Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "What's Going on With Shipping?" channel.

  1. As U.S. Hegemony continues to ease, India will take up the slack as a regional power. India and the U.S. are not allies, but we are aligned in our goals and principles.
    224
  2. Even if the breakage of cables was accidental, Finland is well within its rights to impound the vessel for a full investigation for however long they think is necessary to complete the investigation. At this point, talk of confiscating it is premature (although I think that will be likely eventually). The presence of spy equipment is wild. I’m not going to assume that report is true. But I’m not going to dismiss it, either. I’ll just wait until more is revealed. Don’t get me wrong. I feel confident that the cable breakage was intentional on the part of Russia. I suspect that the Finns can prove it. They might well have these Russian ships under surveillance at this point. They might even have visual proof of when the ship dropped anchor as it traversed the cable crossings.
    54
  3. My mind is blown that so many damage control stations were out of service. I don’t know exactly what a damage control or firefighting station is. But I wonder how it’s possible to leave a maintenance period without putting them back into service. That just sounds crazy.
    17
  4. Yes, and he said Alaska was brought in, in 1959. Maybe you didn’t hear it correctly.
    13
  5.  @ljubomirculibrk4097  Inspection of vessels isn’t a blockade. Ships enjoying free passage through territorial waters are still subject to inspections while the ships are passing through those territorial waters. As others have mentioned, a full and formal blockade is considered an act of war. Finland would be within its rights to inspect every single vessel passing through its territorial waters. It’s probably not practical to do so to every ship, but I’m confident that the Finns know which ships require extra attention. If this slows down shipping into and out of St. Petersburg, it might be almost the equivalent of a blockade, but it’s not a blockade.
    13
  6.  @Skagzi1la  It’s unique among bridges. His bridge is without pier.
    13
  7. It’s like Soviet communism but without the socialism.
    12
  8. Sixty miles! That’s unassailable proof that the act was intentional. There’s no way that the ship’s crew didn’t notice that they were dragging the anchor for hours. The next step is proving that Russia was behind it.
    12
  9. Commanders’ feelings, apparently. Commanders who have the responsibility for training the sailors, insuring that equipment is operational, and conducting drills to ensure that everyone knows what they are supposed to do. Don’t blame this on a soft generation of sailors or “woke training”. This mishap is due to a command structure that has lost self-accountability. Trying to lay the blame anywhere else exacerbates the problem.
    12
  10.  @davidclaudy4822 Yes and no. Both Palestine and Israel have the right to exist, the right to self determination. Until both sides recognize the other’s basic rights, there is no basis for peace. And until the Israeli hostages are released, there is no basis for a ceasefire.
    12
  11. You think that’s funny? When the meteorologists were asked what ocean conditions we could expect, they said, “It’s gonna be swell.”
    11
  12. Abusing the de minimus system is how they were avoiding tariffs. All that is going on here is CBP enforcing existing law to shut down the abuse. Chinese companies have been free riding the de minimus system aka cheating. Price increases would reflect a return to “correct pricing” based on non-cheating, benefiting us in the long run.
    10
  13. Thanks, Sal. I’m looking forward to the Merchant Marine history video.
    9
  14.  @BBD40 Bridge envy is not pretty.
    8
  15.  @MadamKsTarot  Did you feel fulfilled?
    7
  16.  @perfectman3077  the two barbed pointy bits. An anchor looks like a double hook, right? At the ends of the hooks are the flukes.
    6
  17.  @rewar5870  You’d be shocked to know that what you’re actually buying probably contains parts sourced in China, and that Chinese manufacturing quality is greatly improved. It’s not all cheap poorly built knock offs.
    6
  18.  @davidvankainen6711  Why do you think tariffs will apply to services (waste disposal in this case) that Canadians pay U.S. companies to do? We don’t pay for the trash, we get paid for its disposal. It’s not really an industrial input or raw material leading to trade deficits. Seriously, your understanding of trade is deficient. Do you even know the difference between trade deficits and budget deficits? Do you know that reducing the trade deficit won’t reduce the budget deficit?
    6
  19. Full Juan Brown? Where’s the NTSB preliminary report? 😅 Every time Juan says “avoidable”, drink. Or maybe “aviate, navigate, communicate”
    5
  20.  @HighDefinitionVideo  I’m here for the drinking game. 🎉
    5
  21. Try to contain your obsession.
    5
  22. Different interests but all have the same basic goals. I think everyone involved knows that the operation has to unfold in phases and that will dictate the priorities to a large degree. For example, It’s premature to start rebuilding the bridge. Even if it was given top priority, the channel must be cleared first anyway. The debris spans must be removed. The other thing that occurs to me is that it’s quite possible that these agencies have trained for multiagency cooperation under a variety of scenarios. If this is the case they already have established lines of communication as well as areas of responsibility. To change a structure already set up and operating merely because a single commander seems more efficient might actually be counterproductive. If there are infighting problems, then we can talk about appointing an overall commander rather than having an overall coordinator. I rather suspect that many people are just hung up on the word “commander”. They want one person with the power to push things through. But there is no evidence yet that anything needs to be pushed through.
    5
  23.  @putrapratama-sq8hu  It was reported that the crew was Indian.
    5
  24. He’s talked about that. The delays have a financial cost. The delays are about more than the additional shipping times for cargo. There are also delays in positioning ships to pick up cargos (not to mention getting containers to the right places.
    5
  25.  @patrickfarrell6353 lol, I don’t know what other people’s motivations are but frankly I like a good train wreck, especially if there is exotic or cutting edge engineering involved. I don’t mourn the dead rich people here more than I mourn the death of any stranger, if mourn is the right word for the fraction of a second I give to these deaths or a million others.
    5
  26.  @JTST1234  I think the U.S. was more interested in there being a balance of power between the two countries. I do not believe that the U.S. harbored an anti-Indian sentiment. U.S. support for Pakistan was never total, and was contingent on reciprocity and aligned interests (particularly wrt the Russians’ war in Afghanistan).
    5
  27. I wish Saudi Arabia and India could join force to deal with the Iranian threat. I do not agree that Iranian belligerence is based on their conflict with Israel. I think Israel is their pretext. An Indo-Saudi led coalition could accomplish things that a U.S coalition could not. It could keep Iranian warships in port.
    5
  28. How are they going to build a Mulberry without Andy Griffith and Don Knotts? Wait one. I was just informed (by my Aunt Bea) that I’m thinking of Mayberry.
    5
  29. Especially if the crew was out of imminent danger and safe in the lifeboats. If the Spanish Coastguard S & E vessels were underway and on their way, it would make sense to wait for them, even if the Spanish Coastguard hadn’t issued the order.
    5
  30. You can’t just grab ships passing through your territory willy nilly. What you can do is inspect them. And if that inspection takes weeks or months or even longer, so be it. If there is a backlog of ships anchored and waiting for inspections, it’s not a blockade. It’s very typical of shadow fleet ships to stick to friendly ports that will only do superficial inspections (or none at all). Think of this as like the cop pulling you over for some mechanical violation. If there is a cop discovered even more violations, making your car unsafe to operate, he could impound it. The Eagle S has over 30 mechanical or safety violations. This might be fairly normal for the shadow fleet. So Finland and the other Baltic nations would be fully justified in devoting a lot of attention to inspecting these ships. This is how you do a blockade without doing a blockade. It’s all legally justifiable. One could argue that it’s necessary because malfunctioning ships represent an environmental hazard and a danger to other ships. 😊
    4
  31. I want there to be a Port Chubby.
    4
  32.  @MrTimbeatty But you don’t need human passengers to develop new vehicles. You can use crash test dummies to uncover the majority of problems.
