Yeah, I see it as a kind of "jumping the shark" moment. There is simply no way to compromise with a neighbors territorial sovereignty to avoid tariffs. It is not going to happen. We may as well regard the US as a black hole that we no longer trade with.
Well written although very typical French in verbosity, to my eyes at least
Among the listed scenarios, I can see others too. Let's imagine the Danes covertly are able to construct a completely independent crises. Or by random event some disaster happens. Let's say an earthquake in California. It would require attention to domestic affairs for a while
I am not sure if I read you right but if you mean that there will be significant grass roots efforts in Europe to boycott anything from the US, I think you are right.
Right, IMHO there will be significant boycott targeting anything US or anyone advocating for US. Those who love their iPhones may stay with the iPhones but they will vote in people who will get rid of iPhones and get forced to switch to Korean or Chinese brand without being too upset about it.
Internet cables will be cut if that's necessary to get rid of US tech. Bank accounts will be frozen, data centers taken over and no one will pay attention to naysayers and those who preach profits and business opportunities.
Trump and anything he stands for is just too repulsive for anyone in Europe already. Europe's relatively weak startup culture doesn't come from regulations, it's not like Italians demand lab grown meat and the French demand long working hours but their usurper doesn't allow them. It's quite the opposite, Europeans demand a life with dignity above everything else and Trump is the antithesis of it.
I think they will, they just want to wait for the right time. You could argue that the right time is now but I think they are waiting until there is more proof on the ground (and not just talk) that the US is ready to act.
My father speculated about a Molotov-Ribbentrop variant being played out not long ago. I never even considered it but I am no longer surprised it is speculated about. What we are seing feels eerily similar.
With IS and NO on board, the only non-EU NATO members left are AL, CA, MK, TR, and UK. I don't think AL and MK have much in the way of force projection; CA is a pity* (what about TR?); and Airstrip One would have danced to the Great Nation Builder's tune anyway.
* a joke I once heard back in the States:
— So, what do you think of Canada, eh?
— We don't. But wait until we run out of natural resources; then we'll think of you...
It just occurred to me that invoking Article 4 would put Ambassador Whitaker on the spot sooner rather than later: either he shows solidarity with DK, or he provides proof of his intent to filibuster.
But I guess the reason they aren't bothering is because we all already know the answer.
Is the side to fill up evenly balanced between cars in average? I imagine there is value to make it close to 50/50 to simplify the logistics at the gas station. I was thinking car manufacturers perhaps had agreed so that some brands do it one way and some do it another
I recall looking at a car to buy, and the salesman toted the gas cap on the right as the "safe side".
The logic was, if you run out of gas, you can refill on the side away from traffic.
Dumbest design reasoning. Plan the side, for an event most people never experience?! Or if they do, once... and maybe on a rural dirt road, not necessarily a freeway.
Even if there was a single side for filling, direction of approach being random is enough for 50/50 utilization of the pumps — so I’m not convinced there’s a pressure to spread which side the tank is on.
Costco and Sam's Club usually have their filling stations set up for one-way traffic, but offhand those are the only ones I've seen that way in US, Canada, Caribbean, and western/central Europe (though the Euro design of filling stations just off the highway encourages one-way traffic, it doesn't mandate it). Haven't driven myself elsewhere.
Here in Finland at least there are a lot of completely unattended pumps that once you exit the road it’s basically just a patch of land and you pull up in whatever direction you want to match the side of your tank to a free pump.
But in the UK where I’m from and just got back from this is maybe less common.
Why would it matter? Just park on any side, I've never been to a fuel station where the hose wouldn't reach to the other side if needed. Or since you said gas and not petrol, is that an American thing? Do you guys have short hoses thah don't reach?
Our plugin hybrid has both a gas side on the left and electric side on the right. The electric side on the right is helpful in the US to allow parking curbside and charging the vehicle.
The cashlessness in Sweden has strange effects on people. I don't think I recognize the coins in my country any more. They feel as foreign as coins do when travelling abroad before you get used.
A bigger problem may even be the dependence on US companies for payments. This was mentioned by the head of Riksbanken in an interview the past week. He mentioned Mastercard and Visa, and the Swedish payment system Swish. He did not mention that Swish requires IOS or Android.
We have already gone through this cycle in India. People feel very strange dealing with cash after using UPI for many years. In-fact, many will outright refuse.
Good thing is we do not depend on the US of A - The Unified Payments Interface is an Indian instant payment system and protocol completely independent of US behemoths. There are special, simplified UPI apps developed for senior citizens and lots of training material to ensure differently abled folk are are able to use it.
In the few years, UPI will also be linked with other BRICS national payment systems such as MirPay (Russia), UnionPay (China) and Pix (Brazil). A lot of other nations have expressed interest in joining. Once that is through, we will have an international peer-to-peer, payment networks completely separated from the West and not subject to big-nanny Western interference. Yay! The US can go cry in a corner when its bullying sanctions are just ignored.
The company raised $132 million, offering shares at $30/share, but the shares opened for trading at $299/share, before closing at $239.25/share, or 698% above the IPO price, breaking a record for the largest first day gain.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] Larry Augustin, the 38-year old founder and chief executive officer of the company, became a billionaire on paper and a 26-year old web developer at the company said she was worth $10 million on paper.[2] By August 2000, the shares were trading at $40 each[2] and only 24 mutual funds held the stock.[15] On December 8, 2000, one year later, after the bursting of the dot com bubble, shares traded at $8.49/share.[16]
per his essay he was given 150K shares. Even at the IPO price of $30 a share, that's 4.5 million. Do we not think the investment bank handling his shares would have been willing to take his whole stake at $30 a share?
But even if they wouldn't more than 6 months later it was still north of $40 a share (so $6mil or so) and even a year or so after the IPO, after the bubble popped, it was still north of $8 a share (so $1+mil).
I could be wrong! It seems to me like the terms of his options and his trade restrictions (he was a director of the company, he couldn't sell his shares willy-nilly) are important here, but I don't know the specifics.
He has, ahem, never exuded a "man of leisure" vibe. More power to him if he's actually loaded, I guess.
I'm not arguing that he's loaded, just that if he didn't make millions off VA, its more due to his own decisions than anything else. I could also be wrong, but it seems he had the opportunity to unload his stake if he really wanted to.
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