2020 US Presidential Election

If they don’t raise it by at least 75 basis points now then it further shows to me that they must have always had another agenda. It’s already far too late to be doing this as I’ve repeatedly said; they should have done all this in 2018, at the minimum, but they didn’t. They have continued to kick the can down the road whilst trying to paper over some very fundamental cracks.

From an outsider's perspective, it still looks to me as though they planned to intentionally inflate the M2 supply to substantially shrink their debt burdens. No matter how you look at it, there is no other valid explanation for the actions they have taken since 2008 other than them being incredibly stupid.

Shrewd investors are waiting to see what breaks first because a real shit storm is upon us and nobody knows how it’s going to play out. Will the US economy break down? The financial markets are all intrinsically linked, so there could be a lot of contagion.

The fed is screwed, basically. If they try to fight inflation they risk bankrupting the US, but if they don’t, they risk losing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It’s like a choice between being raped by a gorilla or mauled by a bear.

 

The FED is not doing enough. They will not be able to contain inflation.

And the ECB is even worse. That disgrace of Lagarde is just clueless... she's such an idiot.

 

Bank of England raises interest rates to 1.25% (= not enough!)

Bank warns of inflation rising to 11% after split vote to lift rate, for fifth time in a row, by 0.25 points.

https://www.theguardian.com/busines...ses-interest-rates-to-125-to-tackle-inflation

Inflation at 11% they said... wowww, which means in fact inflation is at 30%.

 

The economy is f*cked here. They can't raise the rates too quickly because they risk pushing us into a deep recession. We could be heading into a depression if they’re not careful. A lot of people won't even have a job then, and everyone’s quality of life will take a nose dive. This is what happens when countries don’t live within their means and continually print and borrow ridiculous amounts of money.

I think the train strike is unnecessary as everyone is in the same boat being screwed, and the drivers are already on decent money. I think it's a selfish move given the circumstances. Most other professions haven't had proper pay rises either, and that includes my wife who works way too hard as a teacher for a lot less money.

I warned people a long time ago what was coming as it was inevitable. People will only vote for governments that are gonna spend, though. Good luck getting people to vote for cuts as that’s the only way we can reduce the deficit and our national debt. That is the key issue. Printing money and pretending everything is ok - which has been going on since 2008 - is absurd. It’s a social experiment that’s gone badly wrong at our expense.

The US is doing better than us, but they are also coming perilously close to the cliff edge. They will raise the rates until something breaks, and when it does, it will break big time. At that point, they will likely revert to type and pivot because they have no other options or solutions. They have spent far too long living in cloud cuckoo land printing endless amounts of dollars from thin air. Raising the rates will only solve part of the inflation problem; it will not solve all of the supply chain issues, and it won’t solve the food problem.

They are trying to kill demand, essentially, but nobody knows exactly how far to push it because it takes a long time for the effects to show up in the economy.

Paul Volcker just said fuck it and slammed the breaks on. That’s something that neither country can afford to do anymore.

 

@Ed209, I agree with your post above.

For many older Americans, record high prices are jeopardizing their financial security just as they approach or live in retirement, according to a recent survey from The Senior Citizens League, a nonpartisan senior group.

The survey was conducted online in the first quarter and included 3,056 participants, 96% of whom rely on Social Security as a source of income.

Half of respondents ages 55 and up have spent emergency savings in the past 12 months in response to high inflation, the survey found.

Meanwhile, 47% have visited a food pantry in the last month. Moreover, 43% have carried debt on a consumer credit card for more than 90 days.

Medical care limiting's for the elderly has become startling and services are often rejected.

Medicare Plan B (medications) is approaching $200 a month and coverage must be paid; even if the subscriber is not using a single medication. The plan uses substitute medications and denying payment has increased.

Dental care and vision services are not covered by Medicare.

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Federal disability rejection for the elderly has never been higher. Elderly conditions such as tinnitus are rarely considered a disabilty.

Yet, the government can throw money to buy votes.

