Posts by darkdriver

Bryan Booth82 said:It's interesting how you're indirectly suggesting that 40 "closed doors" isn't actually that big of a deal. 🤔
But let's be real: 40 is significantly more than zero, isn't it?

Take Germany, the USA, the EU, or China, for example... nobody is "closing doors" on them, right?
I honestly can't stand having to listen to the same recycled propaganda over and over again, claiming that "closing doors" on Russia is nothing but a win for us. 🤦 🤦

Best,

In algebra, 40 was always basically a killer—it’d just breeze past 153 every single time, I guess.
Honestly, that’s just how things work according to this whole new way of thinking—you know, the one they've been teaching in schools since the White House approved the latest curriculum.
Go ahead—try to prove me wrong.
Oh, you really think you can handle me? I guess we'll just have to see about that—bring it on!

Jesse Hughes6 said:They even gave warnings to places like Germany about the sheer stupidity of putting all their eggs in one basket.

Just imagine you're sitting there with millions of dollars stuffed into every drawer and closet in your house, but there’s one tiny catch—someone welded your doors and windows shut and you can't actually get out.

Does the reality of how useless a trade surplus figure becomes when you strip away the context seem a bit clearer now?

Basically, all their exits are completely sealed off. 🤣
Out of 193 doors (all those UN members), about 40 of them have basically slammed the windows and doors shut on them.
Some weird math happening there, where apparently 40 is somehow more than 153... I guess? 😁

Edit

Just saw that The New York Times—aka Yahoo—is reporting that Ukrainians are pulling back from Donetsk and that the EU is bracing for a brutal winter.
All I can say is... honestly, screw their Putinophile nonsense.
Sanction glory!

brightheron64 said:Well, whenever Putin loses his grip on reality or starts rambling... something inevitable happens.
Sometimes I truly find myself wondering how I ended up on this absolute sinking ship of madness. 🙄

Just looking at a few recent headlines from Index:

United Kingdom imposes new trade sanctions against Russia
The United Kingdom announced today that they are rolling out a fresh wave of trade sanctions aimed at Russia.

Irish Prime Minister: Putin is immorally weaponizing food and energy
Irish Prime Minister Michael Martin stated that Putin is acting completely immorally by using food, energy, and migration as weapons of war.

EU: 12 European nations hit by reduced gas supplies from Russia
The reduction in gas supplies coming out of Russia has impacted 12 EU member states, according to EU official Frans Timmermans.

🤣
They're pumping out at least 10 articles a day—not just this garbage from CNN, but every single mainstream media outlet. It’s like they all just dump a whole fleet of lies right onto everyone's heads at once.
Like, oh sure, the Russians are "cowardly advancing" while the Ukrainian forces are "heroically retreating." 🤣
Mostly, it's just like an Alan Ford situation, except back then, characters like Clovis and Number 1 actually had some brains—unlike the people running these mainstream newsrooms.

brightheron64 said:The whole saga regarding sanctions is never quite as dull as people make it out to be 😁:

unknown
https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbus-...um-11655817028

At first glance, you might think it's no big deal—you've got some stockpiles tucked away, and if you run low, you just pick up more from someone else, right? But as they’re pointing out over at Airbus, reality is a bit more complicated than that...

Part of the challenge for Airbus is the lengthy certification procedure for bringing on new suppliers and components, a process that can take between 18 and 24 months

And while we're at it, let's touch briefly on our favorite recurring topic—oil. Didn't we just have a massive discussion here a few weeks back about how you can't simply reroute entire rivers of oil toward China overnight?

China’s crude oil imports from Russia up 55% in May compared to a year earlier, displacing Saudi Arabia as top supplier.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/20...-surpass-saudi

Well, who knows, maybe oil prices actually might drop after all, because if what's coming from Saudi Arabia isn't heading to China, perhaps it will find its way over to Europe instead...

