Hearted Youtube comments on Econ Lessons (@EconLessons) channel.
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As a Russian citizen who follows the economic situation in the country, I can briefly explain what happens with those GDP numbers. The stats are most likely pretty accurate, but the GDP in this case doesn't reflect the actual economic situation for most people. Before the war, Russia had a large financial reserve called the National Welfare Fund. This fund was created a long time ago to serve as a buffer during times of crisis. At the start of the war, it had more than $100 billion.
To sustain the war efforts, the Russian government drastically increased its spending on the war (this year, it accounts for around 40% of the yearly budget). To maintain such high war spending while keeping other sectors like education and social programs somewhat afloat, the Russian government has had to spend a significant portion of the National Welfare Fund reserves. At this point, the liquid part of the fund is already half gone.
Essentially, what has been happening over the last couple of years is a massive flow of government money into the military sector. This is reflected in the GDP figures, as the military sector (often referred to as 'other metal products' in economic reports) is the only sector experiencing growth. In contrast, private sectors are either stagnating or in decline.
It's important to note that the growth from the military industry is not equivalent to growth in other sectors. This is because once tanks, shells, and other military equipment are produced and used in the war in Ukraine, they are essentially lost, without generating the same 'multiplication' effect as goods and services produced in non-military sectors.
In summary, the GDP growth numbers in Russia have very little connection to the actual living standards of the population. They mainly reflect the enormous government spending in recent years on the war, which is not sustainable beyond 1-2 more years.
TLDR: Imagine your government had a pile of money and spent it on producing billions of tennis balls and burying them in the ground. It would show in the yearly GDP numbers, but it would not affect your economic situation whatsoever. That's what is happening in Russia at the moment.
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I am from Lithuania and I used to really feel pitty for the Russia before 2022 due to the gigantic loss of opportunity. What we, Lithuanians, achieved throughout 33+ years of independence is massive, insane. And yet, we don’t have such abundance of resources like Russia has around the surface, in depths of the soil, sea (Dutch disease, sure, is the reason). But, anyways… I really hope that one day Russia (🤍💙🤍) will eventually succeed and will be part of the world which Italy, Germany, and Japan joined after the capitulation. I pray everyday for the better world ✝️🙏☦️
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At the front, Russia is losing armor and artillery at around double the rate it can currently be replenished using 1950s and 60s soviet armor from storage. That will run out. New equipment comprises one tenth of the replacements, the rest have been refurbishments. In the 1st year of the invasion, russia lost ~145K troops. 2nd year they lost ~264K troops. In the few weeks since, they've lost another ~36K troops, now averaging >900 per day. They've lost ~12-15% of their oil refining capacity. They shut down exports in refined oil products, and they're not far from rationing fuel. Despite their claims, which seem to be accepted without question by MAGA people for reasons they'll need to reconcile one day, Russia is taking a pounding. Russia's ONLY hope is that the US and other western countries will stop providing Ukraine with the means to fight. It won't work.
Europe has woken up, and now understands the threat. The US needs to, or it will lose its position of global leadership. Putin will grind russia into the dirt. It's already too late for him now.
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Hi, I am russian, moved to Poland years back, exactly to Cracow and it's nice to see you here, I've been watching your videos recently. I can confirm that it's all truth what you explain, that russian system is far behind the level of development/freedom here in Poland. People here live in much better conditions on average, quality of life and standards are much better, laws work.
I leave this comment not from the main account, because who knows those russians, they can become mad because of the truth in comments, but it also says something about that system.
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I think the russian economy is much worse off than everyone is being led to believe, and the appointment of an economist to this position says "at this point, we're more worried about where we'll be getting our weapons in twelve months than the military trying to overthrow that thing in the Kremlin."
Shoigu is loyal to the point of sycophantic. You NEED that, if you're going to change your constitution to make yourself a tsar, while still pretending that you run a democracy. The coup always comes from the military - unless your inept camping buddy is looking for a job. Slap a couple dozen giant medals on that guy's chest and - bam - you got yourself a Minister of Defense.
...until your economy goes so badly awry that supplying your genocidal war becomes a challenge. At this point, you bring in someone like Belousov, who has architected many of the rf's famous "retroactive voluntary windfall tax-" yada yada yada, they're policies that allow the Kremlin to raid private businesses. It tells us that the need that Belousov serves has superseded the need that Shoigu served - not that either need has necessarily gone away. This is terrible news for the russian economy (well, the private "non-war" economy) in the long term and is a bad indicator for how things are going behind the scenes in the Kremlin.
This happened in response to the passing of military aid for Ukraine by the US, not the (haha) "election" and subsequent coronation of Dobby the Dacha Elf. Two cents, and worth exactly that.
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Hi Professor: I dont disagree with your Smith argument in principle, but I think there is something else at play than the strict economy. If trade is allowed to be completely free, and if one side becomes so efficient that it dominates the other(s) in a particular economic area (for example electronics) such that there are no electronics being exported from the the other country(s) (say USA), then that presents a vulnerability wherein if the dominating country (say China) decides to invoke hostilities, then the subordinate country is at their mercy with respect to the economics of electronics (in this example). Therefore the subordinate country (USA) here would not be able to conduct defense due to not having any electronics capability for defense systems. What this means is that there is a price for purely following Adam Smith, and that price could be our treasured freedom. We MUST retain organic capabilities to be able to provide the materials and the technologies and industrial capacity and the associated know how to be independent if the need arrises for national defense (and maybe other reasons too). So, although I might tip my hat to Adam on economics, the world is not 100% economics. There is at least national security and homeland defense, and likely other interests which run afoul of Adam in the larger scheme of things. I think when you consider these other factors, tariffs can make a whole lot of sense. That said, I think historically tariffs don't work well on the whole or over the long run. BUT in some dialog from Trump not too long ago, he advocated NOT using tariffs for long term application, but rather as short term pressure to get concessions he wants. For example to get China to implement intellectual property protection. And then the tariffs would come off. I dislike the idea of him taking Russia's tariffs (sanctions) off, but maybe he will surprise us there. Anyhow, I just wanted to point out that the world is a bit more of a complicated place these days than what Adam Smith might have imagined. Im not saying he is not right in principle, but principle has a nasty habit of getting entangles in the details of reality. Great Video!
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In February 2022, Russia did have some reserves in gold. I do believe that gold is an asset that possibly could be used. However, the first question is how much gold does Russia have possession of today. Gold sitting in New York, London or even Switzerland might not be usable during the war in Ukraine. Second, we are 2 years removed from the start of the war, so how much gold does Russia have today? We don't know, and we can't trust Russia to tell us. We do know that the Russian Central Bank has admitted selling their reserves, probably to support the value of the ruble, which I suspect has far less value on the street than it does at the government exchange rate for the dollar. And who buys anything from Russia, paying in rubles? Perhaps North Korea. Does Iran even buy Russian stuff? My guess is that they would almost be on a barter system, selling drones for fighters, or air defense systems.
If Biden would just allow Ukraine to take the gloves off and hit Moscow, this war could end quickly, which should be our goal.
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In Belgium, in the 60s, my retired neighbor was a 200% convinced communist: if you had the misfortune to engage in the slightest conversation with him, in the minutes that followed you knew that he was going to praise the USSR, according to him a sort of earthly paradise where everything was free, everything was better etc etc. At that time, this provoked not only skepticism but above all mockery. 60 years later, this kind of useful idiot still exists and it's depressing! The common denominator is continually verified: anti vax, anti US, pro-putin, gullible and most often poor educated. BTW, my wife is Estonian and told me about the queues in front of the bakery in the 80s ...
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It's not funny, but when I heard you talking about the Sec of State running Microsoft, I had to laugh. My mother was an investigator for the state. She worked in the same open office as the Sec. of State and the state unemployment offices Everyday, there were people crying, shouting, and threatening retribution. People were given extensions on their benefits, and then being told they had to pay them back, without notice. A guard was killed when a crowd waiting outside the door pushed him through a glass door, where he then died of a heart attack. Every once in a while the workers would see someone pickling through the trash cans, and realize they had received another bomb threat. Other times, windows were broken as people left the building. During her almost 30 years on the job, Mom's biggest case was against an old man who was manager at the unemployment office where she worked. He was No 2 in the state for tenure. As she found out, he was taking payment seals out of the office, as well as blank checks, hiring relatives without even a civil service exam, paying his pregnant daughter to stay and home while punching her in and out of work. If forced to hire someone with experience off the state register, and he had earmarked that job for a friend or relative, he would steal their paychecks and put nasty notes in their unemployment file. This had been going on for decades, before he was finally caught. There was no way that he could have done these type of crimes if he had been working for Microsoft. In the words of George Washington, "Occupants of public offices love power and are prone to abuse it."
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My speculation is that the Russian economy is teetering, and that there are desperate measures taken on a daily basis to prop it up, including the sale of land to China, stolen resources from Africa, etc. There is taxation to add, of course, but I expect there are additional dark resources involved as well, including bitcoin and other crypto currencies. As a mafia state, they are likely heavily into crypto, and it has unfortunately shot up during the last year.
On the other hand, they are bogged down in an expensive war, and that has to be draining the economy significantly. As expensive as it is to build an airplane or a radar system or a tank, that price has risen dramatically because the computer chips and other non-native technology has to be bought on the black market at a significant up-charge.
Cheers to you and all those reading this long-winded comment. I will end with this joke that I made up about the Russian economy:
RUSSIAN CUSTOMER: How much for Turnip?
RUSSIAN GROCER: Two Turnips!
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Good points, well made. I watch Peter, and like his analysis, and generally agree with many of his assertions, but in the back of my mind, there’s this question “How will people react and adjust?” Projecting past and current conditions and trends into the future is a fraught exercise. Leaders emerge, serve, and die, governments and institutions rise and fall, all interacting and affecting one another, but underneath all that are some individuals scheming on doing today different so that tomorrow will be better.
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Germany alone has a much higher production capacity than Russia - not speaking about the combination of France, England, Scandinavia, Benelux, Spain, Italy, Poland, Ukraine plus Germany.
Imagine: the largest truck producing plant in the world is in Wörth/Germany, producing 400 trucks per day !!! And there are many such plants in Germany, which are able to switch to military production quite quickly - if the political decision is made to do this.
I personally would Russia not give 1 m2 of Ukraine. It is a principle question: if Russian mafia wins once, it will continue to do the same thing over and over again.
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It is part of the Asian culture to never experience the shortage of people. Anything can be scarce except people. That is the core base key assumption of all the politics in Asia. You can run out of snow, you can run out of sand, out of timber, out of fish in the sea, you can run out of anything, BUT you can never run out of people. This is how it has been for the whole known history of Asia in general and Russia in particular. People in Russia are treated as dirt. Lower than cattle. People have lower status than manure produced by cows and horses in Russia. They are a burden for those who in power, and everyone in Russia know that. I was born and raised in Siberia, which is part of Russia where unwanted people were sent to. It is the territory of internal exile for those who disagree with the government in Moscow and/or St Petersburg. So when you talk about "the economy of Russia", it is important to recognize that there are actually TWO intertwined economies in there. One is the economy of the "haves". Another is the economy of "have nots". The former see the Russia as their own property with everything that is on it and in it, including the latter ones. The people of Russia who have not power are cattle of those who do have power. It is the situation similar to Sparta with the Spartans and Helots. We have two separate economics going on there. The economics of the poor people is completely different to the economics of the Russian Government / Mafia. In order to properly address and understand Russian economy, one needs to recognize - which one he is talking about. These two economies have very different realities. The only resource they share is - the people. Unfortunate for both Russian economies - the resource of people is not as abundant as it has been historically treated. I'm afraid, we will soon start to see the cold realization of shortage of people in Russia for the first time in its history. When that happens, things will start to change quite drastically there.
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You are spot on.
In my country, all the day, the journalists is talking about how difficult it will be for Ukraine now and the war will drag out when the russian millitary is run more effectively.
Maybe they are too young to remenber what plan economics does, the only thing this man has ever learned, is plan economic, will he introduce it in the middle of a war?? It will create very big turmoil in the weapen factories, the steel plants and of course down to the millitary units that needs equipment. When a factory is been told to cut the costs by the state and the state is`nt paying the real price for the product, what do you do then? Make a bad quality and use low price workers, maybe prisoners, it will result in Inefficiency = weapens that do not work and certainly dont arrive at the frontline at time.
I was not totally convinced that Ukraine would win the war before, but now I am.
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True, the Ruble will fluctuate based upon any number of day by day factors, such as the perception Putin had a good day with his army or bombing Kiev or Kharkiv, etc. Somebody big could be hit with a short squeeze Ruble buying pressure.
The bottomline the Ruble will ultimately decline because Putin can’t win this war, he is spending far too much for this war, and the GDP is not producing actual assets and intrinsic value products first the economy. Manufacturing tanks, weapons, missiles, bombs, etc isn’t a real GDP metric. Paying wages to soldiers and death benefits isn’t adding value to the GDP.
Ultimately, there is a day of reckoning for Putin and Russia when the facts in the table shows the war is lost and defeat is the only final scenario. Then all hell breaks loose. The house of cards and smoke and mirrors finally terminates and financial calamity is starkly revealed and panic sets in. Russians will face another 1991 collapse scenario. They will need a new government and leadership to recover from another 1991 scenario.
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Thanks for this video. Great concept and information.
The numbers you cite for attacking vs defending forces works here in Ukraine because both sides are somewhat evenly matched in equipment and technology. In fact, they are both drawing from the same original pool of equipment.
This breaks down when there are technological advantages. Iraq is a great example. In their war with Iran, in the 1980s, that turned into a stalemate. Both sides had a similar number of forces. It was long and bloody, with no real strategic result in the end. The Gulf War was totally different. The west never did have an overwhelming number of troops. It was air power, intelligence and superiority of equipment that decided the issue. In the Iraq War of 2003, the US force that invaded and destroyed the Iraqi army and state was actually much smaller. Again, it was air power and technology that made the difference. The term often used is "force multiplier". This is actually possible to calculate. In both cases Iraq had plenty of time to create defensive obstacles and fortifications, which they did, in depth. The US side had plans and methods to overcome these, which it did.
In Ukraine the Ukrainians do not have this capability. The missing element is air power to suppress the opposing forces while breaking through the defenses. This is the problem Ukraine has in the south. It is also the problem the Russians have in the Kharkiv assault.
That said, if Ukraine finally gets F-16s into operation and is able to use long range fires to attack Russian troop concentrations in Russia itself, then the situation totally changes. This is starting to happen, and it changes the details of the equation, not the concept itself.
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I am speaking here as an American Protestant.
The problem with the Orthodox church in Putin's Russia dates back to its origins in the Orthodox church of the Byzantine Roman Empire. There were periods of time in the Eastern Roman Empire where the Eastern Caesar was treated as if he were the de facto head of the church, and its "protector." (In the Western Church, the Pope's battles with various kings helped lay down the notion of the church and the state being separate institutions, and this was later reinforced by the proliferation of various protestant sects). After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire to the Ottomans, The Russian Orthodox church took up the idea that Russian was going to be the third Rome (a lot of European history seems to be about attempts to restore the Roman Empire) and the new " protector" of the church was the "Czar" (or tsar). The Russian word for Caesar. The Russian Orthodox church took over the ideas of the Byzantine church. So there is a long tradition in Russian of the church being subject to the head of state, who ever he turns out to be. Putin has been able to use that to his advantage, just like any of the czars Russia has ever had.
And the Russian Orthodox church's 'baptism" into Communism (so to speak) has only reinforced a tendency to obey the head of state.
I know the Russians Orthodox (as opposed to its clergy) cannot now see this message now, but I can't help thinking you are also trying to reach out to them. Let me say to you that emphasizing Catholicism (how Poland got free of Communism) , is not the way to do that. The word "Orthodox" comes from the Greek word 'orthos' which means "correct" or 'straight.' And the Greek word "doxa" which means "opinion' or 'praise' (i..e. speaking). If you were orthodox, you had a "correct opinion" and were a "straight speaker," as opposed to being someone who spoke with a crooked tongue and thought wrong things.
This attitude came fully into being around the second century of Christianity. There was a cannon of scripture. And then, like all cannons, there came into being Mary Sue fiction ("I'm the only one who really knows what it all means"), Crossover fiction (Christianity and Platonism), Alternate universe fiction (false gods creating an endless string of false realities), and - God help us - possibly slash fiction. The printing press had not been invented yet, so Christians had to rely on their bishops who had copies of the cannon and were intelligent enough to straighten this mess out. So being a "straight speaker" with "correction opinions" became extremely important. And the Eastern Christian Bishops over time had come to depend on the Christian Eastern emperors calling councils together to assist in keeping things "straight." When the Bishop of Rome started asserting his supremacy over all other bishops, the Eastern bishops thought that idea was speaking with a crooked tongue and the Great Schism took place. There was now a Catholic (which means "universal") church and an Orthodox church. Relations between them took a big hit when one of the Catholic Crusades sacked Constantinople before heading further east. And this weakened Constantinople enough for it to later fall to the Ottomans and ended the Eastern Roman Empire. The Orthodox never forgot that.
Orthodoxy has within it an implied tendency to be suspicious of anything outside it. If I alone have the correction opinion, the straight speech, then anything else does not and can not.
So bringing up Catholicism in an Orthodox context has to be done very very carefully.
I agree that Zelinsky did the right thing in banning the Russian Orthodox clergy from Ukraine. They were all likely FSB agents reporting what they saw or heard to Putin.
But raises the interesting question of what Orthodoxy in Ukraine will now look to if not a Czar of all the Russias.
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I was saying to my wife maybe half a year ago, Russia has a lot they are not really capitalizing on. They could have such riches that would benefit everyday Russians. Look at plywood. They could make most of the world's plywood. They could build facilities to cut and process hardwoods and softwoods, manufacture plywood, and ship it around the world. It would take time plus people. Think what a tremendous undertaking that would take to dominate the world's plywood. Trucks, chainsaws, etc. It would require a lot of those machines. The could develop the manufacture of those things and could develop an export market for those things. Like Husqvarna. Multiply that times every product from steel, petroleum, etc. not to sell but to service their own industries. Rather than a few people getting rich, every Russian would get a benefit. Happiness would grow. Russia could be the richest country in the world and they could do this legitimately and without coercion. Well, you're an economist. I don't need to tell you. Instead, they are like the Mafia.
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Russia confiscated MAKFA, the largest pasta producer in the country, and it has been giving out money to potato producers all over Russia to build storage facilities, most of these are 100-200 Ha farmers all over, operating Russian-made machinery. Plus they are in control of the largest retailer MAGNIT, so they have complete control of distribution. Most of the grain produced in Russia is low quality(cow feed), if shit hits the fan they will eat pasta with potatoes, which will be great for the health of the nation, as you know, being so vibrant and skinny you follow exactly that diet, high carb, low fat. They are way ahead of you. I think on this one they are prepared to fight to the last troop, no matter the cost, until the women revolt nothing will change, but in this case, the women are being paid off handsomely.
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of course Poland, Poland has been better off than Russia since the 2000s and Russia is declining gradually. After the war is over, not surprised if millions of Russians will be streaming thru Poland to get to the west. Here in Vancouver Canada we have had waves of immigration from different countries , back in the 90s I remember it was from Somalia, former Yugoslav nations, Honduras, El Salvador, Hong Kong , China, being the largest immigrants now its the Indian students, but in the future oh say in a few years, you will see large numbers of Russians immigrating here in Canada.
