changegonnacome

Yeah crypto + Citzens United decision is a perfect example of a lollapalooza that Munger talked about.....first you let unlimited money into your political system and then you kinda let a fringe scammy industry built on unfettered speculation, pyramids schemes, insider trading and pump & dumps become a little too large for soceitys own good...and before you know it an industry that is yet to put a product or service into my hand as consumer after 17yrs of blockchain (which is a proxy IMO for real societal value creation) gets or most certainly significantly helps the next President of the United States get elected.....and before you know it the President of the United States and the first lady are effectively running digital boiler rooms (meme coins) while waltzing into the White House and letting that 'industry' rip. What a time to be alive.

Hence the pardon of CZ from Binance infamy last week....who by volume and value was probably the most successful money launderer or certainly knowing enabler of money laundering of all time via Binance International....and money laundering is being kind.....if anybody ever cared to look at the Federal FinCen Binance documents (i did) you'd see that CZ sat on top of organization that through willful ignorance of basic AML facilitated transactions involving terrorist organizations, ransomware, child sexual exploitation material, frauds, and various scams. Trump's pardons are for sale or recklessly stupid or both.....because CZ is not a candidate for pardon yet here we are! Disgusting really - no coincidence I suppose that a few short months ago Binance agreed to have equity investment from the Middle East in it funded via Trump's USD1 stablecoin.....$400m I believe it was effectively put on deposit into Donald Trump Bank (USD1)....what a coincidence!

"Truth Social to Become World’s First Social Media Platform Offering Prediction Markets via Exclusive Partnership with Crypto.com. Trump Media Expansion Now Includes Strategic Push into Prediction Markets" El Presidente now in the gambling business.....as well as penny stocks, meme coins, stablecoins, bitcoin treasury, watches, sneakers, cell phone plans, NFTs, private equity, real estate, golf clubs, hotels, venture capital & bitcoin mining (i'm sure I've missed a few)....I'll give it to him & the extended Trump clan.....they havent wasted a second of this second term monetizing the presidency into dollars....its impressive in its scope & $cale (if it weren't you know for ethical issues).

But remember its always Trump First This surely cannot be for real? "Trump Said to Demand Justice Dept. Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/us/politics/trump-justice-department-compensation.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/argentinas-central-bank-says-it-signed-20-billion-currency-swap-deal-with-us-2025-10-20/ America First! Unless Trump likes you then its America Second and you get $20bn and another $20bn from US banks being bullied into providing it.

Depends on your perspective.....there are two versions of Russia that people subscribe too..... there is Russia/Putin the expansionist regime hellbent on territorial expansion & re-building the USSR (even though prior to 2022 they had a standing army so minisucle that the idea it could fundamentally conquer and hold additional hostile landmasses is fundamentally laughable)......or Russia/Putin the diminished power re-trenched to its own sphere with a bright red line under Belarus and Ukraine region remaining deeply neutral and acting as security land buffer for what is Russia's deeply vulnerable Western border with Europeans powers....which is to say the North European plain (see below).....this is flat land mass east of Warsaw that Belarus and Ukraine occupies today which constitues a massive land mass almost impossible to defend given its topgraphy and size.....through which Russia has had three near regime death experiences in the last 350yrs....Napoleon 1812, WWI and WWII....in all instances standing armies marched through here with ease on their way to Moscow....if you are a country this is not the topogrpahy and borders you would ask God for when he's handing out countries. History above and the video below might help folks understand why Ukraine & Belarus are so important to Russian security architecture...you've got to walk a mile in someone elses shoes in diplomacy to get a 360 view.....if your nation was nearly destroyed three times in the most recent past from the West through armies marching over the North European Plain and for which there little solution to that defense problem given the vastness of terrain and its flatness...you might care, as much as Russia, does about the direction of travel of the regimes in Ukraine and Belarus that occupy the vast majority of that North European Plain....you might not agree with Russia's security concerns but its hard to argue with their logic on why these two nations remaining neutral are a key pillar of Russia's security architecture as they think about their Western border.

