Political Posts

[Spekulatius]

On 6/23/2026 at 10:14 AM, changegonnacome said:

 

That is the conventional wisdom - that the Japanese saw the destructive force of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and threw up their hands.....what people forget is the Japanese leadership was already thoroughly desensitized to the annihilation of their cities by then. By August 1945, the US Army Air Forces had firebombed over 60 Japanese cities to ash. While the atomic bomb was a terrifying technological leap, it was fundamentally just a bigger bomb.....historians argue that to the Japanese high command, Hiroshima merely represented city number 6x being destroyed and it did not fundamentally change their military arithmetic.

 

The military arithmetic that most likely DID turn their head was the entry of the Soviet Union into the war two days after Hiroshima but hours before Nagasaki. Before then the feeling was that the US (acting alone) could be repelled from the Japanese homeland - the entry of the USSR into the war changed the math utterly.

 

The answer of course is likely cumulative....the nukes plus the USSR did it but having looked at the evidence my guess is it was more like 80% the USSR and 20% Nukes that pushed the Japanese to throw up their hands.

 

The story (we) tell ourselves as liberal idealists is that the use of nukes ended the war....their use, by us the 'good guys' was an act of cruel kindness to save aggregate lives on both sides...as in most things the stories we tell ourselves and reality diverge meaningfully. Read more here if interested - https://apjjf.org/tsuyoshi-hasegawa/2501/article

 

Timeline below from Gemini - 

"The August 1945 Timeline

• March 9-10, 1945: The US firebombs Tokyo (Operation Meetinghouse), killing an estimated 100,000 people and destroying 16 square miles of the city.

• August 6, 1945: The US drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

• August 8, 1945 (Midnight): The Soviet Union officially declares war on Japan, violating the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact.

• August 9, 1945 (Early Morning): A massive Soviet force of over 1.5 million men invades Japanese-occupied Manchuria.

• August 9, 1945 (11:02 AM): The US drops a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

• August 15, 1945: Emperor Hirohito broadcasts the surrender of Japan.

The Timing of the Supreme Council Meeting Perhaps the most compelling piece of evidence is the behavior of the Japanese leadership. After the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, the Supreme War Council did not convene an emergency meeting. However, when news of the Soviet declaration of war and invasion reached Tokyo early on August 9, the council rapidly convened to discuss surrender. They were already in this meeting discussing the Soviet crisis when the news of the Nagasaki bombing was delivered to them later that morning."

 

I think it’s the wrong take. Next step in the war would have been invsarion of t/r Mainland and the casualties on both side would have been terrible.

 

The battle of Okinawa, which was Japanese homeland showed how bloody this might have been. 240 thousand casualties (1/3 of the population), roughly 70 thousand Japanese edema and 14 thousand allied (mostly US) soldiers. Imagine an invasion of the mainland and you could multiples this by at last 20c and likely higher.

 

Truman was the  president after Roosevelt died and the bomb sort of fell in his lap. He was well aware of a monumental consequence but how could he not try to end the war early by using it?

Put yourself in his shoes and think about it and tell me how he would not have used this weapon on his arsenal? Everyone of us in his shoes would have made the same decision. 

Edited 19 hours ago by Spekulatius

[Blake Hampton]

29 minutes ago, Parsad said:

In life, you should stand for things...but absolutism is not a rational stance.  If the facts change, change your position...don't adhere to something solely because you are adamant you are right and everyone else is wrong.   I've found the best investors, and generally the most rational human beings, are the ones that are intellectually honest with what they know and don't know.  And most don't waste their time arguing with people who cannot see that!  Cheers!

 

"Well if I were at the Fed, the thing I'd worry about, always, is that you're the reserve currency of the world. You've got very smart people, very sophisticated people, the American dollar looks like nothing could happen to it, and I don't see how anything could happen to it. But if it does happen to it, I wouldn't want the responsibility of running the Fed.

 

The world will be dependent on it doing it. And last time, in 2007 and 2008, you had Congress that essentially felt they knew more about it than secretary of Treasury. They really gummed things up when they turned down TARP the first time. I think now, people better understand, the Fed can print money."

