13 Comments
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Giacomo Aldegheri's avatar

Looking comparatively good by simply not self-destroying: 🇪🇺🤝🇮🇳

Suhas Bhat's avatar

India-EU FTA coming sometime soon too!

Marian Kechlibar's avatar

The current ICE situation in the US is a wild pendulum swing after decades during which the voters all over the West signalled their growing rejection of more immigration and the previous elites persisted in ignoring the message stubbornly.

I am a bit afraid that once the US administration changes again, it will be back to the Bourbon-style "they have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing" and thus priming the situation for future wild pendulum swings again. Much like the Bourbon restoration did in France.

Noah Smith's avatar

Yes, I'll write about this more.

Reed Roberts's avatar

I'm tired of this self-mortification. Every movement has a reaction. The current state of things is the result of a rippling, infinite taylor series of oscillating sums; each successive term carefully balancing and responding to the previous. You are too many terms deep. This kind of religious purification is more suited to the hills of medieval Perugia.

Shawn Willden's avatar

From the economic perspective, elites *should* ignore that message, because it's a dumb, counterproductive message.

That said, if enough voters believe a wrong idea, politicians still have to take it seriously. In an ideal world they should respond by educating the voters about why it's a wrong idea. Since voters won't actually listen, I guess the only answer is to actually do the dumb thing and hope voters will wise up before the damage is too great.

So, dems should figure out how they're going to get illegals out of the country. My take is: go after employers. Approximately all immigration to the US is economic, so to stop it you just have to make illegals unemployable, and the way to do this is to aggressively prosecute the Americans who hire them. Also, make it very easy for employers to get caught. My suggestion for that is that we should offer work visas or green cards to illegals who report their bosses.

Marian Kechlibar's avatar

"From the economic perspective, elites *should* ignore that message, because it's a dumb, counterproductive message."

Maybe in the US, but the few Western European countries that did the math, all found out that immigration from the Islamic world was a net economic loss and a burden on the public finances. Even disregarding the cultural clash between Islam and modern secular societies, it made no sense to allow it for so long.

ARTanner's avatar
2hEdited

Please don't post fake images of Pretti's murder!

In videos Pretti is wearing a cap and shades, and his coat is closed, but isn't here. Pretti is not surrounded here, but is in videos. The agent in the background appears to have a gun out and be standing at a distance, this doesn't appear in any video. The guns in agents' hands, and the pink of Pretti's face here just don't look right, they look too high-contrast and the pink of the hand looks unconvincing.

I'm not doubting he was executed, murdered... but there is an avalanche of evidence, we don't need fakes!

Matthew's avatar

I am once again asking what Noah Smith does for his personal health insurance.

Christopher's avatar

Thanks for this post Noah!

Re: Ukraine: I know he said “deaths” but don’t you think this is actually “casualties”?

I know it’s not entirely blunting your point, but might be good to be clear…

James Ackerman's avatar

Re: China, there's a few uncorroborated stories floating Xi's purge is in reaction to a coup plot. Given exactly how opaque CCP politics really is, though, I don't think anyone can truly say one way or another

George Carty's avatar

Maybe we should coin the term "Zhongnanhaiology" by analogy with Kremlinology?

Jon's avatar

Better hope that the Trump Presidency isn't judged on the overall performance of the US economy, then.