Trump

[Aken_Bosch]

Now other countries are following President Trump's lead there.

Cool story there. We're lucky Trump decided to lock down borders and activities, so that all we non-illuminated ones have been able to finally follow his righteous lead. Almost a month earlier than him. But hey, if you keep repeating that to yourself, you're eventually going to believe that, so all the more power to you.

[Grim Lock]

Now other countries are following President Trump's lead there.

Cool story there. We're lucky Trump decided to lock down borders and activities, so that all we non-illuminated ones have been able to finally follow his righteous lead. Almost a month earlier than him. But hey, if you keep repeating that to yourself, you're eventually going to believe that, so all the more power to you.

It truly boggles the mind how the Trump crowd can in their own minds still maintain Trump is the bestest, he did all the best things from day one....

How on earth can we snap them out of such immense blind loyalty.

[felter]

What is happening now with borders and what trump did with the Chinese ban are two totally different things. What he did was ban people with a Chinese passport from travelling from China to America. It had very little to do with stopping the virus from coming into America from China and I doubt that was why he did it to start with, I think he did it more to annoy the Chinese and to effect trade from China, mainly because he was also denying the virus at the same time saying things like it was safe and if you had it you should still go to work, notice he isn't still saying that and is not mentioning he ever did say it, actually probably denies he ever said it, fake news and all that even though there is evidence of him saying it.

What is happening now is that all crossings are banned no matter what nationality. Here in the UK citizens can still enter and leave the country if they have a valid genuine reason for doing so. if you are coming from a country that has a problem with the virus you have to self isolate for 2 week,s meaning you have to quarantine yourself. Trump ban did none of this, his ban made it look like he thought only the Chinese could spread the virus, which is why it was and still is called a racist move.

In the UK if you are caught not self isolating after returning, you will be arrested put into solitary in a specially prepared cell for two weeks. It's also a crime with the penalty of a £10,000 fine or 3 months in jail.

If the reason for this, well Trump did it first and the press complained about it because of what he recently said, that was trump gaslighting it is what he does, it's actually all he does.

[Vertigo 7]

Racist people are gonna be racist. He's just trying to justify it to everyone here so we hop on his side and pat him on the back for his racism.

[Chips]

Meanwhile some Senators dumped stocks before the market "crash" making a fortune. How patriotic of them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/p ... virus.html

MFG

Ketraar

To be fair, it isn't unpatriotic of anyone to lose their life savings (investments) for meaningless symbolism simply to appease other's appetite for schadenfreude. The actual questionable action is whether they were spreading BS to prevent market conditions deteriorating so that they could sell up in the first place - especially if then to buy back in at the bottom (though that buy-in isn't unusual, just if they were leveraging their position and voice to generate that circumstance).

Unlike them, I've sold half my savings at what is possibly the bottom - realising a significant loss. With hindsight, def should have sold earlier - but I'm long term investor. I only sold as I finally realised i may lose all my savings if companies go bankrupt - given history of Neil Woodford funds, it's not that improbable in this current climate (I sold Woodfords while still in tiny profit, before it all went to utter garbage. Should I have been forced to lose all my money instead - and what would that gain? Patriotism?).
So 50% sold and a loss -- but that's the risks. Just as any investors are, I am just trying to minimise my risks to the situation. The fact they happen to have a job of "senator" should be independent of it. Others may hold as they believe it's okay and will recover just fine. Who knows.

I'm not some shrewd investor, nor some rich person - so I don't believe them selling is unpatriotic or anything. So why should they behave any differently to any other investor? The only question is if they abused their position to generate a circumstance that was beneficial. If people perceive they're taking advantage of a situation - the risks (and why the market drops) is still there. It hasn't changed. Just that people may feel the rewards (of it gaining again in future) are enough to take the risk (or may feel the risk isn't actually a risk, as nothing will go bust).

[Ketraar]

The point was that they did spread the notion that everything was being OK and still sold their stuff while having insight into privileged information. If that is not insider trading then I dont know what is.

MFG

Ketraar

[Chips]

The point was that they did spread the notion that everything was being OK and still sold their stuff while having insight into privileged information. If that is not insider trading then I dont know what is.

MFG

Ketraar

What privileged information?

[Aken_Bosch]

Actual scientific and economical reports about how the situation was going to be serious and/or it already was, while they still went on saying to the public "carry on, carry on, just a flu, it shall pass".

[RegisterMe]

Common sense has prevailed that keeping bad stuff from coming here is the right thing to do.

It didn't work though, did it. And the fact is that it would not and could not have worked. For any such action to have had any material effect whatsoever the US would have had to have had a quarantine and testing regime in place for all US citizens prior to enacting any kind of "foreign person / country travel ban" or border closure. All those US citizens returning to the US from Italy, Spain, France, the UK, Germany, Thailand, Turkey, the Philippines, Japan and China etc would have needed to be isolated and tested. Failure to do so might have slowed the initial spread some, but it would not have prevented its eventual spread.

And it's still not in place.

I'm not knocking the US alone here, the response of other countries has been inadequate too. But, I think (and this is supported by most epidemiologist) in every case, the actual impact of a foreign travel ban / border closure is... minimal, and likely counter-productive. So, given this, ask yourself "cui bono"? Is it the health of the nation, or is it Trump gaslighting to make himself and his administration look "decisive and effective" (when in actual fact it has been nothing of the sort)?

If ever there was a time not to buy into Trump's bull it's now. Your health, and the health of your loved ones, might very well be at risk if you do.

[Chips]

Actual scientific and economical reports about how the situation was going to be serious and/or it already was, while they still went on saying to the public "carry on, carry on, just a flu, it shall pass".

