rb
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Posts posted by rb
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What Trump does is what Trump does. But, Buffett is a total hypocrite not only in this discussion but, also when he was comparing his tax rate vs his secretary. He did not take into account payroll tax. He does not take into account that he does not get enough of a salary to truly pay for his lifestyle: who pays for the private jet? The company. And how many other perks is he getting for free and hence not needing a large salary that would be fully taxable?
Cardboard
If you want to know the perks that Buffett gets and doesn't pay for they're in the proxy. There aren't that many and it's mostly security.
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Damn straight. But hey, don't forget about the beer and the baby backs. That's really the trifecta for a great Friday night.
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Well DD that is a supremely stupid idea since they're not allowed to fornicate, drink, or consume pork.
On the other hand if you can persuade the US Air Force to conduct that air drop in my back yard I promise you that I will persuade the ME leaders to embrace peace. Believe me!
Thanks for your kind consideration!
Given that the post was obviously done tongue in cheek I have to wonder who the idiot is here (in truth I don't wonder at all rb...)
Nevertheless, if you could still arrange for that airdrop at the aforementioned location :) 8)
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Well DD that is a supremely stupid idea since they're not allowed to fornicate, drink, or consume pork.
On the other hand if you can persuade the US Air Force to conduct that air drop in my back yard I promise you that I will persuade the ME leaders to embrace peace. Believe me!
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Guys, I know we're not disagreeing here. But Uccmal, you mention that maybe Russia didn't want to engage Turkey because they have a modern military so they weren't comfortable with that. If that's so, how do you think they feel about the US military? I also think that the part of Turkey being a NATO member and NATO Article 5 is out there may have played a part. Maybe they didn't want to really test the resolve of the NATO big brother.
This brings me to Jurgis. I understand your thinking about NATO's resolve. I also have family in NATO EE. But you can't really compare NATO territory with Ukraine. Ukraine had a chance to join NATO but they turned it down. They figured they have a better chance with the Russians. Well bad mistake. But it gets down to respect and sanity. If Russia invades the Baltics or any NATO nation what do they gain? Not much. NATO may show up or they may not. If Russia doesn't have a death with why should they risk everything for not much at all?
There's a massive difference between Ukraine and NATO territory. Plus Russia didn't even annex all of Ukraine. I may very well be very wrong, but I don't think Russians have a death wish or they want to test NATO's resolve. Of course if they get a guy like Trump who breaks NATO they would be very pleased with the result.
BTW, in opposition to Jurgis I think that the risk of nuclear war is lower with Putin in charge than otherwise.
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I just don't understand this obsessive fear of all nuclear war with Russia. Yes both countries are nuclear armed. Yes Regan was terrified by the flimsiness of the process of starting nuclear war. But this fear also assumes that Russia is this country that doesn't care about anything and is just itching to start a massive war with the US at the slightest provocation. Like a mental patient with nothing to loose.
The reality is that the US has an incredibly mighty military for which Russia has a healthy respect. A nuclear strike on the US basically guarantees that your country is wiped out. Russians also like their country and would prefer it without nuclear fallout and will do everything they can to keep it that way. They do not relish a major conflict with the US just like the US does not relish a major conflict with Russia.
Case in point: Turkey shoots down Russian jet. Russia huffs and puffs but basically lets it go.
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Yes I'm also interested in portfolio types as well. I'm looking to start with 1 or 2 properties to test the market but it it works the sweetspot would be around 20 properties. The Canadian banks do have a product but it's aimed more towards snowbirds. Basically using equity in your home in Canada to guarantee the US loan. Not very practical when you're looking to buy 20 places.
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Does anyone know anyway for Canadians to get financing for residential US real estate? Is it easier to get financing if the properties are held under certain structure such as a US based LLC? It seems like no US banks want to do it under any circumstances.
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I wonder what happens when not only every country wants its own currency but every state. How about every city? Every company? :)
Of course there is a point where things are getting ridiculous and the costs start to overcome the benefits. I imagine that the Saskatoon/Albuquerque currency cross won't be very liquid.
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"There is probably more trade, economic interaction and even human movement north south across the border than East-West in Canada. It makes a lot more sense for Alberta to have a separate currency from the rest of Canada than it does for Canada to have a separate currency from the US. "
I agree and disagree and the disagreement is more important IMO.
Cultural, political and economical association counts. Alberta did not separate from Canada because the CAD$ did not drop as much as the oil price. There was some pain and it was "accepted". The same is true when oil is high and the CAD$ and it hurts exporters. At that time, it is Alberta and resources provinces that generate a surplus and support Quebec and others.
That is what they failed to understand in Europe. People will support their brothers and sisters but, when it comes to distant relatives, the cord is cut pretty quickly.
