Loss in terms of money or efforts. Could be recent or ancient.

  • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Brexit. As historical blunders go, this has a beautiful unambiguous purity.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Once the campaigns were underway, yes. But the opportunity came from a huge blunder by David Cameron. He called the referendum expecting an easy win for the remain side that would silence the anti-EU faction in his party and shore up his position as PM. Instead, the anti-EU faction won, prompting his own resignation and causing damage to the UK’s economy, a loss of global influence, the loss of British people’s right to live and work in the EU, and reopening difficult issues in Northern Ireland that had been laid to rest for years. It also arguably sped up the Conservative Party’s lurch to the right and its embrace of UKIP-like policies, disempowering Conservative moderates and leading to the spiral of ever less competent governments we have seen since then. In particular, Boris Johnson’s rise was a direct result of post-referendum power games among Conservative politicians.

  • yads@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Target’s failed expansion into Canada. It’s taught as a case study on what not to do in business schools now.

    • Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It was so weird when Target opened in my city. Everyone was pumped for the great deals Americans are always on about. The grand opening comes, and it was basically just a super expensive Walmart with half the products out of stock. Then they closed without notice like a month later. Employees came in the morning to open up and there were chains on the doors.

  • bermuda@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    I’m willing to nominate Charles II, King of Spain as a formerly alive blunder. The result of decades of Hapsburg inbreeding, he had a number of health and intellectual issues from birth and he was notably infertile. If you live in a monarchy where succession is passed down through children, it’s REALLY BAD to be infertile and be King. His death directly caused the War of the Spanish Succession, a 13-and-a-half year war that eventually involved pretty much all of western Europe and likely led to the deaths of over 1 million people.

    Literally could have avoided this if the Habsburgs decided to have sex with other people.

  • dutchkimble@lemy.lol
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    1 year ago

    Oil spills, wars, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, not counting for 2 decimal places in employee cheques by a large firm in Metropolis