Hearted Youtube comments on Econ Lessons (@EconLessons) channel.

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  70. 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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  178. 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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  234. 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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  437. I agree 100 percent with your description in every way about Poland! I was there in Warsaw in 3 months ago in April and I agree completely Poland and Warsaw is a very dynamic and prosperous country with a very bright future ahead of it. A sizable group of young Polish teens riding on the same train I was on were indistinguishable from middle class affluent kids here in the USA and many of them spoke every good English amongst themselves from time to time! On your description of Russia, I agree with you half and half! Life inside Moscow’s Golden Circle can rival any major city in the world! I think the same applies to St Petersburg Russia! All of Russia’s wealth is concentrated in those two cities. Of course all this wealth belongs to the Russian oligarchs, their families and business associates, but is is all there. Walking the street of the Golden Circle in Moscow which is the very center of Moscow you can caught with your eye from time to time a Ferrari or a Lamborghini passing by! The very beautiful shopping mall right next to the Red Square near St Basil Cathedral is stocked with posh brand names like Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton to name a few! The very rich in Moscow live a very lavish and opulent lifestyle which is comparable to any wealthy country in the entire world! Putin‘s kleptocracy created these little economic sanctuaries for themselves to show the world that they powerful not only militarily but economically which is more of a mirage than a reality! The rest of Russia is like you described falling apart with poverty levels that are totally unimaginable when contrasted with life inside Moscow’s Golden Circle!
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  492. 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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  919. 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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  1091. 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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  1336. 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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  1807. Mark, I totally agree with you. Amazing. Just a look at the BRICS countries is instructive. Brazil has massive problems. Their agriculture is totally dependent on massive inputs of fertilizer. Without that and modern technology, they would not be able to grow much. These all come from outside. They haven't even been able to agree on a currency in their local neighborhood. They also have totalitarian tendencies from both the left and the right. Their slums are epic. Russia we all know about. Enough said there. India is on a decent track, but they have a territorial dispute with another BRICS country that the Indians expect will turn into open warfare in the near future. I tend to agree with them. I think their democracy will help them. Look at the situation with Modi. All the pundits assumed he and his party would steamroll the latest elections. It didn't happen. Now he has to govern in coalition. China is going down. They are experiencing something worse than what Japan did which led to their three lost decades. Japan was rich when that happened. That allowed them to recover, and even then it took a long time. China is a lower middle-income country at best. They don't have the resources to recover. The CCP is going down. They have the territorial dispute with India mentioned above, and potentially with Russia as well. Then of course there is Taiwan. They are also antagonizing Japan on so many levels. Don't they remember what Japan did to them many times in the past (it was not just WWII)? Finally, there is South Africa. The country is falling apart. They can't even keep the lights on. The BRICS countries want a muti-polar world. They will get it. It is called imperialism. None of them did well in that era, which covers most of human history. How stupid can they be? Massively stupid it seems.
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  2069. The Russian Federation got a huge influx of cash last year up until December and then the flow stopped. Europe bought as much oil and gas as it could before the sanction deadlines hit. People living in the big cities in Russia like Moscow and St Pete. etc. don't all have village farms they can flock to and grow chickens. My wife is from Dnipro and her grandfather has an old house out in the country with .3 acres, which was allowed in the Soviet Union. He grows some cucumbers and vegetables and fruit and chickens in the summer and then freezes them. Everyone owns their apartments and there is only a small fee for the elevator maintenance. No one buys house insurance because the companies never paid out. The brick construction doesn't burn anyway so you don't really need house insurance. But not everyone lives this way and many many loans have been taken out to buy real estate , especially in Moscow. These people will suffer from inflation and high interest rates. So the sanctions are just starting to hit Russia now , Putin is spending out his rainy day fund and is now cashing in the gold reserves. So the people living out in the countryside will not feel an economic collapse but a huge portion of the population will. I have heard first hand stories about how hard the 1990's were after the Soviet Union collapsed. Only millet and potatoes to eat. So I predict the Russian Fed will go back to the days of the 1990's. No one had a good time. People worked and were not paid for years. The reason Putin is so popular is sheer luck, since he came to power just as the economy improved. He had nothing to do with it but took the credit.
