posted
I'm a little confused, mal: what is that article supposed to prove, from your POV? I'm looking for an intersection between it and any of the other arguments you've been making, and I can't find any.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Fannie/Freddi govt created. Pushed by govt to give crappy loans >40% of all American home loans First to collapse causing this whole mess Did you see the Millions in fines for them cooking their books under Emanuel's watch? Fined for political funding for Emanuel and other D's. Full of corrupt Democrats Obama's Right hand man, must be nice to get an appointment to do nothing and make $320,000 as a political payoff.
The gov't caused our economic problem. They lowered lending standards. Forced Fannie/Freddie to package up these "toxic loans". Government concern and intervention in the home mortgage market caused the economic collapse. Zero down, etc, etc. Fannie and Freddie are long time Democrat political payoff places. Bleading heart policies lead to this problem and now the same idiots who caused it want you to blame "the banks". It was "their bank" the keystone for the whole economic collapse. AIG insured other companies from loss but the loss wasn't their fault.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Mal, where are you drawing those conclusions from the article? Take 'em one at a time if you have to.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Count me in on the people who want to know where what you're saying (what I can translate of it, anyway) follows from what you're presenting.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
One of the resources I found incredibly helpful in understanding what caused the financial crisis is a This American Life episode called "The Giant Pool of Money." I highly recommend it. "Another Scary Show About the Economy" is also great. It explains the freezing of the credit market and why government intervention was necessary.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I think I'm more comfortable saying uneven regulation combined with greed and a get rich quick mentality caused our current mess.
The government is by no means blameless, but I'm not sure you can really point your finger at them and say they're the guys who done it.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
Ever lowing interest rates drove the housing bubble. The economy was flourishing under a bubble being fed by the Fed lowing interest rates to record lows.
Record home sales and the govt intervened. Remember Red Lining? Lower lending standards pressed on banks, especially Fannie/Freddie which baught up the zero down high risk loans and eventually held 40% of the countries mortgages.
Fannie/Freddie, govt created banks, dual regulated by govt and civilians, Emanuel one of them, collapsed. The intent of the loans was good. Get poor people into houses, etc but when a bank collapses that holds 40% of American mortgages, there are serious reprocusions. Fannie and Freddie had been repeatedly fined for cooking books and the boards were chaired by polital appointees.
Barny Frank was warned by Bush administration in 2003. He denied there were problems and insisted that more stringent regulations would only decrease the homepurchasing ability of poor people.
They collapse causing chain reaction of collapses.
Bubble, govt created. Bank, govt created. Deregulated lending standards, best intentions but no private bank would give those loans until Fan/Fred were directed to bundle them up.
Greed at all levels, govt and private but govt interference in private sector lending practices and pushing the prime rate down caused it.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
Malanthrop, you said: "The economy was flourishing under a bubble being fed by the Fed lowing interest rates to record lows." You mean to say you are blaming Alan Greenspan?
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Obama's Right hand man, must be nice to get an appointment to do nothing and make $320,000 as a political payoff.
Chief of Staff's Office is to the left of the oval.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Yes. Republicans were definitely complicit. We need more conservatives. Lower interest rates alone didn't cause the problem. Deregulation of lending standards by the government along with the low interest rates caused it. Without the zero down loans pushed by gov, lowered interest rates alone would've only meant even better deals for the rich. Republicans, Dems, Banks all complicit. I look at it like the fire triangle, Heat, Air, Fuel. Take away one and the fire stops. The govt isn't alone in blame but I hold them more responsible. They created the environment. Maybe the greatest example of govt good intentions gone bad. Keep lowing rates to stimulate the economy. Lower lending standards (income, savings, down payment) so the poor can get into a house. You can't deny the house buying craze this created. The flippers took advantage of this as well. Home ownership is not a right for everyone regardless of income. Sorry to say, some people should be renters.
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Obama's Right hand man, must be nice to get an appointment to do nothing and make $320,000 as a political payoff.
Chief of Staff's Office is to the left of the oval.
Actually I thought I saw a layout of the Oval that had Rahm's office down the hall from Obama rather than attached to it like in The West Wing.
I'm just barely curious enough to check up on that and get back to you.
By the way, scroll down the page about halfway for a much younger picture of former Chiefs of Staff Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney (didn't know that about either of them). Cheney by the way looks just as creepy in his younger form as he does today.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
In the Bush white house, when leaving the oval office, the chief of staff's office was to your left. (Number 13)
I use that point of reference because it would stand to reason that the President faces the door in the Oval Office, so by that orientation it would still be to the left.
