American Politics

[Elvis 2008]

They calculated they could get more done via the Hope and Change platitude the new "I feel your pain".

And he made sure to crush the 99% movement as soon as the fone rang to do so, like the good house slave that he was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi61Z4N0I84

PURE GOLD at 9:06.

Yeah, Obama fooled me on that for damned sure. I was so pissed at the bailout and Obama had this team of economists that really were for putting the people first. As soon as he got in office, he kicked them out and put in the Robert Rubin and Larry Summers types. If you recall, Summers was making $5 million a year working one day a week for some hedge fund and quit that to work in the White House. Gee, I wonder why.

Anyway, Biden is having trouble getting donations for his library, probably because donors think the money will end up in Dr. Jill and Hunter's hands. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...mocrats-threat.

A buddy of mine told me that Harry Truman did not accept any fees for speaking after he was out of office as he thought that was selling the presidency. He also said, "Show me a man that gets rich by being a politician, and I'll show you a crook. "

And for people who want to know why we voted for Trump, part of the reason is that he does not need our money. Trump donated his millions in salary to charity, and yet the Democratic douches AKA the paid Chinese hacks, are still saying he is out for himself, https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamand...e-the-details/.

So the real reason Trump is so hated is that he cannot be bought.

[EihTooms]

Employing the exact same methods he employed to lay the groundwork for, usher in and exacerbate Trump's Pandemic Part 1, resulting in millions of deaths around the world, including at least one million American deaths, the collapse of Global Supply chains and all of the hyper-inflation and millions upon millions of American jobs wiped out that followed, the school and business closures, the international travel for sex and tourism changed forever and not for the better and on and on, Repub Donald J. Trump is working very hard to bring Trump's Pandemic Part 2 to the world:

Diseases are spreading. The CDC isn't warning the public like it was months ago.
May 21, 2025

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/21/nx-s1...-public-health

To accomplish its mission of increasing the health security of the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that it "conducts critical science and provides health information" to protect the nation. But since President Trump's administration assumed power in January, many of the platforms the CDC used to communicate with the public have gone silent, an NPR analysis found.

Many of the CDC's newsletters have stopped being distributed, workers at the CDC say. Health alerts about disease outbreaks, previously sent to health professionals subscribed to the CDC's Health Alert Network, haven't been dispatched since March. The agency's main social media channels have come under new ownership of the Department of Health and Human Services, emails reviewed by NPR show, and most have gone more than a month without posting their own new content.

Bear in mind, Repub Donald J. Trump didn't begin to emploly those Trump's Pandemic Part 1 Creation Methods in earnest until 2018, his second year in office after doing exactly nothing but play golf and come up with insulting nicknames for his critics in his first year aside from finally signing and passing his one and only first term economic "stimulus" legislation, the TCJA, on the very last business day of 2017, that added Trillions to the deficit but created a Million FEWER jobs with it than without it.

And then, of course, in 2019 he swung into greater action to create Trump's Pandemic Part 1.

Next, as everyone knows, after he was finally successful in creating Trump's Pandemic Part 1 in early 2020, he spent that entire critical year lying about it, mocking the known mitigation measures, exacerbating the death and economic disaster effects of it and on and on until he eventually handed the incoming Dem Biden-Harris Administration the Worst Economy and Job Losses since Repub Herbert Hoover and the Great Repub Depression to fix.

Still, it took Repub Trump working to create Trump's Pandemic Part 1 for at least 2-3 years of his first term before he and his supporters were inevitably rewarded with those above stated results.

Yes, the Dem Biden-Harris Administration did fix it in truly historic fashion, handing the next incoming Administration the Envy of the World Economy with historically strong economic numbers and conditions.

Lololol.

But THIS time, Repub Donald J. Trump has gotten in there and started employing those now tried and true Trump's Pandemic Part 2 Creation Methods right away, in the very first months of the first year of the 2nd term that 77.3 Million total numbskulls but most especially that relative tiny handful of angry Muslims in the only three swing states that mattered, and by a razor-thin margin, gave him.

So those of you who did not vote for Harris and therefore de facto voted FOR Trump's Pandemic Part 2 along with whatever other historically disastrous Great Trump / Repub Economic Catastrophe he can conjure up will no doubt be rewarded with a doozy of a Trump's Pandemic Part 2 and all of the usual death and economic destruction that goes with it if you will just try to have patience.

Your Repub Donald J. Trump is definitely working on it!

[Sirioja]

Sirioja let stop with making things personal. Trump is the President of the Dis-United States of America. His is not my old fat stupid Trump any more than the alleged drug user who currently heads up France is yours personally. You got that?

