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#9 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-09-09 04:31 PM
Maybe circumstances change in the future and the value of the dollar starts to go back up ... if the value of the dollar continues to decline.

That is no longer a safe bet, as the assumption was a year ago, when Trump's hack Peter Navarro and economic advisor Stephen Miran managed to quickly bring USD down 12%, and there was a plan for "Mar-a-Lago Accord" to bully other countries into supporting some USD devaluation... but several things changed since to make this much more iffy, notwithstanding Trump still wanting lower USD and rates.

1. When USD dropped sharply lower in 2025, China sharply lowered CNY to 7.3 and Miran wisely stopped currency mini-war, and USD stabilized at that 10%-15% lower range. No attempts to deliberately lower USD since that slapdown, especially because of very weak JPY.

2. Miran is out of administration, after a short stint at the Fed, and buffoon Navarro no longer has policy authority.

3. Trump, just as Biden, wants to "run economy hot"... but because of persistent inflation, in large part due to Trump's idiotic policies, US bonds are being sold and interest rates are going higher, ironically supporting USD, despite Trump bullying and Bessent's impotent attempts at intervention. Warsh can try and slow down short-term rates hikes, but that's only prolonging the agony.

4. As you know, EU (and Germany) is also in quite a bit of turmoil economically and politically, and there are several weak governments so that puts the limit on EUR / USD arbitrage, and makes the issue much less predictable or stable:

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#139 | Posted by oneironaut at 2026-09-03 03:29 PM
This is a lie...

Only if you kept your eyes and ears closed or avoided news programs that were shown even in Santa Clara, San Francisco and Marin Counties at the time. You can check 2024 news archives... or you can believe whatever you want.

Talk about incompetence.

You're confirming exactly what I said.

Imagine being more incompetent than Trump, and yet still supporting Biden/Harris.

Or... keep watching utter incompetence, corruption and stupidity "at the highest level" doing possibly irreversible damage to the sections of country's economy, military, foreign relationships etc., bordering on treason... "yet still supporting Trump."

When people are faced with two bad choices (i.e., a question of "who is worse" not "who is better"), like we were "blessed" with in the last 3 elections, courtesy of having our choices decided by extremist idiots in the primaries they will usually choose one (not voting is also a "choice") - ... but given what we already knew about Trump, I would choose (not "support") simple "incompetence" (surrounded by reasonably competent professionals instead of "pretend-competent" TV personalities) every time.


This is false because CNN did a ride along with Obama's ICE deporting people right off the streets of Chicago. [ICE] agents go searching for undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes while in the U.S. illegally.

Again confirming exactly what I said - no drama ride-along targeting illegals with criminal records, instead of deliberate militarized "wide net" show of force roundups of "suspicious" brown people and people without criminal records who had been here legally and in process of extending legal temporary or establishing legal permanent resident status.

There was no quota, no "in your face" militarization of ICE, no drama...

You can't possibly not see the difference, especially being well aware of Trump's "China Initiative" that only benefits China (or other countries), not the USA.


#136 | Posted by BellRinger at 2026-09-03 02:29 PM
... our economy is doing fine. Our economic troubles are tied to Trump's stupid tariffs and war with Iran.

Well, "talk about incompetence"... and "yet still supporting Trump".

You sound almost like a few people here (who no longer post - Hans, TonyRoma, etc.) before 2024 elections. They kept reciting official NUMB3RS about inflation, GDP, and worrying about unemployment rate few months into November... even though I kept trying to explain that these don't represent the "economy" that > 2/3rds of the people see and experience, and besides, there are ["culture war"] issues they simply refused to see or acknowledge as relevant.

Yet now you're trying to defend objectively worse economic conditions for even larger segment of people.

Trump admin and followers are in exactly the same kind of self-denial - liar Bessent is arguing what economy shape is K- or C-... as if anyone cares:

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#1 | Posted by BellRinger at 2026-09-02 11:36 AM
The Democrat party is the party of illegal immigration. They need to own it.

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#51 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-08-28 01:47 PM
I think Cutiepie is a project as well. Or experiment.

You sure you didn't mean Effeteposer instead?

