Comments by "MarcosElMalo2" (@MarcosElMalo2) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics"
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Most places accept the local currency. Perhaps you’ve only been to tourist destinations, where it’s more common that businesses accept dollars. If you want to use dollars, you generally have to exchange them for the local currency. I live in a tourist town, so some but not all businesses accept dollars, usually at a terrible exchange rate. In the next town over, they do not accept dollars, rupees, yuan, rubles, yen, pound sterling, or euros.
You might have a valid point but you’re not making it very well with your poor example. You sound like a person with some limited experiences outside the U.S. extrapolating from that limited experience.
Perhaps what you are saying holds true in countries with very unstable currencies, suffering from inflation, and/or some other need for dollars.
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It’s hard to tell exactly what your understanding is about U.S. economic policy in relation to global geopolitics, but if you’re worried about trade deficits, you’re barking up the wrong tree and you do not understand the economic basis of our policies.
To oversimplify, trade deficits are not owed by the U.S., they are owed by individual companies. These deficits are driven by consumer demand, as Pete points out. That demand is driven by demographics. However, those trade imbalances benefit our country, both in terms of global stability and in terms of powering our economy. The trade imbalances are part of the cement that make the U.S. dollar the base currency of global trade, and this creates a stability that benefits us.
It’s the keystone of U.S. “hegemony” because it’s the keystone of global trade that benefits the greatest number of people worldwide, and those material benefits go towards those countries with internal stability that follow the international rules based order, i.e Western Democracies. This is a powerful motivation for countries to move towards capitalistic democracy. (I put “hegemony” in quotes because it’s a special kind of economic hegemony. It’s not imperialism nor colonialism as the socialists would have you believe, but clear thinking was never their strong suit.)
That said, you are not entirely wrong. You’ve arrived at the right conclusion from faulty reasoning. The re-ordering of the world economic system is because of the change in demographics. The world economic system is based on growth and we’ve reached the limits of that growth.
Pete frames this as the problem but I think that’s the wrong way to think about it. Problems can be solved. Instead it’s better to think about the global changes in demographics as the new conditions, conditions to which we must adapt. And part of that adaptation is global economic retraction and the slow unwinding of U.S. “hegemony”.
We have to think about capitalism/globalism as a vehicle. It’s a vehicle that has served a purpose in our moving forward. Now road conditions have changed and we must adapt that vehicle to a bumpier road. The system of the world must change to meet the new conditions of declining economic growth, stagnation, or even economic decline.
Keyword to the above is “system”. We must think in terms of systems and systems of systems. If we don’t, we will be totally unprepared to meet the future.
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I grew up with Polish jokes. They were much more common than jokes about other ethnicities when I was very young (I’m talking about those jokes that can be repurposed for any ethnicity). How many Poles does it take to screw in a lightbulb? How do you confuse a Pole? (Put him in a round room and tell him there’s a nickel in the corner.) You know, the really corny kids’ jokes. The odd thing was, I didn’t know any Polacks. Or I didn’t know any kids that were Polish in my multi-ethnic middle class neighborhood, as far as I knew.
My little brother’s best friend had the last name Kalin. Mike was half Mexican, but I never made the connection that his dad was Polish. He was just American. Mike was just American. His dad went on to become a Federal Judge (which doesn’t exactly fit the stereotype of the dumb Pollack).
Fast forward a few years. My own dad’s career had advanced, we were upper middle class and we had moved to a slightly more prosperous neighborhood. Still tract houses, but bigger ones with bigger yards. My family knew another family socially a few years later, the Sobieskis. The dad was also in the legal field. They were quite educated and cultured, more than anyone in my family was. (It turned out they were related to minor Polish aristocracy, but I didn’t learn if this until much later.)
But the point is that, like the Kalins, the Sobieskis were Americans. They were the children and grandchildren of immigrants, as I was. Forty or fifty years ago, when I was a kid, no one needed to point out how hard working an ethnic group was, or whether they were family oriented. It was just assumed that was so. Everyone wanted to get ahead, and everyone wanted to prepare their children to get ahead. It was understood that mostly we would get ahead with slow progress.
Oh, one detail I missed. People did sometimes identify as “hyphenates”. Japanese-American, Irish-American, Afroamerican, Mexican-American, Polish-American. I don’t think anyone on my street got angry about people remembering where they came from, although you might hear from elsewhere, “Why can’t you just be Americans?” I guess this line of thought came from people who came from nowhere and wanted everyone to be like them.
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Pete is getting a bit too far out of his lane when he makes military assessments. It is true that Ukraine faces big challenges throughout the coming year, but it’s not true that Russia can win by grinding down Ukraine forces. This isn’t Russia’s war to lose. Russia has already lost. The question is really how quickly can Ukraine win and recover its sovereign territory. No one expected a Ukraine offensive before the muddy Spring Thaw, no one expects it during the thaw. Pete has a grasp of some basic operational concepts, like the weather, but glosses over others.
