kimmy

"Guys! Wait! Guys! The sky could still fall, guys! It could still happen! Come on, guys!" -Chicken Little. -k

The stock markets have now fully recovered from the post-Brexit shock. Those of you who were worried about your stock portfolios can now reshizzle your holdings to limit British exposure without penalty. Go! Go now! -k

Adam Larsson isn't some scrub. He's a 23 year old top-pairing defenseman. However I'm still extremely heartbroken over this and will be spending the rest of the night drinking Saskatchewan Car Bombs if anybody needs me. -k

I don't spend lavishly. I save as much as I can, I'm paying off my mortgage as quickly as I can, and it isn't going to matter at all. As much as I try and save, as much as the government increases my CPP payments to force me to save extra... the only difference it's going to make in 40-50 years is the number of stray cats and squirrels I have to hunt down each week to keep from starving. Everything is going to be cut away to almost nothing, based on the logic that by comparison with our global competitors in Laos and Bangladesh and whatever the hell else, our benefits are still too lavish and therefore unsustainable. You talked about pension plans earlier-- they're going the way of the dodo. The private sector is doing away with them because they're "uncompetative" and "unsustainable". You talked about defined benefit pension plans-- only government workers have those anymore. Not sure about England, but here in Canada the poverty rate for seniors is MUCH LOWER than for the population as a whole, and MUCH MUCH LOWER than for Canadian children. For those who are truly struggling, we have income supplements. Again, the idea that we should design current policy with the goal of doing what's best for the stock market right now is incredibly short-sighted. -k

Do we elect politicians to make life better in Canada, or in India? -k

In a similar vein, from the same paper: August always makes the argument that people like these-- the working-class voters left behind by globalization-- should be excited by these developments, because they have been freed from menial labour. Freed to do what, exactly? Look for work? Write one of the tens of millions of Android apps that been purchased 10 times or fewer? Free to ... try to earn money from ad revenue on your YouTube channel? Sell home-made arts and crafts on Etsy? Most likely, these working-class people have been freed from menial labor so that they can try and find some other menial job at even lower pay. -k

Temporary blips in stock prices happen all the time, and making long-term policy decisions based on short-term effects on stock prices doesn't make sense to me. Stocks crashed in 2000, they recovered. They crashed in 2008, they recovered. They dipped last week, they'll recover. It sucks if you have to cash in your shares at that moment, but life is risk. Nothing is guaranteed. Overall, these retirees you're worried about are the most prosperous group of people the earth has ever seen and ever will see. What are we really talking about here? They'll have to settle for the discount Alaska cruise instead of the deluxe Caribbean cruise this year? I don't want to sound insensitive, but who cares? I am much more concerned for those of us who'll be working for the next 30-40 years (and those who come after) than for the momentary disappointment of those whose Freedom 55'ing has been inconvenienced. These trade deals-- be it the European Union allowing cheap eastern European labor to come right to Britain, or NAFTA and the TPP allowing businesses even more avenues to offshore labor costs-- are primarily a coordinated attack on the value of labor. They're great for the capital class, and they're ok for people like Bonam whose skills are so highly sought and irreplaceable that offshoring is a non-issue. But for those of us who depend on labor as our sole means of earning a livelihood, they're poison. I strongly suggest that if you've decided that international agreements to undercut the value of labor in this country are a good thing because they boost your stock prices in the short term, you're thinking short term. Us lowly laborers-- whether they be Royal Bank IT workers whose jobs have been sent to India, or high-school students who have less money to save for tuition because the rubber-stamping of Temporary Foreign Workers keeps service industry wages low, or factory workers whose jobs that have gone to Mexico-- we're the ones whose tax dollars are supposed to keep this whole ship afloat. If you guys want to believe that you already got yours and your stock portfolios are what matters now, if you think cutting laborers off at the ankles in the interest of boosting your RRSP portfolios is wise, I guess that's your prerogative, but these chickens are going to come home to roost. -k

House Baratheon -- extinct (Gendry, and whatever other bastards Robert might have sired, would be "Storm", not Baratheon.) House Martell -- extinct? House Tyrell -- dies when Olenna does. House Targaryen -- no male heirs, and I recall somebody saying Dany is being left infertile by the events of season 1. House Tully -- Edmure is still alive, if he ever gets out of jail... House Stark -- only surviving male heir is a paraplegic who lives in a tree. Is he physically capable of fathering children? House Lannister -- Jaime could still father children, but he wouldn't marry someone who isn't Cersei, would he? Tyrion could marry and his children would probably become the legal heirs to Casterly Rock. -k

