Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Do you have a current subscription?

It's pretty unambiguous:

Talks between the EU and US are continuing, but both sides expect an agreement this week. Trump said a "letter" might be agreed within days.

Without a deal, tariffs on the EU would rise to either 20 per cent or 50 per cent on August 1, after Trump postponed a July 9 deadline. One diplomat argued that reducing it to 10 was a success.

The US was "probably two days off" from sending the EU a letter outlining its planned tariffs, Trump said on Tuesday. Merz on Wednesday said talks were "not easy" given US demands but he remained "cautiously optimistic" of a breakthrough this week, or by the end of the month at the latest.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


The FT is a serious newspaper. They interviewed officials on both sides. It is to be signed imminently - perhaps within two days.

It's a done deal.

Official spokesmen have already began to report as much.


Yes the US. Did you see my last 4 posts? There's big news today.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]

@Novichok

This deficit is now all but guaranteed to quickly vanish, or at the very least be reduced substantially - through EU bureaucrats selling Europe out.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Based on the huge size of their market - the largest there is in the world.

To control the world's largest market, and to still sign the type of deal they signed - one needs to be an especial kind of incompetent.

They could have twisted the arms of American digital behemoths, that earn a huge portion of their profits in Europe (Netflix, Amazon, Microsoft, etc). They could have insisted on preferences for European banks trying to crack the US market (Santander, Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank). But most importantly - they should have stood firm on steel and aluminum - because these provide tens of thousands of jobs in Europe - much more than in the UK. The UK's steel industry is microscopic in comparison to the European one.

They did none of these things.

These unelected women (one was a German defense minister, and the other a Prime Minister of ESTONIA) - are maybe not the best people to negotiate on behalf of Europe. Their heart is in the right place, and I'm sure they are good people - but they are woefully out of their depth in this context.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]

Still sitting here shocked with how sh*t the EU's deal is.

Japan is not engaging with Trump. China is trying to bend its line. The EU flushes itself down the toilet.

1) The UK got 10% tariffs on up to 100,000 motor vehicles. The EU has 25% tariffs, and no tariff free quotas. Hello Volkswagen! Hello Daimler!

2) The UK has ZERO tariffs on steel and aluminum exports. The EU, currently, looks to be set for a 50% barrier for these items.

3) The UK got preferential treatment for pharmaceuticals, and waivers on copper, timber, and jet engines. The EU got none of these.

In exchange for all these nice things... the UK promised:

"In return, the UK pledged to meet US "requirements" on China's role in its supply chains, as well as a tariff-free quota of 13,000 tonnes of beef and 1.4bn litres of bioethanol."

I mean... wtf. Starmer fed Trump a load of sh*t. 13,000 tonnes of beef? Haha. 1.4 billion LITERS of bio ethanol - that's nothing.

What does the the EU promise in exchange for their higher tariffs? To try to eliminate the trade surplus through purchases of US weapons and LNG.

You Europeans got f*cked in the ass, without even the courtesy of a reach around. No coffee in bed, no fancy dinner. Just ass f*cking.

--///-

Enjoy your vassal status and your expensive American energy and expensive American weapons. We'll supply China and India meanwhile, with all the cheap energy that should have been yours.

History / "How Poles Built Russia... [26]

@Torq

It upsets me that the things Russia is good at, are not very profitable. This thing you have brought up is one such example.

Who makes a f*cking piece of machinery that works nonstop from 1969 to 2025? That's just stupid. American and European manufacturers have planned obsolescence, and make more money from part supplies over the life of a product than from the initial sale.

The things in which we're world class are super niche. A firefighting airplane. An icebreaker. An amphibious transport. All sh*t that you can't sell more than a handful of - even if you build Canada's entire icebreaker fleet. Our firefighting planes - people most often don't buy them, but just rent them from us.

Russian's don't want to make a t-shirt or nice little handheld drill like the Chinese. We only want to make things that go "BOOM!" or are good for travelling through marshes or tundra.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


Well, it was French business and German officials that were most critical of the Commission's clumsy negotiations.

Not a whole lotta noise out of Italy or Spain. I suppose they don't sell much to America, and don't really care.

