I won't be spending more time in this community if moderators behave like this. Thank you for making this decision easy for me. Enjoy your day.

The best!

Many people who voted for them just saw it as the only option for change. You're right, these change-for-change's sake people do exist. And I don't know what to say to them, except maybe that if they just excitement in their lives, going bungee-jumping might be better than voting neonazis into power. Their existence seems like a failure of political education too. But, there's another, probably much larger group of people who were sucked into propaganda channels that run divide & conquer strategies on society. Much like the change-people, they are barely political but they can be mobilized by irrational fears, like Lidl selling chocolate bunnies being a precursor for their own forced islamization. In your post, the combination of this "The only options are [...] AfD" and this "politics just has to shift into a direction where it's pro-population, not pro-top1%." ... is utterly baffling. Right-wing parties, AfD, Fdp, CxU, etc., are quite explicitly pro-special interest, not pro-populace. The further right, the more special the interests. And sure, these parties claim they are proposing common-sense "non-ideological" "sane" ideas while actually ignoring science, ignoring precedent, ignoring negative outcomes for society. That's their whole MO. If you don't want the 1% to profit, then maybe just don't vote anything right of the SPD (and even SPD is a questionable choice in that regard). the left does not sound appealing to people who understand economics. Interestingly enough, the economic proposals contained in the last election platform of the Left party were the most financially solid among all parties in that election (as detailed by multiple institutes, e.g. ZEW [de-DE]). The Left were the only party where the state was least burdened with unexplained money outflow that would be prohibited under the debt brake. Is it possible that by "people who understand economics" you mean the group of people that currently profits from existing inequality? I.e. the 1%ers and the 10%ers. Because that's the people who would "suffer" from the Left's proposals (actually, while they'd make less money, they'd most likely live in a much more physically secure society).

Sounds like it's time for Belgium to become a republic. Perhaps the French have some input on how to go about establishing one.

It's a slippery slope. Sure, nobody likes the Russians right now, but it also applies to other immigrants and refugees from elsewhere. In Denmark a right wing party suggested something similar. They know fully well that immigrants don't vote for them, and they'd love nothing more than to remove their political representation and eventually remove them from our welfare too. I'd definitely be wary of who and why they want to remove voting rights for certain tax payers.

Well thought out article - worth reading

yes, assuming Trump’s goal is to have more manufacturing in the US, tariffs will Destroy domestic manufacturing by enacting insane tariffs on the raw materials it depends on, without any nontrivial increase in manufacturing to counterbalance the pain, even in the long run. This type of command economy “might makes right” stuff can fail catastrophically. As recently as the 1990s, there were people starving in North Korea by the hundreds of thousands (at least) because someone decided that enforcing his will was more important than listening to people who even on the most rudimentary level knew what they were doing.

https://archive.ph/aVcZQ

Sounds a bit treason-y.

I think this is more that American exceptionalism makes them incapable of getting inspiration from other countries, so they end up doing something entirely different. If it's better, the rest of the world adopts it as well, and if it's inferior, the rest of the world points and laughs. E-check is definitely in the point and laugh category, while payment apps based on phone number or email like Venmo are getting copied by various other countries. Granted, I don't think the US was first with phone-based payments, various developing countries in Africa have had it for ages. But I do think they came up with it independently, because they habitually ignore innovation done anywhere else.

Well, it'd only be a deal, if it was very advantageous and good for us, but bad for the US - if they're really trying to speak his language ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So they can turn off those weapons whenever they want?

G'day from landlordstralia.

The Dutch secretary of digitization announced plans today for creating a national cloud for public services. IT projects aren't usually our governments strong suit, so who knows if this will succeed. At least they're doing something. More on this (in Dutch language): https://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/infrastructure/563864/nederland-zet-in-op-eigen-soevereine-overheidscloud/

Carrot or stick. Even Trump should be able to understand the choice laid out before him. Whether he cares is something else, being so disconnected from anything resembling reality or sanity.

Guess I wasn't the only one confused. But thinking the top 10 most polluted rivers are over 10 times as polluted as the European ones isn't exactly good news. Well, for us maybe. But still.

It's also used by the 47-member council of Europe. UK content is welcome here. UKians just have to ensure their pariah state doesn't exit another supranational institution.

Yes, put it that way i agree it does not sound good. A company in the EU for example will be forced to lower its volume of exports of goods and raw materials even further to the US as Americans won't be able to "afford as much". Especially with an export surcharge fee payed for by American importers. Why should we make things affordable for Americans and not our local population? A export surcharge fee could mean that any EU companies still currently reliant on goods or raw material imports from the US for the time being have time to adjust without a blanket tax being applied. My argument is that a "blanket tax" on imports affects the "working class" directly with increased prices of goods locally. If countries all unanimously "fire back" with surcharges on exports, it affects the whole American supply with a increase in cost of goods.