Posts by Nancy Gomez26

analogbear5 said:Gold wouldn't replace the ruble—paper would. We'd just end up with notes saying "promising gold payouts."

The people who already hold the gold would basically become a new upper class, just printing more paper that says "promising gold payouts plus interest" and making the little guy sign for it.

And obviously, the amount of gold promised on all those papers would be way higher than the actual physical gold sitting in the vaults.

That bolded part is the core concept. When actual money—real value—is swapped for colorful paper, they claim it's just because paper is easier to handle than heavy metal. That’s the convenient lie. This is the true motive. Once a currency is uncoupled from its obligation to be backed by the only true form of money, there are no limits. Only the user's trust remains, and we all know how fickle that can be.

dustyowl29 said:Sure, Russians can build turbines for gas plants, but the catch for supplying the European Union was that they had to use top-tier compressors and turbines to meet safety standards. That’s why Western tech was the go-to choice.
They'll probably whip up some turbines of their own eventually—but that power line running from Siberia to China? It won't be using General Electric pumps; it'll likely be some Chinese knockoff.

Those kinds of stipulations are usually just a way to scrape together a little profit by offloading proprietary tech. In reality, it served the Russians well; it gave them a front-row seat to how Western turbines actually operate under pressure. If anything, they should have demanded the right to service that gear locally—that’s where the real learning happens. Instead, they took the easy route. It’s much more convenient to ship a turbine back to the original manufacturer for maintenance. You become dependent on outside vendors for parts regardless, but when you let someone else handle the heavy lifting, you learn absolutely nothing.

feralhawk45 said:Maybe they aren't vital for the front lines, but losing access to Western brands is hitting the Russian middle class where it hurts.

Oh, they are absolutely vital. They matter far more than whatever gadgets those poor souls on the front lines are using—the very same devices that Ukrainians use to spot massive clusters of troops, making them easy targets for artillery strikes or missile salvos.

dustyowl29 said:It’s kind of funny that Apple hasn't slapped any sanctions on Russia yet. From what I can see, Russian leaders seem pretty obsessed with using iPhones and Apple Watches...
Instead of picking up some Chinese phone or whatever.

As if those gadgets are actually vital to the war effort.

Joshua Myers432 said:I'm not sure, but I do know they've been under sanctions since 2014. Besides, it’s delusional to think sanctions work perfectly. Smuggling will always exist, and China will sell them absolutely everything they need or want.

And it isn't realistic to assume sanctions will kick them back into the Dark Ages. The list of Russian technological achievements over the last 80 years is too long; if we tried to hit them with those kinds of sanctions, we'd be the ones crawling into bunkers.

I believe these sanctions will leave Russia in a far more precarious position today than the USSR ever faced back then. To a significant extent, Russia has become deeply integrated into the global economy. Foreign corporations built massive facilities within Russia to manufacture and assemble goods destined for both domestic consumption and international markets. Now, everything has ground to a halt. This isn't because Americans wouldn't know how to run those plants—they certainly have the expertise to manage them, having operated them long before the sanctions hit—but because they lack the essential components that used to arrive from every corner of the globe to complete the production line. As products grow more complex, the reliance on foreign parts becomes even more absolute. During the USSR era, things were different; most goods were manufactured entirely within the borders, making the system almost completely self-sufficient. That is simply no longer the case. Another critical distinction is the scope of isolation. Currently, only Russia and Belarus are being hit with these sanctions, leaving them isolated on their own. This is a far cry from the industrial might and collective potential once held by the entire former USSR. Furthermore, much of that old industrial capacity has already vanished; factories were repurposed or shuttered long ago as obsolete, replaced by modern facilities that rely on a worldwide supply chain. Even if they managed to jumpstart some of those legacy production lines, one has to wonder if such outdated products could ever meet today’s modern standards and demands. Though, I suppose anything is better than nothing.

