I think Xi might have figured out Trump’s secret. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing. He scares people into reacting by being reckless, then claims a win for getting a reaction.
Basically, this strategy Trump and Putin and their ilk do never works outside of their little bubble. Their whole game is to tear everyone else in their sphere of influence down to their level, so that they can compete effectively and dominate, but there are always significant threats outside of the sphere. Against which we are now more or less powerless.
They're not really ignoring him though. They've discontinued exports of rare earth and are dumping debt. It's a calculated strategic response to capitalise on an epic mistake.
Not really, he backed down on tariffs last week thanks to Canada and Japan. The truth is, Trump has put the US into a very, very precarious position. They have a lot of debt to refinance soon, and if the rest of the world wanted to, they could dramatically increase the interest rates paid on that by coordinating a sell-off of US debt.
Absolutely not. Bankruptcy proceedings get your financial records gone over with a fine tooth comb. You need to keep your cover business healthy within reason to fly under the radar. You didn't see the mob casinos going bankrupt.
It wasn't just stopping exports to the US, they've stopped exporting rare earth elements worldwide starting yesterday. Plus, they are starting to unload billion of debt we owe them. It's almost as if Trump is intentionally trying to destroy our country in the morning, and then later in the day he wants to be the bully negotiator without understanding his precarious position.
You remember r/shitamericanssay? Last time he won, there were a lot of people talking about stuff Europe has but America doesn't, and, if you browse the posts there, a lot of Americans responding how Europe is backwards, in the stone age, and what they do have is paid for by America, out of benevolence.
The master isn't angry, the master croaked, and his idiot son with anger issues is in charge now. The only question is if the EU will have the foresight to see the writing on the wall and bail before they're caught in the undertow.
Like I said, our EU leaders are puppets, they don't have our interests in mind.
They were perfectly fine with the slow death of seeing the economy and people suffer after the Nordstream US terrorist act.
Not a peep from them.
And even now they're doing exactly what Trump wanted, spending more on useless killing toys.
And it's a whole lot more.
Every country's going to spend billions of money they don't have and you know where they're going to get it from.
The already unhappy lowest layer of the population.
Probably the last drop to push the extreme right in power. We're almost in the 30's again.
At least they seem to be buying domestic this time around. I mean, I fully expect them to Hillary it, despite everything, but it's not impossible to pull out of the tailspin yet.
Lot of discovery going on but not a lot of production yet but is estimated to be done of the largest reserves globally. The fact the minerals are here gives these idiots one more reason tokeep pushing this 51st rhetoric.
As much as I don't like the Chinese government for all the censorship and etc, they do really know what they're doing in terms of managing the economy and the infrastructure it relies on, as far as I can tell. Including their education system, it's fairly shocking how many of the top engineering and CS colleges are in China.
Censorship? Its rich talking censorship in China when America is one of the most propagandized nations in existence. If I was China I would also censor the fuck out of America.
There different forms of censorship. Flooding the dominant platforms with the official message to obscure opposition opinions, shadowbanning posts, etc are softer forms of censorship but are still censorship. The rulership class is fine with people voicing their opinions if they feel it doesn't threaten their power. They will crack down harder when that feeling changes.
It turns out that maximizing for shareholder profit isn’t a sustainable way to run a business, and it actually burns your company to the ground after a few short years.
I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They've also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.
At least it's only a monopoly because everyone else is apparently idiots when it comes to long term planning. I'm dreading the day when they turn to the dark side. Long away may it be.
Valve is Augustus Caesar: a benevolent dictator doing great things for their people. I'm afraid of what will happen when Gaben retires, how long will it take before we find gaming's Nero?
That's very possible. Trump gave them excuse to do this. They already set up a deal with Korea and Japan (and each two hate each other), and if they would set up a trade deal with EU then the US will be the only loser.
Trump really hurt US with the tariffs on everyone (except Russia, North Korea and Belarus)
I hope. I'll miss my cheap goods but I have enough. I feel bad for young americans as cheap goods was one of the only perks left to living in this country.
Cheap gas I guess will be one of the last dominoes to fall. That, and the collapse of the petro-dollar system, will be the final nails in the coffin of our economy.
Xi is more than happy to have a scapegoat for his economic troubles so the people and the powerful don't hang him. Trump sometimes wants to speed run into the hanging and then realizes he really can't piss off his own power base if he wants to keep his neck.
Yeah in a global environment essentially China is the workforce/factory workers of the previous gilded age.
And it's pretty much exactly my point that their union (the government) is finally pushing back against the management while being not exactly kind to their workers.
