rkbabang

That is from Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater said it, Karl Hess wrote it. I'm not sure if he ever mentioned the Sex Pistols, but who doesn't like the Sex Pistols? I used to play Bass guitar back in the day. I can't sing to save my life though, so you're going to have to do that. Iiiiiiiiiiiiii am an anarchist (who for the most part conforms because I like my comforts...) Maybe a little adjustment of that lyric alteration would be needed for phrasing! I, I, I am an anarchist, who for the most part conforms because I don't want to die just yet. Which I should add is the same reason you have the state take my money from me instead of coming over my house and trying to take it yourself to fund the things you think I should be paying for.

That is from Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater said it, Karl Hess wrote it. I'm not sure if he ever mentioned the Sex Pistols, but who doesn't like the Sex Pistols? I used to play Bass guitar back in the day. I can't sing to save my life though, so you're going to have to do that. Iiiiiiiiiiiiii am an anarchist (who for the most part conforms because I like my comforts...) Maybe a little adjustment of that lyric alteration would be needed for phrasing! I, I, I am an anarchist, who for the most part conforms because I don't want to die just yet.

That is from Karl Hess, Barry Goldwater said it, Karl Hess wrote it. I'm not sure if he ever mentioned the Sex Pistols, but who doesn't like the Sex Pistols? I used to play Bass guitar back in the day. I can't sing to save my life though, so you're going to have to do that.

Hell yeah! You should write a song! I know 3 chords & I think we could meet lots of chicks!!! I'm not sure the kids are into Karl Hess. But don't knock 3-cord songs, you can do a lot with 3 cords.

It is funny & my favorite comedians are able to take these absurd situations & the characters involved & make me snort with glee! Discussion of these topics can get heated but we engage in them because we are lucky enough to be free to do so. Extreme views from the left & right raise valid issues that get pulled to the center for semi-effective outcomes over time (kind of like Grahams voting & weighing analogy.) I may despise one & tolerate the other (candidate/point of view) but wouldn't want to be in a world where people I vehemently disagree with were not allowed to express their views (how's that for idealistic & utopian?!?) Exactly. I have no need for people who want to hide in their safe spaces and squash speech that bothers them. As far as being utopian or idealistic goes, look at any movement you want (abolition, women's rights, gay rights, the civil rights movement) it is always the extremists who push cultural evolution forward. You aim for the "impossible" and at least hope to push things in the right direction. “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

The Chicago Tribune: Democrats should ask Hillary Clinton to step aside "It's obvious the American political system is breaking down. It's been crumbling for some time now, and the establishment elite know it and they're properly frightened. Donald Trump, the vulgarian at their gates, is a symptom, not a cause. Hillary Clinton and husband Bill are both cause and effect."

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a pull back right after the election if Trump wins. People are afraid of Trump and widespread fear is never good for the markets. They should be afraid of Hillary as well, but they aren't, so I'd expect a post election rally if she wins. Both reactions will be short term only. Long term I don't think Trump is any worse economically than Hillary (and vise versa) they are both equally bad. Hillary is more war hawkish which has the potential to be really bad, but who knows. The market is at at high point as it is, I'm waiting for the "Trump lost" rally then I'm converting more into cash. I'm already at 20% cash. If Trump pulls out a win, the markets will either come back after a short dip or maybe this will be the catalyst for a widespread pull back. I don't know.

I'd be curious of the broad strategy of anyone in the "3+ consecutive" category. That's damn impressive. I did it in two consecutive years using leaps. I'm no Buffet. Reversion to the mean is real and it sucks. I did learn a lesson though. :(

:) This is a great venting your frustrations about the election thread. It goes from being therapeutic to I can't read it anymore, so I stop reading it for a few days and come back later. This has got to be the craziest US presidential election in history. I'm not a fan of any politicians, but I've never been so utterly disgusted about an election as I am this year. It is a new low for sure.

Yeah, god forbid you be able to use the knowledge you have to make sound financial decisions. Because it's like wack-a-mole with you guys which turns into a waste of time. You come with some ridiculous proposition. Then someone spends a lot of time crafting an intelligent post as to why you're wrong. Then you dismiss what that person said based on your feelings and move to another ridiculous proposition. If you've done so much research why don't you present your findings based on hard data (not something you read in some book) that supports your proposition? I'd love to see respected research that show that when a firm gets monopoly power the result is higher output and lower prices. Because that isn't the case. No firm gets monopoly power without government's help (regulations, licensing, subsidies, outright grant of monopoly power such as with patents). And if they ever did, how could they stop a competitors from undercutting their prices? The answer is that they couldn't so this "monopoly power" wouldn't last very long.

Yeah, god forbid you be able to use the knowledge you have to make sound financial decisions.