I've been working on quite a few projects, many are experimental... never thought I was one, but... one never knows.


Both are similar in nature.

If you did mean me, do you mean that 'project' and 'experiment' are 'similar in nature' - or that my posts are 'similar in nature' to C0RI0LANUS' posts?

If it's latter, it should take less than 10 minutes to disabuse yourself of that notion. That in itself could be a quick and easy project... or an experiment.
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#42 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-08-28 10:22 AM
C0RI0LANUS is not a real person. Or at least not a real person from the US. The dictation is all wrong, and there is no officer in the world who would have written "Lieutenant Colonel" as Lieutenant-Colonel. That's not a thing. I've suspected this for a while, but for me, this confirmed it.

Maybe try not helping troll farms "debug" their "holes" - they'll make it more difficult to identify their trolls next time. They still use human trolls, including native English speaking contractors, because they are cheaper, but pushing the misinformation/disinformation content of AI-generated material from fake websites to legit channels or social media.

C0RI0LANUS is clearly a human CRINK troll, slightly more sophisticated than low-level Effeteposer, who is Putin's so-called "probe" troll - initially throwing things out on a blogsite to identify the areas of interest, majority "consensus" on empathy and issues, and then promote and feed daily these directional views (like "socialism" and "anti-Israel" / "anti-Zionism"), for the most part staying away from or being negative on the site's generally unpopular views (like Russia).

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#5 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-22 02:11 AM
... before Pres Trump's War of Choice with Iran, 130 ships per day passed through the Strait of Hormuz.

Some 8.25% of those oil tankers were originating from Iran itself - ~ 90.5% / 1.5M bpd of which went to China, 57% of that going through UAE transshipment hub.


#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-22 01:30 AM
But, the amount of oil transiting the Strait still shows Iran's control over the Strait.
... It is still subject to Iran's control.

At this point, exactly 0 (zero) tankers with Iranian oil are going through the Strait - does that mean that the USA and allies "control" the Strait? Or both parties "control" the Strait, no party "controls" the Strait, one of the parties has more/less "control"?

If Iran really had control of the Strait, Iranian people wouldn't be experiencing long queues due to supply disruptions and shortages at petrol stations even in Tehran.

To say that Iran "controls" the Strait is an overstatement, it's not even a stalemate... but Iran does have some leverage, and so far they used it as well as they could, under the circumstances.

In the past, Iran's leadership have been known to become overconfident and overestimate their strength. Now, however, they may have met their "match" on that score.


#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-22 01:38 AM
... and then there are the negotiations between Iran and Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz ...
Oman, Iran seek deal to safeguard shipping through Hormuz Strait
So, the US is not involved in that deal?

Of course, the US is/was "involved", as Oman has no ability to "safeguard" anything in the Strait, without the US' say-so. So, as "negotiations" go, these are useless, but hey, talking is good... The latest is that Iran acknowledged that Oman "deal" doesn't reopen the Strait.

Iraq has also been negotiating with the US and Iran about letting Iraq ship oil - Iran in exchange wants Iraq to leave Iran-backed militia in Iraq alone. Iran allowed passage of several Iraqi oil tankers, though the nature of that "agreement" has been in flux.


Indeed, Pres Trump has threatened to bomb Oman.

Trump is demented and an idiot who can't control his impulses so, whenever he hears "bad" news, he reflexively defaults to what comes naturally to him - threatening to use force or lawsuits.

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
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#13 | Posted by SpeakSoftly at 2026-08-21 05:01 PM
If our government could order our industries to do their bidding like china does we'd be a lot more competitive.

LOL. No, we wouldn't - it's called "industrial policy" and it usually ends poorly for the industries involved and the economy in general due to mistaken notion that "government knows best" and results in misallocation of capital (and labor) and uncompetitively mispriced goods.

For example, right now, the buildout of datacenters resulted in lack of labor to build housing... Trump's immigration policy doesn't help.

"Industrial policy" of Japan in the 1980s and 1990s lead to several "lost decades" and loss of competitiveness in many other sectors. Same is actually happening with China and Germany.