We are essentially reliving through a new worker rebellion but from the governments of the global south with their own layers of local nuance underneath that.
Weird times.
The rebellion is mostly demographics. We are at a point, where globalization reached most countries. At the same time births are around 138million ± 5milliion since 40 years. China itself even has population decline.
Yeah in a global environment essentially China is the workforce/factory workers of the previous gilded age.
Maybe 15-20 years ago, but not so much anymore. Cost of labor has been rising in China dramatically to the point that a lot of manufacturing is leaving China.
Their wages are going up and young workers aren't as interested in living the slave labor experience living in foxconn dorms working 100% of their time. It's not a union but the overall effects are that policies are being forced to be more pro worker/ better salary and conditions just to meet staffing levels.
I don't think anyone needs to read his book up know he's a fuck up. China doesn't care how much we try and upset their apple cart, they aren't going to play Trump's game.
Then everyone dumps on him, and he says the roll back was fake news and it's still happening, but nobody even in the administration knows what's going on.
Canada should have done this on everything. If the Americans can afford the tariff then there is room for us to charge more. Not really but yeah should do it.
If only.. America holds 20% of global purchasing power so an export tax like that would result in needing to lower local interest rates to boost domestic productivity, which would decrease foreign investment, eventually weakening the local currency.
It would be hilarious if a country that exports very little to nothing to the US did it to make a point though. Totally on board with that.
America holdsheld 20% of global purchasing power...
Truth be told, I think the only thing we really produced in the US was the US dollar. Sounds like it's the number 1 export for the US, and trump just toppled demand for it.
That wouldn't really do much for China. The reason the tariffs hurt us is that we sent all our manufacturing to them (along with a few other countries). So the tariffs only make our stuff cost more. Footing the bill like that would just weaken China's position.
Didn't this happen last time? Less dramatically, but still.
He puts in a bunch of tariffs. China reciprocates. The market is thrown into chaos. He shouts and screams. China ignores him. He backtracks. China ends the tariffs but doesn't do anything to try and appease him. He claims it's a victory. His fluffers say the tariffs were just to bring China to the table, which justifies the hit to the market, despite the fact China didn't come to the table and President Pigshit didn't articulate what China could actually give him to end the tariffs.
The target audience of The Art of War was not soldiers or even officers. It was nobles who would step out of their gilded halls and just fuck everything up with stupid decisions that no moderately experienced military man would even dream of.
...
Trump keeps begging for China deal while bragging about phone calls kissing his ass. No foreign meetings. No envoy sent to China.
China limits US studio film releases
Bessent says Tariffs are no joke. China must make a deal.
Chinese airlines refuse Boeing+parts deliveries (reported as "China orders", but leopards were not going to make US aerospace affordable at 125% tariffs.
Despite that, Fox News will continue stacking his invisible laurels. Doesn't matter if his policy does anything. All that matters is that his followers are convinced that the policies are doing something.
No they didn't. This is in reference to the announced exceptions for electronics like phones, which is a pretty big category. That's effectively dropping tariffs on a big chunk. That announcement was then unannounced by trump but who knows. The general perception is that trump wants tariffs but will fold when the economy catches fire and wants China to make a big deal with him so he can claim victory.
Say what you will about China’s political system. At least it is much more of a meritocracy. The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements.
In the US the people can elect a charlatan with no experience whatsoever, i.e. an outsider, and some will spin this as a good thing. Would you hire an outsider doctor or plumber?
Edit: since people are failing to understand the idea. Remember how Republicans mocked Obama for being a community organizer? Imagine the opposite, any president must have some demonstrable experience as a community organizer. It is not a panacea, Obama still committed war crimes and was beholden to moneyed interests but much much much more qualified than Trump could ever be. Merit doesn’t mean the person will be good but that they will be qualified.
There is just no way in hell that Xi Jinping (age 71 right now) keeps being the best option for China's leadership for 10+ years under a meritocratic ideal.
Not sure whether Xi keeping the job is faltering of the CCP's ideal of collective leadership, or him being the guy the collective leadership wants as figurehead. They certainly don't want a second Mao that's for sure.
How is it a complicated to verify claim? Even if you choose to ignore the obvious outcomes, there’s plenty of publications and studies about it.
That’s the problem with limiting yourself to “China experts” from the West, they never bother to learn the language or learn about China’s history and politics.
In China all politicians including the premier start out as civil servants and a required to pass an entrance exam and have to climb up the ranks.
