Posts by Gary Wilson

Michael Davis10 said:I mean, what kind of assets does the Russian central bank even have in the EU?
And they'll probably just freeze Western central banks' assets in return.

It's all just a mess, honestly.
Seems like they're getting squeezed, so they left some banks in SWIFT, I guess, just so they can still buy energy without having to lug suitcases of cash back to Moscow.

The whole thing is a joke—what can they actually trade on the international financial market now???
Anything at all?

No bond issuances, no Treasury bills, and oil sales—their main revenue stream—are tanking...

Sanctions weren't designed to last three, four, or five days.

This is going to drag on indefinitely.

And how is that going to hit the average person's standard of living???

Ashley Ramirez4 said:well, I guess that mostly comes down to China, damn...

Look, there will always be people willing to lend money. The real question is—at what interest rate?

Extreme circumstances call for extreme rates.

It’ll effectively paralyze any transactions involving the Russian central bank on the global financial stage. We’re looking at a total shutdown of war financing through debt.

rowdytiger13 said:Can someone actually verify this?
And if it turns out to be true, I’d really love to see the look on the German Chancellor's face.

I was just watching a live feed of Ursula von der Leyen on CNN... something like that.

It’s finally happening—the European Union and the United Kingdom are cutting Russia out of SWIFT and freezing every cent of their central bank's assets.

It looks like the Chinese are shifting their strategy—specifically by tightening the screws on financial transactions involving Russia.

There is a very real possibility that China will start using this as leverage to blackmail them.

Joseph Cruz said:I simply cannot wrap my head around the Russians. I find myself wondering, what is the actual objective behind these incursions deep into enemy territory, such as a landing near Lviv with a mere 60 paratroopers?

It's a classic move—stretching their forces thin with feints and fake attacks.

Jeremy Lopez93 said:Hey there.

How’s it going?

Well, I'm here. Doing fine—just sitting here, sipping some black coffee, and watching the snowflakes dance in the wind.

I see you're back in the swing of things. Sounds like you're doing alright. 🙂

Jeremy Lopez93 said:Not me.

It honestly caught me off guard when Vučić and Dačić started bickering over Ukraine's territorial integrity. Of all the things for them to clash over, that was definitely not on my bingo card.

Maddox's political offspring is way more radical.

Quincy:

"You've got some nerve!" The fallout from the Vučić conflict. According to the New York Post, Ivica Dačić actually went into a National Security Council meeting and demanded they scrub entire paragraphs regarding support for Ukraine's territorial integrity. Seriously? Since when did we start editing history mid-meeting?

The latest report from the New York Post really lays it all out, doesn't it? We’re seeing more and more evidence that the current administration's approach to global security is basically just spinning wheels while the actual situation on the ground gets messier by the day. It makes you wonder: at what point does "strategic patience" just become a polite way of saying "we have no idea what we're doing"? They keep talking about long-term stability and diplomatic frameworks, but when you look at the actual impact of these policies, the results are pretty hard to stomach. Are we actually making progress, or are we just managing a slow-motion decline? It feels like the decision-makers are operating in a vacuum, completely detached from the reality of how these geopolitical shifts affect everyday people. Is anyone actually holding these institutions accountable for the lack of clear direction? It's getting harder to believe the official lines when the facts tell such a different story.

They mentioned "territorial integrity" ten times—yet not a single journalist noticed they never once said "sovereignty."
Those are two very different concepts.

Given the kind of propaganda their media outlets churn out, it’s pretty obvious that this mental conditioning isn't changing anytime soon—not even in the next 50 years.

I was just catching up on some RT coverage. It looks like the Russians are banking on the idea that they won't be kicked out of SWIFT—mostly because they're terrified oil prices will skyrocket if they are.

casualhound42 said:The Russians couldn't care less about how long this war drags on—it's not like they're punching a clock. They’re fully aware the West isn't going to step in.

Exactly—they operate like machines.

At this point, it's becoming painfully obvious that they've dug themselves into a hole in a war they simply cannot win.
You just can't win a ground war against 44 million people who are armed to the teeth and providing relentless resistance.
And to top it all off, the West keeps shipping them weaponry while providing constant logistical and media backing.

Ultimately, even in Russia, there is such a thing as a domestic public. Once they actually start feeling the fallout from this insane campaign, the entire foundation of things could shift for Putin.

It honestly feels to me like the Russians walked straight into their own personal hell when they entered Kyiv.

Igračka said:I've been following this war on Twitter since day one, and honestly—it’s strange—there seems to be almost zero news regarding actual territorial progress.

