Comments by "Louis Giokas" (@louisgiokas2206) on "Econ Lessons" channel.

  1. 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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  2. I love the example of the combines. My farmer relatives had a friend who had a bunch of combines, all of one manufacturer, scattered about their farm. I think they mostly used them for parts. We used to hunt deer on that farm a lot and often used the old combines for cover. I remember about 30 years ago when my relatives got a "new" (they bought it used with a small number of hours on it) John Deere combine. It harvested at twice the speed of their old one. It also had a laptop computer in the cab and a real-time yield monitor. They could take the data to the local John Deere dealer and get a detailed map of the productivity of their property. This allowed them to apply fertilizer in a more efficient manner. They are truly magnificent machines.
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  3. Mark, I love the term "corrosive skeptic". I am in that camp as well. Now I know what to call myself. India was considered the leader of the "nonaligned movement" throughout the Cold War. That is bunkum. India has always relied on Russian arms and support. They chose a side a long time ago. One can also see this in the commentary by former Indian military officers on Indian media. They are Russia supporters. India is in a precarious position. While wanting to move closer to the west for economic reasons, they are in an economic and military conflict with China. They are getting more western arms and are building up their indigenous military industry, but they are not in a position to sever their military ties with Russia. Frankly, Modi is the most capitalist of India's leaders since independence. The Gandhis and the Congress Party were and are socialist lite. This made them prime targets for Soviet influence. This carries on throughout the society to this day.
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  4. When I was growing up, we had neighbors from the Netherlands. They actually scrubbed the sidewalk in front of their house. My mother called them the "scrubby Dutch".
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  5. 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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  6. The Wall Streeters who developed BRICS did not develop it as an alternative to the dollar, Mark. It was seen as a group of countries in similar economic situations that made sense as a bloc of countries to invest in. It is not really any different from the Asian Tigers investment bloc. I don't know where you get this stuff.
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  7. You nailed it. China's recent official maps show parts of Russia as Chinese territory. The territorial disputes, often mentioned by Xi, go back to the Russian Empire and Qing dynasty days. The Chinese claim that they were forced to sign several unequal treaties. Even in the recent past, Jiang Zemin signed away a big chunk of territory. After Jiang died it came out that the Russians forced his hand because they had compromising information on him from his time studying in the Soviet Union. Xi intentionally released that information but waited until after Jiang was dead. Some think that if Russia is defeated in Ukraine, it would be an easy thing for China to move in. Russian doctrine is to use nukes to combat such a move. Considering the relative size and quality of their nuclear arsenals I don't think Russia would even hesitate. Heck, half the missiles probably have water in them instead of fuel. Others are reportedly in silos that won't open. The thing about the oil price sanctions is a little confused. The oil price cap did what could be done by the west short of actually seizing cargos. Russian oil can no longer be carried on ships insured by western companies. This has led to the shadow fleet. which is far less efficient, something the west cannot control by indirect means. The other thing that Mark fails to understand is that China is paying a very low price for Russian oil and gas. They don't pay the world market price. Russia just needs to keep the wells pumping so they don't freeze up. The price issue is a big part of the reason the big gas pipeline Russia wants to build is not happening. China does not want to be beholding to Russia, having seen what they did to Europe. They also are offering too low a price. Russia also needs Chinese capital to build the pipeline. That is not forthcoming.
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  8. BRICS as a concept was created by a Wall Street investment analyst to group economies of similar scale and development. As an investment vehicle it made sense. As a political grouping it is bat sh*t crazy. China and India are close to conflict. Russia is supplying both sides. South Africa is a basket case that can't even keep the lights on. Brazil is investigating China, one of its largest markets for agricultural goods, for dumping steel and other products. The political systems of these countries are all very different. Don't fear the BRICS. It is all propaganda.
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  9. This has been going on for decades. Actually, since the beginning of the Soviet Union. Take it from an old Cold Warrior.
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  10. I actually met a man who was from, if I recall correctly, Czechoslovakia. He told us about how it was illegal to have a bible, and yet he had one and hid it. He was, of course, found out and spent time in prison for it. That only seemed to strengthen his faith.
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  11. That only applies if government stays out of the way of business. If government is there to level the playing field and curb the excesses then it is useful. What contemporary governments have done is to interfere with business. They have become a part of the business. So, Adam Smith's logic does not apply. The alternative, by the way, is to have government run by lawyers. Is that really what you want. That is what we have now.
