Tafaha means Apple

Few appreciate just how important Barney Frank was to saving the financial system in the GFC. His purposeful drafting allowing the purchase of any "financial instrument" allowed TARP to directly recapitalize the banks, which magnified the impact 20x vs. buying assets directly.

Germany is in panic over Chinese companies taking over its markets at home, abroad and in China. Having spent quite some time in China in the 2010s, I can’t help but thinking back to the arrogance and quite frankly racism of German expat businesses people. Chinese engineers with Ivy League degrees speaking fluent English and German looked down upon by German engineers with a degree from some German university, unimpressive English and less than two sentences of Chinese. The Germans didn’t see it coming because they couldn’t imagine Chinese people becoming better at what they are doing than themselves. An industry insider told me at the time how keen Chinese entrepreneurs were to collaborate with German car companies on EV development. But all the Germans worried about was they are going to steal our IP. Well, here we are.

Since the libs are already mad at me, I’ll poke the bear and say the anti-public-sector-union takes amount to effectively wishing for an end to the American labor movement—that’s just the reality when private sector unionization is ~6%. I’m sure I’ll get some “yes” chad face replies and quotes, but be careful what you wish for; liberal democracy under capitalism but without unions has often been pretty politically unstable! People want a democratic say in their economic life; unions offer this. Without unions, allegiance to liberal democracy itself declines, because people feel (reasonably) without resource to have a say in where they spend a third of their lives—at work. If you’re frustrated with the policy demands of some public sector unions, find compromises. Offer them something else in exchange! Do a little horse trading. Better yet, reform and expand American labor law through things like sectoral bargaining so unions aren’t so often in zero-sum situations where they feel obligated to cling to existing jobs for existing members, because they don’t have a strong path to organizing new workplaces and finding good new union jobs for workers that would be displaced by, say, automating trains.

Having her turn against Noxus would be the worst possible decision for her character and I like that she likes her evil region.

Unpopular opinions on Katarina Du Couteau?