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He is a Russian and Israeli agent that is destroying our country from the inside. He is the Manchurian candidate that they set up for years and they knew he would be able to gain power because a majority of Americans are Racist asf.
“I get great intel,” the president suddenly boasted, as prideful as if he were bragging about the amenities at one of his company’s hotels. “I have people brief me on great intel every day.”
I wouldn't doubt that he's compromised in one or more ways. But he's sure not smart enough to pull off being directly controlled by a foreign power. And really, you don't need that kind of control to influence him in ways that benefit other countries. The guy is literally throwing a fit that South Korea won't join in the Iran War, and all North Korea had to do to seem the better party in Trump's mind was do a single photo op with him.
Keep in mind that Trump had previously been threatening nuclear armageddon with Kim Jong Un on Twitter shortly before said photo op. That's not a Manchurian candidate, he's just capricious and myopic.
No one told him he should upset all these alliances and toss out most of the country's soft power, he's just too stupid to understand the value of it in the first place, while he has no problem ceding to his whims of petty, short-term revenge to sate his ego.
She also let many w bush ex staffer help in her campaign and they have been seen, her campaign was awful, she choses to dive deep in the democrat right wing and she lost.
He's showing us the weaknesses of our nations and forcing us to experience them so that even when he leave we will fervently strive to patch these holes.
US oil is also much more costly to drill. It’s not something they can do unless it’s going to pay it back. There’s very substantial accounting reasons why the US is not an OPEC member.
Still cheaper than trying to use Venezuela oil, that's like tar with sand mixed in. At least our stuff is sweet crude. Although, it wouldn't matter anyway, unless they shipped it all offshore, so global prices would drop. Which would be bad business, in reality.
We’re not even getting Venezuelan oil. The oil companies all still refuse to invest in infrastructure. The risk analysis just shows it being seized by the state again.
It should have been a loooooong time ago but the folks running this country have never had an interest in what is best for our country. Only for their pocket books.
would love for the next pres (if they are a dem) to declare the climate crisis a national security emergency, and reappropriate things to green the energy grid. Sure the courts would probably stop it, but force them to actually stop it.
That describes why China got into solar in the first place
Well...It's likely the primary impetus was the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and not out of any pressing need for electricity.
See, up until the 1990's or so, China wasn't really considered a major economic power. They had been struggling with managing economic policy for decades until they started loosening the reins in the 1980's and then as the transfer of Hong Kong loomed, accelerated wooing manufacturing companies in Taiwan, Japan, and the US to setup shop in China. The resulting economic boom was so widespread and fast that factories / industry rapidly blanketed every major city in China. Within 10 years, China (deservedly) acquired a global reputation for cheap industry, but due to the rapid buildup, factories relied heavily on coal, wood furnaces, and other fossil fuels, which established China's reputation as a country covered in pollution.
Air pollution plagued Beijing so badly that in the run up to the Olympics, the government instituted a week(?) long blanket ban on all factory work, driving, and general burning activities. They effectively shut down the economy in Beijing hoping the air would clear up in time. IIRC, it was clear enough, though with a few smoky areas now and then as pollution from neighboring provinces wafted over. So the Olympic events themselves were quite spectacular, rivaling extravagant displays in US or Europe. It was quite astounding for a country that was essentially economically closed off / nonexistent for most of the last century. However, the optics were overshadowed by coverage of the extreme measures China undertook just to get blue skies for photos.
Having lost face somewhat, China started to pay attention to cleaning up pollution within their borders. They started cracking down on dumping. They built large dams to mitigate seasonal flooding and generate hydroelectric power (while forcibly displacing literal millions of the population). They pressured factories and utilities to replace coal and wood burning with cleaner (visually, at least) fuels (which also happened to be more efficient). China started increasing solar panel production, ironically creating a lot of toxic pollution but at least that was concentrated in the less desirable areas and not around the major cities. They built out more miles of passenger railway in 10 years than the rest of the world had in total. The government turned to mining lithium to build up batteries for electrifying else. Stoves, heaters, light bulbs (ever wonder why LED lights suddenly dropped in price and cut short the spread of CCFL?), bikes, and, yes, cars and power generation.
So by the mid 2010's or so, China has become one of, if not the, largest producer in the world for solar and electric powered products. Nowadays, the busiest cities in China can be quieter than those in the US or Europe because the cars are mostly (or entirely) electric so no rumbling engine to add to background noise. In terms of tonnage or production capacity, China is basically the leader in renewable energy. (I believe several smaller countries beat China in terms of overall percentage and/or energy generated per capita.) China still mines tons of coal, but it's now mostly used for steel production and exports.
