Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Finger banging Joe 2020


Well this will sink his 2020 chances.
Hillary at the dugout warming up.

Trump talked about grabbing by the P.

Joe actually did.

Your video, Trump Sinks in Polls, Claims Disinfectant Comment was a Joke, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 48 Badge!

Since you've tagged coronavirus it's worth noting that (as far as I know) soap breaks down the oily lipid membrane and actively kills the virus, whereas with bacteria - which is what this video's testing for - the soap usually just drags them off your hands and down the sink.

Hence the whole 'wash with soap for 20 seconds' thing relating to this outbreak.

No, I don't talk as if there has never been an amendment. It doesn't even make sense to suggest that since I'm referring to the 2nd Amendment.

Changing the constitution is very difficult. It was made that way on purpose. Article 5:

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

"Only inaction and unsupported, unpopular opposition has prevented the government from effectively regulating, not inability."

Whether you believe it is unsupported or unpopular has no bearing on anything. Just to be clear, I never wrote or implied they don't have the ability, only that the constitution prevents "government from effectively regulating arms."

The party in power may not fully represent your views, or the views of the people who directly support the party, no party ever does. But enough Americans wanted them in, and not the opposition who resoundingly lost, that they rule the roost. Considering how many Americans don't vote there is no such thing as a majority of Americans - there can only be a majority of those who vote. And this is not a measure for winning an election. The measure for winning is electoral college votes. The rules were set, one side played it better, the other side lost and whined about the rules.

"You just implied strongly that you're just a sock puppet for Vladimir....AKA @bobknight33....and @wtfcaniuse didn't assume your stance on gun control, he derided your (bob's) snarky but incorrect assessment of our popular opinion and shooting statistics.
Who's being dumb now?!"

I'll answer straight up. You. You are acting dumb. And paranoid. I don't know who those people are. Your "popular opinion" of what? I literally gave links to authoritative statistics for anything under contention. You need to see someone about your mental state.

Try to make people feel welcome. There is a reason this website is sinking into obscurity (look at the rankings).

I'm saying they'll throw up in your sink......

https://youtu.be/cSDCzm_srfc

Almost as stupid as holding the producers of the toxic product AND the misleading or outright false information about it's hazards blameless. Because they actively misled their customers, I give them the vast lions share of blame, but maybe not 100%. There's plenty to go around.

You don't have to live in poverty to abandon fossil fuels.
Not.
Even.
Close.
I bought solar 10+- years back...it paid for itself in 8. It's lifespan is 20+-. I get 12 years of free electricity for abandoning that portion, with no blackouts, no brownouts, and no rate increases.

True, the video could be better at sharing the blame, but it stayed on topic instead, that topic being major polluters greenwashing their mage. I didn't take it as assigning ALL blame to one source, just not allowing the worst offenders to shirk all responsibility for their products.


Every one of these is the likely outcome of any anthropogenic rise over 2-3C because of feedback loops that drive us to 6-12C rise. Only the wars are likely this century, but I didn't put a timeframe on those outcomes. 140 million + will be displaced by just a 3' rise, which is all but guaranteed by 2100 under the most optimistic current projections.
That wipes out mangroves and other fish nurseries, further impacting the struggling ocean food webs. All the while it accelerates as our ability to cope erodes like the shorelines....it doesn't just halt at 3' rise.
The natural food webs on land are also struggling, and are unlikely to survive ocean collapse.

Not just from deforestation, but diatoms are near a point of collapse from ocean acidification. https://diatoms.org/what-are-diatoms. That's over 1/2....and the base of the ocean food web.


Since the IPCC (again, known for overly conservative estimates) now says at current rates we could hit as much as a 6C rise by 2100, and rates of emissions are rising as fast as carbon sinks are shrinking, they're not just a possibility, they a likelihood in the near future....but granted the hydrogen sulfide clouds are far in a worst case scenario future, far from guaranteed.

She has the same facial expression all women give me when I ask them if they would like to come over to my place and play "sink the submarine."

The islands are not "sinking." They are flooding. Not to split hairs, but...
he he he...but hairs. he he

The new lower standard....which was exponentially higher than the standard set by either the previous or subsequent president?
Do you not know how lowering standards works? To set a new low, you have to be worse than others.

8 years and Obama never had to hire a lawyer, not one indictment with the republicans frothing at the mouth daily over....well, obviously nothing, for all 8 years.
Trump, at 1.8 years in had 89 indictments and already 24 convictions (more now, 36 guilty pleas for Republican Mueller's investigation alone) with Republicans in FULL CONTROL (and he still couldn't get wall funding, Muslim bans, or kill the ACA, and barely even got his deficit exploding tax cut for millionaires).
Bush had 16 indictments, all convictions, and until Trump was considered our dumbest, most incompetent president...not anymore.

Every time you spout this kind of asinine brain dead stupidity, I will be here to save you with some fact. Claiming Obama set a new low standard means you have absolutely no grasp on reality, as it's simply embarrassingly wrong and easy to debunk factually. By every standard imaginable (morally, ethically, in civility, rationality, directionality, ability, honesty, FIDELITY, respect, etc.) he was and remains not just head and shoulders above Trump, he's miles above Trump and well above W.

It's very sad your baseless irrational hatred taints your viewpoint so thoroughly you would think that nonsense would fly....but since you just proudly flew a Q flag there, it's clear you're too far gone for fact or history to matter a whit.
Q=batshit crazy conspiracy nuts akin to flat earthers and breathairians, 100% worthy of shunning before they pull out a gun in your pizza place looking for child sex slaves, illuminati, and lizard people.
Just when I think you can't sink lower, you surprise me every time.

Btw, thanks to numerous states making releasing your tax returns mandatory to be on the ballot, Trump's 2020 chances are quickly becoming slim to none....hard to win if you aren't on the ballot, harder to win when it's shown you're a complete fraud and tax cheat.

Seems to be doing better than the Stomp group, no?

No hub caps, kitchen sinks, brooms, trash can lids, pipes, etc.

What he neglected to say, and would be important, is at 25% higher it is loud enough to cause permanent deafness, <50% higher, around 180, that's loud enough to kill a human. I wish he had asked the witness if he would sit for double the original volume, would that be disruptive? Now ask Trump.
16000 times louder....16000 times, when 2 times louder is well beyond the level that is deadly. Let that sink in. 8000 times louder than deadly. That's not only deafening for hundreds or thousands of miles in every direction (sound travels farther with less loss under water), it's undeniably deadly for miles....every time they ping it....to nearly everything. That level of sonic energy can shatter stone, what would one expect it to do to a tissue paper thin swim bladder?

I am astonished they're still trying this tech after the outrage at the hundreds or thousands of dolphins and whales it killed early on, years ago.

Perhaps (interstellar steam rockets excluded), but it is often effectively removed from use.
The natural replenishment rate is well below our use rate. That's why central California is sinking, we pulled so much water from the ground that it's collapsing beneath the farm belt, while also taking so much river water the fish can't survive.

Using it usually means contaminating or evaporating it. The latter will be recouped eventually by simple condensation, but the former is often a difficult process to reverse and often can be permanent.

This video is a trap.

She is a real woman. And she really is talking to just other women.

If she truly is a man she would know men don't have long attention spans.

After ten +- sentences, words start to sound like the music that semi truck tires make at 70 mph on the Interstate as the sun sinks in the west.

Your video, Norway accidentally sinks its own warship, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.