American Election 2024

Tony Crocker said:
When will Elon realize that it's the Donald who is:
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I think Elon thinks of Trump primarily as a useful idiot.

Tony Crocker said:
Often, when the stock market falls, the money goes into bonds. This time investors wanted no part of bonds with the inflation fears, so both bond and stock prices were crashing at the same time.
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Bonds aren't even at 5% currently, plenty of room for future interest rate hikes if tariffs are as inflationary as they might end up. Fed is potentially in for a world of hurt. Could have sinking employment at the same time as inflation skyrockets from tariffs. Do you cut rates or increase rates in such an environment? You'll either kill employment more or increase inflation more. Pick one.

For reference, the Fed already essentially cut rates. They had been letting $25B per month in bonds to expire from their balance sheet. They dropped that down to $5B per month in roll-offs (a $240B/year change in policy). So the Fed is replacing most of the bonds on its balance sheet now, requiring fewer private buyers to pick up the slack. The feds balance sheet topped out at ~$9T and is now down to 'only' ~$6.7T (down ~25%).
 
Tony Crocker said:
Often, when the stock market falls, the money goes into bonds.
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I have some (40 years) experience investing. I know this.
Tony Crocker said:
This time investors wanted no part of bonds with the inflation fears, so both bond and stock prices were crashing at the same time.
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I thought they wanted no part of US bonds (and were selling) because they lost faith in the US. This ^^ makes more sense.
 
jamesdeluxe said:
Americans, both rich and not so rich, prepping for doomsday:
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No way virtually any of that stuff ever gets used for "doomsday" IMHO. Even if a 'doomsday' were to happen it would be so different than anyone prepping would be ready for. You can't prep for literally any and all scenarios. What you really need is a plan of extreme flexibility and actual skills/knowledge to flex to the situation. Not a bunch of permanent infrastructure in a random location.
 
EMSC said:
No way virtually any of that stuff ever gets used for "doomsday" IMHO. Even if a 'doomsday' were to happen it would be so different than anyone prepping would be ready for. You can't prep for literally any and all scenarios. What you really need is a plan of extreme flexibility and actual skills/knowledge to flex to the situation. Not a bunch of permanent infrastructure in a random location.
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You speaking like preppers are renowned for critical thinking.🤣
 
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Like an episode of Days of Our Lives.
 
Historically, I haven’t been much for street protesting. Today’s political assassination here in Minnesota, however, put me over the edge. The State Patrol asked everybody to stay home from the No Kings event at the state capitol in Saint Paul because the gunman is still at large and left information about the protests in his car. Apparently, nobody listened:

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Saw this crew reenacting the Abbey Road cover in the Cathedral Hill neighborhood of Saint Paul on our walk back to the car:

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Any attendance estimates?

It's certainly understandable that authorities wanted people out of harms way.

But it does seem like staying home from No Kings because of political violence defeats the purpose.
 
As of yesterday, the State Patrol was planning for 10,000 and the organizers were hoping for 40,000. The best estimates of today’s attendance seem to be about 25,000.
 
I thought about going to the parade in DC today, but I wanted to bike there and they don't allow bikes very close to the festivities. I'm about 9 miles from the White House. I definitely didn't feel like riding Metro. I'm pro-military having worked in Defense all my career, but I've seen a lot of military hardware over the years so watching tanks drive down the street doesn't overly excite me. Instead , I took a bike ride in the opposite direction :-)
 
South Lake Tahoe Y this morning.
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We were on our way to Angora Lakes which is a less than one mile hike to beautiful alpine lakes. Upper one has 500’ long beach, cabin, rowboat and SUP rentals, store famous for their lemonade, cliff jumping and waterfalls from snow melting below Echo Peak. There was a No Kings event at Lakeview Commons Beach in SLT from 2-4. Instead, we stopped at 1 year anniversary of new brewer (who I’d met Fri eve at Ski Run Blvd Farmers Market and Street Fair) at Cold Water Brewing where we enjoyed some free tastes, apps and snacks, live music and $5 pints. We took back way to cabin from there to avoid any traffic/problems from event.
 
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We were in Palm Springs for the Far West Ski Association Annual Convention. Liz took a break to attend the local No Kings event at 6PM.
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Liz is wearing a Michael Jordan Bulls jersey because Trump thinks that means you belong to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.


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It was 104F Saturday. At least it wasn't Sunday when it got to 114F.
 
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Is there a sense of the start of a turning tide on the ground over there? Obviously the No Kings demonstrators would have been Democrat voters in November. Any suggestion that he has lost a semi significant portion of his MAGA base yet?
 
jamesdeluxe said:
That's a solid no.
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I'm :beating-a-dead-horse: here but no one in the MAGA base is bailing until it affects them personally. And Trump will change course (TACO!) if key constituencies object. Just this week, he was pressured by agribusiness and the hospitality industry to stop the ICE raids on farms, hotels and restaurants.
 
flyover said:
Um . . . https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us...s-hotels-restaurants-wapo-reports-2025-06-17/

Well, of course he will also reverse a change of course when opposing key constituencies object to his change of course.

OK, I'm confusing myself at this point.
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Trump is for disruption. Thankfully he can't be re-elected. Only he knows what motivates him at this point. I reluctantly voted for him in 2024. I've voted against him in the past. Both parties put up flawed candidates.

If you really want to piss me off, call me a MAGA. I dislike that term and I think there are a great many people like myself who helped get him elected that don't identify with it at all. Call me a conservative leaning independent who had to pick from two lousy choices :-)

I hope some better leaders emerge in the future, but we kinda get what we deserve. I'm afraid an increasingly polarized America will continue to produce polarizing candidates. And it's not just America - authoritarian populism.
 
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