Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Econ Lessons" channel.

  1. I can also add the Swedish conquest of Moscow in 1610 where the Russians were forced to accept a Swedish King as the new ruler of their country. But since Gustavus Adolphus younger brother was only something like 8 years old did his mother protest much and refused to let him go to Russia to become King there. So negotiations got drawn out, and the tide of war shifted and Sweden was attacked from Denmark. So Sweden had to give up some of its peace demands. But Sweden never the less won the war. And Karelia and Ingria fell into Swedish hands and Russia lost all its access to the Baltic sea with the peace in Stolbova in 1617.
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  2. The Confederate war economy is fun to study, because it is the perfect example to study on how to not design a war economy. They burned up all its piles of cotton on the beginning of the war before the northern blockade had become effective. The idea was that this would create worldwide cotton shortages and Britain would then be forced to join the war on Souths side. But that never happened, but instead did Britain start growing cotton in India, Egypt and elsewhere. And the south never got any export revenues for all the cotton they destroyed. They also refused to raise any war taxes which could have created a better balanced budget and it would have reduced inflation. But it rather pleased rich people than taxing them to take all chances of letting the Confederacy win the war. And the need for money for the military was fulfilled by money printing rather than war taxes.
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  3. It will not matter what he do. The russian economy could not bring a victory against such a big and powerful alliance. Taxes transfers resources from the private sector to the government. And even if russia taxed the civilian sector at 100% would it still not be enough resources. And this transfer of resources will of course create inblances with growing productivity in the military sector and lower productivity and higher prices and inflation in the civilian sector. Add to that all dead young men this war creates. Productivity levels and population levels will fall, which will result in a GDP drop. Shortages and bottle necks of stuffs will cause rising inflation. Lack of semiconductors, lack of foreign currency will cause problems. And russia no longer have the know-how how to make many advanced weapons systems like it had back in soviet days like AWACS planes
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  4. I have only met one Chinese person, so I know its wrong to base the opinion of 1.5 to 2 billion people on him only. But due to the lack of better information I now do it anyways. My impression from him was that Chinese are very very nationalistic and a bit arrogant towards other countries and look down upon our culture.. like for example Swedens relaxed attitude towards face masks during the pandemic. He saw the Chinese government as strong and doing what was necessary. My impression however, is that many Chinese was eventually fed up with the harsh lockdown in China last year and public protests was so strong that the government had to scrap all restriction as it no longer seemed able to guarantee regime security with huge protests in many Chinese cities all over the country. China had some imperialist ambitions. It has not been that so much for thousands of years, with a few exceptions like the invasion of Vietnam that of course ended with a failure (as it always does nor the Mongols, Japanese, French, or Americans could beat them either). However, since the introduction of Communism have China been quite imperialistic and aggressive. It joined the Korean war. It invaded Tibet. It invaded India. It have been shelling Taiwan. It invaded Vietnam to help their genocidal Maoist regime in Cambodia under Pol Pot. They was also at war with russia for a while. And they have been sabre rattling a bit over some pacific islands against Japan. And they did not respect the promise to keep Hong kongs democracy and self-determination that they gave the British in exchange of being given back that island. Chinas belt and road iniative is considered as a strategy of Chinese imperalist ambitions to seize control over habors and such by handing out shark loans to foreign countries. The Chinese themselves however claims that they only have noble ambitions. But personally do I guess that the truth lay somehwere in between. Chinese bots can be seen online, even if they are much less active than Rusbots. China is however a country led by a wiser leadership than russia. And its strong 10% annual GDP growth it had in the 1990s and early 2000s was probably key for the self-preservation for the regime. It had to create jobs and lift millions out of poverty to avoid food riots and such. And to be fair have the regime been quite succesful and won some popularity and support from the Chinese people. Today is the country however too technologically backwards and its navy too much low quality and small to win a war against USA. But