    4
  33. Pete just did a video on the WGA and SAG strikes. About the best I can say is that he means well, but he missed the main points by a mile, going off on a tangential issue (AI) as if it’s the most important one. It’s almost as if he shows us he doesn’t know about a thing when he opines about that thing without knowing about it. 😅 I don’t mind Pete going out on a limb. He’s the stuntman of geopolitical punditry and I like that. But if you recommend his channel to people, it’s a little bit embarrassing when he shows his ass.
    4
  34.  @OldMajor Tell us when you’ve found a new source of outrage. Your current source has gotten really boring.
    4
  35. The source of that story has since been discredited.
    4
  36. Look up Santa Ana Winds. Southern California is famous for them. However, this particular wind event was out of the ordinary, coming in January and with unbelievable intensity.
    4
  37. The point is that the pier will relieve the bottlenecks and allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza. Once it’s set up, the U.S. doesn’t have to operate it. That responsibility can be handed off to someone else. If the Gazans destroy it, that’s on them.
    4
  38. I’m sorry but we’re going to have to dock your pay for that one.
    4
  39. The instruments were not receiving power and not sending data to the data recorders.
    4
  40.  @gregorylyon1004 found the guy who didn’t watch the entire video.
    4
  41.  @alanholck7995 Did you watch the entire video?
    4
  42.  @andyjackson3414  Iran is controlled by a coalition of faction. The treatment of hostages will be determined by who has them.
    4
  43.  @Jennifermcintyre That story was discredited/recanted by the dockworker who reported it. I think it was CNN who did the interview. They couldn’t get additional confirmation.
    4
  44.  @AlphaAurora  Not Baltimore.
    4
  45.  @ThatOpalGuy  It’s an important part (a subsystem if you will) of the most intricate global system the world has ever seen. It was an important part of earlier versions of the global system, such as when the galleons plied the Pacific and Atlantic, trading silk for silver.
    4
  46. In the social media world, it’s all about bots bringing weird political agendas into the comments. Mr. “Boatman”.
    4
  47.  @mirror452  Tankie
    4
  48.  @wgowshipping I thought you were going to say boxers. 😂
    3
  49. Yeah, I couldn’t help but laugh. What city is it named after? The only Matamoros I am aware of is in Mexico, opposite Brownsville.
    3
  50.  @edi9892 It’s still a provocative act. It’s not isolated from other recent provocative acts by Russia. Attacking a non-combatant ship of a neutral country in international waters is escalatory. For whatever reason, Russia seems to be begging for another European country to retaliate, even at the cost of its further isolation. I think it’s an act of desperation. If the war in Ukraine was going well for Russia, they would simply continue grinding away at Ukraine. Hitting a non-combatant ship in international waters is a risky gamble to shake things up at a time when Russia supposedly doesn’t need to take huge risks. If the war in Ukraine is indeed going well for Russia, there must be another reason for the attack. The only other reason I can think of is regime security—the Putin regime is not as domestically safe as it wants to be. NATO retaliation would help the regime shore up internal support.
    3
  51. Are we assuming that the highly paid contractors MUST be American companies? AFAIK, the current VP is not a former chairman of Halliburton, so the pentagon is free to hire whomever they want.
    3
  52. ⁠​⁠ @joelv4495  Heavy crew weapons, specifically M-2, could handle drones. They could certainly be crew operated, but one would hope you’d have some kind of radar to detect where to look. Misiles not so much. Hopefully you have a DD nearby to handle the misiles. .50 cals are the cost effective solution. They can be stowed and secured in port. They have plenty of mounting options that don’t need extensive retrofitting. Crew of 2 per weapon. Good enough against drones. Outside of the Bar el mendeb or the coast of Iran, where do you expect to encounter ballistic misiles?
    3
  53. Saaaaaal Mercaaaaaaaaagliano! Thanks for all you do to bring us this analysis.
    3
  54. So Pete’s enthusiasm isn’t really about meeting sailors?
    3
  55.  @camojoe83  I think you’re missing the point if you expect gratitude. We do some things because they’re the right thing to do. Not everything has to be a transaction.
    3
  56.  @breft3416 that reminds me. Your mom is late on her payment again.
    3
  57. Thank you. There’s also the factor that these fires moved so fast that by the time you got all these saltwater pumps and hoses set up, most of the damage had been done. If we are talking about what should have been done with the benefit of hindsight, what might have solved the water pressure problem is redundant water storage. Im sure you’ve heard about the reservoir that was down for maintenance? I’m not blaming anyone for that. These things happen. The scheduling of repairs was only a bad decision in retrospect because Santa Ana wind events of this intensity in January are an anomaly. But if there had been two reservoirs, you can take one off line for maintenance and the other one keeps you covered. The problem is that before such a disaster, no one wants to pay for infrastructure that might ameliorate damage. It’s only after the house burns down that the homeowner is willing to pay more property tax to support such projects. (At least for a few years, until they rebuild and forget, and then they scream bloody murder about tax assessments.) But I’m not convinced that lack of water pressure was a key factor here in the spread of the fires. The anomalous wind event blew this fire up too quickly. It was going to burn until it hit the Pacific Ocean, as it did. There really was no way to get sufficient assets in place even if they had a plan to pump seawater.
    3
  58. Pu-#2? That sounds redundant.
    3
  59. Ukrainian special forces sent teams to loosen bolts on the Russian ships, but when they got onboard, the bolts were already loose. Plan B was to scatter packs of cigarettes near crew quarters.
    3
  60. The First Amendment does not protect your speech on YouTube. YouTube is not a government website or service. YouTube is privately owned by Alphabet, a holding company that is also privately owned by its shareholders.
    3
  61.  @sirobin171  Neither is Egypt. It’s just a fucked up situation all around.
    3
  62.  @finnmcginn9931 South Boston/Boston Harbor. Very Irish part of town.
    3
  63.  @Ryan83728 to be fair, they should use a strainer first. Anything caught by the strainer is too big to be human remains of this accident.
    3
  64. I don’t think he mispronounced Guiana, as he thinks. Guiana was a French colony. The name in French (spelled either gui or guy is prounounced “gee”. So Gee Ana is correct.
    3
  65. The Ruby Mar has joined the Red Sea. I wonder if the Red Sea was the inspiration for the ship’s name.
    3
  66. You do not understand how the cross-border automotive industry works. Everything that can be shifted to Mexico already has been shifted to Mexico. Suppliers are on both sides of the border, and they manufacture subcomponents and components on both sides of the border that each get assembled in their respective countries (mostly high end vehicles in the U.S., mostly economy vehicles in Mexico). There is still an import tax to bring a Mexican assembled car into the U.S. and a U.S. assembled car into Mexico. If you’re a UAW member, you ought to educate yourself further on how NAFTA 2.0 works. NAFTA 3.0 negotiations begin in 2026 (with NAFTA 2.0 being in force until 2030 iirc).
    3
  67. TEMU is an anagram for MUTE. If that’s not weird enough for you, it’s also M TEU.
    3
  68. Waking up is political poison to the GOP. I know this is difficult to believe, but there was a time when the GOP fought hard to keep our defense well funded. Nowadays they’re more concerned with attacking the military over culture war issues.
    3
  69. That’s Señora Sheinbaum to you. 😊
    3
  70.  @dertythegrower That’s just tempting fate.
    3
  71. There’s a lot of YouTube channels talking a lot of ship, but Sal really knows his ship.
    2
  72. There’s plenty of skilled labor available, we just have to let them in.
    2
  73. Of course you don’t want to lose independence. You want to be more like Texas if you ever become a state. 😊
    2
  74.  @wgowshipping Just be glad you’re not a Sovereign Citizen. Those guys get extremely confused about admiralty law.