Cardboard
I agree with most of what you guys are saying. Canada is not really an optimal currency area and resources are a big part of that. It's also true that things would work better if Alberta would have it's own currency. However I think that a more optimal solution would be for Ontario to have a separate currency.
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Always love it when people talk about currency unions when they haven't the slightest clue about optimal currency areas.
I feel like instead of making this remark it would have been better if you just explained what an optimal currency union is, what evidence there is that an optimal currency area is in fact really optimal for a currency union and then finally why Canada/US is not an optimal currency area.
As for my argument for why US/Canada should form a currency union, its based on a simple fact: the biggest advantage of an independent currency for Canada is the ability to independently modify interest rates. However Canada has a huge number of imports from the US and a relatively limited ability to diverge in any big way from US interest rates since higher prices directly effect Canadian consumers. In addition our economies tend to move together due to trade so interest rates tend to move together too.
You can look at he following graph to see how closely US and Canadian interest rates follow each other.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=7NUe
There is about a 91% correlation between Canadian and US interest rates. In the whole data series there are only really two periods of divergence: in the 1970's and around 1990. Both occurring when US/Canada were far less economically integrated than they are today.
The downsides of a floating exchange rate: uncertainty about investments, trade uncertainty vastly out-ways the very limited monetary independence that Canada has.
There is probably more trade, economic interaction and even human movement north south across the border than East-West in Canada. It makes a lot more sense for Alberta to have a separate currency from the rest of Canada than it does for Canada to have a separate currency from the US.
Sorry if my initial remark was snarky but your premise is seriously flawed.
Firstly yes, fixed exchange rates help with trade and investment. This is actually because it eliminates frictional costs such as FX conversion and FX hedging. However many studies over many periods have shown that the benefits are fairly small for large economies with advanced capital markets. So the benefits of belonging to a currency union are smaller for Canada and the US then say for Austria and Greece, and even in that case they proved to be pretty small.
Secondly, the main benefit of having floating exchange rates is not an independent monetary policy. It is an ability to respond to asymmetric shocks by quickly adjusting relative prices and wages.
Thirdly, Canada doesn't have limited monetary policy. It has fully independent monetary policy. Also the exchange rate does a lot of adjustment work so that monetary policy doesn't have to do it. When you say that there is a high correlation between US and Canadian rates what you are talking is rate trends. But if you look at the chart the rates are rarely the same. Which means that US rates would have rarely been correct for Canada. Probably even more so if you take away floating rates. At that point the only adjustment left is inflation/deflation which is a very bad adjustment mechanism. If you were to equate the interest rates in that chart you'd have Canada getting whipped in boom bust mode with big economic costs not to mention human suffering.
Optimal Currency Area theory is basically of the view that currency areas tend to be suboptimal and is concerned with mitigating the downsides. So for a currency area you should have:
1. Economies of similar size and makeup. This is to minimize asymmetric shocks. Fail US is 10 times the size of Canada and Canada has a large resource sector that is prone to asymmetric shocks.
2. High labor mobility. Yea right! Americans love that open border talk.
3. Price and wage flexibility. This doesn't exist period.
4. Integrated deposit insurance and banking regulation. - That would have worked great in 2008.
5. Integrated fiscal policy. The last thing Canadians need is the US House of Representatives involved in their fiscal policy and I would love to the headlines in the US when the American taxpayer has to pay for Canadian "socialized" health care.
OCA is basically of the view that to have a functioning currency are you need to have all 5 or you'll have problems. As you can see with Canada and the US you can barely maybe have 1 out the 5 which means big problems.
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You know, if the Democrats are so good at rigging elections as Trump bitches and moans, you'd kinda figure that they would have at least a few more senators and congressmen.
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Alwaysinvert, I'm not gonna quote your whole post cause it's been quoted a bit and I don't want to add to the congestion.
I actually do a lot of business in the states and I like to drive there instead of flying so I'm often in small town America, especially in the Mid West so I do interact with a lot of local folk including Trump supporters, I don't just sit in my Ivory tower. Regarding the number of Trump supporters I'll say this. They're more that I've thought, but not as many as it looks like. Definitely nowhere near a majority.
Now do this people have a reason to be upset? Yes. Are there problems that need to be fixed? Yes. However, keep in mind that it was the Trump supporters who voted, supported and cheered the people that created these problems. When serious people were thinking about how to fix the problems, the Trump supporters were more going on about Obama's Kenyan, Muslim birth certificate. Where was their concern for the issues then? And what are they supporting in Donald Trump except the opportunity to throw a tantrum? Trump is proposing a huge top heavy tax cut. Basically more of the same stuff which got them where they are.
