Denmark Offers to Buy USA (2019)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
The government is one of the worst parts of the United States. You'd be doing them a favor.
Denmark's entire annual subsidy to the Greenlandic government (which the latter very much needs to keep afloat) as of 2020 was $670 million, which is less than the annual budget of El Paso. <https://web.archive.org/web/20200708202258/https://www.thelo...> A US-owned (or US-affiliated under a compact of free association) Greenland will in a decade see more development than it has in the past century, just as the US bases that dotted the island during the Cold War were themselves more development than Denmark built in the past century.
My favorite anecdote about Greenland is that the US presence during and after WW2 brought Sears catalogs that residents used to for the first time obtain many goods. <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-abandoned-mining-t...>
Just invest in America, have your products and tech developed there then use these products and tech to improve Denmark living standards and increase your wealth as you recoup your investment through stock and dividends.
They already like to glamorize concentration of wealth, they love how America has the largest companies and Japan&Europe is failing because they don'y have as large companies.
They already obsess over things like sexuality, identity, culture wars etc. When the tension becomes too high, You can always give them a win over destroying a character you created? Let them really hate the vegans, glamorize Lamborghinis or Teslas, hook them to the online world and reduce the real world interactions so they can have wins cheap for you and keep working very hard.
To curb any social movements that don't align with this model, you just make sure that have control over the communications.
Ideally, CEOs stay in London, Zurich, Frankfurt and Paris as it might be dangerous if they are among the workers in New York etc.
Nobody in Russia cared about Ukraine in the late 1990s. They were the harmless neighbors who talk a bit funny, just like Americans think of Canada. Invading their country wasn’t on anyone’s agenda.
Putin built it up gradually over decades. Ukrainians are actually Russians, it’s not a real country, they’re colluding with foreigners and ruled by fascists, etc.
Americans should be careful with this talk. It always starts as a jokey provocation.
That’s the kind of ancient nonsense that nationalists love to dig up.
And its regime has mega issues in regard to its long-term survival. Which it attempts to redirect, by causing issues for Ukraine.
That's what the last 11 years have been about, in a nutshell.
Just keep in mind the old adage on paying Danegeld: if you pay the Danegeld you'll never get rid of the Dane.
Saudis already bought US during the last administration.
Trump administration is going to have 13 billionaires, plus there are several billionaires in the shadows. If Denmark or EU would drop to the level of making deals with them directly and paying for their companies for US policy decision, they could do that.
But as we all know, the US Government is fully up for sale and has been for sale since the Citizens United Ruling. In fact, you can even get a Tax Deduction for buying a US Politician.
This is on us. We have the responsibility to look at the advertising and make a choice.
We are so, so much worse at it than I would ever have believed.
> Abolish super PACs and replace corporate funding with publicly funded elections that amplify small-doner donations.
It's likely more effective than campaign spending...
It's not on "us" -- many people have long argued against the current state of legal bribery and corruption in the US, both advocating against and voting against this outcome.
It's very much on the owners and workers of media channels, traditional (television, newspaper) and modern (adtech).
Do they, or do they mostly argue that one party is the corrupt one and vote for the other party?
Do you normally question whether people deviate from behaving as stereotypes and are generally incapable of individual behavior, or just when corruption and bribery in the US is discussed?
I don't know what you're trying to accuse me of, but the near absolute fixation on partisanship and identity politics in the US is well known.
Apologies, I could have been clearer in my last comment. I found that your reductive approach to assumed polarization is a thought terminating cliche, which signals an end to any interest in conversation by the invoker of the cliche.
> the near absolute fixation on partisanship and identity politics in the US is well known.
It really isn't, unless, I would argue, we believe cable news or propaganda sources are a good source of daily information and infotainment. I think they do a poor job communicating complex nuance and people not being solely engaged in wedge issues, forcing a narrative of existential danger in exchange for more clicks and views.
> People do tend to normally behave as stereotypes where American politics is concerned
Again, I think this is reductive.
Are people responsible for their actions or is the government responsible for people's actions?
People are always responsible for their own actions. If anyone else was responsible then people would become objects to be acted upon and no longer people.
The current practice I call "accountability laundering".
This is where you create situations where somehow no one is accountable. Where no one knows who to point a finger at.
This causes like 90% of the worlds problems. People create systems this way on purpose. Public companies, private equity, governments, huge orgs where no one is actually at the helm.
All so no one can point a finger when something goes wrong.
The American people said what we want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.
Direct fundraising by candidates is a small part of the picture.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/10/30/johnson-amendment-el...