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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18017 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026

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I am fairly ambivalent on Greenland. I do think strategically it makes sense to be American since the European military has been highly degraded. With some impulse to rebuild now.

I do like yelling at Europe. And they do seem to be on the path to being a conquered people. I feel like the Ukraine War highlights this. Europe of 20 years ago the war would have been a turkey shoot for them.

I am fairly fine with the US going it alone. We can rebuild Argentina. It’s a fabulous country and Americans probably should be rerouting our vacations in that direction. Our allies should be the people who want to actually reform their countries and have the IQ to do it. If we can get rid of the ADL and political influence makes Israel a great ally too.

It’s not like MAGA doesn’t treat America the same way. Witness Minneapolis.

I am fairly fine with the US going it alone. We can rebuild Argentina

How about you rebuild the US first?

I am in Argentina now. What I see imported from the US is mainly the style of squalor. The material, artistic and civic culture of the modern US is plainly disgusting. Gigantic soda bottles, barely humanoid blobs waddling around, homelessness, trash, funko pops, capeshit comics, old gas-guzzling cars. No sense of propriety and harmony. It's Latin America, after all, but that's also America, how low-functioning America works. More money won't fix it, and it's not like you have money anyway.

More money won't fix it, and it's not like you have money anyway.

You know America has ten times the GDP per capita of Argentina and six times the GDP per capita of Russia, yes? Like there are reasoned and informed criticisms you can make of the USA. 'Doesn't have money' is not one.

That's precisely the issue. America has GDP and tries to have more GDP. It doesn't have money. It is a country with a chronically negative current account balance, literally $40T in debt, it has less money than anyone. On top of that it consistently has horrible financial discipline and vulnerability to scams and corruption at home. It can't afford to invest into shitholes with dubious ROI, so it does not invest in them and instead robs allies blind, raises tariffs, extorts investment, tries to monetize everything (eg Golden Visa, Board of Peace). Why do you think there exists BRI, but all American attempts to Build Back Better World or whatever have withered on the vine? China has money. America is broke. The main way it can share prosperity around is to deficit-spend buying Argentinian goods. And unfortunately, it already has enough beef and soy.

The deficit isn’t a negative. It’s been a necessity for the US to run large deficits to finance global trade since everyone else needs dollars to trade with since it’s essentially the only “real” global currency.

In many ways it’s been a negative for the US because it’s made domestic manufacturing too expensive.

That's not a natural law.

It doesn't have to be that way. There are ways of doing it that don't require certain states to endlessly produce debt

That's not a natural law.

It's an accounting identity.

Good post. Sometimes people Write paragraphs on subjects. But this does breakdown to just being an accounting identity.

Well, it's ruining your, not my country, so I'm not going to argue that it's not inevitable when you clearly desire the ends of said policy.

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