alarms beforehand. Sure, it happened on his watch, but trying to pin it all on him is a joke.

There's plenty of other things to blame Bush for, but he's not the mastermind who set this all in motion, you're giving him too much credit.
 
but to try and blame the 2008 crash on Bush's tax cuts is nuts.
If this is what you think I said you're misreading my post.

As far as I'm concerned the 2008 GFC had nothing to do with Bush's tax cuts. My post was only concerning your comment that Clinton's legislation was the cause of the bubble that popped in 2008. His laws certainly made it possible but they didn't cause it.

You say "there was nothing about those changes that guaranteed the creation of those bubbles", except maybe Wall Street's stellar history of regulating itself?
There were numerous regulators who tried to reign in the excesses of Wall St. at a federal and state level that were stopped either by Bush or his appointees though. Wall St wasn't left to regulate itself only by GLB. FINRA, the SEC, and various credit ratings agencies were all also supposed to exist to prevent a bubble like this from forming too. Regulatory capture (often Bush appointees) and/or stonewalling by the Bush admin sabotaged those efforts though.

There's plenty of other things to blame Bush for, but he's not the mastermind who set this all in motion, you're giving him too much credit.
He doesn't have to be the mastermind. The guy was a modern day version of Grant essentially who did whatever his cabinet told him to or looked the other way while they funneled money towards themselves or their powerful "friends" and bungled US policy.

As the president the buck stops with Bush. He was the guy in charge and supposed to be doing the job properly after all.
 
If this is what you think I said you're misreading my post.

As far as I'm concerned the 2008 GFC had nothing to do with Bush's tax cuts. My post was only concerning your comment that Clinton's legislation was the cause of the bubble that popped in 2008. His laws certainly made it possible but they didn't cause it.
I was responding to the original statement from the other poster saying that Bush made the tax cuts, then we got the recession, implying one caused the other. We're sort of arguing semantics as to "cause." No, Clinton didn't literally cause the crash, but his actions enabled it in a way other administrations couldn't and had the most profound impact in clearing the way. Bush ran up the deficit, got us into unnecessary war, and didn't do us any favors economically, but for the time he was in office his actions were less of a contributing factor to the 2008 crash than Clinton's. Again, if you leave your house with your door wide open and live in a bad neighborhood, sure, you don't CAUSE your house to be burglarized, burglars did, but your actions are sure as hell led to it.

There were numerous regulators who tried to reign in the excesses of Wall St. at a federal and state level that were stopped either by Bush or his appointees though. Wall St wasn't left to regulate itself only by GLB. FINRA, the SEC, and various credit ratings agencies were all also supposed to exist to prevent a bubble like this from forming too. Regulatory capture (often Bush appointees) and/or stonewalling by the Bush admin sabotaged those efforts though.
Again, not arguing with that or defending his actions, but the easiest way to figure out where most of the fault lies is to remove each actor and see where it gets you:

If Clinton didn't pass the deregulation of Wall Street, then we had Bush + Obama as normal = things would be less regulated, a lot of corruption, but there would still be plenty of laws in place to prevent bankers from having a scandal on the scale that we did. So we would have more Enron situations, not such a widespread epidemic to the point of collapsing the entire system. Things would have just continued to get worse gradually.

If Clinton DID pass the deregulation measures of Wall Street, but then Bush ran a tight ship on regulators = We probably wouldn't have had the crash under Bush because regulators would still be on the prowl. It would have then likely happened under Obama due to his limp-wristed level of Wall Street enforcement, allowing Wall Street to move in on the openings Clinton created.

Yes, enforcement matters, but it's a given that one administration is going to be weaker than another on that. My point being is we can survive a period of weak enforcement as long the laws stay on the books, they still act as a deterrent for an entire industry engaging in illegal behavior and confine it more to individual actors pushing their luck. If you remove the laws themselves however, then it's just a matter of time before it implodes, enforcement only determines the when.
 
I couldn't read past all the immature bitching from (seemingly) republicans, so I don't know if anyone noted how suspicious this 'grand gesture' is considering they are trying to gobble up time warner and win over the gov't's approval.
 
They should also give them raises, improve their benefits, and make these bonuses an annual thing and adjust for inflation. But they won't because this is a ham-fisted PR stunt to fool people into thinking trickle down works, as well as a gift to the administration currently overseeing their merger plans. Remind me in 6 months when the stories come out about these bonuses not actually being paid out or being dependent on unattainable contingencies....
 
