Euro SUVs can not be compared to American SUVs.

You go buy a hunking monster of a German SUV, a BMW X7 or a Mercedes GLS right now, they’re actually shorter than the LWB versions of the 7 series or S-Klasse, at around 5.1-5.2 meters for the SUVs and 5.3 for the flagship luxury sedans (Maybach versions and such are longer ofc)

The SHORT version of the GM full-size SUV (Escalade/Yukon/Tahoe) is about that size. The full size version (Escalade ESV/Yukon XL/Suburban) is almost half a meter longer than that, at over 5.7 meters. Full-size pickup trucks get over 6 meters in length and those are completely normal commuter vehicles too. The Cybertruck isn’t even a very big truck in the US.

Japanese, Korean and American manufacturers all have models that they consider normal for North America, but won’t sell in Europe - though for the Koreans, those aren’t even THAT big - the Telluride is only a bit bigger than an X5.

That’s not to say that I disagree on the fact that we need to limit car size growth. But you can NOT compare Europe to the US. You drive around in more rural areas in the US on a single holiday trip and suddenly things like the Jeep Grand Cherokee start looking like small cars. The super popular “C-SUV” in your graph is a smaller vehicle than an Audi A4. A normal family car that can fit 2 proper child seats in the back and a stroller in the trunk in your graph is anything between C and D segment car or SUV. The average taxi, the Mercedes E-Class, is E segment.

Really the most stupid part to me is when people buy these C-SUVs. They don’t generally fit more people or luggage than C-Cars, and because of the extra weight and height, handling and ride quality is more compromised. They also cost more than equivalently sized cars. Just get a C-Car or D-Car in the form of a wagon. E-Car if you really need space. Most of my cars have been executive sized wagons (5 series Touring, E-Class T-Modell, A6 Avant are all cars I’ve owned) and they’ll beat a similarly priced compact SUV in pretty much any metric I can think of. I currently have about 200 kilowatts of power after a remap, do over 1000 km on a tank of diesel in mixed driving scenarios (1500+ on all highway), can sit in comfort all day long or race you on a curvy road, and carry half my furniture when I fold down the rear seats.

If it were to ever exit the S&P 500, it would for sure fall pretty hard. Unfortunately, for that to happen, it would need to fall even harder first.

Russian talking heads? Sure. They always make fun of the west and western leaders. But does Trump speak Russian?

Anyway, while Russian media is all more or less under Putin’s control, that doesn’t mean they’re always necessarily saying the same things he’s saying. If Trump’s having 90 minutes phone calls with Putin, I’m fairly sure he’s not getting ridiculed. Likely Putin talks to him like an equal - to his face, anyway. And being seen as an equal by your hero can pretty much blind you with emotions.

It’s the age old principle of “If I can’t have it, nobody can” that I’m afraid of the most. Anyone reasonable wouldn’t go by it, but if Putin is afraid he’s gonna die, he might as well.

It’s 2025, videos don’t matter anymore, definitely not to Trump.

First off we’ve had deepfakes for years so he could just claim that. Secondly, and this is more important, Trump’s base wouldn’t care anyway. They’d start off denying the whole thing, and then if it’s proven to be real, they’d just say it’s not that big of a deal because dems do it more and it’s worse, until finally they’ll say it’s actually a good thing, but only when Trump does it.

Honestly, I think Putin might actually be appeasing to Trump’s ego. Seems like a much easier way to control him than holding something over him tbh. Remember, for Putin, total control of Trump forever isn’t necessary. Even if he jumps off Putin’s dick right now, he’s already achieved so much for Putin that it’ll have been worth it for him.

Honestly, hitting the Kremlin may actually cause nuclear escalation. Putin’s ego would not survive the hit. Zelenskyy probably realizes this too, he’s not stupid.

Would YOU want to keep on living if you had to speak to JD Vance?

I mean he more or less did it at gunpoint. Do you not remember how hated he used to be? He would’ve been shot by someone eventually for sure.

I’m not the one making deliberately obtuse comments about completely valid grammatical constructs to make a political point.

