Patong2021

No one protests on behalf of the elderly or the disabled. They don't make for sexy photo ops.

The USA does not subsidize Canada. Repeating a false claim from Trump does not make it true. As per TD bank; With respect to Trump’s assertion that the U.S. subsidizes Canada to the tune of US$200 billion per year, it’s unclear where this number is derived. In any event, rather than a subsidy, the U.S. trade deficit is a by-product of U.S. economic outperformance relative to other countries. You write that "Now obviously faced with the current tariffs Canada will offer the US a lot more, as indeed it has already been doing. If not, the US can get its aluminium, potash and lumber from other sources which are not ripping off the US." Absolute crap. Canada is not offering anything now other than reciprocal tariffs. Where will the USA source aluminum, potash and lumber? You are engaging in a word dump that demonstrates that you know absolutely nothing about the main suppliers of these critical items. The only alternatives to Canada aluminum are China, Russia and India. There is no cost competitive alternative for Canadian lumber, and Russia is the only alternative to Canadian potash and it is of lower quality and more expensive. Please tell us why and how the USA would benefit from more imports from Russia and China. You have the logic of a small time day trader.

And you sound like a a small town hick, new to the big city. Sascha is a short name for Alexander. Although often assumed to be solely slavic in origin it is common in Germanic cultures. Sascha is a name found in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It isn't a top popular name, but it is not a rarity.

They will not because they are afraid of primary opposition. I offer that it will take some drastic results at the midterm elections to initiate some change. The democrats need only gain 3 seats in the House to make it a new ball game.

Why is that? Do you know anything about the gentleman or why he is the former commissioner. He was appointed to complete the term of a previous commissioner who had resigned. His term was for a specific period of time and he took the position for only that time which expired at the end of January 2025. How is he a lefty? Do you know anything about him? No of course you do not. It does not surprise me when ignorant people who are clueless spit out ignorant labels for anyone who scares them. The former commissioner of Social Security is the very well regarded former Governor of the state of Maryland. He is the man who cut crime by 36%+ when he was mayor of Baltimore and was accused of being too conservative. He was approved for his position by the United States Senate with only 11 Senators voting against. He did have Republican backing.

It is not deluded to question the claim of unrest or of likelihood and impact of protest. Have you considered the demographics of the beneficiaries? Obviously you have not. 68.456 million beneficiaries of which, 60 million are old age and survivor beneficiaries. More than half of these people are aged 70-84. And more than half are female. Please tell me when the last time that demographic engaged in social unrest? It is very unlikely that the 6 million+ beneficiaries over the age of 84 are going to engage in any form of unrest. The remaining 8 million beneficiaries are disabled and their dependents. Please tell me when disabled people have engaged in civil unrest? The conclusion a rational person draws is that the Trump administration can walk all over them because of their marginalized position. Approximately, 90% of beneficiaries rely on social security as their principal income which makes them even more vulnerable to being pushed around.

I disagree. I believe that the former PM had a genuine good intent. She was sabotaged and fought at every opportunity by vested interests. In effect set up to fail.

That's the message the article wants to convey, but those are not the facts of the case. Your interpretation is unfair and relies on a biased presentation of events. Wars are nasty and the IRA neither respected humanitarian principles, nor the Geneva Conventions. The event from which these charges emanate was a reasonable use of force and must be considered from the perspective of the SAS personnel taking out a demonstrable threat to both their safety and that of the surrounding public.

Losing? It is lost and won't be regained any time soon. Trump did this last time and Biden spent his term trying to rebuild bridges only to have Mr. Chaos burn them again. No one is going to trust the USA again for a long time.

Your disconnect from reality is shown by your statement. The government jobs being eliminated are not cushy. Do you even know what positions were eliminated? You want to eliminate social welfare. Fine. How are you going to do that without sentencing hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens to death? What courageous spending cuts have their been? Elimination of disease research programs? Elimination of air traffic controller positions? Most of the so called savings have been shown to have been bogus or exagerated. For example, DOGE listed more than 940 contracts where contract obligations have already been fully delivered -- meaning that 40% of the contracts they claim to have terminated could not have saved any money. Most of the reductions have come from the suspension of foreign aid programs. The real cuts needed are to protected Republican programs like keeping redundant military bases in GOP districts open or in eliminating farm subsidies in some Republican states. That's not happening.