The US could probably adopt some of this without changing too much. A simple spelling test could have weeded out Trump. Ideally, a number of years of experience in civil service/local politics, should also be required to run for president.
It should be be implicitly obvious so it shouldn’t be explicitly stated. But we are simply comparing how the two systems position people of power. It is not about the people themselves in the positions. Think of it like a company that has its CEO climb up the ranks from an entry level employee vs a company that brings outsiders. Except the latter company leaves the decision to mostly an unqualified mass that sometimes hires a highly unqualified person. Both companies can be evil, or the former evil and the latter good, none of this matters to the point that I’m making.
Not really the CCP is basically using a reformed Mandarin system. To rise within the ranks of the party they look at a combination of how well the thing you administered (e.g. a state factory) performed in comparison to whatever is comparable, as well as opinion polls of the local population, which aside from making sure that you won't be hated (which could cause disquiet and if there's one thing the CCP doesn't want then that's that) also doubles at sniffing out manipulated numbers, the people are generally quite good at spotting corrupt officials. If you rank well within your cohort you get promoted from administering a factory to administering local industry, then regional, etc, etc. What doesn't happen any more is grading people based on how good their poetry is as well as cutting off their balls but the basic system is, broad strokes, similar to how Imperial China educated and selected its civil servants.
That doesn't mean that there's not corruption and grift going on, there's still some degree of princeling privilege but it's basically impossible to fail upwards in the CCP. Knowing people or being someone's kid might open some doors, but it's not going to guarantee you anything. It also means that the top ranks are full of for lack of better characterisation engineer bureaucrats.
Or, put differently: If the CCP was completely incapable they would've long lost power. Their whole legitimacy hinges on being perceived as good administrators, they know that, and they're doing their darnedest to not lose it. Propaganda and secret police alone is not sufficient, history has shown that again and again, you actually need to be good at stuff that's important to people or they cease to tolerate you.
This isn't at all true. It has the same corruption as everywhere else. Those in power do everything they can to keep it. Why do you think Pooh Bear got himself made president for life? That wasn't on merit, he just had enough political power to make it that way.
He got up to the point that he can do that through merit. He didn’t suddenly get elected as premier. The point I’m trying to make went right past you. “I point to the stars, you look at my fingertips”.
This isn’t about Xi himself or Trump himself. Xi could be worse than Netanyahu, Trump could be better than Sinwar. It is about how those in power get there, how the system selects its leaders. I tried giving an analogy in my other comment.
The problem is that no one is at the breaking point yet. You can still go to work, buy things, have a family day, and if you're a US citizen, you feel safe.
Now, will that change? Yes, it will. Then maybe enough people will wake up, but until then... no one is going to risk death or getting their families killed. No mass organized resistance to join. Don't act like it wouldn't happen to your country either because it can.
It's not easy to just saddle up against the greatest superpower to ever exist on Earth.
Yeah all these people are acting like there was a 'Stop Fascism' button we just decided not to press which is just ignorant. It's easy to be Mr. TearTheSystemDown from behind a keyboard an ocean away. If it really affects them so much and is so easy why not just come over and do it yourself?
If it would keep trump out of office for another four years it would make the odds of him ever regaining power vanishingly small; he'd be in his mid eighties in the next election, and all the lawsuits against him wouldn't have been thrown out.
Say what you will about Biden, but he was pretty effective at pausing the slide into fascism. He strengthened ties with our allies and invested in infrastructure. If Harris had won we could have taken back the Supreme Court and actually started reversing course.
Well it relied on trump being in power to take effect. Having a useful idiot in the executive opens a lot of doors. I don't see how the Republicans could seize power without him, Vance wasn't ever going to win on his own.
Sure and a great movement. This guy was talking about just rising up with violence. Not happening unless you want a quick death. I'm all for mass protesting and it's a good sign it's getting a massive following.
Fascism means authoritarian nationalism with contempt for democracy, glorification of strength, and scapegoating of enemies. Trump ticks a lot of those boxes—that’s why I used the word.
I think Xi might have figured out Trump’s secret. He has no fucking clue what he’s doing. He scares people into reacting by being reckless, then claims a win for getting a reaction.
Ignoring trolls takes their power away.
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
("Quand l'ennemi fait un faux mouvement, il faut se garder de l'interrompre" --Napoleon)
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weak-strongman
Basically, this strategy Trump and Putin and their ilk do never works outside of their little bubble. Their whole game is to tear everyone else in their sphere of influence down to their level, so that they can compete effectively and dominate, but there are always significant threats outside of the sphere. Against which we are now more or less powerless.
