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skooma512)
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Shipon posted:lol the moment the EU starts buying oil in yuan america is going to launch the nukes on every large city in the world, if america can't have the global currency no one can Don't panic. The USA will always have Britain, Canada, Australia and NZ to boss around like the loyal lapdogs they are.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:01
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Celexi posted:lol train and plane tickets can be cheap when properly planned which these people could as they plan their gas guzzling car trip for a year. I am not sure what part of sitting in a car bored for hours upon hours is great I mean it's torture lol. At least on a train if it takes long you can use the various amenities without ever leaving the train and I'd rather have 6 screaming infants than being in a car for dozens of hours I don't know how you're making this math work, at least on the east coast. We love trains. We take them all the time when we can, but we're routinely doing math like "this is affordable if the train tickets will only cost double what it will for us to drive." If we think we're going to have to rent a car for even one day or whatever we usually throw the whole plan in the trash. You can drive all the way down the east coast for under $200 round trip, and that's with a car that isn't even particularly efficient. Driving needs to be a lot more expensive because it's pretty obviously the cheapest choice for most things assuming you already have a car.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:10
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Shipon posted:i would gladly take the train from norcal to socal or vice versa but i am absolutely not getting on a loving airplane for that same trip, i would rather drive than get stuffed into a loving domestic flight I've taken the train from LA to SF and it's an 11 hour trip, minimum lmao. Take a plane if you don't need a car, drive if you do and want to save on rental $$.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:15
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meanolmrcloud posted:is there any way to know the actual strength of the output of the US, without the financialization aspect? as in, how much do we actually produce that isn’t numbers inflated on a spreadsheet. the orthodox line when I was growing up is that despite a large amount of the GDP being fictitious finance bullshit, we still have pretty substantial manufacturing output. it would be pretty hilarious if the rest of the world realizes the only thing we export is toxic culture and assault rifles. the US domestic manufacturing sector is still pretty good at precision stuff, on par with anyone but really remarkable industrial sectors like the Swiss the reasons for this have mostly to do with the existing workforce (now aging rapidly, i think the average age of a CNC machinist in Oregon is like 54. anecdotally i've been in the industry for six years, i'm 38, and i've never not been in the youngest 5 machinists at any company where i've worked) and general capability of basic math education, both of which have been absolutely eviscerated as a matter of policy for longer than i've been alive unless somehow everyone decides to A) pay machinists for the number of workers' worth of work we do nowadays or B) hire an average of 50-100% more people to do the same amount of work, so that we can pass on our skills and institutional knowledge in a seamless and coherent fashion, as happened pretty consistently until the 80s, i can't see the US machining sector retaining its relative dominance on the world machining stage in the last few years, PRC companies have started putting out some really high-quality tungsten carbide and other powder-deposition-made cutting tools which they're able to consistently sell to US shops at undercut rates so it's only a matter of time before the rest of US domestic tool-and-die poo poo is pushed out of business or acquired from overseas.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:16
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USNI has a great book out about how the French had an independent naval policy and were on their way to being a naval power from 1945-mid 60's and how absolutely loving livid the US was and all the stuff the US did to gently caress with France, ruin their shipbuilding industry etc.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:21
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I'm reminded of how pissed off the French behaved after the Australians tore up the deal for French subs and went with American ones
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Apr 10, 2023 04:22
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this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise....
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Apr 10, 2023 04:24
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shrike82 posted:I'm reminded of how pissed off the French behaved after the Australians tore up the deal for French subs and went with American ones Remember how France refused to sell some completed mistrals to Russia at the last minute (due to pressure) and they had to refund Russia 1.53 billion or something? If I was an independant observer watching all this I'd never contract with the French simply because I would have to expect a 3rd party of unknown origin to gently caress with the deal in some way.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:25
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Lpzie posted:this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise....
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Apr 10, 2023 04:28
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Frosted Flake posted:USNI has a great book out about how the French had an independent naval policy and were on their way to being a naval power from 1945-mid 60's and how absolutely loving livid the US was and all the stuff the US did to gently caress with France, ruin their shipbuilding industry etc. lmao, what is the name of the book? this sounds great.
