Political Posts

[Parsad]

1 minute ago, Blake Hampton said:

 

I hope a U.S. fiscal crisis is a hundred decades off.

 

But with how Trump is currently acting, I'm starting to feel like I won't have to wait that long.

 

The same could have been said during Trump's first term, and then they were saying it during Biden's term, and then again during Trump's second term.  There's been a lot of money to be made during all three terms so far! 

 

Pick stocks, not history!  Cheers!

[changegonnacome]

8 hours ago, dwy000 said:

ensured that Iran is motivated to continue to pursue nukes. 

 

Yep the issue with bringing a nuclear threshold state to the edge of existence.....is they remember it.

 

Edited March 10 by changegonnacome

[Spekulatius]

9 hours ago, thepupil said:

don't know about you but I've never bought a stock based on its market cap to GDP ratio.

 

i'm moderately sympathetic to some of this stuff. in truth, I don't own any US indices. my 401k is bonds and my PA is all individual stocks that are "different" than "the market" (in my humble opinion). 

 

but i regard the index and its big constituents as an incredibly fierce competitor, a fast growing unlevered behemoth..to be respected...

 

and the mean reversionist bear stuff (Shiller, mkt cap to GDP, P/B) just doesn't at all seem applicable to large swathes of the stock market. the book value of NVDA is meaningless. that's 7% of the stock market. we can debate the sustainability of NVDA's competitive advantage, the duration of the AI DC buildout; i suspect NVDA is not worth $4.5 trillion and the the PV of its future cash flows is less than that...but do i truly know that? of course not. and it's not because of its market cap relative to what it earned 3,5,10 years ago or the GDP of the US. its because its fueling a revolution of unknown duration and magnitude.

 

Yes, totally agree. one should keep in mind that the stock market index is indeed a “ fierce competitor “. As far as bubbles are concerned- there are some or may be quite a few but I also find many things that are very reasonably valued too. This is a very bifurcated market.

[Spekulatius]

16 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Well it’s question of defining what are the strategic aims.

 

If the US set out in the hope of destroying the regime and the regime survives however bloodied and battered. Well they’ve won and we’ve lost. In the same way we lost in Vietnam, Afghanistan.

 

Couple of sayings I heard yesterday apparently from the region that kind of get at the heart of the matter they go like this -

 

“America comes and goes but Iran stays”

 

&

 

”They (the US) have the clock, we (Iran) have the time”

 

For Iran above you could easily sub Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam…..I really thought we’d learns this lesson.

Thisis true, but it’s a too early to call at this point. Opening up the straight of Hormuz in my opinion is a substantial win, because it means that Iran can’t throttle the oil and energy flows (20% of the total oil flows through the straight) even if they want to. So for sure they lost a bargaining chip there.

 

I think the real problem is if there is no regime change, the Golden fleet will have to move on eventually and then what? Or do we want to go back every year like the Viking raiders ventured out each sailing season to flatten the whole thing again and again?

[John Hjorth]

Times of Israel [by Reuters] [March 10^th 2026] : Kremlin says Putin’s proposals to mediate Iran war are still on the table

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Vladimir - the mediator! - LOLz!  [Perhaps this should have been posted in the Jokes topic in stead.]

[73 Reds]

10 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

 

Buffett indicator is at 230%. Dot-Com peak was 190%.

Blake, when you allow one individual or meaningless indicators to dictate your investing, you're lost.  This Board demonstrates that there is always an opportunity if you are willing to look. 

[Blugolds]

12 hours ago, thepupil said:

 

 

stock and real estate valuations seem pretty reasonable to me.

 

how do you define "bubble"? 

 

I forget where I heard it, but someone once said "something that could fall 50% and still be expensive" might be in a bubbly valuation. 

 

I can say pretty wholeheartedly that if USA stocks and RE fell 50% (absent some great extreme event), they'd be pretty cheap (~13x trailing earnings 11x forward for some of best companies in world, 10% caps for RE). So i'd say we're not bubble. maybe a touch expensive. maybe a touch AI fueled. maybe a 20% downturn away from good risk/reward. but bubble? nope. not the whole market. 