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thank you Mark ,,,i also just found your channel ,,,,i am an American living in the Philippines,,,,,i never appreciated the USA more
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Many taxi drivers are the people who can tell you a lot about politics, ethics, economics, religion and anything else just to support a nice conversation while driving. While listening to a taxi driver on a long trip, you may sometimes think what if this guy was a president or a prime minister? He seems to have strong opinion about almost anything. Well... in the Russian Federation that is what happened. We all see how it goes now. How good is a taxi driver for driving the whole country. If you think about it, Putin is actually a "yes-man". He says "yes" to almost anything his close advisers suggest. They propose they take Kiev in 3 days, he says - "Sure, go ahead do it". They suggest the science in schools should be replaced with religion and special version of history, he says - "sure, of course, do it'. And so on. Any idea seems like a good idea to him... which is literally definition of a fool. He is easily persuaded to do whatever, just like 5 years old by his older brothers. What a freaking disaster for a president!
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Hey Mark, I'm originally from Jacksonville. We had chickens, not turkies, but I can relate to what you're saying.
I study "practical" economics and geopolitical affairs.
Occasionally, this requires use of my critical thinking skills.
I used to indulge in potato water, but I hadda give it up.
Now I enjoy my music, cooking at home, gardening, eating healthfully and going on adventures on my e-bike.
I'm still waitin' on that deep-dive into "shadow-banking" in China(and Hong Kong). I think that's an aspect of the real estate "developers" crisis. None of the talking heads will talk about it. I suppose it's due, in part, to the lack of hard numbers, which makes it more difficult. Shell corporations and off-shore banking further complicate matters. Please see what you can find out.
Thanks for your perspective. I always learn something new each time l watch your videos.
Keep up the good work my friend.
ps: now, unfortunately, I call cincinnati my "home". Iol.... I guess it could be worse. when I go on vacation to myrtle beach sc, i'm always reminded of my home state. maybe one day, i'll be able to retire there. be well my friend.
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WOW, Mark ( Marc ), Incredibly Informative. I learn new facts every time I listen to your videos, so much to take in, happy I have the video to listen to it over & over again, to get the point you make. I agree with you 500%, The Dragon & The Bear won't get along forever. China was doing phenomenally in the early 2000s, they do look stagnant at present, and will only get worse for the Chinese Economy, & yes, haven't seen Xi Jinping lately. Mark ( Marc ) I appreciate your informative videos immensely, keep bringing them, & the great job you are doing.
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Enjoyed this. Amazed we haven't seen anything from Joe Bogs or Perun about this yet. I have been saying this since day 3 of Ukraine's counter-SMO. Yours is the first video I have seen looking at the economic impact. You are 100% correct regarding Kursk being Russia's bread basket. For months Ukraine has been making no secret of the fact they believe the buffer zone Moscow has been yapping about for months should be on Russia's side of the border, not Ukraine's. As Ukraine has said in recent days, they don't want the land.
Doing some checking of international military law, whatever Ukraine controls inside their AOR is theirs until Russia takes it back. The same theory Moscow has been saying since they invaded Crimea back in 2014. At the same time as long as the civilians are not harmed and permitted to leave (or stay as they choose) Ukraine has every legal right to raze everything to the ground when or if they leave. What the Romans used to call Salt Earth. Burn the crops, spread salt on the fields so nothing will grow there for years. An ancient practice. It was done in the US during our Civil War. Shermam's march through the South. Destroyed crops, 'rescued' livestock, and farms and burned cities. I fully expect whatever Ukraine finds in Kursk or Belgorod, be warehouses ofthings of value, gold found in small banks, weapons and munitions in military depots, all of that will be taken back to Ukraine for safe keeping when and if Ukraine leaves and many buildings will burn too.
Perfectly legal as long as the civilians aren't harmed. Back in March 2022 there was a presentation by a Russian Duma captured on Russian Media Monitor (see https://x.com/i/status/1558544508404617222 ) in which he made a good presentation (with charts) and he explained the true motive behind the Russian SMO was the theft of about 12 Trillion dollars of Ukraine's geological, gas, oil and agricultural resources. So Russians understand the concept of taking captured resources home with them. We have a few months till harvest time, but I will be really surprised if Russia gets whatever is growing in Kursk this year, or next year or the year after that too.
Forget GDP. Actual surplus cash income is more important. There is a lot of actual cash income flowing into Russia through that was their last pipeline to Europe. Hungary and some smaller places loved buying cheap Russian gas. That remaining pipeline flowed through a Gazprom monitoring facility in the now captured town of Sudzha. Within a day of Ukraine announcing (and verifying) that it had captured the Gazprom facility Russian artillery eliminated it. Kind of a stupid dog in the manger thing. Although I had personally been in favor of Ukraine using a few blocks of Semtex or C4 to blow it to pieces, Russia's artillery saved them the trouble. There are plenty of satellite and drone images of the destruction. Hungary will have to buy LNG and put up wind farms just like everyone else.
Much of Eastern Russia relies upon Russian railroads (since 25 years ago Putin decided building guns, tanks and missiles were better for his fantasy of world conquest than building silly infrastructure things like bridges and highways, or water treatment plants). Russia has numerous towns only reachable by train. Some in the far North are only reachable by airplane. To get goods from Europe to those places the rail roads are used. One of the major lines used (also would have been used to bring in Russian troops) to ship goods to the East goes through a familiar town now in the hands of Ukraine. Sudzha.
There is another major rail hub just North of a small city called Kursk. It ships things to Moscow and points North. Personally I think any person in Kursk not already climbing onto a train leaving that city before the tracks are blown is crazy, but that is that person's choice.
Speaking of Trust, in February 2022 the whole world watched Putin on TV assuring the world that Russia had no intention of invading Ukraine. In reality he had signed the order for the invasio/SMO/war only 3 hours before he got on TV and told his lies. We have seen many more lies come from the moths of Russian officials since then. In the UN, on Russia 1 TV, on RT.com, in Turkey, etc. In many quarters it has become an accepted Maxim that if a Russian says so, it is a lie. 10 days ago, in a televised broadcast, we watched General Gerasimov lie to Putin's face (and the worlds) and tell him the incursion by Ukraine had been stopped and beaten back. They even lie to each other and at the highest levels. How do we know when Putin lies? His lips are moving. I wish Russia luck in (not really) in building back the trust of the planet. I don't think it is going to happen any time soon.
I see some more economic drains on Russia you haven't mentioned. First the (thousands now) of captured Russian soldiers who have been removed to Ukraine as POWs. Most of them are young males in the prime of their life now removed from Russia's work force (and temporarily at least from the breeding stock as well (in a time of shrinking Russian demographics)).
Second, Russian war refugees. Over 200,000 last night. Once Russian artillery arrives in Kursk and begins swapping artillery shells with the UAF those still inside the city of Kursk will probably knock that number up by another half million or so. War refugees are by definition homeless and almost always hungry. They will, lacking other options, mostly be heading to Moscow. That brings us back to the agriculture problem. Political and economic instability is what defeated GErmany in WWI. Militarily they had been pushed back, but were still a long way from being beaten. But the people around the Kaiser's palace were hungry and didn't like high taxes and unemployment, so he abdicated, Germany surrendered and the Kaiser fled. I don't see Putin as being smart enough to abdicate. Two elections ago would have been a good time for that. More likely I think around the time a Soweto style shanty town rises in Moscow, he will simply slip on a bannaa peel and fall out his white helicopter from 14,000 feet. What a tragedy. I don't know if any successor will be able to do much if there is no food for the people, and it is possible things will get really bad in whatever is left of the Russian Federation, or maybe the mobs trying to stay warm in the Kremlin (did we mention Russia's winter is not far away) will pull off a miracle and select someone sane they will accept. Dunno. However, I do know the counter-SMO of Ukraine is really bad for Russia's economy. Who knows maybe when China realizes there is no more Russian Army on their Northern border and moves North, East of the Urals, they will bring some food with them. In the meanwhile those of us in the US will follow the Tik-Toc Army commanders televised advice and munch on popcorn and watch on TV. I own guns, but I am voting for Harris not Trump because I believe seeing Russia fall is more important than my AR.. I can always melt down some soda cans, make some billets and make another AR or pistol if I need one. afterwards.
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Back in late 90'ts, think it was 1999, i worked in Russia together with some 8 or 9 colleagues, at that time we earned a lot of money and in the evening we do as men do, sit in a bar drinking beer, i think the beer costed 1 ruble in the shop and we payed 17 rubles for each beer, and we all drank some ~10 beer each evening, which should total some ~100 beers in an evening, what was puzzling us was how the bartenders acted, typically listening to the TV, we asked if he could turn the sound down somewhat , and they turned it up so loud we left, and (female) bartenders could force feed us some disgusting dried fish, with head and everything, again, we left, same in restaurants, the waiters was hanging around, talking to each other, not even giving us the menu, when they could have earned a nice tip from us by being a little nice, yes, russia, are something else
Same when we arrived, we where told to wait, and it began to rain, so we walked over to a building standing under a roof, then this old angry babushka came screaming and shouting in russian, running out from a door, probably telling us we where not allowed to stay dry from the rain
I have hundreds of stories like this from russia, everyone hated our stay there, i have been working all over the world and it was the absolutely worst place ever
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General Jack Keane provides a nuanced assessment of the situation in Ukraine. He disagrees with the notion that Ukraine is in retreat and losing, emphasizing that they are on the defensive as they should be, while Russia conducts offensive operations on a limited scale. He suggests that Russia may be preparing for a spring offensive, but highlights Ukrainian efforts to engage Russian forces from the flanks, resulting in significant losses for the Russians.
Keane acknowledges that Russia has mobilized a large number of troops, close to 300,000, but notes that the quality of Ukrainian fighters remains superior. He suggests that while Russia may have quantity on its side, the Ukrainians possess a qualitative advantage in terms of their combat capabilities.
Overall, Keane's assessment suggests that the situation in Ukraine is complex and dynamic, with both sides engaged in military operations but with the Ukrainian forces holding their own and demonstrating effective tactics against Russian advances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT6_ZvM0cvI&t=190s
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Meanwhile, Europe is ramping up its defense spendings, strategically so. Mil excs likewise in Lithuania, based on dynamic battle scenarios, have been testing their fighter carried nuclear deterrent capacity, even begun considering German nuke capacity, which is where it is heading.
The European Big tech always complaining, but actually succeeding as an integral part of the US 0-1 economy, i.e. carving out vital niches, growing mutual dependency.
European leaders are awakening from their geopolitical slumber party, initiated by an unlikely candidate, i.e. Denmark, somehow inspiring other EU leaders to sustain momentum, now addition and actually investing in Ukrainian defense industry, which has begun cranking up on both short and postwar defense tech, the latter which will end up integrating Ukranian defense industry into the European, which has resided on the apex of the global defense tech curve for some four decs.
The most surprising part thou, is the testing of the European nuke counterstrike capacity.
Europe appears to have accepted, it may need to go all in in a direct, kinetic confrontation with crimelin, independent of who come to reside at Pennsylvania Avenue, which is good for everyone in the long run.
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I think your right on Mark, and if anything, the US is leading the new age of
technology, and artificial intelligence, and it will take a very long time to
surpass it. Also the US is not trying to colonize other countries, and spread
itself too thin. It's only at maybe the low midpoint of it's power, but I think it has
a long ways to go upwards. In the future, a country like China may surpass it
as the "economic power" simple because it has 5 X more people ( 1.5 bil) but
with AI and robots doing a lot of the work in the future, that is even questionable ?
Even if they did, they would not surpass the US by much, and both would remain
world powers. I would not be worrying at all about the US collapsing and losing its
power, and dominance in the world. It will be a long long time, before that happens,
and won't be in our lifetime.
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A major famine claimed millions of lives in the Soviet Union from the fall of 1932 to the summer of 1933. The worst affected was the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, which was called the granary of the Soviet Union and whose agricultural lands were known to be particularly fertile. Natural factors, such as stunting, played a role in the famine. But it was the actions of the Soviet authorities, led by Joseph Stalin, that led to the famine becoming so extensive. In Ukraine, about 3 million people died of starvation; there, the disaster is seen today as a genocide.
The famine of 1932-1933 is known in Ukraine as the Holodomor. The word is a compound of the two Ukrainian words "holod" meaning hunger and "mother" meaning pestilence, and was first used officially in 1988. In a modern encyclopedia of the Ukrainian language, the Holodomor is explained as "artificial famine, organized on a large scale by the criminal regime against the country's population".
The criminal and organized is something that often returns, not least in the law "On the Holodomor in Ukraine" which in 2006 determined that the disaster was a genocide directed against the Ukrainian people, and that the criminal actions of the Soviet regime were directly aimed at killing millions of Ukrainians .
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I find your analysis the world economic arena insightful and refreshing.
Americans are generally painted with a rather broad brush concerning education and geopolitical matters.
Though l'm a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, l consider myself, "self-educated", because "critical thinking skills" are not taught in the public schools and rarely in the institutions of higher learning.
Allow me to give you a different perspective on XJP's "historic claim" to Taiwan.
According to experts in both genetics and linguistics the "original inhabitants" of what we now call Taiwan, were Not the Han Chinese. They are deemed to be "Austronesian".
From archeological research, their habitation extends beyond 10,000 years.
There still exists, to this day, a number of these "indigenous peoples" who derive their livings from fishing and to a lesser extent farming.
So much for China's "historic claim".
The status of Taiwan has been under dispute since the defeat of Japan and the end of WWII.
Mao tse Dong and his followers fled to the mountains, rather than face the Japanese, leaving General Chiang Kai Chek to defend the entirety of the mainland.
This was an untenable situation and resulted in the General's retreat to Taiwan.
The CCP has Never controlled Taiwan.
In essence, the real reason for Chinese resentment and jealousy of Taiwan stems from the fact that Republic of Taiwan stands as an ever present reminde to the CCP of what a successful, democratic and truly "capitalist" society can achieve.
Do you, or anyone, believe that the good people of Hong Kong are better off since it's return to the PRC?
"One government, two systems" rapidly fell to the wayside.
Hong Kong and Shanghai were both shining stars in international banking.
Look at them today.
The Chinese stock exchange is on the verge of total collapse.
Capital is leaving for places like Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere.
Hope you found this helpful.
Please be well my friend.
Cincinnati, Ohio USA
ps: war does seem imminent, but china can ill afford the ensuing sanctions and naval blockade of oil, food, etc....
we must prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
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I agree with your intent. However, couple things about India. First, like the Philippines, India is a massive exporter of labor of different levels. Specifically, export, some of their best technology undergrads, especially to the United States. They are joined by other graduates in finance and investing. The chairman of Microsoft and Google are Indian born and educated. They are bright enough to have founded their own technique, technology companies, but we’re probably constrained by the lack of capital, hampered by government, regulation, and corruption. So they earned graduate degrees in the US and established their careers here. These facts are crippling for India’s technological development. Another problem for free carb, free market capitalism, is that India is a major arms importer. First, they were importing from the Soviet union, followed by Russia. After repeated delays and cancellations, India began turning to the US. So the US defense industry will probably side with India at every opportunity. And there is far more corrupt than China, and will probably never did itself out of the Socio economic hole.
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Money is good for one thing within the boundaries of a state: paying the taxes you have to pay to exist in optimal favor with The State. Outside of those boundaries, it only has value to the degree that you can leverage it with people inside of that state for exports. Every other value is facetious (you can roll up a banknote and snort coke through it if you want). What then gives you differential exchange values between currencies is that some countries are great to live in and some suck. It doesn't matter that your money can buy you theoretical favor from The State if that state controls an economy that is so shitty that it can't give you that great of a life, including oppressing you for extra-monetary reasons.
A unit of currency is to a nation what a non-voting stock is to a corporation. States cannot run out of their own money, and can theoretically print towards infinity as fast as they can invent and print new denominations, or very slowly in ways that would only require redenominations over centuries rather than seconds. Society owes itself to itself, axiomatically. A currency can only be a tool through which you move fractions of that axiom from previously printed money, to newly printed money. So, in pure accounting terms, no country can be in bad shape. But in human terms, if the society sucks, then what it owes to itself will suck. It doesn't matter how technically impossible it is for a currency to default based on accounting if what that currency grants access to can't produce much value.
If Russia had found the political will to balance its budget by raising taxes more significantly, and dropped interest rates to 0% (really, why not -100%?), but it also pursued the same imperial foreign policy, and gangland domestic policy, it would suck exactly as much as it does now, it would merely be that its suckiness is denominated in slightly lowered prices, but significantly lowered incomes.
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Speaking of games .. has anyone else noticed how seldom (more like never) Russians factor US material aid into their boasting about WW2 victory? I ask this because not too long ago I read the book, "Stalin's War" by Sean McMeekin. The amount of stuff we sent to the Soviets was absolutely stupendous. There are products still on the market today that we designed for the taste and battlefield nutritional needs of Soviet soldiers, such as Spam. We sent weapons, ammo, propellants, explosives, vehicles of many kinds, boats, ship, aircraft of many kinds, trucks by the thousands, oil, lubricants, fuels of different kinds.
So while they may boast that it was their mass charging of enemy positions while screaming "Hurrah" that made all the difference, it remains a buried, unpatriotic, and unmentioned truth in the neo-USSR that American stuff (and sht tons of it) is what made their victory possible. Whole generations have been raised on the myth of the invincible red army. You see now how the war goes for them when limited amounts of western material aid are available to Ukraine - and what we give Ukraine presently is nothing like the amounts or variety we gave to the USSR back in the day.
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Dear Mark, your ideas are 100% correct... inside your frame work. But if we shift from this high level of economic mumbo jumbo, and boil it down to what really matters.
Food security, energy security and means to safeguard both.Everything else is just commentary.
Why this matters? Well, the world you are interested it, no longer make sense, since most western countries have exhausted the conditions that made your world relevant. What i mean by this?
Property rights. You operate in frame work that only make sense if state has interest in safeguarding individual property rights, everything else is irrelevant if you do not have them. And in the west, we did just that, individual's rights to property was safeguarded, sometimes at the expense of continuity of our very population. With the coming collapse in work age demography, we no longer have what it takes to run system that has to have constant expansion, a system that has to run just to stay still. Because, if you are at all worth your salt as economist, you understand the dynamics of western wealth concentrating system. They only work in environment where growth is exponential. In steady state or contracting system, these dynamics just lead to huge societal instability. This was one of the main reason why usury was banned by pope, when principle currencies were based on precious metals. Ofc it did not stop it, but the results were often unpaid debts and violent property appropriation.
Russia is sliding back to feudalism, or some form of Neo-feudalism. Sure, it is not as sexy and dynamic as USA, that is blessed country in terms of food and physical security paired with only healthy western demography and a pool of mid to low skill labour just south of it. But in terms of state continuity, Russia is actually doing better than most European countries. So grabbing a loads of arable land with river system that does not freeze over makes tons of sense in a world where climate change can upset existing farming belts. Newest iphone does little for you if you have nothing to eat.
In my opinion, you suffer from professional myopia. Those people with no indoor plumbing and electricity will care little what Russia's status is in economical terms of the west, as long as they can have food and fuel and basic medicine, they will make children. Children that you can raise up to be a soldier and expendable. Try to pull this with modern western middle-class, who has only 1 or at most 2 kids, as you will be voted out in a heartbeat. Russia is far more diverse and complex place than you seems to understand, their priorities lie not in GDP, but in continuity. And what they are proclaiming in media about their GDP is just smoke and mirrors.
