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Tina Stein's avatar

What does it say about me that I am rooting for the collapse of my country? This and the stock markets plunge yesterday has made me happy. The people who refuse to see what is going on will soon be forced to. And maybe the people who didn’t vote will realize that it does make a difference.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

It says that you are a smart, sentient person. Facing reality matters. And I'm with you -- while I am watching decades of savings evaporate, I know I am far better positioned (so far) than all those people who live paycheck to paycheck. I'm enjoying the car dealer commercials along the lines of "buy now before the tariffs kick in and cost you 25% more" -- eventually, that will smack all those idiots in their faces -- China will NOT pay the tariffs -- they will -- and hopefully they'll realize they were lied to.

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Rochelle Rabin's avatar

I know nobody asked me, but IMO what it says to me about you is that you are younger than I am and still earning a solid income, and weren't counting on retiring on your savings anytime soon, or that you can retire on alternate sources of income. I was so close to retirement, and on a respectable (not lavish but respectable) income, that I could taste it. I even had my bucket list of travel spots picked out. I lived a pretty frugal lifestyle for the past 25 years, and I was looking forward to retiring in better shape.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

Rochelle -- Tina is just about your age, and is already retired. I personally feel your pain as I wanted to retire next year. I too had a bucket list - albeit not travel, but learning to make mosaics! I don't see a path to retire next year - and I am really scared that if I lose my job, there will be neither Medicare nor Social Security - and even if there is, I don't know that it will be possible to apply for them.

Tina's outlook is actually reasonable -- what's coming is coming, and we cannot stop it. It will hurt her, you, me -- everyone we know. But she (and I) feel schadenfreude for those imbeciles who put him in office. Yeah - we'll hurt -- but it will be much worse for those living on the edge.

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Tina Stein's avatar

I know that sounded insensitive. I have lost a shit ton of money and we shouldn't suffer because of the rest of us who didn't vote or voted for the imbecile, but I don't think anything else will wake up them up unless they are personally affected. I am so sorry for your loss and the many good people who have lost so much and deserved a comfortable retirement. Forgive me.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEANT!!!!! <inserts proper emojis here, but I don't know what they are>

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Rochelle Rabin's avatar

Tina, I am totally with you that certain people need to feel the pain themselves before it will register with them that something is wrong. I mean, for petes sake, I have a Facebook friend who lost a child to fentanyl, and I saw her cheering on the demise of USAID not realizing that the pain of losing a child is no less in Africa or Asia than it is here.

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Abbe Seldin's avatar

I totally agree with you. they will do better and we are screwed!

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

You'd think there'd be SOMEONE who could get through to him so that he just quit the destruction. But no. SIGH

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Richard Weingarten's avatar

An almost unavoidable Recession is coming absent a quick reversal of this tariff war. That will be painful but survivable for most. But wishing for a destruction of our economy is something else, Here's no lie, should it come to pass, you can kiss your a-- bye-bye!

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

I know Tina, and she's not really rooting for the destruction of America -- she is just so frustrated (as am I) with how things are. I think we all know we're already in a recession, and personally, I'm just waiting for stagflation (which I didn't care for the first time.)

But I think it's completely rational to assume that that moron has the ability to tank the entire world economy. And yeah, it's going to be 30's all over again AND IT SUCKS - but I don't know how we avoid it.

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Richard Weingarten's avatar

Congrats on doing all that Oriental sleuthing without the assistance of Charlie Chan. Stated otherwise, those people we used to make fun of are now holding the upper hand. And people, please don't wish for a collapse of the U.S. economy. I lived through that in the '30s and early '40s and it ain't fun. And with the supply chain economy we built up, it would likely be worse. Let's hope instead that sanity will yet prevail and do our best to make it so.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

Your brother introduced me to Charlie Chan movies. We used to watch them at the Thalia (on the West Side - it was a revival house) and we often discussed which actor was better, Warner Oland or Sidney Toler, although we were big on Keye Luke. INSCRUTIBLE! Thank you for the fun memory of my dad.

As for the collapse of the US economy -- unless someone reels VonShitzenpants in, I don't actually see how it's avoidable. Every single time he says "Powell" the markets drop. And he's so addled, he doesn't understand that even if interest rates dropped to zero, it wouldn't matter. Mortgage rates are tied to the 10-year Treasury rate, which is on it's independent trajectory, and no business is going to build anything or hire anyone in the current state of chaos.

At least he's going to the funeral this weekend -- it will hopefully absorb him enough (especially meeting with other heads of state) so that he'll avoid saying anything that could further destroy us while he's distracted.

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Jan Haig's avatar

I agree with you on EVERYTHING you say, as usual! Except... when he's around other heads of state, he could DEFINITELY say things that could further destroy us. He's relentlessly toxic.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

That's it, destroy my ONE bit of hope that he'll keep killing the markets. SIGH (there's no tone in comments, it's said sadly....) He can certainly destroy us (it's what he's dedicated to) -- but I'm REALLY HOPEFUL that what he'll tweet about is how other heads of states are fawning over him, and he'll forget his prime directive of making us into a feudal state. It's just a hope I have. SIGH.

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Jan Haig's avatar

You'll undoubtedly be right, as always. IMHO, they're just going to Rome so Melania can shoe-shop.

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Jessica Weingarten's avatar

I'm not always right. And I actually keep a list of mistakes: while I write apologies in posts, I still try and understand why I made the mistakes I made. I try to keep errors to a minimum.

They're going for two reasons: first, the White House Correspondents Dinner is Saturday night, and he needed a good excuse to miss it. Second, he WANTS to appear "master of the universe" where he'll leverage time to meet with actual world leaders so he can say they groveled. Still, I'm REALLY hoping he doesn't kill us....sigh.

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Jan Haig's avatar

How convenient, eh? -- using the Pope's death to get out of the WH Correspondents Dinner. Hah hah, maybe TSA won't let Malaria back into the US!

You know what seriously chaps my butt? The Tangerine Turd ordering OUR flags at half-mast because the Pope died. Would he do that for any other religious leader? Of course not. Sucking up to the evangelicals.

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