We've had several experiments with the "industrial policy" and protectionism - in steel, cars, yachts, "renewable energy" etc. - most recently with Trump and Biden administrations trying to "re-shore / on-shore" manufacturing in places and sectors where there was either no real organic demand or it was not price-competitive and was cheaper to buy elsewhere... IOW, money down the drain once the government "program" was over.

We're plenty competitive in the global market, including "manufacturing", in the services companies choose to provide and the goods companies choose to make, based on the input costs, TCO, potential market size and available expertise - cost or quality is what makes companies competitive, not government edicts.

Most of the problems are that the governments (federal, state and local) increase input cost via several mechanisms - "minimum wage", taxation, regulations, mandates, resources misallocation (e.g., energy / electricity) etc.


Also, Maybe you have enough time to grow your own food because you're a loser, but most of us have other jobs.

You've just described what David Ricardo called "comparative advantage" - it's cheaper and less burdensome to buy the goods with a fraction of what you can earn elsewhere - that's why "industrial policies" don't work in the long run.

But that would be exactly the kind of "industrial policy" that government could demand - e.g., supplying a certain percent of "local", "farm to table" or "organic" food or non-caged chicken eggs, etc. - that would raise costs and made products less competitive vs other states or countries.

Competitiveness is about price - and governments' "industrial policies" inevitably raise costs and "price goods and services out of the market" - especially when the "market" is increasingly global and technology can make it cheaper somewhere else.
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#50 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-21 09:48 PM
And all your current alias seems to have in reply is deflection.
So, allow me to ask once again ...
How many ships per day pass through the Strait now? Yer up ...
What does your current alias see?

So either your "current alias" didn't read my post or your "current alias" now pretends it didn't read it - let me repost, it was at the end:

|------- Besides that, there are verified reports of US Navy escorting some tankers through (similar to Operation Earnest Will in 1987-88), near the coast of Oman - depending on source, anywhere from 3M to 8M barrels are flowing out... though both numbers are far less than ~ 20M pre-closure and the insurance on these is much higher, thus still affecting the price of oil futures. -------|

So, again, your "current alias" keeps ignoring the answer and now deflected a second time by trying to change the subject and move the goal posts from inane "The Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz may be a more potent force to face the world than Iran possessing a nuclear bomb" by asking non sequitur question about the flow of oil through the Straight of Hormuz.

And your "current alias" has not addressed at all the issue of "Trump has taught them that", which they obviously knew and tried using many times since 1980, as we [hopefully, now] know from history (see link in my first post) - if anything, the question is whether he understood what he was getting into, because knowledge or understanding of history (or much else) is not his strong suit.

Maybe you should retire your "current alias" shtick - it has an "arrogant, not too smart" look and doesn't serve you well.
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#45 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-08-21 08:07 PM
So you're saying they'll have one any day now?
Any day ...

Where did I say that? Isn't that what IAEA was monitoring against, and the Obama's agreement with Iran was about?

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#4 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-18 03:14 AM
So, Iran is now saying publicly something that Pres Trump has taught them...

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#26 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-08-16 09:50 AM
You must be a Szechophrenic or,. Something?

I feel your pain, Comrade Troll. You're still using Russian spellchecker, but very good post - short and pointless.
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#15 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-08-14 12:45 PM
Between us girls, because of this failure to produce the results Israel was hoping for, I don't know how much use they will have for Trump - or the US - going forward.

The night of November 5 2024 was a special nightmare for both Zelensky and Netanyahu.

Trump botched Abraham Accords that Netanyahu was working for almost 10 years to make with SA. Instead, Trump took the idea and rushed to sign something before 2020 elections to get the credit and bask in glory of "peacemaking" ceremony, so he got UAE and Bahrain (who already had informal trade relations with Israel) joined at the time, and later removed Sudan from state sponsor of terrorism list to get more signees. Unlike would-be accord with Saudis, that obviously didn't change geopolitics of the region, but Trump got the resume enhancement he could brag about, and the "peacemaker" / "no forever wars" cred he took into his 2024 campaign.

Not to mention Trump's habit of saying stupid things which he takes back an hour or day later, but which cause havoc and demand immediate attention and need to be taken "literally and seriously" by any serious government... which is much harder on [former?] "friends and allies" who - if that's possible - want to keep "normal" ties with the US for "post-Trump" (and post-traumatic) era, than adversaries who can and do just blow him off.