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Wow, "SUPER DEPRESSING" are perfect words to describe Russia I remember. I've spent there 2 years and sure, many things improved since then. I believe most Russians have Ikea furniture (not old Soviet) and kitchen stuf by now, the apartments average size would be between 40 and 50 m2 (but sure there are many 30 m2 as mentioned), etc. But while some things improved, some stayed the way they were, like ran-down public spaces around apartment blocks, corrupt authorities, low safety culture, etc. Some things went straight south, like personal freedoms and lately quality of life is reducing even in the few rich cities. So maybe more extreme cases mentioned here, but still it does depict life in Russia quite realistically, even thou Russians themselves might not comprehend it from their point of view. By the way, watching many Russian movies, you can feel it's pouring desperation and depression.
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Back in the USSR era, the state owned just about everything according to this commenter:
@Legal definition changed over time, but in practice the situation was perfectly defined by Constitution of USSR (1936), Article 6: "Land, its interior, waters, forests [...] and buildings are property of the state". (Note that USSR had not concept of real estate as a single entity - land, buildings on it and its natural resources were all separate legal entities) In fact, USSR law only had two types of property defined: socialistic (i.e state property) and cooperative (i.e. owned by a kolkhoz, for example). And since cooperative property was effectively a property of a government organization, they were in practice mostly treated as one and the same. Thus, anyone owning land and/or buildings in USSR had it confiscated - simple as that.
It didn't happen at once, though, but the main point relevant to the question was August 20, 1918, when a Decree of VTsIK (which is surprisingly hard to find in English, so here's a Russian version) stated that in the cities with population over 10000 all real estate was transferred to state and its usage was to be regulated by municipal government. For example, in Moscow if a residential building housed less than standard (~9m2 per resident) it was to be converted to communal apartment - in this case previous residents still lived there, but had less living space.
This gradual removal of personal property continued for quite a long time, and was only set in stone in 1936 Constitution of USSR, and after that any and all land and buildings were owned only by the state until 1988, when it was allowed to sell apartments and houses to citizens, although only one real estate item could be sold to a family, and it had to be either the one they are currently residing in, or a newly-built apartment or house. This situation remained until dissolution of USSR, and by then only 0.09% of residences in USSR were privately-owned.”
--Danila Smirnov
So, since the USSR dissolved, Russians had chances to own realty, but in the 33 years post USSR, the whole realty ownership system still hasn’t matured and settled into reliable and investable wealth formation and even close to investing in gold. But buying gold is hard in Russia unless through the black market or corrupt means.
So realty ownership makes some sense, but in a depression it will drop as people need liquidity and sell at bargain rates. Banks fail and close down in the process. Their mortgage paper becomes devalued. The bank’s financial statements are revised and then the bank goes under unless Putin’s henchmen plays all kinds of monetary tricks.
Anyway, let’s be ready to get the popcorn out and watch the Russian Federation turn j to a terminal crisis and go belly up.
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Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine I used to have a friendly debate with a buddy who of mine who's a staunch Putin supporter who would always stand behind the smarts, the superior power and wealth of Russia in saying that they were doing great everything was on the up and up and myself as a lay person but follow good channels that discuss geopolitics knew that what you are referring to right now would happen at some point even w/out the war, l think Russia would be screwed and that's not b/c there no smart, intelligent ppl there, but rather b/c their govt. is so unbelievably corrupt, that breeds waste, degradation of technology, etc. so l'd tell him look, the stone age didn't end for lack of stones, eventually it's going to become no longer viable for them to even extract oil due to so many new technologies emerging in the West that will replace oil and gas which is pretty much all that Russia has to export and generate some cash so the smarted, better educated portion of the population tend vote with their feet and get the hell out of dodge and what's the country left with? Now flash forward to today, nobody, not even China l don't believe is crazy enough to invest there, to lend them money and trade with them, it seems to me soon it will get as bad as Venezuela only it's a cold place, unfortunately one gets very hungry very fast.
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Mark I am digging you. I am paying critical thinking🤔 & attention to your content, & I ❤love it. It's incredibly informative, extremely thought provoking, wildly inspiring, & encouraging. I absolutely is believing in the Russian financial collapse, Yes, the Russian central bank keeps propping up the Rubble, but, do believe the financial end is coming for Russia. They qualify exceedingly of the "Curse", being a Bully must come to it's end. Thank you Mark, I am blessed finding your YouTube channel, I do look forward daily to hearing from you. Fantastic content.
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Creative thinking. I tought about : combine a very capitalistic idea with a very social one.
Allow companies to fire people without long contracts. Makes them more flexible and taking more risks.
Meanwhile, give all people a basic income, without a immediate need to compromise their own desires and talents for making a living. This way, you also healtier people with less stress, mental issues or reporting ill.
While companies are more flexible - not being bogged down with too few or too many employees, they will have to raise their salaries to compete and make working attractive for people, as well appealing to their personal talents.
Provide people with the basic needs to live and thrive. In general, most people will tend to expand their knowledge, career and creativity. Its boring to watch tv's - and you can also stimulate people to develop themselves, without the need for a real stick.
While you still have some freeloaders, the benefits might still outweigh the costs.
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In SWFL, I have been able to grow sweet potatoes, but I have had no luck at all with regular potatoes. I tried several varieties, but I haven't been able to figure it out. The best producers in all of my agricultural/permacultural experimentation have been cowpeas, okra, and pigeon peas. Everything else was pretty meager, obnoxious, weak to pests, or a combination. But then again, I was working with suburban nonsense soils that I had tried to rejuvenate with compost, mulch, and huegelkultur.
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I agree that Put in is not religious. And has never been a mystic - not before around 2010. Since the last surpressed protests in 2011 he has unleashed kind of religion on Russians though. It's a mix-and-match of everything that suits the ruling mafia and Putin is the supreme leader, pope, messiah and for some the very God's incarnation (even for some poor souls in US, Boston Community Church comes to mind).
While i agree that he does that for benefit of his own power, he have started to believe his own religion in a way. He might still be an atheist, maybe in a way "satanist" (they actually don't believe in Satan and it's not clear what supernatural beings Put in believes), but in his own way he has indeed become a sort of evil, lying mystic. I don't even believe it's just for the show, he seems to really believe his own brand of superstitions and revisions of history and reality. Nobody can't tell his deepest beliefs, i'm judging by his words and actions, and a few close experts. That doesn't mean he will wage his "holy war" with nukes, too undicisive and selfish for that.
If you want to understand the ideological basis for this "religion", read or watch both Alexandr Dugin and Ilya Ilyin. It's a complementary symbiosis between their and Putin's ideas. And i predict this new religion will only develop further (and further from reality, as according to it there is no single truth or reality). Communism was also a religion replacing Christisnity and current conservative Russian-world fascist (especially Z-patriot) mindset is even more religious that that, while on surface embracing Orthodoxy as a tool of this new religion. Only 7% of Russians go to church, compared to reportedly ~70% Ukrainians, where there paradoxically is a complete religious freedom. Not so in Russia.
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Hello Mark, I am a new subscriber. I support many Ukraine content creators and the YT algorithm brought me here a couple of days ago. I've binged watched much of your content, such good stuff. I can see your recent vlogs about Russia's economy and infrastructure, or lack thereof has really attracted some butt hurt trolls. Keep up the good work. I liked the interview with the Polish lady about a year ago and your 1976 investment advice to yourself. We followed similar paths, caddying, restaurant work (Lums!!! what a blast from the past) and mowing lawns. On today's topic, it is a correct apples to apples comparison, Boston the hub of NE, Novosibirsk the hub of Siberia. I had to explain that to a troll here. You described the evolution of the Back Bay, its mind boggling to think that those brownstones and venerable buildings exist on landfill. Post Big Big, the Seaport area was similarly filled and now has the priciest real estate in the city. I had just got off Anna from Ukraine's livestream and plugged your channel.
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I'm sorry, but most of western Europe lives without transcendence as you describe it.
I really don't see the lack of it as a key factor in russian behaviour.
I live in Bulgaria for ten years now, speak the language, married, child... and the main difference with my home country Belgium is that people are much more cynical. The russians/communist made them the biggest individualists you can imagine. It's all me, me, me around here. Egoism through the roof.
During the communist time, you better be corrupt and watch out for yourself if you wanted yourself or your family to get ahead in life. This type of attitude destroyed the work-drive of 2 or 3 generations. It drove out the smart, educated Bulgarians out of Bulgaria. 7 million in BG, 6 million live abroad, I think the highest ratio of any country.
Transcendence is very much part of society here, as Church Slavonic is also part of their linguistic culture which has been exceptionally well preserved in spite of the communists. So it is not clear to me how the lack of it leads to the russian mentality today. You may be religious, if so it would be your bias shining through.
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Mark you impressed ne alot, with your gift of simplicty. Wow you easily explained the Aims & Goals of both Russia & China, Geo politically. Wow, with the invasion if Ukraine in 2022, Russia shows it's True Colors, & Real Face, how insanely ruthless and Imperlistic it is on the world stage, China on the other hand, is no better, but at present is cautious, kinda wait & see what happens in Ukraine🇺🇦,. I am inspired by your sorta guaranteed assurance of Russia's absolute defeat in Ukraine, I absolutely loved that. Thanks for an amazing view & explanation of the two autocratic countries & their different approach towards World dominance, that they both will Never Achieve. Lol😂
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It's not a big deal in practice, there's already software which takes care of calculating capital gains automatically for Bitcoin transactions. As it's digital and there's a log of every transaction, it's quite an easy task. On other note, it's just matter of legislation (for example, in many countries you don't have to pay capital gains tax under a set limit). In countries where Bitcoin is official currency (El Salvador), there's no capital gains tax at all on it. If Bitcoin is successful otherwise, legislation can be changed to make it more suitable as a currency. It's not an insurmountable problem that will stop it.
On the privacy issue, you have to think in terms of society, and not from selfish perspective. It's an issue if government can track and control, for example, donations to political activism. This already happened in Canada, so it's not a conspiracy. All systems of control are bad, even if they aren't immediately used. Freedom to transact is closely related to freedom of speech, and are fundamental in keeping democracy as an actual democracy and not just a theater. Just being monitored will change behavior.
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I have a good friend in Ukraine who has been greatly troubled by the election of Trump and I have been trying to help calm his fears and encouraged him to "wait to see what actually happens with confirmations in January" and I was not that well informed about the motivations of the announced cabinet positions. If your concerns are accurate, I will need to stop being optimistic and start helping Andrii prepare for what is coming. I have been wondering very deeply why so many people have been changing their perspective about the war in Ukraine. There seem to be some deep conspiracy theories Republicans have begun to believe that are not spoken about in public. The two theories are really one, but #2 is just a deeper tier of the same iceberg.
1) Many people must believe that the media in the United States has become so corrupt that the news regarding Ukraine since 2022 is completely unreliable and therefore the narrative of the American, European news regarding the war in Ukraine has been largely successfully propagandized and the narrative we have been told about Putin is mostly fictionalized. In this scenario, what our media constantly says about Putin and Russian media being so controlled and propagandized is actually happening to EVERYONE to the extent the global population doesn't understand the truth.
2) Even though what the media reports about Ukraine and Putin are technically truthful, the Military Industrial Complex is fully activated so that corporate interests and oligarchs are actively working to make the war worse on both sides, and the only goal of both Ukraine and Russia is a scheme to reduce world population and form a global multi-national alliance with Russian Industry AND the Ukrainian Industrial Complex - essentially uniting the different Oligarchies of the world into one mega Military Industrial Complex against the population of the world- an Elites Only radical nationalism. In this scenario, the war in Ukraine is mostly theater to have an excuse to exterminate the working class over decades of world war.
This is admittedly my wild interpretation of the mindset many ( not all ) Republicans seem to be turning to. There is a perception that the "Unexpected Trump Win" was a fluke where the media was thwarted by Trump and Musk, and they are resisting the Military Industrial Complex by taking measures to ensure a ceasfire and quell the need for any escalation. There are obvious "plot holes" with this theory but I think, if you only believe that the media is globally controlled- the rest of the narrative may seem plausible. It is a paranoia-driven conspiracy theory that comes from the notion: "What if The United States Media and the Military Industrial Complex has become so sophisticated with AI media that they almost totally control the narrative of world news" -beyond whoever you talk to and places you travel in person.
This is not my own personal beliefs- but this is what I have been inferring from multiple irl conversations when talking to people I know who changed their position about Ukraine during the election. I don't know how prevalent these ideas are, but it really feels like something like this theory has developed mostly behind closed doors until recently. I may be way over-thinking this, but I did not make up these points, but I did stitch them all together in one theory from various sources over the last 6 months.
On the more practical real life side, I really wonder what people like my friend Andrew need to prepare for. My family and friends were originally glad to help and donated money here and there early on in 2022 that I forwarded to Andrew- but now they have all mostly started ignoring me and instead of donating- say some brief talking point proclaiming one or more of these above scenarios, as a reason to not help out civilians in Ukraine any more. I feel helpless like people are making grandiose conspiracy theories like this in order to justify ignoring the war and not waste their money on helping civilians that somehow are victims of the conspiracy but also part of it.
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Sadly, no-one can predict the past, or even the present, by definition. There is a problem with the resurrection of the Russian Federation, because it is a feudal economy stuck in the 18th century, with the peasants in the wide open spaces, and the lords in the Muscovy region suddenly being made poor and impotent again, so close to the European vibrant economy, but again being pariahs because they can't play fair, and thus again they are just excluded from the playground and the market, until the lords see sense. Even the Chinese are running their criminal economy better. If only the Ethnic Russians just didn't believe that the rest of the world owed them a living, and their hubris became more like humility, they might be allowed back into the human race again. They just can't buy themselves back in.
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Hi Mark. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on this. In an abrupt about face, Trump has been trying to convince Americans to get into in cryptocurrency and hoping to legitimize it's acceptance, and pledging to make US 'crypto capital of the planet' Jul 28, 2024 · Former President Donald Trump pitched his plan to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet and the Bitcoin superpower of the world,” Trump made several pledges to the world's leading Bitcoiners on Saturday, including appointing a crypto-friendly board to draft regulations for the industry, boost U.S. energy production to support Bitcoin mining, commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht, and "fire" U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler." Trump is telling people to never sell their Bitcoin. But I absolutely refuse to invest in anything that would promote the acceptance of cryptocurrency, is not money, bur rather, the grease of corruption and the backdoor way for Russians to circumnavigate restrictions against them. Just like with the Russian rubles, it has no true value.
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With Russia being the largest country on earth, a great deal of government spending is needed to manage, protect, and maintain all that territory. The government has to take care of the vast infrastructures, the seaports, the pipelines, the railroads, the highways and roads, and utilities. Then with the enormous military spending, and all the government wages, the bottomline is that all of that money just is a big waste that isn’t really doing much for the standard of living. The costs are living are rising greatly but the wages are static in most cases.
So, yes, we see in effect a Potemkin village, the proverbial house of cards. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
The reality is that vast millions of Russians are relatively poor and live hand to mouth. Nothing is going to change that dire problem any time soon, if ever.
World financial institutions are shorting any thing Russia as a highly profitable investment.
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Really, it shouldn't matter how much money they are printing or not if the real demands of treasure from the population, to feed the war, are too demanding for that population to sustain. If 8 oz. of steak used to cost me a days wages in Russia, but it now costs 2 days wages, I'm not going to care if I make 100 rubles a day and the steak costs 200, or if I make 1,000 rubles a day and the steak costs 2,000: both are going to feel as painful to my pocketbook to purchase, and the price to average income ratio already suggests that steak, itself, has become more rare in the wartime economy, either because inordinate amount of steak are being sent off to feed soldiers (and decent soldiering basically requires double the calories of the average civilian demands), or food production has switched to more efficient calories by growing more basic grains for people rather than livestock. This, of course, is just a food based consideration: huge portions of metulurgy, textiles, chemical production, manufacturing, etc. get repurposed from civilian production to wartime production, and that will all hurt the civilians that once used the supplies that that industry produced, that will now be used by the army instead. You can't account your way out of or around real scarcity. Accounting can only direct the quantity and quality of goods and services that were produced. If you produce shit, when the shit quantity and shit quality of goods and services you produce are directed to your population, they are going to feel like shit about the shit goods and services they have to fend off of, regardless of the number of units of currency they have to exchange for that shit.
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As usual, I think this guys is mostly right.
My dad was no economist, but he and I used to argue about it. I was young and argued that the world was black and white, good and evil. etc. My father told me the world had a lot of grey in it. The phrase, "There are no absolutes," comes to mind. Economics teaches us about Land, Labor and Capital. I think these Academics in their ivory towers often ignore the most important variable, people. People make or break an economy.
"Anything that government can do, private enterprise can do for half the cost." - Milton Friedman He was one of those ivory tower guys. (There are no absolutes.) I see the public roads, public school, parks, municipal utilities and yes the post office as government successes. I don't think private enterprise can do these things as well. The right combination of government and private enterprise gives success.
Milton Friedman once had a television show. It was called, "Free To Choose." It was back in 1980. The TV show often showed the success of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is Chinese. They were very successful. All of China was very successful from 1980 until recently. It was their government policies that allowed their success. The Chinese have a long history of free enterprise. They were allowed to use that experience to be successful.
I'm just saying not to count China out. When the Chinese see something isn't working, they are smart enough to change it. The Chinese CCP wants to succeed. They can change. The combination of government policies and hard working Chinese can make great things happen.
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I was born and raised in Siberian city of Tomsk. When I was young, I used to explore the surrounding territory spending lots of time in the woods and swamps. When I was 30, I took my wife and kids and moved to New Zealand. I must confirm most of what you say about the life in the Siberian cities is true. We love the Siberian nature, but we hate the society there. It has been poisoned with hatred and fear. The level of animosity among the people living there is at such a high degree, people there think that is normal and adapt to it. When we moved to New Zealand, my wife watched how ordinary New Zealand people play with their children and it made her cry. She realized the unimaginable difference between our cultures back then. Many years past and we became pretty much normal kiwis (New Zealand euro-looking people). Over these years we always had doubts about our decision to move away and start our life from nothing. We have heard from people how the life back in Siberia is getting better, people make money and build houses, travel, do interesting things. It made us doubt our choice even more.. until the war broke out. The most stupid of wars, and the conscription. Then our doubts were wiped off clean! We suddenly realized WHY we are in New Zealand, and suddenly remembered WHAT we were rescuing our children from. Your talks also remind me of that. Thank you Mark! It is much appreciated.
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Imagine a world where the entire money supply is created as debt, and rented out at interest. "While each euro, pound, crown, rouble, dollar and yen of course is somebody’s asset, at the same time it is also somebody’s debt. Consumers carrying banknotes in their wallets hardly think of themselves as creditors; nonetheless, banknotes represent the central bank’s debt to banknote holders. Similarly, a bank deposit represents the bank’s debt to the customer." - Soumen Pankki - if you woke up tomorrow and all the debt had be magically paid, there would be no more money in circulation, in our current system money comes into existence in the form of debt with interest. If people could wrap their minds around the implications of this there would be a revolution by tomorrow morning. The fiat fractional reserve currency system is the greatest fraud and injustice against humanity and the ecology of the planet that has ever been witnessed.
