Jan Kjetil Andersen

I discussed this with an American collegue recently. He told me that he was surprised when he heard that a couple of ordinary shop assistants in a supermarket could afford a four week road trip in the US. The opposite way would be almost impossible without parental support. The first problem is that a quite many people in US live on bare minmum wages, and secondly; they have very little vacations.

@jakandersen @Alex_Oloyede2 Salary is way higher in America, EU is like a whole percentage point higher in unemployment, and all the other stuff is just subjective nonsense stats.

Mention one thing the EU is better at than the US and China.

@balajis You forgot to see it from the Iranian government perspective, they may want to continue the war until sactions are removed.

This could be the offramp the world needs. You can think of it as the best outcome for everyone, under the circumstances. (1) From MAGA’s perspective, if Trump declares victory here and moves on, the US won’t waste yet more blood and treasure in the Middle East. It won’t invade Iran. It also won’t take all the blame for the ongoing global supply chain crisis. It just pulls out and lets everyone work out the regional security equation for themselves. Trump can say he’s fulfilled both his campaign promises: stop Iran from getting a nuke, but also no endless Middle Eastern wars. (2) From Israel’s perspective, Iran has now been shown to be quite hostile to its neighbors, and its military has been substantially degraded. Stopping now is good. Otherwise there’s a danger of overreacting to Oct 7 as Americans overreacted to Sept 11. Israel can stand back and call it a win, because after a US pullout, Iran will have much less excuse for holding the Strait hostage. (3) From the Iranian diaspora’s perspective, it’s unfortunately clear that the current war isn’t going to result in liberalization. Further attacks would push Iran further into fundamentalism, making it even harder to eventually do a liberal reformation. (4) From the long-suffering Iranian people’s perspective, ending the war now would also save countless lives. Otherwise they’ll get hit by friendly fire and drafted by the regime to fight for fundamentalism. (5) Finally, from the world’s perspective, once the US declares victory and goes home, substantial diplomatic pressure will be applied to Iran to simply open the Strait of Hormuz and allow ships through. Iran’s leadership has shown, perhaps surprisingly, that they care about global public opinion…and they would be on the hook for the suffering of billions of people if the Strait remains blocked. TLDR: if Trump declares victory and leaves, Iran no longer has any excuse for blocking the Strait and holding the global economy hostage. Let the matter be worked out diplomatically with pressure from all the 100+ affected countries on Iran. America shouldn’t have to spend a single cent more, or send a single soldier more, to the Middle East.

@RodDMartin I love it when people say something totally deranged and then end by saying that those with another opinions are morons.

BREAKING: Huge increase in ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz today. The regime has lost control. So much for the "we're losing!" crowd. Morons.

@StateDept It all depends on how you defines «defend our interests». If that includes to start illegal wars to upheld American dominance in a unipolar world, then it goes far beyond what NATO was meant to be.

SECRETARY RUBIO: NATO wasn’t just about defending Europe, but allowing us to have military bases in Europe for our national security. If we’ve reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases to defend our interests, then it’s a one-way street.

@EricLDaugh The rest of European countries should do the same. We will not take part in this illegal war.

🚨 HOLY CRAP! President Trump just exposed France for BANNING planes flying over their airspace to support Operation Epic Fury "The U.S.A. will REMEMBER!!!" What's the point of an "ally" if they just abandon you? "The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory. France has been VERY UNHELPFUL with respect to the “Butcher of Iran,” who has been successfully eliminated!"

Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin has arrived in Cuba and is unloading much needed crude oil.

@grey4626 Someone should tell Trump how many times NATO’s article 5 have been invoked, who have invoked it, what the response was, and what it means.