Would you like to quote a reference that shows that France supports Ukraine more than the Dis-United States of America has?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts!

Ask Ukrainians. You mean Macron takes drugs? Never heard of this in France and I much prefer Macron, even not perfect, than a dangerous bullshiting liar like Trump. I can t understand Americans re elected him, unbelievable.

[Spidy]

Top 1% are not all billionaires, you dumb Democratic douche.

Who said it was?

You're level of understanding and comprehension, is just overwhelmingly so freakin' bad? May I suggest you think before speaking next time or hire a full-time interpreter?

However, my man-crush on Buffett ended in 2008. ...

Who'd have thunk it, from that diatribe of bile? Or was it a blowhard bromance tribute? (...kkkk!)

[Spidy]

https://www.thenation.com/article/so...h-party-obama/

Some recent US figures ...theblaze.com.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2...ocratic-party/

And then there is this comical attempt to say the ultra rich billionaire class is evenly split:

What's hilariously comical, is your article from "2014" on billionaire donations (...kkkk!)

Yet another failed and feeble attempt to, provide recent FACTS and EVIDENCE to support your woeful and pitiful MAGA arguments. Yet another round of mish mash of incoherent rambling, with the intent to obfuscate the FACTS, with your usual "gish gallop" and "flood the zone" Steve Bannon, crap.

https://theweek.com/politics/us-elec...es-are-backing

Musk is the only one who has openly admitted switching parties, ...

The notion that Bezos and Zuckerberg are Republicans is side splittingly funny.

In fact, I would say that in 2020 that all the people on this list (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bloomberg, and Buffett) were all anti-Trump and anti-Republican.

For all your bile, weak stupid arguments and "MAGA gish gallop", about "...this billionaire person was once a Dem, so that makes them Dem billionaire donor...", is so far fetch, as most rotten billionaires, only real fealty is to money and which idiot party and politician's pocket can I pick?

But Elvis 2008, given that same logic, you've used on the billionaires, you once told me, that you voted for President Barrack Obama, so...

• I guess that makes YOU a Dem D-BAG for LIFE! (...kkkk!)
  
  • The constant smack you talk and "gish gallop", is a never ending perpetual literal contradiction of yourself and the Dems so love castigate as D-BAGS.
  • So what kind of Dem D-BAG (to barrow your phraseology), does that make you?

Then there is Bernie Sanders himself, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...mocratic-party

When placed in context, it was obviously a good campaign rallying cry for more small money donors. And it worked!

In the 2024 election, 75% of donations came from small money donors for the Dems.

FACTS DO MATTER...

Elvis 2008 why do you lie so much?
When the the South African President say that? Put up the quote.

He said this in the White House (the house that slaves built) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...-white-farmers

You are entitled to your own opinions Elvis 2008 but not your own facts.

Excellent question and well answered!

You only need to look at the current clown show Repub admin, to realize, the level of corruption, untrustworthy governing, lies, cover-ups and grifting, to know this is what MAGA nation emulates.

But take this current example, as I explain below, as you've identified, Elvis not entitled to his own FACTS:

But the fact that you keep going on about how Republicans are the party of the billionaires is fucking comical, Spidy. You are in the party of the rich and are just too dumb to know it.

(...kkkk!) Is that your assessment, based on your dated FACTS in your 2014 and other non-related articles? Which BTW, at worst, had both parties as equal donors, back in 2014, as your diatribe of gish gallop, tried to laugh off as "side splittingly funny"!

Although I'm aware the Repubs are a backwater, BACKWARDS looking party (as is evident from your 2014 article), lets look at something more up-to-date, shall we?

Billionaires Buying Elections: They’ve Come to Collect, April 2, 2025 https://americansfortaxfairness.org/...me-to-collect/

• Billionaire spending heavily favored Republicans. Over two-thirds (70%) of billionaire-family contributions went in support of GOP candidates and conservative causes. Less than a quarter (23%) backed Democratic hopefuls and progressive causes.
• Almost three-quarters (71%) of the total amount used by outside spending groups to attack the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, came from billionaires. Billionaires supplied over three-fifths (61%) of all the outside dollars spent praising Donald Trump.
• The vast majority of billionaire money supported Republican candidates. The top 100 billionaire-family donors made 70% ($1.84 billion) of their donations to committees that backed GOP candidates, while 23% ($594 million) went to entities backing Democratic candidates.
• Elon Musk was the largest political spender of the 2024 election cycle, contributing over $278 million to Republican candidates—almost all of it in direct support of Donald Trump’s presidential reelection bid.
• Billionaire family spending on the seven most competitive U.S. Senate races favors Republican candidates over Democratic ones by a 7:1 margin. Billionaire families spent nearly $78 million supporting GOP candidates versus around $11 million spent in support of Democrats. https://americansfortaxfairness.org/...-races-report/

So now that the 2024 Election billionaire spending results are finalized, and without speculation, by uninformed MAGA pundits, it's CLEAR Repub billionaires, are indeed the corrupting political bastards, we knew them to be.

