http://i.imgur.com/yWEl4Kc.jpg
Word today is that they've made a $2,000,000,000,000 accounting error.Quote:
Originally Posted by ItalAussie
Yeah, I heard it was something like the public will be $2bn better off from taxation, but that $2bn will be used to do x, y, z.
Staggering if true.
heh
Not $2 billion. $2 trillion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yevrah
The last secretary of the treasury says that the error was such that would cause you to fail a first year economics paper.
True to form, Trumps team have dug in and defended it. :D
The footage of him shaming the NATO bludgers is pretty great.
He's completely right as well. The visible discomfort was great.
Out the way, cuck.
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_vide...VuoQpFhJAV.mp4
Jesus Christ :D
Someone needs to overlay that with the Stone Cold entrance.
*glass breaks*
BAH GAWD, IT'S THE DONALD! BAH ALL THAT IS HOLY, DONALD TRUMP IS HERE IN BRUSSELS AND HE DOES NOT LOOK HAPPY
He really is just a complete and utter retard. Every so often it sort of hits me again that the US really did elect him as their fucking president.
Macron absolutely donned him senseless with his handshake :drool:
:D
Is that real?
Unfortunately not.
Just a mild bit of treason for the Trump crew today: https://www.axios.com/kushner-wanted...423483132.html
:D Wot?
Erm..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBGPFyMU0AAPNCV.jpgQuote:
Spent the morning talking with constituents gathered outside the office today, then popped upstairs to take a quick pic!
There's a theory gaining momentum that Trump has dementia.
lol
Does "Laur" know about CovFefe @Lee?
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?lang=en-gb
:lol:
Still up after 5 hours.
Who cares? It's a typo. Every joke I've seen about that has been fucking dogshit as well.
Yeah I fail to see the MASSIVENESS about it as well.
Looks like the U.S. will be pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
The same agreement that was signed up to by 195 out of 197 countries. If the U.S. pulled out they would be joining Syria (who have a civil war to manage) and Nicaragua (who boycotted as they didn't feel the agreement went far enough)
Hopefully less shit countries (*crickets*) will realize that international agreements are worth fuck all and start working on cleaning their own act as opposed to trying to convince everyone else to do so.
Some of these commentators look absolutely stricken.
Cleanest country on Earth. :D
Well it is disheartening when we actually have something approaching a common consensus and approach to climate change at threat of being dismantled because some orange baboon says 'der weather terk er jerbs!!'
'At what point do they start laughing at us, as a country?'
I think that point was when you got elected mate.
And yet he's president of the United States and a billionaire, so he's doing alright isn't he.
"It's great wealth. It’s phenomenal wealth. Not so long ago, we had no idea we had so much wealth."
Someone needs to send him to a GCSE English class.
I wonder what they'll use that MASSIVE WEALTH for.
You're genuinely ill, aren't you.Quote:
Originally Posted by GS
I'd do alright if I was a billionaire's son.
I love this headline:
Quote:
How Do You Decide to Have a Baby When Climate Change Is Remaking Life on Earth?
The US is increasingly consigning itself to irrelevance on the international stage. This is just another instance of it.
Isn't this the very opposite of irrelevance? It's not like Latvia has bailed on it.
The relevance will surely depend on what other countries decide to do, no? If they soldier on as if nothing happened it is one thing. If they shit the bed, as they will, then you can chalk an e-victory on Tronald's board.
Imagine if they did their own climate plan that did far more than the Paris agreement?
:harold:
http://i.makeagif.com/media/2-13-2014/afGBMn.gif
Gawd bless murica!
What actually stands to change? Won't most states just enact legislation that mirrors half of what was aimed for in the agreement? Even the ones that keep digging coal are hardly going to start poisoning the water table.
Nothing will change. As I said above, these agreements are not worth much in any case. Everyone will ultimately do whatever they want to do. It is all about sending a message.
It is a bit lol to celebrate the opening of new mines though. Greatest country in the world! Come work at our coal mines!
I believe NY and Cali have already said they will uphold the agreement regardless.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
If he starts fucking about with subsidies then that might have an impact. Not sure he'll bother though.