It is true that Russia can and is throwing more bodies into the conflict, and it is true that “quantity has a quality of its own” as Stalin is reputed to have said. But it matters how and where those numbers are applied. It matters how motivated they are. It matters how they are supplied.
So far, Russia’s superior numbers have made little progress over the past six months. Kilometers have come at the cost of tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, until entire battalions have been destroyed in offensive operations. At the same time, Ukraine has been rotating its defensive forces and maintaining unit cohesion.
When Pete implies that Russia has an endless supply of soldiers and that the quantity of soldiers alone will determine the outcome, he is quite frankly incorrect. Frankly, it is surprising that he underestimates other important factors, such as logistics, home field advantage, and motivation/morale. Pete is trying to be realistic, but I think his appraisal is overly pessimistic.
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@Robert-uo6qi They have shipping capacity in the Sea of Azov. The Kerch Bridge wasn’t destroyed, only damaged. The constrained supply situation has certainly helped with the siege of Kherson, but the siege of Crimea is going to be different.
Forget for a moment about logistics. The Crimean Peninsula is going to be a very tough nut to crack. I think it will be the last of the Ukrainian territories the Russians will be forced to leave. It is much more defensible than Kherson, and there are a lot more ways to resupply it.
Which brings us back to the logistics. You might have noticed that Kherson has not been completely cut off. However, the supply lines have been CONSTRAINED to a sufficient degree that the Russian units have been slowly starved of supplies. This is what made their position untenable.
Crimea is not only more defensible geographically, it is also more easily suppliable. The supply lines are more difficult to choke. In a nutshell, the Russians can hold out in Crimea for a lot longer than many people seem to think.
The final assault is going to cost a lot of Ukrainian lives. It should be up to the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian government if they want to spend those lives and extend the war another year or two or more to retake Crimea. It might offend our sense of justice if the Ukrainians decide to trade Ukraine for peace, but ultimately it’s their call, not ours. On the other hand, if they decide to go for it, we should continue to offer our support.
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@ipredictariot6371 It’s not so much whether the threat level was overestimated, it was the response to the threat that should be examined and criticized. The 9/11 attacks occurred because we underestimated the threat. After the attack there was a scramble to get a correct assessment. A truly accurate assessment of all possible threats is impossible (or at least very very difficult) because of the asymmetric nature of the conflict. The Bush defense/security/intelligence people took the “safer” course of overestimating the level of threat. Is this a huge error? I don’t know, but it did lead to what was a series of fatal errors involving the response to this overestimated threat.
It was decided that the response to this estimated level of threat should be the occupation of a country in the Middle East. Iraq was selected for reasons of expedience: 1) it was conquerable, 2) Saddam was a mischief maker and a potential sponsor of terrorism, 3) Iraq had in the past tried to acquire WMDs, might be doing so, and might have them, and most importantly, 4) Iraq was politically isolated—it had no friends in the region, no Arab nation that could credibly oppose an invasion or was inclined to do so. Iraq had “accomplished” this alienation ten years before, when it invaded Kuwait. If the U.S. had a hammer, Iraq certainly looked like a nail!
Iraq was the most convenient target. The Bush administration then did two things that I consider to be the fatal errors. 1) it used shortcuts to justify the invasion, including deceiving the public, and 2) it tried to graft the PNAC ideology onto the Iraqi occupation plan. Instead of open and honest debate about whether the invasion was the correct response or even a good idea was suppressed and we instead debated the existence of WMDs in Iraq. Instead of the sensible course of merely setting up military bases and insuring that Iraq’s petroleum industry continued to function, we took on the project of nation building and meddling in Iraq’s internal politics.
The meddling was further complicated because we wanted both a puppet government (or at least a friendly one), but we didn’t want to impose one because we also wanted Iraq to be a democracy. Neither of these contradictory ideas are good ones, but combined they are even worse because of the contradiction.
All these errors were baked into the project before the military even began to plan the invasion. Dissent was suppressed over most questions except for the WMD question, and even there, deception was used to bolster the argument, both within the administration and in the public square.
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@godschild6694 I’d be fine if he backed it up with educated opinion as to where Pete fell short. Pete made a 13 minute summary of the history of the area. There’s bound to be a lot of stuff left out. Also, Pete isn’t an expert on the area (he can’t be an expert on everything—he’s a very good generalist with broad knowledge), so he might be missing important detail or nuance.
So I don’t expect Pete to be perfect. But like you, if someone who is an expert wants to criticize the presentation, I’d like some details about where Pete gets it wrong.
