muscleman

The Supreme Court Monday morning backed the president’s power to fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without cause, but let stand the agency's operating architecture. By a 5-4 vote, the court ruled that the CFPB’s leadership structure — headed by a single director who is removable by the president only for “inefficiency, neglect, or malfeasance” — violates the constitution’s separation of powers, because its director held too much unchecked power. But the court did not go extreme to invalidate the entire consumer agency. Instead, the court held that the CFPB director’s removal protection can be separated from other provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act that established the bureau. In a nutshell, it means the bureau's past enforcement activities would remain intact.

The youtuber I listen to got the list of 38 Chinese solider who died in this conflict. The Chinese government told their relatives to keep it as a top secret and no funeral is allowed and they should not tell their neighbors that their sons died. This is complete disrespect of these soldiers. I feel sad for these folks and their relatives. At the same time, both sides continued to add more and more troops to the border, and China started building more bunkers in areas they just promised to retreat in the negotiation days ago. That's how China does things. People who believe China will respect the US phase one trade deal or the original WTO treaties are just fools.

Might be OT but it seems like the legal wheel of juggernaut is slow but grinding fine. https://www.wsj.com/articles/appeals-court-orders-judge-to-dismiss-criminal-case-against-michael-flynn-as-justice-department-requested-11593008416?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Doesn't this speak to the quality of troops and leadership in the region on both sides? Why were Indian officers not able to stop their troops from entering Chinese territory seeking revenge? And why did a modern military suffer ~40 casualties to troops armed with blade weapons and batons? Scary to imagine a larger regional war starting over what sounds like it is essentially a local feud between border guards. That is because back in 1970s India and China reached an agreement that troops along the border should not carry firearm weapons. They can only carry sticks. So when the Indian soldiers crossed the border with blades, the Chinese troops could only fight back with sticks. That caused all 20 of them to die. The other 20 died in a separate camp where one side claimed it was an unfortunate natural disaster of landslide, and the other side claimed that the India army engineers plotted a small bomb that caused the landslide.

Right.. But at the moment Modi seems to have lost control of the Indian army. There have been massive Indian troops coming to the border yesterday, and India just ordered 21 jet fighters from Russia. (China was such a fool to think Russia is its ally, and it kept buying crude oil from Russia at $110 per barrel to support this relationship when they could have bought it from Texas at negative $37.)

What is your source of information? It's hard to get the true info on these issues. The source is from a youtuber who have been spot on with COVID since December.

How do you know the Chinese were the aggressors? It always takes two parties to get a bar fight and finding out who started it is usually an exercise in futility. Isn't China building islands in South China Sea to claim more territory? Trying to push around Hong Kong, Taiwan? Who is India trying to take over? As far as I understand, the reason for the China-India conflict is because India is building airports and highways near its border and China threatened a war to stop India from building those, because China was not happy that India could use these facilities to quickly move troops to the border if a war breaks out. However, China already built the high speed trail and highway network near this border on its side, and India is building the highway and airport in its own territory, not in the questionable territory. But that's just the excuse. I think the real reason is that Xi wants a war to grab full control of the army, and there is no negotiation with India that could give him this. muscle, I give you a lot of credit for calling it like it is and not having a lot of bias from your home country. That is rare but it is appreciated. Thanks. I now lower the probability of war to 5% after learning more details. They first had an accident in the disputed territory and 3 Indian soldiers fell off the cliff and died, and the Chinese army promptly retreated. Then the Indian soldiers vowed to revenge, and they took big blade weapons and went into the actual Chinese territory, not the disputed territory, and killed 40 Chinese soldiers. 17 of the Indian soldiers died in the fight. That's invasion. It is ugly. Now I understand why the Chinese government remained silent on this matter now. If it speaks publicly about what happened, since an invasion actually happened, it has to do something about it. Otherwise its people will be pissed off. The fact that China wants to down play this invasion makes me think they don't want a war yet.

This is not likely because it will make businesses think China is so unstable that they should move out. Not everything is motivated by economic reasons in non-capitalism countries.

How do you know the Chinese were the aggressors? It always takes two parties to get a bar fight and finding out who started it is usually an exercise in futility. Isn't China building islands in South China Sea to claim more territory? Trying to push around Hong Kong, Taiwan? Who is India trying to take over? As far as I understand, the reason for the China-India conflict is because India is building airports and highways near its border and China threatened a war to stop India from building those, because China was not happy that India could use these facilities to quickly move troops to the border if a war breaks out. However, China already built the high speed trail and highway network near this border on its side, and India is building the highway and airport in its own territory, not in the questionable territory. But that's just the excuse. I think the real reason is that Xi wants a war to grab full control of the army, and there is no negotiation with India that could give him this.

The Chinese officials refused to disclose these numbers so far, which makes me think that the casualties is much higher than Indians and it would be a disgrace to disclose those. I think the war risk has risen dramatically to 70% since yesterday, as Modi ordered big rallies across multiple Indian cities and carried the dead bodies of these Indian soldiers. Now the Indian people have been emotionally motivated, and there is very little room for Modi to back down his tough stance. Then today, he ordered the Indian soldiers to use firearms at their own judgement without further need for approval. On the China side, I think Xi wants the war to solidify his grab of power on the army. So it seems like the stage is all set for the war.

It seems to me that India is the best target. What else should China pick? Philiphines? That would be like an adult bullying a baby. Not something glory to talk about. Taiwan? That's too scary. US army may involve. No something China wants. Russia? Mongolia? No way lol. So if it is not India, which country else is a better target? And don't forget that China won the war against Indian invasion in 1962, even though the Indian army way outnumbered, with most of their Elite troops. It is natural to think that Xi wants history to repeat. I think a China-Vietnam type of war in 1979 will be the play book. A quick war ending in weeks. Back in 1962 India invaded this area with a lot of its elite troops, far outnumbered the Chinese army, but got defeated. I think the same could happen again.

It seems to me that India is the best target. What else should China pick? Philiphines? That would be like an adult bullying a baby. Not something glory to talk about. Taiwan? That's too scary. US army may involve. No something China wants. Russia? Mongolia? No way lol. So if it is not India, which country else is a better target? And don't forget that China won the war against Indian invasion in 1962, even though the Indian army way outnumbered, with most of their Elite troops. It is natural to think that Xi wants history to repeat.

True. However... we have (in my wife's name) a $450,000 mortgage that was taken out early last year and already the rate is down a full 100 bps if we refinance now. In other words, the lower interest payment offsets the deflation. And that's actual cash flow versus the deflation occurring on paper. I thought you divorced last year.....

Thanks. Let's say Seila rules that CFPB head can be fired by the prez and that Calabria fights that by suggesting FHFA is different than CFPB. If Biden tries to fire Calabria in January who gets the benefit of the doubt -- Calabria gets to stay until it's resolved in the courts or Calabria has to leave and can come back if he wins in court? status quo until court says otherwise. of course Calabria might need to hire a bodyguard I would think so.... But when Trump fired the CFPB director, she refused to leave, but left later anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_v._Trump Why wouldn't the same happen to Calabria if Biden comes to power?

Both sides have been adding lots of militants along the entire China-India border but only Indian media have been reporting this. People in the western world would think it is irrational for the war to break out because there is nothing to gain from it. But they probably don't understand the Chinese government. In the past, leaders used wars to grab power and gain full control of the army. The 1979 China-Vietnam war was the typical example for Xiaoping Deng to grab power. The past presidents have been forcing army generals to state their loyalty to the president, and that created a big problem. When the next president came in power, he tries everything he could to remove these generals, and force the new generals to state their loyalty. Now with the current president, no generals want to state their loyalty anymore because they don't want to go to jail when the next president comes. So the current president is very upset with that. I think he may plan the China-India war on purpose for his personal gains.

That is precisely EPS. It's just not Earnings per share. It's EBITDA per share. EBITDA is a non-GAAP measurement, hence the non-GAAP EPS. It's still an "E" lol. Well........ This is not strictly EBITDA because they didn't add back D. I've seen more honest companies adding some one timers back to create non-GAAP earnings, and some of them adding back stock based comps. But I haven't seen any adding back so much stuff.

It seems to me that the FED's 4bn per day QE is way bigger than the prior 3 QEs. I am looking for sectors that will do well in an inflation period. I would think Oil, gas, and gold miners would do well. But I remember seeing some book, probably from Buffet or some other author that asset light business do better in this case because they don't have to spend a bunch of capex to add more hard assets in order to grow earnings, and in an inflation period, the hard assets are more expensive so the capital intensive businesses see their capex sky rocket. What do you guys think?

wow. Thank you very much! This is very helpful! I was wondering why their non-GAAP revenue is only 1% higher than GAAP. What's the reason to even bother? Now I understand that it seems to make sense to have this. With that said..... RP's non-GAAP eps is a total shit show. They added back Amortization, interest expense, income tax expense, stock comp and call it non-GAAP eps. Jeeze...... :o

I am using insidercow.com for a while but found it confusing that for some stocks like TEAM, nothing after 2008 would show up.

It does feel like 1999 now with a lot of my friends showing off stock trading profits on facebook and other social media. :o

Must be revenue related to selling heroin in the black market ;)

I've seen many companies reporting non-GAAP earnings. That's popular these days. But non-GAAP revenues???? :o https://seekingalpha.com/article/4344582-realpage-inc-2020-q1-results-earnings-call-presentation

I remember when I first started learning value investing in 2010, I got super excited when I saw presentations with these buzz words. I later found out that I was baited in and pretty much every one of them lost me money.

Could anyone tell me why it took 19 hours for the dragon to dock ISS? It seems to me that it should need to fly a very long distance as both dragon and ISS are just circling the earth

I think the first page of CNX presentation is a good example. The other good example is Biglari Holdings. Look at their words. IRR, capital allocator, FCF. OMG that's a stock that I can't miss! ;D https://seekingalpha.com/article/4340191-cnx-resources-corporation-2020-q1-results-earnings-call-presentation