What is this argument really? Comparing one man’s corruption to a whole party with decades of history. “Honey my cheating on you is bad but look at this man Trump with decades of public philandering.” Whataboutism at its finest.
No, it's more like "oh wow that explains why Americans do not trust institutions, have massive unfavorable feelings about the democratic party, and voters no longer believe democratic politicians are pro-worker."
Like this is a thread about corruption but I guess if you give a shitty corporate veneer it's suddenly. If you're older than 40 you saw the democratic party implement NAFTA, cut welfare programs, and bail out banks; apparently these three major policy pillars aren't related to people's feelings on corruption.
Totally independent, they're just totally only saying Trump + republicans are corrupt not like the entire system that compromises two parties both of which are in bed with corporations and voters have a lived history reflecting just this.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that the Gaza Genocide played no role in Harris losing '24 either.
> Protecting workers from that kind of competition seems fair. Tariffs aren't bad in itself. They are just a tool.
At the cost of consumers paying for goods/services?
Your take is as reductive as the take in the comics.
People in a nation working 5 days a week for 8 hours are getting paid less and less over time. Heck lot of people now need double shifts to make ends meet totaling up to 12 hr or even more. They can only afford a Christmas light from the nation mass producing it by working 6 days a week, 12 hr shift.
And lets not pretend this was only about protecting workers. There were multiple agendas:
1. Bring back jobs 2. Remove trade barriers between countries 3. Make US rich by collecting huge amount of tariffs
All three can't be true at the same time. If jobs are brought back then you aren't going to collect huge amount of tariffs because nothing is being produced outside. If trade barriers are removed then that comes at a cost of slashing tariffs so you can't really collect huge amount of tariffs.
The foolish reasoning highlighted in the comics is the reason there is so much trade war.
They know the stick is huge but with how everything is going with US and the TACO mentality they feel US will be back on the table once the reality starts hitting.
US having veto over Canada trade negotiations, dictating language policy which could cause Quebec to cede from Canada, and stop the "buy Canadian" policy put after the last tariff round etc. It not even a stick anymore it is a proper gun which blow in the face of any Canadian who agrees to these terms.
Not to mention? Any deal signed isn't worth a thing these days. The US is absolutely, positively not trustworthy.
Most Canadians believe that even if we signed an updated deal, Trump would just break it. He's done it already with a lot of these tariffs. So why even bother? What's the point, of negotiating and dealing with liars and cheats? EG, the US.
Just look at the bridge deal. We negotiate a deal, build a bridge for billions, then at the last minute? Rip up a signed agreement and reneg. After the money is spent. It's pathetic. I expect better from used car salesmen. It doesn't matter why, for what reason, it reflects 100% on the US, it's not just one man.
We don't trust the US any more. It lies. It cheats. It scams. We used to buy US weapons, but now we don't trust that, either. I can imagine spending 200B on weapons, and then the software just stops working.
The US used to be the most trusted, beloved nation by Canadians. I think many Canadians would trust Iran, China, Russia more than the US now, to keep a deal.
And that?
That's a pathetic outcome, from a pathetic administration.
> how do these people consistently survive their self-inflicted disasters?
Because they don't believe the disasters were inflicted by them.
The other aspect is managing the manager. This comes in form of delivering something what their manager needs. So, their manager has a goal of reducing costs they will act as a yes-man despite their abilities. They might come up with ridiculous ideas and convince their managers that it is a good idea because they are the ones executing on the ground. If and when it fails the issue isn't because the idea was bad it was because circumstances.
Also, it is a fallacy that many engineers think being smart is enough. We tend to debate efforts - how much work we put in - but for management, company and even shareholders the outcome matters. People who figure out sooner thrive a lot.
> Because they don't believe the disasters were inflicted by them.
It's not quite clear how "they" and "them" are related but I see only two options:
1. Bad managers believe what's convenient for them in order avoid dying from shame - but this is a truism and it has nothing to do with the original question.
2. The managers of bad managers believe that the managers below them can do no wrong - but this is like calling the entire management hierarchy a bunch of incompetents, because believing has little to do with rational analysis and evaluation of important decisions, it doesn't work as an answer to the original question: "Why is there no accountability from certain level up?".
> The other aspect is managing the manager.
That aspect, and its entire paragraph, are a rather confusing reformulation of the original question.
> If and when it fails the issue isn't because the idea was bad it was because circumstances.
