Justice Antonin Scalia [merged]

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

While Supersix's off-topic diversion is entertaining, it isn't germane to the thread, which is about Scalia.

And Supersix. If you believe in trickle down economics, you don't have a clue about how the economy of a healthy western nation works.

Trickle-down economics is like the Laffer Curve: there are unique circumstances under which they actually apply, but trying to engender them outside those circumstances is often economically counterproductive.

I've not looked into trickle-down anywhere near as thoroughly as the Laffer, but one thing I recall is that it fails when an economy has a complex which includes "instruments" that make wealth off the movement of wealth. Trickle down requires an economy dependent almost exclusively on movement of goods and services, with dominance by the goods part.


The trouble with most of what passes as economics among circles that pass for conservative is that results from a simpler mechanism/system are extrapolated to complex systems without verification and without justification. Think of a goods-centered economy as being like a space elevator with no frills, just a simple cable, whereas our economy is like a space elevator with seven cables, defenses, maintenance stations, scientific and research facilities, and a grand station at the top with retirement villages and tourist facilities and a launch center for exploration. Taking a certain event on the simple version, I can reach conclusions, but there's no telling ahead of time whether the results on the complex version will be similar, lesser, greater, or off on a different axis altogether.
Economies, like societies, undergo phase changes. It doesn't make me happy, but were on the other side of a phase change from any place that trickle-down has much relevance at all.


As for Scalia, he's stuck a societal phase change back, where people believed that liberty meant having someone than whom one could consider himself better, where an unwritten "moral constitution" could be used to trump the written constitution. He's as activist a judge as any liberal who's ever sat on the Court, putting his exterior standard above not only the Constitution but above truth.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

C'mon, we have been through this, no one works for someone poorer than himself, and people spend more when they have more to spend. I wouldn't remodel my bathroom if I couldn't afford it, would I? You guys LOVE to argue.

An analysis of what you're doing:

You're taking a statement "if m, then i" (i). You add "If i, then j" (ii). cutting out the middle, you get "if m, then j" (iii). Here, you're arguing the truth of "if m, then j", by asserting the converse to be true: "if j, then m" (iii.c).

It looks good that way. The problem lies in the term you quietly lose along the way: i. And what you do with i is a sleight of hand where you change the meaning without mentioning so.

"I": is, of course, investment. (i) is true (with exceptions safe to leave aside, for simplification), because when m (money) is supplied. the result is investment (considering purchases a form of investment works here). But with (ii), a problem occurs: not all i goes to things which produce jobs. So you've changed from "all investment" to the subset "investment which produces jobs" without saying so.

So (iii) fails, because the hidden term isn't honest.
So (iii.c) is an empty statement, due to the same hidden term.

Amended to include the hidden definitions, your statements come out this way:
(i) if m, then i[p]
(ii) if i[f,s], then j; i.e. if some i, then j.
(iii) if some m, then j.

Now the converse works:
if j, then some m.


What your sleight-of-hand version is leaving out is that there is investment that doesn't yield jobs. And when the money is in the hands of the ultra-rich, it doesn't tend to result in jobs. So the "some i" that yields "j" is not the investment made by the ultra-rich.
Right there is why trickle-down doesn't work for complex economies with financial instruments as a significant investment vehicle: those are an investment which doesn't yield jobs.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

The concentration of wealth does not improve an economy. It does not improve innovation.

Nor does it improve freedom.

Just like Scalia.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Isn't THAT the truth?

Most of the events that took place during Baby Bush's reign on Wall Street did not create any new wealth at all. It was all paper money.

A lot was what an economics prof at OSU called "mythical money", existing only in computers, existing only as a reflection of the values of stocks and other investments. In a way it was a highly sophisticated Ponzi structure, where the value of the things at the top rested on the value of things below and on down, so that as a stock drop slashed the wealth of the stockholders, the drop in the value of stock also dropped the value of the mythical money, and sometimes the drop in value there dropped the value of other mythical money.

Maybe some of our financially-focused JUBbers can make sense of it for us. But what I got from the prof was that a decrease in the value of a share of stock by one dollar actually made five times that in mythical (but very spendable) money disappear, so when things began to tumble, it had a snowballing effect, and all sorts of money just evaporated.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

&Kulindahr:

The worst thing is that a whole lot of real estate got wrapped into that paper money.