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  2081. 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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  2170. How do we counter propaganda? Well educating people to be a little more analytical might help though sadly that assumes people want to improve their understanding. I rather think most people prefer to sit in a rut of belief and it takes something major to knock them into another rut, generally something that impacts them directly. And governments are no different to people in this (classic example Germany in the middle of the energy crisis closing perfectly functioning Nuclear plants as a continuation of pre-war policy). Perhaps we have to be Churchillian and grasp the nettle he saw that to beat a totalitarian regime you may have to adopt some totalitarian tactics - but openly so they can be reversed at the end. For him it was interment of aliens in 1940 - even if that might include refugees from Nazi Germany, or state control of various economic aspects. A modern equivalent might have to be some actions that are seen as against free speech in it's wider context. How to moderate social media ..... though I say this with a heavy heart because I have a low opinion of most politicians. And of course we can counteract it by putting out views such as Marks at the soft end or by joining the "opposition sites" and gently kicking back by opening eyes as some have done on pro-Russian sites. Probably politically impossible but we should be taking a hard look at X - that sort of power in the hands of an individual with an agenda isn't good. We all need to get out there and influence our politicians and influence here in social media too. Nice Voltair quote below so maybe Candide gives us some guidance - he ends the moaning at the end by learning the important thing "Now we must go and work in the garden".
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  2512. 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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  2594. 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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  2637. 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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  2702. 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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  2783. Economist Richard Auty coined the term resource curse back in 1993 but this idea has been talked about since at least 1700s. Your explanation is all over the map and I believe a more focused presentation would truly benefit your viewers. [note—I can’t provide this explanation] Well known Russia expert Mark Galeotti noted that the Soviet economy was finally starting to grow and diversify in the 1970s and provide some limited opportunities for citizens when the discovery and exploitation of massive oil reserves began pumping huge amounts of foreign currency into the economy. This resulted in the cessation of most of this change and development as the oligarchs in power began taking the vast majority of this wealth for their own benefit. It marked a return to centralized planning and absolute state control. Who needed economic diversification and development when billions of dollars in hard currency is flooding in? The Russian system exists to allow a tiny minority of those in power to steal immense wealth while controlling and oppressing the masses. Officials in government and the military are there to steal embezzle and divert funds not provide services or take care of health and welfare of their constituency. Imagine how wealthy and developed Russia could have been if Putin and his oligarchs had invested just 10%-20% of the stolen billions into consumer loans and industrialization and economic development? China is the worlds largest economy. It’s also among the poorest in natural resources. Russia is the opposite. Russia has the economy of the state of New York and massive oil and mineral reserves worth trillions of dollars.
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  2834. 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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  2985. 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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  3066. 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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  3137. 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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  3299.  @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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  3306. 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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  3356. 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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  3385. 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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  3543. I definitely wouldn't take a Russian bond, there is nothing of value in it. I think however that the most valuable thing in the economy will still be the people. Russians are saving and reducing their lifestyles (as are Europeans in a less dramatic sense) but Ukrainians have moved to places all over Europe. These Ukrainians are being supported and educated in Europe and have a chance to get to know Europe. When they return Ukraine will rebuild faster due to having these people and they'll integrate faster with Europe due to these experiences. I also think however that China is supporting Russia. Information leaked that drones are being build in China. I think Russia could last longer than what you expect. I would be very careful. It's a thing with the Chinese government to talk the nicest possible way but then act in completely different ways. So we understand that they fully well know how to do better, they just don't want to. I've listened to 'Plato The Republic'. Plato has some very crazy ideas. At the same time has has very valid points. So, Plato was from around 2400 years ago, I think this is an important thing to understand. His thinking was entirely influenced by the world he lived in and that world was just so much different from today. So we must conclude that philosophy isn't 'perfect thinking', like science where we demand objective proof and reproducibility, and that we must consider the effects of the time from which the philosophy originates. I think the same can be said about economics. The world changes and we must learn to keep up and adjust to the changes occurring around us.
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  3633. If you like the architecture of Boston, then you should come to Europe 🙂 I am also listening to Konstantin from Inside Russia as well as Roman (NFKRZ) and Zach the Russian. They all said the same: Russian cities outside of Moskow and St. Petersburg are poor, low income and low living standards. And remember all this bursting water pipes in the middle of the Russian winter. Old and not being maintained well. The Russian government NEVER cared about the Russian people, neither the Czar, nor the Sovietunion and for sure not the Putin KGB mafia regime. But most Russians (75%) never left Russia so they don`t know that life outside of Russia is SO MUCH better than in Russia and they buy the Russian propaganda about how horrible Europe and especially the US is. They did this during the Soviet times and they do it now. I think they keep Russians poor on purpose: if they are just making a living, they do not bother with too many questions about the government, politics or even travelling abroud and maybe coming back with some "ideas". Also if the state is the only employer in your town/region you have to obey. If the army is your only option to get work you join the army. As far as I know Russian oppossition said that they were inspired by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. That made Putin mad. Imagine: Ukraine doing better than Russia because it is a democracy! Thank you for supporting Ukraine! United we stand to help Ukraine defeat Russia and defend democracy! Freedom to mankind!
