People are getting what they voted for.

Only a few voted for this. Most voted for populist promises.This is more a failure democracy, a breakdown in the dissemination of sound political narratives to the population. Mass gaslighting from media and social media organisations captured by vested interests.
Trump is the opportunist who took advantage by riding the wave of disinformation. Unfortunately he is a snake oil salesman, a conman. Not the sort of person to pull off such a seismic correction in global trade. If it doesn’t crash and burn, it will be a miracle. Like the miracle that supposedly caused Trump to dip his head when the bullet grazed his ear.

Wouldn't you expect half of the world's population to produce half of the stuff and get half of the profits?

Yes, in an ideal world, but it is not an ideal world.
Anyway I was talking about the imbalance that has produced the poor economic circumstances in Western countries. There are numerous other factors, but the largest one is cheap labour and remarkable efficiencies in the East undercutting labour in the West.

The locals are around 10x the cost of the same printing from China. It's higher quality here, but still. Damn.

I think you’ve hit the nub of the issue here. All the woes (well most of them) of the U.S. economy, along with the EU and most Western countries are as a result of this. The undercutting of consumables, product and tech by China and some other Far Eastern producers. Over a period of about 30years.

Along with Western producers outsourcing production to these countries.

This is the imbalance that needs correcting. And yet Trump is going after other Western countries and small countries, for a problem caused by and in cahoots with China. As a result he will cause an unnecessary global recession and the collapse, or re-ordering of global trade.

I could give countless examples of what has gone wrong here. But I’ll give one to illustrate. In the U.K. we have an entrepreneur inventor guy, who until recently was hailed as an example of innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, Sir James Dyson. Now he is hated and despised by many because of what he did when he had made his money and became very successful. At the first sign of production cost increases at home, probably caused by China undercutting us on production cost. He closed his U.K. production lines down and manufactured his vacuum cleaners in the Far East. Then he became a campaigner and cheerleader for Brexit from his home in Singapore. Apparently he recently bought the most expensive penthouse apartment in Singapore. More recently he has started buying up farmland in the U.K., which has tax breaks for inheritance and capital transfer taxes. Contributing to the unsustainable increases in the cost of farmland, which is pushing many small farmers out of business.

If only innovators like this used their brain power and worked out what the problems are and how to fix them. But no, it was class driven exceptionalism all the way.

Or it’s a dumpster fire. I don’t know enough about US politics to comment on the left right issue. I can read the runes though and to introduce an economic shock that up ends the last 100yrs of globalisation overnight does sound like throwing a torch into a dumpster truck.

But also it doesn’t make economic sense, but rather, it only makes sense if you agree with Trump’s novel views on trade. Views which he’s held unchanged for 40years and are naive and show a poor understanding of what’s involved and a deep prejudice.

In today's geopolitical circumstance, it simply cannot compete with a united Russia-China-Iran bloc.

It must have slipped your mind that Russia and Iran are basket cases and China does not do this pariah state nonsense. She will likely do a deal with Trump, which will be hailed as the greatest deal of all time.

it really is the way he incorrectly thinks that manufacturing gets back to the US.

It takes minutes to impose tariffs, but 5 to 10 years to build a factory. Also why would a manufacturer build that factory when in 4 years Trump will be gone and the tariffs may well be reversed. Not to mention that the cost of building that factory and producing the goods will be very high. There might not be anyone left with enough money to buy the goods at the end of it all.
Investors will turn away and leave the U.S. to stagflation.

Now presumably he will do deals. Deals in which he will extract something from other countries in return for a reduction in tariffs. But what can these countries offer him? With Canada and Mexico it was the same as before, so nothing really. Trump claimed a win and probably believed it was a win.

So all countries have to do now is bend the knee and dress up what they were already doing as a concession. This leaves the countries, or trading blocks he hates left with the high tariffs, the EU and the Far East. I doubt he will keep the high tariffs on China, I’m expecting a state visit to China with lots of staged handshakes and the greatest trade deal in history.

Thanks for the correction, liberation day, I’ve put it right now.

The world is a zero-sum game. America is being ripped off. Only I can fix it. Loyalty to me is patriotism. Elites and institutions are your enemy. Winning is the only value that matters."

Oh and I’m the most powerful person on the planet and you all have to dance to my tune.

Will Trump carry through his tariff war (today is Trump’s liberation Day), or will he chicken out?

Is it just posturing to do deals, or is it all about something else(more sinister)?

