European Union leaders will consider imposing 25 percent tariffs on a range of US imports, including steel, clothes, and food, but not bourbon or other alcoholic drinks, following US President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports from the EU.
Big mistake. They should focus on Bourbon and food. That will hit MAGAts the hardest.
No, bourbon and food is small fry.
Internet services headquartered in the US. That’s the real deal.
Require a $100/per computer/per year on-going tax (phased in very slowly over 36 months, with extremely slow ramp in the first 18 months) for every enterprise Windows installation. Then figure out a similar approach for cloud computing and mobile enterprise (targeting Android/iOS). That’s how you grab the Americans by the balls.
That windows tax sounds like a way to bring about the year of the Linux desktop and I like that idea.
That windows tax sounds like a way to bring about the year of the Linux desktop and I like that idea.
I recognize the irony of “year of linux on the desktop”, but we (not only EU, I say this as someone from non-EU Europe) should not be giving the Americans money. They’ve proven that they are unreliable and unwilling to deal with corruption and degeneracy in their country. No disrespect to sane Americans, but at the end of the day they too need to make things happen.
For the record, I’m american. Entire current situation aside, I would prefer my chosen operating system have more support and if I can at least get that out of the destruction of the only country I’ve ever lived in I mean that’s something I guess.
But yeah you probably shouldn’t be financing the Nazis of the 2020s that is true, and taxing people who do would probably cut down on that.
As I said, no disrespect to sane Americans.
I’ve lived in the US and travelled extensively around the country (not only Manhattan and north-western part of LA), there are many sane Americans even in provincial pro-corruption hotspots.
But until the sane Americans implement true anti-corruption, judicial and election reforms (no Obama style “hope and change” bullshit), it is reasonable to expect nothing good to come out of the US. Even if a hypothetical Michelle Obama administration takes power in the next election (which is a giant if), that’s not going to change anything until the Americans stop treating their oligarchs and criminal groups as sacred cows.
You’re preaching to the choir man I’ve been beating this drum with increasing volume for years. We need 20 million+ of us on the national mall demanding a new constitution and government under threat of 1789 and I don’t honestly know if that’s possible.
Michelle Obama or any Dem won’t be taking power in 2028, if the above doesn’t happen 2028 isn’t a real election and if it does the United States Government as it currently exists doesn’t anymore so who even knows what the structure of our government will be.
Idk don’t count on us getting our shit together, trump could literally genocide Hispanics on American soil and 1/3 of Americans would strongly approve specifically genociding Hispanics. Even if we recover from this, things will get worse for Americans as our empire crumbles, and in 40 years when I’m the boomer and my friends are all the boomers, we’ll collectively beg for the good old days we grew up in when the American Empire was still strong, and we’ll collectively vote for the new nationalists of the day to make America great again again.
I should mention that while I’m a fan of democracy and would never want to live under another system of government I do not and have never believed democracy to be long term sustainable. Maybe I would if I lived in a real one idk but y’all still got far right problems over there in most of the former empires so idk.
I honestly don’t know what to say other than I wish you luck (no irony intended); it will benefit both you and me and you and our countries (and the world).
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There’s barriers to mass adoption sure but the installation process of most distros since they all use the same GUI installer is…not it. Like I kinda just don’t believe you tbh, your comment is entirely out of line with my experience even a decade ago. Maybe in 2006 when I first installed fedora core 4.
Like I can understand having issues using it day to day and I’m not going to tell anyone to swap operating systems, but if you can’t get Ubuntu up and running idk how you install and go through the windows OOBE.
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You tried installing it is a VM made by Microsoft, on Windows, and blame Linux for the problems? Lol
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I tried installing it on win 10 WSL
Lol what? I can’t take this conversation seriously anymore lmao. It’s like me saying windows sucks because I can’t game under qemu. Microsoft says on their own site that WSL isn’t for GUI apps and even a cursory Google search would have told you that.
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If you’re installing it on win 10 Windows Subsystem for Linux, then you’re installing it within windows which is not the same.
The permissions issues you encountered would likely have been due to you accessing features managed by windows. I guess it’s possible you ran some commands you shouldn’t have, but it would be just as easy to break a windows build if you’re running random commands you don’t understand as Administrator.
You can install ubuntu (or any other linux distro) on a usb, reboot your computer, probably mess with some bios boot-order settings, and try out an actual linux OS (and its installer), not one managed by windows. I think the bios settings are likely the biggest hangup. But I also doubt the majority of people who can’t install Linux could install Windows.
As per driver compatibility, there’s a good chance your issues were related again to WSL, which on win10 doesn’t seem to support cuda. I barely used WSL, but I remember not having direct gpu access, completely negating the point of me upgrading to pro and allowing me to get permission from work to wipe windows.
