spidermike007

So last October, when Scott Bessent, soon to become Treasury secretary, said that Trump was really a free trader who used tariffs as a negotiating tactic, Wall Street was eager to believe him. “It’s escalate to de-escalate,” Bessent told The Financial Times. This claim was obviously absurd. Trump has been obsessed with tariffs, which he called “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” for decades. In his 2018 book “Fear,” Bob Woodward reported that Trump scrawled “TRADE IS BAD” in the margin of a speech he gave after the G20 summit. It makes sense that Trump would see things this way. When he makes sales, whether of Trump University courses or Trump-branded cryptocurrency, he is usually taking advantage of the buyer, and he views global trade through the same zero-sum lens. It’s widely known that during his first term, the so-called adults in the room thwarted some of Trump’s most destructive whims. There have been far fewer such figures in the Trump sequel, resulting in the wholesale degradation of American governance. The conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer just directed a purge of the National Security Council. Thanks to Elon Musk’s haphazard cuts, employees who once worked to prevent the spread of diseases like Ebola are gone, as are nuclear safety experts. There’s no one in the executive branch willing to publicly push back on Trump’s threats to take over Canada. Somehow, traders failed to recognize that there would eventually be economic fallout from such profound misrule. “The markets should have put two and two together that if you’re talking about annexing Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, you’re probably going to be more radical on trade as well,” said Berezin. But Wall Street professionals, like so many other ostensibly smart people, refused to see Trump clearly, mistaking his skill as a demagogue for wisdom as a policymaker. “I don’t think this was foreseeable,” a mournful Ackman posted on X on Monday. “I assumed economic rationality would be paramount.” What an odd assumption to make about a man who bankrupted casinos. Usually, if stocks go down, so do yields on U.S. Treasuries, because they become more desirable to people looking for a safe place to park money. At least right now, that’s not happening, which he thinks could signal a crisis of confidence in the stability of the U.S. government and the debt it issues. “If we’re moving to this new world where the U.S. just can’t be trusted, then do we really want to hold a lot of Treasuries?” he said as he sketched out investors’ thinking. “Do we really want to use the dollar as a reserve?” It turns out that there’s a price for taking all the soft power America has accrued since World War II and setting it on fire. Who knew.

Let's face the reality here, Trump is threatening the well-being of the entire planet, with his ridiculously dumb policies, causing untold amounts of fear and concern, and it's all for nothing. America's never going to become the industrial might that it used to be, Trump and his goons dare busy dreaming about returning manufacturing to America, it's just never going to happen. It's just too expensive to manufacture in America these days and there are a dozen good reasons why those companies left in the first place. Trump is not bringing them back, this is pie in the sky nonsense and with it is coming a tremendous amount of fear and destruction. The man needs to be stopped. He needs to be put on medication.

Everything sparks debate these days, everything seems to offend the snowflakes, everything seems to cause "netizen outrage". Who cares, it means nothing, it is less than zero. Outrage is simply a manifestation of weak victim culture.

If you don't have a routine here it's because you either don't want a routine, or you're not disciplined enough to have a routine. Mistake number one, getting up and going to a bar at 9:00 a.m. You revealed everything about yourself that we all need to know. Australia sounds like a good fit for ya.

So I assume you must have researched this and come to this conclusion? I was going to look into switching over to teams but if it's business only then it's nearly useless. That would be very typical of Microsoft. I loved Skype. I had a dedicated number for incoming and outgoing calls and I was able to call the US unlimited for $60 a year which was great. The only thing that's always been missing from Skype was voicemail.

That is simply not a helpful reply for the question the OP had. It is very difficult to get through to Wells Fargo customer service using Whatsapp. I use Fanytel. Their prices are reasonable for incoming and outgoing calls internationally, and they also have incoming and outgoing SMS which can be very convenient. Plus you're able to get a dedicated phone number.

Unfortunately there are some on this forum who are either incapable of an articulate reply, or just think themselves very clever.

I am above the law, I've always been above the law, I've been committing crimes and fraud for 50 years and nobody's ever caught up with me. I can do anything I want as I've stated in the past I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and nobody would do anything. So I think I'm just going to start disappearing my enemies like my buddy Vlad does. Why not? They don't like me, they dare to criticize the king, and they disappear. So simple, I'm just going to use the recipe that my old friends in the New York mafia used to. Since I have absolutely nothing in the way of Integrity nor a moral compass, I just can't think of any reasons why not to do this. Fun, fun.

Stalin, And Putin we're really good guys, they never had any bad intentions, they just wanted to help the world in whatever way they could, and contribute whatever they could to mankind, and make the world a better place. That's why Russia has such an enormous budget for foreign aid. Dream on.

How on earth is this not considered murder? I react very badly when there are ropes in front of my windows and sometimes I even try to kill the person at the end of the rope. It is especially convenient knowing that I won't be charged with murder.

Many crimes are of an opportunistic nature. I seriously doubt that this guy hotwired the bike, so it is very likely that the keys were left in the bike. You wonder what these foreigners are thinking committing an act like this, it seems like such a ridiculous level of desperation or was the guy high? I was he just looking for a thrill, hopefully he'll get a nice thrill in the slammer when some of the locals warmly welcome him.

