2rafa
1d ago
I think that’s likely too and doubt he tweeted with the intention of doing this. He spent days saying similar things.
2rafa
1d ago
This is a news discussion forum and this has been the biggest news for a while, clearly it’s going to be the central topic.
2rafa
1d ago
Trump thinks he is a genius but he does also think other people (Musk, some of his golfing pals, some other real estate people, some Wall St people) are also geniuses and I guess some combination of them on the phone spooked him.
2rafa
1d ago
Musk really needed / needs a reprieve on the China tariffs, Tesla will continue doing poorly in Europe regardless because of his perceived politics.
2rafa
1d ago
I wonder if it was another real estate guy who said something like ‘this is going to be very bad for Manhattan real estate’. Can’t think of anything else.
2rafa
1d ago
I agree that this is true for a lot of things, like inflation or whether you go to a certain part of town. When it comes to relocating to an impoverished violent third world country with no jobs things have to be very, very bad indeed.
2rafa
1d ago
The COVID lockdowns made the rich richer than ever before as infinite money was ploughed into pumping equities and real estate, why would they have been unhappy with that?
2rafa
1d ago
Right. Trump boosters don’t seem to understand that these tariffs, while recessionary, aren’t going to destroy the Chinese economy. The CCP is already embarking on an extensive plan to fuel domestic consumption. It may well succeed. The economies of South and Southeast Asia are still rapidly industrializing and buying Chinese machinery and cars. China itself is still getting richer.
Most importantly of all, the Chinese have suffered extreme hardship within living memory. Even 25 years ago, they were poorer than any American has been in a long time. The CCP can survive. Americans haven’t suffered true hardship in a century. They haven’t suffered geopolitical humiliation in 200 years. They aren’t prepared. The political system is much more fragile.
2rafa
1d ago
You live in a country in which the average household income is $80k.
Do you:
A) Self deport your entire family back to a country where the average income is $5k a year
B) Risk a 1% chance of being deported back to that country and a 99% chance of staying in the country where the average household income is $80k.
?
This remind me of when Europeans say “let’s just pay Somalis/Syrians/Afghans to go back to their home countries”, as if the average Somali Swede doesn’t know the lifetime value (for them and all their descendants) of Swedish citizenship over Afghan citizenship isn’t many millions of dollars.
Even if the odds of deportation back to El Salvador were 80%, it would still make sense to stay, by the way. Of course they’re nowhere near that.
2rafa
1d ago
Great new American golden age, Don Jr selected as presumptive next nominee (all other contenders drop out), Amazon buys Truth Social for $20bn cash in exchange for slightly reducing tariffs on China and Vietnam (15%)
GOP gets destroyed in the midterms, Supreme Court gets scared of getting packed in a future Dem trifecta and starts limiting Trump in a big way, lamest of lame duck final 2 year presidencies, woke coalition return to power not out of any competency but because Trump screwed up so badly (85%)
2rafa
1d ago
I don’t think you can talk about ‘handlers’ in Trump II. Trump I had handlers of a sort, in that Trump was new to politics and there were seasoned veterans who just flagrantly hid documents from him and ran things while he postured. Trump II doesn’t have handlers. Surely (?) there are still some ultra deep state CIA types in Langley with things that never get shared with Trump, but that’s not the same thing.
2rafa
1d ago
Removing violent criminals must be the first priority, then removing all those who arrived illegally in the last 10 years. Deporting green card holders is a policy choice that should be case-by-case, although so many were handed out semi fraudulently that that might be difficult.
My preference would be that in cases where someone stole $200 8 years ago and seemingly has some kind of healthy role in their community that they (or the family they work for) could post a bond of, say, $100,000, which would be forfeited (along with the green card) if the migrant committed another crime of any severity over the following decade.
2rafa
1d ago
These kinds of deportations will need to increase drastically if we're actually serious about deporting 15+ million people over the next four years.