Joshua Myers432 said:If they managed to put the first man in space, I suppose they can figure out how to manufacture a gas turbine. 🤣

They didn't need it before; now they have no choice. In the long run, the West is actually doing them a favor. Instead of just sitting on their oil and gas reserves without innovating, they're being forced to actually build something useful. Maybe we could take a page out of that book. Instead of just renting out vacation rentals, changing linens, and flipping burgers on a grill, maybe we should try manufacturing something intelligent for a change.

I recall back in the eighties, when that first pipeline toward West Germany was being built, there was a massive stir regarding those turbines. Reagan refused to authorize the use of American turbines, so the Russians claimed they would simply install their own—arguing they’d need more units, but that they were perfectly capable of making them. But that was the era of the USSR and its industrial capacity, which has long since evaporated. Many of those factories aren't even within the borders of the Russian Federation anymore. The real question is whether the Russian Federation can actually service or produce these things independently today.

Bryan Booth82 said:The other day, I’m watching TV and there’s this former big shot from Siemens—a guy who apparently met with Putin three separate times, mind you. Now, Siemens does gas turbines, right? And this guy basically admits that when it comes to the economy, Russia has absolutely nothing to offer besides oil and gas...

It just hits me: are you kidding me? You’re sitting on all that gas, yet you can't even manufacture a decent damn turbine yourselves?🤔
Putin thought he could hold the European Union hostage by threatening to cut off the gas, but now he can't even guarantee the supply himself. What a joke.

Best,

Manufacturing a turbine that is reliable, durable, and fuel-efficient isn't some simple feat. In reality, it’s an aircraft jet engine—just repurposed to drive a machine, whether it's a gas compressor, a generator, or propulsion for a vehicle or vessel. Russia might be capable of building them, but it likely doesn't make financial sense for them. Their domestic demand is relatively low; they only need a few units. It is far cheaper and more efficient to simply buy them outright and focus their engineering efforts on things they actually cannot acquire, like military jet engines. Now that they’ve decided to play it smart, they’ll have to feel the sting of the consequences. Perhaps they'll gain some much-needed experience from the fallout.

Thomas Walker84 said:That would be a solid move. I'm not sure if it's already happening, but it feels like it isn't. It’s a shame because it would be a completely "free" sanction—one that carries weight by sending a message through famous, popular figures to the people in Russia, encouraging them to stand up against their own government, or showing that those who support the regime are being cut off from competition.

The athletes who don't support the regime are probably scared, but they could ask for asylum for themselves and their families. They could show a little more courage, couldn't they?

If you're talking about courage, you also have to include the nerve required to prevent them from liquidating you once you actually secure that asylum. You're faced with a choice: a quiet chat over tea with the secret police, a sudden fall from a high-rise, or a dose of Novichok. Their mantra is "death to traitors," and they carry out that policy with grim consistency. Even those living in constant fear of the regime—those suffering from Stockholm Syndrome—tend to watch such executions with a certain level of approval. It’s a way of saying, "See what happens to those who don't comply." A certain level of terror must be maintained; otherwise, the very foundation of a regime built on fear begins to crumble.

Bryan Booth82 said:Look, the actual combat losses aren't even the most critical part here; they don't even come close to the impact on their already catastrophic demographics.
Essentially, this war is the absolute last-ditch effort for Russia to chase its pathetic imperialist pipe dream.
In 10 or 20 years, Russia won't even be capable of securing its own "original" borders.
If you look back 30, 50, or even 70 years, Russia had a much larger population than it does today. Is it any surprise that this war and these sanctions are just accelerating an inevitable downward spiral?
To put it bluntly, Russia is completely screwed. They aren't functioning on any level—except, of course, in their own propaganda.
Lp

They will. As long as they can maintain a modern nuclear arsenal—or at least project the illusion that they can—no one from the outside is going to touch them, provided they don't go chasing after more "special military operation" fantasies. My view? Russia will crumble from within due to demographics far sooner than they fall to external forces. The makeup of the country will shift, and politics will follow suit. It isn't as if all the various ethnic groups within their borders have strong population numbers to begin with.

Nathan Thomas12 said:China is sitting on $35 trillion in debt.
The big players are too hooked on the dollar to let it tank—if the dollar collapses, the Chinese economy goes down with it.