This region of the world has a complicated political history that puts the Balkans/former Yugoslavia to shame. Like Tito did in Yugoslavia, the Soviets kept a lid on centuries of ethnic and religious strife. Before the Soviets, Armenia and Azerbaijan were under the thumb of the Ottoman Empire (the Turks). Armenia suffered greatly under the Turks (including the 20th Century’s first genocide), and I don’t think they ever recovered. The Soviets offered Armenians protection and some limited opportunities (including opportunities in the lucrative industry of state corruption under communism).
The smartest, most entrepreneurial, most ambitious, and most educated Armenians have been fleeing the mother country for more than a century, forced out by the Turks first, and later escaping communist oppression. If I look at the successes and prosperity the Armenians of the diaspora have achieved in their adoptive countries, I wonder what could have been achieved in Armenia if they hadn’t been forced to leave.
I suspect that the bot you responded to isn’t really a bot. It’s someone who is pro-Armenian, who grew up hearing the history from the Armenian perspective, and who isn’t ready to hear anything that challenges his world view. He really needs to hear different perspectives if he is to form a strategy for Armenia based on reality, but I don’t think he will because the Armenians are a proud people. But pride goeth before a fall.
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@mfisher1952 This has been an ongoing issue for the Russians, and now a bigger related problem is ripening. Basically, the NCO problem you mention is a matter of small unit cohesion, but in Bakhmut and Vuledar, we are seeing larger units destroyed. A unit that takes 20% causalities can be replenished and still fight effectively. A unit that takes 50% or more and then replenished with fresh troops cannot. Ukraine has been able to rotate units into and out of hot spots, preventing exhaustion and preserving unit cohesion. They’ve been very effective at preserving the reserve units to prevent breakthroughs. Where necessary, tactical withdrawals to prepared defenses (such as at Soledar) have been successful.
Meanwhile, Russia is expending its most elite forces in Bahkmut. It’s been doing this from the beginning, but it’s now reached a new level. The VDV is spent. Wagner is spent. The Russian Marines are spent. Bakhmut still stands, but even if it falls, Ukraine is well positioned defensively to stave off further breakthroughs. Offensively, Russia is nearly a spent force. When the ground dries and the tanks arrive from the West, we will see how effective they are on the defense.
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The 30-year fixed rate hit 18% in early 1980s, and decreased to about 7% by the year 2000. Inflation peaked about the same time at 14%. At the time you got your first mortgage, inflation was at 2.75%.
I don’t think we can say what is normal interest or normal inflation over the long term. At best we can say there has been a downward trend. Incidentally, one of the charts I just looked at noted that Paul Volcker was named Fed Chairman in 1979 and embarked on an anti-inflation campaign. I think I’ll have a look at what he did that began easing inflation, although I don’t think it will be directly applicable to our current situation.
I’m going to take Peter’s claim about what the Fed is trying to do vis-a-vis international markets with a grain of salt, and take current Fed Chairman Jay Powell at his word. (His latest press briefing was yesterday—PBS Newshour has the full brief.) He is primarily attempting to avert persistent inflation. A secondary target is a soft landing for this weird recession we are in (and there’s your anomaly, because the job market is strong, etc.), but he expressed doubt that the Fed could land the economy softly. Maybe that is what Peter was talking about because when the U.S. is in a recession, the rest of the world feels it.
Personally, I’m really glad I paid down my high interest credit card debt over the past six months. I plan to be pretty frugal this holiday season and avoid accumulating more debt. Good luck to y’all in the storm we are entering. I hope we see smooth sailing before too long.
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@hohenzollern6025 You’re ignoring some key facts. The set of “jobs only humans can do” is shrinking. Perhaps economic growth has masked this fact, but what happens if the global economy enters a long period of shrinkage?
With regard to finding technicians to operate the means of production, the socialists would say, “there are always people willing to work for altruistic motives” (or perhaps for the fun of it). The capitalists might say some people will be willing to work for more than the UBI if there is still a profit motive. And a cynic might say, in either case, there are plenty of people who will seek power, advantage and ways to manipulate the system for their benefit, and they will take over whichever system you put in place. Just like always.
The real question is not “Are humans 100% replaceable?” The questions are do we need to restructure society? How should we do it?
Also, Hard AI is probably impossible, so you needn’t worry about skynet or your Abominable intelligence war. What we call AI is a tool, a human prosthetic.
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@captainalex157 This comment addresses the original comment and some of your reply.
Jim Baker, U.S. Secretary of State under Reagan, made an agreement with Gorbachev, an exchange of assurances. The U.S. wouldn’t support nations on Russia’s border joining NATO, but neither would the USSR use violence and aggression to put down their independence. The agreement wasn’t one-sided, it was mutually beneficial. (And let’s note that while Baker didn’t represent NATO in these talks, the U.S. could veto or delay admittance into NATO, as can any NATO member.)
