Cardboard
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Posts posted by Cardboard
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"Military weapons such as automatic weapons have no place in the hands of the general public in a modern society. Period."
Ok, maybe that we are making progress.
So if Congress accept that, are Democrats going to be accepting another rational proposal or that we should deny the entrance to anyone who is not capable to demonstrate that they will be good visitors or citizens, accepting and obeying all laws currently in place? ISIS and terrorists supporters should be automatically refused.
If there is any doubt they should not enter. Period.
Calling yourself a refugee or entering illegally does not give you a free pass. All visitors currently except these are asked some of these questions and their passeport and answers are tracked. Why is it any different for them?
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What did they use at the Boston marathon? In Brussels?
Sure, it was convenient for him and I never said that we should not try to prevent terrorists from accessing any kind of gun.
You should still remember that this guy was in the security industry. Even if we had in place tougher laws, it is not hard to imagine that he would have had contacts to get them illegally.
The real problem here is ideology. Why are you so opposed to go after that?
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"I believe nobody should have guns, just like in Europe."
Do you mean hand guns and assault weapons? It is regulated but, they do have firearms. And some do have hand guns.
"But to start with, we can ban assault weapons, or prevent those on the terror watch list from buying guns.
The latter bill which Congress Republicans blocked recently. It's amazing that the party that is supposedly the toughest on terror is willing to let suspected terrorists buy guns."
I agree on assault weapons.
The Republican party, like the Democrat party, is owned by lobbyists and special interests. Trump is the only one who wants to stop that. Sanders blames only Wall Street. If Trump was elected, stupidity like that would be stopped rather quickly I would hope.
Regarding this specific event and if you understand that this guy has been planning this for months, it would still have happened with different means, maybe a different target and possibly could have been even more lethal. That is why I am so pissed off at the left blaming this entirely on gun control.
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Vox,
The data shows zero correlation between number of suicides in various countries and number of guns per 100,000. If you advocate the elimination of all guns because they are "more effective" at committing suicide or "can't change you mind after" then that is a different discussion. I still believe that overtime that the numbers would revert to the same rate that we see currently.
I too know an individual who attempted several times and in every instance it appeared to be a call for help instead of true determination despite being real close a few times to the point of no return. Likely for that reason, he never used a gun which was available to him.
Regarding availability of guns and number of homicides there is certainly a correlation. What to do about it is a tough question.
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I agree that assault weapons should not be sold freely to the public. Like I mentioned before, you can't buy tanks, portable missiles so there should be a line.
And RB, you should read the chart before commenting. I said difference between these countries regarding intentional death not homicide.
And regarding homicide, is it a 100% correlation to more guns? I suspect there is correlation but, I could also say something like Vox and mix everyone:
"Country by country comparisons fail to control for the diversity of religious beliefs, socio-economic opportunity, cultural biases, and countless other heterogeneous variables."
So maybe that the higher number of homicide deaths in the U.S. vs other Western countries has little to do with higher gun ownership but, other reasons such as what he mentioned or what I also suspect: too many living under poverty.
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"Let's say that in total, banning firearm would conservatively save 33% of the firearm deaths in the US, so 10,000 people each year."
Our so called life defenders from the left want to save 10,000 lives a year by banning guns while data shows near zero difference with France on overall intentional deaths and 4.6 more per 100,000 vs their dream country: Denmark.
At the same time, they cheer 1,000,000 intentional death per year via legal abortion. Does not even include illegal.
By the way, why is abortion a Republican platform item? I can understand the religious aspect but, defending the weak should be a priority of Democrats. No?
And from a very cynical view point, if there were more abortion each year, which are mostly conducted in Democrats strongholds such as California and New York, would it not be a positive for Republicans to encourage it? Fewer Democrats voters long term?
Do you also see how fast Democrats jumped on guns following the event in Orlando? They simply have no plan to address the real issue. It wasn't guns in use in Boston. What did they do to fix the issue?
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"Do they reach for their guns to protect liberty from tyranny? No. They go to rallies, applaud, justify and vote."
And the leftists like yourself go there and beat peaceful people. Try to shut them up. That is exactly what the yellow jackets were doing in Germany in the early thirties.
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"I'm surprised though that these numbers also don't seem to matter to some "value investors"; people who are supposed to be rational."
