Comments by rdig (page 2)

ETH to the moon!

Sounds made up. Nobody thinks we shouldn't have universal health care or free college because of black people. People think we shouldn't have those things because they are socialist.

Starting to find some good uses.

@SJG black nationalists have gained nothing for black people and they are wise to reject them. MLK, by contrast, did win much. Why on earth should they turn to violence? They have full rights as citizens now and legislation which is very harsh against anyone who discriminates. What more, exactly, do they hope to gain? If it's "abolishing the police" that's a completely idiotic idea that will, obviously and correctly never happen. If BLM pushes non-sense like that it just makes them look stop. And if they riot it just makes them look violent.

What is there to do? HIV is highly non-transmissible except through unprotected intercourse. People are essentially at zero risk otherwise. If they are going unprotected with prostitutes, they are choosing to role the dice. Even then transmission risk is low unless they, themselves, have or have had STDs and the dancer is not taking anti-virals. Do nothing.

@orionsmith: The Fed and the markets are going to play chicken with each other over rate hikes. Market will rally to test to see if the Fed is really willing to hike rates enough to fight inflation. When they do the market will go into a panic sell off to see if the Fed is really willing to stick to its guns in face of steep market declines. It's going to be one fuck of a volatile year!

If Ukraine is part of NATO it means NATO weapons closer to Russia. It also means that Russia could not intervene to protect pro-Russian factions in Eastern Ukraine.

"Predictions for 2022?" Pain!

@SJG: "Lincoln made the emancipation proclamation because England and France were going to give diplomatic recognition to the confederacy and then they could have used their sea power to break the Union blockade and they could have supplied the Confederacy through out Southern border." Where did you read this? Britain and France were never close recognizing the confederacy. The closest they came was to wait and see if the Confederacy looked like it had a good chance of winning. But it certainly hadn't at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. (Just before the 1864 election was the closest the Confederacy came in the sense the war was dragging on and becoming unpopular.)

@SJG it was a counter reaction to growing abolitionism in the north that caused most of the things you suggest. Nat Turner's rebellion certainly lead to a strong crackdown on the terrible way blacks were already treated but, no, it was not the cause of increasing talk of secession or the desire to expand slavery westward. Overall black people were treated much worse after Turner's rebellion than before. Could not have church services with only black people present, could not gather in groups, could not associate with free blacks, could not receive enough education for basic literacy. Northern troops did not even support an end to slavery until the last years of the war, overall. Far from wanting to be John Brown's initially they thought they were just fighting to preserve the union. Lincoln had to play it carefully. I am not sure what you mean by the 180,000 armed black troops being the reason slavery was not re-instated. In some sense this is true: Northerners had gained sympathy for black people because black troops performed excellently in the war. They were also appalled by the attack on the black people, especially an orphanage during the NYC draft riots. Those were the key reason, but any threat of an uprising of black people. Indeed, black people were attacked after the Civil War in South often because of fear that they were armed and would attack whites. As for Grant. He was doing okay until the depression. Clamping down on the KKK, for instance. Unfortunately the depression meant he would not have the political support to keep pressing things in the South.

@SJG: well I have already proposed what I think should be done. In return for a guarantee that Russia will not invade Ukraine the US promises that they will never be allowed to join NATO. I can't see how Putin turns that down. I guess civilians can train to defend themselves and maybe make an occupation costly, but I still think Putin will be willing to pay the price versus risk Ukraine joining NATO. That 10x difference in defense spending between Russia and Ukraine says it all.

@SJG the IRA had showed that by the early 1970's and, at that point, got as good of peace terms as they were ever going to get. After that continued violence promoted hatred toward Catholics. The same thing is true of BLM. If BLM's violence had stopped after they burned the police station in Minneapolis folks probably would have thought "well, that seems like a proportionate response" and they would have had a strong negotiating position. Which is the other problem with BLM: they don't have realistic demands at all. Abolish the police? Yeah, right! They go too and just build up bad will against them. At this point they have very little support. It has dropped across all groups including black people. If there is an upsurge in black nationalism there will be a backlash bigger than black people can handle. They are only 13% of the population. Even including sympathizers, they are not the majority.

@SJG well it was escalating tit-for-tat between Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries. Not at all clear who was worse. Totally senseless and lead nowhere.

@SJG as for black people in America. They are seriously outnumbered. They have only made progress through assimilationists like King and Fredrick Douglass. Black nationalism has never got them anywhere in the history of the USA. BLM might have looked good for a the first week or so after George Floyd was killed but the violence went on too long and ultimately hurt BLM's cause. Their popularity has dropped like a stone.

@SJG I think very early on: after the Burntollet Bridge, through the Falls Road, Divis Flats incident and into the Battle of Bogside you are right, the IRA did provide some self-defense that Catholics would not have had otherwise. The terms they were offered in the early 1970s were as good as they ever got, however, and violence after that ultimately did not further their aims. Just a bunch of senseless killing.

@SJG well, you've thrown out a real mix of good and bad points. I am 100% with you that money printing has been a complete disaster in terms of the extent it has exacerbated wealth inequality. I fail to see what the IRA accomplished, however.

Party ideology comes first. Even if you belong to multiple intersectional groups yourself if you challenge wokeness you will pay the price.

China operates under state capitalism. In terms of free market they are to the right of where American progressives would like us to be.

Pretty long thread. Lots of talk about inflation and how the Fed won't be willing to act forcefully enough to stop it. "A correction... at some point": a very weak statement since the only way it can be false is if there will never a correction at any point in the future. How are folks positioned now? I seem some mention of taking some profits. Which again is a pretty weak statement since it doesn't specify how much people have moved out of stocks (and to where?) and it is only false if everyone has held 100% until now. Is anyone actually short or positioned for the market to go down via puts?

@SJG yes, I think you have a good point. The existence of NATO is making war more likely now.

@SJG definitely better if we can avoid war between Russia and Ukraine. I think there is a clear path to a negotiated settlement. Hopefully it is taken rather miss the opportunity in what would seem to be a completely unnecessary war.

@SJG countries need the unanimous agreement of existing members to be admitted to NATO. Thus the US has veto power by this alone. Now I am sure that they would not want to be the "odd man out" but they, no doubt, have lots of power to influence other members to also go their way regarding any membership decision. As for it being a basket case: just look at its GDP/capita. The country is also riddled with corruption, although, on the plus side, this means it's GDP/capita is understating the wealth somewhat since so much is in its underground economy.

"How did we get here in America of all places, the land that used to be the home of free speech, political freedom and individual rights?" Marxist domination of our schools and universities.

I am with Meat. The Fed is going way too slow with rate hikes to fight inflation. Even after Fed rate hikes banks are already drowning in cash so in no rush to pass it along to consumers. It will take some time to take affect and inflation will continue until we really are in deep shit. Bitcoin is great place to be, especially with this little dip. Great time to be averaging in.

It is reasonable that Putin is concerned about the expansion of NATO and, possibly, into Ukraine. The solution seems straightforward, though: The US guarantees that Ukraine will never be admitted into NATO in exchange for Putin guaranteeing that Russia will never invade Ukraine. All that being, it is not a big deal if Ukraine is lost: they are a complete basket-case of a country. Putin has the stronger will and interests in this case, so if he wants it, it's his.