Good for those employees...all of these companies are raising prices next year so really it's us footing the bill, not the company.
 
I was responding to the original statement from the other poster saying that Bush made the tax cuts, then we got the recession, implying one caused the other.
Fair enough. Thought I'd point out in my defense in that reply of mine to you I quoted only the relevant part I disagreed with from that post and not the rest nor did I comment about Bush's tax cuts in that post either.

Again, if you leave your house with your door wide open and live in a bad neighborhood, sure, you don't CAUSE your house to be burglarized, burglars did, but your actions are sure as hell led to it.
Mmmm I see where you're going with the analogy but I don't think the GLB Act was enough on its own to make it a accurate one. Glass-Steagall had already been massively weakened decades beforehand by Reagan back in the 80's and by the time Clinton killed it the bill was a weak shadow of its former self. It just didn't offer much protection anymore which was where half the impetus to kill it and where the "outdated legislation" criticism comes from in part. On top of that many of the other key factors that played into creating the GFC (ie. credit agency falsification of credit quality) came about directly due to Bush's interference.

To riff off your analogy Clinton's GLB Act would be the equivalent to leaving the doors unlocked while Bush's appointees and actions were the equivalent to the cops aiding the robbers in not only stealing everything, but in burning your house down to destroy the evidence and then aiding them in skating on charges.

My point being is we can survive a period of weak enforcement as long the laws stay on the books, they still act as a deterrent for an entire industry engaging in illegal behavior and confine it more to individual actors pushing their luck.
Unfortunately if that was true many of the people involved would've still gotten some sort of prison term or been booted from office under Obama but the exact opposite happened instead. He let those guys skate too. People almost never bring it up though. Just endless BS about birtherism, Benghazi, and secret muslim conspiracies.

In the end laws are just words on paper if they aren't enforced and their meaning can be easily twisted or even flat out ignored depending on how the regulator in question decides so. Awful? Yeah, but still true.
 
i can't wait to drop my health insurance in 2019.

if I ever need surgery for something life threatening, I'll just declare bankruptcy. Every year I flush 4 figures down the toilet just to save a few bucks when I see the doctor once at most.
 
What's the problem with corporations saving billions in taxes? It's now a closer tax market to what these same corporations get in other parts of the world instead of being absurdly high only here in the U.S. What's wrong with encouraging repatriation of foreign money? I'd rather it in the U.S. economy than the European economy. Plus, you are free to invest in these companies and share in their profits.

Because we're not simultaneously reducing our spending, which leaves a gaping revenue hole. Guess who will have to make up the difference?

I'm all for tax cuts, so long as we cut budget on things like our biggest socialized jobs program - the military-defense industry - by an equal amount.
 
The laws that allowed the bubbles in housing and finance to occur were passed under Clinton but Bush could've put the brakes on any time he wanted. There was nothing about those changes that guaranteed the creation of those bubbles and Bush and his cronies often went out of their way to prevent state and govt. regulators from doing their jobs which might've either stopped a bubble from forming entirely or at least popped it early. That is why it's Bush's bubble rather than Clinton's.
Are you implying that presidents can unilaterally appeal laws? That's... not how it works.

For all his faults, Bush tried to rein in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/11/b...rsee-freddie-mac-and-fannie-mae.html?referer=

A choice quote from Barney Frank:

''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''

Democrats refused to admit that there was even a problem. The housing crisis can be laid squarely at the feet of Democrats, and any attempt to deny it is purely revisionist history.
 
Are you implying that presidents can unilaterally appeal laws?
No. Not even close to that. You're grossly misreading and/or misrepresenting what I said if you think so.

For all his faults, Bush tried to rein in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae:
No he didn't. The proposed oversight was political theater since he already had people who basically had been doing everything they could to reduce oversight elsewhere in the rest of the MBS and financial markets. That is why the credit rating agencies were able to lie so much about the debt quality with no real oversight. Everything was getting rubber stamped for approval to keep the money machine rolling. Debt that was rubber stamped as high quality (they had to have high quality debt, not the garbage) and passed along to the GSE's, but originated from private lenders via securitization, is where much of the losses came from too BTW.

A choice quote from Barney Frank:
Which was from 2003. The bust happened in 2007 and originated in the private sector, not with the GSE's. At the time both GSE's were indeed considered to be in good financial shape by everyone.

Democrats refused to admit that there was even a problem. The housing crisis can be laid squarely at the feet of Democrats, and any attempt to deny it is purely revisionist history.
Almost everyone in industry or govt. refused to admit there was a problem until it was too late. The few who didn't got booted by Bush, or his cronies, or laughed at in the private sector since there was so much money being made.