Based on some of the responses in the thread already, maybe that you will be told that you are not a value investor either since you are basing your judgement on the short term. Over the long term, history has shown that tyrants always take over and for the populace to have no mean to defend freedom means a dictatorship and 10's of millions of death. LOL
And regarding this data, I just pulled something from Wikipedia indicating that the U.S. and Canada are about even and in the middle of the pack for 107 countries in terms of homicides/suicide per 10,000 people. Both have very different gun laws. Homicide is higher in the U.S. but, I see no difference between the U.S. and other developed countries on suicide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_death_rate
Please don't shoot the messenger!
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I didn't mention that because I think that Trump has the solution. I simply believe that being this close to the general election and with it happening in Florida that many people will demand changes from leadership which Clinton isn't perceived to go after hence the words status quo.
Regarding the weapon used, this is not a deranged kid going for a school rampage. This was premeditated murder with ideology being the motive. They have strong gun control in Paris and it still happened. Guns were not used in Brussels. So yes, criminals will find way to get them and a car bomb with homemade explosives can do as much damage as we have seen all around the world.
By the way, I do support some stronger gun control on assault style weapons. As their name implies, they are not a defensive weapon. People can't buy tanks and portable missiles so a line has to be drawn somewhere.
Finally, this man was not poor. He had a good job and living in a pretty good area. So this argument that I hear sometimes about terrorists being desperate goes out the window. It is entirely about ideology and how far they are willing to go.
So if you mix people with different ideologies in a society, there will be outliers per normal distribution who will want to impose it on others. Pretty tough to fix in an open society.
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I think that the odds of Trump becoming president just went up significantly with what happened in Orlando.
Florida is a major swing State and I doubt that its citizens will feel safe with status quo.
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Because their cartel would not be a real cartel or not having control over all sources of production. So it is doomed to fail as OPEC did fail. People found oil elsewhere, even if at higher cost, and developed new sources of energy. And on top of that, these guys have no discipline among themselves!
Some have said that Saudi Arabia is smart. IMO, they are the dumbest operator alive.
In a capitalist system, low cost producers expand rapidly during good times, then contract less than high cost producers in bad times. Saudi Arabia has done just about the opposite ensuring two things:
1- Less revenues over the life of their oil fields: sell fewer barrels during periods of high prices and more during periods of low prices.
2- Attract competition from all corners because of the supply crunches that it created.
If the Saudis had rapidly expanded their low cost production in 2005-2008 to prevent the large spike at over $140 U.S./barrel, it would have slowed down significantly the development of shale, solar and all other competing sources of energy. Their market share would have also grown significantly.
Instead they did let it happen, the world got scared and has and is developing a multitude of new sources of energy.
The same happened between 2010 and 2014.
Now, they have tried to crush their competitors by flooding the market at the bottom which will ensure another supply crunch down the road. And the lowest amount of revenues possible for themselves for about 2 or 3 years.
It does not take a genius to figure out that fusion is in our future. Solar production costs have been declining for years. And whenever oil prices went up too much, somebody found oil in non-OPEC countries.
So knowing that new sources of energy at lower costs will inevitably be developed in our future. Even a 6 year old kid would know about that! Would it not have been in their best interest to prevent scary energy price spikes, increase their production to say 15 or 20 million barrels/day and enjoy more stable revenues all along while slowing down the interest of new competition to form?
Maybe that they are getting it now but, they surely didn't and with the genie out of the bottle, competition from all sides will be back again.
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LOL. I didn't say that I would vote for him and I was aware of some of the foolish things he said and gaffes he made.
However to my knowledge, he didn't lie as Clinton and he doesn't raise money from individuals and countries that undoubtedly get something in return. That is what I meant by baggage.
I still do believe that there is a high probability that he jumps in if Hillary is indicted. He is the VP after all and liked by Democrats. Stupidity doesn't count. It is agenda and popularity.
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If it is not Hillary, then I think that Joe Biden jumps in. A nice, charismatic guy without Hillary's baggage. The big supporters that you are referring to will never endorse crazy Bernie.
Although, some will say that this is some right wing conspiracy, there was likely a deal made between the Clintons and Obama during the election in 2008 and 2012 or that Bill would support Obama during the two elections in exchange for Obama to support his wife in 2016. There was no love between the two camps. If Hillary is indicted, then Obama gets freed to support his VP.
