RichardGibbons

Oh, you've got an anecdote. I didn't realize that. Consider your point proven--your ironclad evidence refutes anything I could possibly say.

One really interesting thing about this election is that there's really good evidence that Trump lies about pretty well everything, sexually assaults people, scams workers, discriminates based on gender, race, and disability, insults war heroes, says he loves war, thinks nukes are a good way to solve problems, encourages war crimes, encourages the beating of up journalists and anyone who disagrees with him, and wants to start wars based on minor slights. The other candidate has been under constant examination for twenty-five years, with the right looking for any possible way to discredit her. In all that time, the best thing they could come up with was that she sent emails from a private server, just like many of the high-ranking Republicans have done. She hasn't been convicted of anything in all that time. The conclusion? HRC is corrupt but incredibly good at hiding it, and has done so successfully because the media is kind to her, the justice system is completely corrupt, and everyone in power is following her lead. Therefore, Trump is the better candidate. Not a thought is spared on the idea that HRC is a human, better than many, who has dedicated much of her life to public service, and, though she's messed up a couple times, hasn't messed up any more than any other human would be likely to do so in her position. Instead, of taking a slightly flawed human who tries, they'll vote for the known maniac. (And really, anyone who actually believe HRC is the great Satan must be really impressed with her abilities, getting every powerful person in the nation to buckle under her fist, and keeping them in line for 25 years. Like, really? Really?) To me, it shows the true power ideology combined with Fox's 25 year propaganda campaign, repeating the same message every day for decades. It's pretty amazing, really.

Not me, a fellow Motley Fool writer. :) A huge part of what I accomplished was because of the education system and the support of my government. I wouldn't be even close to where I am without those two things. Thanks goodness those things are there, because pretty well everyone in my country would be so much worse off if they weren't. Richard (the amply brainwashed)

Ah, right. Like healthcare. Everyone wants their family to have reasonable healthcare at a reasonable cost, and not have people they love die or be bankrupted because they caught some random disease. That's why the market has provided low cost healthcare to everyone who needs it. Oh wait. It didn't. I mean, you can assert that all these things would exist without government--and maybe some of them would--but generally, that argument completely falls apart with even a modicum of thought. For some reason, your comment reminds me of a critique of the Trump supporters John Scalzi made today in the LA Times:

Another alternative--which actually seems more likely to me--is that Pandora has figured out that people who listen to Pandora (and possibly even your particularly playlist) are more likely to vote Democrat. And, they might also believe that an appeal by Obama is more likely to sway a Democrat. Thus, a Democratic president telling a group of mostly Democrats to vote might not be evidence that they don't care who you vote for, but rather that they're pretty good at targeted advertising. (To test this, one strategy might be to create an account with a bunch of country music, and see if these appeals go away, or switch to something that would be more appealing to Republicans. Might not matter though, since younger demographics are more likely to be Democrats and Pandora users are more likely to be younger. It depends on how smart they are with their market segmenting.)

Here's corruption and lies metric: Which candidate currently has three open investigations for fraud, including one going to trial on November 28, and has a lawsuit going to trial in December for raping a 13-year-old child? Clinton ...... NO Trump ...... YES But you're right--Clinton's way worse. She used her own computer server. Hard to imagine anything more evil! Seth Meyers summarizes the situation nicely, showing how malevolent Clinton is compared to Trump:

Her husband. The Underwoods, eh, I mean Clintons have always been a two for one kind of deal. Putting WJC back in the White House isn't exactly going to make one feel better about themselves if voting against Trump is solely based off of contempt for his outrageous lack of control around the ladies. They are both world class poon hounds. Ah, I see where you're coming from. Like you shouldn't vote for Trump because Melania isn't smart enough to know that plagiarizing a convention speech is a bad idea, and we don't want someone that stupid in the oval office. There is a fairly rational case that one shouldn't vote for either Trump or Clinton. But implying that Melania Trump will have even a fraction of the power/authority WJC would in the same situation is pretty outlandish. Okay, and the situation we were discussing is whether Hillary Clinton was a sexual predator, and now your assertion is that Bill was, and he'll have lots of influence over his wife. So you think him being a sexual predator will influence her in what way, exactly? Turn her into a sexual predator? Make her sign all the pro-sexual predator laws that are delivered to her by congress? To me, this isn't really a partisan argument. Rather, you're making a nonsensical argument that doesn't hold up to the slightest examination. If it were actually a reasoned case you were making, I wouldn't have bothered. (That said, you are almost certainly right that Melania would have less influence over Trump than Bill over Hillary. Trump clearly doesn't listen to anyone, and probably shouldn't be listening to Melania regardless. Hillary does listen, and both her and Bill are smart, thoughtful people. So, like you, I'd expect him to have more influence on her. But even with that influence, I don't see how he's going to turn her into a sexual predator.)