They're not really ignoring him though. They've discontinued exports of rare earth and are dumping debt. It's a calculated strategic response to capitalise on an epic mistake.
This only works if you're China. Most other countries would just be ignored
Not really, he backed down on tariffs last week thanks to Canada and Japan. The truth is, Trump has put the US into a very, very precarious position. They have a lot of debt to refinance soon, and if the rest of the world wanted to, they could dramatically increase the interest rates paid on that by coordinating a sell-off of US debt.
Putin has had trump's number for years
"secret"
China discovers the secret to life:
Don't feed the trolls.
I hope other leaders learn from this.
That's business school from a guy who ran casinos into the ground. Nice work America.
It's true. "Casinos," plural. CASINOS PLURAL, EVERYBODY.
y'all are spelling 'russian money laundering operations' wrong.
Even worse. How does one bankrupt a Russian money laundering operation? You'd think they would do their best to keep that shit running.
I think they intentionally go out of business before the Feds have a chance to investigate it.
They were actually fined for undeclared foreign transactions, but it was during their bankruptcy so it got mostly ignored by history
And you'd certainly want to keep your American fence on a tight leash for the foreseeable
What?
Absolutely not. Bankruptcy proceedings get your financial records gone over with a fine tooth comb. You need to keep your cover business healthy within reason to fly under the radar. You didn't see the mob casinos going bankrupt.
Nah, nah, nah, see "Russian money laundering operations" is the synonym for the hotels and university.
I thought the consensus was that was money laundering?
I found this https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html
So it’s at least alleged and they paid to settle. But wouldn’t you want to keep your laundry working? Idk
They probably figured out better ways to do it through Trump org and not have to subject themselves to casino regulator investigations.
Everyone is somehow missing China cutting off rare earth metals the US relies on for technology and defense
It wasn't just stopping exports to the US, they've stopped exporting rare earth elements worldwide starting yesterday. Plus, they are starting to unload billion of debt we owe them. It's almost as if Trump is intentionally trying to destroy our country in the morning, and then later in the day he wants to be the bully negotiator without understanding his precarious position.
You remember r/shitamericanssay? Last time he won, there were a lot of people talking about stuff Europe has but America doesn't, and, if you browse the posts there, a lot of Americans responding how Europe is backwards, in the stone age, and what they do have is paid for by America, out of benevolence.
Well, those folks are in charge now.
Our EU 'leaders' are US bootlickers.
They're a bit upset now that master is angry.
The master isn't angry, the master croaked, and his idiot son with anger issues is in charge now. The only question is if the EU will have the foresight to see the writing on the wall and bail before they're caught in the undertow.
Like I said, our EU leaders are puppets, they don't have our interests in mind.
They were perfectly fine with the slow death of seeing the economy and people suffer after the Nordstream US terrorist act.
Not a peep from them.
And even now they're doing exactly what Trump wanted, spending more on useless killing toys.
And it's a whole lot more.
Every country's going to spend billions of money they don't have and you know where they're going to get it from.
The already unhappy lowest layer of the population.
Probably the last drop to push the extreme right in power. We're almost in the 30's again.
"And even now they’re doing exactly what Trump wanted, spending more on useless killing toys."
Useless? Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin won't stop there.
To be honest, it doesn't look like that one's gonna be his decision to make.
That's the spirit, of to the eastern front!
At least they seem to be buying domestic this time around. I mean, I fully expect them to Hillary it, despite everything, but it's not impossible to pull out of the tailspin yet.
I LOLed at buying F-35's but produced in Italy.
There wouldn't be much point merely stopping export to the US because some other country could just on-sell to the US.
He really doesn't understand his precarious position and the harm he has done and is doing.
That's gonna tank the dollar hard
Yeah USD is down 3% for the week. 8 for the year
Sounds good to me
This is how the CoD storyline started.
I think the story here will go very differently now that the US army can't ensure it's exclusively pro-US.
I'm realizing the structure of our supply chains is not common knowledge at all. Basically everything has a part from China. That and plastic.
Canada didn't. It'd be a primary reason for the US to go stupid and try invading us, we're a much closer source of rare earths.
Australia is the only other major exporter, apart from China, at 15% of global supply. I have never heard of Canada producing significant quantites?
Lot of discovery going on but not a lot of production yet but is estimated to be done of the largest reserves globally. The fact the minerals are here gives these idiots one more reason tokeep pushing this 51st rhetoric.
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-metals-facts/rare-earth-elements-facts
Oooo that's good to know
Do nothing, win!