 

— Warren Buffett, Squawk Pod: 03/31/26

 

"We can't handle runaway inflation except not to be there, in the way of it. If you look at the number of countries that have had runaway inflation since WW2, in my lifetime, it's very large. Once you create that, it becomes a different world. Germany obviously experienced it after WW1. But there are dozens and dozens of countries that have experienced it. And of course, you have countries that have gone bankrupt six or seven times. It's just amazing what people do in financial markets."

"It came close before Volcker, I mean it was "cash is trash." People were losing faith in the currency."

 

— Warren Buffett, CNBC Interview: 05/02/26

He's talking about recapitalization of the banking system in the first interview and hyperinflation during the second. I believe absolutism can extend to simply declaring how "macro is irrelevant."

[Blake Hampton]

And I do know what Trumpers are thinking. Many of them are surrounding me nearly at all times of the day.

They aren't thinking. I have never once met someone who supports Trump who I didn't think was deeply ignorant in some capacity. These are people that don't keep up with news, or worse yet watch some dogshit like Fox, and then think that they understand what is happening in the world and what Trump actually stands for:

"Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."

— Bonhoeffer - Theory of Stupidity

[Blake Hampton]

Rationality has taken a backseat to tribalism, emotion, and ignorance.

[Blake Hampton]

Can you imagine falling for the likes of Trump? Hitler would've had a field day with these people.

 

Donald J. Trump, a complete and abject failure, a man disgusting in almost every way possible, has convinced a sizable portion of our populace that he stands for them.

 

If you are someone who is truly an investor, someone who is thinking about a world 10 to 20 years in the future, this should scare you.

[cubsfan]

Poor Blake. I think you're losing it...

[Parsad]

44 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Rationality has taken a backseat to tribalism, emotion, and ignorance.

 

41 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Can you imagine falling for the likes of Trump? Hitler would've had a field day with these people.

 

Donald J. Trump, a complete and abject failure, a man disgusting in almost every way possible, has convinced a sizable portion of our populace that he stands for them.

 

If you are someone who is truly an investor, someone who is thinking about a world 10 to 20 years in the future, this should scare you.

 

Unlike myself, I doubt you even considered Trump any sort of threat back in 2014-2015.  I'm pretty sure you saw him as a joke at the time.

 

Just like I've met Buffett and spoken to scores of people who REALLY know him or have spent their lives invested with him.  Hell, I spoke to Howard Buffett for over an hour, Ajit Jain like 3 or 4 times, Mohnish who had dinner with him, and I know Prem Watsa who created his own Berkshire and at times has been a macro nerd!

 

You act like you just discovered plutonium (Trump and Buffett)!  That none can see but you...we are all blind and in the wilderness!  

 

Back to your bunker!  Cheers!

[Blake Hampton]

47 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

He's talking about recapitalization of the banking system in the first interview and hyperinflation during the second. I believe absolutism can extend to simply declaring how "macro is irrelevant."

 

Credit, the means through which money finds its way throughout our financial system. Credit is the blood circulating throughout the body of the real economy, with the banking system acting as the heart.

People generally do not understand just how fragile the banking system, and the mechanism of credit facilitation, truly is. These are highly leveraged institutions operating within a deeply interconnected system. Much of what each institution does relies on a chain of many others, through which failure in any single link can quickly cascade. And it does not take much for the equity of these institutions to quickly disappear.

So there stands a Federal Reserve: a national bank, the bank of banks, established to provide liquidity in response to a crisis. But this entity is designed simply to be a lender. Bagehot's dictum: "To avert panic, central banks should lend early and freely (i.e. without limit), to solvent firms, against good collateral, and at high rates."

 

A fiscal crisis, however, is ultimately a crisis of solvency. In such an instance, and in many ways, the hands of the Federal Reserve are effectively tied. How can the Fed act in such a scenario? Well it requires fiscal policy.

Take a look at your Congress.

[Blake Hampton]

13 minutes ago, Parsad said:

Unlike myself, I doubt you even considered Trump any sort of threat back in 2014-2015.  I'm pretty sure you saw him as a joke at the time.

