But neoliberalism became a sort of social virus that reorganized America and to some extent the world to think of health only in terms of the health of Wall Street. The doctrine is to let Main Street disintegrate as long as Wall St. is ok. — frank

Free market works better than a command economy, yet for a free market to operate healthily needs a lot more is needed than the Ayn Randian libertarian just assumes to be. Simply put it: A society isn't based on competition, but on a community.

I think the basic reason is that the present elite doesn't feel that they have a responsibility towards the larger society and they have no understanding that they should take care that there exists social cohesion in the society.

Here it's important to understand what actually social cohesion is about. Here's a definition:

Social cohesion refers to the extent of connectedness and solidarity among groups in society. It identifies two main dimensions: the sense of belonging of a community and the relationships among members within the community itself. It stems from a democratic effort to establish social balance, economic dynamism, and national identity, with the goals of founding a system of equity, sustaining the impulses of uncontrolled economic growth, and avoiding social fractures.

Social cohesion is a social process which aims to consolidate plurality of citizenship by reducing inequality and socioeconomic disparities and fractures in the society.

Political polarization, social and economic inequality reduces social cohesion and in the end creates violence, distrust and fear throughout the society. And if the elite just stands by, then the train wreck happens. The elite can withdraw to it's guarded communities or simply move to safer places abroad and then bemoan how bad things have gotten in their country and how much nicer it was decades ago without ever understanding that their lack of action was very crucial in the collapse.

When inequality between the rich and the poor is widespread and rampant, better to have serious disunity among the masses. That's the scheme of the ruling class I guess.

Indeed it's worth mentioning what a global endeavor mathematics has been and try to make the subject interesting for students by relating it to their life. Some of the proponents of "non-European oriented math & science" do emphasis this and I don't find anything wrong in their ideas.

However I fear that the chosen rhetoric has a quite different agenda. To talk about toxic white supremacy and racism in mathematics is a deliberate and open attack especially in the US. To object or to criticize what is said then of course is "upholding toxic white supremacy" and racism. And basically I find it quite racist to divide students like this by race as obviously from the minorities mentioned (Black, Latinx, multilingual) Asians are excluded and native Americans forgotten (as many times happens).

And from a philosophical view, the following idea that is promoted seems bizarre:

White supremacy culture shows up in math classrooms when...

The focus is on getting the “right” answer.

Instead...

The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.

How this is unequivocally false and "white supremacist" goes over my head when you think about the foundations of mathematics. And what open conflict is being talked here? Perhaps I think too much that mathematics is linked to logic or set theory. For me, mathematics is different from other sciences...especially from humanities and social sciences. It is rigorous and logical and mathematical statements are either true or false, even if there are obvious limitations on what we can prove to be true or false. There can be various other logical systems used, of course, yet they then follow their own rules (and is something not being taught at schools). I don't think that there is real insight behind these ideas, because the writers of the pamphlet continue with the following line:

Of course, most math problems have correct answers, but sometimes there can be more than one way to interpret a problem, especially word problems, leading to more than one possible right answer.

Sometimes. Yet in my view an interpretation of a problem in various ways isn't actually math.

Thank you for giving the references. Still a bit strange, I have to say. 100 years is such a brief period of time in international relations.

Here's what the American Foreign Policy -magazine says about this:

some Turkish pundits are looking ahead to more serious foreign-policy challenges — like what will happen in 2023 when the Treaty of Lausanne expires and Turkey’s modern borders become obsolete. In keeping with secret articles signed by Turkish and British diplomats at a Swiss lakefront resort almost a century ago, British troops will reoccupy forts along the Bosphorus, and the Greek Orthodox patriarch will resurrect a Byzantine ministate within Istanbul’s city walls. On the plus side for Turkey, the country will finally be allowed to tap its vast, previously off-limits oil reserves and perhaps regain Western Thrace. So there’s that.

Of course, none of this will actually happen. The Treaty of Lausanne has no secret expiration clause. But it’s instructive to consider what these conspiracy theories, trafficked on semi-obscure websites and second-rate news shows, reveal about the deeper realities of Turkish foreign policy, especially under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s pro-Islam Justice and Development Party (AKP).