On the flip side, the Chinese state holds roughly $1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasuries. They've also been quietly scooping up gold on the global market, significantly beefing up their national reserves over the last two decades—not to mention they are massive gold producers themselves, supplying both their own citizens and the state.
The real issue with this mountain of internal debt is the sheer incompetence of how that capital was deployed. They poured money into massive infrastructure projects—entire ghost cities that sit vacant today—effectively turning liquid assets into dead capital. It was a systemic failure.

Nathan Thomas12 said:The world needs a stable, liquid currency—if the dollar vanished tomorrow, the global economy would just flatline. I mean, what are the Chinese supposed to do? Trade in Canadian Forints or Mexican Dinars? Besides Americans, the Chinese actually rely on a rock-solid dollar just as much.
So yeah, arguing about what happens if the dollar collapses is pretty much pointless.

Having a single, universally recognized currency for global trade is certainly an advantage. The issue arises when the issuer begins to abuse that privileged position. With the dollar, the cracks appeared once it became obvious they were printing far more currency than they held in gold reserves at the agreed-upon rate. That specific agreement—the ability to swap paper for gold at a fixed price—was what provided the dollar its essential layer of universal trust. Once that trust evaporated, the old deal died, replaced by a new arrangement: the petrodollar system, designed to prop up the dollar's status as the world's primary reserve currency. A reserve currency is simply the unit in which a nation holds its assets. Given the sheer scale of current debt loads, I fail to see how this architecture can remain sustainable. A reset or a new global agreement is inevitable. It is merely a matter of timing. Either it will be a controlled transition, or it will happen chaotically. The latter would be far worse.

Anthony Hill5 said:Good grief. Here, have a look at these:

Why a gold standard is a very bad idea

https://www.moneyandbanking.com/comm...-very-bad-idea

7 reasons the gold standard is a terrible idea

https://www.vox.com/2014/7/16/590029...-gold-standard

Why The Gold standard is The World's Worst Economic Idea, in 2 Charts

https://www.theatlantic.com/business...charts/261552/

These articles are about as intellectually honest as the Russian claims that those sending weapons to Ukrainians to defend themselves are actually the ones responsible for the war in Ukraine.

dustytiger8 said:@Maskeron

🤣

Which currency are you even talking about regarding the CAF?

Anyway, you dodged the question... Why did the rest of the world abandon the gold standard in the first place?

I've made this point before:
"The volume of petrodollars circulating globally through oil trades has long since eclipsed the amount of dollars needed for any conceivable domestic transaction in the US. We're talking about a double-digit multiplier effect here. That's exactly why the US unilaterally killed the gold standard back in the 70s (the Bretton Woods agreement). They simply couldn't maintain a gold backing for the massive expansion of dollar liquidity driven primarily by the oil trade."

The Federal Reserve puts it this way:
"The deteriorating U.S. balance of payments, combined with military spending and foreign aid, resulted in a large supply of dollars around the world. Meanwhile, the gold supply had increased only marginally. Eventually, there were more foreign-held dollars than the United States had gold. The country was vulnerable to a run on gold and there was a loss of confidence in the U.S. government’s ability to meet its obligations, thereby threatening both the dollar’s position as reserve currency and the overall Bretton Woods system."

To put it bluntly, Americans played fast and loose with the dollar during the 1960s. They started printing and spending far beyond what their actual gold reserves could support—before that famous 'run on gold' hit, they held roughly 16,000 tons. Because gold was pegged strictly to the dollar, things got messy. They used those dollars as a 'hard currency' to snap up various European industries. This prompted the French Finance Minister at the time, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (who later became President of France), to coin that famous phrase: exorbitant privilege. Essentially, after observing their tactics, the French began trading their accumulated dollars for gold at the fixed rate. This drained the US reserves, cutting them nearly in half—down to about 8,000 tons—just before the Nixonian move to 'temporarily' suspend the ability to exchange dollars for gold at the agreed price. Following that, the Kissingerian concept of the petrodollar emerged. It was a necessary pivot to replace the old Bretton Woods model of a gold-backed dollar at a fixed rate. It worked, and it worked quite effectively for a very long time.

