Got the parts to fix my air conditioner in my car, and a used phone, and a retro handheld I had been putting off.
All used, of course. I’m not contributing back to this corrupt hell government.
I don’t plan on making any last minute purchases at this point.
The tariffs (and other recent economic decisions) are purposefully inflicted economic chaos and disruption. I am not smart enough and do not have enough inside information to make truly informed decisions. I do not trust my ability (or really anybody else’s ability) to make long term, last minute plans around the deranged actions. Most, if not all, good plans should have / would have been executed a while ago anyway.
It doesn’t make sense to me to go ahead and buy stuff like a laptop, cellphone, car, etc right now “just in case”, spending lots of money I might not need to spend and which could be put to better use later. And for less expensive necessities, I already stock up on that sort of stuff as much as I can afford to buy and store because I live in a disaster prone, rural area so it’s always been a reasonable and rational thing to do for folks that have the means.
My plan, which began pretty much as soon as the election results were clear, was and is to make do with less. I’ve put off all non-essential “big” purchases I was considering. I’ve given up or significantly reduced luxury and impulse purchases. I’ve switched to less expensive brands, even if I like them less. I’ve switched to cheaper alternatives where applicable. And now I will buckle down, encourage and support others to do the same as best they can.
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I love coffee. I didn’t start drinking it until I was 22.
i dint start drinking til like 2 years ago,
We are buying supplies to do fixes in our home like fresh paint, to get it up for market.
Bold of you to assume i have money.
I can’t really think of anything I need that will be problematic when the tariffs drop. I do have a hankering for French cookware, but at the same time, I don’t NEED more French cookware. ;)
Plan is the same as before Trump’s stupidity… pay off debt. Plan to be out of debt (except for the mortgage) by end of year.
I bought some computer parts even though I don’t live there. Just cause I expected it to be worse soon.
We got a refrigerator. Needed one anyway but rushed it a couple months back because I saw the writing on the wall.
Sadly, I have no way to import a KMR L–02 Orca OR, since the ATF makes it such a pain in the ass to import onsey-twosey, and the tariffs mean that if they ever get a US distributor, it’s going to be out of my price range.
But I did get a CZ Shadow 2 Compact a week ago, and that’s going to be my carry and competition gun for however long these tariffs last.
I’m going to have to get a few pounds of powder, primers, and a few thousand bullets (the projectile part), because all of that is going in increase in costs, too. I was quoted a price of $315 or so for 8# of Vihtavouri N-135 powder; I’ll probably try to get 16-24#, 15,000 small rifle primers, and at least 8-12# of Ramshot Silhouette powder. About half of the raw materials to make bullets–lead, copper, brass, nitrocellulose, etc.–end up being imported, because we simply can’t keep up or don’t have the mines.
Czech here, also own the CZ Shadow 2 (full size), it is such a pleasure to shoot.
Vihtavuori, lol.
I have everything I need, but my partner bought a massive bag of rice.
buying dental hygiene products, items for my newly persisting PDs, that should last me a while. Rx will be more complicated though. i got most of last years prescription, just refilled each month eventhough i havnt finished the current ones, so i can just ration that for my dermatitis.
i recently bought oneplus12r which is a chinese product, glad i bought it before he began the tariffs, this has a large battery life so it would last a while, better than pixels and iphones. hate to say i do have to use prime for most of my shopping, only way to get things on the cheap without be gouged by big chain stores.
I just panic bought a new phone, after realizing mine probably won’t make it a year.
Same.
DS9 station from BlueBrixx
It’s so cool. I got to help assemble one.
I can’t wait to built it!
25# bag of Vietnamese rice A tablet with cover for my kids Christmas gift a usb-c cable
Audio gear. Car parts. Laptop. All were due for an upgrade anyway.
Nothing, I’m not buying anything special from that country they can fuck off.
Slowly but surely we will move all our ongoing needs away from the USA and back within the EU fully, so that they can burn in their own little corner of the dark ages as they desire, while we continue to live in present day.
It’s one thing to say Fuck the US. It’s another to say fuck Americans.
I’m American and I’ll say both. They(we) let it happen, and our cowardice and inaction right this second just continues it. We had millions of protesters over the weekend. Did anyone listen? Nope. Until we take it back by force, nothing will change and the majority isn’t willing, so, we’re just gonna take it. Every second of inaction is willingness on our part. It can always get worse and does, yet we do nothing.
We deserve it. Maybe it will finally wake us the fuck up, if it doesn’t destroy us first.
The people that are going to suffer the most are the ones that don’t deserve it. It will be the gay kids in the south who are sent to conversion therapy and are physically abused to “fix” them. It will be the black buisness owner who is forced to hire more white people so it isn’t “dei”. It will be a sweet grandma that starves to death because she can’t afford food anymore.
Your examples are tame. There are already prison camps in El Salvador, house raids, disappearances, death of the rule of law…
This is actual fascism playbook™ stuff.
We had millions of protesters over the weekend. Did anyone listen? Nope.
What’s supposed to happen from protests? Let’s say that you have a representative who was just elected or reelected and they’re fully aligned with the current administration’s policies. They don’t need votes or your support. Of what use will protests have?
Rallying our forces. Protests are where people get connected with organizations whose focus is to bring the working class into cohesive groups that are empowered through collective struggle to win better conditions. A protest makes it visible to everyone at the protest and all the regular working people who witness it, what they believe in as a collective and that none of them are anywhere near alone in feeling that way. They make it clear, both to the protesters and to the ruling class, how much strength there is in numbers and how deeply connected we are. It is a show of our forces and; even though I agree that protest is severely neutered under our current state of policing; when done correctly, it can still be a display of the numbers that we are willing and able to mobilize and even use to disrupt the system when doing so is strategically advantageous and agreed upon by the movement.
Of course, the ones done correctly are generally the ones that don’t get any media attention, if not deeply negative attention, precisely for all the reasons I stated. It is against the interests of the wealthy and ruling class for those to be viewed positively and widely publicized.
Oh, the reaction to these protests also makes it blindingly apparent where the loyalties of the ruling class lie, which is bound to wake a few people up along the way.
If nobody ever mobilizes, you quickly see people start to go doomer, believing nobody cares and there’s no possible way out of the situation because this is what we “chose”. This is a “democracy”, and this is what democracy gave us, so it must be correct. It’s much easier to gaslight the masses and normalize what is happening if they never see resistance to the popular narratives put up by powerful monied interests.
Excellent answer. I fall into the category of your last paragraph. I feel like I’m in a country not my own and if this is what the populace wants, maybe I’m in the wrong place.
This actually connects a few things for me that I’ve been thinking about lately. I believe that the current “ruling” class has figured out, among other things, that it is easy to disrupt a collective action problem while somehow also solving it for their own groups. If you look at the people in the cabinet and other supporters, they’d all be fighting each other, but are somehow united under one man.
If I understand your post correctly, organizing to protest puts like minded people together to further organize into groups that can unite to solve common problems even if their personal problems differ. For example, if I’m out to support trans youth and I meet up with someone to support women’s reproductive rights, we both have a common vested interest in changing the current political climate even if I’m also a gun owner.
