Don’t forget his trans daughter. Pretty sure that she was a catalyst.

I mean, it’s just really hard to understand why all these billionaires have decided to become so politically active. 1.) they have more than enough money for 10 more generations at least. 2.) if there is a serious tax hike or other threat to their wealth they can always quietly buy off some key politicians. 3.) if you stick your neck out like Musk (and some other billionaire cabinet members do) you run the chance that people will want to cut it off. If I were a billionaire I would make it my lives mission to ensure that the general public does not know my name.

Matters at least a bit. For instance, Musk has signalled his interest in buying OpenAI. He will find it far harder to get the money for it now that Tesla shares have nosedived.

More generally with Tesla it is difficult to make a business case for the existence of the company right now, since Musk alienated his entire potential consumer base. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company gets sold into parts in the text two years or so.

Ehm you have that reversed (or your phrasing is terrible). Production>consumption implies export>imports implies lending to abroad exceeds borrowing from abroad. Said differently, if the current account is in surplus, the capital account is (by definition) in deficit.

To make this all a bit more intuitive: suppose instead of spending money on consumption goods, we invest in foreign assets. In that case we spend less meaning that we either import less foreign goods or have more domestic produced goods available for export. The consequence is an increase in the current account surplus.

This focus on the balance of trade is sooo stupid. The US spends more than it produces so it has an aggregate deficit on the trade balance. To stop this, you need to force Americans to spend less (I.e. ignite a recession), or produce more.

Tariffs against selected countries that have a strong bilateral trade surplus with the US will not affect the US’ aggregate trade balance, since it doesn’t affect consumption by/ or production of the US economy. This is common knowledge from econ 101, and shouldn’t need to be explained to a president that supposedly has a degree in business.

Corporations and their owners thought that Trump would boost the stock market through tax cuts. Instead the market is tanking due to his moronic tariffs and Russia-appeasement strategy. Now that it’s clear he won’t be making them money they have rediscovered their “morals”.

While I agree, here’s what I worry about. Even if the leadership is replaced, the culture of the Democrats is to listen to consultants, voter panels etc. It’s commendable to take voters wishes into account, but what most voters want is a leader, not a listener.

Example: during the campaign voter panels talked about inflation and immigration whereas healthcare was ranked at the bottom. Therefore Democrats did not talk about healthcare.

But this is really a chicken and egg story. If nobody talks about healthcare, voters feel that healthcare is not on the ballot, and so they won’t mention the topic in voter panels. Luigi showed (once again) that healthcare in the US is fucked and that many people in fact care deeply about the topic. I am almost sure that Harris would have done better had she made healthcare the central issue of her campaign. The moral is that as long as Democrats are following, rather than leading, they will continue to lose elections.

Yeah, because tariffs are only reserved to large competitors on the world stage like, check notes, Canada?

Tbf driving old cars until the end of their lifetime is also an environmentally friendly choice, since there are quite large emissions associated with producing a car.

It’s also just missing the point entirely. The US is primarily responsible for ensuring that illegal substances do not cross its borders. The much, much more logical response by the US to this threat would be to increase searches of vehicles crossing the border. Obviously, we would still have to pretend that a drug as compact as fentanyl can in fact be stopped effectively, but in any case securing the border from the US’ side is not Canada’s responsibility.