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Apr 10, 2023 04:29
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Lpzie posted:this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise.... somewhere chris rock is smiling and nodding appreciatively as am i
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Apr 10, 2023 05:14
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Paradoxish posted:I don't know how you're making this math work, at least on the east coast. We love trains. We take them all the time when we can, but we're routinely doing math like "this is affordable if the train tickets will only cost double what it will for us to drive." If we think we're going to have to rent a car for even one day or whatever we usually throw the whole plan in the trash. You can drive all the way down the east coast for under $200 round trip, and that's with a car that isn't even particularly efficient. there's a good reason why the average used car mileage is about 100k, and tons of americans have like 200k-300k miles in like <5-10 years of a car ownership: it's dirt cheap.
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Apr 10, 2023 05:30
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The US has a lot of tools to maintain dollar hegemony. Other countries are trying to chip away at us though. They smell blood.
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Apr 10, 2023 07:05
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Lpzie posted:this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise....
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Apr 10, 2023 07:07
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Lpzie posted:this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise.... 
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Apr 10, 2023 07:17
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err posted:The US has a lot of tools to maintain dollar hegemony. Other countries are trying to chip away at us though. They smell blood. never let a good crisis go unseized
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Apr 10, 2023 07:25
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https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1644677359356788736?t=_GoxUQBQs7C-Yr9sWtOnrA&s=19 All that grain had to go somewhere
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Apr 10, 2023 07:32
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Frosted Flake posted:USNI has a great book out about how the French had an independent naval policy and were on their way to being a naval power from 1945-mid 60's and how absolutely loving livid the US was and all the stuff the US did to gently caress with France, ruin their shipbuilding industry etc. Dude ths is like the third loving time you've done this. Post the name of the book when you mention it, gently caress. It's not that goddamn hard
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Apr 10, 2023 08:04
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trains should be owned by the state and funded by taxes on businesses that use it to transport goods and free to use for people, at most an admin fee where its like $5 to enter it but you get a ticket thats good for a week anywhere.
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Apr 10, 2023 08:11
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fanfic insert posted:trains should be owned by the state and funded by taxes on businesses that use it to transport goods and free to use for people, at most an admin fee where its like $5 to enter it but you get a ticket thats good for a week anywhere. In Italy you have three choices of tickets. - A high speed train that will take you from north to south. A ticket runs around €120. Venezia to Roma takes 1.5~ hours. - A normal ticket that runs around €50. Seats are pretty good and you can go from Venezia to Roma in 3~ hours. - A shuttle ticket. runs around €20. seats are cheap and the train isn’t fast but you can use the ticket whenever you want on the day you bought it. It’s a pretty good system and all the trains are electric.
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Apr 10, 2023 08:21
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fanfic insert posted:trains should be owned by the state and funded by taxes on businesses that use it to transport goods and free to use for people, at most an admin fee where its like $5 to enter it but you get a ticket thats good for a week anywhere. Agreed but only if "the people" who use it for free or a token $5 are made to ride on the roof, or in a repurposed cattle stock car.
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Apr 10, 2023 08:32
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BrotherJayne posted:Dude ths is like the third loving time you've done this. Post the name of the book when you mention it, gently caress. The Fall and Rise of French Sea Power by Hugues Canuel, I think Studio posted:I've taken the train from LA to SF and it's an 11 hour trip, minimum lmao. Take a plane if you don't need a car, drive if you do and want to save on rental $$. God bless America for having such a poo poo railway that it makes the incredibly old British rail network look passable. I stay in the Scottish Highlands, London is about a 550 mile drive south of here, the train takes about 8 hours, with a quarter of that covering the first 100 miles which is mostly up-hill, and almost all 1 track outside of stations. And they stop at a bunch of villages of under 2,000 people. How they gently caress is LA to SF in 11 hours possible? Just lol at passenger trains not having priority on the rail networks because they are all owned by the freight companies. forkboy84 has issued a correction as of 08:47 on Apr 10, 2023 |
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Apr 10, 2023 08:37
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Some rich train lover should do something like birthright but it's trainright: every American gets a 2 week holiday to Europe with a Eurail pass until you are all forced to realise trains rock and are too important to be left to sicko shareholders
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Apr 10, 2023 08:51
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forkboy84 posted:Some rich train lover should do something like birthright but it's trainright: every American gets a 2 week holiday to Europe with a Eurail pass until you are all forced to realise trains rock and are too important to be left to sicko shareholders small flaw in your plan: our trains have been given to sicko shareholders and are rapidly decaying while we expand car culture
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Apr 10, 2023 09:02
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The italian train system sounds great if you are going from Venice to Rome, I'd take a free vacation and go do that. I bet the pizza is really good too!