    2
  75.  @WALTERBROADDUS  cheaper than all you can eat shrimp? Or do you mean not cheaper for the Red Lobster?
    2
  76.  @captiannemo1587  Sal is our lighthouse.
    2
  77. I’d put in a bridge but I can’t find the chorus.
    2
  78.  @bcluett1697  Given that the advertisements often contain more graphically violent imagery than the videos in question, the argument that YouTube is catering to advertisers’ sensibilities is unsupportable. YouTube also still sells ads for demonetized videos, which also undermines that argument. The evidence shows that YouTube is arbitrarily imposing its standards merely to cheat creators of commissions. YouTube doesn’t have the right to engage in unfair business practices despite the right of a company to make a profit.
    2
  79. Interesting. I suppose you could do real world pressure testing of the design and materials with uncrewed vessels being sent down to the appropriate depths. And really, you’d want to test at greater depths than the location of the Titanic to try and determine your point of failure. But that leads me to a weird question. Could you build a test model at 4x scale (for example, for a 10 cubic meter container, you build a 40 cubic meter container) for testing at lower pressures to derive the desired data?
    2
  80.  @Hybris51129  The trend goes back to 2000 at least. Rumsfeld was hired as sec def to “streamline” the military, and this is what we were doing up to 9/11 and after. Remember “you go to war with the army you have, not with the army you want”? The war was also supposed to pay for itself. Cheney said that. The trillions spent in Iraq and Afghanistan is money that could have gone into the regular defense budget. And lest you think I’m picking on George Bush, Obama continued Bush’s policies. And don’t get me started on the” can you throw me a big military parade with tanks and shit” President.
    2
  81. 7:41 The map looks so festive!
    2
  82. Such a thing is much needed, but I am afraid it would devolve into MAGA Congress-fluencers yelling at Sal to score political points and get on TV.
    2
  83. It’s being handled by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board. Don’t expect answers to your many questions any time soon.
    2
  84. 2:30 Trolling Norway. I mean TRAWLING Norway. 😅
    2
  85. I finally looked at the Panama Canal on a map app after hearing Sal mention it so many times. It just never before occurred to me to do so. The reclamation tanks (small reservoirs) are visible on the new lane, just like Sal said. You can make out the containers on the ships crossing the lake. I’m an avid map reader, and learning about shipping from Sal has been a great reason to look at more maps. Thanks, Sal.
    2
  86. Why are you not getting all the information you would like? There are two main reasons. 1) The information has not been determined or confirmed by the investigation, 2) The information has been determined and confirmed but the NTSB hasnt decided to release it. Ask Sal all the questions you want. I don’t think he can give you the answers you want. He can tell us possible answers, but he cannot inform us about what he doesn’t know. On the other hand, he can provide us with decades of learning and experience that he has gained from working in shipping, studying shipping, and teaching at the university level. Don’t be unreasonable in your expectations. Sal is generously providing us with a great service.
    2
  87. I think you’re talking about digging rather than dredging. Work on the blocked channel will probably be complete before you’re finished digging a second one. That’s just my non-expert opinion. My channel digging experience is limited to sandcastle construction.
    2
  88. If it’s taking 2-3 weeks, it’s going by ship anyway. This action announced by the CBP doesn’t affect you. EU law does. The CBP is shutting down on tariff cheating by Chinese companies that took advantage of de minimus enforcement: air freight is cheaper than ship freight + tariffs. If companies are paying full tariff for air freight, air freight is no longer the cheaper option.
    2
  89. That’s a lame excuse. You can do two things at once. I bet your honey won’t even notice the difference.
    2
  90.  @danger3_255  When we want your opinion, we’ll ask RT.
    2
  91.  @jm2453 It turns out you don’t even need a navy to defeat the Russian Navy.
    2
  92.  @robertpalin5878  How does it read? Because it’s already illegal to export such weapons unless the buyer is the government of Mexico. Did the Trump administration agree to crack down on the gun smuggling networks in the U.S.? That would make more sense than merely creating new law that is already covered by existing law. It’s sort of like saying, “As President I am going to ban littering”, which is meaningless as there are already anti-littering laws on the books. However, if the President was promising to take active measures against littering, that would mean something (assuming he followed through on it). If he is taking active measures, it could be either good or bad for legal gun owners. Good: it could decrease the overall demand for firearms in the U.S., which could lead to lower prices for gun buyers. Bad: depending on the active measures, in could lead to creeping infringement of our 2A rights.
    2
  93. ⁠ @simonjusticier333  Did naval battleships fail? How about non-naval battleships? Did they fail as well? No battleships are in the area of operations, nor have any battleships been spotted around here for decades. The vessels we’ve seen include cruisers, destroyers, and an aircraft carrier. I think the French have been operating a frigate, but go ahead and count that as a cruiser. They haven’t failed. They’ve done their jobs brilliantly. However, Houthi weapons will occasionally get through. This bulk carrier was out there freelancing without protection (or insurance as far as anyone knows).
    2
  94. And deep water submersibles are not in the subsafe submarine classes of vessels, either. Subsafe doesn’t apply to submersibles. If your point is that there is a safety framework that could be adapted to deep water crewed submersibles, ok. Good point. If your point is that SUBSAFE already applies to this class of submersibles, you are wrong.
    2
  95.  @thomasdragosr.841  Humongous airbags.
    2
  96. Tick Tock is the term used to describe a timeline. This happened (Tick), then that happened (Tock). It has nothing to do with the app.
    2
  97.  @juju1896  At least he’s not a bot complaining that it wasn’t covered. 😂 Or worse, complaining about taxpayers footing the bill.
    2
  98. Did they pay you in clams? 😊 I don’t think you’ll get an answer from Dole, but it’s worth a shot! Good luck!
    2
  99.  @danielch6662  Somwhat you’re saying is I can untwist my underpants and stop clutching my pearls? Good to know! 😅
    2
  100. Hangzhou is pronounced (more or less) hong chow or hong jow. Similar to the -tch sound in watch.
    2
  101. Securely?
    2
  102. 80% or more of the products I buy are hecho en Mexico. That might be due to the increased trade with Mexico, but really it’s probably due to my having moved to Mexico. 🤭 But some facts about trade between Mexico and the U.S.: Our economy is already deeply entwined with Mexico’s economy, especially in sectors like the automotive industry, plastics, and aerospace. NAFTA has allowed suppliers (to the car manufacturers) to pass subcomponents to be passed across the border multiple times. A sub-sub component is built in one country, shipped to the other, assembled with another sub sub component sourced in that country to create a sub component, shipped back, and assembled into a component that then gets assembled into a car. The back and forth is quite intricate in some cases. The efficiency here has a lot to do with labor costs, and this impacts the where different class of vehicles are finally assembled. Mexico builds a lot of economy cars (mostly for its domestic markets), while the high end is dominated by U.S. manufacturing, with a mix in the mid priced cars. (Have any of you seen the Toyota Tsuri? It’s a popular economy car down here. Every taxi seems to be a Tsuri, because it’s low cost but reliable. But the point is, when you buy an American made car, a substantial number of its parts where manufactured in Mexico. The converse holds true for cars built in Mexico. They all use parts manufactured in the U.S. Mexico has developed a vocational education system that we should be emulating, a post-secondary that combines college with specialized vocational training. The basis is the credential, the Licencia degree awarded after three years of post-secondary education. (The next level is Maestría, roughly equivalent to getting a Master’s degree.) The Licencia education combines basic college level instruction (such as STEM if you were going into manufacturing) and instruction on practical applications. So a student wanting to go into plastics would learn basic chemistry, organic chem, physics, advanced organic chem focused on polymers, and then they would learn how the basic science is used in the manufacturing process. This provides manufacturers with workers capable of not just supervising assembly lines, but of understanding the line and the line’s purpose. Frankly, we should be sending our young people to Mexico for training if we can’t get our educational shit together. Anyway, that’s one of the bees in my bonnet. 1) Our economies are deeply linked and both countries benefit. 2) College education and vocational training in the U.S. is screwed up and 2A) we would benefit from learning how Mexico is rapidly training a competent workforce if only we could get over false pride.
