I believe military bases in red states also contribute to these calculations.
It’s kind of amazing how exactly what you guys are describing is also happening here now.
That is some big coincidence.
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Pretty sure it counts towards federal spending, not aid. They are earning it for their service.
I learned not to believe in coincidence, but when the same thing is happening across the ocean and throughout europe, it has to be. Its like the worlds biggest coincidence.
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It’s a total coincidence that the same script is followed all right. Anything in opposition to what’s happened to much of the west is characterized as “far-right”, which people are supposed to interpret as similar to National Socialism.
I read last night that Chega is now the 2nd most popular party in Portugal, going from 1 seat in 2019 to 60 in 2025. Do you know of any efforts to ban them, suppress political speech, etc?
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/g-s1-69504/portugal-chega-main-opposition-election
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My god. What a fucking farcical existence she has. I hope she gets blown off course, into the congo and gets fisted by a troop of angry silverback gorillas.
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About coincidences:
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you can find them wherever you want.
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High inflation is no coincidence, it has been global phenomenom for a few years now.
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Immigration has also increased globally. And the discussion around it is quite heated everywhere.
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I do agree that opressing the neoconservative/nationalist parties is a mistake, and even undemocratic. It happens is some countries (like in Germany or Sweden), but there’s several countries where it does not happen.
It is a wrong (and stupid?) thing to do, but I see no conspiracy here.
Now I can not say anything about Maine, or Portugal, but the countries I’m following more closely aren’t cohesive in these things.
You believe that all of these copycat policies were introduced all over the west in unison by each of the individual jurisdictions just so happening to democratically arrive at the same policies simultaneously? All while being backed by the same style of rhetoric?
There have been wars, famine and natural disasters across all of history, but only recently has anyone made the case that people in cities like Lewiston have a moral obligation to take in an unreasonable number of state-dependent immigrants.
People of any ethnicity, religion, or national origin have been free to move to Maine for centuries, yet few did until they were enticed with public funds.
Inflation isn’t a weather phenomenon, it is caused by governments printing money that results in more dollars chasing the same amount of goods or less. It is a particularly insidious tax, and it definitely functions in the same way.
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There’s several main reasons for inflation to happen. Some of them can be controlled easily (like the amount of money flowing), others not (like the inflation caused by increased demand). I know Friedman’s work, and I know he knew this too.
Sure, inflation can be caused by bad policy (Venezuela and idiot Maduro for ex.), but there’s more than that.
Shortly: yes.
Simultaneously is quite a strong word, since this division and rhetorics (which are used by both sides!) has been developing for at least 15-20 years.
Copycat is a strong word too. Jurisdictions aren’t idetntical, never have been and never will be. But the rhetorics that both sides use are similar, why?
Political rhetorics tend to reflect the real world problems whe have. During Cold War, in the west the main battle was between capitalism and socialism, now the division has changed. Like we have discussed, we need to name these new divisions, but let’s call them neoconservatives vs neoliberals.
The real world issues where these divisions rise are real, problems of globalization (west was all ”yay!” with this, until it came clear it’s not always winning for us), immigration, culture wars etc…
All of these issues and rhetorics are amplified massively by internet and algorithms. So it’s no surprise we have similar things going on everywhere.
Ps. And I speak on a global scale now. In one country, or in a state, or in a municipality, there may always be some shady stuff going on, even though it’s not easy if media/social media can act freely.
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If we want to think conspiracies, think who’ll benefits most with the current culture wars going hot: social media platform owners.
Those guys are getting rich as F, when all the fighting for/against woke or whatever in the webs. Hahah!
I don’t understand that market force to be the same thing as inflation. That’s scarcity of supply, and your dollar’s purchasing power isn’t diminished across the board if, say, the price of artisan goat cheese keeps climbing because there’s only so much goat cheese that can be made. Governments can create this scarcity as well, by doing things like regulating goat breeding by requiring goat inspections or by limiting the number of goats you can breed at once on the basis of their carbon output.
That’s the time frame I’m referring to, which in historical terms is “in unison”.
I’ll also add that nobody in Maine campaigned on the idea that we have this moral obligation towards people from distant lands, just as they all hold the pretense that our elections are secure when the de facto policy nullifies the concept of citizenship itself. It’s the old communist idea that we’re all just citizens of the world.
