SSOTT

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

I'm well! Long time, no talk. How have you been? Family doing well, I hope!

All is well here, if we don't count me being as nuts as always!

How are you? It's been a while, you missed out on a ton of drama!

Minnie: Bolton is an epic pick! Wanna bet on where the first war will be? My money is on Iran since the refugees would shake the EU even more than it's crumbling now so that's a double win for big daddy Putin!

[SMV_M4]

Originally Posted by Lups

All is well here, if we don't count me being as nuts as always!

How are you? It's been a while, you missed out on a ton of drama!

Minnie: Bolton is an epic pick! Wanna bet on where the first war will be? My money is on Iran since the refugees would shake the EU even more than it's crumbling now so that's a double win for big daddy Putin!

Good to hear. Your nuttiness is what makes you so charming! I'm pretty excited as I've just gotten some new Vorsteiner wheels and had IND do some custom paintwork. Not gonna be everyone's cup of tea but to each their own!

As for Bolten, don't get me started. I think the inevitable war we really need to worry about is a trade war with China. They'll destroy us simply with capacity when we can't supply our own demand and the inflation starts.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

Good to hear. Your nuttiness is what makes you so charming! I'm pretty excited as I've just gotten some new Vorsteiner wheels and had IND do some custom paintwork. Not gonna be everyone's cup of tea but to each their own!

As for Bolten, don't get me started. I think the inevitable war we really need to worry about is a trade war with China. They'll destroy us simply with capacity when we can't supply our own demand and the inflation starts.

Which wheels?

I'm not sure a trade war will be good enough for Putin. A trade war plus a hot war with Iran would be a combination that would ruin Europe and the USA in one go and Iran's location is almost perfect to maximize the pain that will follow!

For the first time really even stock market is reacting to trump insanity. I can't wait for the news dump that we will be getting today.

[SMV_M4]

Here are some pics. Again, red ring, it's just my favorite way to accentuate a wheel. It isn't for everyone.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

Here are some pics. Again, red ring, it's just my favorite way to accentuate a wheel. It isn't for everyone.

An M4 screams middle aged man even without the rims man! You need a tiny dick too to live up to this new combination of yours!

That actually looks good but I can't write shit like that. It would hurt my image.

[SMV_M4]

Originally Posted by Lups

An M4 screams middle aged man even without the rims man! You need a tiny dick too to live up to this new combination of yours!

That actually looks good but I can't write shit like that. It would hurt my image.

Lol I'm only 29. I think that's still young enough to be a bit flamboyant. The car is white so that's my conservative side.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

Lol I'm only 29. I think that's still young enough to be a bit flamboyant. The car is white so that's my conservative side.

If 29 is middle aged we rest are in graves already so lets call that an act of a flamboyant teenager.

[SMV_M4]

Originally Posted by Lups

If 29 is middle aged we rest are in graves already so lets call that an act of a flamboyant teenager.

I think of 40 as middle aged.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

I think of 40 as middle aged.

We all hate you.

[SMV_M4]

Originally Posted by Lups

We all hate you.

Lol, well I bring it upon myself.

[GrussGott]

SSOTTers, let's all admit it, we're primarily motivated by 2 things:

1. SEX
2. MONEY

course Wah combines them with dentistry but whatever.

ANYWAY, my point is we're all motivated by that, but we also do a good job of policing ourselves, trying to control our urges and ensure they don't overrun others or ourselves etc. Mostly we're polite: we conceal these urges from others because a raw display of them is ugly and weak.

I mention all of this to say that Trump is most transparently sex/money motivated person I've ever seen. His clear phobias are to be humiliated on (1.) Sex, and (2.) Money. I mean this is a guy who has his direct reports in his office asking them questions about sex with their spouse while he secretly has the spouse on a conference call ... all to humiliate them and score with their wives.

Trump is real piece of shit, is my point, and super sensitive/vulnerable to sexual embarrassment.

My guess is he tries to settle out of court for GIANT GIANT $$$. and that will be too bad, but honestly I think this could take him down.

