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lol classic, as if they weren't propping up the markets this whole time alongside corporate stock buybacks.

Kids, do not dump your 401Ks and be scared out of stocks. Do not cut your contributions. You will outlast this and come out ahead. The biggest mistake people made during the recession was being scared out of the stock market and missing what is now an 11 year bull market.
 

McGrrr

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Kids, do not dump your 401Ks and be scared out of stocks. Do not cut your contributions. You will outlast this and come out ahead. The biggest mistake people made during the recession was being scared out of the stock market and missing what is now an 11 year bull market.
This is frankly terrible advice and you're not qualified to give it. This is an unprecedented economic catastrophe that is only getting started. People mindlessly paying into their 401ks was partly responsible for the over-inflated stock market and it's certainly not the solution now when volatility and uncertainty are off the charts. Betting on a stock market recovery in any forward looking timeframe ahead of a wave of corporate bankruptcies is beyond stupidity. The US is known to have a cult of equities and that's part of the problem.

Cash is king in the current environment.
 
Cash is king when Treasury is printing billions of cash. You're an idiot too.

Buying the equity dip is a good idea. There's no indication that big businesses are going to shut down over this, and valuations are attractive now.
 

McGrrr

Facetious
is a Contributor Alumnus
Cash is king when Treasury is printing billions of cash. You're an idiot too.

Buying the equity dip is a good idea. There's no indication that big businesses are going to shut down over this, and valuations are attractive now.
I literally work at an investment bank and I am watching this play out in real time. Economic activity is grinding to a halt and discretionary spending is going to zero. The supply chain is broken, monetary policy has no room to manoeuvre, so fiscal spending is next. Corporates are going to default left right and center if unprecedented intervention doesn't happen.

I align with the Austrian school so I'm more skeptical of fiat currency than even you are, but in times of stress, everyone needs liquidity to get through it, and that's what cash is - liquid.
 

Surgo

goes to eleven
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orch said:
Buying the equity dip is a good idea.
You'll know exactly when it's time to buy the dip -- when people stop suggesting it, and everyone is so burned out and afraid they can't even think about buying a dip (or stocks) anymore. Given posts like these, now is definitely not that time.

Here in the US stocks have "only" made it back, in general, to about where they were when Trump was inaugurated. You think that's the bottom? Feeling as confident as you were the day Trump was inaugurated, let alone a month after he was elected?
 

destinyunknown

Banned deucer.
Cash is king when Treasury is printing billions of cash. You're an idiot too.

Buying the equity dip is a good idea. There's no indication that big businesses are going to shut down over this, and valuations are attractive now.
How do you know this is the dip? We've been hearing ''buy the dip'' for over a month, how many dips have there been in that timeframe?

If the advice is not to be scared of the stock market forever, then I agree, but I think McGrrr is right in not recommending to invest right now, even though the market's been 'stable' for the last 3-4 days. Realistically, I think we're still going to see one more big swing in the market in the coming weeks. It might be a positive one (if a vaccine is found) but more likely it's going to be a bad one as productivity plummets and companies start firing employees en masse or going bankrupt. Europe and America are still in the first days of the pandemic, I don't think we can imagine how the situation will be at its peak.

As for me, I decided to go full cash when the news about the Wuhan lockdown came out at the end of January. Someone smarter than me would have shorted the market, I (naively?) thought the West would impose travel restrictions like Taiwan or Singapore did.

Overall I don't feel too bad about my decision but I'm a bit uneasy about the Euro as a currency, given the growing anti-European Union sentiment growing in Italy, as well as countries closing their borders with other EU members, I feel like overall the European Union is losing a lot of credibility among its members after this.
 
This is frankly terrible advice and you're not qualified to give it. This is an unprecedented economic catastrophe that is only getting started. People mindlessly paying into their 401ks was partly responsible for the over-inflated stock market and it's certainly not the solution now when volatility and uncertainty are off the charts. Betting on a stock market recovery in any forward looking timeframe ahead of a wave of corporate bankruptcies is beyond stupidity. The US is known to have a cult of equities and that's part of the problem.

Cash is king in the current environment.
If I made the issue seem trivial I apologize for that. I am not banking on an immediate recovery, however I am not pulling my money out of retirement accounts and missing out on my company match by not contributing anymore. By “kids” I am referring to what I think is the majority on smogon, which are students and recent grads in the workforce. I imagine most do not have much of a retirement savings in the first place and should not play around with their retirement accounts, especially withdrawing it and trying to time the market. If you are at the age where your immediate retirement is in jeopardy and/or if your financial situation requires an immediate build up of cash reserves then appropriate measures need to be taken.

I am not suggesting people just throw money at stocks mindlessly and buying every dip when not even a single bid is holding. I am only referring to the aftermath of the 08-09 crisis where people were scared out of their retirement accounts, dumped at lows and never wanted to get back in. This irrational fear set some people back years when fast forwarded to today. However, everyone should ensure their near term security first.