Not sure about the 'everything bubble' but when you see a chart like this you can't help but think about the linkage between historically high equity valuations, historically high margins and how in a circular fashion wealth effects are supporting highly concentrated consumer spending by those who own the appreciated equites. The second point is one i saw recently made by Steve Eisman somewhere - and its if one strips out all the AI capex from the large hyberscalers and deduct it from LTM US GDP growth.....the US ex-AI capex barely grew at all. Combined equity market wealth driving 50% of consumer spending (in no small part because of AI equities driving index returns) and then layer on the reality that US GDP ex-AI capex boom (which in no small part is because these companies are getting rewarded in their equity)....you've got a US a economy unusually levered IMO to the fortunes of SPY & QQQ and not the other way around.

Plenty of blame to go around and plenty that can be attributed to Trump as being a contributing factor to Russia ending up invading Ukraine. Trump has two fairly major black marks on his management of the Ukraine portfolio which can be argued got us where we are: (1) need I mention his shakedown of Zelensky for investigations into the Bidens by the withholding of military aid?......this was signal to the Kremlin (if any we're needed) that Ukraine was now a puppet regime of the United States....you only speak to puppets the way Trump spoke to Zelensky....you only direct domestic sovereign criminal investigations like that when you have complete leverage over another sovereign country and they are dependent on you. This was a red flag that Ukraine had morphed into a fully fledged US proxy on Russia's doorstep.....imagine Putin/Russia with such domineering control and leverage over Mexico that he would speak to President Sheinbaum this way and you might understand the anxiety this created in the Kremlin when the contents of that call became....it would do the same in D.C. and before too long Mexico might have US troops crossing the Southern Border. (2) before Trump left office ~2019 he decided to authorize the sale of javeleins to Ukraine (a decision his predecessors had considered and upon mature reflection had judged as too provocative to Russian security)....Trump had a different view and authorized them.......when this happened Russia viewed the US supplying Javelin missiles to Ukraine as a significant escalation of aggression in Ukraine-Russia-USA relations. Russian officials strongly condemned the move at the time, arguing that providing these weapons would worsen tensions and encourage Ukraine toward more aggressive military decisions. The road to the Russia-Ukranian conflict is long....Trump's contributions to the mess there are meaningful...he was no genius in his mgmt of the situation, quite the opposite and its likely to come back and bite him in the ass as I think its inevitable that Ukraine's front lines will collapse during his Presidency which will be deeply embarrassing to the West/US and as much as Trump attempts to distance himself he is the guy who said he'd have it fixed no time at all even before he moved into the WH again.

Huge accomplishment stopping the killing in Gaza and getting the hostages back. After the press conferences end, the congratulations stop and the worlds media go home the question is whether Trump has the focus to underwrite the peace in Gaza/Israel on a daily basis...which is what will be required if this going to last.....I fear (and hope I'm wrong) is that Trump has history of working his butt off to secure the big event, PR or Press Release and lacks the focus, attention to detail and commitment to follow through once the story moves off the front pages. Thats for another day - congrats to President Trump this is a big deal.

yeah agree have heard Birmingham is shooting for Manchester-esque renaissance....hopefully more cities regions in the UK follow suit.

Outside London and Manchester I would posit. Its a wonderful place the UK - many friends there but successive Governments Tory and Labor have systematically made poor decisions. Its been quite said to watch from a distance but sense at least that the UK kind of knows what has gone wrong which is the first step to the more difficult 'how do we fitx t'. I'd have to find the article but collectively I believe if Europe was the United State of Europe its debt to GDP ratio in aggregate would be 80%. When one looks at the trajectory of the USA and Europe over the last 15yrs I think we in the US can get a little smug with our outperformance....much of that outperformance can be attributed to soverign leverage which has blown out ours from mid to high double digits into the 120%++ range and growing ~5% p/a.....that is a alot $$$$ pumped in by Uncle Sam versus the EUropeans

Your love and forgiveness for 47 is bottomless….I hope your as kind to AOC when she’s selling gold bracelets with AOC48 on them from the Oval on MSNBC But listen genuine kudos to him for potentially stopping the war in Gaza…..his narcissistic obsession to get a Nobel Peace is actually good for the world….they’d be crazy to give him one….all hell would break loose after!!!….this is the transactional President after all….he cares about peace only to the extent that’s there’s something in it for him….sure give him one but only after he’s left office….treat that narcissist mean, to keep him keen!

