Are we as small savers just idiots feeding this idiot machine?
So, yes, all of this was painfully obvious. But here we are.
So desperate to be valued and liked, that he desperately grabs at anything and everything to get the acclaim that, under normal circumstances, would signify that.
His besetting character flaws foreclose any possibility of attaining the actual approval he seeks.
And so, with his misguided approaches to getting praise and love, the harder he tries the further they are from his reach.
Adding to that tragedy is that a 180-degree U-turn is still within his reach. He could do it today, and probably get some of what he most deeply wants. But I think the most likely outcome is that he'll keep his current trajectory for the rest of his life.
I also don't think changing his behavior is within reach. His narcissism prevents him from growth and, like the scorpion in the tale, he can't help but sting.
My only point was that so much of this suffering, both for himself and others, could be avoided but for his choices and flaws.
Did he change? Or is he being managed by more malevolent and manipulative people now?
Like all billionaires, he is an empty void that can never be filled. To borrow a phrase, he is a hungry ghost.
After his first million he needed more, then after a billion he saw that it was not enough, then after becoming president... he is, was, and always will be an empty hole of a person who can never feel satiated and who can consequently never feel genuine happiness.
He is not just a bad person, his is a bad soul.
You can't become one as a person with basic empathy. To do so is a moral failing.
He’s a wounded Soul … desperate to be loved and admired. As someone else wrote - there’s a void inside him that can’t be filled.
Yes if only he had the heart/insight to make that 180 U-turn. It’d bring him some peace at last.
'In the country' being 'in the USA'.
Everybody else outside the boarders of the USA is thinking "how the mighty have fallen".
It was clear that Biden was mentally slipping. Even if you were a fan of his general politics, 4 additional years of mental decline while in office was a scary prospect.
And then Kamala Harris was given very little time to sell herself to the voters.
I'm wondering if Trump would have won had the Democrats presented someone more appealing earlier in the campaign.
But America still likes him. The only thing that's tarnished him is that it costs a little more to drive a gas guzzler
A big reason for Trump's success despite his polarizing nature is the polarizing effects of the platforms of our two parties, which distinguish themselves on "culture war" issues such as abortion, gun rights, immigration, LGBT+ rights, and race relations. There are many Americans who love the MAGA agenda, and there are also many Americans who are not in 100% agreement with MAGA but who'd never vote for a Democrat since they feel that a candidate with the opposite cultural views is anathema. If third parties were more viable in America, the latter group of voters could vote for a candidate that is more to their temperament instead of voting for whomever the GOP nominee is.
I’m so excited for the future where nobody apparently voted for Trump and never backed him, the same way everyone mysteriously didn’t vote for GWB after his fuckups got too big to ignore
At the very least, they could have put the comment in quotes to indicate they're quoting someone and it shouldn't be read at the object level.
1. The shamelessness absurdity of using "market is up" to deflect from a pedo scandal
2. The fact that the market said "nope" and tanked immediately after Bondi tried to lean on it
Oh wait, they have started 2nd Epstein War to distract from the same list.
Thank god I am still able to laugh at something during this administration—if only occasionally.
I've never gotten anyone who is educated in economy/finance to provide a reasonable answer to the questions:
"Is the world economy large enough to support a meaningful number of people regularly investing in it, arriving at an amount able to support a comfortable retirement, and then draw said money out on a regular basis? What percentage of the population can be supported thus? What is to be said to that percentage whose participation would exceed the capacity of existing financial markets?"
So the reason you haven’t gotten an answer is because your question doesn’t make much sense.
I used to believe the unwinding of the Petrodollar would take a generation, it's now likely to happen this year.
Trump's wild late night rants threatening civilian infrastructure gave all the cover Iran needed to take out the infrastructure of any of our allies that have US connections or bases. The effects of those attacks on infrastructure already completed will take years, if not decades to repair.
The US, like Russia before it, has shown itself to be a paper tiger.
We need to get the Epstein class out of government at all levels, deal with the consequences of the return to hard currency, and rebuild what we can of our nation.
This won’t be achieved without extreme violence. These people are entrenched in some of the most powerful positions in our globalized world.
It's been trending upward since 2025.
So I have no idea what metric you're using but no, this is objectively not the case.
If Oil goes the USD follow suits thanks to Petrodollar. This will happen until it's still easier to trade oil in dollars.
Iran's power structure is unchanged. Oil is more expensive than in a long time. American alliances are fraying. Iran now exerts control over the Strait of Hormuz.
All this has done is to expose the limits of hard power, America's biggest asset.
Trump is the biggest environmentalist terrorist on the planet. Blow up a few schools and cause the world to double down on cutting out their oil usage.
It would be hilarious if people weren't dying.
Okay, I'll assume you're serious about it. If so, the only real way you can contribute this is by 1. Voting for anyone running on this platform at any chance you get, no matter their likelihood of winning 2. _Never_ voting for anyone _not_ running on this.
But the decline of the Roman empire took nearly 500 years.
Even the bronze age collapse, which you might say happened fast, took more than 100.
A thought I have every time someone parrots this is, "what is reasonable to expect?".
Would you have heard people saying the same thing during the civil war?
During the gilded age?
After the stock market crash?
During the 1970s oil crisis or the severe increase in violent crime during the 1970s and 80s?
Spain was an actual dictatorship in recent memory, and now you'll hear Americans fantasizing about fleeing there.
Should we not expect an empire to have ups and downs?
Maybe folks would be more careful of their money or the economy if there were more oral traditions along those lines --- one of my wife's aunts just passed away, a child of the Depression, her home was filled with home goods and food stuffs purchased when on sale beyond any reasonable expectation of her individual use, but all perfectly organized and ready to prevent future need.
One thing that worries me about the current state of things is scale and speed. Modern technology, markets, communication systems and supply chains make it possible for things to go catastrophically wrong very quickly for a massive number of people.
I think this is somewhat unique to the current era.
I still don’t buy into the belief that we’re absolutely witnessing a collapse. Studying history shows that things have been far worse (politically, socially geopolitically, etc) and we’ve come out the other side numerous times.
So I think “ups and downs” is probably the right way to look at this. I do worry about the impact of modern technology on this equation.
Well there are 3 huge IPOs supposed to go out this year. This hurts liquidity and clogs the pipes.
And then for early stage venture, where I work, it will be harder to raise funds and move new ventures forward. Especially given the extreme shifting of public assets to loyalists.
Overall it’s a bleak time for American exceptionalism. The only companies that are in vogue are AI and Defense. Biotech continues to get hammered because who needs medicine when we can just bomb people with AI right?
This all seems structural, as indicates that in the middle of a war even military stocks are down, which indicates deep rot or deep lack of confidence in at least the stock market.
Go back another couple months to when Trump took office and the total gains have been ~3.5%.
The only people making money in today's market are those with insider info about US economic and military actions (aka Trump and his associates).
There isn't. But everyone knows the US stock market is about run off a cliff. Or rather, it already has.
Everyone is looking at the quarters because they're waiting for Wile E. Coyote to look down.
Be greedy when others are fearful, or something like that?
I've been building
I figured I'd "officially" launch or actually start charging when i had confidence in my data, but its so hard in this market.
swarnie•1h ago
Buy puts, wait for Trump to say something dumb (don't worry, it won't take long), sell, return to step one.
sharemywin•1h ago
lotsofpulp•1h ago
derwiki•49m ago