VegasVic

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Tunnel vision liberal? alt=w00t.gif>

Heck, being a limousine liberal is so much more fun!

I know plenty of those from my association on Wall Street , and to be quite honest those limousine liberals are some of the most tunnel visioned and hypocrticical as well

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The BBC reported that this was the most expensive election in American history and 55% was funded by "Dark Money". Any time money is given to a politician to influence legislation it is a bribe under any guise.The American law makers have legalized corruption and bribes in the form of campaign contributions. When an American senator or congressman leaves office, the campaign contributions in his war chest do not go to the public. Some of the money goes to the party and he keeps the rest.

Lets continue on that line of thought and let the good folks here know that it was actually the losers (democrats) who out raised and out spent the winners(republicans), so it just goes to show that even with more money you can't always buy an election, sometimes the people finally get fed up and vote the clowns out and that is what happened yesterday BTW the only politicians that "keep the rest" are the ones that wind up in jail, I thought that the BBC reporters would know that With that said the U.S. political system does need massive campaign finance reform and term limits as well, a good start would be to enact the fair tax and abolish the IRS, that alone would make K street look like a ghost town and keep the real estate agents in Fairfax county Virginia busy for years trying to sell all the empty houses that use to be lived in by the hordes that live off sucking the teet of government

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The American public has just handed back the keys to the hen house to the foxes.

And the foxes found all the hen's had been killed in the last few years & left to rot.
What a mess the foxes have to deal with.....ah well onwards

Yes, what a mess, employment up, deficit down, dollar strengthening, my stocks doing quite well, thank you. Damn that Obama and all those Democrats.

Yes indeed what a mess, however lets take a look at the actual facts - Employment up??? Actually labor force participation rates are far lower now than when Obama was elected, a simple translation is that even though the population has grown over the last 6 years there are actually FEWER people in the workforce now than when Obama was elected, I wouldn't worry too much though as many of those displaced workers are now on food stamps and welfare (the Dems bread and butter electorate) Deficit down??? This is a partial truth, YOY the deficit is down slightly due to the Republicans forcing the sequester, of course when you run larger and larger deficits year after year after year and then you are forced to tighten the purse strings a little then the deficit will be down vs. the previous year. The real story here is in the debt and once again Obama gets a miserable failing grade here as well, the U.S. national debt stood at $10.5 trillion when Obama took office and now less than 6 years later it is very near $18 trillion and is on track to hit $22 trillion by the time Obama leaves office Dollar strengthening??? When Obama was elected President the Baht:Dollar rate was right at 35, now granted the Dollar has made a recent surge since the announcement of the end of QE however it is still not yet back to even 33 (close though!) This is also after nearly 15 years of the Dollar being kept artificially low to help U.S. multinational companies increase their overseas sales and so it really has little to do with Obama Stock markets at record highs- YES indeed, and I have enjoyed this as well, however as we both know this is largely due to the FEDs printing all that cheap money and then loaning it out to the banksters at around 0 percent so that all their hedge fund-arbitrage-HFT clients (Obamas largest contributors by the way) can bid up the market. The retail investor numbers have grown smaller and smaller every year since Obama has been in office, just as another poster here said "Obama rails against the 1 percenters but it is the 1 percenters that have enjoyed their largest increase in wealth since Obama took office" Hmm verry interesting observation! "Damm Obama and all those Democrats"- Now here my friend you finally broken in the the land of truth. God bless America, and after last nights results I say that once again with conviction

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Obama has been great for the one percenters that he rails against. Not so much for everyone else.

That should come as no surprise to anyone who doesn't have blinders on, Obama outraised McCain 2:1 on Wall street back when he was first elected, so his bailout and absence of any prosecution of anyone on Wall Street for the real estate-banking crisis makes perfect sense! In his tenure thus far he has had plenty of giveaways to the welfare crowd and illegals as well as free money through the FED for all the Wall Street Banksters, and of course the middle class has taken it up the you know what Well guess what, the middle class woke up yesterday, I guess better late than never

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Neo cons back in power. So glad I renounced US citizenship before coming to Thailand. Computer models of thermonuclear war clouds show it will be from Europe to the US. I will stay in Thailand. alt=thumbsup.gif>

Thank you for renouncing you U.S. citizenship (although my guess is that you never were a U.S. citizen) that means that there is one less left wing nut casting in vote

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God Bless America

I'll second that, and after last night I can say that with proud distinction once again!