Stormy's Lawwyer:

[SMV_M4]

I don't want to offend anyone either. But Trump and his administration are dangerous.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by SMV_M4

I don't want to offend anyone either. But Trump and his administration are dangerous.

We don't get offended here dude! We get even. I'm searching ball implants for you to give you a low hanging look that'll be needed to age you up a bit!

Gg me too. I'm a bit worried this as the end will be boring. I really wanted Putin to jump out of his closet.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Lups

We don't get offended here dude! We get even. I'm searching ball implants for you to give you a low hanging look that'll be needed to age you up a bit!

Gg me too. I'm a bit worried this as the end will be boring. I really wanted Putin to jump out of his closet.

Well on the positive side, turns out that 400lb fat kid in the basement is actually Russian GRU Intelligence agent who's been specifically identified.

• US investigators have reportedly concluded that the Russia-linked hacker Guccifer 2.0 is directly tied to Russian military intelligence.
• Security experts and the US intelligence community have long suspected the hacker's ties to Russian intelligence. But a new report Thursday said investigators recently obtained strong proof indicating Guccifer 2.0's ties to the Russian government.
• The revelation directly contradicts President Donald Trump's claim that Russia was not working to tip the scales in his favor during the 2016 US election.

[Lups]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Well on the positive side, turns out that 400lb fat kid in the basement is actually Russian GRU Intelligence agent who's been specifically identified.

• US investigators have reportedly concluded that the Russia-linked hacker Guccifer 2.0 is directly tied to Russian military intelligence.
• Security experts and the US intelligence community have long suspected the hacker's ties to Russian intelligence. But a new report Thursday said investigators recently obtained strong proof indicating Guccifer 2.0's ties to the Russian government.
• The revelation directly contradicts President Donald Trump's claim that Russia was not working to tip the scales in his favor during the 2016 US election.

Yeah, I saw that! Funny how trump was so mistaken!

Djia is again dipping, so is Nasdaq. I think I was wrong when I said we will see signs of recession late summer. Markets are clearly getting jittery and Bolton is not helping!

[Kidscollege$]

Originally Posted by Lups

Yeah, I saw that! Funny how trump was so mistaken!

Djia is again dipping, so is Nasdaq. I think I was wrong when I said we will see signs of recession late summer. Markets are clearly getting jittery and Bolton is not helping!

Shit...I just bought some yesterday...down another 270 pts as I type....

[Lups]

Originally Posted by Kidscollege$

Shit...I just bought some yesterday...down another 270 pts as I type....

I wasn't expecting an other dip today, but clearly now this uncertainty is starting to stick.

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Kidscollege$

Shit...I just bought some yesterday...down another 270 pts as I type....

Originally Posted by Lups

I wasn't expecting an other dip today, but clearly now this uncertainty is starting to stick.

Ha, we've been buying CDs and moving anything short-term to safety. We actually found some 3y CDs at almost 5%! took a lot of wrangling and we had to join something blah blah blah, but yeah.

Here's why I'd sell anything short-term:

(1.) Trump is assembling a war cabinet - even a hint of a global conflict that involves anything close to China, Iran, or Russia will tank markets. But ... military suppliers might be a great choice!

(2.) Trump's trade war (which is triggering today's loss)

(3.) The Fed just raised rates and expects it to lead to unemployment! Apparently everyone is buying gold. I'm not.

[Kidscollege$]

Originally Posted by GrussGott

Ha, we've been buying CDs and moving anything short-term to safety. We actually found some 3y CDs at almost 5%! took a lot of wrangling and we had to join something blah blah blah, but yeah.

Here's why I'd sell anything short-term:

(1.) Trump is assembling a war cabinet - even a hint of a global conflict that involves anything close to China, Iran, or Russia will tank markets. But ... military suppliers might be a great choice!

(2.) Trump's trade war (which is triggering today's loss)

(3.) The Fed just raised rates and expects it to lead to unemployment! Apparently everyone is buying gold. I'm not.

