Steve F suggested we start a new thread. This is it.
113 thoughts on “Feb 21: Need new thread! :)”
Bloomberg attacked and destroyed by Warren.
That will cost the Democratic Party 1/2 a billion dollars up front and a lot more long term.
If I was Bloomberg I would take the bat ball and bases and go home.
Plus write nasty articles about the left in the Democrat Party.
Bloomberg is damaged but not finished. There is another debate before Super Tuesday. My guess is that part of what happened was that Bloomberg was too arrogant to prepare as thoroughly as was needed. If so, that probably won't happen again and he might do a lot better next time.
Plus, Bloomberg's advertising will reach a lot more people than the debates. A bad debate performance is much less damaging to him than it would be for a candidate who has to depend on the debates for exposure.
Mike, yep.
It's not over yet.
angech, Bloomberg has hired his campaign staff thru November. Perhaps he will plot an independent run. NeverTrump is laughably pushing a Romney/Bloomberg ticket.
From Carrie Severino's latest update on judicial nominations for National Review's Bench Memos blog:
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings – none
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Votes – none
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Floor Votes – none
Six district judges awaiting floor votes, and 39 total nominees awaiting action.
Tom Scharf (Comment #179990)
February 20th, 2020 at 4:38 p
"The coronavirus is not much worse than the flu at the moment depending on what characteristic you are looking at."
___________
Some kinds of flu are worse than others. I don't know where coronavirus would rank among all kinds.
Are you taking any precautions?
Until coronavirus burns out, my wife and I plan to avoid crowds, Chinese restaurants, air travel, and cruise ships.
Mortality rate for coronavirus is a bit hard to estimate because a lot of people are getting it with mild to no symptoms so they don't get counted. Most of the fatalities are older people with other conditions, so it's not like the black death or the plague, but it probably is worse than the flu overall for mortality rate. It appears it is not super contagious and requires close contact and fluid exchange.
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It's not yet necessary to avoid crowds, but it may get to that point. It's not a bad idea to get some masks, especially the N95 variety. Those have been sold out at most places already for weeks. How well masks really work is a bit vague, washing hands is still the best thing you can do. Ironically one of the benefits of masks is preventing your own hand to mouth contact.
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Cruise ships are a worst case petri dish, I would definitely not do that unless you plan on getting stuck on one for an extended period. That industry is going to get hammered.
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For now all of the US is safe. I personally find it hard to believe it can be effectively contained to China at this point, but so far it has, we shall see. As soon as they formally tell you not to panic, it is probably time to panic, ha ha.
OK_Max,
I'm going to continue going out dancing which means I am not avoiding crowds, not avoiding Chinese, not avoiding people who traveled internationally. Ballroom is rather popular among Chinese and also Eastern European. So the proportion on foreign born students is relatively high. Going by past dances at the Glendora on Friday, there will be several Asians ladies dancing there. I have no idea if they are Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino or what not. I'm not going to quiz them. It doesn't matter as I have no intention of avoiding them.
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There are definitely Chinese Americans at my dance studio. I talked to one who was quarantined in China, then quarantined here. She didn't get sick and is now out. I'm not going to avoid any of these people.
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I wasn't planning overseas travel and I'm not going to do so now. (Though it might be a good time for bargains?)
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I won't be going on a cruise ship. I don't think I'd call that decision "avoiding" a cruise ship as I haven't taken a cruise in 36 years. If I'd planned one, I think I'd be cancelling. Aside from risk of infection, getting quarantined on a floating petri dish would not be fun! Talk about having a super boring time.
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I already wash my hands and when I'm in a public location, I prefer to use paper towels, then open the door handle while holding the towel. I find a trash can outside the bathroom.
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I think I may need to ramp up and use the wipes on grocery cart handles.
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Let's hope the develop a vaccine.
Mike M,
"My guess is that part of what happened was that Bloomberg was too arrogant to prepare as thoroughly as was needed."
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Maybe, but he is 78 years old, and intensive preparation (for anything important, like a debate with the loony left) may not be so easy for him as 20 years ago. Warren and co. are going to beat on him every chance they get, so I don't think Bloomberg will have an easy path, in spite of his massive expenditure on TV ads.
As I suspected, Biden is losing his mental facilities:
"Biden Claims He Was Arrested Back in the '70s Trying To Visit Nelson Mandela"
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Problem is, Biden says he was arrested in South Africa with the UN Ambassador, Andrew Young, who states flatly he was NEVER arrested, and neither was good ol' Joe. Young and Biden *did* travel together to South Africa, but no arrests happened. Biden never talked about this 'arrest' at the time or in his autobiography, where the trip to South Africa with Andrew Young was covered in some detail. IMO, Joe is actually worse off than we thought.
Time for a new thread?
Bloomberg is indeed a long shot. But so is everyone else in the Democrat field. I am guessing that only three candidates will be standing after Super Tuesday. Sanders will be one; I don't know who the other two will be.
Klobuchar does not seem to be getting much traction in Nevada. Without a good finish there, she probably has no chance of raising enough money to compete on Super Tuesday. But polling for Nevada is really dicey for a number of reasons, so who knows.
I am guessing that Biden's South Carolina firewall is made of old, dried out Christmas trees. But I am surprised he has lasted this long, so who knows.
The thing that often drives candidates out is when fund raising dries up. Not a problem for Bloomberg.
Logically, no one in that field should have a chance. Which means they all have a chance.
Mike M,
If lack of funds is what drives candidates to drop out, then Bloomberg is likely to still be standing after Super Tuesday.
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On-line betting currently has Trump as the clear favorite: you have to bet ~two dollars to gain one if Trump wins…. so bettors place his odds of reelection near 66%. If Sanders looks inevitable, then I think you can count on the odds of Trump being reelected going well north of 66%.
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If it is Sanders, then it will be the Billionaire Buffoon versus the Angry Bolshevik. The humor value of the race would be very high. I would invest in popcorn futures.
Sigh. Nevada, South Carolina. Caucuses and primaries that don't really tell us anything we don't already know. I wish we could fast forward to March 4'th.
Nevada and South Carolina will indeed tell us things we don't know. Or perhaps confirm or disprove things we think we know.
Does Biden have a genuine firewall in South Carolina? Can Buttigieg and/or Klobuchar expand their support? Can Warren come back from the near dead? Can Steyer get a foothold? I have guesses on all those, but I don't actually know any of the answers. Those answers will have a huge impact on how things play out on Super Tuesday and beyond.
Yes, there are at least two big questions that won't be answered before Super Tuesday, if then. But they are dependent on how the other candidates sort out in Nevada and South Carolina.
Mike,
No, of course none of these questions are certain. Still,
1) It's likely Biden does *not* have a firewall in South Carolina. He's been falling there where Sanders is rising, and nothing that happens today is likely to reverse that trend. At the moment 538 has Sanders as the favorite there. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/south-carolina/
2) Sure, the underdogs will maneuver and somebody will end up on the top of the underdog heap. It could matter if we end up with a contested convention (more likely than not), but only if the democratic party has the cajones to deny Bernie again, which I doubt.
.
I ought to clarify that. It isn't really that I think it's inconceivable that the Dem party would fail to nominate Bernie even if he's got the plurality. It's that I think the cost in terms of disgruntled Bernie voters who either stay home or even possibly get irritated enough to vote Trump makes this a probable losing scenario for the Dems. But they *might* still do it.
In my view, Bloomberg remains the primary wild card. He appears to be doing well in Texas and Florida polling. Will he gather such wits as he has left and make a forceful impression at the South Carolina debate? Will it even matter in the face of his advertising, or is his ship already sunk?
I don't know what to think of Bloomberg's chances.
mark,
I don't see how Bloomberg can actually be the nominee. If the convention picks him, the Bros will go nuclear and Stein will get 10% of the vote in November.
If no one attacks Bernie, a lot of non-socialist Dems will vote for him in the primaries in the belief that he is not so bad and in the hope he can beat Trump. That will get him close enough to a majority of delegates, if not an actual majority, that the convention will have no choice but to nominate him. Then Trump will ruthlessly expose him for what he is: A phony who has become a multi-millionaire with three homes by diverting tax dollars and campaign funds to his wife and who has sold out working class Democrats by adopting a Koch Brothers position (Bernie's words) on immigration.
Bloomberg's biggest influence in the primaries might be to expose Bernie before Trump gets a chance.
So if the Bolshie and the Billionaire cancel each other out, what happens? With proportionate delegate assignment, there is room for a third candidate to last all the way to the end of the primaries and to go into the convention with a big block of delegates. Whoever survives to take that spot could end up as the nominee.
———
Addition: A third viable contender is not just a mathematical possibility. If it comes down to Bernie vs. Bloomberg, a *lot* of Democrats will be unhappy with the choice. That will open the door for the last midget standing.
[EDIT: sorry, cross post. Didn't see your post Mike while I was writing this.]
The sticky part that the numbers may reflect but don't really express clearly is of course that Sanders and Bloomberg are each barely palatable to chunks of dem voters. Sanders embraces the socialist label, and Bloomberg is a billionare who is more or less openly trying to buy the nomination. Ick and yuck. But everybody else is an underdog. So…
1) The older, more moderate and sensible dems swallow their nausea and accept comrade Sanders
(or)
2) The younger, more lefty dems get their radical enthusiasm suppressed and support billionare Bloomberg
(or)
3) The party goes with what amounts to a non entity (yes, even Biden) against Trump.
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It's a helluva situation to navigate.
mark bofill,
I think Bloomberg is not going to really compete when Dem voters go to the polls. There are multiple reasons. First, he isn't really a Dem at all, he is an opportunist. Second, he is a middle of the road candidate (some wacko policies like global warming panic, some more reasonable ideas, like keeping a capitalist economy and not raising taxes to 80% marginal rates); Dem primary voters are dominated by the unhinged green left, and that just is not Bloomberg. Third, he has plenty of unsavory non-woke history ('horse-face lesbians', 'throw young black men against the wall and frisk them'), which Warren has already started using against him; he is in fact terribly offensive to the many woke-intersectionality-green-socialists who vote in Dem primaries. Fourth, he is a billionaire, and not just any billionaire, one of the richest people in the world. Lots of Dems on the left *hate* billionaires, believe extreme wealth is immoral, and believe billionaires should have most of their money confiscated by the government.
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Why would Dem voters support a much richer, more civilized version of Trump, when they have several non-billionaire, unhinged left options to choose from? I think they never will.
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It is not that Bloomberg could not attract votes in a general election, I think he could, it is that the voters who will choose the Dem candidate do not hold the political opinions of the voters in a general election.
Mike,
Yes. I think we see this pretty much the same way.
[Edit:
Thanks Steve. Again, I think that's right. ]
mark bofill,
Cross posted.
Mike,
The only thing I'd add to what you've said is, I don't think the last midget standing is likely to win against Trump. In the end it comes down to running on 'Vote for me, because I'm not Trump.'. I don't think that'll be good enough.
But it's not impossible. Just unlikely.
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Steve,
I hadn't thought it through from that perspective, and it's pretty persuasive. His [Bloombergs] ads are good, but I've been looking at them in general election terms and not primary terms. I don't think he's going to make it past the primary unless he makes some drastic course corrections.
The Democrats in Virginia are providing a microcosm of what turning control of the Federal government over to the Democrats in 2021 might do. First there was the assault rifle thing, which surprisingly failed. Now there's a bill in progress to give government employee unions the right to collective bargaining and worse, contract continuation during bargaining. This would be a disaster for Virginia when we finally have a recession. The state government would have zero flexibility and could face the requirement to raise pay in the face of declining revenues like happened in neighboring New York and Maryland in 2007-9.
"The Old Dominion, one of a handful of states where public-sector bargaining is forbidden, benefited during the 2007-09 recession from the ability of state and local officials to control costs as tax revenue dipped. Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine saved $198 million in fiscal 2010 alone by postponing scheduled pay raises for state employees. Meanwhile in New York, officials had no choice but to pay 3% raises to the state’s largest public union in spring 2009, even as income-tax receipts dipped almost 6%. The contract forced the state to shell out 4% raises to the same union only a year later.
