RichardGibbons

Yeah, that's a perfect example of what I meant by "everyone's so focused on defending their ideology to the point of irrationality". We could have a productive discussion that allows some of the great libertarian ideas to actually be adopted for the benefit of the nation. Instead, you'd rather cling to this ridiculous notion of governmental violence that, while true in theory, makes absolutely no sense in practice.

The point is that there's value in discussing ideas and making an effort to fight against ideas that you think are tremendously destructive. Most people are reluctant to change their minds once they have espoused a particular view. Thus, there's value in showing public opinion before people make up their minds. For instance, if a communist were elected, I think there would be a lot of value in making it very clear that people don't want their businesses nationalized and private property taken away. If you just get along and accept it, as you suggest you would do, then the communist leader won't hesitate to implement all their ideology. If 1% of the population protests, then they'll think twice about nationalizing everything because they know that there will have a real fight on their hands. That said, I agree somewhat in spirit with your point. Ideally, we would be in the situation to have a win-win exchange of ideas, for everyone to share their thoughts and identify the best way to run the country. There's ideas from the right that make sense, and there ideas from the left that make sense. But nobody sees any of the good ideas because everyone's so focused on defending their ideology to the point of irrationality. And how do you get to an open discussion of ideas if the person at the top is demonstrably lying about the most trivial of facts? The core problem is that politics today is viewed as more of a sporting event with winners and losers than a co-operative endeavor where, through spirited debate, we're constantly trying to find the optimal solution for the country.

Yeah, I think this thing where the president creates "alternative facts" (i.e. lies) and people interpret it as "calling out the press" is particularly disturbing. I mean, the evidence is right there. Everyone can see it. Yet people on this thread interpret these blatant lies as "calling out the press", for no reason I can understand. I understand partisanship, but not at this extreme, not even close to this extreme. Like, do you actually want to live in a country where your president lies openly to you? Do you actually want to live in a country where the government literally controls the media? It's very odd to me that anyone can look at these "alternative facts", and actually claim that it's a good thing. On the other hand, it has helped me with one thing. I look at all these countries that are communist, fascist, dictatorships, Venezuela etc. and I think, "how did that country end up that way? Why did the people so easily surrender their free press and freedom?". Then these threads come along and help me answer that question. (Mostly with variants of, "I don't care if he puts everyone in the country in shackles as long as he improves the economy.")

To me, this is a pretty low bar for genius, which I typically consider to be less than 1% of the population. The way I see it, it was a self-avowed billionaire with a successful TV show, recognized by I imagine at least 75% of the population, running against probably the most hated and vilified woman in the USA. Despite these massive advantages, he wasn't even able to win the popular vote. So that doesn't pass this 1% test in my mind. That said, I still think it was a noteworthy accomplishment, just not even close to genius level. Maybe it's just a terminology issue, because I do think it was impressive. For me, political genius level would be some schmuck on the street deciding today that he wanted to run, and winning the presidency in 2020. Or Obama winning a third term. I think you're right that he'll also target the things you say, and if he's successful, those will be massive changes. Of the ones you mention, the targeting of immigrants worries me the most, since I don't think it's nearly as hard as people think for a major superpower to slip into a fascist state. I'm right with you on the emerging markets thing. I've been considering FNDE and VWO.

Fair enough. For future reference, if you're not interested in having a political discussion, it would be wise to refrain from saying things like "this was a failure of Obama's; you can't look at it any other way". I see. Your reasoning is: Trump won when people think he couldn't. Therefore Trump is a political genius. That's an interesting perspective, for sure. I think you make a very good point about wanting a legacy for his ego, and that he might be willing to work with Democrats for votes on key legislation. In a way, that's terrifying to me, since I don't trust his judgement to chose a legacy that's good for both USA and humanity as a whole. (e.g. maybe his legacy will be the normalization of the use of nuclear weapons in conflicts. Or, like Obama, the continued expansion of the surveillance state.) Yeah, the globalization stuff is really interesting. Three or four years ago, I thought the anti-globalization guys were naïve tree-huggers. Now I think I actually understand where they're coming from. I don't see a good solution to many of their concerns, but it'll be interesting to see how their increasing political influence changes the world over the next couple decades.