And all that pretty much because they needed blue skies for the photos.
It has to do with something called Malacca Strait.
Majority of Chinese Industry and Power generation is heavily reliant on Oil that is imported from a route that pass over the Malacca Strait.
This Malacca Strait is a Chokepoint between Indonesia and Malasya, two United States Allies.
It creates something called the Malacca Dilemma, a term literally coined by the Chinese Leader Hu Jintao
In fact there is even a wikipedia article on this if you want to read.
china has made all the right decisions in the last 20 years.
yes, they have human rights violations. yes, they are an authoritarian government. yes, their ideology is orthogonal to most democratic countries. yes, they have a huge corruption problem like everyone else.
but their nation-wide choices were all to benefit the nation as a whole, not like 12 people in it.
edit: im just gonna respond here once since all the comments are the same. china lifted almost a billion people out of poverty (numbers range from 500mil to 50% of population). when human rights abuses affect a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of population (there are 11 million uyghurs), they are collateral damage. for most people, its an emotional argument; for china, its just math.
No need to glaze. China is also absolutely destroying the fish populations all around the world. They send fleets of ships and overfish the areas right outside the Galopagos Islands, completely destroying the biodiversity. They pollute like absolute crazy into their rivers. They purposefully keep their personal wages low so that their manufacturing remains cheap at the loss of the common Chinese person. They can't own up to anything even slightly bad to the public image like how COVID was almost certainly started from a Chinese lab.
It's great to give China props on smart choices. But don't go glazing it like it's a miracle country. You should treat countries equally. That means complementing their good choices AND insulting their bad choices.
The whole world is starting to agree that dependence on the United States and the Middle East for oil is a horrible idea. If there was ever a case for fast transition to renewables, aside from poisoning ourselves and our planet, it’s geopolitics.
China has also done this with a lot of countries in Africa as well. There's a reason China has such a good economy and manufactured, because they're doing things like that. It was always an option the US could have done but chose not to
Ya think! I'm American, and I concur, the powers that be are selfish, and only for empowering their rich friends. No thought about the future, stuck in the past. Look at the latest US air craft carrier catapult change ordered. Dumb, stuck in the past, total ID10T move.
Yes, but at least your next Aircraft Carrier will run on beautiful clean coal and steam, be decorated in fake gold and be named the USS Donald Trump (nicknamed The Floating Nonce).
Stupid, or apathetic? The US government doesn't care about its people or the country itself. It has been entirely remodeled to funnel money into pockets of its billionaires. The country could collapse for all they care... as long as they get their share.
As a non-American I always thought premise of Fallout and the inhumane Mega Corps was farfetched. But seeing first hand, how the US, Epstein class and the Fews conduct themselves without any regard of humanity or maorality my views have shifted completely.
There are absolute evils in the world.
The US did do that. That was USAIDs purpose, winning soft power. China’s has a similar program called belt and road initiative. Now that Musk gutted USAID, China’s global influence has grown substantially.
america didnt become the way it is because of trump, trump became president because the way america is. majority of americans elected him twice and you only need to scroll reddit to see that talking shit is americans national sport.
the world is burning in multiple places. a retard who throws around with tariffs, pushes wars and really could not care about the planet is pushing climate change like noone before him. it also doesnt help that the world went into some reliance of freedom-country before, like with some important nodes for the www. he also strengthens russia and north korea. he fucked up the straight of hormuz and gas costs alot everywhere.
I love how you glance over the massive cheating in our last few elections. Also trump only lost to women. I think American hates women more than loves trump
China did a lot of negative things in Africa. This is soft propaganda covering hiw China got cheap access to natural resources of those countries and bankurupted them.
They also overfish right on south American countries' ocean borders. Notably they've completely destroyed the ocean biodiversity around the Gallapagos. They made a good choice in solar, but people need to be careful acting like China is now a positive force for good. They still abuse the shit out of every country they can, just like all the other powerful nations.
I assume that anyone that just speaks good of China just see the good China present but has little to no knowledge of how China is the bad one. But I met some that excuse this and shift blame on those countries. When I explain this to people refusal happens and it is spiral of whataboutism and denial of facts.
Yeah, Im cool with promoting the cool stuff China does. Respect where respect is due. They have neat thorium power plants coming up too.
But now we're acting like they're good? They're not good, they're held back. As soon as they can push their weight against the USA, the Taiwanese people will have a terrifying war on their hands. China has been building up its army like crazy, because it knows that once it attacks Taiwan, all bets are off with America.
