🏀🔑🧱

#1 Liberty. #2 Altruism.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

Verifying my account on nostr

My Public Key: npub1ttn4vegesuc7suynjwg0eflw9r8xz00ttc4xwud5vgt430qvwz0s8nnxe5

Find others at https://t.co/JoIjwPnvfD @nostrdirectory #nostr

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@Manojlovic03 bruh, you're too young to have this good a taste in music

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@juanposite look at those poor guys in the back

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@Sean_Barnard1 @soshtry @Sean_Brace Delete this tweet before someone sees it.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@Globalstats11 @olavchen 38. Japan 🤣🤣

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@elonmusk ...and useless

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@TBB_EN anything happening tomorrow evening? (saturday)

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

Jeg er basketballtrener (frivillig, jobber for sammfunet) og møtte en basketballtrener fra en stor klubb i EU i år på ferien. Som en vennlig gest, bestemte han seg for å ta et klubbens treningsdress-sett fra boden og sende det til meg, men han skrev ærlig og naivt en verdi på 300 € på pakken. Jeg vil gjerne takke den nåværende norske @Regjeringen, @jonasgahrstore og https://t.co/yz5vtmZFnk for å ha beskyttet meg mot slemme folk fra EU som sender gaver til nordmen, ved å kreve følgende ved henting:

- 380 kr i tollavgift
- 983 kr i mva
- 278 kr i posttjeneste (programvare som flytter tallene i regnskapet)

En storslått sum på 1641 kr for en gave fra et vennlig EU-land. For helvete med Trump og tollplannen hans! Vi i Norge skal fortsette å finne kreative måter å fylle hullene i budsjettet. #saktt #toll #regjeringen #arbeiderpartiet #EØS #EU #heianorge #posten #valg25

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This is interesting: the French and German governments jointly appointed a group of leading economists from both countries (within the so-called "Franco-German Council of Economic Experts") to draft a series of 5 memos on how to revive the EU economy.

Some of their recommendations are what you'd expect but some are more surprising.

Probably the most unexpected ones are those that pertain to China (one of their 5 memos is entirely dedicated to China: https://t.co/nQOzc2jrWW), and those in particular:

1) They recommend a significant opening of the EU market to Chinese imports, to a far greater extent than is already the case.

As they explain in the memo, there is a large number of sectors (such as "most consumer goods, many electronics goods as well as household appliances, but also solar panels and low-tech green equipment") where European industry has almost entirely disappeared and where revival "seems unlikely as industries are mature", and therefore barriers to entry and tariffs serve as nothing more than a hidden tax on EU consumers.

Their recommendation in those cases is "to let European buyers reap the benefits of low Chinese prices" in order to improve their purchasing power and living standards, while redirecting scarce resources and political capital toward defending sectors where Europe still has competitive advantages and genuine prospects.

For instance there's no point defending the EU solar panel industry when it's a) a lost cause and b) results in more expensive solar panels for consumers, thereby deteriorating their purchasing power and making the energy transition slower and costlier. Makes sense to me.

2) For "important sectors where Europe lags technologically," they recommend "welcoming Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe, preferably linked to technology transfers and joint ventures"

Which is quite funny, as this is basically a recommendation to out-China China 😅

It's also incidentally a validation of China's own long-standing strategy, even though many EU countries have been bashing it for decades... As well as a recognition (not that anyone did not know that already) that there has been a complete reversal of the dynamics from two decades ago: the EU are now the ones seeking knowledge transfers from China.

The authors are of course well aware of this since they write that "such a strategy would leverage access to the European market in similar ways China did it in the 2000s, would avoid costly industrial policy experiments and ensure that EU companies continue face up to international competition."

Doesn't look like such a bad idea anymore now that the EU is in China's position, does it? 😉

There is also an entire memo on defense, or more precisely "Economic Principles for European Rearmament" (link: https://t.co/CjDp7M49Bg) in which they're surprisingly open about the strategic foolishness of Europe's near-total dependence on America, calling Europe's de-risking from the U.S. an "urgent political priority" given the "decline in confidence in transatlantic security guarantees."

As such they recommend developing "independent European capacities and deterrence" in parallel to "integrated NATO defence planning".

The latter point is particularly significant because it concretely means that their recommendation is that Europe should "urgently" prepare for a post-NATO or NATO-without-America future.

Those of you who have been following me for a while will know this is music to my ears. I've been saying for as long as I can remember that NATO and Europe's reliance on the U.S. for its defense is the original sin, and the principal source of Europe's problems. It's just so incredibly obvious: when you outsource your own security to someone else, they have you by the balls (excuse my French), period. It's a protection racket, that's all it is, and the reason why the U.S. can dictate any condition to Europe and they have no other choice but to accept.

It's also, incidentally, the principal cause of the largest war on the European continent since WW2. So much for "protection"... (to be clear, they don't say this in the memo, this is of course my take, and that of pretty much everyone who's studied the origins of the Ukraine war with a modicum of intellectual honesty).

When you think about it it's absolutely insane Europe ever agreed to this arrangement in the first place. To my knowledge there is no other example in history of a polity - especially one such as large as Europe - voluntarily ceding its military sovereignty to a foreign power to such an extent that their "protector" gains complete leverage over the "protected" party's foreign policy and strategic decisions.

It's voluntary colonization, which is properly insane.

