Paul Mason @paulmasonnews · 2h German govt looks to have collapsed. The whole project killed by the debt brake, which needs to be ditched asap before it drags Europe into the fate of a second Weimar.
Rory McIlroy believes Donald Trump’s return to the White House could bring peace between the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabia funded breakaway LIV circuit and has speculated that Elon Musk could play a key role in negotiations on golf’s future.
The Titleist accords
Am I the only person who always reads this brand name in my head as "tit-leist"?
I think the same. It’s because golfers are tits.
Golfers are men with tiny balls.
FACT.
Though American golfers used to have bigger balls than we did.
On one level no, it’s not my country and not my business. But on an another level, as someone who thinks the world needs a non-Trumpite USA in 4 years, the Democrats need to be bigger and better than Trump was.
Well that's not too hard, there's going to be a peaceful handover of power.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
He said he'd halve energy costs and end inflation. How the hell you end inflation in a free market economy is completely beyond me, and even pondering how it might be done in a dictatorship sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses, they have fantastic UI control system and the branding is spot on. So many traditional ICE car makers are still miles behind e.g. VW. And why Tesla keeps winning.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses.
Why does he feel the need to lie about it then?
He is selling the dream, we don't just have the best boring lane assist, we are close to FSD...its not exclusive to Tesla, Google, Apple, etc they all do it. Google keep getting caught out faking their demos and how many promises have they made about their AI assistant automatically phoning your hairdresser, making restaurant appointments etc.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
A break can be a great thing. I hope you and Foxy return in due course.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
Zelensky’s interview slating Biden last week has cut through to a lot of people, not just me. Ukrainian Vlogger Denys Davidov for example, while saying he’d have voted for Kamala, he seems surprisingly positive about what might be possible under Trump. Shipman has an unattributed source saying trump is likely to pass one more big military aid package for Ukraine. Etc…
They've got to be positive about it and stroke his ego, otherwise there's no chance of getting anything out of the US.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
I slag off all politicians....I have a very low opinion of most of them. I do try to give some credit where credit is due, pointed out positives of Blair, Cameron, Clegg, but that has become increasingly hard post 2015.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
I slag off all politicians....I have a very low opinion of most of them. I do try to give some credit where credit is due, pointed out positives of Blair, Cameron, Clegg, but that has become increasingly hard post 2015.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole?
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
He said he'd halve energy costs and end inflation. How the hell you end inflation in a free market economy is completely beyond me, and even pondering how it might be done in a dictatorship sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Trump is to Putin as Chamberlain is to Hitler. Peace in our time!
Zelensky’s interview slating Biden last week has cut through to a lot of people, not just me. Ukrainian Vlogger Denys Davidov for example, while saying he’d have voted for Kamala, he seems surprisingly positive about what might be possible under Trump. Shipman has an unattributed source saying trump is likely to pass one more big military aid package for Ukraine. Etc…
They've got to be positive about it and stroke his ego, otherwise there's no chance of getting anything out of the US.
Denys is a modest guy, I can’t imagine he thinks trump is watching his YouTube channel. Meanwhile Zelensky messages today are very carefully calibrated.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews · 2h German govt looks to have collapsed. The whole project killed by the debt brake, which needs to be ditched asap before it drags Europe into the fate of a second Weimar.
Wow. For the first time I agree with Paul Mason. The debt brake is insanity. Regierender Wahnsinn. Germany's population is ageing rapidly, and has low home ownership. That means it has a very high propensity to save, and its chronic under-consumption and oversaving (see its huge and disruptive trade surpluses year after year) are the results. So government needs to run deficits for the sake of global stability. Before the euro it didn't matter as much: they just up-valued the D-mark every year. Now they don't have that safety valve with most of the rest of Europe.
Not that I think it will lead to a Fourth Reich, but the Germans do need to learn some basic macroeconomics at some point. As Paul Krugman said, Germany is on a completely different macro planet from everybody else. Just as our government needs to learn some elementary Micro.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
I slag off all politicians....I have a very low opinion of most of them. I do try to give some credit where credit is due, pointed out positives of Blair, Cameron, Clegg, but that has become increasingly hard post 2015.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole?
Very droll....I don't think its debatable that UK (and US) politicians have been very poor in recent years. There was a lot more quality in 1997 and 2010 cabinets than today or Boris or Sunak time. The US not that long ago was a choice between Obama and McCain, or Obama and Romney. These were not morons, crazies or incompetents, nor bad people with serious mental or personality disorders, rather differences in priorities or vision for what was best.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses, they have fantastic UI control system and the branding is spot on. So many traditional ICE car makers are still miles behind e.g. VW. And why Tesla keeps winning.
From people I know who have tried both - the Waymo 'experience' is way, way superior to the Tesla one.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
I shall have to console myself that I fell for such lies, with the bucket load of shares I’ve held since 2013.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
I was thinking more of the severely negative consequences of such a stupid policy for international trade generally and the US economy in particular. If they end up in recession as a result of this idiocy they will have less demand for our services.
I half agree with this, but at the same time if companies can't export to the US export prices for those goods will fall for the UK so that's a net benefit for us while we still maintain basically our existing exports to the US. What's more is that our exports to Europe are primarily services where we are highly competitive for both prices and quality. Any recession will drive more European companies to UK imports because we come in cheaper and offer a more comprehensive service, especially in tech infrastructure and finance, two of the big growth industries in the EU. I understand the tendency to see doom and gloom at a time like this, yet I'm not sure it's going to materialise in anything like the form you are worried about.
