Comments

2

On the bright side, all the rain means that spring and summer will be incredibly gorgeous after the trees and flowers awaken.

In these hellish times, it’s reinvigorating to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

3

So true Andrew. Crocuses are already blooming.

4

Anybody could beat Trump and anybody could lose to him. There's a whole 10 months worth of events that are going to determine the outcome.

Just how sure are you, Dave - I got a hundred bucks here. Will you give me 100 to 1 odds?

6

RE: man killed by crossbow

He had a quarrel with his neighbor.

7

@6 I am surprised crossbow-neighbor stayed to talk to the police; I would have guessed he would bolt.

8

It's too bad there wasn't a better guy with a crossbow to shoot the good guy with a crossbow who killed an innocent person.

11

@7 He was confident in bowing to authority. But he'll likely get the shaft.

12

HAHAHAHA. There will be no "blow out."

If the economy is still good Trump wins by a hair, probably with less margin than 2016.

If the economy is bad Trump loses by a hair with slightly more margin that Trump won in 2016.

That's not a guess. That's just history, math and probability. Could it be wrong? Sure. But at least it's based on some sort of fact.

13

Like, what if it doesn’t, though?

It’d be kinda cool if it never did stop raining. Like, 365 days a year, 24/7 perpetual downpour.

We’d have to restructure the city to withstand that- probably have to develop some fancy mold proof building material, and redesign the sewer system. That can’t be too hard.

And think of the benefits. You never have to worry about visiting relatives staying too long. We could establish a hanging moss garden that would rival one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. If we move our primary up to replace Iowa, we could weed out the weakest candidates before New Hampshire.

It’d be kinda awesome.

14

The jobs number is so pitiful that Canada created 1/5th that many jobs.

Think about it, it's the worst jobs number, and it's still BELOW Obama's worst jobs numbers.

15

@7, 11,

The thought of being shot by a crossbow makes me quiver.

16

@14: So why insult Canada?

17

Trump won't just lose the popular vote, it'll be a blowout.

18

On the one hand, objective conditions say Trump should win. On the other hand, political polarization has destabilized a lot of the old conventional wisdom - Trump's election itself is evidence of that. And Trump has uniquely low approval for a President under favorable conditions.

You can read all sorts of professional analyses all of which make perfect sense and all of which come to completely different conclusions.

Its a pig in a poke. And for all we know, Trump's next trip to Walter Reed to, ahem, get a head start on his physical could be on a stretcher. And then what?

19

I wonder if those neighbors were arch-enemies.

I'm gonna bow out now, bye.

20

As for cults and election rigging…
GOP election rig was evident already in 1980 when the Reagan campaign cut a deal with Iran to make sure no embassy staff members will be released before the election. The arms they got from us in return during the 1980’s saved the regime and helped shaping it to be what it is today.

Reagan was the one to bring Christian fanatics to the federal government and made a candidate’s stand on abortion one of the most important factors for choosing public officials and judges. Actual qualifications or lack off may still be overlooked as a result.

His trickledown economy was meant to help the rich all along and eventually imploded on his predecessor, Bush senior, who lost his reelection bid as a result.

Reagan is still a cultish hero to some.

One may rightfully claim that Trump could still rise regardless of Reagan, yet there’s no denying that the road was paved long ago.

21

@20: I thought you were above conspiracy theories:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gop-delayed-iran-prisoner-release-election/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory

23

Wall Street is artificially delaying the overdue market correction to sustain Trump in office. How long they can push it back is unknown. However, the longer the delay, the more severe it will be when it does hit.

We are, now, where we were in early 2007. The main difference is that then, there was one major structural flaw within the economy, being subprime mortgage loans and the CDOs they were bundled into. Now, there are several flaws. The student loan bubble, the housing price bubble, the college tuition bubble and the healthcare cost bubble are all inflated beyond sustainability. If any one of them pops, it’s gonna be bad, but if more than one- especially if all- of them pop together, we will be fucked.

That is especially true here, as Seattle is a place where every one of the aforementioned bubbles is a localized economic pressure. We don’t even need to see any of the major corporations in this area implode to experience a major economic shock. Even if Boeing, Microsoft and Amazon come out of this without a scratch, anyone who recently paid a half million dollars for a mortgage Is in deep shit if those mortgages go underwater. Hospital chains have achieved monopoly status in some areas, and if any of those major corporations implodes- say, if MultiCare or Providence go under- that means major urban areas with reduced access to healthcare.

If this market correction had happened last year, it would have been mild, as the price at that time was lower than it is now. To sustain growth in these sectors, that price has to continue to increase, even if the customer bases can not afford the price it’s already at. A major rollback in prices will have to happen at some point to bring everything back into synch with what the consumer can afford. That price drop means a loss of profit, and a reduction in stock price or home value.

Now is a great time to invest in a hedge fund. Wall Street will have no reason to continue the delay after the election.