Anyhow, glad that France and Germany apparently still have top economists who understand these issues.

Whether this will be taken onboard by the current generation of unleaders that the EU has at the helm is another question entirely. Given that some of these folks even go as far as calling Trump "daddy," I wouldn't hold my breath...

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

You can say what you want about India, Modi does have the political courage that Europe thoroughly lacks.

Imagine if Europe had done this with Russia when Trump started, like he just did with India, to go hostile on trade.

Not only would they not be in the absurd situation where they need to negotiate peace with Russia via the intermediary of a hostile Trump, but they also could be rebuilding ties with Russia as leverage against American extortion. And I'm not even speaking about avoiding the pathetic spectacle of being lined up like schoolchildren before Trump's desk, or having to pay several points worth of European GDP in tribute.

Now they get the worst of all worlds: public humiliation as American vassals, systematic wealth extraction by the US, a ruinous proxy war they need to pay for, and continuous hostility with their next door neighbor even when, ironically, the US is now restoring relations.

In some way it's even politically harder for India to do this than it would have been for Europe vis a vis Russia: the level of animosity towards China of the Indian population is probably greater than that against Russia in Europe.

Heck, European leaders would undoubtedly have been cheered by a large proportion of Europeans if they'd taken the diplomatic initiative in Ukraine instead of Trump, all the more if it was as a strategic move to resist Trump.

But no, they'd rather sit in the Oval Office like obedient pupils, write $100 billion checks to American defense contractors, and continue playing vassals to a hegemon that openly despises them.

Europe doesn't lack the capability for strategic autonomy - it lacks the will, the courage, and apparently, any sense of shame. If you want examples of sensible leadership in today's world, look in Asia.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@mvanversendaal I've done it and you are 100% right. Good luck and keep challenging yourself.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@RnaudBertrand most of those numbers are valid for a 3-year period (until the end of Trump's term) so you need to divide that number with 3 to get the proper yearly tribute per person. it's humiliating anyway..

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

A reminder that that's the way the EU was sold to us: https://t.co/vkqNj3HAEu

This is a 1987 ad by France's foreign ministry, with the message that the EU will enable us to be stronger and to better stand up to the US.

As is now painfully obvious, the exact opposite happened: it proved an instrument of collective weakness and institutionalized vassalization.

The level of deception is insane when you think about it.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

If Europeans were paying attention (or being told the truth), they should be beyond appalled by this "deal": https://t.co/ighKahMnIJ

It's nothing more than one of the most expensive imperial tributes in history. Just a massive one-way transfer of wealth with no reciprocal benefits

The "deal" is:
- The EU now gets charged 15% tariffs on its exports to the US when they commit to charging zero tariffs on US imports in the EU
- The EU agrees to invest $600 billion in the US, for no other obvious reason than pleasing "daddy"
- The EU will "purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of American military equipment"
- The EU commits to buying 750 billion dollars worth of very expensive US LNG, specifically $250 billion for each of the next 3 years

In exchange for all these concessions and extraction of their wealth they get... nothing. I'm not even exaggerating, that IS the deal: the EU gets nothing.

This does not even remotely ressemble the type of agreements made by two equal sovereign powers. It rather looks like the type of unequal treaties that colonial powers used to impose in the 19th century - except this time, Europe is on the receiving end.

More worryingly, this sets a dynamic and a precedent: what do you think happens next from here? In the 19th century, were colonial powers content with their first unequal treaty? Of course not - one of the key rules of geopolitics is that weakness only encourages further exploitation.

Again, this is Europe's century of humiliation.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@antonioguterres find a real job, mate

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@DNVR_Nuggets Backup big?

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

.@ZachLowe_NBA I'm pretty sure you didn't wear that shirt when meeting Strahinja or otherwise you would be giving this interview from a very different place 😂

[DNVR Nuggets @DNVR_Nuggets]

Zach Lowe ran into Strahinja Jokic in the hotel gym at Summer League 😂

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

Just when I thought all common sense has abandoned european parliaments, a beam of light comes out of France.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This might be the most remarkable geopolitical document I've seen come out of a major European institution so far this century.

France’s Parliament has just produced an extraordinary 153-page report that calls for nothing less than a complete strategic realignment of Europe.

The document systematically dismantles the EU's current geopolitical positioning - "vassalized" to the U.S., in the report's words - as a catastrophic failure that has led to the EU seeing "its influence diminish and its interests poorly protected."

The report details 50 recommendations from the "creation of a common world currency" (recommendation #14) to dedollarize the global economy, to "replacing the EU's strategy in the Indo-Pacific region with a cooperative approach including China" (recommendation #11).

In general the report's central recommendation is that Europe break free from Atlantic subordination and instead achieve strategic autonomy by partnering with China.

This would mark a complete historical reversal - for the first time since the colonial era, the historical West choosing equal strategic partnership with a Global South nation as an alternative to Western alliance structures.

The report (which you can find here: https://t.co/gdHtSveDWe) is in French so I wrote a detailed article breaking down its most explosive findings and recommendations, an explaining why this could be its last chance to avoid irrelevance in a multipolar world.

The link to my article is in the next tweet.

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@DLineCo Knowing that Simmons doesn't want to resign?

[🏀🔑🧱 @prosiri]

@nicekicks @shaiglalex @Converse @okcthunder 🤣🤣🤣

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