And don't want to pay their fair share of taxes, like parasites! Don't be FOOLED, and don't let them pick your pockets!

[MarquisdeSade1]

Remember when you said that it was a dream that USA companies would bring industry back to the USA.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...z-survey-finds

Allianz researchers found that roughly 90 percent of USA Companies plan to reshore or switch to domestic suppliers in the wake of the April 2 global tariff announcement. USA Firms ranked among the most likely in the world to pursue domestic sourcing, alongside companies in Italy and Spain.

And many Americans are willing to take on higher prices as a result:

A recent poll of Epoch Times readers shows strong support for Trump's trade reset, with the majority seeing the tariffs as a fair and necessary step to protect USA Industry and bolster the nation's long-term economic independence.

There is a link to the Allianz piece and 80% of companies in the USA are going to abandon using China in their supply chain.

As for why China is going to collapse, it is the same old story. They are just printing up too much money. https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/...mbined-5615055

China's latest official figures show that by the end of Feb. , the country's broad money supply (M2) balance reached 299.56 trillion yuan ($42.16 trillion). This figure is higher than the money supply in both the United States and the European Union (EU) combined.

Now, in normal circumstances, you would see a currency collapse given all this money printing but China has a currency peg. https://www.investopedia.com/article...uan-pegged.asp.

The Chinese yuan has had a currency peg since 1997. It used to peg its currency to the USA Dollar but since 2005 it has managed its currency against a basket of currencies with weightings determined by levels of trading with its foreign partners. The currency is not allowed to float more than 2% against a fixed level.

A lot of people have been critical of Peter Zeihan calling for the collapse of China, but if you notice, they leave this part, probably the most important part, out of his analysis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHlrgUdgKP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=XupM5_zHDbM

In fact, their leaving out that part, the massive money printing, makes me think they are paid Chinese hacks.

So China would normally just be doing a Japan style demographic slowdown if not for this money situation. In fact, it already is.

The slowdown though does not solve the money / debt problem, and Trump is squeezing China when it is most vulnerable. China is going to have even lower foreign currency reserves after what Trump is doing.

And the simplest way to reduce the money supply is to devalue the currency. Argentina did the exact same thing China is going to have to do. They pegged their peso at one to one to the dollar in 2000, but they had a reduction in dollars available to them because their economy was not doing well.

So Argentina took care of its money supply issue temporarily by devaluing the currency. It went from one peso to the dollar to three pesos to the dollar.

This is the part you do not get about the savings rate. When that happened, everyone in Argentina who had savings saw their savings tumble by 2/3, but everyone who had debt saw their debt go down by 2/3. If you had $900,000 in the bank, now you had $300,000. If you had $900,000 in debt, now you have just $300,000 in debt. But that still was not enough to get their house in order.

And make no mistake on who holds the debt in China. Whether it is corporate or at the local debt, it is all held by the CCCP. Sure, China has more wealth than Argentina but it did not print up anywhere near the amount China is doing.

As for Trump, as Democrats are fond of saying, he is no businessman, some of his companies went bankrupt. Yeah, no shit. That means he knows what to look for when things are going badly in a company or country. Most of his life he has sold to the rich. He knows who is wealthy and who is fake.

But yeah, the collapse of the Chinese yuan and Chinese economy is inevitable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

https://www.voanews.com/a/foreign-bl...s/8009973.html

https://demostat.rs/en/vesti/edukaci...ensorship/1878

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...posts-every-ye

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/w...fluencers.html

https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf

https://freedomhouse.org/report/spec...obal-megaphone

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article...aganda-machine

https://www.osavul.cloud/blog/how-ch...ead-propaganda

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.thenation.com/article/so...h-party-obama/

Some recent US figures on the distribution of income by party: 65 percent of taxpayer households that earn more than $500,000 per year are now in Democratic districts; 74 percent of the households in Republican districts earn less than $100,00 per year. Add to this what we knew already, namely that the 10 richest congressional districts in the country all have Democratic representatives in Congress. The above numbers incidentally come from the Internal Revenue Service, via Bloomberg, and are likely to be more reliable than if they came from Project Veritas via theblaze.com.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2...ocratic-party/

We cross-checked the Open Secrets list of the top 100 individuals donating to outside spending groups in the current election against the Forbes list of the world's billionaires and found that, as of June 19, there were 22 individuals on the Open Secrets list who were billionaires. Of those 22 billionaires, 13 -- or more than half -- gave predominantly to liberal groups or groups affiliated with the Democratic Party.

