Not sure what market your in but in Europe the price gap is not that huge, 30% max far as I can tell. Obviously that’s still quite a bit when we are talking about car money but 20 vs 60 as you mention is not realistic as long as your not comparing the byd dolfin to a Mercedes.

I also never mentioned Chinese cars are poor quality. Actually they seem like quite good quality and as others have said their software seems good too though I’ve never driven one so I don’t know. The current automakers, whilst they have the build quality sorted, the software and a few is lacking

One suggestion no one seems to suggest is to buy a second hand car. Imo, you get much more value for your money and since the car is already made you help the environment out too by not consuming something that needed to be made just for you

Aquire, own, however you want to describe gaining a car in this alternative system. The point is, getting a product that is able to be acquired for an unfair price due to the CCP propping up and protecting their own companies would still be unfair.

I agree with your want for having everyone be more cooperative. The Chinese started by being quite cooperative in building cars with western companies. I used to think that was good but now that CCP has turned it around and doesn’t want to share any of their developed tech with other players, I think western business greed got the better of us. I’m not as pesemistic as others that the west is very far behind. European brands do make some killer electric cars but they may not have quite the range or quite the low price and they have not been on the market for that long.

Finally, I’m not trying to make bad faith arguments. I just disagree with your position that I’ll buy a dumped Chinese car because fuck the current players for not innovating. That is how I understand your position anyway, if that’s not right please explain the neuance I’m missing rather than attacking me

So your solution is change the whole system so you can buy a dumped Chinese car without any guilt?

Whilst I agree the system is broken, buying dumped goods only makes the situation worse as it means those players and playing on an uneven playing field

Half-life 3 launch trailer! /s

Jk, in reality I’d love to see more about the new bond game. Was hoping they’d show more after they showed off the first trailer.

Can confirm your point on Manchester busses in the past. Woohoo much better now with the bee network

The interconnection between the modes of transport is another great point. At least starting with having train transfers be more coordinated (since they wouldn’t be run by different companies) is a good start.

Unsure how coordinating all the different privat bus networks would go but definitely something the government should prioritise too. If the system can actually work then hopefully that means we can get people out of cars.

I like nationalisation as a concept. I don’t like that currently it is still a concept as Labor has not made clear, concrete commitments for what it could mean.

I understand that ticket prices are unlikely to come down. It sucks but I hope they can at least commit to freezing prices for a while or something. I think nationalisation offers the opportunity to rework the ticketing system as a whole to have it be completely integrated. I hope this would mean you can just tap in and out of stations and have the lowest price automatically calculated like they are in some European countries (the Netherlands for example).

Unfortunately Labour hasn’t said anything clear about their plans other than “we want to make it better”. Hopefully we find out more in the Autumn.

Europeans need to move fast if they are going to have a real impact on how Ukraine will turn out. If Canada and others want also want to join in then even better.

Whilst you can’t trust what Trump says, I find it hard to see the Ukrainians being able to offer a better deal than what Putin can (in his eyes). I imagine Putin’s ‘good’ offers would allow the US to leave the conflict quickly which Trump will see as ‘the greatest deal’ even if, in the long run, it only strengthens the Russian.

Hopefully Europe can figure out a credible strategy. They have the capacity, I’m just not certain politicians will have the balls

Oh interesting, didn’t know about that. So Trump can pretend he made a deal that was already done just by getting Canada to throw in ‘Fentanyl Czar’. What a deal maker /s

Hope Canada continues to avoid American products and diversifies who they supply their exports to

Good on ya and keep it up!

That’s fair, for him it’s a win but in reality it doesn’t actually fix a problem since there wasn’t one to begin with

Very true, it’s a symbiotic relationship (or was anyway, the bigger party has changed it’s mind)

As a Brit, I’d be sad they got to join but also quite proud of our daughter

Sort of, I’d say he winced. He still got a stronger boarder which was something he was wanting (cause Canada is the problem /s) but obviously the trade deficit didn’t change.

We’ll truly know if he is blinking if he follows through on the tariffs in a month. I just hope Canada (and others) wake up and realise they can’t depend on the US anymore. They should diversify themselves as much as possible as quickly as possible

Thank you, this covers everything I could have thought of!

Had me in the first half not gonna lie

After WW2 they were given some land. Of course the powers at the time didn’t give a shit that Palestinians were already living there which is why we are in this mess today.

But if you look back to what happened to the Jews during WW2, it’s no wonder they were given something as a “sorry this happened to you, here’s some land you wanted”. I’m not saying it’s right (definitely how it panned out is not) but given that was their wish it’s not surprising it happened. It is very ironic that they have become the very beast that was persecuting them

Sounds interesting but how do you know all this? Just a theory of the current vibe?

The territory they occupy in Ukrain is not theirs. They literally gave it to the Ukrainians during USSR era.

That’s very fair, I wasn’t clear enough that I meant it was fine to support Israel in the fact they are allowed to protect themselves. Every country has that right.

Unfortunately, the Israeli’s have gone crazy with the leeway the west has left for them. It’s also funny that though the EU supports Israel overall, they still send lots of aid to Palestine cause they recognise that Israel is destroying that part of the world