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m_d_hI'd pulled all of my play money into cash a while back, because my crystal ball was broken -- no idea how all this election stuff would really turn out. I'd wait until the dust settled and then come up with some new plays.
Well, the bubbly stock market was overjoyed to learn that the US Senate will likely remain in Republican hands, because that means no tax increases during the next two years. Yay for corporate profits and capital gains!
What else can I say, bubble on, capitalists and employed professionals, enjoy your bubble all you want, continue bidding stock prices to unrealistic new highs. It's fun when your 401(k) balance goes up and up and you feel more powerful, as though stock prices always go up and up.
The 22% of my retirement portfolio that is invested in stocks is very happy. The other 78% is a bit annoyed, but will get over it.
I'm more concerned about the rest of humanity, and how a Republican Senate means we'll do nothing to stop climate change, nothing to reduce the cost of higher education, nothing to expand the availability of health care, little to address the current economic emergency. To some extent, as you celebrate your 401(k) balance, you're dancing on everybody else's graves. Capitalism is destroying the planet, while it steadily exploits the global poor and working classes to feed an expansion of economic inequality.
I can't really blame people for having a 401(k), I have one also. The incentives ... like the matching funds, the tax deferral, the ability to fund a comfortable retirement. But we're part of the systematic irresponsibility of the sixth mass extinction, and much of this celebratory bubble wealth is an abstract mirage. If we all tried to cash in at the same time, it would vanish. And all these tax cuts on the rich have fueled the largest bond market bubble in human history.
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I can't help but be captivated by your Biden/Trump battle and it's cliffhanger Electoral College ending, because Trump is so awful, and about 75 million of you voted for him anyway, a massive crowd of asshole-loving bigots -- a crowd so awful it inspired 82 million to vote for his major-party opponent instead. But I voted for a Green Socialist. I voted for an entirely different kind of politics. I voted for the global environment and the international working class. If my candidate had won, the stock and bond market bubbles would have immediately popped. And that would have been a good thing.
If the stock market is celebrating the outcome, that means we failed. We failed to overcome the inertia of an 18th Century Constitution and the 19th Century creation of a dozen nearly empty "states" that each gets two Senators, during the worst pandemic in 100 years and the worst recession in 90 years. If we couldn't get a Democratic Senate this year, and if a margin of 7 million votes is only barely enough to win the Electoral College now, then I don't know how bad things will have to get before we can break out of this gridlock and solve the problems of our planet and the everyday people who don't have 401(k)s. We're stuck.
Well, the bubbly stock market was overjoyed to learn that the US Senate will likely remain in Republican hands, because that means no tax increases during the next two years. Yay for corporate profits and capital gains!
What else can I say, bubble on, capitalists and employed professionals, enjoy your bubble all you want, continue bidding stock prices to unrealistic new highs. It's fun when your 401(k) balance goes up and up and you feel more powerful, as though stock prices always go up and up.
The 22% of my retirement portfolio that is invested in stocks is very happy. The other 78% is a bit annoyed, but will get over it.
I'm more concerned about the rest of humanity, and how a Republican Senate means we'll do nothing to stop climate change, nothing to reduce the cost of higher education, nothing to expand the availability of health care, little to address the current economic emergency. To some extent, as you celebrate your 401(k) balance, you're dancing on everybody else's graves. Capitalism is destroying the planet, while it steadily exploits the global poor and working classes to feed an expansion of economic inequality.
I can't really blame people for having a 401(k), I have one also. The incentives ... like the matching funds, the tax deferral, the ability to fund a comfortable retirement. But we're part of the systematic irresponsibility of the sixth mass extinction, and much of this celebratory bubble wealth is an abstract mirage. If we all tried to cash in at the same time, it would vanish. And all these tax cuts on the rich have fueled the largest bond market bubble in human history.
-----
I can't help but be captivated by your Biden/Trump battle and it's cliffhanger Electoral College ending, because Trump is so awful, and about 75 million of you voted for him anyway, a massive crowd of asshole-loving bigots -- a crowd so awful it inspired 82 million to vote for his major-party opponent instead. But I voted for a Green Socialist. I voted for an entirely different kind of politics. I voted for the global environment and the international working class. If my candidate had won, the stock and bond market bubbles would have immediately popped. And that would have been a good thing.
If the stock market is celebrating the outcome, that means we failed. We failed to overcome the inertia of an 18th Century Constitution and the 19th Century creation of a dozen nearly empty "states" that each gets two Senators, during the worst pandemic in 100 years and the worst recession in 90 years. If we couldn't get a Democratic Senate this year, and if a margin of 7 million votes is only barely enough to win the Electoral College now, then I don't know how bad things will have to get before we can break out of this gridlock and solve the problems of our planet and the everyday people who don't have 401(k)s. We're stuck.