GBR48 comments

The UK imports about twice as much from China by value than from the US. Any blocks on Chinese imports on top of Long Brexit would finish off Starmer as the shelves would empty and the economy would tank. And Trump is extremely unpopular in the UK. To the extent that right wing parties face losing votes if they emulate his rhetoric or policies.

I guess we hoped that life would incrementally improve, but despite having the wonders of the internet, the 21stC has been largely crappy, with so much getting worse.

No matter how small your patch, grow stuff. Grow as much as you can. Grow lots and you won't be upset by the failures (all gardeners lose plants). Because there will always be something defying the odds, putting out a shoot, budding or flowering.

This year I tried turnips from seed and they are doing fine. A self-sown bluebell popped up in an odd place, self-sown cowslips are carpeting the ground under the fruit trees, a wren appeared on the webcam, the big banana survived the long, cold winter, and all the citrus are producing new growth and some flower buds. The sakura this year was lovely. The autumn cherry has been flowering for months.

Seeds are cheap, plug plants are widely available, digging is good for you and therapeutic, and nothing cheers quite like signs of new life in the garden or pots. Homegrown crops are a joy. For free you can make holes in yoghurt pots, add soil and plant the pips from your supermarket citrus and the 'stones' from your dates. If you can't get out into nature, build your own Eden, in a garden, on a balcony, in pots in a yard, on your windowsill, or indoors with houseplants.

Politicians are fiddling the figures? Whatever next?!

Aside from net-zero being a convenient fantasy and carbon trading a con, some interesting science is getting done. It looks like trees will grow faster and larger in the future.

The problem is that in places like Australia the bush fires will be stronger and more frequent, with huge emissions when they burn.

And will we only reduce emissions if we allow trees to grow until they mature, then chop them down and bury them deep underground or in the oceans, sinking in the carbon? Then we grow more in their place. Would that give us the best figures?

Australia does have lots and lots of sun-drenched space, but they would be better off using it for generating green electricity than planting trees on it that would struggle to grow and then burn.

Brazil just needs to keep its forests. If it needs to monetise them and grow food, grow forest fruits and harvest them, within the rainforest.

Governments can only reduce emissions at the speed they replace fossils with green power. Anything else is not politically or economically viable. They would be turfed out of office. Wildlife first policies that are seeing residential areas flood, farming banned and housing quotas not met, are alienating people and creating pushback.

Scientists need to develop politically and economically viable options if they want them to be implemented. Because we are not rats and we do not live in a lab.

The global south doesn't have the cash for this, Russia will keep pumping cheap fossils, and America is out of the game for four years. Once that has been factored in, don't expect much in the way of reductions any time soon.

Some good can be accomplished by devising viable best practice options for land use, especially farming. And viable lower emission alternatives to pretty much anything we do. Note I keep using the word viable. It matters.

Putin must be jealous. This is all damage to the US that he wanted to inflict.

This isn't an issue about Trump or taxiffs. If retail prices keep going up the LDP may actually get kicked out of power. Something that has usually been considered to be an impossibility.

Official inflation figures are easy to fake by excluding stuff most people buy, but folk know that they are getting poorer, and nothing erases a regime like inflation.

Rich Japanese people can be picky about where their rice comes from, but the majority will prioritise their finances.

It is easy enough to subsidise farmers to keep them sweet, but if rice prices don't go down, the JP government's Trump-high taxiffs and blocks on rice imports may bury them.

Trump doesn't care about anything Californian. He will want more cash for his JP base protection racket and huge purchases of fossils and mil gear to offset the trade imbalance.

The idea that a trade imbalance is 'exploitation' is of course complete BS. Countries have trade deficits or surpluses according to their needs. It's just a scam by the orange gangster to demand money with menaces.

Most countries whitewash their past in their school text books and popular movies. It's more concerning with state control of university research (as Trump is now doing).

If you live in a medievalising dictatorship, Afghanistan, Russia etc, you can create a state within a state to some extent, insulating yourself from the regime, but it is harder with kids. Nobody wants to see their kids messed up with this at school, and they aren't mature enough to lead a double life. That's why anyone that can leave may do so. There is also the rural option, where home schooling would be easier and safer.

All Russian leaders go a bit mad after a while. Maybe the CIA did get something into the Kremlin paint. Like North Koreans, Russians are used to this sort of thing. They have had some of the worst dictators. Putin is 72. His paranoia will ensure that he leaves a power vacuum behind him. Russia will then change again.

I consider it physical assault, I would not do it to a child, and if someone had done that to me I would have got my own back, with a baseball bat, when they were not expecting it.

Of course in America, kids have access to guns. Beat them at your peril.

