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On February 03 2025 05:02 RenSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 02:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On February 03 2025 02:15 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 03 2025 02:10 GreenHorizons wrote:Elon Musk (not a government official) and DOGE (not a department of government) has been given access to the US Treasury Department's payment system.
Billionaire Elon Musk and his government efficiency team have been given access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, resolving a days-long standoff, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Musk, who chairs the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, has been tasked by President Donald Trump to identify fraud and waste in the government and had sought access to the system Treasury uses to dole out federal funds.
His efforts were resisted by a career Treasury official, David Lebryk, who was placed on leave this week and then retired.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, appeared to confirm that Musk’s team has access in a post on the social network Bluesky.
“Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it,” Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, posted on Saturday.
www.reuters.comSince Musk isn't a government official and DOGE isn't actually a department of the government (no one knows who they are really) they have quite the range for how they could potentially use that information/access. At minimum we have to just pray (I guess this is what Democrats do now?) they don't break it. Not even out of malice, just out of incompetence and hubris. One day I'll understand why, no matter the news, you have to find a way to bring it back on Ds. I just don't understand this need to shit on Ds at every possible chance. I mean the basic issue is that Republicans are the face of the rise of fascism in the US while the ostensible opposition to them, Democrats, do a bunch of the legwork for them. For example: On February 02 2025 02:21 GreenHorizons wrote:
This exchange between WaPo reporter Jeff Stein and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is a pretty good example of how rudderless Democrats are. They are publicly complaining about Trump/Republicans being too stupid to let them help lay the foundations for fascism and give him more power/tools to implement his/his cronies fascist plans
At this point I am sorta expecting decent people to have more self-respect than is required to line up behind oBlade/capitalism and the Democrat party. The idea from libs/Dems and their supporters here/nationally was to fall in line behind Democrats (no matter what, including supporting genocide) to stop Trump and the rise of fascism in the US. That objectively failed. People don't have to try socialism but they have to abandon the Democrat party as a path for the future and find something else if they want any reasonable hope for it not to suck indefinitely. People tried socialism. + Show Spoiler +You tried it, right? Are you completely alone? I think there has to be some other socialists out there. So yes, Socialism was tried and it failed and it led to Trump and his fascism. It was much less of an impediment to Trump's fascism than the Democrats and likely helped push people towards fascism. I'd say it had a negative value in preventing fascism. Democrats, just didn't have enough value. Will you complain that not enough people tried Socialism? Then I'll just say that not enough people tried the Democrats. If a couple million more had voted Democrat, we would have eked out a win and wouldn't be in this mess. If the Democrats had won a supermajority, they could pass a bunch of legislation including things like Medicare for All. Hell, if 70% or more of the voters were voting Democrat, we could split the Democratic party in two between the leftists/progressives versus the moderates/neo-liberals and still not give up seats to the Republicans. However, that's not what happened. The American voters voted for Republicans a hell of a lot more than they voted for Socialists and slightly more than they voted for Democrats. Unfortunately, the Democrats just didn't have the people, just like Socialists don't have the people. On February 03 2025 02:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 02:34 KwarK wrote:Democrats didn’t want the Trump border bill + Show Spoiler +, Americans did. You keep confusing the two. In a democratic society Democrats have to sometimes try to pass legislation that the people are demanding. It was negotiated in exchange for ending a Republican majority enabling the Russian genocide of Ukraine. You keep failing to address this. Do you really think your American socialist democracy trade union Soviets aren’t rounding up immigrants? They spent the run up to the election insisting that they did, that was probably one of many mistakes that cost them the election. Trump's incompetence saved us from Democrats malice. The American people weren't begging Democrats to pass the Laken Riley Act either. Show nested quote +On January 30 2025 04:38 GreenHorizons wrote:The first piece of legislation Trump is signing is a bipartisan anti-immigrant bill helping to lay fascist foundations by taking away people's rights to due process. In response to President Trump signing the Laken Riley Act, Amy Fischer, Director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Program at Amnesty International USA, made the following statement:
“The Laken Riley Act capitalizes on a horrible tragedy in order to advance President Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda by scapegoating people seeking safety and stripping away their right to due process.
“This legislation mandates the arrest and detention of our undocumented neighbors for being convicted or charged of any theft, shoplifting, burglary, or larceny offense. Mandatory detention solely for being accused of theft strips people of their right to due process and constitutes arbitrary detention under international human rights law.
