Nobody on Hexbear actually believed that Yemen was going to destroy the US Navy

gimme just a few ~~Chinese~~ Russian hypersonic missiles. Putin you coward...

Yeah I mentioned Tropico because its the closest contemporary to the old Sim City games. Workers is definitely better in many ways.

Trump's actions are often just attempts to satisfy his ego through positive media and supporter reaction. The issue with Iran if you recall is that his main supporter at the time, Fox news had a mixed reaction, with Tucker Carlson being extremely critical, something obviously like hell freezing over.

You can go and check back on the entire Carlson arc back then but here for example Fox's Tucker Carlson slammed conservatives for pushing Trump to go to war: 'About 20 minutes ago we were denouncing these very people as the deep state'

His base didn't particularly like that idea, he was MAGA and isolationist and yet he was about to put the US into a war with a nobody-country that wasn't a threat at the time. It wasn't Bush post 9/11 even though he thought that was an easy win.

As soon as the base consolidated into the neutral/negative camp which he didn't expect, he backed off. Right now his base is very much positive towards ending "Biden's war" so he is very likely to do it.

But his base also doesn't like China so that will be the next target.

You fucking lost. But you will never, ever, ever acknowledge it. If any one of you got into a fight that ended with you getting shot in the head, you’d be posting “I’ve won, actually, and here’s why” as you’re floating up up and away from your mangled corpse.

The sun never sets on the British empire.

I haven't played Tropico in a long time but even if that game is very on the nose with the "some are more equal than others" communism, I think in general in that game you have to build all the housing yourself.

Without reading the article the key feature of Sim City clones is the RCI(residential, commerce, industry) demand meter which as it says, the higher each bar the more zoning is necessary. There is a direct relationship between them too as one is meant to drive the others. The point is you just "follow the market demand" and the city grows naturaly with no real planning, just the market tells you what is best to do next.

If you compare to real world Chinese real state development for example, where they build entire towns years in anticipation of real demand, in Sim city clones the most you can do is plan some roads and zones and hope for the best. This is the dev's design intention obviously I think a good player can make good looking stuff too.

I think Cities skylines got a little more control given all the DLC stuff, but clearly the DNA is from the free market ideal presented here. Land value dictates what kind of building model.

I think in all these games land value is seen as the higher the better, with none of the real world downsides let alone the real mechanisms that drive land value up in the first place, its explicitly higher = better. These valuations tend to be realy naive like "oh got all basic needs? Got crime down? Got a few parks? Great now see land value go brrr"

Again maybe CS is a bit better because there are so many laws and government stuff there compared to Sim City. I haven't played in a long time too but again in a game like Tropico usually its not quite the same as that with some exceptions like maybe the best places to place tourist related buildings etc.

If that wasn't the intention they would have considered @shipwreck@hexbear.net 's points before hand.

The problem is currency swapping, China effectively put more money into circulation in their economy and assuming a standard capitalist economy that leads to inflation etc. As that money circulates, some of it will sit on banks, may earn interest which will have to be paid in that currency etc.

It obviously isn't a malicious act, it just that China can't realy understand or act outside the current mainstream economic principles or perhaps they simply thought this wouldn't be an issue. Its entirely possible both countries agreed a currency which the borrower has easier access to is better, perhaps that was even Burkina Faso's request we don't know.

I think the best solution would've been for China to directly build whatever is necessary through its own funds and hand over the project once its finished. It would still create local currency(local economy would be involved) but not a massive cash injection, they would repay via direct trading instead.

In the end if Burkina Faso may request to pay in yuan, doubt it though, mainstream economics is omnipresent.

Still not as embarrassing as admitting the Minsk agreements were all just to buy time for Ukraine.

The original narratives about Ukraine no longer matter, the only thing left in the collective consciousness is Ukraine is a democracy therefore the war is about "western values". The good thing is since then even a good part liberals don't care about that anymore, its impossible to manufacture a narrative that Ukraine is winning right now, at best they "resisting" evil Putler and Zelensky does nothing but beg for more aid.

For context 15 billion CFA Franc = 25 million USD. At a state level for China its literally nothing, probably couldn't buy a couple of Mcmansions in any Chinese T1 these days. Its pennies and as you said perfectly on a imperialist backed currency.

If there is any silver lining perhaps it should be taken not at face value but as a sign of possible future cooperation and bigger loans/investments.

Yeah I agree with this, the stocks keep growing exactly because they completely ignore Biden and US politics almost entirely.

The latest growth cycles are based on either

1. the expectation that the Fed will lower interest rates and if you spend even a casual amount of time each week reading these market headlines you'd go insane, they manufacture some absurd rationales and narratives that literaly change from one day to the next. One day its up 2% because some indicator says inflation is slowing therefore "high hopes for interest rate cuts in the future" and then 2 days later another indicator says the opposite and so flip that headline 180 "oh no investors weigh in on dashed hopes for rates cut" and it changes daily.

2. the current AI "boom", I think you know this obviously US tech is now a major grift but NVIDIA also got to keep massive markups from the crypto boom during COVID, there was never a correction from those $1000+ GPUs, that is the permanent standard now for the top end. When inevitably another COVID like supply chain breakup/crisis happens they'll hike the prices another 50% from there and $1500-2k gpus will become the standard etc.

Even if AI boom crashes its almost impossible to see NVIDIA going anywhere now outside of major geopolitical events. And when that crisis happens and NVDIA increases their prices again and repeat.

And then you look at what the market says about Trump oh he will be better because of less tariffs and less taxes and that is maybe true, but the Fed is literaly independent anyway and the current boom will keep going until some major event causes a major anti-AI backlash, though the chances of that are minimal now. Yet Trump gets to benefit as being labelled as the "market favorite" even though his direct involvement is almost zero.

Technicaly ATH under Biden but relative growth Trump still had a sizeable lead, counting both from election day up to COVID and since COVID to election day.

The only thing BIden offers to the market is a relative predictability about future wars specially against China. Otherwise the "market" prefers Trump in almost every scenario.

at this point, why not just have the AI? or hell, two AIs.

Biden's family relation to Ukraine is mostly irrelevant in the grand scheme. Even someone like Nuland who was literaly directly involved in the maidan coup is far more of a direct cause for the war than Hunter.

For staters, Operation Aerodynamic

The purpose of Project AERODYNAMIC is to provide for the exploitation and expansion of the Anti-Soviet Ukrainian resistance movement for cold war and hot war purposes. Such groups as the Ukrainian Supreme Council of Liberation (UHVR), its military adjunct, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN all in the Ukraine, the Foreign Representation of the Supreme Council of Liberation (ZPUHVR) in Western Europe and the United States, and other Ukrainian organizations such as the Foreign Sections of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (ZchOUN), etc., will be utilized.[5]

OUN is literaly the Ukrainian WW2 nazis still alive today.