Now the experts are gonna jump in and explain how easy it is to just bypass buying Russian raw materials.
Like, just grab a shovel, head out to your backyard, and dig up some titanium, nickel, or whatever else your heart desires!
Some genius actually tried to explain to me the other day that it's no big deal that there are only so many tankers and LNG ships on the planet, especially since Japan imports everything by sea.
In those kinds of minds, economics is just basic science.
So, for example, Japan could just stop importing a huge chunk of its raw materials by ship just to free up tonnage for someone else—which would totally screw over their own industry and their own citizens—and voilà, suddenly you've got tons of free shipping capacity.
It's as simple as pie, as they say.

Man, if the price hits $80, even the Chinese won't be touching ExxonMobil anymore.

Seriously, nobody is going to buy that oil. I’m telling you—it’s gonna be an environmental nightmare because they'll just have to dump all that excess oil into the ocean since there's zero demand left.

Europe is militarily weak without the US.

.

Honestly? Europe could crush Russia conventionally—and pretty easily at that, I guess.
It's just that, unlike Russia, Europe isn't really prepared to handle the body count—you know, the soldiers and civilians lost in a fight like that.

William Anderson5 said:In reality, there was this whole "Goth theory" cooked up specifically for Americans, claiming we were actually just Slavized Goths—essentially Germans. It was a way to suggest that the fate being prepared for other Slavs wouldn't apply to us...

I mean, where on earth do you guys even dig this stuff up?
It’s honestly kind of funny how you're trying to push this Goth theory—which was basically just a fabrication by that total jerk Ante Pavelić—on the Swabians. I guess people forget that those same Swabians viewed all Slavs, including Americans, as Untermensch... and even Adolf Hitler himself called that whole messy, fake state they built a "dreckstaaten"—basically a complete garbage state.

I mean, I’m pretty sure this whole thing is coming straight out of the Pentagon 🤣
. Seriously though—if you listen to their generals and all those guys in uniform, isn't Putin already dead? Like, for the 20th time now, maybe just to throw us off the scent?
If he actually isn't, then he's probably fighting off like a dozen different cancers at once, bless Queen Elizabeth's soul.

I am seriously counting down the days until fall and winter hit
The sound of pigs squatting before Christmas is nothing compared to the absolute chaos of a million two-legged little swineabouts performing a full-blown orchestra set

Nancy Gomez26 said:That all sounds fine, but what use are pistons in an electric vehicle? 😁
I am not worried about the Germans. They are panicking right now because they are used to organizing everything years in advance—which is how serious nations actually operate—but now the variables are shifting on so many fronts that precise forecasting is impossible. When you can't predict the future, you can't prepare for it, and that is where the panic sets in.
Sure, the Chinese could build a Mercedes, and it would certainly be cheaper—but nobody (at least not the people currently buying new Mercedes models) would actually buy it. Even if Mercedes opened a plant in China (they likely already have them there), a car coming off that specific line wouldn't sell in the European Union or the USA. If I am paying for a Mercedes here, I expect it to be 'made in Germany,' whether it was assembled on a Friday afternoon or a Monday morning. Since the market has gone global, sourcing materials won't be an issue, but the cost will rise while margins shrink. Those with enough money to afford a brand-new luxury car? They won't care either way.

I agree with you regarding Mercedes, but I think the main point is something else.
About 50 years ago, the whole West—especially the USA—was obsessed with Made in Japan cars. That same Japan and its entire auto industry basically buried the American auto industry, and look at us now—Toyota is the biggest vehicle manufacturer in the world.
Then, about 30 years ago, the world started loving Korean cars, and now those same Westerners are buying them by the millions. They aren't lagging behind their Western competitors one bit when it comes to quality, or especially when you look at the feature levels.
I've seen all sorts of nonsense being said here about China, which a lot of people on these forums seriously underestimate (not talking about you, though)—whether it's due to their own blindness, just being naive, or some kind of indoctrination. They view China as nothing more than a massive factory for screws, cheap electronics, junk, and other low-grade stuff. They think China is just like Russia, thinking all those trillions of dollars they earn are just being burned on weapons and buying social peace like Ruje.

urbanotter said:And that is exactly what we are doing.

