@irishking besides "A Better Deal"? Who knew?

#5

I suspect that judo master Putin was behind Russiagate hysteria, thus screwing Dims yet again.

son of a gun, that guy is slick.

of the puppy memes.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29iVnf5ja5c&start_radio=1&list=RDQMUsY3v...

After watching that video of the stupid Russian dog, my cat has informed me that felines are much more persuasive, especially when it comes to political views, and they were the ones responsible for denying Her Heinous the throne.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLn3BOokmDU]

@gjohnsit

#6
It's all because of Russian Twitter bots.
We've all been brainwashed by Russian puppy memes.

Speaking of Hillary

Many Clinton allies say Sanders played a role in Clinton’s defeat, and former aides to the Democratic nominee still sneer at Sanders.

On Monday, Dan Schwerin, Clinton’s speechwriter who helped write her book “What Happened,” took to Twitter to pile on after a news report called Sanders’s grass-roots group “flailing.”

“Brutal,” Schwerin wrote.

Last week, Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill also gave short shrift to Sanders.

“I too want to see free college become a reality,” Merrill wrote on Twitter. “But I’ve done no more legislatively to accomplish that than Bernie Sanders. Thus, the title of my book will not include the word ‘win’ in it.”

@wendy davis

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 13, 1985 – A bomb dropped by a police helicopter burned down an entire block, some 60 homes destroyed, 11 dead, including several small children. The police, the mayor’s office, and the FBI were all involved in this effort to evict a black organization called MOVE from the house they lived in.

source

Roosting chickens? Fuck, we can't even avoid bombing ourselves!

#7

"It is a scandal in contemporary international law, don’t forget, that while “wanton destruction of towns, cities and villages” is a war crime of long standing, the bombing of cities from airplanes goes not only unpunished but virtually unaccused. Air bombardment is state terrorism, the terrorism of the rich. It has burned up and blasted apart more innocents in the past six decades than have all the antistate terrorists who ever lived. Something has benumbed our consciousness against this reality. In the United States we would not consider for the presidency a man who had once thrown a bomb into a crowded restaurant, but we are happy to elect a man who once dropped bombs from airplanes that destroyed not only restaurants but the buildings that contained them and the neighborhoods that surrounded them. I went to Iraq after the Gulf war and saw for myself what the bombs did; “wanton destruction” is just the term for it.

– C. Douglas Lummis, political scientist

the long list is here...

who will stop the US when 'our' chickens finally come home to roost?

@gjohnsit

that the American standard of living has, at this point, dropped to the point where 2/3rds of Americans couldn't handle an emergency costing more than a few hundred bucks - and this drop in US living standards is worsening in proportion to the increases of wealth being sucked out of them now to the top fraction only of the 1%.

There is virtually no real economy remaining; the fragments are swirling around the bowl as we speak.

#8

a net-plus for the US if those countries insist on isolating themselves

It's the U.S. that is isolating itself. All of those Asian nation, plus now Europe, are reaching out to each other.
It's the U.S. that wants to shut doors.

Hell, the State Department isn't even half-staffed. So how much do we really want to talk if there are no diplomats?

@CB

and I believe this results in, and is a result of, increases in wages and improved working conditions in Asia. Which is essentially what we want, because that means manufacturing in Asia will start to cost more and compare less favorably to manufacturing in the United States. Therefore we will see more manufacturing in the United States. If and when manufacturing decision makers see no more people it can bludgeon and strangle into poor working conditions, maybe we'll see world peace, or maybe we'll stop underwriting the costs of bludgeoning and oppression.

This, I think, was essentially the argument Lincoln engaged in as he ran for president. Why should the people of the United States cover the cost of oppressing labor? All we were getting for it was a loss of free labor and a degenerate elite.

#8
in the last few years. American consumers are taped out from decades of purchasing on credit. China and other developing countries have a higher savings rate and their burgeoning middle classes have increasing amounts of cash to spend.

The Rise of the Asian Consumer
...
The great economic expansion of the post-World War II era was fueled, to a significant extent, by the acquisitive American consumer. U.S. shoppers, flocking to their local malls, were coveted by companies from Ford to Sony to Samsung. The Gap jeans, Apple iPhones and Nike sneakers they purchased created the jobs that alleviated poverty in countries like South Korea and China and continue to help the poor today in Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries. The American consumer was just plain indispensable to the global economy – and for the most part, irreplaceable.

Now, however, the American household is losing that stature. As incomes rise in once-poor, but rapidly growing developing economies, more and more families are joining the global middle class. And nowhere is that happening faster or with greater impact than in emerging Asia. According to a 2017 study by the Brookings Institution, 88 percent of the next 1 billion people to enter the middle class globally will be Asians. The size of the Asian middle class is expected to reach nearly 3.5 billion people, or 65 percent of the world's total, by 2030, a dramatic increase from 1.4 billion in 2015.

China figures large in this transformation, but is not the only source of new Asian consumers. Brookings predicts that India will contribute 380 million people of the next 1 billion to reach the middle class – more than the contribution from China.

These Asian shoppers already play a critical role in the world economy. Brookings figures that in 2015, newly wealthy consumers in China and India already outspent their American counterparts, accounting for a combined 17 percent of consumption by the global middle class compared to 13 percent for the U.S. That gap will continue to widen. By 2030, the middle class in China and India will spend 39 percent of the global total; the U.S. will account for just 7 percent.

Such optimism about future prosperity was shown clearly in this year's Best Countries survey.
...
In many respects, the rise of the Asian consumer is good news. For the past six decades, global growth has been overly dependent on the U.S. – thus the old adage that if America sneezes, the world catches cold. But now the Asian consumer is creating an entirely new pillar of consumption to support the global economy. That's a boon to companies, as well. Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Scott Maw recently noted that the company "now has two significant profit engines" – North America and Asia. In its last fiscal year, comparable sales in China rose 7 percent; those in the U.S., 3 percent.
...
"Globalization has untethered American companies from America," says James McGregor, chairman of consulting firm APCO Worldwide for China. "The leaders of China and India are becoming more important to many American multinationals than the people in Washington."
...

@gjohnsit Looks like Germans will stand tall on this one.

#9

I am beginning to think the German/Austrian companies involved with Nord Stream 2 may back out.

I doubt it because there is already too much sunk cost.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier defended the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, as Chancellor Angela Merkel met President Vladimir Putin in Russia Saturday, World Oil reported. Last week, the US warned it may impose sanctions to prevent Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom PJSC from completing the Nord Stream 2 link under the Baltic Sea.
..Altmaier said US efforts to block the link seem to be aimed at protecting Europe as a market for exports of gas in its liquid form from America. “They are looking for markets, which we can understand, and they can land it here easily," Altmaier said in an interview with German TV station ARD’s Morgenmagazin program. “But it is much more expensive than pipeline gas, so blocking Nord Stream 2 on its own won’t guarantee exports."

We will probably sanction them, and the pipeline will happen anyway.
This will create a diplomatic rift.

@edg think we could get Trump to grow one?

I'm not fond of German language but if it comes with health-care I could probably pick it up...

#9

If I recall correctly, twas Germany that invaded Russia in 1941 after a certain dude with a mustache pounded his chest. Seems like Russia has more to fear from Germany than the other way around.