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US Politics: What goes up, must come down!


Fragile Bird

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1 hour ago, Fez said:

Considering how much he's been cheering on "Crazy Bernie" in his tweets, I think its more likely he has polling showing him beating Sanders.

Nah.  Much simpler.  Distraction from coronavirus and attendant market behavior.  If the economy is bad come October he loses (unless he's got everyone sufficiently distracted).  I think it is that simple.

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Man I haven't been paying too much attention to the market throughout the week.  Guess I figured it'd rebound and I've just been busy.  But damn.  We're getting pretty close to "correction" territory.  The market is not the best indicator for predicting presidential elections - that would be GDP growth - but the two are obviously correlated.  It would be pretty hilarious if Trump was felled by another virus.

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Bah, I’m surprised Trump has a law firm willing to work for him, considering he’s so notorious about not paying bills, and secondly because many good law firms won’t act for Trump because they don’t want to damage their reputations by acting for him.

Whatever law firm filed the law suit is probably the law firm that will file every law suit, if indeed there’s more to come. Bloomberg could do the same, put a law firm on retainer and have them file every defense to every Trump suit.

Trump almost never follows through on his law suits anyway, they’re intimidation suits meant to shut people up, to bully them.

Trump's lawyer is Charles Harder who represented Peter Thiel in his lawsuit against Gawker. He's the go-to guy for wealthy celebrities who want to use the power of defamation lawsuits to try and suppress ugly facts.  And yes, it's pretty likely Harder will handle all defamation suits going forward. 

That said, the suit is misconceived and bound to fail because of the First Amendment.  John Solomon's "opinion" pieces in the Hill fanning the Hunter Biden Ukraine controversy would be potentially defamatory under the standard adopted by Trump, but  pointing out his hypocrisy is really a waste of breath.

The lawsuit is an attempt to work the refs and bolster the conspiracy narrative that the media and the Dems have been out to get him from Day 1. 

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12 minutes ago, DMC said:

Man I haven't been paying too much attention to the market throughout the week.  Guess I figured it'd rebound and I've just been busy.  But damn.  We're getting pretty close to "correction" territory.  The market is not the best indicator for predicting presidential elections - that would be GDP growth - but the two are obviously correlated.  It would be pretty hilarious if Trump was felled by another virus.

Yup.  My 401K has taken a beating.  

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In "no, BernieBros are really that bad" news, because of Warren's response last night in a town hall in which she pointed out, rightly, that Sanders in 2016 supported superdelegates overturning the will of the plurality of voters to elect him and now is afraid of it - #PrimaryWarren is trending, where they want to make Warren lose her Senate seat.

Yes, NOT ALL BERNIE supporters, but fuck. 

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33 minutes ago, DMC said:

Man I haven't been paying too much attention to the market throughout the week.  Guess I figured it'd rebound and I've just been busy.  But damn.  We're getting pretty close to "correction" territory.  The market is not the best indicator for predicting presidential elections - that would be GDP growth - but the two are obviously correlated.  It would be pretty hilarious if Trump was felled by another virus.

I think just about every market around the world is IN correction territory. But, keep in mind, I think the Nasdaq is only just down for the year and the Dow is down to late November. I will make some wild statements that you might want to consider and talk to an adviser about. 
 

There will likely be a ‘dead cat bounce’ pretty soon. That’s a term of art for ‘ok, the correction is over and I’m going to jump in because these prices look great’ in some circles and ‘look at the idiots who think this correction is over’ in others. If you are worried and you see prices go up you may want to sell into the bounce up.

I personally believe there is more to come simply because Covid-19 has not spread yet in the US, and there’s no way in hell the US can stop it when it’s spreading everywhere else. For one thing, this ‘first’ reported case of a community case of Covid-19 in Sacramento? Hospitals have not been allowed to test for Covid-19 unless the patient fits into a narrow definition, that they travelled to China or associated with someone who travelled to China. The CDC has to broaden the criteria. There might be dozens or even hundreds of cases out there this very minute. My expectation is that there will be a second down-leg once more stories come out.

