He has many minions throughout the party organisation who will happily kneecap anyone who speaks against him. — Wayfarer

The My Pillow guy?

What you have is many people using him, riding on his wake. You see, Trump isn't a party leader. He isn't any kind of leader of people, a person who would organize people to do something. What he basically would be, if his Twitter account wasn't closed, the master of commenting issues through tweets.

The thing that the majority of GOP members are doing are not impeaching him. That hardly means that Trump is in charge of the party and controlling it. (Who controls a party is for example Vladimir Putin and his United Russia -party, which btw hold 74,4% of the seats in the Russian Duma.)

Even though the evidence against Trump is utterly irrefutable, smoking-gun, no possibility of misinterpretation, it seems like the Republican Senators will acquit. — Wayfarer

Of course.

But they are only thinking of how many of those 74 million or so that voted Trump are indeed "Trump loyalists" and think that the election was stolen. The Republican politicians are just meandering here not to get those people to dump the GOP, nothing else. They are thinking more about NOS4A2 than Trump.

The good thing here is that Trump is so utterly incompetent in leadership qualities as otherwise he really would make it his party. The fact that simply take away the ability to send tweets with his smart phone and he has been totally incapable of reaching out to anybody. Has Trump given an interview after the election? No, or at least I didn't find it. Has he participated otherwise in the discussion? No, I don't think so. Is he controlling the GOP. How? This isn't a man in control or planning to make a comeback. This is a defeated, humiliated, grandfather who sits in front of his television and bitches about everything and has an average level tantrum about the performance of his lawyers in the impeachment trial.

That looks.... worryingly unsustainable. — Benkei

Many things look worryingly unsustainable. Not just the stock market and it's stellar performance during an economic crisis.

However that doesn't mean that we can get the same thing, go along the same road singing merrily while we go on without a worry in our minds. And nothing really bad happens.

For a month or two. For a year or two. Perhaps for even a decade....or not.

Afterwards the easy wisdom of hindsight. How could people do what they did? How could they not use their brains? How could they not see what was happening?

What were they thinking?

Tell that to them.

The fact is that never has been so much leverage been used in the stock market.

(Margin debt is debt a brokerage customer takes on by trading on margin.)

(DEC 28th 2020) Margin balances have reached a new record high as a widening class of affluent Americans borrowed against their portfolio investments to buy more stock. Margin debt has reached the highest point in two years as investors borrowed a record $722.1 billion against their investment portfolios through November, topping the previous high of $668.9 billion from May 2018, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).2

This amount is a 28% increase since the same time last year and is up nearly 10% from $659.3 billion in Oct. 2020. The surge in risk-taking indicates that investors were euphoric as COVID-19 vaccines neared. These investors are chasing bigger gains and exposing themselves to potentially devastating losses through riskier plays, including concentrated positions, trading options, and leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The milestone is not a good sign for the stock market since margin debt records often precede market volatility, as seen in 2000 and 2008.

Just remember Benkei that in this World we live in profits are privatized, yet the losses are socialized.

With a trade there's a willing buyer and a willing seller who trade precisely because they are getting out of the trade what they want. It's win-win. — Benkei

Generally yes, people are happy with the voluntary transactions they make.

Yet tell that to someone that has to sell when they have gotten a margin call.

Yet the portrayal of "David" defeating "Goliath", the "little people" shoving it to the hedge funds was excellent PR: it got people interested in the trade and worked wonders for those doing the pump and dump trade. The Wall Street bashing alt-media was ecstatic. And longer time owners of the stock can be happy while it's still at prices where the share was at it's earlier peak back in 2008 before the financial crisis. Would be rather ugly if the stock would go back to single digits immediately. In a few weeks it will be forgotten as another squirrel catches our attention.

(Besides, those 150+ million shares or so bought over 300 dollars likely were just recreation.)

Bartering is just a more localised agreement of valuing currency. — Possibility

Barter doesn't imply anything with currency. My lawnmover is worth x amount of your loafs of bread that we both agree on. Or that I mow your lawn for y amount of loafs of bread. The agreement is only between the two sides in the barter and likely will be different for a third person as his or her needs differ from mine.

