Unhinged FT Comments

France in fresh political and market turmoil after prime minister resigns Sébastien Lecornu, who quit on Monday, is asked by Emmanuel Macron to quickly negotiate a stability plan

www.ft.com/content/d2d7...

FT comment: The state of a nations capital city is often a reflection of where society is. Visiting Paris not long ago, I witnessed huge societal decline. Once beautiful buildings, covered in graffiti, street vendors selling knock off Eiffel towers, aggressive harassment of tourists into buying junk. Litter strewn streets and an epidemic of bedbugs. It was like something out of the medieval dark ages. And the French population? Tired. Angry. Rude. A shadow of their former selves. One only had to walk around the military museums to see this was a great power, all be it, it must be said they did lose to Britain, but credit where it is due they were powerful. They gave their country away to woke. Now? now we see the fruits of such a failed political ideology and it is the next generation of French who will suffer as the country falls further and further from grace

Woke has ruined France. Street vendors sell knock off Eiffel towers. Back when De Gaulle was in charge they would try to sell you the *real* Eiffel Tower.

Have we passed peak social media? As platforms degrade into outrage and slop, users are turning away

www.ft.com/content/a072...

FT comment: Is screen time going down by a corresponding amount? If not would be interesting to see where the time is being shift to. Ai apps perhaps? Reply: Or, the FT comments section.

Sorry, my inclusion in this study has been skewing the data

The good news is that people are coming up with solutions to this problem (taken from @piperformissouri.bsky.social)

FT comment: City boys FT. Not only is yer photo corn, but the old man is merely getting on (or off) his vintage tractor. Three city slicker errors at least! Can't you correct the photo? Or the caption? Or is telling falsehoods about farmers just fine in London, New York, and Tokyo? You want to know why the middle of the USA voted the urban coasts out of power? Look in the d@mn mirror. "It's just a photo..." may satisfy your conscience. But Middle Americans see disrespect like this and take deep offense. Another - "deplorables" comment by the ignorant press. Ignorant of farms. Ignorant of rural peoples concerns or feelings. I hope ignorant - one would not want these offensive lapses to be intensional?

FT article with a picture of an old man on a tractor surrounded by crops

No I think he was on to something with the last sentence, the FT's editor definitely used a photo of a corn farmer as a middle finger to people working in the soy industry

FT comment: Better for me to inherit a filet mignon than for 1,000 people to get a single cracker with the same proceeds, especially if my dad owned the cow. Reply: After they steals your family’s cow, how many more will you raise? Where will tomorrow’s crackers come from? If all the annual income of America’s billionaires were seized it wouldn’t cover one year’s deficit spending. If all of their wealth were seized it would cover only 25 percent of the outstanding debt. Then what?

Showed up today at the forced metaphor factory and someone tortured the foreman to death in his office

FT comment: "Kudos to him. There are many coffee influencers in this space. Nice to see a Brit make it to the FT. Watch his review of Aldi coffee maker. The intro must be one of the best roasting on a machine I have ever seen"

"Nice to see a Brit make it to the FT."
IT'S AN ENGLISH PUBLICATION

Comments have not been enabled for this article

Guess the news story

FT comment: All graphs show that France is not the problem. Brexit Britain is the biggest threat to the entire region! The EU should impose severe sanctions on Britain; basically seal it off economically so that its implosion does not contaminate the region.

Thank you for the advice, Chumbo

Thinking back to the good old days,

FT Comment: Re the opposite of a "dead cat bounce." How about a "dazed bat dip."

I don't think this one is going to catch on

FT comment: "Using CRRC maglev technology it would be possible to construct a Confucius bridge linking Chinese cities with Taiwan. It’s important that this is a cultural, not a political gesture. It could incorporate academic exchange, cross-strait ecological research, joint Confucian cultural centers and neutral infrastructure with multilateral oversight, perhaps including ASEAN or international observers. It would succeed only if backed by Confucian ideals including respect, dialogue and mutual benefit. It would need to be a vision of connection without coercion, emphasizing peace, harmony and cultural values. An 180km Taiwan Strait crossing could cost about $100 bn including maglev and earthquake resistance. As an example, Beijing and Shanghai are 1,318 km apart by high speed rail. A new maglev service can reduce this journey time to 2.5 hours"

"Confucian maglev"

FT comment: "Reduce expenses, cut every unnecessary expense, sell everything unessential. In the words of Bruce Lee: be like water The man that needs next to nothing cannot be bought."

