Iz 🌟

ignoring the incongruity of wanting the global economic order to collapse in one post and cheering on the supposed restoration of American hegemony in another... Arguably, the large trade deficit America had was the very reason for its long-term dominance at the top of the global order, by making USD the default currency for trading and encouraging global capital to invest in the US, which tended to then have a multiplicative effect. Isolationism and being a world-leading economic power don't go well together, for what I hope are blindingly obvious reasons. This route will give the Chinese the opportunity to invest in more than just Africa, I hear talks between the EU and China are progressing.... and oh look, China have indeed just slapped the US with another retaliatory tariff.

China needs to try 'infinity plus one tariffs', that'll sort 'im.

Anyway with stocks rebounding, this may go out of date in the next 48 hours but my instinct is that negotiations are reached with some countries, and the stock market climbs back to something a bit steadier, though still notably lower than the highs the Biden administration went out with. Then is where American consumers really start to feel the pinch, as higher prices set in that they can't ignore. From there, who knows.

We're not defending the system. That sucks and is a sham, most of us here have been consistent on the need to reduce inequality within our system and have been pretty damn radical compared to most online discussion boards. We're questioning the wisdom, or lack thereof, of burning it all down and giving the opportunity to profit to an in-clique of charlatans who've got into public service for the personal power it brings them, using vague platitudes about how their methods will totally bring prosperity at some unannounced future date (and indeed that it is the only method, 'only <insert strongman> can save <insert country>'). It is not the only method, what you need is a large movement led by figures who are consistent on ensuring that businesses and the rich pay their fair share to society. Not a movement that could be mistaken for monarchy and a mad king, which is something I'd never thought I'd say about an American administration but am saying now. Trump tariffs are disguised huge tax rises purposefully meant to crash the economy with no long-term future.

IMO those are good value odds for Labour. Which is different from saying they'll win, I'm prepared for the misery of seeing Farage's triumphant face once more, but I can't see this as anything more favourable to Reform than a 50-50, the fundamentals are too good to Labour and the latest cycles of news (and polls) haven't been the most auspicious for Reform.

Also virtually no one in politics is sharing Trump's view on this, any agreeance with him is just an acknowledgement that for now he's calling the shots until such time as he is dissuaded from this course - Labour have been very careful in how they deal with Trump, though they certainly do not agree with his strategy.

It's not the only solution though. It's far from the only solution (to I assume late-stage capitalism and the specifically American problem of corporations holding control over their governance). Effective corporate regulation would be a far more effective and delicate operation to move the US towards an economy that works for the people and the politicians they choose to elect. Most forms of governance keep markets working - full-blown socialism still has markets. The stocks aren't the enemy of the people. Globalisation isn't either (also it's not ending, as soon as Trump's measures are removed it's all back on), the only route to a fair and just world is through international cooperation, as with strategies like Trump's isolationism there will always be an other that is a 'threat' to prosperity.

Anyone who has saved or has a pension likely has some of their value invested in the stock market as it has been a mostly reliable way to grow savings faster than interest. That can still be true with the rich owning 90% of the stock market, they own a similar percentage of all wealth. Sure, investments go down as well as up, but it's also widely accepted that intentionally crashing the markets is a pain point that is unacceptable and over here saw a PM get removed from power. I guess what I'm struggling to see is how you get from Step 1, where we are, to the 'other system' that you describe in your last sentence, and if that is even better with people's savings taking a huge hit. Especially when Trump is not a proponent of such a system (only Americans will benefit and only those in the types of jobs he wants to bring back), and does not have the power alone to make his strategy bring the benefits that he claims it will. A far more likely route out of this is that markets react to slow the pain, banks introduce the latest version of QE, Trump eventually has to abandon his strategy, everything settles down under a further entrenched neoliberal consensus and everyone is slightly worse off than before with the rich who managed to buy into this market dip the only beneficiaries. (true societal change to achieve better living standards and less corporate exploitation in general comes about from just straight up making people's living standards better, in line with the markets until they are accessible to all)

If the Trump adminstration holds this course they will very quickly go down as one of the most financially incapable administrations in history. They've already turned a good-performing market into one of the worst crashes in its history in an entirely self-inflicted move, so they're arguably already there. I have to imagine that business interests (outside the clique of insiders playing the market) are going to lean heavily on them in the next few weeks and government interventions both in the US and abroad will stop any fantasies of this being some accelerationist strategy that collapses the system.