    2
  103.  @eddieyeoh4098  Please be specific. What percentage of Mexican manufacturing is Chinese and what is your source for the information?
    2
  104. It also means work starts immediately instead of when the liability knots are untangled. Yes, it’s facilitating. You’re correct. But how? The answer is it’s guaranteeing the salvage companies that they’ll get paid.
    2
  105. I’m sorry you’re being inconvenienced.
    2
  106. You can relieve those symptoms with a good hemorrhoid cream, but you have to move your head out of the way first.
    2
  107. The reason you have two pilots under normal circumstances is to change lightbulbs. One pilot holds the lightbulb, the other pilot turns the ship. 😅
    2
  108. GenX here. Cruise ships aren’t my cup of tea, but I see the appeal.
    2
  109. Rejected operation code names: Operation Rich Uncle.
    2
  110. He’s not entirely wrong about either the bridge (it’s not a house-on-fire emergency, but still important) or the Jones Act (which needs reform and updating). But that’s the flaw with Peter. He’s often partially right because he has partial knowledge.
    2
  111.  @AlphaAurora  and a Pepsi.
    2
  112. Are you under colonization? Who is currently colonizing you?
    2
  113.  @ThatOpalGuy  Drink!
    2
  114.  @Bubba-wx7lp  don’t mess with his ghoulish fantasies.
    2
  115. Like you, I am looking forward to many congressional hearings and a ton of grandstanding about this. Hopefully MTG will head up the committee because that would be hilarious.
    2
  116. I’m sympathetic but no. There was very little in the debate that is indirectly within the purview of this channel, and nothing directly related.
    2
  117. Is there a top luxury cruise ship that is ahead (more luxurious) than its competitors?
    2
  118. “big-boy-and-girl-pants”. The extra time it took to type that is appreciated. 😂 I know I’m laughing, but it’s little efforts at inclusiveness like this, carried out by many people, that make a difference.
    2
  119. Sal, do a reaction to the Frank Zappa song Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch, please.
    1
  120.  @JBHRN That’s the thing, though. The number of vessels in this class is tiny. The vessel in question, the Titan, was unique. There are no safety standards established (yet). I’m not saying this is right or a desirable state of affairs. I’m just saying that it’s how it is. Many people in these comments seem to think that regulation is just a matter of ordering that something be regulated. There are a lot of different steps that go into creating a regulation regime, and we are at the very beginning. There is nothing to be done at this point while the mishap is being investigated, other than putting an immediate freeze on all crewed deep sea activities. In addition, given the tiny amount of people involved in the mishap, I don’t think that there is any reason to give regulation of deep water submersibles any priority over other much needed regulatory reform that affects millions of people.
    1
  121. I think you hit the nail on the head with regard to disagreeing with some of Sal’s points. Sal is offering a point of view that is worth considering, a POV you won’t get anywhere else. He has considerations that you (as a student of history and geopolitics) might not have been aware of or on which you might not place as great importance as he does. What a time to be alive, when we have access to a professor like Sal, or to an anonymous defense analyst in Australia, or many others willing to share their expertise with us. (Yeah, that was a shout out to Perun, whose ppt videos you probably already watch. If you don’t, you should.)
    1
  122. I’m sure they’re protecting all Egyptian flagged ships from the Houthis. What more do you expect from them?
    1
  123. Greetings, Armchair General. We noticed you’re trying to politicize a humanitarian effort by the U.S. Army like a dirty hippy. It doesn’t matter if you support the politicians. Support the troops, you pinko. That goes for the rest of you Trump suckups. I agree with Tom Riley. This an important lesson under urgent need but not total emergency circumstances (such as if we were resupplying our soldiers under siege).
    1
  124.  @elhueso4330  Tell us something new.
    1
  125.  @achimsteffens5357  For what it’s worth, you’re not late to the party. Not very late to it, at least. Europe now seems fully awake to the threats from China and Russia.
    1
  126. Let’s hope they’re reactive now, and do something. There are too many congresspeople in the House of Representatives that will try to block these efforts.
    1
  127. Tariffs will pay for subsidies, not the tax payer. Didn’t you know that Trump tariffs are magical and don’t cause inflation because the price increases are never passed on to the consumer? Trump tariffs will pay for everything. It’s like free money. lol, just kidding. Obviously the above claims are pure nonsense. That said, subsidies in the form of tax breaks that create NEW economic activity are less of a tax burden than you might think. Federal and state governments are foregoing tax revenue that didn’t exist previously. So over the long term they aren’t really costing anything (hopefully), they might create eventual revenue (best case), or they might have a smaller cost but have other benefits that make the cost worthwhile. Put another way, it’s not a loss of revenue if that revenue wasn’t there to begin with. Granted, a lot depends on how the tax break is structured. I’m sure we can imagine scenarios were it all goes wrong and instead of growth, there is merely a shift of activity from existing ports. I haven’t read the legislation that was just passed. I guess Sal hasn’t had a chance to analyze it either because it got pushed through the House of Representatives so quickly.
    1
  128. You want names? Start with Mike Johnson. He could get this fully funded tomorrow morning.
    1
  129.  @SpruceWood-NEG  Thanks, enormous penis, for pasting this dumbass spam on various comments.
    1
  130. The House of Representatives is a shipshow, haven’t you noticed? They’re unable to govern because of a handful of obstructionist extremists who came to Washington to be on TV.
    1
  131. I hear the Red Sea mentioned, I reach for my shot glass and bottle of mezcal.
    1
  132. Very good interview! I hope it brings many more subscribers. Thanks for sharing it here because I doubt Scripps News would surface on my recommendations feed.
    1
  133. How old is Ally Sheedy?
    1
  134. What does IRS hiring have to do with CBP operations?
    1
  135. lol, the Data Hyperlups.
    1
  136.  @billpugh58  I generally agree with that sentiment. But there is a different principle here regarding YouTube’s business practices with regard to creators working on commission. YouTube’s business practices are still governed by laws defining unfair business practices. Here are some facts I have observed as a viewer. • I am still shown advertisements on demonetized videos. • Many of the ads depict violence much more graphic than in the videos themselves. • YouTube is arbitrarily applying standards to video creators while giving advertisers a pass. YouTube’s practices contradict its justifications for those practices. When the ads themselves contain graphic violence, the argument that YouTube will lose advertisers is very weak. When the audience is shown “objectionable” violent imagery in the ads, YouTube doesn’t have an argument that they’re protecting the audience from objectionable violent content. YouTube pattern of behavior strongly suggests that their policies and arbitrary practices are cheating creators of commission revenue for the sake of YouTube’s own profits. YouTube cannot claim a loss of profits because advertisers avoid violent content. Clearly there are plenty of advertisers who do not find violent content objectionable. They cannot argue that they are protecting the public from violent imagery when they are clearly not protecting the public from advertisers’ violent imagery.