As much as I don't like the Chinese government for all the censorship and etc, they do really know what they're doing in terms of managing the economy and the infrastructure it relies on, as far as I can tell. Including their education system, it's fairly shocking how many of the top engineering and CS colleges are in China.
Censorship? Its rich talking censorship in China when America is one of the most propagandized nations in existence. If I was China I would also censor the fuck out of America.
Censorship and propaganda are different
What a weird comment to make
Both are tools to control the narrative.
But you can just talk about censorship in America
There different forms of censorship. Flooding the dominant platforms with the official message to obscure opposition opinions, shadowbanning posts, etc are softer forms of censorship but are still censorship. The rulership class is fine with people voicing their opinions if they feel it doesn't threaten their power. They will crack down harder when that feeling changes.
America has both, so wtf you on about?
And so does China? Both are bad, it doesn't have to be either or.
Exactly, so reply to the ones acting like America doesnt, not me
How does the US being full of propaganda change the fact that China has a lot of censorship?
Both can be true at the same time, you know...
Its almost like hegemonies and individual freedoms can be at odds with each other no matter what country it is.
How does the US having propaganda mean they dont have censorship? America literally has a fuckton of both.
Right and so does China, there's nothing to defend here.
Yes, he is acting like America doesnt have censorship
I was gonna post that one but "What is this business strategy called" gets me every time
It's called not being an utter moron.
It turns out that maximizing for shareholder profit isn’t a sustainable way to run a business, and it actually burns your company to the ground after a few short years.
Also, not being an insufferable douche-nozzle.
I love how everyone just sort of glazes over how astoundingly unpopular Steam was when it was first introduced.
I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They've also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.
I think steam is my favorite monopoly.
^Not saying it's perfect. Just my favorite. I understand this might change at any time^
At least it's only a monopoly because everyone else is apparently idiots when it comes to long term planning. I'm dreading the day when they turn to the dark side. Long away may it be.
Valve is Augustus Caesar: a benevolent dictator doing great things for their people. I'm afraid of what will happen when Gaben retires, how long will it take before we find gaming's Nero?
All powered by a nuclear reactor that produces steam
It was unpopular cause it was kinda ass tbh.
I remember getting so frustrated when the downloads would just stop for no reason.
The best next step:
That's very possible. Trump gave them excuse to do this. They already set up a deal with Korea and Japan (and each two hate each other), and if they would set up a trade deal with EU then the US will be the only loser.
Trump really hurt US with the tariffs on everyone (except Russia, North Korea and Belarus)
best deal in the history of deals
Maybe ever...
I hope. I'll miss my cheap goods but I have enough. I feel bad for young americans as cheap goods was one of the only perks left to living in this country.
Cheap gas I guess will be one of the last dominoes to fall. That, and the collapse of the petro-dollar system, will be the final nails in the coffin of our economy.
What a fucked up world where we are cheering on China. Fucking trump.
Predictable dictator is better than batshit crazy dictator.
Xi is more than happy to have a scapegoat for his economic troubles so the people and the powerful don't hang him. Trump sometimes wants to speed run into the hanging and then realizes he really can't piss off his own power base if he wants to keep his neck.
If they suck at each other, then that's way less bad. Root for simultaneous knockout punches.
The workforce is unionizing even if their union is pretty terrible.
Definitely just a toss up of where this is going.
Which workforce? The Chinese? There's only one union and it's run by the government. Any non-government unions are illegal.
The US is gaining a new interest in unions, but we have our own anti-union laws to deal with. Not as bad China's obviously.
such a socialist country where union protests lead you to being disappeared
Oh sorry, did I say socialist? China lines up better as a fascist economy.
Yeah in a global environment essentially China is the workforce/factory workers of the previous gilded age.
And it's pretty much exactly my point that their union (the government) is finally pushing back against the management while being not exactly kind to their workers.
We are essentially reliving through a new worker rebellion but from the governments of the global south with their own layers of local nuance underneath that.
Weird times.
A government is not a union.
The rebellion is mostly demographics. We are at a point, where globalization reached most countries. At the same time births are around 138million ± 5milliion since 40 years. China itself even has population decline.
Maybe 15-20 years ago, but not so much anymore. Cost of labor has been rising in China dramatically to the point that a lot of manufacturing is leaving China.
Anti union in a socialist society...SMH sigh...
We need a vanguard party because the proles are too dumb to save themselves. We'll prove it by banning unions that aren't under our thumb.
Their wages are going up and young workers aren't as interested in living the slave labor experience living in foxconn dorms working 100% of their time. It's not a union but the overall effects are that policies are being forced to be more pro worker/ better salary and conditions just to meet staffing levels.
