A thermic vehicle sounds delightfully whimsical to my ear, like some sort of victorian steam car.
For some reason the form thermic is almost never used in English, instead preferring Thermal with only one exception I'm aware of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
Nowadays I rarely carry a charger. On the either hand I am carrying several devices that are right on the knife edge of catching fire at any time
I doubt however that it will change how long people will keep existing working cars. Depreciation cost of a new electric car is likely going to be higher than the increased cost of fuel for an older car.
Also, 50 000 "leasing social" cars will soon appear on the 2nd hand market.
More than Angela Merkel? I doubt it
Time fixes everything. Give it a few generations and the world will be inhibited by new humans who will carry on doing what life demands of them, unfazed by today's events.
Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
Please elaborate.
Masterful gambit.
The USA has lost the plot.
Meanwhile, China, responded firmly and has come out even better against Trump.
Too late.. US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada have already agreed to a coordinated release of 100 million barrels of crude oil and diesel through the IEA.
This is such a ridiculous example of the live to fight another day mentality of the Trump administration. They try to survive for the next 24 hour news cycle, totally neglecting what might happen in 3 months.
I suppose after that, it's not going to be a problem for Trump after 32 days..
Meanwhile more strategic autonomy is being built up, but it will take years; when one of Trump's sons is president, we'll be in a better position to properly stand up.
This goes beyond the price of diesel. It is an attack on basic survivability of the nations that may depend on that reserves in the future.
Never vote for a death cult.
- is incapable of apologizing
- has a history of abusive behavior
- doesn't have a sense of humor, especially at their own expense
"How to spot an idiot": https://youtube.com/watch?v=i2Lo8ChhOKU
If Germany loses access to one source of oil and pays a premium to substitute Norwegian oil instead, guess what? Sweden has to pay the same higher price for Norwegian oil as well.
This interconnection of global markets is why Trump is trying to increase diesel supply in Europe in order to lower prices in the US in the first place.
Why doesn't he ban exports right away, forcing Europe to use their stockpiles anyways?
Is it that he can't? So the entire threat is moot?
Is he thinking of using the Graham bill to threaten +100% tarrifs for buying Russian gas?
This is why he hasn't done it yet. Everybody in the US with money at stake called him and told him it was a stupid idea.
Because big oil doesn't like that.
And as others said, diesel is just one product. If you want to keep producing the other products you'll have to sell or store that diesel. The capacity is too much for the US alone and storing all excess capacity isn't feasible. So if he does it, there will be a surplus which means big oil will lose a large amount of money.
But this is based on my simplistic understanding of how this works, I'm really not sure about the details.
What a fucking narcistic war monger clique.
It is currently in Europe's best interest to force this clown to back down in Iran.
I will happily take €5 per liter (not gallon) for a month just to annoy Trump in the slightest.
It will inflict short-term pain in Europe, but in the long-term it will be better. It's like ripping out a bandaid.
Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?
It could have been so smooth, it could have gone so well, but the world went mad...
That's what the Climate Catastrophe is going to do if nothing changes!
It solidifies further that the US is an enemy to Europe, a hostile country that has a desire to undermine and destroy us.
> What if supply stays low and prices stay high?
This will have the long term benefit of making EU countries rely less and less on a commodity that it has no control over.
> and Russia takes the chance to invade while Europe has nothing to power their industry and tanks?
Russia can't even fight a respectable war against Ukraine. Now that Ukraine gets to actually blow refineries in Russia and explode shit in Moscow, even less so.
> Why must the energy transition be "move fast and break everything" while the industry and households suffer under the strain of high prices?
That's how changes happen. Without challenges everyone stays complacent.
If only he could have avoided causing the high prices in the first place so he wouldn't have to try to strongarm his "allies" now. I hate this timeline.
European here. It's not surprising. We knew we were in for a ride when y'all reelected the buffoon in 2024. But the sheer ignorance and outright malice the US has shown in the last two years alone... tariff wars against what are nominal allies? Threats to forcibly annex an ally's territory? Dragging us into an economic crisis with the completely botched Iran war? Setting up an economic crisis that will put the disaster of 2007ff to shame by allowing the wash trading and Habsburgian investment web in the AI economy?
