Comments by "seneca983" (@seneca983) on "William Spaniel" channel.

  1.  @altrag  There are still degrees to how much you damage Iran's oil infrastructure (or military assets). OP seemed to imply that a strike on oil infrastructure would be worse. But that could be made small too, like destroying one oil storage tank. Similarly, a strike on military targets can be small (like destruction of one S-300 launcher) or much bigger.
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  2.  @prfwrx2497  "For Hamas, it's logistics. Syria is now free, and that means no more Iranian resupply." It's not obvious that would facilitate a cease-fire because Israel can take that factor into account too and push harder for victory over weaker Hamas.
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  3. Turkey has also been demanding for certain individuals to be extradited from Sweden to Turkey. Sweden can't easily pretend to extradite while actually not doing it.
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  4.  @robertstuckey6407  That might also be true.
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  5. Kamala Harris has been Biden her time.
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  6. Turkey isn't any kind of full-blown Russian ally. They have co-operated but there have been tension too such as when Turkey shot down a Russian jet. Turkey also in many ways co-operates with Western countries. It's e.g. in the EU customs union and buys fighter jets from the US.
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  7. 6:40 Why would you say "circle" instead of the more traditional "horseshoe"?
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  8. Electricity to run a heat pump isn't free either but it's probably better than using gas directly.
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  9. "If Russia were to attack Sweden, they would have to navigate through NATO territory" Not really. If Russia were to attack Sweden the most likely target would be the island of Gotland.
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  10.  @Ukit50  Gotland is more distant from mainland and much, much larger than Snake Island.
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  11.  @Ukit50  The main island is something like 100 km long. To the degree you can run or hide from bombardment you can do it on Gotland. It shouldn't be much more difficult than on mainland.
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  12.  @Suyogpaudel  AFAIK there isn't any kind of permanent NATO sea patrol blocking entry into Gotland so Russia could try to rush there without attacking any NATO powers. I think I've read in the news that Sweden has beefed up the island's defenses so I'm not claiming it would be easy for Russia but it is still an existing (if not all that likely) risk for Sweden which could be mitigated with full NATO membership.
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  13. That's basically the NAFO option mentioned in this video.
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  14.  @cageybee7221  Just treaties without the NATO command structures etc. would be much weaker.
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  15. Next you can do the same for the earlier EU package together with an explanation on how the process works in the EU. (I might add that it's pretty unbelievable to me that the political process in the EU somehow managed to work more swiftly than in the US.)
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  16. Or surströmming.
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  17. Care to reveal it?
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  18. But having Sweden in would enhance the safety of the Baltic countries.
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  19. Solar energy output is lower in the winter.
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  20. Ukraine: "They misunderestimated me."
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  21.  johnslugger  Putin seems to go for showy assassinations rather than cheap ones. The polonium that was used to poison Litvinenko is estimated to have cost millions.
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  22. However, that term would be both slightly incorrect in StarCraft and not used like in StarCraft.
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  23. Standard economic theory would say that if the price to produce gas decreases the way that can lower the price consumers pay for gas is increase in supply. If the amount of gas supplied doesn't increase then the gas prices consumers face won't decline and refineries get all of the benefit from lower oil prices (assuming that the demand for gas stays the same).
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  24.  @joshuahillerup4290  Supply means how much gas refiners produce for each given price of gas. That can certainly be affected by crude prices (and presumably it usually is) but this is an assumption about how refiners behave. In your original comment you wrote: "even if gas production doesn't go up that will result in some decrease in gas prices" [emphasis added]. That case would imply that a lower crude price doesn't increase gas supply. In that case, there also shouldn't be a decrease in gas prices. A decrease in prices happen through the mechanism of increased supply (or decreased demand).
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  25.  @joshuahillerup4290  I know supply is a curve (and notice that did also talk about "amount supplied" in my earlier comments). If the supply curve moves to the right (i.e. supply increases) that will also increase the amount supplied if the demand curve doesn't change and isn't completely elastic. Conversely, the price going down while the demand curve stays the same is only possible if the amount demanded (and thus also the amount supplied) goes up assuming the demand curve is downward sloping. You could get a lower price without a lower amount if you assume completely inelastic demand (i.e. a vertical demand curve). However, that's not realistic. "Changing the costs will lower the price for a given amount produced, at least in a competitive market, even with supply constraints" No, quite the opposite. In a standard model lower price can only with larger amounts if you assume demand stays the same and isn't completely inelastic. That's very easy to see. Just draw a demand curve. You don't even need to draw a supply curve. If the demand curve is downward sloping a lower price always corresponds to a higher amount (and a completely vertical demand curve is unrealistic).
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  26.  @joshuahillerup4290  If the supply curve intersects with the demand curve in the part where the supply curve is upward sloping (rather than vertical) and the demand curve is downward sloping, then moving the supply curve down both reduce the price and increase the amount supplied.