Fucking Finally. The Lion of Mar-a-Lago has roared with that signature, unfiltered lethality, and the message slices through the European delusion like a Tomahawk through a command bunker: the age of American subsidy for your parasitic cowardice is fucking over. To the sniveling, jet-fuel-starved cock-suckers of the United Kingdom and its spineless continental cohorts...listen the fuck up. For eighty years we have bled treasure, blood, and industrial supremacy to underwrite your decadent existence. From the Marshall Plan’s reconstruction of your war-ravaged empires to the carrier battle groups that have patrolled the Persian Gulf since the Tanker War of the 1980s, America has been your unpaid mercenary, your nuclear umbrella, your global logistics backbone. NATO? Nothing more than the North American Tribute Organization...where the United States shoulders over sixty-five percent of the alliance’s actual spending while your militaries have atrophied into hollow parade-ground husks, underfunded, undermanned, and equipped with yesterday’s gear because you chose cradle-to-grave welfare states and green virtue-signaling over steel and resolve. Geopolitically, the Strait of Hormuz is no academic footnote: it is the jugular vein of the world economy, funneling twenty-one percent of global petroleum liquids...nineteen million barrels a day...through a narrow chokepoint that asymmetric Iranian tactics...mines, anti-ship missiles, speedboat swarms...were designed to threaten precisely because they knew direct confrontation with American naval power was suicide. We and our Israeli partners have done the hard kinetic work...the precision decapitation of their leadership structure. The heavy lifting is finished. Now these same European freeloaders, who lacked the spine to commit forces when it mattered, dare complain about disrupted sea lanes? Decades of Pax Americana have bred in you a terminal strategic infantilism: a learned helplessness wrapped in smug moral superiority. You lecture the world on the “rules-based order” while outsourcing your survival to American sons and daughters. History is merciless on this point...from the Suez Crisis of 1956, when your imperial twilight exposed the limits of European power projection without U.S. backing, to the present. Your elites are psychologically castrated by comfort; your populations softened by entitlement. You forgot that freedom of navigation is not a birthright...it is enforced by gun, steel, and the will to use them. President Trump’s directive is surgical in its venomous precision: Number One, buy the fucking fuel from us...we have plenty. Number Two, grow some long-overdue balls, reconstitute what remains of your navies, sail into the Strait, and TAKE IT. No more American taxpayers dying to keep your fighters in the sky and your economies from freezing in the dark while you backstab and virtue-signal. The parasite has fed on the host long enough. The era of the United States as Europe’s security guard, banker, and scapegoat is closed. Fight for your own oil or learn to live without it. Adapt or wither. The choice is yours, but the protection racket is finished. Grow a fucking spine or don't. We don't give a fuck anymore. 💀🗡️⚖️

@ramez Even simpler: producing Hollywood movies use less energy and creates more money than making steel.

Simple. The US is nearly 4x as effective at getting economic value out of electricity as China is. Yes, it's noteworthy that China generates more electricity than the US. The US generates almost twice as much per capita, and uses it to nearly 4x the economic effect.

@grok @arcticinstincts @akarlin @grok Calculate full list please

Sure, tables show Count/Share but no pop column. Using Worldometer 2026 estimates: China: 46,387 / 1.413B = 32.8 per million USA: 33,959 / 349M = 97.3 Germany: 11,346 / 83.6M = 135.7 UK: 10,239 / 69.9M = 146.4 Russia: 910 / 143.4M = 6.3 China ~5.2x Russia's per capita Count (10x is for Share). Full list on request!

Preliminary data out for Jan-Dec 2025 of the Nature Index, a proxy for high quality science production. China has nearly 2x the score of the US (up from 50% in 2018 and 25% in 2012). China also produces 10x (sic) the per capita output of Russia.

Nationalization usually just means a forced sale to the state, that is different than stealing. ByteDance has in a similar way been forced to sell Tiktok US to American companies. The sale is not voluntary but the owner get a compensation. Iran was the first country in the Persian gulf to nationalize and they gave compensation, although the affected companies regarded it is inadequate. The aim of the nationalization was that a bigger share of the revenue from oil should stay in the country. Most other countries in the middle east nationalized their oil industry a decade later than Iran.

@jakandersen @FoxNews @georgegalloway Do you know what it means to nationalize oil industry? It is a country stealing the investments that corporations made in Iran. Easy for a country to invite billions in investment from companies and then say get the fuck out and steal the billions of dollars of investment.

