US Presidential Election 2024

20% price inflation over the 4 years of Biden's term. No President gets re-elected with a record like that and his less popular vice President certainly wouldn't get re-elected in his place.
 
joe sod said:
I India and China don't get on at all they are adversaries. I think they are facilitating putin because there is no cost for them and this is a mistake.
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China is facilitation Russia to see how the US reacts. If they (the US) are war-weary after this then it makes it easier for China to go into Taiwan and for China it's all about Taiwan.

It's also worth remembering that in a global context the West in general, and Europe in particular, is in a state of relative economic decline and relative and absolute military decline. It makes sense for the US to decouple itself from Europe and forge stronger alliances in Asia. They should also cast a longer term eye on Africa.

For example in 50 years Nigeria will probably be a more important country globally than any country in Europe. By 2050 it will have nearly 400 million people, real GDP of almost $12 trillion (7% average annual growth from now until then) and a per capita income of over $33,000 in todays money. It has vast natural resources, including the tenth biggest oil reserves in the world. PWC forecast that it will be the 14th biggest economy in the world. Where will it be 25 years later?
PWC estimate that the EU's share of Global GDP will have halved between 2016 and 2050, down to 9% of global total. China will be the biggest economy in the world, followed by India, the USA and then Indonesia. Even now the EU is around 15% and the US around 25% of global GDP but that's declining fast. The days of the West using economic muscle to force other countries to do "the right thing" are ending and within a decade of so will be well and truly over.
 
I don't agree with that at all , it's an often repeated slogan that the west is in decline and is about to be usurped by China and some of the new emerging powers. Because it has been repeated so much it becomes a mantra. However when you look at the reality China peaked before covid and has never recovered from covid like the us and Europe has. Now with the new protectionism and anti globalisation movement in full swing that is not the environment for China to keep grabbing market share and technology.
The US is still the top economic and military power by a long shot, all the information technology revolution originated in the US, yes China has big ambitions but as of yet has not and is not likely to pass out the US. The recent brics conference attempts to form an alternative to dollar was a failure, none of the other brics trust China and the yuan to be an effective reserve currency.

As for Europe yes it has basically stagnated economically for 20 years but it is still one of the richest places on the planet, the quality of cities and infrastructure in Europe is far superior to anything in China or India and Europe is the destination of choice for high calibre qualified workers, if they can get a visa they are gone.
Yes militarily Europe has been naive and decadent preferring pacifist policies and falling back on the US but this is a result of history and the fact that WW2 was started in Europe and this still casts a long shadow but this now is changing with the putin invasion . Some european countries like Poland are becoming very strong militarily. The fact that the supposed 2nd most powerful army russia is struggling against a poorly armed and small European country should not be forgotten. In fact ukraine has more experience in fighting a 21 century war with drones than China or India does. Therefore it is likely that Europe will become alot stronger militarily again simply because of the geopolitical environment with trump in the white house and an aggressive although now diminished russia
 
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Elon Musk in charge of Dept for Government Efficiency
It'll be interesting to see how US govt employees react when the inevitable mass firings happen.
 
redstar said:
Elon Musk in charge of Dept for Government Efficiency
It'll be interesting to see how US govt employees react when the inevitable mass firings happen.
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The amount of regulation and red tape in the US is staggering.
I spoke to a business owner from South Carolina about 4 years ago who is in the same sector as me. He employed 35 people and had one and a half people who just dealt with the City, County, State and Federal regulations, laws and licences. He needed 3 licences just relating to water. His water supply came from the next county over so when it stopped working he had to call his county who called the next county who called their repair people who called the repair people in his county. He said it could take three days to get someone out to fix a minor problem.

The same sort of nonsense applied to electricity supply, waste collection and just about everything else.
In California social housing units regularly cost more than $1 million per unit to build. Must of that is down to the regulation and byzantine bureaucracy that developers have to navigate.
10% of the $4.2 trillion dished out by the Federal Government during Covid was stolen. That can only happen when there are layers of ineffective and inefficient public administration.

Is Musk the right guy to sort it out? Almost certainly not.

Is it a real problem that the general public finds very frustrating and that the Democrats ignore? Absolutely.
 
It’s not about bureaucracy per se.

He can’t do anything about individual state bureaucracies.

Trump’s beef is with federal power.

His eldest son, Donald Jr said on Fox News that his father will prize loyalty and look for “people who don’t think they know better than the duly elected president”, - which says it all.
 
Probably one good selection, he has picked Mike waltz as his national security advisor, a former US marine and a big backer of ukraine unlike many other of his maga backers. Jake sullivan was a huge disappointment as biden security advisor and kiboshed the permissions to allow ukraine strike deep into Russia with Western missiles.
 
Against that the Defence secretary is a FOX News host, Pete Hegseth.
Not sure what to expect from Rubio as Secretary of State.

Trump stuns the Pentagon by picking Fox News host as defence secretary

Trump said in a statement: “With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice.”
www.thejournal.ie
 
Purple said:
The Politico headline says it all.
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Trump has so much power this time, it's worrying. Nobody really believed he'd win in 2016 and he was surrounded by Republican appointees. This time around he can divvy out the jobs as he likes. And with control of the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court, it could be an interesting few years ahead....
 
At the end of the day, it looks like this is the way most of those who voted want to be governed. No amount of legal issues, felony convictions, election result denying, insurrection attempts, vicious personal attacks on opponents or spreading of disinformation have had any effect on Trumps popularity.

Democracy in action.
 
I think it's more a case of disliking Trump less than how much they dislike the Democrats.
 
Itchy said:
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence! Monumental appointment, if confirmed. Big loss for Ukraine.
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Trump is trolling at this stage. Hopefully that can be blocked by Senate but not if that appointment needs their approval.
 
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