If Y is added to X then X - the amount of money willingly being transacted - increases massively whilst the amount of products one can buy with this money stays relatively the same (ie. demand drastically outweighs supply) Then inflation occurs whereby the same loaf of bread that was originally sold for say $1 can now go for $150. — Benj96

The Quantity Theory of Money goes like this:

money supply × velocity of money = price level × real GDP.

If something is sold out, it doesn't mean that the price will multiply then by hundreds. If you cannot get the car you want today, will you insist to pay ten or twenty times more to someone that did get it today in order to get it? Or do you wait those six months? People will simply opt to wait until more are produced. High demand on products or services doesn't result in hyperinflation. Hyperinflation is a separate phenomenon from demand-pull inflation, which this is crucial in your example. I'll try to explain this (so others can understand what I mean...and I get it right myself).

Secondly, if people today empty their bank accounts and buy things today, likely tomorrow it's going to be a slow day in shops and in the markets. Hence the money velocity will have this huge spike today and then go to a lower level than before tomorrow. If I go and buy stuff with everything that I have in the bank account, that still doesn't mean I cannot future pay money debts as I still am working. It is correct that velocity of money is important for inflation to happen, but the issue is more complex than what you gave in your example.

Basically your model would result just in a run on the banking system if everybody would simultaneously want to use their money to buy something. Likely the central bank would give the banks more liquidity. It's the market mechanism here that would simply push prices higher. This is just the demand curve shifting to the right:



If the supply cannot adjust to the new demand, then prices will rise. Put it to the larger context, this is called demand pull inflation (AD=Aggregate Demand, AS=Aggregate Supply):


Notice that demand-pull inflation is quite normal for the market mechanism.

Yet if there's more demand, likely manufacturers will produce more. Also starting from things like clothes or food, your example of a loaf of bread, there's limitations to how much we want. I only can eat so many loafs of bread. Hence there has to be a genuine reason why people want to change their money as fast as they can to something else. And that again is the crucial point in understanding inflation...and hyperinflation. And the real issue here is the actual confidence in the currency, as you observed.

It's a subcontinent, isn't it? — frank

Other one is a continent, but the other a chain of Islands.

But as both are quite able to restrict and survey those coming and going from there, it's a more easier task. Just notice how strict these countries are about foreign species into their country with requirements that you have not visited a farm somewhere else before you come to Australia or New Zealand. Bit more difficult to close instantly the borders in Central Europe, for example.

If not earlier noticed:

(Feb 3rd, 2021) A team of investigators led by the World Health Organization visited a virus research laboratory in China’s central city of Wuhan and met with a prominent virologist there in its search for clues to the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.The experts spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology, which has been at the centre of some conspiracy theories that claim a laboratory leak caused the city’s first coronavirus outbreak at the end of 2019.

“Extremely important meeting today with staff at WIV including Dr Shi Zhengli. Frank, open discussion. Key questions asked & answered,” team member Peter Daszak said on Twitter. Shi, a well-known virus hunter who has long focused on bat coronaviruses - earning her the nickname “Bat Woman” - was among the first last year to isolate the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Most scientists, including Shi, reject the hypothesis of a lab leak. However, some experts speculate that a virus captured from the wild could have figured in lab experiments to test the risks of a human spillover and then escaped via an infected staff member. “Very interesting. Many questions,” Thea Fischer, a Danish member of the team, called from her car as it sped away from the lab following Wednesday’s visit, in response to a question whether the team had found anything.

Some scientists have called for China to release details of all coronavirus samples studied at the lab, to see which most closely resembles SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the respiratory disease.

If all the money in the worlds banks were to flood out into the market and be spent simultaneously (for example in a global existential panic) Then the value of the currency would drop to nothing. — Benj96

How so?

Remember that spending is an transaction. There would be this just enormous bout of economic activity and yet afterwards the money would still be in the bank accounts of people and companies. Every storeowner or salesman would have happy memories of that day.

