At a certain level of wealth, where you “live” is kind of abstract. If you own several homes and constantly spending time at each, where you live legally is more of a formality.

But for a level down from this - when you’re wealthy but not so wealthy to pull this off - there are so many non-monetary reasons for where you live. Someone who loves California weather and the taxes don’t actually make much of an impact in their enjoyment of life? Why the fuck would you move to Tennessee or Florida? Or if all your friends and family live near you now, why move somewhere and isolate yourself just to make a political point about taxes?

Yeah me too. It has problems but not nearly as many as Dances With Wolves.

You do know you’re posting on Hexbear right? And we do actually say “fuck veterans” here?

Apparently Kneecap came out and said they do not, in fact, support Hamas or Hezbollah.

While a little disappointing, I do believe (and UK comrades can correct me if I’m wrong), that expressing verbal support for “designated terrorist groups” actually can land you in jail in the UK.

So if that’s true, I at least kinda understand why they’re saying it.

I believe - and I think there’s a tremendous amount of evidence that supports me - that the stock market is “efficient” in the sense that all information is processed nearly instantly (that doesn’t mean stock markets lead to efficient allocation of capital, that’s a very different thing). So that begs the question, the market is NOT pricing in an economic crash. Why?

It’s reasonable to conclude that market makers are not on the Trump Train and don’t actually believe he will restart American manufacturing or bring in hundreds of billions in tariff revenue.

OK, so that means the market thinks the tariffs won’t have much of an impact. Given the broad consensus among economists of all stripes about tariffs, it’s also reasonable to conclude that it’s not that the market anticipates there will be no impact from tariffs.

Thus, I think that right now the market assumes these tariffs won’t stick, and that they’ll actually disappear fairly soon. Market makers are not blind acolytes of capitalism, though. They have a laser focus on making money. So IMO, I think they have reliable inside information that the tariffs won’t stick. Like, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bessent is begging China to just give Trump the most nominal, pointless win so he can fold. And the market - looking back on the past - thinks China will end up being the rational grown-up and will spare any economic pain for giving Trump is cookie.

And… they might be right. Or at least, I see why this is the response from bourgeois capitalists. But I think if the market ever gets the notion that the tariffs might actually stick then I think you will see the market crash hard and fast. Maybe not as bad as 1929 because I think the market will hold out hope that the tariffs will be lifted (and why would anyone destroy the economy on purpose?) if things get really bad.

Jon Elmer. I’ve watched him on EI’s livestream for over a year now. Highly recommend it. It’s on Thursday mornings or you can watch previous ones on their channel (his segment is called “The Resistance Report” and usually starts about 2/3rds of the way through)

He lived in the West Bank and Gaza too I think for several years, so it’s not like he’s just some western OSINT guy without any experience on the ground. From the start until the ceasefire, Jon would constantly explain how the Resistance was fighting in Gaza. He was a lone voice that was (correctly IMO) pointing out how the IOF was completely unable to hold any ground in Gaza, and how even in places they tried to cut off they would face stiff local resistance.

That said, I don’t think he has quite the knowledge or experience about Yemen as he does Palestine. Not that he’s wrong on anything, but just that he doesn’t have quite the same connection and background there.

I don’t like Naomi Klein’s anti-China brainworms so I’m gonna skip that section, but I’m reading The Shock Doctrine right now and it really does seem like this is the plan - to shock, destroy, and rebuild. Shock Doctrine is what neoliberal America imposed on so much of the world, so this really is an example what’s learned in the periphery coming home to the core.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?

Captain Ramius: I suppose.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?

Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

This is from a movie made at the end of the Cold War, meant to highlight the freedom Americans have versus the lack of freedom the Soviets had.

I get that LotR has its problems but the fact that these hyper ghouls strip something from that beautiful text and wear it like a mask is absolutely disgusting to me, and I have no doubt Tolkien (despite his flaws) would be horrified.

and with the far right on the rise worldwide

This is some “only the Global North really matters” type of thinking (I mean the author of the article, not you OP). Sure, fascism is on the rise in the US and Western Europe (and maybe some adjacent areas like Argentina or Poland)… but this isn’t necessarily true in the rest of the world. And I think the Catholic Church is pivoting to the Global South anyway. It’s sound logic that they may not want a further reformer, but I don’t buy the argument I quoted.

I had to spend the weekend in Trumpland. His supporters already have their excuses locked and loaded. No matter how bad the economy gets - 20% unemployment, 1929 stock market crash, whatever - the US economy was already fundamentally broken because of democrats and their “loony lefty” socialistic policies over the last few decades. However bad it gets, the suffering was “necessary” because our entire economy was built on a shaky foundation - not because of capitalism, of course. But because we didn’t do ENOUGH raw, uncut capitalism.

tbf our own comrade XHS said work culture in China is often very intense, much more than the US.

If I was evil and an advisor to Trump, I would make a deal with Abrego Garcia and his family that they will get him out of CECOT but he has to remain in El Salvador forever and not try and return to the US (CECOT seems so bad I imagine he would take that deal). Trump and the GOP can spin it to their base as “keeping illegal immigrants” while taking the pressure off Trump to allow to him to do more evil shit with deportations.

This place objectively sucks. I suppose the Grand Canyon is something you can’t see anywhere else and while I’ve seen it and it is spectacular, I wouldn’t base an entire intercontinental trip over it.

This analysis makes a lot of sense to me.

Lunch time in New York and the S&P 500 has already lost about half its gains from yesterday.

I think it’s important to understand that just because Bessent has the title of Treasury Secretary doesn’t mean he actually understands how the economy works. He’s just a finance bro. He’s a guy who made a lot of money in investments. You can make billions in finance but not really understand how the economy works (even by bourgeois economics standards). Contrast that with someone like Powell, who has probably forgotten more than Bessent knows about how the economy works.

I was gonna comment but I think you’ve said it all pretty well.

Honestly the “smart” move for Trump, if he’s determined to beat China, would be to get China’s other major trading partners to tariff/embargo China. But Trump is absolutely incapable of understanding how to make alliances and focus on a target. The absolute best he could would be to tell the EU they either embargo China or he’ll hit them with a 125% tariff too.

In a normal global crisis of capitalism, investors want to buy Treasury bonds - it’s like their security blankie. More investors want Treasuries, the yield on Treasuries go down due to basic laws of supply and demand. The US government has more buyers and more competition for the bonds, so they can pay a lower yield.

Well, we are experiencing a major crisis and yields are going UP. So the opposite is happening. That means despite the current crisis, global investors do NOT want Treasuries right now. That indicates a major loss of faith in the US. Need to see how it plays out, though.