Hey now. China’s been churning out much higher quality merch of late. And the American Tech Giants have been increasingly wrapped up in US trade war politics. So a lot of this shit now comes from the Philippines, India, and Bangladesh.

Amazon’s going through the same enshitification cycle as Sears and JC Penny did a decade ago.

It’s not a question of “Will people stop using Amazon?” but “Will people start using <X>” where X is better than Amazon. Solve for X.

I mean, if you’ve got an REI in your neighborhood, that can be handy. But even they still get their merch from somewhere that isn’t the storefront or even the city. There really isn’t a “buy local” option for textiles in a material sense, unless you really know where to look.

The internet was so good in 08. You searched for stuff, found exactly what you needed, and were done.

Shit was bad in 2008, too. The degree to which drop shippers had consolidated down to one mega-wholesaler rather than a dozen crappy fly-by-nights hadn’t happened yet. You got a dozen different flavors of crap rather than just one. But it was still crap.

Poor kids today will never know anything other than ad ridden bot corponet.

Under an Amazon keyword search, sure. You can still find good quality products outside of Amazon. You can even find it inside Amazon if you know what you’re looking for.

The difference between 2008 and 2025 is primarily that Amazon’s algorithmic tools have degraded to the state of Yahoo or Sears.

Freedom To Choose

http://needsmorejpeg.com/

It’s still nice. Honestly, the reciprocation of appreciation/affection is its own glamour filter. The girl who thinks I’m hot is made hotter as a result.

Guy who is extremely confident he will not go bald.

You can find Larry Summers at both events.

As for the concern about markets, I think it’s exaggerated. Nobody in their right mind is expecting to keep their assets in foreign banks if they pursue a war of agression.

Glances at the US and Venezuela

Glances at Israel and… everyone else

The important thing is to point them at the correct aircraft.

I’m not saying Apple products make you a pedophile.

But it clearly helps.

I’ve got a mixed bag of neighbors and we mostly avoid talking politics. If they’re hosting the bbq, I’m not sure why you’d complain. Seems like they’ve got no grudge against you

I wouldn’t call it a distraction, because there’s nothing material it’s distracting from. It’s a scandal in the same way the Clinton BJ was a scandal. And it’ll have some downstream ramifications (very hard to run as the Anti-Pedophile party this time around) that’ll demoralize base activists when the economy is sliding and people are looking for an excuse to be angry.

But if we weren’t watching Epstein, we’d still be watching something. It’s not like there’s a BLM or Occupy or Anti-War movement to latch on to. And even if there was… they were hollowed out lightning quick, leaving us with a bunch of Libertarians in flesh suits chanting “End The Fed”.

Folks, he’s a pedophile and so many others of power and influence are and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Nothing most people are willing to try to do about it.

But every now and then, a brave man with a doohickey reminds Shinzo Abe of the price of hubris.

“It’s so hard to make friends”

“What are your neighbors like?”

“Idk, I’ve never talked to them”

They’ve got to get enough to cover

Brother, those are treasuries. Nobody is trying to “pay back all the treasuries” except a dozen or so crank libertarianism obsessed with Free Banking.

We’ve never missed a treasury payment in large part because we can’t miss a payment (unwillingly) when we print our own money.

Anyone who claims we can’t pay back the National Debt is either ignorant or lying

That meme started in China

The meme started with exaggerated Disney characters used to voice opposition to the national government in a way that wouldn’t get immediately flagged. Typically accompanied by long text in dialogue between characters that argue a censored view in coded language.

It was latched onto by westerners without any of that. No real politics or commentary. No censored text. It isn’t even original art, just captioned panels from the 90s animated show. “Yellow. Fat. Haha, Chinese”. That’s the whole message.

broadly viewed as a symbol of resistance

You’re so wildly out of touch.

I used IAU for the few instances I banked gold as a hedge. But I’ve never held longer than a year and it’s never outperformed by overall portfolio returns.

It’s just not a good long term investment.