kimmy

While I don't care for videos in discussion threads, I think that embedded videos are appropriate in entertainment-oriented threads, like the "what are you listening to?" thread for example. I would suggest that maybe the "Off-Topic" forums, or at least the "Arts and Culture" forum, continue to allow imbedded videos. -k

Germany's politicians (and our own) are not tasked with attempting to correct political decisions of the past. They are tasked first and foremost with protecting their own citizens. Germany's "the more the merrier" attitude towards bringing in third-world asylum seekers has clearly put the safety of German women at risk. Let's not repeat their mistake. -k

So the women assaulted in Cologne deserved what happened, because of the geopolitics of past decades? -k

I should add, if people read about this incident and their first reaction is "gee, that's terrible for the asylum seekers!" then we have a much bigger problem than Islamophobia to deal with. However, that seems to be what the reaction of German police and German media was to this. Germany's public broadcaster ZDF today apologized for failing to report the story. Cologne's police had initially reported a peaceful and incident-free New Year's Eve and didn't fess up until the story blew up. -k

I've fairly confident that if hundreds of soccer hooligans committed hundreds of sexual assaults in one city on one night we'd have heard about it, but if you could find a cite to indicate such a thing had happened, that might boost your argument. The last time I heard about soccer hooligans, it was a group who forcibly removed a black man from the train they had boarded. They didn't throw him under the tracks, they left him on the platform. Also, they didn't steal his purse and cell phone. Also, they didn't sexually assault him. But they did remove him from the train, and that was international news. -k

Every step of the way, people who questioned the wisdom of bringing in large numbers of people from socially backwards lands have been met with accusations of Islamophobia. And in response to this incident that illustrates the dangers of bringing in large numbers of people from socially backwards lands, the response is "hey man, that's not Islam's fault, its just that these people are from socially backwards lands." This was my complaint all along. -k

The Nickel looks totally FABULOUS at this time of year! -k

He thinks that my name not being on the "Moderating Team" list is discrimination against half-Swedish blondes. It's not intended to be taken seriously. It's just fun. -k

Argus mentioned this in a status update, but I thought this thread would be a pertinent place to discuss it. Hundreds of men described as "Arab or North African" conducted group assaults on women in Cologne Germany on New Year's Eve. Is it really a "phobia" if it's justified? Is it still paranoia if they really are out to get you? When people here have expressed concern about what increasing numbers of Muslims would mean for women and gay people, they've been shouted down with accusations of racism and bigotry. Norway and Denmark are now making the refugees attend mandatory "don't rape people" seminars in response to violence, and now we have these new incidents from Germany. Is it still racism, or is it okay to suggest that maybe there is some justification for the concern? -k

Thanks, WCR. If you're referring to Hyrdaboss's comments in his status update, that was all in good-natured fun. -k

Sounds like complete nonsense, and certainly has nothing to do with microaggressions. (I gather this is now the catch-all "Complain about all things PC" thread?) The idea that college students' virgin ears must be protected from coarse language is hilarious yet shameful. Imagine trying to teach a literature or film course without exposing students to coarse language. Imagine trying to teach an art course without exposing students to sexual material. I guess it could be done, but it would be kind of like teaching a math course where students only get to use odd numbers. -k

It wasn't ignored by the media, because I remember it being discussed here on the forum when it happened. If I recall correctly, the key difference between what happened in the US and what happened in Canada is that in the US the TARP program was (as the name implies) intended to {R}elieve banks of {T}roubled {A}ssets, ie mortgages that weren't worth the paper they were printed on. Whereas in Canada the primary reason for buying mortgages from the banks was to increase banks liquidity to stimulate lending. When I applied for my mortgage, I had to go through a due diligence process that was certainly more rigorous than the comedy routine described by the investigators interviewed for "Inside Job". As well, my mortgage had to be structured in a way as to be eligible for CHMC insurance. I think, contrary to what August claims, these requirements alone show the Canadian system to be more rigorously regulated than its US counterpart. -k

Assimilation isn't about taking children away from their families and sending them to abusive institutions. Assimilation might have been the goal of residential schools, but that doesn't make the two things one and the same. My family comes from Swedish and Ukrainian ancestors. They didn't speak any English when they got here. If they hadn't assimilated, they'd have been nowhere. I'd still be nowhere. I'd be churning butter at a colony in the far north of Alberta. Who better to talk about assimilation than Ujjal Dosanjh, the guy who wrote the op-ed that Argus posted? He didn't speak English when he left India as a teenager. But in Canada, he became a lawyer, an advocate, an MLA, an MP, a Premier, a Cabinet minister, a member of the Privy Council... he's what we can hope for when immigrants arrive in Canada. There can't be many immigrant-does-good stories better than his. And he's living proof of what newcomers can accomplish when they join the mainstream of Canadian society. -k

