Couldn't agree more. Our Navy is a joke. We can barely muster a single destroyer. Burning goodwill with Trump is foolish when europe is completely dependant on the US to defend them from Russia. I don't know what the strategic thinking is here. Demonstrate to the entire world that we are pathetic weaklings and the us that we're useless dependants?
This war might be dumb but it was also predictable. Why were these no contingencies? Or to quote Churchill "If you want peace you have to prepare for war".
Who do you think spends more? Your neighbor vacationing a few hours away from home? Or that international visitor who wants to see everything they can in their one week in the country?
So let me get this straight. Foreign tourist spend less money in your country than domestic tourists because the foreign tourist are driving in with an RV and living off of a fifty pound bag of rice during their vacation?
Fwiw, there are a lot of highly frugal people in eg the surfer/kiting community (example!) which do indeed spend pretty much nothing where they're visiting for their hobby.
And they do often smell and leave trash behind.
So I can imagine that being true if you're living in one of those hotspots... It's a hard topic though
Let me set this straight: My point is you have an incorrect idea of how much space a month of food (and it needn't all be rice; that just illustrates the point) takes up. You can readily fit it in an RV, especially a big one.
I'm struck by the wild recklessness and unrestrained power of these administration employees. Musk is the most prominent example. I've never even heard of Sacks until now. If it's any consolation these guys crashing and burning seems to be the rule. Trump likes results and hates headaches.
One exception is Jared Isaacman the billionaire head of NASA who experienced a bit of a roller coaster. Unlike the previous 2 i think he will actually do a good job.
One thing that stands out about Trump is how accessible he is. Apparently he takes cold calls and will listen to ideas from anyone (this includes laura loomer, but still).
> If everyone can call the president, does it matter if anyone does? It sounds like a koan but isn’t that far from reality. Donald Trump’s personal cellphone number has been making the rounds among Washington reporters, dozens of whom have used it over the past few weeks to score brief interview after brief interview with the leader of the free world about his ongoing war with Iran. A partial list of media organizations that have published “exclusive” or “scoop”-y quotes after hitting up Trump’s iPhone includes leading print publications like the New York Times, TV networks (ABC, NBC, PBS, and CNN), foreign newspapers (the Daily Telegraph and Times of Israel), and no fewer than four outlets with Washington in their names (the Post, Examiner, Reporter, and Free Beacon).
> A comedian pretending to be Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., says he talked on the phone with President Donald Trump earlier this week in an epic recorded prank call during which the president discussed a range of policy topics.
Allegedly he'll pick up the phone even for numbers he doesn't recognise. I guess to convince him you have to make it clear how your idea will increase the glory and honour of Donald J Trump.
In all seriousness i think that combo is better then a senior citizen who can barely be reached by his own advisors and is unclear how much of the situation he actually understands. (with Trump it's either zero, Fox News or 4d chess depending on who you ask, but the answer will always be given with confidence).
This is not surprising as other manufacturers continue moving away from producing cheap cars. One notable exception is dacia.
For all the China lovers here it's not a clear sign of Chinese superiority. I saw a video on youtube recently exploring BYD. It's success is due to the fact that the Chinese government as part of their plan to dominate the global car industry gives them massive amounts of money. Which manufacturer can compete with that? European tariffs in the near future looks likely.
Among other things the video explores some of BYD's shadier practices including artificially inflating domestic sales and not paying suppliers for up to 9 months.
I have my doubts whether their success is sustainable.
I hear this all the time, but I would point out that US car manufacturers are heavily subsidized as well. I’m sure other countries do their own things that effectively subsidize their automotive industries as well.
NAFTA and its successor keeps a lot of automotive production and assembly in North America.
The chicken tax protects American manufacturers from foreign competition on trucks and vans.
Tesla was started on the foundations of inexpensive loans and a “free” factory courtesy of government economic stimulus.
GM was bailed out and briefly owned by the federal government, saved by below-market rate loans.
Stellantis is also an organization that owes its existence on a bankruptcy bail-out package.