 

I'd regard 1980's Japan as a much bigger bubble than the stock/RE market of the US today. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree

RE is actually priced pretty reasonable IMO, you still have your high demand areas that command a premium, but I think of RE as a sum of the parts, if I purchased land in an area, any area, and then built it myself what would it cost? What is its "Scrap" value if you will. 

 

The prices for labor, any contractors I would hire, septic, well, foundation etc have all increased with RE prices, price of materials are all higher than 5 years ago (but below peak covid and supply chain issues, and some tariff related costs etc) concrete has increased quite a bit. So when comparing the purchase of any used home and subtracting the price for a comparable lot or land vs building myself...even with myself doing 90% of the work, the prices are not far off, often its cheaper to buy a used home. 

 

I always look at material prices as an indicator and a kind of "floor" for home prices, if there was a great discrepancy in cheap materials and labor (low) vs the used market (high) that would indicate to me that perhaps the used market has some fat to trim. There are other variables, supply, rates etc but this is just a guide I use for my own mental model and Im not seeing it. RE to someone not in tune with the increase in material and labor, just looking at rates and avg mortgage payments might seem high, and they are compared to 5 years ago if that is the only lens, but when taking it as a sum of parts and also accounting for the increase in labor costs as well as materials, they track. 

 

The inverse would be circa 2008 when material and labor prices were more constant/steady and we saw homes sitting on market for extended periods, nothing was moving and we could often purchase homes for less than scrap value! I purchased properties that were rentable in their current state for less than I could build for sure and often not much more than I could build the detached garage for! Paying .50 for dollar bills! Currently that spread is much closer, I would estimate .90 on the dollar, there might be a little room for RE to contract but I dont see how that spread could widen significantly without all hell breaking loose and even then it would be buoyed by a lack of supply. People got spoiled by RE prices and low rates for a long time and thought that was the new normal IMO. Def not a bubble. 

 

Not a RE "professional" but have always been around RE/construction/labor/materials and follow closely.

 

Just my .02 zinc filled cents. 

Edited March 10 by Blugolds

[LC]

The BS continues:

 

 

[John Hjorth]

15 minutes ago, LC said:

The BS continues:

 

 

 

@LC,

 

Great humor!  - Thank you for sharing! [In seriousness : What you vote for is what you get. ]

[adesigar]

1 hour ago, LC said:

The BS continues:

 

 

 

Waiting to read the comedy gold from the MAGA morons of the site. 

[changegonnacome]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

I think the real problem is if there is no regime change, the Golden fleet will have to move on eventually and then what? Or do we want to go back every year like the Viking raiders ventured out each sailing season to flatten the whole thing again and again?

 

The bigger problem - is what the hell are we doing potentially getting bogged down in the Middle East anyway......East Asia is the real security theatre which matters for the US, like really matters....folks can tell themselves that striking Iran is a twofor in terms weakening China but that overstates the benefit China gets from  discounted oil imports from Iran. 

 

I think China would trade discounted Iranian oil all day long for a US military perpetually stretched thin in multiple global arenas Ukraine, the Middle East, maybe somewhere in S.America too. The more the better. You really want your only peer competitor to have a security ADHD problem.

[cubsfan]

26 minutes ago, adesigar said:

 

Waiting to read the comedy gold from the MAGA morons of the site. 

 

Typical Iranian apologist, like Obama, who brought Iran to their zenith of power by dropping sanctions, giving them billions and green lighted  their nuclear proliferation.  Oh well,,,,, it's all up in smoke now.

 

Nobel Prize loving fools always think they can make friends with dangerous religious zealots.

 

 

[changegonnacome]

18 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

This is the kind of regime that would have abused the nuclear deal and snuck weapons development elsewhere. Look at the IRGC and how decentralized it is…

 

The JCPOA was always an "if that, then this" arrangement......JCPOA never precluded bombing the hell out of Iran if it was ever suspected for second not living up to even the spirit of the deal.

 

I think alot debates become so binary when they cross party lines. JCPOA is one of those. 

 

The partisan version of the debate is:

 

GOP > you cant trust a bunch of jihadists. Bomb the shit out of them. It's the only way.

