Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Case and Point:

If you go to Drudge right now -

Amount of stories on IRS and AP wiretapping: 17
Amount of stories on Benghazi: 0

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

There is legislation out there now to change the procedure for a red light camera ticket from normal court hearing to a type of mediation where you don't get an actual judge.

I need to get some more info out on that and get some letters written.

Until you get pulled over for something else, like speeding, and they find out you have a bench warrant for unpaid red light camera tickets.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

this guy right here:

How to Beat a Photo-Enforced Speeding Ticket (or Red Light Ticket) | Cop Block



Not in OH:
Ohio Appeals Court Forbids Traffic Stop Over Unpaid Parking Tickets

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Tired of spun charts and postulates parading as facts.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Braineack - Thanks for the link to the news channel story. I'll try to gather up some of the legistlator's info when I have time. I saw there was an update from the original story that had a number of lawmakers saying they were looking in to it and even one who had already tried to start legislation to make FL revert to Federal standards.


I don't even know what that means. The investment bank that put out the research white paper I mentioned was almost surely a net financial supporter of Romney. More over, I can assure you that the chief economist - who I have spoken to personally on a number of occassions - is not an ardent leftist with some sort of agenda to skew the numbers.

Furthermore, the data is all publically available. That graph I put up you can go and recreate yourself.

Here's some more data that you can ignore:

Congressional Budget Office Updated Budget Projections: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023

I generally don't put a ton of stock in to projections more than a year out from the CBO because they tend to assume relatively static trends (i.e. that trees grow to space). However, this is significant:
They are projecting a fiscal deficit of 2.1% of GDP for fiscal year 2014. I think that's overly optimistic if we get some economic slowdown, but 4-6% seems perfectly reasonable with my assumptions.


All those people selling fear and boom, doom and gloom - telling you to buy gold and silver - and saying that the end of American glory has come, that Obama's welfare state based deficits would grow exponentially forever until hyperinflation crushed the US dollar into dust...

They might be good story tellers, but they are shitty money managers if they are talking their actual book. Too many people living exclusively on the right side of this diagram:

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Here's something everyone can enjoy:

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

That article is saying that the police in Dayton, OH had to stop towing people's cars when they had unpaid RLC tickets.

I'm talking about getting pulled over for something unrelated - like speeding, running a different red light in front of a cop, suspicion of DUI, etc. The cop runs your license and finds you have a bench warrant (issued because you never paid your RLC ticket) and then arrests you or impounds your car.

Think: secondary vs primary offense. In FL, I don't think they can pull you over for having a passenger in the front seat without a seatbelt. But, if they pull you over for something else, they can then ticket you for the seatbelt.

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Touch a nerve? I didn't mean that you're trying to snow people...on purpose. Anyone making a chart is trying to make a point, just like you. Problem is, their data points aren't always that good, like your Paul Krugman go to website.

Gold and silver doom and gloom is rubbish, until it's true. Just like the conspiracy theorists who say that the government have it out for them, until they find out that they actually do--for attribution, check any paper today. Remember all the jack-asses who pointed at Fanny/Freddy and said that the housing bubble would ruin the economy? They were dead wrong, until they were right.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

my badge is the law:

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Look, I understand that there are lies, damn lies and statistics. I'm a Skeptic with a capital "S". You are right to question the goals and biases of the person presenting information.

Krugman is a very smart guy who has fallen in to the same trap almost all neoliberal (aka classically trained academic) economists fall into: they start from belief in a prescription and work backward.

I aspire to a totally different, newer class: a da Vinci style of understanding the operations. I don't typically link to Op-Eds or commentary (whether it's WSJ, Blaze, MSNBC or Fox News). I try to link to direct data. All of the charts with the little "FRED" logo are charts I created using publically available data.

I don't have a political agenda. I'm apolitical because politics is all about "what I think people should do." I'm interested in "what is happening." If I have an agenda, it's to better my own understanding and other's. I get paid to make my clients money and I do that with analysis, not advocacy.

People like you frustrate me to no end because of stuff like this:

So because Paul Krugman finds Calculated Risk to be a good resource for real estate-related analysis, it's junk? Does that mean the dictionary is junk if Krugman or Obama uses it to look up the definition of a word?

Fun fact: Bill McBride (author of Calculated Risk) was an early warner of the US housing bubble and - possibly more importantly - an early caller or the recent turnaround. His analysis is data driven. If Ron Paul cited him as a reference source, it wouldn't make him a Libertarian hack any more than Krugman citing him makes him a Liberal hack.


However, you refusing to even look at or acknowledge the data because of your own political bias makes you as bad as Piers Morgan or Rachel Maddow refusing to acknowledge FBI data on violent crime that run counter to their preconceived notions that guns are bad.

