Political Posts

[Spekulatius]

7 hours ago, Ulti said:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/odd-lots/id1056200096?i=1000703567582
 

Javier Blas … commodities reporter from Bloomberg… Sounds like the rare earth metal ban is a big nothing burger… Kinda like all that critical/ rare metals stuff from Ukraine and Greenland that he’s talked about 

Agreed, The total value of rare metal imports in the USA was only $170 M last year. of course direct products like magnets are probably 10x that amount , but even that it small. The relatively small value of these imports makes it likely that significant stockpiles exist and any major shortage is unlikely near term.

Greenland is not really that valuable from a mineral exploitation perspective in the near term. Unforgiving climate, ice caps and the remote location without infrastructure makes it hard to explore and expensive to exploit. There have been a few mines for fluorides materials etc, but they have been closed down a decade or so.

There are certainly resources there, but that’s the case in many place including  the USA itself  if we search thoroughly enough .

[cubsfan]

23 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Imagine being given everything in life, being a complete failure in business, and then thinking that you have the right to radically change the economic landscape of the entire world by yourself. It is ignorance on a grand scale.

 

And some of you really support this—on a Berkshire forum, of all places.

 

 

And imagine being aligned with a party so fucking lame, that you couldn't even put up a candidate to beat the guy.

 

And now your party is in total meltdown mode with no plan.  

 

Who's it gonna be @Blake Hampton AOC? Crockett? Jeffries?    

 

 

[cubsfan]

Hey, look at the bright side.  The thieves at USAID are out of business now.

 

https://fortune.com/2025/04/15/state-department-doge-elon-musk-marco-rubio-usaid-jeremy-lewin/

 

 

[Peregrine]

24 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

And imagine being aligned with a party so fucking lame, that you couldn't even put up a candidate to beat the guy.

 

And now your party is in total meltdown mode with no plan.  

 

Who's it gonna be @Blake Hampton AOC? Crockett? Jeffries?    

 

 

 

Why does everything have to be a pissing contest? Maybe that's why US politics has been a total joke for about a decade now.

[cubsfan]

11 minutes ago, Peregrine said:

 

Why does everything have to be a pissing contest? Maybe that's why US politics has been a total joke for about a decade now.

 

Hey, everyone is 100% focused on POTUS.

What did you expect.

 

It's not a joke anymore.

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

It's not necessarily about experience, but it often does help. What has gotten old, is the same low level, highly predictable, TDS inspired routing of logic through the funnel of:

 

1. I hate Trump

2. I am overly invested emotionally in seeing and painting everything related to him in a bad way

3. Because of 1 inspiring 2, 2 leads me to regularly forecasting dramatic and sensationalized doom as a way to scratch some weird "gotcha Trump" itch

which often results in:

4. Generally sucking at having predictions or evaluation models and inputs with any relevance to anything useful in an actionable investment sense. 

 

So yea. That's it. 

 

Greg, it's not as simple as that.  There are many things I agree with Trump on that needed to be fixed.  It's about how you do it as much as what you are doing.   Someone can fix their status in life easily by beating and stealing from others, especially the more vulnerable.  But is that really how you should improve your own life?

 

Trump is bypassing decades of oversight put in place exactly so a President cannot do what Trump is doing...the good and the bad.  He's challenging the Constitution, Supreme Court, law enforcement agencies, the press, federal and state legal precedents, you name it.  You agree with everything he is doing, until the day comes when the illegality of his decisions directly affects you, your wife and your kids.  That's the problem!

 

There is no problem, until it becomes YOUR problem!  Right now is just the beginning.  A lot of his supporters are suddenly confronting crippling tariffs...so they've finally developed a spine once it affects them directly and asking him to change his mind.  Maybe you will too...maybe you won't...depends how much of the Kool-aid you've quaffed!  Cheers!

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, james22 said:

 

I thought maybe you recognized Trump as the change agent he is.

 

But you're making the exception is the rule argument?

 

Luke is a change agent on par with Gates, Buffett, Zuckerberg, Dell?

 

Sure.

 

Maybe Luke will be a change agent!  You have no prescience on whether he will or not.

 

I remember a conversation with Ajit Jain back in 2003 in Omaha.  I was in a t-shirt and jeans, looked like a young guy who must work at the local Starbucks.  Around me was a bunch of Wall Street yahoos in their expensive suits, slicked back hair, and I'm sure excellent pedigrees in both their ancestry and education.  

 

I asked Ajit about Fairfax and what he thought.  I said I know you know Prem, and Fairfax is facing a challenging time.  One of the suits, probably one of the burgeoning leaders you imagine work for Trump, barked out "Yeah, isn't he the guy in insurance who got himself into a lot of trouble!"  Ajit barked back "Is he in trouble or getting out of trouble?!"  The guy shut up!

