jas007

I'm not the expert on fake drugs, but with all the fentanyl out there and, given the possibility of buying some pills that might be trouble, why risk it? Once you're dead you don't get a do over and it's not that hard tp obtain the real thing.

I remember that day. I remember the entire week before and the weekend before, when they were trying to get a little girl out of a well she fell into. That was big news. Anyway, the few days before Black Monday were no picnic. Down 100 or so one day, which was a lot back then, and maybe a little less the day before. On Monday, watching the stock ticker was entertaining, for sure. People throwing away perfectly good stocks because they had no other choice. They were using a lot of leverage. I was lucky that week, I guess. I had quit my job in August, and was in the process of moving back to San Diego and, prior to that time, I sold a lot of stocks just because I didn't want to fool around watching them. I was using some margin, but the one stock I had at the time, Ford, didn't sell off too much on Monday, so I never got a margin call. I got back into the market a few weeks later and it's been more or less up ever since, with some minor dips along the way. The 2008-2009 drop was another good opportunity tp pick up cheap stocks, as wears the beginning of the COVID scare. The moral of the story: Don't use margin, don't try to time the market, and stay invested. You can't lose, long term.

And the problem is that when you buy from some guy on the street, do you know what you're really getting? Fake, or the real thing? Is it worth your life? The smart thing to do is to get the real thing from a trusted source by way of a prescription.

I'm sure that's true, but at this point what the Ukrainian people "wish" is beside the point. They just lost a war.

Supposedly, if the price of the wine is less than 1000 baht, there is no tariff. That's why we see so many wines that cost 999 baht. Still, there most by some other explanation for the crazy markups. Other taxes?

It never made much sense to me, but knowing her, she wasn't doing that because she loved flying. Maybe flying doesn't always make sense, but it must sometimes.

Someone should start a threat on airline points. I've never bothered to pay much attention to airline points and credit card points, but apparently, it's a great game for those who know the rules. I know a girl in California that is into points. When she doesn't have anything else to do, she'll fly around in airplanes, just to get points. How that works, I'm to sure, but she wouldn't be doing that if the flights cost more than the points she gets.

I'm in Thailand and I buy wine anyway, even though the price is sort of ridiculous. California wine that would cost $11 in the USA is 1000 baht here. I can see a little bit for shipping, but 1000m baht per bottle? Oh well. Someday, I'm going to price some really good wine and see what it costs.

Why everyone seems to think the tariffs are some sort of a crisis is beyond me. The tariffs are reciprocal. If a country doesn't like them, the solution is simple. Stop putting tariffs on things from the USA. Problem solved. By this time next month, no one will be talking about tariffs.

So, what's the alternative to all those tech names? Do they have any real competition, or will people just pay the price, whatever it is?

What's the quintessential song from the era? I could never pick just one. I might be able to make up a playlist. I'm old enough to have seen a lot of the music from that era, live. Either at concerts or in clubs. In NYC, I used to live in the Village, not far from CBGB. And around the corner was The Bottom Line. Both had live bands just about every day. And down the street? All the jazz clubs. At the time, it didn't seem like too much of a big deal, but in retrospect, I was really lucky. Today's music just doesn't seem the same and the concert scene just isn't the same. What do concert tickets cost today? $500? It used to be more like $7. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Yardbirds, MC5, T-Rex, Rickie Havens, Country Joe and the Fish, The Talking Heads, The Doobie Brothers, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, The Grateful Dead, Captain Beefhart, America... And I'm probably forgetting a bunch of the rock bands. I'll skip all the jazz greats.

I have a cousin like that. He goes out bar hopping and it has to be with a limo to drive him around. Mr. Big Shot. Anyway, if you've ever lived in Manhattan, the last thing you want there is to fool around with a car.

Back in the USA, when I was just 15 years old, the laws were such that a kid could rent a motorbike. A little 50 cc Honda or whatever. Anyway, all you needed was a learner's pernit license and a little cash and you could rent a motorbike. We did that a few times. We didn't think about helmets. And we didn't even try to be careful. I'm sure I'm extremely lucky to be here right now.

Much ado about nothing. The affected countries will likely lower their tariffs. What's made in America these days, in any event? Trump's term will be over before the world economy adjusts in any significant way. In the meantime, enjoy the stock market discount. As usual, the idiots are overreacting.

If you ask me, the entire tariff thing is being blown way out of proportion. Why? Because longstanding trade patterns aren't going to reverse overnight. Trump's changes won't make a big difference overnight, and by the time they do, Trump's term will be over. If the tariffs were a disaster, it would be easy enough for the next President to reverse course. In the meantime, I think countries will perhaps lower their tariffs on US goods. Why not? What's made in the USA these days, in any event?

Perhaps the more likely outcome will be that the affected countries lower their tariffs. The tariffs are, after all, "reciprocal." I think that may already be happening, from what I heard this morning somewhere. Vietnam? Israel? I think that's what was said, although I wasn't paying too much attention.

Hardly "ill informed." I suppose you subscribe to the official narrative, hook, line, and sinker? In that case, Putin wants to invade the entire rest of the world, restore the old Soviet Union, and dominate the human race, all with a Russian GDP the size of Italy?

I'm sure they do, but at the end of the day, there's a human being that makes the decision, right? Is there some sort of rule whereby any expat can walk into the State Department office and get a ticket back to America?

Yes. But think for a minute. If the world ever gets to the point where only people with physical gold and silver or other commodities have any kind of "money," we're all in trouble. We'd be back to the stone ages and no one is really prepared for that.

It started in a lab, for sure, but the COVID thing wasn't a random lab leak. It's more sinister than that. Politics? Don't think left and right. Think up and down. Think Globalism and the New World Order. The DAVOS crowd, the depopulation agenda, big banks and big business and the extraction of money from the serfs.

It's good to have some gold, but you probably shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket. Lots of stocks will be doing very well, I think, from this point.

Hopefully, we're in store for another V-shaped recovery in the markets, especially in the tech sector. There's a lot of money that has to be invested somewhere, and the Fed isn't about to raise interest rates to entice investors into the bond market. Think stagflation. The Fed will choose lower rates, for sure. Look for gold, silver, and commodities to do OK with the inflation we'll be seeing, and look for tech stocks to bounce back. Their correction is almost over, if not over already. The AI revolution is just getting started. Just my opinion, but why not? What's the alternative? Cash under the mattress?

Russia didn't "start" this war. Anyway, Ukraine just lost and if Trump and Putin agree to stop it, it will stop. Without the USA, Zelenskyy is nobody.

Trump won't resign and he isn't in that office to fleece money for himself and his family. We'll all be lucky, though, if we're ll still around in four years. Between the wars and the possible collapse of the economy, what are the odds?

I don't know where you're from or whether you're another vaccine victim, trying to rationalize your life and your poor choices. Anyway, America is OK, but I didn't like what was going on with the COVID thing one bit. I admit, for the first month or so, they almost had me fooled. But I was paying attention and a lot of things just didn't add up. How did the country ever get to the point where a small group of people decided the thing to do was to reduce the population of the world? I realize that idea has been floating around for decades, but somehow, they finally went ahead and did it. The evil people gained control and they did it. To this day, most of America doesn't realize what was done to them. They never question authority in any event, and they've been jabbed and so they need to tell themselves they did the right thing. The WHO and the CDC told everybody the jabs were "safe and effective," and they believed it. Yes, people are still playing golf or whatever. America is still there. But there damage is ongoing. Many didn't take the jabs at all, so maybe they'll be OK, despite evidence of vaccine "shedding." I'm waiting for the arrests to begin.