So no, after you support bad policies that got you in trouble, you don't get to throw a tantrum and unleash fascism on the republic. Also I'm not even sure that they're so pissed off at the Washington elite as they say they are. I'll bet anyone dollars to dimes that after they mark Trump for president on the ballot, these guys will go down and mark that party elite guy with the R next to his name for congress and senate.
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IMO, this is a very limited view of the universe.
I had two sociology university teachers arguing 25 years ago about this phenomenon. One was arguing that humans would always make new discoveries which would lead to new needs, jobs, etc. And the other was making the same case that you are making or that technology would takeover all human tasks.
So far, the first one has been right and I see no trend of that changing. Maybe that the balance will shift at some point but, I think it is 100+ years out. Prior to that, robots will be used only in instances where their cost is justified. And by then, what will we know? On which planets or asteroids will we have a foot on? What discoveries are going to be made which will make our current way of living seem primitive?
Cardboard
I agree there will always be somethings humans want done which only humans can do. This will be ever shifting though. The times where you can learn a skill and do that for your entire life is quickly coming to an end. In the future humans will be wealthier than we can imagine (just like we are wealthier than someone from 100 years ago could imagine) and they will work a lot less. The point of life isn't to work, the point is to get what you want/need, live well, make a difference, and have fun. All of those things will become easier not harder. If you expect there to always be humans doing difficult repetitive tasks (such as assembly line work or software design) you are going to be disappointed.
+1 This is exactly correct.
Firstly, people tend to forget that economies are fairly closed systems. If people don't have money to pay for your product then you can't make money.
Secondly, people forget that we've gone through this kind of thing before. The industrial revolution came and and steam engines were gonna replace people, then industrial revolution 2.0 came and AC motors were gonna replace people. But hey looks workers still exists. Now we've had IT revolution 1.0. Computers were gonna replace people then - didn't really happen - tons of IT jobs created. Now it's IT revolution 2.0 and if history's a guide it'll fail to make workers irrelevant also. The problem is that there's a lot of messiness in the adjustment period while we settle into a new paradigm.
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I actually like Nebraska quite a bit. even though for some reason they are thoroughly confused when i order my coffee with milk rather than cream. They can't process that.
And you have people, who are not only not embarrassed by Trump, but are actually publicly bragging about their support for him, even on a forum like this.
I keep hearing these things about the mysterious silent Trump supporter. I never met a silent Trump supporter. I haven't even met one that uses an inside voice. Has anyone?
In all fairness (and respect?) to Cardboard he's not supporting Trump anymore because he went too far even for Cardboard.
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Lol, no he's not gonna build a northern wall, but Canadians may build it if he wins. This comes to mind:
Now in all seriousness, just a few points in no particular order of why Canadians may be interested:
1. US is in great proximity to where most Canadians live
2. US is by far Canada's biggest trading partner
3. US is by far the largest destination for Canadian foreign investment both primary and especially secondary
4. US and Canada share the largest border in the world
5. Canada is a founding member of NATO
6. US has a large cultural influence over Canada. In other words if you US comes out with crazy some of that will be exported north
7. The old adage that if the US sneezes the world catches a cold. The US is world's greatest power economic and military power. With great power comes great responsibility. However Americans are behaving very irresponsibly which I suppose worry almost every country but countries will such close ties to the US as Canada does have a lot of reasons to be very interested
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No dishonesty here. I am comparing her misdeeds with Trump. She may have gotten off in the email scandal because of the democratic admin but you can say the same thing about Cheney who lied about the nuclear Iraq.
Lol not to mention how Cheney got away with shooting his friend in the face.
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Always love it when people talk about currency unions when they haven't the slightest clue about optimal currency areas.
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What does intellectual property theft or cyber security have to do with income inequality?
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Sure, my words hurt the feelings of a lot of people, pivot, pivot, pivot, etc. Yet you still haven't answered my original simple question which was: Please tell me one specific, concrete Donald Trump proposal that would improve income inequality.
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https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/787267564405653505
Now this is dangerous. The kind of stuff that can seriously screw up countries.
But what do you do when you have an ego the size of a skyscraper and are so vain you can't ever admitt defeat? You say that you're really winning but they're stealing it from you. This kind of stuff pushed by a presidential candidate is basically calling his most ardent followers to do a civil war.
I predict that if he keeps pushing that, some people somewhere - maybe police - will lose their lives and their blood will be on his hands.
Update: the cult-like behaviour is also worrying: https://storify.com/bec2ab/jared-sexton-10-14-trump-rally
Yes this is definitely irresponsible. No excuses about it. But there's not gonna be any revolution much less a civil war. Once this is done and there's no one to fire them up every day with new vitriol these people will go back to their lives and talking shit about Madame President Clinton on talk radio. Oh course that's not gonna be the title they'll used, but oh well, such is life. I'm willing to bet that by now Hillary has rhino skin.