Virginia’s experience during the financial crisis also compares favorably with that of neighboring Maryland, where local officials struggled to address fiscal realities because of union opposition. The Washington Post editorial page noted Virginia’s advantage and floated the possibility of abolishing public-sector collective bargaining in Maryland as a solution: “Fairfax County [Va.] has managed well without it.â€
I mildly regret using the term 'midget' as a pejorative. (Yes, you guys can laugh at me for political correctness.)
WRT to Bloomberg not winning the primary: Perhaps his real plan is and has always been to become more nationally visible and then run a self funded 3rd party campaign. His slogan will be "Bloomberg: Not Trump or Bernie.
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If that's his plan it might explain having his campaign start up late and not real campaigning in Iowa/New Hampshire. Wait until *at least a few* people are shown to be weak. Then be the "new" guy with lots of money to be perceived as having staying power.
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I don't know if it would work. But Bloomberg might think it could. (Most people who run HAVE to be overconfident. So, if it has a 30% of working, mentally, he's likely to think he'll be able to sort things out to win.)
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Lucia,
I like it. He certainly has the resources to give it a go.
I just saw that he'd come out recently against doing that though: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/427273-bloomberg-no-way-an-independent-can-win-in-2020
But that was last month, before he got slaughtered like a little lamb in the Nevada debate. Maybe he'll change his mind.
[Edit: OOPS! That was last *year*, not last month! Ages ago! Everybody's forgotten.]
mark bofill
**I just saw that he'd come out recently against doing that though:**
Uhhmmmm this is a politician speaking. . .
lucia,
Yep. Also, he might consider a Sanders presidency as a worse outcome than another four years of Trump and decide he's got nothing to lose by giving it a go. Well, nothing to lose other than whatever fraction of his wealth he cares to spend on the effort.
I mean, he pretty much out and out said he thinks that nominating a socialist is handing Trump a win anyways during the debate.
It seems that once again we learn that Democrats can't count. At least not very fast.
lucia
"I'm going to continue going out dancing which means I am not avoiding crowds, not avoiding people who traveled internationally.
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I wasn't planning overseas travel and I'm not going to do so now.
I won't be going on a cruise ship.
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I think I may need to ramp up and use the wipes on grocery cart handles."
–
No plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
I think people will avoid dancing and crowds when it comes to town.
Amazing how many people one comes across who have had contact with someone back from overseas, almost every day. Draconian but if it comes all overseas people and their recent contacts will need to be treated and act like pariahs for at least 3 weeks to make me want to go anywhere near them.
Masks are rubbish but send a message that you are concerned which some people seem to like.
angech,
If things change and covid-19 *actually comes to town*, our plans vis-a-vis covid-19 will change. Right now, the risk of infection due to going out dancing seems quite low. We went out dancing Friday.
I admire the dancing.
In sleepy hollow here our university of the third age has dancing and ukulele classes.
Trying the latter with my wife.
Might get the courage up to try the former one day.
Looks a lot of fun.
The dancing represents a degree of exercise. So that's good.
.
Bit of advise: If you start
(a) take a few group lessons that FORCE you to dance with other partners.
(b) if you decide to take private take some WITHOUT your wife. Have her take some WITHOUT you.
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(a) is because it actually helps to dance with other people.
(b) is because it prevents fighting with your wife.
(a) helps with the fighting too. But the vast majority of couples benefit from some lessons where the practice with a partner who can *actually do the steps*. Plus, when you feel frustrated because your partner made a mistake… well… better if it's not your wife!
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Also, vis-a-vis fighting:
* In a *beginner* woman's head ALL mistakes are the man's fault.
* "Officially" at the beginner level, ALL dance mistakes are the leads fault. You will be the lead.
* In reality, (as all leads know) follows (aka women) also make mistakes or do things wrong. Some make it VERY hard to lead.
* As a beginner most mistakes ARE the leads because you have to learn MORE STUFF. (Eventually, following is harder. But initially….leading is.)
This is going to be so entertaining if Sanders wins the nomination. After all the vitriol against Trump as the Worst Person Ever(tm) the establishment will be forced to back Sanders. The spectacle of almost every single major media outlet endorsing a self labelled socialist is going to be a site to behold. How can they possibly vote against their own self interests, ha ha?
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Both candidates dislike and distrust the media. Anti-establishment candidates are winning and the RNC / DNC cannot control their own parties. I think it's fair to say the gatekeepers can't control the rubes anymore, even when their marketing is in total lockstep. (D)emocracy is indeed in danger, especially when (d)emocracy takes over.
If you double those numbers to account for about half the population voting in the general election, they are still pretty small.
I'm not content that Sanders has no chance [in the general election]. I believe he doesn't have an even chance, but don't believe the risk is negligible.
The DNC may be more or less out of money, but I think the Sanders campaign probably has upwards of 10 or 15 million right now, and he seems handy at raising money. Millenials don't view socialism as a negative. And the lure of 'free stuff' / other peoples money is always appealing to some.
If Democrats get over it and decide Sanders is misunderstood or something, it's not inconceivable that he'd end up as Comrade President.
Mike M,
Ya well, then there are bizarre outcomes like Occasional Cortex taking the seat of a high ranking Dem member of Congress…. because a small fraction of the registered Dems in that district are extreme, dedicated leftists.
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Dems will regret if they select Bernie (he will lose the general), and they will regret if they block Bernie (the party will be split between the extreme left and the more moderate left, and the eventual nominee will lose the general). Burned toast.
Complacency, too. Maybe everybody decides socialist Sanders has no chance and Trumps base doesn't turn out in force. Who knows. It's not likely that Sanders could win, but it's not inconceivable to me.
I'll say this. I am glad its Trump facing Sanders (assuming Sanders wins the primary). That sort of no holds barred pig wrestling with the media against him is something he is good at.
angech (Comment #180029)
"Masks are rubbish but send a message that you are concerned which some people seem to like.
_________
angech, I believe you are referring to N95 masks. Although wearing one is unlikely to protect the uninfected, when worn by those already infected the mask can limit spray volume from sneezes and coughs and the distance it travels.
But some people will wear N95's regardless. This means if you see someone wearing a mask, you won't know whether he is trying to protect himself or protect you.
CDC says best stay at least 6 ft away from anyone you suspect. Easier said than done.
BTW, despite what some people believe, N95's don't protect against breathing fumes. These masks, however, do a pretty good job of filtering most kinds of dust, and can also, through your exhalation, warm and humidify dry frigid air if you don't mind fogged up glasses.
Bernie might be able to beat a conventional Republican, but I very much doubt he can beat Trump. Trump voters are not going to be complacent.
Trump will exploit those things. But my guess is that the two main prongs of his attack on Bernie will be integrity and immigration.
Bernie is a multimillionaire with three homes, including a $600,000 "summer camp" (Vermontese for cottage). He got rich by means of a lot of questionable ethics. Hiring his wife for a sweetheart city job when mayor. Selling influence to get his wife a very high paying job as president of an economically struggling college (now defunct); a position for which she had no qualification other than her marriage certificate. Government grants going to that college and his step-daughter's business. Diverting campaign funds to a business owned by his wife, with no accounting of how those funds were spent.
All of that might be dismissed as politics a usual. But that will be devastating to Bernie's brand.
On immigration, Bernie wants to throw working people, especially minorities, under the bus in favor of a Koch brothers position on open borders. Not only is that hugely unpopular, but Trump will be able to use Bernie's own words against him on the issue. So much for his vaunted integrity and consistency.
If Trump can get people to see Bernie as just another self-serving politician, it will all be over.
Mike,
Thanks for the link.
"The reasons for this dire prediction are many, as we note below, but one is paramount: Bernie Sanders is a socialist, and the political toxicity of his self-selected brand cannot be overstated. As recent polling from Gallup shows, 53% of voters, including 51% of Independents, say they would not vote for “an otherwise well-qualified candidate for president†if that candidate is a socialist. That’s game over."
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I hope that's so. I really do. But I worry that it's not as solid as one might hope. What, is it that 53% of voters are actually sensible? Somehow I doubt that.
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"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one…"
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Many people look back fondly on this sort of crap. But we may see, if Sanders wins the nomination.
Meh, don't mind me. I've got a cold (pretty sure it's not COVID-19) and I'm just in one of those moods. :/ The odds are against Sanders, and I agree with you Mike that Trump is likely to capitalize on Sander's many flaws, including those you highlighted. It'll probably be OK.
"You may say I'm a dreamer …"
Or:
"You may say I'm a commie
But I'm not the only one
And someday you will join us
Or we'll shoot you in the face"
"The DNC may be more or less out of money, but I think the Sanders campaign probably has upwards of 10 or 15 million right now, and he seems handy at raising money."
Even if Bloomberg doesn't win the nomination, he will support whoever is nominated. He really, really wants Trump to lose.
DeWitt,
Yes. I'm hoping he reneges if Sanders carries the nomination, or runs as an independent. He seemed to have nothing but contempt for Sander's ideas.
If he supports Sanders and Sanders wins, I hope Sanders ruins him. Small comfort because we'll all be ruined.
What's your recollection guys? Not rhetorical, Mine is fuzzy and I may go do some reading.
I'm under the impression that not all that long ago, supporting gay marriage wasn't a mainstream liberal position. I don't think it was considered politically tenable. How quickly did that flip? Could the prohibition against 'democratic socialism' flip similarly?
My answers are – I don't know, and I don't know. I'm going to go try to figure it out at some point soon though.
[Edit: not as fast as I might have thought: https://news.gallup.com/poll/257705/support-gay-marriage-stable.aspx
probably not quickly enough to help Sanders, even if a swing towards respectability for democratic socialism is in the cards. Not if it happens at a similar rate as the increase in support for gay marriage.]
Obama changed his position to support gay marriage around about the 2012 election. I forget if it was before or after.
Five years ago the "right" of men to use women's bathrooms and locker rooms was not even on the radar.
And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.
The left is now pushing the idea that minors have the "right" to permanently disfigure themselves via sex change procedures. Abolishing the age of consent logically follows.
And, of course, legal pot and the incipient legalization of all drugs.
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But those are "moral" issues. I don't think the same sort of social shaming can be applied to political issues, like socialism. I do not say that with any real confidence.
More effective is that corporations (actually, the people who run the corporations) use adherence to political correctness as a way to appear socially responsible (even though it is the height of social irresponsibility). I suspect that actual socialism will be a bridge too far for that sort of support.
MIkeM
**And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.**
Great! I want 7 husbands!
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What's the social security slant going to be? Will my 5 husbands need to agree before I marry husband 6? And if I'm wife 2, can I still marry husband 2?
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Not really rhetorical. This is an attempt to point out that the *questions* about how plural marriage works area quite different from those for same sex marriage. The only big change with same sex marriage is that you can marry someone of the same sex. But we Don't open up how SSN works, who gets a say in whether you are allowed to take a 2nd spouse and what happens if a "second wife" (or husband wants their own 2nd husband or wife.
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Plural marriage really IS very different (and is so even if some people point out the Bible allowed men more than 1 wife.)
Lucia,
“ Plural marriage really IS very different â€
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I*can’t*even*imagine.
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Having been married twice, and otherwise led a fairly complicated life, any suggestion of entering a plural marriage seems to me a bit like voluntary purgatory….. or worse.
I know, right. My wife watches all sorts of wacky shows. Sometimes she watches 'Sister Wives'. I can't begin to fathom how that guy manages four wives. It's all I can do to reckon with one.
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To be fair, I think I was the one who got the apples and oranges thing going by trying to use change in political viability of supporting gay marriage to get a handle on possible change in political viability of supporting socialism.
lucia (Comment #180049)
February 23rd, 2020 at 6:14 pm
MIkeM
**And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.**
"Great! I want 7 husbands."
____________
Legal, serially, providing you are willing to marry and divorce 6 husbands. More than one at a time is bigamy, of course. It doesn't seem right that one way is legally ok, and can even be profitable,
while the other will result in jail time.
A woman having multiple husbands (at one time) is “polyandry.†But that’s a narrow definition.
“In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.â€
So quite a few Americans already practice polyandry, some unwittingly.
Like other kinds of marriage, polyandry has it advantages and disadvantages. For males, it may be the next best thing to being single.
mark bofill (Comment #180046)
"If he supports Sanders and Sanders wins, I hope Sanders ruins him. Small comfort because we'll all be ruined."
_______
Displeased, I can see, but "ruined," nah!
