Posts by quietviper0

I was talking to some parents at a local meet last weekend, and the conversation kept drifting toward how crowded the amateur sports calendar is getting. It feels like every year, there’s a new push to add another tournament, another trophy to chase, or another weekend spent in a humid gym.

Don't get me wrong, I love the competitive spirit, but I worry we're hitting a breaking point. I see these kids training year-round, grinding through multiple seasons, and by the time the "big" events roll around, they look absolutely spent. There's a fine line between giving athletes more opportunities to prove themselves and just adding more noise to an already exhausting schedule.

If we keep adding more sanctioned events and separate brackets, do we actually improve the level of play, or are we just making it harder for the kids to actually enjoy the sport?

Linda Adams said:I don't think Lavrov would agree with you. Or does he not even know they haven't started trading in Rupees yet?

In this news report, Lavrov stated:

"Russia has accumulated billions in Rupees in Indian banks that it cannot use," said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, pointing to the growing trade surplus, according to Bloomberg News. "That's the problem," Lavrov said on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting. "We have to find a way to use that money. To do that, the Rupees need to be converted into another currency, and discussions about that are happening now."

What billions of Rupees is Lavrov talking about if, according to you, "only dollars have been flowing" so far?

From the sentence We no longer want to push for settlement in Rupees; that mechanism simply isn't working. India has tried everything we could to make it succeed, but it didn't help, you've twisted the point to claim they never traded in Rupees at all. Why would someone who has *never* traded in Rupees not want to force settlements in Rupees anymore?
If they never traded, why say "NO LONGER"?

So you have Lavrov's statement right there, which completely contradicts the narrative you're trying to sell.

How about you try reading with some actual comprehension?

You have an article from our half-literate journalist that you can spin however you want, but you also have a direct quote from your foreign policy "master strategist" that you absolutely cannot strip from its context.

Just one standard mid-sized tanker worth $50 million would account for "billions of Rupees."

The article itself provides enough context to see the picture: apparently, they did engage in some level of trade at some point because they clearly hold these Rupees, but now they aren't quite sure what they want to do with them... they were discussing whether there was any hope of turning this kind of trading into a permanent practice, and ultimately, they decided against it.

And if they decided against it, you mention it at least four times in the article—I didn't even include one of those instances in my previous quote. Here it is, just so it doesn't get missed: A day earlier, Reuters reported that India and Russia have halted efforts to arrange bilateral trade in Rupees.

I truly don't understand how you can read that it's been rejected as a viable model at least four different times, and yet continue to tell people things like "By the end of the year, if they continue with this exchange model, it is estimated Russia will accumulate a surplus of Rupees equivalent to $40 billion" or that "the Russians are essentially giving oil to Indians for free"... I really am at a loss here...

Linda Adams said:Russia is playing another game of 3D chess.

Basically, "de-dollarization" is finally hitting home. If they stick to this current trade model through the end of the year, estimates suggest Russia will be sitting on a $40 billion surplus in Rupees.

Since the Rupee is practically worthless and can't be liquidated anywhere else (except back in India—but that $40 billion surplus is just stuck there), it basically looks like Russia is giving oil to Indians for free.

Of course, Russia would much rather settle up in Yuan, given their massive trade volume with China and likely much smaller surpluses there, but the Indians aren't crazy enough to trade using the currency of their biggest rival.

So, once again, sanctions are only making Russia stronger.

Maybe give that article another read, perhaps with a bit more focus on what it’s actually saying this time?

Let me break it down for you...

Moscow believes they will finish the year with an annual Rupee surplus exceeding 40 billion dollars, if such a mechanism were to be established

Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine last February, India began exploring ways to settle accounts with Russia using Rupees, but no agreements have actually been finalized in that currency yet...

We don't want to push for Rupee settlements anymore; the mechanism simply isn't working. India tried everything we could to make it happen, but it didn't help...

So, could you please clarify how they can "continue with this model" when, according to the very source you're quoting, they haven't even successfully implemented the model in the first place? It's all a bit confusing...

MechaLiver As expressed by...
You can only really start bragging about economic growth once the Russian GDP actually climbs back to where it sat in 2013... and honestly, looking at the math, if they wanted to see those good old days again within this current year, we'd be looking at a staggering 29% surge just to break even... which feels like quite a stretch, doesn't it...

And that’s just when the most productive segment of our population—the very people we actually need to drive this whole economic recovery forward—is being lost for absolutely no reason at all...

