Random Politics & Religion #00

Eh, I tend to disagree. Someone who went through the arduous task of immigrating and obtaining citizenship is probably more invested in this country than most of the people who fell out of their mothers here by happenstance.

Logically someone born in the country probably cares about the interests of it more than someone born in Romania who would like to lead a world power.

I can understand Ravael's reply, although that seems moot to me as secret agencies hardly don't have foreign personnel too..

Still don't see a reason to open the position of POTUS to the whole world.

Probably one of the few positions KN and his horde will give me props on. :P

I think it might also have something to do with preventing foreign double agents from taking over the country's highest position.

Well, the point was to completely eliminate the possibility of the kinds of monarchical takeovers that were happening in Europe for the last 500 years. Remember, the drafters of our Constitution hated 2 things above all others: monarchs and state religions.

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sorry if a bit off topic but sincere question..
What is the reason for a president to have to be american born? As a person who (hopelessly)dream of a world united such barriers have little significance to me..but besides that, to me it'd make more sense that the president has to have lived in the country for a long time, but place of birth seem meaningless to me.

Is there a real reason for it?

Last week, the Federal Reserve spooked markets by preserving the monetary policy status quo. Yet a few central bank watchers were more surprised by a new idea the central bank seemingly suggested: a negative interest rate.

The Fed's closely watched "dot plot" revealed that at least one committee member floated the idea that a fed funds rate below zero might be an appropriate target for the remainder of this year and next.

The forecast is widely thought to be the work of Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota, a non-voting member of the committee who is known for his dovish views. In her press conference last week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen made clear that a negative federal funds rate "was not something that we considered very seriously at all today."

However, in an environment where prices are persistently low, negative rates mean that businesses and consumers are essentially paid to borrow money, which could serve as an important stimulative tool in times of crisis.

The idea has been floated in the U.K., and tried in the euro zone and Switzerland. Suffice to say, the fact that the concept is being floated in the U.S. is striking to some.

After all, the Fed has spent years noting that its benchmark rate is at the "zero lower bound," which forces it to take other actions in order to stimulate the economy, (i.e. purchase bonds) since rates can't be lowered any further.

Yet what if that bound is not a bound at all, but a Rubicon waiting to be crossed?

For University of Michigan economics professor Miles Kimball, negative rates are both possible and inevitable.

Kimball has travelled the world talking about the effects of subzero rates with central bankers around the world—including Fed policymakers. His goal is to show policymakers that "it's actually really easy" to effectively make interest rates negative.

Moreover, he believes adding the tool to a central banking policy toolbox is critical to ending recessions and combating deflation.

"What I've been working on is trying to make sure that the intellectual foundation for negative interest rates is laid in time for the next recession," Kimball told CNBC in an interview. "It's important for people to realize that the zero lower bound is ultimately a policy choice, and it's a bad one. And it's something that come another big emergency, we can do away with."

The concept of negative rates can be thought of as such: if the equilibrium interest rate—the rate at which money would naturally be lent—is a percent per year, a central bank wanting to combat low prices could trim its target rate below 1 percent. That will cause excess money to be borrowed and invested, and hopefully boost inflation and growth.

Yet if the equilibrium interest rate is actually below 0 percent, then most holders of currency would rather suffer a guaranteed loss rather than lend their money out. This was prevalent during the depths of the Great Recession. In that case, even an interest rate of 0 percent would be contractionary rather than stimulative.

Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke's preferred solutions to this problem included purchasing bonds via quantitative easing (QE) and assuring Americans that rates would stay low for a very long time. Kimball, however, said the endeavor was doomed from the start.

"Maybe we should have done three times as much QE, but nobody knows what three times QE would have done. By contrast, negative interest rates is right there in standard theory," Kimball said, which means that we can predict its effects by using basic economic models and beliefs.

Kimball doesn't necessarily believe that negative rates would be appropriate in the U.S. given that the worst of the recession is over. However, the conditions may present themselves again within the next decade, and the Fed could be prepared to meet the challenge.

