Which stonks are you buying if any?

[UtwigMU]

I just don't see how the action of a private company can be construed as limiting free speech / censorship. If you don't like their moderation policies then use some other platform. Hell, a few were created for that purpose (Troth Sential, Parler or Gab for instance) but the public, apparently, is fine with the policies of FB, former Twitter or whatnot. I don't see the issue with a private company adjusting its product to maximize their userbase.
Where is the left arguing for war?

This is just a talking point you read and never gave it your own thought.

This is precisely the problem. If you found your own platform the corporations which are all under ESG rules and have diversity/social officers pull advertising. Google and Apple pull you from the app stores. Amazon and MSFT will not host you. Companies which host you and advertisers get pressured to drop you. A good example of this is Gab. They have to host their own servers and cannot be in app store. It's not an issue in capitalist free market where corporations' purpose is to make profit but in terms of ideas we no longer in a free market. The purpose of corporations now is to implement ideas.

Without cloud hosting, ad revenue and presence on mobile which now represents 60% of all browsers you can only have a fringe platform and can never reach mainstream. Without presence on Google/YT, FB/IG, Amazon, Reddit and Linkedin which account for vast majority of time spent you can never go viral.

Founding your own platform was possible in first half of 2000s but today it is no longer possible.

When Elon bought twitter, ads were pulled, many corporations pulled accounts. EG: Apple stopped Tweeting https://twitter.com/Apple
Apple threatened to pull them from the app store until Elon talked to Cook and mentioned he will create Tesla phone if Apple pulls Twitter. Tesla got attacked by media and establishment and stock dropped.

In order to run your own platform you literally need to be richest man on Earth and be prepared to loose 20% of your wealth. Elon is the only guy in such position with integrity to do that. All on Forbes in the West 100 with platforms are supporting left. And Elon was attacked not because he is a right-winger but because he dared not to throttle the right and run a neutral platform.

We are now in managerial revolution - very interesting and intellectual listening - can listen in background while doing something else. From 1600s to 1900s capitalist class had the most wealth and power in the West. Capitalists promoted nation states which gave them markets and protected them from competition. Now we are in managerial revolution. Class brought up in universities is trying to take control of wealth and governing from capitalists through supra-national organizations, media, culture wars and media, values, legislation.

[UtwigMU]

Díaz is the president of Cuba. So aside from him, we can agree we would classify the others as right?
Where is the left arguing for war?

Hilary/Obama: Syria, Libya
Biden, Scholz: Ukraine

[Umfriend]

Hilary/Obama: Syria, Libya
Biden, Scholz: Ukraine

I'll have to revisit Syria and Lybia, I am pretty sure Syria at least was reactionary, not instigated.

On Ukraine, that is simply demonstrably false. Arguing for defense, yes.

[Umfriend]

This is just a talking point you read and never gave it your own thought.

So by what right should it be easy for anyone to reach a vast public? How is it that large social media platforms need to facilitate like anything or else they're accused of censorship?

And no, you don't need to be very rich to run your own platform. Just to buy an established one.

One thing I will say: I do think that competition in the market of social media is important and I feel that it has been bad policy to allow established platforms to buy promising startups (e.g. whatsapp, youtube, insta or somesuch).

[UtwigMU]

I'll have to revisit Syria and Lybia, I am pretty sure Syria at least was reactionary, not instigated.

On Ukraine, that is simply demonstrably false. Arguing for defense, yes.

Inconvenient facts are reactionary or "false". Who did regime change in Ukraine?

Umfriend have you ever changed your opinion because of my factual arguments?
I think my arguments will not change your beliefs and I don't see how further effort on my part will achieve anything.

I just don't understand leftists. For example here they have introduced "hate speech" legislation. We had something similar in communism. You could go to prison for telling a joke or saying British bicycle is better than domestic one because you insulted achievements of our socialism. The problem is most leftists think this is great because only the right will get censored and this will help their ideals win. The problem is that "hate speech" is what current government does not like and the government gets to decide what is "hate". It could be future right wing government could use this against them. Or leftists will use it to censor other leftist.

New cold war is on and this time we in the West are the marxists.

[UtwigMU]

Now back to stonks: SALR managed to take over another pharma distributor and while profit from their medicine stocking for health system business hasn't grown, they are expanding and planning growth in non-prescription health sector. So I got another share. Otherwise haven't done any investing since October. Portfolio is still in black.

MSFT recovered, INTC is back above 30, AMD and NVDA are doing great, past 6 months outperformed SP500.

I started seriously considering buying an apartment because the price goes up more in a year than annual rent and inflation is more than interest on a loan. If we are going back to communism I might as well take the advantage of high inflation like previous generations did. By the time they paid off their apartment loans, monthly payment was the price of 1 coffee.

[Umfriend]

Inconvenient facts are reactionary or "false". Who did regime change in Ukraine?

