6 ms·
America's reputation drops across the world
- xnx 2y agoThis is also evident in the recent USD exchange rate: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEXUSEU https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DEXUSEU
- nottorp 2y agoConsent-O-Matic goes into an infinite loop on their site. On Firefox at least.
- jqpabc123 2y agoNice to see that most people in the world can identify a con artist when they see one --- even if US voters can't. America has 2 major exports --- stability and debt. And these are interconnected. When stability declines, financing debt becomes more expensive. The current administration is struggling to figure this out.
- fastball 2y agoIn the current admin's defense, that is a terrible pair of major exports in a world that has already started to move away from Globalism. You can't maintain that if the primary "consumers" of those exports are not actual allies.
- jqpabc123 2y agoYou can't maintain that if the primary "consumers" of those exports are not actual allies. Yes, all the more reason why attacking our allies is pure insanity. A lot of the countries we just attacked in the "trade war" are the same ones who buy our Treasury bonds. "Tariff Man" failed to make this obvious connection until after it was demonstrated to him. T-Bill yields jumped half a percent in a week after he made a complete fool of himself with "Liberation Day" in the WH rose garden. With one act of utter stupidity, "Tariff Man" cost the country more than DOGE has saved.
- fastball 2y agoOh for sure, they're not doing a good job. My point is only that I don't believe the status quo was maintainable, so "they could've just maintained the status quo" isn't a good position either.
- jqpabc123 2y agoMy point is that something demonstrably worse than the "status quo" is actually regression --- the opposite of progress --- one of the dumbest possible positions. In other words, unforced economic suicide is certainly an option to end the status quo --- but not a very good/desirable one.
- jjulius 2y ago>... even if US voters can't. Because blanket generalizations suck, I'll point out that 48.34% of voters did recognize a con artist.
- dvdhnt 2y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 2y ago>Alternatively, 48.34% were gullible... Oh, look! More blanket generalizations that ignore the very much discussed discourse around Biden's faculties, the democratic party's tactics during their campaign and shift towards Harris, and the many nuances behind why people chose to vote for Harris as opposed to Trump.
- dvdhnt 2y ago[flagged]
- jjulius 2y agoI've made no generalizations. I simply used OP's con artist phrase to highlight the fact that not all voters did what OP intimated. I'm sure that there are those who voted for Trump that did feel he was a con artist, to use one example. Perhaps slapping some quotes over "recognize a con artist" in my first comment would've helped clarify things.
- pupppet 2y agoNot nearly high enough. And the rest of the world is watching a good chunk of that disapproving half sit on their thumbs while he tears the country apart.
- tzs 2y agoMaybe higher--I think you may have ignored third party candidates. 50.2% voted for someone other than Trump.
- mmastrac 2y agoElect a ___ expect a ___. Honestly this next four years is going to be great everywhere else now that we're becoming desensitized to the news again. I've never seen such a unifying figure in my life -- and the opportunity for Canada in the next decade is huge. Decoupling is a surgical procedure we've been putting off for too long.
- calvinmorrison 2y ago[flagged]
- mmastrac 2y agoActually your largest trading partner, who also fought Nazis, is the lowest on the list (or top, depending on how you frame it).
- calvinmorrison 2y agobased on the historical film 'Canadian Bacon', I'm surprised there's even a 19% positive toward our great nation.
- mmastrac 2y agoFunny, that movie was intended to be a satire of populism, not an instruction book.
- aprilthird2021 2y agoWhat a crock. The USSR saved a ton of people from Nazi occupation also, does that mean they enjoy carte blanche to do whatever and threaten whoever and invade whoever and do whatever they want and anyone who dislikes them should be left defenseless? Maybe our reputation is slipping because we are needlessly threatening and taunting our allies, because we are detaining random tourists with legal visas to scare them, and because our President doesn't understand 1st year collegiate economics
- calvinmorrison 2y ago> The USSR saved a ton of people from Nazi occupation To promptly put them to work in the mines. Communists are as bad, if not worse than Nazis.
- daedrdev 2y agoYes thats exactly the point they were making. Saving people from nazis 75 years ago means little today
- bix6 2y agoSurprised it could get any lower. We elect clowns to office and exalt psychopaths to leadership in industry. What happened to community and civic duty?