the Chinese are aggressivly expanding its navy and military and they ruthlessly steals technology from USA, Europe and Russia. And to be fair, this is what every other country also would have done in their situation. They need to aquire modern technologies to make better products, increase military power, and to develop more production effiency and productivity in their economy so they can better compete on the world markets and lift millions of people out of poverty. The west is unhappy that they steal our technologies without paying. But the Chinese respond that we did the same to them when we took their technolgoies like gun powder, paper, book printing and the compass. Russia was very unhappy when they exported a small number of SU-27 fighter jets to China in the 1990s. And then they instantly saw the Chinese reverse engineer those planes and then copied then and mass produced them. Relations between russia and China remained salty for many years after that, but then China grow richer and could pay for their stuff and make the russians happy again. And Russia was starved of cash and happily sold more weapons to China. But personally do I doubt that this trade will go on forever. China is learning how to make weapons from russia, and in combination from all know-how they import from western countries are China soon becoming more technologically superior compared to russia and no longer need to import stuff from them as they can make better stuff themselves. China is a country that also abuse its economic power to bully and blackmail smaller countries. But Germany and France are to pre-occupied to sell stuff to the Chinese so they happily throw allied countries like Sweden and Canada under the bus when China uses its enormous force to bully those small democracies into submission. France and Germany are not only betraying USA by not helping them in the trade war against China. They are also betraying fellow EU countries and allies like Sweden with their selfish behaviour and cowardice. Indeed they are even harming themselves with their greed. The Chinese only allows foreign countries access to the huge Chinese market if they hand over their secret modern technologies to China. So the Chinese copies those technolgies and learn how to make cars just as good as the German ones and make cheaper copies of them with low chinese wages and outcompete western firms. Chinese money are flowing into Europe, and some say its a good thing. But when the Chinese buys up harbors like Hamburg then it is a national security concern. And when the crown jewels of future promosing high tech firms like Kuka industries in Germany gets bought up by China, then do China grow their economic potential on other countries expense with unfair competition, where China got free trade and free access to European markets where they can buy up European firms. But European companies are not allowed into the Chinese market without government permission.
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  5. - If the russian economy was healthy then it would have large numbers of Fortune 500 companies, as those gigantic companies often is the home of lots of technological know-how that leads to productivity increases in an economy. They also generate much profits. Russia have no such company outside of the fossile fuel sector, or banking related to it. To me this is a sign of failure, to establish any technological leadership in any field. - If the economy was healthy, then I don't think it would have a 15% interest rate. - If the economy was healthy, then the currency would be super strong and not lose value against the dollar when the interest rate is 15%. - If the russian economy was strong would the number of car producer not fall from 60 down to a dozen in just 2 years. - If the russian economy was healthy, then it would be diversified so it would not be fragile to economic shocks. The russian stock market took the most severe downturn of any economy during the financial crisis which can be interpreted as a symptom of this. Of course was the recovery fast. But the large volatility in itself is not healthy in my opinion, and makes long term planning and growth difficult. - If the russian economy was healthy, then I do not think that 25% of the population would lack indoor plumbing and men have an average life expectancy than that of Haiti. - If the Russian economy was healthy then I think that their government would have a lifting of western sanctions the top 1 priority for russia in the grain deal. If their economy is doing so well as they claim themselves, then why care about the sanctions? why not try to get something better out of the deal? Russia is a country with 144 million people like Mexico that makes the claim of being a super power while only having an economy the size of Spain, or New York City. Income per capita is also pretty low, which matters for a countrys military potential as could allow a substitution for labor with machines/industrial robots/tractors if you got a high average income in your country. And that can allow you to replace more farmers, and industrial workers with mechanization so that more men can