The bigger issues will be domestic, we're still selling £150bn in extra gilts over 5 years and chances are the US government is going to add a lot of debt so we're competing for the same money and we need to hope that bond prices don't fall or we're all fucked.
A tarriff generated world recession/depression might well do that to us. It's not as though there aren't precedents.
What worries me is that tariffs have a particular appeal for someone like Trump, of course.
The Political Economy of Tariff Exemption Grants https://jfqa.org/2024/07/30/the-political-economy-of-tariff-exemption-grants/ We investigate whether firm-level political connections affect the allocation of exemptions from tariffs imposed on $550 billion of Chinese goods imported to the United States annually beginning in 2018. Evidence points to politicians not only rewarding supporters, but also punishing opponents: past campaign contributions to the party controlling (in opposition to) the executive branch increase (decrease) approval likelihood. Our findings point to quid pro quo arrangements between politicians and firms, as opposed to the “information” channel linking political access to regulatory outcomes....
Oh, I think the US is likely to see Crony Capitalism, where being a friend of the administration leads to exemptions from tariffs and the like.
It's rare that produces positive outcomes.
The crony capitalism, undesirable as it is, isn't the thing that worries me most, though. It's that there is an extremely strong incentive for someone like Trump to impose tariffs which might be disastrous for the rest of us.
For him, any effect on the economy is a second order consideration. (And for the world economy, third order.)
Tesla's experience has stood still for years. That is why Elon feels the need to lie.
I think it is true they haven't moved forward as much the past few years. The cars are starting to look dated. I believe there are 2 new models in the work, no?
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses, they have fantastic UI control system and the branding is spot on. So many traditional ICE car makers are still miles behind e.g. VW. And why Tesla keeps winning.
From people I know who have tried both - the Waymo 'experience' is way, way superior to the Tesla one.
They are solving a different problem though. Putting aside what Musk likes to hype.
Waymo is selling you carefully ring fenced self driving car. It is restricted to a certain geographical area and requires a huge amount of data, lidar scanning to make it work and the cars are totally uneconomical to mass produce. $200-300k to just get a Waymo car.
Tesla is really selling advanced driver assistance and have got the price of their cars right down.
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
I slag off all politicians....I have a very low opinion of most of them. I do try to give some credit where credit is due, pointed out positives of Blair, Cameron, Clegg, but that has become increasingly hard post 2015.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole?
Very droll....I don't think its debatable that UK (and US) politicians have been very poor in recent years. There was a lot more quality in 1997 and 2010 cabinets. The US not that long ago was a choice between Obama and McCain, or Obama and Romney. These were not morons, crazies or incompetents.
I’ll give you that we’ve seen some increase in morons, crazies and incompetents. (And that’s just Trump!) however, I do not have a very low opinion of most politicians. I think most politicians are doing their best to make things better. I think there are plenty of MPs across different parties who I respect, while not necessarily agreeing with them. I don’t think cynicism fixes politics.
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
We don’t know what his approach will be, he may not even know until whatever his functioning synapses tell him when he re-enters the White House.
Ha, I’d missed Trump saying that he’d bring peace to Ukraine even before his inauguration. Let’s see how that pans out.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
I have a VP Spiro Agnew bill signing Parker Pen. Nixon was a bad man, but when caught out he eventually respected the Constitution. Trump? Er, no...
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
There are worse outcomes than forcing a deal on the current borders, but one of the effects of a deal on the current borders is that Putin feels he’s won and tries again somewhere else. Maybe annex Transnistria, maybe take more of Georgia, maybe teach Kazakhstan a lesson, maybe push his luck with the Baltic states. It also encourages other countries to try annexing a bit of a neighbour.
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
Zelensky wouldn't agree to such a deal anyway, certainly not a permanent one and nor may Putin either
Imagine if Trump was standing there saying I don't have to be loyal to the president or the parliament, only god and country, and I will continue to fight, fight, fight.....and i will fight...and fight...and fight...you must fight...every 3rd word.
Seriously?? You fucking right wingers....4 Years ago Trump organised a riot on Capital Hill....and undermined democracy...but jog on comrade..please do have a go at Kamala at her attempt at her concession speech...
I am by no means a supporter of Trump. I literally have 100s (maybe 1000s) of posts saying how absolutely unsuitable he is for office and why...but fucking left wingers....insert rant.
You are very smug when it comes to slagging off non- conservative politicians.
I slag off all politicians....I have a very low opinion of most of them. I do try to give some credit where credit is due, pointed out positives of Blair, Cameron, Clegg, but that has become increasingly hard post 2015.
If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole?
Very droll....I don't think its debatable that UK (and US) politicians have been very poor in recent years. There was a lot more quality in 1997 and 2010 cabinets. The US not that long ago was a choice between Obama and McCain, or Obama and Romney. These were not morons, crazies or incompetents.
I’ll give you that we’ve seen some increase in morons, crazies and incompetents. (And that’s just Trump!) however, I do not have a very low opinion of most politicians. I think most politicians are doing their best to make things better. I think there are plenty of MPs across different parties who I respect, while not necessarily agreeing with them. I don’t think cynicism fixes politics.