Throw in stuff like transgender “rights” that was lied about the entire way, along with all of the lies about immigration and how much public funding goes towards it, and I am seeing the same nefarious playbook across the world.
I am now of the belief that it was done to us, not by us. Nobody in Maine campaigned on this and, if you time-traveled back to 2005, nobody would vote for a party who campaigned on the idea that Lewiston would be better off with 2,000 non-English speaking students in our public schools.
By definition inflation is stuff getting more expensive, and market forces are one factor and cause.
But yes, government can cause inflation. Maduro meddled with pricing, causing massive inflation in Venezuela. If Trumps tariffs will stay, that will increase inflation.
Yes. Even that this idea divides communists, it’s one of the main issues in politics in the west currently. Global vs national.
Oh yes lol. The Socialist party, which has traditionally been alternating power with the social democrats, has been relegated to 3rd place.
The Communists have been on a steady decline but still got 3 seats, though. They just won’t die. Still have a pull with the unions.
Neo Marxists from Bloco the Esquerda are also on the way out, but still got 1 seat. I was hoping they’d be gone even though they were the party I voted for more often.
Oh yes.
It’s a bit similar to the AFD in Germany, but softer, as Germans can be quite fascists regarding the fascists who are threatening their democracy.
There’s the always popular cordon sanitaire, with PM Montenegro stating that he will not negotiate with Chega “No meand no”, similar to Mersz.
There’s has been some voices on the Left calling for the banning of Chega, since the constitution does not allow for a Fascist (lol) partie to even be on the ballot.
I have some of the most insane shit lately, with the racist, xenophobic, gypsie phobic, fascist and all the scary buzzwords you would expect.
I’ve heard intelligent commentators saying they can’t reconcile the fact that so many emigrants (or Portuguese immigrants in France, Germany, US, etc) voted for an anti-Immigration party.
I cannot believe that intelligent people believe that wanting control over your borders means you’re anti-immigration. It’s bonkers, it’s like saying “how can you be against raping if you have sex with your wife”.
CHEGA won’t be able to do much other than maaybe raise enough voices that make the establishment stop looking the other way and tackle the very real problems that make even former working class Communist voters switch to Chega. Would be half measures at best.
Chega would have to win an absolute majority 4 years from now, since even a relative majority would just result in coalitions to keep them from power.
It would be hilarious if Hamas took her captive. Even more hilarious if no one cared to pay ransome or negotiate on her behalf.
I noticed that Stannis Baratheon’s Onion Knight is also part of this posse, is he the one steering the ship? Lol.
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I think you and I are working off of different definitions. There’s costs that can fluctuate from both market forces and state policy, and then there’s creating money out of thin air and introducing it into the economy. Inflation is when the purchasing power of currency is reduced across the board on all goods and services. According to Friedman, this can only happen by printing money.
The Nazis had some clever tricks to introduce more purchasing power without inflating the Reichsmark. RKK certificates were used to purchase goods in Nazi occupied countries, basically amounting to theft after all of the accounting shook out.
Might be.
I’m pretty sure Milton might disagree, even when talked only about governmental caused inflation.
He does not believe in market based inflation, if I remember right, but it’s a complex macroeconomical debate.
Friedman was actually very anti-tariff person, one reason being that tariffs cause inflation.
I don’t think he put it in those terms, but more like mine. Tariffs increase costs, at least in the short term. There’s no dispute about that. Again, if a tariff on steel gets introduced, the cost of imported steel will go up and so will costs of everything imported steel gets used in.
A tariff on Finnish artisan goat cheese would not have a similar impact, because of the limited applications of goat cheese compared to steel.
Curious what you think those wars are? What are the big ones?
Yeah. I think it depends how you define inflation, if you think it only as a moneys value dropping, not as a generally the prices going up, tariffs won’t cause inflation.
With that definition, I think there’s no inflation going on currently. Hahah.
Not that I agree with Friedman on many things, but he is quite significant (economical) neoliberal figure.
This is a topic I’d rather not go into.
It’s not stuff that terribly interests me. But LBQT rights, gender stuff etc. Maybe also other things related to sexuality and the idea of a decent living.