Posts by silverotter72

Bryan Jones82 said:I’ve been checking out grocery prices lately, and man, some stuff is getting ridiculously expensive:

Tomatoes are over $10, potatoes are up $3.25, apples are way past $6.75.... Part of it is because the dollar is getting stronger, making things look pricier when you convert them, but honestly, most of it is just plain old inflation.

The prices don't just "look" higher; they actually are higher, even for Russians. There are tons of people over there filming videos and putting them on YouTube where they walk through grocery stores showing the old versus the new prices and the percentage increases.

As for the exchange rate, they can manipulate that however they want when their currency isn't being traded freely on the open market. But once it hits the global market, that artificial rate tends to vanish.

🤣

Someone really needs to break it to the Russians that they’re actually better off:

And just like that... when we first kicked off this thread, all sorts of characters popped up claiming Russia would struggle, while insisting the European Union "construct" was destined to collapse instead.

Well, here we are in March, and things are playing out exactly how we predicted. Food prices in Russia have spiked by 100-200%+, they’re even seeing theft detectors on canned goods, and Putin is barking like a toy poodle—claiming he doesn't need the Euro or the Dollar and that his own worthless paper is all he needs.

He reminds me of some stray dog barking at its own collar; once the collar is opened, he goes silent, just waiting for it to be fastened again so he can start yapping anew, all just to make the people in his own backyard think he’s actually strong, dangerous, and someone to be feared.

I’m honestly kicking myself for not bookmarking that one post from the general discussion thread where someone perfectly articulated Europe's defense strategy. Basically: "Attack us, and we stop trading with you." That is their ultimate weapon. It's more powerful than any hyper-megaultra-sonic missile—the economy. Europeans have finally learned that lesson, and I suppose the barbarians from the East will learn it eventually, too.

Europe might actually be unstoppable if the Canadians would just get out of the way. The Poles were pretty much aligned before the war started, but the question is how they’ll behave now. Will they keep holding the ladder for Viktor Orbán, or will they come to their senses and coordinate with the rest of the European Union on a decent right-wing pivot?

In a strange way, Putin has gained a few things from this war. A more unified Europe that is planning to become more self-sufficient and less susceptible to blackmail than ever before; Scandinavian neighbors who are SERIOUSLY considering joining NATO—something that never even crossed their minds before; a wrecked Russian economy; and a Ukraine that will be more leaned toward the West than ever. It's like some sort of twisted 4D chess.

wiredseal7 said:And Putin's response is basically, "Fine, I'll just shut everything down right now to save you the trouble."

The think-tanks have decided that economic reliance on Russia shouldn't stop them from acting—because apparently, staying dependent is considered surrendering to Russian policy.🙂

Now Russia is doing the exact same thing—claiming their dependence on the EU shouldn't stop them from acting, because that would be surrendering to European policy.🙂

It's a mutual scorched-earth tactic that's going to bring both Russia and certain European economies (looking at you, Germany) to their knees. We're talking decades of industrial damage. Honestly, they might as well just call for a new lockdown—might make people think it's all just another COVID thing.

Or maybe they should just flip the switches on those nuclear plants again? I'm rooting for them to walk back that politically suicidal, self-destructive de-nuclearization nonsense.

Putin simply can't afford to turn off the tap. While Germany and a few other European Union nations might suffer some setbacks due to their reliance on Russian gas, Russia would face total ruin. At this point, he could probably just drop a nuke on Moscow or St. Petersburg and still claim victory in the war.

Jerry Clark72 said:Go to a Home Depot and take a look for yourself.

I’m actually right in the middle of remodeling half my house at this very moment, and I’ve been tackling the upper floor for about two years now. So, I think I have a decent handle on this. It isn't like things just spiked overnight; rather, it’s been a slow burn over the last couple of years—at least from my perspective being knee-deep in construction. And honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with sanctions or wars (not to mention labor costs), but more so the inflation triggered by COVID and general shifts in supply and demand.
Russia, on the other hand, has access to all the same resources we do, yet they experience those percentage jumps I mentioned almost instantly.

They’re already neck-deep in it, honestly. It isn't some distant threat waiting five years down the road.

Give them five years and they'll be completely bottomed out.