DEM > no no your wrong can trust them, tust me, let's do a deal

 

In reality, of course, you can do both- you can do a deal with Iran, monitor them like a hawk and then still bomb the shit out of them at any point your not comfortable. This hybrid approach is strategically superior to the binary one above.

 

JCPOA is one of those areas where partisanship really leads to dumb policy outcomes.

 

Edited March 10 by changegonnacome

[73 Reds]

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

 

Typical Iranian apologist, like Obama, who brought Iran to their zenith of power by dropping sanctions, giving them billions and green lighted  their nuclear proliferation.  Oh well,,,,, it's all up in smoke now.

 

Nobel Prize loving fools always think they can make friends with dangerous religious zealots.

 

 

Cubs, you don't do business with terrorists and those who seek your destruction.  You can tell them the same thing 100 times over and they'll never learn unless they are stupid enough to do their own business with people who hate them and seek to destroy them, which is probably the only way they'd learn. 

[changegonnacome]

thanks to @Spekulatius for bringing Michael Clarke to my attention. Another good one from him today with some high level contexting setting on where we are - 

 

[Spekulatius]

5 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

Cubs, you don't do business with terrorists and those who seek your destruction.  You can tell them the same thing 100 times over and they'll never learn unless they are stupid enough to do their own business with people who hate them and seek to destroy them, which is probably the only way they'd learn. 

How is that different than making a deal with Russia, North Korea for that matter? Both are terrorist states and they actually do have the nuclear weapons that Iran is aiming for. Both have been involved in a large scale ground invasions, which is something that Iran has never done. They are worse than Iran in my book.

[Dalal.Holdings]

39 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

How is that different than making a deal with Russia, North Korea for that matter? Both are terrorist states and they actually do have the nuclear weapons that Iran is aiming for. Both have been involved in a large scale ground invasions, which is something that Iran has never done. They are worse than Iran in my book.

We are forced to make deals with Russia and North Korea precisely because they have nuclear weapons. If Russia did not have nukes, Putin would have been taken out by now.

 

The goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining that same status.

[cubsfan]

47 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

How is that different than making a deal with Russia, North Korea for that matter? Both are terrorist states and they actually do have the nuclear weapons that Iran is aiming for. Both have been involved in a large scale ground invasions, which is something that Iran has never done. They are worse than Iran in my book.

 

Are you kidding?

 

When was the last time N Korea killed hundreds of American soldiers?    Please tell us.

 

And Russia?

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Are you kidding?

 

When was the last time N Korea killed hundreds of American soldiers?    Please tell us.

 

And Russia?

North Korea:  ~36,000 Us soldiers were killed there (also by Chinese) in the Korean War.

 

When did Iran kill hundreds of US soldiers?

 

Russia did a major ground invasion in Ukraine. The largest war of the 30 years by many measures. Russia covertly threatens with Nuclear weapons. NK sent thousands of soldiers there as well.  NK also threatens with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

[ourkid8]

3 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

The goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining that same status.

 

That was never the goal, ask yourself why would US / Israeli in their infinite wisdom assassinate the one person who was against Nuclear weapons? That Fatwa has now been eliminated with a more hand lined individual. 

 
Ali Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader of Iran, has maintained a long-standing position, often referred to as a "fatwa" or religious decree dating back to the mid-1990s and officially announced in 2003/2005, declaring the development, production, and use of nuclear weapons as haram (forbidden) under Islamic law, arguing they are weapons of mass destruction.

[Blake Hampton]

In the 1990s, didn't Ukraine trade its nuclear arsenal for U.S. "security assurances?"

 

Look at how that turned out:

 

 

[Blake Hampton]

America looks like a circus, run by an orange-faced clown.

[Blake Hampton]

Lol:

 

 

 

[ourkid8]

14 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

America looks like a circus, run by an orange-faced clown.

 

Come on, you're complementing him here. You mean: America resembles a circus, run by an orange-faced pedophilic Zionist first clown.

Edited March 11 by ourkid8

[moatrep]

I see Israel-Iran conflict as a Russia- US conflict. Russia would love to block the maritimal trade and get Asia and Europe as their market. If Iran gets Nukes they can block maritimal trade. But in this game China is with the US, they also are heavily dependant on maritimal  trade. And the next to nothing Chinese support proves all this theory.