BREAKING: "We're very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing." "I said 25 years ago that NATO's a paper tiger, but more importantly, that we'll come to their rescue, but they will never come to ours." - President Trump

No, US and UK started the conflict 73 years ago. Iran was a democracy before that. The democratic elected prime ministe, Mosaddegh, wanted to nationalize the oil industry which was dominated by foreign companies. That was not toleated by UK and US so they organized a coup and installed the authoritarian Shah. The people of Iran took back the power when they overthrew the shah in 1979. I am not saying that Khameini’s government was good, it was horrible, almost as bad as Irans neighbors. I miss the Trump who said that US should not start any regime changing wars. This is exactly that, and it could be long and costly both in causalities and dollars.

@jakandersen @FoxNews @georgegalloway Iran started this war 47 years ago. Where the fuck do you think Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthies get their weapons? Iran is responsible for 9/11 and all the US deaths in Iraq committed by Iran backed terrorist groups

Trump started this war without consulting with any allies. As a contrast, George Busch had a telephone call with each NATO country before the Iraq and Afghanistan attack. He was strongly advised against it, but they still respected his choice and supported US in the war. If Trump had done the same, he may have gotten more support. As an European veteran I would rather go to Greenland to defend European territory from US aggression than going to Iran to save US from this misguided war.

@Cjpearson @RichardGrenell There should be more craftsmen in the senate and far fewer lawyers.

Jimmy Kimmel: "Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was plumber. That's right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now." The elitism of Hollywood summarized in one moment. 👇

For me, Jeffrey Sachs is number one of the international commentators. My hero. However this did not go so well in my opinion. He is obviously furious because of the war Trump has started, rightfully so. The problem is that because he is furious, he use characteristics that goes too far and therefore he lose credibility. He doesn’t need to say that trump is not smart, and has dementia and that the government is obviously corrupt, at least not in the same senescence.

Jeffrey Sachs: Iran is the Graveyard of American Hegemony  youtu.be/OcqIEJEk4MY

@TheProjectUnity More americans should take a trip aboad, then they would be less vulnerable to bs like this.

I know everyone says China just steals from The West but honestly when I look at Chinese cities and compare them to many of the major Western Hubs it kinda feels like if they did steal ideas from us... they did a better job with them.

@TheProjectUnity I cannot remember that we ever had that before they stole it.

@AngelicaOung « But is height everything? What’s the good of being taller if ppl start developing chronic diseases?» Totally agree.

People in China now eat a tremendous amount of protein. Last I checked the average was 125g a day which is insane, although I assume due to wastage not all of the averaged is actually consumed. When I started working out and tracking my diet my daily protein goal was 80g. It’s now been raised to 100g at my trainers insistence. I don’t always reach it because of my love of carbs. The Japanese never got into protein-maxxing and they didn’t get such a growth spurt. This is despite getting rich far earlier. It is not uncommon to see packed meals in Japan from a convenience store with a big slab of rice and a comically tiny sliver of salmon to go with. The Indians went the opposite way! They are legendary protein-spurners. They’ve gotten shorter even as GDP increased. The traditional diet is veggie, which makes protein-maxxing quite challenging. The Chinese government definitely had a hand in encouraging the Chinese to eat more protein than they probably would have given their natural inclination. School milk programs and such, and also something called the « veggie basket program » which made sure a good and enticing variety of meats, fish, vegetables and eggs are widely available affordably. But is height everything? What’s the good of being taller if ppl start developing chronic diseases? Diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure was almost not a thing in China during the 70s and 80s when 90 percent of the diet was plant-based and people did physical labor. Now it is all too common in China and while the Chinese are taller the Japanese remain the longevity champions with 85 yrs. China is laggard at 79 years. Taiwan for reference at 81 years.

@notcomplex_ Adult height correlates with intake of animal proteins. China has gotten much richer so people eat more meat.

The average adult height in China and the US is now roughly equal. Many have not fully realized just how much China has grown—in this case, literally.