The US president and his ally in the Kremlin want to use 100bn euros* of Russia’s frozen assets to be invested in a venture to rebuild Ukraine, while 50% of the venture’s profit would go to the US (according to point 14 of Trump’s initial ‘peace plan’ for Ukraine).

This makes so little sense, why would the US deserve a percentage of profit made from money they ‘stole’ from Russia? The businessman in chief might understand how to get money, but definitely does not understand how to do that in a way that’s morally right.

Maybe not, the Olympics survived a genocide so maybe Eurovision will get through this somehow

Duh, makes total sense, everything bad that happened is because of them. Need to get rid of 'em any means necessary and we have to do it quick, before they cause another national crises we could solve by just paying the bill. /s

I’m on your side, but uhm, good luck getting justice done dear.

Ai can generate hands with a billion fingers, but it can’t count so i guess they’re not likely ai after all.

I call fake, anyone who thinks like this died in a roof collapsing on them while they slept.

Edit: because they suck at building a house i mean, I guess they could have bought a house but nobody sells houses for an amount you can count with your FINGERS.

He really gets colour, very impressive putting these together

You wouldn’t steal an ancient artifact. O nvm, they must have a different reason.

Oops, i always thought the i in lgbtqi stood for intersex, silly me.

Also don’t forget if you want to light a fire during a snowstorm, you need a larger amount of accelerant.

If China was treating the west back then like it does now, it would definitely not have been as desirable to move production there. Afaik there hasn’t been a single event that changed everything, so the number 15 is a bit random; but the attitude of the west towards China and vice versa definitely shifted. Also Russia was for a short moment not seen as an enemy state (although Russia might have considered the west as their enemy all along)

Japan is a good example of how this doesn’t have to be a two way street. Could also be that US and Europe (where I’m from) don’t always have the same perception, so could be i wrote the west where Europe would’ve been more accurate.

Haven’t been to either but authoritarian doesn’t have to mean suppressive. And in both cases it might matter a lot where you go and who you are (as in your wealth, skin colour, connections etc).

Rich english-speaking countries better brace themselves because there’s about to be a lot more desperate people with all the cuts to foreign aid that are going on.

English is their official language but i believe there are a lot different languages spoken there, the main one is like a version of english that is very different to actual english. But i haven’t been there so maybe look it up if you want to know exactly. Scots and Irish people can also be hard to understand if they speak ‘their’ english. But Nigeria and Bangladesh were colonised by the British and that makes them better english speakers than many other poor countries with cheap labour.

If the Chinese economy was run out of a board room at JP Morgan or through a series is military based commanded by NATO Generals or via a client state like Israel or Japan, we wouldn’t hear any complaints

Western markets would still be overrun by cheap products (partly because of subsidies and partly because forced labour), Chinese residents would still be supressed by heavy surveillance, Taiwan would still be threatened, Russia would still be supplied with technology to invade Ukraine.

Until 15 years ago China wasn’t considered a hostile state, just an increasingly powerful competitor. All nations benefit their fomestic residents, or at least their domestic corporations.

The real situation in which there wouldn’t be complaints would be when the Chinese benefitted their residents while at the same time didn’t do anything the west didn’t like. But since they’ve become pwerful, they can now do whatever they want (just like other powerful countries) - and some of the stuff they want, is bad for the west.

I want to agree, but at the same time i feel the concentrated power at the top is very similar in both countries. The one party system in China is very different to the two party system in the US, but I don’t think that is what makes the difference. I think China genuinely wants the poor to be less poor and the US genuinely want the rich more rich. Different goals obviously lead to different results.

But I do agree the system shouldn’t allow room for power to be abused. The checks and balances system is definitely broken.

Last paragraph basically says it all:

This is not to congratulate China for its authoritarian government, for its repression of minorities or for the iron fist it deploys against any form of dissent. But it merits pondering how this undemocratic government could successfully slash its poverty rate when the richest and oldest democracy in the world wouldn’t.

I’m old enough to remember this and I approve of your suggestion. But tbh i’d also be fine with 10, 1, 4 and 7.

They are the boss, i agree, but the factually Trump is in the highest position and factually nobody rules over him. I’m not argueing that reality is different, because it’s obvious Trump is behaving as a russian asset.

I got your point, just tried to make the distinction between ruling and controlling, because in my eyes the verb ruling is for those who are factually in charge (the people in official positions) and controlling is a better fit for those that are de facto in charge (oligarchs, international corpo’s, foreign state actors etc).