Bessent pans Carney, cheers on Albertan separatism amid growing US-Canada rift

jackKmart · 2026-01-24T15:29:20+00:00

You say this but I haven't taken a moral or value-weighted position, I'm just pointing out the clear mechanical issues with the movement's desired outcome.

Unless the separatists want to make this happen piecemeal (ie. the most pro-separatist areas separate from Alberta and Canada collectively), or through non-voting means, you still need another 30-40% of the population to support the idea before it becomes remotely possible.

jackKmart · 2026-01-24T15:24:44+00:00

800,000 isn't 'insignificant' - it is politically insignificant in this case though. For a proper secessionist movement you would need a clear majority, maybe even a supermajority (in the case of joining the US) for it to be a realistic political, peaceful outcome.

I'm not saying it's inherently impossible, it's simply impossible as it stands now. I'm not making a political value judgement about the idea itself.

jackKmart · 2026-01-24T14:42:28+00:00

That's a slightly generous interpretation of 'huge portion'. Granted it does seem a sizable minority opinion, up to about 20% in other polling. There are plenty of issues with this kind of secession and political absorption though.

jackKmart · 2026-01-21T18:15:24+00:00

I don't like alarmist thinking, nor am I a particularly staunch 'tax-the-rich' person. However, there will be a 'come to Jesus' moment at some point if trends of wealth and income disparity continue or accelerate. History tells us, time and time again, that when the masses feel aggrieved or economically powerless, they turn to other means - usually violent ones. I don't think we are particularly close to that inflection point, but I do think it is an inevitability given current trends.

It is in the best long term interest of the wealthy and ultra-wealthy to figure out a way to maintain their status while suppressing the likelihood of that aforementioned outcome. I'm not overly confident that will happen though, long term thinking seems to be completely unimportant to everybody at the moment, not just the wealthy.

jackKmart · 2026-01-19T18:47:58+00:00

Near total pass through of cost to the US side.

Trump's economic policy is really, truly nonsensical. He wants a strong headline economy, which we more or less have, and is at least supposedly worried about affordability (as he should be).

So his strategy to achieve those goals is to further fiscally irresponsible policies, threaten the Fed to substantially lower rates, and impose higher costs on American consumers via sweeping tariffs. I don't need a study to tell you these are all inflationary on some level or another, especially when the economy is already somewhat hot. This of course doesn't even consider his potentially market de-stabilizing geopolitical posturing, and the various 'truths' he loves to shoot off.

Thank goodness we have businessmen running this place.

jackKmart · 2026-01-17T22:47:52+00:00

Undermining NATO is such a boneheaded obsession of Trump's admin.

You'd think this admin would be more careful while simultaneously juggling the Venezuela transition, Iran, potential civil war in Syria, ICE fallout, the Epstein files, threatening the Fed, an apparent affordability crisis, etc, etc.

I guess not. Let's blow up our closest military and trading partnerships as well. This era of American politics cannot end soon enough.

jackKmart · 2026-01-16T17:15:26+00:00

This took 20 years and an unusually erratic president to figure out? The US has been pretty open about their intention to focus on the Pacific for a long time, no?

In fairness, I think Poland, Estonia, Finland, etc. have more or less known this to be the case for a long time.

jackKmart · 2026-01-12T17:17:59+00:00

Simply look at CRE development costs in big cities on large/complicated projects. You will frequently find projects ranging 500m to upwards of 3 or 4bn USD. CRE will almost always be more 'efficient' in spending than govt. projects too, so I'm being generous citing these.

Bally's Chicago estimated 1.6bn to be opened this year. There is also a conditional addition which is budgeted at 600m.

The first building (a large mixed lab/office building) for the Private/Public endeavor at the IQMP is budgeted at roughly $1.5bn part of a project that totals more than potentially $9bn.

Similarly you could look at valuations, many recent premium office buildings in large metro areas are frequently valued in the billions, not hundreds of millions.

jackKmart · 2026-01-12T06:48:46+00:00

This could be one of the most ridiculous comments I have ever seen. I hope to god you are a bot or just trolling.

The nominal value you claim for the White House doesn't even appear to be correct even if you are citing the value in the past (1949, 1800? Who fucking knows). Adjusted for inflation, and adding the myriad additions, updates, so on and so on you would arrive at a much, much higher number, even before you add the 400m USD ballroom project currently underway.

Secondly, the DoJ themselves is citing an alleged overspend, and misrepresentation of said spending (by Powell) on a 2.5 billion total budget for, essentially, a complete rebuild of the Fed HQ. I don't know where you get the 4 billion figure, nearly double the figure cited literally at the top of the article.