Prices in Russia have absolutely spiraled; we're looking at hikes of 30-50%, with certain goods jumping as much as 80%. You can see it all on YouTube—people walking through stores, filming old price tags next to the new ones. If these surges have already trickled down to the retail level, then you can bet they are hitting the higher tiers just as hard.

Just imagine waking up tomorrow, heading to the grocery store, and finding that everything has spiked by somewhere between 30% and 80%.

I suppose the lesson has been learned, at least for the time being.

A few Putinophiles were right here at the very beginning of this thread—and looking back from where we are now, even around the middle—cheering for a massive China to step in and save Russia.

Since I touched on this before, I suppose I’ll say it again.
The Western world—and I don't just mean the European Union and the USA, but everyone who joined the sanctions, like Japan and others—is deploying its heaviest weaponry to dismantle Russia from within.
China is watching all of this unfold, quite carefully, I think. Despite having a massive economy, they’ve been living on the edge for a while now, and they have absolutely no desire to find themselves in the crosshairs of the heavy artillery currently aimed at Russia, which seems to be gaining momentum with every passing day.

The leadership in China strikes me as being far more pragmatic than the Russians. At least for the time being, anyway, and they seem to have a much stronger affinity for capitalism. I might even go so far as to say they embrace it more than some Western nations do.

Sanctions mean Russia is running low on cash, which just means they’ll start offloading palladium at a massive discount, much like how they’re dumping oil right now.

Anyway, I haven't seen anyone here actually point to the direct impact these sanctions are having on the daily lives of ordinary Americans—or rather, what we're seeing in an average grocery store over there:



Even the vodka has gotten more expensive, I suppose.

urbanotter said:So, if I were to grab you by the throat and start choking you, and you fought back,
you wouldn't call that defense—it would just be aggression.
Please, spare me those tired old clichés; they lost their impact a long time ago.

Nobody ever grabbed Russia by the throat and started choking them. If anything, it was the exact opposite; Russia thrived on its cooperation with the West, which is painfully obvious now that those ties have been severed. This whole aggression against Ukraine exists solely because of a half-witted Gollum who’s obsessed with reclaiming an empire, or at least some version of the good old USSR.

#kocar# said:
Well, only about a third of the world actually imposed sanctions on Russia, so there’s still plenty of buyers left for Russian grain, synthetic fertilizers, oils, and rare earth metals.
Even Japan is suggesting they won't walk away from that pipeline through Alaska, even though they introduced sanctions against Russia due to pressure from the US.
Germany isn't exactly looking at these forced relations with Russia with much enthusiasm either.
So, I guess this whole idea of "Western unity" is mostly solid in the media, but maybe not so much in actual practice.

https://www.geopolitika.news/vijesti...-dcvQj0ZS8NKjk

One has to wonder about the actual purchasing power of the part of the world that didn't impose sanctions compared to those that did. And where exactly are these regions located, and how deeply are they tied to Russia? It isn't quite that simple, I suppose.
Russia isn't going to wiggle its way out of this mess easily.
China could certainly help them, but doing so might end up burying themselves too, and I suspect the Chinese care far too much about their own economy and money for that kind of gamble.

Christian Torres3 said:Hey, look, Germany was paying off reparations from World War I until, what, 2010? Russia is going to have to pay up too, period.

Of course they will. But the catch—and this is the whole point of my previous thought—is that they won't be the ones deciding how much is owed, what currency is used, or who gets the money and when. They can pass whatever laws or decrees they want domestically, sure. But if they actually intend to maintain any kind of functional relationship with the West in the future, they’ll eventually find themselves forced to play by international rules rather than just following their own whims.

analogbear5 said:"Russia threatens to settle foreign debt using rubles"
Russia is threatening to pay off its external debt in rubles.
- Wall Street Journal

Hahahah
"Threatens." I guess I could threaten my local bank by telling them I’m not paying back my mortgage. 🤣
If they completely decouple themselves from the rest of the world, fine—that’s it. They don't even have to pay anything back, whether it's in roubles or not.
But if they ever intend to reconnect with the West, they’ll inevitably have to convert those debts back into whatever currency the global market actually demands.
Imagine if someone here in the States (without any legal system acting as an impartial third party to oversee things) just said: "Yeah, I'm not paying back my loans to the Swiss; I'll just settle up in dollars instead."
It’s the same thing here... without some third party willing to step in and facilitate the debt transfer, these decisions are essentially meaningless.