To all you fellow enthusiasts who find such strange comfort in tracking nominal GDP in USD, we might finally be seeing the end of that particular obsession... hopefully... It’s going to get a whole lot more difficult to pull those little statistical stunts when you're staring at the actual numbers from 2022...

I was just sitting here scrolling through some recent data on Statista regarding the GDP trends coming out of Russia, and it really got me thinking about how much the global economic landscape shifts when you look at those specific numbers... It’s quite fascinating, actually, how certain sectors seem to hold steady while others fluctuate wildly under the current pressure, which makes you wonder about the long-term implications for international trade and how much of this is temporary versus a fundamental structural change in their economy... I found myself drifting down a bit of a rabbit hole reading about the various industrial outputs, and it honestly reminds me of those old economic textbooks we used to study back in college where everything seemed so predictable, before the world became this complex web of shifting sanctions and supply chain disruptions that nobody could have truly anticipated... anyway, it's definitely worth keeping an eye on if you care about how the global markets might react in the next fiscal year...

I was just sitting here thinking about how much more there is to uncover, you know... it’s like peeling back the layers of an onion, only instead of making you cry, it just leaves you feeling incredibly curious and perhaps a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer scale of everything involved... if that makes any sense at all... I feel like we've only scratched the surface of this particular topic, and honestly, the deeper we go, the more I find myself wanting to explore those tiny, overlooked details that everyone else seems to rush past in their hurry to get to the conclusion... but there's such beauty in the process of slow discovery, isn't there? It reminds me of those long Sunday afternoons spent wandering through a massive library in Chicago, where you start looking for one specific thing and end up finding three other things you didn't even know you needed to know... anyway, I suppose I should keep digging, because there is definitely more to come... As quietviper0 says...
If you take an inflation rate of 12% from back in 2022 and combine that with a 2% dip in GDP, you're looking at a 14% hit to the economy, which sounds like just a number on a spreadsheet until you realize that for the average American living paycheck to paycheck, it’s nothing short of a total catastrophe... and honestly, even the big shots on Wall Street aren't exactly celebrating these numbers right now either...
I can't help but wonder exactly how much GDP is being swallowed up by those 15,000 or so vehicles destroyed in Ukraine, not to mention all the newly manufactured munitions that are just being fired off... It’s quite a thought, really, because when you consider a single missile costing anywhere from one to six million dollars, that amount is counted toward the GDP the moment it's paid for, yet it vanishes in a matter of minutes once it hits its target, which essentially drains such a massive portion of wealth away from the real economy... it's a heavy cycle, isn't it? But then again, I suspect the Americans and NATO likely have a much clearer grasp on the actual state of affairs than Putin does sitting in his bunker, since I imagine people are probably too terrified to give him the honest truth about how things are actually going... I was just watching a report about a factory producing three million aerial bombs a year, but honestly, who on earth is going to use all of that when there's such a glaring shortage of aircraft and trained pilots to fly them anyway...
Just imagine for a second if some nation—honestly, it wouldn't even matter which one at this point—decided to place a massive order with companies like General Dynamics and BAE Systems for, say, 2,000 Patria vehicles and 10,000 Abrams tanks at a price tag of $100 billion... it’s wild to think about how that would impact things, because you'd see the GDP skyrocket by something like 20% every single year just while all those machines are being manufactured and shipped out... and then, once the dust settles and those tanks are eventually decommissioned and sold for scrap metal, we'd be left facing the music... I mean, the government would still be on the hook for all that debt, which could lead to some pretty drastic consequences, like seeing our healthcare coverage vanish, social security getting slashed, or tax rates jumping up by 300% just to keep the lights on... it's a dizzying thought, really...

No, you don't simply tack inflation onto the GDP growth rate... honestly, if there are any other lingering doubts about how this works, it might be worth spending a little time brushing up on the fundamentals of economics before diving into deep discussions about macro trends...

Just a tiny little glitch here, but the tooltips on the volume graph seem to be carrying over the formatting from the value chart. For the volume specifically, we really shouldn't have any currency symbols or quantifiers popping up, just a clean, simple number...

Looking at those figures you mentioned: 657.79 thousand tons translates to roughly 4.9 million barrels, which puts the price per barrel at about $75...