I'm going to be annoying and reject the premise of the question. There are 10 entries to standard contests in a year, and that means 10 songs, and that all has plenty of opportunity to vary wildly. Looking back at my entry history, pretty much every year has its mix of results-based successes and poor performances, and they also nearly always have a mix of entries I still blindly love to this day and entries I've barely listened to since entering them. Sure, some entrants have obvious periods of success and failure, but I've never noticed any consistent trend for Séyetana, and I'd be willing to bet most long-term entrants are similar. Slight exception for 2011, my first year, but I only had 4 entries there and for myself they were relatively weak. 2012 also is sort of before I cemented my music taste and therefore entries around what I really consistently like and is a bit weaker too, though it's one of my better years with regards hit rates. But take for example 2013 so you see what I mean. It has two of my favourite entries to this day (Sonsick and Amaranthine), and two of my worst entries (Peacock and Come Together). Amaranthine was also a big hit, but I had 5 NQs. Is that a good year or a bad year? Similar for 2014-2017, I can probably pick essential entries of mine and forgettable ones, ones I consider hits and failures from each. Though 2017, probably my least successful year from an objective standpoint, also has a relatively HIGH rate of essential Séyetana entries (Ichiban No Takaramono, Let Me Hear, Chipland, Vogel Im Kafig, The Wolf, Eiyuu Unmei No Uta and You Say Run all incredible), perhaps a marker of being more open to my niches that year. 2018 sorta stands out as the year I didn't DNQ, plus one of my silver medals (touch wood for 2025). Perhaps that one? 2019 too, also a silver medal, also has I'm Glad You're Evil Too, one of my long-time best. 2020 was pretty weak I guess for me with the exception of Blood Of The Fang, Darkness and F**ked With An Anchor, it and 2017 are the two where I had more NQs than Qs. 2021 is another 2017, as the year that I got away with sending Mori Calliope/DEMONDICE 3 times xx as well as hosting despite somewhat... patchy results. 2022-2023 were okayish, again much like 2014-2017, ups and downs, good entries and weaker entries. 2024 was possibly one of my better years, a few hits, most of the entries still sound incredible, but might be too soon to judge long-term. But overall I wouldn't like to say any was really a 'best' year or 'worst' year. It's a mix.

Israel probably 'has the right', but it's different from should they be doing that if they want to maintain the appearance of being a law-abiding state. Definitely can't have a resurgent Tory party subservient to a foreign state, we aren't America and they aren't going to reassert power like that. Incidentally Yuan Yang, one of the two MPs, was briefly my MP for a few months, and though there's some bias as I've been more aware of what she's doing, she's one of the MPs from the 2024 intake I've been most impressed by so far, with doing local constituency work to save Reading FC AND it turns out investigating problematic issues abroad.

I think this is a very lovely album. Not quite as instantly memorable as Ants From Up There but a very good collection of sounds and a bunch of songs I'm sure will grow on me, 'Besties' is already sounding incredible as the track I was most familiar with.

got a nice lot of screaming in this one gotta say I would hope for more Japanese songs on the album but if it gets them a bit more relevance overseas...

Though one should note that Vietnam is apparently on the path to negotiating zero tariffs with the White House, causing Nike's shares in particular to jump back up, but that's not a win for tariffs being good policy, that's a win for Trump doing 'I'll threaten a bad thing until you give me deference, and we'll slowly work our way back to what we had before' which is just a waste of time for all involved except his ego. First sign of him doing what he did with Canada/Mexico last month at least, we're back on this stupid train.

The stock markets continue crashing. Biggest daily fall for the FTSE 100 since the pandemic. Yet again, another huge load of value wiped off. No one does well out of this outside of the disaster capitalists waiting to buy the dip, especially not ordinary people. I don't even get Liam's example. Nike's factories in Vietnam aren't going to change their strategy off of this, they'll just sell more to Europe or whereever else, and perhaps a bit less to the US at higher prices. Their advertising budget doesn't come into it, though they might cut back on it if the US is a less lucrative market. You can't swan around and claim it's solving the inequalities of global capitalism when the evidence for that is speculative and it is something beyond the power of even the US president to solve with such a crude strategy like tariffs, and it's not even his stated aim, his stated aims are dumb nationalism, so reading into him beyond that is not worth it.

