They make no secret out of that, where things get dicey is the role of the Porsche/Piëch clan which ate itself back into the company. That’s also where the “close German factories” drive is coming from, they want their dividends so they don’t have to sell stock to cover some credit or the other.

Expropriating Teslas is possible without a change in the constitution but with a simple law, if they, in the individual case, can be considered means of production (Article 15 GG), though compensation is due. To expropriate under Article 14, you’d have to show that it’s for the public good, which would be a very tall order. It would also be possible to extend right-out seizing (without compensation) to traffic misbehaviour other than extreme speeding.

Article 15 has never been applied, though, so besides how generally pointless expropriating Teslas Elon already made his money with is don’t expect anything to happen before Berlin expropriates large landlords (>1000 flats) for real. Parties are doing their best to not follow up on the earlier referendum so right now the organisers are busy writing their own law which then can be referendumed into being directly applicable law.

You know what we should lobby for? Putting sanctions on Elon. In lieu of expropriating, that’d be expensive, just make him divest completely.

Behold! Someone with 20/20 hindsight!

Yeah that was the time where maliciously maligning creeds was made a criminal offence, to stop Lutheran and Catholic preachers alike from inciting people, and religious freedom codified. Fast forward 400 years and Americans are telling us that we’re limiting free speech with that kind of thing while basing their identity on the theocracies of New England which they founded because England wouldn’t let them oppress people at home.

We did not send our best, and it hasn’t gone uphill since. The US slept through the whole Age of Enlightenment. There’s some trappings, sure, and their revolution certainly quoted it a lot, but try to find a trace of Kant anywhere in the US. Just consider the US’s insistence on a punitive criminal system (instead of rehabilitatory) in the light of the Categorical Imperative. Who, in any sensible state of mind, would consider inflicting suffering to be a desirable universal law.

The more recession, the more bankrupt millionaires, the more billionaires will be able to gobble up, the higher the chances (now former) millionaires realise that they have more in common with burger flippers than with billionaires.

No way around accelerationist logic when the system is launching itself against a wall and the bureaucrats responsible for system inertia to work against that are running around like headless chicken.

Tariffs will increase until sanity improves. We (that is, the EU) certainly aren’t going to back down from a trade war.

No. Stop projecting.

Yes. Like I did by telling you to do that instead of preaching from the pulpit, you’re starting to get it.

First comes fodder, then morals. When will US libs understand that. How does it feel there, up on your high horse, telling the pedestrians to stop wearing leather boots they should be vegans?

Try calling for solidarity instead of attacking people for wanting what’s due to every human by sole virtue of being human. Food, shelter, those things aren’t wishes of someone trying to deny the same to others.

note: “Europe” here refers to imported European culture in America

Yeah I was already wondering it’s not like actual Europeans get defensive about our influence. There’s nothing European about WASP(ish) culture, they’re about as European as chuds with Greek statute avatars are Greek: It’s a fetish, a signifier to dangle around in front of one set of people to consider themselves superior, and then hide when they’re facing the Old Continent proper, then it’s “Europoor”, “we pay for your healthcare”, whatnot. It’s a culture which refuses to recognise itself, and thus is forced to define itself in opposition to others, for doing otherwise would imply acknowledging that the cultural highlight of the year, what everyone is talking about for days and weeks on end, what unifies them as a people, are the ads during superbowl. When pressed, then, you point their mind, deliberately or not, to address the question “are you actually European”, and of course they’ll get defensive you’re attacking the charade surrounding the core of their identity. If I were pressed to describe that kind of culture in a single sentence I would choose a single word: Alienation.

Ireland is luring the EU subsidiaries of those companies to Ireland by being, in comparison to other EU countries, a tax haven. Luxembourg does something similar, that’s where e.g. Amazon is.

Without those policies US companies would still have EU subsidiaries as you need to have one to operate in the EU. And a lot more money would stay in the EU, instead of flowing to the US. In short: Trump is complaining that Ireland, to the benefit of US companies, is a traitor to the EU’s tax offices.