Though, I’m honestly not entirely convinced that calculating things that way offers much real-world utility.
The various charts across different pages show quite a bit of discrepancy regarding what they actually count as crude oil volume. I suppose it all depends on what exactly they’re bundling into that category—maybe they're including condensate or some other derivatives, who knows?...
If that's the case, then calculating a unit price based on those specific numbers starts to feel a bit questionable, doesn't it?

It's not really an area I have the heart to dive deep into or untangle right now, because as long as the methodology stays consistent, I'm perfectly happy with whatever display method is used just to get a general sense of the big picture...

analogbear5 said:Can you pull the average oil imports for the two weeks leading up to Feb 20, 2022, versus the most recent data on that chart? I feel like I'm missing something—I'm having a hard time converting "EUR 567.79 mn" worth of thousand tons into actual tonnage and then into barrels.

I'm afraid I can't help you there, though I don't really intend to... you actually read the chart yourself, after all, so there shouldn't be any need for someone else to interpret it for you...

I believe I was being quite clear in my previous post when I mentioned that this scenario is much more realistic than the idea that they just plummeted from 600M down to 200M. My point was simply that things "could fluctuate somewhat"... I wasn't claiming everything stayed perfectly static, nor was I trying to start an argument over whether things are going great for Russia or not...
Besides, it’s actually quite nice to see that there's at least one person here capable of parsing through and keeping track of all this complex data...🙂

Christian Torres3 said:The name says it all.

Man, I am just completely floored by this whole thing...

You might want to go ahead and find some more propaganda to read if you need that little extra ego boost following such a massive victory...

Christian Torres3 said:...but the value of Russian oil exports has gone from $600 million a day down to $200 million a day as the Ural benchmark crashed to ~$45 a barrel, barely above Russia’s breakeven price of ~$42 per barrel.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fortune...feld-tian/amp/

Everyone's got an opinion, but look at this. Russia is making way less money off their oil, and you can already see those sanctions hitting the state hard.

If you just grab the highest possible figure without stopping to wonder why it was so high in the first place—or if that number even makes sense to use as a baseline—and then you layer on your own little mathematical fantasies where you assume every single barrel is sold at the absolute lowest price point regardless of reality, well, presto! Suddenly Russia is earning three times less, and all those readers who aren't really looking closely at the details are absolutely thrilled by this supposed news of Russia's collapse...

But while we're wandering outside that fantasy world, the actual situation can be somewhat observed right here: https://www.russiafossiltracker.com/
On the first graph, "Daily flows by fuel type," you can actually hover your mouse over different parts of the chart to see the specific value of a particular product on any given day...

I'd suggest taking a look at what the daily figures under "Crude oil" looked like during the first week of 2022 when Brent Crude was hovering between $80-$85, and then compare that to January or February of this year when Brent Crude was also sitting right around that same $80-$85 range...

It is truly fascinating to watch how the most vocal critics will eagerly swallow and repeat propaganda, even when it's just a reflection of their own biases...

hollowdriver13 said:I totally agree—you've gotta read the whole thing. Especially when people start linking articles from a month ago as counter-arguments, ignoring the fact that the newer stuff actually mentions this:

"Gas revenue fell almost 42% in February from a year ago to 161 billion rubles, as even higher proceeds from the mineral extraction tax failed to make up for losses from export duties."

Anyway, moving on... that tax cut back in December was really just them backpedaling after they hiked it in November and realized it wasn't working.

https://www.upstreamonline.com/produ...ns/2-1-1352870

And then, of course, we have this new "miracle" tax. Instead of taxing based on the actual market prices oil companies get, they're switching it to Brent minus $25. Pretty clever, right?

https://thebell.io/en/russia-s-new-f...oil-exporters/

Changing the taxation rules every two months really shows how "perfectly managed" everything is. It feels like the US Department of the Treasury is just fixing the numbers and publishing deficits just to mess with the West.

As a cherry on top, don't forget about this "not-a-tax" thing, which Jeff Bezos was whining about on some business forum, claiming the state is basically mugging the oligarchs.

https://thebell.io/en/a-tax-that-isn-t-a-tax/

Natural gas honestly has absolutely nothing to do with the sanctions here. The fact that they saw massive revenues from gas early last year is a data point with zero percent relevance for any kind of comparison, whether looking backward or forward...

As that little snippet I pulled from the article points out, there is actually a graph included showing what the budget revenues would have looked like if they had just stuck with the old formula, so feel free to take a look at that...

Furthermore, that "article from a month ago" you linked already mentioned they were considering new formulas to implement starting March 1st, so it isn't exactly groundbreaking news...