"By the next recession, the U.S. will be ready to employ negative interest rates," he predicted.

Although Yellen shot down the short-term potential for negative rates, she said last week that if "we found ourselves with a weak economy that needed additional stimulus, we would look at all of our available tools, and [a negative rate] would be something that we would evaluate in that kind of context."

Recently, the European Central Bank, as well as Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden, have all enacted negative policy rates. Cutting the federal funds rate below the zero mark would be similar. But even if the Fed choose to do that, businesses and consumers would not be coaxed into making investments rather than hoarding their cash, and interest rates would simply go to exactly zero.

In order to truly enact a negative rate, the Fed would have to go further.

Kimball proposes that central banks effectively make the rate of return on cash negative, by adjusting the conversion rate between paper money and electronic money.

Right now, when a $100 bill is deposited into an account, $100 is added to that account. However, a central bank could create a situation whereby that $100 deposit only led to a $98 increase in the account. That would mean paper currency would have a rate of interest of negative 2 percent, rather than its current 0 percent.

At the same time, the government could not require that businesses accept cash as legal tender. In the service of reducing the overall value of money, the parallel linkage between the two kinds of currency—paper and electronic—would be broken.

So how would the government defend taking your money away slowly?

"When there's inflation, zero interest rates are already taking money from you slowly." Kimball pointed out.

"Negative 4 percent for one year, for instance, would have been better than 0 percent for seven years," he said. "Avoiding negative rates isn't doing savers any favors, because the best thing you can do for them is get out of your recession fast."

In a negative-rate world, the critical concept known as the "time value of money," whereby money now is more desirable than the same amount of money later, would be flipped on its head.

As for floating bond agreements, if rates fell far enough below zero, the lender could find itself forced to fork over interest payments to the borrower. Meanwhile, the cash regime Kimball recommends would make the ability to pay in cash a gigantic advantage.

"Businesses have got to start planning for this," Kimball advised. "Any lawyer who writes a debt contract without stipulating what happens if the market price of a paper dollar is not equal to an electronic dollar has to wake up."

The economist added: "There's going to be some central bank that does what I'm suggesting, and the companies who didn't prepare for it are going to be disadvantaged."

Carly Fiorina has surged into second place behind Donald Trump following last week's Republican presidential debate, according to a new CNN/ORC poll released Sunday.
The new poll, which was in the field during the three days after the debate, found Trump leading the pack with 24 percent — a modest drop from a CNN poll earlier this month, when he was at 32 percent.

Fiorina, whom a slight majority of poll respondents who watched the debate said did the best job, jumped to second place at 15 percent. The former Hewlett-Packard CEO was up from just 3 percent earlier this month.

Ben Carson, the soft-spoken retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio were also in double-digits, at 14 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was in fifth place, at 9 percent.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee weretied for sixth, at 6 percent. And rounding out the field were Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul at 4 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 3 percent, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 2 percent and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum at 1 percent.

Candidates who failed to earn at least 1 percent included former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, former New York Gov. George Pataki and — stunningly — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

I am sure Scott Walker is surprised to find himself tied for last with Jim Gilmore and George Pataki. Looks like no one is interested in his anti-union rhetoric, which is a lot less surprising.

his peers

Other than his Canadian Wall gaffe, he hasn't done anything worth giving attention to, his peers ignored him at both debates, they obviously don't feel threatened by him. He is done, might make it as a running mate but I doubt it, come back in the next election.

The Koch brother's other prostitutes were on stage?

He didn't even do anything I agreed on in Wisconsin lol. Fortunately he won't get the opportunity to prove that my way of thinking is wrong.

That's not what I meant.

But hey, if you fully support an uncaring pathological liar, then more power to you.

So Donald Trump?

Too easy. Also yes, Clinton has an authenticity problem. It's well documented and a plague on her campaign.

I don't think anyone has voted yet, lol.

All the candidates are doing is pandering to the masses at the moment