Idiots spend thousands on financial advisors when the FT comment section is free

dear god

FT comment: "If we wanted to boost the birth rate... the NHS maternity ward would feel more like a hotel than an episode of M.A.S.H after the helicopters have landed. Once you've done that once, you never choose that again..."

What did they mean by this

FT comment: What a great man. Yes, all the phd's in the press are the commentariat (phd- "pull him down") will enjoy writing sarky comments, but really, he deserves feted, celebrated and admired.

Applying to a pull-him-down program in underwater basket weaving

Several consecutive FT comments: "I once emailed a haiku as a breakup letter. Maybe an LLM would have suggested a longer form... or could have condensed it to a couplet?" "Given correct instructions Madam ChatGPT can be brilliant 🤩🙊" "How to break up with a vegan: “it’s not you, it’s meat.” …. Thank you, I’ll be here all night."

The FT comment section is a great home for digital romantics

FT comment: People need to stop pretending folks like Mamdani aren't just pretending to be "socialist" because it's their best shot at destroying Israel. They really don't give a fig about grocery stores or daycare. And they need to stop pretending it's not antisemitic to destroy the planet's only Jewish state.

White people love to be named, "Mortimer Salamander"

FT comment: Wow. NYC close to electing a democratic socialist to Tamanny Hall. Expect the exodus to continue. They want city gocery stores ? They can't even run the subway properly. Houston and Dallas beckon.

I'm not sure that's what Tammany Hall is,,

FT comment: "Looking at it from afar I like Mayor Adams is there any chance he could carry on?"

Most deranged thing I've ever seen in the comment section

FT comment: Teflon Don Pedro is a lame duck leader, saying anything and everything to stay in power. This is a demand from his partners in the government (Sumar), who know that the current government are days away from calling an election due to corruption and lack of support for legislation. Pure political posturing.

Legally changing my name to "Teflon Don Pedro"

Though I guess I have assigned myself that role, haven't I?

FT comment: As always the key with trump is to take what he says and essentially apply it to him. I have rather always had a rule with relationships, no name calling and no violence. the name calling thing ended in about 6th grade, which is perhaps the level we are here. this should be powell's response: "I'm rubber, you're glue what ever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" or the other classic: "I know you are but what am I?" Anyone who has followed my comments over the years knows I am no fan of central banksters (as far as I know I invented this term). But trump has always called for lower rates, and in that I think it's insightful, because IMHO most economists are shills for the asset industry and call for lower rates. it's essentially a lobby group. (Which by the way is a big reason I have problems with warren and others in the dem party who think always lower rates is good). it benefits asset holders, so I wonder what their motivations are.

It takes a true poster's spirit to say something like "Anyone who has followed my comments over the years"

FT comment: In the nordics we have the legend that when old people could not contribute to the society anymore they were thrown down a cliff ("'ättestupa"). The example presented seems to be a modern version of the same. The fact is that overall the modern spending of the state controlled apparatus is insane. Elon Musk tried to correct but failed. Pensioners are not the problem. And remember Janan, some day you (hopefully) will be old too.

This FT comment section is sponsored by Ari Aster's Midsommar, available on streaming today!

FT comment: Think about the way countries are governed. No country is perfect, but some are less perfect than others. The Japanese made a huge mistake in not invading Australia. China isn’t expansionist in the way that Russia is, but it is obsessive about natural resources. What is all the nonsense in the South cchina Sea telling us? Reply reads: Big if true

"The Japanese made a huge mistake in not invading Australia."

FT comment: Maybe with people staying home during COVID we all discovered that we don't like each other. Although actually my wife and I and the dog did just fine. Well not the dog. He was 13 and it was his time. But we might say that the old dog and the new dog did fine.

I need you to understand that this is responding to an article on *Japanese birth rates*

FT comment: I am working on a theory that every large organisation ends up being run in the interests of its own employees. This is a good example

What do I do if I have theories? I contacted a college and they ignored me.

FT Comments: TACO TACO TACO

TACO

FT comment "The libertarian economist is slashing import tariffs to reduce high consumer prices, and wants to pivot the economy from manufacturing towards mining, energy and tech." Excuse us while we falsify -- I mean amend -- some paperwork so Mr. Milei can run for US President in 2028

I, too, want a US economy based on mining