Is there anything in his ideology(any sense in it), or is it all about his narcissistic ego?

The fog of war. Imagine the chaos on the Russian side.

If global warming is allowed to reach 3°C by 2100 from pre-industrial levels, cumulative economic output could be reduced by 15% to 34%, the report says, while investing 1% to 2% of cumulative GDP in mitigation and adaptation to limit warming to 2°C from pre-industrial levels would reduce economic damage to just 2% to 4%.

“Rapid and sustained investments in mitigation and adaptation will minimise the economic damages and come with a high return,” says the Executive Summary. “Mitigation slows global warming by cutting emissions; adaptation reduces vulnerability to the physical impacts of climate change. Investments in both must rise significantly by 2050 – 9-fold for mitigation and 13-fold for adaptation. We estimate that the total investment required equals 1% to 2% of cumulative economic output to 2100.

This will be a conservative estimate(which one would expect with an economic assessment), it won’t include shocks and breakdowns in societies, or unexpected weather and geological events. All of which will accompany the overall trend. Which in turn will increase in frequency, as the gap between the state prior to a human induced climate change and the current state becomes wider.

Do reports like this consider areas of sensitivity for population wellbeing. Such as fresh water and food supply? Because these can be greatly affected by destabilisation of weather patterns, even with the small temperature changes we have experienced so far. We have a large human population which requires fresh water and food daily, it won’t take much for this dependency to become strained. Desertification can happen quite suddenly in some regions resulting in the loss of large areas of productive farmland. Which seems to be happening in California at this time. Other areas can be susceptible to destabilised weather patterns, such as most of Europe at the moment.

What happens when there are water and food shortages. Destabilisation of populations and societies. Another likely development is societal collapse, political turmoil and the spread of warfare. Things we are already seeing in the continent of Africa.

Now when discussing mitigation and adaptation, are we assuming away these other risks? Surely if there is societal collapse, severe water, or food shortages in a country, this will reduce their willingness, or ability to make the changes required. If this were to start to happen in larger countries, it would have a more significant slowing effect on the progress of the required changes.

Then there are the political ramifications, states like the U.S. Brazil(until recently) and Russia have a drill baby drill policy. As a result of the increase in populism and authoritarianism in recent decades. Failed states won’t be mitigating, or adapting.

All in all it’s a rocky road ahead.

Now imagine a world dominated by China and Putin, or more realistically BRICS. You think there will be less genocide?

— Punshhh

Probably so. Obviously I don't expect either of them to usher in the new utopia, but continental powers work fundamentally different from peripheral powers like the US.

I think you are somewhat lacking in powers of imagination. Such states tend to use mass starvation rather than active genocide, it’s less obvious. Also genocide is not a good marker for the difference we would find. All global treaties would be abandoned, the world would become a competing world of warlords. Populations not offered protection(for a price), by a warlord would be left to the dogs. Again mass starvation, war, failed states across wide regions. And if a population is lucky enough to have protection, they will be exploited little better than slaves with few rights. While their land will be laid waste by unregulated exploitation of resources. And when climate change kicks in, welcome to Mad Max.

Doesn't the UK do automated manufacturing? Wouldn't that help the situation?

Yes, but the problem is an economic cliff edge, or an overnight change of circumstances. For industry to adapt to the new circumstances takes years, with a lot of investment etc.
Covid lockdowns were a cliff edge too. The economic repercussions of which are still going on, or are yet to be realised. Add to that the cliff edge of the financial crisis (2008) and the U.K. is reeling from 3 major economic shocks in the last 17yrs.

I don't think you would have the same stable international order if there wasn't a superior military backing it, even if it isn't used in an obvious direct way to protect it.

Yes, it would not require a level of deployment that could be described as overstretch. Also it could be a coalition.

To clarify, my goal is not to find out the truth about the matter per se, but to get a clearer picture of what their ideology is. Because eventhough the ideology isn't necessarily about the truth, it is often a sign for what they want to accomplish, and it does influence people.... and because it influences people it will have real consequences.

Well my take on this is that it’s a mess, composed of the wims of a senile wannabe dictator, a hard right reform agenda Project 25 and a process of Orbanisation to weaken democracy.

As for the goal, well I’m not sure they have one, but rather a trajectory. Again a combination of the three ideologies above.

What it will look like, a skip fire.

Don’t they have a contraption for that?

We’ve been here before. Now imagine a world dominated by China and Putin, or more realistically BRICS. You think there will be less genocide?