yeah, what a freaking bloodbath. I guess the one way for Cersei to claim the throne was for her to kill everybody else who had the remotest claim on it. Remember at the end of season 3, when Bran told Meera and Jojen the story of the Rat Cook? He was cursed by the gods for murdering a guest under his roof... he'd served the king a pie made with the flesh of the king's own son he'd murdered. And right after that scene, they immediately cut to a scene with Walder Frey boasting to Roose Bolton about what a success the Red Wedding was. It was clear that the Rat Cook story was allegorical to Walder Frey's atrocity... and Arya's pie was a neat little callback to that earlier story. So many people want a piece of Cersei right now, there might not be enough Cersei to go around. I was pretty shocked that Margaery is toast... I thought she'd be around for the long haul. I also noticed some Dorne "Sun Spear" sails in Dany's fleet. Dorne seems like the most logical destination, as it's the least sailing from where they're at. Could they be heading for Dragonstone instead? I believe there's basically been a big "For Lease" sign out front of Dragonstone ever since Stannis headed to the Wall. It's Dany's ancestral home, it's basically undefended, and it's where her ancestors first set foot in Westeros on their conquest. As well, I think Storm's End seems to be basically vacant right now, and it's a lot closer to King's Landing than Dorne is... The lords of the North have clearly aligned themselves with House Stark again (isn't Lady Mormont the cutest?) Sansa doesn't have to be Lady of the North for Sansa to be Littlefinger's Queen. That the Starks once again rule the North should be all it takes to establish Sansa as top-of-the-line marriage material. Aside from Queen Cersei wanting her dead for the murder of King Joff, of course. The more perplexing problem for Littlefinger is how can he claim the throne? At the moment with the Lannisters at war with basically just about everybody, they might be ripe for the picking, but once Dany shows up with by far the largest military force in the known world, Littlefinger is basically hooped. -k

But our politicians and business leaders tell us that there will be direct negative impact on us if we don't ratify TPP. Aside from Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump they seem unanimous on the point. When I look at reactions like Jacee's, how can I not think that anger over the xenophobes winning is what's really burning people up over this result? -k

Apple still has the same strengths and weaknesses they had Wednesday. I expect that before long people will be looking at this price drop as a buying opportunity. There have been many stock market dips and dives over the years. As Tim said earlier... if it wasn't this, it would be something else. Yes, the stock markets affect most of us to some degree... but they affect the super-rich to a far greater degree than they affect Average Joe. The guy picking bottles out of the dumpster next door probably wasn't affected much by the Brexit. Yes, I know that my own retirement savings will take a modest, temporary hit from this. I survived 2008, I will be just fine this time around. The difference between now and 2008 is that there was an actual economic meltdown going on in 2008, and here in 2016 we only have a bunch of anxiety and hand-wringing from people whose vested interests are most directly impacted. -k

Yeah, a big portion of it no doubt came from the next 400 wealthiest people on earth, and the 1000 after that, and the 2000 after them. These aren't even real losses we're talking about. These figures are based purely and entirely upon stock prices plunging in wake of a referendum. We're not talking about 2 trillion dollars worth of wages that have been cut, or 2 trillion dollars worth of goods and services that won't be produced this year. We're talking about a change in stock prices. Is Apple really worth $25 billion dollars less than they were 2 days ago? Did one of their products bomb? Did they lose key patents? Was one of their factories demolished by a meteor or something? -k

That's good for you. I mean, certainly Bill Gates is a huge progressive as well, and he lost billions of his net worth due to the stock market volatility yesterday. I don't purport that progressives are all a bunch of broke-ass hippies. However, I do believe that concern for the less-fortunate-- those on the lower rung of society, those less-educated and less skilled and with fewer employment options-- is one of the defining characteristics of being progressive. Those are the people hardest hit by free trade deals, because those are the people who get forced into head-to-head competition with workers in less developed countries, plunging us further into the so called "Race To The Bottom". You say that your own concern over the Brexit has nothing to do with UK immigration issues and everything to do with concern over the financial fallout... ok, do you feel similarly about TPP? If I did a poll of how Bernie Bros and Bernadettes feel about the Trans Pacific Partnership, and how they feel about the Brexit, do you think they'd feel similarly about both? Based on what I've been reading around the internet, I strongly doubt that. People who are vehemently against the TPP seem surprisingly upset about the Brexit. I have been wondering why that is. -k

If the cost of a widget falls to zero, then nobody will make widgets anymore. The cost of sunlight remains at zero because the sun doesn't request payment for its services. The Chinese factory workers, the factory owner, the American firm that contracted that factory to build their product, the people who transported it across the ocean, the distributor who sells... all these people insist upon being paid for their services. No pay, no widget. What are you going to pay them with after all of this labor-saving and cost cutting has eliminated your job? Sunshine? -k

Even if Remain had won, I can't imagine that massive change wouldn't have resulted. Surely they can't just go on and pretend everything's cool. -k

