“I’m not dead yet!”

I bike a lot in San Diego, which has a decent amount of bike lanes. Not a ride goes by without me having to leave the bike lane to go around someone parked in the bike lane. A law is only effective if it is enforced.

Fookin’ brilliant!

Unexpected Futurama.

Looks like a lovely place. /s

Something I don’t think a lot of people recognize is the potential for some next-level control of the population AI delivers to the government. Humans are social creatures, and the people you associate with have a great impact on your perceptions and behaviors. The people around you establish norms and values, such that it is said that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” This is why cults and far-right white supremacist groups foster community to bring in recruits and shape them to conformity with their mindset.

Now consider that in the context to realistic human chatbots, including virtual girlfriends. All those lonely, disaffected incels can be targeted by a friendly chatbot that reaches out and delivers the kindness, validation, and belonging that they are craving. The cult Children of God trained young female members to engage in “flirty fishing,” providing romance and sex to recruit men to the cult, fishing around 200,000 men.

Now consider this post in this context. The government is building the power to target its population on a mass scale through social media. OnlyFans models make money by delivering a fantasy parasocial relationship, and the same parasocial relationships can be fostered en masse for almost nothing. We’re already living in the disinformation age, where it’s become so difficult to separate fact from fiction that people tend to choose what they want to believe based on their existing biases and what they wish to be true. It’s about to get exponentially worse, and I don’t see how it can be stopped. Russia pioneered the “firehose of falsehoods” to control it’s population and AI now makes that look quaint. I never thought I’d become a Luddite, but the more the internet becomes corrupted the less interest I have in participating.

If you’re looking at making the purchase next week or in a month, I doubt there would be a significant difference in the exchange rate. I’d be more concerned about whether the item I’m buying incorporates foreign made parts subjected to tariffs, and the potential for price increases as a result of more costly inputs.

It’s very difficult to anticipate market changes, and that includes currency markets. That said, the dollar is trending downward, but it is unlikely to plummet by a large percentage anytime soon. A more likely scenario is a slow erosion of the value of the dollar over the long term. However, in addition to movement of the dollar, you have to also be concerned about movement in the Uruguay peso. The dollar may be falling, but if the peso falls more, there would be a net gain in the dollar vs. the peso. 21% of Uruguay’s trade is with China, and a contraction in the Chinese economy could impact the peso.

That said, Powell’s term as head of the fed is over in May of 2026, and Trump will definitely appoint a lackey that will do what he wants. Ultimately, between erosion of trade with the trade wars, profligate government spending, and ill-considered monetary policy, I think the dollar will be significantly lower by the end of 2026 than it is today.

In my opinion, I think you’re better off evaluating your purchase in terms of the value it provides to you, rather than trying to time the market with currency exchange rates. People much smarter than I have lost vast sums of money trying to play exchange rates. Consider George Soro’s play in shorting the British pound in 1992, where the pound collapsed and his position gained over $1 billion in a single day. While he was a big winner, there were many big losers on the other side of that trade. The situation was fairly unique, in that at the time the pound was being propped up by the British government, which is unlike the situation with the dollar today.
Further, even if the dollar were to collapse, in all likelihood sellers would demand more dollars for their goods, so it isn’t clear that there would be a big benefit in trying to time the currency markets.

The man was living the dream!

Darwin Award candidate.

Honestly, I think he’s just a political opportunist, with no real convictions. He sets his sails with the direction the wind is blowing. He’s nominally a democrat, because that is the prevailing party in California, but I guarantee he’d flip if the political calculus were in favor of doing so.

Not if gerrymandered correctly.

No way his resting heart rate is 62bpm. The man does not exercise.

This is the cornerstone of a consumer economy. Planned obsolescence is also part of it, with the “next generation” of whatever becoming the “must have” thing. Consider the styling changes to cars, especially the tail fin wars of the 1950s, or the cell phone market today. My Pixel Pro 6 running Graphene OS completely fills my needs, though it’s 3 generations old.

I live in San Diego, and bike a lot. These bike lanes are all over San Diego. They have small street sweepers that fit in there to clean them.

The City of Vista is a community that is part of the urban San Diego landscape, and a couple of decades back it was somewhat rural, which was changed by the suburban sprawl. However, there are still a lot of rednecks that live there, and bike lanes are often viewed by these folks as “liberal bullshit”, and blame them for displacing car lanes and parking.

While the video notes that some unspecified bike users don’t like the lanes, I’m highly skeptical of that. I ride in similar lanes all over San Diego, and they are a godsend, as they do a good job of keeping cars separated from bikes. A more likely explanation is that the “bikers” complaining are typical conservative rednecks that hate bike lanes in general, and not the people that actually use bike lanes.

What could possibly go wrong?

Any trade deal they strike with Trump is illusory and not worth the paper it’s written on. See, e.g., what happened to the NAFTA deal Trump signed during his first administration. The EU should refuse to play his games and quietly start dumping their substantial holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Projection.

Remember when in his first term he renegotiated NAFTA? Now that agreement is worthless.

The irony is that all this will fuck the U.S. way worse than anyone else, boosting the cost of living dramatically. This notion that tariffs will drive manufacturing and production back to the U.S. is a pipe dream, and even if it were to occur it would take a decade to build the factories, infrastructure, and supply lines. Moreover, the tariffs themselves make it much more expensive to shift over to U.S. production. Want to build a factory? You’re going to need steel, copper, lumber, etc., all of which cost way more now because of the tariffs.

What will ultimately happen is this: tariffs will dramatically raise the price of goods (inflation), crush the U.S. economy, and Trump’s new Federal Reserve lackey that he puts into place will lower interest rates to juice the economy, which will exacerbate inflation and likely lead to hyperinflation. There is a reason why gold is in the strongest bull market since the one triggered when the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971. As the situation plays out, more people will begin to recognize it and pile into gold, as real assets like gold hold their value.

Why is he doing this? I think the easiest explanation is that he’s a malignant narcissist, and they crave attention. Look at how much attention he gets every time he slaps tariffs on countries. You can’t look at the news without seeing something about Trump dominating it. In the end, the U.S. will suffer hyperinflation and economic collapse, and the only way forward will be to dramatically scale back spending, which will cause a major depression that I’ve dubbed “The Greatest Depression”.