At the same time you could argue that his decisions have affected billions of people on this planet in a negative way and the fifty million lives saved were to whitewash everything else he’s done. He’s not doing it out of the kindness of his heart, he did it because 1) Melinda told him she’d fuck off if he kept being such a jackass, and 2) As one of the most hated men in the world, he needed to fix his image.

Singular they had existed for centuries before your miserable existence.

It’s a way to refer to someone in the 3rd person without knowing their gender. If you do know their gender, you can use the proper gendered pronouns.

Not only ‘the’ for all sexes

‘The’ has always been gender neutral in English because English doesn’t assign gender to nouns. Thus grammatically, a gender-specific “the” isn’t necessary unlike in German or Spanish where all nouns have grammatical genders. And if you come back at me with “‘the’ isn’t even that old, it used to be spelled ‘ye’”, well the problem there is that it was only printed that way for convenience, the pronunciation was never with a “y”.

“It” is incorrect for using about a person as well, unless referring to a baby or a small child. Why? It’s just how English has been spoken for a long time now, and how it’s still used. Language rules should reflect usage, not the other way around.

I guess you need to pretend there’s a threat NOW in order to divert funds towards defense now.

If the threat is in more like 10 years, why don’t we start investing next year instead? etc.

It’s an Aurus, a Russian luxury brand. Knowing Russian automotive engineering, I’m sure the only part that works properly is the engine, which was developed with help from Porsche.

This is unfortunately not an option for everyone, but personally this is what I’m doing to reduce my exposure to Tesla via index funds.

I’m transferring mine to a group of non-US-specific indexes. The world indexes unfortunately still hold some Tesla, but the emerging markets ones sure don’t. In my previous retirement fund, a huge part was an S&P 500 index, but now there are no “US only” index funds. Also only one of the indexes is managed by a US company - previously there were a bunch of blackrock and vanguard funds in it. In case you’re wondering why I said “I’m transferring” and not “I transferred”, it’s because I can’t do it instantly. The application has been put in already though.

It’s not a huge amount of money (5 digits, I’m young, have only been working decent jobs for the last 6 years) and I don’t have full control of it since it’s in a pension system where the laws specify how much diversity there has to be, what the max fees can be, etc, and local banks run different funds you can switch between. I’m just doing what I can.

As for investments outside of this system, I’m thinking of buying some of this new Europe defense index ETF in addition to other interesting European and potentially Emerging Markets ETFs I might find. I think betting on Europe getting its shit together is a smart choice because if we don’t, we’re fucked anyway and if we do, I might as well make a small profit off it.

Ah okay, good to know!

That’s pretty cool

In Estonia we have specific words for forests of most common trees. Spruce is kuusk, spruce forest is kuusik. Pine is mänd, pine forest is männik. Etc. Otherwise it’s just “forest”.

Still, none of our forests, even ancient untouched ones, look as beautiful as the Australian rainforest. Which I’ve admittedly only seen in movies and Forza Horizon 3.

Would love to visit one day, but I’m not sure if I’m planning on ever visiting Australia. It’s so far and there’s not all that much I want to do in Australia in particular - though the car nut in me wants to drive the Mount Panorama circuit and it IS very close to Blue Mountains and a few other national parks, so if I find a few other things I’m interested in, Australia will start looking pretty attractive. I mean there’s the great barrier reef too, but I think the reef tourism is actually very damaging for the reef, so it’s best not to go see that?

Oh, tbh I thought Outback referred to the Australian wilderness as a whole, though I guess I’ve mostly heard it used in the context of desert overlanding.

Then I think there’s also “the bush”. What parts of Australia does that refer to?

Oh yeah, you Aussies have a huge outback, I can see it being great for usage in a camper. Boats are another great use case I think.

Portugal could never buy enough jets to stop the US

No, but Spain is right next to it and France isn’t that far. Both likely to help. But why would they help Portugal if Portugal itself doesn’t take meaningful steps to protect itself? You use a lot of exclamation points in your comments! That doesn’t magically mean you’re right.

You also gotta make sure nobody tries to steal the Azores for their beautiful nature.