Comments by "bighand69" (@bighands69) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. Every country in the EU barring Ireland and UK were part of Schengen. In mainland Europe Schengen is layered with the policy of free movement of people.
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  2. There are plenty of places in Europe that are full of cheap vacation homes. France is full of them.
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  3. Ireland is really funny one and hard to put in the same groups as other European countries. Ireland was one of the first countries to industrialize after the Britain but it was limited because Ireland went through a population collapse and then sat in the doldrums for several decades post WW1. Ireland post 1980s went through an economic rebuilding but it also is heavily exposed to foreign direct investment. There is also an issue with trying to decipher Ireland demographics due to the large influx of EU migrants.
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  4. It will not work and is just fantasy.
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  5. I suppose if you are looking at it from a communist point of view commons sense would not make sense.
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  6. I think the guy that people call a journalist was assassinated because he may have been more than a journalist. Well that is the speculation anyway.
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  7. Saudi Arabia has an enormous amount of arms that they bought from Europe and America. We are talking orders above what their own forces require to go head to head with Iran. They are clearly preparing for a proxy war. They have near to 400 fighter aircraft that are cutting edge and have put enormous investment into training their airforce and have done this over several decades. While their force would probably not be good at conquering a technological military opponent it would be more than a match to cancel what Iran has in zealot forces. Then there is the fact that Saudi Arabia and Israel have been building their military partnerships for some time and are now about to enter phase two on that front.
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  8. If they get paid sick leave it will mean that the cost increases and it also means that employees that are not sick will have to pay for those that are off. In Europe where sick leave is enforced by law there is a proportion of the workforce that will take advantage of that and use it as a holiday system. So instead of taking a holiday they will just phone in sick. At first the cost will not be that high but after a few years it will increase the cost of an employee's overall earnings by a few percent per year and over 40 years of working that employee will be $400,000 less well off. If Unions members want sick leave their solution is simple they can start an insurance system to cover those that fall into these hard times. Such a system will not be open to the same level of abuses and it could also have company contributions.
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  9. It will not give any benefits at all. If the strikes are vicious enough and they are willing to go far enough what will happen is that alternatives such as the waterways may end up coming into play and that could be disastrous for a local union worker whose very livelihood depends on a particular system such as rail. There are other countries were the railways collapsed because they played that very same game.
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  10.  @shorewall  China capturing Taiwan is not the same as getting oil. Them taking over a chip manufacturing plant does not mean they can run them.
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  11.  @Baasicstuff  Russia does not have that long which means they may make desperate moves.
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  12.  @shorewall  Russia has not declare war because it really is a one time deal. Putin is probably thinking he can use it elsewhere.
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  13.  @richardarriaga6271  Russia is no match for the US when it comes to warfare but that does not mean they cannot wreck havoc or attempt to take down Europe. The Nazis were not a match for the allies but it did not stop them from trying. Russia has one thing that would check mate US military abilities and that is the potential to unleash nuclear armageddon on the world. Russia in all out war would bring a lot of destruction to Europe even though they would lose.
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  14.  @Loki1191  No I am not saying that. I am saying that if they moved to total war as a culture they would produce enough scale that they would cause a lot of destruction and most certainly could flatten Ukraine to the ground. Right now Russia is not at that point and the longer it can be kept from that the better. It is a one trick pony for Russia in that they can only do that once and go all out.
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  15.  @stipe3124  I am not suggesting Russia would be the west in warfare but it will do a lot of damage.
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  16. Russians are not about movement they are about throwing straight lines of bodies at a wall of defence until they can form a crack. The problem they face is that Ukrainian mobility will only start to increase as the weather gets warmer and drier.
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  17. They are throwing large numbers of poorly trained poor armed bodies at it.
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  18. He tells you he is green but he also tells you the reality of what is needed.
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  19. They have not changed that much.
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  20. What on earth are you talking about?
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  21. That is not going to help Putin so stop with the nonsense. Trump is not going to get elected even Republicans realize that now. Trump is no more of a friend to Russia than Hillary or Biden would be.
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  22. Why would their be no incursions? It is simple Russia has not moved to a complete war economy culture and attacks inside Russia would speed that process up. It is better to keep that off for as longs possible.
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  23.  @WorldWide-q8v  Nobody believes the figures.
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  24.  @WorldWide-q8v  The figures are pure fantasy.