I like what Sanders stands for except for a few things (rent control and taxes to curb speculation, banning fracking, and studying reparations), none of which would ruin me.
I like Bloomberg more, however, and hope he gets the nomination.
Max,
The damage Sanders [would] do [would] be a function of how far Congress lets him go. But both Obama and Trump demonstrate that the executive can get a good bit done by themselves. Ruin? Sure, maybe not. Maybe though.
I'm not surprised you back Bloomberg. Tough break for young black males and horse faced lesbians I suppose though. But since you're not a young black male or a horse faced lesbian, I wouldn't expect that to much matter to you. Bloomberg [would] erode individual freedom to obtain better average outcomes; sounds like it'd be right up your alley.
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[Sorry for all the corrections. It's as if I've forgotten how to speak English.]
There's something grotesque about a billionaire using his wealth to support the campaign of somebody who thinks billionaires shouldn't exist, IMO. Bernie would be glad to ruin Bloomberg if he had it within his power to do so. That he may be unlikely to ever have it in his power even if he wins the office of President doesn't really change anything in my view.
And it would be grotesque for a candidate who says billionaires should not exit to accept massive support from billionaires.
It rather gives the entire game away as a fraud.
Those born after the Cold War tend to have more favorable view of socialism. The demonization of communism and socialism was pretty severe back then and near unanimous. It was an existential threat (in the real definition) to the west. One might ponder how the perception of these ideologies might even be over done for us oldsters due to this history. Perhaps, but you also cannot ignore history. The tie between large scale corruption and economic failures and socialism/communism is not a coincidence.
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"…but history!…" may not be enough to change people's minds, especially when coming from a position of prior bias. Politicians aren't very good history teachers. Ultimately the best argument may not be crushing the idea of socialism from those who profess it and wrap themselves in their cloaks of wonderfulness, but the age old "tax and spend" mantra. Sander's programs are crazy expensive and he refuses to answer how much they will actually cost and do the math.
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Trump would be wise not to underestimate someone running on a cult of personality platform, and I doubt Trump can muster a disciplined attack on Sanders other than calling him Comrade Bernie.
Warren who demonized Super PACs immediately accepted them recently once she ran low on money. "All the men have them", ha ha. Groan. Not a good look for her.
SteveF, the 66% for Trump already factors in the high chance of Sanders winning the nomination.
The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins.
"The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins."
———
Or Covid-19. Or both.
Tom wrote: "Those born after the Cold War tend to have more favorable view of socialism."
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Yes, because it cloaks itself in good deeds and virtuousness and the mechanisms that always lead to wide scale destitution and tyranny are well divorced from the actual doctrine.
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However, when it's presented in ways that impact them directly, it's a different story. For example, I think it was "college reform" on Youtube that asked college kids whether they would accept a C grade to give those who were failing a leg up. Suddenly not such a great idea. The reactions as they're torn between being seen to do the good deed and giving away their hard work and future were priceless.
Mike M,
"The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins."
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It could have something to do with Bernie wanting to raise marginal rates for wealthy people to 80%+, confiscate accumulated wealth, have the Federal government take over 20% of the economy, and turn the economy into a command-and-control basket case with the "Green New Deal". I am reminded of Paul Krugman's prediction of the stock market "never recovering" after Trump won…. proving just how disconnected from reality Krugman is. But in the case of Bernie becoming president, that old Krugman prediction would likely happen.
Stock market drop is coronavirus fears according to WSJ. It has been bouncing around one way or the other with each new report of spreading or slowing.
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Stock market doesn't have much fear of Bernie yet and even if he was elected because the current assessment is he couldn't pass any of his crazy stuff. Without a doubt he is not their favored candidate.
Tom,
"even if he was elected because the current assessment is he couldn't pass any of his crazy stuff."
Yeah, the current assessment. But there are 23 Republican seats up for reelection in the Senate as opposed to 12 Democrat, and of course nobody knows how the House will shake out.
Are they likely to flip the Senate? No, not particularly, AFAICT. But Bernie isn't likely to prevail against Trump either. A hypothetical series of events that causes Sanders to beat Trump could also boost Dems to take the Senate and keep the House. In my view any such surge would be quite likely to broaden Sander's coattails and let radicals ride in on them.
It probably isn't going to happen. But I don't think we're as safe as everybody seems to want to think. But maybe it's just my paranoia speaking.
Market dip is definitely cov-19. The Italy/Iran news stories that broke over night refute the line that cov-19 is a China/Asia issue that is being contained.
OK_Max,
Yes, I know the words. But above someone suggested "multiple marriage", which presumably means both polygamy and polyandry would be legal. Also, perhaps we could have 4 men and 4 women all married to each other. Whooo hoooo!
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My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time. If someone proposed multi-partner marriage, they really need to start deciding how social security, joint ownership, child custody and so on and so on work in that format. Heck, divorce is even different. Suppose two men and I were married. Can one husband divorce me "us". Can I divorce them leaving them married to each other, but not me? If I die, are they no longer married? Or are they?
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How does this all work? We don't know.
mark bofill,
I also don't think Bernie is certain to lose.
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My vote for the market dip is more COV-19 than Bernie. Yeah… people could be worried about the hypothetical of Bernie. But COV-19 really is worry people and interrupting supply chains right now.
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Thanks Lucia.
My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time.
_____
Lucia, I agree, and as you pointed out, polygamy can be more complex than just a man with more than one wife.
I know you weren't serious when you said you wanted 7 husbands, nor was I when I said then marry and divorce 6.
One wife is enough for me. More, and they might gang up on me.
lucia (Comment #180080): "My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time."
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Religious people would argue that same sex marriage is qualitatively different from traditional marriage. And the arguments being used to extend marriage to multiple partners are pretty much the same as the arguments for same sex marriage. So the leap is not so large.
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lucia: "If someone proposed multi-partner marriage, they really need to start deciding how social security, joint ownership, child custody and so on and so on work in that format. Heck, divorce is even different."
Sure. But it starts with what they now have in Utah: Multiple marriage is legal, but only one marriage is legally recognized as a marriage. That seems to be de facto the case nationwide.
Once de facto multiple marriage is legally permitted, even if not legally recognized, much of the rest becomes subject to court decisions. Courts will have to make decisions on child custody. And on palimony, which then brings in all other property rights. As multiple marriage becomes more common and more accepted, there will be pressure to expand family law to account for it and there will be lawsuits demanding surviving spouse benefits, employer medical benefits etc.
So there will not be a nice sharp division between legal and illegal polygamy. We will just gradually slide down that slope.
Mike M,
“ So there will not be a nice sharp division between legal and illegal polygamy. We will just gradually slide down that slope.â€
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You left out ‘slippery’ between ‘that’ and ‘slope’. 🤒 Based on my personal experience with women from many different cultures, I don’t believe there will ever be a lot of polygamy. I have been mistaken a few times in my life, but I doubt this is one of them.
MikeM
**Religious people would argue that same sex marriage is qualitatively different from traditional marriage.**
And from a RELIGIOUS point of view, it might be. From a LEGAL one… not so much. SSN rules, Tax rules, custody rules… all map perfectly.
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As LEGAL marriage is a legal thing– not religious– it is qualitatively the same in the *relevant* context.
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**And the arguments being used to extend marriage to multiple partners are pretty much the same as the arguments for same sex marriage.**
Well…. no. The arguments for the two are NOT the same. So we don't need to go on to your next sentence.
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And FWIW, the counter arguments are NOT the same. (Well… unless you mean the "religious" argument– which might be "we don't need to go by the bible" or some such thing.)
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**Multiple marriage is legal, but only one marriage is legally recognized as a marriage. That seems to be de facto the case nationwide.**
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Sure. And this is precisely because the LEGAL provisions LEGAL marriage between two people makes sense with TWO people. So the two *legally* married people have protections/obligations by law. The others don't. But this just re-enforces my point. It doesn't contradict it.
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**Courts will have to make decisions on child custody. **
Sure. And they do. In the context of provisions about legal marriage enacted by legislatures. If legislatures decided to have plural marriage, they have to decide what laws apply to these other things– so as to guide courts.
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FWIW: courts make decisions when grandparents try to invoke grandparent rights and so on. The potentially could make decisions if a neighbor claimed custody of your kid. But this is guided by legislation. So legislatures decide things and would have to if they extend marriage to multiple partners.
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** And on palimony, which then brings in all other property rights.**
Illinois has no palimony owing to decisions by the legislature whose laws a clear. Courts can interpret to an extent, but not willy-nilly. So I'm not sure what your point is. Some other states do have palimony (largely because they had the possiblity of "common law wife". We don't.) But this is a decision by the legislature, not purely court made law.
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**As multiple marriage becomes more common and more accepted, there will be pressure to expand family law**
Well… that's a decision by the legislature, which is just my point. Right now, legislatures have pair marriages. The laws are designed that way and were before we had same sex pairs.
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Allowing plural marriages would require legislatures to make a lot of decisions– and it would require federal programs like SSN to decide how benefits are spread out. These decisions would need to be made– and they are thorny.
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With SSM, it's actually pretty simple: A spouse has spousal rights. It doesnt' matter if they are same sex or not. This works as long as spouses come in pairs. It really doesn't work if we have multiple spouses.
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For example: if my husband needs decisions about life sustaining treatment but is incapacitated *I* can make certain decisions. But if there are two wives and we disagree…. who decides? The current laws about spousal rights provides absolutely ZERO guidance on that. A bunch of other things happen– there just is no simple mapping to multiple marriage. These things have to be decided, and most have to be decided by legislatures.
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**We will just gradually slide down that slope.**
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I'm not sure what the "slope" is. But alluding to slippery slopes neither creates any actual slope nor does it make anything slippery.
Don't know if I can bring myself to watch another one. But Sanders chummed the waters with his 60 minutes interview and defense of Fidel Castro. Little doubt that he will be the target tonight. Only question is how effective his attackers will be.
I may just read the summaries tomorrow.
Are there any cases of white people, or black people. or even non Oriental Asian people, getting Coronavirus?
I am rather looking forward to the debate. I want to see if Bloomberg can do better. And if Warren et al. turn their guns on Bernie. There are rumors that Bloomberg is about to go negative against Bernie with his ads, so that could be fun.
——-
In related news, Biden spoke to the South Carolina Democrat Party's First in the South Dinner yesterday. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-gaffe-united-states-senate
"You're the ones who sent Barack Obama the presidency. And I have a simple proposition here: I'm here to ask you for your help," Biden pleaded to Democratic voters. "Where I come from, you don't go very far unless you ask. My name's Joe Biden. I'm a Democratic candidate for the United State's Senate. Look me over. If you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden. Give me a look though, okay?"
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Oh dear.
MikeN,
I haven't seen any news stories that report the race of who got sick. I don't see how that would be important.
The WSJ headline says "Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Contracts Coronavirus"
As is the norm, the don't mention his race. But his picture looks pretty typical for Iranian, which is to say white.
Reports
"Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Tuesday announced the country's first coronavirus case, a "younger" male Croatian who had recently traveled to Italy."
They don't actually tell us the Croatian's race. Typically, Croatians are white. It's spreading in Italy. My guess is the Italian's who came down with it are white.
I think the coronavirus is an equal opportunity disease, ha ha. Obviously most are Asian now but that is a geographical bias. Kissing someone from Wuhan no matter their race would not be advisable.
Apparently not many children are showing severe symptoms which seems to be the only anomaly I know about.
There was some speculation that the extreme cases could have been acerbated by previous exposure to Sars/mers . The cytokine storm seems to be the big issue.
The speculation on a racial preference was related to higher ACE2 expression in Chinese males. ACE2 is the channel COV19 uses. That has seemed to have been fading over the last month. ACE2 expression is also higher in smokers so that is another factor versus genetics.
R0 is likely very high for cov19. Which is good in a way since that means the CFR is lower due to all the non diagnosed mild or asymptomatic cases. Italy made the change recently to testing all with Flu symptoms which is when their cluster was found. The US is still just testing those with travel history or direct contact with someone infected. We're likely under counting by at least an order of magnitude.
This is going to spread globally over the next 18 months like the swine flu of 2009.
Andrew P (Comment #180102)
"This is going to spread globally over the next 18 months like the swine flu of 2009."