There would be so much supply and very little incentive to take it as real world objects like food, housing etc. — Benj96

?

I think Australia and New Zealand are excellent examples of what we should have done. — Isaac

Yes. Be an island in the southern hemisphere and be so lucky that the virus didn't reach your shores when COVID-19 still was "under the radar" as a peculiar flu. That's a great policy what to follow! :razz:

What exactly is your problem with some finding out he can buy low in one market and sell higher in another? There's a willing seller in the first and a willing buyer in the second. Who's being hurt here exactly? This is all a trader does. — Benkei

This trade is called arbitrage and the traders arbitrageurs. And those traders aren't typically appreciated.

That there's mispricing is the plain theoretical reason. However usually the reason for having different prices in separate markets isn't because the sellers would be ignorant or indifferent of there being higher prices somewhere else.

If we rule out logistical reasons for different prices, typically the price difference is done by government decree to "help" the ordinary people by rationing or fixing prices. That naturally leads to a black market, where the arbitrageur is one of the most hated persons in the society.

Brent crude and WTI do have traded with separate prices, because an arbitrage in the oil market does have it's limitations.

How monetary policy has become basically the method of assisting the stock markets and the financial market is explained quite well in this interview of William R White, who worked in the Canadian central bank and in the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). White tells how the change happened during the Greenspan years and how it has continued to the present and how this has created the excesses we see everywhere now. Central banks have become market makers of last resort, not only lenders of last resort. Yet keeping the normal recessions and sustaining a boom might (and I think will) result in the end in larger economic crashes, which have a political cost.

What is also discussed are the effects on productivity, the support of zombie companies and effects of loose monetary policy to the global economy.

Just another myth. — fishfry

More like professional wrestling. The media frenzy around it.

The GME incident is a beautiful example of the free market in action. — fishfry

Or likely how rules don't matter (naked short selling) and what odd things gets the attention of the media and the people. In other times things like this would be an interest of a small group of market players, not something that politicians would be commenting about.

Gambling is a known vice, so it is something we ought not do. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seems like gambling has replaced investing at least with some people. It has become a recreation. Compared to these times, in 1929 things were reasonable.

The whole Gamestop thing tells this: so some naked short sellers got fleeced by pump and dump speculators and people cheer how the evil Melvin hedge fund were overcome by "small investors" and think this was some kind of statement. I don't see anything heroic or great in this: it all just tells how rotten the whole system is.

If Madoff Securities LLC was still active and people would know that it's a ponzi scheme, I guess there would be those carefree people who would still invest in it. Because ponzi schemes create unbelievable gains before they, uh, have no money and the gig is up. But before that, what an opportunity to make money!!!

The deflationary aspect in my view comes from the speculative bubble bursting or when it bursts. At least we do have the euphoria, which typically happens before a market crash. Stock market crashing does have serious effects on the real economy too. If banks are again on the brink, then the taps then finance the economy, not just for speculation, close. And people will naturally save. Saving rates have been historically high with a personal savings rate of 33%. That naturally will ease inflationary tension for now. And the labour movement seems to be dead and buried in the US, so wages naturally won't rise, could even fall. Hence inflation isn't the real worry now, but deflation. But then what?

The real question is that how much adding that debt and QE and lending to banks will start to erode the confidence on the dollar. Or more generally, in the whole system. And here we come to the question I've been pondering for some time: how reasonable is the Modern Monetary Theory? The idea of just printing money to prosperity feels missing some fundamental understanding of how the economy works. The argument that inflation, if it happens, can be dealt with interest rate hikes sounds not very convincing if the debt is so huge that the interest on the debt would severely cut back other government spending.

Or then, the whole monetary policy is there only to prop up the banks, the owners of the federal reserve, and nobody else. It's not even supposed help the real economy, just to help Wall Street. That may actually be the real answer.