 

Ajit spent the next 10 minutes talking to me.  He had no time for the moron who interjected himself.  I thanked Ajit, and every time I met him through the years after that, he was always very cordial to me and had time to talk.  Although I was usually in a suit on all those other occasions as I had made decisions where my career trajectory had changed.  

 

Ajit would not have embarrassed someone like Zelensky, especially if he invited him to his office.  That's just not his leadership style.  But he also wouldn't hesitate to put a moron in his place.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, Blake Hampton said:

Trump is a loser. A stupid, arrogant loser.

 

This is too simplistic and caters to the MAGA faithful!  If he's a loser, he's fucking winning in the most important areas.  

 

Name a felon who has gotten away with more than this guy in the last 150 years?  No one!  Al Capone got nailed on tax evasion, Trump walks around as the most powerful man in the world after tax evasion and a host of other illegal and unconstitutional acts.

 

This type of stuff will not get rid of him or reduce the trust the MAGA faithful have in him.  Liberals/Democrats have to do a hell of a lot better than just calling him a loser.  Cheers!

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

And imagine being aligned with a party so fucking lame, that you couldn't even put up a candidate to beat the guy.

 

And now your party is in total meltdown mode with no plan.  

 

Who's it gonna be @Blake Hampton AOC? Crockett? Jeffries?    

 

 

 

I hope Trump changes the Constitution to allow 3 terms.  That way Obama can kick his fat ass out of office in 2028!  Cheers!

[james22]

15 minutes ago, Parsad said:

Maybe Luke will be a change agent!  You have no prescience on whether he will or not.

 

I remember a conversation with Ajit Jain back in 2003 in Omaha.  I was in a t-shirt and jeans, looked like a young guy who must work at the local Starbucks.  Around me was a bunch of Wall Street yahoos in their expensive suits, slicked back hair, and I'm sure excellent pedigrees in both their ancestry and education.  

 

I asked Ajit about Fairfax and what he thought.  I said I know you know Prem, and Fairfax is facing a challenging time.  One of the suits, probably one of the burgeoning leaders you imagine work for Trump, barked out "Yeah, isn't he the guy in insurance who got himself into a lot of trouble!"  Ajit barked back "Is he in trouble or getting out of trouble?!"  The guy shut up!

 

Ajit spent the next 10 minutes talking to me.  He had no time for the moron who interjected himself.  I thanked Ajit, and every time I met him through the years after that, he was always very cordial to me and had time to talk.  Although I was usually in a suit on all those other occasions as I had made decisions where my career trajectory had changed.  

 

Ajit would not have embarrassed someone like Zelensky, especially if he invited him to his office.  That's just not his leadership style.  But he also wouldn't hesitate to put a moron in his place.  Cheers!

 

Is Luke asking questions (of someone who had knowledge of the subject), like you did?  

 

Or volunteering his opinion (likely without knowledge), like the moron?

[beerbaron]

On 4/13/2025 at 11:21 PM, Xerxes said:

Whatever happened to co-DOGE commander:   Vivek R.

 

 

I listed to the All-In podcast today with Larry Summers as the guest. It was intense. 
 

David Sacks, the Trumpist, was funny to listen to. Literally getting offended when asked for what is measure of success on the tariffs two years from now. 
 

Chamath is interesting. Very smart person and well spoken. While Sacks is a loyalist with a deep sense of oh-I-need-to-shoot-all-arguments, Chamath is more of an opportunist and Trumpist-on-contract. What is the ROIC to kiss the ring ?

Larry Summers sounds like an old knight of a bygone age. Clinging to his facts in a world where other things (like fiction) takes precedence. 
 

 

 

 

Probably the best description of Sach and Chamath I've heard. Chamath's position changed from neutral to "kiss ass2 the day he decided to put money on it's horse. I don't blame him, we just have to know it's comments will be filtered to nurture it's investment. Not neutral, the same way a CEO in a conference call will never tell you it's company has gone to s****.

 

I did find the NYT journalist very clever to ask for defined success outcomes and that the goals seems to move daily with MAGA supporters. Some of these goals are pushing in totally different direction. I do think clear objectives should be put in place and communicated to the public. Just putting anecdotal claims in 2Y should not be enough considering the amount of shock the endeavour will put on the system.

 

BeerBaron

 

 

[Simba]

10 hours ago, Gregmal said:

Yup. But this is what 95% of cobf has become the past couple months. Absolutely worthless, emotional raging and whining mixed with derangement inspired doom and gloom. Ugh…..

 

For real - I just scanned the last 2 pages hoping for some ground breaking analysis to make some alpha ($) ...

[lnofeisone]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

And imagine being aligned with a party so fucking lame, that you couldn't even put up a candidate to beat the guy.

 

And now your party is in total meltdown mode with no plan.  

 

Who's it gonna be @Blake Hampton AOC? Crockett? Jeffries?    