“The Laken Riley Act is based upon false, xenophobic narratives that dehumanize and criminalize an entire group of people due to the actions of one person. It will separate families and make our communities less safe. It is simply unconscionable for Congress to create a new mechanism that gives people the power to falsely accuse immigrants of theft knowing their detention is mandatory...." www.amnestyusa.orgEDIT: Reminder that Trump is aiming to break Biden's record: US deportations under Biden surpass Trump's record I dunno, one of the "downsides" (from a capitalists' pov) of a union is that they sorta do the "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs". So I think the firms where the workers councils didn't target immigrants for expulsion would see many benefits from keeping some of their hardest working and most dedicated workers around, immigrant or not. Did you really just use "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" seriously? Can you perhaps spot a flaw in incentivizing people to be the least able and most needy? I first saw that statement in an Ayn Rand novel and I thought she was putting up straw men so that she could knock them down so easily. You're literally acting like the strawman in an Ayn Rand novel. Some self reflection may be in order.
To put this in terms libs/Dems will recognize: The "you tried socialism" schtick is basically like saying "they tried their politics, turns out Putin's are the best and that's why he wins the elections!" with a shit-eating grin like you just pwned people that oppose Putin.
On February 03 2025 04:55 Azuzu wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 02:15 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 03 2025 02:10 GreenHorizons wrote:Elon Musk (not a government official) and DOGE (not a department of government) has been given access to the US Treasury Department's payment system.
Billionaire Elon Musk and his government efficiency team have been given access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s payment system, resolving a days-long standoff, the New York Times reported on Saturday.
Musk, who chairs the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency, has been tasked by President Donald Trump to identify fraud and waste in the government and had sought access to the system Treasury uses to dole out federal funds.
His efforts were resisted by a career Treasury official, David Lebryk, who was placed on leave this week and then retired.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, appeared to confirm that Musk’s team has access in a post on the social network Bluesky.
“Sources tell my office that Treasury Secretary Bessent has granted DOGE *full* access to this system. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies. All of it,” Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, posted on Saturday.
www.reuters.comSince Musk isn't a government official and DOGE isn't actually a department of the government (no one knows who they are really) they have quite the range for how they could potentially use that information/access. At minimum we have to just pray (I guess this is what Democrats do now?) they don't break it. Not even out of malice, just out of incompetence and hubris. One day I'll understand why, no matter the news, you have to find a way to bring it back on Ds. I just don't understand this need to shit on Ds at every possible chance. I recently came across a description of something called "Murcs Law" that in essence states "only Democrats have any agency or causal influence over American politics". Looking at things through that lens, I see so many examples including and especially GH's posts. https://whereofonecanspeak.com/2023/03/02/youve-probably-never-heard-of-murcs-law-but-youve-seen-it-in-action-lots-of-times/
You've confused me believing that Democrat supporters that say they prefer socialism over capitalism are more easily convinced of Democrats failures as an opposition party to Republicans or to lead when they are in power than Trump supporters for thinking Democrats are the only ones with agency.
Democrats are just mistaking the vaguest bit of accountability for being blamed for everything. Also when you expressly work with Republicans and exploit a rigged system to assassinate and force out alternative parties/figures for decades it is much more your fault than the people and parties you (violently at various points in history) force out.
On February 03 2025 05:13 KwarK wrote:The reality is that the American voting public are terrible. + Show Spoiler +The reason that the Democrats offer them racism lite is because the voting public are out there demanding racism. They tried being anti-racism and the voters fucking hated that because there wasn't any racism, they were just not offering something the market wanted to buy. And so they moved to "what about a little racism, but like not too much" and GH is very upset about that.
But in GH's idea of direct democratic worker control the camps are going to be open and the workers are still going to be very racist. His worker councils will be rounding up anyone with a Spanish sounding last name because the problem has never been the Democrats. Though even if GH had all the power he'd still be complaining about the Democrats because he can't accept that he has no solution to the problem of the radicalization of the American voting public.
The problem isn't that Republicans are genocidal fascists then. It's that basically everyone in the US that isn't socialist is genocidal fascism lite and Democrats just aren't catering to the "good genocidal fascist billionaires" that fund their campaigns good enough.
EDIT: I should note I don't actually believe the US is almost all genocidal fascists and irredeemably racist as Kwark is suggesting if that wasn't clear. People are largely just indoctrinated with propaganda and the alternatives were systematically stomped/frozen out by the CIA, FBI, Military, and bipartisan support in Congress.
