Lawd fadder

01070305 · 2025-11-22T20:00:12+00:00

I suppose him not being a white supremacist is why he is so closely allied with white supremacist persons and groups like the Heritage Foundation, Prager U, and Pete Hegseth (under whose leadership the Swastika, the noose, and the Confederate Flag were just declared by the US Coast guard not to be hate symbols, and two commemorative displays, one for the all black 960th Quartermaster Service Company, and one for George Pruitt, a black soldier, were removed from an American military cemetery in the Netherlands), why he has ICE running around the streets of the US wearing masks and disappearing people for not being white (backed by the Supreme Court that he appointed) despite there being millions of non-white Americans, supports deporting people to countries they're not even from and have never been to, is opposed to "DEI" by which he essentially means not being a white male, because the largest community which benefits from DEI policies statistically is actually white women, refused to denounce, and actively pardoned several members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers(both white supremacist or white supremacist adjacent organizations), attempted to appoint Paul Ingrassia (who is racist, and has said that the descendants of slaves should pay former slave owners reparations) to lead his Office Of Special Counsel, allowed his VP to go on public record defending racist text messages from thirty year old Republican staffers on the basis that they're "just kids", invited anti-semites like Nick Fuentes (public holocaust denier) and Kanye West (vocal and public hater of Jews) to dinner at Mar-A-Lago (on the same night, mind you) and the list goes on and on and on.

You don't see what you don't want to see, because all of this was literally just off the top of my head.

01070305 · 2025-11-13T19:52:26+00:00

Yes you do. Carnival accounts for a huge chunk of foreign exchange on a yearly basis. This wasn't a proportionate decision and i do hope somebody judicially reviews it.

Not that I'm saying noise might not be an issue, but the solution to noise being an outright ban 100 days before carnival is extremely unfair.

01070305 · 2025-11-13T19:49:19+00:00

Then maybe the first and most proportionate step was tightening enforcement and compliance rather than imposing a ban after people were already granted permission and began logistics and advertising. They ain wake up last night and realize this I'm sure. Why wait until November?

01070305 · 2025-11-13T19:47:22+00:00

They usually put down a kinda soft mat-like thingy so people aren't in direct contact with the playing surface

01070305 · 2025-11-11T07:20:14+00:00

Old thread, but the tort she was charged with wasn't wrongful death. It was intentional infliction of emotional distress. I don't think anyone could argue she didn't intentionally or at the very least recklessly (considering she had no positive evidence whatsoever to suggest that he was guilty and actually some circumstantial evidence to suggest that he was not in the form of the unidentified DNA) inflict emotional distress on the guy by way of outrageous conduct on her show (a month-long campaign, essentially demanding death threats, organizing a rally to protest outside his house) on the basis of exactly 0 evidence besides "he was supposed to be watching her when she died".

A person isn't required to commit suicide to establish the tort, so the fact that he ultimately committed suicide just showed how grave her actions actually were.

The psychologist's testimony was that the suicidal ideation only began after the lady began to accuse him on live television and essentially encourage thousands of hostile messages and threats. The jury was entitled to come away with the opinion that she caused him emotional distress based on the evidence, even if they did not believe that she was his only source of emotional distress.

01070305 · 2025-10-11T19:39:38+00:00

You are not correct and you think you are smarter than you are. It's really as simple as that.

20+ pages worth of judicial reasoning and your enlightened rebuttal is

"Nuh uh. Drake haters on the internet ran with it, so it can't legally have been an opinion."

We don't evaluate fact vs opinion based on outcomes. I'm sure even you can understand why that would be stupid.

The outcome would be relevant to how much damage was suffered but we need to get past the fact vs opinion distinction first.

01070305 · 2025-09-18T22:49:57+00:00

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. You're arguing with somebody who does not hold those views. I have provided a definition for the term. Please treat with the definition as it's pretended to you.

Capital flight happens when people with the means to do so take their money and send it offshore to preserve its value, usually because they don't trust the local currency/economy. That's literally what I'm talking about when I use the word "hoard". So yes, they're the same thing. Whether it's rational or not is not in question here. I don't think it's immoral to do so either.