 

There’s gonna be some tough times ahead. I just noticed my typo on the word brakes.

 

That's a very poor argument. Everyone should defend their working conditions and the purchasing power of their salaries, the best they can, and that's what railway workers are doing, so they have my full support. Any strike has always my full support, as strikes are the only way to defend working rights.

Paul Volcker was a hero. After him all central bankers were a bunch of corrupt officials easily manipulated by politicians, and the most incompetent of all is Christine Lagarde who does not even have the skills needed for that job! She's just a talking muppet.

Powell devoted himself to manipulating the markets while trading with his own money, and the rest of the members of Powell's FED have been doing the same. They should all be in jail.

 

The world needs to keep an eye on Japan because they are aggressively buying their own bonds to defend the yield cap at 0.25% on the 10-year. As the world is tightening they are trying to go against the tide and keep their interest rates low. How long can they keep this up before there is a collapse? It is unsustainable.

Everywhere I look when it comes to the financial markets, I see problems.

All this fake money propping everything up only for them to then take it all away is just simply ridiculous, and we have no power to do anything when it comes to these central banks making these decisions. It reminds me of the US in the early 70’s when they realised they didn’t have anywhere near enough gold to cash all the cheques, so they just scrapped the gold standard and printed money willy-nilly, and they’re still doing it now, only on a much more ludicrous scale.

They have the power to print more dollars to reduce the burden of their debts. I mean just think about how fucked up that is. Can anyone else counterfeit money like that to pay off their debts? Imagine if you had the power to create money from nothing to pay your medical bills. Well, that’s basically what governments around the world are doing, but it’s the publics money they are playing with and that is built upon their hard labour. I think it’s pretty disgusting that they get away with this shit.

 

I disagree. I think they are being very selfish and their timing is also terrible. Train drivers have had pay rises far greater than the national average over the last decade, in fact, it’s around 20 times more. Their salaries have gone from an average of £42,482 to £59,198, and they now want to be paid in excess of £65,000. It’s pure greed. They are always striking and whinging whilst other professions haven’t seen a meaningful pay rise in decades. There has to be a balance otherwise it can lead to wage-push inflation where the costs are passed on to the customers who are largely other workers commuting. Rail fares are already extortionate in this country. I’m pretty sure we have some of the most expensive train tickets in the world, and if they win they are about to get even more expensive (right when others are already struggling and haven’t seen a meaningful pay rise since they started work).

They are holding other workers to ransom because it’s not economically possible to give everyone a pay rise that keeps up with this year's inflation figures.

It cannot be fixed with helicopter money either as this further increases the demand side of the equation which further inflates prices. Before you know it, things can spiral and you can find yourself heading towards hyperinflation. The stimulus cheques showed how quickly this can happen.

Paul Volcker did the right thing, but he had the luxury of a debt-to-GDP ratio of 34% rather than 143%! If you don’t understand the difference in the macro landscape between then and now then there’s no point debating this.

I agree that a lot of these bankers should be in jail. They repeatedly get away with fraud and the question is why is nothing ever done about it? How on Earth did nobody see any jail time for the 2008 financial collapse? That was entirely instigated by corrupt bankers and the taxpayers around the world were left holding the baby! It’s disgraceful. Even the credit agencies who are supposed to be the regulators were in on it. It’s corrupt to the core, and Bitcoin only exists because of what happened in 2008. The whole system needs to change.

 

Further to what I mentioned above:

Between 2010 and 2015, average NHS Nursing salaries increased by just over 2%.

Then between 2015 and 2017, a fixed 1% pay rise was implemented – the well-known ‘pay cap’. From 2018 to end of March 2021 The New Pay Deal was implemented where salaries across the board increased over a 3 year period. In July 2021, a 3% pay rise was announced for NHS Nurses – which has been back-dated to April 2021.​

Teachers and many other skilled jobs are in the same boat; others, such as retail workers, are even worse off. In the meantime, the train drivers have had an approximate 40% increase and they are throwing their toys out of the pram. You cannot make this shit up. The fact that other workers rely on the trains to get to work further compounds the problem.