The policy decisions to let the bubble form and a failure to regulate it all occurred during Bush's 2 terms, not Clinton's or Obama's, so that is why he and the Repubs get the blame.
 
You don't have to worry now. The ACA mandate is repealed, so you no longer have to pay for insurance and can let everyone else that does pay for health insurance pay for you.
You seem confused. That's exactly what was happening with the ACA.

Now when I pay for insurance, I don't have to pay for the people who refuse to pay the mandate.
 
No. Not even close to that. You're grossly misreading and/or misrepresenting what I said if you think so.


No he didn't. The proposed oversight was political theater since he already had people who basically had been doing everything they could to reduce oversight elsewhere in the rest of the MBS and financial markets. That is why the credit rating agencies were able to lie so much about the debt quality with no real oversight. Everything was getting rubber stamped for approval to keep the money machine rolling. Debt that was rubber stamped as high quality (they had to have high quality debt, not the garbage) and passed along to the GSE's, but originated from private lenders via securitization, is where much of the losses came from too BTW.


Which was from 2003. The bust happened in 2007 and originated in the private sector, not with the GSE's. At the time both GSE's were indeed considered to be in good financial shape by everyone.


Almost everyone in industry or govt. refused to admit there was a problem until it was too late. The few who didn't got booted by Bush, or his cronies, or laughed at in the private sector since there was so much money being made.

The policy decisions to let the bubble form and a failure to regulate it all occurred during Bush's 2 terms, not Clinton's or Obama's, so that is why he and the Repubs get the blame.
Come on. It did NOT originate in the private sector. Private lenders upped their lending to COMPETE with the GSEs:

https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...e-and-freddie-cause-the-housing-bubble/57664/

It's fine trying to Monday morning quarterback almost a decade later after the autopsy's already been done, but the point is, Bush tried to do something about it in 2003, and Frank, Dodd, and other Democrats simply wouldn't hear of it.

And the underlying impetus of ALL of this was Democrats' pressuring lenders to make more risky loans. They created this mess, and now want to blame conservatives for their f*ck-up.
 
As an ATT and VZ shareholder I am very happy with this tax bill. Extra monies for me!

What did I do to deserve? Meh no idea.

As a citizen of this country this tax bill is fucking awful. We really could have used that 1.5 TRILLION for things like infrastructure (fiber for everyone!), healthcare for everyone or reduce college tuition.

Instead we cut the corporate tax rate from ~35% to 21%. If you really think that money is going to go to jobs and not to me the shareholder in the form of dividends and buybacks I have some literal shit to sell you. Like actual shit. Why? Fuck you.

These corporations were already ROLLING in money. If they wanted to create jobs and spend money they already would have .

ATT already had a yearly free cash flow in the billions. Reducing their tax burden isn't going to make them magically spend more money or reduce costs for us peons.

But back to me, time to load up on my ATT. My last purchase at ~$32 has been beautiful.

Keep it up fucktards in DC (both democrats and republicans). We've almost finished our race to the bottom.
 
Come on. It did NOT originate in the private sector.
Yes it did. Read the article I linked.

The one you linked BTW completely disagrees with your attempt to lay all the blame on the GSE's (as it notes GSE share of loans declined as the bubble grew). The author does attempt to blame both the GSE's and Wall St but ignores various other factors (ie. the riskiest of loans (NINJA) originated in the private sector as did the riskiest of debt instruments (ie. CDO's and CDO's-squared) at play.

Read and address the information properly in the article I linked earlier to you. If you're not gonna bother just stop posting.

Bush tried to do something about it in 2003, and Frank, Dodd, and other Democrats simply wouldn't hear of it.
Political theater isn't doing something. Bush's attempt to change how the GSE's operated was about as real of a attempt to do something as Repub attempts to repeal Obamacare during Obama's presidency. It was complete nonsense.

And the underlying impetus of ALL of this was Democrats' pressuring lenders to make more risky loans. They created this mess, and now want to blame conservatives for their f*ck-up.
LOL nope. Go read Greenspan's commentary at the time on the bubble and lending. While you're at go read Bush's own comments on trying to boost home ownership as well. More of him in his own words praising his bubble.

Its also worth pointing out Repubs had total control of both houses in Congress during most of Bush's terms. Only in the latter half of Bush's 2nd term were Dems able to get 1 house (the Senate) evened up. Dems essentially got little to nothing passed during that time period, Repubs generally voted lockstep with Bush's policies, so you can't blame Dems at all here.