- morkalork 2y agoThat's socialism. Just going off of wordplay, America's ideals are anti-social.
- bix6 2y agoCareful mentioning the S word! You might get locked up for thinking about someone besides yourself.
- dvdhnt 2y ago[flagged]
- bix6 2y agoPeople love to harp on sleepy joe but the administration continued to function and move things forward even with an aged out leader. Trumps complete disregard for leadership and laws has made it a much bigger joke imo.
- mmastrac 2y agoGiven how much power was concentrated in the executive, it's probably better if the role became largely ceremonial.
- dvdhnt 2y agoThat’s a horrible conclusion. It’s anti-constitutional and exactly why you have unchecked power now. We have checks and balances. The courts and congress are the safeguards.
- dvdhnt 2y ago
- Isamu 2y ago>Only six months ago 52% of Canadians saw the US as a positive influencer; now only 19% feel the same. This 33-point fall is the largest recorded for any country. Not shocking, we’re all bundled into a clown car, you get that lurching “here we go” feeling.
- ingen0s 2y agoSometimes you have to lose a battle in order to win a war. Anyways, God bless America - from Canada.
- foogazi 2y ago1814 never forget
- brink 2y agoI think that was kind of the point? The political right in America felt that a "good reputation" was costing us too much. They seem to care about other things more than their reputation.
- dvdhnt 2y ago[flagged]
- ragebol 2y agoReputation is about perception. Both can be seen as bad, but but one can still be worse than the other.
- JimBlackwood 2y agoWhy? The article is about how nations are perceived. Given the current climate, I’m not surprised that China is perceived as a more positive role than the US. From my own perspective; They seem to be interested in maintaining stability in international trade, which keeps peace and allows people to keep their jobs.
- dvdhnt 2y agoAmerica is a free market who uses its military to keep shipping and global trade free from interference. We deport some illegal immigrants. China is a communist country with real life re-education camps. They manipulate markets and steal intellectual property. They’ve been cozied up to authoritarian and oppressive regimes, like Russia, for a long time. That’s worse for stability in my opinion.
- JimBlackwood 2y ago> China is a communist country with real life re-education camps. They manipulate markets and steal intellectual property. They’ve been cozied up to authoritarian and oppressive regimes, like Russia, for a long time. Yes, definitely agree. > America is a free market who uses its military to keep shipping and global trade free from interference. We deport some illegal immigrants. I think everything you said about China applies to America now, just for shorter period of time than for China. America's government officials say things that are indistinguishable from Kremlin propaganda. Directives and tariffs are put in place to directly manipulate markets in other countries. America is now deporting immigrants that were allowed to stay in America to prisons where human rights are violated. America's Secretary of Health is advocating for labor and re-education camps. With China, I feel like we know how insidious they are and what they do. With America, we have no clue how far it will go. So out of two evils, currently I expect China to be the lesser one. That really says something.
- whynotmaybe 2y ago> China is now seen as a more positive influence than the US. It’s the first time this has been the case during the ten years we have tracked this question. Across the 29 countries covered, an average of 49% say China will have positive effect on world affairs, up 10 points on six months ago. That's the real change. The drop of America is consistent with it's president behaviour towards its allies, but it's still surprising that it's so intense that now China seems better for the world than it was a few months ago, even though nothing really changed.
- pixelpoet 2y ago> even though nothing really changed Rocking the world's financial markets and disappearing people is nothing? I honestly don't know how to process such an opinion...
- dvdhnt 2y ago[flagged]
- soco 2y agoThey probably meant that nothing has changed on the Chinese side to make them suddenly 10% more trustworthy.
- whynotmaybe 2y agoExactly what I should have written.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoThey did get to respond publicly to the trade war threats against them and seem to be doing pretty well in supporting the global rules based order as part of that. Worth a couple of points at least.
- karmakurtisaani 2y agoI think people tend to think in relative rather than absolute terms here. US going unpredictable makes China seem relatively better, which doesn't translate so well on some absolute scale. Possibly a better poll would be to arrange the countries in order of trustworthiness etc.
- duxup 2y agoAmerica's enemies couldn't do this much damage if they tried, but the Trump administration is happy to weaken our country on the inside and outside.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoIt's fairly obvious that Trump is Putin's pawn
- DougN7 2y agoThat is definitely the easiest solution to come to.