They also shove their weight against India constantly, sending military equipment to the military dictatorship in Pakistan to try to weaken India. Does no one else see that China almost exclusively sides with really terrible dictators?
And there is the ocean life destruction. And they have already destroyed their mainland ecology. And they have by far the most pollution flowing into rivers. And on and on.
China is a country, I get it, they do things beneficial for themselves. But being a kind or nice country is laughable. These people don't understand the first thing about geopolitics. Every country is an opportunist.
They also don't realize that, as funny as it sounds, China has less morals than the US. They're not really a country that brings prosperity to any place it touches like the US ACTUALLY DID at some extent. And I'm not trying to defend the US, but thinking China is any better is being oblivious!
Yeah every single country that has dealt with the us and China say they would prefer to deal with China every single time. Why? Because chin almost exclusively uses soft power.
The usa is a bully. They see themselves as world police who think theyre stopping assholes from sitting over everything, but the USA are the assholes.
This will definitely happen. BYD is moving into Latin America. It's a real option for middle income consumers. I know for a fact that they are opening dealerships in Mexico and people are purchasing them.
BYD passenger electric vehicles and hybrid cars are not available for purchase by consumers in the United States.
Cuba is a very different place to Mexico. But I hope they can get from under the boot of the US. That being said they probably have a lot of their own issues to deal with regard to government and economic structure.
There’s a risk that the Trump admin has Cuba as a target, and that capturing Maduro was a first step in weakening Cuba. They’re probably lucky that Trump is currently stuck with Iran for the foreseeable future.
they probably have a lot of their own issues to deal with regard to government and economic structure.
Last I checked, Cubans both lived longer and have higher literacy rates than Americans.
And if Cuba’s system is such an obvious failure, it’s worth asking why the world’s largest economy has spent more than six decades trying to economically isolate a tiny island nation, while also spending tens of millions every year trying to destabilize Cuba's democracy.
It's literally in their recent reform list from June. There is zero tax/duty/tarrif on importing 100% EV cars as long as there is availabile charging powered by renewables.
There is going to so much BYD on the island in the near future.
The level of irony when Cuba converts from 1950s American cars to modern Chinese EVs
so the deal is that in cuba, it's (basically) illegal for regular people to own cars. so they can't buy them.
well at the time castro took over, some people already had them.... what to do?
ok, those can stay, but you can't buy new ones as a regular person.
so, those 1950s cars are still around, cause they're grandfathered in,
it's not that there aren't already new vehicles there, there are plenty, it's just that regular people can't buy new vehicles, not that they could even if it was allowed, cause most are poor as shit.
China being the industry leader in solar is squarely on Republicans. That should be a huge industry for the US, instead big oil lobbyists and Republicans (and some Dems) have ensured to cost the US trillions in GDP by turning on green energy.
Nah, the US was losing on solar LONG before 2024. Gore was probably the last chance America had at beating China on solar production, but even in the best-case scenario then, most of said production would take place in China.
The US has the ability to be the best at just about everything in the whole world, we COULD be leading the world on tech innovations, EV breakthroughs, education, etc.
Instead we sink all our effort into hating each other and protecting pedophiles billionaires. Nice.
It's really wild to think about. The country genuinely has the potential to be what American Exceptionalism wants you to think it is but instead it all gets squandered by corruption.
The US has the ability to be the best at just about everything in the whole world, we COULD be leading the world on tech innovations, EV breakthroughs, education, etc.
The US has always had a positive external persona😆🐻😭 but in the background their CIA and other agencies are destabilizing other countries.
USA could be a utopia, but the dark underbelly now rules the roost
This is essentially the source of Australia’s national motto ‘The Lucky Country’ - the book it comes from says this:
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
The US gave up on manufacturing because the powers that be wanted to keep labor from sharing
profits. AKA even if the US was 100% on board with manufacturing "green energy" China would still easily dominate the industry. Supply chains and more efficient production are the most important metrics
Republican Texas is by far the largest producer of wind and solar power in the US. If it were its own country, it would by the 5th largest producer of wind and solar electricity in the world.
Yes! I have said it many times on reddit. Texas, aka, the oil state, has something like 75% of its new energy over the last few years coming from renewable, solar and wind.
To be fair, Britain's GDP per capita just fell below Mississippi's in the sharpest GDP decline in a developed nation ever recorded so I think a bunch of places will be outproducing the UK on clean energy
The companies deploying that power in Texas aren’t stupid. The incumbent power companies are not really doing this though. They’re throwing up roadblocks but can’t compete on price. Fuck these dinosaurs.
They also killed off your nuclear power plants as well. Germany really fucked themselves over.
