Rants and WTF are you talking about and Coronavirus!

[QUOTE=Pessimist;2555024]Did you get your CDC card laminated yet? I wonder how many countries will accept it as an acceptable Covid passport. I did not hear if the US has any plans of actually issuing a real Covid passport. Probably unlikely. That requires a nationwide effort, a separate bureaucracy, yadda yadda not to mention this vaccine officially has an expiration of a year. Most likely, the CDC card is it (which does not have even your picture on it and hence is not much of an ID, but it is something).

Anyway, even if US travelers are accepted in DE, not sure how many will be rushing. Their situation is now worse than here. All the travel related businesses (airlines, Visa / Mastercard, etc) are saying regional travel is opening up -- intra Europe, US to LatAM corridor, etc. Speaking for myself, I will go only if the FKKs are functioning, normal, and girls quality / service is reasonably near pre covid levels. Otherwise, I have no interest in visiting Europe for tourism purpose on my own or w / family (and speaking of FKK visits, the big problem for me is still how to come up with believable stories to leave home for extended periods).[/QUOTE]Fortunately for me I do not have the problem with coming up with believable stories for travelling to De. For me the problem is how do I stay home if in October I read on the forum of lots of girls in Sharks and Oase.

[QUOTE=McAdonis;2555067]Indian households earn more than ethnic group in the USA. But that is partly due to the fact the immigration process is extremely selective, so only the most talented are being selected to leave India. But if India becomes the next China, then your next Satya Nadella (Microsoft) or Sundar Pichai (Google) will have less reason to leave India. For same reasons, Nigerian diaspora live in Western countries is also extremely successful.[/QUOTE]Guessing it will take India quite some time to reach China's level. Do they have the infrastructure to support rapid growth and do they have the type of government / society to coordinate that growth efficiently? As they grow more distant from the UK, will that hurt their growth prospects?

Was browsing articles regarding Nigerian international students and saw a statistic that Nigeria was only able to accommodate 600 K university students per year. However, they graduate about 2 million eligible high school students. Hence the propensity to export individuals more likely to succeed. Student visas are the the quickest way to bypass tight immigration standards. Further inspection showed that the top five destinations for Nigerian students were UK, US, Canada, Australia, and Germany. Four of those are English speaking nations. There's a high likelihood that plays a significant role in the type of Nigerians immigrants those nation receive. Germany gains a favorable position because they provide a path to free university education for international students.

Apparently there's a big push from countries like Poland and Malaysia to recruit Nigerian students because the cost of education in Anglo nations is getting too expensive. Nigerian enrollment in UK unis fell 41% from 2015 when they almost broke even with Indians to become UK's second largest international student group. Now they are UK's 6th largest group. Coincidentally that drop aligned with Brexit. Anyway, point is, interconnected with education, natural language destinations likely play a significant role in why we see differing social class of SubSaharan Africans in various nations. Ghana piggybacks on Nigerian trends regarding exporting their students.

Switching gears, China was UK's top student group. Apparently China is the largest international student group in just about every nation. Another purposeful strategy in China's world domination strategy? Pretty genius if so.

While the last four years saw the United States looking more inward, same for EU?, China continued their low key March to building their global network, starting from the nitty gritty. First with their vital role in supply chains, then with financial lending, and the ensuing infrastructure investment in foreign nations, meanwhile sending their people literally all over the world for education. It's pretty scary actually.

I think one of the more consequential but least discussed goofs during the last US presidential administration was the withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership. Looking at only short term losses in margin, we essentially kept the door open for China to fill that void in the long run. Here was an opportunity to firewall China's economic March, and we punted the ball at 4 and short, probably from their 40 yard line to boot.

Pardon my random flow of ideas. Hopefully it remained a logical one. First day of being technically unemployed girls!

[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2555133]Russia might not be a communist country but sure as hell is not a free country. You guys are all about shouting "the government is taking away our freedom" but then you admire Putin. What is it with all these "freedom" people that they need to have a big daddy to worship?[/QUOTE]Familiar situation in my American Deep South. Lots of talk about individual liberties and freedom but when you get to know them, more often than not are more like sheep finding comfort under the watch of a Shepard. Religious associations intended. It's a strange mix of personal independence with gravitation toward Fascist rule of law. I feel a little bad saying it because most are truly good people who mean no one any harm. But there is a bit of hypocrisy and irony to that reality.

To be fair, I had analogous thoughts during my years in California, the western pillar of American Liberalism. I always sensed an air of demeaning judgement when I expressed any conservative opinions. They were not very liberal at all in my experience, not in the literal sense of the word. Certainly most were not free thinkers. Rather, I detected an air of conformist attitudes. The mark of many West Coast Liberals was the stench of social shaming for non socio-political Liberal ideologies. Even non dichotomous third party ideas were scoffed.

They didn't celebrate diversity as much as they claimed. While there was a definite visible ethnic diversity, outside of cultural differences, I never sense much diversity of thought. Yet, social cohesion was somehow also missing. It was a buffet of separate groups that hardly interacted with each other, not in a meaningful level anyway. It was like a society of every group being "special" but noticeably separate. Worse, genuine personalities were hard to come by. Any divergence from the scripted platform and you were deemed closed minded and backward. Yet eccentric weirdness was celebrated. Perhaps it has changed since 15 years ago. I'm just not sure for the better.

