Posts by analogbear5

Russia wasn't even in the ashes.

Joshua Myers432 said:Fair point. We’re basically a bloated, aging nation anyway. The younger generation will slim down while the old guard just fades away. Consider this both sanctions and reform wrapped into one. Congrats!

Nancy Gomez26 is out here actually farming grain, meanwhile you're just being a troll.

Bryan Booth82 said:Sure, but when they mindlessly broadcast that propaganda as fact, nobody bothers to call them out on it.
Basic logic dictates that the Russian market—and let's be real, the actual purchasing power of the Russian people—isn't even a factor that should be hitting the West, given that American companies aren't even selling products there anymore.

For God's sake, Russian propaganda tries to paint Russia and its market as if it were a version of Germany with a billion people and massive spending power. It's a total fantasy. 🤦
Best,

Exactly. The West can function without Russia, but Russia definitely can't function without the West. It’s just that cognitive dissonance usually wins out over actual logic.

urbanotter said:Exactly.
Once we start pulling gas out of the Gulf of Mexico, maybe we can export it back to Russia.

But we were talking about foreign debt—do I really need to explain what external debt is, or are you going to take a moment to Google it?

Fine, man. Explain it then. What is it, and what does it actually do to the economy?

Bryan Booth82 said:I’ve been digging through this for quite some time now, desperately searching for even a shred of evidence or a logical explanation to support the claim that sanctions are actually hurting the West more than they are hitting Russia, but I haven't come across a single argument that makes any sense at all.

It honestly feels like Russian propaganda hasn't quite polished this particular narrative yet—I suppose it's designed for people who don't ask many questions.

Can anyone actually walk me through the logic here? How on earth are these... if I recall correctly... six different rounds of sanctions supposed to be damaging the West instead of Russia?

Respectfully submitted,
Best regards,

Mainstream Western media basically does the heavy lifting for Russian propaganda by cherry-picking data released exclusively by Moscow. You can only reach that conclusion if you rely solely on their numbers.

Compared to Americans and Russians, the Finns (with debt at 223% of GDP), Norwegians (181%), and Germans (165%) are basically living on scraps.

Joshua Myers432 said:The Russians are asking themselves the exact same thing: how much longer can these pampered Europeans stomach the fallout from a war that isn't even theirs? Look, we Americans and Europeans are soft—we actually have the luxury of democracy, which means protests are coming. My take? We’ll probably snap much sooner than they will. Their sanctions likely sting more deeply, so factor that into your math and tell me what you conclude... 😁

We’ve already established plenty of times on this thread that Russians can survive on nothing but black coffee and cheap whiskey if they really have to.

Europe isn't going to face the kind of total collapse Russia is staring down once they're forced to tighten their belts to keep the masses from starving.

Once the only things left are black coffee and cheap whiskey for Putin and his inner circle, we'll see how that plays out. At that point, even a powerhouse like Iran won't be able to bail them out.

Amanda Allen4 said:I was just reading that Russia is sitting on massive cash reserves—somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 billion. Now, half of that is frozen under sanctions and completely out of reach. That still leaves them with roughly $300 billion to fund this whole conflict. If we look at the math—given that the war has lasted less than six months—their costs have been running at about $75 billion.

The real question is: how much longer can Russia actually sustain this fight?

TASS: Russia’s budget deficit in 2022 could reach up to 2% of GDP (June 16)

Siluanov added that about 3-4 trillion rubles ($51.59-68.79 bln) from the National Wealth Fund of Russia will be allocated to finance the budget deficit.

Since the war started, social spending has spiked—but honestly, it all depends on that classic Russian budget loophole called "President of the Russian Federation functions." Nobody really knows where that money actually goes, yet it swallowed up 34% of the annual budget this year.

Matthew Young35 said:You’re talking about the USSR, not modern-day Russia.
In today's Russia, capital sits in the hands of Putin's oligarchs, not the working class.
If you look at it objectively from the outside, Russia is operating under a form of feudalism rather than communism.

It’d be feudalism if the peasants were actually the ones driving production. Instead, you've got this mafia-style setup making a killing by exploiting natural resources rather than moving drugs. There’s a reason Aleksandr Litvinenko coined the term "mafia state."