    1
  137. ⁠ @nic12344  I see no dearth of ads that contain graphic depictions of violence that far exceed the standard that YouTube imposes on creators, so this argument doesn’t hold water. I saw three advertisements for video games over the course of this video that contained much more violent imagery than did the video itself. YouTube also shows ads on demonetized videos. The claim that advertisers avoid violent content is unsupportable.
    1
  138.  @SpringIsBACK  You need to define what you think the mission should be, how it should be accomplished, and you need to enumerate the repercussions and why they are acceptable. That might demonstrate that you have an understanding of the strategic situation. Otherwise, you’re just another crank, yelling “Fix it!” at the air.
    1
  139.  @thefinalkayakboss  acorns. 🌰
    1
  140.  @Heterogeneity  well to be fair, passing the funding requires making deals with the Satan worshiping pedophillic antifa party trying to destroy America. /s
    1
  141.  @fortresseuropa Well, that’s the rub. This vessel was unique and deep water submersibles as a category are rare. There are no established safety protocols specific to this class of vessel and it’s not covered under the SOLAS convention. It’s only AFTER tragedies that protocols are created or adapted, and until you have a protocol, you don’t really have a basis for a checklist. Whine all you want about capitalism and putting the almighty dollar ahead of safety, but safety standards are even worse in communist countries. I’ll take 5 deaths from experimental technology and an overall better workplace safety record, thank you. If there were shenanigans such as misleading passengers, I mean, paying crew members, that will come out in the investigation and subsequent law suits—but keep in mind that the person who is ultimately responsible was himself on the Titan and is now beyond earthly justice. It’s also going to be hard to determine if the deceased paying crew members were fully cognizant of the risks or not, because they’re not around to tell us what they knew before signing release forms and boarding the vessel. A full inquiry will answer some of these questions, but probably not all questions with 100% certainty. And once the inquiry/investigation is complete and a report issued, there will be a better basis for setting up a safety framework for these types of vessels, so they can be registered, certified, and inspected.
    1
  142. ⁠ @misarthim6538 I heard it was millions of victims, perhaps billions. You’re counting sperm, right? If we are talking about all forms of tubes, such as condoms, there are probably quadrillions of innocent victims. Even inside a natural tube used for reproductive purposes, only a single lucky one survives. The rest of the cohort that gets deposited in the tube (usually around 100-200 million sperm) perish. Now as far as these rare and exotic deep sea submersibles, there is no certification agency for this class of vessel. Criticizing the company for using an uncertified vessel makes you look ignorant. I think the most one can argue is that much more unmanned testing should have been done.
    1
  143.  @asbestosfiber The only counter to that is, what if the company was concealing or minimizing safety issues? On this point I can only speculate, so it’s better to wait for an investigation or inquiry to be completed and a report issued before reaching any conclusions.
    1
  144.  @lcmattern So the CEO, the guy who should face any consequences, has fled beyond human reach. No earthly court can impose a sentence on him or compel him to pay a penalty. Maybe he’ll face those consequences in an afterlife. 🤷🏻‍♀️
    1
  145.  @ropeburnsrussell  Lend-Lease!
    1
  146. Hello, three month old YouTube account.
    1
  147. lol, not that big. Do all Idahoans exaggerate as much as you do?
    1
  148. You should tell Ward, “Thank you very mooch.”
    1
  149. Why would you SULLY your reputation with all those Tom Hanks movie references?
    1
  150. Fragile, but robust. The internet is designed in a way that you could call self-healing. If a node goes down, the traffic reroutes automatically around that node. If direct traffic between Europe and Asia was cut, the traffic would be rerouted across North America. It’s a detour. It could lead to “traffic congestion”. But I doubt it would be catastrophic on its own.
    1
  151.  @jonmccormick8683 Which is still prohibited by international law.
    1
  152. “we only know what they let us know” 🙄 What information is missing and who is “they”? I don’t get why everything has to be a conspiracy these days. It’s normal for some information to be released right away, while other information takes longer to be confirmed. Your impatience doesn’t govern the news cycle, although the wild speculation industry is happy to service your needs. There’s also the problem that when investigators don’t report the conspiracy, it’s believed by conspiracy nuts that the investigators are part of a criminal conspiracy. Is that the issue you’re having? I don’t know if any of my objections apply to your comment, but your tone suggests that they do. If you’ve fallen into the habit of seeing conspiracies everywhere, it’s time to rethink your thinking.
    1
  153.  @jm2453  They weren’t sure how to pronounce Jina. Funny thing, though. Trump’s China expert, Pete Navarro, was a real China Hawk. But he spent his time in the Trump administration sitting on his thumbs. And now he’s sitting in jail.
    1
  154. I crunged.
    1
  155. The border issues can wait until next year, according to those who are supposedly the most concerned about them.
    1
  156.  @WindTurbineSyndrome How do you propose the CG or any other agency inspect a deep water crewed submersible vessel? To do an inspection you first have to set a standard for inspection. You can’t just make it up on the spot. This is a very rare class of ships. I’m pretty certain they are not insured in the same manner as commercial ships are insured (if they’re insured at all), so there’s been no call for a regulatory regime until now. Until there is international agreement, the most any government can do is to ban such activities in its territorial waters. I don’t think they can ban transport of experimental vessels from their ports to international waters (although I could be wrong about that).
    1
  157. Boring is good.
    1
  158. Particularly the House of Representatives. There’s a few destructive oddballs in the Senate that might try to scuttle any attempt to reform our ship building capabilities. I wonder what rationale Tuberville would give? Sailors are too woke?
    1
  159.  @wgowshipping That’s catnip for the conspiracy-minded. 😖
    1
  160.  @Miyuki2319 ​​⁠Just google “13 is an unlucky number”.
    1
  161.  @gus473 the tit panic
    1
  162. Which party is against funding the military because it considers the military to be woke? Which party threatens government shutdowns? Which presidential candidate said government shutdowns are a good thing? I used to think Democrats priorities were misplaced, but I look at the GOP now and I don’t see any priorities.
    1
  163. I hope that was a security cam and not a phone camera. 😳
    1
  164. How is that relevant?
    1
  165. In the early morning hours, actually. Everything was fine up until 1:30 AM.
    1
  166. Deep sea roombas. Giant shop vacs.
    1
  167. What to do with a captured pirate? It depends. Is it ear-lie in the morning? Put him in a longboat and make him bail her, for a start.
    1
  168. So if there’s a similar fire in the IE, are you proposing that they pump sea water from the Pacific Ocean?
    1
  169. Someone is going to commit a war crime on the hoopties, and the rest of the world will pretend they didn’t see it or who did it.
    1
  170. Simp.
    1
  171. Derp derp LATE STAGE CAPITALIZATION
    1
  172.  @wgowshipping  One of the best, but there was no drinking game. I guess it’s dry dock Sunday.
    1
  173.  @midnightfenrir  It’s hard to address any of your points because they are all provocative hogwash and because you leave yourself so much rhetorical wiggle room. But even more, we all know you’re just trolling, so answering you on a point for point basis is futile. This is all the reaction you’ll get from me.
    1
  174. How does an emergency directive help? These are expensive infrastructure projects that take time to complete. An executive order would be symbolic at best without an act passed by Congress to fund infrastructure upgrades.
    1
  175. How so? Do you have any specific examples or are you just “speculating”?
    1
  176. The bridge rebuilding is also a local/state issue. Maryland will be responsible. No doubt the federal government will kick in a chunk of money (depending on which part is in control of congress). There will be insurance money from the marine insurer (as Sal discussed in another vid).
