Joel3102

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002#:~:text=United States House of Representatives,-Party&text=215 (96.4%) of 223,voted against the resolution%3A Reps. Look at the vote breakdown by party. It was a neo-con lead effort, but unfortunately many Democrats followed suit.

Tony Blair of the left leaning Labour Party enthusiastically supported the Iraq invasion following in the US footsteps. Although left leaning Canada didn’t follow suit and stayed out.

@Hardkill I know that. The meta point is that drone strikes are going up regardless of the president. Don't get me wrong though, Trump is horrendous on foreign affairs

@Hardkill Yeah to not be able to admit fuck ups on either side is the ideological thing to do

On the issue of war in particular, Democrats are still pretty bad (albeit better than Republicans). Both parties support US hegemony around the world and meddling in other countries affairs. Obama even killed way more people via drone strikes than Bush. Hillary Clinton supported the overthrow of Gaddafi which fucked Libya even harder. Both parties are bought out by the Israeli lobby and don't do SHIT to stop the Israeli's from expanding settlements in the Westbank and stealing their land. Yes the Republicans are worse, but both sides should be called out. Unfortunately, the average voter doesn't give a fuck about foreign policy.

I agree they aren’t equal. But green can still be ruthless. You know how hard the leftube scene for example rails against conservatives

Aren’t you mixing up ideology and tactics? I don’t see any conflict between being progressive and being ruthless when needed

Stocks tend to protect against inflation as well as they move in line with inflation. There hasn’t been a 10 year period in stock market history where you would have lost money in a fully diversified market portfolio.

Nah I don’t really see it as thieving, depending on what you’re specifically trading. One person wants to sell stock in a given moment and one person wants to buy. Although I wouldn’t recommend day trading however. There’s better things to do. Also most traders probably make less return than just investing in the S&P500. I personally only passively invest in ETFs. It’s the safest option and generally outperforms most people who try to “pick” stocks

The speculation of Wall St and that whole world definitely can create problems and cause damage, so it needs to be properly regulated (GFC, for example). The main value that day traders and these large algorithm softwares in the market play is that they provide liquidity in the market so it’s efficient and reflects asset values correctly. Ironically, without any dedicated algorithms to detect arbitrage in the market (which is essentially free money), there would be such inefficiencies and opportunity for arbitrage which could mean massive amounts of money made just because one person was in the right place at the right time, and insider trading would be much easier.

I couldn't agree more. Whilst fully onboard with the ideals of stage green, as somebody who's studied economics and knows finance, some of the stuff I'm reading with regards to policy prescriptions is super cringe.... This is part of the reason why progressives are deemed economically illiterate, because without grounding your higher ideals in real economic analysis, you're opening up yourself to picked apart by simplistic ideas that might not actually work. A smart and intelligent leftward shift is what is needed. For example rent control or protectionist policies. They sound good on the surface, but no serious economists support them (even left ones) because they simply don't work and do more harm than good.

I was extremely shy in high school, so when I got to uni I decided to join a lot of the party clubs/committees etc and get involved in campus culture (no frats in Australia but similar shit). A bit like Aurum, it was one of the best decision I ever made. Having been so introverted in high school I was able to loosen up and expand my confidence and social skills massively. Yes, there’s was a lot of bullshit like drinking and all that, but I got it out of my system during the years of 18-21 and now I don’t really feel like I missed out. I felt like I surpassed many of my high school friends in confidence despite my being more shy than they were in school. Having said that of course the activities were a distraction from other things so it’s good not to get too caught up in that for too long. Weigh up the costs and benefits I think, perhaps there’s something else you could join to allow you to become more social without all the low consciousness activities.

You choose to not identity as left wing but however if most of your positions are left wing then....you’re left wing lol

Just discovered a pretty small channel above. Very reasonable takes I think, about how all these guys need to be more pragmatic

Kyle has particularly gotten a bit stale and formulaic. I know what his take exactly will be usually from the title

@Leo Gura Yeah there seems to be a strain of spiritual people that have strange takes on politics. For example, see below self help/spiritual teacher endorsing conspiracies about election fraud

What’s your source for this? I think you may be confused, as Hawkins died in 2012 long before Shapiro was on the scene

Yeah listening to the podcast he’s definitely quite a sophisticated thinker. So is the Charisma on Command guy

@Leo Gura would you classify Weinstein as yellow? I know the left aren’t big fans of him

Yeah that one struck me as most problematic. Surplus savings in the economy generally becomes investment which are used as either debt or equity in the economy. By not allowing surplus savings to go back into the economy via equity, the only options would be cash (which is eroded by inflation), reinvesting back into your own company that you work at (which pools all your risk into one basket) or property (wouldn't make sense if everyone was investing in property). A lot of completely regular people are able to grow their wealth significantly over their life by investing a portion of their savings into a broad sample of the overall market. If your company (or worker owned co-cop) goes bust, you're kinda screwed.

@datamonster Exactly true. There isn’t a 10 year period in modern history where returns on an overall sample of the market would lose you money, as in the long run it will always provide returns. So it would be foolish to carry much more cash than you need for a rainy day.

I don’t think that’s true. Super rich people have most of their wealth in either equity or property. It’s actually less risky in the long run not to have all all your wealth in cash because it won’t grow and will be eroded by inflation, unlike other asset classes. Of course as you get older you’ll want more cash because your time horizon is smaller.

@Leo Gura Interesting idea. I guess I like to enquire how these ideas that sound nice would actually work in practice. A lot of cash not doing much.

Here we have a Medicare levy for everyone of 2% of your income, seems to work pretty well. although it doesn’t cover for example dentistry, so you’re screwed if you’re really poor in that area still

@Leo Gura But my point is that progressives should be willing to compromise to a public option for now, as many Western countries still have a much better system that is a hybrid. Rather than follow Jimmy Dore or Kulinski’s advice and spend all your political capital something which won’t get passed