be dressed in uniform and sent to the frontline to fight. Poor economies usually only can mobilize 40-60% of their GDP for war. While richer industrial countries like USA could easily mobilize 80% during WW2, and then did USA not even try their best to go all in. USA did actually begin to demobilize their war economy already in late 1943 before it had fully geared up, because it had realized that the axis had already lost the war. So orders for more weapons was cancelled - like the worlds biggest battleship of the Montana class. Economic strength do in itself of course not determine the outcome of a war. Sometimes do small economies beat larger ones. But economies with a low GDP per capita is usually more fragile and will break from economic pressures.. as could nicely be seen in World war 1... where the first countries to break apart was the weakest economies. First fell russia in 1917, then fell the Austro-Hungarian empire, and then did Germany fall before the richer Britain did. Russia is a country with much corruption. It have an ageing population and low birthrates. And having young men fleeing the country. And having young men die before they can make kids and contribute to the economy is a painful loss to russia. Losing 400.000 young men was the best part of the population for russia. Its said that for every 1 dead soldier are there 2 wounded - and one of them is severely wounded. This ratio is a rough estimation that is of course not true for every war. American medical care is certainly better than the russian one, so there are less fatalities and less amounts of smaller wounds that are left without treatment and become more serious problems. In Vietnam did USA have 6 wounded soldiers for every 1 soldier killed. And I think it is highly unlikely russia ever will come close to such a ratio. So russia have thereby lost 400.000 young men in battle. Another 400.000 have ended up with losing arms, legs and eyes. And another 400.000 got minor injuries and will likely come home after the war with PTSD, alcohol problems and drug use as a coping mechanism as the non-existent state care for their veterans will offer them no help at all. And the result is more crimes, and more relationship problems and men beating their wives.
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  6.  @maxinabo  russia should give back ingria and karelia. its important to respect 1650s map.
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  7.  @maxinabo  Just because Ukrainians speak russian does not mean that they are russian. Americans today are not British. Just like Ukrainians are not russians even if they speak the same language. Zelensky speaks russian, but that does not mean that he is a russian. You may have that opinion, but that is probably not how he sees himself. Fact is that todays Ukraine voted for independence in 1991. And all areas, including Crimea voted for independence from Russia. In every area was the majority for independence from Russia. And with that should the issue have been settled once and for all. And the only way for Ukraine to becoming a part of russia again, should be if the majority of Ukrainians vote for voluntarily join russia again - something I cannot see happening anytime within the coming 200 years after russias genocidal war. It is a great irony that russia says it invades Ukraine to protect the russian speakers, but all it does is bombing Russian speaking cities like Odessa, Kharkiv and Bakhmut into ruins. 98% of all buildings of Mariupol has been destroyed and possibly as many as 200.000 civilians have been killed. So I do not call it liberation when russian speakers gets killed by the russian army, and their homes gets looted and destroyed. This war is just tragic and unnecessary. Russia should just go home. Nothing good comes from prolonging this war. And the russian speakers in Ukraine does not want russia there.
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  8.  @maxinabo  Many people in USA did probably see themselves as British after USA had become independent. And even more did before USA declared independence. 22.4% of the people in Ukraine saw themselves as russians in 1989 (altough that number should be taken with a grain of salt, as the term "russian" means different things to different people). Today however is this number likely much lower. Indeed the desire to rejoin the motherland is totally gone by now. Perhaps not so strange I guess. If I lived in Mariupol and had my entire family killed and my entire town where I grew up destroyed, then would I also not feel happy about the russian invasion. I might have been in favor of russia before the war, but after what russia had done to Mariupol, and in Bucha and Irpin is there simply no way I would have anything but contempt for Putins regime. Russian occupied Donbass have also become a place of constant electricity black outs and open daylight robbery by mafia gangs. A place where people can get killed for just waving an Unkrainian flag, and kids gets into trouble if they just speak Ukrainian at school. This is not liberation. That is what we call opression, lack of freedom, and anti-democratic rule.