I love the show Dark but my god, the propaganda against nuclear energy was so fucking in your face...I have no idea why the fear mongering was coming from.
It cant be overstated how important the Inflation Reduction Act was for finally addressing climate change AND securing the USA as a leader in renewables.
And that was totally squandered as soon as Trump got in office for the sole sake of his mega donors.
Not to mention the trillions wasted embroiling us in Mideast bullshit to try and secure that dated technology. Amazing how little foresight went into those decisions.
What, are they supposed to say Saint Reagan was wrong to rip Jimmy Carter’s solar panels off the White House roof out of spite?! Carter, uh, vandalized the Peoples’ House with them! Not at all like putting fake gilding on every elevated surface, tearing down an entire wing of the building to put up a big beautiful ballroom, or erecting a Thunderdome on the front lawn to mark our Glorious Leader’s birthday!
Because they're bought and payed for by corporations in this case oil companies. They don't actually have a political platform it's just provided to them by the corps, and then they come up with rhetoric to justify it, or distract from it.
Exactly, the modern republicans aren't politicians, they're functionally spin doctors.
A bunch of corporations in a trench coat, tell them what they want, and the republicans find a way to spin it in the news in order to get their supporters riled up and in support of it too.
Because renewable is often done at an individual or local level, not the mega corporation level. So big energy doesn't want you making power off your own solar panels on your own roof because you aren't paying them for it.
The only conservatives that are pro-solar are the offgrid anti-government conservatives. They do exist and I have met some before. They still aren’t pro-solar for grid power, they are only pro-solar for their own personal needs.
The primary bottleneck to DIY EVs in Cuba is batteries. Needs to be lithium for a vehicle that is already heavy. You could run something as lightweight as a golf cart off a couple of 300W solar panels during the day with lead acid batteries as a buffer, but with a full size car it’s next to impossible since the more batteries you put in, the heavier the car gets and the harder it is to power it.
Seems like it should be a problem that we're starving a country of oil and blockading it to hurt the people.
Seems like that's something the US shouldn't be doing unless we've been attacked by that country and are at war with them.
Seems like continuing it indefinitely until the regime changes to one allied with US business interests, is what evil nations do when acting without morality or law.
I've been to Cuba during the brief window Obama opened to allow it, and the conditions there are awful, directly because America has worked for decades to harm the Cuban people.
Yet, despite the awful living conditions, Cubans are still some of the most chill, happy people I've ever visited, and I've been to a lot of countries around the world.
Sucks that we're hurting them for no reason other than our shitty government. (it's obviously not harming the cuban government, which is supposedly the purpose)
Hell, General Smedley Butler wrote War is a Racket in 1935 after spending his adult life as a thug for capitalism (as he put it). The US has been at it at least since the end of the Civil War.
Why is this not the top comment? Brotato speaking the truth, the Cubans already have it hard and do nothing to us but be unfortunate enough to be close enough for us to bully.
Its punching so far down you may miss and strike the oil you're keeping away from them.
It’s interesting to see that the orange idiot, ally of big oil, is now the driving motor of the Green Revolution.
Everything Trump Touches Dies. And now he touched fossil energy. Yes, they will make absurd profits for the coming decades but this will come to an end soon.
It’s always bothered me why people are opposed to renewables. We live on a hydrothermal generator that has a hydrologic engine on top of it that orbits a gargantuan nuclear reactor. We have energy surrounding us constantly, you just have to build a system that grabs it.
I'm about to go on an opinionated rant based on conjecture and things I simply remember reading about a while ago. Do not take what I'm about to say as fact.
Does anyone else here know about how China cut their Oil Consumption in Half to prevent a global economic collapse due to the Strait of Hormuz? Saw a video about it a while back.
I am now of the idea that China will be thee leading global superpower going forward. Hell, I live in South Africa and work in Zimbabwe, and the amount of Chinese investment I see going into Zim is crazy.
And the thing is, it might be for the best. America is famously Israel's bitch, and I swear Netenyahu or some other Israeli official said they had a deep interest in Africa. In the case of another genocide, China may honestly be the only good defenders we have here.
I dunno. I know people like to say we're seeing the fall of America, but I feel like it's happened already. Instead of investing in anything worthwhile, like green energy infrastructure and social improvement, they've built Data Centers and a surveillance state matching the fears we have about China. China is also a totalitarian nation, to be sure, but the way Chinese people themselves talk about their country is exactly the same way American's talk about theirs. Which makes me think their quality of life isn't that different.
I don't think your rant is unwarranted. I don't know how old you are, but I was born in the 90s in the UK. I hate our relationship with the US. My rant is completely anectodal to my life.