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Yes, and the CDC says it's no longer a matter if the coronavirus will spread in the U.S., but when.
It is certainly possible that COVID-19 will become a pandemic or get established as endemic. But that is not certain. The number of new cases in China has been dropping. It is not yet so bad elsewhere as to be uncontainable. It is likely seasonal, so might not survive the summer. Like the 2009 swine flu, it might well not live up to its hype.
That said, I am really glad that COVID-19 is being taken really seriously.
Race of victims matters because I think it might be the case that it is not just a geography bias that is producing the disparity.
I'm not expecting an epidemic in the US.
I ignored swine flu when it happened, though not because I thought there was a racial bias.
Qom gets a lot of religious students from China, and it appears the Iranian cases are related to people who visited there. A certain portion of Iranians are genetically more similar to Chinese than whites, though I don't think that's the case of the health minister.
Race matters because Chinese people live in China and are more likely to be traveling to and from China. I have never heard of viruses discriminating.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full "We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area."
So there was a proposed mechanism. Other studies refute that racial disparity. https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0051/v1/download
"No significant disparities in ACE2 gene expression were found between racial groups (Asian vsCaucasian), age groups (>60 vs or gender groups (male vs female). However, we observed significantly higher ACE2 gene expression in smoker samples compared to nonsmoker samples. "
MIkeM
**The number of new cases in China has been dropping.**
Maybe. We know there was a sharp uptick the downtick. Both were due to the Chinese changing the way they count.
MikeN,
Ok. I don't know anything about that, but it may be race matters. Or not. But what we know is people who don't look typically Asian have gotten it. For now, the hypothesis that the racial profile has to do with where the virus first jumped and started infecting people seems plausible. We don't need any further explanation for why more Asian's got it.
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IF when it gets to the US, more Asian's get it– including American Born Asians who don't travel back and forth, then maybe that will suggest genetic Asians are some how more susceptible. But right now… seems rather tenuous speculation.
My S&P 500 index fund has lost 7.6 % in the last four trading days. My guess is the decline isn't over. I just hope this isn't the beginning of a crash, but if the market does tank, I hope I have the guts to buy aggressively.
Don't end up with nothing for Sanders to take. That'd be sad.
Looks like the elderly are the only people with a significant chance of death from the coronavirus 19: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
Also interesting: apparently very few children under 10 even get the disease! So to avoid death from coronavirus, don’t be old and infirm. It also helps to be a woman.
mark bofill (Comment #180118)
February 25th, 2020 at 7:00 pm
Don't end up with nothing for Sanders to take. That'd be sad.
________
Vision needed. Think ahead.
Sanders causes stock market crash, I buy stocks , market recovers, I win.
Good reason to vote for Sanders.
Sanders has a special place in his plans for Wall Street speculators. Gulag for you my friend.
mark bofill (Comment #180123)
February 25th, 2020 at 9:35 pm
Sanders has a special place in his plans for Wall Street speculators. Gulag for you my friend.
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You must be thinking about managers of hedge funds and actively-managed mutual funds who trade stocks and/or bonds frequently on the basis of speculation. I know Sanders wants to tax the trading or transactions, but I don't know what else. Taxing transactions seems like a sales tax.
I take risks, but I wouldn't call myself a stock speculator. I don't even buy stocks of individual corporations. I just buy and hold broadly-based stock index funds, which do little trading and don't run up transaction expenses.
I must be thinking of someone else, you take risks but you wouldn't call yourself a speculator. Yeah. It's always some *other* guy who's ruining the potential utopia with his capitalist greed. Hell, even first comrade Sanders has three houses and is a millionaire.
Solzenitsyn said this well. 'And all you can manage to bleat is W-who me? What for?'
Don't worry Max. I'm sure when they come for you there will be plenty of people left to speak for you. The young black men, the horse faced lesbians…
Index funds buy and sell stocks to keep their holdings the same weighting as their targets. One imagines these transactions would be subject to the very same "modest" tax as everyone else. Guess what happens if you decide to change index funds from Fidelity to Vanguard?
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This is just one example of why this would quickly become a huge mess. Retirement accounts would demand a special carve out and likely get it. Wall Street would "innovate" and create stock trades that weren't technically transactions. Private stock trades. Etc. Etc. Bernie also said any wealth fleeing the US to avoid his wealth taxes would be subject to a 60% exit tax. He's crazy, he is all about punitive actions for the successful, success is to be shamed. If Bernie wins the nomination I suspect Trump's reelection coffers are going to be very full.
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The coronavirus sell off is speculative in nature. Traders trying to get ahead of the curve on a potential real economic hit in the next year. I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading).
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Bernie isn't trying to reform Wall Street, he is trying to vengefully crush it. He goes way too far but his message resonates with many. The roosters may finally be coming home to roost for the 2008 financial crisis which Wall Street walked away from.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180131): "The coronavirus sell off is speculative in nature. Traders trying to get ahead of the curve on a potential real economic hit in the next year."
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It is not even that; it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. When there is bad news, traders expect the market to drop. So they sell and the market drops.
There have now been at least three coronavirus sell-offs. In each of the previous ones, the market promptly recovered. This one will likely be the same, but it might take a while since the drop was so large.
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Tom Scharf: "I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading)."
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I agree. A small transaction tax, perhaps 0.01%, would likely accomplish that without impacting market efficiency or the returns of actual investors.
mark bofill (Comment #180127)
"I must be thinking of someone else, you take risks but you wouldn't call yourself a speculator. Yeah."
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Taking risks doesn’t make me a speculator. Speculators take a lot more risks than long-term investors like myself.
“A speculator utilizes strategies and typically a shorter time frame in an attempt to outperform traditional longer-term investors.â€
Anyway, you can’t avoid risking your capital. Even doing nothing is a risk.
Save it for the tribunal Max. They'll give you just as fair a hearing as anyone else gets in Marxist systems. I'm sure they'll be very impressed.
Actually I *am* painting a darker than possible picture here. Its possible for Sanders to win. Its possible for Congress to flip. The limit that remains is the 300+ million firearms in the hands of U.S. citizens. That isn't going to be overcome in a year, or even four years.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180131)
**Index funds buy and sell stocks to keep their holdings the same weighting as their targets.**
Yes, as well as buying and selling as investors put money in and take money out of the index fund. But index funds have fewer transactions than actively managed funds.
**One imagines these transactions would be subject to the very same "modest" tax as everyone else.**
I think so too. I'm not sure where the transaction tax would show up. If in the expense ratio, the tax might not be very noticeable in actively managed funds since some have high expenses anyway. Too stay competitive, the funds might absorb the tax.
** Guess what happens if you decide to change index funds from Fidelity to Vanguard?**
That was covered above in my first answer. But I should add If this is a taxable account, I should have my head examined.
Tom
** This week's** coronavirus sell off is probably mostly speculative. If the pandemic gets legs, there will be real, longer term hit to the economy.
Mike M. (Comment #180132)
Tom Scharf: "I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading)."
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I agree. A small transaction tax, perhaps 0.01%, would likely accomplish that without impacting market efficiency or the returns of actual investors.
________
Speculation adds to market liquidity, but I don't see a .01% transaction tax reducing liquidity enough to worry about.
One thing Wall Street hates is uncertainty. The economic affects of the coronavirus are unknown. Once they become known Wall Street will recover. Now it's just a series of nervous ticks going into spaz mode. It will likely be very volatile for a while.
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Day traders love volatility, it's opportunity for them. With $2.5B of government funding for the coronavirus already, those first in line to invest in things related to this pandemic (masks, quarantine facilities, etc.) may make some money.
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To the extent that Wall Street's job is the efficient allocation of capital then this is all good. Where it goes wrong is according to Flash Boys:
"Flash Boys (high frequency trading) starts out describing a $300 million project from Spread Networks – the construction of an 827-mile (1,331 km) cable that cuts straight through mountains and rivers from Chicago to New Jersey – with the sole goal of reducing the transmission time for data from 17 to 13 milliseconds".
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It's going to be a pandemic, just accept it. There are much nastier possible viruses out there. This is good prep for much worse possibilities.
Actively managed funds may not do a lot of trades unless they think an allocation change is necessary. Index funds will actually trade more depending on how often they rebalance their portfolios. Daily, hourly, weekly, etc. Not sure how often this is actually done. Actively managed only means a human is in charge of making trading decisions where index funds are basically a follow the market computer algorithm. The wisdom of groups, or something. It just so happens that index funds outperform ~80% of actively managed funds due to the higher management fees of those greedy humans.
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As more and more money goes into index funds it distorts the market. They are following each other if they get to dominant.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180140)
**Actively managed funds may not do a lot of trades unless they think an allocation change is necessary. Index funds will actually trade more depending on how often they rebalance their portfolios. Daily, hourly, weekly, etc. Not sure how often this is actually done.**
In a stock index fund, changes in the prices of stocks automatically do the rebalancing if you mean the weightings. Moreover, I would think purchases and sales should be necessary only to the extent inflows exceed outflows or visa versa. For example, if on a given day you buy $1,000 of a fund and I sell $1,000 of the same fund, I don't know why it would not be necessary for the fund to both by stock for you and sell stock for me when it already holds those stocks.
**As more and more money goes into index funds it distorts the market. They are following each other if they get to dominant.**
I'm interested in what you are saying. Will you elaborate?
Are we starting to see a significant Bernie effect? https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
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If so, that upward trend may well continue. Bernie is promising a ‘revolution’ which will destroy the USA as we know it. Really, The prospect of comrade Bernie in charge may be enough to slap people to their senses, and to recognize that while Trump is a jerk, Bernie is a danger to personal liberty. Of course Trump and his wacko tweets could screw it up at any time.
If you move from Fidelity to Vanguard, Fidelity will have to effectively sell all your shares, and Vanguard will need to buy them in separate transactions. However if someone else moves in a opposite direction at the same time then the net holdings remain unchanged. I imagine minimizing transaction costs are a big deal for these big funds.
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Apparently there is a measurement called turnover ratio for how often stocks are moved in/out of funds. Index funds are about 5%, and actively managed funds are 20% to 50% (or even >100%). I suppose fund managers aren't going to be voting for Bernie.
Tom Scharf (Comment #18014)
**If you move from Fidelity to Vanguard, Fidelity will have to effectively sell all your shares, and Vanguard will need to buy them in separate transactions.**
________
Yes, between fund families and maybe between different funds within the same family (e.g., from Vanguard 500 Index to Vanguard Wellington). I'm not sure, however, about within the same family.
It was published almost a year ago, so I don't understand the timing.
Mike M. (Comment #180145)
"It was published almost a year ago, so I don't understand the timing."
Under immense pressure a year ago.
Any action taken then would have generated more bad newspaper headlines and comments on obstructing justice.
Only clear air and above water for 3 weeks.
In which time is taking out 2 bad guys [figurative expression you may argue good guys] a week.
cleaning out the Augean stables.
Now more likely to get good press, good juries, good judges and a positive result.
Does not need the money [only lawyers make money] but exposes the newspapers at a time they can least afford questions as to their "fake' news.
Symptoms Of Coronavirus https://symptomsofcoronavirus.uk might take up to 14 days to appear after exposure to COVID-19. This is the longest well-known contagious duration for this disease. We are currently investigating if the infection can be transmitted to others if someone is disappointing signs and symptoms. While professionals think that it is feasible, it is taken into consideration to be rare.
Bloomberg attacked and destroyed by Warren.
That will cost the Democratic Party 1/2 a billion dollars up front and a lot more long term.
If I was Bloomberg I would take the bat ball and bases and go home.
Plus write nasty articles about the left in the Democrat Party.
Bloomberg is damaged but not finished. There is another debate before Super Tuesday. My guess is that part of what happened was that Bloomberg was too arrogant to prepare as thoroughly as was needed. If so, that probably won't happen again and he might do a lot better next time.
Plus, Bloomberg's advertising will reach a lot more people than the debates. A bad debate performance is much less damaging to him than it would be for a candidate who has to depend on the debates for exposure.
Mike, yep.
It's not over yet.
angech, Bloomberg has hired his campaign staff thru November. Perhaps he will plot an independent run. NeverTrump is laughably pushing a Romney/Bloomberg ticket.
