151–160 of 254 posts
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I'm guessing that one reason we got Trump is that the Democrats presented two poor alternatives in a row. It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect. And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters. I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats present…
I believe Trump would have won 2020 had the COVID pandemic not happened. Things were very chaotic in 2020 America. Biden and his extensive experience in the federal government looked reassuring to a lot of Americans. Biden would have had a tougher time against Trump had 2020 been more like 2019. I believe Biden would have had a tougher time against Bernie Sanders in the primaries had COVID not happened, though a coun…
(by "Trump" and "him" I mean the person himself plus his symbiotic ecosystem of enablers and followers)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing that one reason we got Trump is that the Democrats presented two poor alternatives in a row. It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect. And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters. I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats present…
"I'm guessing that one reason we got Trump is that the Democrats presented two poor alternatives in a row." Women candidates? Because I am sad to admit that is my takeaway: a significant part of the U.S. appears to be sexist (and plenty of women voters included).
Or are you misreading the actual argument?
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We live in the Information Age. Things happen quicker now. The Roman Empire took 500 years to decline. The Soviet Union took 2 years. The US broke centuries old alliances and upended the global order in a matter of months. If there is a collapse of the American empire it won’t happen over centuries but in the span of a few tweets.
The problem Europe has though is that it can't stand it's own. They have become so accustomed to leaning on the US, that they have grown into it. People don't like hearing it, but Europe lives on American Tech, powered by American energy, and defended by American defense. There other lifelines being Russian energy and Chinese tech. It's a "pick your poison" situation. Europe should be able to stand on it's own, but i…
The obvious move for EU is to go for a Metternich-style rebalancing of powers and get China on their side.
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Yeah, it was a big con to get folks to think that what seemed to them a huge amount of money meant that they were participating in a meaningful fashion. I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions: "Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable ret…
Investment for retirement…in theory at least, should go to projects that will create more goods and services in the future to actually support that retirement. It isn’t about the economy being large enough today, but growth so that it is larger enough tomorrow when you do actually retire. Any investment alternative, like a private or public pension, works under the same principle. Even traditional retirement plans de…
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Believe it or not; it is an enormous luxury to be able to ignore politics.
How do you figure? Ignoring it or obsessing over it, the outcomes don't change. Just emotional energy expended.
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Yeah, it was a big con to get folks to think that what seemed to them a huge amount of money meant that they were participating in a meaningful fashion. I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions: "Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable ret…
The market is partly a Ponzi scheme where more people buying inflates the price, regardless of the underlying value. The modern stock market is not focused on dividends (anything but), so there is no'real' return from the actual companies to the shareholders. (Buybacks could be considered similar to dividends). There is still an element of real economic growth underlying the stock market, but passive investing, deriv…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it was a big con to get folks to think that what seemed to them a huge amount of money meant that they were participating in a meaningful fashion. I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions: "Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable ret…
It's impossible to answer because the language is too imprecise. Poor people in the US live like gods compared to people living in 3rd world jungles, but they complain just as much if not more. So you quickly realize that "comfortable" is a relative term, and envy poisons any honest measure of "comfort".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm guessing that one reason we got Trump is that the Democrats presented two poor alternatives in a row. It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect. And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters. I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats present…
"I'm guessing that one reason we got Trump is that the Democrats presented two poor alternatives in a row." Women candidates? Because I am sad to admit that is my takeaway: a significant part of the U.S. appears to be sexist (and plenty of women voters included).
In my opinion, Clinton’s and Harris’ losses had less to do with their gender and more to do with the candidates themselves:
1. Clinton was facing strong anti-establishment headwinds, and Clinton is a very establishment politician. Many people in 2016 were piping mad at establishment politicians. Trump was able to win the GOP nomination on a platform of “draining the swamp” and pursuing an aggressively right-wing agenda compared to more moderate Republicans, and Sanders, who also had an anti-establishment platform, proved to be a formidable opponent to Clinton. Despite Clinton’s loss, she was still able to win the popular vote. Perhaps had there been less anti-establishment sentiment, it would have been a Clinton vs Jeb Bush election, and I believe Clinton would have won that race.
2. Harris never won a presidential primary election. The only reason she ended up becoming the nominee is because Biden dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, which occurred after the primaries. Since it was too late to have the voters decide on a replacement for Biden, the Democratic Party selected a replacement: Harris. She only had a few months to campaign, whereas Trump had virtually campaigned his entire time out of office.
3. Let’s not forget the Trump factor in 2024. During Biden’s entire presidency, Trump was able to consolidate his hold on the GOP and his voting base, and in some ways he even expanded his base. The conservative media was filled with defenses of January 6, and Trump was able to convince enough Americans that he and his supporters were persecuted in the aftermath of the 2020 election and January 6.
Bad quarter for certain, but to keep things in perspective, the S&P is still up 13% over the past 12 months (likely 14% as soon as the market opens in 20 minutes). There's nothing magical about a "quarter". Had Q1 2025 ended 4 days later, it would have been significantly worse than this, but then the market went on to have a huge rally after that.
Even if you ignore this disastrous quarter, SPX is up mostly in nominal terms only.