U.S. Politics

[ericcw]

The democrats are no longer in charge.

The radical extemists are in charge now.

[ericcw]

This is so infuriating

[srini]

It is unquestionable, the USAID has done good things like putting some funds into HIV treatment and prevention in African countries. But when it tries to fund some media organizations to drive certain thinking and thought process that is called plain propaganda. Unfortunately USAID has been doing more of the media narrative and less of actual good work of late. If you think about it, what are these DEI drives including some recruitment drives in some corporate companies doing? Hiring someone without prejudice is fine...but a hiring drive just to ensure your team meets certain goals like it should have this many Women, this many Trans gender etc borders on BS. USAID and DEI have been espousing such woke narratives rather than spending money for alleviating world hunger, poverty and disease. So full force to what Donald and Elon are doing. What ever they are doing actually makes sure US tax payer money is only spent on developing US infra and not on driving media narratives in India, Bangladesh or some other country. And i for one won't support any foreign interference in my country even if that means losing a few billion that some on this forum seem to be thinking would do good for the economy. I hope they realize the short term gains in economy won't be worth if they know what long term gains the foreign lobby wants to achieve.

Coming to Ukraine war, though Russia attacked Ukraine 1st, i think a lot of it had to do with Biden's pre-war overtures about making Ukraine part of the NATO etc that actually drove Putin into panic and incited him to attack.
Trump has moved so quickly before he came to power that Biden realized it would do him good to take some of credit for the Gaza peace which anyway would have happened after Trump came to power. What many of us couldn't foresee was that Ukraine war also would come to an end albeit i'm afraid with lot of territorial losses to Ukraine. Its painful to see Ukrainians to suffer these territory losses for what their joker leader and Biden have done. But it's far more painful to see so much loss of life in Ukraine and Russia and even more suffering for lifetime the amputations and disabilities sustained from war. So what ever deal happens between US and Russia in their Saudi talks without Ukraine and European involvement, i hope peace will be happening sooner!

[prasen9]

It is unquestionable, the USAID has done good things like putting some funds into HIV treatment and prevention in African countries. But when it tries to fund some media organizations to drive certain thinking and thought process that is called plain propaganda. Unfortunately USAID has been doing more of the media narrative and less of actual good work of late.

This itself sounds like false information and propaganda. Do you have data/evidence on this? A lot of money is wasted by USAID and many parts of the government, especially the defence department, as well as in large companies. Most of the money from USAID goes in projects that are, at least, on paper tangible wrt helping poor people. I admit that a lot of it is stolen by foreign autocrats, agencies that dupe the U.S. government, etc. The department of defence engages in more U.S. propaganda than other agencies, maybe just by virtue of having most of the money. But, from what I have seen it is flat out wrong and propaganda of the worst type to say that more money goes into shaping the media narrative than on actual (or at least on paper) development projects. Please cite your evidence. And, no Faux News and such propaganda does not count.

[srini]

Please cite your evidence. And, no Faux News and such propaganda does not count.

Am I the only one asked for data/evidence for the things i say on this forum? Anyway i hope you understand no organization, let alone USAID, will be publishing data that indicts itself. We just have to connect dots like you did in the case of buying a full fare air ticket which was reimbursed. So if you are willing to connect dots then i do have few links that can point to how USAID has been rigging subscription system of some magazines which in turn publish narratives it wants for the favors they receive. My job of finding links got a little easier due to a change of guard that happened in US government, which is trying to find faults with earlier establishment.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/wor ... 960341.cms
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/documen ... ts-7645010
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/usa ... nsters.php


Plz don't put above link as "Faux" news just because its on twitter...the guy is giving US spend link as evidence for Newyork times funding. If you want you can also do the research with below link.
https://www.usaspending.gov/search/?has ... 036d389cc1

Like i said earlier i am not denying USAID did some good work in areas of addressing malnutrition, disease prevention etc. But if you again ask me for evidence/data you may have to wait until my off-work days.
I am only of the opinion USAID shouldn't get into the business of making rest of world bring inline with certain line of thinking by funding/rigging media.

[Peter]

Just wanted to chime in that President Trump has greatly exceeded my modest expectations during the past month.

