You can’t gaslight me. My eyes actually work, and I’m watching Democrats ally with Donald Trump in real time to try and stop Zohran Mamdani from getting elected. This is after watching Dems supposedly anti-genocide president give Israel everything it wanted for four years.

Dems are just as hypocritical, and as long as Democratic partisans’ opinions are based on nothing but party decree, that’s what Democrats will be.

personally, if I had 15k to spare right now I would wait for the next big crash and buy in at bottom dollar.

This could be a good way to go. I was lucky to have a few thou in March 2020 to invest in oil stocks at a 90% discount. I waited two years, sold them at a huge profit, and paid off my student loans and put a down payment on a home.

But generally, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s not the worst idea to just stash it in an index fund and forget about it.

This.

Investing in VTI or VOO is basically just investing in capitalism, and you’ll likely do better in these ETF’s or an index fund than trying to pick winners and day trade yourself.

I guess Jesus really, really wanted this particular motherfucker.

You wish.

(And I do too.) It’s comforting to think of actual opposition to fascism, but then you watch these Dems hand away what little power they do have, and they’re about to do it again when they decide to hand Donald his government instead of shutting it down.

And they’re about to hand Donald his government again, even though they have the power to shut it down.

Dems are fascist too.

Every conservative partisan is basically a “rules for thee, not for me” jagoff.

It’s hard to think of these things, but I’ll take a swing at it.

The Good

1. The human race will endure.
2. Finance will become slightly more democratized and less centralized to the US, as the post-tariff trade agreements start to take effect. (And best to put a portion of your retirement in international funds before then.)
3. AI regulation in the US and internationally will likely have progressed (though in the US, only at the state level), which is a good thing as we’re beginning to see the negative effects of LLM’s on cognition and mental health.

The Bad

1. The human race will endure.
2. If history holds, Dems will take the House or Senate in the US, but it won’t matter because they too legislate for the billionaires and not the working poor. (Clinton, Dubya, Obama, Donald, and Biden all had control of Congress and lost it at the mid-terms.)
3. With TikTok likely becoming nationalized in the US, radicalization of GenZ is going to continue to get worse, and the effects on national discourse and society in general will increase in toxicity.

Dems made sure they can’t do anything else.

I used to be that way, but had a madman get in my face once and had to defend myself with just my hands, so I always have a means of defense now.

Respectfully, both are scary.

I don’t think anyone who rides mass transit has any illusions of safety about doing so. I didn’t start carrying a self-defense mechanism until I became a regular transit rider and had a close encounter with a very mentally unwell homeless person.

I envy you, George.

Yup, reminds me of Bush’s incubator babies or Dubya’s fake WMD’s. Lying about one’s enemies is a tried-and-true tactic of warmongers everywhere.

One can only hope, friend.

Don’t worry.

The Dems are just about to write a sternly-worded letter.

That anything being anything to make the billionaires a little richer.

This is all kayfabe and the Democrats are going to hand Donald everything he wants. Just wait and see.

If you don’t have at least a portion of your portfolio divested from the US, you are no longer properly diversified.

Bummer that everything he attempted didn’t fail.

It’s true.

No one can time the market. If I opt to move into a money market at the end of the year, I’m likely giving up some short-term gain, but the flip side is that if this bubble does burst then I can buy back those shares at a massive discount, and profit over the long-term on the market recovering.

It’s all a risk. Everyone has to evaluate the info we have and make the best choice according to their risk tolerance.

What really gives me the heebie jeebies are two things:

-The tremendous greed and valuation of so many of these companies, many of which haven’t delivered anything except bold promises. LLM’s can do simple things well, but its output can’t be trusted without human validation, and that’s after training on all of the accumulated knowledge of humankind, which is why I tend to think that this bubble is eventually going to pop in dramatic fashion. I also don’t think we the public have yet seen the extent of the negative effects of using LLM’s, such as the emerging observations of their effect on people’s cognitive abilities and how they’re able to manipulate.

-The absolutely massive gains in the market over the past two years. My own retirement has had legitimate gains over the past two years that are above and beyond what ponzi schemes promise to deliver, and that’s simply unsustainable over the long term, so the question for me becomes when to take the profit and hold for a major event.

Anyway, that’s my reasoning around the choices I plan to make. I am not a financial adviser, so don’t take any of this as suggestions for what to do with your investments. This is just what makes sense to me.