Sorry, Trump has decided that blowing up the economy and putting the Dems in power for a half decade (if not a whole one) because he lost a bid on a piano to a Japanese businessman in 1988 is more important than actually working on the single issue that got him elected (twice).
2rafa
1d ago
People now have to game out the answer to one question:
What does it take for ~85 Republican representatives in the House to vote, with a veto-proof majority, to reassert congressional control over tariffs? I say the House because I think if it gets to that point in the House, the Senate will probably be fine.
-
How far do Trump’s ratings have to fall that they are no longer afraid of retribution?
-
How far does polling for the party have to fall that they are worried for their jobs, even in erstwhile deep red districts?
2rafa
1d ago
There is a point at which enough GOP reps vote with 2/3 majority in the house to reassert power over tariffs in a veto-proof way, but I do think it’s further away than the markets seem to think.
2rafa
1d ago
The markets are still priced like they expect some capitulation from Trump eventually. The alternative is still unthinkable.
2rafa
1d ago
The US can keep borrowing indefinitely as long as the dollar is the global reserve currency. That reserve currency status is a central cause of the trade deficit that the current administration is railing against. Ending the trade deficit, the stated goal of this administration, will therefore necessitate a much more fiscally disciplined federal budget moving forward.
2rafa
2d ago
Don't worry, the plan is to cut taxes as well.
Is this the plan where you cut taxes by x and then cut spending by 1/3 of x?
2rafa
2d ago
Yeah, I think this explains it. Most hedge fund managers and tech billionaires are (or started as) white PMC men, ie. most of the demographic here and elsewhere that turned increasingly against the mainstream woke Democratic left.
2rafa
2d ago
Right, the chance of a blowout flip in 2026 and then 28 just shot up massively, you don’t want to become known as the top booster of the last government.
2rafa
2d ago
War with Iran could be the bloodiest conflict for America since WW2. It’s a developed country of 90 million people capable of building and importing huge numbers of drones that Russia and even China given their current animosity would gladly lend them the money to buy. The current leadership isn’t hugely popular among some domestic elites, but the opposition is largely nonexistent and dreams of some kind of vast Azeri uprising are rather fantastical; there are still masses of peasants who broadly agree with the Islamic Revolution. American casualty tolerance isn’t near what it was in Vietnam, and even that became too much toward the end.
I don’t think Trump would go for it. But I didn’t actually think he’d go for tariffs of this magnitude either. Who knows now.
2rafa
2d ago
My own impression (and you are likely more familiar than I) is that most Chinese never think about the Jews, a smaller group of boomers and people interested in international politics are vaguely or in rare cases substantially philosemitic, and then young very right wing men online are antisemitic in a vintage /pol/ type way, hate Israel etc.
2rafa
2d ago
I don’t think it looks like this. I think it looks like Graeber’s fake jobs.
If the PMC succeeds in perpetuating itself / ourselves, then life in 10 years will look like millions of email job workers with fancy titles whose real job is getting AI to make PowerPoints to present to other ‘employees’ to discuss what the AI is doing. Perhaps other people will spend decades ‘studying’ the AI in case it magically stops working. They will all believe they are necessary.
2rafa
2d ago
Self-serving, petulant, handwavy, shallowly aesthetic notions of virtue are cheap and easy to brandish in defense of one's animalistic impulses; any kind of impulsive retardation can be dressed up as a calling of aristocratic, virile masculine nature, there's a whole genre of extremely popular Western music about it, authored by the impromptu warrior aristocracy of the streets. Your own elite has been wiped out to such a degree that this whole discourse is vacuous, we can't consult with a living bearer of a tradition, only speculate. It is plausible that I am wrong and there's just never been any substance to the whole fraud.
Missed your writing. Glad you’ve rejoined us briefly in this transitional period while we no doubt wait for ASI to materialize and save/destroy us.
Garbage collection is handled individually by all 32 boroughs, so hopefully not at the same time.
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