This is what Trump wants. He wants the market to drop and/or a recession. Why? To force the Fed to drop rates back to essentially zero. Once that happens, expect a blistering turnaround in the market. Everyone and their great aunt will be borrowing money at ultra low interest to buy stocks. The stock market will explode, maybe crypto, too. Inflation will skyrocket. It will be nuts.

It makes sense, when you think about it. The US offshored a lot of our production to countries with lower taxes, fewer regulations, and, most importantly, cheaper labor. That put downward pressure on wages for American workers in the same fields, as they were having to compete with foreign workers who were paid less, often in much poorer nations where the cost of living was also much lower.

This offshoring did result in cheaper products for consumers, being imported from foreign countries, but it came at the cost of American manufacturing jobs. Most experts didn’t think that was a problem, as they theorized that as economies developed and became more advanced, there would naturally be fewer people working in manufacturing and more people working in service jobs. The idea, seemingly, was that poorer countries would always handle the world’s manufacturing while rich countries would mostly do desk jobs. This, however, doesn’t appear to be the case, and people are starting to realize that domestic manufacturing is always going to be necessary, even, and especially, for national security reasons. Even Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, acknowledged this in a pivotal speech he gave to the Brookings Institute in April of 2023.

Trump’s tariffs are a clumsy, oafish attempt to get people to buy American and bring manufacturing jobs back to the US, a goal that he and Biden shared. However, Trump is, predictably, going about it the wrong way. A massive shift in economic policy like that, needs to be done carefully and tactfully, so to cause as little economic instability as possible. Trump prefers taking the more aggressive and potentially harmful (at least in the short term) route.

I understand why workers support this, though, because I get that American workers don’t necessarily want to have to wait for a lengthy transition process before they can get better paying manufacturing jobs. But, their impatience might hurt them. Consumers aren’t going to start paying higher prices for American made goods, just because of the tariffs. Consumers want good quality products at affordable prices. If American companies can’t provide that, the tariffs aren’t going to accomplish anything.

I expected better

Then you’re a fucking idiot.

I hope things improve here in the US, but at some point there’s really nothing else to do but leave. There’s a point where the US simply becomes a lost cause. I don’t know if we’re there yet, but I don’t feel like things are heading in the right direction.

I fully share your loathing of European free-loading

Europe didn’t choose to be a vassal to the US, it happened because the continent was devastated by WW2. Europe needed help from the world’s sole superpower, especially for defense against the common enemy of the Soviet Union.

But that era is over. Europe is no longer rebuilding from WW2 and the Soviet Union is gone. I think Europe is beginning to realize that being under the thumb of the US is not a place they want to be. I fully expect Europe to work to liberate itself from US dependence.

This meme is pretty dumb, but that’s clearly not the point they’re trying to make. They’re not blaming Democrats for things Republicans do, they’re saying that Democrats aren’t putting up a sufficient opposition to the Republicans. I think that’s a valid point, even if this meme itself is flawed.

Just your typical Ammu-Nation.

The Democrats are not protectors, they’re not heroes, they’re not martyrs. The Democrat party is not a revolutionary party, they’re a party of people who generally liked things the way they were between roughly 1980 and 2016. They’re the party of people who did very well for themselves during that period, and as a result they have a lot to lose. They’re not going to risk all that they’ve gained, to fight for someone else’s vision of a theoretically better society.

I feel bad for all the dumb guys who get robbed blind by all these con artist grifters. Whether it’s someone like Andrew Tate or some OF model, they’re getting taken for a ride.

If there’s some young man reading this who has or is considering giving money to a manosphere grifter or some cam model, just know they don’t know you, they don’t care about you, they only want your money. You’re nothing but a mark to them. Get off the Internet, go to church, or go to school, or to the library, or do some volunteer work in your community. Meet a nice girl, in real life, treat her right, and cultivate a real, lasting relationship.

It’s such a complex problem, it’s going to take a long time to fix. Part of the problem is people don’t really understand what the real problem is. They think the problem is that there aren’t enough detached, single family homes being built. I get why people would focus on single family homes because that’s what Americans want. The “American Dream” is to own your own home in the suburbs, and if you think that everyone who wants a single family home should be able to buy one, then, yeah, you’re going to see the problem as one of not enough single family homes being built. However, I would argue that the American dream itself is the problem.

Suburbs are expensive, and inefficient, bad for the environment, and bad for our physical and mental health. Suburbs necessitate car dependence, and cars themselves require a lot of expensive infrastructure. I know a lot of Americans don’t like to hear it, but we really do need to be living in higher density urban areas. Higher density, mixed use urban areas allow people to walk and bike more, which is better for our health. It’s also less expensive. The farther apart everything is, the more you’ll need to drive, and that means owning your own car, which is expensive.

I don’t think people even necessarily know why they want a single family home. I think Americans want single family homes because we’re told from day one that is what we should want. It’s our culture. You grow up, get married, buy a home in the suburbs, and start a family. You own at least two cars, you drive everywhere, that’s the American dream. I think we need to start questioning if this is really what’s best, and if we should really want it. I know I have, and I’ve decided it isn’t best. I think I would be happier and healthier living in a mixed use urban area, where I could walk or bike to a lot of places, or take public transportation, and if I needed to drive somewhere, maybe I’d take a taxi or rent a car or use some car sharing service.

Very few places like these exist in the US, and that’s because too many people still want to live in a single family home in the suburbs, and many of those people, also have most of their personal wealth in their home, so they push for restrictive zoning laws and other regulations, limiting how much higher density housing and mixed development can be built, thus making such areas relatively rare and thus expensive. There’s a battle going on between people who want single family homes and people who want higher density, mixed use areas.

I know people don’t want to talk about that, because they don’t want to make it an us vs them thing, but it just is. Our desires are mutually exclusive, due to the finite nature of land. A given piece of land cannot be both a low density, single family suburb and a higher density, mixed use area, simultaneously. It must be one or the other. How we “fix” the housing crisis depends on which we choose to prioritize. We either find ways to build more and more suburbs, or we eliminate single family zoning and invest in building many more, higher density, mixed use urban areas. I know which one I choose.