Anyways, I think what a lot of windows users don’t realize is how much time and energy they spent learning how to use windows and get around this or that and all the wasted hours spent troubleshooting something. So I do understand not wanting to do that all over again. But if OSX, android, and chromebooks can be turn key for your average user, I don’t think there’s anything stopping them from adapting to “Linux”.
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Lets be realistic here, everything from MAGA dominated states is small fry, they are not exactly the most productive states.
Devils advocate, most of those states are agriculture heavy. What do you mean by productive?
I mean they are literally some of the poorest US states with the lowest GDP per capita, the highest poverty rates, the highest rates of people who need government support,… and most relevant for this discussion, the least valuable exports.
Even better: services. Tariff Facebook ads, Netflix subscriptions, Office 365, Amazon Prime. If the corporations want to pull the strings in government, hit them directly.
Yes, that would be part of it. Windows on enterprise is just a good, simple example.
Invoke anti coercion regulations and suspend intellectual property rights of the US companies. Job done.
I think that surprising amount of them are already located in Ireland for that and other tax related possibilities. Giant corporations are basically pirates sailing on lawless waters.
Target HQ based on consolidated financial account reporting not regional HQ. Doesn’t matter if you have a regional subsidiary in Ireland or Moldova. If the final accounts/HQs are US-based all transactions in Europe get hit with massive on-going subscription-style tariffs (since ICT services are largely subscription based).
If only tax-evasion was so easily solved. The are not shy of restructuring completely just to fit into any gap that law created. On paper “BigBadCorpo US” and “BigBadCorpo Irealand” could be two completely separate entities, with BBCI turning zero to no profits becouse it license brand from BBCUS.
You would think that Worner Bross is a movie making company. It’s not. On paper it’s a company that lend very overprices movie equipment. To shell companies created solely for the purpose of creating one movie…
Taxes are hard and people who employ literal armies of layers have the edge over slow law making.
Taxes are hard and people who employ literal armies of layers have the edge over slow law making.
While this is true, it’s also a matter of desire and commitment.
Case in point, the US companies all publish consolidated accounts and often break out Europe, albeit sometimes it’s EMEA not Europe.
You can target the final consolidated accounts and focus on revenues if the companies don’t provide actual numbers for Europe (or if it looks like there is something fishy going on, which there is).
Company A is in Poland. You regulate law in Poland. Company B is in USA. You don’t regulate a law in USA.
You want to tax company A, based on company B report, that was created for 3rd party government?
I recognize that this is not exactly a reasonable approach.
But sometimes (when the situation is dire and you’re dealing with unreasonable, profoundly corrupt individuals that lack humanity) you need to take an active (not reactive) approach.
Literally just say “You made $20B (revenue) in Europe as per your 10-K, you will pay $4B and we don’t care what you have to say because we both know you are dishonest and corrupt. Lying is not going to work!”
I am not saying that now is the time to use such measures. But to completely deny any active postures and solely leverage a reactive approach does not work.
You can do a lot against tax evasions - if you want. Yes, they will find loopholes. But you can close them. Quickly - if you want. They have literal armies of lawyers? Well, hire armies of clerks, they will pay for themselves and make laws without loopholes.
I feel that would grab our European balls more than theirs. Practically everyone is heavily invested in AWS, Azure or GCP with few actual European alternatives, and migration to a new provider being a massive undertaking for a lot of those projects.
I definitely agree, I work in the industry so I have no childish illusions about how painful this would be.
That being said, it is not completely out of the realm of reality. China still uses Windows/Android/iOS, but they have their own cloud providers and they are making massive inroads with respect to semiconductors and homegrown components. And they are working on getting rid of American operating syste6m and I think in ~10 years they will succeed.
At some point you need to make a call around whether using American tech is in your interests. Moving off American tech will never be easy, the question is when and how you do it and how you manage the pain.
And mark my words, the Americans are only going to get even volatile and chauvinistic. Unfortunately, the sane Americans lack risk-tolerance and motivation (they are in a broad sense too well off to care if their country moves from current early proto-fascism to full on facism).
Yeah, that’s an odd one to leave out. US alcohol isn’t any form of necessity either.
Maybe there’s a export like rye that the EU provides
Maybe it’s to avoid tarrifs on European alcohols?
kentuckys economy is exclusively bourban, or at least most of it.
And Kentucky is full of magats
They should tax digital products.
Digital Providers are large donors but they are located in a blue state. Target the states with the votes that mater.
Right, why are countries not coordinating counter tariffs. Why isn’t EU and Canada and others joining up to target some of the biggest donors and supporters
Problem is the bourbon distillers might go broke, now no more future bourbon.
Some issues transcend politics.
Shut it down!
I’d take that hit. There is some damn good whiskey made in blue states. Westland is from the PNW, and one of my favorites.
Bourbon tastes like shit.
Highland scotch, that’s the real gold.
