Angie and Vlad

Shit.

I was so taken with Vlad and Xi show that I missed the Vlad and Angie Show starting.

Now, I bet you think that I am going to start ranting about how Trumpolino just drove these two together.  For the record, he didn't help the situation one little bit, but the pre-existing conditions were never all that favorable for us here in the "Land 'o the Free" to control the situation much longer.

Look, Germany is a real player in the world, and we might not be offering that much anymore.  The Marshall Plan ended a long time ago and our troops squatting on some pretty sweet real estate has been a stick in their craw for a long time now.


The big problem here is us.  (Walt Kelly sez:  We have met the enemy and he is us).  The way that we deal with international politics is childish, and don't think for a moment that little Donnie is the fons et origo of our jingoism.  We threaten, we demand, anything less than our plan is for the trash bin.

We want to reduce our trade deficits with the other developed countries.  So we bully and threaten and tax the stuff they send us.  We do this to sell more of our shit to them and make their shit less attractive here.  We whine because their shit is "cooler" that our shit and we like our German cars to show off with.

But, the shit we want to sell them doesn't make sense to them.  LNG is just plain stupid.  Expensive, and even worse, sells our energy to they competitors.  Russian gas just makes more sense to the Germans.  Not because they are betraying us, because doing stupid shit to make someone else rich is a piss poor way to run a country.

So, while we are ignoring the idea that a major industrial power might have needs other than our desires, Vlad brings Angie flowers and listens carefully while she talks about her needs.

Don't think for a minute that stuff like that doesn't matter.