Politics

[Altitude sickness]

Next little downturn in the market may be a great time to buy. It could be the last chance before it skyrockets.

I think Jerome Powell did the right thing by not lowering the interest rates. Trump wants it because it’s a good sugar high and would juice the economy. And I think that’s great after more tariff deals are made, which won’t take much longer but I disagree with Trump. Lowering interest rates right now could spur more inflation.

Lowering interest rates can be done in a day. It’s easy to do. getting rid of Inflation is not.

Trump is wrong on badgering Powell.

 

[1dirthawker]

so the average American doesn't pay a whole lot of attention, and doesn't really care.. their attitude is going to be "oh.. Starmer is pissed at Trump? that's sorta funny... fuck that guy.." and they arent going to think much about it past that..

funny and pretty much true!

 

[HookMeUpII]

I openly admit that I am on board with much of Trumps agenda in its foundational premise.. I believe a head of state should put his state first and strongly negotiate (or straight up fight if necessary) in support of what is in his countrys national interest (strategic, financial, cultural, or anything else).. Im all for putting to bed what I think has been the insanity of extreme leftism that has riddled the US (and much of the rest of the world) for the last several years.. etc.. etc..

At the same time, Im not much of a fan of the manner in which the Trump Administration is going about pursuing its agenda.. I could care less about mean tweets, silly nicknames, etc.. its pretty easy for me to ignore the childish bravado of a billionaire new yorker.. I don't get offended or even remotely concerned about "51st state", "Pocahontas", and all of the things that flow out of Trumps mouth and then stay in the headlines of our collective newsfeeds for the next few weeks.. If anything I find it both somewhat confusing and amusing when people that seem otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable get bent out of shape over it... If you know what is said isn't true, why would you care whats been said? Peoples words and opinions only matter if you allow them to matter... and if you believe it to actually be true, why get offended? wouldn't the better response be to do something about it instead of throwing a fit over someone stating a truth that you didn't want to hear?

I think this about sums up my stance on the matter. I've gotten lumped in as a dem by some folks on here in the past and that's just not the case.

It's not my favorite, the way he and the admin approaches things. It's effective in the end, most of the time, but the process from point A to point Z, is about as brutal as it gets.

It's just a very difficult situation he's tackling. I don't know if the way he is going about it is best but we've been operating at a massive trade deficit since 1975. Maybe it was time for this? Maybe this was the best way to go about? Maybe there was another way?

Just too many questions.

 

[CJW]

An American pope. Who woulda' thunk it? Robert Francis Prevost.

 

[Aaron N]

That stated, not many people vacation in Alberta, do they?

You couldn’t have picked a worse example. I would venture that the Alberta Rockies are the biggest “non-metro” international tourist draw in the country.

 

[HookMeUpII]

An American pope. Who woulda' thunk it? Robert Francis Prevost.

Never thought I'd see the day.

 

[BJH65]

Africa...hold my beer....

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Africa and North America. Not as overwhelming, eh?

 

[WAB]

It’s apparent that Vance and Trump now realize that Putin is not a serious partner in negotiations.
Their comments, the last few days show that they are about to escalate the aid to Ukraine.

Maybe someone else can shed some light on what else they plan to send Ukraine besides the F-16 parts and the patriot missiles already promised. Trump should now allow more offensive weapons to be sent and used.

Hopefully Ukraine will now be given “Full Rein” .

It took them long enough!

 

[WAB]

i was visiting with a canadian financial adviser this last week and he was upset at trump too. (which i don't blame him for) he raged a little about how awful he was. i asked him one question, why don't BOTH of our countries just drop ALL tariffs then? he did not have an answer.

I totally agree, but it has to coincide with dropping subsidies and matching tax structure or it is a fruitless exercise.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

It took them long enough!

I personally think you'd have to be some major level of stupid to believe he could have been.

 

[Tanks]

I'll cut through the chaff and ask directly, do you believe that the average American is as well educated or informed on international matters, or as well traveled as their first world Canadian or European counterparts?

In all fairness, Europeans have to travel to another country for a change of scenery or vacation. Here in States all people have to do is go to another State to accomplish the same thing. Heck, I travel further to go from one end of LA to Orange County than some Europeans go to visit another country. And trust me, there is a whole culture shift going from East LA to OC.

 

[BJH65]

"most powerful politician in the world speaking plainly, openly, and directly for a change."

A person can speak plainly, openly, and directly and not be an absolute dick about it. He doesn't seem to realize that, and I find it embarrassing.

"I really enjoy how he now calmly and passive-aggressively destroys his critics."

I find nothing appealing about the leader of the free world being passive aggressive. Yet another intellectual deficit.

"My point is that by now, like him or hate him, anyone with a semblance of common sense who has been paying attention should be very used to Trump's style of communication."

Why would anyone want to get used to poor, boorish behavior? I didn't like it with Biden. I don't like it with Trump. If my kids acted that way I would be upset and embarrassed, and there would be corrective actions on my part. We very clearly have different levels of expectation about acceptable behavior. From your perspective I am overreacting. From mine you are settling for behaviors that I feel certain you would have found entirely unacceptable in perps during your law enforcement days, but you are willing to excuse in the POTUS.

I think those of use who’ve worked in law enforcement (I’m retired LE) do our very best to remain unemotional and look to obtain the facts only. When perhaps 90% of the public you interact with are dishonest, you work towards piecing the information together using a variety of techniques and tools: independent witnesses, video evidence, physical evidence, and so on. The old saying, when their lips are moving, they are lying holds true.