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  27.  @joshuahillerup4290  But I didn't talk about a downward sloping supply curve. I talked about upward sloping supply curve as well as downward sloping demand curve. Did you perhaps misread my comment?
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  28. "Turkish people like to add "-stan"" The -stan suffix comes from Farsi, I believe.
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  29. In which part did he assign blame? I only see him discussing what affects Israel's strategic choices, not how ethical they are.
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  30. Probably because the Soviet Union stashed so many of them.
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  31. RIP forests (unless there are e-book versions).
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  32. The '70s oil embargo was done by OAPEC, not OPEC.
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  33. But having Sweden in would enhance the safety of the Baltic countries.
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  34.  @pocarski  Cyprus in not in NATO. If in the case of Turkey you mean the disputes over Aegean islands, I think those came only after Turkey had joined.
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  35.  @pocarski  "which might not be considered a dispute since Turkey isn't actually claiming it" Yeah, that might not prevent Turkey from joining but even if it did Turkey joined like 2 decades prior.
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  36.  @jonroberts8396  But that was a longer time ago so it's a weaker motivation. It could theoretically have some weight but I would personally guess not much.
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  37.  @StoicSymphony  The war is a reason even if it could have been avoided. Also, Russia still bears the primary responsibility for the war because it was the one who invaded.
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  38. In most African countries, the government is actually in control of the country, or at least most of it.
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  39.  @EightAcreLake  I don't think electrification needs to be taken into account here. How would it affect the conclusion? One possibility is that it just (slowly) reduces demand for gas regardless of what Ukraine does. In that case it doesn't affect the conclusion. Ukraine's attacks may still either increase or decrease gas prices. Electrification doesn't change that effect; it merely has a separate (decreasing) effect on gas prices. Another possibility is to say that the pace of electrification is affected by gas prices (higher prices = faster electrification, lower prices = slower electrification). This would make the demand for gas more elastic. That would dampen the effect of Ukraine's actions on gas prices (to either direction) but it wouldn't nullify it entirely nor flip it to the opposite direction. (Remember that we're talking about the short term here. In the short term the effect from electrification can't be that big.)
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  40.  @justskip4595  In this case differentiating the colors isn't that important. Even if the lines were all the same color the point should come across almost as well since they're separate lines and their placement should tell what they represent.
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  41. I think there's one more scenario that could be considered. If France sends troops into Ukraine and they attack Russian troops, Russia might see that as an attack by NATO even if only French troops are participating and that was decided only by France and not e.g. the North Atlantic Council. Now, what if Russia retaliates by attacking some easier-to-reach NATO members such as the Baltic countries? How likely would that be to trigger Article 5?
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  42. 6:00 "cost that Russia can never recover" I think you're exaggerating here (and similarly with the wording of one time cost). An attack on the bridge will likely not destroy the whole bridge and fixing it will likely be a lot cheaper than building it was in the first place. Therefore, even after an attack on the bridge it can act as leverage because Ukraine still potentially has the option of trying to attack it again and this is still a potential cost because the whole bridge has not been destroyed (and Ukraine could also potentially try to disrupt the repair operation). The actual attack that happened also demonstrates this. Two spans of one carriageway of the road bridge collapsed. I'm sure it can be repaired eventually so further attacks can still carry a potential cost for Russia (and would even in the case the bridge had been severed completely at one location).
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  43.  @cliveengel5744  "please look up some history - the Crimean was a special Region in the Soviet System - it was downgraded to Oblast in the 1950’s." What does that have to do with what I said or what you said in your original comment? You claimed that Crimea wasn't an Autonomous Republic in Ukraine rather than in the Soviet Union. The law I mentioned (On status of the autonomous Republic of Crimea) was from 1992, I think (and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in any case).
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  44.  @cliveengel5744  It was legally called "Autonomous Republic of Crimea". It wasn't formally called and oblast and it also had more autonomy than regular oblasts.
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  45. The biggest reason is probably because Turkey didn't either.
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  46. They should have switched to Comic Sans instead.
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  47.  @kilerik  "Turkish breucracy still remember that they have been tricked into allowing Greece to join" Based on short googling, Turkey and Greece joined at the same time. That would seem to mean that Turkey couldn't have vetoed Greece joining because it wasn't a member before Greece.
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  48.  @kilerik  At least Wikipedia says that Greece didn't withdraw from NATO entirely but only from the NATO command structure (similarly to France).
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  49.  @Omer1996E.C  Thanks for the info. I have to say I'm a bit surprised that he has directly said that he personally doesn't care about the Palestinian issue.
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  50. That's an exaggeration. Lukashenko has been rather brazenly rigging elections. Orbán, on the other hand, has been winning free elections (though he has bent the system in his favor in various ways) and still has the support of a majority of the electorate.
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