Or at all

Socialism is defined by opposition to capitalism, if you don’t support eventually moving beyond Capitalism, you’re definitionally a liberal.

That’s not unattractive. I was waiting until after things calmed down to visit, but maybe I head over earlier.

Weather is getting a bit warm though, will the position still be open in 6 months or so?

1. Strength of the currency doesn’t work like that, 1 Kuwaiti buck = 3.2USD, yet the median salary is barely a third of third of US salaries after conversion.

2. Instead of converting, you can:

Get a bank account that doesn’t charge for international withdrawals and withdraw money from a foreign ATM (look up other foreigners experiences with the ATM, some, especially in europe are literal scams) your bank almost certainly has a better rate than any retail currency exchange.

Exchange a little currency, then use a CC with no foreign currency fee for anything that isn’t cash only.

Wise Card. Idk, I’ve seen other foreigners use it.

Western Union, Money gram, etc, if you need the equivalent of a wire transfer, but don’t have bank account in the receiving country. This is good if you need a big sum of local cash, say to pay rent or to buy a vehicle or something.

I keep a little USD in my shoe just in case, like 150 bucks. Only ever needed it to pay some embassy fees.

Where are you traveling to?

What kind of position are you talking about?

He was running after 4 years of Trump. And after a primary and events in 2020 that got low-information voters believing democrats supported free healthcare/college, abolishing ICE, continuing covid protections, etc.

Most people are centrists

Most people have random contradictory views. Triangulating your policy to be more “centrist” by reducing its scale, adding market mechanisms, and means-testing doesn’t make it appeal to everyone who isn’t extreme left or right, it makes it appeal to nobody.

having private companies compete has certain advantages in railway infrastructure, if the right framework is given.

Its better than private monopolies, but no, lack of centralization has lead to really awful transfers compared to China and Korea.

Under capitalism the ideal rail company runs zero trains, owns no infrastructure, is somehow charging rent to every other business, employs nobody, pays them nothing, and charges infinity dollars. It requires external force to fight against the pressures pushing it towards its ideal form.

Hell the author even glosses over the “runs no trains” part in the article, saying the OG JR built too many unprofitable rural lines, as if having reliable transit isn’t good in and of itself, and then explains how the JR’S land ownership is profitable, as if charging businesses rent is a social good.

In general the good thing about markets is that they enable less planning overhead as everyone focuses on their own thing

This is how you get 12 companies owning mass transit in 1 city that don’t share timetables and have bizarre interchanges between like subway, grade-seperated streetcar, and an elevated bus.

Japan’s sucess is in spite of neoliberalism, not because of it.

What blows my mind is that you read an article, and brought it up months or years later, and applied zero critical thinking.

What’s more likely? China set up fake police stations in America, where they have no authority, so they can be mocked by people they have absolutely no power over?

Or they’re there to provide legal services to Chinese citizens living abroad?

I mean for hundreds of thousands of dollars? I quite like traveling to China, but I like having hundreds of thousands of dollars too.

Motorbike is the cheapest and most convenient way to get around Vietnam, but my previous bike and tires were cheaper and serviceable enough, so anything more is luxury.

South China Sea

Not giving up your territory to minimize the number of adversarial military bases off your coast is entirely normal. Hell Taiwan still claims the 13 dash line, since Mainland China gave up some dashes here and there, including a couple to Vietnam once it was clear they weren’t going to host foreign troops.

regional and local trains are pretty much the same as any developed country

Are unmanned platforms uncommon outside Japan? I genuinely don’t know, but its the only place I’ve noticed them.

Coffee(3USD). Whiskey(3-12USD). A slightly fancier used motorbike (1100USD instead of 400) and the more expensive brand of tires.

America’s ability to do spy shit in other countries is unrelated to their ability to catch spies. But yeah no in the past, such as when China caught the CIA using an unsecured wordpress site to communicate with assets, the CIA just blamed some random chinese guy.

Governor of NY and mayor of NYC always competing.

It kinda is, since it implies chinese assassins either don’t exist or are so small and super-competent they haven’t left any evidence. Billions of people have phones and we don’t have footage of alien abductions or Bigfoot, the absence of evidence is evidence of absence

While the author correctly identifies ways the west subsidizes cars, the neoliberal prescriptions are horseshit.

If China was assassinating foreigners in foreign countries, every lemmy user would hear about it, there’s multiple dedicated accounts that do nothing but post anti-chinese articles.

lol maybe, but given that America has immigrant populations from nearly every country, I would be shocked if another country managed to have a more effective spy network, though the USSR had a shot due to their support of internationalism. “There’s a Chinese assassin among us? That Chinese guy is kinda sus.”

The Chinese government has been pretty careful about following the rules when dealing with other countries, largely out of a naive belief that if they follow them, other countries will treat them accordingly, not understanding international norms is just America playing Calvin ball.

See: China joining the WTO, followed by the US simply breaking the organization to prevent any rulings against itself, or China’s support for the Philippines and Indian governments instead of ideologically aligned communist movements, as if helping them stabilize themselves would benefit China in future dealings.