If one stays consistent with reading the news, you can gather that they've wanted to tinker with these formulas for quite some time now; it's not just a random change every two months, but rather a situation where they are currently forcing new adjustments onto the old ones out of pure necessity. No one—not even Americans living there—disputes that this is being driven by force, and they admit as much themselves...
And yes, for those who don't read too closely, the fact that revenues for February would drop compared to January was already foreshadowed in that "month-old article" you shared, so it's hardly a revelation...

hollowdriver13 said:https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/russia-s...%20on%20Friday.

The US Department of the Treasury just dropped some news showing that oil and gas revenues have basically been cut in half compared to what they were this time last year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...el-ban-at-hand

Russia introduced a new formula to calculate per-barrel export duty rates at the beginning of January, halving the rate of duty payable at any given crude price. Four-week average receipts have fallen sharply as successive December periods have dropped out of the calculation. A separate line in the chart below shows what the Kremlin’s receipts from crude export duty would have been had the 2022 formula continued to apply.

President Putin Has demanded his government Come up with a plan for re-jigging Russia ’ sa oil levies to offset The effects of sanctions on The nation ’ . Officials were asked to prepare suggestions for a new method of assessing prices of Russian crude and products, used to set duty rates, by March 1.

It really isn't a bad habit to read through things continuously, rather than just jumping in whenever you see a headline that happens to catch your eye...
Because sometimes, certain details might just not be mentioned in the subsequent articles...

Carl Lee27 said:That 2.2% drop for last year? Honestly, that’s just an estimate. It feels like they’re dragging their feet on releasing the actual data because, if you look at all the indicators, things started taking a massive dive back in December. I was expecting the numbers to drop just yesterday! But look, it's pretty obvious what's happening: the private sector is shrinking fast, while government spending is spiking—which is basically why the overall GDP contraction looks so minimal. If anyone actually thinks this can keep going indefinitely, well, good luck to them, I guess.

I can already see new taxes on the horizon. Once the war in Ukraine escalates any further, those reserves are going to dry up incredibly fast.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/...-report-a80172

report-a80172 Quote : Russia Survived a Year of Sanctions by Investing as Never Before... It’s quite a curious thing to observe when you really sit down and look at the data, isn't it? One might have expected things to grind to a halt, yet here we are looking at this phenomenon where the economy seems to be finding its footing through sheer, relentless movement... It's almost as if they've embraced a massive period of internal restructuring, shifting resources around in ways that aren't immediately obvious to the casual observer... You see, instead of just sitting idle under the weight of all those restrictions, there was this sudden, massive surge in capital being poured back into the domestic machine... Companies, from the tiny local outfits to the massive industrial giants, weren't just trying to survive; they were actively spending to swap out foreign tech and software for homegrown versions, or perhaps more interestingly, they were busy stitching together entirely new supply chains to find different paths to market... It’s a fascinating bit of economic maneuvering, really, seeing how much effort goes into replacing what was lost by simply doubling down on internal investment... it makes you wonder about the long-term ripples of such a massive pivot...

It’s actually quite fascinating when you look at how businesses react to pressure... rather than just shrinking back, companies both large and small really stepped up to overhaul their entire setups, swapping out foreign hardware and software or pouring capital into entirely new supply chains just to tap into different markets altogether... It turns out that instead of facing those grim early predictions of a 20% drop in capital spending, the US actually saw a 6% increase throughout 2022, if you look at the data coming out of Bloomberg Economics... which just goes to show how resilient things can be when they're forced to pivot like that...

Yeah, it really does seem like that's exactly how things are playing out...

velvetcanyon20 said:Bravo, another absolute gymnast with logic.
We’re talking about one single company, based in one specific country, holding a monopoly over a specific region, producing goods for one sole customer with absolutely no physical way to ship those goods anywhere else because the infrastructure just doesn't exist. And yet, you're trying to compare that tiny scenario to the entire solar system or the scale of OPEC...

If you can't grasp a basic "for dummies" explanation or face the physical reality of the situation, I honestly don't know where you went wrong on your path toward understanding markets and Nobel prizes...

Let's try some simple logic...
If you don't deliver the gas, and you just burn it off as flare gas instead, you aren't collecting any Euros. If there's no collection, there's no profit. Is that complicated enough?

Only people living in a completely parallel reality think that you can just withhold a product and still somehow make money without anyone paying you.
Where does the cash come from?

