[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Absolute gigachad.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Translation:

A better translation of the most interesting part of this announcement:

"Based on the current tariff levels, there’s no possibility that U.S. products would be accepted in China’s market. If the U.S. would continue to to raise tariffs on China, China would just simply ignore it."

= There is no point for China to raise tariffs any further past this point because US goods have already become completely uncompetitive in China now.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 3 months ago

No offense comrade but this reads like a MAGA fever dream. It's all wildly unrealistic and detached from the realm of what is possible in reality given how international trade actually works. It also vastly overestimates the US's capabilities. The Europeans couldn't even properly decouple their energy from Russia, but the US is going to decouple from China? Lol. No. Not happening. You don't just rebuild entire industries and supply chains overnight. If the economy crashes it's not going to be a magic ticket to re-industrialization, it's going to be complete pandemonium and things will spiral very badly, very fast. This isn't some 5D chess move, it's a bluff with a very mediocre hand.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 3 months ago

Not suspicious or incriminating at all...

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

There is nothing meaningful that Europe can do to stop Russia in Ukraine short of starting a nuclear war. They have nothing more to give other than money and more money (which itself comes at the price of inflation and cuts to social spending, both of which are extremely bad for the political stability of Europe and risk the ruling parties losing further ground to the "populist" right) and nobody in Europe wants to send their children to die for Ukraine.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

First of all I want to commend you (or whoever is the author of this text) on an excellent post. This analysis is clear and logical and most likely correct, and we should all keep these facts in mind.

But all of this is only part of the picture. What is being described here are the domestic effects of these policies, and certainly these matter, yet for the majority of the world it is the impact on the US' external capabilities that they are primarily interested in when they analyze the downstream effects of US policy. And while these policies of controlled demolition help the oligarchy further entrench domestic control they also weaken the US state as a whole, they weaken its economic and industrial capabilities, and by extension reduce its ability to project military and soft power.

An impoverished, borderline pauperized working class does not make for an effective work force. Productivity will plummet. Diminished living standards will not attract foreign talent. Innovation will dry up. Again we see here the myopic short term thinking of neoliberal capitalism, wherein they will cannibalize their own economic base in order to consolidate monopolies and raise asset/stock prices, yet they have no plan for how to rebuild those capabilities that enabled them to achieve their global position of dominance in the first place.

And under different geopolitical circumstances this race to the bottom may perhaps not be such a poor strategy, if they were able to drag down the rest of the world along with them. But they can't. Not anymore. Not when there are alternatives, when there are other societies that embrace real growth and development over neoliberal de-growth for the sake of establishing a neo-feudal dystopia. The US oligarchs can drag the US and their most loyal vassal states down with them (though some of those may even wise up and jump ship), but it is becoming increasingly clear that the global majority will not go along with this civilizational suicide.

And given that the US exists in this global context, given that the domestic power of the western ruling classes and their ability to maintain control and keep their populations docile has historically relied on the ability to extract super-profits from the global south, if this ability vanishes due to falling behind the rest of the world technologically and economically, then it is only a matter of time until we will see an internal revolt. There is only so far you can push people before they snap. The question we should be asking is do they, meaning the ruling classes, even have any other alternative at this point? And if not then we need to be prepared for what we know will follow as a consequence of these policies of deliberate destruction.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Now it's undeniable for liberals

You underestimate liberals' capacity for denial. Nothing is "undeniable" for them.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Without the ruthlessness of Biden, Trump could never get it off the ground in a million years.

This. If Republicans tried to do it the opposition from the population would be too much. It takes a Democrat administration to get the masses to consent to fascism. Democrats are experts at demobilizing popular resistance movements.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Utterly disgusting and completely absurd that they expect us to believe this crock of shit. Imagine helping cover up the murder of a child by claiming they committed suicide, you really can't sink any lower... Only one cure for this depravity: 🧱.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago

Just settler-colonial fascists protecting European fascists... Not surprising at all from the same country that put indigenous children in concentration camps and called them "schools"...

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As an immigrant living in Germany i definitely feel uneasy at the prospect of the AfD getting anywhere close to power given their unhinged deportation plans. Then again i also don't trust the mainstream parties to not start copying the AfD's xenophobic policies in hopes of courting their supporters. This has happened before when they did a 180 on their refugee migration policy due to pressure from the right.

With all that said i firmly believe that the collapse of the EU is more important in the global picture than the internal politics of any one country, as it would be a massive blow to US imperialist control in Europe, as well as to Europe's ability to project its own imperialist power in the global south. It also would free the peripheral EU nations which have essentially lost their sovereignty and whose wealth is being massively transfered to the EU core.

So yes, you could take the view that the net benefit to the world would outweigh the downsides and danger to those of us living in Germany who are in a precarious situation should a far right government come to power. However, this entire calculus falls apart if it turns out that they can't or won't go through with this EU exit idea. I for one don't believe the AfD in the slightest when they spout this kind of populist rhetoric.

I think we saw in Italy what Europe's far right populists are like when they come to power. They turn out to be just another bunch of neoliberals who will bend the knee to Washington and Brussels just the same as their centrist counterparts. And right wing governments of Poland and Hungary have frequently polemicized against the EU but for all their harsh complaints they would never actually dare to leave.

[-] cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Anyone who votes for any member of either party in the US (or of any party in Europe that has not unequivocally sided with Palestine and denounced the criminal Zionist regime) is not just racist and chauvinist but pro-genocide. And yes this includes even those few Democrats who have nominally spoken out against the genocide, because despite their statements they still choose to be associated with and support a party that is pro-genocide, thus they are complicit in aiding and abetting in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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cfgaussian

joined 3 years ago