South Korea's President says US investment demands would spark financial crisis

The genocidal regime[1] that it is actively supporting is a little further south.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/israel-has-c...

Driving civilian populations out at gunpoint into neighboring countries is called a genocide.

(If I remember my history, there used to be a German word for that sort of thing, I think it started with an L...)

For instance, he ignores that Israel goes out of its way to warn civilians before attacking, and provides aid to civilians. He ignores that Israel could simply kill ALL the civilians with a bunch of bombs if its intent was actually genocide, and yet it has not.

This is not a serious debate. Israel is not genociding. If you disagree, you need to respond to the actual arguments. But nobody on the other side is doing so, because they can't, because Israel is not genociding.

Please think about this.

Not anymore.

I fear that we're all going to need to learn Chinese.

It was a short break, not a rebuilding.

Hence, what's happening today is not going to be a one time event. It's been escalating since 2001, and at best, stagnating under Obama.

The reps denied Obama a supreme court nomination for almost 2 years.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland

This was planed long ago with alot of foresight and malignent intent. Trump is only the lucky idiot stumbling on fertile ground and accelerating the process.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/REDMAP

Meanwhile, the Republican party is an outright lifestyle now. Policy does not matter. Ideology barely matters insomuch as you can sell the charade under the guise of "strongman good". Consistency need not apply.

As a quick example: The sitting president ran on exposing the child sex trafficking ring of Epstein. It was one of their biggest rallies. Once elected, he ordered the FBI to destroy records with his name. Then he coordinated with numerous cronies who are not only denying his involvement now, but attempting to say it did not exist at all.

And their party just... Does it. The conversation is dead. The talking heads say how rediculous it all sounds and how glorious leader cannot be questioned. And the voters pretend they have no idea what you mean when you point out the change.

They live in a warped reality. Though I won't pretend the GOP has not long been the party of pedophiles, electing convicted or highly suspected officials to legislation repeatedly.

Meanwhile the Democrats must be absolutely perfect. Every tiny mistep, every perceived half-measure or improper leads to entire sects of their base boycotting them. See the last election with Israel/Palestine - how well boycotting the Democrats worked for both us and them.

I have, myself, rejected all mission offers to the US since January, but I have the luxury of not living there.

From the other side of the pond, the US future looks very grim, and I have no knowledge at my disposal that lets me see a path toward reversion that doesn't go through a violent phase.

It's a systemic problem; the POTUS is a symptom. And I don't see how such a large and complex system is going to get fixed fast enough to prevent something terrible from happening.

After that, it will go back to something more peaceful. But I wouldn't want to be there during the transition.

The time to act was 20 years ago I'm afraid.

It's actually hard for a nation with 14 aircraft carriers to stuff-up this badly.

Dumping bonds would increase supply and drive down prices, but that increases yields because yields is the difference between the price you paid vs the face value of the bond.

It may have happened during the week of "liberation day" when tariffs were announced, resulting in reduced bill buys.

https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful...

Let's take all this negative energy and do something better than criticize. Let's harness the energy into good action. What's something we all can agree is good for everybody and start a discussion around that? I'm not saying all crticism is a bad thing. I'd just like to see us all work together to accomplish something good.

I'll try to get the ball rolling, but if somebody has a better ball, I'm happy to go there.

I prefer free trade. I think everybody benefits if we lower trade barriers. But it needs to be "fair". Allowing corporation A to dump hazardous refuse cheaply into the river, but denying the same to corporation B is not fair to B and not all around good. So are there any good ideas about how to allow goods from different jurisdictions to compete by the same rules without Nationalistic interference?

What you're seeing isn't a consequence of the working class finally acting in its interests by getting behind a billionaire slumlord and conman. What you're seeing is the consequence of billionaires figuring out that if you distract the working class with divisive identity politics and plain old bullshit (Trans athletes! The gays grooming your children! Antifa supersoldiers stealing elections! Socialist death panels killing granny!), you can swindle it out of anything.

Trump and his friends would have had no legs in a society that hasn't been thoroughly and irreparably broken by this stupidity and the normalization thereof.

