What were the expectations of those 63%? Did they expect he would start a nuclear war on day 1? Well, yes, by that measure he’s done better than expected. That poll doesn’t tell us a whole lot.
Promises made and promises now on hold
- Thread starter hoot1
- Start date
In my opinion we are all different to some degree.
My best friends growing up were twin brothers. To me they were entirely different. To almost everyone else, they were exactly the same in every way.
There is nothing wrong with being different except when you harm others.
Iowa just became the first state to remove gender identity from its anti-discrimination laws.
You can now legally be denied housing or fired from a job simply for being even suspected of being trans. Is opposing such laws "pushing an agenda"?
You can now legally be denied housing or fired from a job simply for being even suspected of being trans. Is opposing such laws "pushing an agenda"?
More of a principle than an agenda.
Is it just fine for me, as a landlord (say), to deny you housing because I think that you look like you might be trans? Or Black? Or Christian? Or a Jew?
Or to say that denying you housing because I think that you look like you might be trans is OK, but the other reasons are not valid?
The principled approach is to say that you can't do any of that.
Germany was for years the economic engine of the EU. High energy costs and political turmoil have resulted in predictions of a 5% shrinkage of Germany's GNP in 2025. Add that to the growth, perhaps doubling of Germany's defense budget extending years into the future, and the available capital for economic growth is severely reduced.
UK is in a more precarious situation. Starmer pledging $Billions of military aid is a joke. UK has neither the $Billions or enough equipment, armaments, nor personnel to make a difference.
All of the EU couldn't field two combat ready divisions in months. Poland spends more of their GNP on military budgets, but are way more interested in divvying up what's left of Ukraine than being ground zero for Russian missile arrivals.
Oh, and the US is dead broke. $36Trillion now?
What a ****ing mess the war pigs have wrought!
And you know who you are....
The future of the world will not play out in the museum that is Europe. Frankly, said continent is not worthy of much of our attention any more.
Look to the east where China, India and America and her allies will grow the economies and engage in the geopolitical chess game that will shape the future of our world.
Europe wont go quietly, they will continue to squawk about how good they were at High School football and that they deserve to be included.
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Ima buy a big apartment complex in Iowa and demand that women prove their gender identity if they wanna place.
How about an idea on tariffs that might actually make some sense?
Have them automatically set by an algorithm.
What that algorithm does is constantly monitors the tariff schedule for each of our trading partners and sets our own tariffs to correspond to theirs. We could do this with both import and export tariffs. And we could also do it for import and export quotas.
You can’t do it good for good. Obviously, each different good affects each country differently - both in terms of their domestic production and in their ex-im. But what you could do is have it reciprocate tariffs and quotas for goods that are of roughly equal value - if not by dollar volume, than by share of GDP or by share of ex-im.
That way, each of our trading partners gets to set their own US tariffs. If they want one of ours lowered, they don’t even need to negotiate. Just lower one of theirs, of roughly equal value, and they can get it.
This seems like a much smarter way to leverage our economic heft. And my guess is that it would lead to lower and lower trade barriers around the world - which would be good for all of us.
Have them automatically set by an algorithm.
What that algorithm does is constantly monitors the tariff schedule for each of our trading partners and sets our own tariffs to correspond to theirs. We could do this with both import and export tariffs. And we could also do it for import and export quotas.
You can’t do it good for good. Obviously, each different good affects each country differently - both in terms of their domestic production and in their ex-im. But what you could do is have it reciprocate tariffs and quotas for goods that are of roughly equal value - if not by dollar volume, than by share of GDP or by share of ex-im.
That way, each of our trading partners gets to set their own US tariffs. If they want one of ours lowered, they don’t even need to negotiate. Just lower one of theirs, of roughly equal value, and they can get it.
This seems like a much smarter way to leverage our economic heft. And my guess is that it would lead to lower and lower trade barriers around the world - which would be good for all of us.
Trump's using tariffs in a different way, though. He's using them not just for economic benefit now.
I understand that.
Trump would never buy into something like this. They’re the most readily available political leverage for him.
But Congress could do it. And given that Democrats will basically do anything to oppose and thwart Trump, you could count on their unanimous support.
Just have to get half of Republicans in both houses to have a veto-proof majority. Easier said than done, of course. But it’s conceivable to me that Trump’s hold on Congressional Republicans won’t be as total and permanent as we currently think it is.
He never has to run again. But they all do.
I'd prefer Congress just take back the tariff power. Presidents shouldn't be able to do it unilaterally. But it they wanted to impose some type of formula, that could be useful. I agree with you on the political feasibility, though. The time to have done this was when the Dems controlled Congress and the Prez.
It would be a mess for Congress to have the power without some kind of sensible formula.
Not only would the politics remain in play, they are slow to move, can’t do anything without horse-trading for votes, all have competing local and regional interests, etc.
So, yeah, I’m 100% in favor of taking this authority away from POTUS. But only if it’s a sustainable improvement that doesn’t require massive efforts and disruptions to be moved.
Let our trading partners set our tariff rates for us. If they want our tariffs low, make theirs low. If they want high tariffs, then that will cost them in both directions.
