Carper and Coons Give a Big Thumbs Up to TBTF

Carper and Coons Give a Big Thumbs Up to TBTF

And a big thumbs up to letting banks put the money in deposit accounts in the same kind of risky bets that their investment accounts are in. I can't say that I'm too surprised at this -- banks do own the road here -- but I'm still appalled at this position. It is a position that is ONLY good for banks -- the rest of us with deposit accounts (and who pay taxes) are definitely the losers here. Because the point of a Glass-Steagall 2 is to separate the deposit accounts (the only part of the banking business explicitly guaranteed by the feds), from the investment business (which is not insured). The point of Glass-Steagall 2 is to dismantle one more part of the TBTF scheme -- specifically the part where banks get to privatize their profits and get to socialize their losses. Until taxpayers get a say in the risks (and get a cut of the benefits) of the TBTF business, taxpayers should not backstop what the banks do here.

Monday Open Thread [7.22.13]

You've probably heard that Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight are leaving the NYT and going to ESPN/ABC. This deal will give him a chance to expand his franchise, it seems, but I just care about the political modeling, really. I'll maintain a subscription to the NYT for his work, but won't be getting cable to keep up with it, so do hope that the website is still the centerpiece of his work. TPM quotes Political (of all people) on why Nate left:
The Open Thread for Saturday, July 20, 2013

The Open Thread for Saturday, July 20, 2013

Christine O'Donnell wanted her name back in the news, because, you just know she is going to run again. She is, a month or so too late in my opinion, trying to latch on to the IRS non-scandal by claiming that her federal tax filings were somehow improperly accessed by Delaware Revenue officials.
State revenue director Patrick Carter said Friday that he spoke to a Treasury Department official in December about a state investigator's access of federal tax records in March 2010. Carter described the incident as routine, and that state officials do not believe there was any impropriety.
Carter said the tax records in question were reviewed around March 20, 2010, which is when the News Journal published an article about O'Donnell's financial problems. State tax auditor David Smith was the official who accessed the records, Carter said. I would tend to speculate that the tax auditor reviewed O'Donnell's returns to see if she filed a false or incorrect return in light of the news of her financial difficulties, which is what a tax auditor should do, in my opinion. But watch O'Donnell use this as a springboard to a new candidacy in 2014.
Charlie Copeland is going to get a new job today.

Charlie Copeland is going to get a new job today.

The state GOP is holding their special convention today, during which they will elect their new State Party Chairman. Former Chairman John Sigler resigned back in May, and the newly elected vice Chair, Nelly Jordan, a Sussex County tea party activist, took over as Acting Chairman. However, she has had some trouble fundraising and is not running in her own right for a full term. She has instead endorsed the only candidate for Chairman, former State Senator and du Pont heir Charlie Lamont Copeland. So really, today is more of a coronation than an election, but whatever. Copeland is viewed by others in the party as the ideal candidate to heal the civil war within the party between the Northern establishment business Republicans and the Southern radical tea party Republicans. And that is because Charlie embraced the tea party in 2010 while still having the literal bloodlines of the establishment.
“I think the rumors of the death of the Republican Party in Delaware have been wildly exaggerated,” [Copeland] said. “The myth is that there’s a big difference between Greenwood and Greenville.”
I guess he forgets the 2010 U.S. Senate Republican Primary. I guess he forgets Booth v. Bodenweiser. Rollins v. Urquhart. Copeland is your typical Republican. He doesn't like the facts, so he pretends that the facts and the reality are myths. But Copeland is pledging to do something that is sure to cause further division in his party....

In case you missed this yesterday….

Aside from the President's 2008 campaign speech on race, needed after his controversial pastor Rev. Wright's remarks came to light, President Obama has mostly strayed away from discussing race and racism in office. Part of that reluctance is due to the fact that since a lot of the opposition to him and his policies was due to his race, and he did not want to turn his administration into a black v. white debate. (And if you think some of the opposition to the President during his first term was not racially-based, then ask yourself why the Tea Party did not exist during President Bush's term, since the very same spending, debt and deficits occurred on a much larger scale during Bush's term, and ask yourself why did they need to make racial jokes, and ask yourself why they call him a nigg*r, and ask yourself why they call him a Muslim Socialist instead of just a socialist. If you deny that racism is at least part of the reason some people oppose the President, then you are a stone cold idiot who should be prevented from operating heavy machinery). Anyway, the President is uniquely qualified and right to speak about racism that African Americans experience, because he is the first President to have experienced it. And he should speak. Because we all need to think about this central question: if Trayvon Martin was white, would George Zimmerman ever call 911? Would he ever had got out of the car?
The Open Thread for Friday, July 19, 2013

The Open Thread for Friday, July 19, 2013

GQ's profile of Delaware's own Vice President Joe Biden is a must read. The interview in the profile took place as Biden is taking the columnist through all his childhood haunts in Brandywine Hundred and Wilmington. Here are a couple of the most touching parts:
"Keep going straight here," Joe Biden says. We've been at this for hours, climbing in and out of the SUV to look at stuff, a water tower, a stone wall, the house where the most beautiful girl in the world lived, hoagies, Herman the German's gas station, Meyers-eats-tires tire shop, the house where another most beautiful girl in the world lived, and he's holding up better than the rest of us. He never winces, has no achy knees, no lower-back anything, neck, joints; for the guy rockin' the Ray-Ban aviators, 70 is the new 60. "Wait, there's Little Italy down there," he says, peering out the window. "A lot of great Italian restaurants. If there's anybody down there who doesn't vote for me, I haven't found them yet. But I will. I will. "Okay, in the interest of time, we'll stop here. Let's get out here." It's his old street. His house. Small white brick. Black shutters. Cement path. A perfectly average 1950s American neighborhood in Wilmington, Delaware, now with a motorcade parked along Wilson Road and Secret Service guys swarming and the vice president of the United States wandering, leading fast. "Hi there," he says to a guy with a leaf blower. "I lived here for twenty years. Mack? Hey, Mack. I'm Joe. You're living in a house a guy named Kenny Horn used to live in. Kenny Horn. "Okay, the driveway, watch yourself. So this is the house. That was my bedroom. I lived there with my brothers Jimmy, Frankie, and my Uncle Ed. One bureau, four drawers, everybody got a drawer. My sister, the princess Valerie, had her own room. Which was ten by twelve. But she deserved it. And my dad took great pride in having that barbecue pit." He circles the house, heads to the back door. "I wish I knew who lived here, because I would show you my room."
Can you imagine coming home and seeing the Vice President peering through your windows? Or how about if you are a neighbor? I love it. You might lampoon him for stuff like this, but I think it is stuff like this that makes him so real, so genuine. Come in for more...