I am sure that is true. I never subscribe to the lazy stereotype all Labour / Tory / etc (delete the party you least favour) are evil bastards, I think most MPs go into politics to make things better. But recently the greasy pole climbers have been lesser quality and actually the ideas being proposed are really lacking. There seems like there is a big void there. It is a disappointing aspect of the new government, they seem to be scrambling around for ideas. Compared to 1997, where they hit the ground running with lots of interesting ideas.
I said the other day, I am waiting to see what Patrick Vallance ideas are. He has been very quiet so far, but previously he has been very vocal about how the public sector needs to use and share data better. That could unlock some productivity done right.
Tesla's experience has stood still for years. That is why Elon feels the need to lie.
I think it is true they haven't moved forward as much the past few years. The cars are starting to look dated. I believe there are 2 new models in the work, no?
Depends how high Elon gets, and whether he's capable of a bit of focus. I'm not optimistic. Humanoid robots? Tesla? Rockets to Mars? Tuneling? X? Starlink? USGov? Who can say.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
The norms - and the Supreme Court which would have been prepared to say that a president could be charged with crimes - that brought down Nixon, simply don't exist any more.
Nixon in today's setting could have shrugged off Watergate. Easily.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
The norms - and the Supreme Court which would have been prepared to say that a president could be charged with crimes - that brought down Nixon, simply don't exist any more.
Nixon in today's setting could have shrugged off Watergate. Easily.
Under the Supreme Court’s Trump immunity ruling, did Nixon even do anything wrong?
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
Zelensky wouldn't agree to such a deal anyway, certainly not a permanent one and nor may Putin either
Hell, Putin would take the win. He could regroup and take the rest of Eastern Europe after rebuilding.
Tesla's experience has stood still for years. That is why Elon feels the need to lie.
I think it is true they haven't moved forward as much the past few years. The cars are starting to look dated. I believe there are 2 new models in the work, no?
Depends how high Elon gets, and whether he's capable of a bit of focus. I'm not optimistic. Humanoid robots? Tesla? Rockets to Mars? Tuneling? X? Starlink? USGov? Who can say.
Tesla losing Karpathy a few years ago won't have helped on the AI side. A generational talent.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
The norms - and the Supreme Court which would have been prepared to say that a president could be charged with crimes - that brought down Nixon, simply don't exist any more.
Nixon in today's setting could have shrugged off Watergate. Easily.
Under the Supreme Court’s Trump immunity ruling, did Nixon even do anything wrong?
That's not entirely clear, as the boundaries of ruling haven't been tested - but it would likely never have got as far as that.
On the plus side, CDU/CSU probably ends up leading a Grand Coalition in Germany after the early election, and that might stiffen its resolve in Ukraine.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
Plenty of posters have left in recent months. To the site's detriment.
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
Can’t be current borders. Ukraine is in Russia. Zelensky was clever enough to do that.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses, they have fantastic UI control system and the branding is spot on. So many traditional ICE car makers are still miles behind e.g. VW. And why Tesla keeps winning.
From people I know who have tried both - the Waymo 'experience' is way, way superior to the Tesla one.
They are solving a different problem though. Putting aside what Musk likes to hype.
Waymo is selling you carefully ring fenced self driving car. It is restricted to a certain geographical area and requires a huge amount of data, lidar scanning to make it work and the cars are totally uneconomical to mass produce. $200-300k to just get a Waymo car.
Tesla is really selling advanced driver assistance and have got the price of their cars right down.
I was just saying what US people who had experienced both preferred. I don't even have a driving license - I don't care either way. Maybe in the long run the new Musk push for cheap LLM's to power the Tesla cars will work out, maybe the expensive Waymo method will. Though now that Musk has backed a winner, I expect all sorts of mysterious problems to hit his competitors.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
Unfortunately Trump appears to be the rational alternative to his new VP…
What’s she saying (I thought the read out of their conversation where she told him what was important jarred as well. Sometimes you just need to say “well done. Good luck”
Absurdly his personal campaign was shocking too. Kamala equipped herself very well
I suspect the reality is the promise of cheap gasoline was more important than clarity of mind, a rape adjudication, felony convictions, sedition and the theft of state secrets.
He said he'd halve energy costs and end inflation. How the hell you end inflation in a free market economy is completely beyond me, and even pondering how it might be done in a dictatorship sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Frankly Trump might as well have promised to make every American a millionaire.
John Steinbeck once said that socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
I don't think that's true.
Socialism never really took root in the US because the virus of class-based politics never spread, and that was for a number of reasons. Firstly, politics was much more race-based than in Europe, especially in the South. If you look at where socialism did put down some roots in the late 19th and early 20th, it tended to be in the ethnically more homogeneous Northern cities, though even there, the distinctions between European countries' immigrants meant that people tended to organise themselves by race rather than by class.
Secondly, American society never quite knew the huge expansion in government power that happened in Europe in the two world wars - the government expanded vastly, but never quite on the same scale as here or Germany. The biggest stride forward that socialism made here was just after World War 2 when the Attlee government thought that the Big State measures that had won the war could abolish poverty and modernise the economy in peacetime. America never quite made that leap.
Third, American living standards have, for more than a century, been higher on average than even the wealthiest European countries. So the American poor never had quite the same motive to covet their betters' fortunes.