If Democrat leaders all said "Hey guys, we tried the third way thing, we're going to try socialism now" every one of the lib/Dems here refusing to do so now would be doing it the next day or threatening to become Trump supporters.
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Free trade is one of the cornerstones of economic recovery and prosperity. Why? Because of the asymmetry of diverse goods around the globe. Every country naturally benefits from free trade. Overbearing tariffs undermine this process. And it's literally always the working class that feels most of the pain.
Ironically Ayn Rand would be scolding JJR for not understanding this basic lesson in economics. She of course understood her own (albeit flawed) ideology far better than he does.
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On February 03 2025 01:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The key to predicting what Trump will do seems to be listen to what he says he will do.
There will be tarifs on Europe, China and Taiwan and probably Japan as well.
Key would be to prepare for it instead of hopeing it won't happen. If you can use it for advantage then do so.
Ideally start coordinating with other countries to divert trade to them, or coordinate counter sanctions on the US.
China and EU is not on friendly trade terms right now but if they did work together they could wreck entire sectors of the US economy.
This and they may have to start applying sanctions on what as Kwark points out is a genocidal population that can't be convinced not to be racist and so must be accommodated in their genocidal racism with fascist leaders like Trump. It'll be up to Europe, China, and the sanctions/countries they can muster to prevent Trump/a fascist US from being allowed to continue to dictate policy on the world stage.
As Democrats here and elsewhere have noted, the only strategy (for lib/Dems) is to make people in the US suffer so badly they remove Trump/fascists from power. Democrats are basically accelerationists now. The worse it gets and the faster it does so, the more Democrats celebrate. Basically like when Republicans passed the bill trying to kill Obamacare and Democrats were singing in celebration
That said, it's also officially a multi-polar world now.
So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the Cold War, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China...
www.state.gov
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On February 03 2025 07:09 Magic Powers wrote:
Free trade is one of the cornerstones of economic recovery and prosperity. Why? Because of the asymmetry of diverse goods around the globe. Every country naturally benefits from free trade. Overbearing tariffs undermine this process. And it's literally always the working class that feels most of the pain.
Ironically Ayn Rand would be scolding JJR for not understanding this basic lesson in economics. She of course understood her own (albeit flawed) ideology far better than he does.
I am an advocate of free trade. A properly crafted agreement can be fantastic. The 1988 FTA underwritten by Reagan and Mulroney was great for Canada despite most Canadians not wanting it. It is hilarious how Canadians did not want it in 1988 and Mulroney was hated for it. Decades later, Canadians cling to it while multiple Liberal PMs added and enhanced it.
Reagan and Mulroney were awesome.
Regarding Miss Rand...
She and Ludvig Von Mises do not agree on economic theory. I'm a David Kelly Objectivist and not a Randian. I subscribe to 95%+ of Von Mises economic theories. The further Miss Rand gets away from the philosophical fundamentals under pinning a free society and the further she dives into economic theory the less often she is correct.
US National Anthem Getting Boo-ed out of the building. LOL.
https://streamable.com/61w57v
Toronto exists to serve the American marketplace. So, they can boo all they want. I posted a video of Torontonians completing the US National Anthem after the MIC went out on the singer. Welp, the USA has done a heel turn folks! Hulk Hogan endorsed Trump wearing Red, White and Blue. If Trump serves the billionaire class then the Hulkster needs to put on that Black & White nWo shirt! nWo stood for "new World order". 
The US government is offering 7 months free pay for government employees who quit right now. Problem is, congress must approve the money required to make such a move. None of the US gov't employees I know trusts this deal will actually stick. Recently, they added another $25,000 bonus money if you quit. Congress must authorize this money as well. I think no one is taking the deal and the tall foreheads advising Trump are reacting to it by adding the $25,000. They thought millions of government employees would quit.
So, Trump negotiates a free trade agreement in good faith and it goes into effect in July 2020. Trump is in power for less than 7 months while its the deal is in effect and now he wants to pretend it does not exist. What A Laugh! And, he has rocked Canada. Trudeau looked like he was going to have a stroke last night and Doug Ford called a snap election. Also, Trump's tariffs might not survive a legal challenge because the tariffs are not really directly related to the "emergency" he declared. Going off of my vague memories it seems to me over the decades that Canada and the USA have had many free trade disputes settled in arbitration ... and Canada wins every time.
