Stock markets are excellent systems to bring lenders and borrowers together. Its insanity is caused by other things.

A real estate bubble. As houses cannot be built by robots in China, real estate bubbles have a huge impact on employment and in the domestic economy. Second, people don't choose to speculate: families need a roof over their head and people looking for a home have to participate in the market however crazy it is. And people who own real estate will notice the wealth effect of their homes increasing in value, hence it's not just the few who invest or those who willingly take risks. For the majority of people buying an own home is the largest investment they will ever do. Hence it's not only the rent seekers and speculators that are players in this bubble. That building houses is labor intensive means that the bubble truly lifts up the economy. And for the financial sector? Mortrages and financing construction is the most ordinary thing they do. — ssu

What I'm trying to get at, is that this isn't a form of speculation. Maybe you just think that's a semantic discussion but there's a reason supervisors enacted stupid decisions like banning short selling - they confuse investing, buying to use and speculation. What you describe isn't a speculative bubble in my view of how the word "speculation" should be used. A speculator buys or sells assets or derivatives only because of a future expectation of value which could either be higher or lower than the current market price. A speculator is in that sense agnostic about the general direction of the market, although he is obviously concerned about his specific positions held at a certain time. An investor invests to obtain a return on its capital mostly by lending its money for a variable return in capital or stock markets. They can also He wants the industry or market he's invested in to grow and isn't agnostic. Then there are also buyers who buy to use, a specialty chemical company buys furfuryl alcohol to blend it for its own products - not to invest or to speculate.

Most people buy houses to use them, not to speculate or to invest. The real estate bubble was caused due to systemic risks. NINJA-loans, incentives for brokers to originate loans that were terrible, CDOs that were opaque and too much money in the system.

? ? ?

How is it fundamentally flawed?

You think that speculative bubbles happen in times when interest rates are high and banks don't lend or what? Tell me an example of a speculative bubble happening in that kind of environment.

And tell me of a speculative bubble that didn't have speculation?? — ssu

Because I think we need to distinguish between speculation and investing. If investors en masse invest because of cheap credit, this has nothing to do with speculation. I think the distinction between an economic bubble and a speculative bubble is useful; a speculative bubble can exist in a specific asset class but speculators as distinct from investors are a much smaller group that don't have the influence to cause economic bubbles.

Simply because prices don't reflect underlying value, this doesn't mean it is caused by speculation but there's a tendency to call it a speculative bubble regardless of cause. The stupidity of the name even resulted in idiotic measures like banning short selling. This resulted in an even bigger downward trend in the markets, because it wasn't speculators causing it but investors who now had to outright sell their positions to manage their risks.

Obviously, my comment about interest rates and monetary policy concerns the current asset inflation. The previous one was driven by inflated real estate prices, combined with bad loan origination and complex derivatives. No speculation involved, again. Just stupidity in the loan origination part with bad incentives all over the place and moronic optimism about always upward moving "markets".

Pursuit of price stability? I don't understand where this is coming from. Please explain. — ssu

Central Banks have a limited range of measures at their disposal because they're constrained by their purpose of maintaining price stability. Which is a quaint left over from the days when they thought price stability would avoid the boom and bust cycle and unreasonable fear of deflation. So they can basically only regulate the money supply and interest rate. And here we are.

There's of course a lot else going on. Like the fact people will save regardless of interest rates because they have saving goals. So all these theories can't deal with the complexity of human action and there's always unintended consequences and effects. It's time we stop basing policy on necessarily flawed theory.

Yet I think the reason is and in history has been the financial sector, which has with excessive financing promoted speculation and in the end created the bubble. — ssu

This is fundamentally flawed because speculation goes both ways. Speculation doesn't cause bubbles across all financial instruments.

Asset inflation is caused by the pursuit of price stability and other monetary policies. Low interest rates means financial institutions hunt for yield at the same time central banks are dumping free money in the system with no end in sight. It's not as if they don't realise stocks are overvalued. They're just passing along the hot potato simply due to large demand in the financial markets because everybody is investing free money, the source of which is basically unlimited. And with MMT, which is the direction we're going in, tof will only get worse. In the end, the stock price isn't relevant but at what volumes it can be traded, its liquidity and volatility. Hence, asset inflation while the fundamentals crumble.

How is the zeitgeist determined that will dictate which interpretative scheme you use? This sounds like you're getting close to allowing public sentiment to enter the judge's decision making process, which seems antithetical to the concept of objective justice. — Hanover

Objective justice. :rofl:

And no, we're not talking about public sentiment, we're talking about the dictates of public conscience or, if you prefer, ordre public.

These dictates do not inform interpretation, they are employed to distinguish between the different interpretations and select the most appropriate one.

No, there's no whim to it, it's to understand the various nuances different interpretations offer and then select the one that is most in accordance with the dictates of public conscience of the current times. That might mean a different interpretation of the same text at different times.

Edit: or even combine them. But these things are obvious if you're trained in the Netherlands. A judge here is expected to research the different interpretations.

I don't hate Biden. I dislike people who think Biden has anything good to bring to the world or the USA specifically. The US system is so incredibly bonkers, with basically legal corruption embedded in its political system, that any status quo candidate is just going to make things worse for most people.

Quite frankly nobody should be giving two shits about Biden's personality just as Trump's personality is totally besides the point. The real politik right wingers understand this perfectly. Mitch played you all, among others, while Trump takes the heat because he's dumbass. Welcome to a Conservative justice system with babies like Amy Coney Barrett playing at being a supreme court judge. I hope she chokes on her imposter syndrome.

I was referring to the difference between textualism, which isn't concerned with what the drafter intended, and originalism, which does. That wasn't to suggest textualism is idiotic literalism.

I find adhering to a mode of interpretation as the interpretation idiotic. And originalism in particular has been a sorry excuse to push regressive interpretations with judges overestimating their ability to understand language and history. Prefatory clause indeed. :lol:

Did you test while having symptoms? The PCR test requires a minimal viral load that might not necessarily have been reached if you're still asymptomatic.

marriages are still important right? Why on earth the couple invited 120 people is the question, I think, not the person going when invited, who may expect some sanity from the couple.

Let's stay negative!

Errrrr...

If intended to insult is defined as insult, then the statement "I intended to insult you, but I failed" would be a logical contradiction, but it's not, so your explanation isn't correct, correct? — Hanover

What? That's not a logical contradiction at all. I intended to score with basketball but I failed.

I take back calling you reasonable because of this silly mistake. :razz:

In any case, I would imagine many people would've been insulted or feel disrespected or not taken seriously so I can then call something "insulting". That post I set out things I consider a problem and your reaction is basically "those aren't problems". There's of course no way I'm going to take your problems seriously if you can't take mine seriously.

That said, I wish I had more time to start a thread about the information apocolypse.

Oh no, don't get the wrong idea. That something is insulting doesn't necessarily mean I'm insulted. I'm just saying that if you think treating people equally and fairly is important you aren't contributing.

#1 - doesn't concern me because I don't think whatever economic disaster we face in the future will have anything to do with this. What'll probably kill the economy is some made up virus.
#2 - doesn't concern me because I fucking hate the cold.
#3 - We know more today than ever before. My information circle now includes those from people from all sorts of fucked up places.
#4 - I agreed with.
#5 - I used to prosecute kids who caught too many trout, so I did my share. What have you done? Fish doesn't taste that good anyway.
#6 - I take out my garbage. If we all did like me, there wouldn't be this mess you talk about.
#7 - That's what zoos are for, to protect failing creatures from Darwin. — Hanover

It reads like you dismiss what you don't understand, do so flippantly, which indirectly is insulting towards me but still think 4 is important. Interesting choice of words if you really did think that. More likely you just pay it lip service as I also remember how you reacted when Trump won and I pointed out half of the country didn't and that they should still be heard too. That was "tough luck" because you were all too happy getting your way. As a lawyer you're trained to sound reasonable but you're a ball of emotional contradictions.

Also, your reaction to 3 would be funny if it wasn't so tragic.

Certainly enlightening. I'm surprised it's not more specific.

What worries me is that we don't worry about the same things. I'll give you mine:

1. How to escape debt fueled economic policies;
2. Global warming;
3. The information apocolypse;
4. Promoting equality and fairness;
5. Overfishing;
6. Pollution;
7. Biodiversity.

Or to summarise: corporate capitalism. 2 and 3 are long term problems that require the most immediate action in the short term. 1 and 5 are medium term and the rest is long term.

I'm trying to figure out what your point was in our earlier discussion. If, based on the available evidence, the prosecutor made the correct call that homicide charges wouldn't stick then all this is just bad PR but essentially won't change anything.

Is the point you want the prosecutor to prosecute any way so that this is all further investigated during the trial?

I don't know how it works in the USA but in the Netherlands a prosecutor decides on whether and what to prosecute independently. You can petition the court to force the prosecutor to prosecute a case he refused to prosecute earlier. Is this option open in the USA as well?

Based on the information that is publicly available, I don't expect homicide charges to stick either. So either there's non-public evidence or the case has not been sufficiently investigated yet and there's more evidence out there. The last two articles you shared don't seem to be about that though.

I'm getting the impression, @StreetlightX, that you're arguing with voters who actually like Biden or are blind to the failings of the US system. None of those voters appear to be present.

Excited to get rid of Trump maybe?

Out of curiosity, what do you believe to be the biggest challenges in the short (1-2 years), middle (3 to 10) and long term (10+) for the US? What policies do you think are needed for that and what are the Democratic and Republican proposals there? If you're on the fence on who of the two candidates are personally worse, then what about policy?

Once again: there was no pressure on Ukraine from either the US or the EU to investigate Burisma.

The left's position is that Burisma was corrupt, that Obama had tried to stop the corruption, that Shokin refused to investigate Burisma, that Shokin himself was corrupt, and that Biden's firing of Shokin was at the request of Obama and the EU for proper purposes. They agree Hunter probably shouldn't have sat on Burisma's board, but it occurred after the Burisma investigation was dormant and it was without Joe's knowledge. They also say the leaked computer information might be a Russian set up. — Hanover

This is actually false. It was Shokin who blocked the Burisma investigation among other investigations.

You're familiar with the guilt by association fallacy?

Hunter Biden isn't running for president is he?

It has everything to do with Hunter being a Biden. Just as paying 15,000 USD for a speech from Obama has everything to do with the fact it being Obama. Whereas, I suspect, I could learn a lot more from a professor of history for a lot less money. The idea that this is suspect is just silly. Once again, the intelligence agencies looked into this.

You just can't seem to accept that whatever Biden did was acceptable and legal, where with Trump we know he does plenty of illegal stuff. That has everything to do with ideology on your side and little with the facts.

Also, you do realise that in all this, the one party of whom it was proved to have received under the table payments was Paul Manafort. Any corruption found was again on the side of Trump and his stooges.

How much attention should it receive if both the intelligence community and two senate commissions, led by republicans, looked into it but haven't found any proof of corruption?

EU pressured firing of Shokin, not the Burisma organisation. Burisma was/is under investigations of things that happened before Hunter Biden was part of the board. You're confusing facts.

@Hanover If you really care about "transparancy" what about Trump's recorded instances of obstruction of justice in the Müller report? Shouldn't proven cases carry much more weight than an alleged case concerning Biden? Which case has actually been warned by the intelligence community to be Russian interference and already refuted by Senate Republicans as Michael pointed out.

The fact an otherwise discerning poster is fooled believing again in Russian meddling talking points just goes to show how far the information apocalypse is along. (look it up). And it's getting worse. May I suggest you change your search engine to duckduckgo and your browser to Brave and delete Facebook, Instagram and Twitter? Or any other social media for that matter? Stop browsing YouTube and instead approach videos via duckduckgo. That goes a long way to avoid the rabbit holes of conspiracies those companies will serve up, whether right or left wing, just to have you click on the next link.

Also, let's not forget Lord Darroch's assessment who, despite being ambassador of the US' closest sky, was rather clear on the subject : incompetent.

Lmao. The only reason Trump could win is because the US has a retarded two party system. He'd never survive in a multiparty system which puts the lie to his political savvy. He's also barely accomplished anything, which again, shows no political skill. A good politician would've embraced the covid crisis by turning it in something that would politically benefit him. He totally failed in that. Same with BLM.

I just skimmed it. If she can't set out her opinion in less than 5 minutes, she's wasting my time. It's not as if she's teaching a subject.

Republicans have pretty much claimed the Conservative label where Democrats are Liberal or Progressive. It leads to typically weird juxtapositions in political life. BLM is driven by progressives and Republicans tend to distance themselves from it, while in essence the demand is a Conservative one: equality before the law.

That's much more to do with branding and identity politics, on both sides (!), than actual policy based on a political theory.

Trump: "… and you know what the word is? The word is very simple. We’re building our country, stronger and better than it’s ever been before." — Relativist

Rebuilding, one death at a time.

Since we're posting conspiracy stories now. Murdoch owner of NY Post, was in Epstein's black book and seen with Ghislain Maxwell. Trump has been accused of raping minors with Epstein. Murdoch had been friends with Trump for years too. Epstein is a dead suspect for rape of minors. They all have dirt on each other so Murdoch is doing Trump a favour to keep him quiet when the hammer falls. By simultaneously predicting a Biden win, Murdoch is obfuscating these relationships.

So Qanon isn't far from the truth except that it's Trump and his buddies who are the paedophiles.

I have my fingers crossed.

Where are you getting those figures from? — Isaac

I honestly don't know. My dad mentioned it today when I was talking to him. I do know it's based on Dutch figures with respect to the first wave. It's also expected the fatality rate in hospital admitted case will be lower this time around but it won't near the 6%.

I agree that an important factor missing from considerations is the knock on effects of measures. It's buried somewhere in this thread but I raised it before: just the deaths resulting from the poverty might outweigh some choices being made. There are definitely models available for this but they're not used. Same for deaths due to standard care being delayed. There's a reason policy is aimed at a certain length for the waiting list. But that data isn't used.

Edit: Also, it's not CFR, if that causes the confusion. It's a subset of cases.

Turns out they made wrong assumptions, then. I don't fault people for making wrong decisions when there was no information available. Information is available now, and governments should start acting upon it instead of trying save their hides by pretending they haven't made some grave mistakes. — Tzeentch

This we can talk about. Typically Dutch is no wish to punish. As an example, some hairsalons only take 1.5 m distance, others insist on ventilation, masks for personnel and clients and 1.5 m. In that last situation, barely any chance of infection arises but both are treated the same. If a client has covid, the hairdresser that cut his hair has to go into quarantine for 10 days. Instead, if you require ventilation and mask wearing and punish by locking the entire salon for 2 weeks if measures aren't taken regardless of an infection, you actually start having sensible rules and you sobe require such extreme lock downs.

The strain on the hospital was caused by symptoms too serious to leave untreated, with a 30% mortality rate for those admitted to the hospital and very long stays compared to a 6% mortality rate for the flu when admitted to the hospital and much shorter stays and much more cases requiring treatment than the flu as well.

Yet we accept this "problem" every year with the flu and other coronaviruses. — Tzeentch

This is bullshit.

Edit: Look up "immune imprinting". Previous infections with other strains of the same virus matter.

But the fatality rate wasn't the reason for measures. It was the impact on the healthcare system that required and continues to require measures. The fatality rate wasn't known and everybody who knew what he was talking about didn't talk about the fatality rate but case fatality rate. The problem in the end is no pre-existing immunity anywhere with a high reproduction rate.

I suspect an unhealthy amount of confirmation bias coming up, but I'll bite: What do you think this proves?