They had reasonable elections in 2019. I am not aware of any invasion by armed forces creating havoc on civilians since 1941.

Now I have not really given hate speech legislation a thought. I didn't figure it'd be a great deal. I do like the examples you give: Under communism it may have been ill advised to make fun in a way that criticizes the power structure, making fun of leadership or performance. Hate speech is different in that it is directed at people.

But I have looked for examples in NL. First I found was jailtime for 180 days (136 on probation). He posted things like:
- "Raceware now"
- "All liberal jews must be shot dead as enemy of western civilisation"
- Possesion of firearms and ammo as well. (I don't know if or to what extent this contributed to the sentence).

But it seems to me that this is an incitement to violence. I wonder whether something like this could be prosecuted in the US (which has no hate speech laws).

[Dr Mordrid]

>
But it seems to me that this is an incitement to violence. I wonder whether something like this could be prosecuted in the US (which has no hate speech laws).

In US Federal courts the Constitution's First Amendment prevents European style hate speech legislation, but at the State level you can most definitely get in trouble. The States have extensive home rule, and their own Constitutions & laws. Here in Michigan (which has a very diverse population) we have the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which goes far beyond Federal law.

In a recent case some guy was driving by a synagogue shouting obscenities, anti-Semitic and racist comments. Now he's up on all kinds of charges, and initially was not released on bail.

Going back to Federal law, if you go past hate speech and into hate acts, this is when the Feds can come after you with pitchforks and torches - and there is no parole in the federal prison system.

[UtwigMU]

Sold part of AMD and NVDA and took profit, I think recession is starting. One trading friend, a girl from Texas also sold yesterday.

[Umfriend]

Sold part of AMD and NVDA and took profit, I think recession is starting. One trading friend, a girl from Texas also sold yesterday.

I have to say that the best advice I seem to be able to give is to not follow my advice but, yeah, I can see the semiconductor industry experiencing slower growth for a while. But I am holding on to my small position in BESI.

[UtwigMU]

I calculated fair value for all stocks I own and drew lines buy, fair value, hold and sell in tradingview. If stock is overvalued, I'm taking profit, if it's close to bottom of fair value, I'm buying. I didn't get out of semis, I only sold some and taken a profit. From now I will allocate 10-15% to cash because also FOMO buying when cash comes after after a move was not optimal.

Semis will do well long term but meanwhile: There has been 20-40% drop in PC sales in Q1 with Apple taking the biggest 40% hit.

[Umfriend]

Yeah, I'm not even trying to improve market valuations really. Just tend to pick stocks that face some bad weather and of those there are not enough that satisfy other conditions. It's pretty random actually in the sense that there is no, as fas as I can see, rational reason to invest as I do. That's why some part is done through investment funds with professional asset managers that I do not have particular faith in but they're typically well diversified and it is the way for me to reach other markets (South America's, Eastern Europe, Africe and South-east Asia).

[UtwigMU]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/walmart-shuts-down-four-chicago-stores-due-never-making-profit

After two decades of losses and "hundreds of millions of dollars" invested in Chicago, Walmart is shuttering four unprofitable stores in the metropolitan area, reducing its store footprint by half in the crime-ridden city.
Although Walmart didn't explicitly state why its stores were unprofitable, one can only assume that the city's 'soft-on-crime' policies were a contributing factor, as professional shoplifting rings count Chicago as a top-10 city to hit.

Umfriend, do you also think private company is in the right here?

[UtwigMU]

Yeah, I'm not even trying to improve market valuations really. Just tend to pick stocks that face some bad weather and of those there are not enough that satisfy other conditions. It's pretty random actually in the sense that there is no, as fas as I can see, rational reason to invest as I do. That's why some part is done through investment funds with professional asset managers that I do not have particular faith in but they're typically well diversified and it is the way for me to reach other markets (South America's, Eastern Europe, Africe and South-east Asia).

Most mutual funds here and other financial products are terrible. Cousin retired, had life insurance with saving, many times it didn't make profit. One company I worked for was paying me meagre sum in state bond pension fund. I had to wait 10 years to withdraw money. After 10 years minus exit fees the result was 10% (in 10 years, not annualized, this is less than 1% annually). Another mutual fund I have performed badly but I have reduced insurance part and changed fund to America (investing in stocks like AAPL, BRK-B) because never bet against America. Despite my intervention it took me 12 years to break even. Since it's not a lot of money I'll let it run it's course. Meanwhile I'm pwning SP500 by managing my portfolio myself for 3d consecutive year - mostly blue chips.

[Umfriend]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/wa...-making-profit
Umfriend, do you also think private company is in the right here?

Not sure what it is you are asking. I haven't read the article (never liked zerohedge) but if the question is whether Walmart should be chastised for closing loss-making stores then my first reaction would be "no". But I think I am missing the point you're making.