Anthony Hill5 said:This is nothing more than a laughable conspiracy theory. There is a very logical reason why every major economy in the world moved away from the gold standard.

Even if Gaddafi had tried, not a single nation across the African continent would have accepted his dinar, simply because it served no one's interests and offered no benefit to their own domestic economies. That is the end of the argument regarding Gaddafi being removed over some currency scheme.

It stands to reason that central banks moved away from using gold as a currency anchor—though "moved away" is an understatement; they flee from the concept like a demon from holy water. Gold tied their hands. You cannot implement Quantitative Easing if you are shackled to a gold reserve for every unit of currency in circulation. It is impossible. Now, the limits of central bankers are bounded only by their own imagination. Then there is the matter of public trust in the system, but that is a different conversation entirely.

No sane person ever accepted Gaddafi's dinar, primarily because no one with a shred of common sense actually believed in him. Currency is built on trust. Historically, the gold standard existed to establish that trust. Once that trust was secured, the gold standard became nothing more than a massive liability.

Carl Flores5 said:The marina staff doesn't have any authority or legal obligation here. This looks like a classic case of passing the buck and muddying the waters—they're probably trying to frame the sailor who caught them red-handed as the main culprit.

I don't have the full picture of what went down, but if there was clear signage stating the property was under seizure, then the legal right to control that property is unambiguous. If there were no markings or formal written notices, then we are looking at a failure at a much higher administrative level. It is reductive to pin everything on the individual who hauled in the catch once they had already cleared the harbor. But let’s be realistic—this is America. In this country, if someone comes from a disadvantaged background, they can practically ignore crosswalk laws without consequence. Perhaps these people simply suffered a collective bout of syncope once they sailed away... it wouldn't be the first time.

dustytiger8 said:Any move by OPEC nations to stop trading oil in dollars effectively means immediate war for them... on one side, it will be America.

If all those petrodollars suddenly flood back into the USA, the country collapses instantly. We're talking about being drowned by inflation unlike anything seen in human history.

The reality is that since their inception, petrodollars are immediately funneled back into the USA to be invested in securities. No nation keeps its reserves sitting in piles of cash—not stacked neatly on pallets like something out of Narcos. Instead, they use that capital to purchase government bonds that offer some semblance of yield. That is essentially why oil is traded in dollars; it is because there exists a financial market powerful enough to "swallow" all that oil revenue, and for now, there is at least a rule of law acting as a guarantor of fair play. Oh yes, they are more than happy to swallow that money. And what do the holders of that wealth get in return (the former owners of the oil while it was still in their ground)? A little scrap of paper called an IOU (though truthfully, nowadays there is no paper, just some electronic entry). If everyone decided to demand their cash all at once—what would happen? First, they would be convinced it isn't the smartest move, because the whole house of cards would collapse (like that card game we played as kids, where you try to build a house of cards and pull one from the bottom without bringing the whole thing down). And if they insisted on it based on some rigid "principles," the Americans would simply send them whatever figure they requested—because those are dollars, an original American product produced in whatever quantity is deemed necessary. It’s a waste of paper; it all happens electronically. You just punch a number into a computer. Quite eco-friendly, really.
But returning to this idea of "swallowing" excess capital... it is now clear how the Americans can afford such massive military expenditures (and various other things) when everyone else combined couldn't match that spending. Or consider why stock prices continue to climb even when the companies behind them are actually stagnating. I suspect the oil producers have pushed the petrodollar system so far that they can no longer walk away from the game—because it would become glaringly obvious to everyone that they don't actually have any savings left. Bank of America, Madoff, SBF (FTX), the Federal Reserve—at the end of the day, it is all the same old story about finding ways to seize someone else's assets.

Carl Flores5 said:Look, the regular employees at the marina don't have anything to do with this mess, and they shouldn't be held responsible for what happened.