Personally I have the cash to survive a few years, a stable job (for now), and continue to fund my retirement as normal. I am fortunate to be in this situation while others are scrambling just to get by.
 

GatoDelFuego

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Frankly I don't get this conclusion. Absentee ballots have been known for....years. You knew the pandemic was coming. You have weeks to get your ballot. Who is going to be affected by this? Somebody who just ordered their ballot yesterday?

The Supreme court's job is to interpret the law. Their conclusion is that the law does not allow the governor to alter the deadlines of "election day". Feel free to break the law and cause a crisis. Why not get impeached by the legislature if you think this is all about disenfranchisement? I fail to see how this is the end of democracy
 

tcr

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source: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6826732-19A1016.html

I fail to see the outrage after reading the court's script. If anything this seems like this dude is blatantly oversimplifying what the courts actually talked about in order to manufacture partisan outrage at Wisconsin Reps.

I don't think its disenfranchisement considering the original ruling by the district court was to extend the deadline for vote submission, and SCOTUS stopped that to go back to the original schedule, unless you'd argue the original schedule was also disenfranchising. As Gato said people have known about how to submit absentee voting for months if not years, it is not some new phenomenon that April 7th is the date of Wisconsin voting and that is subsequently the date of submission. In addition people have known about the Coronavirus since at the very least mid February if not earlier depending on how informed one was. Simply because people chose to last minute sign up for absentee vote and they don't get their ballot due to congestion does not mean its disenfranchising as they had every capability to sign up earlier and still have the capability to protect themselves and go in person.

If one reads the excerpt from the court one also finds that "importantly, in their preliminary injunction the plaintiffs did not ask that the District Court allow ballots mailed and postmarked after the election date, April 7th, to be counted."

The SCOTUS remarks upon cases presented unto them and does not add as an aside additional judgements, thus the only thing they actually commented on or upheld was that the state's law of ballots would be counted on April 7th, election day, rather than a day after. This judgement is not something novel, it is a judgement they have upheld many times previously. "Our point is not that the point is necessarily forfeit but that the plaintiffs themselves did not see the need to ask for such relief...This Court has repeatedly emphasized that lower federal courts should not ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election" (Purcell v. Gonzalez; Frank v. Walker; Veasey v. Perry).

I'm with gato on this one, this reads like a fundamental misunderstanding of what SCOTUS actually does combined with a misunderstanding of what disenfranchisement is, as no one's voting rights were taken away. If you failed to secure an absentee ballot in time then bully for you, it is the equivalent of shopping for presents on Christmas Eve and then wondering why you don't get the packages on time / everything is out of stock. I also think its hyperbolic to claim its a not so subtle way to disenfranchise opposition voters, or to claim that they "hate democracy."
 

tcr

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That said there are many criticisms to be made about the current way voting is done, lack of opportunities for people to get their vote out, and what have you. SCOTUS impacts none of that as it is done at a state by state level. I do think that ballot stations closing en masse is problematic and I do think that things like mail in voting or online voting should be looked at as alternatives to in person voting.
 

BP

Beers and Steers
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Every state should be voting by mail, anything else is barbaric
I'm from Wisconsin and I agree with all of your points completely. I dropped off my ballot today. I don't see how this disenfranchises dedicated voters.

I know in Milwaukee people are lining up with face masks and with considerable distance today to go vote. Which in my opinion should not be happening but I guess to each their own.
 

Myzozoa

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GatoDelFuego read the case. There is a backlog on fulfillment of absentee ballots in Wisconsin, so that no one received their absentee ballots who requested them. Then the supreme court ruled that the ballots had to be post marked by election day forcing those ppl to choose to in-person vote or be disenfranchised. It is not difficult to call this overt voter suppression, as discomforting as it may be. This is not controversial at all: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...n-amid-the-coronavirus/?ex_cid=trump-approval

"Plenty of voters (1,287,764, at last count) attempted to avoid the inconvenience and dangers of in-person voting by voting absentee — but they weren’t immune from problems either. Because local election officials have been overwhelmed by the number of absentee-ballot requests, there was a backlog in sending them out — with the result that, as of Tuesday, many voters still had not received absentee ballots that they requested even weeks in advance. The Milwaukee Election Commission alone received hundreds of phone calls from voters who said their absentee ballots never arrived.

This might not have been a problem either had the U.S. Supreme Court not ruled late on Monday that absentee ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday, April 7, in order to count. (Previously, a federal district judge had decreed that ballots would count as long as they were received by April 13, even if they were postmarked after Election Day.) But the Supreme Court’s decision essentially forced voters who had not yet received their ballots to either brave the in-person polling places on Tuesday or abstain from voting altogether.

