http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2012/04/volcker-rule-and-portfolio-hedging-yet.html

Response? It’s right there: they watered it down themselves.

What’s your response here, David, where it’s documented that it was allowed in Levin/Merkley’s rule:

http://economicsofcontempt.blogspot.com/2012/04/volcker-rule-and-portfolio-hedging-yet.html

That’s from April.

This is the wrong debate in any case. I mean, it’s so far-gone. The right debate should be, “Why do we force our kids to take out mortgages to get an education at all? Fund the damn state schools and stop giving aid to private and for-profit colleges.”

However, realizing that we are a “center-right” country that Very Serious People keep trying to insist on the rest of us…let’s change the conversation again: why was the interest rate from 1998-2006 1.76% during school and 2.36% during repayment? Oh, right…George Bush:

Deficit Reduction Act of 2005

Well, David, my private loans have lower interest than my federal. In fact, one of my private loans is half the interest of the federal.

I’ve paid back about $3,250 of my loans since December 2012 (graduated May 2011). Still unemployed. Owed roughly $50,000 before interest capitalization when repayment started.

My private loan interest rates are lower than the government’s. The government has me at 6.8%; Wells Fargo has me at two interest rates, totaling around 5.6% (one’s 3.5%, the other 6%); Great Lakes has me at about 4%.

I think another show that better shows the political process is The Wire. It’s political writing was different — better, imo — but far more realistic. It had the advantage of being on HBO, not NBC. That’s going to take away from a lot of the realism as is. Second, The West Wing in many ways was to show the good side of politics, why most pols get into it, and what can be done…and then sometimes why nothing can be done, despite the pols feeling like shit (like when the state executed that man and Bartlett refused to intervene for political reasons).

Whereas the Wire…well, I think Frank Sabotka perfectly illustrates what the entire show was about: how institutions ruin otherwise good people as individuals (and of course the bullshit of the drug game). It’s a competition of those institutions: how a mayor vying for the governorship is tied into ruining his own school system (but thinks it’s for the best because when he wins governor he can then do what he wants even better), how those schools are failing because of the lack of jobs and opportunity in the community which is exacerbated and caused by the drug game/war; how the police are at war with the politicians over stats, how stats don’t do shit for crime but make the police and pols look good (and how pols/police will get rid of you if you don’t play along). That’s the reality, that’s why The Wire was better on politics than The West Wing.

The West Wing speaks to our better angels; the Wire is like reality: a cynical look at what’s wrong with our institutions and our world, and a plea for sanity.

I completely agree, and climate change is the most important issue to me. Having the EPA follow through with their goals by 2014 — which if they do, coal in this country is going to be crippled to where they’ll be begging for cap and trade — is my “make or break.”

I’m just saying, those three issues are the most important issues to young people, especially with young people I interact with. Adhering to those is what’s going to bring young people into the field.

The old guard in both parties risk ignoring what gives Paul such a huge appeal to young voters at their own peril.

This is definitely true, Jon. Ron Paul attracts most young people because of his opposition to American interventionism and imperialism — not to be mistaken for “anti-war” — and his opposition to the federal involvement in drugs.

Of course, young voters see Ron Paul’s positions and support him because in their minds he’s the “anti-war” and “anti-drug war” candidate. That’s where the energy comes from. If Dems don’t latch onto that, it’s definitely dangerous for where young people will go. Poli sci shows that people vote for a party on maybe two or so issues, and then they eventually adopt the rest of the party’s platform (even if they initially disagreed with it). If something isn’t done, we could be looking at a whole slew of “True Believers” in our future.

Speaking as a 23 year old myself…the most important issues to all of us as a whole:

1.) Wars
2.) Environment
3.) Gays

But most young people I know support RP mostly because of the drug issue.

Spot on. Basically, what really annoys me about Ron Paul supporters is their thinking that all we have to do is get Ron Paul into office, and then there will be happiness and sprinkles again. It’s the same thing that annoyed me with Obama-cultists, and it actually led me to withdraw my support from Obama in March of 2008. Oh, I still voted and organized for him, but until March I thought of actually voting “for” him rather than “against” Republicans. That honeymoon didn’t last long (his speech on MLK-day to sometime in March).

Nothing in this country has changed for the better without people on the ground demanding it, and you would think the people who support Ron Paul — who always have a “I’m above you and this entire process because I don’t support either party” — would understand that. But they don’t. They think they just need to elect him, and then watch the magic happen. It doesn’t work like that. You know why civil liberties are going away? Because a majority of Americans do not care enough to get out in the streets over it, and a good deal of them would actively give them up for protection against “those” people. I’m not talking simple protests, either. I’m talking “Occupy” the politicians’ lives and making it miserable.

Course, a lot of people simply aren’t hurting badly enough for this to happen; I’m guilty of this as well, but I also just graduated in 2011 with $50,000 in loans and no job (substitute teaching in the mean time so I don’t default).