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  25.  @ande9568  The next week it is forecast to rain and then colder weather. Until it is completely dry solid ground it really means that Russia gets to play their game on their terms but once it dries out and is consistence so then Ukraine gets to play its game. Movement requires a sustain period of dry weather. All Ukraine needs to focus on is defending until they get the opportunity to counter.
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  26. Yes it still fits the facts because Summer is not here as of yet. The temperature around Kiev is 3 degrees with rain in the next week with occasional frost. From a combat point of view it will take a few months for it to play out as he is saying in the video.
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  27. Mud does not favor the Ukrainians because Russia does not use mobile and varied attacks. It uses a wave offensive that moves in straight simple lines and will use such things as roads and towns to move through.
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  28. To reduce the effects of the density of the waves of attack it will need to be a kill ratio of that order. The more blood as well the more damage it does to Russian moral. It can also cause a fog of war that the Russians do not see until it is too late.
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  29.  @nicholascarter9158  Peter like everybody thought they would get overrun. I thought the same thing but there is nothing wrong with assuming these things as they are impossible to really predict.
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  30.  @nicholascarter9158  His prediction was that Russia would over run Ukraine and that still may happen we just do not know. But that does nothing to forward any real point that you are trying to make.
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  31. He is not predicting he is telling you the potential outcomes. I just wish people would listen to what he is actually saying.
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  32.  @iji6249  Your point is that Ukraine does not have numbers of fighting men in the battle because they all fled. Your point was not complicated. I countered it by saying that Ukraine has a smaller military and cannot get all their man trained to enter the battle. Hence why large numbers of Ukrainians are training in other countries.
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  33. Ukraine has a smaller population and it has a bottle neck in how many men it can get to the battle field.
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  34. If Russia things it is about to collapse it will just start lobbing nuclear weapons. In their mind it will not matter if they use them or not if they are going to die.
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  35.  @PrimarchX  Putin and the government of Russia do not care about the Wagner group. They will be used until they are broken and destroyed. I am not saying logistics are not important but it will not really be the outcome of the war. Russia never had good logistics and they tended to just take what they needed as they moved forward in waves. The key here is how much resources the Ukrainians can get to increase their density of defence. Russia could fail at this several times but still keep sending in numbers from Russia until Ukraine cracks. This war is about the very survival of Russia so they are not going to give up.
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  36. It does not affect the Russians to the same extent hence why they will make advances until the terrain allows movement. What will happen then is that the Ukrainians will get the upper hand but at some point Russia will increase the density of the onslaught.
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  37. Defensive forces never face the same level of casualties as the offensive. It is just the nature of attack and defence. Russia does not have free movement either.
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  38. If it goes from freezing to dry to warm fast it will lessen the effects of the mud season.
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  39.  @marilenaganea6578  It depends on how much stomach the moldovans have to defend their country. Enough weapons and desire could make them formidable. The Russian military is not at the level of the US military. it does not have precision warfare and if it goes up against a smaller force such what Moldova has it can be an extremely difficult fight. The problem with Ukraine is that all the wrong signals were sent out initially by the west and Ukraine and it invited Russia into an invasion. Moldova has time to start prepping them self so that the Russians can see what is there. Well armed militias, precision warfare, deep defense systems, air defence and so on could make Moldova a poison shrimp. Otherwise Moldova can sit and wait to be raped and pillaged.
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  40.  @in5minutes556  The alternative maybe Russian invasion. People need to start thinking how all of this works out.
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  41. They are not long range systems and once the coordinates are entered into the system and launched they will go to a rough target location. They are not precision systems.
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  42. Shotguns, flak systems and other tools would work as well. Nothing as sophisticated as C-Ram would be needed.
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  43. Yes Iran is extremely desperate.
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  44. Ukrainian drone systems are precision systems that can accurately target military assets. What Russia is using is a system of blind fire into map coordinate systems that are not precision and not accurate.
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  45. Russia has not been dominating Rocket launches.
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  46. They are not working that well in Ukraine.
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  47. Nobody has hypersonic missiles they are a myth.
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  48. It depends on how accurate the artillery systems of the Ukrainians are.
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  49. The way things are shaping it looks like the Russians simply may not understand the current situation. Now to counter this it could be assumed that the Russians have a lot more supplies than people realize.
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  50. It could destroy Ukraines future food security and while it would hurt Russian supplies it would do far more damage to the civilians.
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