All I see is how Ukrainians are absolutely tearing through the Russians—downing planes, taking out helicopters, and picking off soldiers—but nothing in return.

Then you have Zelenskyy calling for negotiations.

Why bother, if they're doing that well?

Obviously, this isn't your standard type of warfare. A force of 150,000 soldiers simply isn't enough to occupy a territory the size of the North American Peninsula with a population of 44 million.

Based on what we've seen so far, it looks like those border and coastal skirmishes are just diversions—the real objective was a direct strike on Kyiv to eliminate the leadership.

Judging by the reports of Chechen reinforcements arriving, it’s clear things are going much worse for the Russians than planned, and they've likely taken significant casualties over these last two days.

As for morale—it's obvious. An invader can't match the fighting spirit of someone defending their own home. At least he knows why he's fighting; the guy trying to conquer someone else's land is still second-guessing his reasons.

Edit: It would be quite the cinematic twist if this actor actually managed to beat Putin on the battlefield.
If that happened, the Russians wouldn't recover from the embarrassment for 150 years—though they've certainly handed themselves plenty of trouble already.

"Wars don't just start on a Wednesday," or so the saying goes.
You have to take Russ at his word.

JPMorgan Chase had to shutter its branches in the Czech Republic today, apparently because things hit a breaking point between panicked staff and depositors rushing to pull their money out.

It looks like we’re seeing the start of a full-blown run on Russian banks across Europe.

John Palmer9 said:It’s kind of an interesting phenomenon, how much we Americans seem to obsess over the Austro-Canadian Empire and the Habsburgs.

I wonder what Krleža would make of this whole obsession.

vividfox9 said:My friend Nikica Senjanović from the Democratic Party told me about a moment at his old job that served as a massive wake-up call. It was the first time he truly realized just how broken our society can be.

Basically, a guy in his department—someone incredibly skilled and hardworking—was suddenly fired. The reason? To make room for a buddy of the manager who had zero qualifications but held all the right connections. It was a total gut punch to the whole team.

The department wasn't just dealing with an incompetent manager hiring his neighbor; they were also dealing with the reality that the manager only kept his own job because of the hard work these employees put in.

So, what did Nikica do?
He got the team together and they made a pact: they wouldn't accept this until the fired employee—a father of two young kids—was reinstated. Everyone was on board. They knew their value and knew they were the ones keeping the corporation running.

But when Nikica stood up to the manager to explain the group's stance, everything shifted. At first, the manager froze, caught off guard by the pushback. But then he found his nerve and demanded to know who was backing Nikica up. All he got was silence, blank stares, and people looking at the floor...

The petty mindset won out. Most of those people have mortgages and kids to worry about.
For the next few months, Nikica saw his paychecks docked while people mocked him behind his back.
It’s true—he got stabbed in the back by the very people he thought he could count on.
This story perfectly illustrates that deep-seated division that keeps us from ever actually making progress.
There is nothing wrong with choosing not to protest or wanting to stay out of the fray. It's okay to distance yourself from activists. But there is something truly shameful about agreeing to a cause and then turning around and betraying it.

Betrayal is a heavy word, but that's exactly what it is.
Why do we agree to things only to turn on each other later?
Are we forced to stab others in the back just to save ourselves, suck up to the boss, or get ahead?
That kind of betrayal brings to mind the old saying Homo homini lupus...

I used to think that "man is a wolf to man" only applied to kings in palaces, but it’s heartbreaking to see it happening among regular people who are just trying to make ends meet.

Did Nikica's salary decrease once the new manager took over?
If it didn't—then Nikica doesn't know how to read the room, and he'll always run into trouble; eventually, it'll kill him.
If it did—then Nikica should have just done his job, kept his mouth shut, and actively looked for a new position.

An employee should do exactly what they are told to do, nothing more and nothing less. It is not a worker's job to introduce innovations of any kind, because they won't be properly compensated for "showing off their brains." At best, they'll get a pat on the back and some verbal praise, and in the end, they'll feel like an idiot for helping the boss cut costs or boost profits without extra pay. In fact, the boss will respect them even less, thinking they're foolish for not understanding how the game is played.
Around here—and honestly, in much of the world—bosses don't promote valuable, innovative workers. Management textbooks are basically fairy tales for adults.

Jack Alvarez25 said:I was only bringing up movies because they deal with attempts to manipulate the market...

Now, regarding what you said about price, I think you're absolutely spot on. I’d probably just add that market prices are ultimately driven by buyer psychology. You could have some fundamental analyst walking on his hands claiming a certain stock is worth way more, but if the market doesn't see it, well, it doesn't matter.