Fourth, the very responsiveness of the American political system has meant that socialism was never really necessary to address economic grievances in the way that it was in many European countries (even here, where the poor didn't get the vote until rather later) - incremental, individual reforms were introduced piecemeal, by Progressive parties as they became appropriate.
I think another interesting question is why America never developed a strong Tory movement (upholding tradition) outside the Upper South.
What’s she saying (I thought the read out of their conversation where she told him what was important jarred as well. Sometimes you just need to say “well done. Good luck”
I’m not certain anyone will remember what she said next week. As long as she’s not organising “alternate” slates of electors, I don’t think it matters much.
Every successful Elon Musk company he did not found.
I am not sure why that is a criticism or a bad thing? Its a bit like saying well I personally didn't know how to do a task, so I hired somebody who is way more knowledgeable in this area who does.
Scaling companies is really hard. Scaling companies and creating innovate market leading products is even harder.
When he bought Tesla is was a tiny company buying Lotus Elise's and doing a battery replacement transplant....today's Tesla are nothing of the sort (although Musk over-hypes driver assist as self driving).
Musk has been lying about driverless since 2013. Every year.
Yes but the driver assist system is superior to everybody elses, they have fantastic UI control system and the branding is spot on. So many traditional ICE car makers are still miles behind e.g. VW. And why Tesla keeps winning.
From people I know who have tried both - the Waymo 'experience' is way, way superior to the Tesla one.
They are solving a different problem though. Putting aside what Musk likes to hype.
Waymo is selling you carefully ring fenced self driving car. It is restricted to a certain geographical area and requires a huge amount of data, lidar scanning to make it work and the cars are totally uneconomical to mass produce. $200-300k to just get a Waymo car.
Tesla is really selling advanced driver assistance and have got the price of their cars right down.
I was just saying what US people who had experienced both preferred. I don't even have a driving license - I don't care either way. Maybe in the long run the new Musk push for cheap LLM's to power the Tesla cars will work out, maybe the expensive Waymo method will. Though now that Musk has backed a winner, I expect all sorts of mysterious problems to hit his competitors.
I am not very bullish that anybody solves full unrestricted self driving in a way that is economically viable anytime soon. The Waymo approach is flawed in a number of ways and none of the recent advances in ML / computer vision that have the community expending lots of energy actually move things towards the goal when applied to driving cars.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews · 2h German govt looks to have collapsed. The whole project killed by the debt brake, which needs to be ditched asap before it drags Europe into the fate of a second Weimar.
Told ya Olaf was about to be out on his arse shortly.
Radicalization of a part of the anti-Trump camp is inevitable, as people begin to understand that existential issues, such as climate change and gun violence, will not be tackled.
A parallel process will take place on the other side of the political spectrum, as right-wing militias, white supremacists, and QAnon cultists are reenergized by the election of the man whose behavior they have, over eight years, learned to imitate.
The deep gaps within America will grow deeper. Politics will become even angrier. Trump won by creating division and hatred, and he will continue to do so throughout what is sure to be a stormy second term.
Obama playing the incumbency card. But it could also be argued that Trump himself was the first electoral victim of post-covid incumbency four years ago. Events ... shit happens ... incumbency.
STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH ON THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION:
CRAWFORD, TEXAS — I congratulate President Trump on his election as 47th President of the United States of America, as well as Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and their families.
I also thank President Biden and Vice President Harris for their service to our country.
The strong turnout in this election is a sign of the health of our republic and the strength of our democratic institutions. Laura and I are grateful to the election officials, poll workers, and volunteers who oversaw a free, fair, safe, and secure election.
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
Unfortunately Trump appears to be the rational alternative to his new VP…
Vance is at least more articulate if less charismatic than Trump
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think you're overdoing the exports angle, tariffs would undoubtedly hurt us but I'm not sure it will be as bad as forecast, the vast majority of our exports to the US are intangible services which aren't subject to tariffs or quotas. If anything the UK will be one of the few countries to maintain very strong economic ties to the US because of the nature of our interaction with the US economy. We export services to them and they export services to us, the large exports we do have to the US is defence which is highly unlikely to come under any tariff regime due to national security concerns and the DoD not wanting to pay more money for existing contracts that have already been signed. The other big one is pharmaceutical products which is an area where Trump is trying to reduce prices so again, tariffs here seem unlikely. I'd be surprised if more than 10% of our export value actually gets pushed into tariffable categories.
Tim Shipman had a pretty level headed piece in The Times printed prior to the vote on how things might go. Says Starmer and Lammy will get on fine with him, Trump still sees us as a key ally and Ukraine / Russia might play out quite differently under him to the doom forecasts. He might be completely wrong of course but it makes a change from reading some of the more reflexive takes.
I have a feeling that Trump himself may be more restrained than in his first term - he seems a lot less energetic and aggressive than he did before. He just looks really old. Maybe he'd be happy to spend the next four years watching TV and cheating at golf. What I worry about is that he has a more extreme team around him than previously. We may find ourselves hoping Vance doesn't invoke the 25th.
Why did Nixon make Spiro Agnew his Veep?
Because he was damn sure nobody would shoot him if it made Agnew President.
(Funny thing is, one of the events that made Nixon's downfall inevitable was Agnew's resignation and replacement with Ford.)
“Spirit Agnew” is also an anagram of “grow a penis”
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
No, there are a fair few Trump supporters here, and William is at least consistent as he supported Trump in 2016 too.