I'm confused as to what you're confused about. Clearly, the big businesses, the financial institutions, the shareholders, and so-on, have been the big losers. Yes, the elites have suffered most in the aftermath of the vote, and the "elites" had by far the most financial interest in "Remain". Which is why I'm perplexed why the progressives have been so staunchly behind "Remain". Since when do progressives care about the elites? Every other free trade agreement, the progressives fight tooth-and-nail against. This one, the progressives seem unusually concerned about stock prices and exchange rates. What's the difference? What makes this different from Trans Pacific Partnership? The idea that "the racists won" is the only reason I can imagine as to why progressives are mad about this. Progressives don't care about the net worth of the wealthy, or stock prices, or the ability of big corporations to find tax loopholes. -k

August, you don't get it. (to phrase it in Augustese.) Tim gets it. Until such time as the factories of China or Mexico start delivering their products to your kitchen free of payment, a comparison to sunlight is completely unwarranted. If the cost of a widget drops thanks to cheap Chinese manufacturing, then our buying power increases. But if the average Canadian income drops due to the offshoring of jobs, then the benefit of this increased buying power isn't as compelling as it first appears. -k

Yeah, and of the billions lost on market volatility yesterday, the vast majority came out of the pockets of the ultra wealthy, the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Of that $2 trillion, over $125 billion of it came out of the pockets of just 400 individuals. Those "losses" weren't in the form of jobs and income from regular working people. It was based on the effect of stock prices and exchange rates and the assets held by the wealthiest individuals, the biggest corporations, the top hedge-funds... I simply don't believe that progressive started caring about the stock market portfolios of the ultra-wealthy in the past week. Why did those stock prices fall so much anyway? Ultimately, it's because shareholders believed that their stocks would become less valuable as companies lose ways of cutting jobs, acquiring cheap labor, outsourcing jobs, finding tax loopholes, and finding ways of shielding their wealth. Shareholders dumped their stocks yesterday for reasons that should make progressives cheer. -k

Ok, to frame this in less controversial terms: Generally, progressives oppose globalization and free-trade deals. I feel that they've taken the opposite approach in this instance because they were sold the idea that a vote against Brexit is a vote against racism and xenophobia. My feeling is that progressives are angry about this not because Britain left a massive free trade bloc, but because they believe that racism and xenophobia won, and multiculturalism lost. Conversely, those who generally champion big banks and big business yet supported Brexit are unconcerned with the economic fallout from this for pretty much the same reason. They believe this is the first victory in a battle to keep Europe European. -k

I didn't take it down, Charles did. I seldom take down anything unless it's egregious. The Orlando thread is really the only one where I have taken a hand in deleting material. That was one of the terms of the "facilitator" position. I don't have to recuse myself from expressing my views, but neither am I supposed to act as a full moderator. Your post got removed because you weren't discussing the topic, you were calling me out for being a facilitator and expressing an opinion you didn't like. As well, I point out that I accused the "right" of more or less the same thing. If you disagree with what I wrote, why not argue what I wrote instead of bringing my forum role into it? Or, if you feel that the post in question broke the forum rules, let us know why and we can discuss the point. -k

I don't know if trolling is quite the right word. Some members feel very passionate about certain topics, which is fine, but when it gets to the point that other people don't get to discuss other topics because members need to bring their own issue into every thread they visit whether it's relevant or not. Climate change. Global warming conspiracy theories. Palestinians and Zionists. USA USA. Native issues used to be a big one that certain people tried to bring into every topic. Charles locked the Orlando thread because of this. I re-opened it with a plea for people to focus on the topic, and ended up spending two days deleting stuff left and right because some people felt like they had to share their personal interpretation of the Hadiths or the life and times of the Prophet. If people had focused on discussing Islam's possible contribution to the shooting-- ie homophobia in Islam in the 21st century-- that would have been acceptable. But if you're posting about Mohammad riding off to heaven on a magical griffon, you're not on topic. Some people objected to that... felt I was being arbitrary in deciding what stayed and what didn't... that it was subjective. I understand that, but my feeling is that people deserved a chance to discuss events in Orlando and not have the thread get snuffed by the same argument that the same posters have been having for years on this forum. -k

There's no way to quantify that. This is just anecdotes. Given the intense passion this referendum caused, there's no reason to doubt that most supporters on both sides were very sincere about their vote. -k

Quite an interesting role reversal going on. Normally it seems like the pro-business trade-loving right are the ones supporting trade pacts, while progressives oppose globalization. But on the Brexit, it seems like the right have abandoned their enthusiasm for trade, while the progressives are decrying it as a great tragedy. I assume that this unusual shift has come about because the right want less immigration while the progressives are heartbroken at the prospect of fewer brown-people entering Britain. Personally, my cynicism is telling me that anything that the big banks and big financial institutions and big businesses and establishment politicians all support is probably not in the best interests of Average Joe. -k

So apparently the Oilers caught a huge break by getting this Jesse Pululujarvi with the 4th pick. From what I gather the draft was supposed to be Mathews, then Laine and Pululujarvi, then everybody else. The Blue Jackets apparently didn't get the memo and went with some dude who was anticipated to go later, giving the Oilers a guy who might turn into the perfect winger to go with Connor McDavid. -k