Yeltsin and later Putin broke this agreement, first in 1994. As a result, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were admitted in 1999. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania were added in 2004, again as a result of Russian aggression against an independence movement.
What you call provocation is the response to Russian provocation. Look at the historical context.
Also, fifteen nations, not twenty, have become NATO members since the fall of the Soviet Union, Finland being the last of the fifteen, but others applying or signaling their desire to join.
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@HighBoss let us not forget that Ukraine has its own intelligence service and its own intelligence gathering capabilities. Thus the U.S. could inform their Ukrainian counterparts, “Moskva heading your way at such and such a heading and speed”, and Ukraine could take it from there. It’s a matter of knowing where to look, and the U.S. could provide that information without providing targeting data. It’s completely within Ukraine’s capabilities to have drones in the right place at the right time to precisely determine where a target is.
With regard to targeting meetings of generals, Gerasimov might have a secure phone, but does everyone attending the meeting? I’m not even thinking of the other generals, but of their entourages, down to drivers and orderlies. If the Ukrainians were tracking IMEIs of officers’ drivers’ phones, they could just wait for them to all show up at the same place.
The name of the game here isn’t decryption, it’s metadata. The Ukrainians don’t need U.S. help for that if the Russians are using Ukrainian cel systems. But they would certainly find it helpful if the U.S. reported that Gerasimov was heading into Ukraine for a big meeting.
Amd just a reminder in general: there are some people from whom you might need to ask for help, but for various reasons, you want to ask sparingly. Among those reasons is to minimize your debt and obligation to those sorts of people. (I think the idea of being beholden to a U.S. intelligence agency sucks.)
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Of course there are, but note that Pete himself says he doesn’t know what Chinese collapse will look like, because the scale is unprecedented. When Pete makes these predictions, he’s looking at what the data is telling him about trends. When he gets into hard-to-predict territory and the unknown, he favors the worse case scenario as his best guess.
He is pretty bold with his predictions in general, but when there is uncertainty he says so. When there is more certainty on something, he gets specific—like his prediction that the collapse will begin by 2030 or earlier is specific. (And part of my enjoyment of Pete’s presentations is that he is willing to go out on a limb.)
Anyway, Pete’s strength and expertise, is demographic/economic analysis (let’s call it population, industrial and energy, and food inputs to an economy). He’s less strong in other aspects of geopolitics (imho) but is conversant in those aspects. Watch this video again (it’s worth it and not too long) and watch carefully for his specific claims and for his uncertainty. Pete often sounds over confident (and it’s true that he sometimes gets out of his specific lane), but he’s pretty clear about where he is certain and where he is uncertain.
And let me throw something out there. What if contraction of the global economy and the economic collapse of major countries IS the optimistic best case scenario?😮
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What does Pete do that is different from you? It’s easy to blame others for not recognizing your genius (and it might even be true), but if you’ve been having trouble getting your ideas across, take a hard look at what Pete actually does and how he does it, and then compare it to your own efforts.
First thing is that Pete puts in a lot of work, studying and analyzing the data, and then picking out what he thinks are the important trends. Second thing is what you call his eloquence. Some of this might be a natural gift, but I’ll bet money that he has a lot of practice. However, I think much of his eloquence comes from the work mentioned above. Because he’s extensively thinking and analyzing the material, he’s boiling down the complicated into the simplified.
A third part is his charisma. Maybe you have that. I don’t. 😅 Pete’s charisma is a major reason why he reaches a large audience. I think you and I are thinking about much smaller audiences. And the hard truth is that Pete puts in a lot of work to be able to condense his ideas into 5-10 minute videos, work that I’m just not going to do.
Anyway, the upshot is this: 1) It’s not just you, 2) respect Pete’s expertise, 3) give yourself some credit for however much work you put into grasping the material, 4) understand that not everyone can take in your ideas, but that doesn’t make them dumb. You can get better but it’s a waste of time to disparage yourself or your audience if they don’t get it. Anyway, I hope that helps!
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@alexandersims1613 I don’t know if I agree with your solutions, but you made an important point. The economy is a machine. More specifically, it is an engine. You are proposing making adjustments to the engine.
When we have this common framework, that the economy is an engine, we have a basis for debating policy, i.e., how to make adjustments, improvements, and tweaks to the engine. We also have a framework for a more fundamental debate: to what purpose are we using the engine? Are we moving ourselves forward with the engine? Or do only a tiny percentage of us get a luxury ride while the rest of us must walk?
