Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

My vote is for you to STFU.

Convicts don't get to vote. And how did you bribe the guards into giving you social media privileges?

[THE_WIZARD_]

I pretended to be a democrat...I figured all I needed was a lobotomy and some tights...

[iam416]

I tend to think the people who actually vote for Trump would bear at least 1% of the blame for his reelection.

Sure. Another way to phrase it is the people who actually vote against [INSERT PROG]. If that's the phrasing then it's maybe 0.5%. It's an interesting question, though. The voters who decide the election are, I think, quite clearly choosing the least god-awful option. We knew what one side of ledger was. We were delusionally optimistic that the opposite side couldn't be as bad. And then The Chairman, working with slim margins by every measure, attempted to govern as if he was god-annointed and, of course, spoke. And then his VP spoke.

Most of us folks stuck in purgatory would have gladly taken utter mediocrity -- or even slightly below mediocre. Instead I think The Chairman has lost votes because, almost impossibly, he seems worse than DJT. Perhaps that's recency bias. Perhaps when DJT gets back on Twitter he'll save the Ds. I dunno. But, as of right now I'm not firmly in the abstention category. So it's not a -2 for The Chairman, just a -1, but those -1s will add up in the swing states he narrowly carried.

It's just staggering to me -- and probably to a lot of other voters like me -- that The Chairman couldn't get over the shockingly low bar he had to get over -- or, even if did get over it, how disappointingly close he was/is to hitting it.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Chairman Poopypants approval rating with Hispanics is at 26%.

Holy shit.

[Tom W]

Chairman Poopypants approval rating with Hispanics is at 26%.

Holy shit.

Isn't it astonishing that at least 74% of a given group actually LIKES the idea of coming to the U.S. legally, following the rules and contributing to our society?

[lineygoblue]

It's just staggering to me -- and probably to a lot of other voters like me -- that The Chairman couldn't get over the shockingly low bar he had to get over -- or, even if did get over it, how disappointingly close he was/is to hitting it.

Really, all he had to do was leave the economy alone, and NOT make all white people "nazi's", and he could have rode thru his first term pretty much unscathed. Instead, he did everything possible to alienate over half of the population, and decided that nobody really needs fossil fuels anymore, so he started checking off the wish list for basically every environmental group out there. It wasn't necessary to do either. And that doesn't include his actions with Covid.

[Dr. Strangelove]

He made inflation worse, but the seeds for significant inflation were planted in 2020. A significant portion is beyond the control of the United States.

Afghanistan permanently damaged his credibility.

I think it was the most recent Gallup poll but the age group where Biden polls worst is among Millenials/Zoomers, who tend to be more liberal than Gen X, Boomers, and Seniors. He's alienated a lot of Progs too, not just centrists.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/391733/biden-job-approval-down-among-younger-generations.aspx

[THE_WIZARD_]

Putin's fault. Of course.

[iam416]

He made inflation worse, but the seeds for significant inflation were planted in 2020. A significant portion is beyond the control of the United States.

Afghanistan permanently damaged his credibility.

I think it was the most recent Gallup poll but the age group where Biden polls worst is among Millenials/Zoomers, who tend to be more liberal than Gen X, Boomers, and Seniors. He's alienated a lot of Progs too, not just centrists.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/391733/...nerations.aspx

"Significant" is up for debate. There was definitely a big increase in monetary supply. It's certainly not clear to me that we were past the tipping point in early 2021. I'm certain the $1.9T the Ds passed in March put us way past the tipping point. They then passed an $1T infrastructure bill that, while not having immediate impacts, is starting to impact costs. He also steadfastly denied the threat of inflation well past the point of when it was glaringly fucking obvious. So, instead of looking for soluitions in August of '21 he was calling it transitory and pimping $3T MORE in spending. When he did finally acknowledge the problem his solution was $3T MORE in spending. Only Manchin (and Sinema) saved us from that fucking debacle.

Now they seem set to blame inflation on "corporate greed" or "greedflation." Except that corporate greed has been around for the past 30 years of minimal inflation. That variable has not changed since the 1980s when we got Carter's inflation under control. If one variable is constant for both mimimal and high inflation it's fairly likely it has nothing to fucking do with it. One variable that has changed is a 40%+ increase in monetary supply in the past 2 years. And, oh by the way, that's sort of DIRECTLY tied to costs of goods.

There's a reason why the US is roughly 3-4% ahead of Europe and other countries in the inflation game. The fact that The Chairman and Ds significantly increased an already increased monetary supply, had to be brought kicking and screaming to even acknowledge the problem and now have zero interest in any actual solution to me counts as "significantly" causing the problem IMO.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Yep, our inflation is more self-created than in Europe. But parts of Europe have actually gone beyond us over the past couple months because of Ukraine. Most of eastern Europe is now in double digits year-over-year. The UK is at 9%. France, Switzerland, and Norway are at the low end, still below us. Just speculation as to why but France is one of the most energy self-sufficient countries in Europe, I think.

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/05/19/record-inflation-which-country-in-europe-has-been-worst-hit-and-how-do-they-compare

[Jeff Buchanan]

The Biden administration's fiscal policies are, IMO, in the 70% range as the single cause of 8%+ inflation in the US.

