In a Nutshell...

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

On 7/4/2020 at 2:57 AM, Wombat said:

After all, Jesus was Jewish,

He was not!

He was Southern Baptist.

😊

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

17 minutes ago, Gerry Maddoux said:

He was not!

He was Southern Baptist.

😊

and white

Edited July 14, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

17 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Interesting viewpoint, i find it ironic one would criticize a country that has achieved world dominance both financially and militarily in just 200 yrs....One could easily say it is time for country's of world to get off the US coat tails....

That is a flawed way at looking at history.

The US is just a traitorous colony that got a lot of help from France.

Rioting, violence, treachery, it is all in your blood... this is nothing new.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Europe let/sent the garbage people away: prisoners, indentured servants, and the people who didn't support the church.

Edited July 14, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/6/2020 at 4:06 AM, BradleyPNW said:

America won the Cold War. Political parties change. Ronald Reagan famously said: I didn't leave my party my party left me. 

Ex-Republicans and conservatives joined the Democratic Party. Bernie and his bros got booted by Democrats in 2018 and 2020. Cable news shows used to interview Bernie and his people all the time, until Bernie lost the Democratic nomination to Joe Biden. TV news producers thought Bernie was the future of the party and the party said, "nope, he ain't." 

After Bernie lost, Lincoln Project Conservatives aligned with mainstream Democrats. Why? Because they have a common enemy in Trump and -- more importantly -- a shared fundamental interest, i.e. competent liberal democracy. 

American political identity is in the middle of another great sorting. 


 

pfffft..."Competent liberal democracy"? That has been missing in all Western countries for decades in case you hadn't noticed? That is why we have Trump, Boris, and Morrison here in Australia. First competent leaders in a long time. Hopefully the Europeans will work it out too, but I doubt it because they have proportional representation and we live in the age of irrationalism.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/6/2020 at 5:02 AM, Zhong Lu said:

There is no such thing as a Democratic party.  Nor is there a Republican party. What there is is a collection of individuals who call themselves "members of the Democratic party" or "members of the Republican party."  But the concept of the party itself is just a figment of people's imaginations.  And the terms are imprecise enough that when you talk about "Democrats" or "Republicans" and when I talk about them, we're talking about DIFFERENT concepts entirely even though we're using the same words.

Spoken like a true Chinese Communist PARTY member! The CCP is very real, and so is threat that it poses to world peace.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/6/2020 at 5:02 AM, Zhong Lu said:

There is no such thing as a Democratic party.  Nor is there a Republican party. What there is is a collection of individuals who call themselves "members of the Democratic party" or "members of the Republican party."  But the concept of the party itself is just a figment of people's imaginations.  And the terms are imprecise enough that when you talk about "Democrats" or "Republicans" and when I talk about them, we're talking about DIFFERENT concepts entirely even though we're using the same words.

I suppose you think world peace is just a CONCEPT! Wait till the first nuclear weapon explodes, that will teach you the difference between a concept and a reality?

 

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/7/2020 at 12:03 AM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

You do not know what the word CONSERVATIVE means.  Not a single one of the Rhinos on the Lincoln Project were ever conservatives.  Only reason they ever ran for Repub party is because in those districts it was impossible to run as a Democrat and most of them are old turds from the John McCain camp who have never seen a war they did not want to start personally. 

So, if mainline Democrats want to align with warmongers without a fiscal conservative bone in their body... go ahead. 

By the Way: trumps BIGGEST problem?  National Debt and the real reason most Republicans do not like him. 

Footeab, did you know that US public debt to GDP actually stabilised under Trump? The US was one of the few Western countries that had justed started to get govt debt under control until China gave us all the Wung Flu.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/7/2020 at 11:07 PM, Zhong Lu said:

Actually a lot of Republicans don't like him because he acts like a rude asshole and because Trump is not conservative.  Note how he's constantly expanding the federal government into state and business affairs.  Tariffs, executive orders, etc.   

Also, the point of politics in a democracy is to EXPAND the coalition, not shrink it, which is what Trump is doing for the Republican party.  While the country is getting browner and more suburban over time, Trump is shrinking the Republican party's base to a bunch of white dudes living in rural areas.  That's a small exaggeration, but not by much.  I'm sure you can find a picture of some random black dude who supports him.  But his numbers among Hispanics and Blacks and people living in suburbs and anyone under the age of 30 is abysmal.  