Trump has permanently burnt bridges here. Even if people were protesting, it wouldn't matter, this damage will take decades to repair.
Even if the whole EU release twice that amount now, prices, if they decrease at all before the mid-terms, it will probably be a couple of pennies. But I expect all it will do is temporarily stop the price of diesel from raising.
All it will do is allow Spectators to cash in on profits between now and the midterms.
Agreed with you there, and it leaves me ever more exhausted.
> Then I go out with my day because nothing he says is relevant in any way.
Unfortunately, when the US sneezes, Europe gets hit by a tornado. Ever since this godforsaken war against Iran, gas prices were unpredictable and unsustainably high.
It would have been one thing, had the US properly conducted the war - aka, had they prepared their allies in the region, had they asked us to join the fun, and committed ground troops. But they didn't, they caught all of us off guard, completely botched the execution, and we had to deal with the fallout.
Committing ground troops would be necessary to actually achieve objectives here. But that would lead the US into a very different, probably even larger shitshow.
The budget deficit is the largest in history, the federal government size has increased, taxes on imports (tariffs) have increased in politically manipulative ways and now the government is meddling with the market price of commodities.
Even if you don't care about Europe or democracy or pollution or foreign policy... this is still just bad capitalism and bad big-government manipulation preventing the free market from correctly solving problems and establishing an optimal price for goods.
Then the lunatics took over.
They were pushed out long ago, and mostly don't exist in any meaningful number. Even then, what could they do?
I think the issue with this hypothesis is that it omits variables.
Basically... is the United States, scratch that, WILL the United States be on a trajectory, post-Trump, where there is reason to believe future leadership will consistently be trustworthy to foreign nations? And how would anyone know that, or at least have reasonable confidence in that belief?
What brought us here to elect someone like this, and is that "what" going away or being fixed? Is there some hope for undoing polarized politics in this country, so that "this election is the most important of our generation" doesn't occur every four years, and both sides believe that "the other side" will ruin the country once and for all?
Time is not enough to fix the core issues. Time can move us past this particular era, these particular instances of unpredictable leadership, but time alone will not move this country past whatever levers of control convinced this electorate that this kind of leadership was the right choice for this country -- and the rest of the planet.
You are falling into the trap of believing Iran was anywere near buliding a nuclear weapon..... Even the security services in the USA said they were nowhere near, and that Iran was complient with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal
On the other hand, Netanyahu has been spouting off for 30 years that Iran is X days away from building a nuclear weapon; and Trump chose to believe him!
So Iran probably was a relatively short amount of time away from having a bomb. They probably just feared what would happen if they tested it.
Another important detail, there are basically 2 different ways to make a bomb...the U-235 way and the Pu-239 way. The first takes lots and lots of time but a bit less technical skill. The second takes far less time but a bit more skill. Its likely the Iranians had the skill to do either.
There are probably 2 dozen countries that were 30 years ago, today and will be in the future about 6 months from having a bomb. They have all the pieces but won't do the final assembly unless they fear a nuclear exchange involving them. They don't do those final steps because of the negative consequences to doing them.
PS Remember, we built two different types of bombs with less computing power than a pocket calculator.
PPS Your understanding of these issues is completely wrong. The JCPA was more of a stop gap than anything. Saying Trump is handling everything correctly is wrong but so is saying that leaving the JCPA in place was a good idea. It was just the best Obama could negotiate because nobody thought he had the guts to invade Iran.
Not necessary. Trump wanted a war (any war) and Israel was eager to give him one. Plus he could still pretend that "he didn't start it", or so he thought.
Can they just sodd off to a remote island with a golden palace? /Mars/ would be a good place. "One way ticket" playing as part of the OST. Shoot the whole clique with a lot of gold bars to the red planet.
Trump literally CANNOT admit he made a mistake.