Her husband. The Underwoods, eh, I mean Clintons have always been a two for one kind of deal. Putting WJC back in the White House isn't exactly going to make one feel better about themselves if voting against Trump is solely based off of contempt for his outrageous lack of control around the ladies. They are both world class poon hounds. Ah, I see where you're coming from. Like you shouldn't vote for Trump because Melania isn't smart enough to know that plagiarizing a convention speech is a bad idea, and we don't want someone that stupid in the oval office.

Hillary Clinton is a sexual predator? Just out of curiosity, what are you referencing here?

I absolutely agree. I feel like this is the one bipartisan accord still in existence. In an way, it's very embarrassing that politicians have (or at least sell) such a distorted view of the President's results. On the other hand, everyone seems to do it, and people in general seem to actually buy it, so maybe it's no less than you'd expect from the politicians.

And this is how you describe Clinton's likely outcomes: So McCain was worse than this, and you seem pretty confident with each election cycle that we're teetering on the edge of a nuclear apocalypse. It makes sense to me now why you're a such a devout libertarian, viewing government as nothing but a problem, if you assess the probabilities of the end of civilization this way. Have you ever considered that you're particular sensitive on this war issue, and might not be so good at estimating the odds of an apocalypse? It sounds really stressful living in your head.

Hallucinate, sure. But not arguing. Admiring. I find your unapologetic stance that you aren't rational--and shouldn't even try to be--fascinating. It's like Guernica or something.

Cool quiz. I got 35, and "A first-generation upper-middle-class person with middle-class parents" essentially describes me. (That said, the quiz might be a bit inaccurate for me, since I'm Canadian, and on average we're richer, we have a less skewed income distribution, we have better social mobility, we have far fewer people per capita in prison, and we're better educated on average. Thus, there's a good chance that the average Canadian will skew toward "living in a bubble" according to this quiz.)

Suggesting that there is only one way to view the world (yours!) would strike most as elitist. I see it as the creepy-clown of arguments. Sorry, I'm confused now. I thought that I was representing your view accurately. Didn't you say that you aren't rational when it comes to politics, and--what's more--there's only one way people view politics--irrationally? Or are you just trying to say that your own views are creepy-clown? That said, one of the great things about your "I'm not rational" position--one of the things I admire the most about it--is that you're totally within your rights to claim, "X is true", and then a day later say, "X is not true" and not feel any sense of contradiction. It reminds me of O'Brian in 1984, a brilliant concept for a character, IMO.

Fair point, Investor. I'm not sure if an increase in the duration for capital gains to be considered short term is a good thing for society or not. For me personally, it would be a slightly bad thing, so I'm mildly opposed, but I'm willing to be convinced. That said, to me, this issue is pretty minor compared to the bigger issues. It's akin to saying, "Last time we hired that babysitter, she forgot to brush the kids' teeth. So we should hire Jeffrey Dahmer this time instead."

I think it's quite a useful point he makes. Basically, onyx doesn't really care to be rational, thoughtful, or reasonable in any sense of the word. For him, it's not at all about qualifications, demeanor, intelligence, or ethics. He finds Trump prettier than Clinton and will therefore unapologetically vote for him, for who says that reason, logic, or facts should play any part in deciding the leader of the free world? It explains nicely so many people don't seem to be acting rationally, and why the core of Trump's base is the racists, the violent, and the misogynists. This election might not be the battle of the sexes, the war of the corrupt, or the maverick vs. the establishment. It might actually be the fight between the reasonable and the unreasonable. (And one of the nice things about onyx's unreasonableness is that he can claim that everyone is like that, including him. It nicely avoids any sort of cognitive dissonance, enabling him to justify anything and feel good about himself, while still believing that people should take him seriously. I think it's pretty neat.)