There are a multitude of reasons why very few around the world have sympathy for the Russians. Those reasons are not limited to their serial killing, despot, thieving multi billionaire dictator for life. It is more about their nature, their history as ruthless, homicidal Cossack warriors, and their total lack of manners, and class. Not to mention the dignity, class, decency, civility, and social skills decades of Leninism, Stalinism, and now Putinism has stripped them of. And of course, the utter failure of their leader. This is a clear case of psychological projection: Putin dreamt and failed to create a dollar-free world and establish Russia as an “energy superpower.” He allowed corruption to metastasize through the state’s fabric, undermining its security capabilities. With its mass emigration, skyrocketing divorce rate, and low fertility, Russia, more than the West, demonstrates an immense collapse of family and social values. Russia has nothing but malicious intentions. They are a terrorist state, run by a serial killing desperado. This is a nation so lacking in redeeming qualities. They contributed alot culturally, in past centuries. Now? What are they bringing to the table? How are they of any benefit to mankind? They offer nothing but misery, death, destruction and bad will.

People don't understand how dangerous and incredibly toxic excessive alcohol consumption is. He could have had done sort of liver ailment. It could have been spiked. Or he could have mixed many different alcohols and simply went way past his limit.

We are witnessing historic levels of hubris and arrogance, and a man who is so completely out of touch with the reality, that he is downright dangerous on so many levels, and the American people are just starting to see how unhinged this man is, and how wrong he is with his extreme policies. Who will suffer? Not the super rich or the billionaires, that's for sure.

Like a drunken sailor. He loves spending other people's money.

Always refreshing to see a US Congressman or Senator locked up. As far as I'm concerned they're all criminals and they should all be locked up. If nothing else for their illegal stock trading.

You don't like me. You don't agree with me. You are gone. I want so badly to be a dictator like my buddy Vlad.

From a major Trump backer. He may not have been the guy we thought he was. Woops. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe...this is not what we voted for,” wrote Bill Ackman, billionaire head of Pershing Square, on X. “The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system. Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.”

Nations are relocating manufacturing from China, but there are a dozen reasons they are not coming back to the US. Most of which are beyond the ability of Trump or his simple minded administration to understand. Based on a survey of North American manufacturing executives and an analysis of global trade patterns, the report reveals that more than 90% of manufacturing companies in the region have moved at least some of their production or supply chain in the past five years. Of those, half reported that they had shifted more than 20% of their manufacturing and supply chain spending. Further, owing to ongoing geopolitical uncertainties and high US tariffs, more than 90% of respondents said that they plan to make similar moves over the next five years. Thanks to their deep labor pools and growing scale and capabilities across diverse industries, Mexico, India, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and Morocco are rapidly emerging as future export powerhouses. For example, from 2018 through 2022, US goods imports declined by 10% from China in inflation-adjusted terms, but they rose by 18% from Mexico, by 44% from India, and by 65% from the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). https://www.bcg.com/press/21september2023-north-american-companies-have-relocated-production-sourcing-over-past-five-years

Trump raised the deficit by 7.1 trillion last time around. He spends like a drunken sailor. And Musk only my seems to be eliminating jobs that were needed. A failing grade of D minus to date.

I have to admit I really don't understand tattoos on men. For me it sort of reeks of desperation and a desire to be accepted. I find that some tattoos on women are kind of sexy, but on men forget about it. It's just so overplayed at this point, so overdone, and it has a real paint by numbers feel to it.

What Trump has done could precipitate nothing short of a major economic crisis. I think he's gone too far, I think he knows he's gone too far, I think his advisors know he's gone too far, but they're too cowardly to say anything, Fox News is starting to say that he's gone too far, and I think that it may be quite difficult for him to pull back from this brink. He may have set in motion a disaster of historic proportions and he could go down in history as being one of the clumsiest, most idiotic, most reckless, and most dangerous men in the history of America. I almost feel sorry for the man at this point, and that's a difficult thing for me to say, but I think the junk that's going to fall onto his ugly face is going to be a horrific thing to witness. Or a joyous thing, if you're not heavily invested in the American markets.

What Trump has done could precipitate nothing short of a major economic crisis. I think he's gone too far, I think he knows he's gone too far, I think his advisors know he's gone too far, but they're too cowardly to say anything, Fox News is starting to say that he's gone too far, and I think that it may be quite difficult for him to pull back from this brink. He may have set in motion a disaster of historic proportions and he could go down in history as being one of the clumsiest, most idiotic, most reckless, and most dangerous men in the history of America. I almost feel sorry for the man at this point, and that's a difficult thing for me to say, but I think the junk that's going to fall onto his ugly face is going to be an horrific thing to witness. Or a joyous thing, if you're not heavily invested in the American markets.

It will be quite interesting to see how the markets react today, and to see if there is a major buy-in, or if people just leave their cash on the sidelines. I am betting on the latter. Trump would not be where he is without the deep state or a similarly sinister organization or group of very powerful people who put him in that place, and are allowing him to conduct these extremely destructive economic policies. As reckless and as poorly thought out as all this seems, I think it's actually deliberate economic sabotage. Unfortunately the average American and the average person without wealth throughout the world will end up being the victims. Tens of millions of Trump supporters will be very surprised at the end result, and it won't be a pleasant surprise. Very few people truly understand just how sinister both Trump and Musk are.

As is often the case you are completely missing the point, as you are blinded by partisanship. I am simply making a point that there is some criticism being leveled toward Trump policies, at this point, from Republicans, which is a good thing. A democracy consists of open and free discussion, does it not? Typically a democracy does not forbid people from being openly critical, that happens with more of an authoritarian dictatorship, is that not the case? Please, at least make an effort to try to be truthful, objective and genuine, if you are going to reply.