If this is all true, then China has been pretty much given green light to invade Taiwan, in my opinion.
What makes you think China needs a green light lmao? International Law has been dead for years now, might makes right
Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
911–920 of 1001 posts
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#912It’s incredibly depressing to watch the same mistake made again well within my own lifetime. Regime change by chopping off the top failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and it’ll fail here too. Many will die. It doesn’t matter how bad or illegitimate the deposed leader is.
Don’t forget Lybia
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#913looking through the comments one thing I find strange that no one has picked up on is that maduro had met the chinese hours before being captured. To me I think the initial plan was to just let the economy tank by blockading the economy, chinese stepped into help and trump goes nuclear and kidnaps the guy. still pretty shocking that they wont hand over power to the party who won the election and plan on setting up a…
I don't think people didn't "pick up" on it, I just don't think anyone thinks it matters. There is no smoke-and-mirrors back-room strategizing here. It looked cool on Fox News. Then the president went onto Fox News and talked about how cool it looked on Fox News. The text is text. The subtext is nonexistent.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#914To steel-man and provide a more charitable interpretation of last night: 1. Maduro stole an election. He is not legitimately in power. Many other people in power, like the military and other political factions, opposed this and wants him removed. 2. These people quietly oust Maduro in the middle of the night. 3. With the tacit approval of these folks, the US arrests Maduro for previously indicted crimes. 4. The US bo…
Are dictators hypnotists? Are they wizards? If the regime functioned on the existence of a single man in a single chair, and EVERYONE around him wanted him gone, why does it take the military force of a different country to make it happen? Why isn't it the responsibility of the people in that country to remove him from power?
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#915Hmm, think about that if China does the same thing to Taiwan tonight as well. Capture the current pretendent and install a new pro-China government.
China survives and thrives because someone as dumb as you isn't the one running it. What the actual fuck are you saying?
China loses an ally and influence so they decide to flip the table? OK Buddy.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#916What I find interresting and would like to see discussed more, is the psychology at play that makes us believe this is another "exception to the rule of international law". I wonder if one could generalize the terror management theory (TMT) to social obedience?
What international law is being broken here? And why does that law take precedence over the laws of Venezuela and USA?
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#917That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something. That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per de…
Australians are hoping he continues being stupid with our trade agreement so we can get a better one.
The Australians made China blink - I don't have any worries about them.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#918Democracy being restored, one oil well a day.
Is your opinion that we're going to get less oil and less democracy? It seems likely the opposite would be true.
Venezuela GDP is all upside - it's practically a free lunch if they stop punching themselves in the face.
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#919It's funny how many people already see this as a book that is opened and closed on the same day. That's not how these things work. This is like the first stone of an avalanche. It could stop here, or it could roll on for quite a while. It will take months or even years to know whether or not the outcome here was desirable or not and what the final tally is. Remember the 'Arab spring' and what came after.
I think no americans are afraid of venezuela, so what could possibly come that we don’t want? you think venezuela can stand toe-to-toe in a full scale military engagement? you see how we just walked into their country, took the president, and his wife, and walked out without issue? have you seen how many venezuelans are celebrating?
Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes
#920Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela? Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?
Doesn't move the needle at all. FX to be determined by what bond markets think about the supply/demand of treasury bonds.