I can't really tie a president's actions to the 17%+ decline in stock markets collectively and all indices heading towards bear territory .... it's anybody's guess where the bottom will be. Some can find solace in the historical behavior of bear markets - they improve. How fast ranges from 6 months to 3 years. The surrounding economic circumstances in this one are atypical: there's a war, there are food shortages because of it - these are typical - but COVID and it's implications of seriously disrupted manufacturing in China and supply chain issues are new factors.

Because health policy experts still can't explain the behavior of SARS-2 sufficient to inform sound public health measures - recommendations for PH measures going forward are all over the place - there's utter confusion. My take is this uncertainty is having a major impact on business investment and that in turn is having a devastating effect on markets world wide.

Although COVID isn't getting much press these days nor much attention in Washington, not developing and then implementing a rational approach to COVID going forward is one of three or four top issues that if not resolved will continue fucking with our IRAs and 401Ks. If I had a say in it, getting a handle on vaccines should be THE top priority. It is pretty well understood that the continuation of boosting through X number of boosters of the same mRNA vaccines isn't going to prevent regional COVID outbreaks that will be potentially impactful on global economies not to mention the shit-storm such outbreaks precipitate in our lives.

[Jeff Buchanan]

An update on my Ukraine post this morning ....... from all accounts, the fall of Mariupol and the Russian retreat from Kharkiv has allowed Russian Generals to transfer soldiers previously in those two areas to the battle in Western Donbas around several key cities. Both British intel and the CTR I follow have noted Russian advances with the objective being company, instead of BTG sized units being utilized to take small towns on the way to big ones - something the Russians have not been good at. It's an incremental tactic achieving some successes. Bombardment is a key tactic and, according to Zelenski has created a "living hell" in the Donbas region for residents there. There have been crushing losses of critical infrastructure - the Russians don't care. Zelenski has implied that defeating the Russians in this more focused Russian territory the Ukrainians continue to defend, although seriously outnumbered, is the "last battle."

[Jeff Buchanan]

Related to the post above is reports of what is going on inside Russia. The link below describes the impact of sanctions in revealing detail. As long as the Kremlin has gas and oil revenues, it is thought Putin can continue his war in Ukraine reaching whatever his desired objectives are - and it appears these are the annexation of the Ukrainian territories from Donetsk to Odessa. I would not doubt that Putin, if he succeeds in the "last battle" and asserts control over previously held Ukrainian cites in the Donbas, will announce his "special military operation" has achieved it's objectives. Following this announcement, whatever steps are required to annex the area he may or may not actually have control of, will be taken.

So here's the problem before the west: preventing Putin from doing this, after all, was the west's objective to start with and it still may be achievable by winning the race to curtail Putin's ability to fund waging his war in Ukraine. Key in doing that is for the EU to obtain unanimity among member states to cut off and/or reduce oil and gas dependency on Russia. You can absolutely be certain Putin is in Orban's ear and he is under immense pressure to hold up the EU in it's attempt to cut off or significantly reduce the Kremlin's revenues from oil and gas. Ancillary to that goal is to keep Ukraine economically and militarily afloat preventing a collapse of the Zelenski government in the face of Putin's efforts to strangle the Ukrainian economy. Hard but not impossible. So far, so good.

For the outcome to be resulted, either way, its going to take a while. My reading says it's going to take 3 years for either Russia or Ukraine to prevail. Continuing sanctions and Ukrainian resolve to resist Russia being the deal breakers for Putin. The massive Russian bombardment, destruction of infrastructure and killing is going to subside if not gradually over the next several months as Putin scripts - either in reality or in one he creates - control of the parts of Ukraine he has set out to achieve.

But occupation is another matter and I have previously described how poorly the Russians seem prepared to do this. The alleged arguing going on already between involved parties on agendas to be advanced going forward is an indicator of trouble ahead for Putin. As the costs mount for Putin on the battlefield, especially in urban areas where Ukrainians have a demonstrated military and probably political advantage as well as at home wrt his hold on popularity and hence power in Russia, a deal is going to be reached. No telling what that will look like at this point in time but it ain't going to be anything close to what Putin thought he was going to obtain in a short period.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/20/russians-feel-sting-of-cultural-and-economic-rift-sanctions-ukraine

[Obi-Jon]

Don't ignore the elephant in the room - China. China needs Russia as its proxy for it's efforts to dislodge the US as a (The) superpower in the world. Clandestine Chinese support will carry Russia through the Ukrainian War. This will continue so long as the west continues to look the other way.



Let the scape-goating begin!!! Now in Day 85 of Putin's 3 Day Ukrainian Cakewalk, Russian generals and admirals are being fired for not adhering to Putin's military fantasies.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2022-05-19/putin-loses-faith-in-top-generals-following-high-profile-failures-in-ukraine

[Jeff Buchanan]

Don't ignore the elephant in the room - China.

Xi is occupied with COVID. My take is that he's told Putin he's not going to fund or arm his forces for war. China has provided some public statements that indicate the west is to blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine but there are enough signals in the public domain for me to believe materail support is limited. China wants this thing over - it's becoming a distraction.

I agree that China is aboard with Putin in creating a new world order that excludes the US but I'm not sure they are aboard with what I think is ultimately going to be a humiliating step down from what Putin set out to achieve. What does China get out of materially aiding Russia in a war that, at this point, is perceived globally as creating a food crisis and a good 70% of states aren't stepping up to cheer on fucking Putin.