- hattmall 2y agoI wonder why it is that they didn't poll China with this question?
- dgfitz 2y agoI don't understand why this is important. Maybe if you run an international business? So like, 0.01% of citizens? I actually kind of like that the US is no longer being put on a pedestal. Let someone else have a turn. See how they do, maybe good things will happen.
- mrtksn 2y agoApple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, Meta, Tesla and many more US companies operate internationally and their valuations are based on their ability to serve billions of people globally. You will have very different valuations, profits and salaries if those end up with a market of 330M people instead. I suspect that more than %0.01 of the Americans will be impacted.
- dgfitz 2y agoI didn't mention impacted, I said important. Is it a bad thing if those giant tech companies come back down to earth? I would argue no. They do not provide value, they extract it, generally, and play shitty games with taxes. What good does Meta provide to humanity? Why do I pay netflix to watch ads? Why does google ignore their own search api directives when I put a word in quotes? (To show ads) The only possible actual value amazon created is AWS, the rest is peddling garbage products from garbage vendors. Apple lost the plot somehow with their sw/hw stack, they could use a wakeup. And tesla, ironically, seems poised to be the first domino to tip, the cybertruck is a disaster. If those companies have such a significant impact on global citizens, they probably should blow up, that isn't a "good thing" at all, that much influence.
- mrtksn 2y agoThose writing JS at Meta won't start making cars. It's just that US will become poorer overall and some might feel better for themselves that they are not in Software. If you are anti-USA I guess that's something desired.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoFarmers are almost all international businesses, and that's 2% of the population right there.
- amitrip 2y ago[dead]
- sleepyguy 2y ago[flagged]
- kayge 2y agoThanks for this, I'm interested in hearing more anecdotes about Americans traveling abroad recently. I'll be in Italy and Greece for a few days each starting late next week and I'm curious (maybe slightly nervous) about how interactions and conversations with locals will go.
- timbit42 2y ago> and half of America didn't either. Too many didn't vote at all.
- palata 2y agoI find it interesting that the US reputation in South America seems pretty good. Pretty sure that the US reputation dropped during Trump's first term, but this time he surely has broken his personal record. Also I think this time it's not only Trump: his oligarchs probably had an influence on that (starting with Musk and his Nazi salutes). Of course, the threats to invade Canada and EU territories (amongst others) had an impact, too. As for the tariffs, I really feel like it's helping China's reputation: they stay strong against the bully who seems to be about to lose that battle.
- erxam 2y agoSouth America is also having its Trump moment currently, even if it's not as extreme. But with Milei in Argentina, Noboa in Ecuador, Bolsonaro in Brasil and the upheaval in Chile and Colombia, there's plenty of far-right stupidity to go around and keep supporting Trump even if he's not playing nice. And there's also the elephant in the room that's Venezuela. You see it with Venezuelans all the time. Even though they're being targeted by the Trump administration, they all still love him as if he were some sort of messiah just because he's opposed to Maduro.
- penguin_booze 2y agoIf you hire a clown, expect a circus.
- coreyh14444 2y agoCan we talk about how HN's "flag" feature is being used to suppress topics that tech-right folks don't want to hear? Every single post critical of Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days.
- tda 2y agoI have transitioned to news.ycombinator.com/active now, works for me now
- bryanlarsen 2y agoI use hckrnews.com
- kayge 2y agoSame, and FWIW I just recently noticed that [flagged] stories will continue showing up on the 'Top X' feeds (if they're popular enough), but they drop off if you're browsing the 'Homepage' feed.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoI think it's more that every single post about Musk or Trump gets flagged to oblivion these days. (I mean, that's about the same thing, because just about every post that's about them is critical of them.) Some of it is Musk fanboys and Trump shills and Russian political operatives and such. I'm sure some of that is going on. But some of it is just regular HN users who are sick and tired of political stories. There have been a huge increase in political stories in the past three months. And even if some of the stories are interesting, to some people, the second story in 12 hours isn't interesting, and the third similar story this week also isn't interesting. Some people are here instead of Reddit for a reason. They don't want HN to turn into Reddit. So they tend to flag political (or politics-adjacent) stories, unless they are directly tech-relevant - and maybe even then.
- Karrot_Kream 2y ago