***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[RustyShackleford]

DeSantis is a disgusting human being

 

[RustyShackleford]

US economy right now...

 

[RustyShackleford]

I was 90/10 in favor of not defaulting

But right now I am 50/50

Even worse, apparently, there are Trump people wiping up support among Republicans that a default won't be as bad as not getting Biden to agree to massive spending cuts

 

[rexanglorum]

I was 90/10 in favor of not defaulting

But right now I am 50/50

Even worse, apparently, there are Trump people wiping up support among Republicans that a default won't be as bad as not getting Biden to agree to massive spending cuts

What time is it?

Trillion dollar coin time.


People ask, what if it gets lost. I have a solution, make a few giant stone trillion dollar coins like they do on the island of Yap in Polynesia.

That thing will not get lost or roll down a storm drain because it’s eight feet tall.

Do it, Dark Brandon.

 

[mplsdunk]

Nah, we’ll just start a war. Our currency is backed by the strongest military in the world.

 

[aepps20]

I was 90/10 in favor of not defaulting

But right now I am 50/50

Even worse, apparently, there are Trump people wiping up support among Republicans that a default won't be as bad as not getting Biden to agree to massive spending cuts

Are these your personal views or are you rating the chances we don’t go into default? If they are your views then


















IT’s ABOUT TIME LFG. There’s a default in my city YEAHHHHHHHHHH

 

[RustyShackleford]

What time is it?

Trillion dollar coin time.


People ask, what if it gets lost. I have a solution, make a few giant stone trillion dollar coins like they do on the island of Yap in Polynesia.

That thing will not get lost or roll down a storm drain because it’s eight feet tall.

Do it, Dark Brandon.

Yellen already said she is against the coin

The next best option was Obama's backup plan in 2011. Sign an executive order saying the Treasury should ignore the debt ceiling because it is unconstitutional

The Supreme Court is so bought by business interest, they will make the needed calls to make sure SCOTUS protects them

 

[gry60]

Day after day, this man's actions confirms my conspiracy theory that he has never stopped being the black nationalist he was known to be in college; he just decided to destroy US institutions from the inside by bringing in corruption.

DeSantis is a disgusting human being

The only thing holding these fifty states together is the belief in shared ideals.

If you kill this belief, you increase the odds of the US breaking up, and it looks like conservatives are doing a great job at doing it.

 

[gry60]

Look at this nonsense...

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

For Marxists it’s our version of a religious holiday.

Nah, we’ll just start a war. Our currency is backed by the strongest military in the world.

With that stone, you could literally crush any opponent.

But seriously, the US and its dollar hegemony are running out of options.

Invasion? Bush played that card and the US’ position in the Middle East is significantly weaker.

World Bank shake down? That can still be done. Basically, the West lets a country get into debt, prevents it from doing anything but supplying cheap raw materials and cheap labor so there’s no viable path to paying off that debt. Then the West excuses those debts in exchange for direct corporate ownership of mineral wealth, its infrastructure, and any other assets previously controlled by the state.

China has an alternative model. They lend money to developing countries, especially those in Africa, and they let them use that money to develop, if those countries can’t pay back the debt on time, Chinese bankers are willing to restructure the debt. Basically, Chinese businessmen would rather wait and get future cash flows from developing nations that are now at a higher stage of economic development. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese model is preferred through Africa and will eventually come to larger and larger swaths of Latin America, SE Asia, and the islands in the Western Pacific.

Could the US do a coup to preserve its dollar hegemony? It tried during the Trump years and now Juan Guiado and Jair Bolsanero are just two Gusanos losers with their fellow reactionary Gusanos in Florida. In 2022, the Biden administration immediately recognized Lula’s victory in Brazil which, to me, is a big sign of change in US policy (or rather level of power) in Latin America.

Can the US use sanctions to preserve its dollar hegemony? In the short run, yes but in the long run, one could not think of a stronger impetus for other countries to figure out an alternative. Reserve currencies that are issued by geopolitical rivals can be basically stolen by said rival in an instant. Moreover, alienating a country from the broader dollar denominated global financial system and supply chain, makes that country into a country with nothing to lose and one that will try to link up with other locked out countries.

Back when it was just Cuba, North Korea, and post 1991 Iraq, there was little the sanctioned countries could do but to beg for aid on humanitarian grounds. But sanctioning a larger country with massive oil reserves such as Iran and Russia, undermines the entire sanctions regime. As does sanctioning every country that is not a steadfast ally of the US to cooperate in that sanctions regime, doubly so when it’s India and China. Go ahead and treat a third of humanity like they are still colonial subjects. Basically, the US is building a bloc of the older sanctioned, the more newly sanctioned, and those who are not sanctioned (yet) but who are not going along with the sanctions.

This leaves us with the last option, proxy war, which we are doing in Ukraine. But because past foreign policy created this emerging bloc of counter US hegemony, Russia is not nearly as isolated as it would have been had this proxy war started 20 or 30 years ago.

So what the US should do right now is not allow its internal petite bourgeoisie wield enough power to end US dollar hegemony from within the US. This might seem counter intuitive. Why would Americans and fairly wealthy Americans at that want to torpedo what was supposed to be another American century? The answer is that being the seat of global empire and the current host of an all consuming global capitalism creates rivalries and contradictions within the US’ elites. The fulcrum of US politics is two primary blocs, one representing global corporations and other economic entities with a global reach (so FAANGs, the FIRe economy, US based universities, and media conglomerates), the military industrial complex, employees of those entities, labor unions, and people whose identities put them at risk when the second bloc is in power. The second bloc is based around small business, especially small businesses that are extractive, those that live off of tribute/rent seeking, law enforcement, and basically anyone who makes a good living off of the less glamour parts of capitalism, especially its externalities and contradictions and it’s inefficiencies.

The former bloc is honest (if only among its own elites) about the vital role that the state plays in capitalism at this stage of development while the former are raging against their own decline under late capitalism. Unlike the working class which would largely benefit from the end of capitalism, the petty bourgeois fascist can only demand a retvrn to a glorious and lost golden age and both the economic and social arrangements and hierarchies associated with that lost golden age. Hence, Make America Great Again.

It also must be noted that an empire in decline such as the US will bring its most brutal tools of its colonial empire back home. Which brings me full circle when I say that the GOP is demanding that US impose on itself either a lose of its reserve currency status (tantamount to economic sanctions) or it impose on itself brutal austerity measures which the world bank and IMF have done to countless countries on the periphery of US Empire.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

 

[mplsdunk]

You should watch damnation. You’d like it I think.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[Belgium]

“As a matter of fact, [the Hub] should be illegal”

FrEe SpEeCh

 

[Belgium]

What an extremely ****** up case. Dude has been nearly executed multiple times, to the point of having had “3 last meals” already. Whether he was actually involved in the murder or not, it’s very obvious the prosecutors’ destruction of evidence alone should suffice to free him.

 

[IATT]

 

[mister friendly]

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-temporarily-send-1500-troops-mexico-border-source-2023-05-02/

 

[IATT]

 

[layziegunts]

MY MAYOR

That’s my bro bro

 

[biggie62]

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[uncalled4boy]

Fam I Cant Believe This Is Real

And You KNOW Some Folks In There Was On They Phone Trynna Find The Hunter Vids On The Hub After