It all comes down to what kind of directives they received from the federal government. If nothing was put in writing, there’s zero obligation to the state. Simple as that. If the government had just slapped a seizure notice on the vessel—making it clear it was under judicial lien—that would have been more than enough for any worker to understand they shouldn't touch it. The government—and we all know how those bureaucracies operate—could have easily protected itself by temporarily immobilizing the engine. Just pull a critical component and lock it away somewhere safe. There is always a way to handle things, provided there is actual political will.

Chloe Jones3 said:Russia's main issue is that everyone basically "betrayed" them.

- Winter in Europe betrayed them.
- The West actually stayed united, even though they were counting on everyone being divided and slow to act.
- The U.S. elections for Congress betrayed them (though I'm not sure if a different outcome would have changed much anyway).
- The Italian elections betrayed them; days before, people were claiming the new government would pivot and cut off aid to Ukraine (even Vojislav Šešelj was talking about it), saying the regime change happened mainly because of Ukraine policy and that the people wanted something else. Instead, this government actually ramped up the support.
- They betrayed themselves through pure incompetence and overconfidence.
- The Ukrainians betrayed them by actually fighting back (and reclaiming territory).

Who else can add to the list?😛

To put it bluntly, the Russians essentially betrayed themselves by fundamentally miscalculating the world around them while overestimating their own capabilities. Now that they realize they are stuck in the mud, they turn to various shamans to conjure a solution rather than facing reality. It is always easier to demand that the rest of the world bend to your delusions than it is to undergo the difficult process of self-correction.
A great recent guest on Joe Rogan—Peter Zeihan. They covered the war, but also delved into China and the broader global landscape.

Melissa Rivera5 said:It’s not just about the money, though. It’s that this is incredibly specific knowledge that hardly anyone in the world possesses because you just can't learn it anywhere else. I'm not talking about the theory of how to make a processor, but the entire process—all those tiny implementation details, the actual manufacturing flow... man, it's intense.

I have no clue how chips are actually fabricated, but it is clearly one of those domains where money alone won't buy you entry. There are various technologies that cannot be simply cloned; they require years of mastery, necessitating a culture of extreme secrecy to protect that intellectual property. Look at jet engine technology. Sure, Russia and China can build a jet engine, but they will likely suffer from higher fuel consumption and shorter lifespans compared to Western counterparts. Even in the West, only three major manufacturers possess the independent capability to develop a jet engine from scratch—and even then, they frequently collaborate on new models or rely on external partners for specific components. Most cutting-edge development is built upon the foundation of previous generations. It is also worth noting that ironing out "teething problems" in new engine designs often drags on for years after deployment. No matter how much expertise or tech you possess, you cannot predict every variable; you end up fixing things on the fly during active service.
I suspect the fundamental issue for China and Russia is retaining talent. The people who truly possess high-level skills—those with the drive and capacity to learn—are mobile. They gravitate toward environments that offer more freedom. Meanwhile, those with less specialized skill sets lack the mobility to leave, so they stay put. Look at the situation in Russia: who fled following the mobilization? It was the most capable individuals, the ones whose expertise allows them to find work anywhere in the world. Those left behind, with nowhere else to go, are the ones who end up stuck in a trench in Ukraine.

The current state of affairs remains predictably grim. It is much like watching a slow-motion train wreck where everyone involved seems convinced they can jump clear at the last second. They won't. Experience suggests otherwise. Nancy Gomez26 says:
This holds true regardless of the energy source in question.

This particular option is irrelevant to the current crisis. By the time that potential pipeline to a single nation is actually constructed, the war might already be over.

It’s not even worth discussing how that one South African nation holds us by the throat, especially when you consider the lack of exclusivity surrounding those floating LNG terminals.

Taking the provided data into account, I believe Schloz has arrived at the most logical solution. One only needs to look at the TTF gas prices to see the validity of that conclusion—though, granted, I am well aware that the warmer weather is also playing its part.

I didn't think the priority should have been building a pipeline right now. Instead of doubling down on Nord Stream 2, the focus ought to have been on establishing routes toward a different supplier entirely. That would have actually achieved true supply diversification.