Several of Clive Bundy's sons are leaders in this Oregon incident. I don't know that "terrorism" is an accurate description. But this would qualify as armed insurrection, would it not? -k

One can't come up with "smart" regulation until one understands the cause of what happened. The mortgage bubble had nothing to do with people wanting to feel "good and just", and everything to do with banks issuing vast numbers of mortgages they knew full-well were going to fail. Only a small portion of subprime mortgages were issued with regard to any government mandated requirement; the vast majority of them were issued voluntarily. The incentive to issue bad mortgages wasn't good feelings and sunny ways. It was greed. They had created a way for them to profit from issuing a mortgage while leaving others holding the risk associated with the mortgage. If you can make money by issuing loans, and there are no consequences to you if the borrowers don't pay you back, then you have no incentive to make sure the loans are prudent, and every incentive to issue as many loans as possible. That's the real cause of the subprime bubble. -k

Where was it established that Canada has less banking regulation than other nations? Based on the discussion BC2004 and Overthere have been having, the opposite seems to be true. Thinking back 10 years, one recalls Canadian banks lobbying for less regulation, and for big mergers so that they could be bigger players internationally. One recalls that the Harper government killed 30 and 35 year mortgages following the 2008 bubble. I don't think there's much to be gained in looking at people in terms of overly broad stereotypes-- "Scandinavians be like this, but Americans be like that"-- and more value in looking at why the basic principles of the free market failed so badly in this instance. But earlier you were complaining that not enough attention was paid to the role of the stripper who bought 5 houses in creating the disaster. Earlier in the thread, assigning blame was an important issue for you. You seem unwilling to consider the point that the financial health of a money lender depends on the prudence of the lender, not on the financial acumen of would-be borrowers. But if what matters is the response and not the cause, then Iceland has responded by prosecuting financial sector criminals and punishing them with lengthy jail terms, and more importantly, installing significant reforms to their financial sector. Iceland's recovery from that debacle is considered one of the success stories in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown. -k

That's correct, D-- uh .. Mr Cheney. -k

My "facilitator" duty is to set a good example for other members. In this case, setting a good example means ignoring such obvious troll bait. Sorry, bro. -k

Thanks! I'm excited to be helping out, Ike. A few points... this will be on a trial basis. I won't even have super-powers. I have been asked by Mike and Charles to help promote good discussion, discourage people from bad behavior, and generally be a snitch and goody two-shoes. I'd like to start the ball rolling on this by inviting everyone to tell us how they spent their Christmas break. Ike, why don't you share first? -k