Yeah...but you are like 50 yrs older than Lups and I...all old people go for CD's after they received their free Denny's grand slam breakfast from their broker! Lol

I have been sitting on cash (about 35%-40% of portfolio) for waaaaaayyyy too long and missed a bunch of gains the past 3 years. Started to trickle some in here and there on dips lately. 10%-20% at a time, buying strategically.

5% is pretty damn good though! Even if you had to sit through 3 hrs of timeshare/travel club/annuity broker, that may be worth it!

[GrussGott]

Originally Posted by Kidscollege$

Yeah...but you are like 50 yrs older than Lups and I...all old people go for CD's after they received their free Denny's

That's true, CDs??? Wtf?

But that's short term stuff, the long stuff is in low fee vanguard-like index funds. Some specific international / emerging markets and some sector stuff like vanguard health fund, but that's it, keep it simple

[GrussGott]

Beautiful day today after a few weeks of the Pineapple Express ... stopped by the Google campus in the late afternoon, but unfortunately didn't see any nerds to run down



I also discovered that a 20oz yeti fits PERFECTLY in the cup holder and doesn't move or touch the leather:

[GrussGott]

Joe Scarborough is really nailing it these days ... I'd summarize this but it's all excellent:

John Bolton’s appointment is a fitting coda to conservatism’s failures
By Joe Scarborough
March 23

One hundred years ago this week, the founder of modern American conservatism was born into poverty in Plymouth, Mich. Russell Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind,” published in 1953, laid the foundations of a modern conservative movement that dominated the second half of the American Century. But 65 years later, Kirk’s classic work reads instead as a damning indictment against the very movement he helped launch.

The central thesis of Kirk’s philosophy was that “the conservative abhors all forms of ideology” and subscribes to principles “arrived at by convention and compromise” instead of “fanatic ideological dogmata.” Six decades of Republican overreach and corrosive causes have instead led to the rise of Donald Trump and a foreign policy run by John Bolton, an economy guided by Larry Kudlow and a legal team led by conspiracy theorist Joseph DiGenova.

Bolton’s elevation to the position of national security adviser is a fitting coda for a movement whose adherents spent decades throwing themselves on an endless array of ideological barricades while vilifying opponents whose responses to Soviet Russia or Islamic fundamentalism were deemed insufficiently harsh. Bolton’s selection will not disappoint these same GOP militants whom Kirk battled until his death in 1994. Trump’s third national security adviser in 14 months has called for the preemptive bombing of North Korea and Iran, while defending his role in the worst U.S. foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. Of the United States’ military misadventure in Iraq, Bolton pleads innocence on all counts while shamelessly calling Barack Obama’s 2011 decision to bring U.S. troops home “the worst decision” made in that debacle.

In the forward to the seventh edition of “The Conservative Mind,” Kirk predicted with precision the rise of political players such as Bolton and Trump and foresaw a time when the United States would “fall into the hands of merciless ideologues or squalid oligarchs.” He also repeated Swedish philosopher Tage Lindbom’s warning of the bleak harvest coming from a “secularized generation for which material existence is everything and spiritual life is nothing.”

This was the predictable outcome of my Republican Party aligning its interests with the most cynical political operators of our time. The Atwaters, Manaforts, Gingriches and Roves leveraged a weaponized media culture that reduced politics to a secularized religion and consolidated political power and material wealth in the hands of its richest donors.

Yes, the Soviet Union is in the dustbin of history, Osama bin Laden is dead and ISIS is — at least temporarily — on its heels. But the inner chaos Kirk warned of so many years ago runs rampant in a country dominated by the bloated presence of [Trump] who embraces dictators, vilifies the free press, corrupts religious leaders, absolves white supremacists, degrades women and continues a life’s work defined by little more than the amoral pursuit of material wealth.

Remarkably, order could be pulled from this culturally calamitous crisis if just two GOP senators had the moral courage to deprive Donald Trump of a ruling majority until he agreed to bring to heel his most destructive instincts. But even after a week of high-profile firings, attacks on Robert S. Mueller III and perplexing plaudits for Vladimir Putin, ideology continues to best idealism while American conservatism becomes even more detached from its philosophical foundations and fails yet again to confront the greatest challenges of our times.