bettercallsalad
Joined 3 years ago
Joined 3 years ago
My counter argument though is how the elite class have a certain scarcity mentality and still holds on to these observations made in the articles.
In college, I dated a few Asian (Mainland) who all had similar mindset. Dating wasn’t about finding the right match but more about “upgrade your social face being accepted by foreigners”. It was shockingly weird at the beginning until the pattern was obvious. They were all wealthy (paying international tuition) I would think so the scarcity mindset you speak of seems like should have waned off at a local proximity (family or social circle).
But I don’t understand the fixation of US in middle east theatre. With the abundance of onshore oil through fracking revolution, presumably US doesn’t need to police the Middle East. The president himself said US doesn’t need their oil.
So what is this conflict all about? Is there bigger geopolitical price tag attached to victory in Iran? Or US is just besieged by corruption to the extent campaign finding from Israel lobby as they say dictated much of the foreign policy than national interest?
It’s just baffling and public seems largely fine with this with the lack of widespread protest that this should have caused (vaguely remember living across the bridge from Michigan all the protests there post Iraq war).
History in last 30yrs show invading another country in the name of “liberation” always leads to more radicalization. Nothing new. Germany and Japan were different times and civilizations.
Also at a time when the global sentiment for both US and Israel is record low.
I would love to pay my taxes if I had seen reasonable outcome. So far all I see is a corrupt state government with no accountability and transparency.
Also isn’t this illegal? I thought the state constitution says it is illegal.
The villain here is not the executive branch but Congress which approves the fiscal budget and spending limits, debt ceiling. President has no authority to increase debt ceiling.
I don’t support tariff but it being used as a negotiating technique is the only choice here to reduce trade deficit.
US can’t keep up the trade deficit it currently has. It requires endless fiscal deficit and sell paper money to others that sends their cheap stuff to US. With growing deficit, the interest payment now is soon to be higher than defence budget. Something has to give.
Reminds me of Nassim Taleb saying “ Being an economist is the least ethical profession, closer to charlatanism than any science”.
Recently Trump also met with Indias arch enemy Pakistan’s de facto leader (military chief) in Washington and shortly following that you had Saudi-Pakistan NATO like alliance announced (of course US is major allies for both of those countries). It is interesting because pre-election Trump touted many Indians and even had Modi joining him in one of the largest Indian gatherings. But I guess Trump admin being the wild card it has always been policy wise had a shift. What that leads to is still to be seen.
Recent SCO summit where India and China had some shared alliance pledges can give some hints what’s to come but it’s interesting he didn’t so far do so with Chinese students and had in fact a U turn on allowing 600000 students with their visas as part of the trade negotiations.
These kids that come from often wealthy or upper middle class families with faith and cultural grounding would be far better off in their life trajectory (and country as a whole with brain drain) if they stayed back, led innovation in their own country, and pushed their corrupt bureaucratic government ecosystem to change. Instead of opting for a mediocre hedonistic lifestyle in the west where they know they have no lasting stability (mind you it is 100+ years wait time for many in the current immigration process to get green card), often get stuck working in the same company and not able to move, can’t start things on their own again because of visa rules.
No one wins in this in the long run. Except maybe some corporations.
Having worked with the recent generation of Indians, I can safely say this can be a good thing. Baseline morality and work ethics for many (not all, but many) in the recent generation of Indians are so low. It’s a generational shift that I can tell. Get rich quick, wannabe try too hard to fit in and have fun with wild Wild West mindset that just has a completely different tone from earlier generations of hard working Indians who helped build some of the major products we use today.
I noticed it keeps me less full than if I had the ingredients as a whole.