Posts by analogbear5

Timothy Williams5 said:It’s like when you finally let a canary out of its cage after five years of captivity.
Sure, it has all the freedom in the world now, but life on the outside is brutal when you’ve forgotten how to actually live in it, or simply lack the capacity to enjoy it anymore.
At that point, you’d honestly rather just go back to prison.

Bryan Booth82 said:Look, if that were actually true, why haven't they shut down every single pipeline heading toward the West? It's hard to believe they'd keep selling us gas just because they're suddenly worried about our heating bills this winter.

Just today, they announced they're going to go ahead and flow gas through Nord Stream 1 after all.
How does that work? If they truly didn't care whether anyone used their supply, they wouldn't be bothering to turn the valves.🤔
Best,

gentlestag15 said:This is basically the big dream for all the Putinoljubac crowd—that one massive pipeline from the Siberian Power field straight to China.
Just one single line coming out of one solitary gas field,
while about 90% of everything else is piped right toward Europe.

gentleviper62 said:Even in a worst-case scenario, Russia will always find ways to cash in on selling oil, Gas, and other natural resources. The world is massive; it isn't just about Europe. Global populations are growing, and with them, demand follows.

Timothy Williams5 said:Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Patriarch Kiril, an outspoken supporter of the war, are set to feature in a new school curriculum titled "Talking About What Matters." This series of lessons is scheduled to roll out across schools starting this September.

The Department of Education announced that the inaugural session for the "Talking About What Matters" program will take place on September 5th. According to their press office, the specific themes and lesson plans have already been tailored to fit various grade levels.

Based on the course presentation, the curriculum will span from 1st through 11th grade. The syllabus includes a heavy rotation of topics such as "Heroes of the Homeland Across History," "Ancestral Fathers," "Art vs. Pseudo-Art," "The Happiness of Being Home," "Heroes of Peaceful Life," "The Constitution as the Foundation of Law and Order," "Russia in the Global Arena," "Russian troops arrive," "Knowing Every Woman is Beautiful," "Crimea on the Map of Russia," "One Does Not Choose Their Motherland," "Who is a Hero? (Heroes of Peaceful Life)," "Inevitable Retribution," and several others.

https://www.agents.media/kadyrov-pom...tiry-v-zhizni/

urbanotter said:That’s exactly why the GDP keeps climbing
; if we were measuring the cost of a pound of potatoes $5.00 versus an egg $1.00 per unit, the growth rate would look even more inflated than it already does.

Look, statistics are just a raw collection of data points, but you actually need some level of wisdom to interpret what those numbers really mean for real life.

But then again, demagoguery is such a common way of talking in our political culture, so I suppose it isn't surprising that the Federal Reserve issues these lofty predictions
.
Vujčić and the truth—they just don't seem to go together. 🙏🙏

urbanotter said:The actual topic here is sanctions, not ideology or debating who invaded whom

But it looks like history isn't really your strong suit, much like economics or monetary policy might not be either.😉

Let's get back to the sanctions themselves; they are in full effect and more are being prepared, making this a relevant topic for this year and likely many more to come.

swiftjackal11 said:Maybe some stray Russian missile hits his tanker, then he won't be worrying about oil prices anymore. 🤷

urbanotter said:Look, I’m certainly no psychic, so I can't claim to know exactly what the Russians or Germans are thinking, nor can I predict if a war will break out or not.

To me, it just feels completely illogical to pour billions of dollars into building a supply route designed specifically to increase the volume and security of gas shipments from Russia to Germany, only to then turn around and use that very same gas as leverage for blackmail.

I don't have that American foresight to always be looking two moves ahead,
but I do know that they've ramped up production through more expensive fracking, finished building out their liquefaction plants, and now they desperately need to find buyers for this excess, pricier gas compared to what comes from Russia or the Middle East.

So, based on those facts, I've come to a bit of a conclusion:
it seems like the plan is to sell everyone this whole narrative about blackmail and push for sanctions against the old supplier,
just so they can offload their own expensive gas instead of the cheaper Russian stuff, which might otherwise be a tough sell on the open market.