 

Just like I've met Buffett and spoken to scores of people who REALLY know him or have spent their lives invested with him.  Hell, I spoke to Howard Buffett for over an hour, Ajit Jain like 3 or 4 times, Mohnish who had dinner with him, and I know Prem Watsa who created his own Berkshire and at times has been a macro nerd!

 

You act like you just discovered plutonium (Trump and Buffett)!  That none can see but you...we are all blind and in the wilderness!  

 

Back to your bunker!  Cheers!

 

In 2014, I was 12 years old probably playing my Xbox.

 

I also respect your views, and you are one of my favorite posters. But I still think I'm right.

Edited 18 hours ago by Blake Hampton

[Maverick47]

1 hour ago, Blake Hampton said:

And I do know what Trumpers are thinking. Many of them are surrounding me nearly at all times of the day.

They aren't thinking. I have never once met someone who supports Trump who I didn't think was deeply ignorant in some capacity. These are people that don't keep up with news, or worse yet watch some dogshit like Fox, and then think that they understand what is happening in the world and what Trump actually stands for:

"Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like, that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings."

— Bonhoeffer - Theory of Stupidity

Interesting @Blake Hampton.  I’ve often wondered myself how and why relatives and acquaintances,  who I’d generally considered previously to be smart, educated folks, ended up developing massive blind spots in one area or another.  That is a bit more nuanced than considering that all folks with such blind spots are necessarily stupid.  I think it does have to do somewhat with devotion to one dogma or another, or one particular world view.  I think it was either Buffett or Munger who used to call that out as dangerous in an individual.

 

My father-in-law, towards the end of his life, fell down the rabbit hole of emails, early Trump birtherism and scare tactics about Obama necessarily being the start of some sort of socialistic order that would also logically begin to come after his own carefully amassed retirement assets.  He believed that folks would start taxing wealth as well as income, and that anyone with money in a savings account would see it taxed away.

 

He was not stupid…he was accepted to medical school at age 19 and graduated before the end of WWII serving in the medical corps as a doctor at age 22.  His wife also was bright— graduating with a Ph.D from Stanford at the same age.

At any rate, how did he react to the screaming emails about how folks were coming after his savings?  He regularly withdrew cash from federally insured savings accounts and deposited them in a safe deposit box at a branch office located in his retirement home instead.

 

As executor of his estate, I did find several hundred thousands in cash in the safe deposit box, which, while they had in fact escaped the potential of taxation, also saw their purchasing power decline with inflation over the ten years they lay there.

 

And there was a risk that he hadn’t considered.  One year before he passed away, his retirement community almost burned up in a wildfire in California.  He and his wife were evacuated in the middle of the night and couldn’t return for another six months.  The building had caught on fire, but didn’t completely burn down.  Fortunately, the branch office of the bank on the premises wasn’t affected…otherwise, in an attempt to save a bit of tax, he might have seen his cash burn up completely.  Cash in savings accounts is generally held in electronic form, so a fire at one branch office wouldn’t affect the balances held in the accounts, but cash in a safe deposit box is not insured, and would have completely disappeared forever had it burned up.

 

I don’t know how best to protect oneself against the dangers of such blind spots.  I think it may involve developing and maintaining a high quality bullshit detector in one’s own mind.  I hope I have one, and that as I age, I continue to put it to good use.   As an armchair historian, I learned long ago the importance of taking into account the motivations behind the writer of any historical source document.  When viewpoints of the same historical event diverge, this can help one determine which ones are more trustworthy and believable than others.  
 

The same sort of bullshit detector can be used in a variety of other circumstances, not necessarily historical.  When someone tries to sell you an investment, for example, particularly via a cold call or personal visit, what could their motivation possibly be?  How could they be paying for their time talking to me?  It might have to do with a compensation incentive or commission structure that benefits them, at my expense.

At any rate, you’ve sparked my interest.   Buffett once mentioned a book called “Why smart people  do dumb things.”  I think I’ll pick it up and give it a read.  I saw another small electronic book called “Why smart people believe dumb things.”.

 

Don’t know if either will be worth the read, but for a few bucks I’m willing to take a chance at learning something that can help me make sense of these conundrums…

Thanks again.

