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geoka9 commented on Iran war wreaking havoc on shipping and air cargo, could create global delays   theregister.com/2026/03/0... · Posted by u/Bender
keiferski · 10 days ago
Yes this is pretty much my read as well. You can debate the morality or pragmatism of this war (or any war) but fundamentally there is no winning against global Capital. The US, some other country, are just vectors for larger forces.

Which IMO is why attempting to combat that from the outside is probably fruitless, and a better route is to try and gain control from the inside. Iran (or Russia, for that matter) would be dominant forces if they were integrated with their neighbors. Imagine Russia inside the EU – they'd have as much/more influence than Germany.

But they're outside, increasingly isolated, and thus open to erosion, whether in a hostile war like today's, or just by being outcompeted and culturally left behind.

geoka9 · 10 days ago
Some would say Russia is very much inside the US and somewhat inside the EU through its proxies (currently govts of Hungary and Slovakia, quite possibly in the future - France and Germany).
geoka9 commented on Over 80% of 16 to 24-year-olds would vote to rejoin the EU   itv.com/news/2026-02-19/o... · Posted by u/saubeidl
roysting · 21 days ago
What makes you believe you have lost freedom of movement, I’ve met British people all over Europe. If I can meet a Russian living in Switzerland in Amsterdam and a British couple that took the ferry from the island, why are you not free to “move”?

On a related note; do you enjoy what America is right now? Because centralizing power and handing your country’s (American states are/were/should be essentially countries) sovereignty and self/determination to Brussels is how you get this, become the US of Europe, the next iteration in the centralized war machine of the psychopathic, narcissistic parasitic ruling class. When you lack diversity through separate, unique, district, and sovereign countries where people have oversight and control and can push back against horrible ideas and actions, you end up like us.

I’ve always found it unfortunate that the EU did not become a legitimate, constitutional form of the USA like it was before the Civil War that created this centralized authoritarian fake federal state that we know today. It would have been awe inspiring and really could have become the example for the rest of the world. Instead, the current version of the EU is strangling the whole continent.

The EU is right now talking about becoming a great military force to fight Russia. That’s the kind of movement you’re advocating for, my friend.

You think young people are kept down now, wait till they’re laying in some muddy battlefield as chopped meat or hiding from drone swarm or hypersonic missile attacks on their cities due to the belligerence of the EU aristocrats with no clothes.

geoka9 · 21 days ago
> The EU is right now talking about becoming a great military force _to fight Russia_ (emphasis mine)

Correction: to not have to fight Russia. The EU falling apart is Putin's wet dream because he's very afraid of a confrontation with the whole bloc, and wants to subjugate the small European countries piecemeal (and yes, on their own, they would have to submit or face missiles/drones or, even worse, human meatwave attacks by a foe that has been whipping its populace into a death cult for decades for exactly that eventuality).

geoka9 commented on Over 80% of 16 to 24-year-olds would vote to rejoin the EU   itv.com/news/2026-02-19/o... · Posted by u/saubeidl
swat535 · 21 days ago
I’m not sure Canada is doing well right now. Young people are really struggling and we are dealing with housing crisis. There is also trade conflicts with the United States.

An anti immigration sentiment has also taken over half the country due to rising costs and shortages, which is trickling down to various aspects of the life here.

The harsh weather is not pleasant either. Ironically, young Canadians are looking to move elsewhere.

geoka9 · 21 days ago
> Ironically, young Canadians are looking to move elsewhere.

Are they still, considering they were mostly moving to the US before and now the idea is kind of scary?

geoka9 commented on Trump's global tariffs struck down by US Supreme Court   bbc.com/news/live/c0l9r67... · Posted by u/blackguardx
bluedays · 22 days ago
Why are conservatives always so angry?
geoka9 · 22 days ago
Why do angry people tend to lean conservative?
geoka9 commented on Swedish Alecta has sold off an estimated $8B of US Treasury Bonds   di.se/nyheter/di-avslojar... · Posted by u/madspindel
stevenwoo · 2 months ago
At first I was leaning toward FGLD but didn't consider that current admin would blow up everything US, there are European alternatives to FGLD that OP might want to investigate that have physical metal reserves (there are many alternatives that represent various tiers of involvement in mining versus just holding precious metals, I'm speculating OP does not want to possess precious metals themselves).
geoka9 · 2 months ago
There's KILO if you're cool with your bullion stored at the Royal Canadian Mint.
geoka9 commented on Canada Announces Divorce from America   charlotteclymer.substack.... · Posted by u/mooreds
palmotea · 2 months ago
> At this point I just hope enough of our economy remains functioning so I can eat, and that the orange dumbass doesn't nuke someone and kick off the end of the world.