I think the prospects of the working class died with the crisis signaling the end of the USSR and by extension communist/socialist circles. After all it was the only counter-balance that instilled a baseline fear of violent uprising from the workers class in the heart of the wealthy class.

And in a way the final nail came with the free reign liberal policies that followed with Thatcher e Reagan, not so much about offshoring in itself.

They've (I mean sitting Congressional representatives, not randos) have escalated their rhetoric considerably since that (*is* it rhetoric?)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... ("MAGA lawmaker calls to forcefully mass institutionalize trans people: ‘We have to get them off the streets!’" (September 17))

> "“We have to do something about this. We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can't let them communicate with each other,” he insisted."

> "“I'm all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that's spreading across this country,” Jackson concluded. “That’s going to do great damage to normal, hard-working, law-abiding people.”"

> "The hard-right lawmaker, meanwhile, is not the only member of Congress who has seemingly called for transgender people to be locked up in mental institutions."

> "Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) – who spearheaded the effort to bar trans women from using Capitol Hill bathrooms that don't correspond with their sex assigned at birth – repeatedly used anti-trans slurs while saying transgender people are “mentally ill” and “should be in a straitjacket.”"

Actual Nazi language. Aligns with the Fox News hosts talking about bringing back Aktion T4,

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20... ("Fox News host apologizes for remarks about killing mentally ill homeless people")

> "Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”"

In what way? The stock market is not the economy.

There's no way the U.S. economy can completely weather what's going on.

Other countries will be pulling back and switching as much as possible.

I've always had high regard for Trump as a talented scumbag grifter of note.

He's been noticeably and increasingly off game since it seemed he was only campaigning for re-election to avoid a mountain of looming bad legal outcomes.

Much of his early second term "wins" I've marked as momentum success from having a ready to go game plan care of the Project 2025 crowd. His carry through on tariffs, dodging Epstein complications, handling free speech issues, etc. have been more chaotic than cunning.

That's not a good thing. Lots of farmers going bankrupt now.

Once trade is diversified, the US will be isolated naturally as it represents the least beneficial trade arrangement. Now, if MAGA is dethrowned somehow, sure, trade with the US will increase again, but the diversification you see happing now will be permanent. Things aren't going to go back to the way they were, the US has already given up it's spot as the economic leader of the west, and it's given up all its foreign soft-power, it's just a slow process to see it all play out.

2. He lies when his lips move. When you're dealing with a pathological liar, there's no reason to believe anything he says that paints him in a good light - until it's been independently confirmed.

https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/15953967

Well, having the paper agreement certainly helped last time. (A month ago.)

There's also a Language barrier. So making sure there is a written agreement ensures that both sides understand what was agreed upon.

I think this is more likely than some 'agent' plot. These people do not really care about countries, but what benefits them and their extended family. As Italians would say: "our thing".

So it's very fair to attribute the so called erraticness to what American want in general instead of attributing it to Putin or other non American.

Unwillingly? Sure. Being played? Sure. Knowingly being a puppet? No.

What we're discussing is clearly beyond my ability to grasp (macro-)economics.

In fact, France is the US' oldest ally and its best known president in the 20th century is largely remembered for making sure to remain militarily independent from the US.

But also likewise, Korea holds historic antagonism towards China, arguably just as much as it does to Japan. Most of the population would hate such a relationship, and despite some in the left thinking otherwise, most South Koreans still see the US as the favorable partner over China.

But with China’s continued rise, and the US seemingly evolving (irreversibly?) into the MAGA Empire, that perception isn’t guaranteed to never change either. The PRC isn’t doing itself much favors in courting its neighbors, so it’ll become a game of who is worse.

*As a redundant disclaimer for HN, that belief would put me in opposition to Trump's policies.

However when describing the outcome all things are not equal. We shouldn't fall into the trap of an appeal to utopia.

Selling into the US presents advantages on economies of scale. Overseas dollar denominated debt drives dollar demand. These factors affect decisions for producers selling into the US market.

The specific pricing data is subject to cherry picking and politicalization. Generally it is a bit strange to see the illiberal left taking exception with Trump's illiberal interventionism. You get the sense that if the interventions were rationalized by a different actor or for a different reason, the statistics would be spun in the other direction. This feels inconsistent and hypocritical.