Capitalism is a social technology (an engine) that propels this vehicle we call society. Once we decide the purpose of the vehicle (should it carry the bulk of us or only a chosen few? Do we care if people get left behind? Do we want a race car, a luxury sedan, or a bus?), we can then make the adjustments to the engine that would best serve our purpose.
And now we can have our economic policy debate, and we can base our arguments on historical fact and experimental data rather than emotion and quasi-religious dogma (capitalism is NOT a religion), etc. We can debate where we are going and how to get there.
Anyway, I think you’ve found a good mode of thinking, a conceptual model that most people can understand. It’s a good analogy. The economy IS a machine, and machines are tools that we use to do work. Machines should serve us. Anyone who suggests we should serve the machine, who is turning capitalism into a religion, is trying to create a dogma to conceal their real intentions.
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@kucanusa3750 Are you also an outsider to the concept of human rights?
I’m sorry that sounds harsh. I understand what you are saying and I sympathize with your reaction. But do you think that due process should be a universal right or only for people in the U.S.? Also, locking people in a cage without food or light is by itself cruel and unusual punishment, but it is even worse if you’re doing it so they kill each other.
There is also a historical backdrop to this story, the civil war of the 70s and 80s, in which the government performed extrajudicial killings of dissidents, journalists, and priests. The military was sent out to the countryside where they murdered entire villages on the pretext that they were rebels. (And for additional background, the U.S. was providing arms and training to the Salvadoran military at this time.)
I don’t think that the narco gangs are freedom fighters, and I don’t equate drug trafficking with communism (although both are bad). So it’s not an exact comparison. But do you see how the brutal excesses of one war might be repeated in this war against drug traffickers? Without sufficient human rights being enforced, legal rights we enjoy in the U.S., such excesses are almost guaranteed.
Ultimately your initial reaction is emotional. It’s understandable why someone would feel that way. But I hope that given time to reflect, perhaps with new information, you’ll temper your emotions with a more compressive sense of Justice for All.
Now, I think you can make an effective counter argument if you wish, because the problem doesn’t have clear cut solutions. Go for it if you’d like, but if you don’t have time or inclination, I understand. I don’t claim to be 100% right with my position.
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Incidentally, Mara Salvatrucha formed in the U.S. and was exported back to Salvador. Initially in the U.S. it was an ethnic street gang competing with other street gangs, but they got really ruthless and deadly when they got organized by ex-members of the Salvadoran military (who had been sent to the U.S to assassinate Salvadoran rebels who were hiding).
It’s also important to remember exactly what as going on in El Salvador at the time. The U.S. supported the dictatorship with weapons and training for the military and the security services, with the CIA training the security services (secret police). I don’t know what techniques were taught, but the Salvadoran secret police was infamous for torture and for sending death squads to assassinate priests, journalists, dissidents, etc. Basically any sort of opposition was mercilessly destroyed.
So if we wonder why Salvador is a crime infested shït hole, we need to recognize that we played a major part in it becoming that way. We can’t pretend that we had nothing to do with destabilizing that country when we are confronted by immigrants fleeing the violence.
It’s much the same deal with Guatemala, although I think we were less directly involved there. Ditto Honduras.
Anyhoo, U.S. policies really damaged Central America. You can argue that the region was already effed up, but we definitely made it worse. Before we get all anti-America, though, we need to remember the context. The Cold War was still on. Nicaraguan communists (the Sandinistas) had overthrown the U.S. supported dictator there. Our government feared Nicaragua would become another Cuba, and that the other Central American countries would follow suit.
Imo, the Cold War fears had justification, but our methods were not justified. We fucked up, guys. I don’t know how we can fix it. For a start, perhaps we should avoid xenophobia when Central Americans come to our borders seeking refuge from the violence in their countries.
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@roberttaylor3594 That’s what I was thinking might be possible. Enclaves are not a bad thing if there is social movement and respect. I didn’t know about the high real estate prices, which could put a kink in things. You don’t want your enclaves to be impoverished ghettos which will cause isolation, social problems, and hinder social movement.
The “melting pot” concept of U.S. immigration is only partly true. I’m from L.A., which is one of the more multi-cultural cities in the U.S. Los Angeles is not a soup of different ethnicities mixed together. It’s a stew with chunks of ethnic cultures to give it flavor. (And sometimes the flavors clash, sometimes they complement each other, but I don’t want to take the analogy too far.)
It wasn’t always like this. It happened over decades. Different minority groups suffered from prejudice at different times, there has been conflict between different communities (and there still is). But those communities also learned to be mutually supportive in fighting for their rights.
I don’t want to sound like a liberal, but I want to point out why people come to Los Angeles from other countries to begin with: freedom and economic opportunity—generally more of it than in the places from where they came, even if what they found here wasn’t perfect freedom and opportunity. They don’t come to the U.S. because we are socialist. They come because we are capitalist and free.