From Carrie Severino's latest update on judicial nominations for National Review's Bench Memos blog:
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings – none
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Judiciary Committee Votes – none
Court of Appeals Nominees Awaiting Senate Floor Votes – none
Six district judges awaiting floor votes, and 39 total nominees awaiting action.
Tom Scharf (Comment #179990)
February 20th, 2020 at 4:38 p
"The coronavirus is not much worse than the flu at the moment depending on what characteristic you are looking at."
___________
Some kinds of flu are worse than others. I don't know where coronavirus would rank among all kinds.
Are you taking any precautions?
Until coronavirus burns out, my wife and I plan to avoid crowds, Chinese restaurants, air travel, and cruise ships.
Yeah. Mortality rate is hard to estimate according to this:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/
Still, it appears to be more deadly than the flu.
Mortality rate for coronavirus is a bit hard to estimate because a lot of people are getting it with mild to no symptoms so they don't get counted. Most of the fatalities are older people with other conditions, so it's not like the black death or the plague, but it probably is worse than the flu overall for mortality rate. It appears it is not super contagious and requires close contact and fluid exchange.
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It's not yet necessary to avoid crowds, but it may get to that point. It's not a bad idea to get some masks, especially the N95 variety. Those have been sold out at most places already for weeks. How well masks really work is a bit vague, washing hands is still the best thing you can do. Ironically one of the benefits of masks is preventing your own hand to mouth contact.
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Cruise ships are a worst case petri dish, I would definitely not do that unless you plan on getting stuck on one for an extended period. That industry is going to get hammered.
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For now all of the US is safe. I personally find it hard to believe it can be effectively contained to China at this point, but so far it has, we shall see. As soon as they formally tell you not to panic, it is probably time to panic, ha ha.
OK_Max,
I'm going to continue going out dancing which means I am not avoiding crowds, not avoiding Chinese, not avoiding people who traveled internationally. Ballroom is rather popular among Chinese and also Eastern European. So the proportion on foreign born students is relatively high. Going by past dances at the Glendora on Friday, there will be several Asians ladies dancing there. I have no idea if they are Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino or what not. I'm not going to quiz them. It doesn't matter as I have no intention of avoiding them.
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There are definitely Chinese Americans at my dance studio. I talked to one who was quarantined in China, then quarantined here. She didn't get sick and is now out. I'm not going to avoid any of these people.
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I wasn't planning overseas travel and I'm not going to do so now. (Though it might be a good time for bargains?)
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I won't be going on a cruise ship. I don't think I'd call that decision "avoiding" a cruise ship as I haven't taken a cruise in 36 years. If I'd planned one, I think I'd be cancelling. Aside from risk of infection, getting quarantined on a floating petri dish would not be fun! Talk about having a super boring time.
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I already wash my hands and when I'm in a public location, I prefer to use paper towels, then open the door handle while holding the towel. I find a trash can outside the bathroom.
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I think I may need to ramp up and use the wipes on grocery cart handles.
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Let's hope the develop a vaccine.
Mike M,
"My guess is that part of what happened was that Bloomberg was too arrogant to prepare as thoroughly as was needed."
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Maybe, but he is 78 years old, and intensive preparation (for anything important, like a debate with the loony left) may not be so easy for him as 20 years ago. Warren and co. are going to beat on him every chance they get, so I don't think Bloomberg will have an easy path, in spite of his massive expenditure on TV ads.
As I suspected, Biden is losing his mental facilities:
"Biden Claims He Was Arrested Back in the '70s Trying To Visit Nelson Mandela"
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Problem is, Biden says he was arrested in South Africa with the UN Ambassador, Andrew Young, who states flatly he was NEVER arrested, and neither was good ol' Joe. Young and Biden *did* travel together to South Africa, but no arrests happened. Biden never talked about this 'arrest' at the time or in his autobiography, where the trip to South Africa with Andrew Young was covered in some detail. IMO, Joe is actually worse off than we thought.
Time for a new thread?
Bloomberg is indeed a long shot. But so is everyone else in the Democrat field. I am guessing that only three candidates will be standing after Super Tuesday. Sanders will be one; I don't know who the other two will be.
Klobuchar does not seem to be getting much traction in Nevada. Without a good finish there, she probably has no chance of raising enough money to compete on Super Tuesday. But polling for Nevada is really dicey for a number of reasons, so who knows.
I am guessing that Biden's South Carolina firewall is made of old, dried out Christmas trees. But I am surprised he has lasted this long, so who knows.
The thing that often drives candidates out is when fund raising dries up. Not a problem for Bloomberg.
Logically, no one in that field should have a chance. Which means they all have a chance.
Mike M,
If lack of funds is what drives candidates to drop out, then Bloomberg is likely to still be standing after Super Tuesday.
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On-line betting currently has Trump as the clear favorite: you have to bet ~two dollars to gain one if Trump wins…. so bettors place his odds of reelection near 66%. If Sanders looks inevitable, then I think you can count on the odds of Trump being reelected going well north of 66%.
.
If it is Sanders, then it will be the Billionaire Buffoon versus the Angry Bolshevik. The humor value of the race would be very high. I would invest in popcorn futures.
Sigh. Nevada, South Carolina. Caucuses and primaries that don't really tell us anything we don't already know. I wish we could fast forward to March 4'th.
Nevada and South Carolina will indeed tell us things we don't know. Or perhaps confirm or disprove things we think we know.
Does Biden have a genuine firewall in South Carolina? Can Buttigieg and/or Klobuchar expand their support? Can Warren come back from the near dead? Can Steyer get a foothold? I have guesses on all those, but I don't actually know any of the answers. Those answers will have a huge impact on how things play out on Super Tuesday and beyond.
Yes, there are at least two big questions that won't be answered before Super Tuesday, if then. But they are dependent on how the other candidates sort out in Nevada and South Carolina.
Mike,
No, of course none of these questions are certain. Still,
1) It's likely Biden does *not* have a firewall in South Carolina. He's been falling there where Sanders is rising, and nothing that happens today is likely to reverse that trend. At the moment 538 has Sanders as the favorite there.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/south-carolina/
2) Sure, the underdogs will maneuver and somebody will end up on the top of the underdog heap. It could matter if we end up with a contested convention (more likely than not), but only if the democratic party has the cajones to deny Bernie again, which I doubt.
.
I ought to clarify that. It isn't really that I think it's inconceivable that the Dem party would fail to nominate Bernie even if he's got the plurality. It's that I think the cost in terms of disgruntled Bernie voters who either stay home or even possibly get irritated enough to vote Trump makes this a probable losing scenario for the Dems. But they *might* still do it.
In my view, Bloomberg remains the primary wild card. He appears to be doing well in Texas and Florida polling. Will he gather such wits as he has left and make a forceful impression at the South Carolina debate? Will it even matter in the face of his advertising, or is his ship already sunk?
I don't know what to think of Bloomberg's chances.
mark,
I don't see how Bloomberg can actually be the nominee. If the convention picks him, the Bros will go nuclear and Stein will get 10% of the vote in November.
If no one attacks Bernie, a lot of non-socialist Dems will vote for him in the primaries in the belief that he is not so bad and in the hope he can beat Trump. That will get him close enough to a majority of delegates, if not an actual majority, that the convention will have no choice but to nominate him. Then Trump will ruthlessly expose him for what he is: A phony who has become a multi-millionaire with three homes by diverting tax dollars and campaign funds to his wife and who has sold out working class Democrats by adopting a Koch Brothers position (Bernie's words) on immigration.
Bloomberg's biggest influence in the primaries might be to expose Bernie before Trump gets a chance.
So if the Bolshie and the Billionaire cancel each other out, what happens? With proportionate delegate assignment, there is room for a third candidate to last all the way to the end of the primaries and to go into the convention with a big block of delegates. Whoever survives to take that spot could end up as the nominee.
———
Addition: A third viable contender is not just a mathematical possibility. If it comes down to Bernie vs. Bloomberg, a *lot* of Democrats will be unhappy with the choice. That will open the door for the last midget standing.
[EDIT: sorry, cross post. Didn't see your post Mike while I was writing this.]
The sticky part that the numbers may reflect but don't really express clearly is of course that Sanders and Bloomberg are each barely palatable to chunks of dem voters. Sanders embraces the socialist label, and Bloomberg is a billionare who is more or less openly trying to buy the nomination. Ick and yuck. But everybody else is an underdog. So…
1) The older, more moderate and sensible dems swallow their nausea and accept comrade Sanders
(or)
2) The younger, more lefty dems get their radical enthusiasm suppressed and support billionare Bloomberg
(or)
3) The party goes with what amounts to a non entity (yes, even Biden) against Trump.
.
It's a helluva situation to navigate.
mark bofill,
I think Bloomberg is not going to really compete when Dem voters go to the polls. There are multiple reasons. First, he isn't really a Dem at all, he is an opportunist. Second, he is a middle of the road candidate (some wacko policies like global warming panic, some more reasonable ideas, like keeping a capitalist economy and not raising taxes to 80% marginal rates); Dem primary voters are dominated by the unhinged green left, and that just is not Bloomberg. Third, he has plenty of unsavory non-woke history ('horse-face lesbians', 'throw young black men against the wall and frisk them'), which Warren has already started using against him; he is in fact terribly offensive to the many woke-intersectionality-green-socialists who vote in Dem primaries. Fourth, he is a billionaire, and not just any billionaire, one of the richest people in the world. Lots of Dems on the left *hate* billionaires, believe extreme wealth is immoral, and believe billionaires should have most of their money confiscated by the government.
.
Why would Dem voters support a much richer, more civilized version of Trump, when they have several non-billionaire, unhinged left options to choose from? I think they never will.
.
It is not that Bloomberg could not attract votes in a general election, I think he could, it is that the voters who will choose the Dem candidate do not hold the political opinions of the voters in a general election.
Mike,
Yes. I think we see this pretty much the same way.
[Edit:
Thanks Steve. Again, I think that's right. ]
mark bofill,
Cross posted.
Mike,
The only thing I'd add to what you've said is, I don't think the last midget standing is likely to win against Trump. In the end it comes down to running on 'Vote for me, because I'm not Trump.'. I don't think that'll be good enough.
But it's not impossible. Just unlikely.
.
Steve,
I hadn't thought it through from that perspective, and it's pretty persuasive. His [Bloombergs] ads are good, but I've been looking at them in general election terms and not primary terms. I don't think he's going to make it past the primary unless he makes some drastic course corrections.
The Democrats in Virginia are providing a microcosm of what turning control of the Federal government over to the Democrats in 2021 might do. First there was the assault rifle thing, which surprisingly failed. Now there's a bill in progress to give government employee unions the right to collective bargaining and worse, contract continuation during bargaining. This would be a disaster for Virginia when we finally have a recession. The state government would have zero flexibility and could face the requirement to raise pay in the face of declining revenues like happened in neighboring New York and Maryland in 2007-9.
"The Old Dominion, one of a handful of states where public-sector bargaining is forbidden, benefited during the 2007-09 recession from the ability of state and local officials to control costs as tax revenue dipped. Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine saved $198 million in fiscal 2010 alone by postponing scheduled pay raises for state employees. Meanwhile in New York, officials had no choice but to pay 3% raises to the state’s largest public union in spring 2009, even as income-tax receipts dipped almost 6%. The contract forced the state to shell out 4% raises to the same union only a year later.
Virginia’s experience during the financial crisis also compares favorably with that of neighboring Maryland, where local officials struggled to address fiscal realities because of union opposition. The Washington Post editorial page noted Virginia’s advantage and floated the possibility of abolishing public-sector collective bargaining in Maryland as a solution: “Fairfax County [Va.] has managed well without it.â€
https://www.wsj.com/articles/virginia-is-for-public-sector-union-lovers-11582327422?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
I mildly regret using the term 'midget' as a pejorative. (Yes, you guys can laugh at me for political correctness.)
WRT to Bloomberg not winning the primary: Perhaps his real plan is and has always been to become more nationally visible and then run a self funded 3rd party campaign. His slogan will be "Bloomberg: Not Trump or Bernie.
.
If that's his plan it might explain having his campaign start up late and not real campaigning in Iowa/New Hampshire. Wait until *at least a few* people are shown to be weak. Then be the "new" guy with lots of money to be perceived as having staying power.
.
