I miss Craig Rowland

[Reub]

It's because "feminism" is just another attack wing for the leftist/progressive agenda. This agenda also includes allowing Jihadists to infiltrate and eventually take over the civilized world. Why it is this way I'm not sure. But it is their prime agenda and they are succeeding.

Kudos to Craig for highlighting this issue because it can change/destroy all of our lives if it isn't taken seriously and dealt with promptly and decisively.

[Fred]

I come here to discuss investments and not immigration. I also don't consider you (hi Craig) a knowledgeable person on the topic either. Let's try and stick to the PP as there are other sections on the site for you to push your political views. By the way, I am an immigrant.

I'm not an immigrant but I'm married to one and she pretty much shares Craig's and Donald Trump's views on immigration. Most of the legal immigrants I know also share them and I know a lot of them. I like to think that most of them came here because there were a lot of things they liked about America and its culture and they don't like seeing those things flushed down the toilet any more than the rest of us do.

[Pointedstick]

I am absolutely shocked that legal immigrants who like the USA would oppose illegal immigration by people who don't like the USA and are only doing it for money or to flee somewhere else. )

If I ever jumped through the hoops necessary to legally immigrate to a country I admire like Singapore, you bet I'd be anti-illegal-Singaporean-immigration and oppose refugee resettlement.

[frugal]

Immigration has limits of course, and I don't think it will affect the countries. The number will be small compared to existing citizens.

[Pointedstick]

Immigration has limits of course, and I don't think it will affect the countries. The number will be small compared to existing citizens.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/censu ... le/2563463

[img width=500]http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.washing ... -chart.jpg[/img]

[Cortopassi]

When was the last time any 40-50 year government forecast chart was ever right?

I think you look at that chart, and you look at US debt and both would be called unsustainable.  Whether because the US makes entry more difficult, or the US becomes less attractive, or whatever, I doubt that increasing slope can continue for that long.

[Pointedstick]

Yeah, clearly something will change politically. It already is, in fact.

Of course it's not really so much the total immigration rate that concerns me, but rather the percentage of immigrants who present problems. If we had a 13% immigrant population but all of those immigrants were wealthy, well-educated former Germans, Irish, Koreans, Taiwanese, Canadians, and Swedes (to name a few) who knew English and were ecstatic about being Americans, I'd say welcome aboard! What worries me is refugees, poor immigrants, immigrants from honor cultures, immigrants with low education, immigrants with only manual labor skills, immigrants with criminal histories, immigrants who don't know English, immigrants who immediately go on welfare, immigrants with low entrepreneurship drives, etc.

[Reub]

Don't fall for the spin of those devious progressive types. No one with common.sense is campaigning against legal, properly vetted immigration.  Just the illegal, poorly vetted type. Don't let them falsely spin the argument.

[MediumTex]

Immigration has limits of course, and I don't think it will affect the countries. The number will be small compared to existing citizens.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/censu ... le/2563463

[img width=500]http://s3.amazonaws.com/content.washing ... -chart.jpg[/img]

I would have thought the percentage would have been highest on the day the Mayflower arrived.

[glennds]

I would have thought the percentage would have been highest on the day the Mayflower arrived.

[Xan]

The point being...  Just because "we" did it to somebody else, we're supposed to just roll over for a different set of people now?

[Pointedstick]

The point being...  Just because "we" did it to somebody else, we're supposed to just roll over for a different set of people now?

Clearly, because it was wrong when we did it, so we should be okay committing cultural suicide and having it done to us!

[Pointedstick]

Also, Xan, your picture reminded me of this:

[img width=500]http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Compo ... log600.jpg[/img]

[MediumTex]

The point being...  Just because "we" did it to somebody else, we're supposed to just roll over for a different set of people now?

Clearly, because it was wrong when we did it, so we should be okay committing cultural suicide and having it done to us!

It's not that complicated.

It's simply a matter of who has the power to take land, and once they have taken it, to secure it against others who might come along in the future and want to take it for themselves.

Picture a predator snacking on a fresh kill.  It's a primal thing.

Right and wrong don't have anything to do with it.

[MediumTex]

I would have thought the percentage would have been highest on the day the Mayflower arrived.