There’s Irish Scottish and Japanese whisky which are in my opinion superior anyway, should take a leaf from Canadas book and take them off the shelves.
As a Canadian, I don’t give a rat’s ass what other countries do. I WILL NOT buy anything American. Full stop!!
American spirits are mixers here, I’ll use bourbon if I want a cocktail but if I want a glass of something - I dont reach for american.
I dont want them off the shelves though, I wan america to revwrse course and be fucking normal before we end up at war.
You and me both sister.
Yup. Bourbon is way over rated.
Four Roses is nice for the price
Still way too harsh. Irish whiskey and Highland scotch are far smoother and more tasty.
Ardbeg is one of my absolute favourites, I’m more into Islay
Canada makes rye whiskey
When I did drink, I found bourbon too sweet
If the american supply ceases, european producers won’t be able to handle demand. Expect higher prices - good whiskey takes several years to produce and nobody has prepared for a stupid situation like this
Suck it up, buttercup. Take a stand!!
Lack of alcohol supply (a specific kind no less) is so far down the list of actual problems though. The majority of the population of the EU in every country seems to be on board with suffering a little in order to stick it to trump, so whiskey is really a weird thing to not import, especially given the potential impact it can have on the political opinion in affected regions.
Qu’ils boire de la champagne.
-Marie Antoinette
Someone in charge likely has a bourbon cellar. If you’ve ever had good bourbon, you’ll understand. Small amounts of the top shelf bourbon can be like good chocolate.
Or they’re practiced lushes and don’t want any alcohol price increases.
I think they’re avoiding it because of the exports of wine, champagn, beer, etc. out of the EU more than anything, but that’s just a (very slightly) educated guess.
Found the American.
It’s all Whiskey, it having to be made in the USA is the only distinction of it being Bourbon.
There’s plenty of Whiskeys, Ryes and Corn Whiskeys that blow Bourbon out of the water.
I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed the taste of a regular whiskey, top shelf or not. There is a difference. Granted, your comment is intended as baiting in this way.
Try a corn whiskey, some people don’t like Rye or the other grains, but the only distinction (again) between corn whiskey and bourbon is quite literally Bourbon is only bottled in the USA. That’s it. Nothing else.
The “baiting” is to find the Americans, they cling to bourbon is better, but it’s really not, it’s a corn whiskey, distilled in the USA. Americans are the only ones swooning over a marketing difference.
You can take aged Kentucky bourbon over to the UK, but you couldn’t bottle is as bourbon, that’s how stupid this distinction is.
Straight bourbon is required to be 51% corn, aged in chared oak barrels for at least 2 years, and must be at least 80 proof.
Of course none of that makes it better, because it’s just preferences like anything else anyway. But bourbon is its own thing.
Jack Daniels put whiskey on it’s bottles, don’t they?
Ya, that’s because it’s not Bourbon. Which kinda proves the point, right.
Yet it 100% is made to the bourbon minimal conditions. So it’s Bourbon, deceptively (strong word here for the lulz) labeled as whiskey?
Hey you just described the requirement of corn whiskey? Anyone can distill a spirit that could be called Bourbon, but they can’t, since it wasn’t bottled in the USA.
The only difference between a corn whiskey is bourbon is bottled in the USA, but try to make it sound better than it is. It’s a corn whiskey, bottled in the USA.
No, not all whiskeys are required to be fermented in a new charred oak barrels. That’s what produces the typical smokey flavor associated with bourbon. All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon. That’s like saying all other grain whiskey that doesn’t use corn is Scotch.
…
If you make an aged oak spirit in the UK, it would be a corn whiskey, that exact same spirit in the USA would be Bourbon.
Thank you for the being the stereotypical ignorant American who thinks bourbon is unique.
A concurrent resolution adopted by the United States Congress in 1964 declared bourbon to be a “distinctive product of the United States” and asked “the appropriate agencies of the United States Government … [to] take appropriate action to prohibit importation into the United States of whiskey designated as ‘Bourbon Whiskey’.”[26][27] A U.S. federal regulation now restricts the definition of bourbon for whiskey to only include spirits produced in the U.S.[28]
That’s it, it’s literally a USA ego thing.
Also, scotch is a terrible example, that’s another unique one, it’s made in Scotland only…. You really don’t know your whiskey history at all do you?
I’m not passionate about bourbon nor am I a real drinker and thus the wrong person to pull into what is intended to be a heated discussion on it.
My original point is some people are and some of those people make policy decisions.
I’ll be 100% honest the most selfish thought I had when Canada started to boycott was me wondering if I’d be able to get Buffalo Trace without jumping through hoops.
This is not to say it’s top shelf, but there was a time when it was commonly in stock and under $30. So much bang for your buck.
Just the initial wave. The next one should be a way bigger response to the blanket EU tariff
can’t do tariffs on the us but how about that chat control?
The eu seems to be really incapable of doing anything lately.
