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U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

wsj.com

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Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#231

Post by johnnyanmac »

SilasX wrote: post #214
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The head of the DoJ, being questioned about the president of the United States' involvement in (one of) the highest profile child sex trafficking ring in US history and it's subsequent cover up using the FBI itself, yelling about the economy and that nobody cares about child sex trafficking... Is not exactly a normal "political gaffe". I would, in fact, say it's a huge deal that anyone remotely aware of what's happen…

People don't have encyclopedic knowledge of the same things you care about. Putting quotes around a quote isn't hard.

I'd bet this is something the next Gen will be taught in high school history. I guess it's easy to pretend Watergate is just another Tuesday in midst the scandal.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#232

Post by johnnyanmac »

WarmWash wrote: post #165
WillAdams wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've traveled quite a bit, and I'm well aware of both poverty in the U.S. and in other countries --- that's part of what informed my query --- what is the end-game for capitalism as many countries of the world go into steady state or even negative population changes in the future?

Are you asking what the living baseline would be if there was some kind of global socialist government, and everyone was cut an equal slice of the global income and global resource pie? It would be pretty hard to dial that in because there are so many intertwined factors. But we could be pretty confident it wouldn't land near current first world standards. No one knows what the end game of capitalism looks like, beca…

I disagree. We've seen the endgame of capitalism a few times, and every country decided that was not right. Hence we introduced socialist policies. Like antitrust policies, social security, and nationalized Healthcare (among other necessities).

Meanwhile, I'm not sure if we've truly seen an endgame socialist policy. Captialism seems to turn into imperialism and break that up before seeing the endgame there.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#233

Post by johnnyanmac »

francisofascii wrote: post #77
zug_zug wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the thing is -- when you have rampant inflation, the cost of everything in USD goes up -- be it houses, eggs, or even stocks. So when you subtract out how much the value of the USD has gone down relative to other currencies it's basically another 10% drop.

Eggs are pretty cheap right now. Housing and healthcare are why Americans struggle with affordability. Food, gas, etc. are all just drops in the bucket.

It's not the biggest expense, but adding another $100 a month to gas when Americans are already relying on debt to cover bills doesn't spell a good omen.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#234

Post by johnnyanmac »

mindslight wrote: post #131
buellerbueller wrote: post #81

Worst President Ever.

Depending on how you measure, not as bad as the one we had a few terms ago. There was a pandemic, which should have been a unifying event the president just had to straightforwardly lead us through while letting the domain experts at agencies handle the details. But instead he must have thought he was still campaigning or something, and staked out some edgelord position that we should just ignore the public health em…

Idk. That loser still had guardrails on for 80% or his term. He might have even been re-elected if he didn't use his election year to pretend millions weren't dying.

A morbid part of me wonders if hisnl "advice" literally killed off enough of his voters to swing the election.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#235

Post by johnnyanmac »

spicyusername wrote: post #62
wat10000 wrote: post #29

It certainly is interesting living in a declining empire.

This is a common refrain you hear a lot. I get why people say it, because it feels good to say when you feel bad. But the decline of the Roman empire took nearly 500 years. Even the bronze age collapse, which you might say happened fast, took more than 100. A thought I have every time someone parrots this is, "what is reasonable to expect?". Would you have heard people saying the same thing during the civil war? Duri…

To answer point by point:

- yes the Civil War could have literally been our Berlin Wall. And maybe we needed that. But the actions of the post war, for better or worse, did unite us enough to not have that happen.

- The gilded age should have also been the fall of the US. It arguably is the setup to the stock crash. But decades of collective opposition lead to a leader who could guide us out of thar crash with some of the most progressive policy we've seen.

The crimes of the 70's was manufactured a lot in part of the US government. And whole Vietnam was bad, the common American was never in danger over these issues past yet another recession. It wasn't quite the endgame we've seen other times.

Meanwhile, now: you can argue that this empire was falling for 45 years. With a few ups, but overall trending down. If the bronze age can fall in 100 years, I see no reason the hyper accelerated digital age can't fall in 30-40.

We can still be saved by yet another huge progressive push, but will we this time? It'll depend so much on the next 2 years.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#236

Post by seanmcdirmid »

WillAdams wrote: post #225
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is theory and then there is practice of course. But at least if you are invested in the market as part of your retirement, you are technically an owner of some small share of it.

Which brings us full-circle --- what percentage of the population participating in 401-K or similar investment structures _and_ cashing out at retirement age will the economy support? Apparently almost half of workers are not participating in such: https://pensionrights.org/resource/how-many-american-workers...

You are probably going to be OK if you are invested. If you aren't invested (no i money to invest or you save money under your mattress for poor returns), then I really don't know. It is definitely going to be a problem, maybe we will have figured out a social safety net by then (speaking as an American, and speaking in a very cynical tone).

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#237

Post by johnnyanmac »

WarmWash wrote: post #133
paxys wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes. Thars why this whole kerfuffle lead to them starting the decoupling process. It will take a while, but the wheels have started turning.

Re: U.S. stocks are set to deliver their worst quarter in nearly four years

#239

Post by mindslight »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #234
mindslight wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on how you measure, not as bad as the one we had a few terms ago. There was a pandemic, which should have been a unifying event the president just had to straightforwardly lead us through while letting the domain experts at agencies handle the details. But instead he must have thought he was still campaigning or something, and staked out some edgelord position that we should just ignore the public health em…

Idk. That loser still had guardrails on for 80% or his term. He might have even been re-elected if he didn't use his election year to pretend millions weren't dying. A morbid part of me wonders if hisnl "advice" literally killed off enough of his voters to swing the election.

I personally think he would have had a shoe-in second term if he had simply led through Covid. Got on TV, told people things were hard but we'd get through it, then spend the rest of the day playing golf or hanging out at whatever the new spot is after the island got shut down.

But this rings quite true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47586508

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