US Politics: OBAMAGATE - An American Story

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

35 minutes ago, Fez said:

On the economy, I do not expect Republicans to agree to extend the extra $600/week UI payments when they expire in July. Which means things are likely to start looking much more dire in August and September, even if there isn't a resurgence of the virus. Right now those payments are helping prop up consumer spending, such as it is, in a pretty massive way.

Nah, the plebs will just be forced back to work, consequences be damned. 

Because everyone knows we all just want to go back to work for our asshole bosses and rich overlords. They've ingrained that in us since we were kids. We must work! Now don't ask about the man behind the curtain. 

[Fez]

45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Nah, the plebs will just be forced back to work, consequences be damned. 

Because everyone knows we all just want to go back to work for our asshole bosses and rich overlords. They've ingrained that in us since we were kids. We must work! Now don't ask about the man behind the curtain. 

Except companies won't rehire/restart their workers if they don't think the demand is there.

There is literally no way to just "go back to normal" the way Trump keeps talking about.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

52 minutes ago, Fez said:

Except companies won't rehire/restart their workers if they don't think the demand is there.

There is literally no way to just "go back to normal" the way Trump keeps talking about.

I know. I feel like this is all obvious. And when you listen to companies describing how they will go back to work, big or small, I am just wondering how they think they'll make a profit. The margins for a lot of companies and small businesses is pretty low anyways. 25-50% capacity, optimistically, does not sound like a good business model.

[Guest]

S&P 500 is up nearly 3.4% right now. It's almost scary how just the tiniest bit of good news gets such an outsized market reaction. 

I'm rethinking my investment strategy yet again.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I know. I feel like this is all obvious. And when you listen to companies describing how they will go back to work, big or small, I am just wondering how they think they'll make a profit. The margins for a lot of companies and small businesses is pretty low anyways. 25-50% capacity, optimistically, does not sound like a good business model.

We in Oklahoma have apparently solved that problem by just ignoring the capacity limitations. Everywhere I've driven by here has looked like it was before the pandemic hit. 

[Mexal]

5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

S&P 500 is up nearly 3.4% right now. It's almost scary how just the tiniest bit of good news gets such an outsized market reaction. 

I'm rethinking my investment strategy yet again.

It's so far divorced from the fundamentals that I just cannot see it lasting like this beyond this year. Think about the Big Short and how the guys who figured out what was happening couldn't understand why the market wasn't crashing. I think there is some of that here. At some point, all of the debt load that people are carrying will come crashing down... or it won't. I guess we'll see.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

We in Oklahoma have apparently solved that problem by just ignoring the capacity limitations. Everywhere I've driven by here has looked like it was before the pandemic hit. 

Same here, and what's making it worse from what I can tell is that places are so thirsty for business, they're offering great deals, only magnifying the issue. 

[Maithanet]

18 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

We in Oklahoma have apparently solved that problem by just ignoring the capacity limitations. Everywhere I've driven by here has looked like it was before the pandemic hit. 

Yeah, I'm reading a lot of articles to that effect.  Obviously not EVERYBODY is throwing caution to the wind, but enough people seem to be that it is hard to imagine that the virus isn't spreading rapidly.  Particularly in places where the govt is actively pushing people to go out like Georgia, Texas, etc.  It feels like another spike is just around the corner.   

And if in the next month some states do indeed see a huge jump in cases, I am kind of at a loss as to what they're going to do.  Like hypothetically, let's say it's June 10 and Georgia has increased from seeing ~40 COVID deaths a day (typical of the past month) to ~250.  Will Gov Kemp continue to value the economy over human lives?  If yes, what happens when it's June 20, and that number has increased to 400?  Or July 1 when it is 1,000?

If there is one thing we've seen pretty clearly thus far it's that ignoring the coronavirus does not make it go away, and right now many places seem to assume that the bare minimum of protections are surely good enough because...reasons. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, Mexal said:

It's so far divorced from the fundamentals that I just cannot see it lasting like this beyond this year. Think about the Big Short and how the guys who figured out what was happening couldn't understand why the market wasn't crashing. I think there is some of that here. At some point, all of the debt load that people are carrying will come crashing down... or it won't. I guess we'll see.

We printed money and gave it to the people who already owned all the stocks to begin with. Of course that was going to come back online quickly. I just don't know how we pay for all of this, even if we didn't have a huge debt load. I'd bet we pass $30t by this point next year, and that's generous. 

[Darth Richard II]

16 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Is BIDON fighting Godzilla in the next movie?

Naw he joins up with Godzilla to fight MECHA-SANDERS.

[Fury Resurrected]

5 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Naw he joins up with Godzilla to fight MECHA-SANDERS.

Gojira wouldn’t be teaming up that way at all. Environmental issues are her only platform.

[Darth Richard II]

6 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Gojira wouldn’t be teaming up that way at all. Environmental issues are her only platform.

Touche!

[Jace, Extat]

32 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Gojira wouldn’t be teaming up that way at all. Environmental issues are her only platform.

Waddaya, the worm guy?

[Kalbear]

Meanwhile, Trump says he's been taking Chloroquinine, and here's my response:

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

53 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Gojira wouldn’t be teaming up that way at all. Environmental issues are her only platform.

WATCH OUT FOR MOTHBIRDRA!!! 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Meanwhile, Trump says he's been taking Chloroquinine, and here's my response:

 

 

Like I said in the other thread, he's just lying about how he gets tested.

[Ran]

6 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Right, the sale of Cuban cigars in Canada is going to run the Cuban economy.

Cuba does billions of dollars of business with the rest of the world. How is this happening under the theory of US sanctions being such an issue? The EU, Mexico, and Canada passed acts or regulations that basically countered sanctions under Helms-Burton, for example, penalizing the US if tried to enforce it against their companies 

Yes, the US has caused trouble under Trump, threatening financial institutions moreso than industry. This doesn't change the fact that Cuba's economy was badly managed for much of its history following the Revolution. In particular, Castro's singular influence on agricultural policy was a fair disaster for Cuba.

 

[Guest]

There's no way Trump is healthy enough to take hydroxychloroquine.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

There's no way Trump is healthy enough to take hydroxychloroquine.

Drop and give me 50! 

[Mexal]

25 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

There's no way Trump is healthy enough to take hydroxychloroquine.

I guess we'll find out if he has a heart attack. Wouldn't surprise me if he was making it up though.