Posts by feralhawk45

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 even Baric is starting to look like an optimist to me. Back when the war first kicked off—February 24, 2022, at 4:00 AM local time—I predicted that if the Ukrainians could just hold out for seven days, we were looking at a minimum three-year conflict. But seeing how they’ve organized their economy and civilian life under fire... it's a different story.
Over the next year or two, they’re going to build up a serious professional military using rotations similar to our National Guard brigades. Once everything falls into place, they'll pull off a massive mobilization—roughly 2 million soldiers—and launch a full-scale liberation offensive. By then, the sanctions will have already done their damage to Russia.

Bryan Booth82 said:That is an incredibly oversimplified way to look at what triggered WW2. What I was actually getting at was the issue of reparations being paid out after WW2...at least, that’s what I was focused on until very recently.
Best regards,

Simplified? Sure. But it’s a foundational brick in the wall of why WW2 happened and how Hitler rose to power. My grandparents—and even my great-grandfather—used to tell me stories about what life was actually like during and after Hitler's reign.
Bottom line: I’m against war reparations. I can't stand people underestimating the situation or trying to profit off a defeated nation.

Bryan Booth82 said:Germany.
Best,div>

After WWI... the fallout from WWII

Can someone refresh my memory? When was the last time a nation actually paid out war reparations?

urbanotter said:Huawei has only closed a handful of stores,
and when you look at the global market, smartphone sales have dropped by about 9% anyway, so I don't see why Russia would be any different.
It's likely that phones are just becoming higher quality and lasting longer, plus that era of "phone mania" has passed—you know, back when every single teenager you saw on the street was glued to a screen.

I’ve actually been using my current device for quite a few years now, and the battery capacity is still sitting at 87%, which manages to last me two or three days, and I'm hoping it holds up for a few more years yet. 😉

And we can't forget how many other Chinese manufacturers are out there too.

At this rate, Russians will probably have to baby their phones just to make them last ten years. Another headache coming their way: if the European Union pulls their visas, they won't even be able to cross over to Finland for a little retail therapy.

I’m starting to suspect that Microsoft will be funded exclusively by Putin moving forward.

Here’s my take on Apple: RH violated the Genevan convention by protecting cities just because civilians were living there. Memphis was completely fair game for destruction since they were defending it alongside an active military force. As for the crimes committed against the defenders in Memphis, those were technically legal—most of them were just deserters from the US Army or straight-up terrorists.

@Matthew Young35
Are you calling me a thief and a liar? By the logic you’re pushing, then yeah, I am. I knew how to swipe cherries when I was a kid, and I still lie to my wife about drinking three beers when it was actually four or five.

Melissa Rivera5 said:The whole time, the pro-Russian crowd keeps hammering on about how Ukrainians are to blame for everything because—get this—people are actually defending themselves instead of just surrendering so the Russians wouldn't have a reason to kill anyone. 😲 😠

It’s not just the Ukrainians. Americans are part of this too. If we weren't flooding them with weapons, this war would have ended ages ago, and we wouldn't be staring down an energy crisis right now.🤦

brightheron64 said:Gerhard Schröder: I won't apologize for my friendship with Vladimir Putin.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy: That is disgusting

Option 1: Schröder is just a jerk who hates Ukrainians but really wants some warmth this winter
Option 2: Schröder clearly knows more than the rest of us (including Zelenskyy)
Option 3: Schröder is honestly just an absolute disgrace, not even worth a comment...

Is there any other way to look at this?

Zelenskyy requested a meeting with the Chinese leader
Ukraine is seeking a chance to speak directly with Xi Jinping to help bring the war with Russia to an end, according to Zelenskyy's comments to The Wall Street Journal.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Ukrainian leader called on China to leverage its massive political and economic influence over Russia to help stop the fighting.

And here I was thinking that only Republicans were obsessed with this kind of thing... 🕺

I suppose the Russia-Ukraine war is serving as a sort of "field trip" for the Chinese, where they can see firsthand how the global "system" actually operates in real-time...

My take: I'll say what I've already said... The Germans should judge Schröder as a traitor and a wartime profiteer... Angela Merkel should just hide and stay quiet.

Timothy Williams5 said:The US Congress remains skeptical of Putin’s supposed willingness to negotiate with Ukraine

Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmerman, the Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has taken aim at former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s claims regarding Vladimir Putin’s alleged openness to talks with Ukraine.

