Igor Shushko should not be trusted for OSINT. He has claimed repeatedly that the FSB was going to stage a coup, etc. since the beginning of the invasion. He also just makes stuff up pretty frequently.
He's in the "completely ignore" category in the OSINT community.
Incredibly based scientist
That's not really what "national debt" refers to... national debt is literal borrowing: "hey who wants to buy some bonds from my national government so we can invest in our economy?" Someone buys those bonds with the expectation of getting the invested amount + interest back.
What you're talking about is most closely represented by "reparations" which is money owed by an aggressor to a victim state, and is only enforceable really by a stronger third party or by the aggressor losing the war.
As to why cities don't take on debt the same way: they do take on millions of dollars of debt for infrastructure, but usually they're loans from the federal government as opposed to bonds. The difference between city debt and national government debt is the national government controls its own monetary supply, meaning is defacto cannot default on its bonds. Cities can default on their loans, but typically the lender is the higher level government anyways so the repercussions tend to be political only. That's why worrying about "the national debt clock" is typically not meaningful, but your city borrowing 300 million for a new highway definitely is.
Majority of lemmy users are US based, and the overwhelming majority are western. Similarly, the majority of lemmy users are pretty leftist compared to the average citizen.
It shouldn't be surprising that we're not hearing much about bad stuff happening in China. And that's not even accounting for the difficulty in getting trustworthy information out of China.
If you want examples of semi-recent stuff from China that largely got passed over, take a look at the civil unrest regarding the apartment fires during China's COVID lockdown, the forcible repatriation of Chinese citizens abroad, suicide rates in major manufacturing hubs, the huge economic hits in real estate and public/private transportation infrastructure, etc.
There's a lot going on that we simply don't hear about because people tend to share what relates to them.
Yea the US could sacrifice zero dollars in defense budget and still provide adequate service to the population. Healthcare is cheaper when it's not being profiteered by insurance middlemen, and private companies pricing is really hard to influence directly without something like a price fixing lawsuit.
But hey gotta maintain the "democrats are just as bad" image.
If you're going moderate or short distances in a city, odds are it will literally be faster to bike, even at a no sweat/leisurely pace.
Average speed of commuter traffic in cities is sub 20 kph.
Loving that the only dude who posted valid legal precedent in the same jurisdiction is getting down voted.
And then Lemmy users will complain how ass Reddit is for exactly this lmao.
"It's Brittany, bitch"
Can't relate tbh.
These are the "right by accident" people that make it so hard to have meaningful discussions.
You're absolutely correct and we shouldn't ignore genuine acts of antisemitism just because Israel's government is doing terrible things.
Based reality
Our ROI in terms of $/patient outcome is insanely bad lol
lol
Only thing I'd say (as a cyclist) is that "skill issue" is not a great reply for all cases. My city swings from +40 to -40 and it's not uncommon to see wind chills down below -50. Winter cycling is not always viable, which is why a robust transit network needs to include a variety of options.
Otherwise, this is a good comment.
That's not true. Tankies love to shit on the US for "meddling" in Africa when a lot of the time its providing funding and weapons for regimes where the opponents are funded by Russia/Wagner/China. Depending on which way the wind blows, the US is either "overthrowing a legitimate regime" or "restoring the democratic process".
It's a no win. Africa is too weak to stabilize by itself after centuries of meddling, and if the US goes hands-off, Russia and China will just economically enslave them via predatory loans, like how neoliberal policies economically enslaved South/Central America to the US. I'd trust the US installed people for their own populace over Chinese/Russia installed people, given the respective human rights records of all involved.
Anyways, while 2003 onwards was a huge fuck up and absolutely abhorrent, Desert Shield/Storm was incredibly justified defending an ally under armed occupation and still gets shit on by Tankies.
One man's humanitarian mission to shut down a warlord is another man's mission to overthrow a regime and install US-friendly government.
Yeah, the US military has been built since WW2 explicitly with the intention of being able to fight in Europe and in the Pacific at the same time and win both.
Ukraine has basically just gotten ammunition + existing older US equipment, it's not like we're draining our military capabilities supporting them right now.
Wut? The US government doesn't pay other countries to buy US weapons. Those countries typically fund those purchases from their domestic defense budget. The US government just approves or denies the exports.
Exceptions are "military aid" which is case-dependent.
Are you under the impression that the US government pays those 100 countries to buy US made weapons? Or directly sells those weapons themselves?
Lemmy reacting purely based on an editorialized headline that meets their preconceived worldview? That would never happen!
I use ps -aux | grep $EXECUTABLE
The monetary supply thing in particular is why using bitcoin or any other externally managed currency as a national currency is typically regarded as a bad idea.
And also the above statements get much more complex when dealing with multiple currencies like with Russia where despite it issuing the ruble, it can default on USD debt because the ruble/USD exchange rate is such shit.
Monetary policy is very interesting.
Military aid packages are typically reported in USD ("10 billion in military aid") but usually involve the direct transference of equipment (logistical or frontline) to the foreign country. Usually those countries are existing allies of the US (or at least friendly) and are probably already buying NATO/US gear.
I'm relatively confident that the US doesn't typically give USD earmarked for US manufactured weapons systems.
Yeah that's what allows me to afford to live here, lol
I think it's because the meme itself is the wrong way to try to make that argument. Instead of just saying "the US has 22% of the world's aggregate prisoner population and that's a problem", it's making that argument by directly comparing it to a MUCH WORSE regime for that exact violation of rights.
The whataboutisms tend to be bristling at the bad comparisons more than a direct refutation of the underlying point being made. I think complaining about the whataboutisms misses the point of those replies, which is valid.
As the other poster said, why not compare with Scandinavian countries that genuinely do have better justice systems rather than comparing with USSR or CCP which have much worse justice systems?