Posts Made By: Paul Kammueller

November 5, 2008 01:25 AM Forum: Politics

ABC calls Penn

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Jim Brown said:
ABC called Pennsylvania and New Hampshire for Obama the moment the polls closed. Obama holding PA and NH is not unexpected, but the apparent non-competitiveness of these states is very bad for Mac nonetheless.
What do they base these fast-calls on? I thought Pennsylvania was supposed to be somewhat competitive.

Incidentally Jim, who did you finally end up voting for?

November 13, 2008 04:29 AM Forum: Politics

Obama will not attend G20 summit

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Andreas Saldivar said:
I heard this story on the news today. I think this is a mistake. I really wonder what's the point of the summit without the next president there.

What's 'normal' in these situations? Do other nations send president-elects in addition to their presidents? That just sounds kind of 'weird' to me.

November 19, 2008 04:50 AM Forum: Politics

Big 3 bail out

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Another crummy choice to be faced with. Bail them out and reward bad management, or let them go under and shut down half the economy. Somebody turn out the lights on your way out!

We have too many 'too big to fail' problems. If there's one thing we end up learning from the economic crisis, it's that if a company is too big to be allowed to fail, then it's just too big, period. If a company has gotten too big to allow the market forces to work on it then it's a de facto socialized organization, whether it's been bailed out yet or not. It's just a question of time. Maybe they should tie bailouts to breakups.

November 20, 2008 01:25 AM Forum: Investment Discussions

Tech Bottom?

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Bottom formation failed -- due to extraordinary circumstances. If not for the grave situation with the auto makers last Thursday might have been a bottom. The proceedings on capitol hill aren't looking promising for the Big 3. A share of Ford's stock now costs less than a gallon of gas.

December 3, 2008 12:44 PM Forum: After Dark

Nifty Conjunction

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Was very nifty indeed -- got remarks and emails the next morning from non-astro acquaintances that noticed it while driving home.

December 20, 2008 02:59 PM Forum: Investment Discussions

How much of this years sell off.......

Posted By Paul Kammueller

0%

Capital gains tax is no longer an issue, since no one has any capital gains to speak of. Besides, you don't get an epoch-shattering selloff in response to something as mundane as going back to historically normal tax levels, unless the recent market performance is well in excess of historical norms and attributable mostly to low capital gains tax -- and over the course of the last year, the market's performance has NOT been that stellar, in fact it has been much worse than average.

The market peaked back in '07 -- the bear market and the housing crisis, which spawned all the subsequent economic crises, were well underway by the time the election season came into the final stretch.

Moreover, stock market performance excluding weapons and oil is typically much stronger under democratic administrations than republican ones. If investors wanted to engage in political speculation, they might rotate out of oil and weapons and into technology, but engaging in an outright selloff for political reasons would be fighting against the history.

The market required no political speculation to go into the tank. The real performance under the existing administration was sufficient.

But nice try. wink

January 21, 2009 03:51 AM Forum: Politics

"Free" health care

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Christine Canelos Welsh said:
Can we perhaps discuss some real, workable solutions? I’d like to do that, but without mockery, blaming, or derision.

Wrong forum grin

January 22, 2009 03:38 AM Forum: Investment Discussions

Wow! No investing since 1/6/09?

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Heh - maybe it's just gotten too 'boring'... or just directionless... after a dizzying bear move the market's been basically chopping sideways for 2-3 months. Maybe folks are looking for a discernable trend to get chatter going again?

February 5, 2009 12:38 PM Forum: Politics

illegal but moral

Posted By Paul Kammueller

This is an exercise in moral relativism, and also a case of trying to hold two opposite ideas in one's mind at the same time. Basically, this notion that it's okay to do immoral things in one place if it eventually gets you to a morally positive result somewhere else. Or the related school of thought that says torture is OK as long as you only do it to enemies or people you don't like and not do it to your friends.

With such fuzzy-headed logic you can talk yourself into rationalizing anything. What snaps you back to stark reality is recognizing the fact that if you decide to go down this road and legitimize it, you legitimize any and all future enemies doing the same thing to your own soldiers, basically giving future foes a free pass to do whatever they want in this area.

What's worse, is once a nation starts down this path legitimizing such action against captured enemies, then it's a short time later that it becomes acceptable for use against domestic criminals (after all, they're bad guys too, right?) and then once that barrier falls it's a slippery slope to using it against suspected criminals, then reluctant informants ('it might save lives!'), and finally spreading to political prisoners and ordinary citizens, by which time its usually too late to do anything about it.

I don't think it's a good idea to let it get that far. I don't see the upside. There are some things you just don't do. If moral or legal convictions aren't strong enough, then out of national self-interest. It has an open-ended future cost in both lives and freedom, which simply isn't worth it.

February 14, 2009 02:59 PM Forum: Politics

Some here are a bit early

Posted By Paul Kammueller

Michael Koons said:
to judge the actions of the fledgling administration.

It's easy to make hasty judgments on the stimulus at a time when all you can see is the price tag and have realized none of its effects, beneficial or detrimental. But don't worry. Such hasty idiocy in judgment is exposed simply by the passage of time.