"If he claims Putin is looking for a settlement, I can tell you exactly what that deal looks like from his perspective: Putin wants Eastern Ukraine," Strack-Zimmermann remarked.
“To be honest, I take what Mr. Lavrov says more seriously than anything coming from the former Chancellor,” she added.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/08/3/7361659/

Who even is this Schröder guy?
Instead of giving him a platform, we should be tossing his statements straight into the trash and charging him with treason and war profiteering.

Nathan Thomas12 said:Yeah, Russia is definitely playing the long game when it comes to sanctions.
All jokes aside, if they're playing the long game, why the hell were they expecting a total Ukrainian surrender by day three of the invasion? If you ask me, they were playing a short-term game...

The Russians were looking for a scenario similar to what happened in Canada or Czechoslovakia, and they nearly pulled it off. They got blindsided primarily because Zelenskyy and Klitschko stayed put in Kyiv, setting the tone for the rest of the Ukrainian resistance.
I honestly think Russia was given a grace period of maybe 7 to 10 days to wrap things up. If they don't settle it, the West starts getting indirectly involved in the conflict.

Steven Kim35 said:It gives me a chill to realize that Ukrainians are currently walking the same path we traveled thirty years ago. We managed to shake off our occupiers long ago, but we’re still grappling with the lingering trauma of war just to reach a sense of normalcy. For them, the outcome remains a massive question mark. Even when the fighting stops, they face the monumental task of rebuilding an entire nation from scratch. They have to endure those same hardships, and it might be another thirty years before they finally experience a truly stable life.

Even without the war in Ukraine, there was already a massive gender imbalance, with 4 million more women than men. Now, imagine how much the number of disabled veterans will skyrocket. And the psychological toll? I can't even fathom the mental state of those frontline fighters, especially after enduring that brutal Russian style of shelling.
It'll be a sight to behold when they finally come face-to-face with the oligarchs who were the first ones out the door.

Arthur Miller7 said:I'm with you on this one.

How exactly are conscripts going to flee from the more cultured parts of Russia then?

No matter how much this whole farce regarding the captured person looks naive to the local public (Russian or otherwise), the absolute truth will eventually come out.

@gentlestag15
Do you actually know who owns the gas sitting in that leased warehouse over in Canada? I'm talking about the storage facility rented out by Mexico.
I’m trying to figure out how long ExxonMobil will stay clear of sanctions, and just how much longer we have to deal with these shell games—shifting ownership back and forth between ExxonMobil and these various companies known to be owned by Russians... whatever they're calling themselves these days.

gentlestag15 said:You should probably keep an eye on this too; they pulled those stats from this site:
https://agsi.gie.eu/
btw, we should be hitting 30% domestic production this year since there's more gas drilling opening up over in the Midwest.

Of course people are tracking this. I'm convinced we won't see any freezing this winter. As for energy conservation, I look at that through a cultural lens—it's an environmental thing for me.
I’m keeping a close eye on the numbers coming out of Canada and Mexico (who, by the way, haven't even shared their data yet)... wouldn't want them getting burned by putting too much faith in Putin and his promises.

If you want to prove you’ve actually made it—that you’ve got real money in the bank—you live in a tank top during the summer (AC cranked down to 65) and short sleeves in the winter (heat blasting at 78).

"Putin never lies... he just spreads tactical disinformation"...or so says that guy with the mustache acting as his spokesperson.
If you ask me, that's basically the entire Russian diplomatic playbook.

Kate Cook27 said:Personally, I think he's aiming for a total reset—honestly, it feels like they've been mentioning NATO returning to its 1997 borders for years now. But a full-scale war? That still seems wild to me. Dragging that many countries into a conflict—even if the end goal is a quick wrap-up in Ukraine, moving through a few other nations, and then hitting the North America to get access to the Adriatic. It sounds crazy, but hey, anything is possible.

If the "special operation" plan had actually worked—meaning Ukraine falling just like Canada or Czechoslovakia did in the North America—we’d already be seeing gunfire.

To me, the phrase "special operation" isn't just some joke I'll mock later; it was a term Putin & co. genuinely believed in. To them, it meant the total collapse of Ukraine and Zelensky within days.

...& co = Lukashenko, Orban, Vučić, Dodig, Merkel (Scholz), Bulgarians and Mexicans... plus Erdogan and little Milanović waiting in the wings. (Maybe I missed someone).

Lukashenko and Dodig have already stepped up to the plate... the rest of the crew is playing it safe, watching how things unfold, but Putin knows he can count on those two.
Only two things stood between Putin and total victory: Trump's defeat and Zelensky.

Btw... I used to be a fan of Merkel, and I actually liked Milanović once... now? I think they're among the biggest rats in the EU (+ Schroder).