Aceticon

Oh, having whilst in the Finance Industry seen exactly what the Obama administration did in the aftermath of the 2008 Crash, he at the very least tilled and fertilized the fields from were this harvest is coming.

His "save asset holders at any cost and have the rest of society pay for it" approach accelerated wealth concentration, inequality growth and the destruction of social mobility in the US, which amongst other things helped Trump swindle a lot of desperate working class people to vote for him, plus also inflating a number of asset bubbles, most notably realestate.

Just because Trump is even worse doesn't make Obama a competent steersman of the US Economy.

Have we already reached a tipping point for the USD as a reserve currency?

If not will this make that happen?

Because the real "shit hits the fan" moment will be when the rest of the World dumping USD assets (most notably, Treasuries) starts snowballing as those still holding assets valued in USD start getting hit by dollar devaluation due to others having dump USD assets, pushing them to sell dollars and dollar-denominated assets to avoid further losses.

Given just how large of a fraction of their currency is held by foreigners, a snowballing aversion to holding dollars is the kind of thing that can result in hyperinflation in the US.

I lived in the UK for over a decade.

Also lived in other countries in Europe for similar or greater periods.

Britain is definitely at least a decade or two "ahead" in this shit, plus they have very specific and highly entrenched problems around classism, hypocrisy, dynastic elites and how the scions of the elites are pretty much sent to the kind of private school (curiously called "public schools" in Britain) that specializes in turning them into sociopaths (being an "English Gentleman" isn't actually about being honorable, it's about maintaining a very specific complex image - complete with a unique non-regional accent - that conveys the impression that one comes from the upper classes).

It's not by chance that the Snowden revelations showed that Britain was even worse than the US and, whilst in the US they actually walked back (for a while) the anti-constitutional elements of their state surveillance apparatus, in the UK they just retroactively made the whole thing legal and sent a bunch of D-Notices (the British censorship mechanism) to newspapers to shut them up.

Britain has great image management wrapped around a rotten core.

🎶 Fascists to the "left", Fascists to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle again. 🎶

Payment by bank transfers doesn't at all work like credit card payments since you don't give them some kind of information which they can then use to get the money from you.

Instead THEY give you their bank details and you order your bank to transfer money to their account (a process made ever more easy over time and pretty straightforward now with smartphone bank apps which can read QR codes with their bank info).

At most they might get the number of the account the money was transferred from and no further information about it, the kind of information that, if leaked, is pretty much useless (can't be used to get info on who owns that account or how much money is there, much less to get money out from that account).

Maybe some countries have really bad security and secrecy laws around bank accounts, but in those countries in Europe I lived in, the only one where that is maybe the case is Britain, whilst in the rest knowing somebody's bank account number is useless.

The really risky stuff is Debit Cards which are directly linked to your bank account (for example VISA Electron) as those have none of the protections of Credit Cards and do have card data which can be used for distance purchases and hence if leaked would allow access to your accounts. Electronic bank transfers are something completely different from this.

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

It's hilarious that China now stands for International Rule Of Law and the US stands for Piracy and Genocide.

It's both a *Ho*, *Ho*, *Ho* and a *Yarrr* moment.

Showing Britain for the Fascist shithole it's been turned into.

They threw paint at some military aircraft, which is a far cry from "destroying".

They didn't blew up anything or even significantly damage it, they did just enough to be considered "damage" per that insanely broad law, kinda like in Britain somebody talking loud during a demonstration is enough to be considered "disturbing the public order" giving the coppers a legal excuse to arrest people participating in that demonstration.

No idea were you pulled that "destroying" from.

Not to mention vice-versa - young Britons living abroad and seeing different cultures and ways of doing things.

I can tell you from my experience as an immigrant (in several countries, including Britain) that there is no better way to start spotting that so many things in one's homeland aren't thus because "that's just how these things are", than living somewhere else for a while and seeing many such things being different or done differently.

All countries have plenty of shit with massive negative effects or side effects - not just politics but actual cultural habits and even the way people work - that needs not be so and is done better elsewhere.

For example, Britain's idea that "work hard" is a good thing is almost the opposite of the view in countries were people work much more efficiently - and thus, amongst other things, have way better work-life balance - such as The Netherland, were the objective is "work smart" not hard and people working long hours are suspected of doing so because they don't know how to do their jobs properly or management is incompetent and doesn't know how to plan and resource correctly, almost the opposite of Britain were it's usually considered a good thing that shows commitment.

For the kind of peoplo who manipulate the muppets who vote for things like Brexit, people openning their eyes and seeing how much of the shit going on in their own country that they think is "normal" is no such thing, is a threat.

Yeah, the first kind is more common when you're a beginner hobbyist and are just starting to learn to solder just using a run of the mill soldering iron and soldering wire, whilst the second kind at the very least requires some experience soldering and a steady hand - as even the largest surface mount components are smaller the Through Hold equivalents and generally one doesn't use the largest - or some special equipment (a soldering over and solder paste - which a paste for of solder which, unlike solder wire, spoils with time if unused).

However you can make way smaller circuits with the second kind (even if using the bigger surface mount components, though with the smaller ones the different is insane and some things are only really possible in practice to make with the smaller surface mount components) plus many integrated circuits only come in surface mount versions.

Also the second kind can be wholly and easilly assembled by machines (in fact the really small surface mount components are near impossible for humans to properly place), which is why if you open an electronic device nowadays you'll see it's almost or even entirelly made up of surface mounted components.

Mind you, nowadays even a hobbyist can just design a circuit with surface mount components and have the whole thing assembled by shops which will do small runs (like just 10 units) all of which pretty cheaply of you use one of the Chinese companies that do those things.