Staples

Nobody except the insider traders know. For the rest of us there are no safe investments. Just various degrees of grey and greyer risk. You'll have to come up with a strategy yourself based on how you think the market will grow over x years. Use your head - what will certainly have grown in x years?

I'm lucky to live there. But unless we make a significant investment in new cities and infrastructure the country is doomed to rot. But investments like that are not cost effective anymore. Our cost of living is already too high. So here we are, stuck in stagnation.

There is a time and a place for both. Don't get too romantic about 'doing it for real'. Things like gun shots and explosions are just safer in CGI. Directors like Chris Nolan always pipe on about SFX, but directors don't know fuck all about effects. They know story and actors. There is so much invisible VFX done like background replacements and beauty work that if taken away would destroy the film.

Earlier in this thread, I said a coalition of countries needed to unite and push back against the US's ever-increasing greed and disrespect of international law. Well, the middle powers have risen. @LordFall The monopoly on power has been rejected. The world has asked for healthy competition between middle powers, where international law and sovereignty is respected. Not an empire like the US, which become decadent, greedy, and then finally mad. As we have seen.

Only if you're the one holding the stick. And all monopolies must eventually crumble. Can you imagine the destruction if a super-monopoly was to die? Your comment reeks of American exceptionalism.

The goal is to mitigate damage. I'm afraid you're the one coping if you think this can end well. I don't know how it would work. I'm not privy to any military secrets. The specifics are not something a common person could ever evaluate. Try this thought experiment; imagine the current geopolitical situation as represented by children on the playground. The biggest and strongest kid, little Sam, is the playground bully. He steals the other kids lunch money, he beats up the weaker children, and threatens anyone who might stand up to him. All the kids are whimpering with tails between their legs. Because don't upset little Sam, or he'll pick on you next. This situation will never be solved by allowing Sam to continue his bad behavior. The weaker kids have to stand up for each other, with each other all at once as a cohort, and tell Sam NO in the strongest possible terms. Until little Sam is met with authority equal to or greater than his own, he will keep this misbehavior up for as long as he can get away with it. And every time Sam gets away with stealing lunch money without resistance, he gets bolder and greedier.

The weakest and most profitable first. See Venezuela.

Because they must. As the rest of the world must. The time to prevent America from turning into a Neo-Fascist state is now. Try this again in a year, and the stakes won't be just Greenland. To be clear, the GOP is trying to enslave as much of the world as they can before resistance is put up. They are cashing out a century of political capital.

Will never happen. Modern people are too sedated, and the military is too powerful.

Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia. Political geography of Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikipedia

Distract might not have been the right word. The point is there is value in making empty threats.

Stephen Miller Asserts U.S. Has Right to Take Greenland “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” he said. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” In my view, the Greenland invasion threat is a tactic to distract from Venezuela. It's obvious it would be suicidal for the US to attack Europe. It's like sticking a knife at a bystander while you rob someone blind. It's an attempt to project force even while you are busy. Just that threat alone should prompt Europe and Nato to consider expelling US army bases. You don't threaten your allies.

Haha—you're absolutely right—and it's funny you mention it because I've noticed AI-generated text is obsessed with em-dashes—like, suspiciously obsessed—to the point where spotting three em-dashes in two sentences is basically a dead giveaway. Guilty as charged—I'll work on sounding more human next time!

I refuse to believe anyone would agree to marry that grub.