(You're right that it's not like the West Wing where they have the offices connected, but I was still referring to the real white house where going to your right would lead to the cabinet room. )
ETA: I am quite well acquainted with how Dick Cheney looked when he was younger. I have a friend who insists that I look a lot like him. Because of this, I took it on myself to find enough discrepancies between how I look and how Cheney does/did. In wasn't fun mapping out Cheney's face, I can assure you. (If you're curious, the photo we used in our argument was this one.)
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Maybe the phrase "Right hand man" is offensive to left handed people.
What if it's a female and you're lefthanded? It would only be appropriate to refer to her as you "left hand woman"
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posted
I wonder if sitting at the right hand really has anything to do with right handedness or if it's just a fluke?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Of course, being left-handed is sinister. Says so in the dictionary. Our current president is sinister.
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posted
Also, I believe the French word for left-handed is gauche. Too bad that in English the word means clumsy or crude or tactless.
And the favorite comeback of lefties is to note that because the human brain is cross-wired, so the right part of the brain controls the left side of the body, and vise versa, lefties are always in their right minds. (So they say.)
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Sorry, I thought you were joking. Are you seriously putting forth as a legitimate political argument the superstitions surrounding the left-handed?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Of course not, Teshi! Didn't you note my smilie above?
I'm just surprised that so few people have commented thus far on the fact that Pres. Obama is left-handed. It is somewhat unusual, since only about 1/10 of the population is leftie.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
We've actually had a lot of lefty presidents. Clinton, H.W. Bush, Reagen, Truman, Ford and others were lefties as well.
Posts: 1831 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Ron: Six out of eight members of my family are lefty, I'm pretty certain that left or right handedness has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with environment. I think many children arbitrarily pick a hand or copy what they see their parents/teachers do during the crucial time where learning to write takes place.
Were we to place a stigma on right handedness and encourage lefties I am fairly certain we could see 90% left handedness and 10% right handedness.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
There is a lot of evidence that left-handedness is due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and neither one alone.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by rivka: There is a lot of evidence that left-handedness is due to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, and neither one alone.
*fires up the google machine*
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
What about LRRTM1? Left handed people tend to have one variation of that gene at a higher percentage then right handed people.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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One hypothesis I've heard that there is a dominant gene for right-handedness and a recessive one for ambidexterity. If roughly half the ambidextrous population "chooses" left-handedness, this yields a rough estimate of 12.5% of the population, which is close to the actual figure.
posted
I'm still reading, but it seems that writing may not be a good indicator for "left" or "right" handedness. Quite a few people write with one hand while doing virtually everything else with the other. I'm one of these people as a matter of coincidence.
I would still like to see if any experiments have been done where they attempted to influence a group of children into doing things left handed. I think that if there was a concerted effort that we could heavily influence a persons preference.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I know of a couple of people whose parents forced them to be right-handed, but none the other way around.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I know parents who have joked about forcing the kids to be left handed, based on some research that left handed folks are richer and smarter. They never actually did it, but lots of jokes.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
It was not uncommon in the 50s and 60s for parents (and others) to strongly encourage (i.e., force) lefties to become righties. IIRC, the frequent side effects were bed-wetting and other signs of psychological trauma -- even when it worked.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
My friend from elementary school was rather sternly forced to write with his right hand. He always, always struggled with it. He's kinda dyslexic now and has never mastered proficiency of reading and writing. He can read, slowly. He can 'write,' but can't spell worth a damn.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
That evokes the old question of nature vs. nurture. Most counsellors today recommend letting the kids determine their own handedness, without any pressure at all.
My father was unquestionably left-handed. He played on the Army All-Star baseball team as a left-handed catcher. My brothers and I always were amused and a little perplexed by his left-handed catcher's mit. I and my three brothers and my sister are all right-handed. My mother said they never applied any pressure on us to choose one hand over the other. They said for a while they thought I might be left-handed, because I used my left hand for so many things, like opening doors. But I turned out to be right-handed when it came to writing and throwing. I did try to teach myself to throw a baseball left-handed, thinking I might be ambidextrous. I could do so fairly accurately, but I was never as good that way as I was right-handed. Of course, since I was in the habit of using my right arm most of the time, my right arm was stronger.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
One of my parents is a lefty. I always forget which one. Two (I think) of my four sibs are lefties (I'm a righty). My ex is a lefty, and one of my three kids is a lefty.
