You have nothing vested in the Stock Market
[QUOTE=EihTooms;3073486]Never mind an ordinary link to an ordinary fact-based economic report since I know you never heard of one. But don't we even get a screenshot of your ass where you pulled out that list of easily debunked bizarro world hogwash?
The USA Stock Market, the gains in which are almost entirely due to Joe Biden's 2022 CHIPS & Science Act as well as virtually every new factory built during this 2nd Trump term, grew as much if not more in the previous year and a half under Biden as in this recent year and a half under Trump. Behold the charts below.
And I know data-monitor Tiny is just about to correct you on your false claims about the unemployment rate being at an all time low, wages up significantly blah blah blah any minute now. Let's count down to when that post will land; 10,9, 8, 7, etc, etc.[/QUOTE]You obviously have nothing invested in the USA markets or you wouldn't say lies like this. On 18 months of Trump markets I made more than 4 years of Biden. If you didn't see these results you either had the dumbest financial advisor or took your money out of the market like many stupid democrats did when Trump was elected. Pulling fake statistics and fake don't make you look smarter. You have nothing invested in the markets so Trump wins are not helping you. That is a fact.
3 photos
Does 1% equal Everybody in MAGA Math?
Hey, it turns out I might still be firmly within the 1% of Americans profiting from the one bright spot in Trump's economy. Imagine that? And all the way over here in Thailand. My goodness gracious, by what mystical magical process is that possible?
Well, it's the one less dim and weak spot in Trump's otherwise dismal economy but for the hard work and heavy lifting done by Biden, Harris and the Dems in Congress previously, that is. Clearly, the data, charts, graphs, all evidence show there is nothing remarkable about the USA Stock Market gains under Trump than they were under Biden, the historical average or certainly not compared to most Democrats over the past 100 years. Someone who has no money invested in the USA Stock Market or has not even heard of the USA Stock Market could win the argument against any MAGA claiming there is something remarkable about the gains in it over the past 18 months vs the gains in the previous 18 months just by doing a simple Google Search.
Especially when you factor in the disastrous market conditions outgoing Repubs generally hand incoming Dems vs the historically positive conditions outgoing Dems hand incoming Repubs. And particularly in the case of Donald Trump who not only benefitted from that 100 years long pattern but has also added Trillions to his deficits in order to jack up the stock market while things that do not interest him like private-sector job gains, wage gains, housing and rent costs along with general affordability for the other 99% go to the wayside.
[B]Trump says 'everybody's profiting' from market gains but its mostly the 1%[/B]
[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/02/trump-says-everybodys-profiting-from-market-gains-but-mostly-the-1percent.html?__source=androidappshare[/URL]
[QUOTE]When asked about his lucrative stock portfolio, President Donald Trump told reporters: You know why Im profiting? Because the stock markets going up, everybodys profiting.
But not everybody is sharing in the markets upside.
The top 1% own about 50% of corporate equities and mutual fund shares, according to the most recent Federal Reserve data. The bottom 50% of households collectively hold just 1% of that stock and mutual fund wealth.[/QUOTE]BTW, let's hear from the MAGAs here dumb enough to believe the Billions of Dollars Trump and his Crime Family got put into their pockets from domestic and foreign bribes, bailouts and emoluments were the result of their brilliant USA Stock Market investments over the past 18 months. Lololol.
The entire economic system in the Dis United States is rigged
[U]The Dis United States of America is a Plutocracy[/U]
[I]A [b]plutocracy[/b] is a society or system of government where power is concentrated in the hands of the wealthy. Derived from the Greek words ploutos (wealth) and kratos (power), it operates as a form of oligarchy where financial influence, rather than democratic majority, directs political decisions and policy-making.
[u]Key Characteristics and Mechanisms[/u]
[b]Disproportionate Influence[/b]: Wealthy individuals, corporations, and interest groups shape political landscapes through lobbying, campaign contributions, and media control.
[b]Policy Priorities[/b]: Governments in plutocratic systems tend to prioritize policies that benefit the affluent such as deregulation and tax cuts for high-income earnerswhich can inadvertently worsen economic inequality.
[b]Barriers to Entry[/b]: When holding office or participating in the political process requires immense personal wealth or backing from the rich, lower-income groups are often entirely marginalized[/I]
Yep, that is the Dis United States of America that I grew up in. Don't get me wrong. I managed to get crumbs from the system that allow me to eat each month. So, I benefit from it. But like a good umpire I call it the way I see it.