Its hard to believe this is where we are at - but we are...Potus 47 hawking shitty watches on cable tv news while in OFFICE

America First - $20bn bailout of Argentina, Treausry buying pesos

"Inside the Justice Department Where the President Calls the Shots With an accidental social-media post, Trump showed how much had changed since his first term" https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-doj-inside-political-enemies-17f13f72?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAhViOGl_ucIveRo_wHI0CwY3oj77LUlzi_UWzoCjGlSZBfYGIN-BoXHQqcKI_o%3D&gaa_ts=68e72cfa&gaa_sig=pD39M-SfI-hKRN3QysBy3eHjss_dMCuv83S2mNpqTU1vtGtUwpUs7HkjbrHzJ3g31dyYYQ_x9EXWRiymqXJy-g%3D%3D From WSJ - "On Sept. 20, Trump meant to send a private message to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and his other favored targets, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly, addressing it to “Pam,” and was surprised to learn it was public, the officials said. Bondi grew upset and called White House aides and Trump, who then agreed to send a second post praising Bondi as doing a “GREAT job.” " The accidental DM published to the truth social public newsfeed below: Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT Confirmation, if any we're needed, on my central thesis on Trump - what a blessing to have person of his instincts with such little facility to execute effectively against those instincts.......what a moron.

cope on what? I'm confused....your basically rebutting my position that this case is a joke & presidential overreach....you laid out your position....I laid out mine.....now your just driving the car into the wall and saying who "gives a fuck" anyway...well I guess my answer is you seem to?!?.....I guess not giving "a fuck" is Trump cope talk for yeah if this turns out be a case made out of rice paper like 'the libs/NYT's is saying....I can protect my ego my saying....well I dont care, never did. Reminds me a bit of Epstein birthday card saga......which could be summed up as the five stages of coping with Trump being a deeply flawed person to find yourself defending: (1) its fake news (2) he'd never write that (3) he basically barely knew Epstein (4) the WSJ journal is toast cause he's suing them .......roll the clock forward a few weeks and we get the birthday book......and all of sudden we get to the fifth stage of defending Trump grief (5) who gives a fuck anyway that he wrote a stupid card anyway..... to which everybody with a brains says then why didn't you say that at the start instead of vehemently denying its existence or even the possibility of its existence...that sure feels like cope to me....and I see it very regularly from MAGA

99.x% of indictments requested by AG's at the Federal Level result in indictments.....in this particular case......instead of ham sandwich getting indicted....a ham sandwich in mini-skirt got the former FBI indicted....which just goes to show that the old adage is right.....Grand Juries with only the prosecution laying out the case with no rebuttal at all is thankfully not the final call on someones guilt or innocence....and in this instance its a very poor acid test around the quality of said case....which as I've said @Sweet you'll find out relatively soon....which is to say a Federal Judge may throw this out before it even gets to trial and when it does get to trial and the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt it will get thrown out then. So ya know lets wait and see....you seem to think this is justified prosecution and evidence bears that out....I think its a piece of shit case that a number of seasoned prosectutors have looked at and refused to charge and they lost their jobs for it......and then a bimbo was parachuted to do what they wouldn't....thankfully the story doesn't end there.....cause Federal judge I'm sure will hear a petition around selective or vindicative prosecution and it will fall then OR it will go to trial and collapse there. This one should be quick enough so we'll know in a matter of weeks/months and we can re-visit then to see who had the 'right' take.