"
 

McGrrr

Facetious
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https://www.docdroid.net/MW0thPW/200329-labour-report-final-pdf

cool to know that our major left party has been completely sabotaged by shithead insider tories and blairites for the past god knows how long
Click. 851 pages, fuck that. Scrolls to Conclusion p848
  • No evidence that Anti-Semitism complaints were treated differently to other complaints - seems reasonable, why would these complaints have a different protocol?
  • No evidence of anybody working for Labour, past or present, nor any complaints that they have treated anyone with a Jewish background unfavourably
  • There is historical evidence of the lack of robust processes, systems, training, education and effective line management for handling complaints
  • This has improved since Spring 2018
Not sure where your outrage is coming from...? Also not sure how any of this is necessarily attributable to the Tories, or Blairites, or anything in particular.

I mean, in any domain with a large enough population, some of those people will have some pretty unpalatable beliefs.
 
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Pyritie

TAMAGO
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Click. 851 pages, fuck that. Scrolls to Conclusion p848
  • No evidence that Anti-Semitism complaints were treated differently to other complaints - seems reasonable, why would these complaints have a different protocol?
  • No evidence of anybody working for Labour, past or present, nor any complaints that they have treated anyone with a Jewish background unfavourably
  • There is historical evidence of the lack of robust processes, systems, training, education and effective line management for handling complaints
  • This has improved since Spring 2018
Not sure where your outrage is coming from...? Also not sure how any of this is necessarily attributable to the Tories, or Blairites, or anything in particular.

I mean, in any domain with a large enough population, some of those people will have some pretty unpalatable beliefs.
scroll around to basically any other page and you'll see.



etc. Look through https://twitter.com/search?q=#LabourLeaks

edit: some news places are finally picking it up
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...antisemitism-tories-yougov-poll-a9462456.html
 
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McGrrr

Facetious
is a Contributor Alumnus
OK...? Was the joke in bad taste, possibly/probably? But does it indicate antisemitism... No? Your other passage just discusses how one complainant was disproportionately responsible for complaints... Well, that person has a right to be offended by a gust of wind if they so choose, but that doesn't mean that they've necessarily been mistreated or discriminated against.

If I'm being stupid, please spell it out, because it's really not obvious what's actually outrageous about any of this, even if one were to go looking for outrage.
 
cool to know that our major left party has been completely sabotaged by shithead insider tories and blairites for the past god knows how long
OK...? Was the joke in bad taste, possibly/probably? But does it indicate antisemitism... No? Your other passage just discusses how one complainant was disproportionately responsible for complaints... Well, that person has a right to be offended by a gust of wind if they so choose, but that doesn't mean that they've necessarily been mistreated.

If I'm being stupid, please spell it out, because it's really not obvious what's actually outrageous about any of this even if one were to go looking for outrage.
They commenting on the infighting/sabotage/disloyalty within the party rather than the antisemitism issue
 

McGrrr

Facetious
is a Contributor Alumnus
They commenting on the infighting/sabotage/disloyalty within the party rather than the antisemitism issue
That's part and parcel of politics; always has been and always will be. You don't get anywhere in any political hierarchy without some Machiavellian traits.
 

termi

bike is short for bichael
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hardly surprising for anyone who's kept up with uk politics that corbyn was brought down by infighting but hey at least it's there in black and white now. from an article the independent wrote on it:

'Tactics by anti-Corbyn staff evidenced in the report include channelling resources to candidates associated with the right wing of the party, refusing to share information with the leader’s office, and “coming into the office and doing nothing for a few months” during the election campaign.

The report says hostile staff created a chat so they could pretend to work while actually speaking to each other, with one participant stating that “tap tap tapping away will make us look v busy”.'

'The report says staffers trawled social media to find reasons to exclude voters from the contest, work which was referred to on numerous occasions by staff as variations of “trot busting”, “bashing trots” and “trot spotting”. One staffer described themselves as being “trot smasher in chief”, while another said during the 2015 leadership election that the “priority right now is trot hunting”. In 2015 two officials discussed the fact that they were “playing trot or not” while “the real work is piling up”. A senior official described this work as “saving the Labour party”.'

'The report claims that “The party’s resources – paid for by party members – were often utilised to further the interests of one faction and in some cases were used to undermine the party’s objectives.” Ahead of the 2017 election officials spoke of channelling resources to candidates critical of the leadership, with one telling colleagues “we need to try and throw cash” at the seat of then-deputy leader Tom Watson, a persistent Corbyn critic. It is claimed that officials operated a “secret key seats team” based in Labour’s London region office in Ergon House, “from where a parallel general election campaign was run to support MPs associated with the right wing of the party”.'

now you hardly have to be a stalinist to see the value of intraparty purges. in two-party systems there is next to no chance anyone even remotely on the left will get in power as long as they are not willing to reform their party and oust subversive elements. leftists who (correctly) believe that they do not actually live in a democratic system are under no obligation to play by the democratic rulebook where it comes to their own party. the choice is clear: show strong leadership or lose
 
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