was a nice consistent rise to (nearly) the top back in the day BJSC 37 - The Wrecking Queens - Middle & Between - DNQ BJSC 38 - Emmon - Distance - 22nd BJSC 39 - Alyssa Reid - The Game - 14th BJSC 40 - Cady Groves - This Little Girl - 14th (both of these also got 77 points so were exactly even) BJSC 41 - Nightwish - Turn Loose The Mermaids - 10th BJSC 48 - Dream Beats - Love Stuck (feat. The Face) - 3rd ~ 5 years later ~ BJSC 104 - Beyond The Black - Night Will Fade - 2nd & BJSC 114 - Marnik - Up & Down - 2nd and then sewerslvt getting me a bronze medal in 135 is the only time I've been in the top 5 since.

got quite few good options, some self-recycles calling at me, some potentially left-field options, undecided yet but I want big/hype.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_Abominations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act some light reading on what the USA was doing a century ago and two centuries ago.

These numbers make no sense. They've divided the trade deficit by imports to come up with those figures... they're not even competent at implementing their own economic ideology, not to mention the inclusion of territories as ridiculous as Svalbard & Jan Mayen and Heard & McDonald Islands in the list of territories that have been 'taking advantage of the US for years'. FOR GOOD REASON. The winners of this are categorically not the American people, or anyone across the world, so what's the point of this? Domestic businesses will find they have room to price gouge, they might do well out of it. But the USA is a knowledge economy, it exports tech, it exports financial services. It doesn't have a trade deficit, it is not a situation that needs reversing, and this is not the only way of reducing a trade deficit, only possibly the most harmful and sharp shock way of doing so. I really think you need to stop talking out of your arse because every post betrays your complete lack of economic understanding and bleak deferential outlook to capitalist plunderers.

As far as I am aware, most places which have a local election have now published a statement of persons nominated for the upcoming local elections. Same day as the Runcorn by-election. Most of these are councils that last had their local elections in 2021, when the Conservatives made advances due to being more popular than the opposition at that time. Some of those planned elections have been delayed to 2026 due to council restructuring. While it's not one-to-one, odd-numbered years and particularly this year of the cycle tends to be for rural councils in England, while even-numbered years tend to have more metropolitan elections. As with last year, potentially a lot of council seats for Conservatives to lose. Probably more than Labour, although most of the areas with elections are not areas naturally friendly to Labour and they don't control any of the councils up for election except Doncaster. Politicos will be watching to see if Reform's candidates and campaign can give them a respectable number of council seats, though they've been pretty bad at the council by-elections so far. 6 mayorships are also up, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, West Of England, Doncaster and North Tyneside, which were Labour before and the 2 new mayorships of Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire. Out of the 1641 council seats up for election, the last election (rough) results are: CON: 1182 LAB: 336 LDM: 247 GRN: 37 REF: 0 Currently Reform do have 120 councillors (mostly defectors), but those are split among seats with elections in all 4 annual cycles. Is there an election in your area? How many seats will the major parties get? Deadline to register to vote in these elections is 11:59pm 11th April 2025.

Pain for those of us that have been doing that for a while now. But also makes it very easy to see how they've fucked it up, I had my S&S ISA growing way faster than interest rates throughout the back half of Biden's term. In the last 2 months, most of those gains have been wiped out. This may not even be the bottom of the dip either. Of course I'm doing it for the long term, but all that wasted growth + complete uncertainty. The Trumpist theory of how this will grow the economy doesn't hold water with any major non-partisan economists. Recession very likely.

Also like, a service-focused economy like the US generally gets a lot richer by having its economy based around tertiary services, who can then afford all the cheap manufactured goods that have been outsourced overseas - that's been the major source of their economic dominance ever since the end of the Cold War. The flat tariffs on basically everything are very likely to cause a lot of economic slowdown within the US, which will have associated shocks around the globe, but none as bad as in the centre. The economics are braindead if your aim is to keep the US as a world-leading economy. Though perhaps not so braindead if you, or your associated cabal of billionaires intend to buy up cheap assets after plunging a large economy into a recession...

Could also affect some of our businesses that export to the US, a worrying one is the automotive industry, as that has a lot of moving parts and things to manufacture, so lots of businesses downwind from the manufacturers themselves also, and operates on tight margins. If demand for cars falls in the US, that would not be pretty for us, it's our second-biggest export sector to the US and the most vulnerable in that list.

I like Persephonia (as a classics fan), it feels right. Also Jayrusalem (for the puns).

20% tariffs on EU 10% tariffs on UK Liberation day for the US. your monthly tariff hysteria scheduled right about now, except this is also a very big one - watch this space for even worse market reactions than we've seen previously.