Assorted tech is being implemented in schools around the world that is turning them into prison-like environments. Kids won't behave naturally if they feel that everything they say and do is being recorded and may be used as evidence against them.

California is a constituent part of the US and not a nation state, so it doesn't qualify for a separate listing.

Just ignore it and accept limited sales to the US for a bit. It's a big planet. There are other people and places to sell to. Once the taxiffs kick in, the US economy will start to tank, his popularity will be reduced to the cult core and the Reptiles will see their electoral chances vanish like the stuff that used to be on the shelves. He will become as toxic as Boris and Liz. At which point he will declare victory, revert back to normal and find someone else to persecute. Any mugs that did terrible deals with him will be stuck with them.

So between them, Russia and the US get a chunk of Ukraine's land and a chunk of Ukraine's minerals. That's like getting raped, and the person who comes to help you high fives the rapist and steals your car.

quote: this would be a good time to promote the change away from internal combustion engines for cars and trucks

Sorry, but no. People can only do that when they are doing really well and can spare the cash. The green transition may be necessary, but the price tag makes it a luxury. Covid, Brexit and now Trump are hammering the global economy. This is going to freeze any green transition in its tracks.

quote: How does one negotiate with someone who does not live in the real world?

True, you can't. Dodge the bullets, reduce taxiffs on rice etc (for mutual benefits), remove sales tax on food, direct more of your exports elsewhere, pay more for the US bases (perhaps with a DMZ around them, keeping local women and the military apart), waste more cash on US fighter planes that may never be delivered, and direct more cash to ordinary people. Japan Inc. is rich enough to cope, and should have been reducing its dependency upon exports to the US for some years now.

quote: Trump will likely continue to backpedal on taxiffs.

Most likely true. Once he has made some headlines and done some damage, he will announce a great victory NK style and move on to persecuting someone else. So, keep calm and carry on.

The rise is likely down to changes in classification and diagnosis.

Politicians who make a promise and then break it should be fired and banned from holding public office. If you can't keep a promise, don't lie by making it.

There are rumours that Trump is demanding a cessation of trade with China in return for lower taxiffs trading with the US. Effectively: pick a side. That would put Japan and these carmakers in a very difficult position.

It is rank idiocy for your basic infrastructure to have any form of connection to the public internet. Air gap it with people. Problem solved.

To say that 'globalisation unfairly displaced many domestic manufacturing jobs' is as daft as saying that 'boiling water unfairly displaced some of it as steam'.

Economies naturally develop. Typically from manufacturing to consumerism, services and innovation. The same thing happens pretty much everywhere, as individual economies develop.

You can't freeze the economy in a particular position or artificially revert it to a previous state. Attempt it (as Boris did and Trump is), and you just break it.

The business of government is to help those who can't cope well with the natural transition.

Elect a clown, expect a circus.

Lesson 1 from all this: A dependency upon the US is a serious risk. If you do not wish to be an American colony in all but name, lose that dependency.

Ah, those annoying people who want to do the jobs the locals can't or won't do, that keep the economy and society ticking over. Perhaps the government could move money from education and health into policing and do door to door checks, area by area, to purge them all. Then the Japanese economy and society could collapse a little faster.

Migrant labour is the only way developed economies can continue to function with any degree of productivity. Demonise them, devalue them, and block them, and you will end up like Brexit Britain. Nothing works properly, everything costs a lot more and the shelves are sparser every week.

You think you can replace them with AI? Apps? Robots? Workfare? Prison labour? Won't work. They are a precious resource. Treat them as disposable if you wish. Don't expect to have the services you have now at the cost you have now for much longer.

'Covid' and the 'cost of living crisis'. The invasion of Ukraine used to be added to that until it became a bit awkward. And no mention of Brexit, which reduced Sterling by 25%, making Britain and Britons 25% or more poorer. During the pandemic, loads of Britons bought pets so they could exploit them as an excuse to get out and about during lockdowns. Now the animals are older, requiring more vet care - which is expensive, and, courtesy of Long Brexit, everyone in the UK is much poorer, so people are cutting back. Many will surrender their pets rather than cut down on their subscriptions, phone, vaping and leisure budget. So Fido gets the boot.

The RotW needs to insulate itself as much as possible from this toxic clown show. So as Trump takes down the United States and its economy, chunk by chunk, they are not dragged down with it. It's time to cut loose from the US, taxiffs and trade blocks, and move back to globalised trade and more free trade.

People used to do this by drawing, then with PhotoShop. The process is simply being democratised.

Cracking down on fan art has always been a bit too nazi for my liking. As long as it isn't being monetised, it is fine.

The AI companies may be monetising it, but if they have Trump's backing, they are probably above the law, so just move on.

Offer up your image data and you may one day see yourself in a crowd scene in a movie.

