valcont

That ideal is the exact opposite of the founding principles of the United States. The declaration of independence isn't about feeling like you belong to a tribal collective. It's about the INDIVIDUAL and his inalienable right to live his life as he sees fit, no matter what the tribe says. The right has lost all understanding of this. Trump and Sanders are two sides of the same coin. Sanders thinks your life exists to serve the worse off and Trump thinks your life exists to serve the nation. Who today says that your life belongs to you, and that this freedom to live it is inalienable- even if 99% of people disagree with your choices- even if it means not buying health insurance, or not saving for retirement- even if it means hiring a Mexican? +1

I should have listened to the wise old American saying "Ignore Canada. Nothing interesting ever comes out of there" . Even the oil trickles out from the sand. No gusher. How boring!! Seriously why are Canadians so interested in this election. Its not like Trump is building a wall on the northern border.

You are really dishonest. She did not get indicted because of the system while Petraeus and others were for much less. No dishonesty here. I am comparing her misdeeds with Trump. She may have gotten away in the email scandal because of the democratic admin but you can say the same thing about Cheney who lied about the nuclear Iraq. Petraeus is a different case altogether. He was banging the biographer of his book(appropriately titled "All In") and sharing confidential information VOLUNTARILY. That's what got him. Imagine a head of the espionage unit sharing secret codes with his paramour fully aware this is criminal. This is not an apples to apples comparison with Hillary's situation despite what the Fox news channel tells you. If anything , his was a case of getting away with a slap on the wrist. He got two year probation.You and I would have gotten 20+ years. She did not accomplish anything good as Secretary of State. Everything has turned into a failure: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Iran nuclear deal, etc. And now you want to give her more responsibilities? Oh yes, the middle east . How dare she messed up the good work done by the Bush/Cheney!! And Iran deal, yes wish they had done as great a job as Reagan with the Contra deal. She killed Bin laden and that's more than you can expect from the other side. Honestly, Middle East is a huge waste of time no matter which party. You can't change the people who swore allegiance only to their tribe and have been fighting each others for generation. Let them figure out what every civilization has figured out in the end. No point in shedding blood there. She is corrupt. She loves power. She has provoked Russia and China. She is extremely dangerous. Yes she is corrupt and she loves power. She is also very lucky to get Trump as her opponent.Wrong on Russia and China. They don't need provocation to hate us. Extremely dangerous?? I would use Trump's logic here. If she hasn't caused any harm in 30years of public life, chances are she won't in the next 4.

You are right. I don't like the two party system and closed primaries. I hate it that my vote will support all the policies of the democratic platform. But the ultimate issue ,like everything else, is the money. A billionaire moderate candidate could have easily run as an independent this cycle and got elected. I suspect someone will in the next one. But what Trump is doing is attacking the democracy and its core. He is not saying the two party system doesn't work or the politicians are bought by the big money. He is saying the voting is rigged and the elections are farce. If majority of people believe that then you can kiss the democracy goodbye.

This is what bothers me. A big chunk of voters creating a false equivalency between both so they don't have to take a stand and can appear neutral. But sometimes in your life you just have to take a stand and out yourself as who you are. The biggest disasters in the human history had happened because of the inaction,this Laissez-faire attitude hoping that things will be ok. I don't agree with Trump supporters but their agenda is clear and I find it threatening. I am sure they feel the same way about Hillary. What did she do? Benghazi(No indictment) , emails (ditto),part of global elite to bring down the americans(exactly). I am really honest here , what is it that she did that is soooo threatening? And Trump, here is his latest: http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-10-17/poll-shows-trumps-claims-of-a-rigged-election-are-working-with-voters This is as dangerous as it gets. All for an egotist garbage excuse for a human. If this doesn't move your needle, I don't know what else would.

Love this guy: https://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/bill-maher-gop-now-stands-for-grab-our-pssies/

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/151737656851/the-era-of-women The master persuader fraud is walking back on his "insights" about Trump's victory . Think about how many Trumpsters believed in his idiotic foresights, baseless assertions and fact free theories. All that has gone to waste. Now he compares the odds of this video appearing to a meteor striking Clinton !! Any reasonable intelligent person could have predicted that the odds of such video are pretty high. I just hope his followers have better sources of information when they invest. Remember this is what he predicted a month ago. http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150772972746/how-to-know-an-election-is-over http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150264994381/the-race-for-president-is-probably-over http://blog.dilbert.com/post/150284922631/checking-my-predictions-about-clintons-health

Thanks for sharing. My friend who sells on eBay had the same experience. Apparently one regular buyer got so pissed off that he disputed all the previous transactions with PayPal which they reversed. He swore off Paypal since then. Amazon is brutally competitive. I have a digital market team for google and social media but Amazon is a completely different ball game.

Just wondering what do you find so unacceptable in Paul Ryan? I am his fan not just because he is a fellow Wisconsinite but he is a policy wonk with the moral courage.