They need to stop holding the country to ransom and ride out the storm like the rest of us.

Sorry to keep harking on, but my wife has been getting an average yearly salary increase of between 1 and 2%, and during COVID-19, she got nothing. I’d say her mean is around 1.5% per year.

This is laughable considering she works at a prestigious Grammar school.

This is quite revealing (and matches up with the figures above):



When adjusted for inflation, most people haven’t seen an increase. There is parity at best. In comparison, train drivers are lucky enough to have grown around 20% when adjusted for inflation (and they want a further 11%). That’s not bad at all.

Politicians should also stop giving themselves massive rises every year because it causes a them and us divide.

 

As I mentioned I don't love coming here to talk politics. It's something to do I guess.

But since the thread is titled 2020 Election, I am curious about the what ifs had any of the things that went down on January 6 had come to fruition. What if they killed Pence or Pelosi? Would Trump's cabinet have invoked the 25th on him? Would there have been street violence? Would Trump have been able to convince the Congress that this was normal and they should just go along with it? Surely he, and his supporters, had fantasies of seizing the government, but I don't think anyone would have gone along with it. As we see in the texts, Kevin McCarthy and other leaders didn't initially go along with cooks and the heathen breaking into the capitol and just having their way. Surely anything beyond what happened would have been put down.

On the other hand, suppose he would have been able to somehow stay in power by force? Besides some of the people on this thread who would be more than thrilled to have Dictator Trump. Would reasonable people prevail, or what I call "the lying and the lied to and perfectly ok with it" force everyone into a Handmaid's Tale dystopia?

 

The most recent presidential poll shows that the majority of voters would cast their ballots for Trump, rather than Biden, if the election was held today.

Poll: Biden disapproval hits new high as more Americans say they would vote for Trump

As inflation keeps rising and recession fears loom, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Joe Biden is currently in the worst shape of his presidency.

The survey of 1,541 U.S. adults, which was conducted from June 10-13, found that if another presidential election were held today, more registered voters say they would cast ballots for Donald Trump (44%) than for Biden (42%).

https://news.yahoo.com/poll-biden-d...e-for-trump-090021657.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

 

Kamala Harris has been a total failure, in her job as Vice President. She is beyond a disgrace. Thanks to the Biden administration, which she is supposed to be a part of, we are going to enter a recession, shortly. It's going to take a very long time for America to recover from its destruction at their hands. Many people will lose jobs, as companies are forced to lay people off, or close completely. Now she is our government's Chief Censor.

Big Sister II: Kamala Harris leads latest Biden ‘disinformation’ team

Another day, another White House “disinformation” task force.

The Biden administration on Thursday created a new internet policy task force — this one led by Vice President Kamala Harris — with goals including “developing programs and policies” to protect “political figures” and journalists from “disinformation,” “abuse” and “harassment.”

The action follows the Department of Homeland Security’s disastrous April rollout of its Disinformation Governance Board, which was paused after outrage over the perceived step toward government-led internet censorship.

A presidential memorandum establishing the new task force describes a sweeping mission to protect people who seek out a role in public life from online critics.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/16/kamala-harris-leads-latest-biden-disinformation-team/

 

Bitcoin going down the drain:

 

The whole system can only change if there is pain and those responsible for bringing on this situation are held responsible.

So in my book this means, Draghi, Yellen, Powell and Lagarde in jail and also corrupt politicians and those who have been wasting taxpayer's money for over a decade.

Lagarde is the worst of them all. She is so damn incompetent. And her track record, her CV, is full of pitfalls, policy mistakes and suspicions of corruption... as a prize she was awarded the position of ECB president

 

New polls show Biden having a 39% approval rating. A very small percentage of people are strong supporters.