I'm not saying there are any guarantees that things will go the way Trump and Vance imagine, I'm just noting, especially to other Americans, that this is not rightist. The goal here is actually leftist, but American leftism died. That's what makes the present situation pretty fascinating.

Stimulating manufacturing and farming at home is a good thing in some ways, but as Benkei says prices will go up and what it stimulates might not be what we imagine. We had all this debate in the U.K. with Brexit, because we imported stuff easily from eastern and southern Europe. But because we sent back European workers and the young in our country don’t want to do a proper days work. Things have stagnated and we now import inferior product with dubious standards from third world countries.

Manufacturing has stagnated too, due to lack of skilled workers and the inability for manufacturers to truly operate from home in an interconnected world with just in time supply lines etc. Making it uncompetitive to compete with imports from non EU countries.

Once stagflation sets in, it’s difficult to budge and the shit that Doge is up to is throwing a spanner in the real economy which will be reeling from the tariff war and shortages in cheap labour.

Preferable to Putin’s rapacious ways and a balance to China.

You do have knowledge of your colleague, that he is dead. If you have no knowledge of your colleague, how do you know that he is dead and a colleague? If he is dead, he is no longer present.

But I’m working on the assumption that my colleague is experiencing an afterlife, as is posited in the OP. By definition an afterlife is some kind of presence continuing over time. So would presumably include the next day following the day of their death. So my colleague is present today along with myself, but somehow removed.

You see I do not think Trump is some great savior, I held my nose and voted for him as I believe in his overall policy direction.

Did you vote for MAGA to pivot to MRGA(make Russia great again), or the annexation of Canada and Greenland? For a vindictive trade war with every other country, except Israel? For hire and fire policies where you are vetted for any critical opinions about Trump, before you are hired, or fired, or Trump looking to run for a third term? I could go on, but this is a fair summary of his policy direction.

Yes I think you are right, economic globalisation was the cause of the hollowing out. But they see it as sort of a package deal maybe, for globalisation you need free trade, for that you need trade routes to be save, to protect those you need a global security order... If your aim is to rely less on globalisation, the security needs also change presumably.

The security required for global trade is not a military deployment. It is an international world order. The soft power and diplomacy, creating over an extended period an atmosphere of trust, respectability and cooperation between nations and regions. Piracy (which would require a naval presence) has only been a minor issue in certain regions.

So again It is a flawed argument, a non argument. But we do know, don’t we that all the arguments coming out of Trump’s White House are flawed, or non arguments. As his modus operandi is disinformation. We have to judge him by his actions, while rejecting his reasoning in favour of the established (over a long period) narrative.

If it wrecks the US economy, it will wreck everybodies economy I would think, or at least those of the West.

There are degrees of wrecking. I don’t think we are talking of full economic collapse, just a serious recession, or depression. This would not wreck the global economy, although it would bring on a recession. But the bad effects will mainly be felt in the U.S. such changes over the short period will likely stimulate economic growth in other regions. The crisis in the U.S. is deeper than economic though, so it is very much a U.S. problem and could take a few years to sort out.

So... we have arrived. This is the afterlife. It is now. And there will be coffee again tomorrow, maybe.

But if my colleague died yesterday and I am still alive. Today our presents are the same present. Why do I have no knowledge of my colleague today?

. I collect these little predictions that are given to me and store them so when they prove to be right or wrong, I recognize whom said what. And so far you’re batting zero, my friend.

Sounds like you’re talking to yourself in the mirror, if there is a reflection that is and you’re not just talking into the void.

[/quote] Nosferatu is a vampire[/quote]

A work of fiction, I understand.

I think it does make sense if you see the global liberal democratic order, NATO, as a problem in itself that needs to be dealt with... because it was more and more overextending the US budget while hollowing out the center of the country.

This line of reasoning is false, the overstretch argument. Especially when linking it to an economically hollowing out of the country.
Any overstretch that can be identified and the hollowing out of the centre, which can be seen, is not due to global security overreach. It is due to China and other Far Eastern economies undercutting U.S. production in all areas and the drive to outsource production from the West to the Far East, capitalised on by Western manufacturers. The same effect can clearly be seen in European countries. Those European countries that are freeloading off this same U.S. overstretch.

I was going to answer your questions in your reply to ssu, in the previous post. But realised they had nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of climate change. It was some bogus question about people liking to visit warm places. More evidence of trolling and that there’s no point engaging.

