| ▲ | walrus01 2 hours ago |
| > American business based in America and doing business that benefits American citizens, rather than some random banana republic. This makes a huge presumption of rock solid stability of political/economic system, that America is not going the direction of a banana republic, in terms of graft, corruption and patronage, which it certainly seems to be these days. |
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| ▲ | dragonwriter an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| “Banana republic” is specifically a term referring to countries that are puppets of the United States on behalf of commercial interests (the trope-naming example being Gautemala on behalf of United Fruit Company); in the absence of an imperial power pulling US strings on behalf of that powers’ commercial interests which dominated the US economy, it would be hard for the US to be reasonably described as going the direction of a “banana republic”. What it is more going the way of a major power resenting a weakened position in the world falling into authoritarian and/or kleptocratic nationalist dictatorship leaning on the propaganda of restoring national greatness, somewhere between Hitler’s Germany and Putin’s Russia, which is a very different situation than a banana republic. |
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| ▲ | gnabgib an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | No.. that's not specifically it at all. > dependent on exporting a single product or commodity, often controlled by foreign-owned entities [0] Such countries/regions long existed before the US, although the term was coined by a US writer (William Sydney Porter), and the Banana industry (specifically) has a lot to answer for (in the US specifically). A region making money from.. foreign-owned chips, oil, IT-consultants or Sardines has the same status. The term has a terrible history (surprising the Gap hasn't rebranded). [0]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/banana-republic | |
| ▲ | denkmoon 33 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US being a puppet state of US commercial interests seems to be an apt description. | |
| ▲ | echoangle an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic Banana republic isn’t specific to US control and it’s actually not that unreasonable to call Russia a banana republic | | |
| ▲ | bdamm 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Because their economy is almost exclusively oil? Quite a few countries of the world would qualify if that's the case. | |
| ▲ | ray023 29 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Total bullshit. |
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| ▲ | ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Being an American citizen, I prefer to do business with American entities, regardless of what shitty opinion her detractors may express. I am loyal to her, more loyal than I would be to Tonga, or Montenegro, just to choose some random examples. |
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| ▲ | walrus01 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think you're wrong that tiny pacific island nations are not stable or reliable, at this point they're all either a client state of China, the USA or Australia. But I think it's also unfair and mean spirited to say that a country like Nauru (barely a country, IMHO, population of 12500 people) is "prostituting" itself by allowing 3rd party registrars to sell domains for a profit, since they have basically no other resource with the bird guano originated phosphate mines now being stripped clean. Would I use a Nauru domain? No. Do I go out of my way to insult them on the internet? Also no. | | |
| ▲ | shishcat an hour ago | parent [-] | | Btw, I highly doubt Nauru makes much money selling their ccTLD, they manage it directly on the island and each domain costs a whopping 500$/year. Better examples: Tuvalu (.TV), Anguilla (.AI) Both of these countries (anguilla is not independent though) only get a cut of the money from the domains; all the technical management is done by GoDaddy for .TV and Identity Digital for .AI. In my opinion, very sad. .AI was run by a local guy in Anguilla (Vince Cate) utilizing the https://cocca.org.nz/ domain SaaS, but Identity Digital took over in late 2024. |
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