And then there is this comical attempt to say the ultra rich billionaire class is evenly split:

https://theweek.com/politics/us-elec...es-are-backing

Musk is the only one who has openly admitted switching parties, and the result has been having you Democratic douches burn up his assets.

The notion that Bezos and Zuckerberg are Republicans is side splittingly funny.

In fact, I would say that in 2020 that all the people on this list (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bloomberg, and Buffett) were all anti-Trump and anti-Republican.

Then there is Bernie Sanders himself, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...mocratic-party

"The 70's, 60's, Democrats caught on that you could raise a lot of money from wealthy people," Sanders explained.

"And it gets back to campaign financing and all that stuff. So you got a Democratic establishment now, which is funded by wealthy people. You have consultants who are really way out of touch with reality, who make a whole lot of money in campaigns. And working class is ignored," Sanders said.

He added that Donald Trump succeeded where Democrats fell short because at least he pretended to care about the working class.

But the fact that you keep going on about how Republicans are the party of the billionaires is fucking comical, Spidy. You are in the party of the rich and are just too dumb to know it.

2008 was fixed also, Scumbag Bubba rec'd more delegates than Scumbag Barry and the Wall St controlled / DNC handed it to Scumbag Barry.

They calculated they could get more done via the Hope and Change platitude the new "I feel your pain".

And he made sure to crush the 99% movement as soon as the fone rang to do so, like the good house slave that he was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi61Z4N0I84

PURE GOLD at 9:06.

[Elvis 2008]

Remember when you said that it was a dream that USA companies would bring industry back to the USA.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/...z-survey-finds

Allianz researchers found that roughly 90 percent of USA Companies plan to reshore or switch to domestic suppliers in the wake of the April 2 global tariff announcement. USA Firms ranked among the most likely in the world to pursue domestic sourcing, alongside companies in Italy and Spain.

And many Americans are willing to take on higher prices as a result:

A recent poll of Epoch Times readers shows strong support for Trump's trade reset, with the majority seeing the tariffs as a fair and necessary step to protect USA Industry and bolster the nation's long-term economic independence.

There is a link to the Allianz piece and 80% of companies in the USA are going to abandon using China in their supply chain.

As for why China is going to collapse, it is the same old story. They are just printing up too much money. https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/...mbined-5615055

China's latest official figures show that by the end of Feb. , the country's broad money supply (M2) balance reached 299.56 trillion yuan ($42.16 trillion). This figure is higher than the money supply in both the United States and the European Union (EU) combined.

Now, in normal circumstances, you would see a currency collapse given all this money printing but China has a currency peg. https://www.investopedia.com/article...uan-pegged.asp.

The Chinese yuan has had a currency peg since 1997. It used to peg its currency to the USA Dollar but since 2005 it has managed its currency against a basket of currencies with weightings determined by levels of trading with its foreign partners. The currency is not allowed to float more than 2% against a fixed level.

A lot of people have been critical of Peter Zeihan calling for the collapse of China, but if you notice, they leave this part, probably the most important part, out of his analysis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHlrgUdgKP0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=XupM5_zHDbM

In fact, their leaving out that part, the massive money printing, makes me think they are paid Chinese hacks.

So China would normally just be doing a Japan style demographic slowdown if not for this money situation. In fact, it already is.

The slowdown though does not solve the money / debt problem, and Trump is squeezing China when it is most vulnerable. China is going to have even lower foreign currency reserves after what Trump is doing.

And the simplest way to reduce the money supply is to devalue the currency. Argentina did the exact same thing China is going to have to do. They pegged their peso at one to one to the dollar in 2000, but they had a reduction in dollars available to them because their economy was not doing well.

So Argentina took care of its money supply issue temporarily by devaluing the currency. It went from one peso to the dollar to three pesos to the dollar.

This is the part you do not get about the savings rate. When that happened, everyone in Argentina who had savings saw their savings tumble by 2/3, but everyone who had debt saw their debt go down by 2/3. If you had $900,000 in the bank, now you had $300,000. If you had $900,000 in debt, now you have just $300,000 in debt. But that still was not enough to get their house in order.

