psychlops

Companies can make more baseball cards and beanie babies. Enforced scarcity gives bitcoin value.

Thank you for writing this. You are absolutely correct and made me step back to realize that the dollar is a global reserve currency and the US will do everything it takes to keep it that way.

Oh, Erdogan consolidated his power over the last few decades democratically. Rural turks came out in mass to vote for him over past decades. Incidentally, in the past he was actually jailed by his political opponents and banned from politics.

You must be confusing my posts with someone else. Or claim doesn't mean what you think it means. Forgive me if it's difficult to forgive you when you place so much negative spin on what I wrote.

Or if the judiciary has any sort of bias as is implied in this case. (I don't pretend to know the details)

I enthusiastically endorse the separation of powers and firmly believe that people should follow systems, not people. Perhaps it just a global coincidence, but the recent spate of candidate disqualification (US, Romania, Turkey, France) gives the appearance of democratic decay.

> The only thing anti-democratic is to allow someone that does not respect the democratic rules for running for office, for they will undermine democracy from within.

Surely you see the catch in this belief. If there is a group of people who can "allow" others to run for election then the system is not democratic at its core.

If we've learned anything from the California fires, the culprit will be global warming.

Thank you for clarifying, it did not occur to me that member states paid VATs. From outside the EU, the VAT is no different than a tariff. They are both taxes which inflate the cost to do business. From your example, I think it's fair to sum the state taxes into US tariffs for comparison.

You did send me down a research rabbit hole trying to better understand VAT. It's complex so I picked a car as a test product. As a comparison, I found that to import a car from Germany into the US it costs 2.5% of the cars value. North Carolina charges an additional 3% state tax on it for a grand total of 5.5%.

To import the same German car into France the cost is (cough) 20%.

To import an American car into France the same 20% is paid plus a 10% import fee for a total of 30%. I'm sure I'm glazing over many, many smaller charges/exemptions in these examples.

To answer your question about protection using the numbers above, companies outside the eu that want to compete at an equal price with an equivalent German car would need to do so with a product that is at least 10% cheaper.

I could be wrong, but think the German economy just broke last week when they blew the cap off their debt ceiling and kicked current day payments to future generations. Note that Germany protects its production with tariffs and VATs, the rough average I've found is 19-21%.

I think China is the one to watch. They have double the energy output of the US and are basically the production capital of the world for the foreseeable future unless something changes.

Oh, I think that's inevitable for the reasons you listed. DOGE would need to do way more to actually matter. Observing the current upheaval due to minimal cutting guarantees the future will be Argentina.

The upside is the debt decreases in value as the currency inflates. So there's that.

> Who will afford to buy their expensive products?

Fewer and fewer people. Yes, a shrinking of the consumer economy. It will work, just not like it has in the past. As I see it, you are absolutely correct in your assessment. Absent a proactive approach, the alternative (which I think we will live to see) will be watching the system break.

Perhaps a lame duck president rebalancing tariffs can slow the slide, but I think the end result will be the same.

Perhaps? I can't imagine that either could take the loss of production capacity the way the US has. The global inflation of product prices alone is staggering to consider.

> Which parts will benefit from higher inflation?

All domestic producers which produce products that cost less than imported competitors.

I agree with you. The question to be answered is what kind of economy do americans want to have going forward. It's great to be in America at present, but what happens if global relations continue to deteriorate and fracture?

China would absolutely not want to have a reserve currency. Their export economy would be destroyed overnight.

Consider that this is the point of all the machinations. The US having the reserve currency is a liability in many ways and the direct reason why it's a consumer not producer economy.

Losing reserve status will be damaging to some parts of the american economy and create a boom in others.

Take a look at what current tariffs are across the world. The US isn't necessarily bullying as equalizing.

This sounds like a straw man. Do you have a link showing where supporters think Canada won't resist the US?

Columbia university can do whatever it wants. However, if they want to take free money from the federal government then they have to jump through more hoops.

That article you reference says nothing about dissolving academic departments. Perhaps you are referring to academic receivership.

Democracy works just fine either way. You just might not like the results.

Also, because a person doesn't have an education doesn't mean they are stupid or can't think critically. Further, there are plenty of educated people who vote for their favorite team.

Trump can't run for election again as it's his second term. Voting doesn't apply.

TIL, diplomas are not actually owned by the recipient.

I'm guilty of all your examples. It pains me so.

A legal procedure that protects citizens, which she isn't.

I'd invest large amounts of other people's money into it too.

One gamble her campaign made was that more people would vote for her specifically because she was black and/or female. I doubt there are any hard numbers, but I'd guess that number far overrode any racism/sexism vote.

Walz suggested he may run for 2028 so we may get lucky enough to witness your prediction. I'd bet against him winning more than one state before primaries.

The ending of that comparison is that Twitter's strength is that it takes far more effort to build it's network effect. Air quality data is easy.

It's not needed. It's just easier if americans pay for things.

He won mostly because his opponent was even worse. The US deserves better choices.

> Your second point is silly. Basically you are saying that EVs are doomed because EVs are already selling too much. Thats like the old joke that nobody goes to this restaurant anymore because it is too crowded.

I found it thought provoking rather than silly. Anecdotally, I've noticed EVs have gone from a type of car frequently seen on road trips to more of a city vehicle. This confines their location and purchasers.

I agree, except with your last sentence. There are many examples of efficient organizations that extract billions from the market from willing participants.

Private companies are funded by willing participants and have economic incentives to be efficient. The incentives for your electric company and other government programs for efficiency are not nearly so clear. It seems reasonable to favor efficiency wherever possible.