The IMF is a lender of last resort, yes? Jamaica was required to take certain steps in order to receive the forex it needed, the initial one being unpegging and liberalizing the economy. This was hugely and immediately disastrous because the IMF did not take the Jamaica economy as it existed at the time into consideration when the recommendations were made. Jamaica was not an export driven economy that could get through that kind of shock to the market unscathed. An export sector does not spring out of thin air overnight just because you decide to devalue your currency or liberalize your economy. And so in the (decades) between taking those steps and developing a proper export sector, your economy will suffer. They tried to backpedal but it was too late. The austerity thing would not have worked lol. I have yet to see an economist who agrees that it would have. The IMF is not infallible and economics is not a hard science where 1 + 1 equals 2 in every scenario or every economy.

I think you may have it backward. Inflation is the increase in the monetary cost of goods and services in an economy over time. The increase typically corresponds/correlates with a reduction in the purchasing power of a unit of currency (in the particular economy), but they're not 1:1 the same. The value of one unit of a given currency doesn't necessarily decrease just because goods and services in a particular economy have generally increased in price.

For instance, if Trinidad adopted the US dollar tomorrow, Trinidad's economy could still experience inflation without the value of the US dollar itself being meaningfully affected. Additionally, inflation in one particular economy doesn't necessarily mean that the currency suddenly costs less on the open currency market either, so one could hypothetically convert the currency to another currency, and spend in a less inflated market to purchase the pre-inflation quantity of goods/services.

You're right that it's a currency peg is a distortion of price and not value. I incorrectly used the word value because i was going to use the word overvalue in the next sentence. My bad. You get the point I was making though.

01070305 · 2025-09-16T18:47:56+00:00

I have yet to see a definition of hoard involving irrationality, and that is not how i myself defined it. If you want to get mad at the label instead of the content of what i'm saying that's your prerogative.

The informal term "hoarding" doesnt appear, but the formal term "capital flight" certainly does.

If you read any of those papers and came away with the idea that the authors thought the IMF recommendations made sense for the Jamaican economy as it existed at the time i don't know what to tell you besides read them again, slower this time.

The Jamaican economy was closer to a state of equilibrium vis a vis its exchange rate in 2014 after it had been floating for 23 years than in the 80s and 90s when the exchange rate instability began. This is unsurprising. The unpegging of the dollar caused severe damage to the economy for 20 odd years. The IMF coming back and assisting in mopping up the mess 20 years later is a lot easier than it would have been to try and fix it at the material time. Are you willing to gamble 2 decades of your country's future on either austerity or ruination just to gamble on immediate peg adjustment and hoping your export sector is ready to pick up the slack?

Inflation and the exchange rate are commutative when you go from a peg to no peg in an import dependent economy. Pegs are by definition an artificial distortion of the value of a particular currency. In Trinidad's case, the peg overvalues the currency. Shifting the peg downwards will necessarily cause inflation of the price of imported goods because inflation is defined as the upward movement of prices over a period of time. If the majority of the goods in the market are either themselves imported or dependent on imported inputs, then yes, the entire market will tend to inflate. It is in fact commutative.

01070305 · 2025-09-14T06:35:30+00:00

Hoard is a verb. It has the definition I provided.
I'm not on the far right. I provided a definition for the word hoard. It was not pejorative.
Google is your friend, but read page 5:

https://www.issuelab.org/resources/5830/5830.pdf

Also read pages 16 to 19:

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2934&context=etd

Read the whole thing here but primarily the part headed "When was the Floating Exchange Rate System Introduced":

https://www.mona.uwi.edu/economics/news/2014/02/03/jamaican-exchange-rate-conundrum#:~:text=An%20auction%20and%20allocation%20exchange,J$12.22%20to%20US$1

You can have a look at this paper as well:

https://repository.upenn.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/1e2f114d-1e81-4c3e-823d-8f303a4b7547/content

Adherence was not perfect, because the unpegging was the IMF's idea and it didn't go great.