    1
  177. Sadly, I’m also dependent on a manual release but it has nothing to do with my semenship.
    1
  178. Letting the power loose is an excuse for what? Was that the issue here, that the ferry was going too fast? Your comment is confusing.
    1
  179. I understand the fentanyl smuggling differently. If the traffic is stopped at the southern border, we also want to prevent it from being rerouted through Canada. Maybe the amounts smuggled today are insignificant, but that could change if shipments are stopped at the Southern border. Anyway, the idea of addressing smuggling at both borders isn’t completely irrational. There might be people in the Trump administration that understand tariffs, trade balances, and basic economics. But I suppose that they value loyalty to Trump, their nearness to power, and their jobs over trying to correct the President’s ignorance. The sky is whatever color the boss says it is.
    1
  180. ⁠ @evinwhiteson4902 You forgot the rest of the steps: 3) Post unrelated bs in the comments. 4) ???? 5) Profit!!!
    1
  181. @tag4789 A strong defense prevents war. Are you a MAGA child or a regular child?
    1
  182. I suspect that they’re sufficient for current needs, but wouldn’t be able to handle transport logistics in a future conflict.
    1
  183. Defense News has an interesting article (but I was only able to read half of it before the ad-blocker wall went up). It looks like ASTIMAR is very busy. How would investments be structured? ASTIMAR is a Mexican SOE. Our government (U.S.) isn’t big on SOE, but we could encourage American firms to invest by loaning them the money. I’m sure a joint venture could be worked out along these lines (assuming the House of Representatives can get its ship together and lose the dead-weight obstructionists). Your thoughts?
    1
  184.  @danielch6662  ASTIMAR is a SOE, so I don’t think China can buy it out. A joint venture between ASTIMAR and a U.S. company (with the U.S. government backing the loans) could work out well for both us and Mexico. Also, I’m not a big fan of López Obrador, but I don’t think he’s a huge fan of the PRC. The Chinese investments in Mexican infrastructure are structured differently (more advantageously to Mexico) than the BRI deals China is doing in SE Asia, Central Asia, and Africa. Mexico doesn’t have to worry about falling into a Chinese debt trap.
    1
  185.  @Gabby-bot  You want a woke captain, unless you think being asleep at the wheel is a good thing. Nuts to your silly “culture war”. It’s not conservative and it’s not good for business.
    1
  186.  @davefroman4700  So many thirsty China simps here. How’s that BRI coming? Restructure any bad debt lately? 😂
    1
  187. Are you playing solitaire Jeopardy?
    1
  188.  @titus2080  You use a weapon.
    1
  189. There is another comment where Sal explains the reason.
    1
  190. ⁠ @ivanbluetarski9071  I think it’s completely arbitrary, and it’s done to deprive creators like Saul of their rightfully earned commissions.
    1
  191. This is what you call sober reporting, because there was no mention of the B.E.M. If the hull and the superstructure are in good shape, is there a reason the engines and other systems and equipment can’t be upgraded or renovated on these ferries? Is there a reason older ships can’t be rebuilt? (I mean a reason other than “it’s not as profitable”.)
    1
  192. Shouldn’t you be commenting on other channels about how the orange guy won, or is this what you do on your coffee break?
    1
  193. I hate to say it, but the Dems are gonna love this. And this time they have a point. We really do need to spend more on infrastructure in general and bridges in particular. I know a lot of other fiscal conservatives that will fight spending. But sometimes you have to spend money to save money.
    1
  194. THE EXPLANATION IS THAT WE ARE ENTERING THE LATE STAGE CAPITALIZATION
    1
  195.  @cageordie  Advertisements for realistically violent games, it should be noted. I saw three ads for games that featured explosions, targeting vehicles, and assassinations with a sniper rifle. It seems that violence is OK when YouTube is getting paid, but reporting of real world violence is an excuse to minimize paying commissions to video creators doing actual journalism.
    1
  196.  @ThatOpalGuy  They make some of the rules, but there are other rules that govern unfair business practices in the United States. I saw three ads for violent video games. One of the ads was for a sniper game that depicted an assassination. All the ads feature violent explosions. The inconsistency undermines YouTube’s justifications for demonetization. They’re not protecting the user audience from depictions of violence. Nor can they claim that advertisers find depictions of violence to be objectionable, when the advertisers use depictions of violence in their advertisements. I am not one of those that believe litigation is the solution for all of life’s problems. But there is a winnable case to be made here if creators joined together to challenge YouTube’s unfair business practices in a courtroom. Contractual language to which Saul and others have agreed does not supersede the law.
    1
  197.  @danielch6662  But advertisements are not reviewed for objectionable content. The rules are being applied inconsistently and unfairly, and not in accordance with laws governing unfair business practices. Such laws are in force regardless of whatever agreements YouTube has extracted from video creators doing actual journalism. They cannot justify the practice by claiming that violence is objectionable to advertisers, nor can they claim that they are protecting the audience from objectionable violent content when the ads themselves contain much more violent imagery. Labor costs are not a sufficient defense to unfair business practices that allow YouTube to arbitrarily avoid paying commissions to content creators.
    1
  198. Wago connectors! Aha!
    1
  199.  @OGZackov  He’s frightened of an openly gay man running the department of TRANS-portation. We don’t want woke ships changing their genders, do we?
    1
  200.  @sebastianforbes1  You’re interfering with others’ enjoyment of a stupid anti-capitalist conspiracy theory. Shame on you for not being an ignorant lazy slob and having at least a basic grasp of economics (and perhaps more than a basic grasp). Please leave these simple minded people their simple pleasures.
    1
  201.  @marcusaetius9309  Are you a turtle?
    1
  202. That’s sort of like a $XX Million deductible?
    1
  203. 100%. They do not publish their standards and they actively resist creators’ attempts to receive guidance. YouTube is engaging in a pattern of cheating creators out of advertising commissions, and their stated justifications don’t hold water.
    1
  204. You negotiated with a sympathetic negotiator. There’s nothing wrong with that. He cut through some stages of negotiating and avoided a costly lawsuit for his company. It happens even when there isn’t a personal connection. I had a lowball offer after a car accident. I talked with a lawyer friend and he said to talk with the adjuster before hiring a lawyer because I might get a fair and sympathetic person, but I definitely would not once I even mentioned getting a lawyer. I got everything I was fairly entitled to. And to top it off, I made an offer for the salvage title of my totaled but repairable car. So I got the current replacement value of the car, plus the car, minus $200. I also think being prepared with documentation helps a lot. I was ready with the doctor bills, car rental receipts, and proof of loss of pay before I even picked up the phone. I could justify my claim. I bet that you had your documentation ready or nearly so. I wouldn’t call your situation’s resolution a “backroom deal”. You were just lucky enough to find someone to cut through some red tape.
    1
  205. More likely it’s your employers using insurance or lawyers as the excuse for making you do things their way. Perhaps they have reasons for having you follow their policy, and it’s quicker for them to say “insurance/lawyers”. Insurance doesn’t control the world. It’s an important part of commerce, more important than many realize. The truth is that no one controls the world, and commerce is at risk from all manner of calamities, natural and man-made. Insurance is used to hedge against that risk, to smooth out the chaos. “Insurance controls the world” sounds like something you might say if you were trying to blame someone else for the world not being to your liking.
    1
  206. What are the structural issues if any? Is it seaworthy? Part of the problem with the Queen Mary floating hotel/tourist attraction is that it’s located in Long Beach, California. Long Beach isn’t a tourist destination. (The City of Long Beach purchased the ship in an attempt to change itself into a destination city, but it hasn’t worked.) The Queen Mary is also expensive to maintain and operate. I’m just guessing but I doubt it’s making any great profits even in a good year. She’s also permanently moored. She’s not going anywhere. I think for the SS United States to be profitable, it would need to operate as a floating casino. It would need to operate out of a port in a popular destination city, and head out to international waters for gambling.
