There's a hauntingly beautiful irony in these morons thinking that carefully crafted American hegemony was actually weak and woke, and they would be the ones who would do Power and Dominance properly, and immediately bringing everything crashing down
that's the thing about unsubsidized private-sector economies: the state may want something done, but if nobody wants to do it, and the state isn't willing to pay for it directly ... it doesn't get done
the one mitigating factor of the heavy handed attempts to open American natural resources to mineral extraction is that almost no one wants to invest in it.
this is in part because they believe everyone’s already out to get them, so they don’t see it as making new enemies at all
In all seriousness, sincerely concerned for how Hegseth is going to mess up PME now that his gin-soaked gaze has turned upon it.
Imposing political litmus tests on PME instructors - the likely plan - will meaningfully damage the institutions and thus US security in the long term.
A PUBLIC GOOD
Mitch McConnell made a strategic choice that preserving the unity of the republican party was preferable to a modest increase in domestic spending in the medium term and we're all paying for it
When people talk about changing birth rates without recreating the circumstances that was obviously responsible for the high birth rates of the past, I genuinely wonder what dial they are wanting to rotate and what lever they're wanting to pull.
I wouldn’t have sieged the Strait of Hormuz. I would have taken it immediately,
we need broad based taxation to deal with the debt, and if we’re able to fix our revenue you don’t need to actually do austerity. you just need to raise taxes to the levels that normal countries have them. we’re the richest society on earth, the vast majority can afford to pay much more
the us has a uniquely long debt runway because we have constructed the world system in such a way as to give us that runway. the idea that debt can never hurt us is absurd because why would anybody buy government debt if it was possible for us to repudiate it without consequence
america imports a lot of things, and making all of them much more expensive is a bad idea. not to mention defaulting also creates potential inflationary problems because the fed can’t do open market operations anymore to take money out of the economy, but still has to print to cover spending
this isn’t really true, because money is only worth what people say it’s worth. if we defaulted on the debt we would both destroy the global economy (because us debt is seen as the safest type of asset and underwrites a lot of things) and also destroy demand for the dollar, tanking its value.
i'm 1000% in favor of scapegoating the ultrawealthy, they have spent recent years aggressively arguing that they are a big part of the problem, but everyone's gonna end up paying these bills. i'm fine with breaking them to do it — absolutely do that — but that alone won't do it.
it's not just going to be serious debt people, tbh, like, it is actually going to a capital P problem by the time a dem takes office, not a made-up one, and anyone running for office this year or in two years is going to have to be part of a solution, we actually *can't* kick the can much further
what i want to see out of future democratic party leaders is a recognition that federal spending is legitimately good, that we should do more of it, and that doing so will require collective contribution that many, many people are going to scream absolute bloody murder about
Calfornia could solve literally all of its problems if politicians were willing to bite the bullet and fix their property tax scheme but instead they would rather handicap the most naturally gifted place on the planet for no reason
"government can't deliver so you might as well not pay into it" is nothing more than a suicide note for left and liberal governance
the middle class will be taxed.
you will pay the transit fares.
shoplifting is bad.
you will live as a civilized person in a mutually co-operative society or you can live in the woods like the animal you are.
this triple whammy of Dems coming out with big tax cut proposals is dangerously close to negatively polarizing me against "tax the rich" rhetoric
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO PAY THEIR TAXES
rent seeking is a vital human right, but leftistly
what if the second guy also has a medical event. do you need a third guy? hell, since the engine could theoretically break at some point should you have a hundred guys standing by to get out and push?
I also wanna point out that social pressures are weighted towards boosting claims that shit sucks and suppressing people who are doing well. "oh yeah well I'm doing terribly" is considered normatively fine and "huh, I'm doing great" is an act of violence.
this obviously affect discursive ratios!
I will say one thing: nothing demonstrates the value of military history, the staff and war colleges, and reading military theory like watching a war conducted by a bunch of guys who skipped all of that in favor of 'manliness' and push-ups.
Increasingly convinced they're going to find a way to blunder a U.S. Navy warship. Not because Iran appears possessed of any special genius, though they're putting up a better fight than most recent U.S. adversaries. Just because the administration will want the Ford to pop a wheelie for content.
A rich text this, my favourite being the use of the word 'Karens' to describe commodities traders.
Might have to amend 'all stories are about management, other than the ones that are about commodities' to 'all stories are actually about people's weird views on gender'.
I know in my heart if liu didn’t have a dissident dad they would paint her as a spy
american politics nerds have spent like half a century making “jumbo” jokes about LBJ so not sure if that actually dulls it all that much
i thought it was too dangerous and totalitarian here in new york city, that's why i moved to a strip mall located in the desert between four separate countries with nuclear weapons that hate each other and are constantly at war
Wait, was this whole war just another excuse to not retire the A-10?