I can be kind of simple sometimes, so I don't see the genius. Can you explain the genius to me? Do you just mean stating that America was a failure because of foreigners and people who are not white, and that only he could save it? Or do you see it as something more than that? To me, it actually looked a lot like Obama's first campaign with the addition of overt xenophobia. Interesting point of view. I'm pretty convinced that it's because of automation and globalization. If you automate away a bunch of jobs and send the rest away to countries that pay employees less, you'd expect most first world countries to suck wind. I'll believe you if you can do the following: convince me to type the phrase "ideology turns your brain into cabbage" on this thread once more after this post. If you can't, then clearly this is your failure, and only your failure because you should've done whatever possible to get me to say that phrase. The gridlock was because the Republicans refused to govern while a Democrat controlled the White House. Now that Republicans control Congress, the Senate, and the White House, this gridlock doesn't actually exist anymore. Thus, I suspect the only gridlock will be in areas where Trump deviates from Republican dogma. (And I'd say the same thing if the Democrats controlled all three institutions as well.) The gridlock will return any time the Democrats control the White House but not the Congress or Senate, because the Republicans have learnt that voters won't punish them for refusing to govern.

FTFY.

Yeah, this is a pretty terrible deal for the preferred shareholders. I'll vote my series E shares against it. I also expressed my displeasure to their Investor Relations folks here.

Ah, I see. Your assertion that they're center left is sufficient evidence in your mind. But while you've struggled to find any indications that they are left-wing, they've done quite a few right wing things. Here's a few: Cracking the hospital unions Cutting back on public education Cutting taxes to grow deficits Public/private partnerships Toll bridges rather than public bridges Cutting funding for healthcare Privatizing components of the healthcare system Massive cuts to legal aid services Cutting early childhood and literacy programs Cutting income assistance programs Eliminating environmental programs Releasing the agricultural land reserves to developers Privatizing BC Gas Cuts to mental health and addiction facilities Public private partnerships That said, I understand that your thoughts on this topic might not be well-formed, and that in a pinch, it's much easiest to assume that because the party is called Liberal, it's actually, um, liberal. Though, if you've been planning to vacation this summer in the Democratic Republic of Korea, watch out. It's really not what you think it is....

Exactly. The federal Liberals are center-left. The BC Provincial Liberals are center-right conservatives in everything but name. Just out of curiosity, Cardboard, what major actions have the BC Provincial Liberals taken that lead you to conclude that they are a left-wing party? The only thing that immediately comes to mind for me is the carbon tax.

I think the other factor when thinking about the Provincial election is the dearth of the alternatives. At the federal level, both the Liberals and Conservatives are reasonable options most of the time. At the provincial level, the primary alternative is the NDP, which is a total non-starter for many people. It would be helpful if there were a center-left provincial party to balance the center-right Liberals party.

I think it's also important to put this in the political context, that a significant chunk of Christy Clark's pay comes from condo developers. And those condo developers were annoyed that Clark didn't give them advance notice of the foreign buyer's tax. So, this allows her to give a kickback directly to the condo industry while framing the loan as helping first-time buyers. It's clearly bad encouraging people to buy overvalued properties that they can't afford by giving them money when they aren't disciplined enough to save up a down payment themselves. But it's great for Bob Rennie.

Yeah, totally! Why would anyone care about desertification? Food isn't nearly as important as being able to drive monster trucks really cheaply! http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/agm/publications/documents/wmo_cc_desertif_foldout_en.pdf

The math is as follows. Suppose oil is in contango, meaning that the near term contracts are cheaper than the long term contracts. Suppose spot oil is trading at $45, while the near term contract is at $47. Time passes, so the price of the near term contract needs to decrease, so it falls from $47 to $45.50 with 2 weeks left until expiration. But then that contract is going to disappear, so it needs to be rolled out to a later contract. But since oil is in contango, that contract will be more expensive--say $47 again. So then the ETF is selling the $45.50 contract and buying the $47 contract, so it's essentially lost $1.50 as a result of time decay. If you keep on buying at $47 an selling at $45.50, you constantly lose money, causing the value of USO to decline.

I love this response. Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant! The world is black or white. My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!" No? He just told you you have no data. He's the kid from The Emperor's New Clothes. That kid's brilliant btw :) No, he didn't. For future reference, here's what a response would look like if he were telling me I have no data: "You have no data." His response was essentially, "If you think free markets don't work for healthcare, you therefore believe that free markets don't work anywhere. How on earth can you believe that free markets don't work anywhere? It's ridiculous to believe governments should be in charge of buying cars for anyone." To anyone thoughtful, that argument is akin to, "If you think that potatoes are tasty, then you must believe that anything that comes out of the ground is tasty! I can't believe you're suggesting we eat rocks. Can you imagine how hard a time we'd have swimming, if we'd had nothing but rocks to eat for a week or two?"