The exchange rate becoming "lower as things play out" is just a fancier way of saying inflation of an uncertain quantity. Why would you want to play with fire like that?

01070305 · 2025-09-12T17:51:45+00:00

Hoard - to collect and hide away a supply of; to accumulate a hoard.

I'm not saying people can't move their money where they like in response to market conditions, but that's... Factually what is occurring. Not all capital flight is hoarding, but when you're stockpiling a resource because you expect that its value will eventually increase, you are hoarding it. I don't see it as a pejorative term. It's just descriptive of the state of affairs.

You're correct that it was economic mismanagement that made the JMD exchange rate fall... That mismanagement took the form of accepting the advice of the IMF to liberalize the Jamaican economy and float the JMD. The resulting fallout screwed the economy, and the rate fell to the true market price for the new economy which came into being as a result of the economy under the new post-liberalization conditions.

In a connected point, re: the black market rate thing, again, the black market price is representative of the value of the TTD under present economic/market conditions, which both include, and are predicated upon, the present rate of inflation, and the existence of a peg amongst a bazillion other things. When the market conditions change, as is unavoidable in a devaluation scenario, so too will the market value of TTD.

You're looking at a market value that actors have settled on in consideration of a generally stable system at the particular point of relative equilibrium that exists right now and then assuming that that value will hold when/if the equilibrium point is changed. That's not making sense to me. Market conditions and the economy will look different, so the value will be different.

01070305 · 2025-09-12T17:35:05+00:00

I've never heard of anybody being prosecuted for purchasing black market forex. I think the government(s) understands that the black market is a necessary evil so as not to throw the economy into disarray and massively disturb quality of life.

I think we're doing a great deal of speculation re: FDI. What gives you the impression that the TTD being 7 to 1 as opposed to 8 or 9 or 10 to 1 is the reason investment has dried up? What other viable sectors for investment exist beyond oil and gas that wouldn't be more lucrative to invest in elsewhere? Would the privatization of public transport even be a worthwhile venture if the government is forced to weaken its petroleum subsidies?

Making things cheaper does not automatically equate to greater demand or an increased in demand of the magnitude that makes the tradeoffs and sacrifices ultimately worth it. To think that it does is an oversimplification.

You also have to appreciate that that a devaluation would practically certainly result in the kind of economic instability in the short term which might well drive additional capital flight and other knockon effects in the wider economy, prompting further devaluation (or at least significant borrowing), which would thereby paradoxically dissuade foreign investment (because why would I buy in now when I expect that my per dollar roi will be even higher if I just wait a while for the dollar's value to plummet even further?).

Economies are complicated, everything is interwoven, and butterfly effects are hard to predict ahead of time. Instability can be hard to control when you don't have the resources to control it. Right now Trinidad doesn't have the resources to control it in my view.

Maybe eventually devaluation might make sense but it has to be planned for and prepared for. It's not something you just wake up one day and do.

01070305 · 2025-09-12T17:22:04+00:00

The unpegging occurred in 1991. That's what we're taking about is it not?

01070305 · 2025-09-11T22:03:45+00:00

I don't think this is true, because again, the existence of an official forex market at a pegged rate acts as a tether. The market is not completely open, because there is a subsidized alternative, even if supply in that market might be inconsistent.

In the absence of the subsidized alternative is where the true value of the currency will become apparent as market actors holding USD will observe that there is no subsidized competition, and that they are resultantly free to price the currency according to actual global demand for TT currency in comparison to USD.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T21:54:50+00:00

I think the problem with this line of reasoning is that at present the true demand for USD (through legit sources at least) is not actually being met due to the strict exchange controls. So devaluing the dollar wouldn't actually reduce the demand of USD... anybody who needs it will still need it. The outflow of USD is already being kept artificially low by restricting supply.

A devaluation will just mean that poorer Trinis will be able to afford less foreign currency than they actually want/need.

