2016 Presidential election

[skate_bored]

I got flack for asking this at the company lunch last week, but I still wonder... Do I vote if I believe both parties to be awful choices?

[GeorgeHanson]

IF YOU DON'T VOTE AND DONALD TRUMP GETS ELECTED I"M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND.

[Sleazy]

i know man. if you don't like Americas foreign policy now than wait til Hilary gets in. i smell war. She will be poking at Russia every chance she gets. The middle east will be in its worst state yet. she gives me goosebumps.

Based on what? Clinton year were only ones with no war in a really long time

[Pauly Walnuts]

I got flack for asking this at the company lunch last week, but I still wonder... Do I vote if I believe both parties to be awful choices?

There are third party options. Personally might go with Jill Stein, John Fitzgerald Johnson, or Gary Johnson, going to inform myself as much as I can before picking one of these three of course, and I consider them a plan b in case Clinton gets the Dem. nomination. Most people are so quick to go for the lesser of two evils, but the third parties are so wide and diverse, especially early on a shame not many give themselves the time to know this.

[sexualhelon]

These elections in the States, they just keep getting crazier and crazier. You know what's crazy to me? I feel like at first Trump, being that all you really need to run for president in the States is financial backing, just said fuck it and at first was maybe trolling. At this point I don't think he's necessarily serious but has realized that all this, "you're fired!" and "get them out of here!" is what the real America wants. Everything in between the coasts are just isolated people who have been mind warped by political agendas. Donald Trump probably didn't at first disavow the KKK endorsement because he realized that if he let's all those assholes vote for him he "really" could be president. For him I imagine it's nothing more than building his brand and stroking his ego....but holy shit, what if he still had all those things and then WAS president? That would be the new "American Dream". Is that not fucking nuts? Is that not what's so scary? It's not that Donald Trump is that crazy, it's that most of America is that crazy. That so many fucking people here really would vote for Trump to be commander in chief of their country.

I think Bernie is perhaps seen as weak among his peers, someone who would break down in a room alone with Vladmir Putin pushing down on him. I'd hope that whether or not he got anything done in office he'd show that someone can at least say, "fuck you, this isn't right" to congress. Hilary would stand her ground but strike up some seedy side deal to her own benefit. She may have the "experience" but it doesn't matter if you're not going to use it and better the people you're meant to be serving.

Now, at this point, I'd say it's surely Hilary or Bernie who will win. It's like one side of the coin is the clown's trying to figure out who's going to run the circus and the other is who's going to decide who runs the country. Seriously though, how stupid is it that there's only two sides to this coin? So many people in this country are blood and bred to vote for whichever party they're raised in be it the devil on their side vs god himself.

It just doesn't even make sense to me anymore. Casting my vote is like buying a ticket hoping to win the powerball but I'll do it and hope for the best.

[brycickle]

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i know man. if you don't like Americas foreign policy now than wait til Hilary gets in. i smell war. She will be poking at Russia every chance she gets. The middle east will be in its worst state yet. she gives me goosebumps.

[close]

Based on what? Clinton year were only ones with no war in a really long time

Somalia and The Balkans.

[sexualhelon]

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i know man. if you don't like Americas foreign policy now than wait til Hilary gets in. i smell war. She will be poking at Russia every chance she gets. The middle east will be in its worst state yet. she gives me goosebumps.

[close]

Based on what? Clinton year were only ones with no war in a really long time

[close]

Somalia and The Balkans.

Well, for one, Hillary Clinton praises Henry Kissinger as her biggest mentor on foreign policy. If you're aware of who he is then just think about that for a second...

Let's consider some of Kissinger's achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixons top foreign policymaker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years; (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos; (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists; (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; (5) urged Nixon to go after Daniel Ellsberg for having released the Pentagon Papers, which set off a chain of events that brought down the Nixon White House; (6) pumped up Pakistan's ISI, and encouraged it to use political Islam to destabilize Afghanistan; (7) began the US's arms-for-petrodollars dependency with Saudi Arabia and pre-revolutionary Iran 8 accelerated needless civil wars in southern Africa that, in the name of supporting white supremacy, left millions dead; (9) supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America; and (10) ingratiated himself with the first-generation neocons, such as Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who would take American militarism to its next calamitous level.

 "It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination." (Statement at a National Security Council meeting, 1975) - Kissinger

"The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern." - Kissinger on Soviet Jews

[brycickle]

All I was saying was that Billo had both of those conflicts on his record, Carter was the real peacenik.