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36 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

In "no, BernieBros are really that bad" news, because of Warren's response last night in a town hall in which she pointed out, rightly, that Sanders in 2016 supported superdelegates overturning the will of the plurality of voters to elect him and now is afraid of it - #PrimaryWarren is trending, where they want to make Warren lose her Senate seat.

Yes, NOT ALL BERNIE supporters, but fuck. 

I wonder if mr consistent who speaks the truth is going to address the hypocrisy of his newfound reversal on this or just double down per usual.  Things like this make his complaints about rigged systems sure sound like little more than whining to be allowed to rig things in his own favor.   I’m also curious if the vitriol toward Warren will be met this time with more than speculation about how it’s probably not even really his fan base so why should he take ownership (it could be a guy sitting in bed who weighs 400 lbs, ok?

eta: fwiw it would do a lot in my view of him if he does confront the hypocrisy and say he supports the decision he originally fought for on this.  Double if he speaks forthrightly against the vitriol being spewed on his behalf.   

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41 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

I personally believe there is more to come simply because Covid-19 has not spread yet in the US, and there’s no way in hell the US can stop it when it’s spreading everywhere else. For one thing, this ‘first’ reported case of a community case of Covid-19 in Sacramento? Hospitals have not been allowed to test for Covid-19 unless the patient fits into a narrow definition, that they travelled to China or associated with someone who travelled to China. The CDC has to broaden the criteria. There might be dozens or even hundreds of cases out there this very minute. My expectation is that there will be a second down-leg once more stories come out.

The first case is chilling. She had no contact with anyone who was at risk, suggesting it’s already in the general public. And worse, she was at the hospital for four days waiting for the test, so her interactions with staff could cause more infections, and then their unknown interactions further spread it.

Decent chances this pops soon.

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1 hour ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Trump's lawyer is Charles Harder who represented Peter Thiel in his lawsuit against Gawker. He's the go-to guy for wealthy celebrities who want to use the power of defamation lawsuits to try and suppress ugly facts.  And yes, it's pretty likely Harder will handle all defamation suits going forward. 

That said, the suit is misconceived and bound to fail because of the First Amendment.  John Solomon's "opinion" pieces in the Hill fanning the Hunter Biden Ukraine controversy would be potentially defamatory under the standard adopted by Trump, but  pointing out his hypocrisy is really a waste of breath.

The lawsuit is an attempt to work the refs and bolster the conspiracy narrative that the media and the Dems have been out to get him from Day 1. 

I looked up Harder out of curiousity and I see that he created his firm in 2013 with two other well-known lawyers, and one of them left the firm in 2018. Apparently they formed the firm in order to be strong defenders of the first amendment, and the partner found that taking clients like Trump was incompatible with their original mission statement. And his clients were getting upset seeing what kind of clients the firm was taking on.

I also see that Harder was reported as 'stalking' CNN. I assume the next law suit will be against them, and perhaps some of their hosts personally.

It has been reported that Trump is searching for dirt against some of the ex-military figures who held positions in his administration and eventually left or were forced out, hoping to bring criminal charges against them.

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

The first case is chilling. She had no contact with anyone who was at risk, suggesting it’s already in the general public. And worse, she was at the hospital for four days waiting for the test, so her interactions with staff could cause more infections, and then their unknown interactions further spread it.

Decent chances this pops soon.

It's even more shocking than that. California is following 8,500 people! A researcher from the Boston area I just saw interviewed says there are many people there who should be tested for Covid-19 as well.

This makes me wonder how much the CDC has been infiltrated by Trumpers, or is being ordered around by Trumpers. We are in great shape in the US, it's contained!

You think the Chinese population is suspicious of it's authorities, wait until the American public becomes aware of this stuff.

It kind of reminds me of how cynical I got about mad cow disease. Canada made public the news that some cases were discovered, and we suffered badly for it, our beef being banned by many countries for years. The US? Nope, we got none here! Nosirree! Just ignore those cattle ranchers burying a herd with bulldozers in the back forty....no those cows aren't staggering and falling as we drive them into the slaughterhouses...

