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Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.

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a second gentle reminder

24

Comments

  • @LewisBraham. Ironically LBJ signed the Voting rights Act of 1965.
  • You're missing the point entirely, but there's no reason to discuss further, is there.

    >> The war on the Woodstock generation was just a blip in history.and that war was lost

    If only. Nonsense to both assertions. But if you don't see the continuum, however much you 'appreciate the concept', that's cool.

    Payback is my take, not war.

    This is very odd. I've never had anyone our age (and other ages) not get it instantly. I may think about my wording.
  • edited July 2018
    I honestly don't bet that any Trumpy MAGA types today would identify with the Woodstock crowd, though. I just re-watched "The Big Chill." AGAIN, I watched it. I'm way past memorizing the whole thing. Marvelous film. Hippie generation friends reunite for the funeral of one of them who died. I don't want to include any spoilers here. I think, though, that the script was inspired, like the frikkin' bible! grin and giggle..... The characters all had to deal, alone and collectively, with the LOSS of the utopian idealism from the Woodstock days. And as singer Dan Bern expressed it, we "settled for making a little money." Free love is taken for granted now. And weed. But I don't think that's any "great shakes." Hardly profound...... My impression is that the Trumpster-ites feel much more at home in a conservative, maybe bourgeois, consumerist, capitalist, flag-waving world which worships the dollar and wears US citizenship as a badge of honor---as if most of them actually selected it. Hard work as a measure of one's value. And if your hard work doesn't improve your lot--- what's WRONG with you, then? And we SURE don't want to be extending Southern Baptist traditions like GENEROSITY and TOLERANCE!" (Reference Lewis Braham's citation of the South. Baps, above.)

    At the gym last week, a fellow who happens to be black was starting-up a conversation with me, complaining about so many speaking Spanish. I replied: "As long as the US is going to OWN an island where they speak Spanish, then ya really have to admit that Spanish is going to be heard a lot, all around." His retort was that they ought to restrict it to P.R.
    Jesus. Really? I was glad I was ready to go, and I did. Later, I had to ask myself whether this black man might be one who did indeed vote for the Trump monster, against his own best interests.... I will never know.

    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085244/?ref_=nv_sr_1
  • >> don't bet that any Trumpy MAGA types today would identify with the Woodstock crowd

    Huh? Yuh, that's the whole point.

    MAGA types today, spirit and values and all else, derive directly from the worst of the Silent Majority. I emphasize worst. Recall the dazed regard for the kids expressed by the local police chief interviewed in the movie: "We think the people of this country should be proud of these kids … their inner workings, their inner selves, their self-demeanor cannot be questioned. They can’t be questioned as good American citizens!" That spirit seems rather diminished today. Check out the friendly exchange with the guy cleaning portapotties.
  • @DavidRMoran. We really gotta quit meeting like this.Our ability to communicate surely is lacking. This will be my last and I will give you the final word.i just want to know if you deny that racism and xenophobia are the glue that unites the magas? Surely something makes them vote against their own economic interests. You seem think it's the memories of the Woodstock nation? All yours my friend.

    Larry
  • Sigh. The glue is resentment and rage against change and perceived loss, less econ than status, though it's risky to generalize. Many are the inputs. Skin color and land of origin are two of them, sure. But only two. Everyone has left out women's liberation. Maybe you are in violent agreement but not understanding it or something?

    The relaxed openness of educated boomers 50y ago was in opposition to that then, and today much of it is same old same old.

    How have you possibly read anything I have posted as denial of maga concerns?

    Before summer 1969 it was adjudged quaint, hippies in SanFran, love summer, but then the two political murders by loner racist and loner wannabe Mideast terrorist type (or was it anti-terrorist), surrounded by police killings of black students.

    Then aha came troops shooting white college kids for no good reason, in my home state, and we were finally on our own, as Neil Young put it.

    Kent State was the starting gun, so to speak, for Trump.

    Payback for the Woodstock spirit and vibe and values and openness / tolerance, ongoing to today, with a huge increase the last 20y. Of course hair and rock spread and were adopted / adapted. They are not the point.

