***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[fluid hips]

delete

 

[fluid hips]

You are the one the brought up Nike to argue your point. I am pointing out that the market conditions when it comes to labor for sneakers and semiconductors are different.

Like you say here, one requires a much higher skilled workforce, which means they can't be easily and cheaply replaced by new workers

There are semiconductor factories in other countries, but they can't just pick up the slack if TSMC goes offline or increases prices by a ton. The supply of semiconductors are already tight

Also making new factories also involves large capital investments. So if China invades before all the new capacity that is planned comes online the west is ****ed.

The Crypto boom caused GPU prices to skyrocket because they weren't enough capacity to make more when demand increased. Now imagine that happening all over the economy.

Not to mention that manufacturing processes are copyrighted info. their competitors don't have access to TSMC's processes

This is not about supporting America imperialism, or being patriots, or whatever silliness that pops into your head that you want to accuse people of

It is a pragmatic look at how a negative geopolitical shift would affect the world economy

But keep fighting that good contrarian fight comrade

So protecting American interests (in this case the ready availability and supply of semiconductors) is not part of imperialism

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

Acting as a check on another country”s imperialist threats is not inherently imperialism. Neither is protecting your economic interests.

Imperialism would be asserting control or influence that effectively made Taiwan less independent. You haven’t made any kind of argument that Nancy’s trip infringes on that independence.

The US has certainly been a bad actor when it comes to economic imperialism (see, ME and Latin America), but in the last several decades, the Far East has been strong enough to assert and maintain independence from Washington.

 

[gry60]

There are plenty of geopolitical risks to. Chinese invasion of Taiwan and it‘s certainly in the US’s interest to mitigate that risk. But I’m not sure I see anything that prompts saber rattling right now - especially by a MoC without support and leadership in the White House.

It is weird that she went there without the support of the white house.

However, I think her visit could be justified as being proactive, especially in light of how Russia slowly followed its expansion plans (starting with Georgia) with minimal initial response from the West.

 

[rexanglorum]

China, Russia, and the US are major Empires with the US being the biggest. Iran, France, and Great Britain have more modest and empires. All of this is informal, of course. Outright annexations are considered gauche in the post WWII order but certain countries certainly have spheres of influence. Whether one sees that as a good or bad thing and to what degree a sphere influence is synonymous with empire, is debatable.

My personal onion is that all empires are bad and that the working class from any country should not have to die for the imperial ambitions of their country's ruling class.

So as far as Taiwan goes, I hope that cooler heads prevail one way or another.

 

[IATT]

 

[RustyShackleford]

So protecting American interests (in this case the ready availability and supply of semiconductors) is not part of imperialism

American interest as far as TSMC seems to align with what Taiwan wants.

Are we gonna act like the Taiwanese government and people would welcome an invasion and China taking control of TSMC?

This imperialistic threat Taiwan seems most concerned with is China. And they view a strong relationship with the US as a deterrent.

You are stripping all context and nuance from this situation.

Like she is there to further America's imperialist agenda, but the President didn't want her to go

 

[letsgetit22]

Maybe Garland is doing something...

 

[sneeker]

Y'all sound like good "patriots". Again that's part of imperialism. Taiwan is the top semiconductor producer because western capitalism demands cheap labor. South East Asia has been a source of cheap labor for the west for decades. To put it in sneaker terms for the low IQ people, Nike stoped making sneakers in S. Korea because their living standards improved and people weren't about to work for pennies so Nike was forced to leave for Vietnam, Taiwan etc.


If Taiwan stopped producing chips, the US, Germany, Japan, S. Korea etc can fill that void. They have the tooling/infrastructure in place. But if they did, then the cost would go up because they have to pay the workers a wage so they can live by western standards and western consumers would bish about the rising cost of goods that require these chips.

I missed those made in S. Korea Nikes and Jordans. now those we quality shoes. then got replaced by lame-as* China made shoes which have qc issues. vietnam made shoes were terrible and felt like poor fakes by today's standard. in fairness to vietnam, they have improved recently but they are still underwhelming.

 

[stuntman mike]

it’s wild how the party of “lock her up” is now feeling victimized when that energy is flowing the other direction.

 

[IATT]

 

[dmbrhs]

Is there a huge blue shift that may be occurring in Kansas?
I am sure Delk will post a CNN article tomorrow on why this could mean trouble for the Biden administration.

Don't count on it. Their two Republican senators are safe. Historically, the state has flip-flopped on governors though. But, the reason the current governor is a Dem is because the previous guy was so unbelievably awful that voters went blue. Brownback single-handedly destroyed Kansas' economy and public institutions...which included education. Countless schools closed due to his tax legislation. Even some of his own GOP cronies overturned his legislation years later because Kansas was headed towards what we like to call "Mississippi-land".

 

[whywesteppin]

does intervening in another country to protect it from take over by an imperialist country make you imperialist or anti-imperialist?

 

[AEA18]

 

[dwalk31]

 

[dwalk31]

 

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

I’m required by my job to use special software on my phone that creates a virtual number. Any call or text I make that’s related to work is supposed to use that number and software. These calls and messages are then centrally recorded and stored in a lace I can not access. Deleting them from my phone does not delete them from central storage.

I’m constantly reminded, and complete annual training, about my responsibilities and how I could go to prison if I use other channels for work or in any other way attempt to subvert this control.

But people claim my industry is under-supervised and regulated. I guess capital markets are more important than domestic security.

Damn it. Even Nedry knew better than to mess with the raptor fences!

 

[dwalk31]

 

[cragmatic]

G Damn, I live in Michigan and that Trump endorsement really means everything to republicans huh. They have been trashing Gibbs on ads and he still won, all because Meijer voted to impeach Trump.

Then there’s stupid Tudor Dixon

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

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[IATT]

 

[RustyShackleford]

It is funny that the dude that told someone else to give it a rest in regards to bringing up his support for Trump started his day with coming in here and posting about Trump backed candidates winning primaries.

 

[dwalk31]

 

[IATT]