Maria Wells14 said:Europe is in a massive bind right now, but honestly, that’s just a symptom of the sanctions.
The real issues go way deeper than that.
The truth is, Europe has been trailing behind the USA economically for at least two decades now.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...994&view=chart
Take a look at this comparison of GDP per capita between the Eurozone and the US starting from 1994.
You can see that steady gap widening ever since 2008.
And if you look at total GDP rather than just per capita, the lag is even more staggering—the US population has grown by about twenty percent while the Eurozone has basically stayed stagnant.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator...994&view=chart
Back in 2008, the US GDP was maybe ten percent larger than the Eurozone's, but today? It's sitting at roughly 60% higher.

The sanctions didn't create this mess; they just stripped away the mask to show what's been happening for decades.

What you're actually looking at there isn't Gross Domestic Product—it's Gross National Income.

Matthew Young35 said:If you are talking about America, you weren't living under communism, but rather under self-managed socialism.
Communism is a social structure, not a method of governing a state.
Take, for instance, the United States not too long ago, which was a capitalist nation that had legalized racism (Jim Crow laws). Does that make capitalism inherently evil?

So, let's recap: Russia isn't a communist state today. It hasn't been for quite some time.
The fact that you view dictatorship and communism as synonyms is your own problem and your own misunderstanding, not a matter of fact.

Communism is a socio-political system where the working class holds control and ownership over the means of production (capital).

In Russian hands, that turned into Party rule—Russian style—built on terror and genocide.

Honestly, we can thank the Russians for killing off the most logical critique of capitalism.

Joshua Myers432 said:Oh, take it easy now. I wouldn't want you humanists and freedom-lovers to miss out on your annual ski trip; that would be a massive sacrifice. 😁

Realistically, intelligent people weigh the consequences before making a move. But since common sense hasn't resided in Europe for quite some time, this whole mess is just the inevitable result.

And what consequences? Even without this Russian atrocity, you little bourgeois types would be seeing your cost of living skyrocket anyway.

Russia could pull the plug on any agreement whenever they feel like it, just claiming Ukrainians broke the rules—probably using some excuse about grain ships secretly hauling weapons.

Out of all the ways this could go south, that’s the one move that wouldn't even surprise me.

bluemason3 said:Look, if you’re that desperate to satisfy your curiosity, maybe just head over to the Catholic Forum and find what you're looking for there. 😁

Of course, that assumes you only care about them. A Buddhist could clash with a Catholic just as easily as a skeptic could, and vice versa. At its core, religion—much like politics (and one could argue it essentially *is* a form of politics)—is inherently conflict-driven. You can choose to moderate that friction more strictly or let it run loose, but the only way to truly avoid it is through total ghettoization of every single group, which pretty much defeats the whole purpose.

The general public isn't hanging out on Catholic forums.

But if every single topic gets boiled down to a pack-mentality pile-on by skeptics, that’s also pointless. That's just mobbing—basically a form of harassment.

What's with this obsession with lecturing people about Religion versus Alternatives? Where does this constant need to play "smartest guy in the room" come from?

That’d be an interesting experiment. Too bad people with massive complexes can't control themselves.

Just saying—as an irreligious apateist.

Show that to our local armchair experts when they get back. According to them, there’s zero projection out to even a Walmart, and nuclear missiles would somehow fly over the Atlantic instead of the Arctic.

A mob of people showing up to this sub-forum just to flex their collective, quasi-rational superiority isn't going to convince anyone of anything. If anything, it just proves their point further.

The same thing happens in other sub-forums too. Over on the crypto board, the "skeptics" are such a constant headache that they actually had to start a dedicated thread just for them. We could probably use something similar here in the religion section.

At a market price of $50 a barrel, pulling oil from current wells stays profitable enough. But at those low rates? Nobody’s touching new exploration—it just doesn't make financial sense to sink that kind of cash into finding new sites.

Water isn't some freebie. Krim didn't get his water delivered for nothing.

Joshua Myers432 said:You were the one throwing insults about the East first—and just so we're clear, I view labels like "Russophile" or "Putinophile" as insults too.

Europe’s entire setup relies on Russian gas, thanks to those corrupt bureaucrats in Brussels led by Merkel. If you honestly think we can just snap out of that dependency in two winters—or that a massive 300% price hike won't wreck the European economy—then you've clearly lost your grip on reality.

We can agree on one thing.