I think the U.S. could benefit from more immigration. That might sound funny coming from a conservative, but conservatism in the U.S. has become tainted, and has transformed into something else.
From what Pete says, I imagine Canada could benefit from more immigration as well.
It was interesting that Pete only mentioned the First Nations once and obliquely when he said “native” was a loaded word. How do the original inhabitants of Canada fit into the picture? Are they so few as to not be a big factor in Canadian society?
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@thedukeofchutney468 The Maduro Regime feeds the poor, and that is why Maduro is “popular” among the poor. If you want to eat, you come to his rallies and show support for the United Socialist Party. The middle class is the biggest part of the population that is being starved (taking a cue from the Soviets of the 20s and 30s) and devastated. They are the largest part that is fleeing their country. (Economically they are now just as impoverished as any one else, but they are still considered members of an enemy class.)
The political opposition is persecuted both officially by the government security apparatus, the military and unofficially by paramilitary gangs of thugs. Peter is right to talk about the famine, but it’s important to remember that the Venezuelans fleeing the criminal socialist dictatorship of Maduro are political asylum seekers, not economic immigrants.
The Central Americans are a slightly different story. They endured decades of U.S. interference in their politics during the Cold War. I’m not one of the “blame America” contingent. There were serious concerns about Communism on our doorstep, and the Soviets were materially supporting rebellions. I just think we handled it badly on the whole. Long story short, we had a hand in creating instability in Central America, which allowed organized crime to gain a toe hold.
The thousands of Central Americans fleeing the violent crime in their countries is what you call “blowback”, the unintended consequences of our foreign policy.
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It’s been my understanding that Hamas is sponsored by Iran (or one of the ruling factions in Iran, such as the Revolutionary Guards). And as far as Iran is concerned, it’s already Mission Accomplished. There’s no need to stick their necks out as their goals have been mostly met: to stir up conflict between Israel and Palestine when there had been some movement towards peace and to make Israel look bad. The Iranians intent was to provoke a reaction.
So it seems that the Iranians are hanging Hamas out to dry. Maybe they were hoping for a stronger reaction from Israel, i.e., indiscriminate bombing of civilians, but they’re settling for some civilian deaths because that’s what happens when war is waged in densely populated areas.
Here’s the thing about conditions in Gaza and the West Bank: 1) the West Bank is governed by the Palestinian Authority, the moderate faction of the PLO when the PLO broke apart. And the PA and Israel have been cooperating, which has lead to improvement in the lives of those Palestinians. 2) Israel began some time ago to thaw relations with its former enemies (most notably Saudi Arabia) and changed their policy on Israeli settlement of the occupied West Bank. They’ve begun to dismantle the settlements and arresting those hardcore settlers who refuse to leave. They’ve done this as gestures of good faith as they seek to normalize diplomatic relations with their former enemies, and those former enemies have stopped supporting anti-Israel militants.
That’s the larger context to remember here. Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, etc., recognize that Iran is the real threat. They’re moving towards formal diplomatic relations and perhaps a formal alliance. (And yes, the centuries old Sunni/Shiite split is in play here.) Iran is trying to break this up.
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@user-ep1ks2pq5r Your all-capping “dictation” is an interesting emphasis. I think it’s directing me to the key issue at hand, but it makes me wonder if we have the same definition of the word. It even makes me wonder if I have a completely incorrect definition.
As I see it, there are different levels of “dictation”. (And let’s set aside those definitions that obviously don’t apply, such as someone dictating a letter to a secretary.) I suspect that there is some overlap in these levels.
First level would be when someone or something compels by force that you to comply with their system of ethical beliefs. Ultimately, compel by force means (to me) using physical violence if you do not comply. If you do not comply with the laws, the state will use violence to punish you until you do comply.
A level below that is the more informal force of social pressure. The threat there is that society will reject you if you do not comply to its dictates. You could lose a job for not conforming. You could lose friends.
A level below that is group and peer pressure. You could get thrown out of your group or be ostracized by your peers if you don’t conform to their ethics.
The lowest level is dictation without any threat. That’s someone just telling you what to do or how you should live, without any threat or force to back it up. They might tell you to become a vegetarian or to not spit on the sidewalk or to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. They are dictating to you your behavior without any force to back it up (other than the force of their personality, lol).
Am I missing something here? Does this cover “DICTATED”? If so, maybe I do understand what you’re saying. You’re saying no one should tell you how to behave, at all. They should not force you to behave, they shouldn’t pressure you to behave, and/or they shouldn’t even suggest how you behave.
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That is super interesting about laundering money through legal dispensaries. (Sort of reminds me of the car wash in Breaking Bad or the fast food chicken chain.)
