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Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#57326: Jun 29th 2013 at 12:06:11 PM

So called moderate Chris Christie says he would veto the gay marriage bill and that the people should decide. (cause that goes over SO well >_>)

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/politics&id=9153829

Primary season is getting earlier and earlier.

edited 29th Jun '13 12:06:53 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#57327: Jun 29th 2013 at 12:19:41 PM

I would say the same, Sil. I mean, last month, Mr John Mc Cain - I don't think anyone's heard of this guy before - said that the US should declare war on Hong Kong to find Snowden.

Now, it may be a coincidence that the people who support that idea are the Republican base, but I'm just making irrelevant liberal links.

nightwyrm_zero Since: Apr, 2010
#57328: Jun 29th 2013 at 12:51:29 PM

[up]He does know that Hong Kong belongs to China, right...

Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#57329: Jun 29th 2013 at 12:54:20 PM

I asked myself the same question.

Pykrete NOT THE BEES from Viridian Forest Since: Sep, 2009
NOT THE BEES
#57330: Jun 29th 2013 at 1:08:18 PM

Well, Private Eye called the Financial Services Authority the "Fundamentally Supine Authority" for decades...and, in 2007-8, all the banks went tits-up and we had to nationalize them, at great cost to the taxpayer. Draw your own conclusions.

Still sounds better than ours. When our banks went tits-up we threw money at them at great cost to the taxpayer without nationalizing them and let them keep doing stupid stuff, and it's not unheard of for our regulatory policy to be physically written by the companies they're supposed to police and passed nearly verbatim.

Your agency might be toothless, but at least it still has a goddamn jawbone.

edited 29th Jun '13 1:13:15 PM by Pykrete

Inhopelessguy Since: Apr, 2011
#57331: Jun 29th 2013 at 1:16:18 PM

Oh, the exact same thing happens here. The "laws being written by the institutions they're supposed to curtain".

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#57332: Jun 29th 2013 at 1:17:51 PM

O we didn't nationalise them properly, the government owns large chunks of several banks but does not expert control via the shares it owns. I think all the government's shares are the non voting kind or something.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#57333: Jun 29th 2013 at 1:27:19 PM

@Pykrete

Well, I don't know about the American situation, but Private Eye does often note that the American regulator is much more tenacious than ours. The big difference is that America has massive alternative industries...whilst Britain does not - financial services are like our biggest thing.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
GlennMagusHarvey Since: Jan, 2001
#57334: Jun 29th 2013 at 3:18:08 PM

Re rolling blackouts: the silver lining of this is that it would be a frequent reminder that electricity supply does not come for free.

Re Louisiana 1964 literacy test: what the FUQ

Re chalk: My school explicitly only allows chalking on the sidewalk to advertise student events, specifically because it washes right off.

Re Chik-Fil-A: Well, perhaps it's a good thing that I haven't yet patronized their branch on campus.


... Wait, the Government loans money to students for university and charges six-point-eight percent interest?
I was here.

Okay, so let me have this straight. If you go to a university (does it matter what kind? Are the Ivy League covered? Is a State University covered) and you can't afford it, you take out a Student Loan from the Government. The Government guarantee your loan for your time as an undergraduate, and then make you pay back that loan plus 6.8% interest?

I don't know what the rules are currently, but a few years ago, these were the answers to your questions:

  • Any accredited university is covered. So pretty much any place you can name, unless for whatever strange reason it might be seedy (such as some questionable for-profit place or one with questionable religious affiliations, I think).
  • You can take out the money for tuition and other related expenses, including books and room and board.
  • For the first $5000 each year, there's a Perkins Loan program wherein you just borrow that from the federal government directly, and they wouldn't even charge you interest until a while after you left school. If you wait longer than that, they start charging interest at 5%.
  • For the next $20,500 or so each year, there's that 6.8% interest rate, called the Stafford Loan program. These are borrowed from a bank but backed up by the federal government. Roughly $12000 or so of this amount could be counted as "subsidized", wherein the federal government would pay the interest on your loan until a (somewhat shorter) while after you graduate (or leave school for whatever other reason). However, anything beyond the first $12000 would be "unsubsidized" and the interest would accrue on it, day by day, over the course of your education. Also, the Stafford Loan has loan origination fees that the Perkins Loan doesn't have. This "subsidized" program would end sometime early in the Great Recession.
  • Past $20500, you could still borrow money from private lenders through a government-backed, fixed-interest-rate loan, but this would be the PLUS Loan program, which charged 8.5% interest. And was completely unsubisidized, so they'd be counting interest on it from day one.
  • As long as you're still in school, or if you leave and come back to school later, you don't have to pay your student loan bills (which are normally paid monthly). However, this doesn't mean that interest doesn't accrue on the money you borrowed; it just means that they don't come after you if you don't pay them. You still owe them more and more money, by the day.

The above numbers are for graduate students, the numbers are probably different for undergrads (i.e. students who have not yet received a bachelor's degree).

FWIW, interest is simple interest, though probably compounded by the month or year if you leave it alone long enough, but the basic formula during each month (at least) is simply taking 1/365th of your interest rate (so dividing 0.068 by 365, for example) and then multiplying that by your total loan amount. So basically, the amount you owe them goes up by about a few dollars every day for every $30K or $40K you've borrowed in total. If you like arithmetic you can even imagine the money ticking upward by the minute.

At some point early in Obama's first term, Stafford and PLUS loans were bought back by the federal government, from private lenders. I don't know the details about this, but I just know I had to pay a loan servicing company instead of the bank I borrowed them from.

In short, basically, student loans are designed less for student benefit and more so the lending agencies involved make a fuckton of guaranteed repayment
Yep.

[quote]A serious student-loan fix would change this incentive. First, federal aid could be capped, perhaps at a national average, or simply indexed to the consumer-price index, making it harder for schools to raise tuition willy-nilly. Second, schools that receive subsidized loan money could be left on the hook for a percentage of the loan balance if students default. I would favor allowing students who can't pay to discharge their loan balances in bankruptcy after a reasonable time—say, five to seven years, maybe even 10—with the institutions that got the money being liable to the guarantors (i.e., the taxpayers) for, say, 10% or 20% of the balance. [/quote]

The first idea would just be seen as further limiting the aid students get. Because it would be, frankly.

The second idea would just push schools toward accepting wealthier students who are more able to pay back their loans. Which is not what we want either.

Keep in mind, as much as we wanna villainize colleges as the sole enemy, remember at least some monetary issues also come from tiny problems like the need to update tech on campus constantly (the graphic design dept at my school literally has to keep their macs at best 1-2 years out of date at most or else lose some of their national accreditations from national design firms) to keep up and how many states are conveniently cutting educational funding at every turn.
Which seems like a problem originating from tech companies, actually.

Though if you're talking about disgusting keyboards on public-use computers, there's also people not wisely using stuff they get for free.


Re Christie and gay marriage: That's a win-win for him. As a Republican he can try to wash his hands as clean as possible of the issue, and he'll also produce the politically desired result from the populace.

Re Hong Kong: Well, it is a "special administrative region" in China, and thus has a relatively higher degree of self-governance, and even sends in its own Olympic team. That said, if one were to declare war on it, I presume that it would be counted as a part of China.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57335: Jun 29th 2013 at 4:21:26 PM

Well this is interesting. Obama isn't communist enough for the communist party of South Africa, imagine that.tongue

Linhasxoc Since: Jun, 2009
#57336: Jun 29th 2013 at 4:36:06 PM

@Glenn Magus Harvey:

No, it doesn't work like that. As I mentioned above, Stafford Loans are the standard, first $5K-$7K loans that everyone can get for 6.8% interest. Depending on your family's income, part of it may be subsidized. They used to go through financial institutions but now all go directly through the Department of Education. Perkins loans are additional loans you can qualify for if you have enough financial need. I don't know how they work exactly, as I never qualified for them (despite having ~$70,000 in loan debt!). I think you need to qualify for a Pell Grant.