The end result of the confusion is a blanket excuse to any and all management failures: "it's the circumstances". The same can applied to everyone and everywhere which could only lead to a world more ridiculous than "Idiocracy".
> but for management, company and even shareholders the outcome matters.
I'm not sure what this is saying, the substance of the original question is why the outcome doesn't matter for the above group? And you already explained that it doesn't matter because "it's the circumstances"... I can't square that circle.
Add to that at one point Claude was the go to models for the very basic use case for LLMs - text generation.
With newer models text generation outputs have gone from probably human readable text to dense philosophical treatise about "load bearing" and incomplete sentences. So much so that now you need skills or another LLM to just parse the output. Simple answers and text generation just doesn't exist.
Yes sure. Add it to the pile of contradictory goals:
1. Bring back manufacturing jobs
2. Remove trade barriers
3. Make US rich by collecting huge amount of tariffs
If 1 is true then there is no benefit for countries to remove trade barriers or pay tariffs because now there is no leverage (manufacturing jobs to protect).
If 2 is true then there is no leverage for other things to happen - countries aren't going to voluntary remove trade barriers without keeping the jobs or paying tariffs.
One, US has been the largest buyer of imported goods. As much as people think turning away is difficult and needs planning.
Two, turning away requires time and planning. Supply chain isn't built in one day. People need time for that.
In the short term - like next 3-4 years - it is going to look like countries caved. But in the long term Liberation Day will be remembered as one of the days which put a nail into the American exceptionalism.
i think canada has found that its been less difficult than we thought it would be
ultimately the US is buying stuff, but its the stuff thats actually valuable and not the USD you get from it. its even easier to move when you cant even buy oil from the gulf anymore, whether in USD or otherwise.
the supply chain problem arrived in trump 1's covid disaster, and hasnt exactly been solved for getting stuff to the US again
I was very impressed at the pace at which Canadians got behind the move away from US goods. Turns out threatening to annex a country and NOT having those making the threats get punished/thrown out does that. It shows a significant enough part of the US would support the move. That portion might only be 10-30% (who knows exactly) but it is enough that it cannot be ignored and it will keep coming back.
There are still more fundamental materials markets that will take years/decades to move away from but that is already happening.
Long term it is a very tough position for the US. They need to run a trade deficit to keep the power of the US dollar, if that goes so does a lot of their world power.
More broadly however, the question that I think everyone should ponder on is, "If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?"
A huge part of the US's spending is on the military and that is used to stabilize global trade, that is so that the USD is still THE major currency. But recent moves looks like they are trying to keep that while also kicking out the struts that hold up the entire system. It is very illogical, maybe there is a bigger plan but somehow I don't think there is.
> More broadly however, the question that I think everyone should ponder on is, "If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?"
The US is already behaving the way we expected China would if they become the king of the hill.
Pax Americana used to guarantee peace, prosperity and nuclear nonproliferation for the countries participating in it. Now we get threats of invasion, threats of being left to fend for our selves, cozying up to a country that is literally trying to conquer our neighbors.
I don’t think it’s anymore a question of _if_, the old world is gone and not coming back.
> If the US falls as the world super power, do you think the alternative will be better?
Perhaps not, but if you just accept every abuse thrown at you, pretty soon the USA will be just as tyrannical as China. Sometimes having the self-respect to stand up for yourself is more important than the costs.
At the very least, if the US falls as a super power, it seems like we are heading to a tri-polar world (china, EU, USA), at least in the near to medium term. Its not like someone else is going to take over as the sole super power.
Its certainly something to worry about, but i think its far from certain. Nato countries will probably shift to france. The non-nato countries strongly in the us sphere of influence are probably the biggest wories (e.g. japan, south korea) but there aren't actually that many of them.
Canada has been the largest buyer of US goods and services, limiting access to their markets where there are alternatives or they are luxuries can add up quickly. Even in the provinces that didn't outright ban US alcohol, the sales have gone down 55%. Alcohol is really easy though.
The worst part is that this will be connected to another AI. The insurance company's AI chatbot responsible for verifying claims. 'You took illegal drugs hence your claim is denied" and "there are no humans available to review your case. write to us and someone will get back to you". This will be followed by a "deep search AI agent" responding multiple times before it is sent for a human review. And even then the risk of AI misclassifying it as a routine question and not an urgent payments related question.
And I am sure people will still defend that dystopia with "companies send canned response all the time".
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