I agree. People elsewhere, like here, will just want to try carrying on like normal. The alternative is too hard. Where are they going to get their supplemental LNG and oil? Are they going to switch to only Linux instead of Windows or macos? Iphones? Our oligarchs, and others will continue to corrupt the world’s politicians, and fund increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaigns. The decision makers will cave to oligarchs’ carrots and sticks.
You are over estimating the importance of american products.
Android has 60% market share in eu while iphone has 39%.
Norway and Algeria supplied both more LNG to europe than USA in 2024.
At Q3. 2025 EU bought only 14,5% of our petrolium oil from USA. Norway alone was 14,6%.
EU is allready looking into making our own replacement for visa and mastercard.
Food and drink is not really a problem as many processed products USA produces already recognized as non suitable for human consuption. South america will be happy to provide nuts and fruits for EU. Especially when their neighboring country is acting hostile towards them at the moment and most alchohol USA produce is considered bottomself stuff.
Car imports from the USA has been falling for years, even before Trumps tarifs.
I think windows is hardest to shake as most businesses use it and most softwares are designed to use it.
Cultural things like movies, tv series and music and somesoftware are also hard to replace.
If Algeria gets in bed with US oligarchs, then they will be used as a pawn against the EU. What would you do in winter when some pressure campaign or insurgency is upon you, but budgeted energy is cut short?
A lot of expensive painful changes will have to happen in the EU. Individuals are weak and don’t want their boat rocked. A great period of austerity may be needed to fund the changes. Individuals will hang on to lifestyles that they are accustomed to, and expect the same in the future. When presented with reality, they will experience cognitive dissonance. Many individuals will choose to fool themselves that there is another way, or that things aren’t bad enough to warrant the loss of what they expected their short existence to be like.
Android is open source. Google makes money trough playstore and youtube. Google pays for phone manufactorers so they keep apps like maps and gmail preinstalled on the phones. If at some point there would be situation where company like samsung would need to choose between googles money or their biggest market, market wins. By a huge margin.
USA has hard time stopping Algeria from trading with EU by any other way than military force. EU is their biggest trade partner. 48% of their trade is to European Union.
Also where you get the individuals are weak thing? Like i already said. You are over estimating the importance American trade. And you are forgetting trade goes both ways.
Millions of jobs in the United States are related to EU-US trade and investment. The European Union is a reliable source of critical supplies to the United States, including medicinal ingredients and pharmaceutical products, advanced machinery and equipment, and aerospace parts and components. At the same time, the European Union is the largest buyer of the United States’ natural gas and oil, but states are not the biggest importer of gas and oil for EU.
Total bilateral trade in goods between the EU and the US reached €851 billion in 2023. The EU exported €503 billion of goods to the US market, while importing €347 billion; this resulted in a goods trade surplus of €157 billion for the EU.
Total bilateral trade in services between the EU and the US was worth €746 billion in 2023. The EU exported €319 billion of services to the US, while importing €427 billion from the US; this resulted in a services trade deficit of €109 billion for the EU.
The difference between EU exports to the US and US exports to the EU stood at €48 billion in 2023; the equivalent of just 3% of the total trade between the EU and the US.
Also since you like to talk about the oligarchs.
The EU and the US are also major investment partners. EU and US firms have €4.7 trillion worth of investment in each other’s markets (2023 data).
How do you think these oligarchs feel if that 5,5 trillion dollars of investments start to unravel.
Everyone is accustomed to Google’s bundled apps and various backend web services. People generally don’t like change, so they will continue to use them. Those components are binaries and runtime calls to proprietary software. You can’t go compile them yourself. So it will continue to be a viable foothold.
MLK wrote about the white moderates being the largest stifling force to change. Collectively, they’d say we need these changes for justice and equality, but always bail and say not like this, or not at this time. The changes that needed to happen would disturb or destroy the lives they individually sought. Individuals think about themselves first. If the changes needed would cause a period of economic hardship for their families, then they may soften their support. If they have kind hearts, but are completely accustomed to privileged lifestyles, they will have internal contention if the needed changes could upend it. They will have fear. If individuals or families have medical conditions, they will have internal contention about anything even temporarily interrupting care. On and on and on. This is the problem we are facing right now in the US. As a people, our majority calls for change. Individually, we are calculating what we would truly sacrifice. Have you not read the endless comments from the US individuals stating why they can’t do more?
Oligarchs created our current situation. The long term goal in the EU is same as for the US, regulatory capture and then privatization of public services and resources.
Whitout disrespecting MLK, he wrote about completelly different people, with completelly different values who were living in a different time. You cant really bring writings about highly individualistic culture in a time when racial segration was common and slavery were still so fresh there were both, people who used to own slaves and people who were born in slavery alive, and except it to represent modern day europeans accuratelly. I think Bernie Sanders is good example. In USA he is perceived as a borderline extremist by some, but in most european countries his policies are pretty mild and centrist.
I bet EU countries would fare much better than USA in face of economic hardship. Europeans generally are not as invidualistic as americans and social safety nets are better.
And no, i honestly havent seen those comments. I try to steer clear from social media, and what i have seen here are more desperate calls for action than anything else.
I have really hard time beliving the rich and powerfull would on purpose cross the line and bomb the economy, because they have most to lose. The risk and the reward just does not add up.
How are different people and such? My parents were adults when MLK was murdered. My parents are still alive and politically active.
EU would definitely handle a downturn better than us. That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I am talking about innate psychological phenomenon within all of us.
If money is so smart and free of all human mental fragility, then why is it that they always have a giant hand in fascism? It’s part of the very definition of fascism. Fascist regimes last a long time and destroy economies, yet they still happen. Interesting, maybe they are not gods of wisdom and logic, but slaves to greed and power. They seek not to strengthen each other’s hands, but to dominate each other. Money payed to power returns them power and money to even stomp on each other.
He lived in a time when racial segregation was the norm and wrote from the perspective afro american male.
Women had just gotten a right to vote and while they could get a job, huge part of them were housewifes. And the jobs they could apply were still very limited.
The whole socioeconomic situation and upbringing of people cant be compared to modern day EU. I think good example how much culture and history effects to the way people act, is watching how people in Japan react during and after disasters and compare it to how people in states react. Granted its extreme example and USA and EU are not that far apart from eachother, but it shows well how differently different cultures act in different situation. Hence i say, that MLK’s writings cant just be willy nilly aplied to people living on the otherside of the world allmost a century after the writing.
I did not say money was smart. Im saying that if you have billions tied to a boat you dont want to shake it. Fasist regimes are not the same as oligarch. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were not rich busines men when they started their politics. Maybe they werent dirt poor either, but most of their wealth came after. If you look soviets at the beginning there were rich people who tried to fight the regime, but in the end they were forced to work with the leaders in power or disapear. What i am trying to say is, when people have lots of money tied to something, they try to keep things steady. Ofcouse there will be fanatics, but most people who handle huge amounts of money are business savy enough to see that tanking the economy now is not worth of the unsure payout in the future, when the way things go now are allready making them rich.
perspective afro american male
It was this reason he was able to see the underlying causes of the injustices so well.
I am not communicating this well then.
The hesitancy of the moderates was, and still is like your statement: “when people have lots of money tied to something, they try to keep things steady.”
That is why I assert this is a fundamental trait we all share as humans. If fixing the status quo upsets my life, then I will probably temper my will for those changes. How do you not have this behavior? What if the changes necessitate a generation of austerity; a forced collapse of the existing system? If you have children, why would you NOT consider how it will impact them? This is basic human stuff. For me personally, I will likely die early for this principle, but I struggle with these contentions in my mind. I haven’t lived a nice life and I don’t have much of anything to lose in the way of children, partners, or money. But I do take care of my elderly parents, and my remaining siblings are both fully disabled in different ways. I imagine the situation where I get killed or jailed at the sunset of my mother’s life. She has experienced much pain hers. She has lost children. Do I want to send her off with more pain? No, and it absolutely affects my decisions. There are animals that I care for. I can imagine the stress and pain that they will experience when abandoned. Most people have WAY MORE to lose than I do, and my few things restrict me.
The Soviet Union was a communist authoritarian nation. I never implied that the strongmen were the oligarchs. Fascism is a particular flavor of bad people putting themselves over others. In this flavor of assholery, capitalist oligarchs have always had a large roll. It is part of the definition of fascism. People seem to think fascism == authoritarianism, but they are not the same, for one is a subset of the other.
There’s a whole spectrum of wealth. There are a surprising amount of batshit-crazy ultra billionaires. They have the same weaknesses as everyone else. They succumb to their own collective propaganda. They are narcissistic sociopaths.
Scholars also noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Italian Fascist and German Nazi governments after they took power. Business leaders supported the government’s political and military goals. In exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies.
In the US, we have been pulling our hair out trying to understand why so many us are believing stark lies that lead to ruin. We have about a dozen billionaires in cabinet positions. Our oligarch class wholeheartedly supports Trump. Yeah, some push back when their pot gets disturbed, then they give the admin money or power in exchange for a carve-out and contract.
I agree. People elsewhere, like here, will just want to try carrying on like normal. The alternative is too hard. Where are they going to get their supplemental LNG and oil? Are they going to switch to only Linux instead of Windows or macos? Iphones? Our oligarchs, and others will continue to corrupt the world’s politicians, and fund increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaigns. The decision makers will cave to oligarchs’ carrots and sticks.
You are over estimating the importance of american products. Android has 60% market share in eu while iphone has 39%. Norway and Algeria supplied both more LNG to europe than USA in 2024.
At Q3. 2025 EU bought only 14,5% of our petrolium oil from USA. Norway alone was 14,6%.
EU is allready looking into making our own replacement for visa and mastercard.
Food and drink is not really a problem as many processed products USA produces already recognized as non suitable for human consuption. South america will be happy to provide nuts and fruits for EU. Especially when their neighboring country is acting hostile towards them at the moment and most alchohol USA produce is considered bottomself stuff.
Car imports from the USA has been falling for years, even before Trumps tarifs.
I think windows is hardest to shake as most businesses use it and most softwares are designed to use it.
Cultural things like movies, tv series and music and somesoftware are also hard to replace.
I forgot to mention Google’s Android. So it seems nearly 100% of the EU is using a US controlled device in their pocket. Nice little spy devices.
“Algeria’s growing willingness to collaborate with the United States should not be seen solely as a security measure, but as part of a comprehensive strategy to reposition itself geopolitically in an increasingly unstable international environment.” https://www.atalayar.com/en/articulo/politics/russias-growing-influence-in-the-sahel-is-forcing-algeria-to-rethink-its-defence-strategy/20250510130000214532.html
If Algeria gets in bed with US oligarchs, then they will be used as a pawn against the EU. What would you do in winter when some pressure campaign or insurgency is upon you, but budgeted energy is cut short?
A lot of expensive painful changes will have to happen in the EU. Individuals are weak and don’t want their boat rocked. A great period of austerity may be needed to fund the changes. Individuals will hang on to lifestyles that they are accustomed to, and expect the same in the future. When presented with reality, they will experience cognitive dissonance. Many individuals will choose to fool themselves that there is another way, or that things aren’t bad enough to warrant the loss of what they expected their short existence to be like.
Android is open source. Google makes money trough playstore and youtube. Google pays for phone manufactorers so they keep apps like maps and gmail preinstalled on the phones. If at some point there would be situation where company like samsung would need to choose between googles money or their biggest market, market wins. By a huge margin.
USA has hard time stopping Algeria from trading with EU by any other way than military force. EU is their biggest trade partner. 48% of their trade is to European Union.
Also where you get the individuals are weak thing? Like i already said. You are over estimating the importance American trade. And you are forgetting trade goes both ways.
Millions of jobs in the United States are related to EU-US trade and investment. The European Union is a reliable source of critical supplies to the United States, including medicinal ingredients and pharmaceutical products, advanced machinery and equipment, and aerospace parts and components. At the same time, the European Union is the largest buyer of the United States’ natural gas and oil, but states are not the biggest importer of gas and oil for EU.
Total bilateral trade in goods between the EU and the US reached €851 billion in 2023. The EU exported €503 billion of goods to the US market, while importing €347 billion; this resulted in a goods trade surplus of €157 billion for the EU. Total bilateral trade in services between the EU and the US was worth €746 billion in 2023. The EU exported €319 billion of services to the US, while importing €427 billion from the US; this resulted in a services trade deficit of €109 billion for the EU.
The difference between EU exports to the US and US exports to the EU stood at €48 billion in 2023; the equivalent of just 3% of the total trade between the EU and the US.
Also since you like to talk about the oligarchs.
The EU and the US are also major investment partners. EU and US firms have €4.7 trillion worth of investment in each other’s markets (2023 data).
How do you think these oligarchs feel if that 5,5 trillion dollars of investments start to unravel.
Everyone is accustomed to Google’s bundled apps and various backend web services. People generally don’t like change, so they will continue to use them. Those components are binaries and runtime calls to proprietary software. You can’t go compile them yourself. So it will continue to be a viable foothold.
MLK wrote about the white moderates being the largest stifling force to change. Collectively, they’d say we need these changes for justice and equality, but always bail and say not like this, or not at this time. The changes that needed to happen would disturb or destroy the lives they individually sought. Individuals think about themselves first. If the changes needed would cause a period of economic hardship for their families, then they may soften their support. If they have kind hearts, but are completely accustomed to privileged lifestyles, they will have internal contention if the needed changes could upend it. They will have fear. If individuals or families have medical conditions, they will have internal contention about anything even temporarily interrupting care. On and on and on. This is the problem we are facing right now in the US. As a people, our majority calls for change. Individually, we are calculating what we would truly sacrifice. Have you not read the endless comments from the US individuals stating why they can’t do more?
Oligarchs created our current situation. The long term goal in the EU is same as for the US, regulatory capture and then privatization of public services and resources.
Whitout disrespecting MLK, he wrote about completelly different people, with completelly different values who were living in a different time. You cant really bring writings about highly individualistic culture in a time when racial segration was common and slavery were still so fresh there were both, people who used to own slaves and people who were born in slavery alive, and except it to represent modern day europeans accuratelly. I think Bernie Sanders is good example. In USA he is perceived as a borderline extremist by some, but in most european countries his policies are pretty mild and centrist.
I bet EU countries would fare much better than USA in face of economic hardship. Europeans generally are not as invidualistic as americans and social safety nets are better.
And no, i honestly havent seen those comments. I try to steer clear from social media, and what i have seen here are more desperate calls for action than anything else.
I have really hard time beliving the rich and powerfull would on purpose cross the line and bomb the economy, because they have most to lose. The risk and the reward just does not add up.
How are different people and such? My parents were adults when MLK was murdered. My parents are still alive and politically active.
EU would definitely handle a downturn better than us. That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I am talking about innate psychological phenomenon within all of us.
If money is so smart and free of all human mental fragility, then why is it that they always have a giant hand in fascism? It’s part of the very definition of fascism. Fascist regimes last a long time and destroy economies, yet they still happen. Interesting, maybe they are not gods of wisdom and logic, but slaves to greed and power. They seek not to strengthen each other’s hands, but to dominate each other. Money payed to power returns them power and money to even stomp on each other.
He lived in a time when racial segregation was the norm and wrote from the perspective afro american male.
Women had just gotten a right to vote and while they could get a job, huge part of them were housewifes. And the jobs they could apply were still very limited.
The whole socioeconomic situation and upbringing of people cant be compared to modern day EU. I think good example how much culture and history effects to the way people act, is watching how people in Japan react during and after disasters and compare it to how people in states react. Granted its extreme example and USA and EU are not that far apart from eachother, but it shows well how differently different cultures act in different situation. Hence i say, that MLK’s writings cant just be willy nilly aplied to people living on the otherside of the world allmost a century after the writing.
I did not say money was smart. Im saying that if you have billions tied to a boat you dont want to shake it. Fasist regimes are not the same as oligarch. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were not rich busines men when they started their politics. Maybe they werent dirt poor either, but most of their wealth came after. If you look soviets at the beginning there were rich people who tried to fight the regime, but in the end they were forced to work with the leaders in power or disapear. What i am trying to say is, when people have lots of money tied to something, they try to keep things steady. Ofcouse there will be fanatics, but most people who handle huge amounts of money are business savy enough to see that tanking the economy now is not worth of the unsure payout in the future, when the way things go now are allready making them rich.
I am not communicating this well then. The hesitancy of the moderates was, and still is like your statement: “when people have lots of money tied to something, they try to keep things steady.” That is why I assert this is a fundamental trait we all share as humans. If fixing the status quo upsets my life, then I will probably temper my will for those changes. How do you not have this behavior? What if the changes necessitate a generation of austerity; a forced collapse of the existing system? If you have children, why would you NOT consider how it will impact them? This is basic human stuff. For me personally, I will likely die early for this principle, but I struggle with these contentions in my mind. I haven’t lived a nice life and I don’t have much of anything to lose in the way of children, partners, or money. But I do take care of my elderly parents, and my remaining siblings are both fully disabled in different ways. I imagine the situation where I get killed or jailed at the sunset of my mother’s life. She has experienced much pain hers. She has lost children. Do I want to send her off with more pain? No, and it absolutely affects my decisions. There are animals that I care for. I can imagine the stress and pain that they will experience when abandoned. Most people have WAY MORE to lose than I do, and my few things restrict me.
The Soviet Union was a communist authoritarian nation. I never implied that the strongmen were the oligarchs. Fascism is a particular flavor of bad people putting themselves over others. In this flavor of assholery, capitalist oligarchs have always had a large roll. It is part of the definition of fascism. People seem to think fascism == authoritarianism, but they are not the same, for one is a subset of the other.
There’s a whole spectrum of wealth. There are a surprising amount of batshit-crazy ultra billionaires. They have the same weaknesses as everyone else. They succumb to their own collective propaganda. They are narcissistic sociopaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism
In the US, we have been pulling our hair out trying to understand why so many us are believing stark lies that lead to ruin. We have about a dozen billionaires in cabinet positions. Our oligarch class wholeheartedly supports Trump. Yeah, some push back when their pot gets disturbed, then they give the admin money or power in exchange for a carve-out and contract.