Thanks, honestly it was kind of nice writing it all out. I guess in some ways I’ve been bottling my feelings about all of this.

This is very true. I had a cat that recently passed away at 17. While I’ve had cats my entire life, none had an attachment like this one. It followed commands and would dote around me like a dog. He would even get upset if I gave other cats more attention than him. So naturally we bonded more since it was easier to bond with this cat as he sought attention. So there was a cycle of him paying attention to me so I paid attention to him. Now I want to be clear, my other cats also loved me very much, but this was different.

So when it was his time, it was one of the saddest things I ever experienced. Other cats when they passed away would try to hide, apparently this is a natural instinct to protect their families from disease and predators when they leave a corpse. But not this cat. All he wanted was to be by my side as he was passing away. It was clear he knew and would meow when he couldn’t find me, which was largely because he couldn’t really move since he was dying. When the vet came to put him down, his last action was to look around the room to make sure the whole family was there, then he rested his head and waited for his end. That was heart breaking. His love for me and our family was so great that he went against his own base instincts, I have never seen that before.

Trying to force the EU to buy these at gun point. The problem is the EU is calling their bluff.

Oh I know, I’m just pointing out that China has no reason to make the first call, which some how, and this blows my mind, Bessent seems to believe that somehow it’s going to be so bad for China that China will call first. Why would the winner call first? What strange world would this happen?

It might not be sustainable for USA, but China is doing just fine. Their stock market is flatlining and they expect growth to drop 2.2% to 3% growth. Not great, but definitely sustainable. That seems to be a big problem for US negotiations.

Oh yeah, completely agree. Misunderstood that my bad.

I think differently actually. And unfortunately, I’m not sure it’s going to work out for Zelensky, but I don’t blame him for trying.

So China is not directly supplying weapons. Zelensky implied as much so far. What he’s saying is China is supplying gun powder and artillery shells. With the obvious implication that Russia is filling the shells with the gun powder and making them live. This had probably been happening the whole time. This is the complaints about dual use.

So why now? Well, it’s a good time to get China riled up so they’ll comment. Zelensky needs weapons, even if China doesn’t stop selling to Russia, selling to Ukraine as well would be good. In which case Zelensky can turn around and say then come talk to us, if your neutral you’ll let us buy too. Which might have been a good plan if USA wasn’t completely fucking insane and keeping China from even talking because they got other shit to deal with.

And USA is tariffing everyone. But China the hardest. Forcing all nations to have to trade heavily with China just to survive now. This trade war is USA’s greatest gift to Xi ever.

I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure China and Russia bought the current US government. It’s the only thing that makes sense. And the heavy China tariffs are here just to put the nail in the US coffin while convincing idiots to cheer China bad.

Your right. It could be both. I mean, my wife said to me the other day that she heard Trump was doing the tariffs to lower the bond interest rates. I said while in some types of recessions that’s true, that wouldn’t work in this case and you’d have to be an idiot to think it would. Sure enough the next day Trump puts a stay on tariffs to most of the world because the bond market got rocked. All I could think of is omg, are they really that fucking stupid?

I wish it was that. No, this is actual evil, not incompetence. Trump has turned the US economy into the largest pump and dump scheme ever. Worse, he’s bragging about how his friends made billions. I can’t even believe this is happening. I’m in utter shock. I knew Trump would be bad, but straight up flaunting corruption like it’s a joke and even bringing the SCOTUS on board with this. I’m just gob smacked.

You don’t understand. Chinese companies have been preparing for this for almost a decade now thanks to US policies. Here’s manufacturing locations just for Moto.

https://motosmartphones.com/where-are-motorola-phones-made/

How much is it really made in Brazil? Enough to by pass the tariffs.

This is transhipment. China has been building an enormous transhipment network with those countries heavily dependent on Chinese heavy machinery and services. They expected this, they prepared for this. It’s the US companies that tried to obey their own countries rules that are susceptible. Even Samsung has been working with China to create these networks. Soon, I would estimate, Apple will as well. The problem is, if you thought Tik Tok was a national security issue, forcing every US company to use Chinese logistics to fight your own countries tariffs…

He’s been doing it for decades now. Hell here’s an article from 2023.

https://www.newsweek.com/xi-jinping-dinner-us-ceo-elon-musk-apec-1844614

I knew he was a Chinese agent. America has already lost. I just wonder what China will do with the keys to the world now that America has literally just gave it to them without a fight.

I won’t say that won’t happen. But interestingly, China isn’t trying to make their currency a hegemonic currency. Instead, they’ve been promoting currency swaps that use both local currencies. And it’s picking up speed. All the BRICS nations are making currency swap agreements amongst each other. As I said in another post, I have no idea if this can go global. But it’s something I hope we can all work towards. Any currency hegemon is bad for the world. The strangest thing is it appears China agrees, regardless of what western propaganda says about China.

Not sure it will change. The global south and more importantly BRICS has created a system where local currencies are used. It’s basically a currency swap. If this can be extended to all nations there won’t be a currency hegemon at all. Of course while it’s been working well for the countries that are doing it, it’s hard to say what the effects would be on a global scale. Still, we should work towards it. Note I am not talking about the BRICS currency, which is not real. Not even sure why it gets brought up at all.

*Edit. This is an article about the expansion of China’s currency swap deals.

https://watcher.guru/news/brics-push-currency-swap-with-29-countries-worth-550-billion

Note that while this is about China, all BRICS nations are making currency swap deals with each other. It’s just easier to find articles about China doing this because China is so massive.

I mean depends on how you look at it. In many ways, the world NEEDS to get off it’s dollar addiction. Having a hegemonic currency isn’t great for humanity as a whole. And Trump is doing the very best I’ve ever seen at helping the world cure itself of this problem. Not great for USA, but an important step for how geopolitics will work moving forward. Unless you meant doing everything wrong for Americans, then yes, Trump is awful.