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Did I ever mention Ivanka?
Edit: Just noticed on her Wikipedia page that in 2007 Ivanka gave $1000 to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Interesting.
May be Liberty, meanwhile you can also dig up some data on the Attorneys who are making less than janitors that an earlier poster referred.
Scientists who are unemployed. In last 6 months I came across two scientists unemployed for over 3 years, one with a Ph.D. with a highly ranked university. Like this Redditt guy (this guy graduated in 2012):
And ask yourself a simple question - whats happening with our economy? I already posted data that shows the wages today inflation adjusted are same as in 1979. How come with all the computers, drugs, TVs and many other technologies developed primarily from US, the US worker is doing so bad?
Can you provide a single concrete example from Trump's platform that would help with that situation or income inequality?
First of all I am not against trade. But trade has to be sensible.
Ford said it nicely - the employees should be able to buy the product they make. So much of outsourcing where the person who makes the product and the person who buys the product are different does not make any sense. A corporation may make more profit in short time, but overall for the country it is not better. But why does our government keep on doing this. Because the "leaders" are more concerned about their corporate lobbyists than over all economy.
As the salaries go down with full open trade, the purchase power of the country also decreases. This is the source of inequality. But this also not good for our stock market. Just check S&P performance against many of the trading partners. It is not good for investors either in long term.
Trump is addressing this aspect of income inequality. This is why so many blue collar workers attend Trump rallies. Not because they are deplorable or xenophobic. Because they see what the elitist economists cannot see. The workers wages, their purchase power has been going down for a long time. I am against trade that makes wages go down for the workers, and hence my support for Trump who is addressing this issue.
Yea, I'll call 3/4 of a bull turd on that.
Firstly, you still haven't answered my question. Specifically what single concrete proposal has Trump put forth that would address income inequality. Btw, I'll make better deals, believe me, I'm the only one who can does not count as a concrete proposal.
Secondly, trade may be a contributor. That isn't all that clear right now. One thing's for sure. Boston lawyers aren't earning low wages because of trade.
Thirdly, what's up all this elitist economist this and elitist that. Since when did educating yourself, working hard, and becoming a leader in your field become a negative? Do you think that if we put Billy Bob in charge of Treasury and his cousin Joe Dropout in charge of commerce everything would work itself just fine? Cause by that reasoning we should put Billy Bob in charge of thoracic surgery and his cousin Joe Dropout in charge of brain surgery and we solved the health care cost problem.
Fourthly, there hasn't been that much disagreement among the top "elitist" economists on how to deal with the crisis. However, the GOP has fought and opposed recommendations the whole way. Trade is actually a much more complicated problem. And yes, there will be debates and disagreements and it'll take time to work it out. That's how the process works to actually get to a good solution and progress.
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Did I ever mention Ivanka?
Edit: Just noticed on her Wikipedia page that in 2007 Ivanka gave $1000 to the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Interesting.
May be Liberty, meanwhile you can also dig up some data on the Attorneys who are making less than janitors that an earlier poster referred.
Scientists who are unemployed. In last 6 months I came across two scientists unemployed for over 3 years, one with a Ph.D. with a highly ranked university. Like this Redditt guy (this guy graduated in 2012):
And ask yourself a simple question - whats happening with our economy? I already posted data that shows the wages today inflation adjusted are same as in 1979. How come with all the computers, drugs, TVs and many other technologies developed primarily from US, the US worker is doing so bad?
Can you provide a single concrete example from Trump's platform that would help with that situation or income inequality?
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If American - which presidential candidate will you vote for? (Oct. Edition)
in General Discussion
Posted
Basically I'm not offended either. Let me elaborate a bit here so maybe people like muscleman get a better understanding of "the leftists".
Like Liberty said some of those were taken out of context and is gotcha journalism and when you look at them in context it's not offensive at all i.e. the basement dweller stuff. However others are true and deserved. You see on the left there are puritanical, pompous and naive people who need to get a life. Basically the worst caricature of the left. The thing is that is what the right thinks that all "the leftists" are like that. In reality they are a small part of the left.
We are not offended by such talk because we know it's not directed at the left but at our puritanical and pompous members. We also identify these people, keep them in line, and keep discipline in the ranks. That is the right thing to do. We don't let our extremists run all over the place starting fires and cause all sorts of trouble. Wouldn't have been nice if the right did the same thing? Maybe then you wouldn't have an orange clown take a massive dump on your political organization. But that horse left the barn long ago.
Btw, just like Liberty said getting an email dump from the right would make for a very entertaining read. Not just Paul Ryan, but say Reince Priebus or even Kellyanne Conway.