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  9. That is just silly russian coping. Sweden did beat russia on the battlefield. Sweden won that war. And yes you had your own civil war that helped you lose that war, but that does not change the fact that it was a military victory for Sweden. Just like 1917 was a military victory for Germany over your country. If explaining away other countries victories with inner weakness - like you do - is the norm, then have Sweden not lost a single war. With your standard did Sweden never lose Finland to Russia, because your country only won because of a civil war in Sweden.
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  10. Sweden fought alone against an alliance of countries with a 40 times larger population for 21 years during the great northern war, and still did it at many occasions come close to victory. I would say that the russian army was as much garbage back then as it is today. Just look at its track record. The Swedes did beat the Russians at Narva in 1700 37.000 Russians fought 10.500 Swedes. Russia lost 9000 men and 20.700 men was captured. Sweden lost 667 dead. In 1701 came the battle of Düna. The Russian and Saxon forces outnumbered Sweden 2 to 1, and had the advantage of a strong defensive position behind a river. Russia lost the battle with 1300 dead and 700 men captured. While Sweden lost 100 dead. Next came the battle of Rauge in 1701, where 7000 Russians faced 2000 Swedes. Russia lost the battle and lost 2000 men. Sweden lost 50 men. The next humiliation was the battle of Saločiai in 1703. Here 6000 Russians stood against 1,100 Swedes. Russia lost the battle with 1500 men killed and over a thousand flags fell in enemy hands, while only 40 Swedes died. In 1704 was a Russo-Polish force of 15.000 men beaten up by a Swedish force of 3000 men (plus 2000 Lithuanians) in the battle of Jakobstadt. Sweden won the battle, and lost 238 men, while the Russian-Polish side lost 2300 men dead and 500 men were captured. At Gemauerthof in 1705; did 7000 Swedes fight a Russian force of between 13.000 or 20.000 men. Sweden won the battle with 1900 men in casualties, while Russian losses numbered 5000. In 1706 did a Russian-Saxon force of 20.000 men go into battle against 9400 Swedes in the battle of Fraustadt. Sweden won the battle with 400 Swedes killed in battle, while the Russian and Saxon losses were 7377 dead, and 7,900 captured. At the battle of Grodno, in january did a Swedish force of 800 men attack a Russian force of 9000 men. Sweden won the battle, and lost only 11 men killed. While Russian losses was higher: 150 men killed and 50 captured. The battle of Holowczyn took place in 1708, 12,500 Swedes went into battle against a Russian force 28.000-40.000 men strong. This dangerous river crossing by Swedish forces, became the favorite victory of the Swedish King Charles XII. Sweden lost 265 men killed, while Russian losses numbered 2000 men. A few weeks later was it time for the battle of Malatitze. A Swedish force of 5000 men fought 13.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle, losing 1050 men killed or wounded, while Russian losses was 2,700 men killed or wounded. Then a month later came the battle of Rajovka in september 1708. 2.400 Swedes fought against 10.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle, and lost 100 men killed while Russia had 375 of their men killed. In January 1709 was the battle of Oposhnya, where 2000 Swedes fought against 6000 Russians. The battle ended with a Swedish victory. 19 Swedish men were lost while Russia lost 450. 12 days later came the battle of Krasnokutsk–Gorodnoye. 2.500 Swedish riders went to battle against a Russian force of about 5000 to 10.000 men strong. The battle ended with a Swedish victory, with 132 Swedish soldiers lost while Russia lost 1200. 1719 was the battle of Stäket where 1200 Swedish soldiers defeated a Russian force of 3000 men. Sweden lost 101 men while Russia lost 500. So which army was the better one? I would argue that the Swedish army was clearly the better one. Russias army was garbage. It fought only against 1 enemy unlike Sweden. And yet did it performed so poorly. And almost every war russia fought is like this. World war 1 is like this. World war 2 is like this. The current war in Ukraine is like this. High losses and a snail phase of advance are what is typical for the russian army throughout history.
