American Politics

[Sirioja]

Great posts Hot Dog. My only quibble is that I believe the Chinese have been dumping USA Debt, in part because of what they saw happen to Iran and Russia, and still interest rates have remained low. You could probably change my mind though. You likely know more about economics than anyone who's posted in this thread during the time I've followed it. But I shall not be intimidated, because I know more about flue gas than you do!

There's an identity in economics.

Current Account = Savings - Investment

As you know, the current account is the trade surplus, plus investment income received from overseas.

So, what does this mean? Basically, if the American government and American people are going to spend like drunken sailors (that is, the savings rate is low), and if investment is to remain at levels sufficient to (a) keep our government afloat (that is, buy the treasuries and municipal bonds to finance the government debt) and (b) keep our businesses from being starved of capital, we must run a trade deficit.

So you say, I don't like running huge trade deficits. How about getting Americans to save more instead? Or get the government to start running surpluses? Fat chance of that!

You could say the Chinese are our sugar daddies. They work hard, don't consume a lot, save a lot of money. And send us lots of cheap stuff! And what do we give them in return? Paper! It's a great deal!

And hey, we may just have a way out of this. Undoubtedly the politicians will keep running huge deficits. Maybe Donald will make a few key replacements at the Fed, people who will listen to his advice to keep interest rates low. VERY LOW. In fact, negative, like Japan and Germany used to do. Meanwhile, you're already seeing some loss of faith in the USA Currency as a result of the Trade Wars. That will help. We just start rolling over our debt at short maturities. With those negative interest rates the Chinese and other foreigners will be paying us money to hold our debt! Meanwhile, with inflation rolling along at 70% or 80%, that debt will get down to manageable levels in a hurry! What do you think?

In German brothels, Chinese pay most often more expensive than us, for getting less, because they are Asian. Girls love their money, small size and most often not demanding, just happy to get a milky skin with big eyes with make up girl, not always even pretty.

[Newton York]

I don't know fellas, I'm pretty desperate, Monica Lewinsky in her 20's looked kinda attractive. I probably would pay money to get a blowjob from her in a Bahnofvierstel type brothel place, but if she was giving it out for free, so much the better.

Besides, it's not about her looks, it's about having the power to have a somewhat attractive chick give you a blowjob, just cause. And she's one of the few cases we know of. I'm sure the dude had way hotter chicks blow him. I bet every president has. Why wouldn't they? Yes, money is the world's greatest aphrodisiac, but so is power.

[Tiny 12]

Clinton in his 2nd term was a pretty good President until he fucked up. Pun intended. He worked with Gingrich and the Republican majority in the House, signed into law some significant legislation including the capital gains tax cut in 1997, and as a direct result of his moderate governance, the economy under his watch prospered, and he balanced the budget. The only President to do that in now over 60 years!

Unfortunately, he was a cocky bastard who thought he could sweet talk his way out of anything, and when he got caught receiving BBBJ's (LOL) from an intern in the oval office all hell broke out. As a direct result of this dalliance, his shitbag wife was handed a Senate seat for her continued political support and she became the fucking **** she was destined to be. She really harmed the country IMHO and Bill gave us Hillary! I will never forgive him for that.

You've totally overlooked the worst part Axel. That intern was fat and ugly! The leader of the free world was getting blow jobs from a fat, ugly, intern! How could Clinton go head to head with someone like Vladimir Putin after that? The USA has never been so disgraced.

[Tiny 12]

I want to talk about another hill the Dems seem to want to die on: Chuckie Schumer's latest plan to shut down the Government. I hope the Demwits go through with it. It will be more entertaining than the latest episode of "White Lotus".

Democrats? Shut down government? Hahahahahahahaha! Good one Axel!

Chuckie's about as likely to shut down or reduce the size of government as he is to stop pulling strings behind the scenes to keep carried interest alive.

[Axel Heyst]

OK Cane, I've thought about it some more. The best I can come up with is getting us out of Afghanistan. That was big. And it was good. But was it really good? Not when 13 American service members died withdrawing. And not when we left tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the United States behind, at the mercy of the Taliban. I promise I tried Cane, I really tried, and I thought a lot. So I guess I must be totally unfair.

Perhaps my standards are high for the leader of the free world. I don't think the USA has had a decent president since Clinton in his second term.

Clinton in his 2nd term was a pretty good President until he fucked up. Pun intended. He worked with Gingrich and the Republican majority in the House, signed into law some significant legislation including the capital gains tax cut in 1997, and as a direct result of his moderate governance, the economy under his watch prospered, and he balanced the budget. The only President to do that in now over 60 years!