After defeating the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Britain, France, Italy, and Greece divided Anatolia, colonizing the territory that is now Turkey. However, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk reorganized the remnants of the Ottoman army and thwarted this attempted division through shrewd diplomacy and several years of war. Subsequently, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne recognized Ataturk’s victory and established the borders of modern Turkey. Lausanne then became part of the country’s foundational myth. For a time it even had its own holiday, Lausanne Day, when children dressed in costumes representing contested regions of Anatolia for elementary school plays.

With the Treaty of Lausanne so embedded in the Turkish state’s ideology, it is no surprise that conspiracies about it are ideologically loaded and vary according to the partisan affiliation of the individual conspiracy-monger. Erdogan’s critics tend to be more focused on the risks Turkey faces when Lausanne expires. Conspiracy-minded secularists have always worried that Erdogan is working with the European Union to establish an independent Kurdistan or perhaps dig a new Bosphorus to secure American ships’ access to the Black Sea, or really doing anything else possible to undermine the sovereignty Ataturk secured for Turkey. Some of Erdogan’s supporters, by contrast, are more optimistic about Lausanne’s expiration, in part based on a strain of recent historical revisionism suggesting that Ataturk actually could have gotten a much better deal during the negotiations had he not been in league with the Europeans — not preserved the whole Ottoman Empire, necessarily, but at least held on to a bit more of Greek Thrace and maybe the oil fields of Mosul. Where Ataturk once criticized the Ottoman sultan for failing to defend Turkish territory in the face of Western aggression, Islamists have now borrowed this charge for use against Ataturk.

In the realm of Turkish domestic politics, talk about “the end of Lausanne” reflects the fears of some and the hopes of others that with former prime minister, now president, Erdogan’s consolidation of power over the last decade, Turkey has embarked on a second republic — what Erdogan calls “New Turkey.” Supporters believe this new incarnation of the Turkish state will be free of the authoritarianism that defined Ataturk’s republic; critics worry it will be bereft of Ataturk’s secularism.

Still, the persistence of the end-of-Lausanne myth shows the extent to which New Turkey will be indebted to the ideology of the old one. Turkish Islamists have certainly inherited the conspiratorial nationalism found among many secularists, complete with the suspicion of Euro-American invasions and Christian-Zionist plots. (Is it any coincidence Lausanne is in Switzerland, a center of world Zionism?) While the secularist fringe speculated that Erdogan was a secret Jew using moderate Islam to weaken Turkey on Israel’s orders, many in the AKP’s camp now imagine that all Erdogan’s problems are caused by various international conspiracies seeking to block Turkey’s meteoric rise.

In the realm of foreign policy, though, these conspiracies belie a deeper truth: Despite the current violence to Turkey’s south, the borders enshrined in the Treaty of Lausanne are more secure than they have ever been. And the AKP was the first government to fully realize this. While Erdogan has often stoked nationalist paranoia for political gain, as when he claimed foreign powers were behind popular anti-government protests, the AKP’s foreign policy was the first to reflect a serious awareness of Turkey’s newfound political and economic power, not to mention the security that comes with it. Beneath all the bizarre rhetoric and paranoia, the AKP realized that Turkey has finally moved beyond an era in its foreign policy defined by the need to defend what was won at Lausanne.

See article Notes on a Turkish Conspiracy in Foreign Policy, 2017.

Just to continue this thread from last year and to show how this kind of thinking and "decolonizing" of science has gone forward and is going forward. In Oregon, it seems that they are fighting rampant racism and white supremacy culture in math.

White supremacy culture infiltrates math classrooms in everyday teacher actions. Coupled with the beliefs that underlie these actions, they perpetuate educational harm on Black, Latinx, and multilingual students, denying them full access to the world of mathematics. - We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry out our professional responsibilities outlined in the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP). Using CSTPas a framework, we see white supremacy culture in the mathematics classroom can show up when:

• The focus is on getting the “right” answer.
• Independent practice is valued over teamwork or collaboration.
• “Real-world math” is valued over math in the real world.
• Students are tracked (into courses/pathways and within the classroom).
• Participation structures reinforce dominant ways of being.
• Teachers enculturated in the USA teach mathematics the way they learned it.
• Expectations are not met.
• Addressing mistakes.
• Teachers are teachers and students are learners.

And it goes on... If the above is "white supremacy culture", as it is claimed, this will not be tolerated. Now to design a culturally sustaining math space or to promote to ethnomathematics might be something refreshing and new like "Intentionally integrate physical movement in math classes", but that issues above like "addressing mistakes" are seen as evidence of white supremacy, I'm not so sure where this will lead. Above all when the issue is something like mathematics and not art history.

But I urge everyone to look at A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction -Exercises for educators to reflect on their own biases to transform their instructional practice . This is promoted by the Oregon Department of Education (see here)

As the pamphlet states:

Teachers should use this workbook to self-reflect on individual practices in the classroom and identify next steps in their antiracist journey as a math educator.

Forward with the new glorious education of math!!!

By international law, every treaty expires after 100 years of use. — Franz Liszt

Every treaty? I've never heard of this. Please give a reference or link if this is true. You see, a lot of treaties would be expiring otherwise (the Geneva conventions, peace treaties etc).

It's very unlikely that these two NATO countries (Yes, Turkey is still in NATO) will go to all out war. What they could do is have a low-level conflict where tensions get high and both sides engage in a diplomatic fight and show their military muscles. Likely in this kind of "conflict" asymmetric "warfare" is used. The use of proxies (naturally the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus). Even with the case of Cyprus, one should note that the island state is member of the EU. Turkey successfully invading the Republic of Cyprus would likely have huge trade and political consequences for the country. It simply is a bad idea. Yet border disputes or disputes over maritime economic zone could happen (and do exist now). Again these kind of disputes wouldn't likely just escalate out of control. There is still ample amount of intelligence both in Turkey and in Greece to keep any quarrel contained. It would be different if Turkey wouldn't be a member of NATO and for example allied with Iran or Russia.

The asymmetric way to push your agenda would be more likely to happen. We've already seen this when Erdogan opened up their side of the border again for refugees and the Greek government closed the borders (just prior to the pandemic last year). The EU stood with Greece then and likely, finally, has learned how to respond to this kind of asymmetric pressure.

(Pawns in the game. Photo from March last year.)


Of course these tensions aren't a new one. The invasion of Cyprus happened in the summer of 1974. Even this short documentary below about the Greek-Turkish tensions is from 2019, two years ago (if this conflict is totally new thing to people):

It looks like the East has given up its introverted nature and is now in the process of copying a Western mindset. This is a shame because as we all know "innerspace" is as mysterious and unexplored as is outerspace and should deserve at the very least equal if not more attention. — TheMadFool

At least when it comes to the exploration of Mars, I think it's great that "the East" has copied the West and created very interesting Space programs.

With less than the amount of money put into the 2013 blockbuster "Gravity", India launched an Mars orbiter the same year. The UAE reached Mars with it's own Emirates Mars Mission that was earlier launched from Japan. One of objectives of the Mars mission was to "educate and inspire the younger generations", i.e. to get more engineering and science done in the oil producing country.

From humble beginnings in 1963:



The fact is that especially space programs and space research might still be thought as a "vanity" project and useless waste of money. This attitude still resonates. Best example is of course the UK, which cancelled it's small space program (and afterwards launched the fully functioning satellite, because why not) because it was "too costly" and thus France reaped the profits of the commercial satellite boom in Europe. In fact investing in space research and technology has been one of the most profitable things to do: the extremes of space have meant that the technology has been pushed to the limit, something that otherwise hasn't been important with tech when you can have trade barriers to "protect" your industries.

The east, especially the Muslim World, has for too long been away from the scientific research realm.

I don't know which party is more hypocritical here. Starting from W Bush and the Saudi role in 9/11, which was back then a big issue for the Republicans.

Saudi-US alliance is something like if United States and Russia would be allies: would make strategic sense (nobody would dare to oppose that superior tag-team on the World stage), yet the alliance would create constant bitching the US backing non-democratic Russia and Russians getting irritated of US involvement. Both countries would likely be annoyed by the "unholy" alliance, even if it would make strategic sense...if such alliance could have been created after the Cold War (a possibility, but would have needed larger than life politicians to do that).

In similar fashion the US-Saudi relationship gives the US a huge position in the Middle East, especially when Iraq and Syria have collapsed and Egypt is in turmoil. If the relations goes sour and Saudi Arabia seeks security guarantees from China and Russia, then the trainwreck that is called US Middle East policy would be final. And then the final ally left would be Israel.

But that's how US alliances end: they end either with a revolution (example: Iran) or with just a souring of the relations with finally both sides not bothering to think about the relationship anymore (Pakistan).

You ask the kids on campus what's wrong with society and they sace racism. They never notice the class issues, that the global elite are sucking all of the wealth of the nation and destroying the middle and working classes. — fishfry

Isn't that the objective here? Class or what was the slogan..."We are the 99%" would be far too unifying.

Wokestan vs Magastan works for the elites very well. Divide et Impera.

Corruption?

Actually might be just the always irritating realpolitik of the Saudi-US alliance, that still is important. Or would it be better that the relations went the way of one former US ally, Pakistan? Or like with another one, once heralded as the other "Twin-Pillars" ally of the US, Iran? Americans would so much love to hate the Saudis.




(Above an actual re-enactment of the old meeting, done in February 2020 by US and Saudi officials)

Switch a few words and it's the Thirty Years War. — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Agendas and objectives matter.

What should we do about North Korea? — David Solman

Face reality.

Just leave it as it is. You cannot do anything anymore (and luckily, didn't do anything before either). And simply stop being in panic about it.



North Korea has a nuclear deterrent and hence the US has a similar cold war situation with the poor country as you had with the Soviet Union (and basically still have with Russia). End of story. Forget ideas of interfering in their politics or "liberating" the country. Besides, they know they cannot win a war against South Korea and the US.

Actual peace deal would be nice, because the US just has an armistice with North Korea.

I'll ask again. Please explain in what way calling racial conditions in the US a war makes a solution to those issues easier or more likely. — T Clark

If your title would be the "national race and ethnicity writer for The Associated Press", would your objective be to provide solutions race relations or to show that serious racial problems exist in the US and that they matter?

Well, what is the difference between modernity and modernism? — TheHedoMinimalist

Modernity is the present that we live in, it's a historical period of time. Modernism can be said to be a philosophical movement and can be understood in many ways, starting from an art style to being a broader societal view. Hence many of those philosophers are more likely to be critical of modernism rather than of modernity, starting with the post-modernists.

I think many times the clash happens when the so-called "modernist" solution, or what is viewed to be a "modernist" solution to some problem, which likely is the rather pragmatic, technocratic (that the solution is to use technology, science and experts) or free market oriented (let the market mechanism solve the problem) solution to a complex problem, which then the "anti-modernist" doesn't like (and likely sees a political power play in the modernist solution).

In contrast, it seems like there are plenty of people like me that just don’t have any problem with modernity whatsoever. Given this, I tend to think that maybe we should give modernity more credit and maybe we should be more modest in our criticism of modern life. — TheHedoMinimalist

Perhaps it should be noted that modernity and modernism are two different things.

And of course, improvements happen when we aren't happy and/or satisfied with the things we have. Philosophers naturally see things to be corrected at our present society, in the one that they live in. It is a thing that is crucial for modernity, actually. How useful and beneficial their input truly is, is another question.

I just had to say that I much prefer, and only drive, old cars - as little technology as possible! — Photios

I remember this professor of economic history who preferred cars manufactured earlier than one specific year in the 1970's. That was the year when the first crude computers and electronic gadgets were introduced to cars. With cars before that year he could repair himself everything. (Which of course today would be a horrible blasphemy for car manufacturers...if people could do that.)

Likely he will be treated as a hero at least by the CPAC crowd, I forecast.



So much for the GOP having a sincere look at what went wrong with the 2020 elections (and with the Trump Presidency).

Now that COVID-19 is coming to an end — Shawn

You mean when? End of this year? Maybe that third wave at least in Europe still? Let's hope you are correct.

and new economic trends are arising — Shawn

Let's see what they are… besides a rampant speculative bubble in the markets thanks to asset inflation.

what will likely happen in the near future due to these tendencies in the economy arising and being enhanced by further more intelligent AI. — Shawn

Let's start from the beginning.

The deflationary impact of technology and price competition isn't anything new.

This happens especially when some technology is rather new and basically just "taking off" with rapid advancements being made througout the young industry. Yet this also happens in areas where the technology isn't going forward in such rapid pace too. Just compare, just for example, modern cars of this year and compare them with cars 50 years go (from 1971). Then compare those cars from 1971 to those of fifty years earlier in 1921. In both examples the features of the most luxurious and "high tech" cars of the earlier era have become totally normal in your average cheap family cars of the later era. And likely the tech has surpassed them making the newer cars far easier to drive and far more comfortable and safe.

Ford Fiesta 2021:

Ford Taunus 1971:

Ford T 1921:


In fact, just to start or drive a Ford T-model from 1921 and change it's gears would be extremely difficult for a modern ordinary driver without any instructions. Yet I would make one important question here:

Is this truly a "deflationary" aspect of technological advance? Is to correct to call it "deflationary"?

Or is there still the basic utility behind the product, be it a car or something else, that has stayed the same? Driving to work with either a 2021 Ford or a 1971 Ford or even with the 1921 Ford is still the same thing: you drive a car to work. This is an important question as the "deflationary" aspect of technological advance is statistically used to lower inflation: your 2021 Ford Fiesta is so much better than 1971 that the statistician can argue that inflation hasn't been as great as the prices of 1971 and this year would tell you.

So, what are your thoughts? — Shawn

I think it's a way to hide inflation and distract people from the reality: to say that since your gadgets are so much more awesome now than yesteryear, hence inflation hasn't been so high. And better yet: you have "deflation" when the prices are down and the gadgets are more cooler! For the central bankers and the upholders of the fiat monetary system this is important. It serves them well, especially during a time when income inequality is going through the roof.

And just for those that are interested: a Model-T Ford cost 325$ in 1921. I don't know how much a Ford Taunus (manufactured in Germany) cost in 1971, but your average car cost then perhaps about 3500$. Ford Fiesta costs something like 15 000$, which is way more than just 3500$ in 1971 money calculated by CPI to present money (which would be like 9 000$). So to make the case for there being less inflation, you make the argument that your Ford Fiesta of today is so much better than the Ford Taunus of 1971.

The answer isn't a third party because people then worry that one party will siphon votes from another guaranteeing that the other will win. Abolish all parties and that eliminates that problem. — Harry Hindu

No, that's only the cry that the two-party system feeds the people and has successfully brainwashed many Americans to think (and hence stay loyal to their corrupt two-party system, whatever happens).

I think that a multiparty system would be an improvement to the US. If parties have to make coalition administrations, that has a positive diminishing effect on the polarization that is rampant today. The parties simply have to work together unlike now. Besides, now you don't know what you get when voting for a party. A good start would be if both of the two parties would break up into two.

My guess is that a lot of colleges are still fairly placid places. There are outstanding exceptions of course, where everyone is on somebody else's thin ice. — Bitter Crank

Even those places that where people "are on thin ice" likely are fairly placid places, I would think.

Let's remember that in the US there are 4000 colleges and universities and these protests, cancellations or student activity likely has happened in a fraction of universities and colleges. And all takes is some tweet or a tiny group of "activist" students to protest and the video to go viral, and everybody is commenting about it. This creates a false impression of the mood in the country. Yet on the other hand, some places like Portland have indeed have had their share of "activism" under the radar with the last protests happening just few days ago with a small group of demonstrators braking windows and quarreling with the police. Hence even the cold weather hasn't gotten them (30 to 50 people) of the streets.

Short version: freedom of speech is allowed within the accepted views of the current political narrative. So students are free to speak as along as they support the mainstream views. However free that is. — Book273

Current political narrative in the universities doesn't go hand by hand by those in political power.

There is a loud minority in the academia made by activist students and their supporters in academia who see as their obligation to "defend" the institution from something like rightwing extremism, racism and intolerance, who lurk under the veil of "freedom of speech". And then there's the vast majority who are in the university to either study or to work on their fields and fear to be the target of the activist crowd or simply don't care about what the fuss is about, so they opt not to engage in any political discussion. And why do that? Someone might cancel you. And finally there's the few that think that the above means that the universities have been overtaken by Cultural Marxists.

Just like in the 60's, it's actually hard to understand that the majority of students back then were far more conservative than the hippies that are now described as to be the dominant group back then. But those who are the loudest dominate the scene, I guess. Or those most successful in their cancel culture, I might add.

Anyway, the government getting itself into this mess won't solve anything. Don't get into a mess that isn't for you. The likely outcome is that everybody is annoyed of the government. A loosing proposition, I'd say.

I remember some polling done in 2016 that found that Trump would have lost against any other candidate than Hillary. Against Hillary he had a chance. And obviously he was successful...then.

Now for the Democrats, Trump is what Hillary was for the Republicans in 2016...just on steroids. So good luck for Republicans picking him up for his "second term" in 2024 (at the age of 78).

Or perhaps Americans love polarization so much, that they could do a rematch of Trump vs Hillary again in 2024. And why not? After all, no younger people than young octogenarians need not to rule the US, right?

Then again, catastrophic wars have boosted our technological advances profoundly. Furthermore, something like globalization and it's intercontinental supply chains can indeed be fragile to disasters, but how fragile are things like the written word when nearly all of us can read?

"Sending us back to the stone age" ought not to be taken literally.

I've allways stated that if you go through university education and still are excited about what you have studied, remain motivated and have an open, inquisitive mind, then you are ready for the ready for to do something in academic World.

The National Union of Students says there is "no evidence" of a freedom of speech crisis on campus. — counterpunch

:grin: Hilarious! Ah, have to love the 2020's...

I think it means that Robinhood gives a way for Citadel to frontrun those who trade at Robinhood...if I got the meaning of the article correct. And basically this is Robinhood's business plan: to make profit in selling the information of it's buy and sell orders to market players as Citadel.

Front-running is trading stock or any other financial asset by a broker who has inside knowledge of a future transaction that is about to affect its price substantially. A broker may also front-run based on insider knowledge that his or her firm is about to issue a buy or sell recommendation to clients that will almost certainly affect the price of an asset.

This exploitation of information that is not yet public is illegal and unethical in almost all cases.

Sounds very....normal for Wall Street.

They are lucky to be able to do this. But many in their old age have a lot less to work on. I guess, we should add that, when old age comes, often the old people are at the mercy of their family members, not the other way around. — Caldwell

The real cultural divide happens with how large is the "family", where do people draw the line in seeing as an obligation to help the elder person in the family. The natural thing even today in the West is that it's the responsibility of the direct offspring, the children, to help at least in some way, if possible. Yet to help an aunt or uncle or a more distant relative starts to be more rare, unfortunately. The focus on the nuclear family has eroded the larger network that earlier families have provided, at least in where I live (in Finland). This still can differ from family to family.

Add to this that many don't have children and a lot more are single than before, and you have a genuine problem of basically loneliness, which comes to be a bigger problem at old age.

However, no one formally contested the results of the 2016 election. That's the difference. - Do you see the difference? — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you see the similarity?

When you say "The Dems never contested the results of the 2016 election, nor were there accusations of theft", I simply make the notice that those elections weren't so fine and dandy, but a lot of bitching about the results then too. And accusations about theft?

Like in WP this one (from Dec 2016, among others): The 2016 election was stolen. Got a nicer way to say that?

It seems that the only way to live up to the American ideals of freedom and responsibility would be to abolish the United States of America altogether. — baker

If nation states should have a logic to them.

But they don't.

The strength of the US is that the US means so many different things to different people.

The Dems never contested the results of the 2016 election, nor were there accusations of theft. — Metaphysician Undercover

LOL! Yeah right:

Hillary Clinton is sticking with her conviction that the 2016 presidential election was not conducted legitimately, saying the details surrounding her loss are still unclear.

“There was a widespread understanding that this election [in 2016] was not on the level,” Clinton said during an interview for the latest episode of The Atlantic’s politics podcast, The Ticket. “We still don’t know what really happened.”

“There’s just a lot that I think will be revealed. History will discover,” the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee continued. “But you don’t win by 3 million votes and have all this other shenanigans and stuff going on and not come away with an idea like, ‘Whoa, something’s not right here.’ That was a deep sense of unease.”

See Hillary Clinton Maintains 2016 Election ‘Was Not On the Level’: ‘We Still Don’t Know What Really Happened’

And oh, she gave that interview LAST YEAR, btw.

Honestly, to me, the best choice is for the old loved ones to spend their days with family — Caldwell

That people can live at their own home would be also one very important thing. We all hope that when the end comes, we still will be sharp in mind and have some ability to take care of ourselves. In truth, being totally dependent on others is not an ending I would hope to have. The question is what kind of life is worth living. Today the most crucial thing is to plan and act before you are in a situation where you simply cannot be at home and basically someone else has to decide where you stay. People can have only plans what to do, but not the will to implement them.

Who would want to live in a long term care home? There can be those good examples of this.

I remember my great-uncle, a former ambassador and a career diplomat, decided with his wife that simply staying at home, going to the supermarket was starting to be too exhausting and hence they went looking for a care home and found a nice one. Then they invited the whole family and relatives to see their now living quarters, basically a normal small flat with their furniture from their old home. I think their success was to make the change before either of them was in too frail condition.