Iran just warned Syria, Turkiye, Qatar, SA and Iraq to not interfere with Hezbollah in Lebanon, to avoid "a broad regional confrontation."

Syria and Russia are now reestablishing the ties, importing > 80% of wheat and about half of daily crude consumption from Russia, and discussing joint exercises on former Russian bases inside Syria, while there is a possibility of another coup, or at least good old-fashioned tribal genocidal blood-letting, the way it's happening against Alawite, Druze, Kurds, Yezidi, Christians...

The $3.3B FMF to Israel (100% of it flowing back to the US, in addition to facilitating joint R&D, intelligence and commerce) is going away soon anyway, but Israeli companies have good trading and cooperation relationship with the US companies, which is more important than any "agreement" that US government can tear up or "limit" or slow-walk as has been done in the past, and particularly recently.

Trump has a knack for making a mess anywhere he goes and anything he touches turns to crap... yet he keeps inserting himself into everything, because of his ego and as long as he thinks he and/or his crime family can financially benefit.
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#20 | Posted by REDIAL at 2026-08-14 03:48 PM
Which is what? $3B per year?
- - - - - And a couple of aircraft carrier groups on hand.

Missing the fact that they are there for protection of US and allied countries' bases, datacenters and other assets in the Middle East, which became evident when Iran attacked UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan ($2.2B annual FMF+ aid), Egypt ($1.3B annual FMF)... and that it were Saudi and UAE rulers urging Trump to turn heat on when they saw Trump claiming victory and dithering ("Surrender!" mistakenly assuming it would follow the earlier militarily operationally successful "Venezuela playbook"), and/or turn it off when they understood that thought that making [another] deal with Iran was a better option.

As Trump [quite accurately, for a change] said many times, "Bibi doesn't tell me what to do, I tell him what to do".

Israeli command understood long ago that the only way Iran could be defeated was through real "regime change" (not Trump's "Venezuela model" or killing Ayatollah and top clerics, in which case IRGC and Basij would assume direct government control and become more entrenched) and had plans to accomplish that in late 2024 when they ran into Biden's/Blinken's "take the win," and in June 2025, when they ran into Trump's ego (he was still pining for that Nobel Peace Prize at the time) and micromanagement (he made it known "loud and clear" that he was "generalissimo" of the ops) when, after bombing a few Iran nuclear sites - operation "Midnight Hammer" which he wanted to be a punctuation point, to take the credit for "obliterating" Iran's nuclear WMD program - he abruptly called a ceasefire, then stopped the second phase of regime change plan ("They don't know what the f**k they're doing!") and Israel had to abort the op and turn back IAF planes that were on the way for another raid wave and to provide support for the IDF and Mossad's fully prepped "ground game" of dismantling and removal of IRGC and Basij command and control (by various means, including providing safe passage for them and families to neutral countries) with the uprising follow-up...

A few months later, out of the blue, Trump made another idiotic call, now for an impromptu uprising promising "Help is on the way!"... when no help was forthcoming, and more than 40,000 Iranians were slaughtered by IRGC within a few weeks.

Trump finally realized this made him look bad, as was the news that most of the nuclear "dust" was removed from the bombed plants... so that's how Trump's decisions were made.

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#28 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-08-12 12:04 PM
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics." ~ Mark Twain

That's for damn sure.


Obama added 54.6% ... or a total increase of $9.3 trillion.
Biden added 30.5% ... or a total increase of $8.16 trillion.
Trumpy added 29.1% ... or a total increase of $19.8 trillion
So far..
Now do you see the problem?


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AI Used to Create New Viruses

As opposed to what, using special programmable automation software and "manual" lab work, the way it's been done since "computers" became commonplace?

Using new technologies to speed up, automate or develop new capabilities is as old as the hills.


... raising hopes for medical advances while also raising the disturbing possibility that the technology could someday be used to invent dangerous pathogens.

Oh noez!

"Gain-of-function! Gain-of-function!"
"Wuhan flu"!
"Experimental mRNA killer vaccines!"
"Chinese biolabs!"
"Ukrainian biolabs!"
"Fauci! Fauci! Fauci!"

