Yes we knew this would happen lol. 10% president said this. What I really want to know and this is my statement/ question. ITS THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2025 WHERE THE Fu€£ IS THE GEOUND BREAKING PRINTER THE ONE THAT BBL SAID WOULD BE HERE!!!
Don’t you mean “Biden was”? And on that note, I’m gonna stop talking poltics now.
Be patient… they still have 49 days until April fools day (and they are then officially late)
Prusa is already producing in a western country and already paying western wages, so producing in the US isn’t that much of a step up in price? Bambu is not, that 10% is much less of an increase than moving production from China to US would be.
That feels more like extortion than a healthy market
Im an expat South African who grew up during apartheid and lived through the transition to what replaced it. Everything Trump is doing right now feels like Autocracy 101.
I saw it coming from a mile away and I called in 10 years ago already. As a kid, I had no idea how the government was controlling the narrative, and, like many others, I believed the lies because it was easier to accept them than to question them. That’s absolutely no different to the US at the moment
What many people might not realise is that in South Africa, it was the looming threat of civil war that shifted mindsets and led to a referendum, ultimately resulting in a new government. And it was only once the government had changed did the true scale of the lies and deceit come out. What the apartheid government had truly done to keep control.
Unfortunately, the joy of breaking free from one form of autocracy gave way to another one just eight years later, when Jacob Zuma who in many ways mirrors Trump came to power. Once in office, Zuma began draining the coffers, and the corruption escalated. It started small, but as the stakes grew, he replaced or bought off anyone who stood in his way. Sound familiar?
A friend from Zimbabwe once told me that the real danger lies in complacency. You initially turn a blind eye, thinking there’s nothing you can do, and before you know it, laws are being stripped away, and democracy starts to crumble.
Trump doesn’t scare me as much as someone like J.D. Vance. Trump’s goal is wealth and power, but Vance’s ambitions are far more insidious he wants to reshape the U.S. into a reflection of his version of the Bible. That’s far worse than being robbed.
What I see unfolding in the U.S. feels eerily similar to what happened in South Africa. The leader takes the lion’s share, inspiring those beneath him to do the same. Open corruption becomes normalized, and the systematic decay begins. Everyone feels entitled to their cut of the pie, and by the time the next election rolls around, efforts to protect the corrupt from accountability are well underway.
Trump will likely try for a third term or ensure someone he can control like a family members takes over in his place. This is the start of a cycle we’ve seen play out in many African nations over the last few decades and, historically, in Europe centuries ago.
The biggest threat is thinking that it can’t happen to you. The US is in for a rollercoaster ride. My take? I think that the states will start to splinter and new governments will start to form. It’s the only sensible option. The current two party state is just two polarised and tbh, with Trump in power, I doubt you’ll see a free and fair election again any time soon. That’s just not how autocrats roll and he said as much multiple times.
Where do you get the idea that tariffs are paid by the foreign government, not the consumer? You can’t be more wrong. I assume you live in the USA.
If the USA imposes a tariff, it is a tax on the US importer, to make foreign goods more expensive in the US. The importer’s not going to absorb the tariff, he’s going to increase the price of those goods in the US and American consumers pay the increased prices.
One of the reasons is to increase revenue, which the US government will reap from the importer. As I said, it’s a tax. Another reason to impose tariffs on imported goods is to protect local industries. For example if the US made steel but its sales to US manufacturers is low because imported steel is cheaper. By imposing a tariff to increase the price of imported goods, they become less competitive so local manufacturers turn to US steel, which creates jobs.
Now do you get it?
Well, he said he was going to do all this, and a majority of voters voted for it. You (as a nation) got exactly what you wanted.
Nope, 22.5% of us got what they fell for. The same 22.5% who believe in space lasers, weather machines and that the earth is flat. But we (as a nation) will suffer, along with the rest of the world.
No, they still want cheaper eggs.
Luckily this was addressed. I quote:
I hear so much about the word groceries. I used to use groceries a lot on the trail. A word. It’s like sort of an old fashioned word. Groceries. But groceries is the word that’s the most accurate word. And, uh, the price of groceries went through the roof. Bacon was levels like nobody’s ever seen. you take a look at eggs today. I mean, the eggs are double, triple, quadruple. They’re going through the roof. Now there’s some problems that may you know a little outside problem with eggs maybe but you know we inherited a mess.
So it sounds like he is back on it right now and those egg prices will start tumbling down next week. And then they got exactly what they wanted.
Has there been any president that actually won using this metric? There is a system in place, and through that system, he won somewhat fair and somewhat square
That electoral vote system is extremely weird to an outsider (and I imagine for insiders as well) with the whole swing state thing. But he also got the most (not saying majority, he was a whopping 0,2% off of that one) votes in the popular vote.
The US voted, he won, and is thus representing the country. And not in a Kim Yong Un or Putin kind of way, but through a somewhat functioning democracy. You as a country got him in office. Maybe not you personally, not your dog or partner, maybe your neighbor, but you as a country did and you as a country got what you voted for.