Biden approval rating founders in multiple polls amid Democratic doubts about 2024
Just 16 percent of Americans 'strongly' approve of Biden's performance, new poll shows

Biden’s approval has sunk down to 39 percent, with 47 percent "strongly" disapproving of the president, according to a new poll from USA Today/Suffolk poll. According to the poll, only 16 percent of Americans "strongly" approve of the president.

The poll also showed a major disparity between Americans who think the country is on the right track versus the wrong track, with a whopping 71 percent thinking the U.S. is "on the wrong track."

Forty-six percent of Democrats also believe the U.S. is not headed the right direction.

In fact, only 16 percent of Americans polled said they believe America is on the right track as a nation.

Additionally, Americans were split 40 percent to 40 percent on whether they’d vote for a Republican or Democrat to go to the halls of Congress if the elections were held today.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bi...ounders-multiple-polls-democratic-doubts-2024

 

Everything is going down the drain, but you have to have some perspective. Did you not read my previous post where I explained why the moves within crypto are more pronounced? The liquidity compared to other markets is minuscule which means there are larger percentage movements. In other words, you cannot compare an 80% drop in Bitcoin to an 80% drop in something like gold or the S&P 500.

As I keep saying, from an investment point of view, Bitcoin is still massively outperforming everything.

If you don’t want to take my word for it then look at the charts:











This is all of them going from the start of 2017 to today (a typical 5 year window) and their percentage gains:

Nasdaq:
2017: 4916
Today: 11265
129%

S&P:
2017: 2321
Today: 3674
58%

Gold:
2017: 1228
Today: 1840
49%

Dollar:
2017: 99
Today: 104
5%

Bitcoin:
2017: 736
Today: 19109
2496%

Proper investments are long-term commitments where most people have a 5-10 year time horizon. Anything shorter than six months is pretty much swing trading, and the much shorter time frames are for traders. It’s advisable to cover your principle on the way up and to take some profits out when various milestones are reached.

I covered all my positions and have hoards of cash to invest in this inevitable crash - which we knew was coming. Those who left their money in savings accounts have been obliterated by their respective governments and the Fed as the inflation that they introduced has stolen a huge chunk of value from their money. It’s essentially a tax on savings.

I gave people a heads up on this two years ago, but I was laughed at. Since then, my money has gone up exponentially in value and I covered my principal a long time ago. Complaining as Bitcoin drops is pointless as you have already missed the opportunity. The best you can do now is short it if you only care about short term time horizons, but I think one would have to be crazy to do that. Longterm holders don’t need to do anything.

Most leading indicators are suggesting that a recession is coming, but remember that nobody can predict what's going to happen within the economy beyond a few months. It's impossible because it's a chaotic system and people work off a risk and probability basis. Also, Bitcoin has never lived through a recession before, so we need to observe how it behaves in the coming years because there is a chance we could see a longer-term correction, especially if it stays below the 200 MA on the weekly for an extended period of time. The bigger warning would be if it dropped below the 300 MA for longer than a week as I don't think that has ever happened before. Let’s see what happens at the next halving in 2024.

My long-term view on crypto/blockchain remains bullish and I believe adoption will continue to grow at a rapid pace. Eventually, a flash point will be reached and most people will suddenly realise that it’s being used for various applications and it’ll become as widely known and acknowledged as the internet is now.

 

Which means bitcoin and the other crypto-shit are scams... that's why they are not liquid. It is like penny stocks. Something I would not touch with a stick.

 

How can any new asset just arrive out of nowhere with a market cap equivalent to gold or a major index? That is just silly and rather ridiculous because everything has to grow from somewhere otherwise what are you investing in? I made the vast majority of my initial investment returns on the AIM which is essentially high-risk penny stocks. I made a killing there and that's what I'm drawn towards; the high-risk high-reward growth stocks/assets.

Bitcoin is no more a scam than gold or the dollar is. It’s just an alternative payment network that doesn’t require the interference of middlemen, and that’s the USP.

