State economy is off the charts. Specially with US and China. US defence budget is 1,71 trillion usd.
Yeah. In my lifetime I’ve seen it go from billions to trillions.
The shipyard I worked in long ago built subs and air craft carriers. Those things are multiple billions. Even more so now than then too.
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Yeah, alright.
This was excactly like polls said it would be. Social democrats had a major loss, conservatives won and AfD came second.
Most of Europe do have right wing conservatist goverments now. Also the rising of nationalists, such as AfD, has been a trend for the 10 years or so. In Finland there is right wing government, with nationalists as part of it.
Immigration, increasing economic problems and disappointment towards EU are the main reasons for this development, in Germany and in other parts of the Europe.
I don’t agree with AfD in most things they’re after. My biggesr grip is their anti EU and anti NATO policies. But I’m not a German, so it’s not my call.
AfD will not be in the government thought. Conservatives (CDU/CSU) have stated that they will not co-operate with AfD.
Conservatives leader, Merz, actually had strong statements about Trump/Musk, their support for AfD and Ukraine politics.
Couple quotes beneath:
If it was an overture, Merz did not take it as one. He told a roundtable TV discussion on Sunday night that it had become clear in the past week that the Trump administration was “largely indifferent to the fate of Europe”.
Merz said his “absolute priority” would be to “strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can achieve real independence from the US step by step”.
Merz took aim at Musk’s interventions in the German election campaign, comparing them to interference from Russia.
“The interventions from Washington were no less dramatic and drastic and ultimately outrageous than the interventions we have seen from Moscow,” he said. “We are under so much pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe.”
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This means that they have to form the government with SDP and Greens. So Germany will have a mixed right-left government.
PS. I need to add that CDU will have stricter immigration policy and stricter economy policy than the current government, but they’re way less radical than AfD. Security and foreign policy is opposed to AfD.
Not that you were using this as a pejorative, but making nationalist a bad word has definitely been one of the left’s great rhetorical victories since WWII.
If being a nationalist is bad, what are the alternatives? I suppose you could be a localist, but that doesn’t really seem to be a thing.
If you’re not a nationalist, it implies you are an internationalist. Internationalism is how a public school system in an unremarkable Maine city becomes responsible for educating 1,900 students who don’t speak English, encompassing 42 different languages.
20th Century immigration policies are the middle ground in the USA, which is now considered “far-right”.
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Sure, nationalism has nasty sound in it. I don’t know if it’s left’s doing, since we also have leftist nationalist movements here (such as Blue and Black -movement, which is an actual registered political party, and very close to national socialism).
For me nationalism is a ism and a tool like others, it can be used for good (like welfare state) and evil (like violence towards foreigners).
The welfare state creates ill will towards foreigners. Those coming to a non-welfare-state are coming to contribute; those coming to a welfare state are coming to plunder.
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This does not support my experience or data I’ve seen.
But again, immigration is a very complex topic. Firstly we should separate work-based immigration abd humanitarian immigration.
I’d say the 80/20 rule applies in Maine.
80 percent (likely more) broadly support the concept of vetted immigration.
Only a small minority across all parties are anti-immigrant in every sense of the word.
In Maine we have a constellation of publicly funded nonprofits and even a state level agency dedicated to providing EVERYTHING for uncounted 10s of thousands of people who are not in any position to begin contributing positively.
New apartments, new cars, all bills and healthcare are provided at taxpayer expense, but not by a single entity.
That way any individual nonprofit can claim that they only do x, y, or z. Locals who observe this can then be told that they are “misinformed” if a blanket statement is made like “they get everything for free”, which is broadly true.
Anyone who objects gets called bad names and now the brownshirts are organizing. Luckily the funding is mysteriously drying up for some of these nonprofits.
This one has been involved in hate campaigns against my neighbors and posted this today. That’s what the highlighted part is talking about.
Project Relief ME is their name. They seem to be mostly students at Bates College, my town’s prestigious 90k per year leftist indoctrination center.
I would say something similar about Europe. Can’t say what are the exact numbers, but there are some radical parties who want to deny all immigration outside Europe. One extreme example is the Blue-blacks I mentioned earlier, they would like to make judaism illegal and so forth…
Most parties have tightened their immigration policies in last 10 years or so when the immigration started drastically increase. Very few parties support completely free immigration policies.
Like Musk?
President douchebag.
He wasn’t mocking all federal employees. Just the ones who are going to have to make some pretty big stretches to justify the 15 emails they sent last week. I’ve spent a lot of time in corporate America, which has much better sounding bullshit than most government bullshit.
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Instead of saying you forwarded an email, say that you “Facilitated information flow to key stakeholders.”
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Instead of saying you checked your voicemail, say that you “Leveraged technology to (whatever your job title is)”.
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Instead of saying you watched tik tok on your phone, say that you “Explored alternate ideas about accomplishing our mission to the public.”
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Instead of saying you processed the transfer of tax dollars to NGO’s in Kurdistan to promote transgender clay sculpture art, say that you “Executed the agencies strategic overseas imperatives.”
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Instead of saying you haven’t seen or spoken to any of your direct reports in months, say that you “Fostered systems of cooperation and independence among my team.”
These are just five quick ones off the top of my head, if anyone needs them. You might get lucky and get the one dipshit working for DOGE looking at your answers.
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President douchebag.
I never saw anything like that before. Is that one of those rocketmajiggies?
Fascinating.
What horror do you imagine if federal employees have to demonstrate why the tasks they perform are worth the currency they receive?
That’s how all of business operates, outside of nepotism, corruption, blackmail, the inherent unfairness of life, and other exceptions.
Generally speaking, you have to convince someone to give you money on a continuous basis.
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