    1
  207. Ironically, YouTube showed me three different advertisements for wargame/shooter games over the course of this video. If YouTube is concerned about depictions of violence, they are far from consistent in how they apply their rules. It really seems like YouTube is happy to show violence when they’re being paid, and happy to demonetize videos to pay less to content creators. It’s just one more example of YouTube’s malignant business practices. Don’t get me started.
    1
  208. “Hey, ship-for-brains!”
    1
  209. What are the odds?
    1
  210. Well, now it’s a haunted ship.
    1
  211. Government purchases of U.S. flags must be domestically produced.
    1
  212. Anything, any program that has a chance of doing some good, is going to get blocked in the House of Representatives. There’s a handful of obstructionist extremists who’d rather go on TV shows than govern, and they’ve got the rest of the conference running scared. If that weren’t bad enough, they’re pathological liars unlike anything we’ve ever seen (save one man). To hear them tell it, inflation and unemployment are killing the country and we’re halfway into a depression. But if by some miracle the House of Representatives gets its ship together, I could see the U.S. doing a joint venture with Mexico’s state owned ship building company ASTIMAR (which builds destroyers, corvettes, and frigates at 5 different ship building facilities). I don’t think the U.S. government wants to own a ship building business (nor should they, imho), but they could provide loans to a U.S. ship building contractor that would then invest in the joint venture. Chile is another possibility, but Mexico is close and we could make use of NAFTA so that the ship building is a cross-border enterprise. This could be very good for the gulf states.
    1
  213. Insurance is the original hedge.
    1
  214. Sir, this is a Wendy’s.
    1
  215.  @PFA...  It’s not Houthi territorial waters, though. What crazy notions you have.
    1
  216.  @RichardKing-sx6xc  That’s not true.
    1
  217.  @dosmundos3830 China’s debt is unknown because their monetary policies are a state secret. It could be 2 trillion. It could be 32 trillion. No one outside economists in Chinese inner circles really knows, and even then there seems to be internal problems with collecting accurate data.
    1
  218.  @eddieyeoh4098  That’s not true. What is the source of your information?
    1
  219.  @LinusScrubTips  The fact is that products from these other countries often have parts sourced in China.
    1
  220.  @nooboftheyear7170  They don’t have any interest in policies or the governing function of government. It’s all politics for them, and any real issue is not to be solved but to be used as a weapon. Guys like James are non-serious people. They’re like children. I’m an ex-republican (not a democrat), and I’m a conservative if you use older definitions of the word.
    1
  221.  @nooboftheyear7170  No one outside of the Chinese inner circles actually knows what Chinese national debt is, and I have my doubts that the inner circles really know because they have big problems collecting accurate data. Chinese monetary policy is a state secret.
    1
  222.  @labandonaldhock80  Is that sarcasm or are you a tripe salesman?
    1
  223. ⁠ @alhkcblack9617  They’re saying it but it’s not true. Its an exaggeration.
    1
  224. It’s unclear if it was Romanian waters or international waters. Neither one is OK.
    1
  225.  @ThatOpalGuy  It’s mostly bots that promulgate the conspiracy theories and they’ve already moved on to other news stories. They were pretty thick in the first few days of this story, though.
    1
  226. I think it depends on how it’s done. If they assemble the pier and deliver some loads of humanitarian aid, they can turn it over to another organization. They can even walk away once the pier is built. It’s a humanitarian victory. If Hamas tries to destroy it, oh well. What if Hamas attacks while it’s being built? For one thing, I’m pretty sure that the U.S. military can defend itself. For the second thing, I doubt Hamas has the capability to mount a serious attack. Third, if they try, they’re exposing themselves to the IDF.
    1
  227. You think Trump can negotiate complicated deals? The dude couldn’t even fill out a loan application correctly.
    1
  228.  @georgepidick9967 bzzz bzzzz conspiracy fly
    1
  229.  @ThatOpalGuy  What I find fascinating is the impact shipping and trade has on every other aspect of human society at each stage of our development. (I’m avoiding “each stage of progress” in the formulation.) The silver from the Americas that went to China kept the Chinese Empire stable at a time when it faced currency shortages. The silver that returned to Spain made Spain a Superpower. (And arguably led to the various new world liberation movements, but that comes much later.) Spain’s naval power in turn spurred the English to rapidly develop their navy, first for defense and later for colonization. That brings us to the next stage, but I’m not writing a book here. You get the idea. Trade spurs developments and developments spur trade and further developments. (Again, I’m intentionally avoiding the word progress.)
    1
  230.  @ThatOpalGuy  That’s arguable (that we’ve reached a point of overspending). “America First” is a populist slogan propagated by a power hungry authoritarian movement that has a limited definition of who is American. The leaders of this movement will put themselves first, always. Back to overspending. To determine if the U.S. is overspending, we need to ask “What is the spending for?”. In other words, what is the intended result? If the answer to that is “preserving American hegemony”, we’re going to get into a long discussion about hegemony and its pros and cons. I think it’s an important conversation, but this is a frikkin’ reply in a frikkin’ video comment thread. So let’s skip it and get back to overspending. Let’s assume that we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns wrt the benefits of maintaining our hegemony. Meanwhile, other nation states have also reaped many benefits from U.S. hegemony. I think we’re at a point where it would be wise for the U.S. to unwind its hegemony IF other countries are prepared to preserve its forms and to defend against those seeking to overturn it and replace it with their empires. If the U.S. just closes up shop and leaves, there are less desirable nation states that want to fill the vacuum and impose their own less benign hegemonies. And that is why the relinquishment of hegemony must be done carefully, strengthening our friends and pushing back on the less benign empire builders where they threaten stability.
    1
  231.  @alan6832  No. If the U.S. abandoned superpower status, there are malignant nation states ready to push into the vacuum aggressively, creating their empires that would be much worse than U.S. hegemony. If the U.S. is to withdraw from its hegemon position, it must do so carefully and not precipitously, being ready to work with allies and partners (as you are suggesting) to preserve peace and stability. To withdraw from our hegemony out of weakness would invite disaster. It must be done with strength, pooling our strength with our partners and allies. The idea of abandoning our position as the world hegemon is a bad idea when you consider the inevitable alternative. Unwinding the hegemony with care offers us a third alternative to U.S. hegemony. That should be our goal.
    1
  232. The cables are not in service and presumably not energized. I don’t know about the gas line.
    1
  233. lol, Boeing is currently experiencing some issues. Some say Boeing isn’t worth a plugged nickel. Others say they aren’t worth a door plug.
    1
  234. Your phrasing makes you sound like a Karen. “I’m a taxpayer and I demand to talk to your supervisor.”
    1
  235.  @skutchBlobaum  See solandri69’s response. Also: Demand fluctuates, and it’s costly to maintain an excess inventory of ships. You can say it’s profit motivated, but you could also say it’s loss-aversion motivated. But you don’t want too few, because when there is a spike in demand, there is a long lead time in acquiring new ships. Not enough ships and you’re losing profits. Too many ships, you’re losing profits. The correct number of ships is not constant.
    1
  236.  @solandri69  Thank you for explaining that better than I could. I wish I hadn’t been a pot addled college kid (only concerned about a passing grade on the final exam) when I took an economics class.
    1
  237.  bustabloodvessel5327  BRICS is not a serious thing. It’s more of a propaganda vehicle than a serious alternative financial vehicle. Russia’s attack on Ukraine basically reduced it to BICS, and now it’s looking more like it will be an expensive Chinese hobby.
