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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 4m

jesus

To put the potential impact in perspective, I calculate that a market correction of the same magnitude as the dotcom crash could wipe out over $20trn in wealth for American households, equivalent to roughly 70% of American GDP in 2024. This is several times larger than the losses incurred during the crash of the early 2000s. The implications for consumption would be grave. Consumption growth is already weaker than it was preceding the dotcom crash. A shock of this magnitude could cut it by 3.5 percentage points, translating into a two-percentage-point hit to overall GDP growth, even before accounting for declines in investment.

The global fallout would be similarly severe. Foreign investors could face wealth losses exceeding $15trn, or about 20% of the rest of the world’s GDP. For comparison, the dotcom crash resulted in foreign losses of around $2trn, roughly $4trn in today’s money and less than 10% of rest-of-world GDP at the time. This stark increase in spillovers underscores how vulnerable global demand is to shocks originating in America.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 4m

TL;DR of this stupid long thread I wrote:

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

I suspect populist parties bootstrapped their own political support by weaponizing the residual, ambient distrust present in all societies & MAKING MORE OF IT, spreading & intensifying it, by propagating narratives of distrust & corruption. By repetition & uptake by other political actors, it rose.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 5m

Back in the 1980s, Alas Smith and Jones did a good sketch about the four or five different Nazi cliches used by war movies that have influenced public perception of them. www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_Z6...

Smith & Jones "Nazi Generals"

YouTube video by PrettyGoodTelevision

www.youtube.com

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 4h

In a potential indicator of Russia's post-Putin foreign policy, intelligence services loyal to the balding man sitting on the right spent 8 years trying to kill the bearded man sitting on the left

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 14m

Available on the internet archive in case anybody is interested.
archive.org/details/jona...

archive.org

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 15m

For anybody interested, I think Jonathan Meades talked about their obsession with pagan insanity in his programme Jerry Building
bbc.originals.watch/media/43498/...

Jerry Building: Unholy Relics of Nazi Germany | Originals for BBC

Jonathan Meades explores the architecture of Nazi Germany, from its holiday camps to its concentration camps.

bbc.originals.watch

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Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 2h

That popular Hollywood movie depiction of Nazis usually skipped over how obsessed with weird ancient pagan cosplay batshit insane most senior Nazis were

Mr. Chau @srirachachau.bsky.social · 11h

It’s funny how the old media depiction of Nazis was always that they’re evil but dignified gentleman and now they’re openly just like “Hello. I’m the Anime Pedophile”

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 22m

Excellent thread - well worth reading. 👇👇👇

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

I'm gonna try to articulate something I've been thinking about for a while, regarding *why* disillusionment, distrust, & dissatisfaction with democracy are rising.

Almost everything I read takes this phenomenon as an exogenous shock, assuming no one chose to make it so. I suspect that's incomplete.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

What's the takeaway here? Most importantly: distrust that is politically salient & organized such that it has a clear partisan valence is not naturally occurring; those benefiting from it make more of it. Its extent & legitimacy can be made & so, perhaps unmade via political contestation.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 23m

🎯🎯👇👇👇

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

As most people who study (dis)trust will tell you, once you've entered a downward spiral into distrust, it's very hard to pull out of it. All our ideas and expectations are now aligned, across social and political divides, toward being mad at & disillusioned with the system.

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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

I submit that a huge part of the pandemic of distrust is that reactionaries & progressives the world over are both dissatisfied with democracy, for different reasons, but this creates a pervasive common sense (via incompletely theorized agreement) that democracy's in crisis.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 24m

🎯🎯👇👇👇
Paging Kier Starmer @teamlabouruk.bsky.social

Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 35m

We see this dynamic in immigration. When non-anti-immigrant parties move right to neutralize the issue, it legitimates the anti-immigrant right's core claim that "immigration is a serious problem." Granting the issue's legitimacy can only benefit the anti-immigrant party, because they own the issue.

