Englishgrinn

You hear about Pluto? That's messed up.

Ah ha - I see, we're talked over each other a bit but I think I get it now. You have to adjust for the assumed 7% in growth that would be considered "standard". We're not really at -2%, because we should be aiming for +7% at minimum. Which means the short fall is more than 4 times what it appears to be to my layman ass. I think I get it.

Right, and I can see that. But if you back out that line graph over a longer period of time, this dip would be miniscule compared to the overall upward trajectory. If the Y Axis tracking the market starts at 0 (which it wouldn't I get that, but go with me here) and the X axis tracks time and we set it to say, a 3 year period - then the result is that the line has exploded upwards. The tiny tip at the end which represents the last 6 months barely registers. The average closing price in 2023 was 34,121. The close today was 42,454. So even if the market has dropped significantly in the last few months - it's 25% higher than it was 2 years ago.

Again, I trust that people know what they're talking about. I am certain I do NOT know what I'm talking about. I am not saying I don't believe them, or that I'm right - I just want someone to explain the factor I'm missing. I have theories, but no way to confirm them because I lack the base knowledge to even phrase the question right.

Is the stock market supposed to have a "default growth" element that we have to account for? Like, is the fact that the market twice as high as it was 3 years ago an illusion because constant growth is just a necessary element of the market functioning at all? Does that default growth make longer timelines less useful as comparative tools?

Or is it that more that the market was projected to grow and then shrunk instead, so the relevant comparison isn't to history, but to projections, which is why even a small dip seems more catastrophic? Because it was supposed to continue skyrocketing.

Or am I asking the impossible? Does gaining context for the larger momentum of the stock market take a degree in finance and by asking for someone for a simple explanation I'm just further showing my ignorance?

Did it? I really can't wrap my head around trying to reconcile what the people who know about this stuff say and what the numbers on page seem to say. I'm just not smart enough. I know I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, but I've been trying to figure out the real impact of all this on the market and it honestly seems to be really minimal. Yes, it's trending down and recession seems likely and a couple days had really big drops this month - but it's nowhere near even its average, never mind its lows from the past 2 or 3 year periods. Just 3 years ago the market was at like 28,000 points. It doubled in 3 years and now that its shrinking a bit, that is a crisis? What do I not get?

This isn't so much the market "plummeting" as it looks like to me a massive bubble bursting that was based on nothing to begin with.

But then, I'm the guy who thinks "The Big Short" was a smart movie. I'll freely admit I'm a fucking moron who knows nothing about finance.

A couple of op-eds for a Student newspaper criticizing Israel? I thought I saw the pieces linked earlier but I don't see them now. The article linked on this post says it supported a student divestment program and referenced the International Criminal Court calling attacks on Gaza a genocide.

Hardly spicy compared to your average social media post.

Yeah, reporting has mostly been about the leak - and I understand why. American lives > anything else in American politics and the OPSEC is what puts American lives at risk.

But if I understand this "operation" correctly - a rocket specialist for the Houthis who was instrumental in the attacks on Suez Canal had a girlfriend in that building. So, they dropped the building on him. 53 innocents dead to kill one terrorist? This is acceptable losses in modern American warfighting?

For the record, and I know I'm not the first to say it, this woman committed NO crime. She didn't overstay a visa, she didn't protest illegally. She wrote something the administration didn't like.

For that, she was arrested by 8 masked officers in the middle of the street, in broad daylight. She was thrown in the back on an unmarked SUV. She's received no legal representation. No trial. Not even charges, because again, she committed no crime.

Americans, you realize you're watching the death of your rights and the rule of law, right? You have no illusions about the fact that you are defenseless? There is no longer any guardrail between you and an El Salvadoran prison camp. In something that reminds me very much of Stalin, an accusation is now a conviction.

There's a couple reasons -

1. It wasn't so much "bombing Yemen" as it was, bombing a terrorist organization within Yemen's borders. This is something every American administration has done for decades. That makes it poor political fodder, you can't "one up" the competition with it.
2. Most Americans would agree that the Houthis, once it is explained to them who they are, need to be bombed. The actual action would be reprehensible to some, but acceptable to most. You can't put pressure on an admin to change their tactics when they feel they have a plurality of support.
3. The sad and undeniable fact is that in American politics - American lives are simply more important than foreign ones. That's not really unique to American culture, it's not meant as a criticism, it's just a sad reality. Bombing Yemen is pretty low risk for American lives - but sloppy OPSEC put American lives at huge risk so that's where the focus is.

In a perfect world, the fact that America is committing violence in other nations and is not realistically reigned in by International Laws or Treaties would be a point worth getting upset about. But that fact is over 100 years old and has been successfully normalized. The idea of incompetent buffoons operating the Department of Defense like a bunch of frat boys trying to organize a kegger is marginally newer and more impactful on the national psyche.

Yeah, our government is just the worst Joe. I mean, we don't light our money on fire to pick a fight with all our friends. We're not erasing our own history because we're scared of black and brown people. We let people have access to healthcare without having to sell their youngest daughter in sex slavery (sorry, "child marriage"). And we haven't even turned the keys of the kingdom to a mask off fascist doing the fucking seig heil on national television and then pretending to wonder why people want to kill him.

God, it's like we're not even trying to put our boot on the neck of our citizens. You should totally go to Russia. Like, right now. And I hope you fall out a window you drug-addled windbag.

This is the key element of incel culture - if one member of the group tries to improve themselves in anyway, it's an attack on the whole group and they are ostracized from what feels like their only social group.

"What? You started exercising and showering? Who do you think you are? Who are you trying to kid? You're just playing the slut's game, man"

All social bubbles are at least a little harmful - but incel culture is more than that, it's purposefully self-destructive. You have to be sad, miserable, and let your life fall apart to belong. It takes advantage of social instincts in the worst possible way.

Man, Charlie Angus has really been the man of moment here. He's doing the same speech all over this country, seen it in a bunch of places. I know that sounds like a criticism - how can he be genuine when he's repeating himself and refining the message? Isn't that just a stump speech?

But it's not. First of all, anyone who knows Charlie Angus' record knows this isn't new territory for him.

Second, the reason this feels so genuine is because it's how WE feel. We aren't being told what to think, we're having our feelings put into words right in front of us.

And finally, these lines aren't stupid slogans or focus group tested pablum. These are things I've heard other Canadians say to each other, things I've said, way before any political leader was saying it. He's speaking in plain and easy language, in the exact terms Canadians think about this.

Populism and patriotism are heady, dangerous drugs. So quickly, they can pour over into mob-mentality, anti-intellectualism and nationalism. We have to be careful, and we have to be smart. But right now, man, I am riding this high. Elbows up!

The article has pictures of the chat. The DoD and NSA have both confirmed this happened. A spokesperson for JD Vance has confirmed it happened. What evidence would you accept?