> Yeah, because he was guarding them against the current administration abusing the Justice Department to go after them
Ha ha. They (democrats overall) need to look inwards for that.
> Same reason he pardoned Fauci and others.
Fauci screwed up our country so bad, it aint even funny. The fact that he needed a PRE-EMPTIVE (i.e. he wasn't even accused of anything at the time) pardon says it all. And the fact that Biden gave it to him, says everything there is to say about Biden.
> And from what we've seen, he was right to do so.
Not even close.
> Although, they've been angling to declare his pardons void so they can go after whoever they wish.
They should.
- Look at what Biden did to the southern border. And look at it now.
- Look at almost any "democrat" run major city. Any. Then look at the crime rates and cost of living.
- And the recent farce that was this "No Kings" crap...
Trump isn't perfect. Far from it. He's got major flaws, both in character and execution. However, name any major policy initiative that he's undertaken that is bad for the "country". As a whole.
> However, name any major policy initiative that he's undertaken that is bad for the "country".
His foreign policy means even the EU is now looking inward more because we simply don't trust you guys anymore. Thanks, we were depending on you guys too much anyway! It will take a while before we're weened off of you for sure, but your global influence will shrink tremendously thanks to your current president's untrustwortiness.
In dutch we have a saying which is roughly translated as "Trust comes on foot, and leaves by horse"
Electricity prices are up everywhere. We're still way lower than many many places. There's many parts of the US (take a wild guess where all the data centers are going...) where electric rates are <$.10/kwh.
Now compare that to...
Yes, solar and wind projects are being canceled, and yes, there may be an element of ideology involved, but the reality also is that the math aint working.
If the math worked, Europe's energy prices wouldn't be where they are now, given the commitment they've made to renewables. I'd much rather see a national focus on nuclear, which is as clean as any other form of energy, and to a degree that is happening now.
The math is clear - solar + batteries is the cheapest source of electricity. China isn't generating 80% of all new electricity with solar because they want to be green above all else.
> Europe's energy prices wouldn't be where they are now, given the commitment they've made to renewables
Again a tired old lie. Europe is a big place, just like the US. Some countries have high prices and some countries don't.
I agree it has to put the people first, just like China is doing. And if you want to get on the climate change soapbox, it's too late. The US produces more global warming emissions per capita than any other country, and China's not going to catch up.
The US has been a top, if not the top, producer and exporter of oil for some time. Trump's not particularly involved in that above and beyond using it as a campaign slogan.
The problem is that the rest of the world is very actively moving on, led by China. A great many oil importing countries reduced their imports last year. China deploys more solar in 6 months than the US has deployed ever and is distributing this technology to the rest of the world far cheaper than they can bring it here. The US had a program to get 1000 new auto chargers installed. China installed 100,000. People are simply unaware of the sheer scale of the Chinese juggernaut. They think that since we're ahead now (questionable) and we're going 95 MPH, we'll always be ahead. They don't realize that China is going 250 and we're getting passed.
Trump would do well for the country to plan ahead JUST A LITTLE BIT.
But as Bolton said, it's unclear if Trump knows the difference between his personal interest and the national interest, or if he's even aware there is a national interest.
Easy: what passes for diplomacy has been so awful that nobody wants to buy weapons from us anymore, nor do they value our treaty commitments. Oh the irony of proposing to meet in Budapest.
>Trump isn't perfect. Far from it. He's got major flaws, both in character and execution. However, name any major policy initiative that he's undertaken that is bad for the "country". As a whole.
They're usually not that bad for his billionaire grifter buddies, I'll give you that.
I would say normalizing armed law enforcement wearing masks and refusing to provide any ID is utterly bad for the COUNTRY.
Or maybe it's only bad for the people who get assaulted or shot by them and have no way of recourse. Let's hope that's not you, eh?
Personally directing the Attorney General to prosecute his political enemies and then firing prosecutors until he finds one who will agree to do it. Basically what Nixon was to be impeached for now happening on a weekly basis.
He posted on Truth Social explicitly directing Pam Bondi to prosecute Bolton, James, and Comey. Then the DOJ charged them with crimes.