I don't know if it would work. But Bloomberg might think it could. (Most people who run HAVE to be overconfident. So, if it has a 30% of working, mentally, he's likely to think he'll be able to sort things out to win.)
.
Lucia,
I like it. He certainly has the resources to give it a go.
I just saw that he'd come out recently against doing that though:
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/427273-bloomberg-no-way-an-independent-can-win-in-2020
But that was last month, before he got slaughtered like a little lamb in the Nevada debate. Maybe he'll change his mind.
[Edit: OOPS! That was last *year*, not last month! Ages ago! Everybody's forgotten.]
mark bofill
**I just saw that he'd come out recently against doing that though:**
Uhhmmmm this is a politician speaking. . .
lucia,
Yep. Also, he might consider a Sanders presidency as a worse outcome than another four years of Trump and decide he's got nothing to lose by giving it a go. Well, nothing to lose other than whatever fraction of his wealth he cares to spend on the effort.
I mean, he pretty much out and out said he thinks that nominating a socialist is handing Trump a win anyways during the debate.
It seems that once again we learn that Democrats can't count. At least not very fast.
lucia
"I'm going to continue going out dancing which means I am not avoiding crowds, not avoiding people who traveled internationally.
.
I wasn't planning overseas travel and I'm not going to do so now.
I won't be going on a cruise ship.
.
I think I may need to ramp up and use the wipes on grocery cart handles."
–
No plan survives the first contact with the enemy.
I think people will avoid dancing and crowds when it comes to town.
Amazing how many people one comes across who have had contact with someone back from overseas, almost every day. Draconian but if it comes all overseas people and their recent contacts will need to be treated and act like pariahs for at least 3 weeks to make me want to go anywhere near them.
Masks are rubbish but send a message that you are concerned which some people seem to like.
angech,
If things change and covid-19 *actually comes to town*, our plans vis-a-vis covid-19 will change. Right now, the risk of infection due to going out dancing seems quite low. We went out dancing Friday.
I admire the dancing.
In sleepy hollow here our university of the third age has dancing and ukulele classes.
Trying the latter with my wife.
Might get the courage up to try the former one day.
Looks a lot of fun.
The dancing represents a degree of exercise. So that's good.
.
Bit of advise: If you start
(a) take a few group lessons that FORCE you to dance with other partners.
(b) if you decide to take private take some WITHOUT your wife. Have her take some WITHOUT you.
.
(a) is because it actually helps to dance with other people.
(b) is because it prevents fighting with your wife.
(a) helps with the fighting too. But the vast majority of couples benefit from some lessons where the practice with a partner who can *actually do the steps*. Plus, when you feel frustrated because your partner made a mistake… well… better if it's not your wife!
.
Also, vis-a-vis fighting:
* In a *beginner* woman's head ALL mistakes are the man's fault.
* "Officially" at the beginner level, ALL dance mistakes are the leads fault. You will be the lead.
* In reality, (as all leads know) follows (aka women) also make mistakes or do things wrong. Some make it VERY hard to lead.
* As a beginner most mistakes ARE the leads because you have to learn MORE STUFF. (Eventually, following is harder. But initially….leading is.)
This is going to be so entertaining if Sanders wins the nomination. After all the vitriol against Trump as the Worst Person Ever(tm) the establishment will be forced to back Sanders. The spectacle of almost every single major media outlet endorsing a self labelled socialist is going to be a site to behold. How can they possibly vote against their own self interests, ha ha?
.
Both candidates dislike and distrust the media. Anti-establishment candidates are winning and the RNC / DNC cannot control their own parties. I think it's fair to say the gatekeepers can't control the rubes anymore, even when their marketing is in total lockstep. (D)emocracy is indeed in danger, especially when (d)emocracy takes over.
Just for perspective, Sanders got the votes of about 1.4% of the population in Iowa, 5.8% in New Hampshire, and 0.6% in Nevada.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/democratic_vote_count.html
The count in Nevada does not seem to be complete, so maybe Sanders will get up to 1%.
If you double those numbers to account for about half the population voting in the general election, they are still pretty small.
I'm not content that Sanders has no chance [in the general election]. I believe he doesn't have an even chance, but don't believe the risk is negligible.
The DNC may be more or less out of money, but I think the Sanders campaign probably has upwards of 10 or 15 million right now, and he seems handy at raising money. Millenials don't view socialism as a negative. And the lure of 'free stuff' / other peoples money is always appealing to some.
If Democrats get over it and decide Sanders is misunderstood or something, it's not inconceivable that he'd end up as Comrade President.
Mike M,
Ya well, then there are bizarre outcomes like Occasional Cortex taking the seat of a high ranking Dem member of Congress…. because a small fraction of the registered Dems in that district are extreme, dedicated leftists.
.
Dems will regret if they select Bernie (he will lose the general), and they will regret if they block Bernie (the party will be split between the extreme left and the more moderate left, and the eventual nominee will lose the general). Burned toast.
Complacency, too. Maybe everybody decides socialist Sanders has no chance and Trumps base doesn't turn out in force. Who knows. It's not likely that Sanders could win, but it's not inconceivable to me.
I'll say this. I am glad its Trump facing Sanders (assuming Sanders wins the primary). That sort of no holds barred pig wrestling with the media against him is something he is good at.
angech (Comment #180029)
"Masks are rubbish but send a message that you are concerned which some people seem to like.
_________
angech, I believe you are referring to N95 masks. Although wearing one is unlikely to protect the uninfected, when worn by those already infected the mask can limit spray volume from sneezes and coughs and the distance it travels.
But some people will wear N95's regardless. This means if you see someone wearing a mask, you won't know whether he is trying to protect himself or protect you.
CDC says best stay at least 6 ft away from anyone you suspect. Easier said than done.
https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/masks.htm
BTW, despite what some people believe, N95's don't protect against breathing fumes. These masks, however, do a pretty good job of filtering most kinds of dust, and can also, through your exhalation, warm and humidify dry frigid air if you don't mind fogged up glasses.
Bernie might be able to beat a conventional Republican, but I very much doubt he can beat Trump. Trump voters are not going to be complacent.
Here is a good summary of the conventional case against Sanders:
https://www.thirdway.org/memo/stand-up-to-bernie-or-you-and-we-all-lose
Trump will exploit those things. But my guess is that the two main prongs of his attack on Bernie will be integrity and immigration.
Bernie is a multimillionaire with three homes, including a $600,000 "summer camp" (Vermontese for cottage). He got rich by means of a lot of questionable ethics. Hiring his wife for a sweetheart city job when mayor. Selling influence to get his wife a very high paying job as president of an economically struggling college (now defunct); a position for which she had no qualification other than her marriage certificate. Government grants going to that college and his step-daughter's business. Diverting campaign funds to a business owned by his wife, with no accounting of how those funds were spent.
All of that might be dismissed as politics a usual. But that will be devastating to Bernie's brand.
On immigration, Bernie wants to throw working people, especially minorities, under the bus in favor of a Koch brothers position on open borders. Not only is that hugely unpopular, but Trump will be able to use Bernie's own words against him on the issue. So much for his vaunted integrity and consistency.
If Trump can get people to see Bernie as just another self-serving politician, it will all be over.
Mike,
Thanks for the link.
"The reasons for this dire prediction are many, as we note below, but one is paramount: Bernie Sanders is a socialist, and the political toxicity of his self-selected brand cannot be overstated. As recent polling from Gallup shows, 53% of voters, including 51% of Independents, say they would not vote for “an otherwise well-qualified candidate for president†if that candidate is a socialist. That’s game over."
.
I hope that's so. I really do. But I worry that it's not as solid as one might hope. What, is it that 53% of voters are actually sensible? Somehow I doubt that.
.
"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one…"
.
Many people look back fondly on this sort of crap. But we may see, if Sanders wins the nomination.
Meh, don't mind me. I've got a cold (pretty sure it's not COVID-19) and I'm just in one of those moods. :/ The odds are against Sanders, and I agree with you Mike that Trump is likely to capitalize on Sander's many flaws, including those you highlighted. It'll probably be OK.
"You may say I'm a dreamer …"
Or:
"You may say I'm a commie
But I'm not the only one
And someday you will join us
Or we'll shoot you in the face"
https://babylonbee.com/news/classic-john-lennon-lyric-adjusted-to-imagine-all-the-dead-people-to-give-a-better-perspective-of-communism
~grins~ This is why I love the Bee.
mark bofill,
"The DNC may be more or less out of money, but I think the Sanders campaign probably has upwards of 10 or 15 million right now, and he seems handy at raising money."
Even if Bloomberg doesn't win the nomination, he will support whoever is nominated. He really, really wants Trump to lose.
DeWitt,
Yes. I'm hoping he reneges if Sanders carries the nomination, or runs as an independent. He seemed to have nothing but contempt for Sander's ideas.
If he supports Sanders and Sanders wins, I hope Sanders ruins him. Small comfort because we'll all be ruined.
What's your recollection guys? Not rhetorical, Mine is fuzzy and I may go do some reading.
I'm under the impression that not all that long ago, supporting gay marriage wasn't a mainstream liberal position. I don't think it was considered politically tenable. How quickly did that flip? Could the prohibition against 'democratic socialism' flip similarly?
My answers are – I don't know, and I don't know. I'm going to go try to figure it out at some point soon though.
[Edit: not as fast as I might have thought:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/257705/support-gay-marriage-stable.aspx
probably not quickly enough to help Sanders, even if a swing towards respectability for democratic socialism is in the cards. Not if it happens at a similar rate as the increase in support for gay marriage.]
Obama changed his position to support gay marriage around about the 2012 election. I forget if it was before or after.
Five years ago the "right" of men to use women's bathrooms and locker rooms was not even on the radar.
And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.
The left is now pushing the idea that minors have the "right" to permanently disfigure themselves via sex change procedures. Abolishing the age of consent logically follows.
And, of course, legal pot and the incipient legalization of all drugs.
.
But those are "moral" issues. I don't think the same sort of social shaming can be applied to political issues, like socialism. I do not say that with any real confidence.
More effective is that corporations (actually, the people who run the corporations) use adherence to political correctness as a way to appear socially responsible (even though it is the height of social irresponsibility). I suspect that actual socialism will be a bridge too far for that sort of support.
MIkeM
**And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.**
Great! I want 7 husbands!
.
What's the social security slant going to be? Will my 5 husbands need to agree before I marry husband 6? And if I'm wife 2, can I still marry husband 2?
.
Not really rhetorical. This is an attempt to point out that the *questions* about how plural marriage works area quite different from those for same sex marriage. The only big change with same sex marriage is that you can marry someone of the same sex. But we Don't open up how SSN works, who gets a say in whether you are allowed to take a 2nd spouse and what happens if a "second wife" (or husband wants their own 2nd husband or wife.
.
Plural marriage really IS very different (and is so even if some people point out the Bible allowed men more than 1 wife.)
Lucia,
“ Plural marriage really IS very different â€
.
I*can’t*even*imagine.
.
Having been married twice, and otherwise led a fairly complicated life, any suggestion of entering a plural marriage seems to me a bit like voluntary purgatory….. or worse.
I know, right. My wife watches all sorts of wacky shows. Sometimes she watches 'Sister Wives'. I can't begin to fathom how that guy manages four wives. It's all I can do to reckon with one.
.
To be fair, I think I was the one who got the apples and oranges thing going by trying to use change in political viability of supporting gay marriage to get a handle on possible change in political viability of supporting socialism.
lucia (Comment #180049)
February 23rd, 2020 at 6:14 pm
MIkeM
**And now, legalizing multiple marriage (the logical follow on to gay marriage) is coming in to view.**
"Great! I want 7 husbands."
____________
Legal, serially, providing you are willing to marry and divorce 6 husbands. More than one at a time is bigamy, of course. It doesn't seem right that one way is legally ok, and can even be profitable,
while the other will result in jail time.
A woman having multiple husbands (at one time) is “polyandry.†But that’s a narrow definition.
“In its broadest use, polyandry refers to sexual relations with multiple males within or without marriage.â€
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyandry
So quite a few Americans already practice polyandry, some unwittingly.
Like other kinds of marriage, polyandry has it advantages and disadvantages. For males, it may be the next best thing to being single.
mark bofill (Comment #180046)
"If he supports Sanders and Sanders wins, I hope Sanders ruins him. Small comfort because we'll all be ruined."