As there is not even an Astroturf movement in the US for annexing Greenland, so this is a nonissue after what JD Vance said. Just one of those brainfarts of Trump, which he won't let to be.

I watched Trump reiterate his desire to have Greenland yesterday. He looked like a deflated balloon, with a glazed look in his eyes as he said the words. I suspected someone has told him it’s not going to happen.

I'm glad you're not in the pocket of Big Bum.

I think he/she is a bot, as in bottom. So could be in big bum after all.

That is insane. He was just saying yesterday how he needs Greenland for security purposes (while he said it, he looked as though he was in a dream, surreal state of mind), again insane. Vance’s speech in Greenland today was insane. He was saying that Denmark did not do a good job managing Greenland, on the pretence that The U.S. will do a better job.

Looks like Trump is carving up Ukraine to split half and half with Russia. By getting a deal for 50% of all mineral and energy in Ukraine with a U.S. veto. To be followed by elections to install a Putin stooge.
I don’t see this ending well for Trump.
https://on.ft.com/42fuMdA

The link should have been a gift article, but doesn’t open the article. This link should take you there.

https://bsky.app/profile/snellarthur.bsky.social/post/3llf6e32oe22x

Looks like Russia can’t help herself.
https://bsky.app/profile/veertjephilips.bsky.social/post/3lle7ng36c22g

You’ve put the cart before the horse. Those concerns fund their scientists to defend market share. The concerns that fund climate change scientists do it to mitigate the risks. Economics does come into it at the next stage, inevitably.

97% of climate scientists agree that they don't want to be defunded. The science is settled !!!

The science was settled decades before these scientists started work on climate change. After which fossil fuel corporations pumped lots of cash into discrediting it.
This notion of scientists saying whatever will secure their funding is nonsense, conspiracy, populist claptrap.

When the snake oil salesman found himself in the Oval Office and had to sell his wares to the whole world. The stuff of nightmares.

Don't know if this was posted already, but here goes anyway.

Nice piece of journalism, captures the insanity.


Infamy infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.

Yeah, so do you think @AmadeusD that the pandemic was something you would put into that category of "no disaster... Wonder how we will deal with that."

The economic fallout is much more damaging than the death toll. Although it’s difficult to see because there is other economic turmoil going on at the same time.
Here in the U.K. 500,000 people have disappeared from the workforce as a result of the pandemic. I’ve heard there is a similar, though less acute trend across Europe. For a couple of years people couldn’t believe it, what are these people doing? they thought. On examination it turned out there were many people nearing retirement age, some more than 10yrs from retirement who realised they enjoyed the simple peaceful life of lockdown. They realised that they had been working like wage slaves, like they were stuck in a rut, workaholics. Alongside them, there are 100’s of thousands of people with long Covid, who struggle to work, or are now on incapacity benefits. People are unable to work because of long delays in hospital treatment due to hospitals struggling with the pandemic. There are landlords of office blocks going bankrupt because so many people work from home now that the offices are empty.

The knock on effects on global trade are still affecting supply and inflation of resources. The increases of the cost of living for the poor around the world are pushing many people who were just about managing over the edge into poverty. The elites and oligarchs are looking to hide more of their wealth and extract as much as they can out of economies before there is another hit to the global economy from somewhere. This is one of the reasons why oligarchs are buying up and funding news and social media outlets to spread populist lies and turn states authoritarian. A kleptocracy enables them to rip off sections of societies and to divide and rule. The ensuing chaos makes it easier to hide their wealth offshore. Countries are looking to devour other countries to keep monsters in authoritarian rule etc etc.

I was making a comment about indebtedness.

I hope he’s not going to Nuuk Greenland.

I have always had an unshakeable faith in the hegemony of reason in the universe. I would have thought the spark of which must inevitably lead to morality. But I am beginning to think I was wrong. And it scares me.

As a mystic I specialise in learning what we don’t know and I can assure you that we don’t know enough to answer, or address in a meaningful way, universal questions like this. When it comes to life, which we can address a little more. There is evidence of the reason you have faith in and the development of morality, or altruism. And evidence that it is not a fabrication of human intellect.

I know there is massive injustice and suffering in the world, but that doesn’t negate this.

In a sense, humanity took on the challenge, when eating from the tree of knowledge, to attempt to consciously demonstrate and act out this force of altruism in nature, with the freedom (a free choice) to do the opposite, demonstrating an inherent morality. Hence the cross(trying not to get too deep here).