In the James case, Kristin Bird and Elizabeth Yusi (prosecutors in EDVA) were both fired for refusing to bring charges, only to be replaced by Trump's personal attorney Lindsey Halligan (who is not even a prosecutor).
In the Comey case, again they fired Erik Siebert, also from EDVA, because he wouldn't prosecute. They put Trump's personal attorney on instead and she immediately gave the prosecution a greenlight against a tight statute of limitations deadline.
Just watch: today there was a report that prosecutors in Maryland are hesitant to bring charges against Adam Schiff. My guess is whoever is gumming up the works there will be fired and replaced by another Halligan.
This is why it is pointless to reply to people like you.
You badger and badger and badger. You want examples, you want evidence. You want, you want, and you want. Never do you provide evidence. Never do you provide examples. And if you do provide something you claim to be an example, it's usually some vague declaration that really isn't true. But if someone pushes back, it's on them to "prove you wrong".
And the minute someone points out the actual facts of a situation in a way you are incapable of denying or shouting down, you run to your echo chambers to look for the talking points.
Why?
Why carry water for this administration? Their policies are going to be bad for you as well.
You may not notice it yet, but he has ruined the reputation of your country. People consider it insane to travel there now for vacations. We are actively avoiding American garbage. We are migrating away from American clouds.
He is focussed on short term bullshit while what matters on the world stage is soft power. America was considered trustworthy, the defacto leader of the world.
Now you're just a bully, an impotent one at that. You are no longer taken seriously.
You will notice the effects eventually, possibly after Trump is already rotting in his grave.
Companies more likely to want to save money on labor costs (employing many h1bs) are also likely to want to save money on Tooling costs, by using safe options like MSFT stuff, rather than finding better tools.
Also yes, due to availability and various other reasons, H1bs, particularly from India, seem more likely to use a MSFT stack.
It’s “do what everyone else does” style of corporate leadership.
“Nobody ever got fired for choosing MSFT” goes hand in hand with “if we don’t exploit the H1B system to get cheap coders who won’t sue us or try to organize then someone else will.”
Using FOSS, hiring citizens, treating employees well, actually innovating and producing great products, all hang together. Sadly, such companies and people are increasingly rare in tech, because the tech oligarchs fund bad people and bad products because they are often greedy egoists whose wealth is derived from being in the right place at the right time, or from what I call “moral arbitrage” (doing things others are too ethical to consider) rather than deriving wealth from actual talent or ingenuity. Ymmv
How about using tools that do their job great instead of one tool that can do them all but none of them good.
It tells the company values price more than capability.
I asked in my company why we use SharePoint and the answer was name a better alternative.
So I asked an better alternative to do what?
I never got an answer.
What about reciprocal cooperation with countries around the world? Foundation invests in country bonds, countries include small yearly payments (like dividends?) to the foundation.
There is more and more of these "essential global infrastructure" projects, many of them non-profit, yet I'm not sure we're seeing a lot of investment from the globe into those projects.
Dunno - it's worked ok for Oxford and Cambridge for many centuries, and the Church. I'd rather have land owned by vaguely public benefit bodies than some private equity fund.
What Wikipedia are you looking at? It's one of the things that has survived the longest on the Internet without being enshittified. It could live on in Cockroach Mode forever off the money from a modest solar farm or investment in an index fund. If someone sociopath bought the Wikimedia Foundation and tried to strip-mine Wikipedia, the Wikipedia editors could easily take a copy and go elsewhere.
Ironically, I was just listening to an interview with Jimmy Wales in which he said that, as individuals, most humans are basically good. They don't meet someone on the street and think "what is the rate of return on interacting with this thing?"
I really cannot tell if this is sarcasm (seems not?) or trolling (sounds like it).
How are we reminding China that the US is a big dog? By imposing tariffs? By demonstrating our ability to do work domestically that they believe us unwilling or incapable of doing?
What does this even mean, to be a big dog in the modern world? It seems more like a large ship listing to one side … if it collapses there will be a lot of small ships damaged in the wake.
Remember, Mommy,
I'm off to get a Commie,
So send me a salami,
And try to smile somehow.
I'll look for you when the war is over ---
An hour and a half from now
The usual solutions - money and violence - are not applicable here. China doesn't need the money and can't be bullied. Sources other than China are not going to cut it in the short and mid term. This is a geopolitical nightmare for the US and deserves more media attention.