Some of them think that Trump wont shaft Ukraine, others don't care. Well, it looks like we will find out shortly.
@MexicanPete is right though, and its time for this Centrist Dad to have a bit of a digital detox. Its not as if there are any big elections for a while.
PB is a very seductive mistress, very difficult to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
I think you and Foxy are misreading 'not actually furious about Trump all the time' or 'can see why some American voters would support Trump' as support for Trump. I can think of only William Glenn who actively prefers a Trump presidency.
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Trump has no redeeming features. He is a hood.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
Of course some Democrats may console themselves that in 1972 Nixon won an even bigger landslide over their candidate McGovern than Trump has just won over Harris. 2 years later Nixon was forced to resign in disgrace over the Watergate scandal and hand over to VP Ford
The norms - and the Supreme Court which would have been prepared to say that a president could be charged with crimes - that brought down Nixon, simply don't exist any more.
Nixon in today's setting could have shrugged off Watergate. Easily.
If the Democrats take Congress by a landslide in 2026 in the midterms they could certainly try and impeach and remove Trump
The option that PB generally hates ; Trump forcing a deal on roughly current borders; I would diverge from the mainstream view here on, and say would probably be better for our physical security than either escalation or continuity.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
Zelensky wouldn't agree to such a deal anyway, certainly not a permanent one and nor may Putin either
Hell, Putin would take the win. He could regroup and take the rest of Eastern Europe after rebuilding.
If he tried that then NATO even minus the US would be at war with Russia, plus Zelensky wouldn't agree such a deal anyway
I can't say how gutted I am by this result. Not just because I think that Harris would have been a worthy POTUS. Not even because Trump is simply not. The consequences for us are going to be several and very difficult to deal with.
NATO is almost certainly over. It might remain on paper but the US is no longer committed to it. We need to look elsewhere for our security.
The Ukraine are going to be either humiliated or driven into a shameful peace. What, if anything, can we do about this and what are we willing to do?
The world economy is at serious risk from US tariffs. That includes us. The US is our biggest single market for exports. If that gets difficult we are going to hurt, badly.
More fundamentally, the US as our big brother partner, that we have relied on since WW 2 is gone. It is America first. No interest in world affairs. Transactional relationships with all. More like the US as they were before the war. So many of our assumptions have been undermined. We need to look to ourselves once more and it is going to be hard. Already the very modest increase in defence spending in the budget looks woefully inadequate. Closer cooperation with our European neighbours inevitable. Hard, hard decisions on Ukraine. #
Life is going to be much harder. We have taken the US for granted in many ways. We will now pay the price.
I think "The Ukraine" is deprecated nowadays (and is singular)
In the English-speaking world during most of the 20th century, Ukraine (whether independent or not) was referred to as "the Ukraine".[21] This is because the word ukraina means 'borderland'[22] so the definite article would be natural in the English language; this is similar to Nederlanden, which means 'low lands' and is rendered in English as "the Netherlands".[23] However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, this usage has become politicised and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use.[24][25] US ambassador William Taylor said that using "the Ukraine" implies disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty.[26] The official Ukrainian position is that "the Ukraine" is both grammatically and politically incorrect.[27][28]
I’m glad people have gotten used to “Czechia” rather than having to say “the Czech Republic”.
Is this sarcastic? Because I'm not sure they have.
Switzerland famously has a definite article in both German and French. I don't think anyone implies Switzerland is any less sovereign by it.
Most countries are neuter in German and don't usually have an article. Countries that are feminine (die Schweiz, die Türkei, die Ukraine) or masculine (der Irak, der Sudan) keep the definite article. Don't ask me why a handful of countries are feminine or masculine, or why these therefore must have a definite article.
French generally uses a definite article with countries.
So both are different to English, which generally doesn't use the definite article with countries (except for common nouns and plurals), but often does with regions within countries. So I can understand the argument for not using "the" with Ukraine, while still saying "die Ukraine" in German.
Axios @axios Trump will begin operations to deport millions of undocumented immigrants when he starts his term, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday morning.
He'll launch the "largest mass deportation operation" of undocumented immigrants on Day 1.
The UK will sign new agreements with western Balkan countries to tackle people-smuggling gangs, as part of efforts to bring down small boat crossings.
The deals will increase intelligence sharing and cooperation with Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo to intercept and arrest the gangs, with the aim of breaking their business models at source.
The government said the region was a key route used by those who end up in the European Union or UK illegally, with almost 100,000 migrants transiting through the western Balkans last year.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will announce the plans at a meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) in Hungarian capital Budapest on Thursday.
Axios @axios Trump will begin operations to deport millions of undocumented immigrants when he starts his term, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday morning.
He'll launch the "largest mass deportation operation" of undocumented immigrants on Day 1.
"American voters have done a terrible and unforgivable thing this week. We should not flinch from saying they have turned away from the shared ethos and rules that have shaped the world, generally for the better, since 1945. Americans have concluded that Trump is not “weird”, as it was briefly fashionable to claim, but mainstream. Voters went out on Tuesday and voted weird in huge numbers. Americans must live with the consequences of that."
"American voters have done a terrible and unforgivable thing this week. We should not flinch from saying they have turned away from the shared ethos and rules that have shaped the world, generally for the better, since 1945. Americans have concluded that Trump is not “weird”, as it was briefly fashionable to claim, but mainstream. Voters went out on Tuesday and voted weird in huge numbers. Americans must live with the consequences of that."
