rkbabang

This is probably the best analysis I've read on the Trump phenomenon. Donald Trump is the First President to Turn Postmodernism Against Itself http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/23/donald-trump-first-president-turn-postmodernism/

Unless there was a way for those already wealthy and in power to institute policies that restrict economic mobility... ::) Yep, that's the downside. There is no way to give government power to anyone and not have problems.

I'm all for shutting down the federal government completely. But if it must exist and voting must take place, then yes. Actually, "rich only" isn't really a fair description. Just people with something to lose voting. Tens of millions of Americans would fall into the category I described. And many younger people who don't now, will later in their lives.

I'm all for shutting down the federal government completely. But if it must exist and voting must take place, then yes.

Not all citizens have passports. My friend did not get one until last year when she was 30 years old. If you want to waive passport fees and give them at birth or age 18, that's fine. Why do you think that social policy should be set exclusively by the rich? Are they just more enlightened than everybody else? As Alexis de Tocqueville correctly observed "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money". That would be less likely to happen if the taxpayers voted and the tax receivers didn't. I'd also prohibit anyone currently holding political office or working for any level of government from voting (along with their immediate family members). Also the 100k ownership in a business is not valid if that business gets any subsidies from any level of government or makes any sales to any government department or agency. The moment you take a direct payment of even one cent from government you should lose your right to vote.

Many non citizens get assistance. The only ID that is only given to citizens is a US Passport, so why not require one to vote? I've said this before, but democracy would work better (still not perfect, but better) if it allowed only stakeholders in society to vote. Maybe require $100K equity in a property or $100K ownership in a business, plus a US passport. Maybe allow someone to get around the $100k ownership rule if they are willing to pay a $500 voting fee for every election they wish to vote in.

Some people are violent criminals. You don't know that they are violent criminals until they have committed a crime. You then deal with violent criminals as you should regardless of where they were born. Unless you have pre-crime technology to figure out who is going to hurt people and sometimes kill them. If you do, why shouldn't we deport American citizens that will be future criminals too? Maybe drop them from helicopters. To your second point "it is the law...", I know what the current immigration laws are, I just disagree with them. For one, they are unenforceable. I wasn't joking when I said "Do Mexicans have boats". There are quite a few Cubans in the US right now and as far as I know not a single one of them walked.

Haha! That's hilarious! Don't tell anyone, otherwise Trump's going to build a wall along Canada's border, and make us pay for it! Do Mexicans have boats? I think we might have to build a wall along our coastlines too. "Libertarians know that a free country has nothing to fear from anyone coming in or going out. While a welfare state is scared to death of every poor person who wishes to come in and every rich person who wishes to get out." --Harry Browne "The people that want big fences and guns, sure, we could secure the border. A barbed wire fence with machine guns, that would do the trick. I don’t believe that is what America is all about. 

Every time you think about this toughness on the border and ID cards and REAL IDs, think it’s a penalty against the American people too. I think this fence business is designed and may well be used against us and keep us in. In economic turmoil, the people want to leave with their capital and there’s capital controls and there’s people controls. Every time you think about the fence, think about the fences being used against us, keeping us in." --Ron Paul

I'm no fan of China and I agree with much of what you say, but the US is not much better in a lot of ways. Why do we have ships over there? Does China have carrier groups in the Gulf of Mexico? Would that be OK with us? It is the US that projects power all over the world's oceans like no other country on Earth.

Yes, the US would never threaten a state with force if it wanted to become independent. That would never happen/has never happened.

Bitcoin currently has 8 decimal places. The smallest possible unit, 0.00000001 BTC is called a Satoshi. So if it really were to get to 1BTC = $1B, the smallest unit, a Satoshi would be worth about $10. Long before you get to that point it would be required that bitcoin add a decimal place or two (or another 8), which can be done if 50+% of the mining power agrees to the change. At 1BTC = $1M a Satoshi would be $0.01, any substantial BTC increase in value from there it would probably be prudent to add decimal places to the protocol.

In other Big Mac McNews: http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/mcdonalds-launching-dispenser-big-macs/

I agree...in terms of business and the economy, so far so good. I just wish he would worry about that more than how he is portrayed, or crowd size, etc. I'm also terribly worried that this administration will take women's rights backwards a couple of decades. I don't have any children of my own, but I do have cousins and nieces in the U.S. We will watch and see! Cheers! I agree with your first statement above. He is obviously letting what people say get to him. He needs to get over it and rein in his ego a bit. As for women's' rights I know he said that he is against abortion, but that ship has sailed, he will never be able to ban abortion in the US. It isn't going to happen. What he can do is stop government funding, which is something I support. Government should stop funding a lot of things. We'll see, but I don't think he can do much damage to women's rights even if he wanted to, which is something I doubt. Just as he goes on and on about God all the time, I don't think he is really any more religious than I am. He talks about god and abortion because he thinks he has to. That is what his base of support expects. I doubt he really cares about it though. What concerns me most about him is three things: Military spending/war, protectionism/trade restrictions, and this stupid "build a wall" idea he has.

+1. Criticize the things he does, not the things you dream up in your imagination that he might do. I'm sure he's going to do a ton of things which I will absolutely hate, but on day two: so far so good. He's continuing the drone war which I am not happy about, but Hillary would have done that as well. He signed a few executive orders which I think don't go anywhere near far enough (defunding foreign aid for abortions, for example. I'd like to see all foreign aid eliminated), but small steps in the right direction are still steps in the right direction. I wouldn't expect to agree with almost anything Hillary did.

Exactly. There are also ways to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere if it comes to that. There are plenty of ways science, the market, technology, etc. will handle this problem, there is no need for luddite green earth goddess worshipers to get government to make us all poorer in the process. So Trump thinks it's a hoax? Good. He'll do the right thing (nothing) for the wrong reason. Much better than doing the wrong thing for the right reason, IMHO.

I personally think that the evidence is substantial that climate change is not a hoax. But since I don't think any government should do anything about it. I'd much rather have a president that thinks it's a hoax than otherwise.

The optimal solution for any problem is never found using aggressive offensive force. Markets may often arrive at optimal or near optimal solutions to problems, governments almost never will.

This is what I said back in May: "I won't be voting, but I do hope Trump wins. Hillary scares the hell out of me and Trump will be entertaining to watch." So far I have not been disappointed.

I didn't vote for him, but I think he was far superior to the alternative, so I'll answer your questions. 1) It's silly, but doesn't concern me. I do hope he starts doing something that matters soon. 2) I don't really care how much he makes or what he pays in taxes. I'm not sure why politicians are expected to release such personal financial information. We learned for instance in the 90s that Bill Clinton donated underwear to charity. Did we really need to know that? I still have no idea what this guy is going to do.

While the food is the same as the U.S., the Canadian locations are generally much cleaner and fresher/newer than their U.S. counterparts. I also agree that there are better places than McDonald's for burgers, but you have to admit that an Egg McMuffin is pretty tasty, cheap and quite healthy...the ham one with English muffin, not sausage, bacon, or biscuits. Cheers! Most of the McDonalds I see in Southern New Hampshire and Northern MA are recently re-modeled and clean. Pretty nice actually. I don't eat the food very often, but if I need a coffee it is cheaper than Dunkin' Donuts and just as good.

Or do this with a double quarter pounder with cheese and get a big mac with a lot more meat for not much more than the price of a regular big mac.

-9% I had a bad year. I had way too many BAC Jan2017 options and sold too early. I was down so much at one point in the year that I was happy to sell two days after the election when they went up a bit. I could have held on another month and had an excellent year. I think I'm done with options for good. I'll certainly never hold such a huge concentrated position in them again.

Since you say they were "evil" mind explaining why you selected these 3? Hopefully you have a valid reason to call someone "evil" beyond the usual libertarian nonsense. I really have to stop myself from commenting on these threads, it is a time sink. I'll just answer briefly for Wilson. Yes there is the usual libertarian "nonsense" about being concerned of the growth of centralized government power over individual freedom. The Federal Reserve, the Income Tax, the 17th amendment, etc. That all makes him a horrible president, but I don't use the term evil lightly. He conspired with Britain (and Wall Street who had lent a ton of money to the allies) to get the US involved in a war that was non of our business, at the expense of all of those lives on the Lusitania. Germany warned him that they knew the Lusitania was carrying arms and ammunition and was fair game. He did nothing. Germany tried to put ads in 50 US newspapers saying that the Lusitania was fair game, Wilson pressured them all not to run the ads, because he didn't want anyone to change their plans and not get aboard the ship. He wanted all those civilians to die including 100 US citizens, because it would help sway opinions against Germany. Once the US was in the war he reinstituted slavery in the US (most call it "conscription" or "the draft") and sent 17 million of them to their deaths, he jailed people for things they said or wrote, instituted price/wage controls and rationing, ... That is just what I can think of off the top of my head.

Yes, and I think that is quite an improvement. People think Trump is going to be the end of the world or something. I think that he's going to be no worse than any of the other presidents in my lifetime*, only far more entertaining. A solid win as far as I'm concerned. *I was born during the Nixon administration. You will have been alive for three of the worst presidents in the history of the nation-- Bush 2, the shrub-trillions spent on an unnecessary war, with the country in shambles, Iraq. Nixon, resigned in disgrace. and now Trump, with 85% probability he will be one of the worst, already one of the worst transitions. They were all pretty bad, but my list of the worst would be: 1) Woodrow Wilson 2) FDR 3) LBJ None of the presidents in my lifetime have even approached that kind of evil.

I use Seeking Alpha as well as google news alerts (https://www.google.com/alerts) which I setup to load automatically into my RSS reader Feedly which is similar to flipboard I think. You can also have the google alerts email you a list of stories instead of creating an RSS feed for you if you prefer. I agree Yahoo is worse than useless for anything at all now (I deleted my account as well). And I'm not willing to pay for FT.