Embargo

[Geronimo]

If you don't argue we should use our savings, then what money are we supposed to use for these 'pump and dump' schemes? I don't particularly have a massive boatload of money earmarked for gambling (besides, how would I escape retribution? Access to the stock market is heavily regulated).
Whereas boycotting as many US products as I can is easy. I need new headphones, Bose was among the options to buy, now they're not, I'll choose between Sennheiser and Sony. It's it effective? Certainly not if it's only me. Do I care if Trump gets angry and doubles down? No I don't, he's not my responsibility, and I don't believe in appeasing bullies to save them and their supporters some hardship.

I believe the reason I gave was that it would be expected to increase the trade deficits that Trump is tailoring the tariffs to. Not to appease Trump so he stops being mad.

[Geronimo]

Well we've just transferred all of our pension savings out of the US. Completely. 6-figures worth in fact. If everyone makes a similar commitment we can really hit them hard.

It's too bad this wasn't attempted in response to Brexit. I'm sure that would have taught them a lesson.

[Provost Harrison]

It's too bad this wasn't attempted in response to Brexit. I'm sure that would have taught them a lesson.

The two events are not comparable (only the way it was created). Brexit was an act of immense self harm to the UK and there was a loss of our standing which we need to repair the damage. The government of the time were incompetent and ham fisted but relations have still remained cordial and cooperative.

The US, oh the US. That's a whole different sh*tshow. Your new regime are bullies and tyrants, they've turned on allies in the blink of an eye, threatened annexation, invited them to the White House for discussions and tried to shake them down for the world to see so they can get their perceived "pound of flesh" back. They have converted the US into what I can only describe as a Judas state. A treacherous, prideful and dangerous rogue state in the shape of its dictator.

This is not the same, not on any level. Don't even try and kid yourself that it is my friend.

[Geronimo]

The two events are not comparable (only the way it was created). Brexit was an act of immense self harm to the UK and there was a loss of our standing which we need to repair the damage. The government of the time were incompetent and ham fisted but relations have still remained cordial and cooperative.

The US, oh the US. That's a whole different sh*tshow. Your new regime are bullies and tyrants, they've turned on allies in the blink of an eye, threatened annexation, invited them to the White House for discussions and tried to shake them down for the world to see so they can get their perceived "pound of flesh" back. They have converted the US into what I can only describe as a Judas state. A treacherous, prideful and dangerous rogue state in the shape of its dictator.

This is not the same, not on any level. Don't even try and kid yourself that it is my friend.

Everything Trump has done has either been an act of immense self harm (tariffs placed by the US do not directly harm anyone but the US) or a cessation of incredible (if prudent) generosity, such as the massive grants and intelligence sharing for Ukraine which Trump is arbitrarily drying up to indirectly help Russia.

If that is bullying then boycotts are bullying as well. why wouldn't they be?

Most of the countries of the world have pulled this kind of stupid crap that Trump is inflicting at some point and I've never heard it characterized as "bullying". Trump hasn't crossed the rubicon of outright betrayal yet. His actions to date are betrayals in the same sense that Charles de Gaulle pulling France out of NATO and expelling NATO personnel in the dark depths of the cold war was a betrayal. How bad was the boycotting the faced for that I wonder?

You are treating (largely merely threatened) tariffs and cessations of aid as something that you can "only describe as a Judas state. A treacherous, prideful and dangerous rogue state in the shape of its dictator."

I'm sorry but so far tariffs and cessation of aid are not the same, not on any level. Don't even try and kid yourself that they are my friend.

The biggest take away will be that the US must never again give generous aid to a country in need because I guarantee that if the US had not done so these boycotts would not materialize.

[Provost Harrison]

Everything Trump has done has either been an act of immense self harm (tariffs placed by the US do not directly harm anyone but the US) or a cessation of incredible (if prudent) generosity, such as the massive grants and intelligence sharing for Ukraine which Trump is arbitrarily drying up to indirectly help Russia.

If that is bullying then boycotts are bullying as well. why wouldn't they be?

Most of the countries of the world have pulled this kind of stupid crap that Trump is inflicting at some point and I've never heard it characterized as "bullying". Trump hasn't crossed the rubicon of outright betrayal yet. His actions to date are betrayals in the same sense that Charles de Gaulle pulling France out of NATO and expelling NATO personnel in the dark depths of the cold war was a betrayal. How bad was the boycotting the faced for that I wonder?