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 hours ago by Maverick47

[Maverick47]

2 hours ago, Maverick47 said:

Buffett once mentioned a book called “Why smart people  do dumb things.”  I think I’ll pick it up and give it a read.  I saw another small electronic book called “Why smart people believe dumb things.”.

Turns out the comment I remembered was from a talk and a q and a session Warren had with University of Florida MBAs back in the late 1990’s.   Warren was talking about the Long Term Capital Management debacle and musing about how smart the folks running it were, and yet they still basically went broke.  What he said was, “If I ever write a book it will be called Why Smart People Do Dumb Things….my partner says it should be autobiographical.”.

 

Someone else actually did write a book with that title, which is the one I just ordered.  I imagine I’d have enjoyed one written by Warren better, but will suspend judgement until I read it.

[73 Reds]

8 hours ago, Maverick47 said:

Interesting @Blake Hampton.  I’ve often wondered myself how and why relatives and acquaintances,  who I’d generally considered previously to be smart, educated folks, ended up developing massive blind spots in one area or another.  That is a bit more nuanced than considering that all folks with such blind spots are necessarily stupid.  I think it does have to do somewhat with devotion to one dogma or another, or one particular world view.  I think it was either Buffett or Munger who used to call that out as dangerous in an individual.

 

My father-in-law, towards the end of his life, fell down the rabbit hole of emails, early Trump birtherism and scare tactics about Obama necessarily being the start of some sort of socialistic order that would also logically begin to come after his own carefully amassed retirement assets.  He believed that folks would start taxing wealth as well as income, and that anyone with money in a savings account would see it taxed away.

 

He was not stupid…he was accepted to medical school at age 19 and graduated before the end of WWII serving in the medical corps as a doctor at age 22.  His wife also was bright— graduating with a Ph.D from Stanford at the same age.

At any rate, how did he react to the screaming emails about how folks were coming after his savings?  He regularly withdrew cash from federally insured savings accounts and deposited them in a safe deposit box at a branch office located in his retirement home instead.

 

As executor of his estate, I did find several hundred thousands in cash in the safe deposit box, which, while they had in fact escaped the potential of taxation, also saw their purchasing power decline with inflation over the ten years they lay there.

 

And there was a risk that he hadn’t considered.  One year before he passed away, his retirement community almost burned up in a wildfire in California.  He and his wife were evacuated in the middle of the night and couldn’t return for another six months.  The building had caught on fire, but didn’t completely burn down.  Fortunately, the branch office of the bank on the premises wasn’t affected…otherwise, in an attempt to save a bit of tax, he might have seen his cash burn up completely.  Cash in savings accounts is generally held in electronic form, so a fire at one branch office wouldn’t affect the balances held in the accounts, but cash in a safe deposit box is not insured, and would have completely disappeared forever had it burned up.

 

I don’t know how best to protect oneself against the dangers of such blind spots.  I think it may involve developing and maintaining a high quality bullshit detector in one’s own mind.  I hope I have one, and that as I age, I continue to put it to good use.   As an armchair historian, I learned long ago the importance of taking into account the motivations behind the writer of any historical source document.  When viewpoints of the same historical event diverge, this can help one determine which ones are more trustworthy and believable than others.  
 

The same sort of bullshit detector can be used in a variety of other circumstances, not necessarily historical.  When someone tries to sell you an investment, for example, particularly via a cold call or personal visit, what could their motivation possibly be?  How could they be paying for their time talking to me?  It might have to do with a compensation incentive or commission structure that benefits them, at my expense.

At any rate, you’ve sparked my interest.   Buffett once mentioned a book called “Why smart people  do dumb things.”  I think I’ll pick it up and give it a read.  I saw another small electronic book called “Why smart people believe dumb things.”.

 

Don’t know if either will be worth the read, but for a few bucks I’m willing to take a chance at learning something that can help me make sense of these conundrums…

Thanks again.

