I will never not read that as magic the gathering, it makes the news so much better
Which in turn reminds me of this internet classic that never fails to make me laugh
Wait… Does she matter? Why is there such an overlap between politicians in the US, and people you are surprised aren’t in an asylum?
the next tweet, wonder when marge started throwing a fit
I can’t believe the Republicans are appeasers. They beat the drum for decades how Democrats couldn’t stand up to tyrants, and now Republicans are literally appeasers. It’s 1984 levels of turnaround.
Fun fact for those on the fence about this, the US has monetary sovereignty in a fiat currency, which means that the US government has essentially infinite money.
Edit: for those that are curious, yes, the game about the federal budget is exactly that. The deficit is essentially tracking the amount of money that the federal government owes to itself. Remember, fiat currency means that the value of money exists because the government says that it holds that specific value. A $2 dollar bill is still worth $2 when purchasing items, but worth several $ more than the printed value.
Edit 2: I didn’t think it needed to be said, but I’ve been proven wrong. I don’t literally mean infinite money.
I wonder, sometimes, what a society would look like without inflation. Is there an economic system that says “this is the price of bread, from now on” and builds off of that?
Of course, my only talents are music and memes, so I doubt that I’d specifically benefit from such a system, but maybe humanity as a whole?
Holy Zimbabwe Batman!
For those that are curious this is not even remotely close to how the economy words. The us government absolutely does not have unlimited real money, sure they can print money and it will become worthless. But that’s not the same.
Absolutely correct. And for more detail on how non-fiat economies work and why the deficit is essentially a fiction to keep bond markets functioning, I recommend reading “The Deficit Myth” by Stephanie Kelton. This also explains why the EU will never rival the US (TLDR: EU member states are not able to control their individual monetary policies).
I think that MTG, and a lot of commenters on here, need to realise that Ukraine will not stop this war until Russia are out, regardless of the international support or otherwise. Even if Ukraine is overrun completely the war would not stop, but would go on until Russia leave.
I would add three things to what they need to realize:
It is possible for Ukraine to win.
Russia is a ruthless and incompetent oligarchy, and they cannot be allowed to expand their territory.
Fighting or fleeing are vastly preferable to being subsumed by Russia.
All perfectly correct. However, it is a war that Russia will never win, like Afghanistan.
To elaborate on this point: Russia is trying to 1 take Ukraine and 2 keep it. They have not succeeded in part 1, and part 2 is much much more difficult. Afghanistan, as stated in the above comment, is a good example of this: the war to take Afghanistan took less than a year, whereas the struggle to keep it under control was failing two decades in.
Russia can’t even do the easy part.
Of course, this is assuming that they’re not just trying to keep hold of Crimea so they have a port on the black sea, which I think is the real reason they’re prosecuting the war.
To add on – we need to recognize that Russia is trying to enforce the old rules of imperialism. In their eyes, Ukraine did not have the right to determine their own future and who they wanted to ally with. Russia had to approve of all their decisions and Russia controlled them.
Defeating Russia is more then Ukrainian independence. It is an unequivocal statement by the West that we will not allow imperialism nor wars of conquest to resurface in Europe. And hopefully with time, this extends to the rest of the world too, and other countries will check Western ones if we begin to forget that.
At the end of the day, a country’s sovereignty and right to self determination are sacred, only to be stripped if they use it to deny others of the same. There is a clear leftist geopolitical perspective here for continuing to back Ukraine.
That’s great and all, but mostly it’s keeping one of their largest geopolitical rivals tied up in a war that saps their strength at relatively small cost.
Multiple things can be true. And we’re hardly keeping them tied up in a war when they can unilaterally withdraw and end the war. If they don’t want to end up in a protracted, hopeless war, they can stop at any time.
To add on – we need to recognize that Russia is trying to enforce the old rules of imperialism.
Which is absolutely bullshit when you consider that originally Moscow was in Ukraine, not Russia
The fuck are you talking about. The capital of the old Rus was Kiev, hence it being called the Kieven Rus. But moscow was at most an irrelevent village at best during most of the history of the Kieven Rus, it wasnt until the Mongols that you see Moscow become relevent through trade and not getting pillaged.
This is the equivelent of saying Dublin was originally in England not Ireland. Its nonsense.
People refuse to recognize that the Ukrainian people do not want to be taken over by the Russians. There’s no good reason why they should be. They refuse to acknowledge the desires of the people, maybe because fighting back against an oppressor is foreign to their own cowardly psychology.
How is it “clean” when it defunded support for Ukraine and added pay increases for Congress?
Fucking congress doesn’t deserve to get paid (the obstructionist assholes) let alone a fucking raise. Cut social security but let’s give ourselves a raise to the six figure salaries we already make. Fuck off
This isn’t a great take. If Congress paid poorly only rich people (or their minions) would be able to afford the job. If Congress paid really well, like as well as engineering or banking, then people would be more heavily incentived to compete for the slot by getting better education, or by desiring the role in the first place. Since a lot of well educated highly qualified people are working elsewhere bc it is better pay and conditions, you can tell which reality we are already in.
Only rich people can afford the job right now. What’s the fucking difference?
They’re funded through next Feb, iirc. They’re not going to run out of support - until the next shitshow discussion that is
If it’s any consolation Congress can’t raise their own pay for the current term, the increase will go into effect starting Jan 1st 2025
clean? republicans defunded more military funding for ukraine
But isn’t that just because it wasn’t covered in the 45 day bill? They didn’t address it, it needs to be addressed, but they didn’t defund what we already funded.