With the debt and deficit piling up, shrinking the government is exactly what many of us voted for.

Kamala and her ilk were a disgrace to our country. Good riddance!

[srini]

Zelensky's Oval office meeting with Trump and Vance gives a preview of what happens when there is no continuity of stand by successive US governments at least on issues like the military equipment support it provides to countries like Ukraine.

After fighting a debilitating war with Russia for 3 years, losing lakhs of soldiers and many times more disabled, Ukraine finds no guarantee on continued military equipment supplies from US.I find it appalling and reprehensive of Trump and Vance trying to make a deal out of Ukraine's vulnerable situation by making a threat of leaving Ukraine on its own if it doesn't make a peace deal as part of which US can take Ukraine's rare earth minerals. I understand its Clown leader has played to the tunes of corrupt democrats who wanted the US defense companies to benefit out of a war that involved Ukraine. While Biden wanted a pie out of Ukraine's war Trump wants a pie out of the peace deal. Now its almost sure the sacrifices made by Ukraine's military and people to defend their country will go in vain. For Trump and Co, this deal is just Yalta 2.0, oddly Europe which let Biden treat them as its satellite states, is left out of Yalta 2.0 deal that is going to happen soon.

India and its leader Modi should learn their lessons by looking at how US deals with "its friends" and Modi should stop addressing Trump as a "Friend" for a start and work on a more comprehensive trade policy that can tackle the Trumps of world and tilt scales in India favor when the likes of Ursula from European union come to negotiate FTAs with India.

[thebestone]

Interesting perspective, but you're mixing several complex geopolitical issues together. USAID has legitimate development programs worldwide, and while no agency is perfect. The Ukraine situation is nuanced - oversimplifying it as a mere transaction for mineral rights doesn't capture the complexity of international diplomacy and conflict resolution. Also, your interpretation of Trump-era foreign policy seems highly selective. Diplomatic relationships are rarely as black and white as you're portraying.

[sameerph]

What do you all guys think of the Trump tariff policy ? stock markets all over the world are falling like anything including US markets which are supposed to benefit from tariffs.

[Atithee]

US markets are not “supposed” to benefit from tariffs. They may actually be the biggest losers at least in the short run (which will be years) and the US markets have reacted accordingly. Perhaps PKB can provide an economist’s view. All business schools teach you that tariffs are bad.

[arjun2761]

^^^^Agree on the US Stock market part. Global companies, many of which are US companies, have done very well over the last couple of decades. Sourcing goods and services from the cheapest places and selling to the richest markets has been a boon to the global companies. The US stock market reflects that. The 65 Trillion market cap of the US stock market is likely bigger than the market caps of all the other stock markets put together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... _exchanges

[PKBasu]

US markets are not “supposed” to benefit from tariffs. They may actually be the biggest losers at least in the short run (which will be years) and the US markets have reacted accordingly. Perhaps PKB can provide an economist’s view. All business schools teach you that tariffs are bad.

In theory, free trade is supposed to be good. But if you examine the assumptions used in proving the key theorems of international trade (that free trade is good for both parties, etc.) they are hopelessly unrealistic: markets are assumed to be perfectly competitive (large number of producers, none of whom can affect the price), there is perfect information, etc.

The way business schools teach this as if it is gospel is actually quite amusing.

In reality, economic history shows that tariffs and protectionism have been hugely beneficial (although admitting this in the company of most of us economists can be perilous ). The most recent example is China: Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, etc. emerged (and became massive companies) after China banned Amazon, Facebook, Google, etc. from China. The British Industrial Revolution began 50 years after Britain banned the import of cloth from India (and about 30 years after it banned imports of silk from China).

Trump was right to impose tariffs on China (which cheats on a massive scale in international trade; it subsides domestic over-production, and then dumps its excess output on the rest of the world below its cost of production -- the very definition of dumping). But he has gone completely overboard this time with a slew of unwarranted tariffs on 60 countries. He is basically inviting all of them other than China to negotiate. Most are willing to -- and once markets understand that, they are likely to calm down. However, the likes of Apple and Nike are likely to show dismal corporate earnings over the next couple of quarters, at least (because of their dependence on Chinese production) -- and that is correctly reflected in the markets.