Back in the early 70s, people could exchange their dollar bills for a certain amount of gold. The paper bill was just an IOU for the real money which was backing it. However, there came a point where there were vastly more paper bills in circulation than there was gold in the US’s reserves. So, when more and more people wanted to exchange, and the government knew that it wasn’t possible to pay everyone, they scrapped the gold standard and switched to the fiat standard. Isn’t that the very definition of a Ponzi?

There was also Executive Order 6102 where Franklin D Roosevelt forced people to exchange their gold for cash which was effectively confiscating what they had. The emergence of Bitcoin was after the financial collapse of 2008 when people finally got sick and tired of being slaves to the banking class when they were getting away with so many atrocities. It's nothing more than an alternative option that cannot be controlled or manipulated by a central authority, and it shouldn't be causing this much of a fuss if it's worthless. The fact that it is makes me pay attention.

Most of the crypto projects out there are an embarrassing mess that will go to zero, no doubt, but there are so many innovations coming from this space that I can’t see how it will just suddenly disappear off the landscape. I can see it being integrated into the music industry; used for the governance of legal documents such as passports and driving licenses; as an anti-counterfeiting measure; for the decentralised exchange of data; to secure medical data and the supply of drugs and vaccines; to keep track of carbon emissions, etc, etc. Some of the smartest people in the world are working on these projects right now as we speak.

Those that think the crypto space is entirely about replacing fiat money (or is just about Bitcoin) do not have a clue what they are talking about. That only represents one small use-case, but it’s all the general public seem to focus on because of the newspapers.

 

Dumb Kamala Harris and Dementia/Alzheimer's Joe are at it again.

Just when you think they can't screw this country up enough, they do this crap. Like Trump says, they are coming after you, and they won't stop until they take your guns, abort your kids, and burn the flag.

This country is going into the toilet, and Democrats are to blame. Build the wall, drill baby drill, MAGA 2024. Trump will get his revenge and we can be free of this liberal progressive tyranny, and maybe we can get rid of them altogether!

Trump won the 2020 Election, there were millions of dead people who voted for Biden. Plus the illegals who are going to take our jobs and vote Democrat. They are just letting them in the country so that the white man is replaced.

 

In the highly unlikely event that the Democrats ever regain a modicum of sanity, and nominate a qualified presidential candidate with values and experience, I would consider voting Democratic. As it stands, they are not even close. They had their best non-affiliated friend possible, a man named Donald Trump, and they blew it 100% because they simply cannot do the right thing.

 

About time you woke up lol.

 

The thread could use a title change though...

 

Remember when Biden won, and so many people were thrilled to have Joe Biden as our new president? This was to be very short-lived, for most.

The malaise of Joe Biden
CNN —
Here’s President Joe Biden on Americans, from an interview Thursday with The Associated Press:

“They’re really down. The need for mental health in America, it has skyrocketed, because people have seen everything upset. Everything they’ve counted on upset. But most of it’s the consequence of what’s happened, what happened as a consequence of the Covid crisis.”

Which is, well, sort of rough?

It’s the latest in a series of comments from Biden in which he acknowledges that people are struggling – and saying he is limited in what he can do about it.

Earlier this week, Biden admitted that inflation was “sapping the strength of a lot of families.”

And earlier this month, he said this: “There’s a lot going on right now, but the idea we’re going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term. Nor is it with regard to food.”

Biden also conceded that he did not immediately anticipate the scope of the baby formula shortage. And his members of his administration, most notably Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, have admitted that they did not expect the spike in inflation to last this long or cut this deep.

The message is simple: Things are really rough right now and there’s not much I (or anyone) can do about it.

Which is not a great message for a president or a party – especially less than five months out from the midterm elections.

Biden’s position is, of course, not an easy one. While unemployment is low and there are other strong economic indicators, the increased cost of basic goods like food and gas makes it hard to convince people that things are going well.

Shortages of baby formula – and, more recently, tampons – add to the sense that America is struggling.

