Politics

[Altitude sickness]

Bob is Mogadishu USA as bad as I hear. Is most of the state still sane ? Is that why you decided to move south.

 

[Red Leg]

All of this has not happened before on the same trading day since the 80s.

2024 - 1985 = 39 years

I call that generational, your definition (and portfolio) may be different.

How major US stock indexes fared Monday, 8/5/2024

Wall Street fell the most in nearly two years, continuing a global rout in financial markets, as fear worsens that the U.S. economy is slowing down.

apnews.com

I am not Japanese and neither is my portfolio. According to the article you posted this was the worst day for the US stock market in two years (I think it was actually 4, but it is how the totals are run). Neither is generational however anyone looks at it. The Dow is up over 400 today.

With respect to Japan - the Nikkei 225 is up 10% today.

The jobs report, perceived Fed inaction, and an election cycle initiated an old school financial panic. Fortunately, modern information dissemination cools them quickly as well.

That said, we are likely due a retraction. It could happen before January 6 of next year or afterwards.

My portfolio is just fine.

 

[Ridge Runner]

My Dear Fellow Hunters,

Thank you so much for your immense concern towards me. But rest assured. My family, friends, employees & I are perfectly safe & well. Bangladesh's future is currently uncertain but for the first time in 20 years... I look at the coming days of our country with a strong feeling of hope.

This woman, Hasina & her father (Sheikh Mujib) had done much to destroy my country. What they did to my country was basically rape. Not a rape of the flesh... but a rape of our economy, a rape of our freedom & a rape of our dignity. They made Bangladesh a neocolonial possession of India. And they were permitting India to have a say in our domestic policies as if they owned us (including our firearms & hunting laws).

Hasina's father amassed significant credit as the "Father Of The Nation". But let me tell you all somethings today, as a gazetted freedom fighter myself:

1) He never fought for a single day during the 1971 War of Independence. He was comfortably under "House Arrest" in Pakistan, smoking imported tobacco & having access to his personal chef 24/7 (as well his own bespoke tailor)... while the rest of us were risking our lives fighting against the Pakistani army (due to a feud which HE started with the Pakistani government for HIS OWN BENEFIT). He came back to Bangladesh in 1972 after the war was over, and was actually visibly fatter than when he had been placed under house arrest. After he came, he took credit for “Winning The War”.

2) From 1972 up until his assassination in 1975, he treated our local people like slaves. He had two personal paramilitary forces: Rakkhi Bahini & Lal Bahini. The sole purpose of these two paramilitary forces was to suppress any opposition against him. He would have his mercenaries chase innocent unarmed college students into tin sheds and blow them up to kingdom come with grenades. If you opened your mouth to say anything even remotely critical about him, your life was forfeit. There’s a very strong reason why the Bangladesh army drove tanks into his house in 1975 and massacred him & his entire family (okay, I don’t support the death of his family members but his sons were just as tyrannical as he was). There’s also a very strong reason why people in Bangladesh were publicly distributing sweets on the streets on the day that he was killed.

3) He never even originally intended for East Pakistan to become independent and for Bangladesh to be born. He originally wanted to be the leader of both East & West Pakistan. When the West Pakistani government refused to let him be their leader, Sheikh Mujib went to India and asked them for help to overthrow the Pakistani government. India (who wanted to destabilize Pakistan because they think that all of South East Asia belongs to them) agreed to help Sheikh Mujib break East Pakistan away from West Pakistan; with the unwritten agreement between Mujib and India being that India would have a lot of say in Mujib’s new country’s domestic policies. He never cared about making his country independent. He just wanted to stay at the top.

His daughter, Hasina was running our country like a God for the last 28 years. Her government looted our people’s assets, sabotaged relationships with any country whom India felt threatened by & taxed the living hell out of the ordinary people. If anybody protested, she would have them labeled as “Radical Islamic terrorists” to the outside world and then she would have them killed. Since the last one month, she has made police and her militias murder upwards of 2000 civilians (mostly teenaged college students). Even until yesterday morning, she was confident that she would stay in power. Whenever people would protest, she would order nationwide curfews and have the internet shut down. The only reason why she was overthrown, was because our army turned out to have a spine & a pair of testicles. Yesterday morning, she ordered them to fire on the unarmed masses but they instead refused and told her that it was time for her to step down.

It’s too early to tell, but our new government is handling everything very maturely. They have publicly made in very clear that Bangladesh equally belongs to people of all religions: Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Aethists & even Jews (after a 53 year ban on Judaism in Bangladesh). People from every religion & socio economic class worked together in order to overthrow her.

I know that Indian media is working very hard to portray to the outside world that Bangladesh has fallen to Islamic radicalism and that people from non-Muslim faiths are no longer safe here. They are doing this, because they will directly benefit from Hasina’s government running our country. But nothing could be further from the truth. We have no grudge against any religion. We don’t even have any grudge against India. But we do not want Indian interference in our nation anymore. For 53 years, they have reaped the benefits off the blood & sweat of the Bengali people. They tried to build a nuclear power plant in our protected forest. They took our prized Hilsha fish. They used the Farakka Dam to bully us by depriving our crops of water during draught (only opening the dam during monsoon season so that our country gets flooded). No more.

The people of India are not bad. But the Indian government had been using our previous regime to cripple our economic growth in every possible way.
View attachment 624626
This picture was taken today. This has always been the Bangladesh that I have dreamt of. A country where people are seen for their hard work & integrity. Not their faith. It took me 74 years to see it. But yes, miracles do happen.


Yes, there was some looting & vandalism and extra judicial killings last night. But it was strictly against supporters of the previous regime. I don’t personally support the practice but I can understand why the people are so angry. The previous regime did much injustice to the common people. It is just that they answer for what they’ve done.