You don't deliver the gas, you don't get the Euros, but you still turn a profit. It's pure magic... 🤦
Maybe we should just lift all sanctions then, since apparently, you make more money when you don't deliver anything and nobody pays you.

While the rest of us "fools" actually have to do work, deliver products, and collect payments just to stay afloat...
It seems we'd all be much richer if we just sat around doing nothing, delivering nothing, and receiving nothing.
Forget Nobel, you're looking at Darwin... 🤦

I'll try to keep this brief so I don't get too deeply tangled up in these kinds of technical analyses...

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas
If you set that chart to the last ten years and take a good long look, maybe you'll start to grasp what stable supply and demand actually looks like, and more importantly, what happens when they aren't stable...
If that graph doesn't make sense to you, you really probably shouldn't be weighing in on this topic...

For a bit of extra context—which you might also want to look into before jumping into these debates—I can tell you that last year, the European Union sent about 20 billion Euros worth of gas to Russia, and last year was pretty much average once you crunch all the numbers...

As for how much we've paid Russia for gas since the invasion began (meaning within the last eight months or so), you can find all the details right here: http://www.russiafossiltracker.com/

velvetcanyon20 said:That is some pretty intense mental gymnastics right there.
Let’s look at a few facts, and you can just answer me with a yes or no.

The war is a factor that destabilizes markets and prices? Yes or no.
Are earnings actually the same compared to when? Back during the pandemic year?
Sales volume dropped by 30-35% following the introduction of sanctions—that is an objective fact, no way around it.

So you have a drop in volume, yet you're seeing the same dollar amount as during the pandemic.
Was the pandemic year one of record growth or record decline?

There is no spot market, there is no functioning market, there isn't even a pipeline physically capable of moving gas from point A to point B anymore (you could try moving it via a few trucks, I suppose)...

If earnings are, say, 300 units despite the sanctions while volume has fallen by 35%, that implies that without those sanctions, earnings would have been 405 units. 300 billion plus 35%...

A physical drop in volume and goods of 35% means 35% less stuff, which translates directly to 35% less revenue. That is just physical reality.
Then you have to add in the number of shuttered businesses and lost jobs, not to mention 20% inflation.

Therefore, focusing solely on the revenue figure is selective and serves a specific Narrative.

(Comparing this to the Corona crisis)....
Last year I made $33, and this year I made 103 dollars. See? I'm doing better. If we use that kind of logic for propaganda, then sure, things are looking great. You're absolutely crushing it.
But we conveniently ignore the fact that your wife and half your neighbors lost their jobs, that inflation is up 20%, and that your neighbor 62 miles is still making $100 while you're working part-time... 🤦

The Narrative being pushed is that all Europeans are just naive little maids who will eventually conclude that they should take to the streets to demand the lifting of sanctions—simply because they see that everything is fine, or even better, that they're making more money.

But it goes deeper than that. You have a country of 40 million people living without indoor plumbing, yet they supposedly have higher wages than Rhode Island.
And that's according to official data from a nation that has been fighting an information, cyber, and propaganda war for the last ten years, and is now facing a conventional one. 🤦

Do me a favor and let the folks over at OPEC know that their entire existence is becoming obsolete...
They seem to be under the delusion that market prices are formed solely by the laws of supply and demand, and that they can just tinker with production levels once a month to control things...

But hey, if you go and explain to them that they could simply release 35% more product into the market and automatically earn 35% more money, they might actually reward you for saving them from all those tedious monthly meetings and recalculations...
Who knows, maybe you'd even snag a Nobel Prize in Economics for such a groundbreaking discovery...

casualtiger2 As if I haven't heard this one before, though I suppose there’s always something new to consider when you look at the bigger picture...
I can't help but wonder how they actually arrived at these specific figures... I mean, looking at the math behind it all, one really has to sit back and ponder the methodology they used to reach such a conclusion...
If we take all the data presented on this particular site at face value... it really makes you wonder about the broader implications for the market, doesn't it... though I suppose one shouldn't jump to conclusions without seeing the full picture first... When you start looking at the sheer scale of the energy infrastructure spread across the United States, specifically regarding how we manage our natural gas networks, it really makes you stop and think about the complexity of it all... It’s one thing to talk about supply and demand in a vacuum, but it’s quite another to consider the massive web of pipelines, storage facilities, and processing plants that actually keep the lights on and the heaters running from Maine down to California... There is such an intricate, almost delicate balance required to maintain this kind of continental-scale grid, especially when geopolitical shifts start rattling the cage of global markets... One can't help but wonder how much of our current strategic planning is being reshaped by these shifting dependencies, as we try to fortify our own domestic systems while navigating the unpredictable tides of international energy politics... It truly is a fascinating, albeit daunting, puzzle to solve... You know, you're absolutely right... it really does seem like America has been the one pulling the most from the reserves lately... Looking back at the data from the start of the year through January 31st, 2022, we're seeing a total of about 1,164.2 TWh... which is quite an interesting figure when you really sit down and let it sink in...
The consumption levels during the remaining months were actually quite a bit lower than what we initially anticipated...
The current load is sitting right at about 3.6416 TWh... quite an interesting figure to observe at this moment...