[img width=500]https://ebougis.files.wordpress.com/201 ... .jpg?w=640[/img]

That's great, though the truth is that we didn't do anything to Native American tribes that they hadn't been doing to each other for centuries.  We just did it far more decisively.

[Pointedstick]

It's not that complicated.

It's simply a matter of who has the power to take land, and once they have taken it, to secure it against others who might come along in the future and want to take it for themselves.

Picture a predator snacking on a fresh kill.  It's a primal thing.

Right and wrong don't have anything to do with it.

I was explaining the liberal position. I fully agree with your realistic, if Machiavellian assessment.

[MediumTex]

It's not that complicated.

It's simply a matter of who has the power to take land, and once they have taken it, to secure it against others who might come along in the future and want to take it for themselves.

Picture a predator snacking on a fresh kill.  It's a primal thing.

Right and wrong don't have anything to do with it.

I was explaining the liberal position. I fully agree with your realistic, if Machiavellian assessment.

I think that Teddy Roosevelt summed it up best with his great line: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Dan Carlin described Teddy Roosevelt as being "like a heavily armed racist version of Peter Pan".  I thought that was a great description.  People probably related to him well because he did come across as very childlike in his ideas about what made a great nation.  He was also very lucky to have served as President when he did.  If he had been President during WWI or the Civil War, I suspect that his jingoism wouldn't have been quite as charming.  I think that Roosevelt probably reconsidered his own dogmatic jingoism when one of his own sons came home from WWI in a coffin.  They say that losing his son robbed Roosevelt of his own legendary zest for life, and six months after his son was killed Roosevelt himself died.

[MediumTex]

I think that Teddy Roosevelt summed it up best with his great line: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Dan Carlin described Teddy Roosevelt as being "like a heavily armed racist version of Peter Pan".  I thought that was a great description.  People probably related to him well because he did come across as very childlike in his ideas about what made a great nation.  He was also very lucky to have served as President when he did.  If he had been President during WWI or the Civil War, I suspect that his jingoism wouldn't have been quite as charming.  I think that Roosevelt probably reconsidered his own dogmatic jingoism when one of his own sons came home from WWI in a coffin.  They say that losing his son robbed Roosevelt of his own legendary zest for life, and six months after his son was killed Roosevelt himself died.

War is always so much more fun when someone else's family is doing the dying.

War is also more fun when it's short and your side wins.  I think that the French went into World War I imagining that it was going to be that once in a generation opportunity for their young men to participate in a traditional rite of passage and earns some pretty medals.

Instead, they discovered a German-built human meat grinder, and from August 5, 1914, to August 31, 1914, the French Army took 260,000 casualties, including 75,000 dead.  75,000 dead in the first 26 days of a war that would drag on for four years.

And however bad August 1914 may have seemed, it got a LOT worse after that.

[img width=600]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-EVdmzbh2k/V ... iveCas.png[/img]

[MediumTex]

Lest I leave out the effects of the German WWI meat grinder in the east, look at how the Russians suffered:

[img width=500]http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/ ... atthew.jpg[/img]

76% of Russian soldiers who fought in WWI were either killed or wounded.  Over nine million casualties!  And in the middle of all of that Vladimir Lenin took over and after the war ended the Russians and all of Russia's neighbors got to live under Communism for the next 70 years!  Sheesh.  What a nightmare.

[Coffee]

This begs the question: Which countries do you see having a strong culture, economic freedom and stability, and good prospects for the future?

Is that the 5th economic climate that no one else has discovered?

Even though your answer is not serious, I would actually say that the culture of the country and how it is changed with immigration is the 5th economic condition.

For instance, does anyone honestly believe that 1 million uneducated third worlders a year pouring into Germany is going to make that country a better functioning society and investment?

You can get a bump from cheaper labor for a bit, but eventually the social impacts and debt levels always catch up and make the economy worse long-term. Not to mention social instability introduced that is almost always bad for the economy.

So if anyone wants to talk about investing, then they should first look at the people that make up the economy and what their culture is like. From there that tells you everything you need to know about whether the place is going to be a good or bad future investment.

If a country's culture is being damaged bringing in social dysfunction and unassimilable mass immigration, then it will be a bad investment going forward and only get worse each year the longer it keeps up.

Would anyone invest in Google if they suddenly found out they got rid of all hiring standards and just brought in anyone that wanted a job? How long do people think that company would last if they did that?