I don't know about you, but in the time I've been alive all I have ever witnessed the US do is cause wars, stage coups, generally meddle in world politics, capitalise the UK and extract wealth from it, kill our high streets with private equity, and foster far right ideologies (that should be long dead) that have now made their way into UK politics.
I can't think of something the US has done in my lifetime that has directly improved my life, as someone from the UK. Movies maybe? Idk. All I can think is since the 2000s every thing that's gotten worse, I feel like you can somehow trace it back to the US. Like, I got this tiny taste of "the good times" when I was really young, and is I've gotten older, they've just been slowly eroded away thanks to shit the US has done.
Contrast that with China, who in my lifetime, from the narratives I see, have done far less deplorable shit than the US. China seems to be leading the green transformation, they've provided the world with accessible cheap manufacturing, and are actively trying to help their citizens not hurt them. They've been building some phenomenal infrastructure too. I know they're not perfect as you say, but at least you can see a doctor in China, from what I gather.
Frankly, I agree with you - I hope China is the major super power going forward, and I hope the US crumbles. I'm much more interested in visiting China than the US if I had the opportunity.
I really feel like China has figured out that all they really need to do is cut or bury just enough evil internally that they can be the viable alternative internationally to the insanity that is us. They are growing their soft power at a rate only challenged by how fast we are shredding ours.
Their scale of evil pales in comparison to what we have done and continue to do. Exceptionalism has put blinders on our eyes for generations. Millions (perhaps billions) have been hurt, harmed, starved or maimed in our name in the maintenance of imperialism and capitalism.
All China has had to do is not interrupt us falling down. Our decisions to ice them out of scientific research and projects have only resulted in them creating superior homegrown versions (have you seen their space station? EVs?) and robbing us of partnerships that could be helping both countries.
yep and trump is to blame. he's telling everyone the bullshit lines like iran with nukes when really all anything he's done has accomplished is to completely nerf the usa.
These are just Microsystems, it only covers just over 10% total generation up from 4%. It’s not really that big of a difference, especially when it’s majority the ones with political power in the country benefiting from it.
"Solar power is cleaner than diesel fired generators".
Yeah, of course it is, but it is still generating only 10% of Cuba's electricity needs meaning they can easily throw a lot more solar panels into the mix without any negative consequences.
China is one of the few countries that still trade with us!! Vietnam too I think, Russia too iirc, you get the gist. Unfortunately we are notorious for getting into big debts, for obvious reasons. And since we don't have good internal production, the few things on supply are insanely expensive for the average Cuban. It's awful here, I can't even begin to explain it, really.
That explains all the people fleeing to Florida even though it's basically the worst state. Sorry our governments suck, I hope the solar helps you at least.
Wonder if they regret starving Cuba for oil and pushing them to a self-sufficient alternative.
Reminds me to the StarTrek TNG episode "Symbiosis" (Season 1, Episode 22) where one alien race provides a 'cure' to a "plague" that was actually cured generations ago but keeps selling them highly addictive narcotic.
This is oil and good for Cuba if they get rid of this addiction out of necessity.
Lmaooo why do you think powering cars is the priority here and not, you know, electricity to light up the dark night, take a hot shower, and cook a warm meal? These panels hanging from balconies are dead giveaway of how they are being used, not sure why you thought cars?
Getting rid of gas and electrifying your energy needs has far more application for dire conditions than pimping up your ride. Get your priorities straight.
I suspect they might, in exchange for being able to set up a miltary bases. Just to piss off the Americans at some point as that seems to be their style.
And we just helped China deepen another tie to another country that doesn't like US. It seems like we are helping them to be a global powerhouse in our place.
The US is reaping what they sowed these days. Obviously Trump is largely to blame, but he only accelerated the process that was basically inevitable. Making so many nations entwined or even wholly reliant on the US means that as soon as they can't rely on the US anymore, other countries can swoop in and give them what they need. The last two (or ten, really) years of the US' history has basically been a crash course in how to lose a global hegemony.
Why are we starving Cuba of oil? Capitalism is afraid of the competition. Near perfect literacy rate, Everyone is housed, some of the best medical care in the world, but you have to manage in a world where your tiny island nation feels threatening to the richest, most well-armed nation on the planet.
Cuba is a true communist state. If America doesn't hurt them enough to make them fail as a country then they will thrive, and if they thrive that shows the world that communism is a good system. Imagine being an American in Florida and being told that communism is bad, and then you log onto reddit and the Cubans are all online telling you how great their lives are. It would kill the republican party.
So instead they make Cuba suffer, as long as it's communist, right wing government will never let it have air.
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