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Topic: OT-Politics Thread: please TRY to keep it civil, you damned dirty apes

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longhorn320

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43610 on: April 16, 2025, 10:42:13 AM »
From what I'm able to gather, the current wait-and-see will be if certain businesses re-shore to the US as hoped, or if they just ditch China and re-shore to somewhere like Vietnam or something. 

The goal clearly seems to be to wall off China and make sure we have trading allies that serve our interests and not China's.  Someone opined that the best way to have done that would've been to immediately hit China and woo the countries we want to get in deeper with.  Instead what happened was unilateral tariffs were levied/threatened across the board, driving countries we want to be allies with to keep their options open, not knowing what the US might do.  They're lining up to talk to us, but they're also still keeping their channels with China open, which seems to be the opposite of Trump's goal.  It made some sense to me.  He may get where he wants to go, but I don't know that he started out in the best way. 

While the stock market rebounds, the futures market remains uncertain, signaling investors still can't gauge their bets long-term.  That will inevitably break one way or the other, depending on what kind of deals get done. 
 
The goal is not to attack China
The goal is to treat all countries as they are treating us
China is just one of the biggest examples

Whats happening is that several other countries dont want to lose the US as a trading partner and will negotiate to keep it

The rewards in the stock market will come 
They won't let me give blood anymore. The burnt orange color scares the hell out of the doctors.

MikeDeTiger

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43611 on: April 16, 2025, 11:06:17 AM »
While I agree with you on countries wanting to keep the US as a trading partner, I'm not sure I agree with the core goal.  I believe China is the main target in all this, and I don't think the interest in other countries is so much geared toward treating them like they treat us, but rather to maneuver them into doing what we want.....largely with respect to China. 

YMMV, I'm just taking my best guess.  If I listen to Howard Lutnick, Peter Navarro, and Scott Bessent, they don't exactly paint a coherent, clear picture together that makes it easy to sus out what the goal is.  My operating premise is that Trump has been griping about China for decades, so I reason--maybe with unwarranted leaps--that they're the main concern, and the other countries are means to an end.  And that maybe Trump didn't start out using those means in the best way to achieve the end. 

But I root for results, and whether he had a big plan in mind the whole time, or he just started moving pieces to see what happens and figures he'd adjust on the fly as necessary, OR if I don't understand anything at all and should keep my mouth shut, it doesn't matter to me.  If it helps level out the unfair trade practices utee94 has talked about, I'm for it.  

utee94

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43612 on: April 16, 2025, 11:16:31 AM »
From what I'm able to gather, the current wait-and-see will be if certain businesses re-shore to the US as hoped, or if they just ditch China and re-shore to somewhere like Vietnam or something. 

The goal clearly seems to be to wall off China and make sure we have trading allies that serve our interests and not China's.  Someone opined that the best way to have done that would've been to immediately hit China and woo the countries we want to get in deeper with.  Instead what happened was unilateral tariffs were levied/threatened across the board, driving countries we want to be allies with to keep their options open, not knowing what the US might do.  They're lining up to talk to us, but they're also still keeping their channels with China open, which seems to be the opposite of Trump's goal.  It made some sense to me.  He may get where he wants to go, but I don't know that he started out in the best way. 

While the stock market rebounds, the futures market remains uncertain, signaling investors still can't gauge their bets long-term.  That will inevitably break one way or the other, depending on what kind of deals get done. 
 
He's already getting where he wants to go in many instances, but I don't disagree with the overall premise here, that this hasn't been the best way to get there.  And I also agree that the primary goal has always been against the CCP.

But that doesn't mean he didn't want to let other countries know they aren't free and clear.  Especially our "allies" as I mentioned before.  Have his moves been petty and spiteful?  Maybe?  Have they been counter-productive to the primary goal against the CCP?  Probably.  Have they completely blocked him from getting where I believe he wants to go?  A pretty clear no.

SFBadger96

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43613 on: April 16, 2025, 11:20:59 AM »
From the January/February Foreign Affairs ("The Strange Triumph of a Broken America," Michael Beckley, nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute):
"Tariffs, sanctions, and military threats could replace diplomacy and trade, allicances might become protection rackets, and immigration could be sharply restricted. This nativist turn might yield short-term gains for Amiercans, but it would ultimately hurt them by making the world they inhabit poorer and less secure. Trade and security networks could collapse, sparking resource-driven conflicts and killing off any possibility for cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation, climate change, pandemics, and other global challenges--accelerating a descent into anarchy." 
An interesting thought in a compelling piece. Recommended reading.

MikeDeTiger

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43614 on: April 16, 2025, 01:29:13 PM »
I read it.  Here is a link that's not behind a paywall, if anyone else wants to read it.  You can type "44" in the page-jump at the top, or scroll down to "page 50" printed on the pages. 

I agree it's worth reading. 

That said, I divide this into 4 broad categories, as I so often do: 
1)  stuff I don't know about and so can't really respond to
2)  stuff I do know about, and the facts were wrong (I wish he'd have cited sources)
3)  stuff I know about, and the facts were right, but his thought-process was faulty, leading to bad conclusions or even self-contradictions
4)  stuff where the facts were right and I'm in agreement

I'm not making a percentage determination here, just noting that all four categories were present in the piece.  I won't dissect them here.....that was a long piece and to respond to everything would take forever. 