Its also worth pointing out in the latter half of Clinton's last term Repubs had control of both houses of Congress as well.
 
Come on. It did NOT originate in the private sector. Private lenders upped their lending to COMPETE with the GSEs:

https://www.theatlantic.com/busines...e-and-freddie-cause-the-housing-bubble/57664/

It's fine trying to Monday morning quarterback almost a decade later after the autopsy's already been done, but the point is, Bush tried to do something about it in 2003, and Frank, Dodd, and other Democrats simply wouldn't hear of it.

And the underlying impetus of ALL of this was Democrats' pressuring lenders to make more risky loans. They created this mess, and now want to blame conservatives for their f*ck-up.
There's plenty of fault to go around on both sides. Republicans love Wall Street deregulation just as much as the Democrats do, if not moreso. The difference is the Democrats actually managed to get it done.
 
They're taking more money from the non-rich and/or cutting services that the non-rich need in order to take less from the rich to do the tax cuts.

This is literally not how taxes work.

They are in fact taking so much they're going to put us far deeper in debt to do it. At least Dems want to tax and spend in order to pay for things rather than just create more debt.

Debt is the result of a spending problem, not the result of a taxation problem. The national debt skyrocketed under the tax rates you are defending. If they worked, why did the debt massively increase?

Stop being wrong.
 
Never in history will a single job be created due to tax cuts. This bogus bonus crap is a stunt from a
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Lays-Off-Up-to-1400-Employees-Just-Before-Christmas-140923

I think end of the day, we should just wait a few years and see how things go down before declaring this tax bill a "shit deal" or "best thing since sliced bread". As it is, it's basically just PR talk by everyone.
Its a shit deal, but I guess deficits only matter when DEMs have a measure of power.
 
This is literally not how taxes work.
That is exactly how they work. Its simple math and why most economists said that the tax cuts would do little or nothing beneficial for the economy.

Debt is the result of a spending problem, not the result of a taxation problem.
If you don't cut spending but cut taxes debt will rise.

The national debt skyrocketed under the tax rates you are defending. If they worked, why did the debt massively increase?
Because the tax revenue still wasn't enough to offset spending. The new bill just makes the situation worse. Most of the debt incurred over the last 16yr or so is due to either bank bail outs or war spending BTW. None of this is hard to understand.

we should just wait a few years and see how things go down before declaring this tax bill a "shit deal" or "best thing since sliced bread". As it is, it's basically just PR talk by everyone.
Except math is a thing and the benefits of tax cuts are very well understood. Its not like they've never been done before or not been done in recent modern history you know. Even the IMF, an extremely pro Capitalist organization, to the point of being effectively Chicago school in term of economic policy, says as much.

Short video version if you can't be bothered to read the paper.
Even more to the point image sourced from Moody's that was released during a Congressional hearing years back on the economic benefit of tax cuts vs other forms of economic stimulus:
https://imgur.com/a/BILxd

more info. on tax cuts graphed vs economic growth over last 30yr or so:
https://imgur.com/a/tvkyO

Republicans love Wall Street deregulation just as much as the Democrats do, if not moreso. The difference is the Democrats actually managed to get it done.
The Dems have in recent history done more to try to re-regulate Wall St though with the CFPB which the Repubs are currently trying to sabotage as much as possible. Real world significant differences in terms of policy do indeed exist between the 2 parties even if they're both far from perfect. You should also consider things like the DFA as well.

They're all imperfect bills but they're also clear cut examples that the picture you're trying to paint isn't really accurate either.

I'd also recommend you take a look at the votes for the GLBA if you want to place all the blame on the Dems for that bill. It had plenty of D support in the HoR but nearly none of the D's voted for it in the Senate and it would've passed anyways without the 1 D vote. The situation is more than a bit muddled than you're presenting it.
 
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You seem confused. That's exactly what was happening with the ACA.
Now when I pay for insurance, I don't have to pay for the people who refuse to pay the mandate.
You are confused. People that don't pay for health insurance are still treated, the costs are passed on to the people that do pay for health insurance through higher premiums and deductibles.
 
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You are confused. People that don't pay for health insurance are still treated, the costs are passed on to the people that do pay for health insurance through higher premiums and deductibles.

Exactly. With ACA you at least got fined if you didn't have insurance...before that there was no penalty but you still got taken care of at the expense of others paying premiums.
 