Unfortunately, he was a cocky bastard who thought he could sweet talk his way out of anything, and when he got caught receiving BBBJ's (LOL) from an intern in the oval office all hell broke out. As a direct result of this dalliance, his shitbag wife was handed a Senate seat for her continued political support and she became the fucking **** she was destined to be. She really harmed the country IMHO and Bill gave us Hillary! I will never forgive him for that.

[Tiny 12]

Most people don't understand the American / Chinese relationship up to now. It's not been one of China leaching of America, but a symbiotic economic one in which the Chinese lent the money to America to buy their cheap goods: America bought chinese goods, China recirculated the money into Treasury's. If that derails, American debt yields rise massively, so does inflation, so do your taxes. The tariffs are the icing on the cake. Musk is an idiot who is not making any material difference. If he were going to reform your healthcare system (the most expensive in the world yet still unjust and crap) I would be impressed.

It's looking bleak for America, but EU is arguably even more fucked. Still, I am optimistic about the power of science and technology and 10-20 years from now the world will probably be in a better place.

Yes, it's correct that China bought Treasuries but this is pretty much tantamount to lending money to USA. Ultimately, the yield on the treasuries is governed by supply demand and having a massive demand from China has been critical to keeping Treasury yields low for America. The corollary of this is that removal of Chinese demand would have inevitably pushed up yields. However yes, Chinese goods also aided lower inflation and lower interest rates.

The notion though that the USA has mountains of debt while China has none is ridiculous. China has more debt than the USA as it borrows to build things today that no one uses or needs to keep people employed. China just has a tendency to push this debt down to the city and state level.

There is one critical feature that people often forget when comparing debt / GDP ratios of countries like China and Japan vs USA: the fact that China and Japan have huge countervailing savings in the forms of household savings, which do not exist in America. This offsets to a great degree the admittedly huge debt overhangs. I agree China has been stupid in its massive over development of real state funded by debt but I don't see this turning into a Japanese type deflation, they will get the debt inflation out of the system (even if it takes time). American debt is scarely high, and with the economy now looking bleak, it's not a great time for America.

Great posts Hot Dog. My only quibble is that I believe the Chinese have been dumping USA Debt, in part because of what they saw happen to Iran and Russia, and still interest rates have remained low. You could probably change my mind though. You likely know more about economics than anyone who's posted in this thread during the time I've followed it. But I shall not be intimidated, because I know more about flue gas than you do!

There's an identity in economics.

Current Account = Savings - Investment

As you know, the current account is the trade surplus, plus investment income received from overseas.

So, what does this mean? Basically, if the American government and American people are going to spend like drunken sailors (that is, the savings rate is low), and if investment is to remain at levels sufficient to (a) keep our government afloat (that is, buy the treasuries and municipal bonds to finance the government debt) and (b) keep our businesses from being starved of capital, we must run a trade deficit.

So you say, I don't like running huge trade deficits. How about getting Americans to save more instead? Or get the government to start running surpluses? Fat chance of that!

You could say the Chinese are our sugar daddies. They work hard, don't consume a lot, save a lot of money. And send us lots of cheap stuff! And what do we give them in return? Paper! It's a great deal!

And hey, we may just have a way out of this. Undoubtedly the politicians will keep running huge deficits. Maybe Donald will make a few key replacements at the Fed, people who will listen to his advice to keep interest rates low. VERY LOW. In fact, negative, like Japan and Germany used to do. Meanwhile, you're already seeing some loss of faith in the USA Currency as a result of the Trade Wars. That will help. We just start rolling over our debt at short maturities. With those negative interest rates the Chinese and other foreigners will be paying us money to hold our debt! Meanwhile, with inflation rolling along at 70% or 80%, that debt will get down to manageable levels in a hurry! What do you think?

[Tiny 12]

I can't think of anything both big and really good that Biden did.

If you can't think of anything big and good that Biden did, then you aren't thinking very much at all and being totally unfair. In any event, Biden wasn't the candidate. It was the VP Harris. That said, I'm not here to try to prove the case. I'm not interested in trying to change anyone's mind. That's just a waste of time. So, believe what you want to. I just say you're wrong and move on. People say you can't easily change someone's mind by starting out with telling them they are wrong. Well again, I'm not interested in changing minds! But if I feel strongly about it, then I just might say the other side is wrong. How someone can think Trump the convicted felon (and that's just to start) is the lesser of evils and a suitable leader and representative of America on the world stage is beyond me! He's the worst President ever if you ask me due to a lack of respect for the Constitution and his attempt to overturn a free and fair election in what used to be the world's greatest democracy.