Nobody is forced to use social media, and all services have options to block. As in all areas of life, behave sensibly or accept the consequences.

Japan will be in serious trouble if Trump demands that they cut off commercial activity with China or face US taxiffs. Switching from both to trade with only one nation would hit Japan like Brexit hit the UK.

The UK imports about twice as much stuff by value from China than from the US. It also cannot cut off imports from China, as the shelves would empty. The US simply doesn't manufacture enough products, and those it does are too expensive. Plus Trump is considerably more unpopular in the UK than China is. This isn't like the Huawei bans, which did some damage, delaying xG roll outs by years and hugely hiking up costs. It would severely damage the already broken UK economy to lose China as a trading partner and all the damage would land at Starmer's door.

There may be trouble ahead if Trump demands that his 'allies' break commercial links with China in return for lower taxiffs.

Plenty of options to raise the bar. You should not be allowed up without a sherpa, adequate supplies on your mule, fluency in medical Japanese in case of accident, Fuji climbing insurance, and Kendal Mint Cake. That'll get the numbers down. And no paragliding.

Quote: Neither problematic pornography use nor addiction to it is listed in the handbook used for mental health diagnostics, known as the DSM.

But hey, the crusade to gate the internet and grab all IDs means this sort of stuff gets rolled out every week as if it is 1825 and the state social media of the pulpit is wagging fingers at the faithful for their sinful thoughts.

I did some ad hoc research with friends who admitted to using porn on the net. The stuff they enjoyed was often more exotic than anything they would ever consider in real life. Some of the stuff they saw they used to spice up their relationships (consensually), but some they didn't tell their partners about. It didn't turn them into abusers, molesters or predators.

Like every media, most people can deal with the concept of real and fictive content, distinguishing and utilising both as appropriate. There will always be people who cannot and need support, just as there are people who get addicted to stuff that the rest of us just consider to be a benign part of life: alcohol, cupcakes, erotica and lottery tickets.

You cannot sanitise the world and the internet in the name of public safety without becoming the Taliban.

Censorship drives stuff underground or is just daft. I have sometimes wondered whether 'first contact' must come as a shock to Japanese teenagers... 'where are the pixels?'

Frankly, the worst stuff for kids to be exposed to nowadays is probably the news. That is an absolute horror show.

This is lovely, but as in similar examples, it has been made possible by some successful capitalism in the past, because it costs money to do. Only the rich don't have to earn a living, and nobody should look down upon people attempting to establish financial security to protect their families. Happiness doesn't pay the rent.

It is well intentioned and sounds like an enjoyable experience, but there is always a hint in such projects of Marie Antoinette and her sheep at Versailles.

For these buildings to be brought back into more regular use will take more work and co-ordination.

People can live and work happily in rural areas, but they need access to services. If Aussies can get flying doctors to patients in the outback, Japan can develop rural medical services. If it doesn't already exist, a regular rural mail service is doable. Probably better than the 2 or 3 days a week I now get mail in suburban Britain. Shopping can be done online (whether by dial-up or satellite internet), by mail or through local stores. Village and online schooling can be improved. Self-sufficiency takes more land, work and time than most people imagine, but it is possible to grow a good deal of what you eat for periods of the year, particularly if you store it. And producing energy locally for your needs is something we should all hope to be doing more of. In return, you get to live and bring up children in your own piece of paradise.

Japan is in a good position to be a leader here, exploiting the available properties and developing viable templates that allow people to work from home online, or locally, whilst living in rural areas. Not just artists and tourists visiting a slice of Japan's past, but ordinary families bringing up their kids there. It will not happen, however, if local authorities cannot implement rural services.

quote: Don't build railway networks in foreign countries with strong or rapidly growing economies.

Japanese aid is often targeted at Asian countries to nudge them towards Japan and away from China. Central Africa offers fewer geopolitical perks.

This has become the global norm. The Tories here made a big fuss about only giving aid if they could get something useful in return, a few years ago. Even though most of the cash actually went to UK entities - researchers or companies.

The USG is no longer reliable or trustworthy. Policies change daily. It is ruled by the executive orders of someone you wouldn't buy a used car from.

Brexit took 25% off Sterling. There is no reason why Trump's ideological idiocy shouldn't do the same to the US dollar. Which would be good news for the rest of us.

quote: The customers are paying an extra 10% into Hermes coffers.

No. Tariffs are just taxes. The extra 10% goes straight to the government. Hermes are not absorbing it. Why should they? He's not their idiot president.

Taxiffs are paid by the citizens of the nation that imposes them, to their own government.

Trump is running the US like a company. Asset stripping where he can. Banking cash for the 'shareholders' - his billionaire chums. To do this, he is milking the American people with taxiffs.