24

@1: Trumpty Dumpty can still blow up from too many BigMacs and die, Doofy. It's mentally ill and in poor health. And the 99.9999999% of us can still overturn the Senate.
@2 Original Andrew: Amen to that.
@20 CMDwannabe: Spot on and well summarized.

I concur with Catalina Vel-DuRay: RepubliKKKans are truly horrible people.

25

@ 23,

Adding to that, the bond market, which is far larger than the stock market, is telling us that we’re in a depression, with interest rates that can never return to normal without causing mass defaults. Corporate and consumer debt are at record highs.

Regarding the stock market, prices are now the third highest they’ve been relative to earnings in 150 years, and you don’t need a PhD in finance to guess what happens next. 40% of the companies in the S&P 500 lost money in 2019, yet the index still went up 30%.

The cherry on top of this shit sundae is our loathsome dysfunctional federal government, which is operating like a defeated, bankrupt state on the verge of collapse, and borrowing $1 trillion a year in order to give tax cuts to billionaires while everyone else is struggling just to pay their bills.

The Fed has pumped $500 BILLION into the financial markets since September 2019 just to prop up this Hindenberg.

When the bubble finally pops, there’s gonna be a bang so loud we won’t even hear it.

26

25,

What worries me most of all is that many people are talking just like they did in 2007. They’re forgetting that capitalism is cyclical, that boom and bust cycles are inevitable in this system and cannot be avoided. The rhetoric I find most disturbing is this talk of “the new normal”, a delusional belief in permanent sustained growth.

The trade war with China and the coronavirus have been seen by capitalists such as Mike Bloomberg and Wilbur Ross as net positives, however, the major lender to the US is China. If the economy there collapses, the Chinese have every reason to call in US debts. That usually leads to actual not metaphorical wars in most places. And given the turmoil both the UK and the EU are about to enter thanks to Brexit, even if we don’t go to war with China, burning a bridge there will leave us without a trading partner capable of buying our exports at a level that will sustain production and economic growth.

27

Dude suing the NFL thinks his soul is soul is worth $867 trillion? Lolz. Bet I could get him to part with it for $500 and 4 pack of stubbies.

28

raindrop @ 21
I still urge you to read Gary Sick’s October Surprise, where he is also refuting some of those denials.
The Iran-Contra deal was about to be exposed by an Israeli journalist turned government advisor in the 1980’s. (Israel served as the conduit for arms shipments to Iran.)
That person, Amiram Nir, was in DC in late 1988 and discussed the possible publication of what he knew with Bob Woodward of The Post. A day later he boarded a small plane en route to Mexico on a non-related business trip. A mysterious explosion occurred mid air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiram_Nir

Much of it is also mentioned in a book by Ronen Bergman, an acclaimed writer with strong ties to Israeli intelligence

https://books.google.com/books?id=NkxZcHL1xdYC&pg=PA112#v=onepage&q&f=false

Looks like we’re in agreement on all other issues mentioned in my post.

29

@28: I will, although you have to admit the undeniable plausibility of the Ayatollah needing to provocation whatsoever to thoroughly humiliate Jimmy Carter.

30

29,

Close, but not quite. Khomeini wanted to humiliate Zbignew Brzezinsky.

Carter was collateral damage.

This doesn’t rule out the possibility CMD raised, any more than Kissinger sabotaging the 1968 Peace Talks to get rid of Johnson excluded the possibility of ill intent on the part of Thieu.

31

@30: Simply arguing a possibility doesn't add credence to an argument.

32

26: The wonderful thing about economic optimism is how short-lived it always is. You might get a whole decade and change in economic expansion, but it's like the good times last for decades. Recession is inevitable.

33

Humiliation on its own won't get you weapons. Read the Bergman's book, the link I provided is the online version.

34

@22,

The draw up to your final sentence punchline was way too long. You'll never hit your target
audience.

With some practice though, you might get a nock for it... I mean a knack for it.

35

@32: When snopes changes its rating let me know "Alex Jones".

36

No. Wall Street is not "delaying" the correction to support anyone. Let alone Trump.

Trump is certainly shorting stocks through proxies that he's manipulating through his insanity on trade tariffs. There's that much manipulation. Wanton corruption. But nobody cares because everyone in the game would do it if they could.

But Wall Street is ALWAYS delaying a correction. That's it's singular function. they don't do it for anyone but themselves.

PS. Royal Caribbean has said it will refuse any passengers with Chinese, Hong Kong or Macao passports. Recession on the way boys. And if so? Good bye Trump.

37

All of you crossbow poets completely missed the point.

38

@13 - your calculation of benefits left out that after 50% of us killed ourselves due to never-ending rain, the housing shortage in Seattle would be over.

39

Re: wishing for a recession.

As someone who came out ahead after the last recession, I don’t think you really wanna wish that on your friends serving coffee at your local café. Just saying.


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