Red > orange
What moral high ground you think you had before?
The shart of the deal.
The shart that is too real
Art of the deal
Shart of the deal
You’re fucked when the other party has read it too.
I don't think anyone needs to read his book up know he's a fuck up. China doesn't care how much we try and upset their apple cart, they aren't going to play Trump's game.
I was making a joke.
Yup. Donald Trump is a joke.
I don't think you'll find anyone in the fediverse that disagrees.
I found one hell bent on driving people to his side from the "no true Scotsman fallacy".
china is well-versed in a different text, the art of war.
China hasn't been involved in a war since its conflict with Vietnam in 1979, what are you talking about??
You say "too" here, but it's doubtful that Trump has actually read his book.
He famously had it ghost written, but fucked up the deal hard enough that his ghost writer got full writing credit on the cover.
The Fart and The Squeal
Then everyone dumps on him, and he says the roll back was fake news and it's still happening, but nobody even in the administration knows what's going on.
"Least of all the horse."
The horse... used the elevator? ...I didn't know he knew how to do that.
The Art of the Deal
Bankruptcy never tasted so good?
grift
Big flex from China. I'm waiting for a country to call trump's bluff by putting an export tax on their own goods sent to the USA.
Canada should have done this on everything. If the Americans can afford the tariff then there is room for us to charge more. Not really but yeah should do it.
If only.. America holds 20% of global purchasing power so an export tax like that would result in needing to lower local interest rates to boost domestic productivity, which would decrease foreign investment, eventually weakening the local currency.
It would be hilarious if a country that exports very little to nothing to the US did it to make a point though. Totally on board with that.
Truth be told, I think the only thing we really produced in the US was the US dollar. Sounds like it's the number 1 export for the US, and trump just toppled demand for it.
Oh this makes so much sense, it really all boiled down to this.
China is already weakening their currency to keep their exports (worldwide) more attractive.
Or, they just pay the tariff themselves. Could you imagine China going, "Cool bro, we'll just absorb the cost ourselves. Now what?"
I mean, that's what trump said they would do. That would make him look like a genius.
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That wouldn't really do much for China. The reason the tariffs hurt us is that we sent all our manufacturing to them (along with a few other countries). So the tariffs only make our stuff cost more. Footing the bill like that would just weaken China's position.
What would happen is the US dollar would be weaker, profits selling to the US weakened. It would still harm us primarily.
Didn't this happen last time? Less dramatically, but still.
He puts in a bunch of tariffs. China reciprocates. The market is thrown into chaos. He shouts and screams. China ignores him. He backtracks. China ends the tariffs but doesn't do anything to try and appease him. He claims it's a victory. His fluffers say the tariffs were just to bring China to the table, which justifies the hit to the market, despite the fact China didn't come to the table and President Pigshit didn't articulate what China could actually give him to end the tariffs.
Yes, but this time he also decided to tariff the whole world.
Fucking clown.🤡
'hurrrr art of the deal' Fucking. Clown.
That is The Art of the Deal. But the Chinese version.
That's just Sun Tzu Art of War
Or just simple common sense.
So much of Sun Tzu is common sense.
Don't fight with the sun in your eyes! Make sure your army has supplies! Be sneaky! Etc
Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
-- Carl von Clausewitz
You're right, but there's value in saying it.
The target audience of The Art of War was not soldiers or even officers. It was nobles who would step out of their gilded halls and just fuck everything up with stupid decisions that no moderately experienced military man would even dream of.
Wish somebody told him he didn't have the cards.
The cards are made in China
No he only has the joker
Held 7/2 off suit, hit nothing on the flop that he got to see for free, and then went all in.
... Trump keeps begging for China deal while bragging about phone calls kissing his ass. No foreign meetings. No envoy sent to China.
China limits US studio film releases
Bessent says Tariffs are no joke. China must make a deal.
Chinese airlines refuse Boeing+parts deliveries (reported as "China orders", but leopards were not going to make US aerospace affordable at 125% tariffs.
THE ART OF THE DEAL
Despite that, Fox News will continue stacking his invisible laurels. Doesn't matter if his policy does anything. All that matters is that his followers are convinced that the policies are doing something.
Everyone turn on your ad blocker and go look at that website, it’s (2024-)incredible it’s legal to be so disingenuous
I made the mistake of visiting yesterday and I will never not be dumber because I read their first seven headlines plus at least a dozen comments
That’s right, those headlines are the dumbest things you’ve ever seen on the planet… but then you scroll to the bottom of an article
Pray for me
tl;dr it’s worse than I thought
I’m not strong enough to admit that I hoped there would be one story where they weren’t jamming it down their throat and begging for more
Technically crashing the entire fucking economy in like a month is doing something
Nobody knows what's going on.
