It’s not a big deal. Rare earth minerals aren’t that rare.

It’s the refining of rare earth minerals which is energy intensive and causes a great deal of pollution.

It was nice that China was destroying their own environment and spending the capital to build power plants. Now we will have to invest the capital to do it ourselves.

Thundermail… yeah yeah. :gently pushes my aol.com account under the sofa:

I have one on my keychain. I can always find my keychain in the dark…

I mean if top US officials can drop top secret battle plans on a chat with a journalist and get away with it.

Why can’t a low level government employee wet their wick in a Chinese honeypot every once in a while. I just don’t see the point.

Bezos wants his own X…

Funny thing the 1828 Tariff of Abomination, The Smoot Hawley Tariff and Donald’s Liquidation Day Tariff are all roughly a hundred years apart. Living memory of the consequences of such tariffs need to die out completely before a new generation tries this stupidity.

It’s the same with the nativist bullshit. Memory of the peak of Know Nothing, KKK and now MAGA bullshit has to die out before it is tried again.

My only hope is that this is viewed as the high water mark of the MAGA movement. MAGA incompetence is on full display.

As much as I disagreed with Sen. Chuck Shumers decision to roll over on the budget. Shutting down the government and giving MAGA any excuse to blame Democrats for this economic slowdown would have been a bad call. Donald and the Republicans now solely own this disaster.

For the MAGA faithful it won’t make a difference but for independents, moderates and low information voters this could be a huge turning point.

European and Chinese infrastructure is the problem.

Our infrastructure has lasted over 60 years but it is time to renew it. We also don’t approach infrastructure the same way Europe or China does.

China has traditionally approached infrastructure by overbuilding well beyond any future need for the sake of chasing GDP figures and keeping the population employed (though this has changed in recent years). What they build can be dubious at times. They build apartment buildings, condos and houses much denser than in the US but they are built cheaply.

Europe tends to over build. Roads are usually much thicker, smoother, public transportation is top notch. Buildings are built to a much higher standard. But the population pays for that quality and it can’t be spread out as much. As a result your population density is much higher.

We build enough infrastructure to satisfy the need. If something is older we repair it and keep it in service well past its lifetime. Our houses are built cheaply and we tend to have less dense populations. That is the key to our demographics. No one wants to raise children in a small apartment in a city, let alone four or five of them. In the US large houses with a yard and 3 or four bedrooms is the norm. As a result it isn’t as hard raising kids so we have more than the equivalent couple in China and Europe.

As a result of 40 years of low birth rates most of Europe and China are aging rapidly. They have no large Millennial population like the US does. This means their consumer base is dwindling and if they want to maintain their industrial base they need export markets to sell their goods.

You mean WOT, the Great Recession and Covid were just a dream?

Meh we put ourselves at the center of globalization and trade by offering the Europeans access to our markets in exchange for being our meat shields if the Ruskies ever decided to get uppity.

Now globalization is starting to break down because we have no interest in maintaining it. Every president since Clinton has been more and more isolationist than the last. Even Biden had no interest in maintaining the order. The aid he offered to Ukraine was primarily military support, there was very little economic support for after the war.

Trump has moved the needle on populism in the US. Breaking global trade was always going to happen, but Trump is accelerating it. Yes he is a corrupt skum bag, but we’ve had skum bag presidents in the past.

America in the long term will be fine, our demographics are better than Europes or Chinas, we make our own energy and grow enough food to feed our population. We just need to restore manufacturing to North America (I.E. Canada, Mexico and USA).

America can exist quite happily as a regional hegemony and let Europe, India, Russia and China fight over the rest of the world.

I see we have a dirty tankie in our midst.

I knew I’d get the ol’ switch-a-roo comments. Please enjoy one internet point sir.

Did you happen to notice the one country not on the list?

Here I’ll give you a hint it’s name starts with an “R” and is run by a man who’s name starts with a “P” and is currently at war with a country that starts with a “U”…

I think they will find our resolve weak and crumbly like an orange cheese puff.