Take a look at this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/opinion/trump-presidentia...:

> Instead of comparing what is happening under Trump with the situations in Hungary, Turkey and Russia, Goldstone argued that conditions in the United States are,

>> ironically, more like what happened in Venezuela, where after a century of reasonably prosperous democratic government, decades of elite self-serving neglect of popular welfare led to the election of Hugo Chávez with a mandate to get rid of the old elites and create a populist dictatorship.

>> I find that decades-long trends in the U.S. — stagnating wages for non-college-educated males, sharply declining social mobility, fierce political polarization among the elites and a government sinking deeper and deeper into debt — are earmarks of countries heading into revolutionary upheaval.

>> Just as the French monarchy, despite being the richest and archetypal monarchy, collapsed in the late 18th century because of popular immiseration, elite conflicts and state debts, so the U.S. today, despite being the richest and archetypal democratic republic, is seeing its institutions come under attack today for a similar set of conditions.

Trump is a symptom, not the cause. But a lot of people really want you to focus on him, to deflect the blame from themselves hopefully return to their prior "self-serving neglect of popular welfare."

geoka9 · 2 months ago
> Trump is a symptom, not the cause.

For sure, but there's something to be said about nobody else being able to amass so much power with the right and losing to a saner candidate (Haley, Romney, basically anybody else).

geoka9 commented on US Places Arctic Airborne Troops on Standby as Greenland Dispute Escalates   thedefensenews.com/news-d... · Posted by u/palata
rayiner · 2 months ago
That’s possible, but it’s a much more uncertain claim than the one being made above. The US became 50% richer than western europe by being an “isolationist MAGA wonderland” before reengaging with the world during the wars.

Did hegemony help the U.S. maintain that edge? Maybe! But I think that’s a harder claim to prove than suggested by OP. I think the direct cause of America keeping its edge in the second half of the 20th century is we have Silicon Valley. I can think of a mechanism how reserve currency status is an indirect cause: reserve currency status means the world invests in American banks, and banks then use that money to fund tech startups. But is that really what’s happening? As I said above, I’m unsure.

geoka9 · 2 months ago
Reserve currency status makes increasing money supply easier (the US has run large deficits and monetary expansions with less inflation than peers). "Petrodollars" create persistent demand for USD, independent of US domestic conditions - countries that import oil must earn USD (via exports, borrowing, or reserves) or hold US reserves in advance. Oil exporters, on the other hand, invest surplus dollars into US treasuries. This process absorbs US money creation and lowers US borrowing costs. This is an enormous advantage that the US is likely to lose if it continues on its isolationist course.
geoka9 commented on US Places Arctic Airborne Troops on Standby as Greenland Dispute Escalates   thedefensenews.com/news-d... · Posted by u/palata
rayiner · 2 months ago
The post I was responding to implied that the U.S. enjoyed a special benefit from being the one maintaining the hegemonic world order: “The US's expenditure on its military was never to protect anyone from the Soviets but to impose its own world order against the Soviets, it's been always self-serving.”

If the U.S. obtained such a special benefit, it should have grown faster than western europe from 1950 to 1990, but it didn’t. If that growth comes from peace, not being the hegemon—as you put it, a rising tide lifts all boats—then the U.S. is disproportionately bankrolled a peace that western europe equally benefitted from.

Part of the story here is that international trade just isn’t that important to the U.S. 90% of U.S. GDP is domestic. Just 1.1% is exports to Europe.

geoka9 · 2 months ago
> If the U.S. obtained such a special benefit, it should have grown faster than western europe from 1950 to 1990

Not necessarily; the US could have extracted that benefit by staying ahead of the rest of the world in terms of its citizens' wealth, with all the benefits this entails.

We can't know the "what-if" (would the US have become even richer by being an isolationist MAGA dreamland), but we know for a fact that the world order was created and maintained by the US, so it must have had its benefits all this time.

geoka9 commented on US Places Arctic Airborne Troops on Standby as Greenland Dispute Escalates   thedefensenews.com/news-d... · Posted by u/palata
rayiner · 2 months ago
The spike in the 1940s is the war itself and recovery from the Great Depression. Obviously NATO and the reserve currency and whatnot came after that spike. If you look at the second chart, we’re right around the same point as the historical 1.7% growth curve. If you look at the fifth chart, the large european economies also seemed to have grown slightly faster after the war than before it. So I’m not sure how much the U.S. is benefitting from being the hegemon.

The real reason the U.S. is so rich is that it was already the richest country in the world in 1900. The U.S. had almost 50% higher GDP per capita than western europe in 1900: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Population-GDP-and-GDP-p.... Today, its still about 50%.

geoka9 · 2 months ago
> If you look at the fifth chart, the large european economies also seemed to have grown slightly faster after the war than before it. So I’m not sure how much the U.S. is benefitting from being the hegemon.

Nobody's denying that the US-created world order has been good for its partners but that doesn't mean the benefit was at the US's expense. International trade is not a zero-sum game - the lifting tide and all that.

u/geoka9

KarmaCake day3561March 31, 2010View Original