All of which would be consistent with left-handedness being a recessive gene (and me a carrier, just like whichever of my parents is a righty). However, there are righties with two lefty parents . . .
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I was sent to a Catholic school in grade 2 where I sat next to a lefty. The nuns strictly enforced a right hand only policy. If they caught him using his left hand for anything he got a ruler across the knuckles. They would walk up behind him quietly if he started using his left hand and bring the ruler down without mercy. I would desperately want to warn him but kept silent out of fear. The poor kid was too afraid of the nuns to even ask if he could go to the bathroom so he often lost control and peed himself. He would sit there quietly crying until the nuns noticed the mess he made. His punishment, of course, was another vicious ruler.
Posts: 675 | Registered: Aug 2001
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My daughter is a lefty. Her younger brother tried to be one but it didn't work out. He really wanted to be like his sister. In his case, it wasn't an option really.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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posted
My daughter is left handed. Her little brother tried desperately for a time to be just like her. Didn't work out. In his case, being right handed wasn't really an option.
Posts: 1495 | Registered: Mar 2009
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I'm still reading, but it seems that writing may not be a good indicator for "left" or "right" handedness. Quite a few people write with one hand while doing virtually everything else with the other. I'm one of these people as a matter of coincidence.
I would still like to see if any experiments have been done where they attempted to influence a group of children into doing things left handed. I think that if there was a concerted effort that we could heavily influence a persons preference.
I am right eye dominate, and I use to shoot a bow left handed, well enough to win competitions when I was a kid. I also still shoot pool left handed, and I use to bowl left handed.
I write right handed, and I now shoot a bow and bowl right handed (when I try to do either).
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Kwea, you sound like you may actually be ambidextrous. You could have chosen, or been encouraged, to choose left- or right-handedness, and it probably would not have had a seriously harmful effect on you, either way.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:Originally posted by orlox: I was sent to a Catholic school in grade 2 where I sat next to a lefty. The nuns strictly enforced a right hand only policy. If they caught him using his left hand for anything he got a ruler across the knuckles. They would walk up behind him quietly if he started using his left hand and bring the ruler down without mercy. I would desperately want to warn him but kept silent out of fear. The poor kid was too afraid of the nuns to even ask if he could go to the bathroom so he often lost control and peed himself. He would sit there quietly crying until the nuns noticed the mess he made. His punishment, of course, was another vicious ruler.
posted
It's fun to try and write your name with your non-dominant hand. It makes me feel like I'm in kindergarten again.
Posts: 1711 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Kwea, you sound like you may actually be ambidextrous. You could have chosen, or been encouraged, to choose left- or right-handedness, and it probably would not have had a seriously harmful effect on you, either way.
My understanding, although it may be flawed, is that people who are actually ambidextrous can do things equally as well with both hands. I can't, even with things that I haven't trained myself on yet. I have thought of that....and I think I would have chosen being right handed eventually. However, my handwriting is horrible at least in part because I took so long to decide as a child. Initially my teachers tried to let me decide, but after a year or two with no noticeable improvement with either hand, they made me right handed.
I think over all I am better right handed at most things, but I suspect that like a lot of people there is a sliding scale with these types of things. I know that I haven't spend half as much time learning to shoot a bow with my right hand, but I am almost as good as I was as a child. I think my potential to do things is higher right handed, but in some things my comfort level is better left handed.
I use to shoot pool really well.....I gave lessons and everything.....and while I CAN shoot a little right handed, I am far better left handed. While the eye dominance is a factor, it simply would take me too long to retrain myself, and there is no guarantee I'd ever regain the skill I already have left handed.
And I tried shooting a rifle left handed, and it was horrible. My right eye dominance was really evident, and I couldn't hit a thing.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I'm fairly similar Kwea. I write left handed, but I throw balls right handed. I used to be able to bat either way, which was fantastic when playing in little league (I prefer right handed now). I can still use scissors in either hand but I slightly favor the right. My right hand is more dexterous than my left when I play piano, I also shoot right handed.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Shooting a rifle requires spatial perception, and if I remember right, that function is centered in the left hemisphere of the brain, which because of cross-wiring, controls the right side of the body. Though I am not sure if that includes the right eye, which you aim with (sighting down the rifle barrel), when shooting right-handed. Or maybe I've got that wrong, the right hemisphere controls the right eye, and the spacial perception function is centered in the right hemisphere.
Where's the user's manual--?
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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