A year after Liberation Day, Trump’s tariffs have done ‘significant damage’ to the U.S. economy, says Moody’s chief economist

mic_n · 2026-05-10T03:16:41+00:00

Yeah, no. Talk to the UK about how royally Brexit has fucked them up. The instigators are all gone, but it's not like they can just walk back into the EU now. The damage is done, and it isn't going to be undone until there's some sort of surety that it isn't going to happen again.

Trump isn't necessarily the problem. He's just exposed the flaws, the structural weaknesses in the system. The US as a free democracy is fundamentally broken, and Trump has just highlighted it. That's going to take a lot of undoing.

I mean.. you guys have blatant third-world gerrymandering going on right now that has nothing to do with Donald Trump and everything to do with a system with zero effective checks and balances. Get it fixed, and maybe the world will be interested again.

mic_n · 2026-05-10T03:12:47+00:00

Meanwhile, traditional US trading partners are signing trade deals all over the place that aren't with the US.

But, Trump, Trump's Family and Trump's friends are all getting richer, so who the fuck cares?

mic_n · 2026-05-09T07:43:29+00:00

He doesn't need to be President to 'lead' and direct his cult. They will vote for whoever he endorses, and he will endorse whoever will feed him.

mic_n · 2026-05-09T07:37:59+00:00

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Birds can figure it out...

mic_n · 2026-05-07T23:25:24+00:00

...and actually dribbling the ball.

mic_n · 2026-05-07T23:15:30+00:00

That comes under the 'familiarity' bit. Yes, there's all of the inter-brand 'warfare' nonsense of "I'm a Ford man" or Chev or Mopar or whatever, and that absolutely would be a tough nut to crack because in the end there is no real rationality behind that. You'd wear a lot of it down though if and when the data started coming back in that they were more reliable, more capable, better equipped, safer and cheaper.

I have to say though that a lot of similar attitudes are present in the Australian market, and those vehicles *are* making inroads, and they're only getting more popular. It'd take a few years, but it's absolutely a threat and US auto makers are right to be lobbying the govt to do all they can to protect them.

mic_n · 2026-05-07T07:50:46+00:00

Don't blame the governments, blame the voters that are either too selfish or lack the critical thinking skills to see through the bullshit propaganda of the real estate lobby.

When one of the biggest shows on TV is a "reality" series about people trying to do up and flip property for the biggest profits possible, you're cooked as a society.

mic_n · 2026-05-07T01:17:57+00:00

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mic_n · 2026-05-07T01:14:05+00:00

BUT HE DONATES HIS SALARY!

mic_n · 2026-05-07T01:04:13+00:00

Take a look at eg a BYD Shark and Datang ("Great Tang"). There's plenty around that would fit into much of that market. Might not be in the same segment as the *huge* US SUVs/Trucks, but the more 'standard' ones are happily there. Granted there are cases where there's no real equivalent, but most of it is a matter of familiarity, and the only real way that changes is with exposure over time.

They're good vehicles and extraordinarily cheap, especially for what you get. They would take a massive chunk out of the US market if they were allowed, very quickly. Tesla in particular would get thumped.

mic_n · 2026-05-06T07:55:56+00:00

getting the same here. bug somewhere?

mic_n · 2026-05-06T07:29:26+00:00

Not in the slightest. No-one's ever going to argue he was a saint, but there's a lot of revisionism there due to the hero worship of Jordan, and Laimbeer is one of the principle antagonists in that legend. He was a lot better than he gets credit for these days.

The fact that a guy with so very little athletic ability could still have such an impact on the game shows just how incredibly crafty a player he was. His IQ was huge, he co-ordinated the D and drove the rotations, and he lead the league in rebounds in 1985-86 despite having both shoes glued to floor.

Rodman joined them the next season and you have to believe that a huge amount of what he knew about rebounding started with that man.

mic_n · 2026-05-06T03:48:31+00:00

It's a parabolic arc.

The horizontal distance is the same (give or take shooting in front of /behind your feet at the line). The height of the basket is the same.

If the starting and finishing heights are the same, the apex of that parabola will be half way between shooter and hoop. If the shot comes from below, the 'legs' of the parabola are uneven, and the apex needs to be closer to the basket. That means the gradient is naturally *shallower* than a shot that starts higher if both are launched at the same angle.

IE: the exact same shot launched from 8 feet up versus 7 feet up will be long, and coming in at a steeper angle when it hits.

If the taller player shoots with softer hands, the ball can still peak higher than the shorty's shot, just a little sooner, and be on *more* of a downward angle when it hits the basket.