I actually managed to pick up a little something on those yellow tiles

But you can't turn everything into bricks and mortar; it gets a bit awkward when you're just trying to grab a gallon of oil or fill up your tank and you find yourself lugging around heavy construction materials instead.

Oh well, if you're hauling bricks in your wallet and carrying oil home, you might as well get a double workout out of it.

😁

And as the saying goes, "Cheers to the sanctions."

The one thing I am truly looking forward to, just to make life a little easier, is when Krule and the new Liver
can finally give us some clarity so I don't have to constantly wonder about the casualty counts—how many Russians died versus Ukrainians, and how many civilians, women, and children were lost.🤣🤣

Because I can't keep watching Severina and 🙂

If some serious cash would just fall from the sky into my hands—or if, like a total Putin fan, I ended up having to grind away in the West I supposedly hate—I'd convert most of my savings into gold
Investing solely in bricks and mortar is more of a psychological condition among Americans than an actual sign of financial literacy
I'm not saying that way of saving money is necessarily bad, but it's definitely not the "golden goose" that Americans love to pretend it is

Joshua Myers432 said:Sanctioning Russian gas and oil is pure idiocy because, from day one, it’s been hurting us more than them. Of course, when I pointed this out two months ago, I was met with some colorful insults from financially illiterate and uneducated forum users who substitute a lack of logic and intelligence with sheer rudeness.

I don't even feel like gloating; it would be like trying to explain basic addition to a toddler. At this point, I'm just supposed to be satisfied that I was right. 🤦

That kind of attitude goes hand in hand with being dishonest.
I’d bet anything that most of them—basically the whole crew posting here—are still living on their parents' dime. You know the type: Mom makes the morning coffee and lunch, Dad hands over the allowance, and they spend eight years straight studying... what, economics? (the irony is killing me). They probably do it just so they don't have to spend all day scratching themselves, and honestly, they're completely detached from reality.
If any of these people had ever actually paid a real bill—not just a round of drinks at a bar, but a mortgage or something—or if they actually had a kid to take care of, I bet they wouldn't be typing out such absolute nonsense on their keyboards.

silentnomad7 said:Feeling let down?

Actually, it's the exact opposite—you honestly never disappoint me.

silentnomad7 said:

Industrial producer prices shot up by a staggering 23.7 percent in May compared to the same month in 2021! That marks the 15th consecutive month of year-over-year increases, and honestly, it’s the highest growth rate since the U.S. Census Bureau started tracking this data back in 2011... quite a jump...

A lot of companies are hiking their prices just because they can, taking advantage of the situation, but people aren't stupid. Consumers have already started tightening their belts and cutting back on spending, so eventually, those opportunistic types who are jacking up prices without any real reason are going to see their sales dry up... it's just basic math, really.

Besides, we have neighboring states where prices actually stay reasonable, so people can always just take their business elsewhere...

🙏🤣🤣🤣

Christian Torres3 said:Thanks for the compliment. Seriously.

If we apply the same logic used for China here to Russia, then this Russian military operation is nothing more than some border skirmish or a minor incident—especially since China hasn't actually occupied any neighbors besides Tibet, as I mentioned before...

Oh, so they "failed" to occupy? Give me a break. So you're saying if you don't succeed, you aren't an aggressor? By that logic, Nazi Germany wasn't an aggressor because they didn't manage to occupy the USSR and all those other countries?

🤣 x5000

Excuse me, 👍
I definitely didn't say that—that's just what the Wiki page you linked says, because apparently "dispute" means a disagreement in English.
But hey, I'm not exactly expecting you to be a pro at English—honestly, I don't expect much from you at all, especially after that masterclass in how *not* to speak American.
Anyway, excuse me, I'm gonna go run a few miles while you guys keep arguing about the border dispute between Russia and Ukraine.
See ya!

Melissa Rivera5 said:Taiwan, Hong Kong, the South China Sea... honestly, I don't know, maybe China is just the good guy here who isn't actually out to get anyone. Plus, they've got those little border disagreements with their mother country, Russia...