More from the article:

EU negotiators have been scolded over their approach throughout the talks by both business and some European capitals. LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault in May said the bloc got off to a "bad start", especially compared to the British who "negotiated very well". Friedrich Merz, Germany's chancellor, last week said the commission's approach was "far too complicated" and called for a "rapid" deal.

I'll be honest - I didn't expect the EU to come out the loser from this. They had enormous negotiating leverage as the largest trade bloc on the planet - and ended up folding to Trump - a Manhattan real estate developer.

How?!?!

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]

UK view on things:

One British official said: "We approached it like a business deal not a trade negotiation. We've played it straight, understood what the US is trying to achieve, matched our people to theirs, and been flexible."

The top comment under the FT article about the EU-US deal:

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Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 16 [1071]


You guys just sh*t the bed.

From the article:

When London struck the first deal in May, EU diplomats and officials made clear they believed London jumped at an agreement and locked-in disadvantageous terms.

Brussels was more confident its bigger economic clout - as the world's largest trading bloc - would over time give it leverage over the White House. But it has hesitated to retaliate in kind against US measures.

Womp womp wooooooomp! After all that moaning, you signed a deal that is worse than Brexit UK's deal. How is that even possible?

Another quote:

"The UK agreement was better than this," said one diplomat. "It's a surprise given how long we have negotiated."

Apparently Merz and Macron are super frustrated with the Commission for negotiating like idiots. The EU parliamentarian in charge of overseeing the internal market, said it was a big mistake not to retaliate earlier and harder - since this would have provided negotiating leverage in the current moment. As it happened, the EU had practically no bargaining tools to counterpose to Trump's unilateral hikes.

This is what happens when you have people like Kaja Kallas and Ursula Von Der Leyen as your representatives.

Enjoy watching German and French manufacturing migrate to the US and UK to avoid the tariff wall.

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Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Same group we have in Russia.

Crazy that they managed to maintain commonality from Russia to UK.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


What relation do your English, Welsh, and Irish "Gypsies" have to our gypsies?

I always thought that the "travelling folk" were basically English, Welsh, Irish in dress costume. That you don't have real gypsies?

News / Poland to introduce border controls with Germany and Lithuania [101]


Not necessary. Just empower the necessary people to perform the cleansing - and they will do it cleaner than any vigilante or John Wayne.

Off-Topic / Stock Market Talk and Trading - part 2 [743]


I read that renewables capacity has for the first time overtaken coal fired capacity.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Which makes sense.

Using modern gene sequencing and linguistic analysis, scientists have narrowed down the origins of Gypsies to northwest India. Specifically Gujarat and Rajasthan.

It's speculated that it took them several hundred years to arrive in Europe (entering Europe through the Bosporus and through the northern Caspian Steppe).

But before we had DNA sequencing and other things, we had the story from the Shahnameh. The story is a mix of fact and legend, but it clearly shows they were initially called for their musical talents:

According to a legend reported in the Persian epic poem, the Shahnameh, the Sassanian king Bahram V Gor learned towards the end of his reign (421-439) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and so he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand luris, lute-playing experts. When the luris arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat so they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor. However, the luris ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year later with their cheeks hollowed by hunger. The king, angered with their having wasted what he had given them, ordered them to pack up their bags and go wandering around the world on their donkeys.

To me it's mind blowing, that before airplanes, and ships, and trains, several tens of thousands of people managed to walk from India to Portugal - in what in historical terms - amounts to the blink of an eye.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

@jon357

Ok, maybe I'm wrong. I know plenty of people that lead normal lives that are half or quarter or whatever, but never a full blown representative of the people.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Oh stop it...

He must be a half breed. Never saw a genuine Gypsy in finance.

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


If I only judged books by the criteria of how much their message comports with my inherent biases - I would still look and sound like Johnny Reb.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


If they are wrong - then what do they do instead?

In Russia - if they are honest - they engage largely in vegetable sales (retail), and woodwork.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]


Do they still support themselves primarily through begging and petty crime, even though settled?

Off-Topic / Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]


Fine... I will read it.

