Bring On The Debates

[stone]

Reub, you're views are very widely held by a lot of good people. It is great that you make the effort to explain them to people such as me that struggle to understand them. Thanks again.

[moda0306]

mods, are you insinuating that my comment stating that Obama made a strategic mistake by actively fomenting the overthrow of friendly Middle Eastern allies allowing for the ultimate takeover by radical Islamic regimes racist? Do you also think that stating that everyone was better off with the Shah of Iran retaining power is also a racist comment?

Reub,

No, I am not insinuating that.  You once specifically stated that the US should install dictatorial ally governments in the Middle East.  The Shah of Iran was one example. 

You've also stated that our current president "personifies evil," and then claim to be called a racist in a conversation i cant seem to find... and unlike stone, I find most of your comments don't contribute to debate but are just simply hateful, sarcastic drivel.  I know this sounds mean but if it improves the quality of the way you state your case the I'll take the mod hit for the team.

[MediumTex]

mods, are you insinuating that my comment stating that Obama made a strategic mistake by actively fomenting the overthrow of friendly Middle Eastern allies allowing for the ultimate takeover by radical Islamic regimes racist? Do you also think that stating that everyone was better off with the Shah of Iran retaining power is also a racist comment?

No.  I never saw anything racist in anything anyone said in this thread.

All I said was that I want to get away from talking about racism because it has no relevance to this thread's topic and I don't think there is any racism here to discuss in the first place.

[WildAboutHarry]

Obama's bit about companies getting tax deductions for moving operations overseas was really a simple point--expenses associated with relocating a facility anywhere would be tax deductible as an ordinary business expense.  I think what Obama was trying to say was that perhaps we should stop allowing companies to deduct the full cost of relocating when they are relocating facilities from inside the U.S. to a foreign location. 

I don't think so.  Obama talked about tax policies that "incentivized" companies to move overseas.  Moving expenses are a legitimate business expense and therefore legitimately deductible.  There is no "incentive" in that kind of tax policy.

[MediumTex]

Also, making these observations hardly  means someone is "in the tank" for Obama.

I might praise Romney or Obama if they had a good night the way I might praise the quarterback of a team I don't follow closely and have no strong feelings about either way.

I actually think that Obama's life story is a pretty inspiring experience, but that doesn't mean that I would ever vote for him or agree with his policies.

Similarly, I think that Mitt Romney seems like a very decent, kind and well-intentioned person.  I just think that his political career has been sort of all over the map and I think he is a lot less conservative than some may imagine.  Romney reminds me a bit of the first George Bush.

[dkalder]

It might not bother anyone, but just to give a short hint, how the two major candidates are seen over here in Germany among people around me:

Obama: Incapacitated disappointment
Romney: Plutocratic wax figure

But then, every single member of parliament here around would probably be seen as a "socialist" by at least the Romney supporters  .

[moda0306]

Reub,

Here you are.  

I don't think that Romney is "evil" in any way. He seems like a very good, competent man. The other guy personifies evil and he is using it to help destroy this country. At the very least, it is clear that he had his chance and failed miserably. You should be very, very scared. I think that the choice is clear. Do not throw away your vote on an outlier like Johnson.

 

http://gyroscopicinvesting.com/forum/ht ... ic.php?t=1

[MediumTex]

M.T said: "I actually think that Obama's life story is a pretty inspiring experience"

What do you find inspiring about it?

Well, Obama was born to a mixed race couple in a time when that was still taboo, had virtually no relationship with his father, had a bit of a flake for a mother who dragged him all over the world, he spent a lot of time growing up in Indonesia, probably as a complete outsider since he was a mixed race foreigner, probably got picked on a lot, then got passed off to his grandparents, who appear to have been great parent figures, and went on to have a lot of academic success, which later led to the rapid political ascent we are all aware of.

I'm not saying you have to like the guy or agree with him, but if you had seen a skinny mixed race 9 year old boy being chased down an alley by a group of local kids in Jakarta in 1970, what would you have said the chances were that that kid would one day be President of the United States?

I think that both Romney and Obama are appealing people.  They are both charismatic, highly intelligent and good advocates for their beliefs.  Any disagreement I have with their beliefs doesn't prevent me from seeing that they are both people of great ability.

Reub, I know that you really, really, really don't like Obama, and that's cool.  I would just like our discussions to move past that.  I feel like we're hung up on that point and it's making it hard to talk about anything else.

[Lone Wolf]

I think that one reason people can get pretty passionate about this stuff is that we generally respect each other as being smart, reasonably well-grounded folks.  It's not like when you're in youtube comments or someplace where you already know everyone is... well, kinda dumb.  The people here are just a cut above in terms of what you find other places on the net.

But this sometimes means that when opinions diverge, it can set off crazy levels of cognitive dissonance.  Our brains go through a process of "I think X.  I know I am smart.  But other smart guy thinks Y.  This feels weird."  We all experience this.  It's normal.  And in these situations, it can be hard to let stuff go, even really inconsequential stuff.  I still remember Gumby and I tussling for page after page about aliens and the pyramids.  :D

stone, you really set a great example, dude.  It's all talk, so let's just be good to each other.  Well, except for the one person who I think we can all agree has truly crossed the line: MediumTex.

I would just like our discussions to move past that.  I feel like we're hung up on that point and it's making it hard to talk about anything else.

Yes, let's do talk about something else, "MediumTex".  (If that is even your real name.)  Specifically, let's address the following Words of Hate:

In my case, I know that my praise of Calvin Coolidge is probably a bit naive, because he was in many ways a flawed President.

All of the immense respect that I had for you.  Thrown away with one cruel comment.

In response, I have done the only thing that any Silent Cal-loving American could do: namely, liquidate my Permanent Portfolio and move into a 75-25 mix of junk bonds and sports memorabilia (rebalanced annually.)  Who's with me?