I love this response. Just unabashedly shout it from the rooftops: "Your data is irrelevant! The world is black or white. My ideology is far too important to be refuted by something as banal as reality!"

Mark Carney gets it.... http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38210169 The stateless corporations issue is an interesting one. Outside of a world-wide government, I'm not sure how you deal with that.

My fault. You're right. Sorry about that, Cardboard.

I disagree slightly. Theon had a hard path, but made a the wrong decision out of pride, and that proved his downfall. Theon was raised by Ned. He had more than a decade to learn what it is to be a good person. He had the chance to throw off his dad's influence and his nation's culture. But Theon's pride, his unwillingness to simply be Rob's trusted advisor, enabled his family to bait him into reverting to Greyjoy norms. That's not to say that cutting yourself off from your birth family, your culture, and your birthright over a point of principle would be easy. Heck, all the Libertarians on this board believe fervently in their beliefs, yet none of them has yet moved to Mogadishu despite it being the closest thing on earth to the Libertarian ideal. I'm merely saying that a choice did exist for Theon, even if it was a nearly impossible choice for him to make. And yeah, Joffrey was a douche.

Good point. And to be fair, I did learn (or perhaps remember) a couple interesting things from the whole Theon thing. Even if you wish the worst upon a character, when the worst happens, you find out it isn't at all what you want. And, a character might seem completely irredeemable one moment, yet turn completely sympathetic the next.

Yeah, the scene is certainly disturbing, but to me, it does it without being disgusting. For me, a better adjective is horrifying. I still find it beautiful. I see it as brilliant for several reasons. First, it evokes this horror (or disgust in your case), through a simple conversation, not through graphic images or violence. This isn't The Godfather, or A Game of Thrones. All the heavy lifting on the horror (and disgust) happens in the viewer's head, not on the screen. Second, in a sense, the extreme environmentalist is kind of right, his arguments logical (not in the killing kid bit, but rather the argument that if you truly care about the environment, having a kid is about the worst thing you can do). You can follow the guy's logic, and it is extremely uncomfortable walking that path. Third, to me, the directing and cinematography is excellent and beautiful. Fourth, it's concise and elegant. They have 2 minutes to tell a story, and, starting from nothing, they're able to elicit an overwhelmingly strong emotional and intellectual reaction in that short time frame. Every word and every movement contributes to the whole. Fifth, the whipsaw in the viewers impression of the environmentalist is awesome. You go from this "seems like a fine friendly fellow, caring about the environment and his fellow humans" to "this guy is an complete psycho". And at the end, you almost wonder whether he's a normal guy, except for this really extreme perspective when it comes to this one issue. Finally, the scene lingers. It's so simple--just a couple people having a mostly normal conversation in a bus station--but the ideas and visceral reaction lingers in your head for a while. (Like I saw this 2-minute clip probably six months ago, but was the first thing I thought of when you said "extreme environmentalist".) All that said, I can understand why many people would get nothing out of this scene but disturbance and disgust. It's a deliberately challenging scene. Well, pretty well every Holocaust movie I've seen didn't have the elegance and thoughtfulness of this scene, though many have the horror. The only comparable thing I can think from that set of work was , and even that relied heavily on the weight of what came before. That said, I find the Holocaust atrocious and depressing, and I don't seek out documentaries on atrocities committed by humans on other human beings, so I haven't actually seen that many such films. Therefore, I'm not really qualified to come up with a list of beautiful moments in films about atrocities--I'm inclined to take your word that there's not that much beauty there.

That said, I shouldn't be too flippant. I did ask why anyone believed the rich wouldn't be killed, and you gave me an excellent explanation. I appreciate you explaining your own point of view of how the world works, since I sincerely didn't understand why anyone would believe that you can increase wealth inequality to extreme levels, and not expect the vast majority to react in dramatic--and eventually violent--ways. Now I think I understand your point of view. Thanks.

LOL!

It's even worse than that--I also watch Game of Thrones. In that, there's a guy who repeatedly rapes his own barely pubescent daughters & granddaughters and, when they become pregnant by him, sacrifices the newborn boys. That's got to be an even stronger sign of my derangement, I think. (That said, I'm not a fan of anything in the last few seasons related to Theon/Reek. That storyline zoomed right past the point of thought-provoking entertainment to stop squarely in the middle of pornographic sadism, I think. Joffrey was about as far as they needed to take that kind of character. They didn't need Joffrey-squared in vivid high-definition.)

Umm, Syria? Lebanon? Iran?