Genealogy / Polish and gypsy traditions [140]

What's the Gypsy situation in Poland?

Life / Will Poland ever be multicultural like Sweden, Germany or France? [283]


Surprised Romania is not number 1, but instead Turkey. Also, no Bulgaria?

Maybe the type of crime gypsies are proficient at, does not result in prison sentences? Just seems strange, given that nearly every European big city center has gypsies running petty crime networks.

Recently, gypsies have made it to New York. I don't know where they came from, but one day they appeared in the subway - typically a young woman, and always with a small baby. One time, I saw a scene where an older Orthodox Jewish gentleman got into an argument with a gypsy in a subway car. "This is the richest country in the world! You have no shame! There is no reason to do what you are doing! I spit on you!". I thought this was pretty amusing.

I don't think their pickpocketing, or ball game tricks will work very well in the United States. Pickpocketing is likely to result in having your spine broken, or getting shot. Scamming people using ball games and card tricks, will work until you play against some gentlemen from the projects.

This is also why I am so puzzled at why the gendarmes in Paris or the Carabinieri in Rome seem to give zero f*cks about Gypsy crimes. In fact, they won't do anything to punish them - but they WILL drag you to the nearest police station if you go so far as to throw a scammer's equipment into the Seine (my friend did this, and to his surprise he was arrested). Not sure if he was arrested for polluting the Seine, or for destruction of property - but still kind of amazing.

If I put my "logical hat" on, I think the practical reasons may be:

1) These are Bulgarian and Romanian citizens - meaning they are free to travel within Europe. If you start cracking down on them in one place, they'll simply pick up and move to Marseille, or Milan, or Madrid.

2) They list fake residential addresses, and carry fake IDs. Arresting them is worth more administrative hassle than the trouble they create.

3) Being decentralized and solely focused on petty crime - they are preferable to say Russian or Corsican gangs running more organized rackets around tourist areas.

4) They represent a tax on idiots, and a nice little boost for the local French economy. If a tourist was planning to spend €200, suddenly he has spent €250 instead. Gypsies still need to eat and fix their cars - so the money contributes to French GDP.

But honestly - how can it be normal to arrest tourists and not the pickpocket or scammer who had provoked the tourist?

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]

@Torq

Conclusion - you want lots of new Poles - you have to elect either fascists or communists.

Horseshoe theory.

Or... everyone embraces Mormonism.

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]

@Torq

But just like the fascists in Spain and Chile, the Communists in the Warsaw Bloc knew something about demographics. How did they do it? Without Church? Without monasteries? Where taxes did not play a role?

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]

Some easy explanations - without knowing anything:

1) some kind of assault on contraceptives

2) ban on abortions

3) elevation of the church's role in society

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]


It's true, that you see some kind of anomalous stabilization of birth rates under Francisco Franco and Augusto Pinochet. You can confirm this for yourself, I don't have the time now to find the papers.

These Catholic dictators somehow managed to stop the trends of history and industry.

I'm not a specialist in this space, so can't really flesh this out. But I have seen this in papers and data.

Edit: I found one graph

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Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]


It absolutely is marriages.

Even Koreans and Japanese - once securely married - produce the necessary amount of kids.

So many people are now unmarried, or married once but disastrously.

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]

@Korvinus

Transgender got nothing to do with it.

Gays don't either.

All that matters is marriages. Get marriages back on track, and you will see kids again.

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]


If you are interested in the actual answer - it's not gays.

What seems to be the problem is marriages.

Marriage rates are low, and when people do marry - they often do it late or divorce quickly.

Married people still make the requisite number of babies. Just not so many people getting married anymore (early) or doing a very good job at maintaining those marriages.

Thanks Boomers - for being toxic assh*les that turned everybody off from the institute of family!

Your dysfunctional approach to family has doomed humanity.

Off-Topic / Hillary Clinton Doesn't want Americans birthing Children, Immigrants do this. [46]

@Joker

Population is power.

Demographics is destiny.

If you don't make kids, and you don't want foreigners - you must be prepared to vanish into obscurity, or pull off some heretofore unseen miracle of productivity growth.