Vicious Circle 36 – Designated Hate Receptacle
alan, aepilotjim, BobN, JayG, Stingray, LabRat and ToTC_Lee blather on about the new Republican Senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown. (and many other things too numerous to count.)
Seems we can’t do one in less than three hours any more, sorry.
For your listening pleasure, it’s Vicious Circle #36.
Don’t spend it all in one place.
Also available in the iTunes store (For Free! What a bargain!)
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[...] For your listening pleasure, it’s Vicious Circle #36. [...]
Since Alan chose to snarkily ask where I get my infromation, I chooshe to correct a few of the grosser mistatements made during this VC:
1) The Federal Reserve doesn’t supervise anythng except the resional Federal Reserve Banks.” A quick perusal of wikipedia leads to (apparently) the FRBs own documentation:
“The Board also plays a major role in the supervision and regulation of the U.S. banking system….The Board and, under delegated authority, the Federal Reserve Banks, supervise approximately 900 state member banks and 5,000 bank holding companies…..Some regulations issued by the Board apply to the entire banking industry, whereas others apply only to member banks, that is, state banks that have chosen to join the Federal Reserve System and national banks, which by law must be members of the System. The Board also issues regulations to carry out major federal laws governing consumer credit protection, such as the Truth in Lending, Equal Credit Opportunity, and Home Mortgage Disclosure Acts. Many of these consumer protection regulations apply to various lenders outside the banking industry as well as to banks….. You can easily make the point that their Supervision and Regulation has been missing in action in recent decades, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the authority and responsibility. I personally am no fan of Bernanke’s or Greenspan’s.
As for the role of Wall Street in the crash, see here for my take. 2004 was a turning-point, statistically, and regulation-wise, in that the 5 I-Banks were allowed to triple their leverage. The damage done after that date was amazing.
As for the comparison of the 7.62×39 round to a 44 Magnum in a leveraction, research indicates that indeed, if you take a really hot .44 magnum round and put it in a lever action rifle with an 18″, you may get to the kinetic energy of the AK round. But it will have less range, and it will still be a revolver round in a lever action rifle. Give an AK with a bunch of mags or an SKS with a bunch of stripper clips any day.
BTW, did I hear JayG say something about having a new Senator?
Bah. The FED regulates it’s member banks. Don’t be a pedant.
.30-06 is god’s calibre, damned it.
John Moses Browning ( PBUH ) chose it for the BAR.
( and you can do a lot more with a .30-06 handload than you can with a .308 … the .308 round is already up to the wall for performance with factory ammo. )
admin says:
Bah. The FED regulates it’s member banks. Don’t be a pedant.
Your original statement, live on VC, was: “The Fed only regulates the regional Federal Reserve banks”. It is not pedantry to point out that this is different from the position you are now taking, which is still different from the truth.
The argument about the financial crisis was….sigh. I won’t go there…
From this man:
John Allison is chairman of the board of BB&T Corporation. He began his service with BB&T in 1971, became president in 1987 and was elected chairman and CEO in 1989 (serving as CEO until the end of 2008). During Mr. Allison’s tenure, BB&T has grown from $4.5 billion to $137 billion in assets.
We have this talk at the Ayn Rand Institute:
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_ls_financial_crisis
…I highly recommend it!
During Mr. Allison’s tenure, BB&T has grown from $4.5 billion to $137 billion in assets.
When looking at profits of the financial “services” industry, you are typically looking at money that was skimmed, which might otherwise have actually been used productively.
Allowing a banker to discuss finance is like listening to NAMBLA on sexual predation.
Thought experiment:
While looking at the profits of the grocery “store” industry, you’re looking at money that was skimmed and could otherwise have actually been used to fund Jerry’s Kids, or even the March of Dimes! Or paid out in federal taxes.
While looking at the profits of the oil industry, you’re looking at money that was skimmed and could otherwise have been actually used to fund more Global Warming, I mean, Climate Change studies. Or paid out in federal taxes.
While looking at the profits of the beef industry, you’re looking at money that was skimmed or could otherwise been used for something Really Useful, like a shiny new bridge over I-35…wait, weren’t taxes supposed to be used for that?
Where does that “skimmed” money go, BobN? Into the CEO’s mattress? Or back into the bank for yet more fractional-deposit based loans, for that shiny new tinfoil hat you need?