I feel the left are repeating the same mistake as 2016. We had Bad Al and CNN guests banging on about how black people hate latinos and trans people and latinos hate women in charge etc and they are too stupid to realise that they are voting for a man against their interests.
Don't blame the voters, try to understand the reasons the voted the way they did. That is how you then beat Trump.
"American voters have done a terrible and unforgivable thing this week. We should not flinch from saying they have turned away from the shared ethos and rules that have shaped the world, generally for the better, since 1945. Americans have concluded that Trump is not “weird”, as it was briefly fashionable to claim, but mainstream. Voters went out on Tuesday and voted weird in huge numbers. Americans must live with the consequences of that."
I feel the left are repeating the same mistake as 2016. We had Bad Al and CNN guests banging on about how black people hate latinos and trans people and latinos hate women in charge etc and they are too stupid to realise that they are voting for a man against their interests.
Don't blame the voters, try to understand the reasons the voted the way they did. That is how you then beat Trump.
Yes, they don't seem to able to break out of this way of thinking. If they did they could seriously undermine the appeal of populism and populists.
"American voters have done a terrible and unforgivable thing this week. We should not flinch from saying they have turned away from the shared ethos and rules that have shaped the world, generally for the better, since 1945. Americans have concluded that Trump is not “weird”, as it was briefly fashionable to claim, but mainstream. Voters went out on Tuesday and voted weird in huge numbers. Americans must live with the consequences of that."
I feel the left are repeating the same mistake as 2016. We had Bad Al and CNN guests banging on about how black people hate latinos and trans people and latinos hate women in charge etc and they are too stupid to realise that they are voting for a man against their interests.
Don't blame the voters, try to understand the reasons the voted the way they did. That is how you then beat Trump.
Yes, they don't seem to able to break out of this way of thinking. If they did they could seriously undermine the appeal of populism and populists.
Populism isn't unique to US, we have seen Corbyn and Farage here and all manner of parties across Europe from both left and right.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Hmmm. I would say it makes all of the following much more likely:
1. Nuclear proliferation. Simple lesson: get nukes, or get fucked. So get nukes (Japan, S Korea, Sweden/Finland, Poland, Germany, Taiwan for starters).
2. Direct conflict with Russia down the line. They're coming for Moldova, then the Suwalki Gap, bits of Romania. And that's war.
3. More nuclear blackmail.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Hmmm. I would say it makes all of the following much more likely:
1. Nuclear proliferation. Simple lesson: get nukes, or get fucked. So get nukes (Japan, S Korea, Sweden/Finland, Poland, Germany, Taiwan for starters).
2. Direct conflict with Russia down the line. They're coming for Moldova, then the Suwalki Gap, bits of Romania. And that's war.
3. More nuclear blackmail.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
1. Russia doesnt have a hope in hell against the Poles. Ive banged on here for years that the Russian miltary isnt that good and events have shown it. The Poles are well kitted out, sizeable and pretty decent 2. Germany will not get its own nuclear weapons
Harris: “While I concede the election, I do not concede the fight.”
You are not being very magnanimous in victory William. Those should be her last defiant words as she faces Trump's firing squad.
I thought she was a revelation during the campaign. It's just a pity she couldn't change the minds of 5% more voters in the rust belt. They chose instead to vote for a seditious felon.
I knew PB was a right wing melting pot, but I didn't expect as many previously shy Trumpeters to fall out of the furniture to the extent they have.
This place is getting far too extreme for a centrist dad.
Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist and stole state secrets, and you are all convinced Harris was the worst candidate. What's wrong with you all?
I don’t think many on here are actually Trump supporters are they? Not least because, like the country, most on here completely disagree with him on Ukraine.
There’s a strand of thought on here that considers Trump will be good for Ukraine, due to ‘reasons’.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
How/why is he a danger to democracy? Unless you think he might cancel the next presidential election in 4 years' time.
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Hmmm. I would say it makes all of the following much more likely:
1. Nuclear proliferation. Simple lesson: get nukes, or get fucked. So get nukes (Japan, S Korea, Sweden/Finland, Poland, Germany, Taiwan for starters).
2. Direct conflict with Russia down the line. They're coming for Moldova, then the Suwalki Gap, bits of Romania. And that's war.
3. More nuclear blackmail.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
1. Russia doesnt have a hope in hell against the Poles. Ive banged on here for years that the Russian miltary isnt that good and events have shown it. The Poles are well kitted out, sizeable and pretty decent 2. Germany will not get its own nuclear weapons
Really not sure about 2 any more. All the post war rules are crumbling
I can easily see the EU acquiring a joint nuclear weapon, or, at least, quietly doing the same as Japan and South Korea, getting all the ingredients ready, so they can whip up a nuke missile in a day - but still claim they are “not proliferating”
I'm not a Trumpist, but.I do have to admit that I personally think his approach to Ukraine may be less physically dangerous, for all of us. On the other hand, he's a definite danger to democracy for all of us, too.
Hmmm. I would say it makes all of the following much more likely:
1. Nuclear proliferation. Simple lesson: get nukes, or get fucked. So get nukes (Japan, S Korea, Sweden/Finland, Poland, Germany, Taiwan for starters).