Nixon may have been a corrupt sleaze ball but he knew he had to get out of Vietnam because it was destroying America and so he did.
The draft was very unpopular which is the one issue that the drove the support of the New Left. But after Nixon cancelled the draft, their support collapsed quickly. The war itself was never that unpopular and most of the reporting about it at the time wasn't very insightful (either way). That era is so propagandized because some people really need it to be. Otherwise, far left political movements would all be DOA because people would understand they only lead to losing elections.
And if you need more evidence, look at the results of the 1972 election. It was the 2nd most lopsided election in US history (just behind Reagan in 1984). If the myth were true, that election would have been somewhat close.
PS That era is by far the most propagandized part of US history. What is told to most people who weren't alive then about it has little to nothing to do with what actually happened. I'm not surprised someone would have your take, but its entirely false.
I think it would have been possible... had it been prepared many months earlier.
The biggest and, to make it worse, completely avoidable issue IMHO was that there was no advance deployment of anti-drone defense across the region. Iran-made Shahed drones have been a thing in Ukraine ever since 2023, it boggles my mind that no single MENA country other than Israel had built up any AA defense and thus they all (including the US) were forced to waste millions of dollars worth of missilies against a glorified lawnmower on wings.
The second issue was that no allies were involved in this at all. Everyone got caught completely off guard, so there was no way to, say, silently build up stockpiles of oil and oil products - and as a result, oil prices skyrocketed.
And the third issue was timing itself. By the time the Iranian regime slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors, it was too late. The US could have used the momentum - Iranian exilants and the people in Iran all but screamed for external intervention. But since there was no planning done at all, it took the US far, far too long, and so there was barely any inner support in Iran to take out IRGC.
The fact that the US and Israel botched target selection and coordination - the US bombed a girl's school and people that Israel would have been fine with as an ersatz regime for the Mullahs - just puts the icing on the cake. A good idea in theory, no love for the Mullahs from my side, may they rot in hell - but an execution botched so horribly it puts the incompetent warmonger Bush to shame.
> There's a reason previous US administrations didn't do this, and it wasn't because they were Iran-friendly.
Partially it also was because the US general public was sick and tired of constant wars that (seemed to) only serve the interests of the MIC, with barely any incentive for actually bettering the lives of the people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The early war phase was won fast, but it was completely obvious no one ever drafted plans on how to lead both countries on a path to actual prosperity.
I guess they'd lose customers if they banned Li batteries as almost everyone seems to carry them.
They do seem to have limits on their capacity.
It's the kind of thing that takes centuries to fizzle out, like between Denmark and Sweden, after 200-300 years the wars waged before that are mere historical artefacts used for jesting. If Denmark had been on the Axis-side willingly and tried to invade Sweden in the 1940s this would be a completely different relationship.
So yes, people will overcome historical grievances but it might take many generations, for us living right now it might not ever happen before we are dead.
Please elaborate.
Bingo! Dragon fever knows no bounds. I truly think there is no bottom in the pit of depravity.
Of course, in the periphery that is not good enough. For developed economies like Germany, France that is a totally normal growth rate. The allocation is the problem, very few people can’t get enough while the middle class is under pressure and the rest has real problems to pay their rents and food. Real growth can only be had by increasing local consumption and/or expansion of governmental spending.
That being said, I agree with your analysis.
[1] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2026/06/oecd-economic-o...
There is a lot more to it, but its too complicated to explain in a post.
This takes any weight out of your argument, because it’s demonstrably false. I live in Michigan, and diesel was between 6.50 and 6.99 a gallon a couple days ago, which is a bit lower than it had been the week before.
A zillion gas price sites would also show that this statement is false. It is not just “the west coast”.
Which areas are you referring to?
American democracy is eventually doomed, unless there are structural changes that make this kind of thing impossible to ever happen again. I predict a Democratic president and Congress in 2028. If they don't fix this, in the first two years, then limited government will not endure in the US. (Why two years? Because they probably won't have enough of a majority in Congress after the 2030 midterms. That's just how these things usually go.)