"price stability will prevent crises" we were told. It's really time to revise the charter of Central Banks. — Benkei

Oh, that sounds just like what an economist of the Finnish Central bank (when there was an independent one) said about the worst economic depression the country was in: "The unemployed won't revolt. Unemployment is seen as an independent stigma as others still have jobs. Hence there isn't going to be like a revolution." He was correct, actually, the unemployed didn't revolt, even if 50 000 construction workers never found work afterwards. So to keep the price of food and clothing "decent" may be the answer. That likely may be handled for instance giving subsidies to large retail chains: again the rich profit and the poor muddle through it.

Yet revising the charter of the Central Banks? I fear this is something that won't happen.

The thing is that the role of the central banks and monetary policy simply isn't understood. This is something that isn't taught in school. History has again and again shown that the delirious accusations of the "speculators" being behind inflation, and not the governments and central banks always prevails. Or then it's the ugly foreigners, perhaps China in this case. The media will go with that story as the media is linked to the government (even here in the West). If the inflation gets ugly, at first what is demanded is that there are money transfers to the poorest of people to help them. Then there will be the demands to ration basic necessities and a public denouncement campaign against "hoarders", "speculators" and the "black market". Ah, the black market speculators...how evil are they!

Above all, when, as correctly points out, the fuel for the future rise of inflation has already been spread earlier, people cannot understand the link. Then when it actually happens, the link to earlier actions is hazy as the economy is so complex, that likely isn't understood.

If possible, tune it out for about ten years and do things that create contentment in your life (while everybody else is going to be running around like their hair's on fire!). — synthesis

Well, running around like their hair's on fire has been the new normal. I've already seen

- a huge banking crisis, real-estate bubble bursting and economic depression in my own country.
- The Tech bubble bursting
- The Great Recession of 2008-2009, real-estate bubble bursting in the US and economic depression
- Covid-19 economic depression ...

And between those crashes, three decades of huge asset inflation where nearly anything you have invested in gained a good profit and a lot of euphoria and silly talk. So that's the World we live in. So why tune out for a decade? Then what on the 11th year?

Perhaps people are a bit melodramatic. If we have a market crash or a currency crisis in the future, it basically would be something similar we already have seen. In the end the reality would be simply 'normal' to us. Just think of before last year describing the start of the 2020's to people and how scary it would feel with a pandemic with lockdowns and even curfews, mobile morgues made from semitrailers and riots reaching a fever pitch with a huge mob breaking into the Capitol. That all would sound very scary, when considering how things were in the middle of the 2010's. In similar fashion a stock-market crash, financial market collapse, banking crisis or currency crisis sounds scary, but in the end it isn't. And after a storm, the sun shines again...

The system works for him. Those that get the money before inflation kicks out are the winners in this World. Notice that there wasn't huge inflation in the 1920's or in Japan prior for the speculative bubble bursting. With perpetual bonds, you don't need to roll over that debt. So fix in on the lowest rates in written history for a million years or more!

As long as the velocity of money doesn't start picking up and there is ample confidence in the currencies, everything is great for the extremely rich. Not that the money printing does anything good for the actual economy, but that isn't important. The monetary policy has brought asset inflation, and that is good for rich people like Soros.

I've been involved in the Dutch existing perpetual bonds actually and my advice was shelved due to COVID because now there's no time to deal with them. Had a major row with the legal department of the ministry of finance for being stupid uncooperative dicks (after my research showed they were giving the wrong advice for 15 years) which played a large role in me changing jobs. Good times! — Benkei

It would be interesting to hear about that major row as this is a very important issue to understand. As the thread's header states, these times economics, financial and monetary policy isn't in the ordinary realm we have been taught they would be.

What I've learned is that this situation where we find us is a very complex one: QE and other forms of money printing haven't caused hyperinflation, but on the other hand the money hasn't gone into the real economy.

This is exactly what was expected when the politicians allowed (viz., were paid off) the most vile members of society (bankers) to print money out of thin air. The fact that they destroyed the entire global economy was as predictable as knowing that the sun is going to rise in the eastern sky in the morning. — synthesis

And more is coming...