And make no mistake on who holds the debt in China. Whether it is corporate or at the local debt, it is all held by the CCCP. Sure, China has more wealth than Argentina but it did not print up anywhere near the amount China is doing.

As for Trump, as Democrats are fond of saying, he is no businessman, some of his companies went bankrupt. Yeah, no shit. That means he knows what to look for when things are going badly in a company or country. Most of his life he has sold to the rich. He knows who is wealthy and who is fake.

But yeah, the collapse of the Chinese yuan and Chinese economy is inevitable.

[SubCmdr]

And it would not surprise me that when the South African president says kill the white man, you go along with it.

When the the South African President say that? Put up the quote.

He said this in the White House (the house that slaves built)

South Africa, and its president, denies claims of genocide and harassment.

"I'm not going to be repeating what I've been saying. I would say if there was Afrikaner farmer genocide, I can bet you these three gentlemen would not be here, including my Minister of Agriculture. He would not be with me. So it will take him, President Trump listening to their stories, to their perspectives, that is the answer to your question," Ramaphosa said.

At one point in the meeting, Trump was asked by a reporter, "What would you like President Ramaphosa to do about the situation that we just seen on the screen?"

"I don't know. I don't know," Trump said.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tru...-white-farmers

You are entitled to your own opinions Elvis 2008 but not your own facts.

[Elvis 2008]

Why don't you provide the evidence that, "Most billionaires are or were Democrats." instead of pulling bullshit outta your MAGA ass?

https://www.thenation.com/article/so...h-party-obama/

Some recent US figures on the distribution of income by party: 65 percent of taxpayer households that earn more than $500,000 per year are now in Democratic districts; 74 percent of the households in Republican districts earn less than $100,00 per year. Add to this what we knew already, namely that the 10 richest congressional districts in the country all have Democratic representatives in Congress. The above numbers incidentally come from the Internal Revenue Service, via Bloomberg, and are likely to be more reliable than if they came from Project Veritas via theblaze.com.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2...ocratic-party/

We cross-checked the Open Secrets list of the top 100 individuals donating to outside spending groups in the current election against the Forbes list of the world's billionaires and found that, as of June 19, there were 22 individuals on the Open Secrets list who were billionaires. Of those 22 billionaires, 13 -- or more than half -- gave predominantly to liberal groups or groups affiliated with the Democratic Party.

And then there is this comical attempt to say the ultra rich billionaire class is evenly split:

https://theweek.com/politics/us-elec...es-are-backing

Musk is the only one who has openly admitted switching parties, and the result has been having you Democratic douches burn up his assets.

The notion that Bezos and Zuckerberg are Republicans is side splittingly funny.

In fact, I would say that in 2020 that all the people on this list (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Bloomberg, and Buffett) were all anti-Trump and anti-Republican.

Then there is Bernie Sanders himself, https://www.zerohedge.com/political/...mocratic-party

"The 70's, 60's, Democrats caught on that you could raise a lot of money from wealthy people," Sanders explained.

"And it gets back to campaign financing and all that stuff. So you got a Democratic establishment now, which is funded by wealthy people. You have consultants who are really way out of touch with reality, who make a whole lot of money in campaigns. And working class is ignored," Sanders said.

He added that Donald Trump succeeded where Democrats fell short because at least he pretended to care about the working class.

But the fact that you keep going on about how Republicans are the party of the billionaires is fucking comical, Spidy. You are in the party of the rich and are just too dumb to know it.

[Elvis 2008]

It wouldn't surprise me, if this was your twisted MAGA belief and equivalent way of saying, that Jews were better off, having gone through the Holocaust and learned valuable job experience in the concentration camp

And it would not surprise me that when the South African president says kill the white man, you go along with it.

Either way, it wouldn't surprise me, if indeed you truly have "No idea...", given your cowboy Repub ideology, explains your lack of accurate historical 1913 taxation w/r to those Black, Chinese, Indian and slave labor, indentured workers, and immigrant in relation to taxation of their rich counterparts, to where it stands today with the 99% vs the 1%.

Okay, so you have no idea either.

So much for your bullshit posts, about feeling the hardships that hardworking Americans, are experiencing, not being able to afford dinner at Red Lobster or affordable housing, as the price of eggs and mortgage rates skyrocket, under the your Fuhrer's Tariff Tax, all while funding the tax cuts, for the wealthy billionaire robber baron class 1%.