Wait, hold on just a second... are you telling me that for this entire stretch of your calculations, you've been pulling data based solely on what’s being drawn from storage, and then you're presenting that to us as if it were the total consumption figure...?

I feel like I might actually end up hurting myself... 🤦

steelfox98 said:I’m no economist, but even I wouldn't write out such blatant nonsense, let alone some self-proclaimed financial "expert." That second post just proves their lack of economic knowledge.

Impossible. Nuclear fuel is specific. Even Americans import Russian supply without a shred of shame. Sanctions that cause problems for Americans? They aren't even considered. That’s an exclusive privilege of the European Union—shooting themselves in the foot.🎉
Even the Japanese recently stated that energy sanctions are off the table. In fact, they accepted all the new Russian terms regarding Sakhalin 2, despite being far less dependent on them (importing about 10% from Russia) than the European Union is.
By the way, on Sakhalin, the Russians played the Western playbook. They nationalized existing companies and imposed their own rules.

We all know it now. These sanctions have come back to bite us like a boomerang. The very same people who pushed them are now suddenly against these "smart" sanctions—mostly because they’ve realized just how insane the whole idea was to begin with.
Russia should probably stop selling energy at cost to enemies who have already made their move. And what kind of dollar are we even talking about for profit anymore?
What happens if these geniuses actually push through those sanctions? The Russians will just say "no thanks," and prices will go absolutely haywire on day one. What does the world look like after just a week? The Russians have plenty of reserves anyway, and they’ll just keep trading with everyone else. Meanwhile, we'll be facing a total collapse here at home.
It’s just a game of chicken to see who blinks first. And honestly? We already know how this ends.

Rosatom dominates the global nuclear scene because the Russians hold the edge on advanced tech—all while undercutting everyone else on price. It’s not just the Canadians picking up contracts from within the European Union; even Finland was on board until they backed out for purely political reasons. Typical.

A ovo:

It’s anyone's guess who actually wants to turn off the gas valves in Europe. Is it Vladimir Putin, or is it the European Union itself? Hard to say.
Anyway, how is anyone even supposed to sue ExxonMobil now for failing to meet their delivery obligations?

That’s a question for Habeck and the Germans who failed to fix those turbines. Should I remind everyone how that guy spent a month acting like a complete idiot, stubbornly ignoring the turbine while blaming Russia? Then he had the nerve to claim the turbine wasn't even important. It's childish nonsense—blaming Russians over customs paperwork when the Germans are clearly the ones at fault.
That same guy was all over the news six months ago, bragging about how he’d locked in gas deliveries with Qatar. Just another lie.

He stirred the pot and spent the whole time pointing fingers at the main supplier. Now he’s acting shocked because they're finally giving him a taste of his own medicine? Typical.

Politicians and the mainstream media spent all of December claiming that Russia wasn't delivering gas through the pipeline. Then someone actually asked them a real question: who placed the orders? Who rerouted the flow toward Poland? Who was busy flipping the gas for profit while our own energy prices were skyrocketing? After that, the whole lot just went silent. Typical.

Joe Biden was just in the States a month ago and took a massive hit for it. To set the record straight, he wasted his breath claiming OPEC will bump up production by a million barrels over the next five years—which, let’s be real, won't even keep pace with how fast consumption is climbing. Typical. 🤣
So these are our "democratic allies." It’s not exactly rocket science to see how the other major oil players reacted—the ones who aren't quite as eager to play ball with us.
Look at Venezuela. For years, Americans have been trying to topple the leadership there. They call it "democracy," but let's be real—it’s just a series of terror tactics and shady attempts to install their own puppets. Typical.
Since the European Union pulled their support for Guaido, they ended up landing two tankers. Typical. 🍿
Iran—is there even any point in getting involved?
Libya—we could certainly use their oil right about now. But then again, who exactly turned that place into a living hell just eleven years ago?