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  4094. 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.
    3
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  4109. 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.
    3
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  4181. From a historic perspective, to attempt conquest for conquests sake might seem like a common occurrence. But it really is not. And the few conflicts that I can think of where this was the case all ended in defeat. The best example in "recent" times is of course the Germans in WW2. Most wars in history have had strong underlying economic reasons. Because before Pax-America, there wasn't really such a thing as free trade. So if you wanted something that was controlled by a different power, you had to take it by force. For example, this is basically the whole era of colonialism in a nutshell. The British state didn't go to India to "conquer a continent", it started as a private trade venture (The East Indian Company) that gradually evolved into acquisition of power in order to secure economic interests. Russia basically defied this natural law. It would very much so have been in the interest of the Russian state to not go around making enemies and rather make friends and continue their lucrative trade in the energy sector. So what all of this tells me is that the Russian political elite is really really dumb. They are basically doing the same mistakes that the US were doing up until just recently (Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Latin America etc.). The difference being that the US had: 1. Much much weaker enemies 2. Economic might that probably lacks comparison in world history And on those terms they can be considered to have lost basically all of these conflicts. AND these losses probably have made the US a lot weaker (although still the strongest nation on earth by far) today than it could have been.
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  4367. 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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  4581. Very good point. It is even broader than this and not many people are aware but the center of power in Europe is shifting to the East in a rapid pace. It is not only Poland doing very well, it is all countries in Eastern Europe: Baltic states, Rumania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia etc. People in these countries feel the progress that has been made the last decade and they are in general very pro EU. Even a country like Hungary is pro EU although Orban is causing a lot of headaches in Brussels. He will lose btw because the demographic support for him is only rural. I suspect that especially Germany has been looking more to the East for a very long time now because they know where the best partners for a stronger Europe can be found. Look at the troubles Brexit has caused and the financial difficulties in the South of Europe. Germany knows that partnering with Eastern European countries is much more productive for getting a stronger Europe. While many countries in Europe are busy with handling populists, a real revolution is taking place in the East and nobody is paying attention to it yet. But it will come. Mark the date 2033-2035 where Poland is predicted to overtake the UK in terms of GDP per capita. Many changes will come to Europe so fast that it will surprise many. Just some thoughts: why do we need the military power of the UK still if we are upscaling the defenses in the east where the real threat is. By no means I am saying that the UK will be powerless but it sounds much more logical for the EU to have a very strong defense potential in the East where they have the motivation, experience and the awareness of knowing how dangerous Russia and China can be. Investments in building a strong defense industry in the East have already started and it will boost the economies there even more. It is like Mark said: there is a lot of ingenuity in the East. In combination with the EU it will be developed into an Eastern powerhouse and as a consequence, a lesser role for countries in the West and South of Europe.
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  4634. 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
    2
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  4791. 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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  4822. 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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  4851. 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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  4991. 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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  5051. I won't dispute anything you said on your economic analysis or the current state of the elections. Your knowledge on economic affairs is far beyond mine. I just have to say that it makes sense to me. However I am way more concerned about the possibility of a Trump victory. It would take a long time to write my concerns but for now I would divide them into internal consequences for the USA and the international geopolitical/economic consequences. From what you have described the international consequences will be potentially catastrophic. It most certainly mean the spread of regional conflicts, an increase in migratory pressures, famine and internal conflict in democratic countries. I wouldn't surprise if I see a rise on autoritarianism in Europe and even the return of war between countries. That reality would be too chaotic to allow us a prediction of who would prevail - Russia or Ukraine - and by then there would be no de facto winners. The dream of liberal humanism would become just that, a dream. In that case, I am not sure I will be able to emulate the spirit of Samwise Gamgee and keep pushing with hope when hope itself seems to have already died (pardon my literary reference). As for the internal consequences in the USA, well, in my oppinion Trump/MAGA dared messing with the very foundations of the American building. What happens when someone messes with the foundations of a building? Yes, even if Harris wins, I am not sure the USA as we know it will be able to survive that. There will be something that resembles it, but in all likelyhood it won't be the bumpy but amazing human social experiment born of the most beautiful ideas that we have seen in this planet. Only if Americans massively reject Trump can we hope for a more bright future.