How can Canada and Mexico trust any deal Trump's regime makes?
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On February 03 2025 07:33 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 07:09 Magic Powers wrote:
Free trade is one of the cornerstones of economic recovery and prosperity. Why? Because of the asymmetry of diverse goods around the globe. Every country naturally benefits from free trade. Overbearing tariffs undermine this process. And it's literally always the working class that feels most of the pain.
Ironically Ayn Rand would be scolding JJR for not understanding this basic lesson in economics. She of course understood her own (albeit flawed) ideology far better than he does. I am an advocate of free trade. A properly crafted agreement can be fantastic. The 1988 FTA underwritten by Reagan and Mulroney was great for Canada despite most Canadians not wanting it. It is hilarious how Canadians did not want it in 1988 and Mulroney was hated for it. Decades later, Canadians cling to it while multiple Liberal PMs added and enhanced it. Reagan and Mulroney were awesome. Regarding Miss Rand... She and Ludvig Von Mises do not agree on economic theory. I'm a David Kelly Objectivist and not a Randian. I subscribe to 95%+ of Von Mises economic theories. The further Miss Rand gets away from the philosophical fundamentals under pinning a free society and the further she dives into economic theory the less often she is correct. US National Anthem Getting Boo-ed out of the building. LOL. https://streamable.com/61w57vToronto exists to serve the American marketplace. So, they can boo all they want. I posted a video of Torontonians completing the US National Anthem after the MIC went out on the singer. Welp, the USA has done a heel turn folks! Hulk Hogan endorsed Trump wearing Red, White and Blue. If Trump serves the billionaire class then the Hulkster needs to put on that Black & White nWo shirt! nWo stood for "new World order". The US government is offering 7 months free pay for government employees who quit right now. Problem is, congress must approve the money required to make such a move. None of the US gov't employees I know trusts this deal will actually stick. Recently, they added another $25,000 bonus money if you quit. Congress must authorize this money as well. I think no one is taking the deal and the tall foreheads advising Trump are reacting to it by adding the $25,000. They thought millions of government employees would quit. So, Trump negotiates a free trade agreement in good faith and it goes into effect in July 2020. Trump is in power for less than 7 months while its the deal is in effect and now he wants to pretend it does not exist. What A Laugh! And, he has rocked Canada. Trudeau looked like he was going to have a stroke last night and Doug Ford called a snap election. Also, Trump's tariffs might not survive a legal challenge because the tariffs are not really directly related to the "emergency" he declared. Going off of my vague memories it seems to me over the decades that Canada and the USA have had many free trade disputes settled in arbitration ... and Canada wins every time. How can Canada and Mexico trust any deal Trump's regime makes?
Mises? A grear thinker, but he lived through the days of economic suffering. At the time his beliefs made sense because oppression of the individual was all the rage around the globe. Of course he'd radically support the opposite of that. It's not hard to oppose both Stalinism and Nazism at the same time. But Mises never got to see the consequences of the radicalization of his own ideas. He never saw today's working class. We don't know whether or not he would renounce his old ideas in this landscape.
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i don’t think you can be an advocate for free trade and slobbering some knob over the stroke of genius that is trumps tariff plan.
i think the reality is you are very much not an advocate of free trade whatsoever. you have written pages lauding trump and bashing trudeau over what you have made a very obvious point of the leverage you perceive the US has to unfree that trade. and what a smart move it is. beating a dead horse about it, even, i’d say.
it should surprise nobody but JJR that canadian hockey is profitable in its own right. they have 30% of the top 10 most profitable teams in spite of having only 7 teams. or 22% of the league. a constant weird stream of nonsense shit to pontificate on.
and totally unrelated, canadian teams are dominating the league this year. except for my caps. #ALLCAPS
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Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying.
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On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying.
More likely strategic + he doesn‘t want to pay for the energy imports.
Climate change isn‘t really the biggest threat compared to the geopolitical stuff atm imo.
He looks for compromises with Russia at the expense of everyone else that isn‘t Russia, China or the US while building rocket defense systems which is rather foreboding.
Or maybe ominous is the better word here.
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Northern Ireland23721 Posts
On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying.