Least of all Trump
Small brain think smart. Fat man think tough. Ignorance knows no bounds when others pay the price of bad decisions.
All the more reason for MAGAs to hate China - they were MEAN to Daddy!
lol got wrecked you orange bitch.
Art of the deal
Dealing. Is an art.
Too much art, not many deals. 😔
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Trump never dropped tariffs on China, did he?
No they didn't. This is in reference to the announced exceptions for electronics like phones, which is a pretty big category. That's effectively dropping tariffs on a big chunk. That announcement was then unannounced by trump but who knows. The general perception is that trump wants tariffs but will fold when the economy catches fire and wants China to make a big deal with him so he can claim victory.
Depends on what you mean by drop. Is rolling back dropping? Is making exemptions dropping? Because both of those things have been done lol
I don't think for China specifically, though?
Haha yes
His fanboys will praise his indecisiveness and claim it a victory regardless of the outcome
🤔 it's almost like tarrifs were a bad idea.
Extortionist fails
交易的艺术
Say what you will about China’s political system. At least it is much more of a meritocracy. The politicians who climb up the ranks are the ones who have a proven record of achievements.
In the US the people can elect a charlatan with no experience whatsoever, i.e. an outsider, and some will spin this as a good thing. Would you hire an outsider doctor or plumber?
Edit: since people are failing to understand the idea. Remember how Republicans mocked Obama for being a community organizer? Imagine the opposite, any president must have some demonstrable experience as a community organizer. It is not a panacea, Obama still committed war crimes and was beholden to moneyed interests but much much much more qualified than Trump could ever be. Merit doesn’t mean the person will be good but that they will be qualified.
Dude, fuck the CCP, just like because the GQP are turds doesn't mean the CCP are the good guys
They didn't say the CCP are good, they said they are competent.
There is just no way in hell that Xi Jinping (age 71 right now) keeps being the best option for China's leadership for 10+ years under a meritocratic ideal.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/11/592694991/china-removes-presidential-term-limits-enabling-xi-jinping-to-rule-indefinitely
He's better than Trump obviously but so is a warm piece of cow shit.
Not sure whether Xi keeping the job is faltering of the CCP's ideal of collective leadership, or him being the guy the collective leadership wants as figurehead. They certainly don't want a second Mao that's for sure.
The politbureau/party can still elect a new leader even if term limits are removed. There is democracy for "qualified voters" in China.
Wait, based on what are you saying this? That's a complicated to verify claim.
How is it a complicated to verify claim? Even if you choose to ignore the obvious outcomes, there’s plenty of publications and studies about it. That’s the problem with limiting yourself to “China experts” from the West, they never bother to learn the language or learn about China’s history and politics.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-8057-2_23
In China all politicians including the premier start out as civil servants and a required to pass an entrance exam and have to climb up the ranks.
The US could probably adopt some of this without changing too much. A simple spelling test could have weeded out Trump. Ideally, a number of years of experience in civil service/local politics, should also be required to run for president.
It should be be implicitly obvious so it shouldn’t be explicitly stated. But we are simply comparing how the two systems position people of power. It is not about the people themselves in the positions. Think of it like a company that has its CEO climb up the ranks from an entry level employee vs a company that brings outsiders. Except the latter company leaves the decision to mostly an unqualified mass that sometimes hires a highly unqualified person. Both companies can be evil, or the former evil and the latter good, none of this matters to the point that I’m making.
Not really the CCP is basically using a reformed Mandarin system. To rise within the ranks of the party they look at a combination of how well the thing you administered (e.g. a state factory) performed in comparison to whatever is comparable, as well as opinion polls of the local population, which aside from making sure that you won't be hated (which could cause disquiet and if there's one thing the CCP doesn't want then that's that) also doubles at sniffing out manipulated numbers, the people are generally quite good at spotting corrupt officials. If you rank well within your cohort you get promoted from administering a factory to administering local industry, then regional, etc, etc. What doesn't happen any more is grading people based on how good their poetry is as well as cutting off their balls but the basic system is, broad strokes, similar to how Imperial China educated and selected its civil servants.
That doesn't mean that there's not corruption and grift going on, there's still some degree of princeling privilege but it's basically impossible to fail upwards in the CCP. Knowing people or being someone's kid might open some doors, but it's not going to guarantee you anything. It also means that the top ranks are full of for lack of better characterisation engineer bureaucrats.