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Apr 10, 2023 09:06
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Zodium posted:small flaw in your plan: our trains have been given to sicko shareholders and are rapidly decaying while we expand car culture Well yes, the idea is to convert your youngsters to the value of some measure of central planning so that there are entire generations who love trains and love the state ownership of railways (and ideally the trains themselves but one step at a time, some idiot will be screaming about constitutionality because trains didn't exist in 1776)
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Apr 10, 2023 09:08
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forkboy84 posted:Well yes, the idea is to convert your youngsters to the value of some measure of central planning. i'm european
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Apr 10, 2023 09:09
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I was in Singapore recently and they have a tourist pass that lets you ride all the trains and buses that you want, for three days, and then I extended it for one more day. We never even rode a bus the whole time we were there - just trains all day everyday. It was nice. I miss it already.
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Apr 10, 2023 09:18
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Singapore seems to be pretty good at planning.
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Apr 10, 2023 09:25
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They're not at all socialist and some of what they've accomplished is arguably specific to their situation, but they're a fascinating country to study because of how they've managed to form a relatively stable state with strong social programs and all without liberalism. I'd recommend the works of Chua Beng Huat to anyone wanting to dive into their politics.
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Apr 10, 2023 09:29
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Trains are so much nicer than airplanes.
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Apr 10, 2023 09:34
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gradenko_2000 posted:They're not at all socialist and some of what they've accomplished is arguably specific to their situation, but they're a fascinating country to study because of how they've managed to form a relatively stable state with strong social programs and all without liberalism. it's also funny they initially rejected joining OBOR during the obama days, got exactly gently caress-all from america and then slammed the gas hard in the china direction
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Apr 10, 2023 09:43
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Singapore is "funny" because its basically all at the cost of Hong Kong. I mean their rise in living standards goes back to the 60s iirc but their economic power and real boom happened as capital flight from Hong Kong due to the turnover from British to China happened, and their low capital taxes which captured that flight are still enough to raise a budget to basically have the unemployable just work as toilet cleaners to their million public toilets, or in their "legalized" brothels. So because they have billions flowing through and take a tiny percentage of that most people can scrape by without a real social safety net just by being employed to maintain it as a playground for western capital with luxury hotels and legal prostitution. I mean they have a shopping mall thats colloquially known as "the four floors of whores" fanfic insert has issued a correction as of 09:48 on Apr 10, 2023 |
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Apr 10, 2023 09:43
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fanfic insert posted:because they have billions flowing through and take a tiny percentage of that most people can scrape by without a real social safety net just by being employed to maintain it as a playground for western capital with luxury hotels and legal prostitution. hmm this reminds me of somewhere else... https://twitter.com/Edourdoo/status/1614520836811284481 lol yikes
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Apr 10, 2023 09:52
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Can we privatize all the roads and use the money to buy all the tracks?
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Apr 10, 2023 09:57
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it does take longer to take a train from sf to la, but you won't be driving straight and stopping so it does end up close, also you won't have to be driving the entire way and hopefully not crashing and burning. on the way and arriving wasted.
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Apr 10, 2023 10:51
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Paradoxish posted:I don't know how you're making this math work, at least on the east coast. We love trains. We take them all the time when we can, but we're routinely doing math like "this is affordable if the train tickets will only cost double what it will for us to drive." If we think we're going to have to rent a car for even one day or whatever we usually throw the whole plan in the trash. You can drive all the way down the east coast for under $200 round trip, and that's with a car that isn't even particularly efficient. you forget the cost of rest stops, food, maintenance, wear on vehicle, the constant risk of doing a mistake and dying or someone else murdering you, which is far more likely in a car.
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Apr 10, 2023 10:53
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So how's the water in Philadelphia doing? Feel like that story disappeared from the zeitgeist after the state of emergency was declared.
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Apr 10, 2023 11:27
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Lpzie posted:this is outside my wheelhouse but ill chime in: cars need to be very cheap like ten bucks but gasoline should be many thousands of dollars. will never see change otherwise.... thanks for this insight, Chris rock
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Apr 10, 2023 11:33
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| # ? May 25, 2024 16:01 |
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err posted:The US has a lot of tools to maintain dollar hegemony. Other countries are trying to chip away at us though. They smell blood. Who is this "us"? Why do you identify with dollar hegemony lol?
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Apr 10, 2023 11:50
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