Amazon 1 year after launch: Unfortunately, the space needed for robots in the van means that the van has to return to base 5 times more often to reload with the actual packages and the extra weight of robots more than doubles the weight of the van being lugged around in the form of heavy robots. So that’s why we are having to charge more for delivery and why it is taking longer for you to get your packages. But at least we can pay fewer salaries.

To make matters more complicated i believe (but may be wrong) in Japan Tokyo and Osaka have opposite conventions. So it can even come down to the city level.

The problem with choosing your own reality is that when it doesn’t bear any resemblance to actual reality, you will inevitably be forced to face up to it at some point.

Humans generally hate to admit when they are wrong so creating a version of events where you didn’t make a mistake is easier.

This is the question.

How improbable is it that he could have made a connection to airport scanners if somebody else told him they were having confusing feelings.

Trump has said that other countries are ripping off the USA which creates the impression that foreign companies are selling goods far higher than they are worth. That means that people who believe Trump likely think that the foreign companies have enough margin to soak up the tariff, I.e. Pay it themselves, in order to keep doing business. Then the ripping off stops and those foreign countries just grumble that their gravy train is over.

In reality, they are not and never were ripping off the USA in the way that is being suggested. Republicans seem to have forgotten that the market forces they used to talk about being so important have put a downward pressure on prices to some extent have prevented price gouging wherever there is competition and no collusion. Even when the goods come from overseas.

Now due to the tariffs, the cost of doing business with the USA went up. So if they want to keep selling products in the USA, they need to cover the cost of the tariff, and the only way to do that and stay in business is to pass the tariff on by increasing their price to the customer. They can still sell that product outside the USA at its original price but they may choose to increase those due to reduced volume sold over all since the USA will likely buy less.

By labelling the surcharge for the tariff they are simply highlighting the reason for the increase in price. As they should. I fear though that posts like this show that even when the reason for increased pricing is made clear, people will still choose their reality and not believe or understand the causes and motivations.

They should have told him if it’s about principles not money, if he is “retiring” then he’ll no longer need his “salary” so he can choose between his allowance and royal accommodation and the pension.

Of course it’s about money. It always is. He is just another entitled wanker who thinks he “deserves” while others “take”.

Tesla: Due to the attacks on our dealerships and stock, we currently only have refurbished cybertrucks to offer. Here is one which has the panels reattached. It’s just like it came out of the factory.

Customer: wasn’t that mine that I just returned?

Tesla: yeah but this time we used gorilla glue. Please ignore the finger prints and hairs that got stuck to it. We let Elon’s kid stick them back on for a photo op. He only got his hand stuck 5 times.

Tesla: alternatively we’ve got this one going cheap. It only has one swastika painted on the side that we couldn’t get off, otherwise it’s brand new.

I did not mean the toddler thing as a insult, but as an analysis. I genuinely think he can only think in straight lines. Any complexity escapes him. While I agree on the dictator stuff, I do think when he implemented a tariff it’s because he thinks that it will either result in businesses setting up in America, or foreign companies paying. I think he thinks it is a genius move and that he has not thought through all of the possibilities. So although saying he thinks like a toddler like an insult, I didn’t mean it like that. And I will also point out there is a difference between saying he is acting like a toddler to saying he thinks like a toddler.

Boycott Mercedes anyone??

The man thinks like a toddler. “If I put tariffs on goods from other countries, other countries will have to pay to do business here and America will become rich, we are the biggest market so they have to live with what we demand”

He doesn’t think the rest of the world can stand without them or he doesn’t think that reciprocal tariffs will hurt America as bad as they hurt us.

First every company has a cost to produce goods. Typically they cannot go below this. That means putting the tariffs on finished products means the only way non US companies can continue to sell in the USA AND pay the tariff, is to raise the price to the US buyer. If the buyer is the consumer then shit , things get more expensive. If the buyer is a manufacturer based in the USA buying components from abroad, then they have to spend more to built the product, I.e their cost goes up and, shit, things get more expensive. That means the consumer gets hurt or the USA business swallow some of the pain but ultimately both get hurt, because the cost of the goods may become prohibitively expensive reducing the demand. Manufacturing overhead increases as a result so either the company has to fire the newly idle staff or the price goes up. Price goes up and fewer sell again and it gets stuck in a death loop for the business unless it is an essential product that people have no choice but to pay for.

Now the other side of it is that he thinks that imposing the tariffs mean everyone in the USA will buy American and it will be good for American business. Except the USA doesn’t make everything it needs nor can it, at least in the short term. It is not simply a matter of switching suppliers to USA suppliers on the 5th of April. It is a matter of there being no alternative. Any prospective USA based supplier would have to set up a factory, tool up and gain experience in the manufacture of every tyoe of product all of which takes months if not years. Or foreign companies have to establish manufacturer at the cost of millions in a highly volatile country where the rules change on a daily basis. Also any company from overseas is at risk of having any employees who are not white Americans being detained or deported by ICE. Not what could be called a safe bet, or good investment Either way, by the time US suppliers come online the businesses that rely on those parts will very likely have gone under through the increased costs levied on them.

In the mean time, the world outside America is bigger. It will hurt us too, but I expect trade barriers to come down in the rest of the world and non-US manufacturers will be able to find alternative suppliers to the US ones they may currently use.

I was thinking devices like iPhones may become too expensive for people outside the US until I remembered they aren’t manufactured in America, but with all the boycotts which will be exacerbated by reciprocal tariffs, I expect business is going to become very hard for American companies outside the USA.

If I were an American company right now I would be seriously evaluating moving outside the USA. Losing the US market is less harmful than losing the ROTW markets.

At the end of the day, there is an arrogance in these tariffs that says the world needs American goods and services more than America needs the world’s goods and that we will cave before America. We all crave our McDonald’s and Coke and Netflix and Teslas so bad that we’ll give in and play by trumps rules. He thinks that there will be short term pain for long term gain for the USA, but I think it will be like that for the rest of the world and America is in for long term pain.

Ultimately America won’t be the biggest market very soon, because buying power is going to go off a cliff and I think for Americans, it’s going so stay down there. There will probably come a course correction in a few months time when the pain has become so bad for Americans that they demand heads roll. When that happens I don’t think the ROTW is going to just say all is forgiven and go back to how things were. More likely this will cause lasting damage to the US and it’s businesses and the rest of the world will adapt to avoid working with an unstable partner.

You’ve clearly got an axe to grind so I’m gonna leave it here and let OP debate with you if they choose to

Culture can mean different things but the way I read the original post was that the culture being talked about was specifically the arts, and the main discussion about it was clearly censorship.

So the fact that Europe has a violent and bloody history is not relevant to the point that was being made. It is also a fact I don’t think anyone in Europe would want to deny either because if we ever forget the horrors of war we are doomed to sleep walk into another.

There is only a double standard in OPs post if they were trying to pretend Europe has never been violent, but they didn’t address that, they talked about aspects of censorship.

I think the point was more about the double standardz on violence in censorship than it was about whether each region actually is or had been violent. As a famous US show, South Park pointed out almost 30 years ago in 1998…

“horrific deplorable violence is ok as long as nobody says any naughty words”

If he is really concerned with security he should fire Waltz as proof

You mean:

I had black servants who had no choice but to be my “friends”.

Except for the fact that he is single handedly responsible for a massive decrease in teslas value. I would not bet on anything he touches because even if he were loved inside the US, he is now despised everywhere else. Tesla was built on left wing progressive ideals and so was spacex, and solarcity, etc etc. Musks turn to the right betrays all of those who liked his companies for ideological reasons. I don’t expect tesla stock to recover any time soon.

Every time I read something about the USA in the last few weeks I think “Wow that’s shitty. How can it get worse?”

In short order, the answer to my question is served up. I find it worse when the victims cannot speak or stand up for themselves. Though horrible things are happening to a wide range of victims at least they can protest, take action etc. The dogs cannot. I only hope that the handlers make sure the welfare of these animals is taken care of despite the order. They do not deserve to be pawns in the MAGA game, but then no one does.

“Here is your big mac meal”

“but I ordered a McChicken sandwich”

“don’t worry, our AI suggested swapping your order because it predicted you actually prefer chicken based on your order history which it got from facial recognition when you walked in so we started preparing it before you ordered which also meant we’d get your order out 9.4 second faster! Isn’t it so clever, eh?”

“what about my drink, I didn’t order diet coke?”

“we gave you diet because our AI indicated that you probably have diabetes based on body weight analysis and McDonald’s is committed to healthy eating as well as maximising profits”

“I want to talk to the manager.”

“the manager was replaced by AI last month, corporate felt on site managers were one of the biggest expenditures for the branches and felt AI can offer more value. I’m sure the AI will be able to help you at that terminal over there. If not, we can escalate to the corporate AI which is authorised to offer 1% off coupons and has a slight antisemitism problem…”

“the terminal over there? The one with the queue 30 minutes long?”

“yep, that’s the one. Have a great day!! Oh it looks like our conversation took longer than the time we saved. Oh well, isn’t AI though”

Government response should be… “While the government sympathises with your plight and considers protecting its citizens a core duty, recent events have left the government under manned and thus powerless to protect those who cheer on the downsizing of the government until it directly affects them. Therefore please accept our apologies but until such time as staffing levels allow us to focus on anything but the absolutely vital functions of government which are already more than we can handle, we will not be able to offer you any support.”