We (Europe) already did most of the heavy lifting for Ukraine. The US mostly gave old stockpiles of weapons that they would've needed to destroy anyway. We are the ones actually paying cash to keep them afloat.
The problem is, in the post-WW2 order, our defense and our defense industry was made dependent on the USA by design. And even up until last November, Europe didn't want to challenge this arrangement and just went full steam ahead with this arrangement, ordering US made weapons. I think Europe was in denial that Biden could lose or that NATO could ever end.
Only France, and to a limited extent, Sweden and Turkey, have independent defense industries.
In the future, we will have it again. And Ukraine will actually be a key player.
But in the short term, there is no magical button to press that can produce the arms.
Undoing decades of integration isn't going to be easy.
The money for these "sales" is aid from the US government.
Israel is unique in that they are the only country that gets its aid from the US government on January 1st, with interest, in cash. They have to use a part of it on American weapons and the rest they just get in cash.
I'm sure Sanders also has a bill or intentions to stop that, but that would be a separate bill.
I think they meant the economy, not population, but still, quality comment right here.
People who don't do math are doomed to talk nonsense. And you just used math to showcase the stupidity. Bravo, sir.
One of my pet peeves is all the people concerned about the birth rate.
We are at a time in the history of the planet where there have never existed as many homo sapiens as there are today, and that record will get broken every day for the next 20-50 years.
Of all the times to want a higher birth rate since we have existed as a species, this just ain't the time where it makes any kind of logical sense.
And quite frankly, among (young) progressive people, getting attacked head-on by Trump is somewhat more predictable and less emotionally taxing than getting backstabbed and gaslighted by liberals.
Which is why a lot of them didn't vote for Kamala.
I don't yet know where the American political realignment will end, but the liberal/progressive coalition that elected Clinton, Obama and Biden seems to be irreparably damaged.
Honestly, I expect this AI bubble to implode with much more devastation than the dot-com bubble.
And it's not even that AI is useless. Like the internet (during dot-com) it will definitely have good uses.
But (a) those uses will take many years to crystallize and mature and (b) the early capital-intensive movers have a big disadvantage and most of them don't have a feasible path to recoup the money invested into them.
This is why the AI club is licking Trump's boot. They will get the federal government to bail them out by buying overpriced AI products and services and taking over worthless investments "in the interest of national security".
American taxpayers are going to foot this bill and they will not like it when they start seeing the effects.
I can see how hybrids will probably be a thing for a very long time, for people in very cold and remote places.
But yeah, the EV revolution is a fact. For any country that has proper electric infrastructure and who doesn't have protections for legacy car manufacturers, EV's are cheaper and have lower operating/maintenance costs.
It's not about fewer parties in elections, it's about fewer parties in Parliament and quickly having a stable government.
Your link is written by an idiot.
In Germany you can still vote for a small party. If enough people do, the party gets 5%, or about 32 seats, which are enough MP's to actually participate in the process without getting burned out.
We could also start in the Netherlands with 2%, which is 3 MP's.
It's not about cancelling anyone. It's about not having to wait 200-300 days to get a new government after every election.
I have often voted for very small parties and they never make it into the coalition. I really wouldn't mind if they didn't make it into Parliament either.
It's not like the BSW or FDP voters really lost that much - their parties would be doomed to be opposition anyway. Their voters knew that was a likely outcome based on the polls. And next election they might reach the threshold.
I agree, but the best way to achieve that is to remove the conditional aspects IMHO.
Social security is already unconditional, you just have to reach the age, and it is the standard IMHO of what can easily morph into UBI by lowering and eventually abolishing the age threshold.
If everyone can get Medicare for free, then it's just as universal and the means checks can be scrapped.
Same for education, if it's free, the means checks can be scrapped. Although, in a globalized world, I think higher ed should be debt based, but the debt just gets cancelled after 10-20 years of remaining in country. Otherwise, you indirectly subsidize other countries.
Progressives aren't libs, so nothing false flag about a progressive saying "the libs might have been right".
The assumption that anyone who calls liberals "libs" is also pro-Trump is incorrect.