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He is a good President and a descent person.

I hope the USA people would recognise that and give him the control of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Honour your good people.

Sadly, the truth is that he is among the worst Presidents in U.S. history and he is also a pathological narcissist. I say this not to insult the man, a famous FBI psych profiler did a workup on Obama shortly after he was elected and Obama fit the clinical profile of a pathological narcissist perfectly, and thus far (6 years later) he has lived up to that profile My guess is that he will not compromise and work with the new Republican majority to any great extent, he will continue ignoring the U.S. Constitution and to that end he could very likely put himself in jeopardy of facing an impeachment! Perhaps a fitting end to a man that had no experience for a job like this in the first place! Now all you tunnel vision liberals here can continue with throwing the terms "racist" or "redneck" around, however in the end just like Obama you will have to wake up and smell the coffee some day (hopefully soon than later?)

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There is another young Republican lady that got elected today.

Elise Stefanik won election to the House of Representatives from the 21st District of New York.

She is the youngest woman ever elected to the House of Representatives and was elected with over 55% of the vote.

War against women??? Hardly.

You left out a new female Republican U.S. Senator in Iowa as well as a new black female Republican congresswoman elected in Utah, just to name a couple more

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Obama deserves to lose. If it were not for the dishonest, liberal media covering for him and smearing Romney, he would have and should have lost the 2012 election. The American people have finally figured out what kind of dud we were sold.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/poll-obama-worst-president-since-wwii-108507.html

It was just a matter of time until enough Americans realized that the "emperor has no cloths" It is a shame that they did not realize this before the empty suit was reelected, as Romney could already be in the process of really turning around the U.S. Better late than never!

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Dow closed at 17,005 today. Nasdaq 4,564 and S&P at 1,985. I hope no one took the market advice of the few and the OP and went short when OP article came out. That was a quick bounce.

Ooops, don't look now but the DOW just set another record I wouldn't worry too much about the finances of the barstool trollers here, I doubt very much if they have enough Euros, Pounds, Pesos or Baht to invest in anything alt=thumbsup.gif> Speaking of which I see that the Euro is down near the $1.25 level and the Pound isn't doing much better, and this is without the Yanks even raising interest rates, just imagine what is going to happen when the FED starts to raise rates next year alt=whistling.gif> Methinks that Goldman Sachs was correct a couple months back when they predicted Euro-Dollar parity by the end of 2015!

We had an election in the States yesterday and it would appear that sanity has been restored in the good old U.S.A., so look for a balanced budget amendment a chipping away at the debt and rising interest rates as well as more favorable corporate tax policy (and a looser energy policy) in order to grow the economy and create more jobs Just so I keep on topic here, the DOW and the S&P both hit new record highs today, so much for "America being at the breaking point"

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Even if there's a bubble yyou could still make money. e.g. A condo in London was worth £350K when supposedly there was a property price bubble about to burst. Now worth £800K and people are saying the same thing. Big bubbles can become huge bubbles. Huge bubbles can become massive bubbles. You can never perfectly time when a bubble will burst. e.g. 5 million baht now may seem like a bubble, but could to 10 million and then crash 30% to 7 million. So you'd still be better off investing now. On the other hand you could buy and the price could crash months later. You need to think long-term. Should be fine over 20-40 years even with a crash or two. If you're planning to invest for a year or two then it's much more risky.

I seem to remember the same advice being given about investing in condos in Thailand in late 1996 As far as Bangkok being fine 20-40 years from now goes, you had better hope that the global warming-oceans are rising crowd are dead wrong, given that suvarnabhumi airport being nicknamed "swampy" is no accident

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More lies from The Ministry of Propaganda!! width=32 alt=coffee1.gif>

Given the real possibility of another dismal tourist season, they need something to make themselves feel better.

