Except, apart from tech, there is no good place to invest in the US, especially given the headwinds in the current macro environment. And tech is super overvalued now.
There's a lot of investor capital moving to traditional industries in China, India, Brazil, Korea and Europe, simply because there's better returns to be made with more resilience to American problems.
To be fair, Europe is tired of its farmers rioting and the general public welcomes the trade deal. If the farmers are crying about struggling against competition, I have a tiny violin to play for them.
Maybe lift all the green deal stuff on our own farmers while at it? Let’s make it a fair competition.
What’s next, let in shitty US food?
I don’t see general public welcoming it. Most people don’t seem to even know about it. Out of those who do know, many don't seem to be happy about it.
Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do. It’s time to do opposite and double-down on sovereignty on all fronts. And food sovereignty was one of very few sectors where EU got it right. Our food is not cheap, but we got plenty locally and quality is pretty good.
I do not see any empty fields left and right. Despite farmers complaining since 30 years about every single trade deal. Honestly I have not seen an unused field ever. And as long the fields are producing food this is just a change in income or structure of an industry.
> Also, fucking over our farmers in unstable world does not seem like a smart thing to do.
Everyone can solve this for their own farmers. Just buy local, problem solved.
Does that mean some things might be a bit more expensive? Yes, you're paying to keep them around just like you might want someone to pay for you to be employed.
If we don't it's a race to the bottom for everyone.
Reminds me of Russia post-Soviet collapse when all of the SSRs rushed to form their own blocs or align with the West, while the Russians thought they would continue to align with their former overlords in Moscow.
USA will definitely turn into the new Russia if it continues to go on this path. It has already exhausted most of its cultural and moral capital, and its tech sector is already under threat in its major allies. It will continue to stay relevant for maybe a generation or two but it will turn largely irrelevant by the turn of the century, just like the British Empire or Russia today. Assuming, of course, that it doesn't correct course.
Hardly. China is also betting on nuclear fission and nuclear fusion:
1. Fission: TMSR-LF1 (a thorium breeder, molten salt research reactor)
Based on US work in 1960s and independent Chinese Sinap work in 1970s.
They recently published that they had detected Protactiunium in the salt - a new milestone.
I know that China's actively researching Nuclear fission, fusion and even have the world's first thorium reactor pilot - in fact, they might even be having a lot more effort and investment being put into nuclear than the rest of the world combined. But they aren't putting all of their chips and actively betting with a Hallelujah on fusion to provide energy. They're ramping up renewables production side by side while still funding fusion research.
Republicans on the other hand are hoping somehow that a gutted NRC will pave the way for looser regulations that will help ramp up conventional nuclear fission and nuclear fusion timelines (all efforts invested into by the current president's family and his fellow cronies of course), while abjectly gutting down any progress in renewable energy in the present moment.
China knows better than to weaken their position in the global theater by having large dependence on other nations for energy. They are aiming for domination and they are well on their way.
China is fine with dependence on other nations, it just can't rely on sea-based imports when the US could easily block them by blockading the strait of Malacca. That's why China has invested so heavily into their Belt And Road initiative (which is notably a giant land-based shipping route).
Actually, it seems China has given up on the feasibility of BRI because they don't control all the variables in their partner countries. Which is why Xi has been super focused on creating an autarkic economy dependent on domestic demand and encouraging production for the native population, as a back up. Failures in helping industrialize countries such as Pakistan and those in Africa due to systemic and unavoidable issues have soured on the Chinese. That autarkic vision hinges strongly on a solid renewables energy production base.
Well the Trumps, Thiel, etc are all invested heavily in a bunch of publicly traded nuclear fusion and nuclear fission companies, so those presidentially-backed firms are seeing outsized funding gains.
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
You haven't seen enough trucks and pickups then. The Cybertruck serves no utility purpose.
Unfortunately, if an election were to be held today, the morons at Reform would have the greatest chance of winning, thanks to Starmer's ostrich syndrome, Corbyn dividing the Labour vote and the Tories being absolutely irrelevant after 15 years of continuous rule.
I'd be interested to know your view on how you think Britain should be governed and the extent to which you think others would agree. Serious question: can you offer a link to some such description?
Curtail immigration to pre-Brexit levels (with a strong focus on repatriating criminals and net tax non-contributing immigrant households), focus on the working class and devise a route for the UK to get back into the EU. Also refocus policing to focus on actual societal issues - child grooming and the rise of fundamentalist elements (as evidenced by the UAE banning their citizens from studying in the UK) - as opposed to elderly citizens tweets. Devalue the GBP to refund the NHS and roll back austerity while investing further into energy independence and removing bureaucratic red tape for consumer scale mitigation technologies.
Any party that does all of these will be guaranteed electoral wins for decades - I've seen the data back when I was a Tory. Problem is, these points are kryptonite to the very identity of either major party.
Thank you! I took a bet with myself on what you would say (if you did) and lost! Seems to me that the EU as presently constructed is a huge problem; on some other points I'd agree.
Disagree on being subsumed into the stagnating EU (far better to align with dynamic English-speaking economies with strong growth, like the US).