>The US Dollar has never been 100% backed by any metal.
This is not accurate but the devil is always in the details. What exactly does "backed by" mean? If we mean pre Bretton Woods (1971), then, for all intents and purposes it WAS backed by Gold, not just a promise. The federal reserve could not conjure up fiat dollars on theirs (or anybody else's) whims and fancies.
Pre-1971 US dollars could be freely traded/swapped for gold at any bank at the then rate of 1oz of Gold = $35. This was written in stone.
Of course, then Nixon did what he did in 1971, and as they say the rest is history.
p.s. The Bretton Woods Agreement/system/whatever you wanna call it, came into being in the aftermath of WWII, in 1944. This was [1] essentially an agreement that those 44 countries will use the US dollar (and by correlation, the USD<->gold peg) as long as the (US) powers that be didn't fuck it up.
p.s.2 - A lot of people don't realize that these accords were what established the IMF, and the beginning the World Bank, BIS etc.
So, what happened in 1971 and what did Nixon do?
"On August 15, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon announced his New Economic Policy, a program “to create a new prosperity without war.” Known colloquially as the “Nixon shock,” the initiative marked the beginning of the end for the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates established at the end of World War II." - per US Office of the Historian.
So, yes, things can change due to government actions, and yes Bitcoin and its peers could be rendered worthless in a heartbeat, if the power that be want it.
>What really backs the US dollar is the US military
Agreed. But as always there's a time factor. This was true around that time, but not so much today in 2025. While the European military assets are not worth talking about, China and Russia both have continued developing those assets and do present an equalizer today. Are they equal to/better/worse than the US military is somewhat of a moot point. They exist. That in itself is the point.
[1] - The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial relations among 44 countries, including the United States, Canada, Western European countries, and Australia,[1] after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement until the Jamaica Accords in 1976. - As per Wikipedia.
It was generally understood by 1970 that the US didn't hold enough gold to fulfill the promise. You as a normal person couldn't go to any bank and get 1oz of gold though, only other countries could do that and they didn't in large amounts and so it worked out despite there not being enough gold in the US.
In the 1800s 1oz of gold was tradable for $20. The $35 figure was already accounting for some inflation despite the backing (I don't recall the year it changed, but sometime in the 1930s seems reasonable)
$1 used to be tradable for 1oz of silver. since silver and gold have different supplies though sometimes you could (in the 1800s) make a lot of money from this.
> The $35 figure was already accounting for some inflation despite the backing (I don't recall the year it changed, but sometime in the 1930s seems reasonable)
January 31, 1934. But first the US Treasury took over the US gold supply from the Federal Reserve.
This is the most naive take on...well, currencies, gold and their relationship, that I've seen in a very long time.
Imagine it was 1970. You had dollars and you had gold and they were inexorably tied to each other. Gold was ~$35/oz at the time and you swap dollars for gold easily. You could keep your "money" in dollars or gold. If you chose dollars at the time...you made very bad decision (1972...Nixon...the US went off the gold standard...and all that).
There's no DXY to measure from that time, but who gives a shit. Let's measure in terms of "Purchasing Power". In the early 70s, the average wage in the US was ~$9800 and the average house price was ~$17,000. So, at the time you could take your "dollars" and buy the median house for $17K or so. So, roughly twice the median wage.
Fast forward a few decades...
In 2022 the average wage in the US was ~$54,000 and the average house price was ~$375,000. So....roughly 6.5 times the average wage.
Notice a problem yet?
Now, let's take gold.
Price in 1970 - $35/oz
Price in 2022 - ~$2,000/oz.
Price in 2025 - ~$4,000/oz
So, gold has gone up ~57x, from 1970 to 2022 and ~114x from 1970 to 2025.
If your wages had climbed in-line since 1970, the average wage in 2025 would be $1.2M, but of course it didn't. Why? It's the dollar stupid, not gold.
If you took every spare dollar you had in 1970 and bought gold...vs keeping dollars in the bank...
That's the dollar's "worth", not a fucking index against other fiat currencies.
The damage is indeed done. If they wanted to do it the right way, they should have offered Synology branded HDDs (from whatever upstream vendor) AT COST to their customers.