Given the initial stages of the Chinese real estate and banking bubble bursting already at hand and the near deflation in the EU, another dismal tourist season just might keep that inflation at very low levels for quite some time in Thailand, as a matter of fact deflation could be a very real possibility

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Dow closed at 17,005 today. Nasdaq 4,564 and S&P at 1,985. I hope no one took the market advice of the few and the OP and went short when OP article came out. That was a quick bounce.

Ooops, don't look now but the DOW just set another record I wouldn't worry too much about the finances of the barstool trollers here, I doubt very much if they have enough Euros, Pounds, Pesos or Baht to invest in anything Speaking of which I see that the Euro is down near the $1.25 level and the Pound isn't doing much better, and this is without the Yanks even raising interest rates, just imagine what is going to happen when the FED starts to raise rates next year Methinks that Goldman Sachs was correct a couple months back when they predicted Euro-Dollar parity by the end of 2015!

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Don't worry gold bugs....my guess is you will only lose another 25% or so of your investment...but if of course you own physical you can just fantasize that your personal physical gold has actually gone up in price and pleasure yourselves over it every night....and don't blame yourselves...you know it's rigged, controlled by the illuminati, the queen of England, the rothschilds, the banksters, the masons...aliens perhaps...evil politicians....cheating brokers....the last people you should blame for your choice to buy it is yourselves, after all, you are such clever people with your great understanding of fiat currency and economics and new world orders and the da Vinci code and your excellent university of life educations....you are victims of all those terrible people...lol....oh, I forgot, you could also blame Goldman Sachs of course....but the main thing I forgot to tell you is to form a Class action against the illuminati to get compensation....

Talk about hitting the nail on the head!

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Well yes China does own a lot of debt much of it belonging to the US

https://www.treasury.gov/ticdata/Publish/mfh.txt

As can be seen they have not been buying as much of it.

Nor has Japan which is why the FED started buying their own IOU's with basically more of their own IOU's

awhile back. That practice is supposedly stopping now...

How Long, Oh Lord, How Long? When will people EVER learn?

The reason that China and Japan and Thailand and many others "hold US debt" is because the dollar is the international unit of trade especially for oil. No country outside of Asia would accept China's currency in payment for anything.

China owns US dollars so that it can engage in international trade. It, Japan, and Thailand hold them in US Treasuries because they get at least a little interest. They hold only as much as they need to cover their current accounts. So naturally they don't need to buy more right now. They already have them.

If the US didn't produce enough treasuries to accommodate every other country, trade would come to a halt.

Any ignorant belief that China is so awash in money that it loans it to the US is hogwash. China is deeper in debt than the US as a ratio to GDP and so is Japan. It's a struggle for China to hold those US Treasuries but they have to or their trade would come to a halt.

Oh, and the US is the biggest buyer of Chinese exports by far, even surpassing the entire EU as a group.

<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" data-cke-saved-href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=who+is+the+biggest+buyer+of+china" href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=who+is+the+biggest+buyer+of+china" s+exports"="">

NeverSure, There you go again stating the facts of the situation, when you know very well that thaivisa thrives on conspiracy theory and anti American rhetoric The next few years are going to be very interesting indeed as the U.S. quickly becomes a net exporter of petroleum products, and at the same time the Chinese real estate market and their SHADOW banking system experiences massive convulsions Here comes King Dollar, like it or not boys and girls

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I had a similar discussion about 3 years ago as to when the crash would happen and I cautioned that these bubbles can go on for a long long time.

They normally need an event of some kind to prick them. Land prices in Isaan are clearly ridiculous but have been for at least 3 or 4 years during which time they have just become even more ridiculous.

They may well continue upwards for quite a while. However land is not a liquid asset so banks don't tend to forclose on loans as there is no way they will get there money back once the shit hits the fan.

It is only if the banks themselves get into trouble will the effects be seen and with some creative accounting that scenario is I think some way off.