Top 1% are not all billionaires, you dumb Democratic douche.

As Warren Buffett said: "The problem isn't that we tax too much, its that we ask too little from those who benefit the most.

Yeah, you still do not get Buffett's history. This is from Matt Taibbi, the guy who highlighted the greed at Goldman's Sachs, and called GS the squid that sucks its funnel into anything that smells like money.

Warren Buffett announced this month that he will retire from his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the fabled corporate conglomerate that made him a revered household name, at the end of 2025. Along with a mostly stellar seven-decade investment career, he carefully created an image of a down to earth midwesterner who lives in a modest home, drives a modest car and dines on Dairy Queen (he liked DQ so much he bought the company in 1997) while swigging Coca Cola (another great Berkshire investment) and dispensing sage advise the way your favorite uncle might.

However, my man-crush on Buffett ended in 2008.

One additional trait that many found endearing in Buffett was he could be very candid about his occasional losses and mistakes. He would often use these instances to impart some really great advice. However, the one thing I never heard him discuss was the times he should have lost but got the kind of help regular folks don't get.

Buffett's long-time business partner, Charlie Munger, once said "Suck it in and cope, buddy" in response to complaints that the government did more to help Wall Street than homeowners during the 2000's housing crisis.

The truth is, Buffett, Munger and Berkshire would have had to do a lot of sucking themselves if not for the massive government bailout of the financial system in 2008.

Warren Buffett announced this month that he will retire from his position as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the fabled corporate conglomerate that made him a revered household name, at the end of 2025. Along with a mostly stellar seven-decade investment career, he carefully created an image of a down to earth midwesterner who lives in a modest home, drives a modest car and dines on Dairy Queen (he liked DQ so much he bought the company in 1997) while swigging Coca Cola (another great Berkshire investment) and dispensing sage advise the way your favorite uncle might.

I have a six degrees of separation story where I sort of crossed paths with him. In fact, I can say that I played a small part in Buffett's dumping of one of his favorite and most profitable trades, Freddie Mac.

However, my man-crush on Buffett ended in 2008.

One additional trait that many found endearing in Buffett was he could be very candid about his occasional losses and mistakes. He would often use these instances to impart some really great advice. However, the one thing I never heard him discuss was the times he should have lost but got the kind of help regular folks don't get.

Buffett's long-time business partner, Charlie Munger, once said "Suck it in and cope, buddy" in response to complaints that the government did more to help Wall Street than homeowners during the 2000's housing crisis.

The truth is, Buffett, Munger and Berkshire would have had to do a lot of sucking themselves if not for the massive government bailout of the financial system in 2008.

This part of the story started between 2003 and 2004. Berkshire made huge option bets that four major global stock indices the S&P 500, the Nikkei 225, the Euro Stoxx 50 and the FTSE 100 would not end up lower than they were at the time of the trade, 10 or 15 years in the future. Berkshire sold these options to major Wall Street banks and in return, the banks paid Berkshire approximately $4. 9 billion in what are called premiums. If the stock indices ended lower than their current levels, Berkshire would pay the banks the difference and, if necessary, more than the $4.9 billion it was paid.

Normally, companies that sell these types of long-term options have to put up collateral. Berkshire did not. With Buffet at the helm, Berkshire was considered riskless. This was the key to the strategy. Berkshire could use the $4. 9 billion however it wanted without having to tie up any of Berkshire's other assets.

As long as nothing went horribly wrong, this was a genius move. Buffett would just do his usual brilliant investing with the funds and even if the stock indices ended somewhat lower when the deals expired a decade or two later, the money he would have to pay on the options would probably pale in comparison to the money he would have made with those billions in premiums he received.

Again, unless something went horribly wrong.

In 2008, global equity markets finally woke up to the fact that the subprime mortgage crisis was a giant asteroid hurtling straight for the global financial system and began to free-fall.

At first it appeared Buffett saw what was happening as a great opportunity. One of his famous folksy quotes after all was:

"A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

In September of 2008, with Goldman Sachs taking on water with the rest of their Wall Street brethren, Berkshire invested $5 billion in perpetual preferred stock with Goldman. Berkshire would receive a 10% dividend as well as the right to buy $5 billion of common stock at $115 with a five-year term. On the day of the purchase, September 23,2008, Goldman's stock was at $125.05. Perhaps Buffett believed Goldman was already saved after AIG was bailed out the previous week. As long as Goldman survived, this could be one of the best returns Berkshire ever made.