In the Netherlands we also have a government that most people didn’t vote for but we as a country did. And we as a country got what we wanted, including the shitty bits. And I have to live with those shitty bits that I might not have voted for but we as a country are still responsible.
I get that people saying that can feel as a personal attack, but it isn’t and I hope you can see that that is not what I mean when I say it (can’t speak for others)
Yeah, maybe once? He might have bought an egg to see what all the fuzz was about, had to pay 10 dollars and was like, is this wat you all are complaining about? That is like small change… Back to important business! Gulf of America anyone?
Good luck with that. Not going to happen.
No, it doesn’t fall outside the definition of “Democracy”. Democracy is simply a system whereby a majority of eligible citizens of a state elect their masters. Trump is doing things that fall outside much of the “spirit” of the constitution, and many of the specific federal laws, but that just demonstrates that their system is broken. By the way, the US Federal government isn’t a “democracy” in the way you are thinking of it, people voting for a President. The US President is elected by state legislatures. The legislatures give people voting forms and supposedly the state then votes for the guy their citizens did. But the constitution says nothing about that. A state legislature can vote for a president without having any citizen voting at all, if that’s what the state’s laws say. The USA is not a federal democracy, it’s a union of states. It’s right there in the name. There is noting in the constitution of the USA that suggests democracy, and in fact many of the founding fathers hated the idea. They just wanted a king they could kick out any time instead of a permanent one on the other side of the Atlantic. Term limits weren’t even a thing originally.
Now I’m curious But it might be better off erased from the internet
But democracy doesn’t just cover the election of leaders. It’s government for the people, by the people. The people are supposed to hold the ultimate power. I can guarantee you even his staunchest supporters didn’t vote for him so he could exact revenge on his enemies. I don’t think he mentioned in any of his speeches he was going to encourage the whole federal government to resign. I’m pretty sure both parties will be effected by his cuts to education, weather forecasting and air safety. It’s going to be a crazy 4 years but I didn’t vote for it and I don’t have to like it.
@PrinterMcgee - I hear you, but the US Federal system isn’t a democracy. I’m not saying that as a put-down or anything, it’s just true. The president is elected by the state legislatures via the electoral college system. There is no constitutional requirement for the states to hold elections for this purpose, they can just vote for who they like if they want and their state laws allow it. The electoral college is not representative, as small rural states like Oklahoma get a disproportionate amount of say in the election of the president relative to their population. Nebraska gets 2.5 electoral college votes per million residents while California gets 1.38 Electoral College votes per million residents - so a Nebraskan has almost twice the influence on the presidential selection that a Californian does. That’s how your system works. You certainly don;t have to like the outcome of an election, but the reality of any popular voting system is that you have to accept what the majority of votes selected. You don’t have to like it but you do have to accept it (if you obey the laws of your country). It’s still a better way to live than places where you have no say at all in who your leaders are and they have no reason at all to care about what the population thinks (I bet this gets moderated out with that statement).
People forget that he won the popular vote by less than hillary clinton. He also holds the top 2 records for lowest approval rating at the beginning of his term for modern day presidents. Maybe 1 in 5 people I know are maga, but also only 2 in 5 vote.
In 1982 there was a chicken shortage. Instead of burning the country down, they invented the mcrib. History
No, I know how the electoral college works, and I know he won both. Is your argument that people in federal positions are not representatives of the people?
But if the president, and everyone in his circle aren’t, why should anyone?
Oh I agree, but he’s doing his best to change that every day.
This is a completely unrelated question, are you interested in 3D printing?
And it’s delicious… that might be the ONE thing Trump and I could agree on.
@PrinterMcgee Sigh. Yes, I’m interested in 3D printing. But you’re the one making the political posts, I’m responding to you. As I see it, your argument seems to be “Yes, Orange Boy was elected, yes, I like democracy, yes, I agree that we have to allow the elected officials to transition into power, but I’m going to complain about what he does”. OK, fair enough, but that’s fairly pointless, isn’t it? You say you didn’t vote for him - did you vote for someone else or just not vote? Not voting against someone you disapprove of is as good as voting for them. Even if you did vote for him, whining about what he’s doing isn’t going to achieve anything. Either way, I’m tired of the discussion, if it’s going to be just a grievance airing then it’s not interesting to me. You can have the last say. If you don;t think that anyone should obey the law, just because the president doesn’t, then you are on his level. That’s the quickest way to give up on even the semblance of a democracy. In less than two years you get another chance to vote. Your founding fathers gave you two foils against the president: Congress and the legal system. The legal system is thwarting him and Congress can remove him, though it’s largely a sycophantic assembly right now. If enough folks agree with you and come out and vote in the mid-terms for non-Republicans, then you might get enough to both impeach and convict him. If not, then good luck. Thankfully, I no longer live in your country, I just get to watch it dissassemble itself from afar. Good luck, and all the best. Bye.
I suppose, but in the end does it matter if the pollution comes from the US or China. It’s still the same pollution to the earth. I’m sure that the earth doesn’t care which county is polluting versus another.