You are treating (largely merely threatened) tariffs and cessations of aid as something that you can "only describe as a Judas state. A treacherous, prideful and dangerous rogue state in the shape of its dictator."

I'm sorry but so far tariffs and cessation of aid are not the same, not on any level. Don't even try and kid yourself that they are my friend.

The biggest take away will be that the US must never again give generous aid to a country in need because I guarantee that if the US had not done so these boycotts would not materialize.

How dare you ****ing say boycotts are bullying. Trump is a man who threatens his neighbours with war and betrays his allies. And my actions are to, as part of a whole, bring a said regime to their knees.

Answer me this, if a mad gunman were on the loose and he were shot by the police before any further harm can be done, are the police murderers? Is someone defending themselves against a bully a bully? I mean your logic is so damn wide of the mark as to make it disingenuous.

Hang your head in shame because you are apologist for a country that supports a genocidal regime now and constantly uses the threat of hostile action and unpredictability to create instability and chaos. The constant "will there be sanctions, won't there be sanctions" is economic warfare in itself.

**** you you little ****, don't ever talk to me again.

[Dauphin]

A bit of an over-reaction there mate.

[Geronimo]

How dare you ****ing say boycotts are bullying. Trump is a man who threatens his neighbours with war and betrays his allies. And my actions are to, as part of a whole, bring a said regime to their knees.

Answer me this, if a mad gunman were on the loose and he were shot by the police before any further harm can be done, are the police murderers? Is someone defending themselves against a bully a bully? I mean your logic is so damn wide of the mark as to make it disingenuous.

Hang your head in shame because you are apologist for a country that supports a genocidal regime now and constantly uses the threat of hostile action and unpredictability to create instability and chaos. The constant "will there be sanctions, won't there be sanctions" is economic warfare in itself.

**** you you little ****, don't ever talk to me again.

How dare you call tariffs bullying then? let alone call tariffs along with an abandonment of Ukraine after 3 years of literally unprecedented generosity of aid to Ukraine as sufficient criteria to qualify as "a Judas state. A treacherous, prideful and dangerous rogue state in the shape of its dictator."

The police are murderers if they kill a store manager who rather than threatening to kill someone else was threatening to place markups on certain vendors merchandise in their store if not enough people bought the store's store brand goods or place such markups just to try to leverage the vendors into doing various unrelated favors for the store manager expecting the vendors to cave to protect their sales volumes. To further fit the cop analogy we may need to add that the store vendors operated in an area where recently one of them had the mob shake them down for protection money and steal one of their trucks and steal its merchandise and the vendors and the previous store manager had contributed money and capital equipment to provide private security to the vendor getting the shake down with the previous store manager providing by far the largest contribution to help vs the mob shakedown. If the obnoxious new store manager also talked about what a dangerous neighborhood it is and how the only reason nobody robbed the vendors more often was because they don't want to mess with the store manager and his private security and that if the vendors want to keep enjoying such protection they'd better start hiring more private security for themselves or he'd stop sending his out to help safe guard their deliveries as well as cut off the payments the previous manager had setup to support the vendor who had been robbed and told one of the vendors that he wanted to buy one of the vendors nearby warehouses and the vendor insisted it was not for sale but the new store manager said that if the vendor wouldn't sell, well the new manager might be ready to do anything to get it and it would be in their interests to take the generous offer ...well that would reveal the store manager to be an obnoxious blowhard SOB and a good target to watch for organized criminal activity perhaps. It would also make the cops murderers for shooting him for any of that.

You are talking about Trump the way it would be appropriate to talk about Hitler after taking the Sudetenland or perhaps Putin after seizing Crimea. But he hasn't done anything like that yet. Your case for doing so is so weak it's tough to not dismiss it as a simple troll.

<keep dropping characters here and there>

[EPW]

Geronimo can't accept that we're the bad guys yet. I feel sorry for him.

[Geronimo]

Geronimo can't accept that we're the bad guys yet. I feel sorry for him.

There's different levels of bad guys. I don't accept that the US is the nazis or even the Ukraine invading Russians yet. I'm keen to avoid them becoming anything like that.

They've gone from being the kind of good guys that the rest of NATO generally manages to be to being Turkye. What level of bad guys do you think this f*ed up presidential term has achieved?

[EPW]

What level of bad guys do you think this f*ed up presidential term has achieved?