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  5276. 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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  5388. 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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  5392. Russia is great at creating myths about itself like invincible army, which is not true. I would say, if the allies and especially the USA would not have helped the Sovietunion, they would have lost the war to Hitlers Germany. But especially in their victory parade they (actually since Putin took over) present it as it was Russia alone. Another myth is that they have endless resources also in man for usage as soldiers, which is also not true. And a further myth is that they are a great country. But outside of Moskow and St. Petersburg Russia is actually more like a third world country. Why are all the rich Russians going to Europe or USA for medical treatment? Why are all the rich Russians including the Oligarch and the Silowiki looting Russia and bringing the money to Western countries? No one wants to live there as the so called Russkie Mir is toxic and a nightmare. They export corruption, brutality and killing, such a destructive power, which has to be ending. Hope Russian Federation will collapse, although many of our political leaders are afraid of this. They were also scarred when the Sovietunion was about to collapse. I was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy. Throughout the history Russia was always lacking behind Europe and they were and still are envious about that. Russia always wanted to be an empire but except from one time (as leader of the Sovietunion) it always failed. The Sovietunion was strong because of its colonies and Ukraine was the crown juwel. Without Ukraine Russia is nothing and they know that. That is why they don´t want to let Ukraine go, like a narcissistic man trying to force his ex girl friend to stay with him. Thank you all supporters of Ukraine and defenders of democracy!
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  5501. 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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  5585. 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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  5731. I heard Elon sell the 'your tax money is being wasted', 'Department of Government Efficiency' thing. 1. What both Trump and Elon have been telling us is: It's all about the money. And that is really really wrong! Although I think many Americans would actually agree. 2. Elon sold it like 'Your tax money', it isn't his, and 'is being wasted', wasted how? Will the tax money go to better public infrastructure, healthcare and education? Or will the tax money go to big corporations? I think Elon likes the latter. That will mean Americans won't benefit: they'll sell it nonetheless as if they will, 'trickle down economics' or something like that but in reality poor people get poorer and rich people get even richer and that's all there is to it. (So 2 lies already: 'Department of Government Efficiency' and wastes tax money now just being wasted differently. And the second lie: The 'trickle down economics' principle.) So my prediction is this will have a short term beneficial effect after which the economy crashes again. What could happen is Americans buying in to the believe everything is turning around now, going out in the economy and spend till their last pennies. That will benefit the economy in the short term on top of the short term benefits of Trumps policies. After that the economy will be so depleted, there could be riots, that the bust will blow everyone's mind. It could be the mother of all crashes unseen ever in history. But before all of that to happens we must first know what Trump's policies will be. We haven't seen everything. But he isn't the fair sharing type of guy nor is Elon Musk so my money is on the eventual economic bust. So I think what we're seeing is nothing else but Trump just bluntly not caring at all about world politics and being all about 'America First'. He's economics aren't going to be great and it will be 'American Corporations First' and not 'American People First'. As I understand it the American people think of America First as 'American People First' and not more corporatism or 'American Corporations First'. Then leaves us with the question: will Americans wake up to reality? Or will they remain loyal to Trump and accept their demise?
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  5738. 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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  5747. Hi Mark. Ret nurse from Norway here. I grew up during the cold war and even I was charmed by Putins pr stunts in the beginning of 2000 but of course after burning down Chechenia, and native peoples inside the Russian federation, I just call him Genocide Putin. His unmasking of the superiority he and even the average poor Russians sounds like a bad joke when you set the Russian history right. Of course few Russians knows and few westerners. The brainwashing that KGB started after WW2 works even today as many young people hwo never experienced the losses that every familie in Europe and many in the US grieved after tens of millions died to protect democracy and freedom. We paid with blood for what the last 80 years of peace and extreme prosperity our western culture gave us. Young people tend to support Ukraine out of empathy but they need to know what horrors one man, like Hitler and Putin can do. I belive Russians have a false opinion of self, a superiority complex. A Norwegian explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, was the driving force of sending tons of grain to starving Russians in the 1920'ies. Stalin who killed tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainans as late as in the 1950'ies. The list of horrors that the tyrants of Russia have commited are extensive enough to make me understand Putin will take over the west as the super power he so delusional belive the destroyed/corrupted Russia is capable to. Putin must be stopped as he is becoming Hitler 2.0. United the west can stop the Russian genocidal attack on Ukraine and if he gains more power by invading east Europe, the west is next. Ukraine is doing the job US has done since WW2, protecting world stability. Now Europe and the rest of the west has to step up our spending on aid to Ukraine and rebuild our defenses through NATO and individually. The divisjon in USA is costing your country lots of problem solving. And with Trump being friendly with Russias dictator not solving the war in Europe. It is like a treason to our long standing partnership and I cant belive US is so divided that you consider a caracter like Teump be a presidental canditate who delays the aid pacage promised to Ukraine a year ago while thousands of soldiers defending Europe die on the battle field in Ukraine and in the cities where Russia targets civilians. Thanks for your insightful videos. Sorry for this lenghty comment, or letter😊. Peace !
