The Nation's Financial Condition

[Brooklyn]

poor RRR is having an especially bad day

and it won't be better until you give me a specific tax shelter law

How is bill gates giving away all his money thing going?

Good. Just for fun, I'll prolong your agony.

Of course, if you want to can Google Obama's attempt to close corporate offshore tax dodges going back to 2007 before he got into the White House. I could post another link but you won't look it up if I do.

[RedFromMI]

For the newly minted R deficit hawks - the following showed up in my twitter feed today:

The debt burden peaked during the Reagan administration, was successfully addressed under George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, and has been a nonissue throughout the 21st century.

[foreverlax]

Trump promised -

GDP over 4% - his average for years 1-3, 2.5%

Reduce National Debt, eliminate in 8 yrs- increased by $7 trillion...historic Debt to GDP ratio

Trade - Renegotiate Trade deals - updated NAFTA, left TPP - trade deficits with remain with China, Mexico and Canada GREW.

Tariffs on China - Phase 2 is dead

Bring back Manufacturing - as of July 20, fewer Americans employed in manufacturing vs before he took office

Put miners and steel workers back to work - 200 net jobs for coal....steel and iron workers dropped 10%

Apple moving an assembly plant to US from China - nope.

Tax cut wont add to debt - nope.

End the Death tax - nope.

eliminate carried interest - nope

eliminate job killing regulations - 90% of the court cases have resulted in losses. He added 4300 new regs.

healthcare plan - nope

Infrastructure plan - nope

[foreverlax]

I’m liking what Yellen is saying…

"We must go big, rates are low and great time to borrow." My caveat - it has to be DIRECTED without the normal pork.

“Wealth built upon wealth"….that is why we MUST create a fair way to tax wealth and income, along with changing the focus on corps from a tax on profit to one on sales.

If not now, when....

[ardilla secreta]

I’m standing in my front yard waiting for the Trumpcare AN-225 Mriyo cargo plane to drop the certificates for his healthcare for every American.

[jhu72]

Biden logs best stock market rally from election to inauguration day in history.

Trump's one term (4 year) stock market gain, lagged behind Obama's first term (4 year) gain by 14 points.

The economy and stock market tend to do better under democrats.

[Typical Lax Dad]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-over ... yURL_share

[cradleandshoot]

Biden logs best stock market rally from election to inauguration day in history.

Trump's one term (4 year) stock market gain, lagged behind Obama's first term (4 year) gain by 14 points.

The economy and stock market tend to do better under democrats.

Joe just has to keep his economic recovery erection up for 4 more years. That takes one REALLY big blue pill. I'm guessing our national debt will no longer be a big deal with the democrats spending the money. A whole bunch of FLP folks on this forum whined and b****ed about dumps spending for 4 years. That will all be good spending now. What is the over/under on the deficit under Joltin Joe? I'm guessing in 4 years he can trump the dump and get it up to 40 billion. Ya gotta think big, no way in hell the democrats let dump outspend them. It is now a matter of pride.

[Kismet]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/busi ... fb-nytimes

"How Options Trading Could Be Fueling a Stock Market Bubble

A swell of individual investors are betting that stocks will go up. That enthusiasm is having a growing influence over the regular stock market itself."

A bunch of 20 somethings with a Robinhood trading app on their phones turning the markets into a lottery.

Example: GameStop, the video game retailer, is expected to lose money this year and next year, but shares are up more than 380% so far in 2021 ...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/25/investin ... index.html

Nuts.

[foreverlax]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/25/busi ... fb-nytimes

"How Options Trading Could Be Fueling a Stock Market Bubble

A swell of individual investors are betting that stocks will go up. That enthusiasm is having a growing influence over the regular stock market itself."

A bunch of 20 somethings with a Robinhood trading app on their phones turning the markets into a lottery.

Example: GameStop, the video game retailer, is expected to lose money this year and next year, but shares are up more than 380% so far in 2021 ...

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/25/investin ... index.html

Nuts.

Kramer talked about it last night on MadMoney....he doesn't think that this type of activity will take the market down, for a number of reasons.

Seems they love to target those stocks with large shorts....

[holmes435]

The GameStop thing is incredibly interesting. I've been following it for a while now, and there is a ton of resentment in the young retail investor market surrounding large investment firms and the wealthy due to the lack of workforce opportunities kids have nowadays plus the skyrocketing healthcare and housing costs. They feel like this kind of trading is their only chance to actually make money in life nowadays, and that the wealthy are going to do everything in their power to keep them economically down. A lot of boomer hate too, but a popular quote is "boomer is a mindset, not an age." They are trying to make money, but they also want to see the huge investment firms cut down to size.

There are kids making 5, 6, 7 and 8 figures off of relatively small initial investments (plenty more losing money) - it's wild to see.

[foreverlax]

The GameStop thing is incredibly interesting. I've been following it for a while now, and there is a ton of resentment in the young retail investor market surrounding large investment firms and the wealthy due to the lack of workforce opportunities kids have nowadays plus the skyrocketing healthcare and housing costs. They feel like this kind of trading is their only chance to actually make money in life nowadays, and that the wealthy are going to do everything in their power to keep them economically down. A lot of boomer hate too, but a popular quote is "boomer is a mindset, not an age." They are trying to make money, but they also want to see the huge investment firms cut down to size.

There are kids making 5, 6, 7 and 8 figures off of relatively small initial investments (plenty more losing money) - it's wild to see.