That is because Trump has an IQ of 140 and most Hispanics and Blacks and people under 30 are incapable of understanding why older, more educated, and more experienced people voted for him? Any successful person of any race or age knows what is at stake, that is why Trump is President and not Hillary. The average American is not as naive as you might like to thing Lu, especially them deplorable white dudes living in flyover country that actually create wealth for the country.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/6/2020 at 2:36 PM, BradleyPNW said:

Oxytocin causes humans to identify with political labels and sports teams. Humans can identify so strongly with a group that they turn off critical thinking, offshoring that function to charismatic leaders. That's how we wound up with the insanity that is the Cult of Trump. You can't convince people to eschew groups because you can't deny Oxytocin but you can get them to switch to socially healthy groups. 

After Trump loses in 2020 it's going to snap many -- not all -- of his cultists out of their daydream. They'll have the same experience people have when they leave religious cults. They'll wonder what they were thinking without realizing they *weren't* thinking. Portions of their brains will turn back on and their critical thinking will start functioning again. 

pffft... sounds like you get your Oxytocin from consuming ecstacy pills every day? What planet you on?!?

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

2 minutes ago, Wombat said:

After Trump loses in 2020 it's going to snap many -- not all -- of his cultists out of their daydream. They'll have the same experience people have when they leave religious cults. They'll wonder what they were thinking without realizing they *weren't* thinking. Portions of their brains will turn back on and their critical thinking will start functioning again. 

There is nothing cultish about us.  It doesn't have all that much to do with Trump, to be honest.  We know what awaits from the other party at this point in time and we are very hopeful the trend can be reversed and they see the light before they are given the torch once again.  If not, we are in for a world of pain, suffering, downsizing and attacks from without.  If given their way, the Democrats will clear the path for a President for Life.  Maybe we could even have Greta sail over to take the position, giving us a long miserable life under her "special" rule!

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/8/2020 at 5:08 AM, BradleyPNW said:

RINO is a dumb term in a political context because it's subtractive rather than additive. Nancy Pelosi dunks on the Republican Party because she always makes a point of emphasizing how the Democratic Party is a big tent when members of her party disagree with her. Right wing-nutjob media personalities use the term RINO because it helps them segment and retain audience. Anyone who uses the term RINO in the form of an accusation is either the con or the mark. 

Lincoln Project Conservatives are ideologically conservative. Their ideological beliefs motivate them to expose Donald's con. Trump Cultists are helpless in the face of the Lincoln Project Conservative attack ads because the ideology of a Trump Cultist is at the mercy of Donald's erratic whims. To a Trump Cultist, conservative just means whatever Donald says it means at any moment. If Donald tells you what conservative means he'll change the meaning of the term three times in a single sentence while managing to contradict himself each time. 
 

Your logic is what is "subtractive rather than addittive". RINO's attacking Trump for same reason they attacked Reagan, because they are fascist globalists like the Dems and can't stand the idea of making America great again. They are trying to bring wages down to third world levels so they can turn their billions into trillions, that is all.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/11/2020 at 12:17 PM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Most of the river network in the USA you just showed iS NOT naturally available before people came along and opened them up with locks, dams, wiers, dredging, removal of 100mile long log jams...

Rest of the world is catching up: Namely India/China/SE Asia.  Right now: India density map

while they cannot do the 20,000ton barges like the USA,  they still run around with 1000ton barges and are actively increasing their river infrastructure.  India for instance is now transhipping cargo containers on its rivers like Europe does, but never caught on in the USA.  Namely because the population density of the USA is still FAR FAR lower than that of Europe let alone India/China/SE Asia

It is a LOT easier to catch up in basic infrastructure.  Why Farmers around the world are still MASSIVELY increasing their crop yields and profitability compared to the USA.  So, when people bitch about exporting crops to the world... I laugh.... Hey idiots!, look at the trends of the world.  NO ONE wants to import basic food staples. 

Mark my words, next major power to rise will be India and Turkey.  *** With one giant caveat for India*** Muslim vrs Hindu population wars. 

