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Where Do Things End With Vlad? (h/t romad1)


chasfh

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On 2/16/2024 at 1:02 PM, Tiger337 said:

I think about that frequently.  It almost eems inevitable at some point.  

If the US financial system collapses, the world's financial system collapses. It would truly be Mad Max at that point. Even our state enemies have a vested interest in keeping our financial system going. Only a rogue actor with a nihilist streak and/or a death wish would dare try anything.

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5 minutes ago, chasfh said:

If the US financial system collapses, the world's financial system collapses. It would truly be Mad Max at that point. Even our state enemies have a vested interest in keeping our financial system going. Only a rogue actor with a nihilist streak and/or a death wish would dare try anything.

Couldn't you say something smilar about Trump turning the United States into North Korea?  I hear a few of you guys talking about that a lot.  

I don't know if we'll see a total collapse, but I could see a situation where enough damage is done to our system where it creates some temporary chaos and the middle class loses parts of their retirement savings while the wealthy escape unscathed.  

 

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3 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

Couldn't you say something smilar about Trump turning the United States into North Korea?  I hear a few of you guys talking about that a lot.  

I don't know if we'll see a total collapse, but I could see a situation where enough damage is done to our system where it creates some temporary chaos and the middle class loses parts of their retirement savings while the wealthy escape unscathed.  

 

I definitely think Trump would enjoy a North Korea-type situation here. A country that he owns outright where he can take literally anything he wants, rape literally anyone he wants, kill literally anyone he wants, and the rest of us have to watch him do it and applaud him during and after? What sociopath wouldn't want that? Of course, I have my doubts that he or anyone could succeed in turning us completely into that, given we have a different history as people than 1930s Germany or 1950s Korea, but there are also aspects of it that he could succeed given we also have in our history the keeping of certain castes in a permanent state of terror, degradation, supplicancy, and even genocide. Trump would definitely take a shot at making as much of that happen as he could manage to, although, at age 77, he's running out of time for that.

As for the total collapse hypothesis, the world's economy is so interdependent, with the US economy serving as its linchpin, that I don't see any way our economy could collapse and take no other economies down with it, and that includes Russia and China.

 

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20 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I definitely think Trump would enjoy a North Korea-type situation here. A country that he owns outright where he can take literally anything he wants, rape literally anyone he wants, kill literally anyone he wants, and the rest of us have to watch him do it and applaud him during and after? What sociopath wouldn't want that? Of course, I have my doubts that he or anyone could succeed in turning us completely into that, given we have a different history as people than 1930s Germany or 1950s Korea, but there are also aspects of it that he could succeed given we also have in our history the keeping of certain castes in a permanent state of terror, degradation, supplicancy, and even genocide. Trump would definitely take a shot at making as much of that happen as he could manage to, although, at age 77, he's running out of time for that.

As for the total collapse hypothesis, the world's economy is so interdependent, with the US economy serving as its linchpin, that I don't see any way our economy could collapse and take no other economies down with it, and that includes Russia and China.

 

I don't think Trump wants that.  He'll take if the dummies of America give it to him, but I don't think that's his goal.  

And if it is, the wealthy who control all the money won't allow it because it will weaken us too much.  The only certainty is that the wealthy will get wealthier and the rest of us will get just enough to keep the economy going.  

Edited by Tiger337
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21 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

I don't think Trump wants that.  He'll take if the dummies of America give it to him, but I don't think that's his goal.  

And if it is, the wealthy who control all the money won't allow it because it will weaken us too much.  The only certainty is that the wealthy will get wealthier and the rest of us will get just enough to keep the economy going.  

You would hope as much, but as you allude to in your follow on statement, the German industrialists did swimmingly under Hitler, and bonus, even after they were pressured just a little bit after the war, they still got to keep their money and businesses, too.

https://watson.brown.edu/rhodes/events/2023/david-de-jong-nazi-billionaires-dark-history-germanys-wealthiest-dynasties

tl;dr The moral of the story is: it doesn’t matter what the system of government is, because Money always wins.

Bonus: here’s a cautionary tale that relates to what’s going on at this moment in Republican politics.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-big-business-bailed-out-nazis

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31 minutes ago, chasfh said:

German industrialists did swimmingly under Hitler, and bonus, even after they were pressured just a little bit after the war, they still got to keep their money and businesses, too.

It wasn't just the German industrialists.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm

https://aadl.org/node/196687

 

 

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Was watching one of the myriad WWII youtube videos I watch.  Mark Felton's War Stories

so, in the video, they show that Eva Braun's sister marries this punk Fegelein (guy shown being a deserter from the bunker and being then executed in the movie "Downfall").  Anyway, was semi-stunned to see that the wedding was held at the Mirabel Palace in Salzburg, Austria (shown in "The Sound of Music").  Stunned because, I was at this palace and listened to some lovely quartet playing at around the magic hour a couple years ago.  It was a wonderful moment of just pure pleasure.   I have been to Dachau.  I've studied this topic a bunch at multiple different stops in my academic career but still just stunned at the fact that this beautiful place was sullied by having a Nazi regime power wedding. 

Anyway, Its a difficult subject.  people are out there buying Volkswagens (designed by Ferdinand Porche to be Hitler's "People's Car").  BMW's (from the Bavarian manufacturer of Luftwaffe fighter plane motors),  or Siemens electrical equipment.   The best companies take it on and admit to the dark past and work to do as much good in the World as possible. 

BTW, The first and latter do a really good job taking that complicated history on face first.

https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/press-releases/75-years-ago-us-troops-liberate-volkswagen-plant-and-city-on-mittellandkanal-5939

  https://www.siemens.com/global/en/company/about/history/company/1933-1945.html

BMW on the other hand had to be drawn out about all of this.  Embarrassed? https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bmw-dynasty-breaks-silence-on-its-nazi-past-2362634.html

Edited by romad1
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On 2/17/2024 at 3:42 PM, Tiger337 said:

I don't think Trump wants that.  ...

He absolutely wants that. 

And it isn't the wealthy that will stop him.

The only chance to stop him is Democracy.

Here's to hoping the democracy in this country is still strong enough to stop him...

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3 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

PS: Why do you think he's salivating over Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un?

He WANTS what they have... absolute control.

I don't think he even wanted to be President.  That happened by accident.  As I said before, if the dummies of America want to give him that power, he'll take it, but he has no coherent plan.  He's too ignorant and disorganized to have a plan.  

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44 minutes ago, romad1 said:

The soft bigotry of correct expectations.

Paraphrasing Gerson reminds me, has there ever been an ex-president more AWOL from the national public discourse than GW? Well maybe AWOL is the wrong term, he probably has 'leave' as far as many people are concerned. Is he really so small a man that he has to spend the rest of is life licking his wounds in seclusion, or was/is he so bereft of insight/unimaginative in having nothing to add that he was never fit for the job in the first place?

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