We've seen that investment behavior come and go...once they get their noses bloodied, they'll realize, it ain't easy and you need money to stay in the game.

[holmes435]

We've seen that investment behavior come and go...once they get their noses bloodied, they'll realize, it ain't easy and you need money to stay in the game.

I don't have a crystal ball, but there's no barrier to enter the markets and various trading tools nowadays with all the apps out there and free trading. The only way it's gonna go away is if the .gov makes it harder (more $$ to play the game).

Whether they do or don't make changes, the angry sentiment will still be there because of how bad a huge chunk of the country is doing financially, with little room to get ahead nowadays.

[Farfromgeneva]

I don’t know about the resentment mindset of the millenial and younger crowd, could just be youth and not the story the bio tells when they’re dead.

But, there is an issue where the communication amongst retail investors is effectively blatant market manipulation and illegal but so far no focus on that aspect. They’re also running up all sorts of micro cap illiquid stocks. Any unwind in liquidity will be a catastrophe for these cats. Liquidity is the risk that is always underpriced until it’s in high demand and then it’s expensive.

On the one hand I hate these day trading clowns because they miss the point of investing and it a really just gambling for them even if they have every right as a participant. It also bugs me that this is part of the institutional worlds efforts to extract retail savings as long term capital to arb liquidity and price dislocation(s).

On the other hand, it’s arguable quantitatively that outcomes are better in barbelled environment than in a compounding corridor writ large. Problem is when they’re all buying Tesla or other larger cap names, but if they’re investing all their savings and throwing “yo’s”, the better the idea of outperforming in life. Greater dispersion of outcomes with some nasty ones as well, but one could make the argument that if you can stay in the game long enough, day trading is superior to getting a bachelors in business or history and working a random chore collar line worker gig and building those COLA raises and 13th month bonuses only to get cut down between 45-60 and face ageism and likely inferior skills in the current labor marketplace.

[SCLaxAttack]

I don’t know about the resentment mindset of the millenial and younger crowd, could just be youth and not the story the bio tells when they’re dead.

But, there is an issue where the communication amongst retail investors is effectively blatant market manipulation and illegal but so far no focus on that aspect. They’re also running up all sorts of micro cap illiquid stocks. Any unwind in liquidity will be a catastrophe for these cats. Liquidity is the risk that is always underpriced until it’s in high demand and then it’s expensive.

On the one hand I hate these day trading clowns because they miss the point of investing and it a really just gambling for them even if they have every right as a participant. It also bugs me that this is part of the institutional worlds efforts to extract retail savings as long term capital to arb liquidity and price dislocation(s).

On the other hand, it’s arguable quantitatively that outcomes are better in barbelled environment than in a compounding corridor writ large. Problem is when they’re all buying Tesla or other larger cap names, but if they’re investing all their savings and throwing “yo’s”, the better the idea of outperforming in life. Greater dispersion of outcomes with some nasty ones as well, but one could make the argument that if you can stay in the game long enough, day trading is superior to getting a bachelors in business or history and working a random chore collar line worker gig and building those COLA raises and 13th month bonuses only to get cut down between 45-60 and face ageism and likely inferior skills in the current labor marketplace.

Can we get Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to explain most of that last paragraph?

[cradleandshoot]

Trump promised -

GDP over 4% - his average for years 1-3, 2.5%

Reduce National Debt, eliminate in 8 yrs- increased by $7 trillion...historic Debt to GDP ratio

Trade - Renegotiate Trade deals - updated NAFTA, left TPP - trade deficits with remain with China, Mexico and Canada GREW.

Tariffs on China - Phase 2 is dead

Bring back Manufacturing - as of July 20, fewer Americans employed in manufacturing vs before he took office

Put miners and steel workers back to work - 200 net jobs for coal....steel and iron workers dropped 10%

Apple moving an assembly plant to US from China - nope.

Tax cut wont add to debt - nope.

End the Death tax - nope.

eliminate carried interest - nope

eliminate job killing regulations - 90% of the court cases have resulted in losses. He added 4300 new regs.

healthcare plan - nope

Infrastructure plan - nope

No need to worry compadre, Joe has a plan.

[Matnum PI]

William LeGate @williamlegate
1 day ago
Wall Street is about to put a LOT of pressure on the SEC to make stock memes illegal & for it to be harder for everyday Americans to trade. They don't want it to be legal for everyday Americans to organize via social media to do what they do to profit.

Brandy Jensen @BrandyLJensen
Jan 26
oh no the wrong people are manipulating the stock market

[youthathletics]

William LeGate @williamlegate
1 day ago
Wall Street is about to put a LOT of pressure on the SEC to make stock memes illegal & for it to be harder for everyday Americans to trade. They don't want it to be legal for everyday Americans to organize via social media to do what they do to profit.

Brandy Jensen @BrandyLJensen
Jan 26
oh no the wrong people are manipulating the stock market

A close friend of my son at school has made of 75k day trading in under 12 months. Kid grinds, is disciplined, and just continually chips away at it.

[kramerica.inc]

Reddit users buying and selling in unison and controlling stock prices.

Wall Street irate the internet figured out their jobs.

Expect more limitations of “dangerous” free speech.

[youthathletics]

Reddit users buying and selling in unison and controlling stock prices.

Wall Street irate the internet figured out their jobs.

Expect more limitations of “dangerous” free speech.

I just bought some shares of the Reddit Mutual Fund.