[QUOTE]I know that sounds crazy, but the stock market has gone from a place where investors actually own part of a company and have a say in their management, to a market designed to enrich insiders by allowing them to sell shares they buy cheaply through options. Companies continuously issue new shares to their managers without asking their existing shareholders. Those managers then leak that stock to the market a little at a time. It's unlimited dilution of existing shareholders' stakes, death by a thousand dilutive cuts. If that isn't a scam, I don't know what is. Individual shareholders have nothing but the chance to sell it to the next sucker. A mutual fund buys one million shares of a company with your and your coworkers' money. You own 1 percent of the company. Six weeks later you own less, and all that money went to insiders, not to the company. And no one asked your permission, and you didn't know you got diluted or by how much till 90 days after the fact if that soon.[/QUOTE]In other words, [B]the Stock Market of the Dis United States of America is rigged[/B].
Is this news?
Yet, we have people who have a problem with those who challenge the system because they are getting noting out of it. How is it possible to love capitalism when you are in a capitalist system but do not benefit? People confuse political systems with economic ones. Calling the current capitalistic system in the Dis United States of America rigged and wanting to try something else does not make you unpatriotic. It does not make you a communist. Here is an example of someone using a word they do not understand:
[QUOTE=Canada;3073604]Democrats are getting closer every day to supporting communism and most communists hate America. They cheer against the USA soccer team, burn the American flag, support terrorism and Iran. And they admit it on live television every day. Democrats hate everything Trump does that is great for America. But they hate America but won't move to another country because deep down they know it is much worse than USA.[/QUOTE][I]A [b]communist[/b] is a person who supports or believes in communism. Communism is a political and economic system where everything is owned by the public or the community rather than by private individuals. In a communist society, there is no private property, no social classes, and no money. Wealth is divided among citizens equally or according to individual need.[/I]
I don't know any Democrat that supports communism. If am a wrong then provide a public example of this to prove your point. If it's you opinion that is ok. Opinions are not based on facts.
[I][b]Socialism[/b] is an economic and political philosophy advocating for collective or public ownership of the means of production, rather than private ownership. Its primary goal is to reduce economic inequality by distributing wealth and resources based on human need rather than profit.[/I]
I have been called a Socialist.
[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2825778]Does this idiot get the concept of supply and demand [b]or is he another socialist[/b] that he thinks that he deserves better service because of his virtue signaling?[/QUOTE]He called me this while I owned stock in AAPL and NVDA. [B]ROTFLMAO![/B]. He didn't back it up with anything. Never explained himself. So ask yourselves if this individual is credible?
2 photos
We in Thailand are carrying the load for economically struggling Trumpistan
You're welcome.
Just letting you know we in Thailand are doing our best to pick up the slack from the American working men and women consumers' affordability crisis in this 2nd term Trump Slump economy in order to keep a revered American conglomerate afloat during these difficult times.
[B]PepsiCo earnings miss estimates as North American consumers tighten their budgets[/B]
[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/09/pepsico-pep-q2-2026-earnings.html?__source=androidappshare[/URL]
[QUOTE]PepsiCo reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings.
The companys revenue topped Wall Streets estimates, boosted by [b]strong international demand[/b] for its snacks and drinks.
Pepsi reiterated its full-year forecast.
PepsiCo on Thursday reported mixed quarterly results as the [b]struggles of its North American food and beverage divisions offset strong international demand.[/b]
Results were tempered in the quarter as U.S. food and beverage category performance moderated with [b]consumer budgets tightening due to rising inflationary pressures,[/b] CEO Ramon Laguarta said in prepared remarks shared on the companys website on Thursday.
During Pepsi's second quarter, [b]global oil prices swung dramatically due to the U.S. war with Iran. In the U.S., the national average gas price hit a four-year high of $4.56 per gallon in late May, leading many shoppers to watch their spending.[/b][/QUOTE]Perhaps Biden or Harris would have passed a bi-partisan Snacks & Beverages Act over the past 18 months to stimulate beleaguered American conglomerates' business outlook and have them roaring along as one of the few bright spots in the USA economy and stock market as they did for the American CHIPS & Science industries, if only that tiny handful of angry Muslims in the only 3 swings states that mattered hadn't delivered every winning Electoral College vote for Trump in one of the closest races in history.
Oh well.
We in Thailand are still trying to help you guys.
Just Wow Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat
Thing about those with TDS is that they only allow 100% negative comments about Trump and 100% positive comments about Dems. Any Dem who makes a valid criticism of the Democratic party like saying Kamala Harris was a shit candidate is attacked and proclaimed a bothsider. The Democrats are the party of women and I have been watching the men of action podcast and seen when the two males discuss the data from a scientific study and the women in unison say "Yeah, we do not believe that" and the women try to knock it down right there. This is the modern Democratic party and it's see no evil hear no evil attitude.
OTOH, Republicans are allowed to disagree. Certainly, you put yourself out there if you go to hard against Trump but there have been notable exceptions. The latest Trump cringing moment was Trump involving himself in the World Cup and an American striker getting a red card. Yes, he was right to do it as the red card was ridiculously unfair and the punishment was unduly harsh, but Trump had to brag about it giving Belgium a ridiculously high psych to play hard. Anyone in sports knows the way to beat your opponent is to praise them. I will never forget a boxing match with Larry Holmes and what lit a fire into him. It was not the fame or fortune that turned him into a freak in the ring but it was his opponent hitting him in the groin.
The most recent Trump polltical cringe moment was the Iran war. To be sure, there was a large segment of the Repubilcan party that was outspoken against him. The market turned against Trump and eventually he was forced to capitutlate and made a deal to end the war that was met with disbelief. The Dems who had been saying that we had lost the war even before a shot was fired had their moment in the sun. Iran was allowed to sell its crude. Frozen assets were unfrozen, and Iran will be allowed to collect tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian attitude towards the world was almost Trumpian, Iran has been very clear that the current "free" passage in the Strait of Hormuz is only available for 60 days and has stated "if you are my friend, you pay less. If you are not my friend, you pay more. If I don't like you, maybe I won't even let you take your oil through. " Yes, the entire world was going to have to kiss Iran's ass.
But Trump told Iran that he would not just be handing Iran cash but that it had strings attached. He told Iran we will be watching what you buy. And then China, their largest customer, told Iran to pound sand once Iran said they were back open for business and open to selling China its oil. An incensed Iran then attacked American bases and Trump did not respond with capitulation. He said the Iranian leaders were scum and he was done with them and responded with an attack in kind.
Sure, the headlines showed oil prices were up once the attacks begun, but by today already, the oil prices are down. More importantly, there is something called the crack spread or front spread which is the difference between a refined product like jet fuel or gasoline in comparison to the oil it comes from. From Doomberg on June 24, there was this, "If there is a shortage of oil per se, the front spread is the pebble in the water from which all other oil pricing is derived. If we had a shortage of oil today, the front spread would be trading $10.00 not $0.55 cents and this is just wow it's worth $0. 55 cents when capacity utilization in PADD 3 is 95% to 98%. When demand for crude is high and the front spread is flat. Inventory surveys are irrelevant. Supply is greater than demand." And if one looks at oil futures, the oil market is literally yawning at Iran and its threats.
As for why, one reason is the world has turned to American liquified natural gas or LPG as an alternative. Keep in mind that this is the very fuel that the brain dead idiot Biden banned our producers from selling to appease the climate change nuts. As you recall and Speaker Johnson attested to, his home state of Louisiana was hurting when Biden banned the export of LNG, and Biden was so brain dead, he said that he did not ban the sale of LPG.
In contrast to Trump, US LPG exports climbed to a record high of 3. 3 million barrels / day in April, led by propane, as the continued effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has boosted demand for US barrels, S&P Global Commodities at Sea data showed on May 5.
In addition, China has turned on a dime. From Doomberg, Against this backdrop sits another economic black box: China, the world's largest importer of crude oil. For decades, Chinese leaders have addressed this vulnerability by investing huge sums to insure against worst-case scenarios. In so doing, China has wildly overinvested in coal-to-liquids technology, petrochemical processing, crude oil refining, electric vehicle production, and liquefied natural gas import terminals. These state-of-the-art facilities are often built in record time and regularly operate at rates well below their nameplate capacities, much to the frustration of global competitors.
A sharp fall in China's crude oil imports during the Iran war has been instrumental in holding down oil prices and keeping the global economy humming.
Chinese official customs data put crude imports at 7.8 million barrels a day in May, which includes oil arriving by pipeline from Russia, a drop from around 11 million barrels a day in recent years. The missing three million barrels are roughly equal to the combined daily oil consumption of Italy and France.
Just as remarkable as the abrupt import fall is the absence of major visible disruptions to everyday life in China. Tourists are still traveling, factories are still running and store shelves have plenty of toilet paper.
Remarkably, this was accomplished without meaningful draws on the country's vast stockpile of crude reserves, at least according to consensus market views and official government data. It wasn't until May that those reserves were tapped, and even then only to the tune of 0.5-1 million barrels per day.
That China has the ability to swing 3 to 4 million barrels per day of crude demand for months at a time without a flinch seems a profoundly important development. Without knowing the specifics of how this was accomplished, one can conclude that sufficient engine switching and demand-shifting capacity exists within the country to cap oil prices in all but the most extreme scenarios. This has clearly been done, within factories and consumer products alike, on a scale few have yet fully internalized.
As we have often pondered both here and on numerous podcast appearances, if $150 oil prices could not be achieved with the Iran war fact set, how could they ever be achieved—at least in real US dollar terms?
Said another way, if crude oil has shifted from a necessary hydrocarbon to an optional one at the margins, and those margins are as wide as Chinese demand, what does the future entail for energy prices?
End of link.
So yeah, when Iran said the world was going to have to kiss its ass, China and other countries have said, "Yeah, I don't think so."
As for the supposed reason for going to war, destruction of Iranian nuclear capability, there was good news on that front from Seymour Hersh, President Donald Trump, in a striking change of tone, has told the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, that he is prepared to escalate the current US attacks on Iran. "We're going to hit them hard tonight, but we'll see how it all works out" Trump said. The targets, a report in the New York Times said, would include the nation's infrastructure and desalination plans, all potential war crimes.
There is a previously unknown explanation for the change in tone. The US and Israeli intelligence communities have recently learned that Iran's supposedly existential threat to Israel and the West—its underground supply of partially enriched uranium—has degraded while in underground storage. Two of the three Iranian nuclear storage depots, at Fordow and Isfahan, are "hot"—that is, filled with radioactivity from what clearly has been significant degradation of the storage containers Iran had used for the keep saving of Iran's hope of eventually upgrading the stored material to weapons level and becoming another player in the nuclear world.
I have been told by sources close to US and Israeli intelligence that a recent inspection of the underground storage areas led to the death of at least two Iranian technicians—they may have been members of the Iranian military—who were exposed to high levels of radioactivity.
The contamination from the enriched materials can only be seen as a huge setback to any Iranian long-range plan to become a nuclear power. It was clear in private talks here in Washington that, as one official put it, "the nuclear threat from Iran is no longer there.
"An underground cache of partially enriched uranium, which is un-recoverable, is not a nuclear weapon," the official said.
End of link.
So add it up: record USA energy sales, no one buying Iranian crude, Iranian leadership is now isolated from the world, the world now yawning at the Strait of Hormuz being closed, and Iran's nuclear ambitions suffering a massive set back, and that sounds like winning to me.
It is funny in that you have guys in the media mouting off like Trump and so called experts like Peter Zeihan saying Trump's actions would lead to massive inflation because of higher oil prices and food shortages due to a lack of fertilizer are not admitting that they were wrong. No, it is the Democratic loser speak we have heard so often with Trump. The economy is terrible and the food shortages are coming. We were not wrong just early. It really is fucking pathetic.
2 photos
As predictable as night following day, of course.
Why do Trump and his fellow Repub MAGAs hate American kids, American seniors, disabled Americans and their American families so much?
[B]Immigration changes could worsen care worker shortages and raise family costs[/B]
[URL]https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/03/immigration-changes-may-raise-long-term-care-costs.html?__source=androidappshare[/URL]
[QUOTE]Immigrants make up 30% of direct care workers in long-term care settings, according to the nonpartisan health policy research group KFF.
Tighter immigration policies could [b]deepen staffing shortages, impacting care for seniors and people with disabilities[/b], expert says.
Fewer care workers could [b]increase costs and financial pressure on American families[/b], said Louis Barajas, a CNBC Financial Advisor Council member. [/QUOTE]Repub Trump's typical crap Repub jobs creation, weak wage growth and zeal to save America from low cost nail salon technicians, farm workers, busboys and care workers is a toxic brew for suffering among American families.
But I hear that is exactly what everybody who could have but did not vote for Kamala Harris voted for.
Oh well.
We tried.
Nothing much we in Thailand can do to help you guys in Trumpistan with this one. Sorry.