_______
Displeased, I can see, but "ruined," nah!
I like what Sanders stands for except for a few things (rent control and taxes to curb speculation, banning fracking, and studying reparations), none of which would ruin me.
I like Bloomberg more, however, and hope he gets the nomination.
Max,
The damage Sanders [would] do [would] be a function of how far Congress lets him go. But both Obama and Trump demonstrate that the executive can get a good bit done by themselves. Ruin? Sure, maybe not. Maybe though.
I'm not surprised you back Bloomberg. Tough break for young black males and horse faced lesbians I suppose though. But since you're not a young black male or a horse faced lesbian, I wouldn't expect that to much matter to you. Bloomberg [would] erode individual freedom to obtain better average outcomes; sounds like it'd be right up your alley.
.
[Sorry for all the corrections. It's as if I've forgotten how to speak English.]
There's something grotesque about a billionaire using his wealth to support the campaign of somebody who thinks billionaires shouldn't exist, IMO. Bernie would be glad to ruin Bloomberg if he had it within his power to do so. That he may be unlikely to ever have it in his power even if he wins the office of President doesn't really change anything in my view.
And it would be grotesque for a candidate who says billionaires should not exit to accept massive support from billionaires.
It rather gives the entire game away as a fraud.
Those born after the Cold War tend to have more favorable view of socialism. The demonization of communism and socialism was pretty severe back then and near unanimous. It was an existential threat (in the real definition) to the west. One might ponder how the perception of these ideologies might even be over done for us oldsters due to this history. Perhaps, but you also cannot ignore history. The tie between large scale corruption and economic failures and socialism/communism is not a coincidence.
.
"…but history!…" may not be enough to change people's minds, especially when coming from a position of prior bias. Politicians aren't very good history teachers. Ultimately the best argument may not be crushing the idea of socialism from those who profess it and wrap themselves in their cloaks of wonderfulness, but the age old "tax and spend" mantra. Sander's programs are crazy expensive and he refuses to answer how much they will actually cost and do the math.
.
Trump would be wise not to underestimate someone running on a cult of personality platform, and I doubt Trump can muster a disciplined attack on Sanders other than calling him Comrade Bernie.
Warren who demonized Super PACs immediately accepted them recently once she ran low on money. "All the men have them", ha ha. Groan. Not a good look for her.
SteveF, the 66% for Trump already factors in the high chance of Sanders winning the nomination.
The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins.
"The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins."
———
Or Covid-19. Or both.
Tom wrote: "Those born after the Cold War tend to have more favorable view of socialism."
.
Yes, because it cloaks itself in good deeds and virtuousness and the mechanisms that always lead to wide scale destitution and tyranny are well divorced from the actual doctrine.
.
However, when it's presented in ways that impact them directly, it's a different story. For example, I think it was "college reform" on Youtube that asked college kids whether they would accept a C grade to give those who were failing a leg up. Suddenly not such a great idea. The reactions as they're torn between being seen to do the good deed and giving away their hard work and future were priceless.
Mike M,
"The stock market seems to have taken a tumble on the chance Bernie wins."
.
It could have something to do with Bernie wanting to raise marginal rates for wealthy people to 80%+, confiscate accumulated wealth, have the Federal government take over 20% of the economy, and turn the economy into a command-and-control basket case with the "Green New Deal". I am reminded of Paul Krugman's prediction of the stock market "never recovering" after Trump won…. proving just how disconnected from reality Krugman is. But in the case of Bernie becoming president, that old Krugman prediction would likely happen.
Stock market drop is coronavirus fears according to WSJ. It has been bouncing around one way or the other with each new report of spreading or slowing.
.
Stock market doesn't have much fear of Bernie yet and even if he was elected because the current assessment is he couldn't pass any of his crazy stuff. Without a doubt he is not their favored candidate.
Tom,
"even if he was elected because the current assessment is he couldn't pass any of his crazy stuff."
Yeah, the current assessment. But there are 23 Republican seats up for reelection in the Senate as opposed to 12 Democrat, and of course nobody knows how the House will shake out.
Are they likely to flip the Senate? No, not particularly, AFAICT. But Bernie isn't likely to prevail against Trump either. A hypothetical series of events that causes Sanders to beat Trump could also boost Dems to take the Senate and keep the House. In my view any such surge would be quite likely to broaden Sander's coattails and let radicals ride in on them.
It probably isn't going to happen. But I don't think we're as safe as everybody seems to want to think. But maybe it's just my paranoia speaking.
Market dip is definitely cov-19. The Italy/Iran news stories that broke over night refute the line that cov-19 is a China/Asia issue that is being contained.
OK_Max,
Yes, I know the words. But above someone suggested "multiple marriage", which presumably means both polygamy and polyandry would be legal. Also, perhaps we could have 4 men and 4 women all married to each other. Whooo hoooo!
.
My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time. If someone proposed multi-partner marriage, they really need to start deciding how social security, joint ownership, child custody and so on and so on work in that format. Heck, divorce is even different. Suppose two men and I were married. Can one husband divorce me "us". Can I divorce them leaving them married to each other, but not me? If I die, are they no longer married? Or are they?
.
How does this all work? We don't know.
mark bofill,
I also don't think Bernie is certain to lose.
.
My vote for the market dip is more COV-19 than Bernie. Yeah… people could be worried about the hypothetical of Bernie. But COV-19 really is worry people and interrupting supply chains right now.
.
Thanks Lucia.
My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time.
_____
Lucia, I agree, and as you pointed out, polygamy can be more complex than just a man with more than one wife.
I know you weren't serious when you said you wanted 7 husbands, nor was I when I said then marry and divorce 6.
One wife is enough for me. More, and they might gang up on me.
lucia (Comment #180080): "My position is that this sort of extension is qualitatively different from the extension to same sex marriage which, like hetero-marriage involves exactly 2 people at a time."
.
Religious people would argue that same sex marriage is qualitatively different from traditional marriage. And the arguments being used to extend marriage to multiple partners are pretty much the same as the arguments for same sex marriage. So the leap is not so large.
.
lucia: "If someone proposed multi-partner marriage, they really need to start deciding how social security, joint ownership, child custody and so on and so on work in that format. Heck, divorce is even different."
Sure. But it starts with what they now have in Utah: Multiple marriage is legal, but only one marriage is legally recognized as a marriage. That seems to be de facto the case nationwide.
Once de facto multiple marriage is legally permitted, even if not legally recognized, much of the rest becomes subject to court decisions. Courts will have to make decisions on child custody. And on palimony, which then brings in all other property rights. As multiple marriage becomes more common and more accepted, there will be pressure to expand family law to account for it and there will be lawsuits demanding surviving spouse benefits, employer medical benefits etc.
So there will not be a nice sharp division between legal and illegal polygamy. We will just gradually slide down that slope.
Mike M,
“ So there will not be a nice sharp division between legal and illegal polygamy. We will just gradually slide down that slope.â€
.
You left out ‘slippery’ between ‘that’ and ‘slope’. 🤒 Based on my personal experience with women from many different cultures, I don’t believe there will ever be a lot of polygamy. I have been mistaken a few times in my life, but I doubt this is one of them.
MikeM
**Religious people would argue that same sex marriage is qualitatively different from traditional marriage.**
And from a RELIGIOUS point of view, it might be. From a LEGAL one… not so much. SSN rules, Tax rules, custody rules… all map perfectly.
.
As LEGAL marriage is a legal thing– not religious– it is qualitatively the same in the *relevant* context.
.
**And the arguments being used to extend marriage to multiple partners are pretty much the same as the arguments for same sex marriage.**
Well…. no. The arguments for the two are NOT the same. So we don't need to go on to your next sentence.
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And FWIW, the counter arguments are NOT the same. (Well… unless you mean the "religious" argument– which might be "we don't need to go by the bible" or some such thing.)
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**Multiple marriage is legal, but only one marriage is legally recognized as a marriage. That seems to be de facto the case nationwide.**
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Sure. And this is precisely because the LEGAL provisions LEGAL marriage between two people makes sense with TWO people. So the two *legally* married people have protections/obligations by law. The others don't. But this just re-enforces my point. It doesn't contradict it.
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**Courts will have to make decisions on child custody. **
Sure. And they do. In the context of provisions about legal marriage enacted by legislatures. If legislatures decided to have plural marriage, they have to decide what laws apply to these other things– so as to guide courts.
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FWIW: courts make decisions when grandparents try to invoke grandparent rights and so on. The potentially could make decisions if a neighbor claimed custody of your kid. But this is guided by legislation. So legislatures decide things and would have to if they extend marriage to multiple partners.
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** And on palimony, which then brings in all other property rights.**
Illinois has no palimony owing to decisions by the legislature whose laws a clear. Courts can interpret to an extent, but not willy-nilly. So I'm not sure what your point is. Some other states do have palimony (largely because they had the possiblity of "common law wife". We don't.) But this is a decision by the legislature, not purely court made law.
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**As multiple marriage becomes more common and more accepted, there will be pressure to expand family law**
Well… that's a decision by the legislature, which is just my point. Right now, legislatures have pair marriages. The laws are designed that way and were before we had same sex pairs.
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Allowing plural marriages would require legislatures to make a lot of decisions– and it would require federal programs like SSN to decide how benefits are spread out. These decisions would need to be made– and they are thorny.
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With SSM, it's actually pretty simple: A spouse has spousal rights. It doesnt' matter if they are same sex or not. This works as long as spouses come in pairs. It really doesn't work if we have multiple spouses.
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For example: if my husband needs decisions about life sustaining treatment but is incapacitated *I* can make certain decisions. But if there are two wives and we disagree…. who decides? The current laws about spousal rights provides absolutely ZERO guidance on that. A bunch of other things happen– there just is no simple mapping to multiple marriage. These things have to be decided, and most have to be decided by legislatures.
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**We will just gradually slide down that slope.**
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I'm not sure what the "slope" is. But alluding to slippery slopes neither creates any actual slope nor does it make anything slippery.
Don't know if I can bring myself to watch another one. But Sanders chummed the waters with his 60 minutes interview and defense of Fidel Castro. Little doubt that he will be the target tonight. Only question is how effective his attackers will be.
I may just read the summaries tomorrow.
Are there any cases of white people, or black people. or even non Oriental Asian people, getting Coronavirus?
I am rather looking forward to the debate. I want to see if Bloomberg can do better. And if Warren et al. turn their guns on Bernie. There are rumors that Bloomberg is about to go negative against Bernie with his ads, so that could be fun.
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In related news, Biden spoke to the South Carolina Democrat Party's First in the South Dinner yesterday.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-gaffe-united-states-senate
"You're the ones who sent Barack Obama the presidency. And I have a simple proposition here: I'm here to ask you for your help," Biden pleaded to Democratic voters. "Where I come from, you don't go very far unless you ask. My name's Joe Biden. I'm a Democratic candidate for the United State's Senate. Look me over. If you like what you see, help out. If not, vote for the other Biden. Give me a look though, okay?"
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Oh dear.
MikeN,
I haven't seen any news stories that report the race of who got sick. I don't see how that would be important.
The WSJ headline says "Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Contracts Coronavirus"
As is the norm, the don't mention his race. But his picture looks pretty typical for Iranian, which is to say white.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/irans-deputy-health-minister-contracts-coronavirus-11582639474
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/25/europe/italy-coronavirus-backfoot-intl/index.html
Reports
"Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on Tuesday announced the country's first coronavirus case, a "younger" male Croatian who had recently traveled to Italy."
They don't actually tell us the Croatian's race. Typically, Croatians are white. It's spreading in Italy. My guess is the Italian's who came down with it are white.
I think the coronavirus is an equal opportunity disease, ha ha. Obviously most are Asian now but that is a geographical bias. Kissing someone from Wuhan no matter their race would not be advisable.
Apparently not many children are showing severe symptoms which seems to be the only anomaly I know about.
There was some speculation that the extreme cases could have been acerbated by previous exposure to Sars/mers . The cytokine storm seems to be the big issue.
The speculation on a racial preference was related to higher ACE2 expression in Chinese males. ACE2 is the channel COV19 uses. That has seemed to have been fading over the last month. ACE2 expression is also higher in smokers so that is another factor versus genetics.