    1
  238. Transnistria’s only power plant used Russian gas, which is now cut off. The Transnistrian government is refusing to accept help from Modova. It looks like the people of Transnistria will be facing a cold and dark Winter without Russian gas.
    1
  239.  @gaberoo9099  he’s a PRC simp.
    1
  240. Where did you hear it? Ronald Reagan said it. HTH HAND
    1
  241. But it wasn’t a valid military target.
    1
  242. Panama is suffering a drought. Water management can only do so much.
    1
  243. @martinr1834 Agreed. We are not above criticism, but most of what I see is unjustified anti-American propaganda. When I use the term Hegemony, it’s an accurate neutral term I am using to describe the most powerful nation in history that imposed rule of law on much of the world. We provided the security that was the basis for the free trade that gave other nations the opportunity to develop materially and raise themselves to prosperity. We’ve been a hegemony, and we have benefited from it, but so has the rest of the world, especially those nations willing to follow the rules. We have not been a perfect hegemon. I’m not claiming that. There have been many mistakes and abuses. But on the whole our hegemony has not been draconian and has benefited the many beyond our borders. I’m specifically eschewing terms such as “empire” and especially “neo-colonialism”. The former is not applicable and the later is one of those empty, meaningless phrases used as a button rather than an actual idea. Press that button and watch the Marx-influenced left begin to salivate. Its an empty signifier, to use the academic parlance. I believe we are moving to a period of shrinking hegemony, but hopefully not of isolationism. A shrinking hegemony leaves behind a vacuum. This is why our policy must be to encourage nations like India who have the capability to fill that vacuum in their regions, rather than leave it to the bad actors like Iran or China.
    1
  244.  @AbhayPeshin  Your total ignorance about the situation on the southern border is risible. Please, by all means you should immigrate to China rather than the U.S.
    1
  245.  @JTST1234  Let’s be frank. There has never been trust between India and the U.S. after Indian Independence. But there isn’t an adversarial relationship either. India has always kept the U.S. at arm’s distance, and we know why. They (you) have fiercely maintained non-alignment and independence. But despite this coolness in relations, we have also had a basis for friendly relations, the Indian-Americans. The sons and daughters of India that have become Americans strengthen both of our countries and our friendship.
    1
  246. lol, it’s like when a fuse keeps blowing an some genius decides to hardwire a jumper.
    1
  247. I thought the channel had been hijacked and the workers’ revolution had begun.
    1
  248. She ships seashells from the seashore.
    1
  249. I don’t think it’s feasible with Spring Training almost upon us.
    1
  250. I think the term you wanted was “closely held”, not privately owned. HTH, Sal. Thanks for the video.
    1
  251. Stingers. That’s all I’m saying.
    1
  252. This isn’t a NATO operation.
    1
  253. China doesn’t have the blue water capability. Not yet, anyway.
    1
  254. Agreed. I think you should get Russia’s seat after they are removed.
    1
  255. Bullshit, man. I’ve seen references in 100+ year old documents to wireless.
    1
  256.  @DragonTamerCos  I need to upgrade my text card. The lag on this MUD is killing me. Of course I upgraded to 1200 baud. That was the first thing I did. ~~ Guy logging in from home
    1
  257.  @martensjd Literally continuously? Have you called Guinness yet? No, not the world record people, the beer company. Because you need to drink beer until you pass out.
    1
  258.  @WALTERBROADDUS What about the teeth the tooth fairy brings me?
    1
  259.  @Kenneth_James  what about sustainment?
    1
  260. Let’s be honest. B.S. is our greatest export. But the Post (either NY or Washington) does not represent the views of intelligent people.
    1
  261. It really seems like a desperate act by Russia.
    1
  262.  @ViceCoin  Nope. There are supplementaries to cover the exclusions. This was covered in a previous episode, iirc.
    1
  263. lol, strike averted and a new pope all at the same time.
    1
  264. Shouldn’t redundancy catch that?
    1
  265. Finally!!
    1
  266. The interviewer certainly asked the right questions to bring out the answers. I don’t think it contained (no pun intended) anything new to regular viewers of this channel.
    1
  267. The wind was actually driving the fire downhill, down into canyons and into populated areas. There really was convection behavior you describe wasn’t as much of a factor here. Wilderness area fire strategy is generally to contain the fire, let it burn out, and dump lots of water on it when it approaches populated areas to keep communities from burning. The firemen can concentrate on the houses on the edges. In this case, the fire was everywhere all at once within a few hours. We don’t usually get this strong a Santa Ana in January. And we’ve had little rain in the past 8 years, in fact So Cal has been suffering drought conditions for more than 20 years, with a few wet years here and there. The underlying fact is that we’ve been experiencing shifts in the climate, and our fire season has gotten longer. When I was a kid, fire season was summer to early fall. Now it’s late spring to the middle of winter, and some are saying we now have permanent year around fire season. These January Santa Ana winds were anomalous for both intensity and time of the year. I worry that the anomaly is the start of a new weather pattern.
    1
  268. You’re marinated again.
    1
  269. Walter Cronkite never called a torpedo a drone.
    1
  270. Still recovering from the last baba man deb video, I see. Me too [hic].
    1
  271. This isn’t about cruises, it’s about the cruise ship business.
    1
  272. PRC simp
    1
  273. Bing!!
    1
  274. Put down the wine glass and sober up, Pepe.
    1
  275. Salt water was used to as a firebreak. If you check a fire map of the palisades fire, you’ll notice that the fire did not spread further south than Pacific Palisades.
    1
  276. Nice job, Sal. You’re not done with your introductions but I can already tell this will be great.
    1
  277. This is the first intelligent thing you’ve said of all your other comments.
    1
  278. How so? We aren’t at war with Gaza.
    1
  279. What is the state of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and India? Is there any cooperation between their militaries? I think that India and Saudi Arabia have the greatest common interest in the security of shipping in the region. Together they could deter Iranian aggression.
    1
  280.  @death_parade  Diplomacy is always preferable. But what does India do when diplomacy fails and another Indian crew is held hostage or worse? Wrt to a coalition, I think it would be a bad idea to let America lead it. The U.S. has a bad record (mixed at best) and a lot of reputational baggage. If the U.S. is involved, it should be in a support role. Truth be told, I think the U.S. would be happy to turn over security responsibilities to our friends in the Middle East and South Asia. But it doesn’t want to leave a power vacuum to be filled by bad actors.
    1
  281. What reaction is Russia trying to provoke? And why? This seems like an act of desperation.
    1
  282. They haven’t acted yet. They might not act at all.
    1
  283. Don’t worry, the House Republicans will block it.
    1
  284.  @wgowshipping  Yeah, but in this political environment? Oy vey! 😂
    1
  285. What do you think he should do?
    1
  286. Anything you want, Mr. Shaft. Seriously, it’s pretty awesome when someone demands something that was going to happen anyway.
    1
  287. Hold up, I gotta go get my shot glass and a bottle. 0:03 😅
    1
  288. Masturbation Sensei says, “Why are you asking me this question? Can’t you figure it out for yourself? Use your fucking imagination. Literally.”
    1
  289.  @campbellpaul  You and what army?
    1
  290. My you’re thirsty, Chinese simp.
    1
  291.  @TheDaveRout  Specifically, the middle name tells us all about him/her/them. I’m surprised they could take the Hamas D out of their mouth long enough to comment.
    1
  292. You should really do a show where you’re drinking shots every time you say Bab el Mandeb. Show us how salty you are!
    1