I will offer that I agreed with quite a bit of what he said.  Probably most of it.  Category 4 is likely the biggest.  Still, there's a couple of very fundamental, root-level ideas and beliefs he appears to hold which I think are demonstrably not true.  On some things he seems to hold an underlying, here-unaddressed philosophy that I think is missing some things in order to line up with reality. 

Still recommend if you have the time. 
 

Gigem

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43615 on: April 16, 2025, 02:06:55 PM »
I'm glad I'm not the only one with the recurring college final exam nightmare dreams.  This was really bad for me the first 5-10 years I was out of college, but gradually they began to subside.  I have had a few more dreams about this recently, as well as one "in my underwear out in public" dreams recently.  

I was not a very good college student, and basically graduated with a "C" average if you don't count my transfer credits.  Then it would be a "B" average.  I regret not doing a little better in college, and if I had to do it all over again I think I would study something different.  

SFBadger96

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43616 on: April 16, 2025, 02:15:37 PM »
I read it.  Here is a link that's not behind a paywall, if anyone else wants to read it.  You can type "44" in the page-jump at the top, or scroll down to "page 50" printed on the pages. 

I agree it's worth reading. 

That said, I divide this into 4 broad categories, as I so often do: 
1)  stuff I don't know about and so can't really respond to
2)  stuff I do know about, and the facts were wrong (I wish he'd have cited sources)
3)  stuff I know about, and the facts were right, but his thought-process was faulty, leading to bad conclusions or even self-contradictions
4)  stuff where the facts were right and I'm in agreement

I'm not making a percentage determination here, just noting that all four categories were present in the piece.  I won't dissect them here.....that was a long piece and to respond to everything would take forever. 

I will offer that I agreed with quite a bit of what he said.  Probably most of it.  Category 4 is likely the biggest.  Still, there's a couple of very fundamental, root-level ideas and beliefs he appears to hold which I think are demonstrably not true.  On some things he seems to hold an underlying, here-unaddressed philosophy that I think is missing some things in order to line up with reality. 

Still recommend if you have the time. 
 
Foreign Affairs is, fundamentally, a bunch of op-eds. They need to be approached that way--which is to say I agree with how you approached this. It's not gospel truth, it's well-informed opinion, subject to all the bias issues that anyone's opinion includes. I don't know that I've ever read a piece in it that I've agreed with in its entirety, but I've rarely read a piece that I thought was such abject garbage that it wasn't worth considering, and I've often been exposed to new ideas or new thoughts about things that had not occurred to me and I hadn't seen discussed elsewhere.

MikeDeTiger

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43617 on: April 16, 2025, 03:08:21 PM »
I'm glad I'm not the only one with the recurring college final exam nightmare dreams.  This was really bad for me the first 5-10 years I was out of college, but gradually they began to subside.  I have had a few more dreams about this recently, as well as one "in my underwear out in public" dreams recently. 

I was not a very good college student, and basically graduated with a "C" average if you don't count my transfer credits.  Then it would be a "B" average.  I regret not doing a little better in college, and if I had to do it all over again I think I would study something different. 

Totally.  I was a bit of a piss-poor college student overall.  My freshman year was an objective disaster, after which I grew up and began to behave more like a college student, but I still didn't get nearly what I could out of it.  I'm inclined to say I'd study something else too, but, then I think about the people I met, the ones I still know, so many decisions that came out of it, and how a lot of things would probably be completely different, and how I'd have to be willing to scrap entire portions of my life.  But in a vacuum, yeah, for sure I'd pick a different major.

Went for a MS years later, way beyond the point I ever thought I'd go to school again.  The difference in maturity and clarity was striking.  The work was harder, the work-load was more, and the pressure was higher, but I was a way better student.  Straight A's, in fact.  

SFBadger96

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43618 on: April 16, 2025, 03:19:42 PM »
Re Foreign Affairs, I would also add that, as the name of the publication suggests, most of the authors are people that generally favor robust foriegn policy (some might say intervensionist). There aren't a lot of writers advocating isolationism in its pages. On the whole I think it leans towards the international politics of George H.W. Bush.

Cincydawg

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43619 on: April 17, 2025, 05:58:53 AM »
The best things to read and consider are well written articles/opinions that challenge your own.

If you are reading one and head nodding the whole time, it's kind of a waste of effort.


Cincydawg

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Re: In other news (apolitical thread)...
« Reply #43620 on: April 17, 2025, 03:25:24 PM »
Brightline lost nearly $493 million during the first nine months of 2024, its latest financial report from December says, even as it brought in nearly $138 million from ticket sales and other sources of money.

Brightline breaks vow to Florida commuters, doesn't reinstate pass
Brightline breaks vow to Florida commuters, doesn't reinstate pass

847badgerfan

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Re: Re: In other news (apolitical thread)...
« Reply #43621 on: April 17, 2025, 03:35:13 PM »
So far, I'm glad none of my money went to that thing.
U RAH RAH! WIS CON SIN!


Cincydawg

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Re: OT-Catch all thread - Personal attacks will result in a time out
« Reply #43623 on: April 18, 2025, 08:33:22 AM »
Some did, they got Federal dollars too.

I don't really understand a path to profitability if they lost $493 million and had $138 million in ticket sales.  That is WAY upside down.

 

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