Other presidents also extended the power of the executive branch and over-used executive orders. Of course, not to the extreme degree Trump did.
Trump's legacy will be his effective use of social media saturation and his "mask off" approach to rallying his base. Previous (R) administrations felt they had to maintain at least a little civility and be coy about the kind of people they were rallying, and cryptic about the kind of emotions that activated these people. You had to use innuendo and dogwhistles. Trump proved that you can directly preach to people's anger, belligerence, and cruelty, win elections based on those messages, and even maintain your popularity by delivering on your promises with oppressive, cruel policies. This lesson is going to be burned into politics long after he's gone: You don't have to even try to be a statesman to lead government.
PS They are called "Executive Orders". Decrees are things monarchs give so I expect you aren't an American which explains your lack of understanding of US politics.
Interesting. We're talking current administration and Obama has bled into the conversation.. Lets see:
President Total Executive Orders (Combined);
Franklin D. Roosevelt 3,728 Woodrow Wilson 1,803 Calvin Coolidge 1,233 Theodore Roosevelt 1,081 Donald Trump 508 Ronald Reagan 381 Bill Clinton 364 George W. Bush 291 Barack Obama 276 Joe Biden 162
Official daily logs and historical texts for these directives are indexed in the Federal Register.[0]
No further questions.
0 https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-or...
The problem of elected representatives being nearly or somewhat dead seems to be bipartisan; such as Feinstein(D) or McConnell(R).
Nah....
The problem is that to enter politics in the USA, you need to be _very_ wealthy. This tends to rule out younger people being abale to stand for election.
By contrast, in the UK our last few prime ministers have included, as well as a few wealthy ones, the offspring of a telephone engineer (Burnham), a grocer (Thatcher), a toolmaker (Starmer) and a chap who ran a business flogging garden ornaments (Major).
Huehuehue
> Maybe some trust will be restored in a generations time, but there is no going back to the post-1945 hegemony which saw the USA, and the westen world, all benefit so much.
That's exactly the point. No amount of emotion today will persist the tests of time. You, as an ordinary inhabitant of the planet, like everyone else alive for the next 5 generations, will not exist on this planet anymore.
There is 0 chance that the opinion of "x country will never be trusted again" will occur as there is absolutely no control over the world you won't live in, nor have any significance of the elements involving discussions between countries happening today.
Those in charge at that time, who desire to achieve something, will.
Keep living the dream though, a few more years on this planet may hopefully help clarify the workings of this fact of life.
There are cultures on earth that have hated each other for centuries.
To quote something I just read. Keep living the dream and maybe one day you'll learn the workings of life.
Thanks for the chuckle.
If you want to hold a grudge for something that happened when no one is left alive when it occurred is on the individual. People who lead populations who desire something will achieve it regardless of the past.
Wasn't there a recent news cycle topic about the current US administration's cozying up to North Korea recently? Apparently so.. [0][1][2]
Who would have thunk.
0 https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/17/asia/us-north-korea-military-...
1 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/19/tit-for-tat-why-is-...
2 https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-explains-...
PS: in Poland fuel prices went up by exactly +50% from January. I wonder how far they'll go if the Demented Don would win over this threat.
Trust comes on foot but leaves on horseback....
You can only spend goodwill once... And boy, the US is burning goodwill at an insane rate right now.
Not in the least because to non US people this seems like exactly what one could/should expect when re-electing this guy.
It's not like we are better in that regards... you Dutch elected Wilders, and us Germans are falling for the AfD.
Also, a US president is VASTLY more powerful than either a prime minister in NL or a kanseller in Germany. The US is also a bigger world power than any European country by itself. So the implications are different.
Clearly the French are currently in need of extra fuel: https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cmx2z20vz124t
The US elected him twice. With the second time being after pretty much an attempted coup. This is bad judgment on another level IMHO
And again a prime minister in the Netherlands: 1. does not have the same amount of power as NL is smaller and doesn't put as much power in one person 2. Is always the head of a coalition government in which the extreme ideas have been tabled