OK Cane, I've thought about it some more. The best I can come up with is getting us out of Afghanistan. That was big. And it was good. But was it really good? Not when 13 American service members died withdrawing. And not when we left tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the United States behind, at the mercy of the Taliban. I promise I tried Cane, I really tried, and I thought a lot. So I guess I must be totally unfair.

Perhaps my standards are high for the leader of the free world. I don't think the USA has had a decent president since Clinton in his second term.

[Tiny 12]

Thank you Elvis 2008. You pointed me to a very informative report. You also made an excellent logical argument the lays out why you have taken the positions that you have. We can all make money in our preferred ways. I am not going to let the report, or the arguments by Elvis deter my investments in to NVDA or AMD. But he will also make money buying bonds. Which one of us will achieve greater returns. Who knows? Because I have never concerned myself the the value of things that I don't own.

I'm comfortable with my NVDA returns so far. I will continue to accumulate AMD. Yes, this is a 10 year play.

The market has been overpriced for years, and the reason it was going up is Biden was going into massive debt and flooding the system with cash. Then there was the promise of AI. After trudging through all of SC's post, he finally got to why he bought Nvidia and why. I was not convinced but I did a deep dive on the subject just to be sure.

Best piece I found was here, and it is a free download: https://www.goldmansachs.com/insight...little-benefit.

This is the bull case: Again, I readily acknowledge that the return on invested capital (ROIC) visibility is currently low, and the transformative potential of AI will remain hotly debated until that becomes clearer. But AI skeptics miss three key things.

One, training on existing / historical data to inform and drive analytic outcomes in the future sounds exactly like going to.

Universitypeople go to learn and then improve productivity and efficiency for decades after graduation, and machines can.

Absolutely do the same. Two, machines today can do a whole host of tasks more productively and efficiently than humans.

And that will remain true for decades into the future. And three, people didn't think they needed smartphones, airbnb, or uber.

Here is the best one line of the bear case: But eighteen months after the introduction of generative AI to the world, not one truly transformativelet.

Alone cost-effectiveapplication has been found.

So my response to point one of the bulls is learn what? For point two, we knew machines could do things better than humans before AI was even being talked about. And third, I knew the internet and smart phone were cool when I first used them and continued to do so. I have played with chatgpt and after doing so, put it away, but I did not put away my internet use or cell phone.

Back to the bear:

Since the substantial spend on AI infrastructure will continue despite my skepticism, investors should remain invested in the beneficiaries of this spend, in rank order: chip.

Manufacturers, utilities and other companies exposed to the coming buildout of the power grid to support AI technology.

And the hyperscalers, which are spending substantial money themselves but will also garner incremental revenue from the.

AI buildout. These companies have indeed already run up substantially, but history suggests that an expensive valuation.

Alone won't stop a company's stock price from rising further if the fundamentals that made the company expensive in the first.

Place remain intact.

So as long as Nvidia has buyers for their chips, keep investing in it.

I do not think people get that Nvidia was in gaming, and gaming more than anything pushed computers to be faster and better. A $100 PC today can do almost everything people need it to. It can even run old games just fine. In fact, only 5 of the top 20 games on metacritic were produced in the last 5 years. Newer, bigger, and more powerful did not mean better.

So what Nvidia is doing is building better and faster chips for the AI world, there are no fucking games / must have apps yet. You can download a deepseek program that has been tweaked to not have Chinese censorship and put the whole thing on your computer. Sure, open AI can create faster and more expensive models, but no one knows if they will be needed. Again, there are no fucking games / apps that are must haves. If deepseek is enough to run the future killer apps, if there even are any, then Nvidia is fucked.

The other bump in the road is these super fast AIs need huge amounts of power. The bull case for growth is limited by quantity of electricity. It is like EVs and lithium. There is not enough lithium for everyone to have an EV. The manic modeled growth for AI is dependent on doubling the amount of power in our grids. That is not an easily done.

And back to the bull:

So, I don't expect companies to scale back spending on AI infrastructure and strategies until we enter a tougher part of the economic cycle, which we don't expect anytime soon. That said, spending on these experiments will likely be the one of the first things to go if and when corporate profitability starts to decline.

What has changed since this correct statement is that Trump is president and he seems to be pulling money out of the system and deepseek has made the tech big boys question if their investment is necessary.

I have read how AI is going to take over war. The fighter pilot cannot take on things like changes in g force like AI can. Then you read this: The human brain is 10,000 x more effective per unit of power in performing cognitive tasks vs. Generative AI. This means you are like a century away from AI fighter pilots. In fact, AI along with humans will likely happen first.