His son likely wanted him to run too. By the time this happens, if it happens, Joe will be ready to run.
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Sounds to me like someone who is talking generally or who has not done his homework.
Currently, there is a huge gap in valuation between the "strong" and the "weak". So if you go shopping for assets where companies have bankers holding a gun to their head, you can likely buy them for PDP NPV to 1P or from $20,000 to $30,000 per boe/d. You can then cherry pick among them for best netbacks or other characteristics. A company like Blackstone would then also proceed to additional cost cutting to reduce operating cost and G&A.
However, if they are looking for just one large transaction that does it all then other than Penn West (that would still have to be cleaned up), the field of cheap and obvious assets is pretty limited.
By the way, where were they in February when everything was on sale even the Street favourites of today?
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Instead of consolidating assets in safe North America on the cheap and cherry picking, Big Oil continues to invest in far flung places:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/despite-oil-slump-chevron-invest-230128447.html
The same Chevron has assets under fire in Nigeria right now. They also got kicked out of Venezuela and had to rely on international arbitration to get something.
Or then they do like Shell and go hunt for oil on the coast of Alaska at very high cost and raising the ire of environmentalists. Then they abandon and write-off billions.
Shareholders of these companies need to ask some tough questions to their leaders.
Cardboard
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You guys should watch Frontline: The secret history of Isis.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-secret-history-of-isis/
You would realize how stupid are our leaders. The worst was Cheney.
Cardboard
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RB it is pointless having a discussion with you.
I pull data from the EU Commission on one of its own members and you say it is basically invalid. You then argue that GDP growth is unimportant as long as the leader keeps its people happy.
And then you tell me to go masturbate.
Wow! You have demonstrated all the characteristics of someone from the extreme left who wants to shut up anyone who does not think as he thinks.
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There is an enormous difference between Ukraine and the other Eastern European countries. The major one is Russia interfering in its affairs which can't be denied, the natural gas accord, etc. It just does not have the liberty to operate freely. It should have kept its nukes.
So it does fit my thesis. If freedom is not there, it does not work.
Germany: "GDP Growth Rate in Germany averaged 0.32 percent from 1991 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 2 percent in the second quarter of 2010 and a record low of -4.50 percent in the first quarter of 2009."
Does that look like the U.S.? I mean if you exclude the Obama years. LOL
It will be about 0.5% this year. What would it be if they did not benefit from a lower currency due to being part of the Euro? Unemployment rate of 6.2% is good I would say.
You look at all the data and the impact of 8 years of U.S. government heavy regulations and being involved in everyone's business and the numbers are trending closer and closer to Western Europe. The U.S. has not had its lowest growth rates and recovery since WWII because of population size. No. It was the same size as Europe before the Great Recession and was growing much faster. It is all these regulations that are strangling U.S. economic growth.
Even a man of the left is waking up now in France or Hollande and wanting to abolish the 35 hour week and all these tight labour regulations. The result is the threat of a strike by union at major refineries to halt the nation. To him I say, do as Ronald Reagan did to the air traffic controllers. Fire them all!
Venezuela is actually a great example of leftist populism a la Bernie gone wrong. A man, Chavez and now his successor, holds onto power by handing out freebies to less informed or the majority of the population until there is no money left. Yell against the rich and capitalists (Wall Street for Bernie). Tax them, seize their assets. What is fascinating is how fast it has happened. I have friends who left when he came into power and glad that they did since they are now rich vs their comrades.
Look, I am not opposed to all social programs. However, I think that they have to be very well managed and used for the less fortunate among us. We also have to ensure that everyone contributes to society and pay for these things no matter how small is the contribution. Being part of the team is key.
Regarding Trump and Bernie, I do believe that they have a finger on one thing that is really wrong in America and that is influence and lobbying over policies. Trump has cast a larger net which is the right thing while Bernie is only focused on Wall Street and ignore all the very powerful lobbyist and special interest in Washington.
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When I mentioned Eastern European countries I had in mind: Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Romania. Not Ukraine!
You have looked up their GDP growth and unemployment rate. Then compare them to France, Germany, Spain ,etc. Pretty striking.