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  5788. 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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  5792. 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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  5807. 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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  6088. 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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  6113. 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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  6180. 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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  6181. you are right 100% right Hi by the way I'm from Sweden all this about things going well for Russia is propaganda Russia counts its war machine and bomb production therefore it looks good on paper oil sales are stopped in Russia They demand the oil back from Belarus on due to the fact that they have to import oil now Ukraine has blown up their warehouses are empty they have some manufacturing in eastern Russia Siberia and more But it's only a matter of time for Ukraine to blow them up too spare parts they can't get to not to trains not for flights there are three crashes a day in Russia with airplanes it looks good on paper Now the only choice But wait now One two months we'll see Russia can't afford to pay to keep up Ruben taxes will be high everyone will have to pay the poor and the rich will have to pay for this war unfortunately the Russian people will suffer They believe in President Putin that he will fix this it will take a long time probably generations if Russia loses the war they will lose President Putin Then he will fly out through a window therefore he is fighting for his survival winning Ukraine equals Putin will disappear.the wheel has started Start Russia will be crushed economically the sanctions will help men it will take some time because Putin is fighting for his survival harder than that it is not Russian Economy is disaster many people think Russia is doing well with a sanctions I don't understand what they are getting this from you can't trust Russia and Putin It's all just propaganda and lies You don't have to be Einstein to figure out that things aren't going well for Russia but people think things are going well They also write in Sweden that it has never gone well as good for Russia as it is doing now wait and see time will show strong results
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  6207. 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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  6263. 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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  6373. 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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  6397. 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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  6438. It is not just technology. Russia is so corrupt and shady, it must have been very easy for Western intelligence to get people into the Kremlin. I have no doubt that should Putin move towards nuclear escalation, there would be a bullet from within. Putin's loyalty is all based on fealty, and the only reason he is still in power is that no one wants his job at the moment. Ukrainians can pass themselves as Russians very easily, and any suspicion can be overcome with a bribe. I think the West is more careful of how they are perceived by the Russian public. They have been made to believe NATO is going to attack them. I think it is important to try to show that Ukraine is beating them, not the US or NATO. The bigger problem is that Russia is attempting to create an anti-western axis and through this has empowered Iran and North Korea, which is dangerous for the whole world. NATO should have closed the skies long ago and had western advisors not left Ukraine in 2022 I doubt Russia would have invaded. Bullies are 80% bluster & threats. Wars are not won with atrocities by the spirit and conviction of the side who is in the right. Ukraine actually won back in 2022 when they defeated the air assaults on the airports and stopped the Russian columns. Since then, Putin has been trying to achieve something he can call a victory to save his image and position. Ukraine has denied him this successfully. Mark, you are so perceptive about the Russian addiction to dark energy. This phenomenon is ages old and has been used by tyrants for centuries. It never ends well for them. Slava Ukraine!
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  6554. 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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  6605. You make a good point about darkness vs. light. The same statements apply to US politics this year. Trump vs. Harris, Prosecutor vs. the convicted felon. For me the choice is clear if not binary. My hope for Ukraine is for Russia to surrender. Arrest Putin and his cabinet. Send them to the Hauge for trial. The lower ranks also stand trial but in Ukraine for their war crimes. Life sentences for the worst offenders. Reparations begins with confiscating all their wealth along with government reparations to Ukraine for the damage done. Just like Germany had to pay after the end of WWII. As for religion, I think our human concept of God is limited by our knowledge of the Universe and the matter that it is made up of. I just recently watched a video about a galaxy that is shooting out gas at a incredible rate with incredible light but with a temperature of 1 degree above absolute zero kelvin! I ask myself how can something be so bright and yet so cold? Is this "Cold Fusion"? I don't know but would like to know. Can any religion account for that or the vastness of the "portion" of the universe that we can see? The closest words I can come up with which are not my own is. "We are like a grain of sand on a vast beach, with waves washing over us." Our place in time and space is just one of countless billions if not trillions. We are walking, talking bags of star dust. Every element that makes us, us. Comes from the Universe we live in. Complex chemistry as we know it, but sentient. Is our concept of God evolved enough to understand it? Maybe one day we will, or not. But the will to pursuit, will always be there until we do.
