rkbabang

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.

Actually Trump's twitter account is just about the funniest thing I've ever seen. If he just spent the next four years on twitter and didn't do anything else he'd be a great president. Unfortunately he'll probably do some stuff as well as tweet

August 7, 2019 at 10:24 AM. Give or take a few years.

Heyyyyyy wait just a minute; you said Dow 30,000!?! He's trying to build-in plausible deniability. If it reaches 30K, he was right, but if it doesn't then the "3" was clearly a typo.

You didn't give the most important part of your prediction. When? If you are going to make a prediction you can't leave out the most important part of it. Short of a global catastrophe that permanently damages our civilization the DOW WILL hit 30K someday. Certainly before 2030. Are you saying 30K in 2017-2018?

Interesting comments thanks for posting them. It reminds me of something I read (and can't remember where or I'd post it). It was something to the effect that the election of Trump was a repudiation of the political machine in the U.S. federal government. A way of saying "enough!". The point of the article was that Trump doesn't represent the beginning of anything (populism, racism, nazism, etc) as the left is saying, but the end of something. What's next is change, and that could be good or bad depending on how it plays out.

I agree, tax decreases need to be accompanied by spending decreases or the piper will need to be paid in other ways. I hope he decreases both.

This is a report on an article, but the actual article is much better reading than this report. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reflections-trump-presidency-one-month-after-election-ray-dalio I think he sums up the hopes and fears of what a Trump foreign policy will look like well: "Regarding foreign policy, we should expect the Trump administration to be comparably aggressive. Notably, even before assuming the presidency, Trump is questioning the one-China policy which is a shocking move. Policies pertaining to Iran, Mexico, and most other countries will probably also be aggressive. The question is whether this administration will be a) aggressive and thoughtful or b) aggressive and reckless. The interactions between Trump, his heavy-weight advisors, and them with each other will likely determine the answer to this question. For example, on the foreign policy front, what Trump, Flynn, Tillerson, and Mattis (and others) are individually and collectively like will probably determine how much the new administration’s policies will be a) aggressive and thoughtful versus b) aggressive and reckless. We are pretty sure that it won’t take long to find out."

Or installation of a DC power grid to ship the energy around the globe from where the sun is shining to where it is not, http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/lets-build-a-global-power-grid That makes the most sense out of anything else I've seen. Let the free market and the law of competitive advantage work its magic. Generate electricity wherever in the world it is cheapest and easiest to do so and move it to the places it is most needed. The one flaw is that people will worry about terrorism and/or acts of war cutting them off from the grid and money will still be wasted on local power generation even where it doesn't otherwise make much sense to have it. Technology, markets, and people are awesome. Politics, radical religion, and people suck.

I mentioned in another thread that I read somewhere that solar has decreased in cost by 80% in the last 6 years. Here is where I read that from the official Google blog. https://blog.google/topics/environment/100-percent-renewable-energy/

Thanks for the info. It sounds interesting I just purchased it. BTW, The ebook version Rothbard's excellent book on the great depression is free here if you are interested: America's Great Depression, by Murray N. Rothbard (free ebook) America's Great Depression, by Murray N. Rothbard (Hardcover, not free) Most people think of Rothbard as an Austrian Economist, but he is also an excellent writer and historian who can make even dry subjects interesting. If you really want a treat read his 1600 page history of the United States stretching from pre-Columbus era to just after Revolution: "Conceived In Liberty" (Free ebook and audio versions) "Conceived In Liberty" (Hardcover, not free)

OMG! What an evil monster! The world will have access to more energy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're all going to die!!!!! Oil is already very cheap You ignore potential environmental externalities This will delay investment into less-invasive energy production, especially solar energy Companies investing in solar energy research will stop if Exxon Mobil continues to explore for oil? Musk is going to throw up his hands and shut down Solarcity, throw a gas engine in the Model S, and convert all his super charger stations to Mobile stations? The price of solar has been reduced massively in the last few years (I think I read somewhere the price has dropped 80% in the last 6 years). If the price keeps coming down at that rate, or even a quarter of that rate, solar will do just fine without stopping XOM from looking for oil.

OMG! What an evil monster! The world will have access to more energy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're all going to die!!!!!