You know what's worse, a false equivalency. That is an ultimate cognitive dissonance. No one is even disputing that Bill Clinton assaulted women.How in the world Hillary is responsible for any of it? Did she tie up ,sedate, overpower these women while Bill was raping. Nope nada zilch. Oh she criticized them. That is indeed more demeaning then talking about sexually assaulting a women or gloating how voluptuous your daughter is. I know a lot of conservatives have hard time believing men and women can be equal but at least they have come around to wife sharing equal blame for husband's sins. Thats progress!! I don't believe Bush is a war criminal. Some loons consider him one because he or his vice president lied about the Iraq war that caused several innocent deaths. Now that's a grey area and I have no expertise to decide but it is definitely not as outlandish as birther, muslim Obama, forced abortions ,voting fraud that is considered acceptable in Republican circles. The loons of the left are controlled and live on the edges , the loons on the right are the establishment. A big difference. I think it all comes down to the sources of information. Just compare the ones on the left and the right and you'll know where the ignorance resides. If someone is going to cite Scott Adams ( a hypnotist and a master of persuasion , whatever the heck that means) as a credible source in a political discourse, you have to give your opinion.

Do you sell a product or service? We are just getting ready to launch home automation systems on Amazon. Its a completely different beast. It took us about a year to get this product in the market. I sometimes think it would have been better to just private label something.

Oh really? Like when Scott Adams predicted Trump will win Iowa primary in a landslide and claimed the polls were rigged when he was proven wrong. He is a bitter divorcee and a known woman hater. No wonder he is all in for Trump. Oh wait now he changed it to Gary Johnson to appear neutral.

He rattled Clinton. She wasn't comfortable at all. I think his points about islamic terror, immigration and syrian war were accurate. Common sense approach to the problems. Clinton didn't seem assuring and kept parroting the usual.

Gotta be honest here. Trump did well this time. If someone who is neutral in this race would agree with most of what he said.

I shouldn't but I cracked up reading this.

Oh man. This is really heartbreaking. I couldn't read it after a while. We have to be honest, all of us have talked/listened to crap like this but I or most of the guys that I know have never tried to force themselves or took advantage of women. Maybe its an age issue and the older men feel they can get away with it. i don't know. But this needs to change.

That's a good point. Trump loves television and would love to have one of his own. All these kooks who support him will happily switch.

On the brighter side , he gained Bill Cosby's vote. Its hilarious watching Fox news trying to balance this story with the wikileaks "scandal". Hannity , the lap dog, is growling about Bill Clinton's past. And his supporters wonder why they are called deplorable.

Good point. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I feel there is a concerted effort to keep the oil price down. If you look at the EIA inventory report, destabilizing middle east, worsening relations with Russia,they all point to a move up in the oil prices but the focus is almost always on the weakening demand (even that hasn't materialized).

You missed my point. What I am saying is that a risk averse approach yields suboptimal results in life. Yes you can cut your spending down to an art, my point is it still wouldn't make much difference in your life. And if all you want is a simple living free of any modern conveniences, you might turn Amish. I think they beat MMM hands down and they've been doing it for ages. Buffet has become a poster boy for everything these days.Yes he lives simply but he is a capitalist and has billions of dollars. You and I don't and wouldn't get it just by living like him. And he risked a lot in his life. Anecdotal evidence and why this MMM riles me so much. An old friend of ours visited us last month. A 35 year old and a slave of PwC for 10 years. He told me how he just found out about MMM and would cut his spending by 50% and should be "retired" in 10 years. I asked him why don't he just quit now and open his own practice since he already has enough connections to gin up work. He said it is very risky and he doesn't know anything about opening a business He might consider doing it after he retires. A complete wuss who has an opportunity to retire in 2-3 years but instead chose the "safe" approach to slave himself away for 10 years by cutting things. I told him he should consider selling his kidney. Why keep an extra organ? And that is why MMM is so popular because it is a weak approach to wiggle out of your current situation in a "safe" way. The whole thing is a farce. If you are able to cut 50-70% of your spending, what does it say about you to start with? That you were a fool that was wasting away all that money and a blog figured it out for you. What about the job? If you hate it so much that you want to quit in 5-10 years. Aren't you wasting prime decades of your life working on the same job.People don't want to answer these questions because they are very inconvenient to your psyche. Instead "saving" for 10 years and dreaming about the life afterwards is "safe" so everyone follows that. No one wants to risk anything. And that is why these people would make terrible investors and entrepreneurs. These endeavors requires a lot of risk taking and comfort in an uncertain outcomes , a quality that just doesn't develop overnight. And no ,investing in 10 blue chip companies wouldn't make me an investor or an entrepreneur because it wouldn't move the needle for me. Its more akin to investing all your net worth in a nano cap.