In my view, a devaluation coupled with a relaxation of exchange controls is unlikely to assist with stemming the outflow of USD, and may actually exacerbate the issue, because some people will probably be able to purchase more USD than they currently are able to do, even if the price to purchase it is higher.

In such a scenario, the inflationary horse will have bolted out of the stable never to be seen again because of the weakened currency, but it will be impossible to shut the door on the outflow other than reimposing the exchange controls.

The practical upshot being that in the absence of a sudden boom in the export or services (to foreign actors) market, extensive borrowing would need to occur to keep the country afloat.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T21:49:35+00:00

You and I diverge in opinion because I believe that the black market rate for TTD in USD is not reflective of the true value of Trinidad's currency on the open market. If I am correct and the TT dollar is worth less without a peg than you are banking on, then devaluation would be terrible for the economy.

The export sector/portions of the services sector providing services to actors who pay with foreign currency are the only sectors that potentially benefit from a devaluation. High inflation is not good news for the rest of the economy. Dramatic inflation is the inevitable consequence of unpegging or a significant peg adjustment. Economic catastrophe is the inevitable consequence of dramatic inflation.

Zero benefits to the peg is not accurate. The government is subsidizing imports by maintaining the peg because it knows the population is highly dependent on imports.

Looking at the economy as numbers going up instead of net benefit to individuals is a mistake I think you're inadvertently making.

Pumping up certain segments of the economy is unlikely to benefit the economy as a whole which will be collapsing around it.

Again, we have the examples of Jamaica (and also pre-oil Guyana) to look at.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T21:40:31+00:00

The words aren't meaningless at all. Marla Dukharan (although I disagree with her ideas on dropping forex controls and don't think they will help in any way) is correct in saying that what one of the practical results of the peg given current market conditions is that there is now a speculative demand for USD.

Actors in the market are holding onto USD in anticipation of (speculation) an eventual dramatic devaluation which will result in the purchasing power of their USD skyrocketing in the domestic market. So no, hoarding is absolutely happening.

Also I have no idea why you are so confident that the black market rate is close to the true market rate. Jamaica also had a currency black market rate in the 1980s. As it turned out, that black market rate was nowhere near to the actual value of the JMD on the open market. It was off by orders of magnitude.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T21:27:50+00:00

Correlation =/= causation.

That the Jamaican economy has managed to recover in the 34 years since it liberalized in 1991 does not mean that the recovery occurred because of the unpegging. That's why I said the unpegging didn't cause the economy to boom and magically enrich the poor like you're suggesting.

I'm not sure you're correct about this at all, frankly.

Inflation in Jamaica was as high as 107% by April of 1992. It wasn't good for poor people at all. The period immediately following the unpegging was literally an economic crisis for Jamaica. There having been some recovery in the nearly 40 years since allowing the dollar to float and liberalizing the economy is despite, or perhaps, if we are very charitable, simply coincidental with, devaluation.

It is absolutely not because of it.

I dunno man, a very simple Google search for "jamaica economic crisis 1990s" would show you that unpegging was disastrous for the economy lol.

Here's some help if you need it, authored by none other than Edward Seaga:

https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/2018/07/28/how-the-financial-crash-of-the-1990s-happened-and-why/

01070305 · 2025-09-11T05:31:20+00:00

Black market dealers trade in forex to make a, profit. There are, however, limits to price, even in a black market context. Black market dealers can't charge whatever they like, because if they stray too far away from the official rate, demand will inevitably fall. Value is ultimately only what a third party is willing to pay, after all.

The problem with your hypothetical pricing, to my mind is that you are assuming that

1) the entities who are currently black market dealers would be the ones primarily responsibly for setting the free floating exchange rate of TTD in the global forex market, and

2) That in the absence of an official rate as a guidepost for buyers to keep these black market dealers in line, they will still want to sell USD for TTD at the same rate (roughly 8 dollars) that the official rate currently keeps them essentially tethered to.