They really only have two options, much like I do. Either they "move away and disappear" so they can just stop paying altogether, or they stick to the terms they agreed upon. If they vanish or break their word, who is going to trust a single thing they say in the future?

This kind of nonsense doesn't just have a direct, short-term impact; it carries long-term consequences, because it makes getting future loans or financing much harder.

Bryan Booth82 said:I was listening to N24 on German radio today, specifically an analysis regarding the aggression in Ukraine. They were claiming that since the start of the invasion back on February 24th, Russia has actually managed to rake in $10 billion from the West through the export of gas, oil, and coal.
They also floated an estimate suggesting that this war is draining Russia at a rate of $1 billion per day—which would put their total losses at roughly $18 billion so far.

It’s incredibly difficult to pin down what the actual, accurate figures are. I’ve heard everything from $1 billion to $20 billion being lost daily due to this aggression... so it really begs the question: how much longer can they actually sustain this before they hit total bankruptcy?

Of course, when you calculate those massive daily war costs, you absolutely have to factor in the compounding impact of all those sanctions...🤔

Honestly, it’s getting harder and harder to find even a single shred of evidence that could be considered a legitimate argument on the Russian side.🤔

Best regards,

That’s just the direct "price of war." If you factor in the plummeting ruble, and then add the drop in economic activity caused by all those companies shutting down, the actual numbers are probably much higher...

I'm not entirely sure what the capacity of that would have been, but they would certainly have become more significant than they are now.

It makes sense, I suppose, if you’re some kind of brainwashed Putinophile who refuses to look at the reality right in front of them—especially if your primary source of information every single morning is just endless Russian propaganda. Or maybe you simply have no grasp of how economics actually works. Or, quite possibly, you’re being paid to churn out this nonsense. Honestly, it’s probably a combination of all three.

Haha, so Russia is holding up well, is it?
🤣

What does President Biden say in those pre-election commercials you all seem to watch a bit too much: "Keep an eye on the traffic lights!"

https://www.tradingview.com/chart/Zxt4PAOj/

🤣

Zachary Jackson4 said:Does this mean Russia has an ace up its sleeve? It’s clear our US nuclear plants rely on uranium from Russia. And since there aren't any sanctions on it yet, they're still in the game.

Maybe for the time being. But honestly, it doesn't seem like much more than the rest of Europe's dependency on their oil or gas.

https://www.republicworld.com/world-...ticleshow.html

On the other hand, the US does not produce or process uranium currently even though Texas and Wyoming have large reserves of this metal.

While Australia and Canada have large deposits of Uranium as well , Russian supplies ara cheaper thereby facilitating Low electricity prices in The US

It’s the same story in the EU. You have your own resources, but someone else offers them cheaper, so you just shut down your own operations and buy from them instead.
I'm expecting production to kick in in 3...2...1....

Anthony Hill5 said:The CIA has just released an image of the pilot known as the "Ghost of Moscow," the very individual responsible for crippling the entire Russian economy in a mere week

https://twitter.com/Sputnik_Not/stat...jgJvv_q5g&s=19

Give me a break. Honestly, even Rambo wouldn't hold a candle to this guy. I suspect even Chuck Norris couldn't pull off what he managed to do. To effectively dismantle Russia's standing while simultaneously pulling the EU and the West closer together internally? It's almost hard to wrap my head around it.

slyfox43 said:Listen to this.

They goaded the West into attacking Ukraine, turning places like Kharkiv into this, and now they’ll pressure them into adopting the death penalty—something they haven't used except against a handful of journalists and political dissidents.

Things were relatively quiet until 2008, aside from that one speech by Putin in Munich and the conflicts in Chechnya, Abkhazia, and Transnistria...

Revisionism is really just the hallmark of a mind clouded by propaganda.

Russia has never renounced its aggressive imperialist policies. Never.

For the trolls and the Putinophiles, everything Russia does is somehow the fault of the West! That "evil" West! As if without the West, Russia would be the very embodiment of freedom, democracy, peace, and prosperity. But because of the West, you end up spending a few years in a cell if you dare suggest that a war is... actually a war. And you should be grateful there isn't a death penalty, because when they ship you off to a gulag in Siberia, you just die of the cold—which is arguably a much milder way to go compared to the tyranny of the West. Meanwhile, the EU is out in the town squares executing its prisoners and dissidents with rapid-fire artillery!