George Soros personally has argued the following (last year):

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that Europe will need about €1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. This money could be used to establish a European Recovery Fund. But where will the money come from?

I propose that the European Union should raise the money needed for the Recovery Fund by selling “perpetual bonds,” on which the principal does not have to be repaid (although they can be repurchased or redeemed at the issuer’s discretion). Authorizing this issue should be the first priority for the forthcoming European Council summit on Thursday.

It would, of course, be unprecedented for the EU to issue perpetual bonds, especially in such a large amount. But other governments have relied on perpetual bonds in the past. The best-known example is Britain, which used consolidated bonds (Consols) to finance the Napoleonic Wars and war bonds to finance World War I. These bond issues were traded in London until 2015, when both were redeemed. In the 1870s, the U.S. Congress authorized the Treasury to issue Consols to consolidate already existing bonds, and they were issued in subsequent years.

The EU is facing a once-in-a-lifetime war against a virus that is threatening not only people’s lives, but also the very survival of the Union. If member states start protecting their national borders against even their fellow EU members, this would destroy the principle of solidarity on which the Union is built.

Instead, Europe needs to resort to extraordinary measures to deal with an extraordinary situation that is hitting all of the EU’s members. This can be done without fear of setting a precedent that could justify issuing common EU debt once normalcy has been restored. Issuing bonds that carried the full faith and credit of the EU would provide a political endorsement of what the European Central Bank has already done: removed practically all the restrictions on its bond purchasing program.

See Opinion: Soros: The EU should issue perpetual bonds to fund the economic recovery from coronavirus

Soros has later argued for perpetual bonds this year on January 18th in the Independent



The only way out, according to Soros. In other words, let the printing machines print!!!

Mortgages last a looooong time though. I'm buying a £270,000 house now that will cost me £367,000. Since houses are still one of the safest investment opportunities out there, it doesn't really make much sense to pay an additional £100,000 for the benefit of investing £228,000 elsewhere. — Kenosha Kid

If you are buying a house to live in yourself, I agree. I did buy my present home with cash too: where you live, it's not an investment, actually. Only in the long term it is an investment for your family as your children or other heirs inherit the home afterwards.

Yet if you put that house or flat for rent, then the debt is understandable: one can easily get an rent that pays for the interest and loan amortization still leaving a profit and you don't need to speculate where the housing prices go. Rents don't collapse in the similar fashion as housing markets , they are extremely rarely in a bubble as every rent is priced every month. Besides, the only true risk is if housing prices are below your buying price and at the same time you cannot pay the interest on your debt. Such an event is actually quite rare and this is the reason why speculative bubbles are so dangerous: otherwise the risks are low and it's the most simple game ever.

That's of course assuming that the goal for the republicans is a return to relative "normalcy", with power switching hands between two parties at regular intervals. — Echarmion

Well, this symbiosis with the DNC has worked for them very well. The last thing the DNC and the GOP want is their duopoly on political power to be broken and a viable third party would emerge.

Another way to read the events is that the GOP not trying to slowly ease out Trumpism, but instead slowly ease out the traditional idea of the conservative, as a way to deal with the ever dwindling number of these kinds of voters. — Echarmion

What is obvious is that there's a power struggle going on inside the GOP. For example, the Lincoln Project didn't cease it's adds once the election is over, but is attacking one side of the GOP.


If it would have been the loss of the Presidency and both houses in Congress, the GOP may have gone as business as usual. But January 6th happened as the final crash with an explosion of the Trump train wreck leaving things so much in shatters, that they do have to think about this shit.

In other words, you can be as masculine as you want as long as your version of masculinity conforms to someone elses version if masculinity. :roll: — Harry Hindu

And not to just someone, but a specific vocal and dominant group that defines what is good or 'toxic' in the World we live today (among other things).