Main reason the developing world is catching up on West in food production is new dams, paid for by the West until recently, now mainly China. Also, do not under-estimate the effect of currency strength of USA. The USD has never been stronger (due to excessive money printing) and that has crushed US exports, not just Ag, but manufactured goods too. Once the election is over, the money printing will stop (whoever wins) and stock market will crash, causing USD to fall heavily. Only then will US become internationally competitive again.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/11/2020 at 9:06 PM, Yoshiro Kamamura said:

Except that pre-Columbian America was not "devoid of people", today's estimates are 50 - 100 millions of total inhabitants (before the slaughters and epidemics started). 

I doubt those figures, Western medicine has doubled average life-span over last 200 years and created the global population explosion. Before Western medicine and agriculture arrived in any country, population growth was very slow.

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 7/12/2020 at 5:33 AM, Strangelovesurfing said:

Your graph starts mid 1800’s. Historically Rice = East Asia/South Asia, Wheat = rest of Asia.

Corn, potatoes etc., came from the Western Hemisphere. They wen’t staple crops, or in many cases available at all, in most of the world historically speaking.
 

The population of South and East Asia was huge compared to the rest of the world long before potatoes, corn etc were available. 

Wrong. South and East Asian populations exploded when Western medicine and agriculture (especially fertiliser) were introduced. Same with Africa.

 

[Wombat + 1,028]

58 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

There is nothing cultish about us.  It doesn't have all that much to do with Trump, to be honest.  We know what awaits from the other party at this point in time and we are very hopeful the trend can be reversed and they see the light before they are given the torch once again.  If not, we are in for a world of pain, suffering, downsizing and attacks from without.  If given their way, the Democrats will clear the path for a President for Life.  Maybe we could even have Greta sail over to take the position, giving us a long miserable life under her "special" rule!

Looks like OilPrice still has a bug? Should be "Bradley Said"!

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

2 hours ago, Wombat said:

Looks like OilPrice still has a bug? Should be "Bradley Said"!

Sorry.  I normally don't see his comments, but saw it when you answered his comment.  So I copied and quoted and when you do that it picks up the moniker of the last commenter.  Sorry about that.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

Main reason the developing world is catching up on West in food production is new dams, paid for by the West until recently, now mainly China. Also, do not under-estimate the effect of currency strength of USA. The USD has never been stronger (due to excessive money printing) and that has crushed US exports, not just Ag, but manufactured goods too. Once the election is over, the money printing will stop (whoever wins) and stock market will crash, causing USD to fall heavily. Only then will US become internationally competitive again.

I don't believe "excessive money printing" makes any currency stronger. Quite the opposite in fact. However there's an acronym called TINA, which applies here. Bad as the US dollar is, it's still better looking than all the alternatives. Foreign investments definitely are floating the dollar higher than its natural level. Let's face it, how many countries are currently paying negative interest on their treasury equivalents? That's pushing giga capital to these shores. 

I agree with everything else you said, just invert the printing logic. After all, Biden is in favor of reparations for blacks, and some have that number into the quadrillions. The DNC would happily crank up the press until we need wheelbarrows of cash to buy a loaf of bread. 

[BradleyPNW + 282]

5 hours ago, Wombat said:

Your logic is what is "subtractive rather than addittive". RINO's attacking Trump for same reason they attacked Reagan, because they are fascist globalists like the Dems and can't stand the idea of making America great again. They are trying to bring wages down to third world levels so they can turn their billions into trillions, that is all.

You said my logic was X then you veered off into a rant about fascist globalism. That's illogical. 

RINO is a term used by right-wing nutjob media personalities to segment an audience so they can make money by selling advertising. Trump cultists use the term RINO to say, "You're not loyal to Dear Leader!" They can't articulate Republican ideals without seeking guidance from a personality yet they have the balls to call Mitt Romney and John McCain RINOs because they didn't sign up for the cult. People who use the term RINO as an accusation expose themselves as gullible marks getting fleeced by con artists. 

[0R0 + 6,251]

4 hours ago, Wombat said:

Main reason the developing world is catching up on West in food production is new dams, paid for by the West until recently, now mainly China. Also, do not under-estimate the effect of currency strength of USA. The USD has never been stronger (due to excessive money printing) and that has crushed US exports, not just Ag, but manufactured goods too. Once the election is over, the money printing will stop (whoever wins) and stock market will crash, causing USD to fall heavily. Only then will US become internationally competitive again.