It has been reported in our local media that much of our real estate has been leveraged as much as 25 times, disappeared into a black hole into those kinds of investments you're referring to.

One woman here in Reno who's in foreclosure decided to cash in on this knowledge. She sued the bank, contending that since the bank didn't own the property, they very well couldn't foreclose on it, could they?

It was found that at one point, the deed disappeared into an "investor's trust", which is really a black hole, and at the moment, no one knows who owns the property. It's a mess of Gargantuan proportions.

I don't think anyone could underestimate the severity of the damage. Deregulation of the financial industry has been so catastrophic that words can't describe it.

A guy died here recently and his wife suddenly found that one piece of property had been mortgaged to three different outfits. The real tragedy is that it's in a perfect place for development, and she'd actually had plans and some outfit came to her with some -- but the state won't issue any permits for development until the ownership issue is settled.
Last I heard, she'd sued to not have to pay taxes on it since she was being denied the use of it. And her attorney filed that ownership should pass to her and the three banks can argue over precedence as lien holders.

 

[palemale]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Regardless how you feel/think "they" are the final arbiter as to constitutionality

BUT you still havent addressed what the FL SC did which is the point I made in-which you said i was wrong

BTW-- it was the voters in FL who gave the FL Electors to Bush. Remember... Gore never was ahead in any legal vote tally

Yes, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter, and in this case they were wrong. They acted outside their constitutional authority in the remedy portion of their decision. You'd be hard pressed to find a reputable legal scholar to endorse what they did.

Your point was that the Florida Supreme Court "tried to rewrite state law from the bench" was found by only three of the "final arbiters," Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas. A majority did not join that concurring opinion. Thus, your claim that the Florida Supreme Court tried to rewrite state law was rejected by a majority of the Supreme Court. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=000&invol=00-949

Also, according to the best study of the election, had all the ballots been recounted (a remedy Gore foolishly did not ask for), Gore likely would have won FLorida by a tiny margin. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/when_the_votes_were_recounted_in_florida.html

 

[laikaNYC]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

I'm praying that Ruth "consider international law" Bader Ginsburg got an invitation to this. There's no one on the court who cares less about the Constitution than her.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

<chuckle>

Seriously, though, that idea we cooked up about rationing/pricing gasoline, based on a sliding scale, was genius, even if I say so myself..

Continuing on: say, you could get 10 gallons a week for the regular pump price; the next 10 gallons would be double that price, and the third 10 gallons would be triple.
. . . .

And for those scofflaws who burn gas just because they damn well can—like Rush Limbaugh—well, he would be paying the triple$$ amount.

Win.

Don't quite at triple -- just keep going. If someone wants to buy a tenth batch of ten gallons, let them pay a hundred bucks.

But I have a concern, as many vehicles hold a lot more than ten gallons, and it would be silly to make people come back. If someone's tank takes more than ten gallons to fill, let them apply the next ten to the next week, or something.

 

[Supersix]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Let us just force everyone down to our ideals, why not? Why not force people to eat less, breathe less, reporduce less, all to fit our lofty ideals?

 

[palemale]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

I'm praying that Ruth "consider international law" Bader Ginsburg got an invitation to this. There's no one on the court who cares less about the Constitution than her.

What is your basis for making this claim? What decision has she made that makes you think she cares less about the Constitution than Justice "It's not unconstitutional to execute innocent people" Scalia?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Let us just force everyone down to our ideals, why not? Why not force people to eat less, breathe less, reporduce less, all to fit our lofty ideals?

Interesting that you list some of the things both sides do. Poverty is, judging by abundant evidence, a goal of the Republicans, and lots more people one of the Democrats.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Supersix, don't be so melodramatic, silly. (You sound like Gloria Swanson in SB)

The simple truth is that the oil, a finite resource, is running out. We Americans have at least two major possibilities for success—wind power and natural gas. Natural gas, too, is a finite resource, but it's been said that we're the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.

OK then.

Sooner or later, the price of gasoline is going to skyrocket. By that time, if we do nothing, our goose will be cooked because they ain't ever going back down again. It'll be too late.

Kulin's idea about a sliding scale will avert that catastrophe. It'll get us off oil by curtailing demand, and will move us toward another source. E85 still has 15% gasoline, but it's a major start, and it'll give us valuable time. Oil companies will prosper, because under our plan, they'd get tax credits for building those E85 stations, and we all know how Republicans worship tax credits. (Remember—under the plan, the purchase of E85 will not be restricted.)