[MachineGhost]

The bias on this board is hard to believe.

Romney has a perplexing problem of not acting human in public but very human in private.  If he's so obviously uncomfortable in the spotlight that being a President requires, it's not going to endear him to voters or world leaders no matter how pure his motives are.  He reminds me a lot of an efficiency expert of old.

[MachineGhost]

I still remember Gumby and I tussling for page after page about aliens and the pyramids.  :D

Ohhh, I missed that!  Gumby has a fantastic habit of bitchslapping with facts, so I can't imagine how that topic went.

[Early Cuyler]

I think that one reason people can get pretty passionate about this stuff is that we generally respect each other as being smart, reasonably well-grounded folks.  It's not like when you're in youtube comments or someplace where you already know everyone is... well, kinda dumb.  The people here are just a cut above in terms of what you find other places on the net.

But this sometimes means that when opinions diverge, it can set off crazy levels of cognitive dissonance.  Our brains go through a process of "I think X.  I know I am smart.  But other smart guy thinks Y.  This feels weird."  We all experience this.  It's normal.  And in these situations, it can be hard to let stuff go, even really inconsequential stuff.  I still remember Gumby and I tussling for page after page about aliens and the pyramids.  :D

stone, you really set a great example, dude.  It's all talk, so let's just be good to each other.  Well, except for the one person who I think we can all agree has truly crossed the line: MediumTex.

I would just like our discussions to move past that.  I feel like we're hung up on that point and it's making it hard to talk about anything else.

Yes, let's do talk about something else, "MediumTex".  (If that is even your real name.)  Specifically, let's address the following Words of Hate:

In my case, I know that my praise of Calvin Coolidge is probably a bit naive, because he was in many ways a flawed President.

All of the immense respect that I had for you.  Thrown away with one cruel comment.

In response, I have done the only thing that any Silent Cal-loving American could do: namely, liquidate my Permanent Portfolio and move into a 75-25 mix of junk bonds and sports memorabilia (rebalanced annually.)  Who's with me?

Brilliant.

[Lone Wolf]

I still remember Gumby and I tussling for page after page about aliens and the pyramids.  :D

Ohhh, I missed that!  Gumby has a fantastic habit of bitchslapping with facts, so I can't imagine how that topic went.

It of course stayed very civil, but the amount of content and research we put into such an esoteric, inconsequential discussion is amusing. 

There's actually a lot of interesting material there.  (Though interesting may be in the eye of the beholder.)  Gumby posted some really beautiful pictures of impressive ancient construction and I posted what is (IMO) a very cool video of one guy singlehandedly raising stonehenge-like blocks with ancient tools.

[moda0306]

Reub,

Can you please show me where anyone accused you of being a racist?  I can't even find it being brought up.

You may or may not be racist (I can't really tell if you actually believe some races are inherantly higher in class than others).  I won't assert one way or another because I don't know what you feel in your heart.  However, you are certainly jingoist:

"Jingoism is extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy.[1] In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests. Colloquially, it refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others—an extreme type of nationalism."

An aggressive foreign policy and uber-patriotism seem to have a high correlation with thinking that other races are inferior to your own.  That may be where some get the idea that you're racist.  I never would assume such things to the degree of making a pointed accusation.


Regarding Elitism:

"Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with a certain ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, higher intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most weight; whose views and/or actions are most likely to be constructive to society as a whole; or whose extraordinary skills, abilities or wisdom render them especially fit to govern"

The only areas I would consider myself Elitist is if this definition only applied to the bolded items above.  I don't agree with the idea that certain people have an ancestry, intrinsic quality or worth, or wealth that means they are more fit to govern or mean their views carry the most weight, but certainly there are people with a higher intellect, training, and experience that gives them more clout.  So maybe I am an elitist, but I'd argue it's somewhat common that people think experts are more fit with complex, important roles in society than dunces are.

[Pointedstick]

Reub,

Can you please show me where anyone accused you of being a racist?  I can't even find it being brought up.

It was more of a passive-agressive insinuation.

I could suspect deeper issues related to Obama's ethnicity as the motivation for your comments, but you seem intelligent and I don't want to go there.

[moda0306]

[CraigR: Personal attacks deleted.]

If everyone can't play nice these threads will be locked.

[MachineGhost]

"Does anyone on this board have a day job?"

No. All of the jobs have disappeared in the past few years despite today's unemployment numbers.

You can click on the QUOTE on the top upper right of someone's message so what you're responding to is quoted for you automatically.  No need to copy and paste or type it out.


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[Reub]

[CraigR: We're done with this thread…]

[craigr]

From the informal rules on politics:

This is an investing forum, not a politics forum.

If you want to bash on politicians you can go to a number of sites to do so. Politicians are liars, even your personal favorite. Screaming about it on an Internet forum isn't going to change this immutable law of the Universe.

However there is a reality that investing and politics are intimately tied together as government policy greatly affects the markets.

So what's the right balance? Not talking any politics with respect to investing can hide some valuable insights that may make investors more knowledgeable and able to plan their strategies to protect their wealth.

Yet, you can reach a point where there is no useful information being conveyed and the conversation deteriorates into name calling and parroting of talking points with no useful analysis.

With that said, here are the guidelines we will try:

1) Political commentary is OK if it is factual and pertains directly to the topic of investing. Preferably, offer some solutions or insights that could help out the reader.

2) Inflammatory political comments that contribute nothing to the topic of investing are not allowed. This includes name calling, attacking other posters, political rants/screeds/manifestos, etc. Just accept the fact that someone that disagrees with you is not going to be swayed in a heated argument (especially on an Internet forum). It doesn't matter how many four letter words you spew at them, it's just not going to happen. Ok?