Anyway, things are completely normal now. My grandchildren have finally been able to go to school today after a month.

As for me, I’ve been offered a spot as a potential candidate for a new post “IGF” (Inspector General of Forests). Only time will tell if I accept.

Warmest Regards,
Habib

P.S: Please don’t believe everything that international media writes. They mean well but they only write overviews of the real story without going in-depth. The first series of protests started with the quota. The last series of protests were over the 996 innocent civilians whom her regime murdered while they were protesting in regards to the quota.

Thank you @Hunter-Habib for your update on your country, and that you, your family, friends, and employees are safe.

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

I am not Japanese and neither is my portfolio. According to the article you posted this was the worst day for the US stock market in two years (I think it was actually 4, but it is how the totals are run). Neither is generational however anyone looks at it. The Dow is up over 400 today.

With respect to Japan - the Nikkei 225 is up 10% today.

The jobs report, perceived Fed inaction, and an election cycle initiated an old school financial panic. Fortunately, modern information dissemination cools them quickly as well.

That said, we are likely due a retraction. It could happen before January 6 of next year or afterwards.

My portfolio is just fine.

There was more in the article than “Japan”. I’m truly glad that your portfolio is in good shape, not everyone is so lucky. I’m also glad there is improvement in today’s market, but when I posted at 11pm Mountain time last night we weren’t trading.
The thrust of my original response was that we should focus discussion on what actually matters and not let the political discussion on our forum turn into “The View” with an olive and khaki dress code.

 

[mdwest]

My portfolio is just fine.

yep.

I took about a 2.5% hit overall.. which isnt insignificant... but its also hardly "black friday"... and its already bounced back a little this AM..

I expect more turmoil over the next several days.. the market is overdue for an adjustment.. and I expect the dow to end up at least a thousand points lower than where it was last week within the next few weeks..

but that is the nature of the game... if youre in it for the long haul, these things happen regularly.. and ultimately end up self righting...

if youre in it for the short haul, you likely werent in any investments that took a major hit (yet)...

makes for some great headlines and click bait... but within 2 weeks we'll all be talking about the next crisis...

 

[Brent in Az]

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

yep.

I took about a 2.5% hit overall.. which isnt insignificant... but its also hardly "black friday"... and its already bounced back a little this AM..

I expect more turmoil over the next several days.. the market is overdue for an adjustment.. and I expect the dow to end up at least a thousand points lower than where it was last week within the next few weeks..

but that is the nature of the game... if youre in it for the long haul, these things happen regularly.. and ultimately end up self righting...

if youre in it for the short haul, you likely werent in any investments that took a major hit (yet)...

makes for some great headlines and click bait... but within 2 weeks we'll all be talking about the next crisis...

Great points and well stated. My original comment was who is more trustworthy to lead through that next crisis and keep us out of an economic ditch.

 

[Ridge Runner]

@Hunter-Habib,

Question: With the new regime, and IF with you as the new IGF: Would there be any possibility of hunting opportunities being restored?

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

 

[sgt_zim]

Is there a particular policy to which you are referring, or is it the very concept of governance?

The point I was trying to make is that everyone sees themself as the protagonist. For the progressive and far left, it is the belief that their policy positions are so infallibly correct that once enacted, everyone will support them. Obviously, this is nonsense.

It's the idea of governance in the first place. The left thinks it can make utopia through policy/control/law. It can't. Every failure, and they're all failures, simply convinces them they need more policy/control/law and money.

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

 

[Saul]

It's the idea of governance in the first place. The left thinks it can make utopia through policy/control/law. It can't. Every failure, and they're all failures, simply convinces them they need more policy/control/law and money.

Anarchy is not a political theory to which I subscribe.

 

[ActionBob]

yep.

I took about a 2.5% hit overall.. which isnt insignificant... but its also hardly "black friday"... and its already bounced back a little this AM..

I expect more turmoil over the next several days.. the market is overdue for an adjustment.. and I expect the dow to end up at least a thousand points lower than where it was last week within the next few weeks..

but that is the nature of the game... if youre in it for the long haul, these things happen regularly.. and ultimately end up self righting...

if youre in it for the short haul, you likely werent in any investments that took a major hit (yet)...

makes for some great headlines and click bait... but within 2 weeks we'll all be talking about the next crisis...

At this point I agree with your points and @Red Leg comments. I'm not heavily into the stock market on a percentage of total investments. However @Just Gina and I spend considerable time watching financial news and do conceive that at some point we need to enter these markets much more heavily. At least if we hope to more fully retire and not continue to actively manage our assets

My observations over the past week is the Talking Heads tend to blow things up and continually repeat a very similar narrative in the news. As Joe pointed out, serious traders soon see through it and go back to trading reality within a few days of an event like this.

The overwhelming commentary has been about the "sell off". I just do not see these single digit declines as a sell off. A true sell off may yet occure and create some buying opportunities but I just don't see this as anything big yet. I have to agree the market was overdue for a correction. For several reasons. But a correction is hardly a sell off.

If I had a significant portion of my assets invested in large corporations. My concern might be more around a Harris administration, especially backed by a Democrat or liberal Congress, taxing said corporations out of their profits. Which of course are the profits of the stock holders. Seems to me that might be a concern of someone with such a portfolio.

 

[sgt_zim]

Anarchy is not a political theory to which I subscribe.

How nice of you to put words in my mouth.

 

[Saul]

How nice of you to put words in my mouth.

You said you oppose the idea of governance. That is the political philosophy of anarchism. I assign no ill meaning to the word.

 

[Saul]

Apparently Walz is an avid pheasant hunter.