Denmark or the model society for our socialists has a population of 5.6 million! Funny but, your numbers do not match the European Commission:
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu/countries/denmark_en.htm
I didn't say either that Eastern European countries are there yet with their standard of living but, it is surely trending in a better direction than ANY, and I will repeat, ANY state that has tried light socialism, medium socialism or heavy socialism.
Should we look at Asia or specifically China and Vietnam to see how much they benefited from opening their society to capitalism?
The stuff that Bernie is talking about is very very dangerous. They say that Trump is a populist. What is Bernie then??? Once you start to feed the Pavlov dogs they come for more and more and more and before you know it, your society is upside down and collapses. Appeasing the masses to gain power that is how I call it.
Cardboard
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I agree and own them too.
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Regarding history, you can't even see current news around you Palantir.
I know now why Trump has a Eastern European wife. These people have a brain and a memory.
These people were also forced to put on display a bunch of statues of Lenin or another Obama hero. As soon as they had the chance, they destroyed all of that and embraced freedom and capitalism.
After 20 short years, they are the pearl of Europe with solid growth and low unemployment or a striking difference from their Western counterparts. The EU is trying to impose various laws and other liberal plans on them and they are rightfully pushing back.
There is another country which embraced fully socialism or the ideal of Bernie Sanders and Obama: Venezuela. In 10 short years, people are dying, shops are empty, no electricity is available, no food, nothing. Civil war is likely next.
America is a great country because it has chosen freedom over domination by a few who would dictate them how they should live. It could become greater or like it was in the 90's if it reverses that trend toward socialism.
Regarding the elite Democrats who claim that they are doing this to help the people. To them I say lie and hypocrisy. Their true reason is to buy peace from the poor so that they can continue enjoying their upper class lifestyle: actors, tort lawyers, union leaders. Millions are still on food stamps and barely making it despite 8 years of their so called empathy. If they truly wanted to help the poor, they would stop enslaving them with small gifts and teach them how they got to the upper echelon themselves.
While I am not opposed at all to more available healthcare and education, the way it is presented and used as a tool to vote for them by the Democrats is disgusting.
And by the way, if you believe that free education is the thing to have, then look no further than France. Free does not mean that it will be put to good use. When one has to pay a little then better choices are made.
Cardboard
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Someone is dumping the AIM.PR.C today with no similar selling in the "A" or "B":
Current yield or until March 31, 2019: 12.35%
Yield post March 31, 2019: 9.85%
Very much worth buying IMO if you are looking for low tax yield (Canadian eligible dividends) and capital appreciation.
Cardboard
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Definitely interest rates. Everything plunged after the Fed minutes were release at 2 pm today: Euro, Oil, S&P. Except the banks.
I still think it is a bit crazy since the banks won't do well if the market and the economy can't take at all a raise in interest rates.
Cardboard
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Thanks for the answers.
I thought it was really bizarre early on since the S&P was really weak relative to the banks. It has normalized now but, I can imagine the kind of the day we would have had if it had not been for the financial sector moving up so strongly.
If American - which presidential candidate will you vote for?
in General Discussion
Posted
Trump is extremely maladroit when he talks. I am not sure if it is intentional or not or to attract people who otherwise would not vote but, he sure must know that such statements would attract backlash. He is a smart guy after all who has written books, dealt with various people in his business life and must know that you need to be polite, behave and avoid politically charged comments.
In his defense, I would also say that the very left leaning media is excellent at taking things out of context to destroy any candidate from the right.
While I certainly do not agree with all his ideas, I would say that some are good. Immigration for example is mismanaged and needs to be straightened up for all Western countries.
When our intelligence leaders are saying that ISIS will try to infiltrate via the refugee flow we should pay more attention than what current leaders are. When it is also mentioned that it is easy for them to enter via the South border we should also pay attention.
This laissez faire attitude is the equivalent of suicide. Trump is right to mention that this is like a Trojan horse.
Regarding Muslims, they have an internal problem with their religion and they need to fix it before it is too late. They need to figure out a way to eliminate this radical doctrine, denounce it, isolate it. They can keep on saying that this is not the teachings of Islam but, it will not be enough to protect them forever. Some are trying as the president of Egypt but, more needs to be done.
Moreover, if some prefer Sharia Law then they should be told to stay in their home country or to move to a country where this is being practiced since it is incompatible with our laws and culture.
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