Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aqizzar]

It's official: Standard & Poors has downgraded their rating of U.S. Treasury to AA+, with an official "Negative" outlook.  Well, maybe not official, it's kinda up in the air from minute to minute but it looks likely.  The Treasury Department is saying the downgrade is based on bad math rather than proper accounting, and the other rating agencies are not saying they're doing anything immediately.

EDIT: Better link.

[nenjin]

And the hits...just....keep...on....coming.

[counting]

Using a first past the post election system that means only the leading two candidates have a chance of winning, and other options cannot be considered because that helps the OTHER guy, yes. You will eventually get two major parties. Those parties will have major regional variations if you've got a society that is very splintered by region, but for logistical and practical reasons, you will only have the two.

Nothing can be called a theory or fact, before the experiment result back them up . And now I really want to setup a test. But it's difficult to setup abstract utility function about how voters react to a candidate's policy. I can assume there are finite number of policies (P1, ... Pn) and the combinations of them will form tendency acts(A1,... An) for a particular candidate Ci's political view (a party). If each voter Vi has a preference (weight) table about each policy, then we can sum up by weights to see if this over-all score exceeded certain threshold. If it does, then Vi will vote for particular candidate Ci. If a candidate lose the vote, it will try to change it's act (how is the question, let's just assume he drop some policies randomly and get some different ones, with no preference at all, or as true politicians, he will also pick some policies from winners). Then let's see if over time the politicians will form split groups with majority of their policies identical within a party, and differs between parties. I think it's possible to run simulations. The rule about how to pick winners is a problem. And how effective the policies will be is a problem either. (I can assume they are zero in effect at first, and they real action has nothing to do with their campaign policies at all. Just talking)

P.S. 1 step down the AAA should be AA+, AA- is 3 steps. (AA+, AA, AA-)

[Taniec]

And the hits...just....keep...on....coming.

The U.S has to contract its available credit in order to right the ship. If some outside source says we aren't as reliable as we once were I'm all for it. If we fix our credit problems we can then build up our ratings and reliability. Recessions are the healing process to fixing economic malfunctions, in the long term I doubt historians are going to write about the U.S. and their decrease in credit ratings.

[Aqizzar]

P.S. 1 step down the AAA should be AA+, AA- is 3 steps. (AA+, AA, AA-)

Well, that's what it was, one step.  Certainly a lot better than their outlook last week of BBB.

Further reading says the debt deal itself factored into their decision (although it's not a firm decision per se, the "bad math" argument and all), because they took it as a sign that the US government simply cannot arrive at substantial agreements, as the debt plan was not "enough", and the dynamics of the process revealed it's unlike to become closer to "enough".

[GlyphGryph]

Nothing can be called a theory or fact, before the experiment result back them up

This experiment has been run several times in several situations, actually. Beyond all the countries that have run with it, there's also been a large number of smaller more controlled experiments that have found similar results.

"Vote for one candidate" systems quickly deteriorate into either single or two candidate (or party) systems where people end up voting AGAINST candidates instead of FOR them once front runners appear, in the vast majority of cases, while other approaches like approval voting or ... I forget the one, but where power is split amongs several contestants based on the people voting for them... then you get voting that is a lot more "honest".

[counting]

Nothing can be called a theory or fact, before the experiment result back them up

This experiment has been run several times in several situations, actually. Beyond all the countries that have run with it, there's also been a large number of smaller more controlled experiments that have found similar results.

"Vote for one candidate" systems quickly deteriorate into either single or two candidate (or party) systems where people end up voting AGAINST candidates instead of FOR them once front runners appear, in the vast majority of cases, while other approaches like approval voting or ... I forget the one, but where power is split amongs several contestants based on the people voting for them... then you get voting that is a lot more "honest".

http://zesty.ca/voting/sim/
This one? Any other voting experiments and papers? I want to read them. But the experiments are about comparing "different voting method" instead of in the evolution system, what's the membership and policies changes toward 2 parties. I know plurality favor extreme policies, but it doesn't explain why there is only be 2 polarities, instead of more. Unless policies themselves are naturally positive correlation in 2 polarities already.

[Lord Shonus]

Basically, whenever one party takes a psoition on an issue, the other party takes the opposite position. If Republicans were pro-gay, the Democrats would be anti-gay to draw those opposed to gays. As a party always takes a position on every issue, the two-party system is reinforced.

[counting]

Basically, whenever one party takes a psoition on an issue, the other party takes the opposite position. If Republicans were pro-gay, the Democrats would be anti-gay to draw those opposed to gays. As a party always takes a position on every issue, the two-party system is reinforced.

It's the assumption that the parties already take their 2 polar opposite side in the first place, not how they got there before that. If there are 3 policies at the beginning, and each of 3 parties supports just one of them and take neutral stance with other 2, it's a triple polar. And any new policy is adopted with 3 stand (yes/no/neutral), it's still possible to form a stable 3 parties. (Not all policies are being brought out during elections, and with extreme opinions only, some policies even has multiple options.)

[PTTG??]

The republicans won. S&P downgraded the US anyway. Watch the DJIA monday if you like to see vertical lines.

[Nadaka]

The republicans won. S&P downgraded the US anyway. Watch the DJIA monday if you like to see vertical lines.

Just because America looses, does not mean the republicans win. It does however mean that the tea party won.

[Heron TSG]

Dammit, Congress.

[PyroDesu]

Dammit, Congress.

Agreed.

[Phmcw]

Those rating agency have no idea of what they are speaking about anyway.
The market are so much based on trust that the very fact that some people will trust rating agency make it a good idea to trust rating agency and therefore give them real power.

But it's all wind. Europe has the good idea in forbidding the rating of any sovereign debt.

[counting]

One thing needs to be made in mind that right now it's just one major rating agency downgrade the U.S. credit rating. The other major rating agencies (2 out of 3 major ones) have not done so.