If it wasn’t Donald Trump, I mean sure it’s an intriguing hypothesis. He’s neither shown a propensity to give much of a fuck beyond his own station in life, or his immediate nearest and dearest, nor to taking climate change as a serious threat. Perhaps his climate skepticism is performative to appeal to his base, but alas I lack the ability to look into the souls of man.
Obviously not, because well, geography in this case. It’s the kind of thing I could see China doing because they’re structurally positioned to make those kind of very long-term plans, regardless of one’s opinion on those structures. Not saying they’d want to pursue such a plan either, just they have the capacity to plan and operate on a scale of decades+ in a way Western democracies can’t reliably do.
I mean hell on 4 year cycles the US goes more isolationist and unilateral, leaves the WHO, withdraws from the Paris Accords. Then it’s less so, and it’s back! Then it’s away again. Amongst other things.
Even if Trump somehow engineered an annexation of Greenland, the next time a Dem’s in or hell, an (increasingly unlikely) sane Republican is gonna hand it back.
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Oh lord, if Elon fucks over the MIC he's gonna get himself Whistleblower'ed, lmao
https://fortune.com/2025/02/02/musk-doge-treasury-payments-system-halt-us-govenment-contractors-lutheran-charity/
Musk is targeting systems that process tens of billions of dollars in payments for US government agencies and the officials that oversee them. Musk’s statements on Sunday follow last week’s departure of David Lebryk, the Treasury Department’s most senior career official, who had been in charge of payment systems at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
Trump gave Musk’s efforts his seal of approval Sunday night. “Elon’s doing a good job,” Trump told reporters Sunday night.
“He’s a big cost cutter,” Trump said. “Sometimes we won’t agree with it and we’ll not go where he wants to go, but I think he’s doing a great job. He’s a smart guy, very smart, and he’s very much into cutting the budget of our federal government.”
Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday that he’s been told that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has granted DOGE full access to Treasury’s payment systems.
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Canada11261 Posts
On February 03 2025 10:34 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying. More likely strategic + he doesn‘t want to pay for the energy imports. Climate change isn‘t really the biggest threat compared to the geopolitical stuff atm imo. He looks for compromises with Russia at the expense of everyone else that isn‘t Russia, China or the US while building rocket defense systems which is rather foreboding. Or maybe ominous is the better word here.
It's dumb anyways. US already has strategic access to Greenland... and they don't have to pay for it, nor need to administer it. It's the best of all worlds. But instead Trump wants to screw with Denmark, a very stable ally of America as far as I know. And pay more for something US already has access to? So much for decreasing expenditures and no foreign adventurism.
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It doesn't make sense unless the goal is to destroy NATO from within.
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On February 03 2025 16:06 Falling wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 10:34 Vivax wrote:On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying. More likely strategic + he doesn‘t want to pay for the energy imports. Climate change isn‘t really the biggest threat compared to the geopolitical stuff atm imo. He looks for compromises with Russia at the expense of everyone else that isn‘t Russia, China or the US while building rocket defense systems which is rather foreboding. Or maybe ominous is the better word here. It's dumb anyways. US already has strategic access to Greenland... and they don't have to pay for it, nor need to administer it. It's the best of all worlds. But instead Trump wants to screw with Denmark, a very stable ally of America as far as I know. And pay more for something US already has access to? So much for decreasing expenditures and no foreign adventurism.
I think you are forgetting that he sees Europe as an economic enemy just like everyone else out there, and wants to pull out US troops and cut ties with Europe in the long term. Naturally, the current access to Greenland would not be guaranteed in that case.
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Mexico, Canada and China did the obvious thing and retaliated with their own tariffs. Trump's response? Threatening the EU next.
What's the long term plan here? I mean, seriously. This was predictable.
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Well. I guess Trump is GH hidden ally. He is going to run US economy into the ground, then start a long costly war thus making US fertile ground for incomming socialist revolution.
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Trump is going to give execs in the consolidated markets new excuses to price hike.
"The evil counter tariffs cause us to raise the price on eggs even further!"
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On February 03 2025 17:05 EnDeR_ wrote:Mexico, Canada and China did the obvious thing and retaliated with their own tariffs. Trump's response? Threatening the EU next.What's the long term plan here? I mean, seriously. This was predictable.
The most bizarre thing, to me, is that Trump could have just enjoyed the standard inflation rates restored by the Biden administration, just like how Trump took credit for Obama's economic restoration (before covid hit). Trump could have just golfed non-stop and tried taking credit for the work that Biden did, but instead, Trump went out of his way to immediately self-sabotage his second term.