The other key point is that the tariff doom prophesies haven't yet come to pass. Perhaps the doomsaying was merely more political bloviation? It would fit with the pattern of inconsistency.

This suits large importers over small ones, they have the cash reserves to cope.

The other issue for importers is uncertainty. The tarifs might be high this week (when my stock arrives) but it might be low next week when my competitors stock arrives, putting me at a disadvantage.

So "shelves being bare" is primarily a business risk / cash flow issue. Partly handled with more frequent, smaller, orders (driving up consumer prices some more.)

And yes, I agree, most American consumers don't understand that fundamentally the goal of tarifs (good and bad) is to drive up the price. To that end though the administration is being very successful.

Access to the US market has other values. If the manufacturer is carrying USD denominated debt, they or someone else must obtain those dollars through trade. Access to a large market may unlock economies of scale for producers. Losing access may drive up their overall costs to serve other markets.

These are just two of the most obvious things which I can immediately think of. There are likely other factors as well.

> The exporters aren't impacted directly at all

This isn't true, at least if you believe in standard economic theory (not believing standard economic theory is what got us in this mess!).

The issue is that the tariff increases the effective price to the consumer, so it shifts the demand curve downward by the cost of the tariff (the price consumers are willing to pay the producer for a given quantity of goods).

Markets always find their equilibrium, and the resulting equilibrium point is a lower transaction price and lower quantity than before. Quantifying the shift requires knowing both the supply and demand elasticities.

In other words, both the producer and consumer share the burden of the tariffs. The producer receives less from the consumer, and the consumer pays a higher total cost than before. Who pays more of the tariff is question that we again need the elasticities to answer.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...

There is one side that makes it impossible. Let's not confuse that.

But as far as I can tell now, there's not any really clear definition of what counts as work under those visa (waivers), and the ambiguity was tolerated by all parties. So, in effect, the only reasoning is (like always) "this is illegal because we say so".

Thanks again for the info.

What, precisely, does this mean? I don't think it means "crossed from Mexico or arrived on a small boat". I think it might actually mean "at the border interview, they said the purpose of their visit to the facility was 'business meetings' rather than 'work'", and the legality hinges on the precise knife edge of the W word.

It would be really, really useful to clarify exactly what the rules are for someone entering the US under a visa waiver for business purposes are, because I don't want to see my co-workers thrown in a gulag.

If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. And blaming the workers in a situation like that is immoral scapegoating, pure and simple. It’s very on-brand for the US conception of labor rights, though.

I mean, wtf.

Linz has argued that presidential republics have the following issues:

- dual democracy legitimacy (both president and legislature claim popular mandate)

- rigidity (fixed term rather than parliamentary approval prevents adaptation to crises)

- winner take all logic (total exclusion of opposition from power)

- personalization of power (authority concentration)

Further, the Carnegie Endowment in 2025 found that autocratic transitions occur at "striking speed" in presidential systems.

[1] https://kellogg.nd.edu/sites/default/files/old_files/documen...

the chance that anything like that will pass those Senats also isn't exactly high

and all of this is public knowledge, so either Trump is incredible badly consulted to a point you wonder if it's malicious or more likely he doesn't care, and only care about a meaningless legally void promise he can present now probably some way smaller immediate subset of the promised actions. And then a few years down it's the "evil other countries" which he knowingly pressured to give him hollow promises they legally can't give, instead of it's seemingly bad/incompetent deal making (if you assume the goal is to actually make working deals and not to rail up people to have excuses for increasingly more extreme actions).

Sure. But I don't think I'd trust the leash made by the same guy who accidentally invented God. At least, I wouldn't trust that leash to hold when he put it around God's neck.

While eventually, given some absurd amount of time, we might learn to control these things, will we learn to control them before we've created them? Could we survive long enough to learn to do that, if we create them first? Legislation and regulation might slow down their creation sufficiently *IF* we only needed 12 months or 5 years or whatever, but if we instead need centuries then those safeguards won't cut it.

My only consolation, I think, is that I truly believe humans far too stupid to invent AGI. Even now, there are supposed geniuses who think LLMs are a some stepping stone to AGI, when I see no evidence that this is the case. You're all missing the secret sauce.