There’s am awful lot of medium size companies staffed by regular every day people for every fat cat evil corporate overlord.

The only reason that medium sized company exists is because it hasn’t yet had the opportunity to grow into a behemoth, or it hasn’t yet been taken over by one. But that’s the goal of every firm, small, medium, or large: ever increasing profits, over all else, even over human well being. Some firms are just better at achieving that goal, often because they were first into an industry. These massive corporations didn’t start out massive, they grew from much smaller firms. The executives at giant corporations aren’t exceptionally evil, they’ve just demonstrated enough acumen for increasing profits to catch the eye of some giant corporation’s board chair (that and maybe they both went to the same business school and play golf together). And since ever increasing profits is the goal of every firm, every firm has to try and capture as many markets as possible, and that means the small and medium sized firms will be captured eventually, unless they are able to grow into a massive corporation themselves.

People’s reaction to a health insurance CEO being assassinated:

Globalisation and free trade are a good thing as long as everyone involved is doing it with good intentions.

And as you’ve pointed out, not everyone involved is doing with good intentions, therefore it’s not a good thing.

Sure, if you wanna do absolutes, you could probably calculate whether the bad effect of China fucking up the world by giving their companies an infinite money cheat code is worse than the benefits. And you’d arrive at some result.

And clearly liberals have arrived at the conclusion that the bad effects outweigh the benefits, since they are abandoning their previous commitment to open borders and free trade, and moving more toward protectionist policies and reshoring industries.

That doesn’t make any sense. Certainly they thought free trade and globalization would be a net positive for someone. Otherwise, why do it?

The only options I can see are: net negative, net positive, or net neutral. Either good exceeds the bad, the bad exceeds the good, or the good and bad cancel each other out. But, my point was not necessarily about the number of options, but that it is logically impossible for free trade and globalization to be both a net positive and a net negative simultaneously. It must necessarily be one or the other, just like you can’t be both dead and alive at the same time. So, which is it?

At very least, liberals made a miscalculation. They assumed that free trade and globalization would be a net positive, but recent history had made them rethink that position. I think that is because they assumed it would lead to the world embracing liberalism - liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism, specifically - essentially becoming the only sociopolitical/socioeconomic system in the world. This did not happen. China became a major economic force, despite not being a liberal democracy or neoliberal capitalist, and they show no signs of becoming a liberal nation. It turns out, free trade and globalization can be used by non-liberals to increase their power and influence too. Whoops.

All These things can be true at the same time.

So, you’re saying that free trade and globalization can be both good and bad simultaneously? Certainly free trade and globalization can have both positive and negative aspects simultaneously, but it can’t be both a net positive and a net negative simultaneously.

Liberals: free trade and globalization are good

China becomes a major force in production and global trade

Liberals: free trade and globalization are bad

Classic schlock.

Sorry, you’re all getting techno-feudalism.

A lot of economists don’t listen to anything Joseph Stiglitz says, because he’s not from the Chicago school. Economics is so stupid.

Maduro’s government has cracked down on the opposition despite promises to pave the way to fair elections in exchange for relief from economic sanctions imposed by the United States last decade as democratic and human rights conditions deteriorated in Venezuela. The recent moves prompted the Biden administration to re-impose crushing oil sanctions last month.

Is there any evidence that sanctions like these actually achieve their stated goals? In this case, they certainly don’t seem to have worked. So, why double down?

I’ve been thinking about it, and I think I understand why many people have such strong reactions to the situation. Russia did illegally invade a sovereign nation, without provocation. They have killed thousands of innocent people and they have done incredible harm. It’s abhorrent. Any such unjustified invasion (like the US invasion is Iraq, for instance) is abhorrent. I suppose some people view my attempts to dispassionately look for peaceful solutions to the conflict as a kind of tacit support for Russia, or at least indifference. I am not indifferent, and I certainly don’t support their illegal and immoral actions, I just don’t want anything that could lead to more war, or more widespread war. However, as you’ve said, Russia has likely left the rest of the world with few other choices.

Isn’t Tankie a pejorative for Marxist-Leninists? I’m not a Marxist-Leninist.

I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not commenting on anything related to Russia, Ukraine, or NATO again. These people are…passionate, and they are not interested in hearing opinions that run counter to their own.

Yes, I am an idiot. Thank you for helping me see how stupid I am. I don’t remember saying what you’re saying I said, but you’re so much smarter than me, so you must know better what I said than I do.

Nuke the crocodile, then. I’ve decided I don’t care anymore.

Ok, I give up. I’ve been down voted to hell and told repeatedly by multiple people that I’m an idiot or a coward or a Russian bot for wanting a peaceful resolution to the conflict, so I’m going to defer to the expertise of all these people and concede the point. It’s not like my opinion was going to change anything anyway.

Russia viciously and brutally invaded and terrorise Ukraine and her people, and that is not right.

I agree. My intent is not to defend Russia, I simply want the situation resolved as peacefully as possible. If war is necessary, then it’s necessary. I don’t like it, but it really doesn’t matter if I like it or not.

It looks like there was mistrust developing before the NATO-Russia Council, with the bombings of Yugoslavia.

In 1999, Russia condemned the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which was done without a prior authorization by the United Nations Security Council, required by the international law. For many in Moscow, a combination of NATO’s incorporation of Eastern Europe and its military attack on sovereign Yugoslavia exposed American promises of Russia’s inclusion into a new European security architecture as a deceit. Yeltsin’s critics said: ‘Belgrade today, Moscow tomorrow!’

the general idea to avoid this is to make sure everybody knows the west wants no war, but we will not sit idly by and watch it unfold right on our doorstep.

Well, I think the best way to promote peace is to not break the world up into the West and not the West, and for the two sides to not continue to mistrust and antagonize each other. I can’t honestly say I know how to achieve that, instead I can only say I hope that such a world can be brought about peacefully. Of course, what I hope for means precisely dick. What’s gonna happen is gonna happen, and I suppose that’s gonna be more war.