[Jive Turkey]

It's not that Donald Trump is that crazy, it's that most of America is that crazy. That so many fucking people here really would vote for Trump to be commander in chief of their country.

This is what truly frightens me and why after 13 years I am more resolute than ever to remain overseas.

[concerned_parent]

alright so basically at this point anything over a paragraph having to do with politics is TL;DR for me

bottom line is

they're all complete idiots and america will be the butt of every other country's joke for the next 4 years (minimum)

wait for the 10-minute highlight reel 2 weeks before the election and that's when i'll put in the effort to see who to vote for

[saucy ragu]

alright so basically at this point anything over a paragraph having to do with politics is TL;DR for me

bottom line is

they're all complete idiots and america will be the butt of every other country's joke for the next 4 years (minimum)

wait for the 10-minute highlight reel 2 weeks before the election and that's when i'll put in the effort to see who to vote for

I'm very tired of politics already as well. It's exhausting, but acting like this is one of the reasons that Trump may win. That isn't a good thing; no Republican candidate believes in man-made climate change, and because of that any effort for clean or renewable energy will be postponed under a Republican president & Congress. Even if you don't believe in man-made climate change, you have to know that we're fucking up the environment in many other ways i.e. oil spills. Voting in the primary is so important this time around, if only to make sure it's a vote against backwards-ass thinking.

[Tufty]

[TheFifthColumn]

Has anybody else seen the movie Idiocracy?


Assuming Trump doesn't get the nomination, I'm definitely going to vote Republican this time around. I really think Dodd-Frank went too far: It blocks the implementation of the Basel III framework and imposes regulatory burdens and compliance costs on entire industries - such as asset management - which had nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

[ben shraider]

It's not very likely that any political decisions would immediately make a dramatic change to my everyday life, so it's easier to not pay attention and just make best of what the situation is right now. But luckily most people don't think that way so, otherwise the future generations would be fucked

[Level 60 Dwarf Paladin]

Has anybody else seen the movie Idiocracy?


Assuming Trump doesn't get the nomination, I'm definitely going to vote Republican this time around. I really think Dodd-Frank went too far: It blocks the implementation of the Basel III framework and imposes regulatory burdens and compliance costs on entire industries - such as asset management - which had nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

Yea! Because over regulated industry is way more important than human rights!

[TheFifthColumn]

^ What about the right of a human to not have to submit a form PF to iard.com if that human is an adviser to a private fund with $150 million or more in RAUM?

[iKobrakai]

Expand Quote

Has anybody else seen the movie Idiocracy?


Assuming Trump doesn't get the nomination, I'm definitely going to vote Republican this time around. I really think Dodd-Frank went too far: It blocks the implementation of the Basel III framework and imposes regulatory burdens and compliance costs on entire industries - such as asset management - which had nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis.

[close]

Yea! Because over regulated industry is way more important than human rights!

What I learned from Idiocracy:

1) Mike Judge is a hero.

2) Sex amongst nerds should be regulated by the government.

[saucy ragu]

^ What about the right of a human to not have to submit a form PF to iard.com if that human is an adviser to a private fund with $150 million or more in RAUM?

I'm out of my depth here because I don't know what RAUM is other than a quick Google search and I have the smallest of knowledge of the rest. However, I'm of the feeling that basic human rights like health insurance for ~ 30 million Americans, easier access to voting for disenfranchised citizens, the right to an abortion, and equal pay comes way before what you're suggesting, among other things.

[Level 60 Dwarf Paladin]

^ What about the right of a human to not have to submit a form PF to iard.com if that human is an adviser to a private fund with $150 million or more in RAUM?

Oh yea, totally the same...

[TheFifthColumn]

Look, I can't imagine anybody on here agreeing with me on this, but I don't think the compliance costs the came from Dodd-Frank are worth it. I'm not trying to argue absolute "rights", but rather the fact that industries shouldn't be regulated unless it is absolutely necessary to do so.

Specifically, hedge funds with $150 million in Regulatory Assets Under Management (assets * leverage ratio) are required to file a form PF. Hedge funds with $1.5 billion have to filed a form PF quarterly. This is in addition to submitting an ADV form to the SEC. The purpose of the form PF is to let the FSOC see the composition of assets in the funds to designate them for additional risk monitoring. Although the SEC estimated the compliance time of these forms at around 50 hours, several firms I've spoken to have said their compliance times are north of 70 hours.