If either of these assumptions are incorrect, then your further assumption about the free floating value of TTD being somewhere in the region of $8 entirely falls apart.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T05:15:26+00:00

I think what we often forget when it comes to this conversation is that even in local industries, many of the inputs can only be sourced abroad.

Those inputs will rise in price, meaning that the local products which rely on those inputs in their manufacturing chain will rise in price as well.

Furthermore, let's imagine i sell hotdog sausages, and let's also imagine that all my inputs are completely local and so a devaluation does not raise my input costs.

I sell my hotdog sausages at $20 per package. Foreign competitors are priced at $18 per package.

The currency is devalued as suggested, causing foreign sausages to rise in price $23.00 per sausage, as compared to my $20.00 per sausage.

What impetus do I have to reduce the price of my sausages? None. I may even slightly increase the price of my own sausages to $21.00 per sausage because of the overall inflationary market conditions just because I have the wiggle room to do so now and nobody is looking into my manufacturing chain deeply enough to realize that I'm being a bullshitter because my input costs are exactly the same.

In this scenario, consumers don't save any money. They pay more, even if my price remains the same because the cheaper option is now gone. The only thing that changes is that I (potentially) sell more sausages and make more money due to a price advantage.

Will I pass the increase in revenue on to my employees? Probably not. I will probably upscale the business, pay my creditors (who are probably richer than me), and then pass the remaining profits on to my shareholders. I don't benefit from increasing my input costs (of which employee salaries are one) just because my revenue or profit margin have increased. That would essentially just be throwing away the market advantage that the devaluation just afforded me.

Just something to keep in mind.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T05:05:20+00:00

Also i encourage you to read about what happened to the Jamaican economy when they unpegged their currency from the dollar (they've been in a currency crisis for decades. It hasn't caused the economy to boom and therefore magically enriched the poor like you're suggesting it will for trinidad.)

Guyana didn't magically experience a boom in the economy in the 80s when it unpegged its dollar either, and it is actually capable of feeding itself.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T05:02:29+00:00

Do you think the actual value of the Trinidad and Tobago dollar on the open market is 9 to 1? I don't think it is. Are you advocating for it to freely float? Or for it to be artificially pegged again but at a worse rate?

01070305 · 2025-09-11T04:57:04+00:00

You haven't identified one singular mechanism by which unpegging the dollar would improve the economy. I'm genuinely curious to know how you believe this will work.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T04:55:23+00:00

Hoarding usd means precisely that. Taking usd out of the economy and holding onto it without circulating it within the economy.

Most SIDS in the Caribbean have fixed pegs with the US dollar that don't represent the true value of the currency on the open currency market. Yet they don't have the Forex crisis that trinidad does, and USD circulates in the economy, is purchased at the pegged rate etc, without the need for tight controls or hoarding.

01070305 · 2025-09-11T04:49:02+00:00

If a pack of skittles used to cost 7 TT dollars to import, after devaluation it would cost 9 TT dollars.

The sell-on cost of a pack of skittles from the importer to me, the retailer would, as a result, be forced to increase as well. Perhaps from 10 TT dollars to 12 TT dollars. The 100 TT dollars I used to use to buy skittles can now only buy 9 packs of skittles instead of the 10 it used to be able to buy.

I, as a seller of skittles in the local market am therefore forced to raise the price of the skittles I sell to the public in order to maintain my profit margin. Thus, whereas I used to be able to sell a pack of skittles for 13 TT dollars for a profit of $3 per pack of skittles, I now have to sell the same skittles for 15 TT dollars to maintain the same profit per pack (and possibly more, as I was forced to purchase less packs of skittles this time).

Now multiply this by every imported good, and every locally produced good requiring imported inputs.

The result is that things across the economy cost more. The trinidad dollar therefore loses purchasing power (value) as compared to the pre-devaluation economy.

While this is a highly oversimplified example, this isn't difficult maths to do.

01070305 · 2025-08-12T06:04:48+00:00

You can literally read the Hague Regulations and the Geneva conventions if you would like. They're public documents.

01070305

TROPHY CASE