And I abhor the use of the term investor. You invest a product. These guys are likening the growth of AI to smart phones when they do not even have a fucking product. So you are not investing in anything with AI, you are speculating and when you speculate, you have no idea what something should cost.

That's the spirit gentlemen! Great distressed debt investors like Seth Klarman and great tech investors like Stanley Druckenmiller (who's also a Bitcoin fan) have both made a ton of money. There's more than one way to skin a cat!

[Axel Heyst]

1. His broken promise to the American people to govern as a moderate and heal America.

2. The 23% loss in purchasing power for all Americans resulting from his idiotic Executive orders.

3. The open border and more than 15 million illegal aliens allowed and financed by his administration to enter the country. Treason.

4. The disastrous and cowardly retreat from Afghanistan.

5. His replenishment of Putin's coffers.

6. #4 & #5 combined with his mental incompetence allowed Putin to invade Ukraine.

7. he replenishment of the Ayatollah's coffers.

8. #4 & #7 combined with his mental incompetence directly led to the Hamas War.

9. Lawfare: the unprecedented and unbridled use of the Federal Judiciary in an attempt to destroy his political opponent. An Impeachable offense.

Now when I say "Biden was the 2nd worst President in American History" what I really mean is the Biden Administration was the 2nd worst in American History because Biden the man was mentally incompetent to serve as President from day one and everybody around him in his inner circle knew it. Shame on the Democratic Party!

[Xpartan]

Xpartan, it's no great mystery why intelligent people like Axel and Elvis favor Trump. They believe he was the lesser of evils. I can't think of anything both big and really good that Biden did. Trump on the other hand cut the corporate tax rate and deregulated. And for a time got North Korea to stop long range and intermediate range ballistic missile tests, just by buddying up to Kim. Unfortunately he then proceeded to destroy his legacy by trying to steal an election. And his second round of trade wars won't help either.

Kindly leave Elvis out of your assessment. Intelligence and a cult membership -- well, I can't connect the dots, sorry.

Now, what Axel believes is not something I care about. Unlike religious faith that doesn't require a proof, personal beliefs that contradict the obvious are also an opposite to intelligence, IMHO. The facts that Trump is an insurrectionist, asset of a foreign power, autocratic bafoon, convicted felon, serial liar, immoral narcissist, crooked businessman and greedy profiteer have been well-known, well-established and, in some cases, proven in a court of law. How can -- again -- intelligent people think ALL THAT was a "lesser evil" than Kamala Harris is way way way beyond me.

So no, you haven't explained anything. And no, Trump's falling in love with a mass-murdering monster WAS NOT a good thing either.

[Axel Heyst]

Yes, Biden was a great president. That is why he enjoyed lower favorability when he left office than Nixon when he took that last helicopter ride. BKK Bob, what are you smoking? I want some of that weed! But this is old news.

I want to talk about another hill the Dems seem to want to die on: Chuckie Schumer's latest plan to shut down the Government. I hope the Demwits go through with it. It will be more entertaining than the latest episode of "White Lotus".

[SubCmdr]

After trudging through all of SC's post, he finally got to why he bought Nvidia and why. I was not convinced but I did a deep dive on the subject just to be sure.

Best piece I found was here, and it is a free download: https://www.goldmansachs.com/insight...little-benefit.

Thank you Elvis 2008. You pointed me to a very informative report. You also made an excellent logical argument the lays out why you have taken the positions that you have. We can all make money in our preferred ways. I am not going to let the report, or the arguments by Elvis deter my investments in to NVDA or AMD. But he will also make money buying bonds. Which one of us will achieve greater returns. Who knows? Because I have never concerned myself the the value of things that I don't own.

I'm comfortable with my NVDA returns so far. I will continue to accumulate AMD. Yes, this is a 10 year play.

[EihTooms]

When I posted this reply earlier I inadvertently only included a link for the Biden-Harris Administration's accomplishments on behalf of our Military Servicemembers and their Families. Which is already far greater than anything Trump ever accomplished in his 1st term. But I actually meant to include the link for his and Harris' entire presidential accomplishments but neglected to include it.

So I have now rectified that oversight here:

It is funny how neither of you listed anything. When I read through Biden's accomplishments, they all involved printing money to pay for something or just being in place when the pandemic ended. In fact, cranking up the government printing press is what Trump did as well. I do not see any difference between Biden's and Trump's policies.

But the real point is if Biden was so damned great, why did you all get rid of him before the 2024 election? We all know the reason is because he would not win.

As far as that goes, Ronald Reagan was showing signs of dementia towards the end of his last term, and he was so popular I think he would have won in 1988 had he run..

