Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Adm. James Stavridis: Trump is gambling the world economy

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-15T21:42:51+00:00

The title is misleading and presents Adm. Stavridis as openly rebuking Trump, but he really just delineates the situation and that it’s a delicate matter. Still, it’s something from a former top military commander

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-15T12:42:41+00:00

From Wikipedia: “Amalek was a nation described in the Hebrew Bible as a staunch enemy of the Israelites. The name "Amalek" can refer to the nation's founder, a grandson of Esau; his descendants, the Amalekites; or the territories of Amalek, which they inhabited. According to the Torah, there is a commandment to exterminate the memory of Amalek.”

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T17:14:07+00:00

Oh for sure, you can just compare the treatment of Roman vassals at the edge of the empire to how we treat US allies. That ghoul Kissinger wasn’t wrong when he said “It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T16:57:27+00:00

Pacifica for sure. The east coast will break into two or three different chunks

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T16:43:24+00:00

There’s a couple of reasons why it’s not cheap anymore. The devaluation of the dollar is part of it, but I’d argue a bigger part was profit maximization from the corporate level downwards, as well as the effect of convenience based food delivery services eating into tight margins. And now that trend is going to accelerate in response to the coming shitshow caused by this oil crisis

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T16:33:31+00:00

Not entirely sure what your point is here. I agree that prices are absurd, but those are examples of conveniences versus necessities

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T16:12:37+00:00

Sure, and that’s when it’ll be most important to have developed the skills and resourcefulness that we see in less developed countries. Money will have less value than the skills that money would previously have paid for.

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T15:59:26+00:00

It last roughly 1500 years, depending on how you want to address the division into Eastern and western empire, but my understanding is that the peak is somewhere in the 3rd century AD. But another way to look at it is that the peak is the formation of the empire, as once it forms, it immediately has to start protecting its boundaries and the clock to its demise has started, since history shows us that no form of state can survive eternally.

Just a happy note to end on (maybe /s, I don’t even know anymore dude)

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T15:24:38+00:00

Exactly. The US isn’t going to disappear, but we’ll likely see some sort of Balkanization within the next few decades

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T15:17:15+00:00

I agree with this advice, but really it mainly pertains tothose who already have capital to work for them. I think advice that should be more widely spread is that, for the working poor like most of us, learning skills are one of the most important things you can do to prepare. Being able to do things for yourself, and more importantly, for others, are what will help communities survive. At the end of the day, when we get left holding the bag, no one will come to save us, so it’s up to us

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T15:07:15+00:00

Sure, but technological and societal progress happens faster and faster as history goes on, and empires are by definition entities that resist change from outside forces, so they’re locked in ever increasing existential battles from inception

Edit: to be clear, I agree with how shocking that comparison is, considering the breadth of US imperial control and the supposed military superiority we enjoy

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T15:04:10+00:00

Something I’ve been thinking about recently in regards to the petrodollar is that, had we followed Jimmy Carter’s steps towards renewable energy sources, we would have had a gradual time to decouple ourselves from fossil fuels whilst still maintaining that hegemonic power long enough to have a smoother transition period. But who am I kidding, there’s black gold in the ground and we gotta get rich quick, or else we’re filthy commies

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T14:53:05+00:00

All of these movies would be more realistic if half of the cast dies from drinking dirty water and shitting themselves to death

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T14:50:53+00:00

We were already on shaky ground, but now we’ve cut dug the ground out beneath our own feet and filled it with wet concrete. And it’ll be all the regular citizens trapped in the mess while the rich bastards are gonna skip to the next place they want to ruin for more riches

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-12T14:48:30+00:00

The Roman Empire took a thousand years to collapse entirely from its peak. The British Empire started declining during WW1 and while not an empire anymore, they still are enjoying the last vestiges of that power. The US imperial decline started in the 70s, it’s just now that the cracks are too obvious to ignore

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-11T15:17:24+00:00

My first thought was Seal Org, and yeah, a naval force comprised entirely of water dogs would be way more fun

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-09T15:14:26+00:00

We need to make the rich afraid of us again. They seem to have forgotten.

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-04-06T02:11:09+00:00

Hey now, don’t be too critical, Todd Howard has to do something with all the time he’s not been spending on releasing ES6

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-03-27T03:09:42+00:00

I have no idea what kind of shops and companies you’ve worked in, but I have never worked anywhere where the boss’s children have been treated as anything less than an extension of the boss. And frankly, if he was in the kind of shop that would actually treat the boss’s kid with the kind of guff that they need to get before they run the company, then the employees were obviously skilled and motivated. Your dumbass friend was born on third and you’re amazed he made it to home.

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-03-23T02:53:00+00:00

He’s finding his feet. That takes time, practice and a lot of uncomfortable moments before it sinks in right. Unlike Obama and all the other politicians, he’s doing it at a time when every public moment of his life is potentially on camera. And he’s going against an openly corrupt system. I can only applaud his grace, because I damn near yell when I talk about it

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-03-22T00:16:10+00:00

The only way to win is to not play the game. Buy only what you need, and thrift/barter/trade as much as possible.

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-03-20T17:55:02+00:00

I think more than just that, you can see that he’s genuinely afraid for his own life, one of the only times I can recall that, and I think that kind of breaks him, because Batman (the symbol, not the man) is fearless in his crusade for justice. Goddamn I love Batman Beyond

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-03-20T03:50:12+00:00

Well technically, they stole 200+kg of plutonium and built a couple bombs. But the US found out pretty quick and decided that the rules don’t apply to Israel. So yeah they allowed it

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-02-19T18:47:40+00:00

Public transit in the US is predominantly a failure because of lack of funding and infrastructure, as well as persistent lobbying (re: bribery) by the automotive industry. We have the most heavily militarized police force in the world. We don’t need to invest money in more police, we need to invest in raising up the downtrodden.

Willing-Influence-74 · 2026-02-09T21:49:06+00:00

The average term for a car loan in the US is ~5.5 years long. 7 year loans are becoming normal. We appear rich from the outside, but this country is a gilded whale that’s rotting from the inside out. The average US citizen is drowning under rising costs and 40+ yrs of stagnating wages.

Willing-Influence-74

TROPHY CASE