чтобы стало хорошо, нужно, чтобы не было так плохо, как стало бы, если бы все было хорошо

В четвертый день третьей луны пятого года Чуан-Пу, император милостиво повелел учинить разорение купцов, дабы избежать куда худших разорений, что случались в былые времена, и положить начало развитию промыслов и умножению богатств. Так повествует глава казенного приказа.

конец американской эпохи

J. V. Last пишет простыми словами о текущем положении дел:


"Understand this: There is no going back.

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump revoked his entire regime of tariffs, it would not matter. It might temporarily delay some economic pain, but the rest of the world now understands that it must move forward without America.

If, tomorrow, Donald Trump abandoned his quest to annex Greenland and committed himself to the defense of Ukraine and the perpetuation of NATO, it would not matter. The free world now understands that its long-term security plans must be made with the understanding that America is a potential adversary, not an ally.

This realization may be painful for Americans. But we should know that the rest of the world understands us more clearly than we understand ourselves.


It’s bad enough being a failing empire. Let’s not also be a delusional failing empire. Let’s at least have some dignity about our situation.

The world will move on without us."

система без обратной связи

R. Hanania - Kakistocracy as a Natural Result of Populism

"At its best, democracy works by providing feedback to leaders. Government adopts an irrational policy, the market has a reaction, and officials hopefully take that information into account. If a politician runs on an anti-corruption platform but then ends up being more corrupt than his predecessors, that should be discrediting and cost him support.

Yet this entire process requires voters to be connected to reality. If they’re in a fake news bubble, then even the most obvious failures will go unpunished.

Politicians that have a less educated base can make bad decisions and suffer fewer consequences for them. The fact that Trump is personally responsible through his tariffs policy for current economic woes is obvious to any informed observer, but might not be to an uninformed one. Trump’s base has lower cognitive ability and less interest in politics anyway, so they are probably less likely to be shaken out of their partisan stupor by empirical reality. No one can deny that leftists are also often partisan in their thinking. But that partisanship is tempered by access to and a willingness to accept accurate sources of information.

Take polling. Trump and his supporters regularly dismiss bad polling news as fake, with the president actually having gone as far as suing a pollster whose result he didn’t like. In general, liberals take polling data at face value, and those who wanted to kick Biden to the curb after his disastrous debate performance relied heavily on what the numbers said. Nancy Pelosi told the president that the data showed he couldn’t beat Trump in November. When Biden replied he had seen other polling, Pelosi demanded that he put White House aide Mike Donilon on the phone to talk about it. When one contrasts what happened here to reports about conversations around Trump, what is notable is a willingness to challenge the leader of the party, along with the fact that this was a reality based discussion. Polling is often wrong, but you’ll get closer to truth functioning as a movement that assumes that the experts are doing the best they can rather than as one that believes any information it doesn’t like is part of a conspiracy. Republicans do not simply reject polling about future election results; they to this day deny the clear outcome of 2020."

меню из формул

President Trump personally selected the now widely-mocked formula for determining country-specific tariffs from a menu of options, multiple sources say.

“He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore,” said a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do. He’s going to do what he promised to do on the campaign trail.”

“There were a lot of options put in front of him. I think he just needed time to go through each one and pick out the ones he wanted ... And the great thing is that the team made everything interchangeable, so it was just a matter of him picking and choosing which ones he wanted to do.”


Derek Thompson:

"The notion that taxing Lesotho gemstones is necessary for the U.S. to add steel jobs in Ohio is so absurd that I briefly lost consciousness in the middle of writing this sentence."

Richard Hanania:

"The formula of “reciprocity” being used is so stupid I approach the topic with awe, and have an almost superstitious feeling that if I even describe it I’ll somehow become stupider myself.

I don’t think this ship can correct course. The Trump movement has been selecting for loyalty to Trump above all else, and we’re seeing the results. As Vice President Vance said during his trip to Greenland, “we can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”"

Matthew Yglesias:

"These guys don’t know what time it is — making everything vanilla-flavored randomly more expensive is the only way to rebuild a defense industrial base and fight China."

о потоках информации в современном мире

То, что для миллионов людей единственной ниточкой, связующей их разум с большим миром политики, экономики и международных отношений, являются вульгарные разглагольствования бывшего владельца обанкротившегося казино - это прискорбно.

Но то, что президент США черпает объяснения проводимой им политики в диковинных теориях анонимов с 4chan - это какой-то запредельный абсурд, такого не бывает и быть не может.