+1. Exactly. There is certainly no need for antitrust laws enforced by governments. The only real consumer harming monopolies are those created and protected by governments. The taxi cartels in cities which require medallions and ban Uber for instance or the Bell system, the cable companies. All the time and money spent in the 90's (by both sides) on the Microsoft antitrust case which technology just made irrelevant a few years later. Government itself is a violently enforced monopoly. Try to call up city hall and say "You know what? I'm not happy with the police in this city, I'm going to cancel my subscription." See what they tell you.

Just shows how little you know about China. Why do people who know nothing insist on showing off their ignorance on the internet? I know, right? Everyone knows the Chinese were much better off in the 1960s.

That is exactly true. How many times do people panic and cash out at or near the bottom, then wait until the almost the top to decide that they should start investing again. It doesn't matter what type of funds you choose if this is your "strategy". There's another thread somewhere on here about frugality & contentment. "Success is having what you want & happiness is wanting what you have" Restless minds grasping for happiness lead to impatience & poor returns... It isn't always impatience. I think for many people it is just loss aversion and fear of what they don't understand. They don't want to know anything about investing, so they put their money in funds where they can just set it and forget it. This seems like a great idea to them when stocks are going up, they glance at their statements every quarter and don't think much of it. But after a crash they decide that maybe stocks are just way too risky for them and they pull everything out. A few years later when they see stocks have been doing well again for a while they think that the set it and forget it stock investing method is just what they should be doing again. I've struggled with this with my parents for years. For example during the financial crisis crash I got panicked calls from them wondering if they should sell all of their stocks. I got them to stay invested and even invest more and they eventually thanked me, but they were skeptical and scared. I was trying to convince a co-worker of the same, but I had less influence over him and he got out of the market. He said I was crazy. This was an engineer, not a dumb guy. The question of when to invest is far more important than what to invest in for the average person I think.

That is exactly true. How many times do people panic and cash out at or near the bottom, then wait until the almost the top to decide that they should start investing again. It doesn't matter what type of funds you choose if this is your "strategy".

Stats? Although, yeah, I also love how rightwingers are now against Hillary as war-monger. Aren't they the party of military strength and American power extension over the world? What you said is true for both sides, no? :P This doesn't count you, you are consistent. I'm pointing a finger at some others ;) Absolutely! In 2008 I was arguing constantly with my conservative friends/relatives. Their view was that Obama was going to be too weak, pull our troops home and the terrorists were going to multiply and "win". They acted as if the terrorists could take over the US and create a muslim state or something. Obama turned out to be everything they wanted in a President, from a foreign policy standpoint anyway, yet they don't like him.

Oh, please. You don't even know the real left. Let me tell you a secret: all my real left friends completely agree with you on Obama/Hillary/Bush/etc. wars. I never said I was real left. You just want to engage in tribalism and paint left with single brush, don't you? I have no doubt that there are a small group of hard core principle leftists in the United States who really are anti-war. I am talking about the mainstream left, the Democratic Party mostly. There are far fewer of what you call "real left"ists in the US than there are hard core libertarians (and that is saying something).

What is so tiring about these discussions is the tribalism involved. If this was 2008 every left winger on this board would be agreeing with me about how awful Bush's wars are. They simply can't entertain those views now that their team has had the Oval Office for 8 years. If Trump were to win by some unfortunate miracle the lefties will go back to analysing every bomb that drops again. Which would be a good thing, don't get me wrong, I just wish their principals didn't change everytime the Oval Office changes sides.

Care to provide stats? Please do count Ukraine, Georgia and Syria from Russian side. But yeah, if I was living in a country run by a repressive regime, I would support USA invading my country to get rid of said regime. Even accounting for collateral damage. The real problem is not USA. The real problem is that the new regime is usually not much better and that most of damage comes from internal infighting. I don't have the stats, that wasn't a rhetorical question. I don't know. My point in asking is that the question can even be asked at all. If the number on the Obama side is > 0 (which it is almost certainly in the thousands, even if less than Putin), he is a murderer and your tax money went to finance his war crimes. I would never dream of trying to justify Putin's military actions outside of Russia the way you justify the US's actions. "Collateral Damage" when talking about human lives is one of the most sickening terms I can imagine. Again, these are human beings whose lives you are so callously dismissing. And thinking that the US has any interest in "liberating" people from repressive regimes, who is the delusional one? There is no such goal in any of the military actions at least in my lifetime. The goal is to secure the flow of oil and to spend money on war. Even if it means killing innocent people to cause blowback to have an excuse to spend even more. War is the health of the state. I don't think I am the naive one here. Let me guess: They hate us because of our freedoms?