I hate Ron Paul more for his supporters than anything else — his dismissal of inequality and currying favor of Austrian quackery in grinding deflation from dissolving central banks comes in at a close second.

For people who think the government is the problem, I have never seen so much support for one individual barring Obama-cultists (although they’d be good sparring partners over who’s the least infallible). Maybe bring some Chomskeyites into the mix.

If you’re an anti-war activist and you want to fight for Ron Paul based on those grounds, then please, be my guest. I personally see climate change as the most important pressing issue, and voting for someone who not only advocates stopping the enforcement of legislation that the EPA is enacting which will cripple coal plants in America by 2014, but advocates for its dismantlement, is downright cruel and immoral. Climate change is going to kill more people than any fucking war. But nonetheless, if you insist on voting on anti-war grounds, be upfront about it, and stop rationalizing his other bullshit. That’s the problem I have.

Digby worded it this way:

There are people for whom a particular issue is paramount and they may decide to support a politician solely for that reason. An anti-war activist or someone who’s life work is dealing with the results of the drug war or maybe someone who really, truly believes in the Gold standard or dismantling the Fed above all else in political life, can justify support for Ron Paul for that reason. But they should be honest about it and say that’s why they are making that choice. Too often what we are dealing with is a truckload of fatuous rationalization.

Regarding Paul’s consistency, I see no value in consistency. Well, it depends on your definition. I have changed my mind on a number of issues since 2007 — usually more leftist, but in others more libertarian. Does this make me inconsistent? Someone who’s as old as Paul and hasn’t moved in the slightest on any issue isn’t something to marvel at. How can you have the same views on everything as our culture evolves? Ideological rigidity isn’t something I look for in a leader, especially with new information. He’s a rigid ideologue.

I’ll be voting for Paul in the primaries, but make no mistake: he’s more like Pat Buchanan and Gary Johnson.

I’m sure you’ve seen, but obviously EconContempt disagrees with you, and has called the Volcker Rule that came out of the bill as one of the worst aspects of it given how weak it was (and he thought WS lawyers would easily be able to navigate it from the get-go). Not sure I agree with you, David. I think it was shit from the get-go.

Yes, did you click mine?

I wouldn’t call him to the left of Obama on anything except for maybe getting out of Afghanistan. In fact, there’s room to argue that his staff doesn’t understand leverage.

In any case, Huntsman is plenty conservative; he’s one of the most conservative people up there, actually. The difference is that he knows how to handle himself on the international stage, and yes, he won’t fly the country into the sun. Basically, he’s the only one up there capable of being president. It doesn’t make his plans any less conservative, though.

Marx was a genius, he just didn’t realize how easily duped the underclass would be.

Right you are. It’s the same battles all of the time. I don’t know why people make-believe some mythical time in America’s past where things were different. They weren’t, and they likely never will be. If you take it to its farthest conclusion, it’s what makes anarchists, as IOZ says in response to Glenn’s new book:

Is this what they teach you in law school? What is an equal playing field? Hello, Tom Friedman, is that you? “Legitimize outcome inequalities”? Um what again? I suppose it’s a pleasant self-flattering fantasy to imagine that one’s sort-of vocation is in the service of ensuring an equitable social order. The law does nothing of the sort. The law doesn’t legitimize outcome inequalities; the law preserves inequality. The law doesn’t guarantee equal opportunity; the law determines starting position. The law is an invitation to The Masters. Since it was first written down–since before it was first written down–, the law has distinguished, in one way or other, explicitly or by implication, between masters and slaves.

Is it fair to say that Steinem was “once a Playboy Bunny” as if she was actually a Playboy Bunny? She got a job as one at the Playboy Club to work on an expose article. It’s like saying a DEA agent was once a drug dealer for working on the inside of a drug syndicate.

Oh yes, plenty of options…all expensive.

8887.5 per semester for the freshmen year (not counting books). Sooo cheap. Not to mention Virginia has one of the lower unemployment rates, so cuts to education here weren’t as severe as other states (although my senior year my tuition and fees increased $3,000).

Pffft. Due to the upgraded dorm rooms, at VT it’s starting to get to the point where apartments are cheaper. The only real affordable on-campus option is for the cheap lower Quad, with Pritchard, O’Shag and Lee. And just to see, I looked at the site: it’s now $2,000 per semester for THOSE dorms, the cheapest ones. You can get an apartment for less. Hell, I lived in a more expensive apartment (the furniture was included, there was no security deposit, and the leases were separate…worth the extra pay), and it was $4,800 for the year.

Indeed. And I don’t know how the “average debt” is only $24,000 nationally. It must be because kids go to school but don’t graduate. My parents made too much for me to get any aid outside of a loan (although the stimulus did provide me with a $625 grant per semester for two semesters), and too little to help me.

I tried working a job one semester, but it absolutely devastated my grades.

This much debt wasn’t going to be a problem — after all, the average starting salary for my degree is around $58k. But you know…