Voroxpete

Fun fact, Canada has had the capability of deploying nuclear weapons, but never owned them or kept them on Canadian soil.

During the cold war the Voodoo interceptor was able to deploy dumbfire tactical nuclear rockets to intercept incoming Russian bombers over the Arctic. But the Canadian government insisted that no nuclear weapons existed on Canadian soil. This was true, but only by an extreme technicality; parts of the airbases were ceded to the US, who also provided the nukes. They were only ever stored in the parts of the bases that were "US territory".

As I said to the other commenter, he's a human being, not an elder God. This "nothing can ever stop Trump, his powers of unreasonableness defy all mortal comprehension" stuff isn't actually helpful.

They've smartly put him in a vice. If he tries to push the tariffs they'll counter by reneging on the agreement to up their military budgets. If he tries to push the military budgets they'll tell him no deal unless he removes the tariffs. He'll try to demand both because he's a child, but at the end of the day the only bargaining tool he knows how to use is bullying, and they've now reconstructed the scenario so that the harder he bullies the less he gets of things he specifically wants. That's why this is a smart play; because they're anticipating his unreasonableness and turning it against him.

Trump cares very deeply about seeming to never be wrong. This man once sharpie'd in a new path for a hurricane on an official prediction chart.

He's not some eldritch being of unknowable power. He has buttons and they can be pushed. He is, in fact, shockingly easy to manipulate, and this is a smart manipulation.

It's still possible to trap him in his own words though. He hates to look foolish (as ironic as that may be). Trump has repeatedly demanded that Europe, and every other NATO nation increase their defence spending. This forces him to either back off on the tariffs or back off on that demand. It's a smart play under the circumstances.

It should be noted that many new tokens, NFTs, etc, will openly advertise that they are pump and dumps. They will literally recruit people to buy in under the pretense that they are going to win big as part of the dump, only for them to discover that they are actually going to be the bag holders.

Getting in behind this was a massive own-goal for the Democrats. No matter what legitimate arguments there were for getting rid of Tiktok, the political cost was always going to be too high for the actual benefits. Especially when American social media companies like Twitter and Facebook are actively working to destroy American democracy. Comparatively speaking, Tiktok was far less of a threat.

You can tell its satire because it sounds less insane than any of the real things Smith says or does on a daily basis.

IIRC the reason for this is that China requires that games published there be published by entities that are at least some arbitrary percentage Chinese owned. So basically if you want access to that huge market - that loves video games - you have to cut a deal with Tencent or someone else like them.

Very true.

I suppose I should have said "Fiat dollar trading volumes" although that's an oversimplification. The question you're really trying to answer is "How much actual demand is there for this invented commodity?"

The answer is, inevitably, not nearly enough. When 80% of the available supply of something is locked up in a vault somewhere, there's absolutely no way that 80% could be liquidated without crashing whatever market exists.

Sorry, I should have clarified that I was referring primarily to international transfers, since that's the preferred example of advocates.

I wish more people understood this. Especially in the press, since its their job to educate everyone else.

Trading volume is what matters, not trading price. It's only worth $25 billion if you can turn $25 billion of it into cash.

Unfortunately since banks still haven't take wised up to this, and the wildcat crypto banks really haven't, its likely still possible to pump a meme coin and then take out loans against the purported asset value. The bank is then left trying to repossess a pile of worthless memecoin when you fail to repay the loan.