As per USAID, you can’t fully undo the Tariff damage by turning them off again. You’ve just created a political uncertainty spike with national relations, recognised as increased volatility.
Put simply, Mexico and Canada sure as shit don’t trust the US now and will continue to avoid trade.
When we see economists and central bankers defect, we will know Russia is about to collapse. There will be a narrow window when they can get out with reduced fear of retribution because they expect the house to collapse on the FSB behind them.
@mekkaokereke With the greatest respect, I don’t think cost is the issue, I think it’s revenue.
The cost per user should be made public and those who both can and want to, can donate for it. No perks.
Alternatively, we could use the free market to create many special interests, from black communities to zoology. These host people for a standard fee and a code of conduct. The low fee allows for solid moderation and an account is used as an algo. Follow for boosts. We could do this today.
These are additive to the existing free ones, not replacing. If they scale to be only $1 a month, that is an affordable option for most.
I think this will happen when we get the right nerdy community leader ready to spend the effort to do it.
Russia isn’t as strong as it would like to be so it aims to project strength above all else. Actual strength is therefore weakened by this, such as the meat waves. The result is that Russia really isn’t as strong as you might think.
Russia aims to be locally superior everywhere and as reserves haven’t flooded through #Ukraine’s holes, it shows Russia is thin. The only logical result is that Russia has a tipping point and if Ukraine can break them to that, a cascade failure will follow.
For anyone who thinks this can’t happen, I point to Syria and its Russian backed Assed. Russia has no reserves anywhere!
@dotproto@rowlandm@paul_ipv6@mekkaokereke I’ve been the grease. The proof of being the grease is that: • Senior management doesn’t value you while you work there. You even get asked what you do and the really bad ones ask you to justify your time. • When you come back from holiday your team is in joyous tears and your manager values you for a quarter. • Everyone externally comes directly to you. • Senior management really values you after you have left, as costs have gone up considerably.
I used to have what I called ‘the Sargent’s network’. We all knew who was the grease in each department and we’d constantly talk and keep things from breaking.
@hanse_mina I recognise that smile. It’s the smarmy smirk of the toxic boys club. It doesn’t matter what she says, he’s laughing at her for even talking, with such low social standing in his boys club. It’s an almost instinctive tribal response. He fears nothing from the UN and behind him are a bunch of excited moneys jumping and hollering.
It is a face for slapping and it needs slapping very hard.
@vladvexler Is there a dictionary of misinformation terms somewhere and if not can we make them? We need to name things so we can dismantle them. For example, Toxic masculinity, now named, is something identifiable.
I’ve wanted to do this for a while. Things like:
Exaggeration “Will destroy incentives…” when it will just slightly reduce them. (Elon Musk)
Over-Blown “She’s a communist!” when she is just introducing social programs.
Work Demanding “Climate crisis isn’t real. Prove to me it is”.
False Civility (Demanding calm words after violent action). “If you want to debate this stop swearing and come with the facts.” after a car is driven into protesters or a house is demolished for a freeway.
Bad Neutral (Ignores actions as they are incumbent) “If we can’t agree, we shouldn’t change anything.” As power stations still burn gas and oil.
Null as Zero “There is zero evidence for this.” Covid testing was stopped.
False equivalence. “On the left we have a 20 year PHD Professor on the subject and on the right is Beatle Juice who is being very loud and is popular as he’s racist.”
Failed Moderation He had most of the argument because every time she spoke he talked over her and the host did nothing but suddenly wrap up at the end.
These are the ones just from the top of my head. I need labels. I need a dictionary.
Shut Up, I’m talking. “Stay in your lane.”, “Stick to football.”. Some pathetic men (typically) would tell a singer to stick to singing as they don’t know politics. This normally follows a rebuke to a statement they made after talking about politics that they know nothing about.
There are endless variants to “shut up” and once you translate that in your mind, you can’t unhear it.
Correlation as Causation in Bait and Switch “Migrants want to live in white countries!” Not true. Economic migrants do want to live in richer countries. These may not be white but the richest ones are. With the truth being about wealth we can ask why these countries are more wealthy and recognise theft and empire. The correlation switch implies white supremacy and hides theft by whites. A double racist whammy.
Forgotten Cost “Russia and Ukraine should agree a peace settlement”. Which is as acceptable as agreeing to letting a drug dealer keep the front room and contents as owner after they smashed their way in through the front door and took over the front room and kitchen.
A Deranged Question “But what if Putin suddenly decided to nuke Kursk.” * Sounds reasonable on the face of it but isn’t . • Low probability and false equivalence with a normal probability question • Implies error of action directing to in action to preserve status quo • Wastes your resource of time answering Counter: Flip reverse it. “Why hasn’t he already?” Let them answer their own nonsense.
Mislabelling: Using a word that sounds right but isn’t. Supports an agenda.
@randahl FYI, it’s pretty clear now that #Kursk is a giant trap for Russian troops. Russia are repeatedly, and therefore predictably, throwing their best equipment and best troops in their biggest numbers, down the best and therefore predictable routes.
Russia also has the Soviet doctrine of charging on a rout.
It’s at the point that #Ukraine is retreating on purpose, drawing Russian troops over minefields before pushing forward again to mop up. Rinse and repeat.
It’s still a hard fight but Ukraine has created a Russian soldier eating machine it is in control of, with all the mine mess being on Russian land.
@Gargron Mastodon is a rock. A Giants’ Causeway of a rock. Thank you.
It is said that people always do the right thing… after trying everything else first. I wish everyone well on Bluesky, although to me it feels like they secured their AOL Keyword and not their domain.
I see this ending with Bluesky switching to Mastodon standards and just becoming another federated server.
@timrichards@homelessjun@skinnylatte@mekkaokereke Similar in the UK. Mostly as a money saving exercise for the government as all government support payments become electronic but couched as a civil rights exercise.
I know similar ideas are immediately crushed in the US as it’s more important to hinder one Black person than help 100 white people, especially if they are all poor.
Maybe this time, this election will finally teach the Dems that they need to run on a platform that fights to fix the issues Black people face instead of assuming they get their vote.
Being tacitly racist instead of overly racist is no where near good enough!