Amazing how much of Luddite fears and "back to the future" attitudes are in common recently between the "educated" Left and "uneducated" Right, when it comes to "manufacturing" and science, particularly in the fields of biotech, genetics, pharma, nuclear, AI, autonomous driving, robotics etc.

As technology improves, "AI" will be used to do / automate almost everything for what we now use "computers", for good and/or bad - that's the nature of technology.

Why create all the unreasonable, manufactured anxiety about progress that is inevitable and can be making our lives better?
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62 percent of young people want to see significant changes' to government.

Only 62%? And can these "yoots" agree on what specific 'significant changes' to government they want to make? When they grow up, start working and start families, do they want to make the same changes to government as when they were "young people" or are they staying pretty much as economically and politically illiterate and static in their opinions as some people on this board seem to have remained?

How does this compare with the adults who "want to see significant changes to government" and do they differ in many ways re the parts they want to see changed? **

Most of "young people" have no idea of how the world really works, how and why the political and economical systems evolved in history, and what the consequences were, except what they already "know" from schools and parents, and then learn from influencers and their social media "clubs" which explains why the young are easily inculcated and radicalized.

It's usually made easier in times of difficult economic environment, political corruption and wars - that's how Fascism and Communism rise and die.

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years." - old proverb


Let DSA win a few municipal and state seats with their "rousing" speeches/rallies and then, as is expected, fail at governing (like Trump and Mandani et al) - that just might bring Democrats back to sanity in 2028 primaries.

Trump has been more of a threat than DSA, but he is already breaking GOP similarly to DSA breaking Democratic Party - maybe we're having simultaneous "conservative crack-up" and "liberal crack-up" - they just keep coinsiding with [expected] electoral losses.
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#7 | Posted by CutiePie at 2026-07-27 04:06 AM
Or we can keep listening to notable "climate scientists" like Jane Fonda and Greta Thunberg et al, that impeded development (and/or were pushing a phase-out) of one of the cleanest and safest energy solutions...

- - - - - #11 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-07-27 10:31 AM
???
Trump cancelled $35 billion in the cleanest and safest wind and solar energy projects.
Not Greta and Jane.


First, before reflexively responding to a line in a post, try reading what it says in the supporting links I posted - these were written by REAL environmentalists, not political "activist" hacks looking for a "cause" to become an "influencer" or to stay "relevant" with the cool "in-crowd."

Second, you're still stuck in almost 2-decades-old Musk-induced haze of "clean" EVs and utility-scale solar and wind that have been debunked long ago... and you clearly haven't been paying attention to actual science and economics (physics and math) which cannot be fixed by politics/politicians (FOOTPRINT, ENERGY DENSITY, TCO), which I and few others here have been posting - let me refresh that for you (requires actual reading and attention to detail):

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Trump Administration to Lower Radiation Safety Standards

Oh, noez! If it isn't one "nuclear" scare, it's another. Anything to stop or slow down the development of new, much safer SMR (small modular nuclear reactors) and catch up the current and future energy/electricity supply with energy/electricity needs.

New regs don't affect safety or dosage limits, they just provide better clarity for developers by removing legal ambiguities of ALARA ("as low as reasonably achievable"), which should significantly speed up the R&D designs and testing.

Stated even simpler it wouldn't ever affect anyone not working on or near reactors, i.e., the scientists who know better what is and isn't safe and wouldn't jeopardize their lives or health.

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The economic advantages are undeniable, as evidenced by you not denying them:

You would make a lousy lawyer - "not denying" something (especially when someone was not asked to "confirm or deny") is not an "evidence" of anything...

This is a common fallacy - "Illicit Negative, i.e., affirmative conclusion from a negative premise" - it's a bad practice and bad form (could be considered an ad hominem), you should try to avoid.

That said, the benefits of "free trade" and "freedom of movement" are obvious ("thanks, capitalism!") so, given the chance, why would I deny that?


