🚨 A Dictatorial Coup Is Taking Place Within The United States Right Now 🚨

[Hardkill]

On 2/20/2025 at 1:06 AM, Leo Gura said:

Yes, you guys are way too chronically immersed in the news. Stop consuming news for 3 months and see how you feel. You're getting lost in a social narrative. Go outside, touch grass.

When I started my first business in 2008, right in the middle of the market collapse, I didn't even check the news for 5 years. During that time I made a bunch of money and didn't even know or care what the economy was doing. If sat around watching the financial news every day I would have probably been so depressed and pessimistic that I wouldn't have even worked on my business.

The news narrative -- regardless of what it is -- is NOT reality. Stop watching news and go work on something creative. Go make some art. You will see that all this news stuff is a stupid distraction. You are not improving the world by sitting around worrying about the news each day.

Recognize that Trump's #1 goal is to leech your attention. Trump is an attention whore and he will waste your life by distracting you from the important work you should be doing rather than watching his stupid reality TV show. Same goes for Musk. These narcissists are just attention whores who are too pathetic to generate their own love so they steal it from you like vampires.

Stop feeding the vampires.

I will say that my dad used the 2008 financial crisis as a major opportunity for buying a lot of solid stocks while learning how to invest in the stock market in a serious pragmatic way for the long-run. He became so successful at it through hard work, discipline, commitment, street smarts, reading books on it by real gurus like Warren Buffett, learning a lot from real experts about the economy, etc. that he made our family much more well off financially than ever before with no serious debt at all over the past 16 years. His trading strategy has still kept making us more and more money every 1-2 years. In fact, if it wasn’t for his amazing success at it, then my family and I would probably be living paycheck to paycheck and/or had to leave California. 

Edited February 26 by Hardkill

[nerdspeak]

11 hours ago, Hardkill said:

I will say that my dad used the 2008 financial crisis as a major opportunity for buying a lot of solid stocks while learning how to invest in the stock market in a serious pragmatic way for the long-run. He became so successful at it through hard work, discipline, commitment, street smarts, reading books on it by real gurus like Warren Buffett, learning a lot from real experts about the economy, etc. that he made our family much more well off financially than ever before with no serious debt at all over the past 16 years. His trading strategy has still kept making us more and more money every 1-2 years. In fact, if it wasn’t for his amazing success at it, then my family and I would probably be living paycheck to paycheck and/or had to leave California. 

There has been a lot of asset inflation since 2008. Not taking anything away from your dad (I don't know enough to comment), but anyone who got into the market after the financial crisis did well. 

For example, let's look at the S&P 500 first. There was a huge crash after the fall of Bear Stearns, and at the end of 2008 the S&P 500 was below $1000. 

• December 31, 2008 S&P 500 Close: 903.2515
• February 25, 2025 S&P 500 Close: 5,955.254

That's a growth factor of 6.593, not including reinvested dividends. Let's say you reinvested all dividends to make the math easier and say that made the growth factor 7x.  

That means, if you put in $100,000 at the end of 2008, you'd have $700,000 now. 

As a second example, let's look at the Nasdaq 100, since it contains the tech stocks that have seen huge growth. 

• Nasdaq 100 Close (12/31/08):    1,211.653
• Nasdaq 100 Close (2/26/25):    21,298.25

21,298.25 / 1,211.653 = 17.57, which is an insane growth factor. If you invested $100,000 in the Nasdaq 100 at the end of 2008, you'd have $1,757,000 today. That's an annualized return of 19.5%. 

That's just with a dumb buy-and-hold index strategy that a lot of people do by accident through automated 401k contributions. 

Of course, most people in a position to do this in 2008 had lost a huge amount of money in the crash from the GFC. But the point is, there have been huge structural factors pushing stock prices up since 2008 (read; massive money-printing) so no one who did well in the past 15 years should think it's necessarily because they're a genius. Unless they did much better than the market overall, in which case maybe they can think they're a good investor. That said, I rather doubt anyone did better than 19.5% unlevered return on an annualized basis, otherwise they should be running a hedge fund. 

[Rafael Thundercat]

Anyone saw DJT video of Trump Gaza on his Instagram? Disgracefull.