2. Direct conflict with Russia down the line. They're coming for Moldova, then the Suwalki Gap, bits of Romania. And that's war.
3. More nuclear blackmail.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
1. Russia doesnt have a hope in hell against the Poles. Ive banged on here for years that the Russian miltary isnt that good and events have shown it. The Poles are well kitted out, sizeable and pretty decent 2. Germany will not get its own nuclear weapons
Really not sure about 2 any more. All the post war rules are crumbling
I can easily see the EU acquiring a joint nuclear weapon, or, at least, quietly doing the same as Japan and South Korea, getting all the ingredients ready, so they can whip up a nuke missile in a day - but still claim they are “not proliferating”
The EU hasnt got the collective will.
Japan & South Korea no such issues, The South Koreans have everything in place to do it and the plans for a good 30+ years, they just havent done it.
We are having a re-run of post 2016 reaction among the talking heads...
There were quite a lot of differences, it wasn't just Musk from the tech / finance bros who was pro Trump this time. People like Bill Ackman, who is no dummy, was.
Now you might be suspicious about what it is in it for them, but 2016, they most certainly weren't on Team Trump.
"The solution lies with Europe. .................................................. If you put these concerns together - trade and security - the answer is simple. The answer is Europe. We must now make the case for it passionately, vociferously, proudly."
"The solution lies with Europe. .................................................. If you put these concerns together - trade and security - the answer is simple. The answer is Europe. We must now make the case for it passionately, vociferously, proudly."
We are having a re-run of post 2016 reaction among the talking heads...
The comment about Nixon being a "far, far more substantial figure" has been overtaken by events. Trump will go down as a world historical figure now, not an aberration who somehow got elected because Russia somehow conned the electorate and allowed him to fluke a win in the electoral college.
We are having a re-run of post 2016 reaction among the talking heads...
The comment about Nixon being a "far, far more substantial figure" has been overtaken by events. Trump will go down as a world historical figure now, not an aberration who somehow got elected because Russia somehow conned the electorate and allowed him to fluke a win in the electoral college.
Give it a few days and I wouldn't be surprised if we are back to Russia wot won it, or Musk is a Russian stooge and that's wot won it.
Rather than the simple explanation, was the economy.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
(narrator: Belarus's nukes are just across the border)
I find myself depressed by the Trump victory. We have been hosting a Ukrainian family and they have mixed feelings. Maybe the war will be over but Trump will they feel bow down to Russian demands and their country spilt with many parts going to Russia. I am very fearful of Trump's economic policies particularly on trade. Universal tariffs will be bad for world trade and ultimately bad for the USA. Finally his policy of drill, baby, drill will be bad for the environment. Trump's well known dislike of evs will, surely, not be good news for his buddy Elon Musk.
He seems to be making a lot less videos these days.
Indeed because bashing the Tory government was his main occupation.
Bit disappointing, as the character should be able to bash Labour. Plenty of material there. Have these people forgotten, just like HIGNFY, that 1997-2010, lots of left leaning comedians had plenty a go at Labour.
He seems to be making a lot less videos these days.
Indeed because bashing the Tory government was his main occupation.
See also "Led By Donkeys"
Yes, but they aren't comedians, they are 3 activists, using what they see as comedic stunts to forward their agenda. Not sure anybody is surprised they aren't interested in bashing a left leaning government.
Comments
Paul Mason
@paulmasonnews
·
2h
German govt looks to have collapsed. The whole project killed by the debt brake, which needs to be ditched asap before it drags Europe into the fate of a second Weimar.
to walk away, but as you say now is a good moment to make the break. Have I got the self-control.to keep away?
A similar thing happened with Boris: there were posters for whom any admission that Boris might have any positive features or have made any correct decisions at all equated to being a Boris fanboi.
Not that I think it will lead to a Fourth Reich, but the Germans do need to learn some basic macroeconomics at some point. As Paul Krugman said, Germany is on a completely different macro planet from everybody else. Just as our government needs to learn some elementary Micro.
I can't think of anything positive to say about Johnson but he is a Ryman League quality bullshitter compared to Trump's Premier League status.
A very bad man just became leader of the free world.
It's that there is an extremely strong incentive for someone like Trump to impose tariffs which might be disastrous for the rest of us.
For him, any effect on the economy is a second order consideration. (And for the world economy, third order.)
Waymo is selling you carefully ring fenced self driving car. It is restricted to a certain geographical area and requires a huge amount of data, lidar scanning to make it work and the cars are totally uneconomical to mass produce. $200-300k to just get a Waymo car.
Tesla is really selling advanced driver assistance and have got the price of their cars right down.
The very difficult issue, though, is the impact on this on our democratic safety. Trump is a conduit for antidemocratic influences
I said the other day, I am waiting to see what Patrick Vallance ideas are. He has been very quiet so far, but previously he has been very vocal about how the public sector needs to use and share data better. That could unlock some productivity done right.
Nixon in today's setting could have shrugged off Watergate. Easily.
Here's our statement on the results of the 2024 presidential election:
https://x.com/BarackObama/status/1854284022731669530
Socialism never really took root in the US because the virus of class-based politics never spread, and that was for a number of reasons. Firstly, politics was much more race-based than in Europe, especially in the South. If you look at where socialism did put down some roots in the late 19th and early 20th, it tended to be in the ethnically more homogeneous Northern cities, though even there, the distinctions between European countries' immigrants meant that people tended to organise themselves by race rather than by class.