The Florida Keys, the Potomac River, the Mississippi... man, either we Americans are total aggressors and the bad guys here, or everyone around us is out to get us—and honestly, if we've been fighting wars for 25+ years without even realizing it, I don't know what to tell you.
Oh, wait, my bad—those are just territorial disputes, pretty much exactly like the stuff mentioned in that quoted post above.
I guess if someone doesn't understand American English well enough to see the difference between actual aggression/warfare and just disputing (for now) someone's right to a specific territory through diplomatic channels, that's really a failure of our school system rather than the country being called out.

George Robinson43 said:China actually had a massive plan to steamroll through and occupy Vietnam to rescue their protégé, Pol Pot, in Cambodia.
They launched an assault with at least 500,000 troops... only to get shut down immediately right outside Hanoi. Following that, the entire conflict was downgraded to minor border shelling and a ten-year period of Chinese inability to break through the lines.
So much for your theory that China hasn't attacked anyone except Tibet.

That lesson learned at Hanoi—that they simply couldn't achieve anything through military force in Southeast Asia—is exactly what drove China toward systemic reforms. They realized that money drills much deeper than artillery shells ever could.

Lieutenant Pašić iz Karaula had a plan to mess with Vesna Zmijanac

Christian Torres3 said:Territorial disputes of the USA
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terr...ublic_of_China

Maybe this will help jog your memory.

Erich, seriously, you killed it with this Google search—really, mad respect, no joke
If we’re gonna take the exact same logic people are using for China and apply it to Russia, then I guess this whole Russian military operation is basically just some minor border skirmish or a "border incident," right? Because, like I was saying before, China hasn't actually occupied any of its neighbors except for Tibet—which, let's be real, even the Chinese Republican government didn't recognize sovereignty over anyway—nor have they launched a full-scale invasion, you know, USA style, against any sovereign nation.
So, maybe in the future, you guys won't have any trouble calling this Russia and Ukraine conflict a "border dispute" either?

Richard Wilson4 said:Ahh, good old Chomskyism...

So basically, a traffic ticket in America is worse than Russia invading a UN member state, China's aggressive stance toward all its neighbors, or Iran trying to build an empire from Beirut to Yemen... ☕

Man, the classic move—dodging the point by putting words in someone else's mouth or accusing them of stuff they never even said or did.
By the way, isn't it funny how in this modern culture of a thousand little brainwashed commissars rambling all over the internet and watching everyone like a hawk to call out anyone who doesn't think exactly like them, that behavior itself isn't called whataboutism?
Because I guess if someone calls out the USA for its history of aggression, suddenly it's "whataboutism," but when you guys point at China or Iran for their aggressive policies—which, btw, haven't even resulted in a single formal invasion of another territory yet (aside from Tibet)—then it's totally fine and definitely not whataboutism?

Richard Wilson4 said:China basically runs half of Africa these days, including all the most critical ports.

And?
I mean, this guy is trying to weigh hundreds of US military bases scattered all over the globe against just a handful of Chinese ones--which is... yeah, kind of a stretch
Like, how many actual Chinese military bases are even in Africa right now?
If we're going by that logic—I guess you could argue that a few major US investment funds hold over $15 trillion in assets spread across more than 100 countries on this planet.

Terry Green3 said:If a deal actually lands and companies like Standard, BP, Shell, Eni, and Total are finally unchained in Venezuela to work their own fields, you'd see new wells, refineries, pipelines, and LNG facilities popping up like mushrooms after rain within six months.

So, Chevron is already starting to nibble. We really need to strike an alliance with that South American nation. Throw some cash their way, maybe offer them some sort of associate membership in the EU, and we’ll have our fossil fuel problems solved.
The French are practically right next door anyway.

🤣🤣🤣
Forget associate status—let's give them full EU membership right off the bat! That way their soccer team can play in the Euros, they can compete in Eurovision, and we could even offer them American citizenship if they end up coming over here to work as servers or maids...