[puporing]

 

 

Edited February 26 by puporing

[thedoorsareopen]

What happened to all the pro-Trump bros who were on this forum last summer? I thought this all was good, because of vague vibes about masculinity or “the system” or some shit.

[puporing]

4 minutes ago, thedoorsareopen said:

What happened to all the pro-Trump bros who were on this forum last summer? I thought this all was good, because of vague vibes about masculinity or “the system” or some shit.

Hopefully going through a rude awakening like everyone else might be. 

[PurpleTree]

“It feels like we’re in the midst of a Ketamine fuelled, middle of the night, autocratic power grab”

Not really a fan of hers but that’s poetic, nice.

But here is a question.

How can this guy have so much energy when he’s so often on vitamin K?

[LordFall]

3 hours ago, thedoorsareopen said:

What happened to all the pro-Trump bros who were on this forum last summer? I thought this all was good, because of vague vibes about masculinity or “the system” or some shit.

I'm definitely not pro trump but I think this presidency will push us in the right direction and mankind will already start to look much better by 2030. 

[Elliott]

38 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

“It feels like we’re in the midst of a Ketamine fuelled, middle of the night, autocratic power grab”

Not really a fan of hers but that’s poetic, nice.

But here is a question.

How can this guy have so much energy when he’s so often on vitamin K?

He's strung out on adrenaline at least, his fortune is on the brink of collapse, effectively his life is on the line.

[PurpleTree]

Trump the Russian asset?

 

 

[Joshe]

20 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

Trump the Russian asset?

It seems to make sense. I've speculated this since the beginning. 

[PurpleTree]

31 minutes ago, Joshe said:

It seems to make sense. I've speculated this since the beginning. 

You know what would be good.

If Trump was a double asset.

If the CIA knew about him and used it.

Make Putin feel comfortable and suave about how he’s controlling the US.

And when he is fully feeling himself and feels safe and least expecting it.

 

WHACKK

[Inliytened1]

1 hour ago, PurpleTree said:

Trump the Russian asset?

 

 

Trump is playing both sides.  Zelenski is now happy about some mineral deal.  Dude...these guys are going to play games amongst themselves.   You can't trust the media to accurately report what's going on.

[puporing]

6 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Trump is playing both sides.  Zelenski is now happy about some mineral deal.  Dude...these guys are going to play games amongst themselves.   You can't trust the media to accurately report what's going on.

He's not "happy", Zelensky has to accept some shit deal from Trump and negotiate with a devil to keep having the military aid. It's like ransom/extortion. 

Similar to how someone hands you a bill while you're on a surgery table.

Anyway I don't expect most people to "get that", but he's definitely not the one "playing games".

Edited February 26 by puporing

[PurpleTree]

3 minutes ago, puporing said:

He's not "happy", Zelensky has to accept some shit deal from Trump and negotiate with a devil to keep having the military aid. It's like ransom. 

Exactly. Trump the Ruski mafia robber baron extorter.

[Inliytened1]

@puporing how is he the devil exactly if he's providing aid and zelenski wants to keep it going.   Yeah it's a hard bargain but his country depends on that aid.  

[Inliytened1]

2 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

Exactly. Trump the Ruski mafia robber baron extorter.

Zelenski made the deal with the so called devil.   So don't blame the bad guy.

[PurpleTree]

3 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

@puporing how is he the devil exactly if he's providing aid and zelenski wants to keep it going.   Yeah it's a hard bargain but his country depends on that aid.  

No security guarantees here so far

 

[puporing]

6 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

@puporing how is he the devil exactly if he's providing aid and zelenski wants to keep it going.   Yeah it's a hard bargain but his country depends on that aid.  

The way that it was made, as a form of extortion. 

12 minutes ago, puporing said:

Similar to how someone hands you a bill while you're on a surgery table.

And also not upholding what the previous government committed to and doing a "180", similar to how he does with other things.

It is not just Zelensky having to deal with Trump and Putin, it is really the whole democratic institutions of the world that's still left if that's not obvious.

Zelensky/Ukraine is simply one of the first major targets being put in a position to fight this war.

Edited February 26 by puporing

[PurpleTree]

3 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

Zelenski made the deal with the so called devil.   So don't blame the bad guy.

He had no choice. That’s extortion.