There’s plenty of oil and gas out there—it just isn't in the European Union.

👍
Great post, though it wasn't just Americans working against NS2. The German Greens played a key role—the same ones in power now—pushing us toward "green" heating methods like coal and wood.
There’s an excellent thread on this topic on the forum.

Here's an example for you:
Poland boasts about ditching Russian gas by importing "German" gas. We all know that doesn't exist; it isn't hard to figure out where that supply actually comes from.
It's the same story with the other loud moralists publicly attacking the Canadians while secretly cutting deals with them behind closed doors. In reality, the Canadians are the ones saving them.
Now is a good time to remember what Orban was saying about sanctions just a few months ago.

Look, friend, I’d really appreciate it if we could keep things civil and polite here...

If you wanted to weigh in on the economic side of things, there was plenty of time to do so earlier on...

Jumping back into a conversation that’s already been settled and wrapped up—especially when your main reason for popping in is just to point out a typo—just doesn't feel very sportsmanlike...

Nathan Thomas12 said:Look, I underestimated you, and I’m fine admitting my math was off.
But that doesn't change the fact that real GDP just doesn't tell the whole story if there's major deflation happening between the start and end dates.
Still, that doesn't mean a 4% drop in GDP calculations isn't plausible.
The real issue is claiming a 4% drop, because mathematically, that's impossible. If 1,000 foreign companies walked out of Russia—companies that made up 40% of the GDP—plus gas production tanks, oil production dips, exports crater, and car manufacturing drops by 97%... etc.—then a 4% figure sounds like pure propaganda to anyone with half a brain. Real GDP should be dropping in double digits.

It’s all five of them, really, though I haven't been digging into the specific Russian data points during this particular thread, or rather, I suppose it would be more accurate to say I don't particularly care to...
Whether someone on either side is telling the absolute truth or just spinning a yarn doesn't carry much weight in my daily life, so I don't see much point in stressing over it...

Nathan Thomas12 said:We can argue about this until tomorrow, but honestly, I don't trust Russian data at all.
For years leading up to the invasion, they were pumping out monthly stats like crazy just to go silent once the war actually hit. Then suddenly, they claim GDP only dipped by 4%.
At this point, if you want to believe the Russians, fine—but I'm not buying it. If they announced GDP was skyrocketing, maybe then you'd believe them.
A country that blocks people from exchanging cash, stops foreigners from selling securities, and claws back 80% of exporters' foreign currency isn't going to give us accurate numbers. It's just pure propaganda, nothing more.

The question was actually quite straightforward—are you still sticking to your original calculations? A simple "yes" or "no" would have done the trick...

Nathan Thomas12 said:We can argue about this until tomorrow, but honestly, I don't trust Russian data at all.
For years leading up to the invasion, they were pumping out monthly stats like crazy just to go silent once the war actually hit. Then suddenly, they claim GDP only dipped by 4%.
At this point, if you want to believe the Russians, fine—but I'm not buying it. If they announced GDP was skyrocketing, maybe then you'd believe them.
A country that blocks people from exchanging cash, stops foreigners from selling securities, and claws back 80% of exporters' foreign currency isn't going to give us accurate numbers. It's just pure propaganda, nothing more.

I wonder how many messages really had to fly back and forth before we finally reached the first few labels?
I'm both surprised and, frankly, a little offended...🙂

Nathan Thomas12 said:Both bolded points are true, but you're stripping them of context. Real GDP uses fixed prices so price fluctuations don't mess with the data. Makes sense, right?
But you can end up with a totally distorted picture. Say me and another guy work at ExxonMobil producing oil—if oil starts at $1 a barrel and ends at $100, using that $100 price to calculate real GDP would give you a garbage result.

Those are minor technicalities, really... We are still quite a long way from where we started originally...

The real question I have for you is this: are you still sticking to that calculation of yours, where you claimed the nominal GDP expressed in local currency dropped by 30 or 40 percent, simply because you arrived at that number by taking a percentage from the real GDP relative to the nominal GDP in a foreign currency and then converting it back to the domestic one?

feralhawk45 said:How much can war costs actually swing the GDP?
For instance, you could claim you're burning through 50k shells a day straight from the stockpile, slap an arbitrary price tag of several thousand dollars on each, inflate the transport costs per mile to ridiculous levels, and count "destroyed" tanks at their full replacement value. Suddenly, you've manufactured a massive spike in GDP just by playing the numbers.
Look, I’m no economist, so take this as a genuine question.