Vichy France

[Geronimo]

damn. I can't really refute that and it's pretty depressing. I like to think that Putin's invasions are far less existential for everybody else than the Third Reich's invasions but I also have to admit that Vichy France had a hell of lot better excuse to cooperate with the Third Reich than the US had to cooperate with Putin's campaigns.

[-Jrabbit]

Since 1994, the US (along with the Russia, China, the UK, and France) has been bound by treaty to defend Ukraine's sovereignty. Ukraine gave up the world's 3rd-largest cache of nuclear weapons as part of the agreement.
Yet you never seem to acknowledge it, while at the same time arguing that Trump is not a traitor to our allies.

[Geronimo]

Thanks that's spot on as a compelling reason to continue to back Ukraine. However I will point out that the US having provided well over 100 billion to Ukraine in response to it's having been invaded is a hell of a long way from totally non compliant unlike Russia.

[Aeson]

It's worth noting that Trump hasn't sent any aid to Ukraine. He broke our treaty with Ukraine. He's claimed Ukraine started the war. He's tried to bully Ukraine into paying back US aid 4x to 5x even though the aid was not a loan. He's vastly overstated how much aid was sent. He's stood up for Russia in the UN, along with North Korea and Belarus. He's been complimentary of Putin and hasn't said anything negative about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And Trump has only been president for a month and a half. The R congress has not attempted to stop or correct any of this.

[Aeson]

In broader terms Trump is trying to break most if not all commitments (treaty or contract) we have made with the outside world.

He's attacked Mexico and Canada for participating in the letter and spirit of the trade agreement he signed last term. He's constantly lying about and insulting them and our closest allies and trading partners.

The only ones he doesn't attack are Putin and Kim, who he praises and obviously admires.

He has a deranged view on economics that will lead to worldwide tens of millions of unnecessary deaths, billions of people suffering unnecessary hardship, just to shoot ourselves in the foot. (Or more likely, a much more important part of our anatomy.)

He obviously cannot be trusted on any level for any thing. The R congress can obviously not be trusted either. As long as they are in power the US cannot be trusted. Even if/when they are replaced, that trust will not be deserved as those who voted for this still vote, so we're just one election away from rehashing the whole insane affair.

[Aeson]

A bit of an over-reaction there mate.

Not sure on that. Geronimo is equating those who are boycotting with someone who breaks treaties, lies, bullies, cozies up to dictators, destroys the world economy without provocation, etc.

He's telling everyone to lick the boot on their necks. His "alternative" to boycotts is to send hedge funds your life savings on your way to prison. It's a truly insipid stance he's taking. Groebbels would be proud of the manner Geronimo is gaslighting the victims here.

[Geronimo]

In broader terms Trump is trying to break most if not all commitments (treaty or contract) we have made with the outside world.

He's attacked Mexico and Canada for participating in the letter and spirit of the trade agreement he signed last term. He's constantly lying about and insulting them and our closest allies and trading partners.

The only ones he doesn't attack are Putin and Kim, who he praises and obviously admires.

He has a deranged view on economics that will lead to worldwide tens of millions of unnecessary deaths, billions of people suffering unnecessary hardship, just to shoot ourselves in the foot. (Or more likely, a much more important part of our anatomy.)

He obviously cannot be trusted on any level for any thing. The R congress can obviously not be trusted either. As long as they are in power the US cannot be trusted. Even if/when they are replaced, that trust will not be deserved as those who voted for this still vote, so we're just one election away from rehashing the whole insane affair.

Aeson...placing tariffs on a countries goods and services can be many things but calling it an "attack" in the context of this conversation is absurd. These tariffs violate treaties associated with the WTO and also the "USMCA" agreement that Trump was so proud of replacing NAFTA with. I don't even know if he's making an effort, let alone a serious effort to invoke the national security exceptions in defense at this point.

These are stupid moves. These are moves that harm US allies substantially more than they could help the US even if the allies didn't react to them at all, especially on these short notice time frames. That does not equate to Putin annexing parts of neighboring countries or even the unauthorized by treaties military interventions that the US has made for decades. Don't call these own goals "attacks". These tariffs are an attack in the same way Brexit could be construed as an "attack" on the EU with the caveat that I strongly suspect these tariffs break more treaties.

Maybe instead of a shot in the foot this will be more of a shotgun blast to the face, the US's face that is. A shot fired by Trump.