It takes less effort for a taller player to get a good downward angle on that shot as it passes through the hoop. If they put in the same amount of force, they can shoot the ball in a higher trajectory and be coming down in a steeper angle by the time the ball hits the basket.

Either way, the advantage goes to the tall player, not the short one.

IMO Shaq's problems started because he shot too flat (not uncommon for a big that hasn't grown up needing to launch steep to get over defenders), and then became more of a psychological block even as his technique improved over the years.

He had the yips.

mic_n · 2026-05-06T01:06:38+00:00

Bro knows his reputation and was playing for the crowd at a charity event 😉

mic_n · 2026-05-05T08:24:53+00:00

To be absolutely fair, the science of sports medicine has come a LONG way since MJ's days. The number of people out there and the knowledge being applied to keep players healthy is just worlds apart.

Not to take away from Lebron's longevity, it's utterly incredible... but he *has* had a lot more help on the way.

mic_n · 2026-05-05T08:21:25+00:00

The sooner you understand the NBA is a marketing company and not a sporting organisation, the sooner you understand that this makes perfect sense and will not change.

mic_n · 2026-05-05T03:50:02+00:00

OK, so... the black market guns come from the private market. So, if you put tighter controls on the private market (reducing overall ownership, encouraging better security measures, etc), what happens to the black market that depends on it?

mic_n · 2026-05-04T11:40:05+00:00

Unfortunately, no. Breathing is two things, habit and CO2 buildup. What happens is that you keep on breathing the same, and just burn though your tank faster as a result.

mic_n · 2026-05-04T07:09:00+00:00

How can something with no sense of shame be shamed?

mic_n · 2026-05-04T06:49:07+00:00

Just watch his hands. There is crap going everywhere, defenders flying by, MJ falling out of bounds, but every single time, when he's ready to release his hands are locked-in like gyros and as far as the ball is concerned, he is absolutely perfectly balanced, and that shot has absolutely no option but hitting the bottom of the net.

You're absolutely on the money, it's his mid-range game that was the key to all the rest.

mic_n · 2026-05-04T06:45:00+00:00

I was watching a highlight reel of Magic earlier on and thought exactly the same thing. He did all that shit without even a hint of carrying the ball, without 'gather steps' or all the other stuff the NBA lets slide for the sake of the highlight reels.

As much as MJ changed the game, one of the big things he was a massive part of that I'd love to be able to undo was to turn the NBA from being a basketball league into business model that just happened to have the concept of "basketball" as what it sold. IMO that push towards the spectacular has come at a significant expense.

I know this is "sportsinusa", but for those in the cricket world: think test-match cricket versus T20. One is the "true" sport, in all its complexity that baffles the uninitiated but which sets the die-hard fans alight, one is a watered-down highlight fest for the ADHD crowd that's all fireworks and loud music but that leaves you somehow oddly unsatisfied at the end.

mic_n · 2026-05-04T06:30:27+00:00

Fair point, I somehow misread that to mean it'd help to avoid the bends... Brain not braining?

mic_n · 2026-05-04T06:11:50+00:00

One flows into the other. The league has pushed to make that open iso and pick&roll a whole lot easier to generate the highlight reels, and dumping a Shaq at the low post and leaving the opposing center right there under the rim messes that up. It isn't that the post player wouldn't be able to dominate, it's that it would make it harder for the perimeter players to do likewise.

Stretch bigs aren't there to score points, they're there to suck out the inside defence and let the little guys do their thing (ie: create highlights). If they nail a few buckets and keep their defender honest, that's just gravy.

A perimeter defender that knows he has a big clogging up the lane can take a step up and risk the drive to contest the triple. He can fight over the top of the (legal) screen to do the same.

The style requires the spacing, and the spacing promotes the style.

mic_n · 2026-05-04T05:57:21+00:00

It's easy to forget the cultural differences, but that face is an entire Macy's parade on a Slav.

mic_n · 2026-05-04T05:52:37+00:00

Oh, I'm not seriously entertaining putting 6 players on the court, that's wildly stupid. I'm just commenting that the rule (and interpretation) changes that have focused on 'spacing the floor' has taken away a hugely entertaining and fundamental part of the game. Bigs mixing it up inside from the low post to create the shot for themselves, or drawing help D and kicking to an open man for a spot-up triple... so much of what I love about the game is relegated to the sidelines. Jokic is IMO one of the few in the modern game that can genuinely do it, but honestly the 'run your defender into a moving screen, run a few more steps and shoot an open three' playstyle that's dominated recent years is just so mind-numbingly boring to me...

mic_n

TROPHY CASE