Or, put differently: If the CCP was completely incapable they would've long lost power. Their whole legitimacy hinges on being perceived as good administrators, they know that, and they're doing their darnedest to not lose it. Propaganda and secret police alone is not sufficient, history has shown that again and again, you actually need to be good at stuff that's important to people or they cease to tolerate you.
I don't know where you got that from.
This isn't at all true. It has the same corruption as everywhere else. Those in power do everything they can to keep it. Why do you think Pooh Bear got himself made president for life? That wasn't on merit, he just had enough political power to make it that way.
He got up to the point that he can do that through merit. He didn’t suddenly get elected as premier. The point I’m trying to make went right past you. “I point to the stars, you look at my fingertips”.
This isn’t about Xi himself or Trump himself. Xi could be worse than Netanyahu, Trump could be better than Sinwar. It is about how those in power get there, how the system selects its leaders. I tried giving an analogy in my other comment.
There is a total of 350 million Americans. Fuck every single one of them for not stopping fascism from taking their government.
I don't care if you felt like you did your part, it wasn't enough. It was on you, now it is on all of us. Fuck Americans.
The problem is that no one is at the breaking point yet. You can still go to work, buy things, have a family day, and if you're a US citizen, you feel safe.
Now, will that change? Yes, it will. Then maybe enough people will wake up, but until then... no one is going to risk death or getting their families killed. No mass organized resistance to join. Don't act like it wouldn't happen to your country either because it can.
It's not easy to just saddle up against the greatest superpower to ever exist on Earth.
Yeah all these people are acting like there was a 'Stop Fascism' button we just decided not to press which is just ignorant. It's easy to be Mr. TearTheSystemDown from behind a keyboard an ocean away. If it really affects them so much and is so easy why not just come over and do it yourself?
We sort of did have a 'stop fascism' button, but it was labelled Kamala Harris and a lot of people just weren't really feeling like voting I guess.
Harris wouldn't have stopped fascism any more than Joe Biden did.
If it would keep trump out of office for another four years it would make the odds of him ever regaining power vanishingly small; he'd be in his mid eighties in the next election, and all the lawsuits against him wouldn't have been thrown out.
Say what you will about Biden, but he was pretty effective at pausing the slide into fascism. He strengthened ties with our allies and invested in infrastructure. If Harris had won we could have taken back the Supreme Court and actually started reversing course.
Trump isn't the problem. He's too stupid and too old to have planned enough or worked hard enough to accomplish the things he has.
Fascism was happening in the US regardless of if it was wrapped in a golden toilet or not.
Well it relied on trump being in power to take effect. Having a useful idiot in the executive opens a lot of doors. I don't see how the Republicans could seize power without him, Vance wasn't ever going to win on his own.
He literally welcomed the fascist fuck in with open arms. He didn't do shit to slow facism and it will be his legacy
You think he should've refused to hand over the presidency? How exactly do you think that would've gone down?
I held my nose voting for him, but Biden was the best president of my lifetime.
So, quite a fucking lot?
There was not nearly enough assassination attempts of Donald Trump between 2020 and 2024. You had your chance, and wasted it.
While not an armed one, you know that protests are a resistance, right? Like, dunno, 50501.
Sure and a great movement. This guy was talking about just rising up with violence. Not happening unless you want a quick death. I'm all for mass protesting and it's a good sign it's getting a massive following.
I understand the sentiment to some degree, but wherever you live, I’d be very curious if there’s a growing far-right party in your country.
Our two biggest racist parties got 2,6% and 3,7% of the votes.
Just because your country is racist, doesnt mean everywhere is.
I can't find this country after some searching. Where is it?
Denmark.
DF got 2,6% and NB got 3,7%
It takes a village!
I live across the pond, and your country is threatening invasion of mine. I am not in your fucking village.
🫂
That's like your friend threatening someone at the club, and you insisting that he is only joking. Fuck that.
Reducing the harm he can do and already has done to be the drunk at the sidewalk, isn't helping anything.
Besides, you most definitely do have the power to shut him up. You just won't.
AmeriCants.
I'm American, and I agree.
what does "fascism" even mean? i get the impression people use it to describe "things they don't like". is there any clear definition?
Fascism means authoritarian nationalism with contempt for democracy, glorification of strength, and scapegoating of enemies. Trump ticks a lot of those boxes—that’s why I used the word.
oh so basic authoritarianism
It is one version of authoritarianism, yes.