Believe me, there isn't some grand ideology or "love" for anyone involved here; it’s just pure, "successful" Trump's business logic at work.😉

urbanotter said:Russia is going to shift its trade focus toward the East and toward the BRIC nations, which they are looking to expand by adding more members.
They’ll try to source the goods they traditionally imported from Europe from other parts of the world instead. Right now, Russia is seeing an unprecedented trade surplus, and when you have that kind of capital, you can always find someone to sell you a car or even basic groceries, while they also begin manufacturing a larger portion of what they used to import themselves.

Chinese cars aren't bad at all, and Brazil produces quite a lot of them too.

However, Europe seems destined to deal with more expensive gas, because the cost of LNG will never be able to compete with the price of gas delivered directly via pipelines.
It’s a simple matter of logistics: the process of liquefying the gas, transporting it on LNG tankers, and then regasifying it is expensive, no matter where in the world Europe sources it from.

Since heating accounts for roughly 30% of imported gas usage, the industrial sector will feel the biggest hit, and with those higher input costs, entering a recession seems almost inevitable.

Sanctions can be a double-edged sword; you can easily end up falling into the very hole you were digging for someone else.

urbanotter said:I honestly don't see the issue here; these are all standard maneuvers used by central banks to support the economy through monetary policy.

Interest rates aren't set in stone—if the FED raises them, why shouldn't the Russian Federation?
From what I understand, they actually dropped once the ruble strengthened to a level that started hurting Russian exports.
The real headache is that we grew up thinking the Federal Reserve wouldn't use monetary tools to actually help the economy, acting more like a simple currency exchange booth that blindly defended the exchange rate, regardless of how much damage it did to the American economy.

After slapping Russia with that massive wave of sanctions, most of which targeted the financial sector, these moves don't seem all that extreme; once it becomes clear they aren't needed anymore, they'll be lifted.

I’m not just talking about Russia, but rather what any Central Bank does—it's just that the Fed focuses on maintaining the dollar's peg (rather than juggling multiple currencies like the Swiss National Bank would)
and claims it's all to maintain price stability, which, looking back, feels like a complete failure and nothing more than pure demagoguery.

The sanctions have clearly exposed how poorly managed our monetary policy has been,
and starting next year, instead of the Fed handling things, the European Central Bank will take the lead—hopefully with better results, though they haven't exactly proven themselves to be highly efficient either.
It's obvious we have turbulent times ahead, especially with Europe and America constantly prepping new sanction packages, and it's perfectly reasonable to expect Elvira Nabiullina to strike back with countermeasures.
Sanctions are essentially a blunt political interference in economic flows, and it isn't surprising that shifts occurred—unfortunately for Europe and for us, those shifts were negative.

But there's no denying that the decision to continue paying for Russian gas and oil had the biggest impact on the recovery and the rise of the ruble.

Sandra Harris2 said:To add to that:
brutal assassination of a political rival (Nemtsov)
raping women in front of their children
torturing pets
targeting other ethnic groups to protect ethnic Russians (basically ethnic cleansing)
killing journalists (Anna Politkovskaya)
denying attacks on a sovereign state
calling on a sovereign nation's military to kill its own president

There’s plenty more where that came from, just off the top of my head.

It makes me sick.
They aren't even human; they're beasts.

Frank Martin13 said:...but let's get a bit more serious for a moment 😵 because if anyone, anywhere in the world, decided to "send" a nuclear candy—call it tactical, call it mini, call it a 505 with a stripe—the first thing that would happen is there wouldn't be anyone left here to write about it (well, except maybe andrea 😁). The world as we know it simply wouldn't exist anymore. To add to the irony, the only people left "alive" would probably be a few Americans and Russians 😵floating peacefully on the International Space Station... so, dear "peoples," "don't worry"—it’s not quite as if humanity 😵
is so incredibly stupid that it would wipe itself and its billions out of existence... ...all we can hope for is that "Uncle Sam" keeps sending as many conventional little candies as possible to "David against Goliath," until "David" finally manages to take down "Goliath" right in the middle of the field.😵

Nathan Thomas12 said:98% of the global defense industry relies on semiconductors from Taiwan and South Korea. Where are the Dutch now?...