Any reference to anything with "Toxic x" has this special narrative and a distinct ideology behind it. I think it is far better to dissect "toxicity" in this case to something more accurately defined: are you specifically talking about sexual harassment, sexism, misogynism, male chauvinism, homophobia, male priviledge or simply bullying. Those terms open up far more better for people who don't know the toxic masculinity narrative. Besides, referring to toxic masculinity makes one think that the person is referring to that masculinity is toxic.

When does wokeness become toxic? :smirk:

How the GOP manages to wiggle out of the influence of Trump is obvious.

Let the media and the democrats attack Greene, let Cheney and the other ten Republicans in the House that went for impeachment simply be and see if Kinziger gets support. Now it ought to be crystal clear what a disaster Trump was, but his voters are their supporters. At least in a way. Avoid at all costs the party fracturing. Trump simply hasn't got the leadership and organizational abilities to create a new party. And the ban from Twitter shows just how totally inept this guy is to reach his followers when his smartphone is "taken away".

As time goes, the democrats will go to excesses in their disdain and simply start to annoy all Republicans. Likely the voters in general will be disappointed at the Biden administration, if Covid-19 doesn't go away and the economy stays as bad as it is. At that time people like Liz Cheney and Kinziger can start themselves calling that enough is enough and we will, hopefully, have normal mid-terms.

In short, the GOP can take example from the Democrats on how to deal with their annoying but eager and important supporters called the "progressives" or "democratic socialists". The DNC never kicks these buffoons out, but gives them enough crumbs that they stay in the party and here Bernie tows the party line extremely well. Bernie gets the young and the radicals all excited, but always tows the party line. The GOP handled the tea-party crowd extremely well in a similar manner. The Trump crowd is different and problematic (to say the least), but still quite malleable.

Mr Executive Order... I guess this has become a tradition in US politics, first days repealing the former presidents decisions, if that President came from the other party.

Executive actions taken during the first 12 days. Executive orders (red), Presidential Memos(blue), Proclamations(grey):

Seems like the GOP isn't in the mood to kick people out: both Liz and the Q-anon woman didn't get punished from their own party.

Oh yeah, avoiding paying all that mortgage interest is super dumb. — Pfhorrest

Well, interest rates are the lowest ever, like in thousands of years low. And creating mortrages is the most normal thing any bank will do.

If you think the risks of investing elsewhere are too high, you're probably better off buying real estate. Or you can spread your risk by putting money into both. — Benkei

Buying real estate isn't a hedge against stocks or other capital investments. In a credit crunch or a collapse of a speculative boom boths stocks and housing prices come crashing down. Yet do notice that it's a rather rare event: I've just seen one housing crash in my lifetime of investing, but several stock market downfalls.

Index funds likely inadvertently make the stock market even more volatile and pushing some stocks to very high prices, when you take into account that few stocks actually make a huge proportion of the index.

Never before has the S&P 500 been as top-heavy as it is now.

The five largest companies by market capitalization (Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Alphabet) comprise more than 22% of the index. Those five companies have as much influence on benchmark performance as the bottom 363 companies combined.

It's not totally out of the question that those five stocks could/would go down and what now has been the engine for the stellar performance of index fund reverses and then it's a slaughter with index stocks while old time mutual fund managers would beat the index. That kind of transition could possibly happen. When if ever, who knows that.

Just notice how the flows into funds have changed:

In recent years, index funds have been steadily catching up with their actively managed competitors. In 2015, for example, active equity funds enjoyed £15.3bn of inflows, compared to £1.8bn for index trackers, a ratio of almost 9:1. In 2018, index trackers already saw larger inflows than active funds, but so far in 2019, active funds have shed £2.6bn, while trackers have absorbed over £2.9bn of inflows.

And this has just continued:

Yes.

Wonder if he gets a cell mate with tuberculosis or/and Covid-19.

What do you mean? — The Opposite

We had a President from 1956 to 1982 and only when totally incapacitated of old age did he retire. He won four terms in free elections and one extension of a term (the third). And wasn't a dictator, no demonstrations against him, no secret police hounding dissidents. Of course, he (a centrist btw) was the main man of the Soviet Union and a good friends with the Soviet leadership. Yes, he was the embodiment of Finlandization. He died in 1986 at the age of 86.