    My take.

    You don't have to agree, man, although you report you were there, working politically and socially.
  • edited July 2018
    davidrmoran's link is to an excellent article by the relatively* conservative writer Robert J. Samuelson, and very much worth a read.

    I came close to posting it yesterday myself, but because of the detail of the article I didn't feel that I could post a reasonable summary of excerpts, as I prefer to do.

    The article details exactly why a return to "the rapid growth of the early post-World War II decades, when from 1950 to 1973 the economy grew at an average annual rate of 4 percent" isn't going to happen again.

    * (weasel word inserted to hopefully satisfy david) :)
  • edited July 2018
    He's actually not a notably conservative writer, economics or otherwise, although he has worked for some such publications. He also has no formal training in economics.

    Also today Krugman pointed out that Samuelson here wrongly concludes that America was made richer by the destruction of foreign economies in war -- exactly the fallacy historian Adam Tooze derides here:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/opinion/trade-trump-eu-juncker.html

    It ain't zero-sum, and we made out better than others because we got into the war so late comparatively.

    But I thought it was just a nice take on nostalgia and unrealism quite as OJ sums up.
  • what does MAGA mean ? sorry for my ignorance. also a little humor Question.Who
    would most of us prefer? Mrs Bill Clinton or mr. Donald Trump?


  • edited July 2018
    1: "Make America Great Again". This inscription is most frequently found on red caps which were made in China. There are some who suggest that they should actually say "MRGA".

    2: None of the above.
  • MRGA ? Thanks Old Joe for the information. We here in Idaho are not privy to the latest slang.All the above from Me is meant in good humor.

    Regards
    circa33
  • @circa33- In the interests of trying to remain (at least for the moment) relatively unconfrontational, I'll have to leave the meaning of MRGA to your imagination. (Hint: try substituting a different country.) :)
  • Sorry did not intend any problems. Will refrain from any Questions except financial.
    Thanks
    circa33
  • Hey, don't take offense... wasn't being critical of you at all. No reason be intimidated, for heaven's sake. But I'm trying to be sort of good, at least for a while, since I'm usually a participant in many of the major food fights around here, and the last one got carried away a bit.

  • all is well. thanks again for your time.
    regards
    circa33
  • oops, sorry, sorry, meant to write Samuelson has NO formal training in econ. My bad! fixed.
  • edited July 2018
    Hi @Old_Joe and @davidrmoran
    I've written many times over the years, since the big market melt, that "this time is different". Indeed, IMHO; this remains the circumstance. The basis of the "once" economy is no longer in place.
    I read this article, too; prior to David's linking here. This Washington Post write deserves its own thread and not buried within this mish-mash. Sadly, this post would also become "run over" by thread drift of one type or other with any replies not somewhat tangent to the subject. This type of hijacking also creates problems here for a proper discussion of a topic.
    Catch
  • Richard Cohen in WaPo yesterday conveyed my broad half-century-culture-wars sentiment pithily:

    ... something beyond economics — and certainly not foreign policy — motivates Trump’s people. ... it’s a low-boil rage against a vague and threatening liberalism — urbane, educated, affluent, secular, diverse and sexually tolerant. ... To them, Helsinki doesn’t matter and even Putin doesn’t matter. Only Trump does. To them, he hates the right people.
  • edited July 2018

    did;

    was there the first time, and as a beginner alt-journalist, no less;

    gonna modify my woodstock line

    tnx
  • @LewisBraham: uncanny article. Insightful.
  • Man, did he nail it.
  • Cocktail parties in Berkeley in the early 70s? That would be like a pig roast party in Saudi Arabia. This is fantasy. And what is a "Berkeley type"? According to this article, Hell's Angels are people but residents of Berkeley CA are "types". I was sometimes in Berkeley in the late 60s and early 70s. I saw plenty of beer. Illegal substances were in the margins. I never saw a cocktail. I must have been associating with people instead of with types.
  • Howdy folks,

    Well, all y'all have gone and got me stirred up.