This is exactly the question Obama and Clinton supporters are pretending not to hear. I don't see it answered anywhere. Hillary made a lot of hay over Trump supposedly being cozy with Putin, but no one is saying anything about the Democrats playing with nuclear war. Yeah, the question is being ignored. I think that's because Obama's pretty bright and nobody thoughtful sincerely believes he's likely to start a nuclear war with Russia. Plus, Americans in general don't seem to care much about foreign policy.

Interesting argument, but I'm afraid that you're at first level thinking on this one, focused on this one premise, "IBM is a job security for IT people (but don't refer to 'people associating job security with IBM' as a brand, because it isn't. Just because.)" Grounded in this first-level thinking, blindered view of IBM's competitive advantages, you'll have problems understanding their long-term risks. The Silicon Valley "fast fail" strategy is risky, but there are a large number of people who are doing this, and 5% who are successful will typically be much more successful than the people using things like IBM. The non-IBM customers will be the long-term winners, which will be very problematic for IBM. Thus, while IT job security is a factor, it is only a minor one, long term. The important thing is whether IBM can play this new game successfully (and it's shown no sign that it can.) It doesn't really matter if you're great at creating buggies that will reliably take you from Philadelphia to New York, and everyone who orders buggies will think of you first. Thirty years after the car is invented you still won't be selling many. You should consider doing some second and third level thinking about what happens to IBM in a world where a bunch of people start doing "fast fail".

That's the conclusion you take from this? That the most likely explanation is that all the polls are rigged? Interesting.

Hey, wait a minute... I said this and you said it was lazy thinking: "they make incompetent management feel good about themselves". This is essentially your 2nd level thinking. Also, your third level thinking is basically paraphrasing "hey people buy it because of its brand and we should think about whether that brand is eroding". Essentially what I said! Go figure, I'm third level thinking, but you're having a really hard time identifying it. I think maybe you're saying the same thing as me, except you're being nice about it, and I'm being blunt about it. You're probably a nicer person. :) I think the real problem IBM has is that IT is a competitive advantage in many cases. So, the companies that don't understand IT and therefore hire IBM will frequently lose to companies that do IT in-house. It's hard to win long-term when your business model self-selects the customers who are more likely to lose long term.

Good point, maybe I should rephrase that. People who buy IBM believe IT is a competitive advantage, but don't know enough about IT to build something that would provide a competitive advantage or even realize that businesses don't get competitive advantages in IT by outsourcing their IT to someone else. So they go with IBM because of the brand and end up grossly overpaying for mediocre talent. But at least they help incompetent management feel good about themselves.

Their clients don't have to work with IBM. I'm a proprietorship, and I've done stuff with AWS, and I'm sure I could figure out Azure as well. There are a million people like me, and the only reason to choose IBM is because of the brand. (In fact, I'd go a step further--the companies that choose IBM will mostly be the losers, because they are likely choosing the company because of the brand and therefore don't view IT as a competitive advantage, an attitude which I think puts them at a competitive disadvantage.) Microsoft, on the other hand, has a huge chunk of Enterprise software, but a company would have to be really dumb to come to me to build an enterprise software suite from them. They should just go to Microsoft. Thus, IBM mostly has less of a moat that Microsoft. Watson might end up getting a moat, but it's also a sexy area that a bunch of other people are playing in, and they aren't the obvious "winner" yet.

Yeah, Gates should would certainly be in the running for the top of the list.

Well, I think becoming a major party's nominee for POTUS greatly supports the argument that one has been successful. I was thinking about Scott's ranking, and I think he's got it right. But if Trump hadn't won the nomination, I think I'd put Trump and Watsa on par (because Trump's success in business is questionable and he seems deeply unhappy, and I find it hard to consider anyone who's deeply unhappy to be successful.) Another interesting one to add to the list--in addition to HRC--would be Obama. I think it's tough finding someone that ranks higher than Bezos and Musk.

Don't worry. Trump probably won't run Berkshire. Munger will stop it. Though I guess saying stuff like this about Trump means Munger is a Liberal now, so we shouldn't pay any attention to what he says anymore. Heck, it's all Munger and Obama's fault that America is in debt! Bad Charlie!