Some politicians argued that he should run for the sixth Presidential term. Afterwards my country opted for two-term limits. Whopee!


Yes, Finns are a bit different. Saatana!

I don't know what a fair price is though given Gamestop was been trading between $4-$15 for the past few years and now it's "crashed" to $86 or so now. — BitconnectCarlos

For starters, the P/E ratio would be a good indicator. Or if the company is near bankruptcy in a dead end business sector or not. :roll:

I think any investor guide gives you the basics for normal investing, which is very good to understand.

I would give one advice: understand where just now the economy is in the business cycle. One good or bad company and it's stock price still goes with the flow of the market, hence this is a crucial question.

A very good thing to know now is what is referred with the Minsky moment. Once you understand that, then go and invest.

Buying $GME isn't so much about making profit - I don't have any price targets or stop losses with my gamestop buy - At the end of the day, what's wrong with a bunch of retail investors coming together and deciding to help out a struggling company? I've been a Gamestop customer plenty of times. If certain hedge funds who were ultra-short Gamestop feel a little pain then that's not my problem. Hedge funds already have enormous advantages over the average retail investor.

I also only threw like 1% of my portfolio at this so it's not like failure is the end of the world. — BitconnectCarlos

Talk about animal spirits. Philosophical animal spirits, I would say. Stock investment as a recreation.

I would take this as an obvious indicator that the market is overpriced, overtly excessive, out of touch, ready for a collapse.

When people wait in lines to buy stocks, that's the traditional indicator of an impending market crash. I don't know where to put this on the scale...

Decreasing my stock portfolio.

One good indicator is the stock market compared to GDP:

Refilling the swamp is easy. — NOS4A2

Refilling? Oh you think that someone drained the swamp? Lol.

In any case I did pick up some AMC and GME today and I'm fully preparing to get utterly wrecked. — BitconnectCarlos

Can I ask why?

I think it would require an enormous amount of coordination in order for the rise in precious metal prices over the last week to be a result of a proportional change in retail investor spending patterns caused by a media management strategy by hedge funds- I think it's better explained by investors panicking that the stock market is going to crash and hedging against it. — fdrake

Precious metals are at best in the long term a somewhat good hedge, but basically the spot prices are are controlled with paper. Hence if the market makers cannot deliver the actual metal, they can simply give back cash.

Yet as we saw with negative oil prices, nearly everything if not everything has been made a vehicle for speculation.

But what else could we assume when the owners of the US Central Bank are the speculating Wall Street banks themselves.

I think it's better explained by investors panicking that the stock market is going to crash and hedging against it. — fdrake

Well, A crash could be something that could happen.

Likely at first that would have an deflationary effect...everything going down against the currency, before the trusty plunge-protection-team comes to the rescue of the banks.

HIV/AIDS doesn't spread like a flu, and the only one obviously different is the Spanish Flu.

Let's remember the comparison, the one argument made many times at the outbreak of this pandemic:

Most years, the US death toll from the flu is closer to 34,000 to 43,000. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the flu kills 290,000 to 650,000 people per year.

That we weren't prepared is nothing short of criminal. — Isaac

Think of it from another viewpoint: We had SARS, MERS, swine flu and an Ebola outbreak. And those were contained, even if Ebola caused much death in West Africa and did spread to the US. What I remember, a lot of people were making the alarms about them too.

I remember that the view was that it was "only a matter of time" that we would get a pandemic that wouldn't be so easy to contain. You can read dozens of articles and many documentaries that were done prior to Covid-19 warning about what could happen.

Good old Radio Free Europe. :up:

I think it's just actually that 20 years is far too much of one leader in one country...if the people aren't Finns, I might add. Putin simply couldn't retire with Dmitri Medvedev taking the helm after him. At least that would have kept the thin veil, or rather facade, of democracy in Russia. Now there isn't any.

Until now, the first and last Russian leader to peacefully retire: