US Politics : And the Finer Art of Grumbling

[GAROVORKIN]

6 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

When I lived in Reno it was known that the Amazon warehouse in Fernley, about 30 miles away, hired their employees as temps and the emp then had to work as temp for a long time until they could become a permanent hire.  A lot of people when through Amazon's revolving door hoping to get on permanent but couldn't hack the 15-20 miles a day they put in picking orders. 

Washoe County also gave much away when Tesla was looking for a place for it's giga factory.  I'm not in favor of these type of incentives that are used for getting companies, and sports arenas, to build in a particular place.   Cheating your town of taxes for temp jobs isn't a great idea. 

 

Sounds so 19th Century 

Boston is one  the Cities competing to land Amazon.

 

[LongRider]

40 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

As a resident of PA...  Good! 

As a resident of CA, good for you PA!   Yay!

[Guest]

Market sell-off continues as the DOW and S&P both drop nearly 2% today.

So is this just a correction in the market that has been long overdue, or the start of a longer bear market?

The skyrocketing market over the past year, along with the 7 consecutive years of job growth and tight labor market have been making me rather antsy, to the point I placed a call to my financial advisor to get some reassurances about the positions in my retirement portfolio, but the past few days have left me less than reassured.

I've been predicting a recession during Trump's tenure in office; could this be the pieces being moved into place for the start of a recession a few months from now?

[Paladin of Ice]

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

This is big.

 

 

I'm hoping this is also a good sign for the case that SCOTUS took about partisan gerrymandering. If they mean to say partisan gerrymandering is ok, you'd think they would allow the challenge of the Penn Republicans. If they're about to say partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, however...

I can't cross my fingers hard enough. Taking gerrymandering for partisan purpose out of the equation is one of the few feasible positive steps the country can take without having liberals/progressives take unified control of Federal and State systems for a generation so they actually get a chance to implement solutions without Republican lawmakers doing constant kamikaze attacks at the basic system of governance.

 

Quote

The skyrocketing market over the past year, along with the 7 consecutive years of job growth and tight labor market have been making me rather antsy, to the point I placed a call to my financial advisor to get some reassurances about the positions in my retirement portfolio, but the past few days have left me less than reassured.

I've been predicting a recession during Trump's tenure in office; could this be the pieces being moved into place for the start of a recession a few months from now?

I've felt for awhile that the floor was going to fall out from under us sometime soon. Still too early to say, but combined with last week, (Friday got all the attention, but there were a couple of other bumpy, selloff days last week, and IIRC the market was down about a thousand points or more overall) it's a worrying sign.

And more importantly than the Dow, (which I've been told represents a relatively narrow and small group of industries and companies) the S&P 500 (which I've heard is considered a better, or at least more "real" market indicator) is also tanking pretty hard the last few trading days. And that's despite the fact that it never rose as much as the Dow did.

Not good signs.

[GAROVORKIN]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Market sell-off continues as the DOW and S&P both drop nearly 2% today.

So is this just a correction in the market that has been long overdue, or the start of a longer bear market?

The skyrocketing market over the past year, along with the 7 consecutive years of job growth and tight labor market have been making me rather antsy, to the point I placed a call to my financial advisor to get some reassurances about the positions in my retirement portfolio, but the past few days have left me less than reassured.

I've been predicting a recession during Trump's tenure in office; could this be the pieces being moved into place for the start of a recession a few months from now?

If its market correction , then things will  be fine, if it's  the beginning of a 7 month bear market , then we are deep trouble.

[Fragile Bird]

The pullback in the market continues. Dow is down 555, oops, 570, oops 563, oops 570...

I suspect the drop will accelerate as we approach the closing.

We are now down to the 50 day moving average. We could see a bounce tomorrow, but if the fall continues we may head for the 100 day moving average. The Dow has dropped below 25,000 to 24,955. The 100 day is 24,011, the next level after that is the 200 day, which is 22,724.

Right now this is just a pullback. A correction is down 10% or more. Both have been natural, regular events. No panic!

Down 611 for a moment....

Exciting days!

And I heard the WH said of course they were concerned if the market falls. Idiots don't know what regular events are,

Oh hey, down 660 for a second!

[GAROVORKIN]

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The pullback in the market continues. Dow is down 555, oops, 570, oops 563, oops 570...

I suspect the drop will accelerate as we approach the closing.

We are now down to the 50 day moving average. We could see a bounce tomorrow, but if the fall continues we may head for the 100 day moving average. The Dow has dropped below 25,000 to 24,955. The 100 day is 24,011, the next level after that is the 200 day, which is 22,724.

Right now this is just a pullback. A correction is down 10% or more. Both have been natural, regular events. No panic!

Down 611 for a moment....

Exciting days!

And I heard the WH said of course they were concerned if the market falls. Idiots don't know what regular events are,

Oh hey, down 660 for a second!

A possible 10 percent correction on the horizon ?

[Ice Queen]

11 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

I'm hoping this is also a good sign for the case that SCOTUS took about partisan gerrymandering. If they mean to say partisan gerrymandering is ok, you'd think they would allow the challenge of the Penn Republicans. If they're about to say partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional, however...

I can't cross my fingers hard enough. Taking gerrymandering for partisan purpose out of the equation is one of the few feasible positive steps the country can take without having liberals/progressives take unified control of Federal and State systems for a generation so they actually get a chance to implement solutions without Republican lawmakers doing constant kamikaze attacks at the basic system of governance.

 

I've felt for awhile that the floor was going to fall out from under us sometime soon. Still too early to say, but combined with last week, (Friday got all the attention, but there were a couple of other bumpy, selloff days last week, and IIRC the market was down about a thousand points or more overall) it's a worrying sign.

And more importantly than the Dow, (which I've been told represents a relatively narrow and small group of industries and companies) the S&P 500 (which I've heard is considered a better, or at least more "real" market indicator) is also tanking pretty hard the last few trading days. And that's despite the fact that it never rose as much as the Dow did.

Not good signs.

This was a matter of PA constitutional law, not federal law. As I understand it, SCOTUS doesn't really like to get involved in that. 

[Fragile Bird]

10 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Market sell-off continues as the DOW and S&P both drop nearly 2% today.

So is this just a correction in the market that has been long overdue, or the start of a longer bear market?

The skyrocketing market over the past year, along with the 7 consecutive years of job growth and tight labor market have been making me rather antsy, to the point I placed a call to my financial advisor to get some reassurances about the positions in my retirement portfolio, but the past few days have left me less than reassured.

I've been predicting a recession during Trump's tenure in office; could this be the pieces being moved into place for the start of a recession a few months from now?

There is no recession on the horizon for the US. We are having a normal pullback. As I said in the last thread, since 1900 we've had 123 10% drops in the market, called a correction. 

Ah, we just hit a 5% drop, a pullback, since the high in the market. The Dow is down 725 points. Like I said, it is accelerating towards the close.

If it drops to 800 it'll be a record, but the market has been at record highs.

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

A possible 10 percent correction on the horizon ?

I would not be surprised, since there hasn't been one since 2015, after the Brexit vote. The market turned around and just kept moving up after that.

The traditional months for something worse are September and October. Traders go off on their summer vacations, and when they return in late August they start crunching numbers and try to figure out if companies are not going to hit their numbers for the year. It's third quarter, and by then it's usually too late to turn around the year. Bingo, a bear market.

But companies are in good shape this year.

Oh, down below 1,068! 4.16%, acceleration after stocks broke through the 50 day.

[Mexal]

14 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

This was a matter of PA constitutional law, not federal law. As I understand it, SCOTUS doesn't really like to get involved in that. 

This was my interpretation as well.

[Guest]

It was down -1359 briefly, but has since rebounded to -1110.

[Fragile Bird]

Dow down 6%! 1,500 points!

Margin calls are being made, people have to sell.

The trading curbs come in at 7%, I think.

The market is closed for an hour if the drop hits 10%.

Ok, in the brief time I've been typing, the drop is now only 1,000, less than 4%.

[Shryke]

6 hours ago, Altherion said:

It's the only deal they can get. The Tech Lords are liberal where social issues are concerned, but when it comes to making money, they're no less ruthless than any other corporation. And this will probably be remembered as the good days: sooner or later, Amazon will figure out how to automate those warehouse jobs.

You must not be paying attention to the shit going on at Google and the like. The Alt-Right is all up in the tech sector, exactly as you'd expect from an industry full of young white men.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

No, that's not how the American political system works. If Illinois has voter registration by party, he can declare himself to be any party he wants to be and there is no way for party officials to "kick him out." The only thing one has to do to be a member of a party in the USA is to officially register as a member, and the party cannot prevent anyone from doing so. They can pass all sorts of resolutions denouncing him and saying he is "not really" a Republican, but that will not get him off the Republican primary ballot.

Yup. It's exactly how the crazies have taken over the Republican party.

[Shryke]

Anyway, this was interesting:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/i-hope-instance-fake-news-fbi-messages-show-bureaus-real-reaction-trump-firing-james-comey

Doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, but it's nice to have more concrete proof of how much of a liar Trump and Co are.

It's a big article on internal communications within the FBI in reaction to the Comey firing. As you probably suspected, despite what Trump claimed it appears that absolutely no one within the organization was happy to see it happen.

