COVID19 Factors We Should Consider/Current Events

[wal]

wal, are you drinking again?

Nope. Australia has not responded with retaliatory tariffs on the US so you can still buy Bourbon here without any increase and besides our trade with the US is insignificant, our aluminum and steel exports to the US are only 0.2% of Australia's total trade output, anyhow have you not looked at the outcome of Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930?

How do you isolate the largest market in the world?

By setting up other trading blocks with other countries which drives previous exporters to the US to US rivals like China.

"In a world defined by economic uncertainty, geopolitical tension, and shifting consumer behaviors, relying on a single market or revenue stream has become increasingly risky. Diversification mitigates this risk, providing a buffer against disruptions while opening new pathways for growth. It empowers organizations to navigate uncharted territories and embrace opportunities they might have otherwise overlooked"

Diversification Strategies To Thrive In A Changing Global Economy

Trump only knows tariffs and if the US is involved with another war such as Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan or Iraq it may find that there will be no allies.

[Nicholas Laureys]

The chicken littles who have been screeching about fascists and authoritarians here are assuming their could never be a benevolent monarch. I was lucky enough to visit Samarkand this summer and learning about the rule of King Amir Timur and his descendants was fascinating - one descendant inherited the throne and ruled brutally, and it wasn't until his death that the subsequent successor could take over and rule more appropriately and better for the people. I don't think we Americans are taught enough about non-Western history, and not taught enough ancient history, to understand human nature and the nature of rulers and the ruled which leads us to prematurely assume that a representative democratic republic is the one and only best governing system.

This leads to the false assumption that representation inherently calms the ill motives and inherent evil of men, when in fact there are certain intellects and character types who will oppress and loot by their very nature, and others with a gene or simply disposition for applying their power more judiciously, because they view their fellow (ethnic or country-) man as their fellow man. See the types of policemen David embodies, or those among us who didn't become nagging Karens or power-mad employee enforcers of masking rules during C*OVID.

The hilarious part of the authoritarian worry is that most of these who fear or detest Trump probably believe that Benevolent Hegemons truly exist, despite even the USA's behavior in post-collapse Russia and in many other parts of the world in the Post-War Order.

If the best-suited country for dominating all others harmoniously can exist, why can't a well-suited singular leader exist? And how the hell would a benevolent hegemon government be more likely to exist than a benevolent "monarch" (singular leader), esp. when the former are composed of many more individuals, some portion of which are guaranteed to be power-hungry and of ill will?
It isn't more likely.
But we've all been so brainwashed since at least the Boomers to believe in International Organizations and non-profits and benevolent hegemons, that when a truly benevolent leader comes along, like a Trump or an Orban or a Ross Perot or Ron Paul or yes, a Putin, even - we all can't imagine how these leaders could be anything but authoritarian, fascist scum, all while believing that USAID and FEMA and our representative democracy republics actually have our best interests at heart.

[Austrian]

What, specifically, puts Trump's first administration, and now this one, in the category of "fascism"?

I suspect we're using the word "fascism" in the way Leftists use it. As a stand in for simply "bad", "evil" or "authoritarian".

For example, was America a "fascist" country in the mid 1950's when racial desegregation was forced upon the people by the state at literal bayonet-point? Obviously not. What's happened to the American people is far worse, I would argue. At least a fascist is honest about he aims to do.

I mean you never now what the future holds but when he says stuff like "he who saves his country does not violate any law", I have an idea of what he means. And as I mentioned it is a process. Doesn't happen over night.

I get that the alternative with Biden/Harris could have been even worse, but the republicans in America are genuienly so brainwashed that they can't see the potential problems Trump is creating. Dudes are worshipping him as if he is a god. This is funny because the republicans have usually been the ones being more logical, especially after the LGBTQ+ pandemic, but when it comes to Trump and their hatred against democrats' ideology, all logic gets thrown out the window.

History doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes. And I don't need to be a world class historian to understand from a neutral point of view that it's starting to look like the 1930s in germany. E.g. Political polarization and radicalization; Economic uncertainty and inflation; disttrust in democracy and institutions, and more shit I am to lazy to write. To act like this is false is just sugarcoating.
I am actually getting a little worried, and I am not even living there.

[Yngvi]

Before the Covid fiasco, before it was acceptable to question vaccines, I was derided here and in real life for being willing to say the flu vaccines were not safe and effective (including from people high up in this organization, who I will not name out of respect for them- it wasn't Rip, of course).
It was not the popular position to take, but I was right; I was one of the few people willing to say it.
Flu Vaccine Exposed: The Shocking NIH Discovery They Don'''t Want You To Know | ZeroHedge

You may say you are worried about me, but my track record has proven to be real damn good time and time again.

Read this article and read the comments; anecdote after anecdote of the American worker being replaced with less competent, lazy, but cheaper H1b-s, primarily from India.
Learn To Code? Visualizing The Decline Of American Software Developer Jobs | ZeroHedge

You don't like tariffs? You want more H1-bs? You don't want deportations of illegals?
You want to keep sending money and soldiers to israel and the Middle East for no benefit?
You support BlackRock's manipulation of the stock market to subsidize your welfare and retirement schemes at the expense of the future of the nation?
You want to fall for an astroturfed meme campaign of JD Vance after he has the balls to confront Zelensky?
You want someone who openly voices his disdain for the American people and its culture to be given political power?

You people who call yourselves Republicans, Democrats or 'American', but don't support Americans are not going to like the results; And, we don't care.
Time to let the old system rot; we will never stop fighting to make it irrelevant.
We are building a new world and we are leaving you behind.

You have chosen not to support us, and now we choose not to support you.
Our responsibility ends here.

Let it rot.

[Matt Jackson]

Let it rot.

Agreed. It's a position the people of the Western world need to take, for the time being.

For example: Take any random Imam in Britain. Farage is a worse enemy than that man.

[Nicholas Laureys]

https://youtu.be/TN1itU9whFI?si=mIk5Atpk_rNrJHKV

Constitutionally minded, freedom-loving people were conned into voting for this.

Matt thanks for this and my apologies for the delayed response but I've had a busy month. I'm not really sure we were conned into this because knowing the ignorance about constitutional republics in most people's minds and knowing the dire debt serfdom most of us exist within I'm not sure how many better solutions actually existed. And if you dismiss the adult fairytale of our Revolutionary War and accept thst it was more likely oligarchs revolting against their paymasters who had funded their expeditions to the New World, then a lot of other American decisions such as: accepting an income tax, allowing the Federal gov't to exponentially expand, women forming organically and in a grass-roots fashion to demand the right to become wage slaves themselves, believing that Elites gave up their indentured servants without a fight and that the North really wanted to free slaves without any strings attached, etc., all make a lot more sense. This is "conspiracy theory" territory that isn't very interesting anymore but let's just agree that if our predecessors were even XX % less "free" than our history books present them, than the idiotic decisions of Americans accepting an income tax or direct election of senators or electing Trump to office are XX % less incredulous.

On the AI cops thing, what amazes me is how much less violent crime there is in Russia despite their immigrant population being proportionally just as high as ours and their punishments (eg years in the slammer for murder) are so much lighter (eg only 5ish yers for MURDER!). I posed this question to the priest who married us in one of the Catholic churches here (who BTW had incredible stories of the resiliency of ppl in Donetsk, whom he'd travelled to multiple times in order to bring Communion into their parishes) back when I was more of a believer, how your immigrant populations seem to assimilate into society so much better than ours, and his response was just that people here know the rules and know that they must be followed.
On the mess that Hillary & Obama started but really had been going on since Clinton, there's some food for thought for us Americans: he said thank God we've learned that we can survive and thrive independently from the West; for far too long we've been trying too hard to put America on a pedestal and incessantly emulate them.
We'll see where the Trump in the 2020s and MAGA beyond him take us all but this Ukraine money-laundering, Russia-threatening mess that Hillary and Nuland accelerated has probably killed any possibilities of an unstoppable American-Russian allyship that could have tossed the archaic power structures of the Brits into the dustbin of history. Pathetic and sad, really.