Also, Europe had adopted Annex IV for private funds, which asks many of the same questions as Form PF. However Annex IV used a different methodology for calculating leverage. This means that hedge funds with offices on either side of the Atlantic will have to take their data imputed into one form and recompute it to adjust for the leverage difference, instead of simply copying it, for the thousands of questions asked.

Proponents of designating hedge funds as a SIFI are quick to point out to the collapse of LTCM and act like that's the norm, and not the exception. However what they fail to realize is that industry has changed a lot since the 90s. For one thing unconstrained convergence trading is no longer used as much as many quant funds have discretionary overlay in the form of mandates to the traders that they unwind their positions if there isn't a certain payoff in a specific time frame. Secondly, with the institutionalization of the hedge fund industry, many allocators are either going through consultants or going through a fund-of-funds or a managed account platform. This means that greater constraints are being placed on the managers by the investors.

As proof of this, over 1000 hedge funds failed in 2008-2009, and not a single one needed to be bailed out. If anything hedge funds can actually exert a stabilizing effect on the economy. This is because they tend to be actively managed strategies, which have significant cash holdings and short positions. As a result, they counteract the market cycle by outperforming during down periods and lagging behind in bull markets:



If a hedge fund fails, only institutional investors (those with assets of at least $1 million and incomes of at least $250,000) are affected, not retail investors. This legal structure is the whole reason why hedge funds are supposed to be lightly regulated.

And really, what did they have to do with the financial crisis of 2008? Hedge funds aren't in the business of home loans or securitization, they develop trading strategies on existing securities.

[brycickle]

They may not have caused the financial crisis, but they sure as fuck profited from it. I fee no pity for those greedy fucks.

[excitableboy]

If hedge funds are the deciding factor for you, then why not Trump? Surely he hasn't voiced his unequivocal opinion on it. He hasn't done so on anything really.

[weedpop]

TheFifthColumn, you may have very good points about the current regulatory schemes around hedge funds (none of us would really know this as most of what you say is incomprehensible to the average person). The point is, you're allowing your personal voting behaviour to be determined by one very narrow issue that affects you on a personal/financial level. Never mind the fact that a vote for the Republican party is generally also a vote for regressive, illiberal social policies, religious chauvinism and belligerent militarism - as long as they don't make me fill out an extra form, I'm good.

While you are perfectly within your rights to do this as an American citizen, I hope you can see that to most people, this comes off as selfish, out of touch, and frankly, a little gross.

[TheFifthColumn]

I understand this is some what arcane, but I noticed that no one is addressing my points I brought up in the previous post.

Instead of an actual counter-argument about how hedge funds are risky, and do deserve the regulation imposed by Dodd-Frank, all I hear is flack about Republicans/Hedge Funds/greed, ect.

So unless anybody has something of substance to say about the existing and proposed regulations, I'm done here.

[Sleazy]

.While you are perfectly within your rights to do this as an American citizen, I hope you can see that to most people, this comes off as selfish, out of touch, and frankly, a little gross.

Save me some typing

[excitableboy]

To stay with the skate analogy: voting unironically for (almost?) any Republican is, to me, akin to preferring Andy Mac's style over JB's. I just will never get that. Now I'm euro and I don't pretend to understand, it just baffles me that so many still run with that gang of trolls. Not to say Democrats are all sincere, but Republicans don't need to even feign it anymore. Trump once and for all proves this, and therein lies his only merit.
Not only is Trump not a great businessman, he objectively fucking sucks at his job. He would have more money now if he had kept his inheritance in the bank. Not even joking. How someone gets away with passing off such momentous lies, beats me. But he is perfectly qualified to be president nonetheless. Think about it: Bush was a C student throughout his Ivy League years, went AWOL while serving, mostly snorted coke and partied through his twenties, held only a few inconsequential positions and then turned forty, soon after which by golly he was handed command over the free world. Pure lunacy.
I understand voting for one cause. Many vote like that, perhaps most. But unless it's a fundamental issue concerning human rights, it is really quite infantile to do so. Remember proposition 8? I was there for that. Grown people protested for and against. If you are in the pro-camp, you vote selflessly (well at least insofar as you consider altruism a possibility, obviously). When you are against, you vote the way an angry, scared child likely would. This is not directed at you FifthColumn, just venting at this point.

[Tufty]

That's a blog I found recently


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

[SFblah]

[ben shraider]

That's a blog I found recently


https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

who the hell has time to read that, let alone write all of that

[able]

Did you guys see the debate last night when Donald alluded on national television,(and in a presidential debate) that he had a big dick?


Oh, and Ted Cruz ate a booger too.


Lol

EDIT:links