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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 20th, 2023

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  • I mean, a weaker currency really does boost your export value. That’s why Canadian farmers tend to consider the weaker CAD a benefit - they get paid more CAD per yuan when exporting soy or canola for example.

    The issue is that the US intentionally positioned itself with a strong dollar so they can import stuff cheaper. The deal for American “exorbitant privilege” was essentially “hey America, you can have the world as your shopping mall with a strong currency for cheap imported goods, but in exchange you’ll provide the backing for collective defense with your extra budget, stay stable, and buy our goods”. Trump wants to have his cake and eat it too, maintaining the effective global tax via USD transactions but also have a weaker dollar for American exporters. This is all that hubbub about “reducing trade deficits”… which were created intentionally as part of that deal in the Bretton Woods/post-Bretton Woods Era.

    US consumers like cheap phones, TVs, imported fruits, and travel. The strong dollar is a necessity for this. Much of the US debt is heavily subsidized as a side effect of a strong dollar as part of that exorbitant privilege exchange. They can have their weaker dollar but they’ll lose the benefits from it and I don’t think they’ll accept that easily. Throwing all that away to strengthen your export market is deeply foolish, but the mechanisms at play do work generally as they claim.














  • What’s worse is I fucking called it, now The Independent is repeating this BS (although the rest of the article is much better at focusing on all the horrendous shit ICE actually is doing, and the guided missiles lie is a single sentence basically), here is the article.

    While the majority of the money has been spent on guns and armor for field agents, the outlay has also seen ICE purchase “guided missile warheads and explosive components,” according to Popular Information.

    There we go, tracked this particular disinformation live. Next step is a major US outlet like NYT repeating the same “Popular Information states ____”. Journalism used to mean actually doing something just just copy/pasting from random blogs online. I doubt they’ve even pulled the data from the government portal themselves. /sigh

    Here’s the REAL story, after the made up stuff:

    ICE has also attracted a deluge of unwanted headlines for the administration, including the recent revelation that it has arrested at least 20 children who are American citizens this year, two of whom had cancer.

    Reports of operations involving armed agents “traumatizing” mothers and children and firing pepper balls at a priest attending a demonstration have not helped their publicity drive.

    “What we’re seeing is a general escalation of violence and the use of excessive force by ICE officers,” Ed Yohnka of ACLU Illinois told NPR recently.


  • ? The articles HEADLINE says “warheads” and the body says “guided missiles”, and then cites a source saying “guided missiles” and “artillery”. I’m not just disambiguating minutiae, there’s a huge difference between buying a flashbang and a fucking guided missile system.

    Misinformation is cool as long as it’s “our guys” making shit up?

    We have so many real things to go after the gestapo for, INLCUDING spending $72 mill on guns and shit, but you’re right, we should say they bought tanks and F35s as well. It’ll really get this ball rolling.

    I wasn’t even accusing you of doing anything, but hey, attack me personally to make your point. Makes you look really smart and reliable. No wonder your country is fucked.


  • The only source cited is a blog which cites a blog + raw acquisition numbers from government data, none of which contain ANY reference to “guided missiles” or “artillery” as the original substack claims.

    As best I can tell, this claim was just kind of made up, then referenced by a blog, and now by the daily beast. We’re like 3 days out from NYT writing this and referencing this daily beast article.

    Fuck this administration for all the illegal and inhuman shit they’re doing, but I’m almost certain this is just made up. They definitely have spent a shitload of money on weapons and equipment (bad) but theres no proof they’ve bought explosives and chemical weapons (beyond pepper spray)



  • North American elections aren’t decided by changing people’s minds, they haven’t been for decades. They’re decided by getting the non-voters out for your party. 30ish % of the electorate will never drop Trump. 35ish % of the electorate will never vote R. Elections are decided by the 35% in the middle who usually don’t even vote.

    They only vote when the impact on their lives is impossible to ignore, hence why Trump’s COVID inflation gift to Biden got them off the bench. “Food is much more expensive now, I blame <person currently president>”. These people can be swung, but it requires their lives to be directly and obviously impacted. Maybe loss of healthcare would do it.