And the public quite clearly feels that way. In a Gallup survey released last month, only 16% of Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country, while 83% said they were dissatisfied. That marks the lowest point in Gallup’s polling since the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Read more here:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/17/politics/joe-biden-economy-inflation-gas-prices/index.html

 

I reckon it should be called the “let’s not agree on anything” thread

 

This is an interesting development. If Biden and Trump do run against each other again, I expect Trump to win.

Most Americans Don't Want Biden or Trump to Run Again: Poll
June 19 2022

A new poll has shown that a majority of Americans don't want either Joe Biden or Donald Trump to run as President in 2024.

The poll, conducted by YouGov with Yahoo, was taken between June 10 and June 13, 2022 and asked 1,541 people a series of questions.

On the question regarding should former President Donald Trump run for President in 2024, 55 percent of people said no while 31 percent said yes.

When asked whether Biden should run again for President in 2024, 64 percent of people said no while 21 percent said yes.

Read more here:
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-joe-biden-new-poll-run-election-president-1717171

 

Bolivian Treasury Secretary Antonio Balderama is the dumbest of the dumb. When are these progressive idiots gonna learn. First they jack up the currency and artificially inflate it, meanwhile the poor saps are left to pick up the pieces. Need to be in jail.

You aren't gonna have a thriving society unless you demand sound economic policies. Crap look at Bitcoin and Elon Musk. One is a sham, the other legit and NOT sucking the teeth of the common man.

 

Biden blames everybody but himself for his mistakes failures.

Biden scolds reporter on beach for asking if recession is inevitable
Biden said that majority of economists were not saying a recession was inevitable
June 20 2022

As Americans struggle to keep their heads above water amid inflation-fueled price hikes, a beach-strolling President Biden lashed out at a reporter Monday for daring to ask about the possibility of a US recession.

Asked on the sand near his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., about economic experts “saying a recession is more likely than ever,” Biden barked: “Not — the majority of them aren’t saying that. Come on, don’t make things up, OK?

“Now you sound like a Republican politician,” the president griped, before realizing how he came off and insisting, “I’m joking. That was a joke.”

The president, who emerged two days after falling off his bike nearby, proceeded to call for higher taxes on the wealthy while blaming oil companies for record-high prices at the pump.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/20/biden-scolds-reporter-on-beach-for-asking-if-recession-is-inevitable/

 

The train strikes are going ahead today and it’s going to disrupt those who are doing their exams, those commuting to work, and so much more. The RNT is being selfish, in my opinion. Those workers had well-paid job security throughout the pandemic, and they never missed a single paycheque (unlike the hospitality sector and many others who were left devastated). They are already earning well above the national average.

This is where people's ignorance of how an economy works comes into play. If they get what they are asking for then it will have a detrimental impact on all the lower-paid workers who rely on the trains. Where is the extra money supposed to come from if it’s not economically viable? We need to wait until inflation peaks and then we need to focus on bringing it down. That is the priority. Once the dust settles and everyone knows where they stand, then salaries can (and should) be renegotiated. If everyone demands a pay rise above or in line with inflation now, then it’ll not only push inflation higher, but it’ll make it stick at a higher level as well. This will screw the poorest in society the most because it will increase the gap to where the breadline is and many won’t be able to reach it. Hyperinflation is another concern if things start to spiral.

People froth at the mouth to support these events for the same reason that they’d never vote for budget cuts and better monetary control. Most are only interested in increased budget spending. Money, money, money; give us more money. Nobody ever questions where the money is supposed to come from, though. If a country is not making enough to cover its budget through its GDP then it needs to cut back, end of story! The alternative is what we’ve been seeing for the last 50 years, and that is to print new money out of thin air to fund whatever is needed and pretend everything is ok. Doing this can’t last forever because it’s built on a pretence of prosperity, but it’s really just a form of fraud.

 

These people are a model to follow: everyone should be striking. Workers are being ROBBED by politicians and central bankers.

Echoes of lockdown as employees prepare to work from home and business leaders warn of painful economic hit