First off I didn't make any comments about you or your mindset. I know you only from your posts and you seem to be an intelligent person. So lets not take it personally. All I am saying is maybe this MMM guy works for a certain type of people and he may have helped them by showing a different path. But there is nothing revolutionary in the strategy and wouldn't benefit the society as a whole.I would much rather focus on the other side of equation i.e. earnings and growth with some risk involved. A good analogy is going long or shorting a stock. You can only short up to zero but are unlimited on the other side. Then why focus on something with limited potential. That doesn't mean you don't monitor your stock for a potential downside.Its just that your energy is focussed on maximum growth and you are not looking for scams ,shady companies.For a novice both would work well but long only is a better approach.

All of your criticisms are convincingly addressed numerous times by Mr. Money Mustache, and the picture you paint is a strawman, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you haven't read very much of his stuff (maybe you don't have time because you work a full-time job). It's the traditional approach of throwing money at everything, and imagining that making as little effort as possible will lead to happiness, that is stressful and demoralizing. Regaining independence and control is the energizing and uplifting path. People are frugal not because they "struggle to spend each dollar" but because they are rational about it and decide that they'd rather buy their time and freedom rather than more stuff that doesn't make them happier. If you ever have the time, start at the bottom here: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of-time/ The first few posts aren't as good, but he gets his stride pretty quickly. I don't have a problem with his philosophy. I just think his solutions are sub optimal. Extend them universally and the society will go backwards. This principle has helped me immensely in investing and in life. Think about index investing , it is a better solution than managed investing but if everyone is an indexer how terrible the capital allocation will be. A committee will get to decide what your holdings should look like. But if everyone can value the company and assign its judgement, you have a super efficient capital allocation system. So index investing is a sub optimal solution but learning about business and investing yourself seems to be the best.Their will be winners and losers but it'll be a fair criteria. Same goes for spending, extreme consumerism is really bad and we see those effects but the solution is not to swing to the other side and regress. Even his strategy is full of contradictions. Basically he recommends you work for a few years , save 50-70%, invest and "retire" and let the market fund your retirement(on a 3% or 4% withdrawal). So he expects his fellow citizens to fund his lifestyle by buying things while he is sitting idle thinking of bigger and better things. Where is the morality in that? And think about how useless this society will be if its full of young retirees twiddling their thumbs. I believe in abundance and scarcity mindset and this ideology reeks of scarcity and small mindedness. Do you really think hacking credit card miles or saving $20 a month on a phone plan would take you to the next level? Scarcity doesn't work well in nature or human bodies. It wouldn't work for an economy either. Since you asked about my job, yes I do work full time but on my business. I quit full time employment 12 years ago when I figured out I can make 3 times the money doing the same thing but operating under a business and assuming some risk. I never looked back since then. BTW I do think MMM is a great marketer peddling his blog and making half million a year. You think its free but imagine the time and energy wasted on reading that much content. I can get the gist in less than an hour. I would rather spend that time learning a new business or if I'm lazy an annual report.

Saving is not an issue. The problem is focussing the energy.Money mustache and all these blogs focus on cutting spending to the bone by mowing your lawn, changing your car oil, cutting your hair, hacking the credit cards bonus points. Thats stupid and backwards. You may live in 1900s and sew your wounds. These blogs are such downer and energy saps. Where is the optimism and focussing your energy on bigger and better things. What really gets me that most of these blogs recommend to ***Invest All your savings in the stock market** Yeah right like there will be any market if no one is shaving and everyone is living off someone's used crap . Thats not progress, that's Third world. And I agree that these guys would make terrible investors and entrepreneurs. When you are so attached to the money that even spending a dollar is such a struggle, how can you risk your capital on these unknown situations.

If you fail to establish a track record with a ~$100k portfolio you lose one year of your life? Please, keep things in perspective. If you're a full-time investor and you blow up you might have to sell your house, can't take care of your family, can't afford a retirement home and/or a good school for your children, just to name a few things. On the other hand, how your portfolio performs the next few years is mostly irrelevant in the greater scheme of things because the vast majority of your future net worth will come from labour, not capital. You can blow up $100k once or twice and still get a great job, your quality of life wouldn't be affected. You say you can 'earn it back quicker' after a blow up but a retiree can't earn it back at all. That's a great point. Stakes are way more important in investing especially when you are evaluating a portfolio manager. I wouldn't consider anyone who doesn't have his whole net worth in line for multiple years. Skills are way overrated and its hard to distinguish them from luck.I understand Buffet now when he says its easy to compound small amounts. Not because you can find more opportunities but the psychology starts to take over when stakes are raised.I would be extremely wealthy had my success in monopoly translated into real life.

Basically it comes down to the risk and reward. I liked his stand on immigration and some component of foreign policy but then I realized he will either backpedal or completely screw up the implementation.He fights fire with fire and some of these issues will bring his worst. Do you think Democrats will not try to stir up racial angst if the reward is the Presidency? And Trump will be their best messenger. The guy has no filter between his brain and the mouth.That is a big risk. No Sir, I am content with a tactful corrupt Hillary and the status quo.