Comments by "Philip B" (@philipb2134) on "William Spaniel" channel.

  1. Defense budgets tend to be based on multi-year planning, where costs are fairly predictable, while GDP is not. The reason why Greece managed to meet the 2% criterion is that their economy was struggling, not because of a strong commitment to defense. The 2% standard is a blunt tool which penalizes countries that find otherwise laudable savings. US defense budgets, OTOH is in part bloated by the infamous military-industrial complex; furthermore, much of the 3.4%spending goes deployment outside the North Atlantic area.
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  2. Saddam had the same problem as Putin: nobody will dare give him information he does't want to hear.
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  3. 03:30 Ceaucescu was executed by firing squad. Under most military traditions, at least one gun will be loaded with a blank, so that a soldier in the squad could tell himself that his was not the gun which caused the death; but in this case, soldiers nudged one another to make sure they had a lethal weapon. Can we expect that Putin also rise to that level of hatred? I doubt it.
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  4. Another possibility is that Russia no longer is capable of shipping such volumes.
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  5. Were your facilities so blunted that your perception of inflation had been frozen in the Siberian tundra?
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  6.  @happyjohn1656  haven't you been aware that the inflation rate has come down sharply? It's down by more than half since the 9% peak?
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  7. 3:25 and following. Thie correct calculation of GDP also includes negative components.... not denoted in this lazy / or stilted/ journalism.
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  8. There's an element missing: Finland had neutrality forced upon it as a result of losing 2 wars with the Soviet Union, in exchange they were not absorbed by the USSR or had a puppet communist government imposed.
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  9. The long, extended, machine narration... becomes tedious.
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  10. ​ @jonathanheyse5314 Slava Ukraini!
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  11. Macroeconomics is not "black magic". Monitoring economic fluctuations already is a difficult task, responding to such fluctuations is not easy. If I remember right, it was J. K. Galbraith who compared monetary policy to driving a car at full speed, guided by what the driver sees in the rear-view mirror.
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  12. Russia is again an expansive empire; it prefers not to be thought so.
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  13.  @graceliu8839  one might accept a political scientist's POV; to the extent that this were 'a science', quite might we accept that there were some indicative made false-positives. I am getting ads on YT for Nevada stuff, including political tracts; I have not trod any footprint in Nevada for over two decades.
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  14. Given the 'human wave" tactics typically employed by Russia, 5000 KIA/mo is likely to be a severe underestimate.. Sustainability is a a context with slippage. Even before the Feb/2022 aggression, Russia was suffering from a demographic collapse: the fertility rate had fallen to well-under replacement rate. Then perhaps one in 14 left the country under fear of conscription, or of repression; these exiles more typically in the higher-fertility demographic classes...many lost to Russia forever. Putin is accumulating severe population strains on his nation - but why should he care? These won't become intractable problems until well after his natural lifespan.
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  15. ​ @KolyaUrtz There are other differences. With a few exceptions, war in VN did not resemble WWI as much as fighting in Donestk Oblast. Something which has hurt the Orks is that their command structure was sclerotic. Colonels and generals fell like flies because the NCO- level was deficient. Senior officers died because no junior officers could take command.
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  16. I am not alone in this, I have swopped observations with others. I find it a more useful tool expressed in Fahrenheit at warm/hot😂 orlt temperatured
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  17. ​ @awesomehpt8938 on Venus as it is in Heaven,?
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  18. In most legal systems, you do not have a grievance against your victim as you are committing violent tape.
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  19.  @L4Leezus  ™you™ are a freak show.
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  20. I am left perplexed as to why you had not touched on the lack of an effective non-commissioned officer corps in the Russian army.
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  21. Maybe it was some other fur animal?
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