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Kaitlin Kal Lee @kaitlinkallee.bsky.social · 29m

If every incel somehow got a girlfriend, the net violence in the world would only go up. Because guys who think like that are violent and abusive to their girlfriends.
It's not their singleness that's dangerous, it's the way they think about women and will treat them.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

bsky.app/profile/ianf...

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian...

The Italian nuclear weapons program was an effort by Italy to develop nuclear weapons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Italian scientists such as Enrico Fermi and Edoardo Amaldi had been at the forefront of the development of the technology behind nuclear weapons, but the country was banned from developing the technology at the end of the Second World War.

After abortive proposals to establish a multilateral program with NATO allies in the 1950s and 1960s, Italy launched a national nuclear weapons program. The country converted the light cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi and developed and tested a ballistic missile called Alfa. The program ended in 1975, upon Italy's accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Currently, Italy does not produce or possess nuclear weapons, but takes part in the NATO nuclear sharing program, hosting B61 nuclear bombs at the Aviano and Ghedi Air Bases.

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

bsky.app/profile/ianf...

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish...

In recent years declassified documents have shown that Sweden was much closer to possessing the nuclear bomb than previously thought. By 1965 most of the bomb was already built and another 6 months would have been needed to arm it, had the project been given the green light. Another two bombs would have been built shortly thereafter.[2]

The option to continue development of weapons was abandoned in 1966, and Sweden's subsequent signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968 began the wind-down of the program, which finally concluded in 1972. Sweden was strongly influenced to abandon its nuclear weapons program by the United States.[2]

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

Nuclear proliferation for one.
bsky.app/profile/ianf...

Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

People forget that the US nuclear guarantee is designed to *restrain* allies. Both Sweden and Italy had advanced nuclear weapons programmes that were only ended when the US convinced them that they would provide guarantees. Not that difficult for a mid-sized industrial country to build nukes.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

If the US abdicates it's security guarantees, then its leverage over allied countries diminishes. And they will do what they think is in their own interests to protect themselves. Which may drag the US into a crisis where allies no longer trust them and they have little ability to influence outcomes

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian...

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish...

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

People forget that the US nuclear guarantee is designed to *restrain* allies. Both Sweden and Italy had advanced nuclear weapons programmes that were only ended when the US convinced them that they would provide guarantees. Not that difficult for a mid-sized industrial country to build nukes.

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 1h

Cool. Then why buy US weapons when the Orange Dimwit can hold you hostage in a crisis by withholding spares/maintenance? Why stick to the nuclear non-proliferation regime when the US guarantee is non existent? Why include the Yanks in planning or intelligence when they're working for Putin?¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 3h

Every time a Democrat gets caught on tape saying like “Some Trump voters are racist” we have a national scandal and JD Vance demands an entirely new kind of apology and meanwhile every Republican group chat is like “Good morning fellow SS members. Who’s ready to respect Hitler today?”

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Gavril Ducu 🇷🇴 🇩🇪 🇺🇸 🇳🇱 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ducugavril.nafoforum.org · 4h

False information spreads faster, travels further, and triggers stronger reactions than verified facts.

The reason?

Fear, outrage, and surprise are powerful catalysts for virality.

The Hidden Mechanics of False Information: Why We’re All Vulnerable —

(based on The Nature and Circulation of False Information by Vian Bakir & Andrew McStay) We live in an age where truth feels increasingly elusive. From doctored videos of politicians slurring the

nafoforum.org

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Reposted by Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

Brexit Bin 🇪🇺 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 @brexitbin.bsky.social · 17h

Here it is! 💥💥💥
The start of the Tory-Reform election pact. Arch-Brexiter Rees-Mogg is telling Tories in the Caerphilly by-election to vote RefUK. With Plaid Cymru leading in the progressive camp, the other anti-fascist parties have to get behind Plaid!

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Ian Ford 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 @ianford.bsky.social · 4h

FIFA does corruption on a scale that would make the Borgia's blush. They don't even pretend to hide it anymore.

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