The corporate business model is quite toxic in this case. But I would argue that this is also a problem for the other part of life, when being a child and being in a kindergarten. Kindergartens can also be extremely lousy when lead by profit focused leadership. One alarming indicator is when the personnel (be it a long term care home or a kindergarten) is constantly changing. This usually reflects that the working conditions are not good, the pay is low and there's not motivation to go around.

Fear sells, of course, and there are those that have basically have found their niche as "permabears", yet if exclude those constantly and only talk of a crash, one can see generally when people are fearful and when euphoric.

There are many instances when margin growth slows, where the market continues an upward trend, or it makes a slight coinciding dip then continues upward. 2020 provides a good example. — Metaphysician Undercover

Last year is a good example of how trillions put into the most massive QE do have an effect to make the market and the real economy go their separate ways. The only "V"-shaped recovery was the stock market. Of course you can think that this is just the "new normal" and things have changed, that we have a new economy, but at least I'm not so sure.

How totally different and spectacular things are now from the past is shown in this interview with Stanley Druckenmiller by nowhere else than Goldman Sachs' Youtube channel:

What I much admire about some non-Western cultures is their general belief in and practice of not placing their aged family members in long-term care homes. — FrankGSterleJr

Usually it isn't an option that they decide not to take. Without an ample welfare net, the family in general has a far more important role to the individual. I think that this basically is because of necessity, not only because off the differences in culture. In the West people don't think to have children in order there to be someone to care for them when they are old. You simply make savings for your retirement.

This said, the cultural differences are still noticeable. Yet it may be changing. From an older study about the US:

In the past, the use of formal long-term care services by Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, age 65 and older, has been shown to be substantially lower than that of non-Hispanic Whites. Cultural preferences, language differences, and lower income may explain some of the limited use of services.

However, the use of formal services has changed gradually over time for Blacks as anti-discrimination laws and public funding have provided greater access to nursing homes and home health services. Data from the 1999 National Nursing Home Survey (NNHS) indicate that, while nursing home utilization rates have declined for Whites, utilization rates have increased for Blacks and now surpass those of Whites.

Although data on the use of formal services by Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans are limited, a study by Himes et al. provides evidence that nursing home utilization rates are much lower among these groups than among Whites or Blacks. Using 1990 U.S. Census data on persons age 60 and older, their study shows that nursing home use was 3.3% for Whites, 3.1% for Blacks, 2.3% for Native Americans, 1.6% for Hispanics, and 1.2% for Asians. Lower rates for Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans may reflect a cultural preference for family caregiving.

Expressions of Schadenfreude are only appropriate when not displayed to the victim, or sufferer. — god must be atheist

But when a perpetrator gets his or her punishment? (Hope you don't mean that when it's expressed behind the victims/sufferers back)

I don't think we even call that shadenfreude, because we don't see it as the perpetrators misfortune, but as something that the perpetrator deserves. I think the example that gave can be viewed similarly.

I guess the way to avoid this is to just sell everything prior to the crash and go full on short which is either genius or insanity at the peak of a bull — BitconnectCarlos

More like insanity, because you are shorting on how crazy people can be. And they can be far more crazy and for far longer than you can anticipate.

Far more sane is simply to try to get 80% right: to decrease your stock portfolio when (in hindsight) the stock market is in the 20% nearest to the top and then buy when it's 20% nearest to the bottom. Hence if you sell and the stock indexes still go up still 20% to the peak, you still might congratulate yourself. Same true the other way.

Some indicators like what I and discussed like Margin debt growth are good in this case. When that Margin debt growth starts to decrease at the height of the market, that is really an alarming signal, because it means that people aren't willing to speculate as earlier. Both in 2000 and in 2008 the decrease in margin debt happened just before the stock markets plunged. And in an euphoric market, which now the market is (we are having this conversation on a philosophy forum), that is where the turn happens: there isn't the guy willing to buy at a higher price to speculate on the price going higher.

Trump IS the defacto leader of the Party — Wayfarer

What he isn't is a Party leader. Period. (And yes, obviously the GOP doesn't have a leader now...)

What he's interested is his own image, and even there he flunked the test. Just look how "interested" he was about the senate seats in the end (that the GOP then lost).

You see, it's one thing to sit at a table and have people introduce you policy questions and options from what you choose something of your liking. That's what a POTUS does. That's basically what an investor like Trump does. It's another thing to organize a party and get various people with different objectives and agendas to work coherently as a group. In other words, to lead them.

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?