This is interesting, but I'm glad that I didn't know the results of the election in advance. I thought the market would crash if Trump won, so had I known he was going to win I might have sold off a lot of my portfolio before the election. You don't only need to know the outcome of the election, but you also need to know what it means for the markets.

Slate? I just love rkbabang! Yeah, who wouldn't love me? Slate isn't exactly a Trump loving conservative site.

Back to the topic: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/12/06/boeing_disputes_trump_tweet_about_4_billion_air_force_one_contract.html

I guess that is an interesting piece of information to use as a thought experiment, but unfortunately he didn't purchase those stocks without hedging.

I enjoyed Antifragile, it wasn't life changing or anything, but made you think about things in a different way at least while reading it. I agree with you about Dan Kahneman and Sam Harris. I've never read anything by Nate Silver, a quick search only lists one book on Amazon, "The Signal and the Noise". It looks interesting.

LOL, basically me and Doo are just boring nice guys I didn't accuse you of being nice or boring. I prefer "misguided".

I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian. Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative. I fall in the same bucket of socially liberal and fiscally conservative. And yea fiscally conservative and Libertarian are definitely not the same thing. Libertarians seem to have an allergy to paying taxes no matter what the outcome. As a fiscal conservative I'm in favor of efficiency. In favour of the government doing what it does best and no more. For example I'm in favor of single payer health care because it's delivered cheaper not because of a great love of government. I don't care if I pay my money to the gov't or to an insurance company. But I'm not in favor of gov't run airlines. The private sector has done that very efficiently and it should stay that way. I'm also not ok with massive surveillance programs where you have armies of employees/contractors that get fat paychecks to read my email. Also as a fiscal conservative I am also looking for the gov't to keep its fiscal position roughly in balance over a cycle. By no means does that mean a balanced budget mandate. I recognize that during bad times the gov't needs to run deficits but those should be balanced by surpluses during good times. It definitely doesn't mean it ok to hand out tax cuts like Halloween candy to top earners early and often. Definitely not when you're running deficits. I believe that those views have a whiff of libertarianism in them, but with views like that I'm pretty far from actual libertarians. I like this political compass that I found here: https://directionlessbones.wordpress.com/2009/09/04/the-political-compass-and-class-politics-a-better-wa-to-classify-ideologies/ And also included in this message. What most Americans think of as Libertarian would be located on the classical liberal line between liberal and conservative. You and DooDiligence sound like you are near that line but in the grey. I'd place myself in the green anarchist-capitalist section.

I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian. Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative. That is because you probably mean: Socially liberal, but not too socially liberal, & fiscally conservative, but not too fiscally conservative. I believe the term is moderate. That's the nicest thing I've been called recently - thanks... You are welcome, but not too welcome.

I think there are a lot of us. We are lacking a party to represent us. Libertarian. Then I am not adequately describing myself with the terms socially liberal & fiscally conservative. That is because you probably mean: Socially liberal, but not too socially liberal, & fiscally conservative, but not too fiscally conservative. I believe the term is moderate.

If anyone still hasn't read Antifragile and would like to it is on sale today almost everywhere for $1.99 (ebook version). Amazon.com Apple Google Play Kobo

I used to think that I was too, but then I realized that they are not as orthogonal as it seems from the first glance. Usually the first thing "fiscal conservatives" aim their knife at is social programs. I agree however that the waste and graft in government and its contractors should be cut and controlled. It's not as trivial as the Orange T suggests. Some pressure is probably good though. That's because the obvious place to cut is the military and that is off limits to the Republigoons, so they go after social programs instead. "Orange T"! I love it.

I don't know, but I do know that doing something and tweeting about it are quite different things. True enough, Obama said he was going to end Bush's wars (and was given a Nobel Prize just for saying it) yet expanded the number of bombings massively, as well as the number of countries being bombed. There is a huge difference between saying you are going to do something and actually doing it, but Trump can't do anything yet. When he says he is going to do something liberals hate everyone acts as if it is a done deal and he has already done it, when he says he's going to do something good, like cut spending, he's criticized because he hasn't done it yet (even though he isn't in office). Is there anything this guy could do or say that you'd be ok with? Yes; he could say this was all just a publicity stunt & he's stepping down before the inaugeration... LOL. That would be awesome. Best president ever!