Quote

 

Trump himself blasted Comey too, stating in an interview that the former director was "a showboat. He's a grandstander" and that the FBI "has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that. You take a look at the FBI a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil—less than a year ago. It hasn't recovered from that." A few days later, the New York Times reported that Trump had told Russian officials visiting him in the Oval Office the day after Comey’s firing that Comey was a “nut job.”

Over the next few days, a wealth of evidence emerged to suggest that Trump and Sanders were playing fast and loose with the truth. But we now have the documents to prove that decisively. Their disclosure was not a leak but an authorized action by the FBI, which released to us under the Freedom of Information Act more than 100 pages of leadership communications to staff dealing with the firing. This material tells a dramatic story about the FBI’s reaction to the Comey firing—but it is neither a story of gratitude to the president nor a story of an organization in turmoil relieved by a much-needed leadership transition.

 

Quote

 

The bureau identified 116 pages of responsive material and withheld only 13 pages, so this material constitutes the overwhelming bulk of communications to staff on the subject of the firing.

What does it show? Simply put, it shows that Ellingsen nailed it when she described a reaction of “shock” and “profound sadness” at the removal of a beloved figure to whom the workforce was deeply attached. It also shows that no aspect of the White House’s statements about the bureau were accurate—and, indeed, that the White House engendered at least some resentment among the rank and file for whom it purported to speak. As Amy Hess, the special agent in charge in Louisville, put it: “On a personal note, I vehemently disagree with any negative assertions about the credibility of this institution or the people herein.”

Before detailing the story these documents tell, let’s pause a moment over the story they do not tell. They contain not a word that supports the notion that the FBI was in turmoil. They contain not a word that reflects gratitude to the president for removing a nut job. There is literally not a single sentence in any of these communications that reflects criticism of Comey’s leadership of the FBI. Not one special agent in charge describes Comey’s removal as some kind of opportunity for new leadership. And if any FBI official really got on the phone with Sanders to express gratitude or thanks “for the president’s decision,” nobody reported that to his or her staff.

 

 

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Trump is back up to 40% aggregate approval, in case you were thinking things were going well. 

It's a very strange world we live in when the president sitting at 40% approval is "bad" news for the opposition.  I'm more concerned about the generic ballot getting down to about 5 points in the 538 aggregate (RCP still has it at about 6.5, but they use considerably fewer firms).  Why is this happening?  Could be Trump staying relatively quiet and not dropping a twitter turd that pisses off 2/3s of the electorate, could be natural regression/tightening with GOP leaners coming home, could be the "shutdown" led to public malaise towards both parties that disproportionately hurt Dems, could even be random noise that will even itself out next month.  Hell, in the case of a couple polls 538 is using, could even be a post SOTU bump.  It's probably a little bit of each, and I think there's some interaction there - i.e. GOP leaners are coming home because Trump has kept his mouth shut.  It's a couple weeks old, but Amy Walter at CPR has good analysis on this here.

While this is certainly something to keep an eye on, there's still plenty of reasons to remain optimistic:  As the election season heats up, Trump saying and tweeting offensive things to dominate news cycles is as good a bet as one could make; the president's party usually loses support as the election approaches; there is still a very large enthusiasm gap favoring the Dems, and enthusiasm matters a great deal in midterms (for turnout); GOP House retirements are already at record levels and we still have a few more months.  Plus, there's this was just reported today:  

Quote

More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents, according to the latest round of fundraising numbers. And of that group, more than a dozen had less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers.

For the GOP, here’s the really disturbing part: The trendline is getting worse, not better. Despite the myriad advantages of incumbency and control of Congress, there are more House members with less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers than the quarter before. [...]

More than 80 Democratic challengers in Republican-held districts have at least $250,000 in cash on hand at the end of the year — a sign that the House battlefield may be wider than previously thought.

 

15 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

This was a matter of PA constitutional law, not federal law. As I understand it, SCOTUS doesn't really like to get involved in that. 

This is important to remember.  SCOTUS intervened in the NC case because it dealt with federal law and will be effectively be decided by the Wisconsin/Maryland cases.  This is not the case in the PA..case.

[Zorral]

So is it the little hands responsible for these stomach drops in the markets?  Wasn't it just a week ago he was crowing about well he is handling the economy, so much better than anyone before him?  What's he got to say about all this -- beyond it's Obama's, Hillary's Somebody's fault not MINE!

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

So is it the little hands responsible for these stomach drops in the markets?  Wasn't it just a week ago he was crowing about well he is handling the economy, so much better than anyone before him?  What's he got to say about all this -- beyond it's Obama's, Hillary's Somebody's fault not MINE!

Why, it will be Robert Mueller's fault, of course, for undermining the best leadership America has ever had.

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Why, it will be Robert Mueller's fault, of course, for undermining the best leadership America has ever had.

Silly bugger, it's Hillary's fault!