Likewise, dismissing data from the BLS, SSA and Census bureaus because they don't fit whatever story you've been sold is seriously frustrating. Really, I am more frustrated that you are representative of a number of people out there that fit the same mold.

"Never let facts get in the way of a good story."

The worst part is how many engineers and otherwise data-driven people fall in to that defeatist category. Ya'll gonna drive me to drink!





Granted, I'm clearly the bigger idiot for getting frustrated over the same thing with the same person over and over.

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Yes Jack, we're talking at cross-purposes. My points are not politically-driven, because I'm rabidly against the Karl Rove wing of the Republican party, and large chunks of people who call themselves "Republicans". Democrats? Who cares. If you're a politician--or want to be one--you suck.

Long story short, these charts don't interest me because on the macro level I disagree with how the government is conducting business, and have been in vehement disagreement with their tactics since the second term of Bush.

When I see charts that show economic "growth", it means very little to me without a corresponding look at monetary devaluation, inflation, energy policy, and the overriding fact (proven over and over) that centralized planning is the worst kind of policy for the people.

So I simply refuse to play the game. It's stupid. At some point it just becomes pointless to "keep score" with charts and graphs, when everything is just so completely ***-backward. Rather play cars...

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

The one word that NEEDS to be used over and over: LIE.

MUST WATCH! The Video That Is Making Jay Carney Curl Up in the Fetal Position... | RedFlagNews.com

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

And that's the part that frustrates me and makes me a little bit sad about the people you represent to me: it's this defeatist idea that the world is so terrible they almost cannot believe anything positive at all about the future of America and the rest of the globe.

This idea that no data can be trusted or believed if it does not fit in to the negative story that they have been sold. I'm not trying to say there are not real negatives out there, but refusing to acknowledge that there are a lot of positives is just depressing and defeatist and can have very tangible drawbacks for a person and community.


In addition, this is almost exactly what is wrong with most economists. They start with a story or position or moral believe and then work backwards, ignoring or skipping over any data that doesn't fit their story.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Doesn't Obama just look like the hero now? He fired the temporary Acting IRS dude who was going to be out of a job in June anyways (sorta, since he's still going to be in the job for a while). This is planned and staged. He gets to look tough and presidential and like he's going to do something about it. He can't do that about Benghazi. Enjoy Sheeple.

Louis

No surprise there “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Cloward Piven Theory at work.


Now what was the question on the IRS??

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

Pretty sad if you start reading the email chains just released:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politic...azi-emails.pdf

I like page 63 and 64 the best.

Basically X'ing out all actual info/truth, then an email repsonse: They are fine by me, but pretty sure HPSCI wont like them

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Jack, I'm not being sold ANYTHING, and I don't work backwards or skip economic data.

And what I certainly don't do is cherry-pick data to fit a narrative. THAT is HuffPo and Krugman and the others in a nutshell. So if you think I'm turning my back, THIS CRAP is what I turn my back on. When I do so, I'm directly facing reality. How about you?

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Now I am just confused. I present a bunch of primary source and public data. I can't remember EVER posting a link to a Krugman op-ed or ANYthing on a HuffingtonPost or related website. I continually, over and over and over, state that my background is apolitical and based on analysis and not advocacy.

I'm not saying you cherry-pick data. You yourself said you just reject any data that doesn't fit your current belief system.

If you think America is going to hell in a socialist handbasket and I present primary source data that shows things aren't that bad or that they are less bad then they were, you say "[...]it just becomes pointless to "keep score" with charts and graphs, when everything is just so completely ***-backward." In other words, you reflexively reject anything that doesn't fit with your preconceived idea of what is going on.


To me, this is like trying to diagnose a handling misbehavior with the Catfish. After a bad off, you've decided it's just an understeering mess and can't be fixed. You're grumpy and despondent. A bunch of mechanics and drivers start throwing out all sorts of ideas of problems that occurred on completely different cars. Some of these guys have experience wrenching and driving; many don't.

Then, a third guy walks up and actually puts the car on the lift, starts taking some measurements and offers a diagnosis of what the current problem is based on that analysis. He doesn't tell you what to change to fix it - after all, how you want it to handle might be different than how another guy might. He just says, "Hey, here is the current situation and here are the measurements I took that verify it."

Your response is to say that his measurements are garbage and you refuse to acknowledge them.


Anyway, I'm sure we're boring Braineack who has a bunch of other stuff to post to make everyone more depressed.


Centralized planning is always and ever "the worst kind of policy for the people."

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Perhaps a different allegory is in order...

You are the "D&D Dungeonmaster" of a make-believe economic world...and you're good! I'm your older brother, and I walk by your room as you play online with your other middle school buddies.

I smile, for I've discovered girls and cars...yes, a new and larger reality to the one you live in.

Jack, I hope you one day discover girls.

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

YAL GREETS MICHELLE OBAMA WITH TRUTH AT EASTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT