American Politics

[QUOTE=JustTK;2760548]
So I think we have found some agreement that we all believe the West is acting wrong and needs to stop this 'endless war' stance. Everyone needs peace now.
[/QUOTE]It looks like Russia winning this war is done. [URL]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbl1v_4vqbA[/URL].

So the whole dumb notion that the Russians are going to be at the English Channel in two weeks is done now.

Now the question for Americans is are we going to pay for the arms so Ukraine can take back the Donbas region. To me, we demand that these nations negotiate a peace in good faith before doing so. If the Russians balk at doing so, then sure we give the Ukrainians more arms.

The anti-Putin nuts will say you cannot trust Putin. Well, given he has nuclear weapons, you have to. If Ukraine gets the crazy idea to keep going to Moscow, Putin will launch nukes and not just in Ukraine but Ukraine's suppliers in the USA and Europe.

[QUOTE=JustTK;2760548]
So I think we have found some agreement that we all believe the West is acting wrong and needs to stop this 'endless war' stance. Everyone needs peace now.[/QUOTE]By the way, TK, Biden has the chance to be a real hero here and negotiate a peace. If he can end the war, oil prices will probably come down. The potential famines due to a loss of Russian fertilizer can be kept at bay. He can say he beat Putin and put the Russian bear in its cage.

Tooms is doing cartwheels right now because the market is way up. The inflation number was lower than expected but that was last month's data. Filling the tank of my diesel car yesterday was a multidecade high. The federal reserve has said that it needs months of data to change course but the market is acting like the Fed is done even though they have said time and again they are not done.

So I am watching CNBC and my favorite technical analysis person Katie Stockton comes on. She says the S&P 500 will go from 3700 to 4100 and the Ten year treasuries will go from 4. 1 to around 3. 2 percent which is fabulous news for most Americans and for Tooms.

I sold half my shorts in mid October, and I am looking to get back into them. So I am actually happy that in the coming weeks, I can reenter my positions at a lower cost basis. And Ms. Stockton has said rates will go up to 5. 5% and the S&P 500 will hit 3200 afterwards. Given where interest rates are, I still think the market is overvalued.

What these dumb Dems do not get is how inflationary this war is. We are printing billions out of thin air to buy weapons and taking Russian oil, natural gas, and fertilizer off line has led to an explosion in the the prices of gasoline / diesel, energy, and food.

So I hope Biden recognizes that and sees what a good hand he has been dealt and played those cards. If he does, my shorting may be done.

Thing is TK, Biden is a bully, and it is not enough for him IMO to put the Russian bear in the cage. He has to slit its throat. What I mean is Biden wants regime change in Russia, I. E. Putin out of power, and we have done regime changes before and they have been disasters.

I hope I am wrong, but in the words of President Obama, "Do not underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up. ".

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760864]By the way, TK, Biden has the chance to be a real hero here and negotiate a peace. If he can end the war, oil prices will probably come down.

...

What these dumb Dems do not get is how inflationary this war is. We are printing billions out of thin air to buy weapons and taking Russian oil, natural gas, and fertilizer off line has led to an explosion in the the prices of gasoline / diesel, energy, and food.

So I hope Biden recognizes that and sees what a good hand he has been dealt and played those cards. If he does, my shorting may be done. ... [/QUOTE]While Ukraine / Russia's situation has and does impact some of the inflationary woes we're seeing around the world, I think it has more to do with corporate greed, more so than anything. The fact we're seeing record profits and greedy corporations, taking every advance of price gouging Americans, at every turn, simply for shareholder excessive profits, is alarming and egregious.

Couple that with a politicized right-wing Trump appointed Fed, that is unnecessarily hiking rates at break-neck, light-speed efforts, which only serve to undermine an otherwise balanced economy, and a great ardent and successful administrative job, Biden has done.

[B]Rep Katie Porter destroys inflation myth. Watch her prove that corporate greed's driving inflation.[/B] [URL]https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/18/2129869/-Rep-Katie-Porter-destroys-inflation-myth-Watch-her-prove-that-corporate-greed-s-driving-inflation[/URL]

[QUOTE= (D) Rep. Katie Porter] [b]"[/b]When the Biden administration said inflation would be transitory, the only mistake was not saying transitory absent [b]evil corporate greed raising its head.[/b] We recently got out of a pandemic. Corporations knew Americans had a few bucks banked from not spending as much during a pandemic, plus having received some stimuli. ... [b]"[/b][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Spidy;2760922]While Ukraine / Russia's situation has and does impact some of the inflationary woes we're seeing around the world, I think it has more to do with corporate greed, more so than anything. The fact we're seeing record profits and greedy corporations, taking every advance of price gouging Americans, at every turn, simply for shareholder excessive profits, is alarming and egregious. [/QUOTE]The censorship troll blocked my last post. Thanks for listing your source of that bird brained notion that corporate profits are going up. When Dems want to say 200 is greater than 250 or Republicans made up the word inflation, 2024 is more of a Republcan lock.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2760922]
Couple that with a politicized right-wing Trump appointed Fed, that is unnecessarily hiking rates at break-neck, light-speed efforts, which only serve to undermine an otherwise balanced economy, and a great ardent and successful administrative job, Biden has done.
[/QUOTE]OMG. Spidy. Turn off the MSNBC and move to to CNBC. Learn something. Half of what they talk about is what the Fed is doing and why. Then let me know when the subject of the Fed screwing Biden over comes up because it has not come up. Not once.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2760808]I responded to some bozo on FB who asked (and I am paraphrasing) "How could it have gone so badly for Repubs?

My answer was, in effect, "Because you kept breathing your own exhaust". The Repubs wanted a "red wave". All of their pollsters predicted a "red wave". They were too stupid to know the difference between calm, measured leadership (Biden) and chaos (Donnie the Dumbass and the rest of the Republican party).

The Repubs found out, thankfully, that the majority of Americans [B]don't want[/B] to turn the clock back to the 1850's. The Repubs found out that the majority of Americans [B]do not believe[/B] that anything further left than shooting people of color for sport is "socialist".[/QUOTE]I am happy with the results. Gridlock has been achieved. Hunter Biden is finally going to be investigated.

And these stupid 1-6 claims will go down in flames. I cannot come up with a better scenario than what is happening in Arizona where apparently they cannot get simple voting machines to work nor count quickly. The person in charge of this election process, and you cannot make this shit up, is the Democrat running for US Senate. The nation of Brazil takes in hundreds of millions of votes and results are spit out in 3 hours, yet Arizona takes weeks for a fraction of that many. Gee, I wonder why.

And the Dem solution for this horrific affront to Democracy is censorship and tossing people in jail who question the vote. What is your excuse now PVM? Please tell me why the mess in Arizona is somehow the fault of Republicans. Are you dumb Dems going to throw more people in jail again who question this shit?

The feeling among Republicans was that Trump was the only one who could stop the banana Republic Democrats who are constantly corrupting the DOJ to win elections, but it is worse than that. We saw the NIH and CDC were worse than the FBI was and Desantis stood up to them.

I could care less about Pelosi or Schumer. Our enemy are the bureaucrats who have convinced Dems they are their friends. I cannot think of a more evil lot than Fauci, Comey, Strzok, Clapper, Rosenstein, and Brennan. The gutless modern pol has thrown decision making to the supposedly apolitical bureaucrats. Well, we know they are not apolitical.

Trump has the money to fight the bureaucrats but he also has his skeletons. His candidates, Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker (really? Have or will be going down in flames.

I was hopeful that Trump would be respectful of DeSantis and praise him. Give the voters the rare choice of having two good candidates versus the usual pissing match. Bur Trump had to be Trump and called Desantis desanctimonious and bragged about how far ahead he was in the polls.

And the betting futures, which were tied, have shifted markedly for Desantis. [URL]https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7053/Who-will-win-the-2024-Republican-presidential-nomination[/URL].

2022 showed Republicans how to win in 2024, and that way is not with Trump. The path to victory in 2024 was muddied but today it could not be more clear.

[QUOTE=PVMonger;2760808]I responded to some bozo on FB who asked (and I am paraphrasing) "How could it have gone so badly for Repubs?

My answer was, in effect, "Because you kept breathing your own exhaust". The Repubs wanted a "red wave". All of their pollsters predicted a "red wave". They were too stupid to know the difference between calm, measured leadership (Biden) and chaos (Donnie the Dumbass and the rest of the Republican party).

The Repubs found out, thankfully, that the majority of Americans [B]don't want[/B] to turn the clock back to the 1850's. The Repubs found out that the majority of Americans [B]do not believe[/B] that anything further left than shooting people of color for sport is "socialist".[/QUOTE]Actually, I can't be so thankful about something that has yet to be shown in the Repub Party agenda. Sure, they want OFF the "Trump Train" because they are beginning to get the vague idea that he is a blowhard, know nothing, constant failure, blatantly obvious con man who has only sold them electoral losses since his one lucky break in capitalizing on the pro Repub rigged Electoral College system in 2-3 states back in 2016.

I mean, they are juuust beginning to figure that out. Lolol.

But there is zero evidence Repubs have changed their mind and agenda to wipe out millions of jobs and destroy the USA economy whenever the electorate is distracted, careless or stupid enough to give them the slightest opportunity to do it.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760864]By the way, TK, Biden has the chance to be a real hero here and negotiate a peace. If he can end the war, oil prices will probably come down. The potential famines due to a loss of Russian fertilizer can be kept at bay. He can say he beat Putin and put the Russian bear in its cage.

Tooms is doing cartwheels right now because the market is way up. The inflation number was lower than expected but that was last month's data. Filling the tank of my diesel car yesterday was a multidecade high. The federal reserve has said that it needs months of data to change course but the market is acting like the Fed is done even though they have said time and again they are not done.

So I am watching CNBC and my favorite technical analysis person Katie Stockton comes on. She says the S&P 500 will go from 3700 to 4100 and the Ten year treasuries will go from 4. 1 to around 3. 2 percent which is fabulous news for most Americans and for Tooms.

I sold half my shorts in mid October, and I am looking to get back into them. So I am actually happy that in the coming weeks, I can reenter my positions at a lower cost basis. And Ms. Stockton has said rates will go up to 5. 5% and the S&P 500 will hit 3200 afterwards. Given where interest rates are, I still think the market is overvalued.

What these dumb Dems do not get is how inflationary this war is. We are printing billions out of thin air to buy weapons and taking Russian oil, natural gas, and fertilizer off line has led to an explosion in the the prices of gasoline / diesel, energy, and food.

So I hope Biden recognizes that and sees what a good hand he has been dealt and played those cards. If he does, my shorting may be done.

Thing is TK, Biden is a bully, and it is not enough for him IMO to put the Russian bear in the cage. He has to slit its throat. What I mean is Biden wants regime change in Russia, I. E. Putin out of power, and we have done regime changes before and they have been disasters.

I hope I am wrong, but in the words of President Obama, "Do not underestimate Joe's ability to fuck things up. ".[/QUOTE]I have not looked at my portfolio in weeks if not months. And then only because I got an email from Vanguard to log on and show signs of life every now and then so they won't assume I have dearly departed and start distributing it to my beneficiaries.

My months ago prognostication is unchanged that the S&P 500 Index will probably be tickling around the 5,000 range by mid 2023 if not the end of this year.

I agree that the market is looking for more certainty that the Fed will no longer raise Fed Funds rates before it stops retesting the, was it June, lows and head to new all-time closing highs.

IMO, it is Fed dithering about if or by how much to raise those rates that has kept the market as measured by the S&P below previous highs and trading within a range somewhere between a normal Correction and only marginally into Bear Market territory. And it took a prolonged Trump's Pandemic Hyper-Inflation, a massive East Coast Hurricane and the historically worst month of the year for stocks, September, to momentarily get it down there.

That kind of range trading can go on for months, as long as the Fed keeps dithering over the rates. The same thing happened for about 15-18 months in 2015 - 2016 and for the same reason.

It hasn't much if anything to do with yield curves, deficit spending or any of that other junk.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2760922]While Ukraine / Russia's situation has and does impact some of the inflationary woes we're seeing around the world, I think it has more to do with corporate greed, more so than anything. The fact we're seeing record profits and greedy corporations, taking every advance of price gouging Americans, at every turn, simply for shareholder excessive profits, is alarming and egregious.

Couple that with a politicized right-wing Trump appointed Fed, that is unnecessarily hiking rates at break-neck, light-speed efforts, which only serve to undermine an otherwise balanced economy, and a great ardent and successful administrative job, Biden has done.

[B]Rep Katie Porter destroys inflation myth. Watch her prove that corporate greed's driving inflation.[/B] [URL]https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/18/2129869/-Rep-Katie-Porter-destroys-inflation-myth-Watch-her-prove-that-corporate-greed-s-driving-inflation[/URL][/QUOTE]Trump's Pandemic Supply-Chain Destruction was certainly the trigger and main cause of the recent hyper-inflation around the world.

After that it is definitely industries using that as a cover for jacking up prices for windfall profits. And, how convenient for them, they also have a related excuse not to hire back the millions of workers Trump provided them the reason to lay off. "boo hoo, no money for that. The evil Dems want to raise the wages we pay from Dirt to Just Enough to pay their rent. Whoever we didn't lay off in Trump's Great Repub Recession will just have to work harder or get canned".

That's why there is almost nothing an elected official can do about Inflation.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760943]I am happy with the results. Gridlock has been achieved. Hunter Biden is finally going to be investigated.

And these stupid 1-6 claims will go down in flames. I cannot come up with a better scenario than what is happening in Arizona where apparently they cannot get simple voting machines to work nor count quickly. The person in charge of this election process, and you cannot make this shit up, is the Democrat running for US Senate. The nation of Brazil takes in hundreds of millions of votes and results are spit out in 3 hours, yet Arizona takes weeks for a fraction of that many. Gee, I wonder why.

And the Dem solution for this horrific affront to Democracy is censorship and tossing people in jail who question the vote. What is your excuse now PVM? Please tell me why the mess in Arizona is somehow the fault of Republicans. Are you dumb Dems going to throw more people in jail again who question this shit?

The feeling among Republicans was that Trump was the only one who could stop the banana Republic Democrats who are constantly corrupting the DOJ to win elections, but it is worse than that. We saw the NIH and CDC were worse than the FBI was and Desantis stood up to them.

I could care less about Pelosi or Schumer. Our enemy are the bureaucrats who have convinced Dems they are their friends. I cannot think of a more evil lot than Fauci, Comey, Strzok, Clapper, Rosenstein, and Brennan. The gutless modern pol has thrown decision making to the supposedly apolitical bureaucrats. Well, we know they are not apolitical.

Trump has the money to fight the bureaucrats but he also has his skeletons. His candidates, Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker (really? Have or will be going down in flames.
I was hopeful that Trump would be respectful of DeSantis and praise him. Give the voters the rare choice of having two good candidates versus the usual pissing match. Bur Trump had to be Trump and called Desantis desanctimonious and bragged about how far ahead he was in the polls.

And the betting futures, which were tied, have shifted markedly for Desantis. [URL]https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7053/Who-will-win-the-2024-Republican-presidential-nomination[/URL].

2022 showed Republicans how to win in 2024, and that way is not with Trump. The path to victory in 2024 was muddied but today it could not be more clear.[/QUOTE]Anybody with an ounce of common sense could have taken 15-seconds, done an internet search and come up with this article: [URL]https://www.azmirror.com/2022/11/10/why-arizonas-ballot-count-takes-longer-than-floridas/[/URL] as to why the Arizona vote count is taking so long. But you, a founding member of the Moron Brigade, have chosen to ignore all of that, haven't you. You ignored the fact that REPUBLICANS told voters to drop off their mail-in ballots on election day so that the "deep state" wouldn't have an idea how many Democrats voters had already voted and make it harder for Dems to cheat. What utter nonsense. But that's Repubs for you. They've never met a conspiracy theory they didn't embrace.

You mention Brazil and pose a Carlson-esque "Gee, I wonder why. " If you would have taken another 15-seconds, you'd have found this [URL]https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/the-remarkable-participation-and-efficiency-of-brazils-elections-proves-how-shameful-and-deliberate-is-the-chaos-and-suppression-in-the-u-s/[/URL] and this [URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/31/brazil-elections-vote-count-united-states/[/URL] and this [URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/world/americas/brazil-election-fraud.html[/URL] But here we have moronic counties in Arizona wanting to use paper ballots and count them by hand. Who runs those counties? You guessed it. REPUBLICANS.

And while Katie Hobbs is the current Sec. Of State in Arizona, guess who had control of the Legislature. That's right! REPUBLICANS. Who wrote the cockamamie laws that Katie Hobbs has to enforce? That's right! REPUBLICANS. And guess who told their voters to wait till election day to drop off their mail-in ballots? That's right! REPUBLICANS.

And, BTW, nobody gets thrown in jail for questioning election results. But they do get their law licenses pulled for falsely claiming fraud, don't they, Rudy? And they get sued for billions by falsely claiming fraud, don't they PillowGuy?

And where is the "red wave" that you've been crowing about for the past 2 years? Where are the 60-seat House gains? Where is the veto-proof Senate majority? You've been crowing about how bad the Dems were going to get beaten BADLY for the past 2 years. Your "red wave" looks more like the "pink trickle". The thing you get when you wash your clan robe with your MAGA hat.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760935]The censorship troll blocked my last post. Thanks for listing your source of that bird brained notion that corporate profits are going up. When Dems want to say 200 is greater than 250 or Republicans made up the word inflation, 2024 is more of a Republcan lock.

OMG. Spidy. Turn off the MSNBC and move to to CNBC. Learn something. Half of what they talk about is what the Fed is doing and why. Then let me know when the subject of the Fed screwing Biden over comes up because it has not come up. Not once.[/QUOTE]Once again, you have chosen to come up with some cockamamie bird-brained statement instead of looking for the truth. But, to a member of the Moron Brigade, truth is really "alternative truth".

"In short, the rise in inflation has not been driven by anything that looks like an overheating labor market—instead it has been driven by higher corporate profit margins and supply-chain bottlenecks. " [URL]https://www.epi.org/blog/corporate-profits-have-contributed-disproportionately-to-inflation-how-should-policymakers-respond/[/URL].

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760943]I am happy with the results. Gridlock has been achieved. Hunter Biden is finally going to be investigated.

And these stupid 1-6 claims will go down in flames.[b] I cannot come up with a better scenario than what is happening in Arizona where apparently they cannot get simple voting machines to work nor count quickly. The person in charge of this election process, and you cannot make this shit up, is the Democrat running for US Senate.[/b] The nation of Brazil takes in hundreds of millions of votes and results are spit out in 3 hours, yet Arizona takes weeks for a fraction of that many. Gee, I wonder why.

And the Dem solution for this horrific affront to Democracy is censorship and tossing people in jail who question the vote. What is your excuse now PVM? Please tell me why the mess in Arizona is somehow the fault of Republicans. Are you dumb Dems going to throw more people in jail again who question this shit?

The feeling among Republicans was that Trump was the only one who could stop the banana Republic Democrats who are constantly corrupting the DOJ to win elections, but it is worse than that. We saw the NIH and CDC were worse than the FBI was and Desantis stood up to them.

I could care less about Pelosi or Schumer. Our enemy are the bureaucrats who have convinced Dems they are their friends. I cannot think of a more evil lot than Fauci, Comey, Strzok, Clapper, Rosenstein, and Brennan. The gutless modern pol has thrown decision making to the supposedly apolitical bureaucrats. Well, we know they are not apolitical.

Trump has the money to fight the bureaucrats but he also has his skeletons. His candidates, Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker (really? Have or will be going down in flames.

I was hopeful that Trump would be respectful of DeSantis and praise him. Give the voters the rare choice of having two good candidates versus the usual pissing match. Bur Trump had to be Trump and called Desantis desanctimonious and bragged about how far ahead he was in the polls.

And the betting futures, which were tied, have shifted markedly for Desantis. [URL]https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7053/Who-will-win-the-2024-Republican-presidential-nomination[/URL].

2022 showed Republicans how to win in 2024, and that way is not with Trump. The path to victory in 2024 was muddied but today it could not be more clear.[/QUOTE]Uh. The (vote / election) Recorder for Maricopa County, the Arizona county with hundreds of thousands of ballots to count, is [B]Stephen Richer, a Republican:[/B].

[URL]https://ballotpedia.org/Stephen_Richer[/URL]

[B]Why is the midterm vote count taking so long in some US states?[/B]

[URL]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/10/when-midterm-results-timings-arizona-nevada-georgia-final-why-taking-so-long[/URL]

[QUOTE]To understand why that is, you have to zoom in to Maricopa county, which covers the state capital, Phoenix. It contains 60% of all votes in Arizona and is the second largest voting jurisdiction in the nation.

The number of people who vote early has increased dramatically since the pandemic. This year Maricopa county also saw a surge in the number of early ballots that were dropped off on election day they are known as late earlies rising to 290,000, the largest number in the states history and 100,000 more than in 2020.

Each early ballot has to be verified to check that the voters signature matches the signature in the voter rolls, and after that is done it is sent to a bipartisan panel for approval and processing. That all takes time, as we are witnessing.
.........
[b]Stephen Richer[/b], who is the recorder of Maricopa county, said that after the dust settles we will likely want to have a policy conversation about which we value more: convenience of dropping off early ballots on election day or higher percentage of returns with 24 hours of election night.[/QUOTE]Yep, apparently, some people can [B]make this shit up[/B].

You did.

[QUOTE=Spidy;2760922]While Ukraine / Russia's situation has and does impact some of the inflationary woes we're seeing around the world, I think it has more to do with corporate greed, more so than anything. The fact we're seeing record profits and greedy corporations, taking every advance of price gouging Americans, at every turn, simply for shareholder excessive profits, is alarming and egregious.

Couple that with a politicized right-wing Trump appointed Fed, that is unnecessarily hiking rates at break-neck, light-speed efforts, which only serve to undermine an otherwise balanced economy, and a great ardent and successful administrative job, Biden has done.

[B]Rep Katie Porter destroys inflation myth. Watch her prove that corporate greed's driving inflation.[/B] [URL]https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/10/18/2129869/-Rep-Katie-Porter-destroys-inflation-myth-Watch-her-prove-that-corporate-greed-s-driving-inflation[/URL][/QUOTE]With Democratic Politicians and left-of-center mainstream media bombarding us with those fallacies daily, it's no wonder you believe that.

Corporate profits from the 2Q 2021 to the 2Q 2022 were up $219 billion, or 7.8%. That was less than the 9.1% YoY CPI inflation at June 30,2022. And the $219 billion only accounted for 0.94% (less than 1% for the mathematically challenged) of GDP. Corporate greed and excess profits thus did not account for a significant part of the inflation we've seen over the last year.

I believe only Fed governors are appointed by the executive branch. And only two, Michelle W. Bowman and Christopher J. Waller, were appointed governors during Republican administrations. The other five governors, including the Chair, Jerome Powell and the Vice Chair, Lael Brainard, were appointed governors during Democratic Administrations.

YoY CPI inflation increased from 1. 7% in February, 2021, before the the government started sending out stimulus checks as required by the Democrats' $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP), to 5.4% in June, 2021. Now what do you think the reaction of the Democratic Party politicians would have been if the Fed had aggressively used monetary policy to counteract the excessive fiscal stimulus from the ARP? Maybe by raising interest rates in lockstep with inflation, to 5. 5%? There would be hell to pay. None of the governors would have been reappointed when their terms were up, if a Democrat were in the White House.

As to Katie Porter, please note that she's highlighting an increase in corporate profits, from the 2Q 2020, the depths of the pandemic induced recession. Yes, of course corporate profits went up a lot. As a result, the stock market went up a lot too. Democratic politicians, you and some other board members are only too happy to give Biden and the Democrats 100% of the credit for higher stock prices, increased employment, and a higher GDP, that resulted from the rebound from the recession.

Biden's following in Porter's footsteps, by blaming the evil oil companies for the run up in gasoline prices, and putting an albatross around their neck so they'd pump less oil and gas, and then taking credit for the decline in gasoline prices, which had nothing to do with his policies.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760943]I am happy with the results. Gridlock has been achieved. [/QUOTE]Me too, assuming Republicans control the House.

[QUOTE=Elvis2008;2760943]2022 showed Republicans how to win in 2024, and that way is not with Trump. The path to victory in 2024 was muddied but today it could not be more clear.[/QUOTE]Agreed.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2760970]

My months ago prognostication is unchanged that the S&P 500 Index will probably be tickling around the 5,000 range by mid 2023 if not the end of this year.[/QUOTE]HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! You are killing me Tooms. Please tell me you are serious.

[QUOTE=EihTooms;2760970]It hasn't much if anything to do with yield curves, deficit spending or any of that other junk.[/QUOTE]Inverted yield curves signal recession, and it is the market not the Fed doing that. When the 2 year treasury bill or bond pays more interest than the 10 year, that means the bond market is betting on a recession in the next 2 years. That you think you are smarter than the whole bond market is not a shocker to me at all.

What does set price are earnings and the ratio of earnings to the price. What you still do not get is the logic behind the rule of 21. That rules says that when interest rates are 8%, a fair PE is 13, and eight and thirteen added are 21. I do not agree with that. I think a fair PE for 8% interest rates is 10 not 13 but I digress.

I also do not agree with a PE of 17 for the S&P 500 in this market even though that is its historical average. Some are saying that is the right number with current interest rates as it equals close to 21. But even if you use that ratio, you have to get to $333 in earnings to get to $5000.

And you just said your head is in the sand with regards to your investment, and I agree with that. You would have to have your head in the sand to ignore all the corporate projections that directly contradict your rosy belief. So yeah, you ignore corporate earnings calls and the bond market.

And you ignore history too. The last year S&P earnings were $192. In fact, they have NEVER been over $200 let alone $300. [URL]https://ycharts.com/indicators/sandp_500_earnings[/URL].

Yeah, I know none of that matters. All that matters is Biden is president. SMH.

[QUOTE=Tiny12;2761157]
I believe only Fed governors are appointed by the executive branch. And only two, Michelle W. Bowman and Christopher J. Waller, were appointed governors during Republican administrations. The other five governors, including the Chair, Jerome Powell and the Vice Chair, Lael Brainard, were appointed governors during Democratic Administrations.

YoY CPI inflation increased from 1. 7% in February, 2021, before the the government started sending out stimulus checks as required by the Democrats' $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP), to 5.4% in June, 2021. Now what do you think the reaction of the Democratic Party politicians would have been if the Fed had aggressively used monetary policy to counteract the excessive fiscal stimulus from the ARP? Maybe by raising interest rates in lockstep with inflation, to 5. 5%? There would be hell to pay. None of the governors would have been reappointed when their terms were up, if a Democrat were in the White House.

As to Katie Porter, please note that she's highlighting an increase in corporate profits, from the 2Q 2020, the depths of the pandemic induced recession. Yes, of course corporate profits went up a lot. As a result, the stock market went up a lot too. Democratic politicians, you and some other board members are only too happy to give Biden and the Democrats 100% of the credit for higher stock prices, increased employment, and a higher GDP, that resulted from the rebound from the recession.

Biden's following in Porter's footsteps, by blaming the evil oil companies for the run up in gasoline prices, and putting an albatross around their neck so they'd pump less oil and gas, and then taking credit for the decline in gasoline prices, which had nothing to do with his policies.[/QUOTE]That is 100% factually correct. It speaks volumes to me that Democrats applaud a higher stock market while demonizing corporate profits as if they are unrelated.

But do you think your factually correct statements change their minds? My bet is no. Being a Democrat means not caring about how something becomes good or bad but taking credit for anything perceived to be good.