Wow

[littleman]

Nov. 9 is going to be a rough day.

[ukgimp]

Might be a good day to avoid social media. It won't benefit you one bit, everything will still be the same.

[ukgimp]

Bitcoin and Gold are on the up though.

[Brad]

If stocks crash, buy?

[Chunkford]

It's not very dramatic on the exchange rate front ☹️

[littleman]

I'm surprised, I thought I'd wake up to 1000+ point drop on the Dow.

[ergophobe]

I thought I would wake up to a rise in the Dow regardless of the result. Theresa floated the idea of making our IRA contribution last ngiht. The markets hate uncertainty. So healthcare and defense stocks rose and pulled the market up. Makes sense.

So glad I deactivated my Facebook account. I might reactivate now that the election is over, but I need to wait at least a few more weeks

I managed to depress one friend already just by text msg... Given her profile, I thought she knew all about what a Trump election would mean for the Paris Convention and the Marakesh Conference. What I find troubling is that a person with a young child and who is deeply into sustainable food and so forth had no clue. I guess that is a measure of how poorly the message has gotten out in the US.

[Mackin USA]

Nov 9th:
There was NO significant news today whatsoever

Driven by manipulating traders and their robots, the Dow Futures (YM) had a range of about 1100 points in the overnight/regular session.  ES & NQ had similar profiles. 

After going "Limit-Down" around midnight (NY time), the money grabing idiots around the world decided it was a good time to gamble worthless fiat currency and used their favorite BTFD algorithm.  By mid-day in the session, they showed a decent "paper profit", but paper money is worthless.

Stawks and other paper assets were pumped to huge percentage gains during the regular session by money grabing traders and their robots who have no clue about real money.  As usual, there was a bunch of activity at the open of the session, not so much during the middle of the day, and a bunch of activity near the end of the session.  This is a clear sign of manipulation.

ZeroHedge

[ergophobe]

This is OT... but littleman, I wanted to post this when you opened the thread b/c you seemed like you could use a little inspiration.

I love these stories and they always make me feel better...

Alan Rabinowitz overcomes stuttering and lives up to his promise to speak for the animals
https://themoth.org/stories/man-and-beast

Sala Udin almost dies as a Freedom Rider and finds his life's work
https://themoth.org/stories/i-want-to-be-a-freedom-rider

Wanda Bullard's father is not the world's most diligent jailer.
https://themoth.org/stories/small-town-prisoner

Jeff Simmermon explains his signature move: The Sad King Arthur... and gets a little grace.
https://themoth.org/stories/empathetic-subway-screaming

Aryana Rose falls in love with a younger man and becomes a fairy
https://themoth.org/stories/i-can-die-now

Anthony Griffith knocks it out of the park on the Tonight Show while facing tragedy at home
https://themoth.org/stories/the-best-of-times-the-worst-of-times

[littleman]

Thanks Ergo, I'll work my way down the list.  I like what I've heard of the Moth podcasts.

[Mackin USA]

We have to look @ the BIG picture...

NOW ITALY?

Italy referendum result could send shockwaves through markets and DESTROY Europe

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/731484/Italian-referendum-shockwaves-European-Union-financial-markets

[Mackin USA]

AND THIS

Europe at risk of collapse.

"Europe is in danger of falling apart," Valls said at an event organized by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "So Germany and France have a huge responsibility."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/europe-risk-collapse-france-germany-must-lead-french-101538119.html

[ukgimp]

It's clear the pundits / experts know FA at the moment.

Interesting take on it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmdxYTyrI-E&feature=youtu.be

[littleman]

Gimp that was interesting.  I agree with much of the premise of the lecture, but not entirely.  One thing that struck me is that he set up a dichotomy between liberals (meaning globalists) and populists (reactionary, xenophobic, anti-trade) when I think there are nuances that should be addressed.  

One thing the muddies the waters is that words like "liberal" and "progressive" have different meanings; in the US liberal & progressive usually refer to stances on social issues like civil rights or environmental issues like global warming. In this lecture I take it that the speaker was using these terms more along the lines of promoting neoliberalism which is a push towards private control of the economy and natural resources.  

So, I guess I do not buy that the polarized  dichotomy between xenophobic popularism and neoliberalism are the only choices.  In many ways globalization has benefited humanity.  Poverty is reducing all over the world, birth rates are falling, and globally many people are enjoying a much higher standard of living.  Yet, many people (myself included) believe that the push towards free shipping of natural resources, products and people have done its share of damage.  We all know the environmental crisis that is coming.  As waves of development have traveled in and out of countries many people have had their lives and livelihood turned disrupted.  As much as it has hit places like the UK and the USA, developing countries such has Mexico have had been hit much harder by changes in global trade.

Much of the theories I learned about economic specialization in school turned out to be false.  Really, the dominant factor is lower costs.  In this age of globalization manufacturing largely goes to where it can be done the most efficiently -- which basically means places that have a stable government, enough infrastructure and lowest cost labor.

Coming back around to the point of the lecture... I think the expanse of globalization has been handled badly in much of the West.  During the expansions in the Asian economies we allowed subsidies products to be dumped in our countries at very high volumes.  This killed a lot of higher quality manufacturing jobs.  Later there was the second wave of jobs leaving domestic companies moved their manufacturing base.

I think the Trump style popularism is like a scream of a person who has already jumped out of building.  It is a lot of noise, but it is not going to prevent the inevitable splat.  Even if he succeeds and deports three million Latin Americans it will do very little to bring back quality jobs in the US.  Think about the jobs undocumented labor does -- not exactly what most people dream of doing. The jobs that first went to Latin America and then Asia are going to soon all be done by robots.  They will never come back.

Neoliberalism vs. popularism is an argument of the twentieth century, but the population hasn't caught up yet.

Edit: Sorry about the long post... If you don't want to read the whole thing I guess my point is in the last line above.

[ergophobe]

Edit: Sorry about the long post...

I enjoyed it and planned to go back to the video and your post when I have more time to ponder them.