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  12. You mention a set of technologies, Project-R and SPSS, for doing statistics. These are just tools. I did lots of statistics, primarily for simulations, in fields ranging from rom High Energy Physics to economics, using a basic programming language, FORTRAN. That was early in my career. I later used the tools you mention, among others.
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  13. While I agree in general about the Russians not being great, they were nothing out of the ordinary. What do you think the British did in their empire (the largest in history). Look at what they did to India. India was actually a fairly (very?) advanced industrial power at the time of colonization. The British made sure that ended. Why do you think South and Central America speak Spanish or Portuguese and that most are Catholics? Keeping with Imperial Russia, have you heard the term "the great game"? We often use it in terms of contemporary situations, but it was coined to refer to the rivalry between the Russian and British empires. You see, it takes two "sides" to have a game. The actions of the Japanese in the 19th and first half of the 20th century were really a response to what the Europeans had been doing. They had the strength to compete and felt they were owed. They also needed resources. Why trade for those when you take them? Along the same lines why did Germany, a latecomer to the game, colonize Africa? How about the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth? From the late 16th to the late 18th century, they controlled much of what is now Ukraine. Look into how that worked and the effect on Ukrainians. To judge the world of the past by our contemporary standards is really foolish. One thing that is germane to this whole discussion is the stated desire of the Russians and Chinese to have a multipolar world. What that really means is returning to the historically normal state of things, namely imperialism. In the last 200 years that did not go well for either of those countries. The basic reasons for that have not changed. That they would want it shows a fantastic level of ignorance of history and their current condition.
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  14. My favorite book of the Bible is Revelation. I first read it in about 1980. My brother gave me an album (on vinyl) by Vangelis titled "666". So, I put on the album, lit up a joint and read it straight through. It was a magical experience.
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  15. 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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  16. Right on, Mark. I have just seen that the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in China are sending workers home. They don't have enough work for them. Xi has been stressing SOEs and suppressing private industry. In China you have Xi, an economic illiterate, making decisions for the whole economy. He has no real advisors. He has "shot the messenger" (sometimes literally) so many times that no one will tell him anything but what he wants to hear. So, not only are centrally planned economies inferior in general, but in China you have an idiot running things. On top of that, like Russia, it is a massive kleptocracy. I tend to agree with Peter Zeihan when he says that China will not exist in its present form by 2030. I give it only a couple more years. It is chaos over there
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  17. Modi is an Indian nationalist. There is no disputing that. I, for one, feel that a leader should emphasize his own nation's wellbeing first. On the other hand, in this last election his party did not gain a majority. He had to go into a coalition. Many thought it would be different. Democracy is alive and well in India. It is tumultuous, but that is to be expected considering its size and diversity. As for Islamophobia, there is certainly some of that. You might want to look into the history of India. You may start to understand some things. In fact, look into the history of Islamic countries throughout history generally. They are not on your side, Mark.
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  18. What was the government of France like at that time? They did it for geopolitical reasons, not out of some real sympathy with the colonists' goals of freedom. In fact, the French had their revolution six years later which overthrew the government that supported the Americans.
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  19. The Soviets repressed and ruined religion in the Soviet Union and the whole Soviet bloc in Europe. Poland seems to be one of the exceptions. That was, of course, their intention as good Marxists. You have several generations that lived under that tyranny. It will take a breakdown of the Russian state as it is now and the ability of outsiders to proselytize. It will likely take decades if it is allowed to happen at all.
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  20.  @francoiskeulen  I assume you jest. I do go over it with a blower after mowing and when leaves have fallen. I don't scrub it though, and it seems fine.
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  21.  @bigbadlara5304  Just that. Using a long-handled brush like one would do in cleaning a floor.
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  22. Mark, look at the charts for oil. Brent oil was as high as 91 in April. It is 72.83 as of the 25th. WTI was as high as 86.91, also in April. It is 68.72 as of the 25th. These prices are testing their lows in the last year, not increasing.