Pete’s method of fighting the trade is simplistic. “Don’t do cocaine” is certainly an appealing non-solution for the conservative mindset because it hits our personal-responsibility button. Personal responsibility is a core principal of our philosophy*.
But it’s not a practical solution for obvious reasons.
Pete’s bit about the dispensaries does suggest a practical solution. Go after the cash flow. When the cash flow dries up, the cartels are much less powerful and then perhaps interdiction will have a greater impact. Without massive amounts of cash, the cartels will not be able to operate at such levels of impunity.
And how do you go after cash flows? The IRS, bank regulators, FBI & DOJ. You form a task force. You fund these agencies so they have these resources to perform investigations (something the Republicans are loathe to do, unfortunately). You strengthen the penalties for participants at all levels, up to and including the executives and boards of the banks (make them personally responsible for their businesses.
Cash businesses can be surveilled and monitored. Transfers, even through the dark web, can be tracked.
A side benefit is that we can also stop a lot of other corruption, both domestic and international. But in any case, the first step is FOLLOW THE MONEY.
* Real conservatism is a philosophy, a set of principles) not an ideology. If it’s an ideology (such as MAGA or libertarianism, for example) it’s not conservatism. As a philosophy, it shares some principles with liberalism, which itself is more of a philosophy than an ideology. (In fact, that’s how you distinguish liberalism from actual socialist ideologies.)
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Yes, you’re thinking about this the right way imho. I don’t know if sustainability is an achievable end state, but it’s a helluva lot more desirable than some of the alternatives.
One of the basic questions is “how much do we need?” And then it must be asked, “how many workers are needed to fulfill that need?” And there are different implications, depending on how that question is answered.
If you take an abstract high level, global view you might notice that there are perhaps a billion people that could vanish and it wouldn’t affect the economy negatively. (I realize that it sounds terrible to say that from a moral p.o.v.). Depending on which chain of implications you follow, what happens if that number increases by another billion? Two billion? What happens if 7 billion people become “redundant” in terms of sustaining the economy?
The Marxists and quasi-Marxists talk about “late stage capitalism”, but (maybe) they ain’t seen nothing yet.
Capitalism: Hold my beer.
War, Famine, and Pestilence: Sure thing!
Now, I don’t really want to personify these man-made and/or natural forces. But they highlight certain questions, such as “what is capitalism?” “to what purposes can it be harnessed?”.
Maybe it’s just me, but such questions lead me to the rarified (and yet sophomoric) existential questions regarding the meaning of life. Oh, bother! (fwiw, I think of capitalism as a social technology, a tool similar to a motor that propels society forward, but forward towards what? To what end? Who decides?) Perhaps Plato was right, the ideal society is ruled by philosopher kings. 😆 I just Kant.
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@carefree85a He has no facts why Pete is incorrect, only feelings.
I think Pete is a little bit off about the reason Trump shut down the Border/Ukraine Aid bill. It wasn’t to deny Biden the credit, it was to deny the Senate Republicans the credit. It was (or would have been) a great Republican victory, but Trump had no way of taking credit for it. And if Trump can’t be the hero, no one can.
The GOP conference in the Senate was and is in the minority. But McConnell (or his acolytes) performed some magnificent maneuvering to get Biden, Schumer, and the Dems over the proverbial barrel. Let’s make no mistake, this was a Republican bill. Calling it bipartisan was a bandaid for the Democrats. And if the House had been doing its job instead of acting as a launch pad for maga social media influencers, maybe we would have had this legislative victory.
I don’t know how directly McConnell was involved given his cognitive problems, but this had all the hallmarks of McConnell’s street fighting. Threatening to block Ukraine Aid unless it was linked to the Border bill was a risky but genius move that paid off. And once they were linked, Republicans pretty much dictated the contents of the border bill.
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@JinKee Well, OK, if you have some expertise with carbon fiber materials, polymers, reinforced ceramics and whatnot, maybe you have an idea of whether Russia already has manufacturing capacity and whether it can scale up and maintain this capacity rapidly with the tools it has. For example, does Russia already possess the capability to spin the fiber? For example, carbon fiber ceramics need precision machining with tooling that wears out rather quickly. Russia has been cut off from these machine tools. For example, does Russia have the tools to make the molds used to form carbon fiber reinforced polymer parts?
Do you see what I mean? It comes back to whether investments were made in manufacturing, and investments were not made in manufacturing because more money could be made investing in the energy sector. Domestic manufacturing would be undercut by cheaper imports of carbon fiber materials.
I realize I could be way off, but I have great doubts that Russia can reconstitute its Soviet era manufacturing capacity any time soon. Another question, more for the finance-econ people, is: will Russia see direct foreign investment after this conflict is over? I have great doubts about that, too.
There’s an idiomatic phrase in English that describes Russia’s current situation, “Trapped between a rock and a hard place”.