The loss is really in soft power. We take for granted the deference (or at least positive connotation) we get that so much of the world's future ruling class goes to school here. That same thing happens from us being the party that is always at the negotiation, the military solution, or trade deals. That we mistake all that soft power for foreign aid, which is all hard power, means we lose all the benefits we get from that. China is already leading trade negotiations in Asia now that we walked from TPP. It is not necessarily in the US's interest if Europe finally gets their act together. Walking away from being first among equals at the table is different from just walking away from a seat. It is why corporate CEO's are all coming out against this.
On the topic of soft power etc., I found this article interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/u...eadership.html
Quote:
WASHINGTON — President Trump has managed to turn America First into America Isolated.
In pulling out of the Paris climate accord, Mr. Trump has created a vacuum of global leadership that presents ripe opportunities to allies and adversaries alike to reorder the world’s power structure. His decision is perhaps the greatest strategic gift to the Chinese, who are eager to fill the void that Washington is leaving around the world on everything from setting the rules of trade and environmental standards to financing the infrastructure projects that give Beijing vast influence.
Mr. Trump’s remarks in the Rose Garden on Thursday were also a retreat from leadership on the one issue, climate change, that unified America’s European allies, its rising superpower competitor in the Pacific, and even some of its adversaries, including Iran. He did it over the objections of much of the American business community and his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, who embraced the Paris accord when he ran Exxon Mobil, less out of a sense of moral responsibility and more as part of the new price of doing business around the world.
Quote:
“The irony here is that people worried that Trump would come in and make the world safe for Russian meddling,” said Richard N. Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who was briefly considered, then rejected, for a top post in the new administration. “He may yet do that,” Mr. Haass added, “but he has certainly made the world safe for Chinese influence.”
Quote:
That sentiment was evident on Thursday in Berlin. Just hours before Mr. Trump spoke, China’s premier, Li Keqiang, stood alongside Ms. Merkel, and used careful words as he described China as a champion of the accord. China believed that fighting climate change was a an “international responsibility,” Mr. Li said, the kind of declaration that American diplomats have made for years when making the case to combat terrorism or nuclear proliferation or hunger.
China has long viewed the possibility of a partnership with Europe as a balancing strategy against the United States. Now, with Mr. Trump questioning the basis of NATO, the Chinese are hoping that their partnership with Europe on the climate accord may allow that relationship to come to fruition faster than their grand strategy imagined.
Now, the talk about the Paris deal by itself is a bit hollow given that it allowed for China to increase it's CO2 output, but things like the final bit with the whole "New Silk Road"-project does indicate that Trump might actually be accelerating a global shift with China as the leader. Sinosphere here we come.Quote:
Mr. Xi announced the sweeping initiative last month, envisioning spending $1 trillion on huge infrastructure projects across Africa, Asia and Europe. It is a plan with echoes of the Marshall Plan and other American efforts at aid and investment, but on a scale with little precedent in modern history. And the clear subtext is that it is past time to toss out the rules of aging, American-dominated international institutions, and to conduct commerce on China’s terms.
Until the South Koreans, Australians, and Israelis look to France for their defence, I'm taking all of these statements as exaggerations.
If our new 'world power' China takes us all back to communism I'm all for it.
It's all good though, Macrunt has released another video. :wanker:
Playing tough. :DQuote:
Emmanuel Macron also invited American scientists and entrepreneurs to come work in France. "To all the scientists, entrepreneurs, engaged citicizens that were disappointed by the US president's decision," he assured them that they would "in France, find a second nation." "I am calling you: come work here, with us, on concrete solutions about climate," he added. "Tonight, America has turned its back on America, but France will never turn its back on Americans," Emmanuel Macron added.
The US providing defence for either Australia or Israel is already an exaggeration. You are indispensable until people realize it is easier to do it themselves because every marketplace with an indispensable player is definitionally broken. The next round of trade negotiations in Asia is already happening and we have decided not to play. Someone will fill the void and US companies from Disney to Exxon coming out on climate agreements is the tell that we usually get what we want. Why mess with it? Over an issue that is as dead as gay marriage was in 92?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewis
I thought I'd enjoy the death of movement conservatism but President Whoosh Whoosh Boom Boom even ruins that.