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  23. The statement that economists often repeat is that "...if you have free trade and good relations economically..." ignores the political aspect of international relations. The evidence was always there, but the issue was political and geostrategic, so economists downplayed it. Look at the 20th century. The reason this worked for western Europe was that there was a US security umbrella and an active enemy on the border. The EU did not bring peace through trade between countries that had been enemies for centuries. It was 500K American troops and nukes. Something similar happened in Japan and Korea. Their democracies were imposed by the US. Heck, the Japanese and Koreans only admitted they were on the same side in the last month or two. What is the common thread? Trade? As President Joe likes to say: Come on man! It was the threat of immanent nuclear annihilation. You have to get the order right. It is the security landscape first and the economy and trade later. When the Soviet Union disintegrated the leaders of the west did, as you say, assume that this was different. The thought was, in the case of Russia, that the death of the communist ideology would bring change. Well, they forgot the Czarist, Imperial Russia that came before. In the case of China, the ideology didn't even disappear. My point is that the US and other western leaders are what I would charitably call rank amateurs. The last US president with any real foreign policy experience and knowledge was George H. W. Bush. He even wanted to have a conversation about how we move forward and evolve the system in light of events such as the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He was voted out of office and left in 1993. Who took over after him? The governor of a small southern state, Bush's son, the governor of a larger state, a junior senator, a businessman (he at least had foreign business experience) and a long-time senator from one of our smallest states. The American people don't care about this stuff. That is the history of the US, by the way.
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  24. While you are probably generally correct, I am getting a little tired of all the talk about how Russia and China are doing this or that to "scare the west". This is not unique to this channel which I find interesting and valuable. What I am trying to say is that there is waaaay too much emphasis on the propaganda. This applies even more to China. My sense is that this is a non-specialist area that people can understand, but it is not ultimately decisive. Both Russia and China are the most vulnerable major countries on the planet. They are both dragged down by their innate characteristics. For China it is the very large population and demographics along with poor geography. For Russia it is very large land area and geography. Russia also has the demographic problem. The idea of them "getting together" will not solve their problems. Again, it is the innate characteristics topped off by their failed state models and cultures. The cultural issue is what will lead to their downfall, and this will happen soon.
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  25. 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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  26.  @EconLessons  Many, many levels. It also connects many themes that were present in many religions and cultures that preceded it.
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  27.  @landontesar3070  Thanks for the comment. I don't have handy a particular book on the interactions and motivations. There are several out there that deal with quality engineering and control. Frankly, what we studied was often the Japanese systems that were motivated by research done in the US. My experience was in working as a design engineer on spacecraft and military systems. As for the balance of payments, this is a long-standing thing with the US. The way it gets dealt with is through foreign investment in the US. The US has the most open investment environment in the world. So, a lot of the money flows back into the US. There is also the massive services sector.
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  28.  @bobbafett1849  So, who bailed out the auto industry in the US? Obama. Are you accusing him of being influenced too much by corporations? Do you know why he did it? He did it to avoid massive job losses. Should he not have? Did Trump do anything like that in his first term? You need to look at facts, not slogans. You forget that old saying, the business of America is business. That is how you build up and spread around wealth.
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  29. What you hope for Russia is laudable. I don't see it happening. They had their chance after the Soviet Union fell apart. They chose "stability" over freedom. If you look at the other republics of the Soviet Union that became independent countries, the record is very mixed. The Baltic republics did democratize and integrated with western Europe and became part of the EU. At the other extreme you have Belarus. Then there are places like Georgia which is not fully rid of Russian influence and interference. Even Ukraine was touch and go, and was much like Georgia is now, for a time. The Russian people are basically serfs. Look at the videos that come out of Russian peasants appealing to the czar, I mean Putin, for redress of grievances and protection. It is like something out of the19th century. Read Gogol's book "Dead Souls". It was written in the middle of the19th century. It precisely describes Russia today. That Russia and China became the first major countries to have successful Marxist communist revolutions goes totally against Marx's theory. He assumed that it would be the industrial proletariat that would be the vanguard of the revolution. Workers of the world unite! Remember that slogan. Marx was not talking about the rural peasantry. Even Lenin assumed this would happen after the successful revolution in Russia. Didn't happen. Then Lenin added his twist to Marxism by offering the peasants "free stuff", which he later took away. Mao did the same thing in China. When, not if, The Russian Federation falls apart it is very likely to break into a number of warlord-controlled pieces. I predict that China will do the same, by the way. That is their history.
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  30.  @oreolo764  Good points. Can you imagine the Indians using the yuan? I mean, if you are going to have an alternative to the dollar, it either has to be an existing currency, or a new, made up one that replaces existing currencies. This is much like the Euro. How is that working out?
