America has 2 major exports --- stability and debt. And these are interconnected. When stability declines, financing debt becomes more expensive.
The current administration is struggling to figure this out.
You can't maintain that if the primary "consumers" of those exports are not actual allies.
Yes, all the more reason why attacking our allies is pure insanity.
A lot of the countries we just attacked in the "trade war" are the same ones who buy our Treasury bonds.
"Tariff Man" failed to make this obvious connection until after it was demonstrated to him. T-Bill yields jumped half a percent in a week after he made a complete fool of himself with "Liberation Day" in the WH rose garden. With one act of utter stupidity, "Tariff Man" cost the country more than DOGE has saved.
Because blanket generalizations suck, I'll point out that 48.34% of voters did recognize a con artist.
Honestly this next four years is going to be great everywhere else now that we're becoming desensitized to the news again.
I've never seen such a unifying figure in my life -- and the opportunity for Canada in the next decade is huge.
Decoupling is a surgical procedure we've been putting off for too long.
I liked that turkish saying that goes like "When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a sultan. The palace becomes a circus."
> "Odd," said Arthur. "I thought you said it was a democracy."
> "I did," said Ford. "It is."
> "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
> "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
> "You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
> "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
> "But," said Arthur, going in for the big one again, "why?"
> "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in.”
Negative partisanship is a hell of a drug.
Not shocking, we’re all bundled into a clown car, you get that lurching “here we go” feeling.
That’s when I knew it was propaganda.
Given the current climate, I’m not surprised that China is perceived as a more positive role than the US.
From my own perspective; They seem to be interested in maintaining stability in international trade, which keeps peace and allows people to keep their jobs.
China is a communist country with real life re-education camps. They manipulate markets and steal intellectual property. They’ve been cozied up to authoritarian and oppressive regimes, like Russia, for a long time.
That’s worse for stability in my opinion.
The average non-party Chinese family lives in a less 60 SQ meters home. Works 60 hours a week, has no assets, and is marketed cigarettes by the government.
People bitching about the US and praising China are ridiculous.
The fact that other countries aren't standing up to China as much as the US is now is the thing that's really mind bending.
There really is no comparison. China has real life re-education camps not make believe ones.
That's the real change.
The drop of America is consistent with it's president behaviour towards its allies, but it's still surprising that it's so intense that now China seems better for the world than it was a few months ago, even though nothing really changed.
Rocking the world's financial markets and disappearing people is nothing? I honestly don't know how to process such an opinion...
Worth a couple of points at least.
Possibly a better poll would be to arrange the countries in order of trustworthiness etc.
I have seen estimates that dissolving USAID has caused 10,000 excess deaths, so far.
They threatened three countries with military invasion.
They placed real punitive tariffs on most of the world besides Russia.
They began abducting legal foreign residents and sending some to a foreign prison camp, and not complying with legal orders to return them.
They are responsible for a surge of detained foreign visitors at the border in prison like conditions, sometimes with limited access to their embassies.
They disavowed NATO, saying Europe would have to be responsible for its own security.
I could go on, but China is in fact a more reliable and a more responsible world actor than the US now.
Maybe if you run an international business? So like, 0.01% of citizens?
I actually kind of like that the US is no longer being put on a pedestal. Let someone else have a turn. See how they do, maybe good things will happen.
I suspect that more than %0.01 of the Americans will be impacted.
Is it a bad thing if those giant tech companies come back down to earth? I would argue no. They do not provide value, they extract it, generally, and play shitty games with taxes.
What good does Meta provide to humanity? Why do I pay netflix to watch ads? Why does google ignore their own search api directives when I put a word in quotes? (To show ads) The only possible actual value amazon created is AWS, the rest is peddling garbage products from garbage vendors. Apple lost the plot somehow with their sw/hw stack, they could use a wakeup. And tesla, ironically, seems poised to be the first domino to tip, the cybertruck is a disaster.
If those companies have such a significant impact on global citizens, they probably should blow up, that isn't a "good thing" at all, that much influence.
"100 supply, 101 demand: price goes up. 100 supply, 99 demand: price goes down."
Trump and his Administration along with the Republicans have shit the bed and in some perverted way love it and keep shitty the bed. How do we get through the next 4 years with a complete clown in office is anyone's guess. My only hope as an Independent is that the Democrats take the House and Senate in 2 years.
Pretty sure that the US reputation dropped during Trump's first term, but this time he surely has broken his personal record. Also I think this time it's not only Trump: his oligarchs probably had an influence on that (starting with Musk and his Nazi salutes).
Of course, the threats to invade Canada and EU territories (amongst others) had an impact, too. As for the tariffs, I really feel like it's helping China's reputation: they stay strong against the bully who seems to be about to lose that battle.
nottorp•3h ago
keerthiko•3h ago
TonyTrapp•3h ago