The US financially incentivizes car usage, period. They underfund transit projects, allow the gas tax rate to lag inflation, make zoning laws that require car ownership, and more. One great way to subsidize car companies is to make car ownership mandatory.
State and local governments frequently give tax incentives to major assembly plants in the name of preserving jobs for their constituents. For example, GM had a $60 million tax break to keep the Lordstown, OH plant open. Some of this was clawed back after the plant closed anyway.
CAFE standards incentivize manufacturers to build SUVs that aren’t practical or popular in many other markets, essentially enshrining America-specific car design, further separating the American market from global car designs. Companies like BYD can’t compete with American cars if they don’t sell models that resemble popular choices like the Ford F-150, which are designs which would be completely insane if sold in the Chinese, Japanese, and European markets.
Ok but we are talking about tens of billions versus tens of millions. And some good old fashioned protectionism which has limited effect on the global market which we are discussing at the moment.
They've been hyped up recently by that sort of thing but a lot of the success is built on a dedicated founder who is exceptional at building things and has been keeping at it for ages.
Vid of Munger saying Wang Chuanfu is great and he tried to talk him out of starting a car company in 2003 https://youtu.be/PbgqkAQ41mM?t=69
Don't forget their rampant channel-stuffing, which is so flagrant, that it makes Ford's and GM's channel-stuffing antics look like kindergarten games in comparison.
Youtube is virtually unwatchable without it. I honestly have no idea how most people cope. Truth is, even with an adblocker there's so much rubbish on the page that gets in my way. Invidous is much better but it's too unreliable.
Sites that autoplay a video, which follows you as you scroll are the worst.
I like the Unhooked extension. You can select which parts of YouTube you want to remove (e. g. Shorts). My start page is empty, I need to visit the channel pages to watch their videos.
I actually like wizz. They are dirt cheap which is the only thing i care about. The ground crew don't openly despise you, unlike easyjet, they tolerate you and their cabins are all right. Just they don't have any customer service if anything goes wrong.
"Wizz; Not the worst airline you've ever flown on"
Came here to say that. I've recently tried linux mint and it just works. You don't have to use the terminal if you don't want to, but i do enjoy using it. It's a breath of fresh air after windows. I'm now waiting for the year of the linux desktop. Though i'm not holding my breath. The average person will carry on using their system until it grinds to a halt under all the crap they've installed on it, and then complain their computer is too old.
You are projecting a lot. Europe is obsessed with green energy. As soon as we in the UK start seeing any tangible benefits of green energy i.e, lower prices which is the main thing anyone who isn't an upper middle class liberal cares about then i'll be on here singing it's praises.
Green energy is challenging because it has many times less density then every other form out there, among other reasons.
I'm not confident that any of us will ever see lower prices due to green energy. Why would the power company who currently makes $XX billions of dollars per year ever provide that same service for $(XX-YY) billions of dollars per year when they could pocket the cost savings themselves and pump up their stock value?
Aside from privately owned solar/wind/battery on your own home, there's no evidence that I've seen anyway that indicates when utilities move to more green energy generation that those savings get passed on to customers. Perhaps, there are examples out there somewhere.
>However unpoular the IRGC or the
Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and
Israel are less popular.
That's just wishful thinking on your part. Every iranian i speak to curses their regime and praise trump and netanyahu. Their level of support for the people bombing their country is incredible.
Another shining example of how the diaspora is a representative sample from whence they came (not).
We've seen this with the Cuban diaspora, who were heavily anti-Castro. I mean let's just consider for a second who would flee a regime? Batista loyalists, mostly. So is it any surprise? This myth-making has become almost comical. Ted Cruz, for example, hates communism because Batista tortured his father [1].
The Persian diaspora is really no different. It's incredibly reactionary [2][3]. They were implicated in the attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA, for example.
The US and Israel are deeply popular in Iran. These are the same people who killed almost 200 school girls by double tapping a school. Is that really a surprise?
You have another thing which is that MBS (correctly) felt comfortable ignoring Biden. If he'd slighted Trump in that way it would probably take 2 private jets to undo the damage.
This war might be dumb but it was also predictable. Why were these no contingencies? Or to quote Churchill "If you want peace you have to prepare for war".