You really do not know the US economy and are instead spitting out empty talking points. Most Canadian exports are inputs used by American businesses in their own production – more so than with other trading partners. In plain language, the US takes the low cost inputs to make higher value outputs. This delivers a profit. If the USA has to replace those inputs with more expensive alternatives, the profits will decrease and/or the costs to consumers will increase. Therefore, disproportionate share of the negative tariff impacts on imports from Canada would be through the channel of business supply chains and productivity that would drive higher costs and inflationary pressures at the retail level. The USA has initiated a worldwide decoupling of everyone's economy from the USA. The impact won't be seen immediately, but it will be a shift with time as the rest of the world looks to transact with anyone other than the USA. You ignore the fact that the US domestic economy is mostly service based. You can't eat mortgages, and you can't build a shelter from serving processed. junk food at a Denny's. Service based economies do not create long term wealth for the population. The operators of the service firms gain, but not the nation. There is no intellectual capital creation. Only industry and technological innovation builds long term wealth. The USA is slashing R&D and eliminating government supported R&D. Other nations are doing the exact opposite.

The USA has now unilaterally decided that the longstanding agreement that internationally agreed upon borders were inviolable no longer need be respected. Russia has now been gven the green light to take back Alaska.

MAGA supporters won't worry. The small number of US citizens who are at risk in Thailand are a small cost to suffer during the great leap forward. Doubtful. The SS beneficiaries are mostly vulnerable people. How is some morbidly obese woman in a wheelchair going to protest? How about the elderly man confined to a nursing home bed? The elderly are the least likely to engage in overt protest for fear of retribution or physical harm. Sure, they will complain and AARP will shake its fist, but if the delay is short, it will be quickly forgotten.

Not anymore. Trump has singlehandedly destroyed the US brand.

You assume that the products are available in the USA. The USA does not currently have the capacity to manufacture or produce most of the tariffed items (both US imposed, and foreign nation counter imposed). Factories cannot be built and staffed overnight, let alone in 1 or 2 or even 3 years. It is not the large companies who will lose out, but the US consumer and US worker. What's your plan to offset the increased cost of living tariffs cause, and the reduction of employment that will occur? Not everyone wants to work in a factory making lightbulbs or or in a noisy sawmill breathing in sawdust and ingesting bugs and debris. Americans are not much for manual labour as seen by the agriculture sector's reliance on immigrant farm workers.

Yes, but the Chinese as a nation are more able to sustain economic hardship. No one comes out to riot and burn down buildings in quite the way westerners do. The Chinese are adaptable and quick to pivot. That is what they have done in the developing markets of Latin America and Africa. It is not about China winning, because no one wins in a trade war. Rather it is about who will be least damaged and most like to bounce back faster. It's about motivation. A large part of the US population is not in agreement with Trump, his satanic henchman Musk, and his chaos strategy. As a result, it will be hard to maintain national cohesion in the event of hardship. The USA has initiated a policy of isolation and having no friends does not serve anyone well, just look at the old farts who roam aimlessly in Patong, Pattaya and elsewhere to understand that.

The dogs would be assessed to determine if it was the dog or the custodian of the animal. In civilized societies like the UK and much of the USA, if the assessment showed that the dog was ok, there would be an attempt to train and to rehouse. In this case, I would not be surprised if the dog behavior was encouraged and rewarded by the accused man. Blaming the dog is a cop out for not holding the man responsible. He is the one who is letting the dog offleash, and he is the one not muzzling the animal when there have been complaints. He is the one who is allegedly intentionally trying to harm people.

Lovely, but impractical. Not a practical option for residents of Chiang Mai, Udon Thani, etc. The lanes need to be accessible and practical. Or better yet, respected. They manage to do that in the UK, USA and Japan. It of course gets back to driving skills and respect for others.

What goes up, does come down. Mr. Trump is going to deliver one heck of an economic recession. It will be the countries rich in critical commodities like energy sources, potable water, mineral wealth and stable climate who will prosper.