 

 

This board's entertainment will only increase exponentially if AOC wins the next one. At the rate things are going, that's quickly moving from possibility to probability. It'll be two years before we see Congress change (and I suspect change will occur), and another 2 years before presidential change. I can already see "the Congress is holding back our beloved change agent!" rant from some board members. 

[Blugolds]

23 minutes ago, lnofeisone said:

This board's entertainment will only increase exponentially if AOC wins the next one. At the rate things are going, that's quickly moving from possibility to probability. It'll be two years before we see Congress change (and I suspect change will occur), and another 2 years before presidential change. I can already see "the Congress is holding back our beloved change agent!" rant from some board members. 

AOC doesn’t have a chance IMO, my gosh it’s so easy, all either party has to do is present a rational, logical, coherent center-right or center-left candidate and they should sweep the whole thing. 
 

The party lines are drawn, it’s a competition for the middle 1-1.5% of voters and a vanilla candidate should do the trick. Instead of the dems realizing that extreme progressive lines they want to push don’t get it done and they lost the working class, they double down and think “we need to be MORE progressive!” US politics have turned into a comedy of errors. 

Frankly, a candidate with the qualities above would be a welcome change from Trump/Biden/Trump we’ve been plagued with, regardless of what party they hitch to. Just restore some decency and present someone with conduct becoming of the position, honestly who cares if it’s right or left. 

 

Edited April 16, 2025 by Blugolds

[lnofeisone]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Hey, look at the bright side.  The thieves at USAID are out of business now.

 

https://fortune.com/2025/04/15/state-department-doge-elon-musk-marco-rubio-usaid-jeremy-lewin/

 

 

I can't wait for your reaction and commentary when you see that the cost of running the government will be higher in 2025 than it was in 2024. 

[lnofeisone]

8 minutes ago, Blugolds said:

AOC doesn’t have a chance IMO, my gosh it’s so easy, all either party has to do is present a rational, logical, coherent center-right or center-left candidate and they should sweep the whole thing. 
 

The party lines are drawn, it’s a competition for the middle 1-1.5% of voters and a vanilla candidate should do the trick. Instead of the dems realizing that extreme progressive lines they want to push don’t get it done and they lost the working class, they double down and think “we need to be MORE progressive!” US politics have turned into a comedy of errors. 

Frankly, a candidate with the qualities above would be a welcome change from Trump/Biden/Trump we’ve been plagued with, regardless of what party they hitch to. Just restore some decency and present someone with conduct becoming of the position, honestly who cares if it’s right or left. 

 

I hold the same view. Someone center. I don't care right or left. I detest the democratic "more progressive" platform as much as I detest MAGA. But the country is polarized. I can see democratic voters coming out in droves and going with "anyone but republicans" like they did with "anyone but trump" and we got us Biden. 

[LC]

15 minutes ago, Blugolds said:

AOC doesn’t have a chance IMO, my gosh it’s so easy, all either party has to do is present a rational, logical, coherent center-right or center-left candidate and they should sweep the whole thing. 

 

Read the cautionary tale of Mitt Romney

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/10/how-mitt-romney-found-himself-alone-in-the-republican-party/

[james22]

 

[Red Lion]

34 minutes ago, Blugolds said:

AOC doesn’t have a chance IMO, my gosh it’s so easy, all either party has to do is present a rational, logical, coherent center-right or center-left candidate and they should sweep the whole thing. 

 

The problem is she'd probably have a resoundingly good chance at winning the nomination based on the progressive skew of the primary voters. She might even beat Gavin. The general election would no doubt pan out poorly. 

[james22]

 

[dwy000]

41 minutes ago, james22 said:

 

How much of that was stocking up in advance of tariffs?

[Sweet]

2 hours ago, dwy000 said:

How much of that was stocking up in advance of tariffs?

A huge amount of it.  Doesn’t negate the point about Chinese subsidies though and their unfair trade practices.  But yes, somewhat deceiving.

[Parsad]

5 hours ago, james22 said:

 

Is Luke asking questions (of someone who had knowledge of the subject), like you did?  

 

Or volunteering his opinion (likely without knowledge), like the moron?

 

Volunteering...not unlike yourself.  It's ok to criticize Luke, you could just do it with more thought and panache. 

 

I don't understand why people are so sure they are correct...on either side.  I think if you are thinking critically, then take on each issue and how it is being dealt with. 

 

And I think critics of Trump, me included, feel that the faithful are willing to ignore the methods because of the problems...while the critical are ignoring the problems and focusing on the methods.

 

Cheers!  

[Paarslaars]

 

Bit pessimistic Dalio... though the interviewer is kinda annoying, keeps asking for the worst case.

 

[Sweet]

If the Trump admin knew they were going to get into a trade war with China, why did they go around picking fights with their allies before embarking on one?

 

It was the wrong moment to berate and threaten when it turns out it is exactly the same moment when the US needs their help.

Trump may need to eat some humble pie to get people on side.  
 

 

Edited April 16, 2025 by Sweet