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On February 03 2025 10:52 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying. If it wasn’t Donald Trump, I mean sure it’s an intriguing hypothesis. He’s neither shown a propensity to give much of a fuck beyond his own station in life, or his immediate nearest and dearest, nor to taking climate change as a serious threat. Perhaps his climate skepticism is performative to appeal to his base, but alas I lack the ability to look into the souls of man. Obviously not, because well, geography in this case. It’s the kind of thing I could see China doing because they’re structurally positioned to make those kind of very long-term plans, regardless of one’s opinion on those structures. Not saying they’d want to pursue such a plan either, just they have the capacity to plan and operate on a scale of decades+ in a way Western democracies can’t reliably do. I mean hell on 4 year cycles the US goes more isolationist and unilateral, leaves the WHO, withdraws from the Paris Accords. Then it’s less so, and it’s back! Then it’s away again. Amongst other things. Even if Trump somehow engineered an annexation of Greenland, the next time a Dem’s in or hell, an (increasingly unlikely) sane Republican is gonna hand it back.
Any ideas why it's necessary for the US to give up the Philippines and Cuba, and Greenland if that came to pass, but Democrats haven't given up Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa?
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On February 03 2025 21:13 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 10:52 WombaT wrote:On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying. If it wasn’t Donald Trump, I mean sure it’s an intriguing hypothesis. He’s neither shown a propensity to give much of a fuck beyond his own station in life, or his immediate nearest and dearest, nor to taking climate change as a serious threat. Perhaps his climate skepticism is performative to appeal to his base, but alas I lack the ability to look into the souls of man. Obviously not, because well, geography in this case. It’s the kind of thing I could see China doing because they’re structurally positioned to make those kind of very long-term plans, regardless of one’s opinion on those structures. Not saying they’d want to pursue such a plan either, just they have the capacity to plan and operate on a scale of decades+ in a way Western democracies can’t reliably do. I mean hell on 4 year cycles the US goes more isolationist and unilateral, leaves the WHO, withdraws from the Paris Accords. Then it’s less so, and it’s back! Then it’s away again. Amongst other things. Even if Trump somehow engineered an annexation of Greenland, the next time a Dem’s in or hell, an (increasingly unlikely) sane Republican is gonna hand it back. Any ideas why it's necessary for the US to give up the Philippines and Cuba, and Greenland if that came to pass, but Democrats haven't given up Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa?
Because "not giving up" something that you don't actually own just means stealing it.
Why is it necessary for me to give up all the money in your wallet, but no one demands that i give up the money in my own wallet?
Why is it necessary for me to give up your house, but no one demands that i give up my own house?
And honestly, i don't really believe that you are this stupid. So you must willfully be acting stupid.
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On February 03 2025 21:13 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On February 03 2025 10:52 WombaT wrote:On February 03 2025 10:15 Sadist wrote:
Im seriously wondering if Trump wants Canada and Greenland due to long term climate change impacts. Hed would be dead obviously by the time shit really hit the fan but Id imagine Canada and Greenland could be hedges against some of the worst case scenarios.
If he is considering that it would be truly terrifying. If it wasn’t Donald Trump, I mean sure it’s an intriguing hypothesis. He’s neither shown a propensity to give much of a fuck beyond his own station in life, or his immediate nearest and dearest, nor to taking climate change as a serious threat. Perhaps his climate skepticism is performative to appeal to his base, but alas I lack the ability to look into the souls of man. Obviously not, because well, geography in this case. It’s the kind of thing I could see China doing because they’re structurally positioned to make those kind of very long-term plans, regardless of one’s opinion on those structures. Not saying they’d want to pursue such a plan either, just they have the capacity to plan and operate on a scale of decades+ in a way Western democracies can’t reliably do. I mean hell on 4 year cycles the US goes more isolationist and unilateral, leaves the WHO, withdraws from the Paris Accords. Then it’s less so, and it’s back! Then it’s away again. Amongst other things. Even if Trump somehow engineered an annexation of Greenland, the next time a Dem’s in or hell, an (increasingly unlikely) sane Republican is gonna hand it back. Any ideas why it's necessary for the US to give up the Philippines and Cuba, and Greenland if that came to pass, but Democrats haven't given up Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, or American Samoa?
What the actual fuck?
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EPT