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Shannon Kohl, your gut is telling you the truth. The “existential threat” isn’t to Russia, the threat is to a criminal organization which is clinging to its former status as an empire. Worse, they are clinging to a delusional dream of greater empire.
“Imperial Russia” is like a shark that must continuously swim forward or die. And it’s been restrained from swimming forward ever since the end of the Soviet Union. It been dying for 30+ years and is in its death throes, thrashing out (and receiving a thrashing, ironically). Russia as a nation can potentially survive this thrashing, but the worse off it will be the longer it’s government clings to power and it’s dream of power. So you’re 100% right on that score.
Anyway, I think you just said as much but in different words, from a different perspective.
Some people view the larger geopolitical conflict as a clash of two empires (or three, considering China as a separate empire than Russia), but the U.S. was not an empire. It was a hegemonic power, to be sure, and it did benefit from its status as hegemon as the European colonial empires declined and dissolved.
Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. was called “the world Policeman”. You might even think it was a corrupt cop in this role if you continue this analogy. But it did manage to keep a lid on the communist empires while avoiding World War III. Along the way the U.S. made a lot of mistakes, propping up dictatorships and intervening against wars of national liberation. But it also shared power with likeminded nations, hence “the Free World” and “the Western Democracies”. Hence NATO.
But I also think it is more than willing to step back and relinquish hegemonic power to other democracies and other regional powers (as long as those non-democratic powers stay in their lane and don’t try to destabilize their region).
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He’s flushing them out. It can be difficult to discern a foreign bot from domestic or a bot from a delusional homegrown American Golfer (making America golf again), so this also performs a taxonomic function by keyword.
To separate rational opinion from bots and delusional RW golf fanatics, “Not paying attention to Tucker puts you into an echo chamber” and similar reveals who they are.
Associating Pete with the CIA = foreign bot, Russian origin
Associating Pete with the M.I. complex = Chinese bot
Anti-Israel = foreign bot posing as a leftist (very few actual leftists watch Pete)
Pushing conspiracy theories = homegrown idiot 50%, foreign bot 50%
LATE STAGE CAPITALIZATION = homegrown horseshoe moron, leftist leaning, possible golfer
Make America Golf Again = moron
FJB = homegrown moron or foreign amplification bot servicing golfing moron campaigns
Trump + Current Year = ditto
Talking about OIS in an intelligent manner = worthwhile person, guided by truth, and really sexy. I mean really really devastatingly sexy. 👉🔥 🍑 Szzzzzzzzzsexy
If Pete is “working” clandestinely here, it’s for the OIS community. This kind of video creates a rich data set in the comments section. The bots making the comments can be traced and associated with one another, and in this way the OIS community surfaces disinformation networks.
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That’s a very good point. Also, the U.S. isn’t threatening to invade either neighbor.
The bullshit analogy of Russian military aid to Mexico would make sense if the U.S. annexed the Baja California Peninsula, fomented rebellion in Tamaulipas, and then invaded all along the Northern border to support the fake rebellion.
So far that hasn’t happened, nor has the U.S. threatened it.
With regard to invading Canada, that’s completely out of the question. Canada is a member of NATO. The U.S. would experience the full wrath of NATO if the U.S. attempted to invade.
History fans will remember the last time the U.S. invaded Mexico. It was during the Mexican Revolution, and one of the revolutionaries, Pancho Villa, had been raiding border towns for arms and supplies. In 1916 the U.S. sent a contingent under John Pershing to capture Villa, chasing him around the desert fruitlessly. However, they did manage to kill some of the men under Villa’s command, and some of his subordinates. Pershing’s forces withdrew in 1917.
Anyway, the point of the story is that the last time the U.S. military was on Mexican soil, over a hundred years ago, no attempt was made to annex any territory. And given the chaos of Mexico during the Revolution, it would have been a perfect opportunity for conquest because Mexico was so divided.
So no, it’s not the policy of the U.S. to invade Mexico. 😂 It really wasn’t the policy in 1916, either. It was a necessity because bandit revolutionaries were attacking border town, but no territory was taken.
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My first babysitter was a Spanish speaker, someone in the neighborhood’s abuelita. I don’t remember her because I was too young, but I grew up knowing that manzana, naranja, and plátano were the Spanish words for apple, orange, and banana.
I didn’t learn Spanish in school until 7th grade, but I’d already heard it more or less daily, growing up in Los Angeles. By the time I graduated high school, I had pretty good “Spanglish”. But it wasn’t until I really immersed myself in Spanish that I gained any fluency.
So I agree with your proposal (the earlier the better), but I would add a semester (or more) abroad component. I’d also recommend Mexican grandmother babysitters, but I’m not sure if that’s really practical. 😄
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