Since you haven't lived under Russian occupation for 20+ years, I'm gonna go with you and that rightwing poster being naive rather than me. Putin is evil nutcase. And anyone believing otherwise is just someone living in their pink cuddly shell which is very far away from Russia. Or bought by Putin ... like certain presidential candidate. I'm talking about foreign policy not domestic. I am certainly glad that I do not live inside of Russia. But who has slaughtered more people outside of their own countries in the last 8 years Putin or Obama? It is easy to think of Obama and the US in general as being noble and good when you are comfortably living in your pink cuddly little shell which is very far away from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, or Yemen.

Yes. If Russia invades Lithuania (note it hasn't happened yet) it will undoubtedly be to serve Russian interests. This is not the same (or even close) to being equivalent with "noble". If anyone has the view that the US and its allies are these noble shining white knights come to bring order to the world with their noble intentions while every other country are demons intent on evil, you might consider that you may have been influenced just a little bit by your county's propaganda. The Pentagon Accounts for More Than Half of the Federal Government’s $1 Billion PR Budget Meet The 2nd Largest PR Firm In The World: The U.S. Government I'm sure if the US does go to war with Russia after Hillary is elected, most Americans will be properly "educated" by the media on what an evil nutcase Putin is and why he needs to be stopped, and they will support Hillary's actions 100%. Support the troops! God bless America. USA, USA, USA!#1!!!

Yeah, I guess that is where we disagree.

Talking about empathy. I am biased. But if Russia decides to invade Lithuania, I'd rather NATO retaliated. And I'd rather NATO kept retaliation options strong (which in your mind is new nuclear Cold War). Yeah, my most emphatic choice would be that Russia woke up from living under nationalist dictator, became a modern democracy with less corruption and all Russians and the rest of the world lived in peace. But that's not an option right now and it's unlikely to be an option the things are going for quite a while. So my second best option is something that might lead to WW3. OTOH, assume we disarm NATO and do nothing when Russia invades Lithuania. Don't you think that would lead to the same or even larger scale conflict later? I don't know. Maybe appeasing aggressors and hoping they will come to their minds at some point is the solution... especially if you're USA and don't care much that parts of Europe get trampled. Tough to say. I think we are closer regarding Middle East: the issue there is that there are pretty much no good actors involved and IMO there are no solutions at this point. So probably no action is better than involvement. Even though it breaks my heart when people die there. And I'm sure some of the fighters/rebels/etc. feel that they are doing the right thing for better future of their families, citizens, countries. Edit: BTW, most Lithuanians believe that NATO will do nothing if Russia invades. So looking from that side appeasement and no-WW3 is probably more likely no matter who gets elected in USA. Which may or may not comfort you. Should someone have stopped the US when we invaded/bombed Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Syria? Somalia? Pakistan? Yemen? Why your empathy for Lithuanians, but not Iraqis? Skin color? Religion? Politics (Hillary wants those other countries bombed, but doesn't want Lithuania bombed)? Pretty selective empathy. Are not they all humans? I have nothing to do with who Russia invades, just as I have nothing to do with who some organized crime group murders, but the US kills people in my name with money taken from me. What possible moral standing does the US have to tell any country that it shouldn't invade another? "Do what we say not what we do?" We are now the policemen of the world? What kind of policeman murders whoever he wants for whatever reason he wants with impunity, yet tries to stop others from doing the same? Oh wait, I guess that kind of is the American version of policing isn't it? I might agree with you if the US kept its military at home without a single foreign base and no ships further than 100 miles from our coasts, that we might have some standing to tell other countries that they shouldn't be aggressive. But as it is, we are setting the example, and a bad one at that. We just come off as hypocrites and murderous bullies. Get your own house in order before telling others what they should do.

+1. I voted in every election from 92-08 and even though I always voted 3rd party, I always had one of the major party candidates in mind that I hoped would win. Clinton in 1992, Dole in 1996, Bush in 2000, Kerry in 2004, Obama in 2008, Romney in 2012 (I didn't vote at all, but I hoped he would win). I really don't have a preference this time. They are just both so awful in different ways. I just can't imagine anyone going to the polls and voting for either one of them. I really can't. The most frightening, and sad, thing about this election is that someone is going to win.

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. It is stressful. I can't imagine what the inside of someone who doesn't care about war's head is like. We may be evolved from apes, but that doesn't mean we have to behave like them. We supposedly have rational faculties which can override our primal instincts. I listen to the "support-the-military-conservatives" sometimes and it just makes me almost sick to my stomach. If you look at the industry that has sprung up around death and destruction and you realize that most of the politicians are bought and paid for by it, it is overwhelming to think about. It baffles me that most people just don't care. Is it tribalism? Racism? Xenophobia? Or just plain old lack of empathy? We've come a long way as far as cultural evolution goes, but we still have a long, long, way to go.