I often cite 2-3 Biden legislative accomplishments, which is already 1-2 more than you could cite for Trump's Pandemic Part 1 term. And the RESULTS are easily researched in, say, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the months and months and months of jobs reports. And I have several times posted links for how typical American Working Men and Women's purchasing power in the past couple of years already surpassed that of 2019 by hundreds of dollars per year.

But if you really want a complete list from a perfectly non-partisan source, here ya' go.

Enjoy:

FACT SHEET: The Biden-Harris Administration Record.
January 15, 2025:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docu...tration-record

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Celebrates Accomplishments for Servicemembers and Military Families.
January 16, 2025:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docu...icemembers-and

And, yes, that same non-partisan source covered the Trump's Pandemic Part 1 term as well. In fact, it covers his political life from the time he announced his candidacy. I encourage you and others to by all means look it up. Lololol.

Spoiler Alert: The first Trump so-called presidency is carefully documented by almost nothing by thousands and thousands of idiotic tweets about every nonsensical incoherent thought that crossed his mind with precious little if ANY actual accomplishments for four solid horrific and blithering, blathrring years.

Oh, what the hell. OK, I'll do all the work for you. Here is the link:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/peop...trump-1st-term

[HotDog666]

China did not lend the USA money. They bought bonds that were already issued on the open market. If China did not buy them, someone else would have. But having goods produced in China did lower prices and allowed the USA to keep inflation down which in turn allowed for lower interest rates.

The notion though that the USA has mountains of debt while China has none is ridiculous. China has more debt than the USA as it borrows to build things today that no one uses or needs to keep people employed. China just has a tendency to push this debt down to the city and state level.

China did not lend the USA money. They bought bonds that were already issued on the open market. If China did not buy them, someone else would have. But having goods produced in China did lower prices and allowed the USA to keep inflation down which in turn allowed for lower interest rates.

Yes, it's correct that China bought Treasuries but this is pretty much tantamount to lending money to USA. Ultimately, the yield on the treasuries is governed by supply demand and having a massive demand from China has been critical to keeping Treasury yields low for America. The corollary of this is that removal of Chinese demand would have inevitably pushed up yields. However yes, Chinese goods also aided lower inflation and lower interest rates.

The notion though that the USA has mountains of debt while China has none is ridiculous. China has more debt than the USA as it borrows to build things today that no one uses or needs to keep people employed. China just has a tendency to push this debt down to the city and state level.

There is one critical feature that people often forget when comparing debt / GDP ratios of countries like China and Japan vs USA: the fact that China and Japan have huge countervailing savings in the forms of household savings, which do not exist in America. This offsets to a great degree the admittedly huge debt overhangs. I agree China has been stupid in its massive over development of real state funded by debt but I don't see this turning into a Japanese type deflation, they will get the debt inflation out of the system (even if it takes time). American debt is scarely high, and with the economy now looking bleak, it's not a great time for America.

[EihTooms]

It is funny how neither of you listed anything. When I read through Biden's accomplishments, they all involved printing money to pay for something or just being in place when the pandemic ended. In fact, cranking up the government printing press is what Trump did as well. I do not see any difference between Biden's and Trump's policies.

But the real point is if Biden was so damned great, why did you all get rid of him before the 2024 election? We all know the reason is because he would not win.

As far as that goes, Ronald Reagan was showing signs of dementia towards the end of his last term, and he was so popular I think he would have won in 1988 had he run..

I often cite 2-3 Biden legislative accomplishments, which is already 1-2 more than you could cite for Trump's Pandemic Part 1 term. And the RESULTS are easily researched in, say, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the months and months and months of jobs reports. And I have several times posted links for how typical American Working Men and Women's purchasing power in the past couple of years already surpassed that of 2019 by hundreds of dollars per year.

But if you really want a complete list from a perfectly non-partisan source, here ya' go.

Enjoy:

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Celebrates Accomplishments for Servicemembers and Military Families.
January 16, 2025:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docu...icemembers-and

And, yes, that same non-partisan source covered the Trump's Pandemic Part 1 term as well. In fact, it covers his political life from the time he announced his candidacy. I encourage you and others to by all means look it up. Lololol.

Spoiler Alert: The first Trump so-called presidency is carefully documented by almost nothing by thousands and thousands of idiotic tweets about every nonsensical incoherent thought that crossed his mind with precious little if ANY actual accomplishments for four solid horrific and blithering, blathrring years.

Oh, what the hell. OK, I'll do all the work for you. Here is the link:

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/peop...trump-1st-term