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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.worldPAPERS, PLEASE - The Short Film
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    2 days ago

    Doesn’t seem like years of sanctions on Russia, Iran, or North Korea had a sufficient impact to cause any change.

    Seems like it made them more insular, more self-sufficient, and more hostile to future diplomatic entreties.

    Change by force can have negative results, and change by economic means can have positive ones

    What if, instead of trying to extort or kill a nation’s residents in order to force them to adopt your preferred foreign policy, you simply afforded them an opportunity for peaceful coexistence?




  • …made in 2018 by a Russian team. Way before the whole Ukraine war thing, you understand

    Flipping through a history book on Russian/Ukrainian relations in the 21st century

    Closing the book, putting it back on the shelf, whistling, and walking away

    More seriously, I’ll never understand folks who hear “So-and-so is from Nationality X, so now I must/must not purchase products from them because of their bloodline.”







  • its gross how people were convinced millions of immigrants were here causing issues but as soon as a few thousand are exported everything is a-ok.

    Media cycles have flipped from “MIGRANT CARAVAN! KUNG-FLU! TOOKER JERBS!” to “Those ICE agents are being a bit too rough, COVID is solved/not-real, AI will replace you anyway so migrants aren’t really an issue.”

    oh yeah, and now we get spend hundreds of billions of dollars now not feeding people but ‘watching’…

    Now that we have the eugenics focused government that the media industry lobbied for, we can pivot towards the liberal technocracy that makes the brutality cheaper and more efficient. Amazon / Facebook / Palantir will join forces to deliver a new era of Smart, AI-powered Population Management that can deliver the same gestapo-like tactics for a fraction of the price.

    Just like with Clinton after Reagan/Bush and Obama after Junior and Biden after Trump, we’re going to get a new Tough On Border Crime democrat at the top of the ticket (maybe even Harris again, she was great at telling Guatemalans fleeing a civil war to go home) who will campaign on Trump’s ICE doing a bad job according to the deportation counting spreadsheets.

    And we’ll get an earful about spending, too, of course. Never a bad time to take another big chunk out of the Entitlements in order to balance your books for National Security.







  • A lot of these subsidies (both in the US and China) are implicit. Chinese state rail networks operate at cost, allowing cheap transportation of materials and labor. American borrowing is heavily subsidized through the Fed Credit Window, which keeps rates in the low single digits while corporate bonds and consumer loans can be 2x-30x as high. Both countries cut corners on environmental enforcement and subsidize waste management. Both countries subsidize education and incentive R&D through their university systems.

    The real benefit BYD enjoys - even above its Chinese peers - is vertical integration. They own everything from mining interests to technology patents to dealerships. This is a deliberate consequence of Chinese trade policy, which requires foreign investors to partner with Chinese nationals in order to own and operate capital. Consequently, Berkshire Hathaway - a large early investor in BYD - cannot dictate Chinese vehicle manufacturing policy from a private office in Omaha. Chinese locals benefit from the innovation, the domestic capital, the experienced labor force (which can migrate to local competitors), and the increased economic activity it produces.

    China is insourcing it’s wealth aggregation, which has a cyclical compound benefit over time.