The point isn’t the US economy. The point is stockmarket manipulation to get Trump and his friends more money.

That’s literally the only reason.

Even the kids in the story are mostly fine with it though. It’s good and proper to have slaves, and even the idea of free elves is something to be mocked by everyone.

A big issue is that they still exist in the “happily ever after” situation.

When the horribly flawed government is now horribly flawed with good dictators, there is still massive racism and slavery that everyone approves of.

Ask what Tasha Yar thinks about that

All of your points are great, but if you looked beyond monetary value, many industries that used to produce things that increase the welfare of your citizens are now used to wage war.

Exactly! that’s the entire point. On page 2 of the summary it looks great on paper, but if you actually start looking at the reports, you’re going to see it’s actually getting worse and worse.

I love your example, and it’s a great way to show the difference between spending and investing. Buying a an expensive gun is spending money looks good right now but it doesn’t DO anything. Buying a cheap sewing machine is investing, maybe not much, but over time you’ll add value to the entire economy.

And downvoted like all AI slop should be

“Tesla Employees Against Musk. There’s no you in TEAM!”

Why can’t both of those be true? Should Europe ignore Russia until they CAN march into Amsterdam? There are far too many corpses in Ukraine not to take them seriously, regardless of economics.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

And the sanctions make the numbers bigger. Russia needs to spend more to get the same, which means they’re getting less for the same amount of money, sweat, genius and hopes.

And that’s a win.

It’s normal for a war economy to “grow”. When a government is buying all the tanks, guns and bullets it can, that’s absolutely amazing for the economy as a whole. Government spending increases generally drive growth (never mind that this just drives debt up and can send your country into a spiral)

Inflation, usually as a result from the former, also makes numbers go up. And if you intentionally undercount accidentally underestimate inflation, it goes up even more! You can always increase interest to keep up (if you dont have massive debt from the former).

You reduce exports of cheap raw materials and start using them yourself to make expensive war materials that look great on your books (but which don’t actually make your country any money, unlike the raw materials).

Getting more soldiers is great for employment numbers, and industry will also need more people. Governments competing with industry drives wages up (and government reserves down).

War generally requires new infrastructure, which is great for countries that have neglected it for decades (unfortunately getting bombed tends to make said improvements rather short term, and only to places nobody wants to go).

So as long as you’re not collapsing under debt (and if you can steal from private citizens, you can keep going for a bit) and your civilian industry hasn’t quite collapsed yet (Russians excel at suffering) and you haven’t undergone population collapse (15 and 70 make for great soldiers, right?) your economy looks great to anyone not looking too closely.

I mean, these arguments really only work if you disregard that NAFO isn’t NATO.

Same nose, same eye-shape, similar chin, and rapidly rushing towards similar hairlines. If these two aren’t related, that’s a huge coincidence.

Also, childhood malnutrition is a bitch and will absolutely cause something like this.

“Centrism” has always been “conservative but I don’t like people calling me on that”.

That’s just basic cruelty. “Hurting other people is great”

Oh? Can you give an example? Because I’ve mostly seen official channels take Russia very seriously

If Russia never ends up invading Lithuania then this will only harm Lithuanians, either people who step on it by accident or while trying to remove them

Wait, I think there’s a big disconnect here. Nobody is suggesting they scatter a million landmines around Vilnius, or even emplacing them along the border right now. You can have landmines ready, but not place them until you notice troop buildups. You can even pre-place basic fences to keep civilians out of the zones you plan to use, it still works.

The time to place landmines is when you’re (about to be) at war. Not just for humanitarian reasons, landmines don’t actually work reliably forever.

It has been proven far and wide these things kill long after a conflict has been resolved.

And, very harshly, you can weigh those deaths against immediate deaths when you’re at war. Against an enemy that has repeatedly demonstrated that losing a war will mean you stop existing as a people, the equation becomes a lot less complex.

But, those factories can obviously operate just fine inside Europe, as they are currently doing so. They just make more profit under the lax Chinese regulations, which are set that way by the Chinese government.

Europe can’t legislate China.

Its not a total dichotomy, but one absolutely contributes to not having the other.

The big “problem” for the farmers is that consumers don’t actually give a shit about the DOP system.

How is it Europe fault’s that China is still happily building new coal plants and not regulating industry?