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@EconLessons . I deeply appreciate your response. You didn't even try to sell me anything! Lol.
I'd like to figure out if you're would-be left or I'm would-be right. We're both pro capitalism, anti debt. You call it credit, 100% of the time. Often the functional word is debt, but all academic folk still say credit.
The video's conclusion says the interest rate being high vs low is relative to the pre existing rate due to access of credit. Thats incorrect. Its relative to the amount of pre existing debt in the economy.
Left views the cause as flooding the economy with fake money. The greater fools think money is free and they tank the economy. FDR knew this. FDR did not go broke when the market crashed. The central bank was privatized in 1913, US. It existed, but under direct control of the government. Civil war was just before this. Control of currency was control of the flag.
During the rapid expansion of the 20s, there was mass over farming in the Midwest. Like the notorious tulip crash in europe, without of gov oversight or farmer co-op boards, they tanked the entire industry! A price forecast leads to competitors planting the highest value crops. They did that, the value dropped to below shipping costs. FDR formed the farmer union and paid people to destroy harvested crops to stabilize the industry. People starved cause the combination of debt expansion and raw free market approaches to profit. Once again the tax payer fixed it.
Both of these "economic theories" are truly ideological word play. A creditor is just an accelerationist libertarian.
A libertarian is either an honest feudalist or a lied to left person. The creditor proves we need ceilings, regulations, money out of politics, deconsolidation in media. They do that by accelerating your natural process.
Money flows up. Work made us rich. Its not marxist, its the most obvious fact on earth... To believe otherwise is a support of consolidated authority, cause your just saying the king did the work by letting you work...
The equilibrium is wrong in terms of disparities. Competition is dead. Innovation is subsidized. Tax the rich. Tax their recipient kids more.
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Russia currently is in a similar situation to the Russian empire before the 1917 Russian civil war. 40 percent of its budget is now geared to military spending. and its shifting 6 percent and more of its economy to war. its in a bloody stalemate not winning in Ukraine. suffering horrendous casualties and equipment losses., more repression of free speech from the state. Rising food prices. It will get worse in the next few years culminating in Russia becoming more repressive suffering from venezuela style hyperinflation, suffering from battlefield defeats and even more significant casualties. This will trigger widespread protests in Russian cities , and lead to more Russian gov repression, and the match that causes the fire will be simliar to the start of the Russian civil war in 1917, Russian security forces massacre Russian civilian protesters which leads to a general mutiny in the Russian army,
As the Russian gov collapses so does the collapse of the command and control of the Russian army in Ukraine, which is taken advantage of by the Ukrainian army who launches major offensives which collapses the Russian army in Ukraine and Ukraine regains a lot of its lost territory in the offensives. The end of the Ukraine war ends not with a negotiation but with the Russian army in Ukraine collapsing in mass surrenders and desertions with their officers abandoning their troops just like in the end of the 1st Chechen war. There is no Russian gov to negotiate with .
The upcoming Russian civil war which I think starts in 2027(110 years from the start of the last one) wil be very bloody. and also have a lot of factions. I think the west and China will meddle in the war and support their proxies. However just line in the 1917 to 1922 civil war which had the Reds(communists) vs. the whites(anti communists), this civil war it will be Freedom/Liberty and the letter L who are supported by the west and Ukraine vs. the Nationalists/Patriots and the letter Z supported by China.
With the collapse of the Russian army in Ukraine, the Russians left massive amounts of weapons and military equipment , many of which will be given to the Russian Freedom Legion which I think will be massively expanded into a real army(from 2 current battalions as of April 2024). with recruits from the surrendered Russian soldiers in Ukraine and volunteers from Russia itself along with volunteers from Ukraine and other countries. and aided by support from the west.
The other side is like the whites during the 1917 Russian civil war, factionalized with an assortment of Russian nationalist movements and regional militias but with the uniting goal of being opposed to liberal democratic Russia that is influenced by the west. China supports it with funds and weapons.
The Freedom of Russia army is more coordinated and united with support from the west plus a head start in former Russian army weapons and equipment and large appeal from the Russian people. The Patriots also have a significant influence from the Russian people and initially have a bit larger recruit base but is poorly coordinated but support heavilly by China, Iran, North Korea etc.
The Russian civil war is bloody and also affects its neighbours as millions of Russian refugees cross into their countries with teh largest European refugee crisis since end of WW2. Also well armed Russian bandits raid into their neighbours and also become pirates, the Russian navy has practically devolved into a Pirate navy hijacking shipping in the black caspain and Baltic seas .
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Mark... the countries with low populations you mentioned still all have population growth. Any country with an assumed burden of expenditure relies on not a diminishing return, but growth. If one builds infrastructure for 100m people thanks to healthy income from taxes from 100m people... then that's fine. However, once the population declines to 50m... but one has infrastructure expenditures to support 100m people... then either you raise taxes or you go into economic decline because the tax revenue (and commerce demand) goes away that previously supported expenditure. Population growth in stable economies equates to stable demand. In stable economies who plan for investments (whether public or private), these all rely on there being the same or more people to want a product, pay taxes, or contribute to the local economy through jobs. I guess the simplest way to challenge your statement that population decline is not the end of the world, would be to look at Detroit 10 years ago. It was a trash bin. Why? Everyone left. Now all those public utilities, businesses, etc, had nobody left to fund them, or buy stuff. The ONLY time an outright population decline (not population growth decline... because it still implies there's growth, just slower), is mitigated, is if that country finds itself in huge demand for something they make. Take for example Norway. Their gdp outpaced their population increase by two or three fold once they found themselves with a goldilocks product the world wanted. Even if Norway had population decline, it'd be rich. But of course, they wouldn't since at that point everyone would just move to Norway to fill the gap because all of a sudden Norway is rich with a resource. Anyway, I 100% disagree that "outright population decline isn't a big deal because there are countries with small populations". Lol. Countries with small populations that are rich have 1. stable economies, and also all have population growth one way or another. In Ukraine and Poland... this is going to be a significant problem and in Poland they realized this... hence the 500+ initiative. Spend a little of GDP to give out free money now (well... the money isn't free... put it on the yearly deficit of course), but this is better than lose a ton of money in the future from unrealized potential revenue due to a much smaller population 20 years from now than today.
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Very interesting. A completely different take on the guy, and very valuable. Stellar analysis.
Of course, I wonder what he was thinking.
Prior to the influx of western capital, the Chinese economy made the Soviet economy look like a success story.
The term for creating a totally self-dependent economy is "autarky". That was Hitler's idea.
The only thing I disagree with you, and many others, on is an assumption that the current complex global supply chains we have are necessary, or even a good thing. In fact, there are two motivations for the current state of affairs. One is that our product companies are no longer run by engineers, but by MBAs and bean counters. I explain below. This leads to the constant search for labor differentiation. A corollary to that is the move of manufacturing to countries with a large and growing market. This is a way to get around protectionism, plain and simple.
Look at automobile manufacturing. Japanese and Korean companies build cars in the US. Why? Is the labor cheaper? No. They were trying to forestall being kicked out of the most lucrative market in the world. Another example is BMW. All of their SUVs are assembled in the US. I told a German colleague of mine this and he was not happy. To show you the madness of this, my attorney (and friend; good to have one of those) bought one recently. He had to wait for a while because parts and assemblies were flying back and forth across the Atlantic.
In the 1980s the movement in manufacturing was to collocate engineering and manufacturing. This was, in large part, because of the concept called "design for manufacturability". It was driven as much by quality as cost. To go back to automotive, GM wanted to design a "world car" platform they could sell, with local adaptations, anywhere. They could also produce it anywhere. They had fancy graphics of the envisioned assembly plants. All their suppliers would have feeder plants actually abutting the main assembly plant. This was also driven by the idea of "just in time" or JIT manufacturing.
This all falls apart in the current model. I have already written too much, but just a couple more things. One is that I have already seen examples of products that were brought back to the US after moving manufacturing to China. Instead of just making the same thing, the product was reengineered to be more efficient to manufacture. The cost actually came down. In the US! I have consulted with companies and know of the situations of many more (some very large) that contract manufacturing to China. I was involved, of course, because they were having problems. The Chinese manufacturers did not build the product exactly as specified, and they failed. You can't separate engineering for quality (product and production process) and quality control from manufacturing. The result is the low quality of many of the goods we have now. This is a part of what I talk about above.
The other thing is automation. Have you seen the plants in China that produce the iPhone? There are hundreds of thousands of people involved using very little automation. The workers are literally peasants. What we will see as disengagement from China proceeds is much more innovation in automation. That is capital intensive, so it is not likely to work in China, or in Russia.
By the way, I use a lot of examples from the automotive world, but my background is in aerospace. We often studied what was being done in other manufacturing areas to get ideas for our own manufacturing.
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Hi Mark, I've sort of said the same thing to Russia, True AI will make War, Organised crime, armies obsoletee: Replaced by Financial and Political democracy. True AI may be reached, created in 100 to 1000 years time ( possibly through bilions of us silent chanting, I love ( your own name ), I love (things, people countries, faiths/ all faiths including no faith - the Atheist, paganist.) I love the Earth, I love the Solar System, I love the Milkyway, I love the Universe, I Love the Multi verse.
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Completely unprofessional, as always.
Why don't you apply the same calcs to other countries? For instance, Ireland, one of the richest countries in Europe:
Avg wage (as per Numbeo) EUR 2917/mo
#of households 1.8 mn
With 1.5 earners per household that gives us an estimate for annual income of EUR2917x12x1.8mn x1.5 =EUR94.5 bn
Meanwhile 2025 budget expenditure is planned at ... EUR 105.9bn (they never will be able to finance it???)
Does that mean Ireland is going to collapse? Of course not (and neither is Russia). It means, however, the logic behind calcuations is flawed. This is quite obvious, btw, as they ignore other parts of national income than wages, such as corporate profits, interest, rents or indirect taxes (the latter particularly large in case of Russia). Not to say that Numbeo wage numbers are already after-tax, so it is a bad foundation for calculatiion of the tax base.
It's a shame some viewers take this fake analysis at face value.
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There are no doubt in my mind too, that Russia will loose big time from the inside of its borders, but in the meanwhile we could make the life a bit better for Ukraine, by allow strikes inside russia and all our politicians could stop making red lines for themselves. Modi from India was on visit in Moscow, basicly he said: oh, its sad with all the dead children and civilians, but what the heck, we gets cheap oil out of it, unfortunately are western investors thinking the same way, by investing big time in India so Modi can pay Putin to buy more missiles, the revenue of these investment is blood money, but who cares. I AM ASHAME TO BE A WESTENER: The words came from a British hero, now passed away in Ukraine because of the wests slowly reacting politicians.
Well, I dont have time for more, I got to harvest MY POTATOES today, this year they are growing in see weed and what a result, many potatoes and big ones, afterwards I turn the soil over so the see weed can make the soil better for next year.
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I agree with highlighting that 'average income' or whatever, in Russia absolutely skewed. Russia is a country where the median vs. the average is wayyyyy off; in most countries, the median and average are fairly close (healthy). So the disposal income of the 'average' Ruski is much much much lower than just the state average... since ... they have no middle class. Just upper upper class, and all the garbage underneath. For anyone reading, if the average of some numbers is '5'... those numbers can either be 4,5,6 or 0,0,15. In Russia, it's like 0,0,15. There is statistically nobody in the average. You're either just dirt shit poor, or just a really rich Kremlinite.
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Your conclusions lines up well with the recent article by eight European finance ministers in the Guardian: "Russia is lying about its economic strength: sanctions are working - and we need more" quote:
What could be perceived and mistaken as a “boost” to Russian growth is, in fact, the beginning of a re-Sovietisation of the economy.
Many of the hallmarks are there: far-reaching market controls, heavy public spending financed by expropriation of private assets, and a reorientation of the economy towards the war industry, with a total disregard for the social and economic wellbeing of the population. History clearly shows that this is not a successful long-term strategy. The short-term overheating of the economy, fuelled by heavy investments in the war industry and very limited access to technology, will likely hinder productivity gains and result in stagnation of the private sector, even more rampant inflation and increasing pressure on Russian households.
To cover future deficits, Putin will have to use monetary financing, adding more fuel to inflation, and further deplete the Russian cash reserves. If Putin stays on this path, the long-term damage to the Russian economy could be significant and is likely to further erode confidence.
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Yes, Russians are falling down a rabbit hole. They are scared. Typically, what my Russian friends are saying, is "we don't see our future". But please don't thing this situation is all about Putin, its not. Its all about the majority Russian culture. Take just two common phrases, that you will hear all Russians say "the government fools you" (gosudastvo obmanivaet) and "its all the same to me" (mne pofig). Its very sad. And the bad karma that Russians are piling on themselves now, is catastrophic, similar to what Germany and Austrians did to themselves in 1940. I live in Austria, you can not imagine how they punish themselves. Karma is an internal system, which can not be escaped, its when we feel guilty. So sad....
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Very well said 👏 I totally agree with your assessment 👍
Finally, people are waking up to the fact that India buys something like plus 40% of Russian crude oil and, to my knowledge, India just surpassed China as the BIGGEST BUYER OF RUSSIAN OIL!
I get sick every time the foreign minister of India subtly (and often not so subtly) reasons "Because of the British......hence we don't want to align our country in (favour of Ukraine's survival)
Thought experiment: "Would India have (soon failed) democracy and democratic institutions if there never was colonial rule?"
Yes, I'm very anti-imperialistic, but let us limit the thought experiment to this question only?
Ask any politicians historian (or ChatGTP if you feel like), but I'd say that the chances are very low, like low low. Like somewhere between 0,05% and 0,10%.
The sad thing about India is that the vast majority of the Indians are some of the world's kindest people (well, that's not the sad part), but during Mohdi's looooong rule, the average Indians have been fed with the idea of subcontinent's superiority, ideas which drive people towards nationalistic tendencies and not towards healthy patriotism.
India is a great nation. They'd have so much respect for being just...Indians but judging Mohdi's actions it almost looks he's doing everything to make sure all is going to backfire in years to come
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We may see new nations break free of the Russian empire: Smolensk, Belgorod, Tatarstan, Chechnya, Baluchistan.
and all that nations that Russia has stolen from: Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Czechia, Ukraine, Georgia, khazakstan, Turkmen, Uzbek,Tajikistan, China and Japan,
Can take back what is theirs.
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Because when you can't summon strong actions, you summon strong words. Words meant to poison and divide your enemy, to declare them incapable or obtaining victory, or if they are capable, then somehow unworthy or otherwise illegitimate.
It won't work. What Russia attempts to exploit is our individualism, which they percieve as indicative of a fractured society. But the West was never fractured because the West was never fused; we have always been an interwoven network of relationships that were built upon the ability to choose. Not always choose between two options that were good, but at least be able to reason our way upwards in time, to attain a better situation for ourselves and for the children. I'm not surprised that Russia, a Nation self-deluded to such an extent that it is still adhering to the superstitious concept of possessing a "destiny", cannot comprehend such a truly free society. For if people could choose not to be Russian, then Russia would cease to exist.
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I agree with you, that is to say Plato, but, these days this idea that good is relative has gotten out of hand, with every person whose ever heard any philosophy thinking they can take a crack at good being defined as just anything, and I think it's just ridiculous, when Jesus defines it as clearly something aspirational. Under His definition I could not be good. But then, who would be more like good than I? It's as if I went to search for them, and found out they were having sex with my wife and children despite their vows. A less than wholesome learning experience.
That is to say, it's too bad more people haven't challenged each other to define good, and attempt to execute such a task as living accordingly, rather than excusing themselves, seeing the task is academically impossible for some reason... I would say that Truth, also, is a mystery, it's depth notably ineffable, with every answer, leading to more questions.
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Mark, I know about the war end of russia, and I am telling you from this stand point that they have have about 450,000 KIA's and in war it is the usual way to figure wounded at about 3 wounded for every 1 KIA, so russia hsa over 1,000,000 wounded soldiers. I have realistically estimated that they cannot last another year as a military, do to their consistent losses of equipment, tanks, apc's, artillery, over use of artillery shells, special equipment, radar and other counter artillery equipment, jets, helicopters, ships, submarines, and now oil and gas production facilities, factories who make items for military use, logistics and headquarter losses, high ranking military officers, form captains to generals, hundreds of pilots, these type of personnel takes years to gain the type of experience to be proficient. My1 year prediction is very generous, I really feel like if things keep just rolling along as it has been, I think maybe 8 months and the russians are combat ineffective. You know about economics and I am telling you about the war end of things. Believe what I tell you do not listen to others that give small numbers of russian losses, for whatever reason USA and other western numbers are bullshit and I do not know why they are lying but they are lying. I have been following this war from many sources from day 1 and if I know the truth these bastards that are in high places frickin know also the reason is their own and I do not pretend to know why liars lie. But just watch the next 12 months and then you will see the truth they can no longer hide.
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The USSR collapsed mainly because it bankrupted its economy with completely insane military overspending, an economy built around militarization gone completely nuts.
Putrid would have the world and more naive media outlets believe that "the Russian economy is growing, booming", but this is precisely because the Russian economy is otherwise moribund and in decline, and they improved the mumbers a bit by pumping a bloated amount of finances and other stuff into military production.
Just this past week, dams broke and ruptured in a northern region of European Russia, due to neglected maintenance, and there's been massive flooding in that entire huge region. Hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless there, due to extreme flooding. And disaster relief arrived late and was mostly uncoordinated. Because, as per usual in Russia, someone stole and embezzled most of the money set aside for disaster relief, and what wasn't stolen was instead rerouted financially into the militarization of the economy, spent on Putrid's loony invasion of Ukraine.
The USSR of the late 1980s thought it can have 40-50 % of its budget spent on militarization, militarization, militarization, because Russia's leaders are historically obsessed with conquest at all costs and Russia having no boundaries... and then was surprised (and even much of the world) when it all came crashing down in a single year.
Russia won't crash from one day to the next, but if European countries (and ideally also the US and of course Canada) keep supporting Ukriane in its defensive efforts and rebuilding, and NATO holds firm enough, Russia is going to exhaust itself economically, purely because of mindless overspending on military production, and complete neglect of most industries, or even just infrastructure maintenance. Russia's airlines, transcontinental railways and their air force frequently rely on components or production techniques that Russia does not have and which were all foreign imports. Software and computer hardware's another issue. All those components require regular maintenance and regular replacement. And structures such as those broken dams that caused flooding in Russia also require maintenance.
There's only so much the Russian economy and infrastructure can handle if Putrid's entire economic plan right now is "War spending ! More spending on my pointless war, war, war !" (probably accompanied by a childish laugh). Aside from the obvious human toll of that whole pointless war, the war is taking a toll on Russia's economy, infrastructure, savings and finances. And most crucially, manpower. A lot of men who could have otherwise worked as maintenance staff or in industries is being sent to fight, and this is deepening Russia's already atrocious demographic crisis.
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It's so sad for the Chinese people. Their government treats them horribly and never helps them with different problems: massive unemployment, unpaid wages for months, extremely low pay, hardly any social safety net, stolen bank accounts, absolutely no help from government during disasters, everybody scamming, toxic food, runaway water and air pollution, bad health conditions/outcomes that are unnecessary, lack of empathy or good samaritanism, tofu dreg infrastructure and buildings that constantly fall apart, huge homelessness, lack of freedoms and civil liberties, government officials and police stealing or taking property from the citizens, etc, etc. Granted, many of these problems are built into capitalism itself, particularly inequality, labor exploitation, and economic hardship for many. China is living in such a dystopia right now though because of the CCP.