That's why I tend to rule out computer programs as being the "magic key" to trading. Sure, a program can beat a chess grandmaster at a game where the rules and goals are set, but I haven't seen a program that can calculate that, say, NVIDIA will hit a specific price in six months. How is a program supposed to know if some mess is going to break out in the Gulf of Mexico, or if some team of scientists is suddenly going to announce they've cracked cold fusion?

Honestly, I'd sooner bet on a psychic in Milan than on some algorithm. 😁

I think we're talking about investor psychology (what you call buyer behavior), and naturally, that dictates the strategies people choose.
While I don't believe computers are the ultimate authority—in my view, they aren't "trading" on their own, but rather executing based on preset buy or sell parameters, since I find it hard to believe they attempt any kind of actual forecasting, especially regarding the "distant" future even a few days out—I still wouldn't dismiss them entirely.

In that sense (without saying they shouldn't be singled out or excluded), I'd offer one example under one specific condition:
The condition being that price fluctuations are essentially stochastic in nature.

Here is an example: I recently read that police computers in the USA can predict when and where crimes will occur with impressive accuracy. The whole concept relies on experience—essentially historical data on crime patterns and locations combined with the laws of probability. Naturally, these computers house massive amounts of information that gets updated daily, using probability to calculate the likelihood of a crime repeating. I think we can all agree that crime (its frequency, type, timing, location, and method) behaves like a stochastic variable. It has reached the point where computers can predict the timing and location of events, allowing police to intervene preventatively, and the results have been anything but negligible.

My take is that in the long run (if not already!), computers might be able to predict not necessarily exact prices, but perhaps the best buy/sell ranges—maybe starting as advisory tools, and who knows what later... Certainly, the variables influencing price movements are far more complex and numerous than the patterns used to track crime, but hey, "they laughed at the guy who invented penicillin," too.

Jack Alvarez25 said:I guess when there’s serious money on the line, it’s hard not to get tunnel vision and miss the bigger picture😁.

There have been quite a few movies out there about this kind of thing, you know, stock market sabotage. Like one of the recent Bond movies, Casino Royale, where they tried to sabotage a new plane just to make certain stock prices plummet.
I think maybe Pehlin123 was in a movie with Travolt... I can't quite remember the details... something about sabotage in the underworld to manipulate the price of gold, I believe.

And then, of course, there's that "lucky break" situation with Eddie Murphy where they were basically sabotaging the saboteurs using orange crop reports.

I clearly remember some film critic saying he couldn't wrap his head around how they actually made their fortune, though he admitted it was just how the movie played out (back then, most of us felt like the American market was way too complex and far beyond our reach). But years later, I found out that making that kind of money through insider information—we're talking 1,000% returns or even more—is actually entirely possible.

I wouldn't base my actual stance on Hollywood fantasies. In a movie, anything goes.

What we’re really looking at here is the age-old, fundamental question: Are markets efficient?
Let me lay out a few premises:
An efficient market doesn't require that the market price equals the intrinsic value at every single point in time. However, pricing errors must be unbiased—meaning any deviations should be purely random.

From this, it follows that a stock's value can be overvalued or undervalued, and there should be equal chances for both, regardless of the price-to-earnings ratio.

And if that holds true, then no specific group of investors should be able to consistently identify undervalued or overvalued stocks using any particular investment strategy.😁

Of course, all of that theory goes out the window if someone is sitting on insider information.

Jack Alvarez25 said:Basically, a simple plan za zavrsiti u zatvor.

Like I’ve mentioned before, computers just execute their tasks based on the parameters they're given, they don't exactly go browsing through IDF websites or scrolling through Facebook profiles, I guess.

And even if news like that actually moves the needle, it’s usually just a flash in the pan if the info turns out to be fake. For instance, regarding oil, there was that false report about those missile launches toward Syria about 15 days ago. It only lasted maybe ten minutes, and the price jumped a couple percent at most. Once you factor in all those brokerage commissions, you might actually end up losing money, especially if you spread that trade out over a bunch of tiny transactions.

Trust me, some of the sharpest minds alive are working these markets today, and honestly, it's incredibly hard to pull a fast one on them.😢

Honestly, I didn't expect anyone to take this seriously. This was meant to be a joke—pretty much a commentary on the entire thread.

And let's be clear: while the computers are handling the trades, you can bet the brokers and dealers aren't just hanging out in the cafeteria gossiping about nonsense.