What country would that be?

Yes, but the point was that very, very few countries use a non metric system as their primary measurement system because they just don't see a point in making their lives unnecessarily complicated. If I can choose between using metric for everything and using a mishmash of metric and other arcane measurement systems I'm going to choose pure metric every time.

... and then get robbed by Amazon on shipping.

I've had a handful of tools sold to me on Temu and AliExpress that weren't quite up to snuff but the rest performed as expect. The first thing an Asian online shopper will tell you is read the reviews and pay particular attention to the negative ones and the ones with photographs and if you stick to that you'll generally get what you pay for. I suppose we can now add Slavic countries to that list.

That is only a problem for the three countries that still predominantly use the antiquated imperial system of measurement: United States, Liberia, and Myanmar.

I know what Shein, Temu and AliExpress are like and I just got used to it because I know that these sales tactics are pretty normal in parts of Asia. Having said that I'd still rather buy this 'cheap sheit' directly from Shein, Temu and AliExpress rather than 'entrepreneurs' in the West who add a 1-500% markup on the exact same 'cheap sheit' which they buy directly from Chinese factories for even less than Shein, Temu and AliExpress charge. Some of the more brazen Western resellers just source their stuff from the Shein, Temu and AliExpress web sites from the comfort of their home office, sell it to you at a huge markup and don't even bother to take the item out of the Chinese packaging before forwarding it to you. A lot of western retail these days is basically just an obscenely overpriced personal shopping service so why not just buy from as close to the source as possible and cut out these parasites? Finally, a lot of this 'cheap sheit' actually isn't 'sheit'. The quality of most of the stuff I get from Shein, Temu and AliExpress is actually quite decent.

So the ten dimensional chess master has finally figured out that the man's name isn't 'Tim Apple' ... I suppose that's progress.

Not really, automation has been going on for a very long time, it may be speeding up now because of AI but automation it's nothing new. What this will likely do in the short to medium term is increase the amount of education people are going to have to get and change the kind of education they will need. Forecasting what AI will do to employment long term is above my pay grade.

As long as I have been in the IT business this has been a problem. Companies are constantly SCREAMING for experienced skilled labor but nobody wants to provide young workers with the opportunity and experience they need to acquire those skills. If you are graduating in this day and age, expect dozens, or even more depressingly, hundreds of answers like; "go work for company X that still offers entry level positions, work there for a few years and then come to us and we'll be happy to hire you" from companies run by clever CEOs who aren't offering entry level positions but that's OK because everybody else is and they them clever selves can just poach from those dummies. In the end the CEO class will have to decide whether they are willing to do what it takes to generate that new skilled and experienced labor and punish the parasites that don't participate in that effort or whether they really can replace all IT labor with chat bots and robots. If those predictions that AI will end all human labor by 2027 come true that latter option should be the easy one.

Meanwhile in Magastan: Back to the past !!! Trump Digs Coal !!! DRILL BABY !!! DRILL!!!

No, that would be the USA because the Orange One walks with god ... LOL. As for China, it is not immune to economic problems, China can have a deflation like every other country, but China isn't going to collapse either. Pathological China haters on YouTube have been fantasizing in vain about China imploding for many years but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to be vindicated by reality.

Russian gas exports to Europe fell off a cliff in 2022, there are a few Quislings who still buy from Russia but basically that trade is over. Trump was always going to fail in his quest to tariff the whole planet to bring cheap crap manufacturing back to the US to make it there more expensively and he will continue to fail at it. Trump doesn't give a fuck about Taiwan although he probably should given how central it is to the US tech industry. Finally, Trump is already hard at work starting a cold war, and not just with China, but also a whole string of countries that were US allies only a few months ago. The US literally only has three allies now, Israel, Russia and North Korea, ... enjoy!!

Trump should write a second volume and call it: "The art of no deal"

Sure, according to a MAGA rando on YouTube with a bee in his bonnet about China.

Maybe, but with tariffs on Chinese goods imported into the US. That's a 30% extra tax on the US poulation, it is inflationary and it won't be popular once the US public in general finally figures out that China ain't paying those taxes and that their own public services are being cut to pay for Trump tax cuts that will mostly benefit the super wealthy.

Oh sure, US will have severe problems restarting those supply pipelines. But it's not just US companies stuck with price hikes on shipments they ordered before the tariffs were imposed or changed, it's also Chinese suppliers who are stuck with a completely non dependable business partner and those suppliers in China will be extremely reluctant to be burned twice because: Tarriffs are on, tariffs went up, tariffs went, down again, tariffs are waaaay up, ... tariffs are suspended for 90 days ... and then what? The 'mad-man' tactic that Trump is being celebrated for in the US right-wing press is a limited instrument, it's effectiveness wears off after the first few times you use it as people just get tired of your shit and restructure trade around you. Then there is the topic of Trump's frontal assault on the rule of law in the US which is going to make the country un-investable. This is about a whole lot more than just the organizational challenges of rebuilding supply pipelines, Trump is taking a sledgehammer to everything that makes the US a commercial and financial superpower.

This is just stupid. The Chinese are worried they will lose 16 million jobs, but they can afford to effectively put 16 million people on the dole by subsidizing affected businesses or by putting these people to work on extra public works projects. Meanwhile the Trump admin thinks it went to Geneva, where they dominated and won bigly like the alpha males they are because China lowered their tariffs more than the US but the Trumpkins are just shooting themselves in the foot, ... again. This is just the same old Trump shtick, create a problem, let everybody freak out over it for a while and the emerge, deus ex machina style, to 'solve' the problem you created. Problem is that other countries have gotten wise to this parlor trick. China cutting tariffs to 10% will perhaps do something to boost US soybean and pork exports (with all the transformative effects that's going to have on the US economy, LOL) but China has long since started sourcing all of that from other countries to de-risk from the US. Meanwhile any benefits from China's lower tariffs on US goods will be offset by a 30% price hike on all the cheap goods the US population has become accustomed to (while it now watches the richest 10% get colossal Trump tax cuts while public service are cut to pay for those cuts), the price of those goods will have become something like 50% higher by the time they arrive in the shelves at US stores (including a crap ton of pharmaceuticals) causing a price shock. All of this will still raise inflation to piss further off the US public which (apart from the bedrock MAGA cultists) are now less likely to uncritically swallow the idea that it's all and Biden's fault. If I was China I'd draw these 'negotiations' with Trumpistan out as long as I possibly could to buy time to negotiate trade deals with other far more trustworthy partners like ASEAN, MERCUSUR and the European Union.