I much prefer the brash northeastern liberal culture, a bit more authentic. Or even the far northeast, basically Canadians. The American Midwest and Great Plains conservatives are also admirable in their authenticity. They might be the world's last cowboys. Shoot from the hip, but true to their ideologies.

Whoops, rambled again.

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2555155]At some point, the German (and other Western European governments) will have to take off their "proceed with caution" hats and recognize that while their "3rd wave" is viewed through the lens of higher infection numbers, it has not produced a corresponding number of fatalities and hospitalizations.

[/QUOTE]Angela Merkel isn't exactly popular among certain people but they don't understand what she's bad at. They think she's an evil decision maker but the reality is that Merkel is hesitant and afraid to decide. This was visible during the refugee crisis too.

This is why I wouldn't be surprised if Germany is the very last country to get rid of restrictions.

[QUOTE=Pistons;2555031]On tiktok ericryanericryan has some funny videos on this just now.[/QUOTE]Tiktok?

WTF? Are you a fourteen year old girl?

[QUOTE=Ararat;2555262]Tiktok?

WTF? Are you a fourteen year old girl?[/QUOTE]Ariana forever XOXOXOXO!

[QUOTE=Ararat;2555260]Angela Merkel isn't exactly popular among certain people but they don't understand what she's bad at. They think she's an evil decision maker but the reality is that Merkel is hesitant and afraid to decide. This was visible during the refugee crisis too.

This is why I wouldn't be surprised if Germany is the very last country to get rid of restrictions.[/QUOTE]Maybe so but Germany has administered 1.1 million vaccine doses over the last 24 h. At this rate, they will lift restrictions by the summer (I really really hope!

[QUOTE=Ararat;2555260]Angela Merkel isn't exactly popular among certain people but they don't understand what she's bad at. They think she's an evil decision maker but the reality is that Merkel is hesitant and afraid to decide. This was visible during the refugee crisis too.

This is why I wouldn't be surprised if Germany is the very last country to get rid of restrictions.[/QUOTE]She's a scientist by professional training. So with the lack of concrete data and so many variables, she's probably naturally going to be conservative in her executive decisions regarding easing restrictions. As a politician, she's probably also empowered to keep strict regulations, perhaps due to her authoritarian communist upbringing. Throw in her German-ness and I can see why someone with her collective background would tend toward these strict and ultra conservative policies.

Sharing a similar undergraduate education, professionally, I can personally relate to the way she thinks. But personally, I tend to be a little bit of a cowboy in my decisions. Not a big fan of across-the-board, blanketed rules either so I know I would have already begun easing these restrictions considering the fair amount of recent data and developments, albeit there's not enough concrete data. But that's why I avoid executive positions and organizational power trees. Considering her position as the de facto leader of the free world, I think she did great for most of this Pandemic, especially early on. But she's remaining gun shy a little longer than necessary, in my opinion.

BTW, is she still planning on stepping down this year?

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2555162]Glad you got an ego boast from mere small talk. Cool beans.[/QUOTE]You were just one more confirming me what I think about 95% guys in brothels = bad level to avoid.

[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2555140]So you define "freedom" based on how low the taxes are? Do you even know what freedom means?[/QUOTE]I can only agree, I love Russia, but not what I call freedom under Putin. Just ask Navalny if he will survive for second time. I often argued with my Russian escorts about Putin ex KGB. China is also not land of freedom.

[QUOTE=Mursenary;2555156]Damn, ya took a step back. Talk to you tomorrow![/QUOTE]LMFAO, you should spend more time with a professional psychiatrist and less time writing your delusional BS.

You will always be inferior to the rest of us.

[QUOTE=Ararat;2555262]Tiktok?

WTF? Are you a fourteen year old girl?[/QUOTE]You have 239 posts and all of them are argumentative and irrelevant to the topic of this website. You're a pathetic weirdo, get a hobby.

[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2555140]So you define "freedom" based on how low the taxes are? Do you even know what freedom means?[/QUOTE]Please show where I mentioned anything about freedom? You do know how to read?

[QUOTE=PaulInZurich;2555133]Russia might not be a communist country but sure as hell is not a free country. You guys are all about shouting "the government is taking away our freedom" but then you admire Putin. What is it with all these "freedom" people that they need to have a big daddy to worship?[/QUOTE]LOL, where in my post did I mention anything about Putin or "freedom"?

I never knew that the Russian tax system was such a sensitive topic.

Too many feels and no room for facts, LMFAO!

[QUOTE=Turgid;2555219]Fortunately for me I do not have the problem with coming up with believable stories for travelling to De. For me the problem is how do I stay home if in October I read on the forum of lots of girls in Sharks and Oase.[/QUOTE]Slowly, companies are indicating they will bring back people to the office. T Rowe Price said today they will be in office by September, Jamie Dimon said the same at JP Morgan. My guess would be that barring a second catastrophe on the scale of India, US will be bringing back more employees to office through summer and more or less pre Covid levels by the fall. If that happens and if by then the German clubs are back to some semblance of normal services, I will make my excuses and go. I am almost forgetting what it is to monger, LOL. Sometimes the past attendance at these clubs feels like an out of body experience.