The US dollar is strong because the Eurodollar system is very short of dollars because China has lost its reserves and its money printing is no longer being translated into Eurodollar expansion to dilute the dollar's value. During the 2000s there was a 3 to 1 relationship between Eurodollar credit expansion and Chinese and their oil and ores supplier's reserves. That weakened the dollar during that period. The US banking system was not inflating, the source of the credit for the US housing boom that led to the GFC was not domestic.

The Dodd Frank bill brought allowed US bank leverage down from 20 to 1 to 10 to 1 and tightened limits on credit lines and proprietary trading to the point of the system not being a functional bank system, but a safer one internally, but that at the cost of making the entirety of the financial system weaker and unable to fund necessary investments and obtaining an instability because of the incapacity of banks to stabilize it using expansions and contractions of their books. Thus only the Fed could stabilize the financial system. US credit expansion capacity is extremely limited unless you are seeking a conforming mortgage, or are a corporate credit with access to the bond market. So the Fed has starved the Eurodollar system and exacerbated an already unbalanced global system with further imbalances. The repo crisis of 2018 and late 2019 are the result.

Part of it is demographically driven as demand drops from retirement savings expanding with the boomers aging around the world (China and EMs included). As they age further, they retire and gross savings fall off on the tail end of the boomer wave and they draw on retirement savings while reducing spending further. The capacity newly built for them on their rising wave remains as an overhang of excess capacity when they save and then retire. Thus the debt incurred in building industry out, especially  in China, can not be serviced because the margins are compressed due to overcapacity. Meaning that the market value of the output vs. the inputs continuously trends downwards even while commodity input prices crashed. Output values just crashed more. Which is the basic problem of the Eurodollar system for the last decade, and China's problem. The CB cash injections were just sufficient to prop up the continued operation of excess capacity, thus creating an ever expanding zombie industry sector that can't fund restructuring and employees seeing pressure on their wages despite having work. Look at China with nearly 200 mil. people, mostly migrant labor, who are not working yet their industrial production is climbing back up to normal levels without them. I still hope to see a PMI report indicating rehiring. But the focus of operations in both manufacturing and services is to reduce headcount and costs. I keep expecting those 140 million unemployed migrants to either go back home to the farm or regain jobs at a lively pace of 20 mil per month for a few months at least, but nothing is happening yet, they just sit in their dorms and wait to be called back to the shop floor. The recent Chinese govt. calls for investors to go to the stock markets is related to this great rise in productivity, as output is largely recovered but labor costs are down 20-25%. I don't know that it will translate into the expanded profit margins they are expecting based on the Western process of recovery from recession. Their conditions are different. Their consumption is just now recovering after the wave of spending in Mar fizzled into May.

Back to the dollar, the main point is that the past dollar weakness had nothing to do with US monetary policy expansion but happened in the Eurodollar space as it expanded wildly funded largely by China and its trade partners. It has been in contraction since 2008 and has yet to show persistent growth at any time since. Meanwhile the Fed has not recognized that they were overly tight and kept expecting the system that was sabotaged by Dodd Frank to somehow act as it used to before it. Thus the Eurodollar system keeps hovering just above collapse. Its support from the US system for liquidity non existent till just these past 3 months of massive QE and swap lines. Those had stopped the dollar's rapid rise with temporary liquidity, but only global recovery will get Eurodollar credit creation rising to fill the debt repayment demand. Global bankruptcy restructurings will help as well in reducing the global dollar deficit.

So to the extent China and the rest of the world ex US can recover activity, the dollar will fall so long as the Fed's spigots remain gushing. But long term, the global dollar deficit continues hanging over the world.

So far, the US is not expanding credit productively into the new economy of WFH, exurban expansion, and broad infrastructure. It is focused on propping up businesses in the abandoned city centers that have little hope of growing into the the future. Banks are sitting on reserves rather than lending the out or buying bonds. The public is now sitting on its CARES money in a $2 Trillion bump in retail money market balances. They are still growing. That will eventually be there to support growth once the pandemic burns through its potential victims and reopening resumes. So dollar asset demand would then return as well.