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  6842. We need an internet bill of rights to clearly define what rights are actually inalienable. Economically, it makes sense to regulate vices and toxic behavior. I think that governments are doing a bad job with regards to that. Reasonable suspicion has now turned into unreasonable surveillance. I fear the irony right now is that libertarians are supporting a system that will eventually politicize the purchases that we make through cryptocurrency. I am more of an economic moderate with the idea that private land should stay private. For example, a remote shutdown of a vehicle like what the infrastructure bill that recently passed has, if done on public roads is okay and legal. If it is done on my private land while I am driving, then that is a serious problem because unless they have a warrant for it, there will be issues with turning it off and it would place any damages to private property on the hands of that state. That is an example. We are at a crossroads where libertarianism is actually needed to prevent and limit the invasive technologies in order to remove the ability to control the treasury. I Right now there is API for basically social control that can predict what they can and cannot persuade you to do with significant precision and it poses the risk of eroding democracy. I think federal law enforcement are trying to loophole their way around the rights of individuals forgetting why we have them in the first place. This creates the risk of a dictator and consolidates power. Power has to have accountability and like most elected politicians, I think that we see how slimey it is when they are held accountable every 2, 4 or 6 years as misinformation runs rampant. Negative is more stimulating than positive so we get constant negativity during election yeras and that is a shame. Government should not be able to easily use an AI to create an accurate Dossier on everyone and pinpoint a threat to their coalitions. That is a dangerous world that we are building and we need a data bill of rights more so than anything. Certain rights need to be within the realm of libertarianism and no law can take away. Just as much as we need laws that keep bad actors and corrupt systems from society.
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  6852. 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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  6959. 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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  6977. Thank you for your video it's more information than I've heard anyone say in 20 years I do remember Bill Britt from Amway describing that the Federal Reserve System is a privately held corporation that has never been audited and that the IRS exists only to collect the money for the fed. If people pay $25 or 30% of their paycheck to the FED every week or two and this is why Americans are overtaxed and broke, if the government is only in place to enforce the law why doesn't anyone go after taking down the fed? If they are a privately held Corporation why is this not bigger news and now after 40 years that this has all come out that it's true how come 500 people aren't calling me up going gee I'm really sorry you were right. With all the genius intelligence of this world, why is it that our money is not backed up by the United States Treasury and backed up by gold? In my opinion this is all very simple to fix. Bill Britt says the FED must be eliminated and I don't disagree. I think that not only should they be eliminated, our government should either fix this stuff for quit their job and go home. People paying half and 3/4 of their income in taxation is ludicrous. The government does not supposed to be a corporation the government is supposed to be an entity that serves the people so we have been lied to since the beginning of time. The government should take in no more money than it needs to to serve the needs of the people the government should be no bigger than it needs to be to serve the needs of the people. What do we need in government? A good police a good military someone to fix the streets the electricity and the plumbing basically that's it the government should not have its hand in the school system this should be done by capitalist means and give people a choice of where to take their children. All these things to me are simple 101 third grade mentality black and white except for the fact the people in suits are extremely corrupt and we have a bunch of children bullies actually pushing their power. In the end the Lord Jesus Christ is King and those that don't bother him on Earth will bow to him from hell. Don't mean to be so blatant if there's no fix for this stuff then give me 20 million dollars and I'll shut my mouth. If Obama rescued three failing companies to the point he could have given everyone in America a million dollars, we got serious problems. If Rumsfeld Cheney and bushed over a trillion dollars to put together 9/11, we got serious problems. The people of the government should fix this crap or quit their job and go home. They're not even talking about it they're not going after the corruption the only thing the government should do in this country is enforce the law. These people are illegal take them out it's pretty freaking simple. Let the chips fall where they go someone will create a proper money system by we the people. Give the people back power get rid of at least two thirds of government just for starters just to see how much more should go. Again the people in government that don't love God should want to leave this country and at the end of their life God can decide where they're going
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  7059. 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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  7087. 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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  7182. @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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