So the carry on carry on is irrelevant to insider trading surely? unless it was with intent to prevent a drop to get a sale through? But if they'd already sold, or said it post that, then plays no part other than sounding bad
I'm sure if there's a crime there's a paper trail and it'll be found. Simply demanding someone loses their jobs based on assumption isn't the way the ... wait, no, it's exactly how the world works. Get on with it then I say. LOCK HER UP. LOCK HER UP

[Ketraar]

Chips even if its not a crime, which I dont think it is, its at least morally questionable to sell a notion of "oh dont worry" while making sure your savings are safe, especially if you already know things are not safe at all and people need to worry.

MFG

Ketraar

[Aken_Bosch]

As Ketraar says (better than me). It's not about committing a financial crime, it's about knowing full well how bad a situation is going to be, and deliberately not telling to your country.

[RegisterMe]

As Ketraar says (better than me). It's not about committing a financial crime, it's about knowing full well how bad a situation is going to be, and deliberately not telling to your country.

Agreed.

[Vertigo 7]

compounded by profiteering, makes it all the worse.

[Mightysword]

This feels like this is something people just grab to use as an excuse to direct their anger at with little to no substance/effect. I understand the reason why (psychologically) but I don't feel it's helpful or healthy.

- For one: isn't the reason most people - and by that I mean armchair politicians and internet experts - are railing against governments around the world is because "everyone can see this mile away yet the governments still decided to drag their feet!". Ok, so how it come for this argument people decide to pretend that you need insider/privilege information to make decision? It seems to be a case of argument of convenience to me. Hell I don't even play stock, and by mid Feb I can already tell the dive is incoming (which already happened in Asian market at that point).

- For two: correct me if I'm wrong here since like I said I don't play stock, but most people don't have control over their stock portfolio anyway. They would have them managed by financial group run by actual expert. And if you gonna manually handle it yourself, I would assume you would be confident and competent about it. If the politician in questions here are semi-competent stock players I think they would be making the same decision anyway with or without the "privilege" knowledge they received. After all there are more than enough tells on the market for anyone with half a common sense. It's only a problem here because they are politician. And no, just like I don't think policemen have to accept risk on their job, I don't believe politician have to make stupid decision on themselves to maintain innocent.

- And for third: would have made any difference otherwise? I think except south Korea, every single governments in the entire world are being accused of response too slowly or not taking this seriously enough a month ago, in the face of that I wouldn't pretend the words from a few politicians would have meant anything. Even the WHO didn't take it serious enough (IMO) until the situation in China died down bit and things start to flare up globally.

Like I said, I understand the psychology reason why people want to wail on this, but I have zero agreement on unhelpful targeted anger.

[Santi]

We have to be realistic here, people in the high echelons of society, do have access to information way before the rest of us do, but at the same time they have the same problem, what is truth and what is chaff. So as you say, people need to do their homework, still they play with an advantage that most people do not have, that in the stock market can be very decisive.

In this case, they have the wits to smell something, and did the right thing to preserve their wealth, but that was due to access to information that the rest of us do not have, and that is very unfair and worth reproaching.

[RegisterMe]

To be honest I doubt they (ie the two senators we know about so far) had access to much better information than anybody else. I also doubt whether they were in a position to assess that information much better than anybody else. I do this for a living and most people like me were equally blindsided by it (including most of the doctors I know). Christ, I did a six figure investment in a fintech start up that deals with taxis, markets and sports stadiums on.... February the 23rd. About the only thing I could have done worse would have been to invest in airlines, cruise liner firms, or hotel chains .

Some people weren't blindsided by it though. Some people I know did the analysis back in February, came to the conclusion that it would be brutal, and sold out. They explained why, I disagreed with them, and didn't sell. You pays your nickel and you takes your chance.

What I really object to is them (ie the senators) saying one thing out of one side of their mouths and another out the other. That's, effectively, a pump and dump. That is illegal. Or at least should be.

[felter]

You know he still hasn't got it, he still doesn't realise that he has a pretty important job and that job effects people, not just American's but people all around the world. If an American president says something, people stand up and listen to what he has to say, they believe what he says, it's a very respectable and important job.

Did you hear there is a cure for the coronavirus covid-19, that the American FDA already has a cure and that they, the FDA has approved this drug as the cure, it has to be true after all the President of the United States of America said so. chloroquine is the answer Donald J Trump says, it cures the Coronavirus the FDA has told me so. The problem is it isn't a cure and who says that, well the FDA says that, of course we haven't approved it as a cure to the Coronavirus we are testing it but it is not a cure, it's actually a pretty dangerous drug that is no longer used and shouldn't be used without supervision.

But the President says it is and people stood up and listened to him, he is an important man that is supposed to know what he is doing. Since Donald J Trump said it was the cure, the cases of overdose by chloroquine has risen as people take this drug as they think they have the covid-19 virus bit don't. A black market for the sale of the drug has opened up but whether it is actually chloroquine they are selling is doubtful as the drug has not been made since around 2009. It was still available in pharmacy's and shops in some African countries as a malaria drug, they have all sold out as Africans scramble to buy the drug.

So once again Donald J Trump has put the lives of many numerous people from around the world at risk, because he is an IDIOT of the highest calibre that does not have a clue what he is doing in a job that someone like him should never be in, in the first place.

[Ketraar]

it WAS a very respectable and important job.

There I fixed it for you.

MFG

Ketraar

[RegisterMe]

Is that Dr Fauci facepalm a meme yet?

If not, it should be. Memers (?) keep up already.