The EU customs union prevented the UK striking bilateral global free trade deals, and the legacy of EU over-regulation continues to curtail our innovation. The UK has a solid history of global trade and innovation, and it can acheive more if unshackled from the EU.
Austerity is absolutely necessary. If we keep giving the NHS above-inflation pay rises inline with what their staff demand, it would consume the entire annual excess wealth from the productive half of the economy in a matter of decades.
What we need are sensible and pragmatic policies like Reform's scaling back of net zero, for example. The cost of Ed Miliband's net zero measures are an estimated £4.5 trillion over the next 25 years, and a gross cost in excess of £7.6 trillion.
That's more than our entire GDP. Just one example is the 20 year wind farm contracts that Miliband has set up, with a guaranteed energy cost that's nearly double the market rate for gas power (and then on top of that we need to pay for wind curtailment, grid upgrades and expensive backup power plants to cover low wind days).
We were promised that renewables would reduce energy bills. That was a total fiction, and the politicians are to blame.
Green energy could be a massive success story, and it could make our bills cheaper, but inept politicians from the Tories and Labour have focussed instead on vanity metrics.
Y'all got any of those bilateral trade deals yet? Brexit was done and dusted by 2019, it's been 7 years now. Where are those deals you're talking about? Where's your trade deal with English-speaking economies like the US? Heck, not even CANZ want to deal with you guys now.
On the NHS, of course, gut the only thing that's keeping the country sane. I can literally not keep count anymore of the number of skilled doctors and talent who have left the UK after years of practice because the pay was becoming untenable with current living needs. Remove the NHS and you might as well call yourself a client state of the US.
On renewables and net-zero, yes, what we need is more reliance on conventional fuels so that we can be ever more reliant on Russia and the Middle East and the US right? Meanwhile economies like China, India and even your brethren in Australia are racing to put in more renewables capacity because it is just so much more cheaper and efficient now. Those guys are forging real paths to energy independence, unlike you lot.
Renewables haven't been reducing your energy bills because you guys haven't been putting up anything of note. Wake me up when Hinckley Point C comes online.
We’ve struck an incredible 71 trade deals since Brexit. And there are more in the pipeline. We genuinely have a better global position now than we did in the customs union.
You think the NHS is “keeping us sane”. Two of my family members have been close to death waiting for an ambulance that never arrived / waiting in a crowded emergency waiting room with internal bleeding for hours. I pay about £10K per year in tax to the NHS for a service that is inferior to the private care I receive for approx £1K a year. The whole system is a shambles and gets worse every year. It underpays and mistreats its staff. It is inefficient.
On your point about renewables, I never claimed we needed more reliance on fossil fuels. I think we should be building more nuclear plants. France is a shining example of how to generate electricity. And then, once we have affordable battery storage (in a few years) we will be able to expand wind/solar in a sensible fashion without our stupid politicians making our energy bills the highest in the developed world.
> Renewables haven't been reducing your energy bills because you guys haven't been putting up anything of note.
The UK is #1 in Europe for wind capacity and #2 globally for offshore wind (behind China). And we have the highest energy bills in the developed world
Well it's already declining. Remove the AI and tech industry and the US economy is in literal decline. Invading Greenland ensures NATO is crippled, Taiwan is left undefended and China finds a great excuse to impose sanctions on the US as part of a coordinated effort. That's a huge chunk of the semiconductor manufacturing lifecycle that becomes inaccessible to the US.
A world war and a socialist-minded president could correct that for a good couple of decades but this time the US is going to be on the wrong side of history.
As an outsider, it's interesting to watch Nero play the fiddle while the rest of the world sanctions the US (except India and the Middle East and Taiwan). I think this is how the average Roman felt during Honorius' reign.
US invading Greenland means all US troops in Europe risk getting captured/foxholed in their own military bases. That's 65k permanent staff and 20-35k on rotation. Or 10% of the US military, simply turning PoW (and a huge bargaining chip so early in the conflict).
It will also signal to the world that America is no longer world police, which means the Middle East, Japan and Taiwan will once again come under threat. The Middle East already foresaw this, which is why Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are building a regional nuclear-enabled alliance, with open invitation to the other oil economies. Taiwan is most likely to get caught with their pants down, given the lack of US military support.
Interestingly, with the exist of the US from NATO, the largest military in NATO will be Turkey's, that country that Europe has long considered the unwanted bastard child.
That's fantasy. I seriously doubt Trump will invade Greenland, but even if so, there will be zero consequences for U.S. forces in Europe. Europe's armed forces are not capable of taking on U.S. troops in Europe.
This is missing the forest for the trees. Coal plants alone accounted for 20% of emissions back in 2018, so I assume the fraction is only slightly lower now. Like so badly - coal is 5% of energy generation worldwide, yet the entire emissions from electricity generation is only 25%!
Agriculture is also responsible for its own level of emissions but only because the world has been conditioned to dairy, and by consequence beef. Those are hard dietary habits that won't be changed any time soon. Also rice cultivation is responsible for GHG emissions, so are we going to let 80% of the planet starve?
There's a lot of investor capital moving to traditional industries in China, India, Brazil, Korea and Europe, simply because there's better returns to be made with more resilience to American problems.
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