Exactly. With ACA you at least got fined if you didn't have insurance...before that there was no penalty but you still got taken care of at the expense of others paying premiums.

Which is why a "Free market" solution to healthcare is fucking bananas. Single payer needs to happen. Profiting off of a person's health is absurd.
 
That is exactly how they work. Its simple math and why most economists said that the tax cuts would do little or nothing beneficial for the economy.


If you don't cut spending but cut taxes debt will rise.


Because the tax revenue still wasn't enough to offset spending. The new bill just makes the situation worse. Most of the debt incurred over the last 16yr or so is due to either bank bail outs or war spending BTW. None of this is hard to understand.


Except math is a thing and the benefits of tax cuts are very well understood. Its not like they've never been done before or not been done in recent modern history you know. Even the IMF, an extremely pro Capitalist organization, to the point of being effectively Chicago school in term of economic policy, says as much.

Short video version if you can't be bothered to read the paper.
Even more to the point image sourced from Moody's that was released during a Congressional hearing years back on the economic benefit of tax cuts vs other forms of economic stimulus:
https://imgur.com/a/BILxd

more info. on tax cuts graphed vs economic growth over last 30yr or so:
https://imgur.com/a/tvkyO


The Dems have in recent history done more to try to re-regulate Wall St though with the CFPB which the Repubs are currently trying to sabotage as much as possible. Real world significant differences in terms of policy do indeed exist between the 2 parties even if they're both far from perfect. You should also consider things like the DFA as well.

They're all imperfect bills but they're also clear cut examples that the picture you're trying to paint isn't really accurate either.

I'd also recommend you take a look at the votes for the GLBA if you want to place all the blame on the Dems for that bill. It had plenty of D support in the HoR but nearly none of the D's voted for it in the Senate and it would've passed anyways without the 1 D vote. The situation is more than a bit muddled than you're presenting it.
I'll give you that, it's not a straightforward thing at all. The Democrats do employ much more of a one step forward, two steps back incremental approach to things. Republicans are far more unified and lockstep on their agendas. That's why I try to look at the overall changes. In the case of Clinton though, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that if he had been firmly pro-regulation, the 2008 crash would have never had happened, even with Bush + Obama. You remove Great Depression era regulation to prevent another Great Depression and you end up getting almost another Great Depression. Who would have thought?
 
If people still think national debt is a left or right problem, you're not paying attention. Corporations OWN our Congress thanks to Citizens United legalizing bribery. They all have the same fucking donors.
 
In the case of Clinton though, there's a lot of evidence to suggest that if he had been firmly pro-regulation, the 2008 crash would have never had happened, even with Bush + Obama.
Except Bush and his cronies routinely ignored other regs that were still on the books (ie. robo signing scandal, credit rating scandal, MERS electronic filing scandal, rocket dockets, etc.). They really really wanted their bubble since that was the only way they could make it look like the economy was running and recessions tend to be political poison.

If they're willing to ignore the regs and they're the people who are supposed to be the one are themselves "watching the watchers" as it were why in the world would you have believed the tattered remnants of the GSA would've done anything to stop them? Bear in mind even the following administration wasn't willing to bust them for it either. Rule of law means nothing when you've got crooks in office.
 
Except Bush and his cronies routinely ignored other regs that were still on the books (ie. robo signing scandal, credit rating scandal, MERS electronic filing scandal, rocket dockets, etc.). They really really wanted their bubble since that was the only way they could make it look like the economy was running and recessions tend to be political poison.

If they're willing to ignore the regs and they're the people who are supposed to be the one are themselves "watching the watchers" as it were why in the world would you have believed the tattered remnants of the GSA would've done anything to stop them? Bear in mind even the following administration wasn't willing to bust them for it either. Rule of law means nothing when you've got crooks in office.
Here, read this:

http://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/bill_clinton_the_republicans_m.php

Some highlights:

-He passed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which let things go wild with the derivatives market
-signing Riegle-Neal was a milestone for creating larger banks, removing state regulation of them
-he also took a soft approach on regulation allowing mergers that shouldn't have even been happening under Glass Steagall. Banks wouldn't have gotten to "too big to fail" status if he hadn't cleared so many mergers under his watch.

So you're right in that Glass Steagall was already softened by the time he put it out to pasture, but if you look at Clinton's entire administration, it's like the article says:

"Bill Clinton was responsible for more damaging financial deregulation—and thus, for the financial crisis— than any other president."