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  31. Nineteen percent interest rates sound like the late 1970s and early 1980s in the US.
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  32. That's interesting. In the 1920s, there were tariffs that the US imposed, and that Europeans imposed as well. I had to look that up. It is interesting because even in that atmosphere of tariffs, I have never heard of that being an issue in the Great Depression of 1929. So, your statement that tariffs could/would cause depression seems to be unsupported. There were several depressions in the US prior to the Great Depression, and none of them, as far as I can tell, had anything to do with tariffs.
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  33.  @АлексейПолегенько-г5х  It is quite obvious that, if the Americans and the British had not supported the Soviets and if Hitler were not so dumb, that the outcome would be a whole lot different. The American part was the over 20% of materiel the Soviets used, from tanks, planes, jeeps and trucks to uniforms, boots and food that was provided by the US and UK. I was reading a war diary of a German infantryman on the Eastern Front. He said something interesting. When he saw a US jeep, he thought to himself, the war is lost. Cogitate on that a bit. On the German leadership, Hitler was an idiot. He was an idiot in how he planned the Barbarossa campaign. He was an idiot in how he prosecuted it. He was an idiot in declaring war on the US in December 1941. The US was much more interested in defeating Japan. The US was happy to help the British stave off the Nazis and would have continued in that vein. If Hitler had not declared war on the US, it is questionable that the materiel support to the Soviets would have been forthcoming. Let's not forget the Soviet leadership. How many men were needlessly sacrificed? Why take so many casualties in the Courland Pocket? Why sacrifice so many men to take Berlin? there are lots more examples. That's Hitler level of leadership.
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  34.  @williammasselink  Thanks. Like that last sentence.
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  35. I read somewhere that we were all going to be eating snake meat soon. You might want to start a snake ranch. Actually, my brother-in-law brought over a can of snake meat he got in Arizona. We tried it. It wasn't all that good.
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  36. How is Washington number two and Moscow number one? What does that even mean? When Trump talks stopping the killing, he is entirely correct. Both sides were in demographic decline prior to the war. Both sides. For example, I just read recently that both Biden and Trump have called on Ukraine to lower their conscription age to 18. When I was that age that was what it was in the US. Even today, a male in the US must register for the draft at 18. We don't have a draft, but you must register. Prior to the US moving to an all-volunteer military, 18-year-olds were routinely drafted and sent to war. Ukraine has resisted lowering the age and their reason is demographics. In addition, Ukrainians are also feeling the effects of inflation, and even die-hard supporters of the war complain about it. If Ukraine did not have so much external support, they would already have collapsed.
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  37. Actually, I think it was Stalin said that first, not Spock.
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  38. Ah, the Cold War. I miss the Cold War. I got to do a lot of interesting, cutting-edge research with unlimited funds. Actually, I said that to a colleague of mine and he said he missed it as well because he got to kill people. He was a F-4 pilot flying off the USS Enterprise during the Vietnam War. My father worked at an Army weapons lab in Washington, DC doing a lot of cutting-edge stuff himself. I could go on. As for the Russians in the US, I when I was at university studying physics, in the third quarter of the last century of the last millennium, we had some Soviet scientists visit the department. They were all dressed in dumpy dark suits. They we accompanied by KGB handlers, in somewhat nicer suits. Ahh, the good old days.
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  39. You mention Lord of the Rings and how the Nazgul were like the Oprichnina in Ivan the Terrible's time. What this brings to mind is that in fantasy, and to some extent in science fiction, there are few totally made-up things. I can't count the number of times while reading history or reading the Bible, when I have come across a name of a person or place that I first encountered in fantasy and science fiction books.
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  40. My neighbor's wife is a real estate agent, and I would not look to her for advice on the economy. You are in the market for an apartment. Does that make you an expert? As President Joe often says, "C'mon man!"