 

 

 

 

@Maverick 47 Is it truly a blind spot or merely wanting to protect your own interests?  People choose to believe what they want about a lot of things.  It is entirely logical to protect yourself based upon your beliefs.  Even Blake is taking a rational approach to investing based upon what he believes.  The same can be said for so called Trumpers.  If they (we) believe that the alternative to Trump would have been much (MUCH!) worse, why is that a blind spot?  What I find baffling is the people who tend to criticize Trump the most by and large have no alternative ideas of their own about just about anything.  

[changegonnacome]

12 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

He was well aware of a monumental consequence but how could he not try to end the war early by using it?

Put yourself in his shoes and think about it and tell me how he would not have used this weapon on his arsenal?

 

Dont get me wrong - never said Truman was wrong to use this new weapon as means by which to bring the Japanese to surrender. We had already committed to concept of destroying Japanese cities by bombing at that point as a means to get them to surrender......before the nuke dropped we'd levelled 60-odd cities at that point killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese. What was another city at that point when we'd done it to 60+? Moving to use the nuclear weapon was a no brainer simply as means to potentially change the trajectory of things away from needing to do a ground invasion.

 

My core point was that people over attribute the Japanese surrender to the nuclear bombs dropping and under attribute the entry of the USSR into war two days after Hiroshima but before Nagasaki. The best evidence as the article covers is Hiroshima on Aug 7th produced no emergency meeting of the Japanese Supreme Council - Hiroshima it seems was just another city being levelled by American bombing.

 

What did produce an emergency meeting of the Japanese Supreme Council was news reaching Tokyo on Aug 9th of the Soviet declaration of war. The answer is both things undoubtedly fed into their surrender. The nuclear taboo is such that we tell ourselves it was 100% the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that did it. The evidence tells a more complicated story.

 

[RichardGibbons]

7 hours ago, 73 Reds said:

If they (we) believe that the alternative to Trump would have been much (MUCH!) worse, why is that a blind spot?  What I find baffling is the people who tend to criticize Trump the most by and large have no alternative ideas of their own about just about anything.  

 

Yeah, I think this is one of the key things I've got from reading this particular political board. Like, so many people online and offline seem to say that anyone who would support Trump is idiotic, ill-educated, and insane. You often hear the criticism that his supporters are too stupid to even realize that he's not on their side, but just working for himself.

 

It never seems to occur to them that Trump can be a corrupt, self-dealing narcissist, and people might rationally conclude that he's better than the alternative.

 

(That said, I think he's probably still worse than the alternative because of the second order effects--destroying democratic norms and causing to a socialist kickback that could cause immense harm. But the point is that if, without ad hominem attacks, you can't explain why a reasonable person would vote for Trump, then that's your failing, not theirs.)

[73 Reds]

24 minutes ago, RichardGibbons said:

 

Yeah, I think this is one of the key things I've got from reading this particular political board. Like, so many people online and offline seem to say that anyone who would support Trump is idiotic, ill-educated, and insane. You often hear the criticism that his supporters are too stupid to even realize that he's not on their side, but just working for himself.

 

It never seems to occur to them that Trump can be a corrupt, self-dealing narcissist, and people might rationally conclude that he's better than the alternative.

 

(That said, I think he's probably still worse than the alternative because of the second order effects--destroying democratic norms and causing to a socialist kickback that could cause immense harm. But the point is that if, without ad hominem attacks, you can't explain why a reasonable person would vote for Trump, then that's your failing, not theirs.)

+1  I mean Presidential US elections are purely binary and for most folks, the best of two choices they would not otherwise make.  The fact that we support Trump does not mean we agree with, or like everything he does or says.  Yet the opposition's most vocal point is "get Trump".  Any wonder why socialists are taking over the Democratic party?

Edited 1 hour ago by 73 Reds
word

[dwy000]

1 hour ago, 73 Reds said:

+1  I mean Presidential US elections are purely binary and for most folks, the best of two choices they would not otherwise make.  The fact that we support Trump does not mean we agree with, or like everything he does or says.  Yet the opposition's most vocal point is "get Trump".  Any wonder why socialists are taking over the Democratic party?

Name 2 things you disagree with Trump on.  You wouldnt even admit to disagreeing with him on an issue where he came out in opposition to your stated support.  Do you support his cancelation of caps on overdraft fees?