    The Donald being elected: duh. Hillary's good points were that she was a war-mongering wall street fluffer . . . bad points . . . the same. I voted for her because she was light years superior to her opponent.

    The Donald was elected by people wanting change. Change that had been promised to them by the previous FIVE presidents - and not delivered. Damnit. The issue is Industrial Age to Information Age and the answer isn't 'plastics', it's EDUCATION. Washington's response was to charge interest on education loans to the poorest people in the land and shackle them with notes from which you can find no relief. Are you shitting me?!? If it looks like slavery and smells like slavery and walks like slavery - it probably is slavery.

    I can understand why people voted for the Donald.

    I cannot understand why anyone could continue to support him. No rational mind can. No one that can differentiate propaganda from the true can . No one that understands the difference between good and evil can. He glorifies all our bad traits -our dark side. That's ok for a man but not for our country. We're now the Ugly American. All of us. That's something we have to deal with.

    We all have members of our family or long time friends that have become 'true believers'. We know what that means - a discourse where you realize that their eyes have glazed over and their reciting 'Hannity'. Hell, my BIL told me on the 4th, that "the trade war was good because it was going to bring back all our manufacturing jobs.?" I've known this man for 30 years. I had nothing to say.

    And that is what bothers me the most. It's like southern California a few decades back and your neighbors have met this great speaker Jim Jones and they're selling their house and moving to Jonestown. Or here in MI, back in the 70s, with
    Koscot Cosmetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koscot_Interplanetary and later when they were busted, Dare to be Great. Both pyramid schemes. BUT, I knew people that went to the rallies and bought in. Sold everything and bought in. Rallies? Pure Nazi-germany/trump America - music, stage show, rahrah, get everyone involved. If you've never been to a 'rally', you cannot even begin to image how intense. Most folks in attendance come away willing to sign away their souls, their kids souls, yours, mine . . .

    Alas and alack, some of us cannot resist and folks, I've got a dear friend on this board that I've know for 30-40 GD YEARS!!!!! And he's swallowed the koolaid and there's nothing I can do . . . and it breaks my heart.

    Cashman and West

    and so it goes,

    peace,

    rono









  • Wow.... I am a conservative. But for the record, I can't relate to the hate that supposedly all Trump supporters have. I will admit that I haven't been to any Trump rallies. I believe in a limited federal government, individual responsibility, freedom, religious liberty, right to life, and equality.

    It just is not true that all Republicans are bigots.

    I don't agree with all of Trump policies, but most of them I do agree with. I don't agree with his style and I would recommend that someone else vets his tweets before he sends them.

    I think that there are separate factions that came together to get Trump elected and the Republican party is still not united in many areas.

    I am afraid that we are trying to over simplify things and folks are painting with too broad a brush.
  • @Rono. "And it breaks my heart." So true. Every morning I wake to see read about the latest travesty. But the worst part of it is how many Americans cannot figure it out. I don't care if you resent the liberal intelligentsia or hate everyone who doesn't look like you. WRONG IS WRONG. Anyone who stands behind this insult to America is shameful.
  • edited July 2018
    @00BY

    good that you too believe in freedom

    have you watched any of the rallies and the speeches?
  • @larryB: please read the previous post, written by 00BY . He has made a calm statement without a hint of flame fanning "trollism". This is not shameful behavior. Please, ladies and gentlemen, let us remain civil here. There are other places on the web which welcome name calling and flame throwing. And to those who respond to what anyone can see are expressions of moral anguish by calling the person who grieves for decency " a communist", please just give it up. Everyone who invests in a mutual fund is participating in the capitalist system. We're all capitalists here to some degree, whether we like it or not. I think 00BY is mistaken in his belief that Trump has any policy ideas at all (except to encourage his supporters to beat up anyone who doesn't look like them) and is misguided in his support of the sociopath in the oval office but I cannot pretend that I know his reasons. Maybe it is a matter of over-exposure to inaccurate information.
  • @davidrmoran
    I watch speeches, but not rallies.
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