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Good video, and I agree totally with it. Ukraine has to stay the course, and continue
to fight for their land and their freedom. The US needs to send more aid to allow
them to do this, as they are fighting for democracy and peace thruout the world.
The world and its money are behind Ukraine, and even the Chinese do not support
Russia or its nuclear threats. Does anybody think that China wants to see nuclear
bombs going off on its borders ? NO. Right now China is sending no troops, or
military aid to Russia, so that tells you something.
China is only supporting Russia, or pretends to be, because they absolutely need
Russia's cheap Oil to keep its giant economy going. China has little Oil, and Water.
If China sees Russia continuing to get weaker, there's a very good chance they
will invade eastern Russia, for its natural resources ( Oil & drinking water) It will
be interesting to see how this plays out, but China is not really supportive of this
war that Russia has started, and may take advantage of it.
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Don't have to tell me. I use to have 30-50 people at my house every year partying. I have polish, and ukranian friends here nwi. I have felt creeped out by people repeating propaganda out their mouths, and believing they are anti deep state. We have no parties here, and family life seems totally dead imo My entire family, and everyones families I know, are split. It has worked, the american family is split. We have 6x as many guns though tbh now. My ex navy uncle, in a wheel chair, watching news max all day, talking to himself, and trading stocks. dude has drained his brain out to the floor, with right wing news.
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Very interesting comments this morning Mark. I agree with what you are saying , however (and there always seems to be an 'however') you omitted, perhaps deliberately, going down the rabbit hole of the legal aspects of carrying out your actions and unforseen consequences that might arise in the future, when this awful war is long behind us, by setting a precedent that might be regetted then. As you said, this money rightly belongs to the poor russian people that 'earned' it in the first place.
My own position on this subject is that the interest earned on this money should, as it is now, be paid to the brave Ukrainians to assist them in their struggle against the russian bully. The actual cash assets should be untouched until after the war ends and can be used as repatriation, to rebuild Ukraine. No point in repairing/rebuilding a childrens hospital that might be bombed again. In the unlikely event of any monies remaining after repatriation dues are paid, then, some sort of post-war UN type international administration could redistribute the cash back to grassroots level russians. Perhaps getting them indoor plumbing !
Incidentally, is the politician Sikorski you mentioned, any relation to the World War ll Polish general ?
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You have to wonder why this $ 360 billion has not been released to Ukraine ? I
think the banks holding these reserves, are scared to release it, and ruin their
reputation, causing a lot of other "big customers" to pullout their money. I'm sure
there are rich countries like Iran, China and many others with big deposits. These
banking countries depend on "confidence" that your money will be protected no
matter what. These types of banks don't care who deposits the money, because
this is how they make money. I would think this has to be the reason, or it would
have been released already, and I agree with Mark, it should have been a long
time ago, and given to Ukraine. They have seized Russian Yachts, Villas etc around
the world, so why can this money not be confiscated ? Must be from fear these
countries have about damaging their safe banking reputation. Has too be.
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Nice to see live is good in Poland Mark. They should have nukes as a Russian
deterrent as well. Looks to me like Biden will be replaced due to bad mental health,
and a replacement will be brought in to run against Trump. Who knows who ? If
Biden stays in the race, and runs, he will not win. Camella Harris won't either.
I'm quite sure, judging by polls, that Trump will not support Ukraine assistance, so
Europe will have to get together, and defend itself against Russian aggression and
expansionism, which I think they will. Looks very much like Trump will be elected.
I'm sure Germany, France and Poland will not like to see Russian tanks on its
borders, so they better start getting together, and supporting Ukraine. They don't
need US support, and can do this on their own, to protect their countries. They
are very wealthy countries, and "combined", they are powerful.
I can't see how Russia can have much of an economy, when their major source
of income is oil and gas ? and a lot of their refineries and wells are being blown
up. On top of that, their really getting no support from China, but only lip service,
to make Russia think China is with them. China will look after itself, and its own
people, and most of their money is generated from Western Europe and North America,
so they don't want to bite the hand that feeds them.
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Trump is going to honor the spending that Congress has already approved. He'll try to convince Putin to withdraw his troops, so that negotiations can have meaning. He may even approve of Ukraine to use any weapons they have, to their fullest potential.
Zelensky had the opportunity to read Trump in on what has actually happened in Ukraine, so Trump is morally bound to protect these people from any more brutality and war crimes. As a businessman, he's not going to be okay with America investing 200 billion dollars into saving Ukraine, only to see it wasted in a lost war.
The Russian economy is so bad, that it's going to pop. But so are Italy, Sweden, UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, US, Canada, Ireland, China, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon, etc.. I believe that the world is purposely being economically ruined.
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Your metaphor is spot-on. Nevertheless, I believe you also miss a point. As a dictatorship, Russia doesn't function like a Western style democracy. It can carry on quite a while after it should be bankrupt by Western standards.
What Putin will start to do, once money runs out and things get though, is breaking one piggy bank after the other - i.e. start slaughtering oligarchs.
Oligarchs aren't the ones actually in power, in Russia - siloviki, with Putin at the top, are. Oligarchs are part of the ruling hierarchy, alongside common criminals, but the top tier of Russia's leadership is corrupt officials occupying positions of power and authority.
Once things start going south really bad, Putin will revert to pure force to keep control over the country. For as long as resources last to pay off the repression apparatus, which is quite vast and resource consuming, Putin will be able to keep control of everything even if people start dying of starvation left and right.
Russia is indeed faltering. Only, the breaking point might be further away than Western officials believe it is - very specifically because Russia functions differently from Western style democracies.
OTOH, that's sort of a good thing. Russia will keep closing in on a soviet collapse style failure even if Putin manages to pull out of Ukraine while still staying in power, even if Putin is toppled and some other ruthless dictator takes his place.
The only thing that could keep Russia from going belly up, at most a few years from now, is the West bailing Russia out. That, after what happened in Ukraine, would be a humongous strategic mistake.
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China is collapsing because for decades, business owners were skimming money off for themselves at the expense of quality, by cutting corners, using inferior illegal standards to build apartments, houses, roads, etc. and now they are crumbling and have become worse than worthless, because it all has to be torn down or repaired, if possible.
America is different, in that it's all built to code, but people are too broke to do anything.
Russia is a dictatorship, so their economy can fail and the people will still be told to go to work or be punished. Putin wants to bring back the failed Soviet Union and all the suffering that it produces.
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Excellent lecture! How do square your claim with national security? Over here in Sweden, we are highly reliant on Russia, China and their allies for food, light bulbs, solar panels, computers, Internet, smartphones, clothes and energy. Cars, bicycles, trains and planes won't go anywhere without some critical parts we buy from them, such as tires.
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Bone broth does not have the same effect as hydrolized collagen. Let me explain: Hydrolized collagen is collagen tha was broken down into peptides. If those peptides are small emough, they will enter the bloodstream directly without being broken down. Once in the bloodstream they primarily signal the body that collagen is broken down and that the bodies collagen synthesis therefore needs to be increased. So they have a direct signaling function. Best peptide length is below 3kDa, this ensures direct absorption without any breakdown of the peptides. Second function is to act as building blocks for new collagen synthesis. Bone broth basically turns collagen into gelatin, which is still collagen. When absorbed, it needs to be broken down in the intestinal tract before it can be absorbed. The primary function of gelatin is providing collagen building blocks, but without the signalling function. So hydrolized collagen is superior because of its function, if the peptide length is below 3kDa. I am sure you can find a product made with european cows, or a fish based product. Aso, if you're taking it because of your joints, I'd add glucosamine sulfate . Its now proven to be effective, if its the sulfate form, and has an additive effect with hydrolized collagen. Lastly, if you add glycine, you add the primary rate limiting amino acid in collagen synthesis for collagen in any tissue type.
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Okay. It's as if the light of light has gone out across the world, especially in northern Europe. The decrease in prevalence of children in society seems to trouble the populace, and, more over, predicts the suffering of a great many women and men as they obtain advanced ages.
Also, it seems difficult for a population to recover from a fallen birth rate, even when the threat is recognized, the culture motivated, and the government providing incentives, such as in Japan.
Zeihan success may be partially due to his predictions involving Russian military objectives, which he demonstrates or attempts to demonstrate... I'm not sure outside of an academic paper an engineer should use such term. Anyway, I understand that as much as I understand Malthusian arguments don't work, also, inverse or reverse Malthusian arguments are not economically sound...
You seem to be considering whether or not they are a symptom. If you gain some insight, almost all the governments of the Earth are interested, and many pour large amounts of money into supporting their birth rates.
I'm a licensed industrial engineer, for now anyway, but spent that half of my life actually as a homemaker and home educator. Lately, I seem to find myself disabled from normal work due to psychological disability, and inability to perform those functions regardless of my motivation, promises, or decisions... this coincides with a situation which my counselors also conclude, in which... most people would have killed themselves when confronted with massive forced losses set up by open corruption at the hand of a criminal pedo gang. The license I have is the engineer in training, pretty much a license for super genius prodigy engineers, which one will very rarely obtain after university. Now, I didn't realize this until recently, but that does mean that people have been picking up on me for longer than I've thought it much of a boast.
So, right now, my objectives aren't particularly business related, although recovering would be nice, they are, rather, to try again, and to pray.
I long time ago, I had a near death experience, and, eventually, when Benedict XVI was elected, they released his email address, and I email him. I was fiery and challenging at first, but calmed considerably. I think many would like to see my critical side emerge again. Anyway, eventually I stated something like an email newsletter with world leaders, academics, business people, music, and some others... During this time I was increasingly busy at home and going through many different hobbies, including gardening.
So am I a prophet, or am I willing to be a saint, I don't know. I do like helping people, a common archetype pastime for geniuses who grew up around the time I did (I"m 45 now), as we were rarely intellectually challenged in school. Also, it appears I have some aptitude for that and wielding power, not that I set out with that in mind.
Oh, someone somewhere else may have mentioned my checked past, did you know that I was being taken advantage of for my incredible looks at the time and don't remember much of that and that whole thing like foreshadowed my adult life where I'm a constant target for various psychos who find me to be an irresistible target, even when they know they will be caught and/or are being watched commit illegal and/or unethical acts. So, of course, just as I was using my statistical prowess to assist people and predict things, people with psychological prowess where predicting my life, as naive as I was to it. Anyway...
I'd like to help you and Peter,
David, some guy from the internet
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I agree, to stand by and not stand up is tragic. Trump’s behavior has been sane washed by the billionaire class because of greed and corruption. When I saw a soldier smoking his last cigarette saying “long live Ukraine” I thought where are our leaders? No impassioned speeches, no calls for rising up, nothing. Just a giving up of everything we stand for. I have a masters in psych and from what I am witnessing here it looks like “Mass psychosis.” People are under a trance/cult and deluded with misinformation and lies and are choosing against their own self interests. I feel you friend and stand with you, and no, this American will stand up for freedom. I see clearly and my soul is heavy. That is right, every life is worth allot especially when a bully comes to town. Sociopathy will make us extinct if we do not get this right. Putin, Un, Stalin, Hitler, all were sociopaths and we knew but did not harden our societies to protect us against this. Long live Ukraine and all people pursuing freedom from tyranny. I appreciate your video.
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My family situation was quite similar to yours. My grandparents came over from Greece, Arcadia in the Peloponnese. The men came over and established themselves and then sent back for wives. Ah, the good old days.
On my father's side, my grandfather was a carpenter. He built his own house. It is still in the family. They lived a decent life in a factory town (Springfield area) in Massachusetts. On my mother's side, my grandfather had several businesses over time, the main one being the pool hall on Main Street in Annapolis. He also built a house in town (not by himself) which is also still in the family.
All of them had a fourth-grade education. My mother's father was very well read. Some of their children went to university. Boys only, of course. ALL of their grandchildren went to university, with lots of Masters, PhDs and some MDs. Not untypical. My father did not go to university. He got into Harvard but would not let his parents borrow the money. I love and respect my father, but that was a real mistake. He was very mathematically inclined. In the 1930s he studied calculus in high school. So did I, which was rare. So did both my sons. In fact, they took a university course. My father later went back to get an associate degree.
I was born in Washington, DC where my father had moved to work at an Army electronics and weapons lab. He got to do some extremely interesting stuff, most of which he couldn't talk about. But he did expose me a lot of fascinating stuff.
Enough of the background. Now to the Depression. My parent's experience could not have been different. The Depression greatly affected my father, and it was quite negative. As a kid he would walk around the neighborhood selling corn from his wagon. As an industrial town, Springfield was hit hard. My mother didn't notice the Depression. The pool hall was in a building owned by my grandfather's uncles. They basically said pay what you can, take care of your family, and we'll settle up when this thing is all over. That's what he did. Also, Annapolis is the state capital and has the Naval Academy. It was also a fishing port at the time. So, my mother happily roller skated around town with her dog, half collie and half wolf I was told, totally oblivious.
By the way, Mark, the housing thing has a lot to do with the baby boom, don't you think. When your parents bought their house, the population of the US was much smaller.
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And again...
Don't fall into this trap! Both the Spaniards and the Muscovites do not want to work under any circumstances! The Germans, the British, and the Ukrainians differ in their attitude to work. Show me how the scarcity of natural resources in Spain itself forced them to work! If you can show it to me!
The historical situation of the Muscovy-Russian Empire is a critical lack of resources. The forest is their only wealth. Dead Souls describe the state of a nation with a slavish character, which looks like this to a Ukrainian aristocrat, a descendant of Cossacks and gentry. You should read history. And facts such as the fact that Russians do not have their own word for most simple dishes show that the people lived in a complete lack of food.
So, in Ukraine, the whey left over from the preparation of cheese and cottage cheese was fed to piglets. In Muscovy, flatbreads with cottage cheese were not known, the name for which is the Ukrainian word “syrnik”. Economics and worldview mutually influence each other. Muscovy is still influenced by its own mentality more than by the capabilities of modern global civilization. And yes, Spain, like Muscovy, considers labor a curse. Agriculture, which the ancient Greeks were not ashamed of, considering any work beneath their dignity, what terms characterize the perception of such work in Ukraine and Mosovia? In Ukraine, wet soil is called a “swamp”. In Muscovy it's shit. Nothing here depends on resources. I will select literature for you, travel notes from travelers of the corresponding period.
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Hi Mr. Biernat,
Most informative! So, you asked us to think of ways to do something about the Russian problem. I would like to comment on your point regarding the metaphysical element.
One of the ways in which Russia is plaguing our world is by means of spreading disinformation. The purpose of Russian disinformation is to destabilize Western countries. This is well-known and acknowledged widely. There is a great deal of concern by our own authorities that Russian disinformation is indeed a significant source of trouble in Western political discourse.
It is however often forgotten that Russian state disinformation is directed not just at Western audiences. In fact, the Putin regime is also engaged in disinforming its own population. In Russia the purpose of disinformation is to 'depoliticize' the population. (This is best explained by a YouTuber and political philosopher, Vlad Vexler on his channels.) The essence of depoliticization is to pacify the population as a source of dissent, resistance, rebellion, and disobedience.
Possibly, one solution to the Russian problem is to do precisely the reverse of disinformation. In other words, let us set up a system to pump 'good' information into the Russian population to counter and neutralize Russian state disinformation directed at the Russian population.
Inform its population well and keeping them apolitical (and therefore apathetic and atomized) becomes progressively more difficult.
It is by the way important to realize that his 'good' information will have to be not just plentiful and accurate but also RELEVANT to the condition and circumstances of the Russian population. There is little use in providing the Russians good information that is relevant some tribes deep in the interior of South America and no one else. It has to be good information relevant to Russians.
For example, we need to find ways of telling them the weaknesses of the Putin regime, or their relative poverty in comparison with the West, or how their system of governance is causing them problems.
One very important piece of information for Russians would be that Western governments are in a comparative sense genuinely less corrupt than Russian government. (I am not asserting that Western governments are spic and span, just comparatively and substantially less corrupt). This is usually extremely hard for Russians to believe. They usually think that we in the West are just as corrupt but much better at hiding it. If we manage to disabuse them of this belief then much of their acceptance or tolerance of Russian misgovernment will evaporate and we might well see a real revolution occurring.
Thanks and regards
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quite right that the price of oil will drop sharply
If Trump wins. Thank you so much for enlightening the people and you create Harmony and peace and calm people down
the oil price is very sensitive and because Trump is going to put in lots of tariffs and everyone has to pay to sell to the US. Will this frighten the market greatly and the hand will be slowed down and it directly affects the price of oil the concern that Tramp creates. In addition, he must pump pump pump oil.
The price of oil continues to fall sharply.
Context
The drop in oil prices is due to a combination of factors: a slowdown in the global economy, especially in China, and an increase in oil production.
China, which has long been one of the world's largest oil consumers, has seen a significant reduction in its oil consumption. This in turn has affected the global demand for oil. At the same time, several oil-producing countries have increased their production, which has contributed to a surplus on the market.
Oil products demand in China, long the driver of global crude consumption, peaked in 2023 and is forecast to decrease by 1.1% annually between 2023 and 2025, with the drop accelerating in subsequent years
Another factor that has affected the price of oil is the behavior of investors. As investors become more pessimistic about economic developments, they sell their oil contracts, driving the price down.
The connection between oil and free energy
There is also a clear connection between the reduced demand for oil and the increasing production of solar energy and wind power.
Increased competition: Solar and wind power have become increasingly cost-effective, making them a stronger competitor to fossil fuels such as oil. When free energy becomes cheaper, it becomes less attractive for both consumers and companies to use oil.
Policy goals and subsidies: Many countries have set ambitious goals to increase the use of free energy and have introduced various types of support measures, such as subsidies and tax breaks.
Environmental Awareness: A growing awareness of climate change and environmental issues has fueled the demand for free energy. Consumers and businesses are increasingly choosing wind power and solar energy as a way to reduce their carbon footprint.
Technological development: Constant improvements in solar and wind technology have made it possible to produce electricity more efficiently and at lower cost.
What does it matter
A lower oil price can be seen as positive for the consumer because it leads to lower prices for petrol and other oil products. For oil-producing countries, however, a low oil price can mean reduced income and financial difficulties.
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Sir, you are making things too complicated. This my thinking. If Trump wins, I will convert all my assets to Euros. WHY? Trump will hand Ukraine to Putin, abandon NATO and Europe ( he keeps saying that, I believe him). The EU will help Ukraine defeat Putin. Then, the betrayed EU will abandon the dollar as a reserve currency. The trillions of dollars under mattresses in the third world will fly back to the USA. Resulting in Overnight Hyperinflation... I saw it happened once. Not this time for me…Also, my second and even more probable hypothesis, he wants to get rich with crypto-Trump. He will destroy the dollar anyway. So, think about, if I am right, your life will be destroyed. I will save my money in Europe. The dollar will go up when the EU helps Ukraine alone ( safe harbor in the USA), but it will collapse when Ukraine wins. The American experiment will end. Winners, Europe and china. Loser Putin and the USA
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Very interesting. I agree about evil, and Russia at the moment is evil. My favorite is Lord of the Rings. Tolkien was truly prophetic. This war is not just against a Sauron, but the way that a varied group of people joined forces and united against Sauron is like the countries uniting against Russia, and the individuals like NAFO, and people on social media like yourself, and the hackers etc. Did you see that Putin actually gave the Brics members, or some group of allies, rings, some time ago. If I remember, it was 9 rings too, but I'd have to check. That was him connecting himself with Sauron, whether he realizes it or not. Prophetic.