The USA is not dependent on Canada, but its wealth and high standard of living is. It is Canada that provides the cheap raw materials and resources that the USA transforms into higher value products. Yes, the USA has a capacity to replace Canadian lumber, but at what cost? There are not enough sawmills in the USA or sufficient skilled labour to operate those mills and to transport the lumber. The lumber would have to come from protected environmentally fragile ecosystems. The forests were protected for a good reason as they were needed to control erosion, fire and water /air quality. You ignore the fact that there is a big difference between lumber used for the construction industry and what is in US forests. The excess softwood lumber the US would need are highly suceptible to pests and fire. It is one of the reasons why forest fires are so prevalent in clear cut replant areas. The pulp and paper companies replant with the highly flammable varieties, not with the appropriate fire resistant trees, which are less valuable for cheap US type construction. Aluminum is a world market and much of it is already spoken for with local demand taking up much of the production. Your position is illogical. Trump says he wants to make the USA more independent, well, the alternatives to Canada are China, Russia and India. How is relying on those producers n the USA's interest? It certainly won't be less expensive in the long run. Yes, the USA is producing lots of oil and gas now. Oil pipelines do not appear overnight. They take years to build. The oil pipelines do not run east to west. They run north to south for good reason. You can't build east west pipelines in many regions because of the geography and the population. The US oil companies built their refineries in the midwest because of the billions of $$ the import of cheap Canadian oil made them. Yes, the USA can get its potash from Russia, Belarus and China. Another brilliant strategy to make the USA more independent. And yes, the USA agricultural sector relies on low cost Canadian potash. 80% of it comes from Canada. Try replacing that with the lower quality contaminated Russian potash. Add the shipping costs from Russia. It is far more cost effective to load a train car with potash and send it down south than to ship it via train and cargo ship with loading and unloading through multiple ports. Ask a US corn farmer how they would manage without Canadian potash. The answer is that there would be reduced corn production. Reduced corn production reduces pork and cattle feed. Reduced pork and cattle production would not bode well for Americans. There is a reason why the stock market is tanking now.

I would consider terrorism as a motive.

He is not speaking on behalf of the Democrt party, nor does he have standing. This is his opinion.

The mayor is representing a large number of citizens who are opposed. If he wants to mount a legal challenge he should not use public funds as he does not have a mandate to do so. Polling shows a majority are in favour of the expansion. The man is over stepping his authority in respect to use of public funds.

Let them play with the dogs in a closed room.

Wonderful that the US domestic economy is strong, but it is you who has interpreted incorrectly and is so arrogant as to attack anyone stating the obvious. 70% +of the US economy is based upon the service sector and is not particulary resilient. Inflated healthcare costs represent 17% of the GDP. 11% is government. Only 17.6% comes from industry. Financial services like banking and insurance do not create wealth for the nation, yet you carry on as if it is creating national wealth. China's industrial sector accounts for 36.5% of its GDP. That's why it is a powerhouse and it can markets to other regions like Latin America and replace US industries. - Exports represent 11% of the US GDP. If the export market is reduced by 10% it will have a significant impact. - The US domestic economy relies on cheap imports that it transforms into more valuable finished products. If the USA loses access to those cheap imports its domestic ecomy will be negatively impacted. Trump loves to attack Canadian lumber imports, but the reality is that the USA does not have the capacity to replace the Canadian lumber. It doesn't have the sawmills or the non impact forest areas to cut. When the USA cuts down trees today, it negatively impacts watersheds and puts communities at risk for flooding and other manmade catastrophes. US consumers won't pay the higher costs of US lumber. Trump complains about Canadian aluminum, but the USA can't replace it and Canada can easily sell to world markets. Trump says he doesn't need cheap Canadian oil that is bought cheap , refined and then sold back at inflated prices to Canada, all done by US oil companies . Good. Canada should keep the oil and let the US midwest go without because the pipelines are from Canada into the midwest, not from the rest of the USA into the midwest. The US farmers depend on cheap fertilizer from Canada. Let them buy the contaminated potash at 2X the price from Russia and pass on the costs to consumers. Tourism is 3% of the US GDP. Watch it shrink and see how many of the 9 million employed in the sector lose their jobs. In order to have need for a service based economy there must be an inflow of wealth and that will not happen if the world stops transacting with the USA. Consider what happens if the world moves away from the domonance of the US banking system and its US control and instead moves to EU or Japanese banks. No more US influence. The USA is forcing that change,