R0 is likely very high for cov19. Which is good in a way since that means the CFR is lower due to all the non diagnosed mild or asymptomatic cases. Italy made the change recently to testing all with Flu symptoms which is when their cluster was found. The US is still just testing those with travel history or direct contact with someone infected. We're likely under counting by at least an order of magnitude.
This is going to spread globally over the next 18 months like the swine flu of 2009.
Andrew P (Comment #180102)
"This is going to spread globally over the next 18 months like the swine flu of 2009."
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Yes, and the CDC says it's no longer a matter if the coronavirus will spread in the U.S., but when.
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/cdc-no-longer-a-matter-of-if-coronavirus-will-spread-in-us-communities-but-when
It is certainly possible that COVID-19 will become a pandemic or get established as endemic. But that is not certain. The number of new cases in China has been dropping. It is not yet so bad elsewhere as to be uncontainable. It is likely seasonal, so might not survive the summer. Like the 2009 swine flu, it might well not live up to its hype.
That said, I am really glad that COVID-19 is being taken really seriously.
Race of victims matters because I think it might be the case that it is not just a geography bias that is producing the disparity.
I'm not expecting an epidemic in the US.
I ignored swine flu when it happened, though not because I thought there was a racial bias.
Qom gets a lot of religious students from China, and it appears the Iranian cases are related to people who visited there. A certain portion of Iranians are genetically more similar to Chinese than whites, though I don't think that's the case of the health minister.
Race matters because Chinese people live in China and are more likely to be traveling to and from China. I have never heard of viruses discriminating.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1.full "We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50% vs. 0.47% of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area."
So there was a proposed mechanism. Other studies refute that racial disparity.
https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202002.0051/v1/download
"No significant disparities in ACE2 gene expression were found between racial groups (Asian vsCaucasian), age groups (>60 vs or gender groups (male vs female). However, we observed significantly higher ACE2 gene expression in smoker samples compared to nonsmoker samples. "
MIkeM
**The number of new cases in China has been dropping.**
Maybe. We know there was a sharp uptick the downtick. Both were due to the Chinese changing the way they count.
MikeN,
Ok. I don't know anything about that, but it may be race matters. Or not. But what we know is people who don't look typically Asian have gotten it. For now, the hypothesis that the racial profile has to do with where the virus first jumped and started infecting people seems plausible. We don't need any further explanation for why more Asian's got it.
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IF when it gets to the US, more Asian's get it– including American Born Asians who don't travel back and forth, then maybe that will suggest genetic Asians are some how more susceptible. But right now… seems rather tenuous speculation.
My S&P 500 index fund has lost 7.6 % in the last four trading days. My guess is the decline isn't over. I just hope this isn't the beginning of a crash, but if the market does tank, I hope I have the guts to buy aggressively.
Don't end up with nothing for Sanders to take. That'd be sad.
Looks like the elderly are the only people with a significant chance of death from the coronavirus 19: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
Also interesting: apparently very few children under 10 even get the disease! So to avoid death from coronavirus, don’t be old and infirm. It also helps to be a woman.
mark bofill (Comment #180118)
February 25th, 2020 at 7:00 pm
Don't end up with nothing for Sanders to take. That'd be sad.
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Vision needed. Think ahead.
Sanders causes stock market crash, I buy stocks , market recovers, I win.
Good reason to vote for Sanders.
Sanders has a special place in his plans for Wall Street speculators. Gulag for you my friend.
mark bofill (Comment #180123)
February 25th, 2020 at 9:35 pm
Sanders has a special place in his plans for Wall Street speculators. Gulag for you my friend.
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You must be thinking about managers of hedge funds and actively-managed mutual funds who trade stocks and/or bonds frequently on the basis of speculation. I know Sanders wants to tax the trading or transactions, but I don't know what else. Taxing transactions seems like a sales tax.
I take risks, but I wouldn't call myself a stock speculator. I don't even buy stocks of individual corporations. I just buy and hold broadly-based stock index funds, which do little trading and don't run up transaction expenses.
I must be thinking of someone else, you take risks but you wouldn't call yourself a speculator. Yeah. It's always some *other* guy who's ruining the potential utopia with his capitalist greed. Hell, even first comrade Sanders has three houses and is a millionaire.
Solzenitsyn said this well. 'And all you can manage to bleat is W-who me? What for?'
Don't worry Max. I'm sure when they come for you there will be plenty of people left to speak for you. The young black men, the horse faced lesbians…
Index funds buy and sell stocks to keep their holdings the same weighting as their targets. One imagines these transactions would be subject to the very same "modest" tax as everyone else. Guess what happens if you decide to change index funds from Fidelity to Vanguard?
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This is just one example of why this would quickly become a huge mess. Retirement accounts would demand a special carve out and likely get it. Wall Street would "innovate" and create stock trades that weren't technically transactions. Private stock trades. Etc. Etc. Bernie also said any wealth fleeing the US to avoid his wealth taxes would be subject to a 60% exit tax. He's crazy, he is all about punitive actions for the successful, success is to be shamed. If Bernie wins the nomination I suspect Trump's reelection coffers are going to be very full.
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The coronavirus sell off is speculative in nature. Traders trying to get ahead of the curve on a potential real economic hit in the next year. I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading).
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Bernie isn't trying to reform Wall Street, he is trying to vengefully crush it. He goes way too far but his message resonates with many. The roosters may finally be coming home to roost for the 2008 financial crisis which Wall Street walked away from.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180131): "The coronavirus sell off is speculative in nature. Traders trying to get ahead of the curve on a potential real economic hit in the next year."
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It is not even that; it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy. When there is bad news, traders expect the market to drop. So they sell and the market drops.
There have now been at least three coronavirus sell-offs. In each of the previous ones, the market promptly recovered. This one will likely be the same, but it might take a while since the drop was so large.
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Tom Scharf: "I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading)."
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I agree. A small transaction tax, perhaps 0.01%, would likely accomplish that without impacting market efficiency or the returns of actual investors.
mark bofill (Comment #180127)
"I must be thinking of someone else, you take risks but you wouldn't call yourself a speculator. Yeah."
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Taking risks doesn’t make me a speculator. Speculators take a lot more risks than long-term investors like myself.
“A speculator utilizes strategies and typically a shorter time frame in an attempt to outperform traditional longer-term investors.â€
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/speculator.asp
Anyway, you can’t avoid risking your capital. Even doing nothing is a risk.
Save it for the tribunal Max. They'll give you just as fair a hearing as anyone else gets in Marxist systems. I'm sure they'll be very impressed.
Actually I *am* painting a darker than possible picture here. Its possible for Sanders to win. Its possible for Congress to flip. The limit that remains is the 300+ million firearms in the hands of U.S. citizens. That isn't going to be overcome in a year, or even four years.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180131)
**Index funds buy and sell stocks to keep their holdings the same weighting as their targets.**
Yes, as well as buying and selling as investors put money in and take money out of the index fund. But index funds have fewer transactions than actively managed funds.
**One imagines these transactions would be subject to the very same "modest" tax as everyone else.**
I think so too. I'm not sure where the transaction tax would show up. If in the expense ratio, the tax might not be very noticeable in actively managed funds since some have high expenses anyway. Too stay competitive, the funds might absorb the tax.
** Guess what happens if you decide to change index funds from Fidelity to Vanguard?**
That was covered above in my first answer. But I should add If this is a taxable account, I should have my head examined.
Tom
** This week's** coronavirus sell off is probably mostly speculative. If the pandemic gets legs, there will be real, longer term hit to the economy.
Mike M. (Comment #180132)
Tom Scharf: "I wouldn't shed a tear to see the removal of excessively speculative trading and certain Wall Street financial instruments that appear to not serve any useful purpose except to skim the financial system (like high frequency trading)."
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I agree. A small transaction tax, perhaps 0.01%, would likely accomplish that without impacting market efficiency or the returns of actual investors.
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Speculation adds to market liquidity, but I don't see a .01% transaction tax reducing liquidity enough to worry about.
One thing Wall Street hates is uncertainty. The economic affects of the coronavirus are unknown. Once they become known Wall Street will recover. Now it's just a series of nervous ticks going into spaz mode. It will likely be very volatile for a while.
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Day traders love volatility, it's opportunity for them. With $2.5B of government funding for the coronavirus already, those first in line to invest in things related to this pandemic (masks, quarantine facilities, etc.) may make some money.
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To the extent that Wall Street's job is the efficient allocation of capital then this is all good. Where it goes wrong is according to Flash Boys:
"Flash Boys (high frequency trading) starts out describing a $300 million project from Spread Networks – the construction of an 827-mile (1,331 km) cable that cuts straight through mountains and rivers from Chicago to New Jersey – with the sole goal of reducing the transmission time for data from 17 to 13 milliseconds".
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It's going to be a pandemic, just accept it. There are much nastier possible viruses out there. This is good prep for much worse possibilities.
Actively managed funds may not do a lot of trades unless they think an allocation change is necessary. Index funds will actually trade more depending on how often they rebalance their portfolios. Daily, hourly, weekly, etc. Not sure how often this is actually done. Actively managed only means a human is in charge of making trading decisions where index funds are basically a follow the market computer algorithm. The wisdom of groups, or something. It just so happens that index funds outperform ~80% of actively managed funds due to the higher management fees of those greedy humans.
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As more and more money goes into index funds it distorts the market. They are following each other if they get to dominant.
Tom Scharf (Comment #180140)
**Actively managed funds may not do a lot of trades unless they think an allocation change is necessary. Index funds will actually trade more depending on how often they rebalance their portfolios. Daily, hourly, weekly, etc. Not sure how often this is actually done.**
In a stock index fund, changes in the prices of stocks automatically do the rebalancing if you mean the weightings. Moreover, I would think purchases and sales should be necessary only to the extent inflows exceed outflows or visa versa. For example, if on a given day you buy $1,000 of a fund and I sell $1,000 of the same fund, I don't know why it would not be necessary for the fund to both by stock for you and sell stock for me when it already holds those stocks.
**As more and more money goes into index funds it distorts the market. They are following each other if they get to dominant.**
I'm interested in what you are saying. Will you elaborate?
Are we starting to see a significant Bernie effect?
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
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If so, that upward trend may well continue. Bernie is promising a ‘revolution’ which will destroy the USA as we know it. Really, The prospect of comrade Bernie in charge may be enough to slap people to their senses, and to recognize that while Trump is a jerk, Bernie is a danger to personal liberty. Of course Trump and his wacko tweets could screw it up at any time.
If you move from Fidelity to Vanguard, Fidelity will have to effectively sell all your shares, and Vanguard will need to buy them in separate transactions. However if someone else moves in a opposite direction at the same time then the net holdings remain unchanged. I imagine minimizing transaction costs are a big deal for these big funds.
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Apparently there is a measurement called turnover ratio for how often stocks are moved in/out of funds. Index funds are about 5%, and actively managed funds are 20% to 50% (or even >100%). I suppose fund managers aren't going to be voting for Bernie.
Tom Scharf (Comment #18014)
**If you move from Fidelity to Vanguard, Fidelity will have to effectively sell all your shares, and Vanguard will need to buy them in separate transactions.**
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Yes, between fund families and maybe between different funds within the same family (e.g., from Vanguard 500 Index to Vanguard Wellington). I'm not sure, however, about within the same family.
The Trump campaign is suing the New York Times for libel, as a result of this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/opinion/mueller-trump-russia-quid-pro-quo.html
It was published almost a year ago, so I don't understand the timing.
Mike M. (Comment #180145)
"It was published almost a year ago, so I don't understand the timing."
Under immense pressure a year ago.
Any action taken then would have generated more bad newspaper headlines and comments on obstructing justice.
Only clear air and above water for 3 weeks.
In which time is taking out 2 bad guys [figurative expression you may argue good guys] a week.
cleaning out the Augean stables.
Now more likely to get good press, good juries, good judges and a positive result.
Does not need the money [only lawyers make money] but exposes the newspapers at a time they can least afford questions as to their "fake' news.
Symptoms Of Coronavirus https://symptomsofcoronavirus.uk might take up to 14 days to appear after exposure to COVID-19. This is the longest well-known contagious duration for this disease. We are currently investigating if the infection can be transmitted to others if someone is disappointing signs and symptoms. While professionals think that it is feasible, it is taken into consideration to be rare.