So tell your bosses in Washington about this idea. (You, too, Laika.) One or two might listen.

Johann, do you know anything about H+ fuels -- hydrogen enriched?
The links I'd collected vanished with my recent bookmark glitch, and I'd never gotten around to actually studying things. I gather the idea was that by adding hydrogen to liquid fuels it would increase fuel power and make emissions cleaner. My courses in chemistry never touched hydrocarbon combustion, so though I'm skeptical I don't remember enough to really guess, and I would no longer feel like dragging out the old chem texts and working through it even if I hadn't sold them.

 

[rareboy]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

What is your basis for making this claim? What decision has she made that makes you think she cares less about the Constitution than Justice "It's not unconstitutional to execute innocent people" Scalia?

Nah, It is just the sound of wind whistling through the fundament as usual.

Make some trollish comment without any citation or reference and just wait for someone else to agree.

If this is the best that the Laika has, we're in for a thin year.

 

[palemale]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

coming from you

I am reminded of British Labour Chancellor Denis Healey, who described being attacked by Conservative shadow Chancellor Geoffrey Howe as "like being savaged by a dead sheep".

 

[palemale]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

Case in point... palemale can read his own cite and draw that conclusion?

The cite clearly states:

"Nobody can say for sure who might have won"

"A full, official recount of all votes statewide could have gone either way"

"None of these findings are certain"

"it is possible that either candidate might have emerged the winner of an official recount, and nobody can say with exact certainty what the "true" Florida vote really was."



Gore isnt the only one who is foolish

You said the following in post #66:

BTW-- it was the voters in FL who gave the FL Electors to Bush.

The statement I made is based on the following quote from my cite:

On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/when_the_votes_were_recounted_in_florida.html

I acknowledge the other qualifications the cite makes, but do you see a difference between what I said and the quote from the cite above?

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: Justice Scalia shows his true colors

I haven't heard, Kulindahr, but it sounds promising.

At any rate, I think we came up with a gem of an idea. Whether we shift to E85, or natural gas, or some hydrogen compound—or maybe a mixture—I think if we give both the oil companies and the consumers an incentive, our goals can be realized before it's too late.

Oh -- a 50% tax on anything that smells like manipulating the market during this.

 

[BostonPirate]

Justice Scalia to meet in closed door session with tea party

Scalia was nominated to the high court in 1986 and has been among its most conservative members.
Neither the Supreme Court nor the justice's chambers had any comment on the upcoming event. It was unclear if other members of the high court would be invited to future seminars.
Critics of Scalia's appearance said it could raise the appearance of impropriety and lead to political polarization over the high court.
A New York Times editorial called the arrangement "outlandish" and "dismaying."

this bothers me. I thought the supreme court justices were supposed to steer clear of politics to show a certain impartiality.

Have we just gotten to the point of expecting the supreme court to have political interests and constituents since the Bush coronation?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/01/24/scalia.tea.party/index.html

 

[rareboy]

Re: Justice Scalia to meet in closed door session with tea party

I think this is an old story.

Everyone has already vented their rage over this event when it was first announced.

I don't think that a lot of people are going to like the optics and it is interesting that the TeaBaggers didn't invite a liberal Constitutional scholar to balance Scalia's narrow perspective...but...meh.

 

[BostonPirate]

Re: Justice Scalia to meet in closed door session with tea party

I think this is an old story.

Everyone has already vented their rage over this event when it was first announced.

I don't think that a lot of people are going to like the optics and it is interesting that the TeaBaggers didn't invite a liberal Constitutional scholar to balance Scalia's narrow perspective...but...meh.

well it shows that he's their go to man, thats for sure.

 

[BostonPirate]

Re: Justice Scalia to meet in closed door session with tea party

seems par for the course with Scalia.

but even if he wasn't meeting with them, do you think he'd never not take the right-wing, conservative stand on a case?

I think it places him in a bad place. I don't even know if a supreme court justice can recuse himself from a case. But it creates the posiblity if appearance of conflict of interest.

That is the standard that judges use to decide on recusal. Not Whether they are biased, only they know that, and we all have values and opinions. Those are bound to express themselves....

If the teaparty sues the gov't to change a law, and it goes before the supreme court, it has to appear that he has no conflict of interest. How can he do that after this?