ilinamorato

Ah yes, the recommended oil checks on a famously electric vehicle. /s

I get what you're saying, but more likely is that nobody would ever notice. Which also seems unlikely, since we're quite an oversharing culture.

Fair point.

Sure, but then you'd also expect to hear about Teslas with odometers that massively underreport the distance, too. Or that fail altogether. And while no one would be likely to report the former, the latter might be a bigger deal.

They're not good, but they are easy to win...if you have all the manufacturing facilities and are okay with plunging your country into depression for the sake of absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

Wait, what's the definition of "win" again?

So now we see whether Trump gives in or makes up bigger and bigger numbers. "900%! 1,776%! A BILLION PERCENT!"

He's like a 4-year-old king being used by his regent to consolidate power.

It feels longer than that to me (weren't people talking about America's influence when discussing our entry into the world wars?), but you're absolutely right: it took decades to accrue, and it'll all be frittered away in weeks.

Of course, Trump's no stranger to bankruptcy caused by mismanagement.

"Take over the world" might be a bit of hyperbole. I'm talking mostly about his desire to take over Greenland, to take back Panama, to annex Canada, to be put in charge of Palestine, etc. Of course, this too is Trump trying to enrich himself; how many Trump properties would end up being built in Greenland if the US ended up with it? How much would shipping companies pay him in kickbacks if he took the Panama Canal and offered them priority passage? How much money would he and his cadre make by decreasing regulation in Canada, or getting access to Canadian oil fields? And, of course, you've already heard of his plan for the "Palestinian Riviera."

He wants to "take over the world" in the sense that he wants to rule over more swaths of land and extract the value from them, and in the sense that he wants to tell Keir Starmer to jump and hear him say "how high, sir?"--but yeah, I agree, he doesn't seem to have the desire to actually do any ruling.

Definitely a Russian asset. I think that's more or less clear at this point. But the acts he's taking seem more...stupid than calculated right now. I don't think it's his goal to destroy America (though it's certainly possible that his handlers want that); I think it's his goal to enrich himself, and he's just not too bothered by the prospect of destroying America in the process.

Trump wants to take over the world. All he's succeeding in doing is remaking the world into one that doesn't need the US. And indeed has no use for us at all.

I'm also an American. And I am frankly livid about the tariffs.

Oh, to be clear, I don't think the US has been dethroned on the world stage in terms of being the largest single elephant in the room. It's just that the weight between the US elephant and all the other elephants (combined) has evened out quite a lot.

These tariffs might well do a lot to swing that even further.