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No, not really - the US embargo on Cuba, for instance, has been around for some 6 decades now, no sign of it lifting or easing up. Magnitsky is long dead and the refuseniks have grown old and peacefully died out in Israel, Canada, and the US - but the spirit of Jackson-Vanick is still very much alive.
It would be nice to have SWIFT back and have aircraft parts to maintain Russian Airbus and Boeing fleet - after all, it's a question of safety and ultimately human lives, but then again, Iran has been in this situation for awhile now and seems to be coping okay. So yeah, generally the expectation of sanctions lifting is fairly low.
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I could create a whole series of videos on this Nerfgunsandpancakes :) First, Ukraine will prevail as light wins over darkness. But remember the concept of creative destruction, this was written about by Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian economist 100 years ago. This posits that innovation leads to the obsolescence of existing economic structures and you are right that things will shift and some jobs not lost but displaced.. Hence, creating opportunities for new forms of economic activity. Artificial Intelligence can be analyzed through the lens of creative destruction to examine its effects on world economies. Consider all these positive effects of AI!
Increased Productivity: This is my biggest point, AI automates routine tasks, thereby increasing efficiency and productivity. This not only benefits individual firms but also has a multiplier effect on the overall economy.
Innovation: AI-driven analytics and problem-solving capabilities can lead to breakthroughs in various sectors, from healthcare and education to transportation and energy. This fosters a culture of innovation, generating new industries and economic opportunities.
Global Competitiveness: Countries that invest in AI technology may gain a competitive advantage on the global stage, attracting more investment and creating high-value jobs. This is what I mean when I say comparative advantage.
Resource Optimization: AI algorithms can optimize the use of resources, reducing waste and enhancing sustainability, which in the long term can contribute to economic stability.
Data-Driven Decision Making: AI's ability to analyze big data allows for more informed decision-making, leading to better allocation of resources and improved public and private sector governance.
Customization and Personalization: AI enables the customization of products and services to individual needs, creating new market niches and expanding consumer choice, which can stimulate demand and economic activity.
Supply Chain and Logistics: AI can significantly streamline supply chain and logistics, reducing costs and time, thereby making markets more efficient.
Increased Consumer Surplus: Advanced AI technologies may lead to a decrease in costs of goods and services, increasing consumer surplus and overall well-being.
AI can be understood as a form of creative destruction based on the history of economics. While it may displace certain jobs and industries, its positive effects include increased productivity, innovation, and competitiveness, which have the potential to benefit world economies in various ways. Therefore, from a Schumpeterian perspective, AI serves as a catalyst for economic transformation and growth.
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Mark, what an informative video, on the Russian Ruble. Russia is in deep shit, that I know, they could pretend how tough they are, this is War, & Russia has never been sanctioned like this before, stone aged time for Russia baby. Russia will pay for this stupid murderous & unnecessary unprovoked war on the peaceful wonderful sovereign country of Ukraine. Ukraine will be part of the European Union & NATO, while Russia will be paying reparations to Ukraine for years to come, & if Russia doesn't concede to Democracy & not be a threat to its neighbors, IT WILL END UP A SLAVE TO CHINA & NORTH-KOREA. Mark you bring great content as an economist, keep doing what you are doing & thanks for being a friend & supporter of Ukraine. I enjoyed this video so much, I listen to it twice back to back.
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also depends on what happens in the EU. without USA aid and USA dallying on its NATO membership and worrying statements from Trump and EU fears of Russian aggression on NATO members, I think the rest of NATO will break from the USA. and this time with urgency rearming and covering up the USA aid to Ukraine, USA stops sending aid to Ukraine, the rest of EU/NATO steps up dramatically. Yes USA may withdraw from NATO lifts all the sanctions on Russia, but the EU NATO and allies do not comply with the USA and breaks from it. and steps up aid to Ukraine. This time, there is a sense of urgency and then you dont have delayed aid anymore from NATO members since the USA is blocking them politically, thsi time the pro Ukraine NATO members do not listen to the USA then massively ups the aid to Ukraine. Russia threatens war but its army is so much stuck in Ukraine cant even do much , but do sabre rattling, France UK, send troops to Ukraine. and lift all the restrictions on their weapons use on Russian soil. France and UK probably threaten the Russians too of war if nukes are used. the French and UK may have much smaller stockpiles than the Russians but they will mostly work, the Russian nukes are very much in question , my estimate 75 percent of it will not work.
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as I said before the longer Russia is in this war the more its economy, will break leading to disruption of Russian society leading to political change.
I think the pivotal event will be Biden winning the US elections of 2024(this year), made even worse by a possible demo sweep of the Congress and senate. With this the American will significantly raise the aid to Ukraine in 2025 and every year after that making it very difficult for the Russians to conduct the war in ukraine.
In fact the Russian minister of econmics stated that the Russian economy cannot indefinitely support the war in Ukraine as the war in Ukraine is costing the Russians 400 million USD(official estimates) per day just to maintain the Russian army in Ukraine and not counting manufacturing costs, buying parts for weapons and whole weapons systems etc.
The Russians have put 30 percent of their 2024 budget to prosecuting the war in Ukraine. and as the war drags on, the Russians will probably devote a higher percentage in the next years. This will have a very bad impact on Russian infrastructure, as the money and personel dedicated to maintaining it, goes to the war in Ukraine, the already mediocre Russian infrastructure starts breaking down bad. That is why you are seeing poorly made dams collapse, and Russian heating systems fail during winter killing hundreds of Russians. it will get worse.
Also Russian national wealth fund is set to run out in 2025, in fact with the Russian economy being put on war mode, producing more military supplies than civlian goods, Russia cannot anymore support its currency as its forced to print more rubles. and this leads to hyperinflation with that a massive rise in the price of essentials like food and gasoline.
Also analysts estimate the Russian cold war stocks of tanks and APCs are estimate to run out by late 2025 and into 2026. This will cut the production and refurbishment of tanks and APCs by two thirds. The Russian industry itself cannot produce enough tanks and APCs to keep up with the destruction of tanks and APCs in the Ukrainian battlefield. and it will get much worse as US and allied aid to Ukraine ramps up in the next few years. The Russians will be forced to spend even more money probably buying maybe North Korean tanks (which are bad copies of Soviet cold war designs), the Russians are so desperate enough in the past that they bought millions of poor quality North korean artillery ammo as the Russian artillery expenditure is so rapid , local Russian production cannot keep up. Heck the Russians even bought a good number of poor quality North Korean surface to surface missles (NK SCUDS). Again poor north Korean copies of Soviet cold war weapons. Russia is that desperate these days. and it will get worse.
Also the Russians since 2023 had started fielding 70 year old T-55s and T-62s and WW2 artillery in large numbers in Ukraine. The last time the Russians fielded T-55s in large numbers was during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Heck a number of the Russian T-55s in Ukraine are so old they served in the Soviet army during the Hungarian revolution of 1956.
Also despite the Ukrainians having shortages in artillery ammo and some essential weapons systems due to lack of US aid for half a year, are still holding the line strong. The Russians are only able to make small gains of territory but at the cost of massive amounts of casualties and loss of tanks and APCs. The Russians are able to blow holes in Ukrainian lines but not able to exploit them and collapse the whole Ukrainian line. The Ukrainian are able to retreat back a short distance and establish a new line of defense. and the Ukrainians are also counterattacking hard to plug up lines and repel Russian attacks.
All this very much is a sign of weakness for the Russians that the war is really not going well for them.
Only a matter of time that the Russian gov economy and political stability will break from all this and 1917 2.0, will happen again. and this will be probably the most important event in the 21st century as Russia turns into a massive failed state, a massive version of Syria/Somalia. with massive geopolitical implications.
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The Medicine of the USSR was backward, at the level of the 1930s, torture equipment, pills were in short supply, everything was covered with cobwebs and cockroaches, dirty towels, doctors smoked and drank Spirt, nurses sold drugs, people did not live long in the USSR,
- and After the USSR, in the 1990s, Modern European equipment was installed everywhere, tablets appeared, Vrachey was sent to study in Europe, European-quality renovation was done everywhere, it became decently like in Europe,
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- the Army was also transferred to European technologies and computers,
- Putin fought with equipment from the 1990s,
- in the 2000s, Putin returned everything to the USSR, backwardness and devastation.
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true ...being Chinese from the Philippines, the Chinese are all about making a buck , very capitalistic business oriented.
Yah the Chinese want to take back Taiwan not only for the land but to win their civil war which started in 1921 and has not ended yet since the KMT is still alive in Taiwan and protected by the USA. They want to get rid of the KMT and any opposition to the CCP once and for all.
As for making a buck, the CCP are very much enemies of the KMT in Taiwan and the Taiwan independence parties. much they have strong business relationships with each other, all of them are enemies but making a buck with each other.
Same can be said with the China and USA relationship. Political and military rivals but deep and strong business relationships. USA and EU are China's best business partners and customers but also China's main political and military rivals.
As for the Russian Chinese relationship. They never liked each other, heck then almost went to war in 1969 with the Sino Soviet border clashes and the USSR threatened war with China in 1979 if China besieged Hanoi . and still have some border issues. the Russians did not like the way the Chinese were pirating their military designs. and entry into their economy.
However due to the Ukraine war and desperation of the Putin gov. China is making a buck out of the Russians , also China is making a buck out of the Ukrainians. by selling both sides drones, electronic equipment , parts, and not surprised if the Ukrainians are buying artillery ammo in the black market and Chinese artillery ammo is being sold there. Russia bought lots of artillery ammo from North Korea, and North Korea has long been a middle man for military arms sales for China. During the Iran Iraq war North Korea was a middle man to sell Chinese weapons to Iran which at the time had arms embargoes on it. Meanwhile the Chinese were selling weapons directly also to the Iraqis. Again the Chinese making a buck.
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Putin is the Cheka, the Cheka comes from the Terrorists of the 1800s, from different types of Nihilists, and from Lenin - to do the Great Terror,
Putin and the Cheka are pretending to be Ivan the Terrible, for the sake of significance,
--
- since the 1700s there was a European System in Russia, in the 1800s there was the Royal House of Oldenburg, which is now in England,
- they destroyed the French infection in the 1800s - the Revolution, pogroms, coups and guillotines.
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Hi, Mark. I just want to add my 2 cents. There may be a blunder in your reasoning. Bear with me a sec. BRICS is not (and probably never will be) anything like the EU or USA, for that matter. I can´t imagine putting together dictatorships, teocracies, young democracies, etc. together. It is not political. They are only trying to put together a payment system that can allow them to do commerce among them without using the dollar or the euro. There Europeans realized that long time ago, probably, even before De Gaulle asked for gold instead of "paper" etc. Putting it short, most of these countries started to losse trust in the US dollar. Look back 30-35 years. How many crisis has the US dollar had? At least 6, on my count. More on it: when they trade among each other using the dollar, to go through Swift, they have to pay a 3-6% "commission" to US banks. Even more: when these countries economies are down, IMF´s golden rule, "you cannot spend more than what you earn" (my grandma used to say that too), but this rule has not applied to the dollar in the last 30-35 years. You´re right, about 59% of the international trade still uses the dollar, but it´s way down form what it used to be, and the BRICS´s exchange (they have a name for it I don´t recall) has already more than 100 countries in the line willing to join it. I don´t vote in the US. In fact, but I root for it. I may be wrong, but I have this feeling that what is at stake in these 2024 election may have great influence on the destiny of the dollar and that most Americans don´t seem to have the slightest idea of what they may be about to lose. I was born in Brazil, but I´m also Spanish citizen. Lived in US, France and, for a short time, in Germany. Great countries!!! Great people!! The euro is not likely to replace the dollar. And, may I be wrong, if the US loses the signiorage of the international currency, and all the strategic data that comes along with it, it will not wither instantly, but it will make a huge difference. Let´s hope it will not happen and that whoever wins the 2024 elections will not try to "fight" China only rainsing taxes (I lived in South America during the 1960s-70s-80s, that´s the dictatorship´s (doomed) formula. Having said all that, though I may be wrong, I suspect you may be looking to the past, far from the current reality. BRICS is not Russia. If you´d said it´s mostly India and China, you´d probably be in the right direction, but I´d suggest you to leave politics and ideology out of it, it looks out more like (commercial) geopolitics to me, in a lot less comprehensive sense than what I understood from what I understood from your exposition: what they are looking for in the next decade or so, it´s to trade among them without having to go through the American & European banking system. Current world trade shares are (1) US, 20%, (2) EU+Canada, 16-18%, (3) BRICS, 20% (not counting the 100 countries that volunteered to join it)... I regret that what may be at stake in the 2024 elections in US and Europe, in the long run, may define the outcome of this tentative, for good or bad. Keep you good work!
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Soviet Union supported an impoverished India for decades while America supplied weapons to Pakistan. This was the era of Congress and a controlled economy. India goes its own way in its own national interest. Modi and BJP are the face of modern India.
Americans bashing Modi and India for financing the war, need to clean their own house. Google US Corporations still doing business in Russia. and some household names appear.
India gets badly needed cheap oil that it refines and sells surplus to the West. Look around the globe and note how many unstable nations right now. India is always chaotic, but appears more stable than China, EU, US, Russia, Iran.
India was Russia's best customer for weapons. Indians are smart, they have seen the quality performance, and are pleased that they can source elsewhere without offending Russia,.
India is free of Russia, US, EU and China, and whatever you think of Modi, India is in a position many nations would like.
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Nationalists exists in all countries. They exaggerate their own countrys importance and turn a blind eye to embaressing set backs.
Russian nationalists do this however to an extreme degree not seen in any other country in Europe - which is why I regard every russian "history book" as worthless sci-fiction. They ignore all genocide and opression. They do not call World war 2 for World war 2 in Russia. For russians did world war two not start in 1939 with Germany and Russia invading Poland, the Baltics and Finland.
But instead do Russians use the term "The Great Patriotic war" and say that world war two began in 1941, and they ignore everything that happened before that year and pretend that Russia somehow was the defender and victim in this war, and not the aggressor that criminally helped to start this war.
Nor have Russia apologized for the wars and occupation of Finland. No attempts have been done to deal with the crimes of the Soviet union like Germany did with their Nazi past.
And russian history ignores military failures. For them did nothing happen during the Great Northern War until the battle of Poltava in 1709 which they won. And they try to pretend that they did not lose 19 out 20 battles for the rest of that war despite having 4 times numerical superiority against a country with limited manpower reserves that was fighting a two front war against an enemy coalition with a population 40 times larger.
Russian nationalists refuse to talk about the war with Finland, and even less about all battles. But instead they narrow everything down to the peace settlement in their attempt to make the russian military look competent, while everyone in the world knows that they got themselves completely humiliated against Finland in 1939 and in 1944.
Russian nationalists produce fake statistics in an attempt to make their own combat losses against Nazi-Germany seem less humiliating for Russia. And they try to pretend that lend lease played no role at all for Russias victory. But fact is that Russia suffered the worst military defeats in history in humiliating military disasters like the battle of Kiev in 1941, where 600.000 troops were captured by the Germans in just a single battle. Any other army in history would have lost the war after suffering such hard losses.
But the russians have not performed impressivly in other wars either. They lost the Crimean war. They suffered a humiliating loss in the russo-japanese war. World war 1 was a catastrophic defeat for russia. Russia failed to conquer Poland in the 1920s. They lost the war in Afghanistan. They failed in Chechenya. The Georgian army did do well against the russian forces, but a small country with 3.8 million people with no western help stood no chance against Russia. So not so much of a victory to brag about for Russia.
Indeed defeating Finland when it was the poorest country in Europe, and now doing so badly against Ukraine today (the country with the lowest GDP per capita in Europe) is not that impressive either.
Its a country that has always brought stone age equipment to war. During the Great Northern War (1700-1721) was Russia and Sweden the two most oldest equipped armies in Europe, and the only ones still using pikemen and big heavy muskets with bayonets built for close combat with bayonets rather than lighter muskets for firing that was easier to carry. During the Crimean war in the mid 1800s, did Russia not have any industrial base so its troops were often equipped with muskets from the early and mid-1700s as they lacked modern muskets to fight against Britain and France.
During World war 1, did the Russian artillery quickly run out of ammunition after the first months of the war. And for the rest of the war could russian industry only produce a tiny number of shells each month. A German artillery piece on average fired more shells in 2-3 days than what a russian one did in a month. And so few rifles were made that many russian units often had to share 1 rifles for 2 men, and do attacks in the same style as in the movie "enemy at the gates".
And such meatwave attacks are still common in later wars, such as World war 2 and in the war in Ukraine.
Not only have russia lost most wars it have fought the last 200 years. It have usually been beaten further back in history, and its few victories were usually won when it fought in coalitions with other countries - like against Poland, Sweden and Napoleon. Russian nationalists loves to call russia for "the destroyer of great armies" but Charles XII still had a good chance of winning the Great Northern War even as late as 1718. The performance of the Russian army against Frederick the Great was rather one of humiliation in my opinion. The battle of Zorndorf have falsely been remembered as a russian victory, while in reality did Russia lose that battle.
Kunersdorf was a great defeat for Frederick, but what russian nationalists forgets to mention is that Frederick did crush the Russian army in that battle and forced it into a wild retreat and demoralized it for months to come. The Prussians did run behind the russian army and chasing it, and then did the Austrian army under Laudon see an opportunity for a counter-attack against the scattered and exhausted prussian troops and inflicted a painful defeat on Frederick. So did Russia win a great victory in this fight? Nope. They suffered a humiliating defeat, but could participate in the victory parade after the battle anyways.
Also Gross-Jägersdorf was really just non-victory for Russia in the seven years war. So they had nothing positive to show for their participation in this war.
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I think, what "the Russian" (which is questionable) government in Moscow is showing is the opposite of feeling safe and secure. They are showing that they are afraid of invasion from outside so much that they are desperate to take control of the key geographical points they see as required for countering potential invasion. If they were feeling safe and secure they would not throw hundreds of thousands of people into "a meat grinder" (by their own terms) just to gain another 100 meters of territory. These are the signs of despair and angst, not security.
I remember myself growing in the USSR, in Siberia to be specific, and it was never a complete sense of security. Quite the opposite. We were always taught that we are expecting an invasion from any side - Japan, China, Middle East, Europe, America, from anywhere. We were to prepare for it and to be ready. May be that is what created this militant hysteria that is currently going on in RF. It is like immune system that is experiencing an anaphylactic shock. All the defense systems are so alert, they are blocking all other systems.
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You got that right, "nothing" is really made in Russia, that contributes to mankind,
and this earth. The only way they could start extracting oil and natural gas from the
ground was from know how from big Western Oil Companies. Companies like
British Petroleum, and Shell went in there, and for a percentage of oil and gas
extracted $$ from the ground, they were all paid a lot of money. Since the war has
started, they have all pulled out of Russia. They are now, and always have been
a natural resource provider to the world, but nothing in inventions in technology,
medicine, and manufacturing. I cannot see this changing, as they just don't have
the expertise, and rely on wars and stealing resources from other countries, like
they are doing in Africa right now. This is what happens under dictatorships, as
they don't care about their general population..