Of course sometimes it’s very difficult to perform your job when I fellow officer is killed or severely injured, looking upon dead babies, or a variety of horrific scenes but you’re not helping them by allowing your emotions to inhibit your ability to do the job, you help them by remaining professional and doing your job to the best of your ability. In addition, if you took everything personal you’d be a basket case. You simply allow the various distractions to effect you no more than water off a ducks back.

In law enforcement, you’re not seeing your fellow human beings at their finest hour. I was never offended by being lied too, the name calling, or interacting with someone who was busily eating their own fecal matter….just do your job and be professional. I assume MD West is simply looking beyond all the “white noise”, removing emotion from the equation, and using his excellent ability to get to the facts at hand.

I tend to judge politicians in this manner.

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

Africa and North America. Not as overwhelming, eh?

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View attachment 683766

Even moreso when you consider Texas.

 

[wesheltonj]

Even moreso when you consider Texas.

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Unfortunately, California appears to right over where I live. As unfortunately, those folks keep moving here too.

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

In all fairness, Europeans have to travel to another country for a change of scenery or vacation. Here in States all people have to do is go to another State to accomplish the same thing. Heck, I travel further to go from one end of LA to Orange County than some Europeans go to visit another country. And trust me, there is a whole culture shift going from East LA to OC.

It’s a funny thing. You’ll have smug Brits who think they’re well traveled because they take a holiday to the Costa Blanca a few times a year but if an American flies the same distance from New York to Miami and sits on a beach listening to Cuban music it’s vastly different since they didn’t need a passport.

Americans tend to not vacation outside the country because they don’t have to. The continental US is as large at the 27 countries of the EU with just as diverse of a geography. Add in Alaska and Hawaii and that jumps up quite a bit. All that diversity of culture and geography and you don’t need a passport, currency exchange, or, in most cases, a second language.

There’s still reasons for Americans to travel abroad but the average american probably travels just as far as the average European without ever crossing a national border. One has to make reasonable comparisons. Norway and Alaska both have fjords. Is an Texan visiting Alaska really doing less traveling than a Spaniard visiting Oslo? Is Norwegian culture more exotic to a Spaniard than Tlingit to a Tejano?

 

[mdwest]

In all fairness, Europeans have to travel to another country for a change of scenery or vacation. Here in States all people have to do is go to another State to accomplish the same thing. Heck, I travel further to go from one end of LA to Orange County than some Europeans go to visit another country. And trust me, there is a whole culture shift going from East LA to OC.

Its honestly pretty interesting to me just seeing how different rural CA is from urban.. Im not talking scenery.. Im talking culturally.. and how different northern CA is from Southern CA..

drive a few hundred miles and get across the NV border.. and you have yet another completely different world..

people talk differently.. have different priorities and values.. the terrain is completely different.. etc..

In California and the adjacent states alone you could spend a month traveling and still not take everything in..

Texas is similar (although a lot less interesting I think for people as tourists).. the hill country is a completely different world than North Texas... East Texans are very different people than West Texans.. the way they dress, the way they talk.. the things that are important to them, etc.. is very different.. and the border area is completely different than the rest of the state..

The diversity in our larger states in terms of their people, their food, the weather, the terrain, etc.. is every bit as complex as varied as parts of Europe... and when we start talking about Americans from different parts of the country (Boston vs San Diego.. or Houston vs Chicago.. or New Orleans vs Seattle, etc)... Id say the complexities and variations exceed many neighboring countries in Europe..

People forget.. Belgium is a little less than 12000 square miles.. Portugal is a little less than 36000 square miles.. Switzerland is about 16,000 square miles...

California is 164,000 square miles.. and Texas is 270,000 square miles (two very densly populated states)...

As a rule we don't have to leave the country to see and experience different things.. often times we don't even need to leave our own home state...

You can drill down even further and look at our major metropolitan areas.. google any obscure type of food you might want to try.. or any sort of cultural festival you might want to attend.. moroccan? ethiopian? peruvian? czech? bosnian? russian? mongolian? vietnamese? korean? You will find quite literally dozens of options for any of them somewhere like Dallas, Chicago, or Los Angeles.. as all of our major cities are melting pots of foreign cultures and people (we have almost 50,000 ethiopians in Dallas.. 200K indians in the DFW metroplex.. Dallas has the largest Czech population in the US.. We've got 12,000 bosnians, a couple of thousand peruvians.. etc..etc..)..

Yesterday I gave blood.. my phlebotomist was a nigerian.. we had a fun time talking about Abuja, how cool the city is.. how Muslims and Christians get along really well there (when you take the highway going through the center of the city there is a huge mosque on the right hand side, and a huge Christian church on the left hand side.. within just a few blocks of each other.. and everyone gets along, etc..etc.. I told her that the best Chinese restaurant Ive ever eaten at in my life was in the Sheraton in Abuja.. she knew the restaurant well..

Its not real hard to get exposed to foreign culture, foreign people, etc in the US if any attempt is made at all.. and you never have to even leave your home state..

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Even moreso when you consider Texas.

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And of course Texas fits easily within my beloved Alaska...

 

[Rocked and Loaded]

And of course Texas fits easily within my beloved Alaska...

I’m not convinced.

 

[Nyati]

An American pope. Who woulda' thunk it? Robert Francis Prevost.

Just wait, Trump will take all the credit

 

[Tundra Tiger]

I’m not convinced.

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I admire your devotion to a concept you believe. Kinda the way flat earthers adhere to what they believe... to keep it in the realm of geography.