The USA is still the greatest country in the world.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

So people are still buying shares.

[thedoc]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

The stock market rising is a red flag to a socialist.

[thedoc]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

So people are still buying shares.

At least some people have confidence that the economy will not collapse, and they are probably right, there have been plenty of predictions of disaster before, and few of them have been correct.

[FlashDangerpants]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

So people are still buying shares.

Yes. But you shouldn't interpret that as any vote of confidence in Trump. The expectation is that he is going to initiate a 'yuge spending boom in infrastructure (roads and bridges - not the fictional wall), plus supposedly buying a lot of weaponry to fulfil his militarist pledges. Also that he will probably cut taxes aggressively. But that he will not have any real impact on entitlements spending. Wall Street effectively is assuming Trump will overheat and then crash the economy in more or less the same manner as Bush did. So the best strategy is to buy shares now, and then swap them for gold at the right time.

So that's something to look forward to.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

But you shouldn't interpret that as any vote of confidence in Trump.

I don't. People mistakenly interpret stock market as a sign of a healthy and prosperous economy. The fact is that the vast majority of businesses aren't even listed on the stock market. So Shell makes a lot of money? I'm not sure what that has to do with the ordinary Joe.

[bobevenson]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

The stock market rising is a red flag to a socialist.

I'd like to see a matador take Lacewing on!

[Lacewing]

I'd like to see a matador take Lacewing on!

Hey, don't pull me into your sicko fantasies!

[bobevenson]

I'd like to see a matador take Lacewing on!

Hey, don't pull me into your sicko fantasies!

Please, that's a lot of bull, and you know it!

[Greta]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Let me know when we're about to plummet over the stock market cliff which has set record heights since Trump was elected (realizing, of course, that socialists like yourself have little or no interest in the subject).

Are you an investor in the stock exchange?? I'm wondering what kind of investments you would make if you consider the current pre-Trump bubble of the stock market to be of significance.

Money is far from the only measure of a society. That is why the US is not the greatest country in the world, just a large and powerful one.

What I see as interesting is countries struggling to extricate themselves from the governance of larger bodies. Just as the UK is trying to secede from mainland Europe, the US is trying to secede from globalisation. Let's see how all that plays out.

[bobevenson]

Again, I must state the economic position of the AEP. The US should immediately scrap all trade legislation and allow any country to sell us anything at any price regardless of whether or not it wants to buy anything from us at any price. Is that clear, I mean crystal clear?

[thedoc]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Please let us know when the car is about to go over the cliff, that will be an interesting show to watch, won't have much effect, but it will be fun to watch.

[Lacewing]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Please let us know when the car is about to go over the cliff, that will be an interesting show to watch, won't have much effect, but it will be fun to watch.

Well, I'm thinking that if you don't see it for yourself, you're certainly not going to believe what I tell you I see.

[thedoc]

You don't see it?? Do you need to wait 'til the clown car is over the cliff to scream "Watch out!!"?

Please let us know when the car is about to go over the cliff, that will be an interesting show to watch, won't have much effect, but it will be fun to watch.

Well, I'm thinking that if you don't see it for yourself, you're certainly not going to believe what I tell you I see.

Oh no, I think anything you post will be good for the entertainment value alone, so post away.

[Walker]

the election of Donald Trump means that for at least the next four years, the USA will no longer be in any meaningful sense the "leader of the free world"... /... It is hard to say yet whether America will recapture its leading position once Trump finally departs to run his property empire full time again.

Yes... it seems that the USA is already in its decline... which is how the reality of Trump being elected could even occur at all, followed by him punching on the gas pedal like some kind of maniacal drunk driver.

I think the USA has gotten too convoluted and bloated to stay afloat. And it could get really ugly as they try to insist on maintaining a claim of superiority on the world playground.

You guys are really amazing, Trump hasn't even been sworn in yet and you are talking about how bad things will be. Typical of someone who doesn't live in America, to start with the idea that America is a terrible place, and go from there. The only thing we can know for sure is that if Hillary had won things would continue as they are, at least now things have a chance to improve.

Ain’t it the truth. So cartoon-like that it simply has to be an ironic farce.

Funny how misreported news, spin, and fabrication take hold to actually influence thought to such an extent that it finds a way out. Fake news, churned out by the old and new grand dames of dissemination. Like, it's a need to believe. Track each one down and surprise, fiction sprinkled with a little byte of truth here and there. Which oft causes wonder at the actual relationships amongst motive, truth, integrity, and well-intentioned misapprehension in the real world, since many absurd and myopic fantasies are just so obvious. Like, where do people get their information ... sensationalization? Overdosages of entertainment - with messages in the morality tales?

If the USofA foreign relations are broken, it’s not because of Trump.
He has never held a political office. Simple logic.

Trump is zeroed in on the oil. It’s about energy. Babble this and that about vague confidences, but globally it’s about energy. Germany can have all the windmills it wants and see how far that goes.

Forget the vague theoretical flutters of whimsy.
This sums up why Trump won, and why the world should take notice of the echoes.
Of interest to the West.
Victor Davis Hanson - The Mythologies of the 2016 Election
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7pQdqPzozc

[Arising_uk]

...
Trump is zeroed in on the oil. It’s about energy. Babble this and that about vague confidences, but globally it’s about energy. Germany can have all the windmills it wants and see how far that goes. ...

Pretty far it seems -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable ... in_Germany
and possibly much further
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable ... in_Denmark

I'll be interested to see if he can get the oil barons to open their pipes cheap but I thought he was about Coal as well?

Forget the vague theoretical flutters of whimsy.
This sums up why Trump won, and why the world should take notice of the echoes.
Of interest to the West.
Victor Davis Hanson - The Mythologies of the 2016 Election
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7pQdqPzozc

Interesting and pretty much what I thought about what happened as I had friends travelling in America and they were telling me that outside the cities all you could see were Trump signs.

For me the issues are fairly clear in the UK, the working and lower middle class have seen no appreciable increase in their wages compared to increased cost of living since the late 70's whereas the upper-middle and rich have more than doubled theirs, with the super-rich getting vastly more than that. Add to that the changing immigration demographics(although in reality immigrants are still a very small minority over here) which disproportionately affect the working classes, an increase in divisive religious belief and you have the perfect storm against the moribund and complacent political classes. Personally I think this is one of the Marxist/Leninist historical political tipping points and am optimistic that it doesn't have to be to the far-right but could be captured by an innovative new political movement that comes up with new ideas to address the problems and has a clear vision for the future, especially since there is about to be a massive tranche of new unemployment due to robotics, automation and AI(I don't mean 'skynet').