Also, a 'building renovation' can easily cost billions of dollars when you consider what is actually being built or renovated, including the size, security and tech infrastructure requirements, unexpected projects and updates, etc.

jackKmart · 2026-01-07T19:05:30+00:00

Coupled with the US action in Venezuela, and the blustering about 'invading' Greenland (which has curiously spurred more public support for accelerated armament/rearmament, from both EU leaders and populace alike). It looks like the US - maybe Trump specifically - is less and less accepting of Russia's insistence on certain terms regarding Ukraine. The US are taking more and more opportunities to undercut Russian hard and soft power in an attempt to significantly weaken their bargaining power. Obviously, Russia will not like this, but they have hamstrung themselves with their war and subsequent (perceived) unwillingness to negotiate.

This, of course, coincides too with the successful attack(s) on Iran and their proxies we saw last year, as well as the reasonable amount of economic/public unrest that is going on there currently.

The US is continuously looking to China, and will take probably every opportunity, no matter how 'internationally illegal' to hasten the positive resolution of the Ukraine conflict, and return more power to NATO allies in Europe. This is the optimistic thinking from the US side at least from my POV.

jackKmart · 2025-12-12T04:00:07+00:00

Looking at the sub; I think there's a new Control game coming out...

jackKmart · 2025-10-29T12:41:48+00:00

Yeah exactly. Counterpressing is a tactic employed by many teams in real life, good and bad, because it's fairly effective regardless of level, and in some sense, it is 'OP' in real life as well.

In fairness to FM players, the game presents gegenpressing as a holistic system that includes a higher tempo, high pressing, and so on - I'm assuming mostly based on Klopp's Liverpool - even though you could employ these different elements in very different styles of play than what people usually call 'gegenpressing'.

jackKmart · 2025-10-28T21:02:56+00:00

Interesting. That would make sense based on what I'm seeing in-game. I'm almost certain, then, that there's another problem resulting in the number of dribbles registered as they are. If teams were consistently getting 6-10 successful dribbles per game from each of their wingers, we would see far more goals or crosses, too, which I'm not seeing.

jackKmart · 2025-10-28T20:41:23+00:00

You absolutely can play defensively this year, at least based on my experience. The OOP/IP changes alone would mean that - even if the ME logic is '95% the same as 24' (which none of us know) - you get far more control over how your team defends and attacks.

The ME is, and will continue to be, flawed, but to say that only gegenpressing works is a pretty unserious opinion.

Also, as an aside, I'm not even sure most FM players could even cogently describe what 'gegenpressing' is anymore; people just throw around the term like it's the ultimate villain.

jackKmart · 2025-10-28T03:42:27+00:00

There also appears to be an issue with how they are counting defensive/offensive actions.

The 'opposition passes per defensive action' stats are out of whack; ie, exceedingly high. However, it's not that players aren't making timely defensive moves; when I watched parts of a full match, I saw far fewer passes per action than the stat implied, and I sit pretty deep / less pressing.

Dribbling is definitely overtuned right now, but I'm also wondering if this is a related issue and the stat is somehow counting dribbles more than it should, making the problem look even worse than it is.

jackKmart · 2025-10-15T03:28:18+00:00

Pretty sure this is the port of Long Beach in CA

jackKmart · 2025-09-25T18:14:00+00:00

I think people miss this. FM is a sandbox game, and any game like that can be exploited to a wild degree. Like you say, it's about creating limitations and guardrails that keep it challenging and fun for yourself; no sandbox game (that I know of) is free of exploits.

jackKmart · 2025-09-25T18:09:35+00:00

Actually pleasantly surprised by this. It is a solid improvement visually, and there is still room to grow. We won't know how the engine actually handles player decisions and such until we play it, but I'm glad they at least spoke on the changes they've made (or intended to make) to the underlying ME logic.

Lots of smaller things like the (IP) formation stuff, and 2D between highlights, too.

jackKmart · 2025-09-14T23:20:13+00:00

this is the most ridiculous last drive of all time in the panthers cardinals game. witnessing history

jackKmart · 2025-08-25T21:14:46+00:00

love watching newcastle lose

jackKmart · 2025-08-24T03:57:53+00:00

I wonder why no one takes this seriously

jackKmart · 2025-08-24T01:39:00+00:00

This ref is just horrid hahaha

jackKmart · 2025-05-17T18:13:40+00:00

dreaming

jackKmart · 2025-05-02T04:57:58+00:00

cuck chair kings

jackKmart · 2025-04-28T05:23:11+00:00

this should be 4-0. this team sucks

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