[Matt Jackson]

PS - lads, just a gentle reminder it's time for you to now start tying yourselves in knots in order to explain how El Donald starting his latest disastrous Middle Eastern war (Yemen is 8,345 mi away from you) is actually a good thing, and makes America great again.

[David A. Rowe]

Before the Covid fiasco, before it was acceptable to question vaccines, I was derided here and in real life for being willing to say the flu vaccines were not safe and effective (including from people high up in this organization, who I will not name out of respect for them- it wasn't Rip, of course).
It was not the popular position to take, but I was right; I was one of the few people willing to say it.
Flu Vaccine Exposed: The Shocking NIH Discovery They Don'''t Want You To Know | ZeroHedge

I mean fair enough, but I wasn't a part of this dust up. I had noted my own anecdotal experience that I tended to get sick more on years when I had gotten a flu shot (military) than when I didn't, so I stopped taking them. I don't think you're as alone in your disdain of them as you think, but fair point on being vocal about it I suppose

You may say you are worried about me, but my track record has proven to be real damn good time and time again.

Two biggest traps you can fall into as an analyst: filling in blanks you shouldn't and being overconfident in your capabilities/assessment. That's not to say you can't be confident or make exploratory assumptions, but rather don't commit so strongly that you can't adjust on the fly.

Read this article and read the comments; anecdote after anecdote of the American worker being replaced with less competent, lazy, but cheaper H1b-s, primarily from India.
Learn To Code? Visualizing The Decline Of American Software Developer Jobs | ZeroHedge

I don't think everyone has been speaking the same language on this issue. I don't find much support for the abuse as you describe it, and I'm not personally entirely supportive of the current immigration systems we currently have. I've long been in favor of drastic, sweeping reforms, but I've always supported allowing a pathway for people who are fully dedicated to integrating into American culture and values, and also retaining the best and brightest while recruiting more. If done correctly and morally, with a trade and market policy base to support that... I just don't see the downsides.

You don't like tariffs? You want more H1-bs? You don't want deportations of illegals?
You want to keep sending money and soldiers to israel and the Middle East for no benefit?
You support BlackRock's manipulation of the stock market to subsidize your welfare and retirement schemes at the expense of the future of the nation?
You want to fall for an astroturfed meme campaign of JD Vance after he has the balls to confront Zelensky?
You want someone who openly voices his disdain for the American people and its culture to be given political power?

It's hard to take a list like this seriously, Yngvi. Not because I disagree on any point per se, but more because you just lump all of this in together like each isn't complex and deserving of discussion. Then a random shot across the bow at JD Vance? I get the rhetorical usefulness, but it's a bit vaguely all or nothing here.

You people who call yourselves Republicans, Democrats or 'American', but don't support Americans are not going to like the results; And, we don't care.
Time to let the old system rot; we will never stop fighting to make it irrelevant.
We are building a new world and we are leaving you behind.

You have chosen not to support us, and now we choose not to support you.
Our responsibility ends here.

In all seriousness... who are you talking to here?

Let it rot.

It has been rotting, man. It took us all to a place that we really don't like. You sure you want that to continue?

[Mark Rippetoe]

I'm really worried about Yngvi.

__________________________________________________

Associated Propagandists (AP) Predictably Simps for Houthi Rebels After US Airstrikes – Twitchy

You do not hate the media enough.

__________________________________________________

And I don't understand why you hate Elon Musk. Seems like a useful guy to me.

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status...29265926238291

[Austrian]

PS - lads, just a gentle reminder it's time for you to now start tying yourselves in knots in order to explain how El Donald starting his latest disastrous Middle Eastern war (Yemen is 8,345 mi away from you) is actually a good thing, and makes America great again.

It is actually really simple to explain: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GmKb30Qa...pg&name=medium