Secondly, American society never quite knew the huge expansion in government power that happened in Europe in the two world wars - the government expanded vastly, but never quite on the same scale as here or Germany. The biggest stride forward that socialism made here was just after World War 2 when the Attlee government thought that the Big State measures that had won the war could abolish poverty and modernise the economy in peacetime. America never quite made that leap.
Third, American living standards have, for more than a century, been higher on average than even the wealthiest European countries. So the American poor never had quite the same motive to covet their betters' fortunes.
Fourth, the very responsiveness of the American political system has meant that socialism was never really necessary to address economic grievances in the way that it was in many European countries (even here, where the poor didn't get the vote until rather later) - incremental, individual reforms were introduced piecemeal, by Progressive parties as they became appropriate.
I think another interesting question is why America never developed a strong Tory movement (upholding tradition) outside the Upper South.
A parallel process will take place on the other side of the political spectrum, as right-wing militias, white supremacists, and QAnon cultists are reenergized by the election of the man whose behavior they have, over eight years, learned to imitate.
The deep gaps within America will grow deeper. Politics will become even angrier. Trump won by creating division and hatred, and he will continue to do so throughout what is sure to be a stormy second term.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/trump-wins-second-term-presidency/680546/?gift=hVZeG3M9DnxL4CekrWGK31wyB-4-ROwBDiyxsrJYODU
CRAWFORD, TEXAS — I congratulate President Trump on his election as 47th President of the United States of America, as well as Vice President-elect J.D. Vance and their families.
I also thank President Biden and Vice President Harris for their service to our country.
The strong turnout in this election is a sign of the health of our republic and the strength of our democratic institutions. Laura and I are grateful to the election officials, poll workers, and volunteers who oversaw a free, fair, safe, and secure election.
We join our fellow citizens in praying for the success of our new leaders at all levels of government. May God continue to bless our great country
https://x.com/TheBushCenter/status/1854189510965280910
Australian breaker Rachael Gunn has announced she will retire from competition.
Important to remember that
French generally uses a definite article with countries.
So both are different to English, which generally doesn't use the definite article with countries (except for common nouns and plurals), but often does with regions within countries. So I can understand the argument for not using "the" with Ukraine, while still saying "die Ukraine" in German.
Just two words. Genius
"Large victoire de Donald Trump"
https://www.lemonde.fr
Axios
@axios
Trump will begin operations to deport millions of undocumented immigrants when he starts his term, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday morning.
He'll launch the "largest mass deportation operation" of undocumented immigrants on Day 1.
https://x.com/axios/status/1854167037586595937
The deals will increase intelligence sharing and cooperation with Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo to intercept and arrest the gangs, with the aim of breaking their business models at source.
The government said the region was a key route used by those who end up in the European Union or UK illegally, with almost 100,000 migrants transiting through the western Balkans last year.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will announce the plans at a meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) in Hungarian capital Budapest on Thursday.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpdv1yxg8jqo
"American voters have done a terrible and unforgivable thing this week. We should not flinch from saying they have turned away from the shared ethos and rules that have shaped the world, generally for the better, since 1945. Americans have concluded that Trump is not “weird”, as it was briefly fashionable to claim, but mainstream. Voters went out on Tuesday and voted weird in huge numbers. Americans must live with the consequences of that."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/06/us-election-donald-trump-new-world-order
Don't blame the voters, try to understand the reasons the voted the way they did. That is how you then beat Trump.
1. Nuclear proliferation. Simple lesson: get nukes, or get fucked. So get nukes (Japan, S Korea, Sweden/Finland, Poland, Germany, Taiwan for starters).
2. Direct conflict with Russia down the line. They're coming for Moldova, then the Suwalki Gap, bits of Romania. And that's war.
3. More nuclear blackmail.
4. A desperate gamechanger for Ukraine. Something to bargain with, or change the ground situation. They're not short of fissile material, or metallurgical know-how. They've got three months or so to put a device or two together.
2. Germany will not get its own nuclear weapons
I can easily see the EU acquiring a joint nuclear weapon, or, at least, quietly doing the same as Japan and South Korea, getting all the ingredients ready, so they can whip up a nuke missile in a day - but still claim they are “not proliferating”
Japan & South Korea no such issues, The South Koreans have everything in place to do it and the plans for a good 30+ years, they just havent done it.
https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1854143582191435869
https://x.com/TimesRadio/status/1854132117212454914
There were quite a lot of differences, it wasn't just Musk from the tech / finance bros who was pro Trump this time. People like Bill Ackman, who is no dummy, was.
Now you might be suspicious about what it is in it for them, but 2016, they most certainly weren't on Team Trump.
"The solution lies with Europe.
..................................................
If you put these concerns together - trade and security - the answer is simple. The answer is Europe. We must now make the case for it passionately, vociferously, proudly."
https://iandunt.substack.com/p/scattered-thoughts-on-the-worst-of
Rather than the simple explanation, was the economy.
Lee Anderson praying for a Trump victory, 15 minutes after AP had announced the Trump victor, and hours after other networks had called it.
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, our Lee.
Lee Anderson MP @LeeAndersonMP_
Today I'm Religious.
And praying for a Trump win
🙏
6:48 AM · Nov 6, 2024 from Lambeth, London·
https://x.com/JonathanPieNews/status/1854194551625282017