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I have the same sort of attitude. Smaller-scale, more of a DIY approach, empower locals with basic tech and reasonable use of local resources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S63Cy64p2lQ Marcin Jakubowski, who started the Open Source Ecology project years ago, to empower DIY craftsmen and farmers with open-source DIY machinery, had a brief but great lecture on the goals of his Global Village Construction Kit as the spine of the entire project. Rather than buying loads of expensive equipment, taking out huge loans, etc., we should focus on projects that give small entrepreneurs more agency by encouraging their own DIY attitude and DIY skills, and their own self-confidence in preparing and maintaining their own equipment.
Some of the farming tech I have at my home in the countryside was home-made, already many years ago. I'm already the second or even third generation using it, and with a bit of maintenance, even simple mechanical equipment can be a huge help with major tasks. While I occassionally call someone over with a small tractor to help plough parts of the garden, the rest is mainly hand work, including using a hand-powered roller once I plant potatoes, and so on. You don't need big, expensive, annoying-to-maintain equipment if you want to do gardening, farming or smaller-scale, sustainable forestry. That's as true in Europe, in North America, in Asia, in Africa, virtually any continent.
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Just wanted to say I’m a Christian and a Marxist, and while I agree with you generally that Marx was wrong about religion, I don’t agree with the way you framed it. Again, I don’t agree with him, but his views on religion being “the heart of a heartless world”, “sigh of the oppressed”, and so on, were a bit more complex than what people often give him credit for, only focusing on the “opiate of the masses point”.
Also, it should be said that these points were part of the developing philosophy of young Karl, and not exactly an important part of Marxist theory, overall. This is of course part of why I can say I am a Marxist, while still having faith.
Anyway, I don’t agree with him on that point, or you overall, but peace to you! ✌️
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Vague waffle.
1. Shortage is a fundamental part of human existence, and that isn't capitalism's fault. It will exist under every system. What capitalism does is encourage innovation, to the point where the poorest Americans can own a supercomputer in their pocket, tv, car, and are guarantee to eat everyday. Somehow I suppose you'd rather live under today's material conditions than those in the time of Marx. Trying to change this will just lead to stagnation, preventing such future innovation while not anialating poverty (source: every state that has every tried to implements Marx's ideas ever).
2. In an abstract philosophical sense, sure. But somehow that does not strike me as the Marxist's vibe. Materially, they were just wrong, and such ideas held back material progress. To claim otherwise would be like claiming that gravity didn't exist before the 17th century, or dinosaurs before the 19th. Just because didn't have the best grasp on a concept doesn't make them right for their time.
3. Lenin's crackdown on the democratically elected constituent assembly in favour of dictatorship preceded Western intervention in the Russian Civil War. The idea that an institution that is to be given as much power with as little restraint as a communist government only becomes totalitarian because of outside influence is ridiculous. (Also, during the Cold War, communists practiced the same system of foreign intervention), (Also also, one can voluntarily opt out of participation in the workplace - it's called quitting! - you can't do that with the state. Your opt out is your vote).
4. Literally all of well established human philosophy says that the best way to achieve happiness, satisfaction, and a stable society is to not obsessively focus on material wealth. the reason they are well established is because they stood the test of time, while other ideas led to ruin. idk, maybe something similar would work for economics... Government institutions are disconnected from local circumstances, and this can make other institutions better placed to handle those conditions, like churches (and well done for trying to sneak the 'church members' distinction in there - it's wrong though, these activities are usually organized through churches). You can try and dispute this ideas, but all you'll be able to bring forth as evidence is useless theorizing because, as with all Marxist ideas, it doesn't happen in practice!
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Thanks for that talk. I have not studied Marxist literature in any depth (although have had discussions with a sibling who studied more than me). But my impression is as follows. There is a reason 5 which I would add to your list. It actually applies to any politico-economic system: not just that of Marx, Engels et al. If one posits a theory that describes, to some greater or lesser degree of detail, how humans within an economy should interact, behave, work in order to achieve a desirable outcome for the whole, then that is a step towards solving this big problem. But it's not much good unless you carefully consider individual motivation . OK, it may well be true that IF society were to be divided into groups/classes/categories of person who engage in different forms of productive pursuit, throughout their lives, THEN the result would be that the whole society would work very well, with a high standard of living, contentment, happiness and so on. But how are you going to persuade 100 million assorted minds to actually do that: to think and behave in conformance with the wonderful theory? This particular how? question is a very difficult challenge. --And in my view one terribly neglected by Marx et al.
One has to devise the economic theory. Then, if one wishes to instantiate it in practice, one has also to sell the economic theory, to a huge number of its participants. And one needs achieve such a high level of success, in this abstract sales project, that millions of people will come to trust others sufficiently to behave in conformance with their individual millionth part of the vast system of interlocking theoretically necessary behaviours.
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I think, you are right! And by the way, Trumps authoritarian paragon Orban is responsible for Hungary having the highest inflation in the EU (despite his cheap Russian Gas deliveries, which Trump does not criticize, by the way, in contrast to Germany and the Nordstream-2-Pipelines, which Trump heavily criticized). It will be interesting, to see, what Trump is going to tell the people, when in the long run, prices might go up. My worry only is: It might happen with delay and only if the Democrats regained power, again. Such pattern would not be anything new in politics. Greetings from Germany & thanks for your inspirations! :person-turqouise-waving:
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Now that the US seems to be pushing Ukraine under the bus, the EU have to find a way to fix the situation. Would it be possible for the European Central Bank to announce the creation of a EUR 100 billion fund to buy supplies from EU countries for the military and civilian administration and deliver them to Ukraine? This would not be a loan for which each EU country would be responsible, but an accounting operation.
For centuries, only the Central Bank of a country had the right to create money, i.e. to mint new coins and print banknotes. The problem was that gold and silver could be mixed with low-value metals, which, once discovered, reduced the purchasing value of money. Banknotes made it even easier to increase the amount of money. At its worst, the result was hyperinflation. To prevent this from happening, the right to create money was handed over to commercial banks. Money is created when a bank grants a loan to those who need it, and money disappears from circulation when the borrower pays the final instalment. The central bank's only job is to keep an eye on inflation and, if necessary, raise the policy rate. The system has worked reasonably well but in times of crisis it has proved counterproductive.
The EU Parliament could approve the creation of the fund by a majority vote. It is clear that an increase of €100 billion would lead to a devaluation of the currency (i.e. inflation). On the other hand, a weakening of the euro would increase the global competitiveness of goods and services produced in EU countries. And above all, that amount of money would provide a stimulus to the EU economy. Creating new money would therefore benefit not only Ukraine but also the EU.
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THe Russian people are aware, they just hold the view that if the govt allows them to make a living, they will ignore what they know. Here's the problem, the government lets a lot of its people feed at the feeder to, when corruption is so rampant, nobody wants to change it. The certianty they seek in life is comforted by the fact that they know whom to bribe and how much. And the bribee, is not getting rich, but at least he knows where his check is coming from. This whole nation is on a collision course for a reckoning. At it will be at the hands of the Western alliance, I am not threatening violence per say, but if we cut them off from being a world citizen, the people will EVENTUALLY revolt.
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All those horrible countries with high interest rates, defintely economically dead, like - Turkey - 50%, Egypt - 27.25%, Iran - 23%, nuclear wielding Pakistan - 22%, morbid Russia - 16%, Kazakhstan - 14.75%, valiant Ukraine (no sanctions!) - 14.50%, Brazil - 10.75%. And all those beacons of monetary optimism, lands of abundance with lowest interest rate like - Iceland - 9.5%, Uruguay - 9%, Afghanistan - 6%, USA - 5.5%, Norway - 4.5%, Vietnam - 4.5%, Denmark - 3.6%, Albania - 3.25%, China - 3.45% and Botswana - 2.4%
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What puzzles me about people like Putin is their lack of understanding how economy works, economy at the simplest level is easy to understand. Economy is exchange of goods and services, and for it to be in health condition the trade or exchange has to be equally beneficial, so in simple terms economy is a symbiotic relationship (producers and consumers). I know this is an oversimplification but still this explains why authoritarian countries are so bad at fostering a healthy economy. Putin just takes and takes and leaves little to nothing for the rest of his country. China also suffers from this kind of unhealthy economics but in this context of being only one sided trade by only producing goods but not really consuming goods produced from others (with the negative effects it has on countries trading with China being jobs are lost and over time even knowledge, making them even more dependent on China). This is why I like USA because a trade is symbiotic in terms of sharing the worker pool (jobs) and knowledge which gives both countries of creating more wealth (cooperating for shared benefit). I must say as an European I am very disappointed that EU hasn't taken a strong stance against China's predatory trading practice (especially Germany, do you want to destroy your own car manufacturing capabilities?). We should be standing strong with USA in an united front against this unfair, uneven trading practices by China. As fewer and fewer countries want to accept Rubles the less it is worth, and Putin will be forced to trade away Russia's gold reserves for goods meaning Russia is getting poorer on two fronts, and to burn a hole in Russia's wallet by waging a costly war on top of all that. When soldiers won't get paid then they will eventually revolt against Putin, so his only choice left are to massively print Rubles in order to pay all soldiers and officers but that will cause a dramatic increase in inflation. So basically Russian ruble is worthless. If I was living in Russia I would have done all I could to stay away from Ruble, and accepting USD, Euro, gold or even Bitcoin. The smarter ones have already left Russia because who in the right mind would want to experience a total economic crash?
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Excellent video. Would be, if there would be more objectivity than building funny straw men. Seriously, you compare education in the capital of The Stealthy Colonial Empire with a city... the city being the China-Russia trade gate coupled with some military naval assets?
No crap noone wants to go get education in the latter place. Because such places are not known for quality of education.
Territory of present day Saint Petersburg, Ingermanladia, was populated already back 7 thousands years ago. I didn't hear you stating it's belong to them. Or any of their say "heirs". It has seen different cultures and peoples settling there. What you say is a cherry picking. Before Sweden(Yes, Sweden not Finland) had acquired the region by 1617 peace treaty, it was claimed and controlled by republic of Nóvgorod, succeeded the Moskovian(Russian) Cardom. Yet in your storytelling it is an integral Finland territory because... well because there's nothing to discuss I guess, just eat this.
Also I don't understand your ecology stance, I think I can't give any remark if all I heard is we must protect invaluable unique lifeforms of Crimea. Plainly this isnot the biggest concern compared with other problems.
Also your comparison of Cuba-Florida and Russia-Crimea is plainly ridiculous and demonstates your incompetence. Because first of all, as an amateur you confused the polarity. Yes. Yes, you cannot just reverse the polarity of an electrical circuit without consequences. And second there are many factors you just thrown out from the comparison. Unacceptable many. And in the best tradition of crappy politicians, you believe those lands/regions/territories are some kind of a sandwich. Like there's no people with their voice which you actually have to listen. No, we won't listen to populus of Crimea. Instead we'll listen to the other parts of Ukraine. With such success you can listen to populus of Russia, yet there you see something wrong. I "wonder" what's wrong? I guess nothing apart from it, being Russians.
People and lands the people settles is not a sandwich, which you can give away of even put into a fridge without many consequences.
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It's frustrating a term like "overheating economy" isn't explained in a way that demonstrates how it's actually a bad thing. The IMF makes all these top-line statements that get reported without much deeper analysis, at least in public, and people are left to think in terms of misleading headlines. The Russian economy is not growing. It has lost tremendous capacity over the past few years, from the pandemic and now from the war, and is trying to satisfy demand with diminished capacity. The 'overheating' is a reflection of trying to keep up production with a reduced labour pool, for one thing. Further, diverting industrial capacity away from commercial goods to capital goods (i.e. war machines) can expand GDP since government spending is a huge component of GDP, but it is a misallocation of resources in that it won't contribute at all to productivity gains. Turn off the war machine, and you'll turn off the economy. That's why Russia can't afford to either win or lose the war. As for the resource cash cows, Russia is increasingly relying on exporting unrefined oil because it is losing its refining capacity to war and an increasing inability to maintain infrastructure. Profits from resources are and will continue to be captured by its so-called friends such as India, who can refine and re-export petroleum products, sometimes even right back to Russia! How much stimulus can Russia afford when it has to pay to import refined petroleum products from unrefined oil it exported at a discount? In other news, "I was reading Lord Byron on a bench, with cargo shorts and a big American Smile. This guy? This guy is a philosopher under the bridge" needs to be the opening line to a short story.
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I live in Slovakia (former Czechoslovakia), was born into communism. And I totally agree. If Russians ever were good at anything, than it was 1. Corruption on all levels. 2. Propaganda and brainwashing. 3. Screwing with numbers. It was always the same song: "Just wait! With the next five year plan, you will enjoy paradise! And the capitalists are decaying every day more and more!" And todays Russia is not different. Do not forget, that their "Fuhrer" is already almost 30 years in the office, and was a KGB officer. So he has an old school soviet mind set. Makes the same mistakes, the Soviet union made. The current Russian economy is a war economy. Yes it grew. But how it grew. It threw it´s national wealth reserve fund into the war industry. And with those interest rates and sanctions, there is no way to invest, expand or even sell those products that have some meaningful added value. And workers shortages that left for the better pay in Ukraine or the military industry. So there is nothing to gain for the country with this in reality. Those are all end products, that can´t be sold or exported. So they are only bleeding money and personnel big time. And with the demography of Russia, this will have severe consequences in the future. Killing of the last numerous enough population in productive age. I just hope that China does not go down the Japanese way and begins a war in the Pacific as the living standard of Chinese declines. The rule in a communist/totalitarian regime was , that there has to be someone to blame. And when it´s not the internal enemy that can be publicly punished, there is an external enemy to blame (this was the Russian and even pre WW2 Germanys prewar case, declining economy. Or even Rome that needed to expand to absorb wealth from it´s neighbors. )
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As a Russian I want to point out a bit on how things work inside. Russia has basically two economies. One economy is government economy (basically money the state gets and has) and the other economy is well, just economy (for civil needs). When they say that Russian economy is growing, they in a sense, tell somewhat of a truth. It means government gets a lot of money (somehow) and they have a lot of money. That money is for waging war, buying stuff for corrupted officials, investing tons of money in occupied (while still in warzone) cities, etc, etc. They have that kind of cash to build couple of Dubai, sure. But if you look on the economy from the business perspective or just as a regular citizen - it is on the heavy decline (unless you work in military industry). Prices are growing, insane key-rate to slow down inflation, severe lack of workers, severe decline in civil industry. That two economies never crossing together.
While central bank trying to get every ruble from every corner back, the Ministry of Finance spending tons of money on worthless enterprises and can spend a ton more.
So when they say that GDP growth is 3.6% you should read it as: "We (as in government) got a bit more money than the last round and that money is ours". Real people never see that 3.6% instead they will see 7%+ inflation rate.
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I'm a bit of a hippy too, Mark. You are correct about calling Trump "The Orange Problem." During his time in office, I found myself increasingly alarmed by his actions and behavior. God, I thought George W. Bush was bad, but Donald Trump, often referred to derisively as "orange vagina neck," is exponentially worse. The chaos that he brought to the White House and the country was unprecedented in my lifetime. His erratic decision-making, divisive rhetoric, and apparent disregard for democratic norms and institutions were truly frightening. In stark contrast, President Joe Biden is a very good man. He learned a lot during his eight years as Vice President under Barack Obama, gaining invaluable experience and insight into the complexities of governing. Biden's decades of experience in public service, particularly his tenure in the Senate, have equipped him with a deep understanding of both domestic and international issues. Having lived through the Cold War, Biden possesses a perspective that few current politicians can match. This historical awareness and commitment to diplomacy and collaboration are vital in today's global landscape. Trump, on the other hand, seemed to lack both the experience and temperament required for effective leadership. Often described as a "pussy baby with a silver spoon up his ass," he demonstrated a level of entitlement and petulance that was deeply concerning. His tendency to prioritize his own interests and grievances over the nation's well-being was evident throughout his presidency, further exacerbating the divisions and challenges facing the country. In summary, while I embrace some aspects of the hippy lifestyle and values, my political views are shaped by a profound respect for competence, experience, and ethical leadership, qualities that I believe are embodied by Joe Biden and were sorely lacking in Donald Trump.
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Xi wants to dominate in all important sectors and especially semiconductors because with that is the ultimate control that if CCP did reach total supremacy in semiconductors, Xi would be able control everyone on Earth by first taking the lead then start to bleed out all competition so that within a generation or two the core know-how would only remain in China. Just like a modern version of the forbidden city where secret technologies are kept, and over time will appear as wild as magic for all outside of the CCP circle, for all humans on Earth. I see all of semiconductors on Earth as more dangerous than all nuclear weapons combined, and no one alone should have that much power. Ever.
On an important side note I am worried about Venezuela, that the voting is clear as sky, that the Maduro just ignored the peoples votes by declaring himself as onces more as President. I hope that all of the democratic nations gets together and find way to shutdown Maduro, preferably with a collective military operation to clean out those pesky communists that are protecting Maduro. China, Russia and Iran was very quick to congratulate Maduro of his so-called victory. Red flags all the way, time to stomp down those red flags and replace it with blue flags. As long as we have dictatorships here on Earth there will NEVER be total peace, so the conclusion is clear as blue skies. Down with the Reds
Edit: I heard that Ukrainians did manage to shutdown a Russian/Putin militant operation in one of the countries in Africa. Big Win for the Blue team!
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Over the last 40 years, China has pulled about 70 % of their people out of poverty,
under this communist government. They are a manufacturing "powerhouse" and
likely # 1 in the world, or very close to it. They make semi conductors, electric cars,
after market auto parts, and all kinds of clothing and accessories. I can only say
that I think they've done very well, even if I don't agree with their human rights policy.
The same could be said for Singapore, which is one very successful country, and
under Communist rule. It's one of the wealthiest countries per capita in the world.
Generally tho, I agree with Mark, that countries operating under Communism like
Russia, Venezuala and many other countries end up in economic ruin, and disaster.
Far more countries will fail under dictatorships, than those that make it.
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Ezekiel 38:3 - 8 and say: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, Gog, Prince of Rosha, (descendants of Esau = Russian), Meshekha (Misha - Moscow) and Tubala (Tobolsk, Tyumen region, Russia)
And I will turn you (after the war in Ukraine, God will turn Russia and its allies against the USA), and I will put the bits (hooks) in your jaws, and I will bring you and all the army out yours, horses and riders, all in full armor, a large horde, in armor and with shields, all armed with swords, (KGB - Vladimir Kryuchkov: Alexander Yakovlev was instrumental in the collapse of the USSR) Persians (Iran), Ethiopians (North Africa) and Libyans with them, all with shields and in helmets, Gomer with all his troops, the house of Togarm, from the borders of the north, with all
with his troops, many nations are with you. Prepare and equip yourself, you and all your hordes gathered to you, and be leader. After many days you will be needed; in the last years you will come to the earth,
delivered from the sword, gathered from many nations, upon the mountains of Israel (USA+; Jacob = descendants of Manasseh - Joseph), who were in constant desolation, but now its inhabitants will be brought back from the nations, and they will all live in safety GOG-Magog - war against Alaska=USA).