However, despite the immediate bailout measures taken to save Goldman and the rest, the hits just kept coming with big banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, Wachovia and WaMu (which went into receivership two days later) on the ropes.

On October 10,2008, Goldman Sachs' stock closed at $88.80, down 29% from where Buffett made his Goldman investment just two weeks prior. Moreover, those options Berkshire sold on the four global stock indices, made a few years earlier were going against Berkshire as global stocks cratered.

Everyone needed a bailout, including Berkshire.

Interestingly, a few years after the crisis, CNBC wrote a piece, replete with the customary Andrew Sorkin boot-licking interview.

And October 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett made a late-night phone call to then-Treasury Secretary Henry "Hank" Paulson, with an idea about how the government might be able to turn the economy around.

Paulson was asleep. He'd had a busy night working through various policy ideas with his team to restore confidence in Wall Street.

At the time, Congress had just passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, or the "bailout bill" as it came to be known, and created a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase assets of failing banks. But these actions were not enough to calm investors.

Once he understood what was going on, Paulson says, he listened as Buffett "laid out an idea which was a germ of what we did."

What he told Paulson, Buffett recalls, is that, "It might make more sense to put more capital in the banks than it would to try and buy these assets."

Perhaps the CNBC piece should have been called How Warren Buffett Saved Himself During the Financial Crisis.

Remember, just a few weeks before Buffett's phone call to Paulson, Buffett had put capital into Goldman and now he was losing his ass. The government putting capital into Goldman and the rest of the major banks, at the time, would save him.

Naturally, in a government bailout led by a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson, the USA Never exacted the price it should have for saving Goldman and the rest of the major Wall Street banks. In a fair world, the government bailout would have come with major strings attached.

Instead the government, aided by the Federal Reserve, saved the likes of Goldman and Morgan Stanley by giving them federal bank charters, life-saving capital and bailing out AIG. The bailout recipients then profited handsomely in the aftermath due to the Federal Reserve's unprecedented emergency policies such as zero interest rate policy and the massive buying of USA Treasury securities and agency mortgage-backed securities, which the Federal Reserve kept until 2018.

Those bailed out then thanked the government for saving them by giving them back their capital. Incredibly, a Goldman Sachs story on its website says." The firm had neither sought nor expected such an infusion of capital from the Treasury." If you need further proof of how laughable this statement is, check out this email from a Federal Reserve Bank of New York official one day before Goldman was given a bank charter.

Berkshire's large bets on Goldman and the four major global equity indices were also saved and they also ended up richer after the crisis than before.

Meanwhile, the average American was left to "suck it in," cope and reflect on how greedy and silly they had been buying homes they couldn't afford.

Warren Buffett was a brilliant investor and a very wise and interesting man. However, in 2008 the "Oracle of Omaha" moniker did not fit. He was just another guy who didn't quite see just how big the bomb cyclone was that was coming right at him. He and Berkshire escaped financial ruin like all the other plutocrats by relying on Uncle Sam to come to their rescue.

[Spidy]

Yes, the income tax ended all that? And the Chinese workers and African blacks were better off in their native lands? LOL. The native Americans are a much more complex topic. Of course, I have no idea what they had to do with the income tax either.

(...kkkk!) It wouldn't surprise me, if this was your twisted MAGA belief and equivalent way of saying, that Jews were better off, having gone through the Holocaust and learned valuable job experience in the concentration camps?

(...kkkk!) No idea, no clue...well I suggest you take sometime and do some homework. Either way, it wouldn't surprise me, if indeed you truly have "No idea...", given your cowboy Repub ideology, explains your lack of accurate historical 1913 taxation w/r to those Black, Chinese, Indian and slave labor, indentured workers, and immigrant in relation to taxation of their rich counterparts, to where it stands today with the 99% vs the 1%.

And so because you take your government handouts means you are on the side of the oppressed Chinese and blacks? LOL. Oh yeah, sure you are.

So much for your bullshit posts, about feeling the hardships that hardworking Americans, are experiencing, not being able to afford dinner at Red Lobster or affordable housing, as the price of eggs and mortgage rates skyrocket, under the your Fuhrer's Tariff Tax, all while funding the tax cuts, for the wealthy billionaire robber baron class 1%.

• As Warren Buffett said: "The problem isn't that we tax too much, its that we ask too little from those who benefit the most."

Spidy, if you are so fucking opposed to billionaires, shouldn't you be a Republican? Most billionaires are or were Democrats. I grant you there were a few who jumped ship when the Democrats abandoned Democracy and followed their demented candidate with a drunk, but in 2016, I cannot recall any billionaires who supported Trump. Hell, we had Zuckerburg paying nearly a billion to rig elections.