Now, if you manufacture 50,000 brand-new shells, that definitely counts toward the GDP...
But just dusting off 50,000 old shells from a warehouse? That doesn't count at all, since that value was already baked into the GDP a long time ago...

Nathan Thomas12 said:In every single post, you insist that price isn't part of real GDP. Obviously, price *is* included in GDP; it's a core component. We don't measure the value of exported oil in terms of eggs. When calculating real GDP, a fixed price is applied across the entire period.
Essentially, you calculate the Q2 GDP and apply current oil and gas prices to the previous period.
If gas was five times cheaper at the start of the period, it doesn't matter—we calculate that past gas export at today's price. In real GDP, price is factored out, but the headache is deciding which price to use, especially when prices are swinging wildly.
Because of that, deflation inevitably pumps up real GDP numbers significantly.
I'll say it again: nominal GDP is the indicator of purchasing power, not real GDP.

You really need to decide which of those bolded claims sits better with you, though I’d suggest picking the one that actually holds water...
The whole calculation process is such a dense, complicated thing, filled with tiny nuances that we simply can't—and shouldn't—try to squeeze into a few short sentences...
That wasn't the point here, though; the goal is just to make sure we aren't comparing apples to oranges, or trying to apply the percentage change of one variable directly onto another completely different one...

That blue sentence is the key part. A fixed or constant price is used. For the sake of making comparisons over time, you could pick any price—one from the beginning, one from the middle, or even the most recent one. Or, to put it more simply: the specific price itself doesn't actually matter...

Nathan Thomas12 said:In every single post, you insist that price isn't part of real GDP. Obviously, price *is* included in GDP; it's a core component. We don't measure the value of exported oil in terms of eggs. When calculating real GDP, a fixed price is applied across the entire period.
Essentially, you calculate the Q2 GDP and apply current oil and gas prices to the previous period.
If gas was five times cheaper at the start of the period, it doesn't matter—we calculate that past gas export at today's price. In real GDP, price is factored out, but the headache is deciding which price to use, especially when prices are swinging wildly.
Because of that, deflation inevitably pumps up real GDP numbers significantly.
I'll say it again: nominal GDP is the indicator of purchasing power, not real GDP.

It seems quite logical and straightforward to me, so I'm honestly not even sure what the purpose of posting that here is right now...
The amount of money available stays the same—prices have dropped—so the actual quantity of goods produced increases...

Nathan Thomas12 said:In every single post, you insist that price isn't part of real GDP. Obviously, price *is* included in GDP; it's a core component. We don't measure the value of exported oil in terms of eggs. When calculating real GDP, a fixed price is applied across the entire period.
Essentially, you calculate the Q2 GDP and apply current oil and gas prices to the previous period.
If gas was five times cheaper at the start of the period, it doesn't matter—we calculate that past gas export at today's price. In real GDP, price is factored out, but the headache is deciding which price to use, especially when prices are swinging wildly.
Because of that, deflation inevitably pumps up real GDP numbers significantly.
I'll say it again: nominal GDP is the indicator of purchasing power, not real GDP.

Purchasing power is its own distinct parameter that gets calculated and tracked separately; I don't know if it's intuitive enough, but there is an actual metric specifically called "purchasing power"...

Noah Martin2 said:I addressed the actual drop in production—whether caused by their own policy choices or sanctions—based on data available to the public that impacts GDP projections, yet you keep pivoting back to real GDP. We don't have access to their internal metrics because they don't release them. If you were personally sent those figures, feel free to share them with us.
How do you explain the idea that price may or may not affect the GDP of a nation that has tied its entire development solely to hydrocarbon exports?

My friend, I think you might have misread the intent behind my previous posts...

I wasn't actually trying to provide a deep dive into the current situation in Russia itself, but rather I was pointing out that the math you're performing feels a bit like voodoo magic, and frankly, it’s going to remain voodoo magic whether those figures you're playing with are accurate to eleven decimal places or just complete fabrications coming out of Russia...

If you're asking specifically about that 4% drop figure, even though I haven't personally spent time presenting or dissecting that particular number here, I can certainly point you toward the fact that it was recently released regarding the second quarter, and you can find plenty of articles covering it all over the mainstream American news sites if you feel like doing some reading and analysis...