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  41. You make a very good point about capitalism. That is the only system that can adjust organically to changes. As you have pointed out, it does that well. I follow Zeihan, and many of his prognostications and predictions are spot on. I have read all his books. Some of the situations he talks about are happening in real time. It is fun to watch. I think he even got the Ukraine situation correct as far as the invasion. There are things I disagree with him about, and one is the flexibility of capitalism and industry. I could go on and on (as I am wont to do) with examples. There is one thing I just saw from him, that makes me think he is shifting his thinking a bit toward mine. His latest video (today) on his personal channel is titled "China Will Soon Lose the Title of "World's Manufacturer". He does mention the sunk cost of industrial plant and infrastructure in China, but then makes a surprising admission. This will shift to other places where economic factors are more favorable. Don't forget that China has only been industrializing for the last forty years or so. A fun fact, which I think I got from Zeihan, was that by 1900 or so the US had a larger share of industrial exports than China does today. Industrial facilities are always being tweaked, improved, reconfigured and moved. I have been involved in some of that. Ukraine, like Poland, will be an attractive investment destination once the war is over. Just before the war one of the oil majors was starting a program to drill for oil in the east of Ukraine, for example. There are plenty of natural resources in Ukraine that could benefit Europe. And, as you say, an innovative and motivated population. Maybe they will even have a baby boom like after WWII once the Russians are kicked out. I like what you say about NATO vs. the EU. I tend to agree with Zeihan that the EU is dying. It is a protectionist clique after all. For example, there is currently lots of angst in the UK about their leaving the EU. Actually, there are people talking against that and economic predictions that the EU could overtake Germany in economic size in the next decade. We will see.
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  42. Putin is a godless commie. End of story.
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  43.  @ZxZ239  Well, I can think of two. One is the US and Canada. The other is the US and Mexico. Of course, what you say applies to Europe and all of European history (we don't even have to restrict it to modern history). It is also more generally correct. Right now, the French are in an alliance opposing Russia. This is often the exception. Think of the situation before WWI. France and Russia were allies against the Germanic empires. On the other hand, Napolean invaded Russia in the previous century. In WWII, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, France and the Russians were back on the same side. Then, after the war they weren't. But the most glaring example of this, and the most relevant to the current discussion, has to do with China. Nixon's opening to China was specifically seen as a counter to the Soviet Union. Initially it was nothing more. The bulk of the economic stuff came after the fall of the Soviets.
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  44. You make a good point about the structure of Russian society. The thing about the communist revolution in Russia that was brought about by a serf revolt is that it ended up as a communist revolution. Remember the "dictatorship of the proletariat"? That is pure Marx and was a key point of Lenin's ideology as well. If the Russian Federation falls, the odds that it will end in a democratic revolution and vanishingly small. The same is true in China, where the communist party was basically trained by the Soviets. The thing is that in both cases the serfs and peasants were offered free stuff. Who can turn down free stuff? That is not the basis of a democratic revolution.
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  45. That collective unconscious is present in the society. It is clear that the society in Russia corrupt. The thing is it has been for centuries. I have mentioned it before, but one should read Gogol's book "Dead Souls" which was written in the middle of the 19th century. It reads like a description of Russian society today. It is also entertaining. Peter the Great, also in the middle to late 19th century, tried to modernize Russia. Frankly, he didn't get far. The Soviets tried to create "the new Socialist man". They failed, and under Putin we see a return to the time of the czars. A majority of those Russians who might have understood what is going on left the country. The thing that is instructive is to look at the US. People from all over the planet come to the US. They typically assimilate and thrive. The culture in the US is flexible, unlike that of Russia. Another part of it is geography. The US has, basically, among the best farmland in the world, and lots of natural resources. I read once a historian speculating on why the Americans revolted. Frankly, they were, on the whole, much wealthier than their European counterparts. I am talking about the average person. My own is typical. My grandparents came over from Greece towards the beginning of the 20th century. They all had 4th grade educations. They were successful. Far more successful than they would have been in Greece. All their children had high school educations with some going on to university. ALL their grandchildren went to university, with a number of MS, PhD and MD degrees in the mix. That is typical. And, as in most cases, they did not bring any wealth with them.
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  46. If you believe that Harris will sweep the election, then you are truly out of touch. I saw on a show a Harris laugh (cackle) track. All the Republicans need to do is play that over and over again in ads.
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  47.  @TheFrewah  That is not really correct. The problem with Biden was not specifically that he is old, but that his cognitive decline is evident, and it seems to be accelerating.
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  48. Are you ethnically Ukrainian because your Polish ancestors occupied parts of what is now Ukraine? Asking for a friend.
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  49.  @volkerr.  Whatever, that is the question.
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  50.  @knopkaplay0507  You are welcome to your opinion. I agree with Mark that most people want more meaning out of life. I can sort of understand where you are coming from though. Many of the Protestant sects can be a bit strange, and in my opinion, a bit sketchy. I have seen this up close over the years.
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