In a way, America didn’t ask for what it got. America voted for a guy who claimed to have never heard of Project 2025. It got Project 2025.
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
Squeeze Ukraine for rare earths and Venezuela for oil. Neither has nukes, easy targets. Give lucrative contracts to mining and extraction buddies, give pardons to financial criminals, get protection from powerful new allies after you leave office.
Ukrainian rare earths are a massive meme. The only argument that is reasonable is that post-war Ukraine will have below 0 environmental protections and accept Congo-style mining.
If it was not economical enough for USSR, it won't be for any actor that knows what ROI is.
A much better economic future for Ukraine as part of Europe would be to make it the breadbasket of the entire EU but it's political suicide given the farmer protests.
True, but both SK and Taiwan had always wanted to be more aligned with the West as they needed to be under the US defense umbrella. The liberalization could only come after gaining stability.
On the other hand, China has always sought to regain what it considers to be its rightful place as a first world power and to recover from its “century of humiliation.”
I think the CCP has been pretty consistent in this stance. Policy makers in the West that didn’t notice were blinded by corporate wishful thinking.
You’re confusing the faction leading the country with the people themselves.
South Korea and Taiwan as countries don’t have an inherent will to align with the West. The countries are made up people with different beliefs, some are more aligned to democracy (what you call the West) and some aren’t. Even today Taiwan has a political party that is pro-CCP.
The logic is not that the CCP will suddenly want to align with the West, it’s that the people will become more pro-Democratic as they become more developed (both economically and politically).
No, I’m intentionally speaking of the leadership. Yes there are dissidents in China (and Russia and NK…) but the governments have been able to make their work seem futile.
There are also some Chinese who are happy to live in a police state. There are also some US citizens who would like more of a police state, provided the police are on their side of the culture wars.
The fantasy is that capitalism automatically breeds liberal democracy. Sometimes it does, but don’t forget it can work the other way too. It was the excesses of capitalism in the gilded age that led to the rise socialist revolutions in the first place. Sometimes might say today’s billionaire capitalists are becoming like the robber barrons of the gilded age.
On the one hand, in interviews, Tarantino always seems to have contrarian opinions about everything. When Kill Bill came out, he’d verbally knock Lee and praise lesser known movie practitioners.
On the other hand, if you watch the movie until the end, it’s obvious that the movie has an unreliable narrator. We all know how the Tate/Labianca murders actually turned out. Not at all like the movie…
Feel free to correct me if I’m off base, but it doesn’t seem like the robot is actually slicing. Looks more like it’s just mashing the blade into the tomato. In this case I can see how the vibration can make up for the lack of slicing action. Ie sliding the blade across the tomato.
My question is: would there still be an improvement if they used a slicing action?
Me too. And it looks like that’s what the heirs are doing too.
But for David Lynch, I can see why he might want to live amongst the people involved in financing, making, and distributing movies. Similar to how founders move to the expensive Bay area to be near VCs, talent, etc.
In all fairness to Meta, “don’t be evil” was a different company. Meta is the “they trust me, [the] dumb fucks” company. So they’re being somewhat true to their words. /s
California houses are not popular with professional “landlord” investors because the cap rates (net operating income / house value) are poor. Rents are limited to what potential renters are actually able to pay, while the prices are very high.
On the other hand, during the upswing in prices, house flipping in California was really popular with investors because the (then) low interest and likely capital gain made things easy.
Also, Trump ran on a populist message. Yet if you look at what he has done materially since he got into office, it seems his true allegiance is with the billionaire elite.
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