The culture of a country is what makes the economy. People don't suddenly turn into Germans just by stepping over the Rhine. Only the German people can give us Germany. When that is overwhelmed, then the prosperity of Germany goes away.

Investing and culture are hand in hand. You can't separate the two. So that's why I talk about immigration so much and why it needs to be controlled.

[craigr]

This begs the question: Which countries do you see having a strong culture, economic freedom and stability, and good prospects for the future?

Frequently fewer and fewer.

I suspect the situation in places like Europe will correct itself the way it always has. Either with the receiving nation succumbing to the onslaught and simply fading away, or the citizens fight back with predictably nasty results. I think a fight is what is going to happen myself.

Any country that is not trying to take corrective action in terms of immigration I would absolutely avoid. Specifically countries like Germany and Scandinavian countries like Sweden. France could also be on the short list. They are committing suicide. For that matter, EU bonds I would likely avoid as I think the EU is not politically stable and will just get worse until it breaks up.

On the other hand, Eastern European countries could come out smelling like a rose economically. They are not importing a dysfunctional underclass by the millions and have closed their borders to the nonsense. They won't have to deal with the mess except to make sure their borders stay secure.

Australia/New Zealand as western outposts may also be OK. But even places like Australia are being heavily affected by immigration negatively. But the are not nearly on the scale of what Europe and the U.S. is doing. These economies though are much smaller than other Western countries, but they are well managed more or less.

However, I think countries in Asia are best positioned overall for the future if things don't change. The simple reason is that they don't have insanely stupid immigration policies that are damaging their societies and squandering resources. Some are still pretty corrupt however.

With the above said, it's still best to diversify widely. More and more a global index fund for stocks and bonds is starting to look like a good idea, especially for those living in Europe.

But let's be hopeful as well. The pendulum can swing back and the problems resolved quickly if the right governments come into power in these places.

[frugal]

This begs the question: Which countries do you see having a strong culture, economic freedom and stability, and good prospects for the future?

Frequently fewer and fewer.

I suspect the situation in places like Europe will correct itself the way it always has. Either with the receiving nation succumbing to the onslaught and simply fading away, or the citizens fight back with predictably nasty results. I think a fight is what is going to happen myself.

Any country that is not trying to take corrective action in terms of immigration I would absolutely avoid. Specifically countries like Germany and Scandinavian countries like Sweden. France could also be on the short list. They are committing suicide. For that matter, EU bonds I would likely avoid as I think the EU is not politically stable and will just get worse until it breaks up.

On the other hand, Eastern European countries could come out smelling like a rose economically. They are not importing a dysfunctional underclass by the millions and have closed their borders to the nonsense. They won't have to deal with the mess except to make sure their borders stay secure.

Australia/New Zealand as western outposts may also be OK. But even places like Australia are being heavily affected by immigration negatively. But the are not nearly on the scale of what Europe and the U.S. is doing.

However, I think countries in Asia are best positioned overall for the future if things don't change. The simple reason is that they don't have insanely stupid immigration policies that are damaging their societies and squandering resources.

With the above said, it's still best to diversify widely. More and more a global index fund for stocks and bonds is starting to look like a good idea, especially for those living in Europe.

Hi Craig,

but EU-PP is still working...

What would you do?

Regards!

[craigr]

Hi Craig,

but EU-PP is still working...

What would you do?

Regards!

Look what I say is just my opinion. I can't predict the future and I actually don't recommend people follow any single person's advice as gospel.

For the EU though, I would just think about making sure you maintain diversification as best you can. Also, make sure you have some assets outside the EU just in case things get funny.

[frugal]

Hi Craig,

but EU-PP is still working...

What would you do?

Regards!

Look what I say is just my opinion. I can't predict the future and I actually don't recommend people follow any single person's advice as gospel.

For the EU though, I would just think about making sure you maintain diversification as best you can. Also, make sure you have some assets outside the EU just in case things get funny.

Hi,

what about avoid to have a portfolio and money?

Why not change the money by something else? Not land. Any ideas?

Best regards.

[craigr]

Hi,

what about avoid to have a portfolio and money?

Why not change the money by something else? Not land. Any ideas?

Best regards.

Again these are my personal opinions. I don't want to give advice to anyone on what to do. Each person is much too different, and their circumstances too different, for me to do that.