💡Q&A: Why did America buy Alaska🇺🇸? https://youtu.be/DeIHxTL6kL4?list=PLcK3ZkGY_ffo2M9xpHULHVPUeij1hoigh
📡✞ Ezekiel 38 - 39; in-depth Bible study https://youtu.be/gqLWRZ0F3c0?list=PLcK3ZkGY_ffo2M9xpHULHVPUeij1hoigh
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On point. Russia's aim is to extend their sphere of influence back to the USSR-borders, and probably beyond due to their twisted ideological belief-system. And the US,with all their 'Rogans', 'Trumps' and the 'Marjory Taylor Greens', are actually Russian 'useful idiots', and some cases 'fellow travelers', helping Russian achieve this goal. A big, fat, over-weight, deluded, inward-looking US is exactly what Russia wants - that makes it so much easier for them to take on the rest of the world.
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my take on how Russia loses this war, Kamala Harris wins Nov 2024, even better if Congress and senate are controlled by the dems. and the USA massively ups aid to Ukraine in 2025. a Kamala Harris win alone in Nov 2024 wil cause a massive Political tsunami in Russia, the Russian elites know the Russian economy cant support another 4 years of war, and the Russians are scraping the bottom of the barrell in terms of refurbishing Soviet stocks of tanks and APCs, even better if the Ukrainians score a major victory ont he battlefield. in 2025 I can see the Russian elites and disgruntled military officers start organizing to chuck Putin out of a window and get a new regime going which I think happens in 2025 or in 2026.
WIth a new regime , negotiations occur and the Russians totally withdraw from Ukraine including crimea, in exchange all sanctions lifted, all Russian assets unfrozen in Western banks, no war crimes trials for Russian leaders. , normalization of relations with the west. a formal peace treaty recognizing borders. That is how the war ends with a Kamala harris win in 2024.
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I remember the moment I watched the news about Putin being the new president of Russia and I had a bad gut feeling. Over the years I told people that he will be the new Stalin, but was looked at in skepticism. I wish I was wrong.
When the Sovietunion was about to collapse and the Communist tried a coup, the KGB didn´t support them. Not, because they wanted democracy, but because they wanted the Politburo to collapse as they kept the KGB under control. So after that they were free to do all their subversiv work. Yelzin handed power over to Putin, because Putin promised to protect Yelzin and his family. After Putin became president the FSB (KGB/Checka/... ) conducted these bombing of residential buildings in Russia and blamed the Chechnian in order to wage a bloody brutal war against Chechnia; Grosny looked like Mariupol and other cities in Ukraine, as well as Aleppo in Syria. By buying the Kadyrow clan Putin "won" the war and destroyed the Chechnian identity and culture. That is what he wants to do to Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, the Baltics, Poland, ... up to Romania. Russians always wanted the Carpatian mountains as a natural obsticle to "protect" Russia.
When George W. Bush was president Putin thought he can make a "mafia" style deal with him: the Western part of Europe should be under US "controll" and the former Warsaw Pact countries should be under Russias "controll", so basically Putin wanted to devide Europe, but of course it didn´t work out for him. Stupid Putin didn´t get, how the West functions. That is the "humiliation by the West" he loves to whine about and his frustration and revenge. He is pure evil and so are his KGB mafia comrades. The only thing they care about is their power. They know that if they stop the war, they will lose everything including their lives. They won´t stop. Russia MUST be defeated and MUST face a humiliatin defeat and maybe also a further collapse and disolution in order to restart.
I agree, the war will not be decided on the battlefield but in Russia. And yes, we have to make Russia again collapsing economically. Stop all trade with them, cut them off internet AND punish China, Iran and North Korea for helping them.
Victory for Ukraine!
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love your ideas! You're brilliant, truly. Totally agree with u about religion, authentic religion, and humanism. Atheist me-self, went to catholic school, head altar-server, xtian boy award, etc, lol. However always the iconoclast myself and nonconformist and in public highschool years became an actual 'activist' when there was almost no such thing, the 1980's america! You are a light and today or a month ago now, u are just what the doctor ordered! Love your mentions of religion, culture, and shoutouts to those great Ukrainian and Ukr supporters online!
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I enjoy your thought-provoking presentations. However, as a retired experimental physicist, I am aware of several forces, which while invisible, produce visibly observable effects. Furthermore, as a parent and keen observer of human behavior, I am aware that (invisible) beliefs significantly influence (invisible) thinking, choices, and emotions, which become visible through observable behaviors. Accordingly. it is easier and simpler to "understand" Russian behavior through culture or indoctrination-transmission of beliefs, than by invoking arguable theoretical constructs such as "collective unconsciousness".
Furthermore, since the most careful carbon-14 measurements of the deepest diamonds and anthracite coal reveal that the earth is <10,000 years old, "30,000 year-old" myths and stories are unlikely. Such statements reveal your evolutionary indoctrination bias, and reduce your credibility.
Moreover, historical beliefs like the divine right of kings, or racial or cultural superiority have only been successfully purged through considerable blood sweat and tears.
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Short answer - average Russian knows.
But it’s not as simple as in the video of course, because the video is focused I’d say on the most depressed, the least prosperous part of Russia.
The way the presenter puts it about Russia - it is true, but maybe for 25% of the country, the small towns, the villages.
And then there are big cities - with different quality of life.
Then there is Moscow, which is well over 10 mln. people in the city and about 30 mln. people in the area, like a small country itself, - with probably just a little bit better quality of life compared to large Polish cities.
And answering the question - yes, surely people from underprivileged cities know, that there are much better places and countries to live.
And when I tell them something like - look where your kids play, look what your streets look like, in Estonia or anywhere it all looks different,- they understand it.
But they still support Putin.
The better people live, the less they support Putin. In Moscow Putin has the least support.
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This attachment to the higher being myth in the USA is scary, to me. It somehow mirrors the incapacity to evolve from a pioneer mindset. The constitution is old, the electoral system is old, everything is fixed and old fashioned, the founding fathers worship, the death penalty, the trigger happy hunting cowboy mentality, nothing seems to evolve. It's the individual over the community, like it always has been, personal interests are more important than social development, to the point that a functional society is not the priority and one sees it.
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Working in IT in the administration of systems I totally get the analogy. People have no idea the amount of work it is to get ONE (1) system into your corporation. Not just assessing demands, laws and regulations and the economical side of things, but then working in an already complicated environment with firewalls, servers, ports, IP-adresses, updates, adjustments, developments etc. And then we haven't even started to consider licencing administration, upholding contract obligations, producer, supplier and support management. Not to mention spare parts, backups, incident and problem management and a whole slew of other things. Then we get into education, manuals, information, process handling, adjusting work environment and handling. This is just out of the top of my head.
And that's just for one system.
russia really deficated on themselves with the invasion. A modern corporation and/or factory is a veritable nets of spider nets of machines, software, spare parts, suppliers, maintenance and all of the above I written about one system. A factory maybe have tens if not hundreds of different machines and software that needs to constantly to be monitored and adjusted. By people you mostly have to either hire and educate, or buy by the hour from the manufacturer of the machine. Not to mention the knowledge of how to set up and maintain the whole chain.
All the access to this disappeared on February 24, 2022.
One thing people usually forget is the education. For most of those machines you can't put anyone on the factory floor in front of. They need education, training and working next to someone. Understand the machine, the different parts and how it all hangs together. This take time, money and resources. Then suddenly that person is snatched up, thrown an AK-74 in his hand and is running towards the Ukrainian frontlines. The moment that person is instead pushing sunflowers all that education is gone.
You cannot live without that access of knowledge, bot external and internal. You can survive. But only for so long. Especially when russia is running out of people who are even able to manage those machines.
And no, neither China nor India have the know-how, machines or the software for the above.
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I went to B.U. and lived in Boston for a few years. I loved it! Yes, I would agree with the description of it in this video. Russia is vast with little population, relatively speaking. Too bad Russians cannot ‘escape’ into their vast land and self-actualize. But technology allows the Putin regime to keep track of everyone, increasingly. (With AI, China, today, is watching EVERYONE as I understand it—& giving them a consequential social rating). From the Russian YouTubers I watch, vast Russia is a country in which a free spirit needs to hide or be on the run—yet, as I said, with new AI ability coming in that can get personal with everybody, how will anyone hide?
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You don't get it, do you? If Russkie or China Mir would be that much better, than why are refugees and migrants not lining up at their borders to be welcome in? After 10 years destroying democracy in Afghanistan followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union, East Bloc countries could have pulled themselves up by the boot straps and help to rebuild their "Motherland" and help putting food on the table of those Muscovite who stood in a bread line in the middle of the Russian Winter in the early 90s. Why did semi-Communist Yugoslavia fall apart at the same time the Soviet Union did? It was the collective evil West 'dominated by American hegemony' who helped rebuild the Russian, the Warsaw Pact countries and China's economy in the 90s. Can you cope with that?
If what you commented on is holding any water, then why did the US Congress vote on the Marshall Plan in 1948? They could have gone all Amerkanskie Mir on Western Europe and the rest of the world post WWII if they wanted to, but they didn't. You have to read up on history and go back as far as the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, Congress of Vienna, Congress of Europe to understand the consequences of Imperial Europe: WWI, Interwar period followed by WWII was the grand finally.
You say, the "US is an economic empire", but the Soviet Union was an empire in political ideology and an economy of conflict and war. True that, just simply because the US still leads in innovation and research. In addition, the US doesn't even occupy the biggest land mass in the world, doesn't have a population of over 1.4 billion, but still gave away it's manufacturing base to third world countries, former Soviet Communist countries which had their capitalist experience in the 90s but slid back to a neo-Communist approach of an economy. How are they looking today? They only power they have is politically in the UN, EU, WHO and possible in other international institution. The only thing they old commies can't influence yet is the World Bank. The US is still the winner, but not as strong as it used to be post WWII up to 1992.
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The fact that the USSR only survived the first two winters during WW2 on Lend-Lease, a huge package of equipment(tanks, fighters, bombers, trucks), food , oil, lubricants and ball bearings, with a huge sacrifice of merchant sailors and merchant ships, is just completely ignored by pro russian marxists in the comment section here. We are talking about over $180 billion in todays money. And they bombarded the West with their ''huge'' industrial and agricultural complex propaganda for years before WW2 started. It was all maskirovka, intended to make the USSR look better and more powerful than they actually are. And they still do that today, because Russia is now run by former USSR civil servants. Stalin never payed that Land-Lease back by the way. You're welcome Russia.
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The fact that the USSR only survived the first two winters during WW2 on Land-Lease, a huge package of equipment(tanks, fighters, bombers, trucks), food , oil, lubricants and ball bearings, with a huge sacrifice of merchant sailors and merchant ships, is just completely ignored by pro russian marxists in the comment section here. We are talking about over $180 billion in todays money. And they bombarded the West with their ''huge'' industrial and agricultural complex propaganda for years before WW2 started. It was all maskirovka, intended to make the USSR look better and more powerful than they actually are. And they still do that today, because Russia is now run by former USSR civil servants. Stalin never payed that Land-Lease back by the way. You're welcome Russia.
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Indeed. RuSSia has been taking advantage of the abundant natural resources, sitting back with their feet on the table, and extremely corrupt at that. Like leeches, screwing each other. The old soviet 'communist' credo was: if you don't steal you are depriving yourself and your family. My home country was influenced by that mentality and still suffers, 30 years later after the collapse of the USSR. And now the tzar wants it all back. 5he cold war was a bit different, there was investment into the space programs, but their recent attack on the Moon (as you cannot call it anything else) was just a propaganda show off, not a genuine space program that needs investment, dedication, transparency to a degree and years and years of focus. You cannot just take almost abandoned project, rush some money through its rusty pipes to remind the natin their past glory under the current situation of a failed 3 day special military failure, and expect it to deliver.
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Crazy how from the all Soviet-comie block countries tough Russians are bitching the most about the good old times, good times for them, not for any of their vasal states! Soviet Russia needs uranium ore, high quality steel, wheet, sugar, cotton? No problem, here it comes for the fraction of its cost, thats how things used to work, not any more. So they bitching and crying, unable to take any responsibility for their lives.
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Governments hate deflation, especially heavily indebted ones. They can't tax deflation but the individual benefits from increasing purchasing power even without an increase in income. They dread it, it is an existential threat to the ponzi they have set up. Central banks and governments love inflationary policy as it allows wealth transfer via dilution of the money supply, an invisible tax. They wont and cant tolerate deflationary policy by design. The FED mandate was last changed in 1977, after we came off the gold standard a few years earlier. That is around the time the fiat petrodollar system was being firmly established. The money supply afterwards took off. A policy of inflation makes alot of sense from the perspective of tax revenues. With commodity backed money it would work differently, i think the inflationary policy fits with the debt based fiat system and what the central planners want to accomplish. Edward Bernays was hired by us government in the 40s to create a religion around consumerism. It all ties together nicely. You live on a neo-fuedalistic plantation. The slaves take care of their own needs this time around and are controlled through the system of taxation, inflation, consumerism and wage slavery. Also, another point, in our debt based system deflation causes the whole system to implode, new debt has to be created to service the old debts interest you seem to look past that. This is why you are about to see a wave of foreclosures and defaults. If that wave gets too high prepare for massive civil unrest.
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Russia has immense social inequality. In cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg, people do have plumbing. Huge shopping malls, entertainment centres, luxury apartments and so on and so forth. On the other hand, in states like Dagestan or Buryatia, in the country, not much has changed since the Soviet times. The thing is: they don't mind. The problem isn't that they have no money. They have enough---at least enough to get plumbing. The problem is that there's nothing to connect the plumbing to---there is no water supplier (people have dug wells) and there's no sewerage system (the waste goes on the field). So why bother with plumbing? That's the real reason: the country is under-developed and the people are fine with that; they wouldn't object if improvements would come and they believe that Putin will perhaps maybe get to it any time soon... But if not, they'll just stoically keep using a bucket and an outdoor privy. As long as Russia is great and there's enough vodka, all's well. It's enough for Putin to keep the city people happy; the villagers are used to hardship and don't actually expect much better anyway. And that's why sanctions don't work as expected---well, that and also that they're being circumnavigated and because of the high price of oil and gas, Gasprom actually increased profits after the invasion.
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point one: great economy does not equal better welfare. It just means it can sustain longer military operations. Much like how the US economy has been growing but citizen welfare and wellbeing has been diminishing since the 90s. By your example, then Norway's economy is larger than the US since their people are so happy. Which is wrong if you use this "logic and critical thinking" you love to misquote.
point two: comparing Russian economy to the US proves nothing. It's like saying my 3-year-old child didn't grow by 3 inches (or percent) just because Kobe Bryant is 6 foot 11 inches, which makes no sense.
point three: Russia is no longer a communist country, in fact, it is more capitalist than the USA. Modern day Russia is neo-liberal. It has been since Yeltsin did the Shock therapy thing with the advice of US economists, this led to 50% of Russia's economy to be destroyed, and lead to the infamous bread lines and empty store photos you see so much online. Those were in fact, because of capitalism, Idk how this is being blamed on communism lol.
point four: you did not use critical thinking, instead you used personal anecdotes and opinionated feelings. Nothing wrong with that, but at least be honest about it. Your video was honestly a waste of time.
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Why are western economists so naive...? They rely on Rostat figures despite the fact that any senior Russian economist could be defenestrated from a tenth story window for telling the truth. Then, Russia is the most sanctioned country ever and, aside from this, funding a full scale illegal war. Russia has lost vast amounts of expensive war materiél, from massively expensive aeroplanes to tanks and from armoured vehicles to ships. These all have to be replaced.
Russia has lost, potentially, a couple of million of their most educated, trained and skilled citizens, from surgeons to tech experts and from entreupreneurs to scientific researchers. Good luck with building a modern economy then...! This loss along with the elimination of tens of thousands of Russian men in war, chronic lifelong injuries, the absorbtion of workers into the military industrial complex all on TOP of Russia's long standing woeful demographic problem all mean severe labour shortages and the end of any attempt to recreate industries to make up for the loss of Western expertise (another nail in the coffin of the Russian economy).
Then, Ukrainain attacks on refining capacity and factories, more problems. Add to this quite phenomenal levels of corruption, absolutely no accountability nor media freedom so that no one can ask any questions about Russia's economic health, just listen to the lies of the propagandists about how everything´s wonderful..!
Once Russia blows through its sovereign wealth fund those fat governent military contracts will struggle to be paid for. As usual, Ivan will have to pay, at least until he's got no money left. Meanwhile, the peacetime economy will slowly collapse, after all, funding military manufacturing is just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
To repeat, why are western economists so willing to repeat Kremlin narratives..?
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I’m with you professor! I’m a Regan Republican and ex-MAGA. Don’t get me wrong, I despise Biden and how he is ruining this once great country. And I support Trump’s other policies. BUT, The Evil Empire must be defeated! Regan must be rolling in his Grave that so many “Republicans” are pro-Russia! The TRUE Rhinos are MAGA! This is yet another example of Russian propaganda influence, calling others what you actually are. If Trump were pro Ukraine, I’d be on his bandwagon and even would give him a decent donation (I gave over $10,000 in 2020). But it’s zero to him this time until or unless he supports Ukraine: STRONGLY! I hear the MAGA folks, complaining about the border, crime, etc, and I agree. But you got to set your priorities, and defeat of aggressive imperialism MUST come first, or else we surely will have World War 3. If we don’t take care of this real threat (that an ocean won’t protect us from this time around) then we will have Russians coming across the border instead of Mexicans! At that point nothing else will matter. I deplore the idea of giving $ to the Democrats since they are so against all I believe in, but this issue is so ultimately important, I may just have to do that. YUK!
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China has printed more than the US, see the Yuan and you can use FRED sites. Chinese statistics are not trustworthy and take it with a grain of salt, but there still is more RNB printed the USD. Also, China is a black hole the US is not, the US is a transparent country, I don't see any alternative to the dollar, and is not even Bitcoin which is too volatile, and prone to asset bubbles and speculation. Peter Zehian said that the world economy outgrew the gold market, that is why we do not have the gold standard since 1971, I do not think the US needs a good standard or a nominal surplus, just needs to cover the cost of pension, salary, welfare, infrastructure, etc, everything the government spend excluding interest spending, the US can outgrow the debt with a primary surplus, is not like only debt part of debt/GDP grows, there is also GDP growth.
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@Mark: I have been thinking along the lines, you have just said. Yes, Americans love their Bibles!!
Most of the world does not realise the economic mess in Russia as there is no reliable news that comes out from the country! However, when we see the interest rate on the Rouble has been increasing and is now 21%, it is easy to see that is not sustainable especially considering that the Russia cannot sell their oil and gas at market rates! Most of Europe will also not buy and their big investments in pipelines over Europe, which Putin assumed was his insurance has been rendered useless. You have to applaud the Biden administration for having put together the coalition in Europe and around the world. Trump supporters assume that he can make peace in Europe by threatening Zelenksi. However, Zelenski cannot yield to Trump's dictates unless Russia returns the occupied terrirories. If he does, he will loose face with his own people who will want to know what all their sacrifice was for? If Zelenski does not agree and even if the US cuts off arms supplies, they will get support from the rest of Europe as Russia's actions, if it goes unpunished would affect all of them. So, as with Germany, during WW II, Russia or any power that has an autocratic leader has to be crushed.
Putin finally got it his way: to beat the Democrats in an election and possibly destroy the fabric of American democracy! He started the war in Feb 22, assuming that inflation would bring out many angry voters for the mid-terms in Nov 22. It did not happen then, but did now in Nov 2024!! Putin has in the process destroyed his own nation, which he had largely built. That he has gone to N Korea for foot soldiers says a lot!
People like Putin and Trump are anarchists. They can destroy faster and easier than they can build!!
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