"They normally need an event of some kind to prick them" Very true, and the Chinese economic slowdown might very well be that event

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Go back to 1997, same thing, people never learn. It's all borrowed money. The banker will loan you x amount of baht on your property, but only if a building is on it. If it's the same as 97, which I suspect it is, the amount of money loaned will be enough to build the structure, give the banker and his boss a little bonus and come out of the whole thing with a large amount of money in your pocket. Nobody ever pays off any of the capital, and only sometimes the interest and then only a small amount of it. The time will come when the lenders wake up and realize they have all these loans and there is no value in them. Beware of the 17 crash if not before.

Issangeorge, I certainly hope that the situation does not get as bad as back in 1997, however there is a recent NY Times article that was reposted here on T.V. (I think in the banking and real estate forum) that shows the explosion of personal Thai debt is actually approaching 100% of GDP. The article touches on the fact that real growth in Thailand could be as little as 1.3 %(I believe that was the number) next year, and tourisim has been hit hard with all the upheaval over the past year. Perhaps the most dangerous and uncontrolable factor for the Thai economy is the upcoming economic crisis in China and the tsunami like ripples it will have all across SE Asia.

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It's always so funny view the post that comment that America's appetite for oil drives it to fight in the Middle East and elsewhere. For those who are not 'in the know' The USA has now become the world's largets producer of Petroleum products in the world, first natural gas and soon crude oil, all due to 'fracking' (another story in itself). If America wanted oil so much it could have just stayed in Iraq, but it did not.

Now I'm certainly cautious about entering another conflict in the ME, most Americans are, but when factions and so called Islamic states excecute your citizens on video in crude fashion, you are going to get a 'cause and effect' result. Any other country would react the same way when their citizens have been harmed....

It's not 'brain surgery' but everyone has to lable every thing a country does for a conspiracy theory.

Tboxcar, It is refreshing to see someone here on Thaivisa who has a clue as to what is going on. I don't frequent these pages very much anymore do to the clueless wonders and conspiracy nuts (I'll leave out the large contingent here that has extreme "America Envy") who seem to dominate the forums here. The truth of course as you touched on is that the U.S. does sit on the largest reserves of petroleum products in the world, and the U.S. will be a net exporter of energy within the next 5 years, unless of course Obama were to get a third term Those here who love to predict the demise of the U.S. Dollar had better hope they are not actually making a wager on the downfall of the Greenback, because the Dollar that has been artificially supressed (by the U.S. themselves) for over a decade is now just begining to wake up I received a report from G.S. last month that actually expects an even odds bet that the Euro and U.S. Dollar get to parity when the FED begins to increase rates next year, at the same time the U.K. is about to undergo a severe real estate recession, the Chinese real estate and the shadow banking system is a ticking time bomb and of course the 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about is the severe demographic problems facing Japan. Now the clueless wonders can all jump off their barstools and expound on the latest "Petro Dollar" conspiracy theory

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They aren't ready for democracy.

They ARE ready for a 'Benevolent Dictatorship' - - - Enter > > General Prayuth and what you get is a man of the highest integrity, who plays NO favorites and who is hell-bent on cleaning-up the "Rotten-through-The-Core" Thai society.

I don't know where he came from, but Thailand should be utterly grateful that this man stepped-up to the plate and is, by force, cleaning-up where there's dirt; - and creating honesty, where there's deceit; - and creating equality, where there's none ! ! !

Thailand applauds Gen. Prayuth

alt=clap2.gif> alt=clap2.gif> alt=clap2.gif>

I agree That Gen. Prayuth Is the Best thing that has and could have happened to Thailand in a long time... 3 cheer for the General... And peace and prosperity to Thailand

I guess we will see just how many cheers Gen. Prayuth gets after the upcoming tourist season is over!

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The only reason Democracy is difgicult in Thailand is due to the Dem/ Military "Allegiance". Its an obvious pattern time & time agsin. Dems are minority/ wamt power/ Cause political turmoil as a setup/ prelude for the "Brother" military to step in. It it endless!!

Drand, You hit the nail on the head my friend The fools on this board who post that Thailand is not ready for democracy are not only clueless wonders, but very insulting to the Thai people.