[0R0 + 6,251]

8 minutes ago, BradleyPNW said:

You said my logic was X then you veered off into a rant about fascist globalism. That's illogical. 

RINO is a term used by right-wing nutjob media personalities to segment an audience so they can make money by selling advertising. Trump cultists use the term RINO to say, "You're not loyal to Dear Leader!" They can't articulate Republican ideals without seeking guidance from a personality yet they have the balls to call Mitt Romney and John McCain RINOs because they didn't sign up for the cult. People who use the term RINO as an accusation expose themselves as gullible marks getting fleeced by con artists. 

RINOs are political machine Republicans who the Trumpists see as aligned with the looting of the country by the Democratic machine and their assorted corporate crony capitalist supporters.

You are viewing this entirely incorrectly. Nobody wishes for a more disciplined and coherent person than Trump supporters, but they take what they can get, as the number of credible people wanting to run for office to dismantle state power and cut off corporations from politics and extract the US from its relationship with China is not a natural phenomenon even among Republicans. Trump at least stands for that and has acted in that direction. Nobody else has even bothered to pay lip service to those goals.

 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

10 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

That is a flawed way at looking at history.

The US is just a traitorous colony that got a lot of help from France.

Rioting, violence, treachery, it is all in your blood... this is nothing new.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Europe let/set the garbage people away: prisoners, indentured servants, and the people who didn't support the church.

Your opinion and mine different greatly and that is ok we can agree to disagree and merely walk away. That can be a very good remedy for opinions for each side it tends to bring focus.

Reflection is a very good thing in life, things that are taken for granted go away..sometimes it hurts and sometimes it is a blessing in disguise. In the end humility brings focus 

One might take the time to notice our anthem is the embodiment of a dream of what could be it is not part of the constitution that guides this country. As we all have seen America cannot employee all of it people enabling that dream...America cannot afford to give its Citizens competent health care..It is time for a reset. Time for some humility time to assess its responsibility to its own citizens, in todays world the US maybe called once again to defend a free world principle we need to be ready.

[BradleyPNW + 282]

8 hours ago, 0R0 said:

RINOs are political machine Republicans who the Trumpists see as aligned with the looting of the country by the Democratic machine and their assorted corporate crony capitalist supporters.

You are viewing this entirely incorrectly. Nobody wishes for a more disciplined and coherent person than Trump supporters, but they take what they can get, as the number of credible people wanting to run for office to dismantle state power and cut off corporations from politics and extract the US from its relationship with China is not a natural phenomenon even among Republicans. Trump at least stands for that and has acted in that direction. Nobody else has even bothered to pay lip service to those goals.

You have political views, you settled on someone to promote those views because he was the only one who said whatever it is you wanted said, then during the first 3 years of his term he blew the credibility of your movement by golfing more than he worked and crying about how no one loves him or thanks him for doing such a wonderful job. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

23 hours ago, Dan Warnick said:

Sorry.  I normally don't see his comments, but saw it when you answered his comment.  So I copied and quoted and when you do that it picks up the moniker of the last commenter.  Sorry about that.

No need to apologise, it happens all the time, just didn't want others to get confused, that's all

 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

14 hours ago, BradleyPNW said:

You have political views, you settled on someone to promote those views because he was the only one who said whatever it is you wanted said, then during the first 3 years of his term he blew the credibility of your movement by golfing more than he worked and crying about how no one loves him or thanks him for doing such a wonderful job. 

That is quite Intresting...you say a administration that lacks accomplishments? 

You say Trump by his actions has no credibility?

I am looking for clarity here, run back to your hive and consolidate a thought process.

What Donald Trump has accomplished in two yrs is perhaps more than any three Presidents combined accomplishments....I often wonder how many personalities are behind your screen name.

After all you go from mfg cheap audio amplifiers to I'll founded legal opinions..Then onto green energy tech with abandoned...

Quite frankly Trump has made the last two sitting Presidents appear quite childish.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

17 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

What Donald Trump has accomplished in two yrs is perhaps more than any three Presidents combined accomplishment

could you list the accomplishments. By this I mean real tangible results. Not fluffy statements.