Why don't you provide the evidence that, "Most billionaires are or were Democrats.", instead of pulling bullshit outta your MAGA ass? (...kkkk!)

Meanwhile, we have Spidy going on about billionaire greed. Last I check the biggest holder of Walmart stock was the Walton family made up of several billionaires. So Trump tells Walmart to not screw over consumers and enrich the Walton billionaires, and you are condemning it? We all know that no matter what Trump says or does you are going to condemn it. It is all Dem good, Republican bad.

Yeah, meanwhile, Elvis 2008 is still once again complaining about Hardworking Americans, being greedy and wanting the billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes, '...from those who benefit the most.' ", from a fair and just democratic society.

BTW, your Fuhrer's 2.0 admin shit show, as taken your "Dems GOOD, Repubs BAD" mantra, to a whole new level of comparison, that some would say is at DEFCON 1.

I mean, fuck "BAD", I think Repubs have poll-vaulted, all the way to "down right FUCKING EVIL" (...kkkk!)

[EihTooms]

Note the word "Republican" accurately characterizing the economy-destroying legislation proposal?

That is a lovely and encouraging sign that typically and historically pro Repub Mainstream Media are finally coming to realize their constant False Equivalancies and Bothsiderism if not outright attacks on Dems in order to help Repubs win elections is fine for being provided the horrific, alarming and therefore effectively eye-catching and attention-grabbing economic headlines MSM craves and loves about Repub policies and stewardship. But under Trump it has now drifted into a nightmare of shake downs and extortion in their War Against Freedom of Speech resulting in millons going into his and his Party's pockets for reporting the truth about their lies, bullshit and cons.

So it is possible we will finally start seeing accurate reports that, say, Republicans in Congress are in disarray rather than "Congress" is in disarray, thereby unjustifiably punishing Dems by blaming them and Repubs equally for the disasters caused only by Repubs.

"Republican' Donald Trump laid the groundwork for, ushered in and exacerbated his Trump's Pandemic with his typically disastrous Republican economic and national security decisions and stewardship in 2018,2019 and all through 2020. ".

"Republican president GW Bush's incompetent leadership and his incompetent Republican Treasury Department caused the 2008 Financial Crisis. ".

"Republican president Donald Trump and his Republucan Congress skyrocketed the debt, deficit and crime rates on their watch. ".

Note how much more accurate that is vs nonsense like "there is plenty of blame to go around. " Hopefully, the accurate reporting and messaging will eventually sink in with the American Electorate.

This is an encouraging sign for Truth In The Media.

Republican spending bill driving up yields and creating a major market headache.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/21/repu...ndroidappshare

The U.S. debt-and-deficit situation is bad and facing real prospects of getting worse. Whether the recoil in financial markets continues is largely in the hands of policymakers.

What its meant in market terms has been a severe leg up in Treasury yields and a sell-off in stocks.

I feel like the dam is finally starting to break a little bit, and theres too many holes in the dike to put our fingers in, said Mitch Goldberg, president of ClientFirst Strategy.

[SubCmdr]

Sirioja let stop with making things personal. Trump is the President of the Dis-United States of America. His is not my old fat stupid Trump any more than the alleged drug user who currently heads up France is yours personally. You got that?

Would you like to quote a reference that shows that France supports Ukraine more than the Dis-United States of America has?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts!

I think France support more Ukraine and Palestinians than your old fat stupid Trump who prefer to rob Ukraine, when lying, and to suck Putin. Explain to your so stupid You elected twice: only way to stop war is to economically isolate Russia to make criminal Putin broke. Also to stop to give weapons to criminal Netanhyaou. But wars are always good business for USA, so, when USA can t compete for economics now, but they are interested wars keep on, making dirty money for USA, now land of shame.

[Sirioja]

Why is France (who considers themselves the leader of Europe) not make a move to help Ukrainians independently of the Dis-United States of America by putting boots on the ground?

Who has supplied the majority of weapons to the Ukrainians?

The Defense Rests!

I think France support more Ukraine and Palestinians than your old fat stupid Trump who prefer to rob Ukraine, when lying, and to suck Putin. Explain to your so stupid You elected twice: only way to stop war is to economically isolate Russia to make criminal Putin broke. Also to stop to give weapons to criminal Netanhyaou. But wars are always good business for USA, so, when USA can t compete for economics now, but they are interested wars keep on, making dirty money for USA, now land of shame.