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2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

That's one way to look at it. My approach was more in line with the tradional logic of dictatorships.

Panem et circenses. So more back to life and death feel of the old Roman arena. Thought as an American you'd be appreciative of that, since Rome was a bit f role model for your Republic.

I mean what could satisfy the masses more than Roger Stone or Harvey Weinstein getting their heads smashed in on the fields of the arena, pardon football fields.

And as German, we have more experience with dictatorships.

Alternatively, you could also remove any restrictions on opioids. To borrow from another thinker, you'd literally have (even more) opioids for the masses. So you don't have to rely televangelists.

I get the point you’re making, but I’d just have the white collar criminals play lions, tigers and bears, go die!  

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S&P 500 has posted the largest single day drop in its history.  The 1st, 3rd and 6th largest single day drops by total points have occurred this week.  Admittedly, a bit of a flawed metric to use total points rather than % drop, but still.  A lot of money has disappeared in the past 4 days. 

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1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

S&P 500 has posted the largest single day drop in its history.  The 1st, 3rd and 6th largest single day drops by total points have occurred this week.  Admittedly, a bit of a flawed metric to use total points rather than % drop, but still.  A lot of money has disappeared in the past 4 days. 

I think it's more than a trillion dollars now.

'Gulps'

I guess that dead cat bounce might not come for a while.

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20 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

It's even more shocking than that. California is following 8,500 people! A researcher from the Boston area I just saw interviewed says there are many people there who should be tested for Covid-19 as well.

This makes me wonder how much the CDC has been infiltrated by Trumpers, or is being ordered around by Trumpers. We are in great shape in the US, it's contained!

You think the Chinese population is suspicious of it's authorities, wait until the American public becomes aware of this stuff.

It kind of reminds me of how cynical I got about mad cow disease. Canada made public the news that some cases were discovered, and we suffered badly for it, our beef being banned by many countries for years. The US? Nope, we got none here! Nosirree! Just ignore those cattle ranchers burying a herd with bulldozers in the back forty....no those cows aren't staggering and falling as we drive them into the slaughterhouses...

The 8,400 number is misleading because it’s so much worse than that. There are 8,400 people who were in areas of concern and returned. You have to include the average interactions they have, and then keep magnifying and multiplying that. I’m not exactly sure how you calculate that, but if you do it for a month it’s probably well over 1.000.000 people who have the potential to have it.

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I think just about every market around the world is IN correction territory.

Well, "correction" is a pretty specified term, operationally.  I'd usually wait til the close of the week to make a determination, but we're getting pretty close.

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, "correction" is a pretty specified term, operationally.  I'd usually wait til the close of the week to make a determination, but we're getting pretty close.

Yes, it means 10% down from it's high. It was down 7% so far this week, but it was down last week as well. A correction is not 10% down in a week, if that's what you meant? I'm not sure.

Oh wait, I see it's down 11.2% this week with today's drop, and 12.2% down since it hit a record high of 29,551 on Feb. 12.

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Okay, so I completely understand that there are good-faith arguments against Sanders becoming the nominee. 

That having been said, if the people who have those good-faith arguments try to block his nomination at the convention (assuming he has a plurality of delegates), this (NYTimes, limited clicks) is about the stupidest fucking way of going about it, and will likely forever divide the Democratic party.

Quote

In a reflection of the establishment’s wariness about Mr. Sanders, only nine of the 93 superdelegates interviewed said that Mr. Sanders should become the nominee purely on the basis of arriving at the convention with a plurality, if he was short of a majority.

I'll add the usual caveats about the very small likelihood of a brokered convention actually happening, etc., etc. I'll also add the caveat that if Sanders does indeed win a plurality, the polling in the Democratic party will most likely come down as viewing him as the most likely candidate to beat Trump. But, if the scenario plays out as the article fears, handing the nomination to anyone but Sanders will burn the party to the ground.

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