Sweet

Lot of volatility out there. Drop might not be over.

I get the trace back to Athens or Rome, but the only thing unique in their history was they were types of fledgling democracies, neither democracies were inherited in European history. Both Athenian and Roman democracies were extinguished and democracy didn’t return for a long time in Europe. The dictatorship, wars etc. This was universally present everywhere across the world. Nothing unique to Europe and therefore not a feature of the Greeks or Romans. So if democracy was truly the only unique thing about the Greek and Roman history, surely that’s the basis for defining what a Western nation is? We could say counties of European origin but it’s not much different than saying white since that’s what Europeans are. Or Christian. I don’t know. This is a long winded way of saying that I don’t like the comparison of West with X country.

Yes, I found that a strange thing to say. It honestly reads like white people wrote the playbook on genocide. Don’t think that is what Parsad meant, but it was my reaction.

100% get what you mean, but the West isn’t a monolith. It has changed over time, adding countries, losing countries. Belgium is a specific country, so is Germany and the UK, here we can point to a continuum of history. We can’t do that with the West. Does anyone here really think Nazi Germany was part of the West as we think of it today during WW2? That would mean blaming the West for the genocide committed by the Nazis, but at the same time crediting the West for helping to stop the Nazis? That doesn’t make sense. If the West is white people to you and others then just say white people. But let’s not pretend the Nazi Holocaust is equally the responsibly of the UK, France, USA etc under the umbrella of the ‘West’. We all know that BS. That’s like blaming the millions killed by Mao on ‘Orientals’ as you put it.

I’ve not been to Switzerland and Norway but I’ve been to many on this list above the US. The average person in the US has much more disposable income than some of these countries. Ireland and the UK are nowhere near as well off as their American counterparts, that’s really quite obvious if you visit the these countries.

Can you provide examples of how the West’s development relied on corporate espionage? What non-Western nation where these corporate secrets stolen from?

Agree with not getting too self righteous, but are you sure the West has perpetrated far more atrocities? I don’t even know when ‘the West’ that we are referring to even begins. I think of the West as a type of ideals, so I would include Japan being part of the ‘West’ post WW2. I wouldn’t include Germany or Italy as being part of the ‘West’ during WW2 because they abandoned that liberal order. 5,000 years is a very long time. The Chinese fought a lot of wars and committed a lot of massacres, many probably unknown: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China I think all historic people were ruthless. Some better documented than others.

Great post.

I’m sure you already know, but these 3x ETFs have horrible decay in their value when held for the long term. Be careful with these.

I didn’t say Europe has no innovation, I said it had little innovation, and if it wasn’t clear I was making that in comparison to the amount of innovation in America. The only reason this came up was because you said German engineering and Russian resources threatened the US economy. In 2008 the GDP of Europe was roughly the same size or bigger than US GDP. Now the US economy is much bigger than Europe’s economy and we have far more people living in Europe. We are doing something wrong. You named a handful of European companies, the US has far more world leading tech companies. Airbus is definitely better than Boeing right now, one thing we can agree on at least.

So Luca, you’re saying we would be better off closer to Russia whilst simultaneously heralding that Russia would never attack us because of NATO. Right. European tech companies cannot hold a candle to US. I wish it wasn’t the case but it’s simply a fact that America beats Europe easily on innovation and technology.

I’m saying your ideas are fringe to inform others reading along that I’ve never met anybody in Europe who shares your belief. They are fringe because it’s truly a moronic take and I think the reasons why are self-evident. There is a saying Luca, ‘peace through strength’ and another which is ‘weakness invites aggression’. Two percent was never appropriate. Putin has been picking away at Ukraine for nearly a decade so it’s strange that Europe only just found religion. Russian energy and German engineering is not an economic threat to the US. The US has pulled away from Europe many years before the Ukraine war. Look at the divergence in economic performance from 2008 to the Russian invasion. There is little innovation in Europe, we are over taxed and over regulated. Russia is not an adversary? LMAO! You’re insane.

Biden was never going to sort the border to the satisfaction of the GOP and its supporters. I think this was clear a good while ago. And I think Biden was more than happy to lay the blame for Ukraine at the feet of the GOP (even though he had the power to gift weapons to Ukraine without Congress).

Yes Luca, a sphere of influence thousands of miles away. It’s not a new concept. A war between the US and China in the Eastern Pacific is a real possibility in the future, not according to me, but according to the US military. Nuclear war - unlikely. You don’t know who bombed the Nord pipeline anymore than I do.

I’m European Luca, and I find some of your beliefs astonishing. Your view that we should be closer to Russia and China is fringe and that’s a charitable interpretation. I don’t know anybody else, especially after the invasion of Ukraine, who thinks we would be better off closer to Russia. Many European countries have not been meeting their 2% defence spending commitment for a long time. Our security has been subsidised by the US for decades. We should have been more independent militarily decades ago. We need to get real. And instead of thanking Americans from saving Eastern Europe from Russian domination and subsidising our security we get ungrateful comments like yours? Are you serious with that crap? Trump and Blinken are also right on trade. By trading with nations which are our adversaries we are helping them get strong and then they use that to undermine our values and way of life. No thank you.