Fanny and Freddie were not the reason banks were willing to take on risky mortgages. Banks were willing to take on these mortgages because they believed they had discovered a way to reap the rewards while passing the risk along to others. They did this by bundling mortages into "Mortgage Backed Securities", and selling them as investments. An MBS would have provided the bearer with a reliable source of interest income from mortgage payments. Initially hedge fund managers and pension funds thought they were great. Unfortunately, if you have discovered a way to spin straw into gold, you're going to need an awful lot of straw. They just needed mortgages to turn into MBSs. It simply didn't matter to them whether the people they were lending to had any ability to pay them. They wanted to give a mortgage to "anybody who can fog a mirror." That's the funny part here. August complains about the financial irresponsibility of the fictional stripper who bought 5 houses as being the root cause. Who lent her that money? Companies like Countrywide gave her that money. They WANTED her to have a mortgage. They advertised on TV for her to come apply for a mortgage. If you turned on your TV to watch an NFL game 10 years ago, you saw ads showing happy people walking into their new homes. "You CAN afford a home." "It's more affordable than you think!" "Your dreams can come true!" The movie "Inside Job" had numerous interviews with investigators hired by mortgage originators to review applications. They were flown to hotels, and set them up in the conference room. They brought in box loads of mortgage applications for them to review. They went through stacks of applications. And at the end of the day, their group leader gets a call from his manager who says "I don't understand why you're rejecting so many applications. I want you guys to go back through the ones you've rejected and see if there are any more we can accept." So they go back and review their rejected applications and accept a few more. And they get another phone call that says "guys, you're still rejecting too many applications." So they go back and look through the rejects and accept a few more. And they get another phone call that says "I don't know what I have to do to get through to you people. Stop rejecting applications." So it turned into a big game. They brought in pizza and beer and approved everything. "Hey guys! I have one here from a waitress who says she makes $120,000 a year!" "HAHA! Sounds legit to me!" "Approved!" And once originators like Countrywide had a big pile of mortgages to sell, they would sell them to a securitizer. The securitizer would assemble the mortgages into lots. Each lot would have some legit mortgages in them, but be liberally padded out with risky mortgages. Emails subpoenaed from Morgan Stanley reveal that they gave these lots affectionate codenames like "Nuclear Holocaust", "Subprime Meltdown", "Shitbag", "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out", and "Hitman". And the securitizer would sell these ticking time-bombs to investors, aided and abetted by ratings agencies like Moodies and S&P who were strong-armed by their most significant customers into giving AAA ratings to securities they knew full well were crap. In the short term, shoddy originators like Countrywide were rewarded for deliberately reckless behavior, as were securitizers like Lehman Brothers. Of course, Countrywide and Lehman Brothers were ultimately destroyed by their risky strategies, once investors started to wise up and stop buying MBSs. Did you see Dick Fuld telling the Senate committee how bad he felt that Lehman Brothers was destroyed under his watch? Dick pocketed over $400 million of salary and performance bonuses in the years leading up to Lehman Brothers demise. Think he was really all that heartbroken? A market needs regulation. And financial derivatives-- the mechanisms that enabled mortgage originators and securitizers to shift the risk to unwitting suckers-- were and are completely unregulated. Alan Greenspan steadfastly opposed regulation of derivatives, and he believed that "reputational risk" would be all that was required to ensure that financial institutions behaved in the best interest of the system as a whole. I think it's clear that Greenspan failed to consider that if you can pocket $400 million in a few years by behaving recklessly, you really don't need to concern yourself with your reputation afterwards. The long-term health of the financial system was of no concern when there was so much money to be made in the short term. There's clearly a need for more regulation, not less. In particular, a system that lets a player take outrageous, foolhardy risks with no consequence to himself is in need of change. -k

I think what you were saying was clear and well-said. I agree wholeheartedly. -k

I first heard the phrase "Uncanny Valley" in a movie review of "Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles" by Eli Glasner. Glasner felt that the titular Turtles were neither realistic enough to be believable, nor unrealistic enough to put the viewer at ease. Instead, Glasner felt that the Turtles fell into a troubling Twilight Zone of perception, where the viewers instincts perceive that something is "off", putting the viewer in a sense of elevated anxiety as they sense a trick or trap. The movie "Polar Express" is another movie that has been described as falling into the Uncanny Valley. I imagine the CGI "Beowolf" movie of a few years ago is another. The phrase "Uncanny Valley" was coined some time ago, by a Japanese roboticist. Google the term and you get this explanation: This helpful image illustrates Masahiro Moti's graph. Which brings us to Nadine the robot. Nadine is envisioned as sort of a robotic companion, a Siri or Cortana that you can interact with as if it were a real person instead of a phone. Unfortunately, the results are blood-curdling. Nadine perfectly illustrates the concept that Moti described some 40 years ago. -k

Only in the sense that their actions are impossible to spin in a positive way. You seem unhappy that the financial sector has been portrayed in a negative life for their role in the disaster of 2008. But there's simply no other light that they could be portrayed in. You can't put lipstick on that pig. If you want a movie about a capitalist with a heart of gold, maybe go rent Pretty Woman or something. How did she get the money to buy 5 houses and a condo? Did she go into the bank armed with a gun or a bomb? Or did she go into the bank with a pen and sign papers that they prepared for her? -k

What a ridiculous analogy. Getting a mortgage is not remotely comparable to shoplifting. You can't shoplift a mortgage. Banks didn't leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the shelf next to the exit. They advertised heavily to get these "shoplifters" to come apply for mortgages. The part that Shady gets wrong, and that you clearly don't get at all, is that the mortgage lenders had the option of saying "No" to people who they knew were unlikely to pay back their mortgages. They chose to say "Yes" to "Anybody who can fog a mirror", because they had a strategy to pass along the financial risk to suckers further along the line. And it worked, until the suckers started wising up and stopped buying these "securities" from the banks. -k