PLUS loans are additional loans you can get through the Department of Education. Private loans are something entirely different. PLUS loans are for graduate students, or parents borrowing money on behalf of their dependent children. They are never subsidized and require a credit check, but unlike many private loans payment can be deferred while the student is still in college. The interest rate is also a little higher,I think.

GlennMagusHarvey Since: Jan, 2001
#57337: Jun 29th 2013 at 5:04:09 PM

Well that's what it was when I got loans, which as I noted was a few years back. And there may be a few other things you need to qualify for, but I am not sure of the details. All I know for sure was that I was able to get Perkins but that was far too little to cover my total financial needs — which for me was just tuition because I am very thankful I had help from my parents to cover the other costs.

Also, I made a slight mistake; checking against my own timelines, I think the Dept of Ed buyback of loans was late, not early, in Obama's 1st term.

I know the decision to just do loans directly from the Dept of Ed is one of the cost-saving measures that the Obama administration enacted.

edited 29th Jun '13 5:20:12 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#57338: Jun 29th 2013 at 5:52:50 PM

@Inhope: Yes, colleges host job fairs. That's not the same thing as garanteeing a job, though. It's simply providing an opportunity, as none of those people there are obligated or garaunteed to hire everyone who applies.

AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#57340: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:06:15 PM

Isn't that trying to get the Court to reverse the decision they just made? Somehow I think the same people who just decided one thing would change their minds so quickly.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57341: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:15:19 PM

Why does it matter when it happens? It's going to happen anyway now that they made their decision.

edited 29th Jun '13 6:15:35 PM by Kostya

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#57342: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:19:03 PM

[up]

I suppose they figure theres a longshot they can tie up the date as long as humanly possible until they can get someone in office to legislate on the uppity gays

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57343: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:22:33 PM

Legislate what? Gay marriage is legal now in California. Anything they do will be overturned based on the ruling the court just made.

edit: I really wish people would stop fighting this. It's going to happen no matter what they do. Right now they're just wasting money and energy fighting a losing battle that only damages their reputation more.

edited 29th Jun '13 6:27:29 PM by Kostya

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#57344: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:24:46 PM

[up]You and your damned liberal sympathizing satanic logic. Obviously all they have to do is find someone willing to do it anyways. For the good of miorals everywhere.

(Translation: I think this has more to do with hateful people making a desperate final attempt to stamp down on the gays once and for all before its "too late" than that hey have any serious legal power)

and to be fair. the reason they keep fighting is a good deal of the opposition really does believe gay marriage is some sort of pandora's box that will lead to the nation being consumed in darkness and sin.

edited 29th Jun '13 6:25:32 PM by midgetsnowman

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57345: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:29:58 PM

[up]Like I said, stamp down by doing what? Even they must realize that they can't do anything that wouldn't be overturned immediately based on the ruling that just happened.

I don't care if they're sincere. Canada enacted it almost a decade ago and they haven't been wiped off the face of the Earth.

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#57346: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:30:52 PM

I dont think most of them understand legalese well enough to understand that. or that they think there really is enough of a silent majority to get an amendment done

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57347: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:32:39 PM

The people are lawyers. They should know they don't have any legal standing.

The two most recent polls in this article both have the pro-marriage side at about 20% ahead of the anti. They're delusional if they think they'd win.

edited 29th Jun '13 6:36:18 PM by Kostya

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#57348: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:33:12 PM

But there might be votes to be gained for potential political careers.

Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#57349: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:38:46 PM

I have a feeling the good will they'd get from the opponents would be quickly erased by the losses they'd suffer among young people. You can't just ignore 2/3rds of young people being against you, especially not when you're already having trouble getting their support.

edit: They'd also be losing out on Independents which is something else they desperately need.

edit 2: Although for some reason blacks are less in favor of it than whites. That's surprising but I doubt this will sway many to the Republican side.

edited 29th Jun '13 6:42:01 PM by Kostya

midgetsnowman Since: Jan, 2010
#57350: Jun 29th 2013 at 6:42:25 PM

Its because blacks on average tend to be far more likely to attend church than white people.


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