1. I've already explained to you what happened after Brexit - just because majority in UK were fed up with some of the heavy-handed EU ("Brussels") rules, mandates and, given that UK already had much less trade with EU than with the USA and the rest of the world (IOW, the "least integrated") they wanted a social "divorce," and it was extremely stupid of EU to be "Trumpy" to UK which, unsurprisingly, generally negatively affected both economies - you don't need to be a "rocket surgeon" to understand that.

And, as I've already pointed out in first post, economically EU was even worse off for it - "Play stupid games - win stupid prizes."

The "divorce" didn't end as well as it could have because of hurt feelings and stupid desire to "punish" one party by the other party - it happens too often in politics.

Again, that doesn't mean that the "remedy" is for UK to re-join ("remarry") EU, which, fortunately, EU is finally recognizing, and that is why they're moving toward "reset" with UK - "free trade" and "freedom of movement" and other agreements will fix economic things.

2. Once "reset" is accomplished, the "many young voters" won't be interested in reversing Brexit, because all their current complaints and grievances will be addressed.

Even "many young voters" can easily understand that a country can enjoy social and economic benefits of partnership, without having to become a unit of a larger entity and be a subject - e.g., just like having the benefits of "free trade" and "free movement" doesn't mean that Canada should merge with the US / aka become "51st state"... even if some "AI Summary" would speculate that it would benefit more.


--AI Summary

Be careful with "AI" or this could happen to your brain:

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#7 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-07-21 08:29 PM
"UK has done significantly better economically "under Brexit" than EU"
- - - - - Rich people in UK, sure. Rich people are doing significantly better globally.

Don't know what this has to do specifically with the subject, but it's generally the case "globally" (including UK) that the "rich" usually do better than "not-rich", Brexit or no Brexit.


If you're a young person in UK, your job prospects are not what they used to be, because you can't go work in EU any more.

Not accurate, even in the article they say that they could work in EU, it would just cost them and they would have to jump through hoops for visa and permits.

Would it be nice for them and others, not affiliated with larger companies, to travel and work without the hassle and expenses? Sure.

But none of this requires or is a good reason for the world's fifth-largest economy to re-join EU and share dysfunctional EU's economic and political problems with UK's own.

These are really minor issues that could and should have been very easily resolved long time ago without undoing Brexit, if only EU stopped being so "Trumpy" towards UK, trying to "punish" them for dissing EU by making some unreasonable demands and/or stalling economic and cooperation agreements; it also didn't help that UK itself had many changes of government over this period.

Hence, movement toward some kind of "reset": FTA: The good news is that the U.K. and EU are starting to repair their broken relationship... Officials on both sides are also working toward closer integration on a range of issues, including trade, energy, security, and crucially, freedom of movement.

Both UK and EU economies would benefit if they embraced as much "free trade" as they could, and some of their politicians stopped feeding either "full integration" or "Britain First" nonsense to people.

Just like Canada doesn't have to be "51st state" to have great economic and social relationship with the USA... the vote to rejoin EU is not needed and is unlikely to be successful; it would only take time, resources and reopen old divisions and acrimony.
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Ten years after Brexit, many young voters in Britain think rejoining the European Union is a good idea.

"Many young voters" think spending beyond their means is a "good idea"... because YOLO and FOMO!

They think BNPL or maxing out and paying monthly minimum on their credit cards is a "good idea"... until they find themselves in financial trouble.

They think getting their knowledge on TikTok or Insta or other social media is a "good idea."

"Many young voters" think that what politicians promise is "for real" and a "good idea" because they are economically illiterate and don't know better... then, after an election or two, they grow up. Then again, some never grow out of "good ideas" and carry their fantasies into adult life despite those having been debunked and proved categorically wrong in the past, because they can't accept having been duped by politicians,.

Particularly in Britain, that just has proved that Labour has no "better ideas" on how to fix UK's recent social and economic problems than Tories, and flipping the government every couple of years didn't work, "many young voters" are now thinking that voting for a fascist party and giving them a chance to govern is also a "good idea."

One reason for this sad state of affairs is due to the stupidity of EU politicians, behaving like jilted lover/spouse, attempting to "punish UK" for Brexit and taking time to re-establish trading agreements, instead of fixing their own issues which created impetus for Brexit in the first place, at the cost to economies of both UK and, even more so, EU.