Yeah this woman below who never prosecuted a single case in her life, a former insurance lawyer turned Trump personal assistant/piece of ass.....she came up three indictments.....one of which was thrown out by the grand jury...as mentioned in my post anybody with knowledge of the criminal justice system realizes how Grand Jurys really do live up to "the indict a ham sandwich" phrase. The data on it is irrefutable 99%++ of federal indictments presented get approved by Grand Juries so sub <1% get rejected....Comey case with its single rejection is already a statistical outlier. Anyway Federal judges first then possibly an actual Jury will get to opine on this case....you know what way I think it will go....and so we'll find out I guess.

i think your letting Biden/Harris off very lightly - sure I applaud bipartisanship bills and all that and it was the correct thing to attempt....but before that and then after it failed....what was clear was Biden/Harris admin lacked the will and political courage to act on the problem and we ended up in no small part with Trump because of it.....whats the phrase perfect is the enemy of the good....a bipartisan bill on immigration would have been perfect....but it didn't happen and we got Trump instead

I dont think thats true - philosophically something went very wrong re: securing our borders with the DNC in the last term.....now I've got a pet theory that what looked like incompetence with Biden/Harris....was actually a pillar of their disinflation plan twinned with the wokeness oppressor/oppressed lens that seemed infect the DNC.....but anyway flooding the country with incremental low cost illegal labor post-COVID seemed like a good idea I'm sure as services inflation was through the roof......maybe I'm giving them too much credit....either way they we're wrong, very wrong....immigrants disproportionally head for major cities due to existing contact networks....and given that the inelasticity of housing is most acute in cities....well you get this insane housing shortages/pricing increases/homelessness......I dont like the methods of Trump but the flow had to be dialed down.....there's a level of immigration that is virtuous & benefits us all I'm not sure what that level is but it wasn't what was happening in the Biden/Harris era. they got this VERY wrong and Trump has showed that a little illegal immigration theatre can go a long way to stemming the flow of migrants.....you can argue Biden/Harris's hand we're tied and they tried getting the comprehensive reform done on a bipartisan basis which is true.....but alot of what Trump is doing now (not the ilegal stuff) really was available to Harris/Biden and as I said alot of whats happening with Trump is theatre....effective nonetheless for a migrant sitting in country X wondering if the risk reward is good for undertaking a trip to the US.

The standard a Grand Jury is asked to measure things by is probable cause.....about the lowest bar in the criminal justice system..... Then you get on to the structure of a Grand Jury - it only hears the prosecutions case no other side....there's a reason that folks commonly say that you can get a Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich....the scales are tipped so strongly in the prosecutors side. Having said all that....ham sandwhich talk.....Pamela Anderson Trump's recently appointment attorney actually one of her three indictment thrown out....quite unusual for Grand Jury given all I've said above.

On the dip on MAGA push-back on the thread recently - my guess - the fact pattern re: the Comey indictment is just way too hard to twist into anything but abuse of the office of President.....best to take a break from fighting the good fight when Captain Chaos truly transgresses. I get it...Trump is like that friend you defend as basically being a good guy then you go for drinks and he starts fighting with everyone and coming on to people's wifes. I do appreciate hearing the other side of issues and @cubsfan @Red Lion @Gregmal @Sweet have balanced my thinking immensely on lots of issues....not much is ever black or white....makes life interesting....what is clear is that extreme partisanship on the left and right has deranged alot of minds in the US.....the centre ground has just been obliterated by it and moving forward it looks we are going to have political policy volatility like we've never seen before....its going to be a whipsaw from administration to administration. Not good for the country - DC kinda worked for the country the last few decades precisely because it never got much done.....Donald has shown if your willing to invoke emergencies & national security crisis you can actually get a lot done as President......AOC is watching.

Yes agree issue is he also committed probable crimes....Georgia election interference, Jan 6th......so weaponization for sure in NY (mortgage case) but mixed in with real probable crimes that required action from the justice system.......he called it warfare but a criminal would say that. Thats all mute now cause he got convicted on the lawfare cases and the cases that would have gone before a jury never got there because he got back into the WH.

You need to go back and look at Presidential history….the opposition undermining the sitting President with investigations, smear clouds is nothing new…how about Kenneth Starr and the whole Clinton period?…Nixon & Watergate?….Reagan Iran-Contra?….back further Ulyss S Grant & the Whiskey Ring. As I said what makes Trump unique is what a cry baby he is about it….and how his supporters hook and line and sinker classify cutthroat DC politics as something other than what it is and always will be…ruthless, brutal and relentless tier1 bipartisan politics.