The difference I'm trying to get at is, yes, Bush also didn't regulate much, but he didn't change the laws in a way that opened up a tidal wave for reckless behavior. Here's the difference:

If you have lax enforcement so that MOST people engaging in criminal financial behavior don't get caught, that encourages an environment of corruption because the risk outweighs the reward. That's a lot of what Bush and Obama were doing. If you change the laws so that activities that were previously illegal are now legal, that changes the entire industry, because then people can engage in previously illegal behavior with NO repercussions, so an order of magnitude more people do it and businesses reach stratospheric heights because of it. That's what Clinton was doing. If you still don't see the difference, I'm not sure if there's much else I can say on it.

In other words, having a lax or corrupt law enforcement can breed a lot of crime. Changing laws to make crime legal transforms society completely.
 
Here, read this:
I've read stuff like that before and it doesn't really change my view on the situation at all nor does it address what I've said to you so far nor any of the other examples I've given you.

You'll find no disagreement from me that Clinton's actions helped make the bubble possible, which is bad and I believe he has even issued some mea culpa's about that, but to blame him/the D's or to try to say he/D's is just as much in the wrong here as Bush is a false equivalency.

There were still plenty of regs that should, in theory, been enough to stop the bubble from either forming or growing as big as it did in place yet they amounted to nothing in the end. Who put the people in charge that decided to implement the rules in such a fashion? Who had the responsibility for that, where did the buck stop that is? And why did that same person not only do nothing to rein them in when it became apparent that it was all going to go sideways, but actually did quite a lot to shield these people from any sort of legal action?

To phrase all that as "Bush didn't regulate much" is a complete misunderstanding of the situation and his actions. He and his people regulated plenty, they just decided to do it in a fashion that ignored the rule of law and acted as agents for the financial interests of the banks and wealthy.

In other words, having a lax or corrupt law enforcement can breed a lot of crime. Changing laws to make crime legal transforms society completely.
I would say this is a distinction without difference. Both can result in widespread and lasting social change for the worse depending on circumstances.

I place the emphasis on people when talking about blame, responsibility, and solutions than law since law does nothing without people to implement it, is written and interpreted by people, and voted on by people or their elected reps. Given Bush's and his cronies actions there is no reason to believe rule of law would've stopped them from forming the bubble. They were too successful at ignoring it too many times to believe this.

Just a casual reading of the robo signing and MERS scandals will reveal this. Those were both clear cut examples of the law being ignored (ie. widespread forging signatures on legal documents + "oops we lost the necessary paper legal documents so here are some electronic versions that we totally didn't just forge and aren't really legally acceptable so you're going to lose your house anyways") or interpreted in such a way as a to be laughably corrupt. The word of law means nothing to these people.
 
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I've read stuff like that before and it doesn't really change my view on the situation at all nor does it address what I've said to you so far nor any of the other examples I've given you.
We're obviously not going to agree on this. While I think we both have similar views on the Republicans, I think you're being all but blind to just how much damage the Democrats have also caused. In a way they're worse, since the Republicans are quite transparent with their motives. Meanwhile Obama was supposed to be the progressive candidate, while expanding the number of wars we were in, continued bailouts of people responsible for the crash, and had softball enforcement on wall street. That sure sounds like conservative policies to me, but I guess he didn't want to eliminate the safety net entirely, therefore he's liberal, whatever. The reason Clinton got so much deregulation passed was because he WAS a Democrat and was supposed to be the opposition to that sort of thing, which gave him a lot of leeway to move with it instead of hold fast. If the situation had been reversed, a Republican president wouldn't have gotten as much deregulation passed, because Democrats would have opposed it on the basis of him being the opposite party.

I would say this is a distinction without difference
The difference is enormous. When there's lax enforcement, even if 1 out of 1000 people are being prosecuted, that in itself serves as a deterrent for less bold players and just knowing there is SOME level of enforcement keeps corruption from hitting quite the same highs. If it's LEGAL, then entire business strategies form across the industry and multi-billion dollar merges start occurring that challenge the foundations of the economic system.

A perfect example of this is Citizens United. Before CU, there was plenty of corruption, but it was much more complicated and the influence of money couldn't hit quite the same highs. Now, with open funding of candidates being legal, the amount of influence money has on our political system is staggering. We have a billionaire in office with the majority of Congress being literal millionaires and just passed unpopular legislation to give huge tax benefits to the wealthy. I'm sure we would have seen further erosion without Citizens United, but you can't deny it opened up the door for a lot more (or maybe you can, I guess anything's possible). It's the same thing with Clinton's deregulation.
 
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