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  11. I think the Ukrainians have given much value for our money for all Swedish military aid given to them. It is an obligation for us to help Ukraine, but it is also in our self-interest. Can we repair the country, then we do not have to see refugee waves coming to other countries in Europe and causing problems such as housing shortages, shortages for jobs, integration problems, the need for more doctors, nurses, teachers and policemen as the population grow and so on. A strong Ukraine is also a good market for selling our products to. And it can contribute a lot with to us with their plentiful cheap resources and food. We are stronger togheter militarily and economically our fellow western democracy. It makes me sad to have to see them fight this war alone and sacrifice their own youth, and their men and blood for a war they never wanted. So the least we could do is to help them in every other way if we do not wanna fight this war ourselves. Its simply a moral obligation. And yes money will be wasted in theft, corruption, bad planning and so on. But that happens in all big buisness as well. And I never heard anyone say that our grocery store firms should be shut down because 3% of their products goes to waste due to shop lifting, or food pass its expiration date, or because someone working at the store accidentally drops a few glass bottles into the floor so they get destroyed. Our grocery stores can still make a profit and provide valuable things to society. And indeed even extremely corrupt dictatorships can improve lifes for their citizens. Suharto stole half of his countrys national wealth and put it on to foreign bank accounts. But thanks to strong GDP growth of his country was life improved also for the average citizen a lot under his rule. So I do not think we should cut all foreign aid and turn our backs on corrupt countries. And especially not for Ukraine for us Europeans, as this country is in our own neighbourhood, and is soon a member of our EU club. Its also a young fellow democracy needing our help and deserving of it. Ukraine belongs to the same cultural sphere as us Europeans, so its our obligation to help them. India says that they do not care about Europe. So if they don't care Ukraine, then we should care about them as no one else do. And frankly, if thats the attitude people outside the western world have. Then I rather cut aid to the middle east and Africa and shove that money into Ukraine instead. Then can India pay for helping the middle east instead, as this area is not near us geographically or culturally. I do not understand why my Swedish tax money should have to go to Hamas.
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  12. Reminds me a bit of the opioum wars. I am not saying I support this idea. Because I do not of course.
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  13. ​ @gnice8765  Russia was created by Swedish vikings from a place in Sweden called Roslagen. Those Swedish vikings from Roslagen who did row oars on viking ships was called "Rus". And those vikings founded Kievan-Rus - which is considered the first Russian and Ukrainian kingdom. So Sweden created Russia, indeed the name "Russia" comes from "Rus". Indeed in Finland are Sweden still today called Routsi, refering to this old group of people. And when it comes to your anglosaxon heritage, could it be said that it was much formed by the Scandinavian vikings. Admittedly mostly Norwegian and Danish vikings, but still Scandinavians none the less. And this was back in a day and age when the differences between the 3 kingdoms Sweden, Norway and Denmark was insignificant in regards to culture and language. It was mostly just an issue about which King ruled over which piece of land, and what team of men followed and obeyed those Kings. Indeed half of all words in the English language are of viking origin. Words like "window", "sky" and thursday (the God Thor's day). The Danish rulers possesed enormous amounts of power during the viking age and many comtemporaries liked Adam of Bremen considered the Danish King equally powerful to the Holy Roman emperor. So the long lasting impact on England should not be underestimated. The vikings also found America long before Christopher Columbus did. You say Sweden would be nothing today without russia and USA. I say that you could just as well argue that America and Russia would be nothing like today without Swedish influence.
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  14.  @gnice8765  "You claim WW2 was not won by Russia bc they lost more ppl than any other country. The human loses do not determine the winner." I think you have misunderstood me. My claim was rather that russia did survive the nazi onslaught thanks to the help that the western allies provided. Without this aid would russia likely have lost the war on the eastern front. If russia did not get millions of food rations, would the country have been forced to produce all that food by themselves instead or starve to death. If russia did not get planes, locomotives, trucks and tanks... then it would have been forced to produce all those things by themselves. And that means that russia would have needed more farmers and industrial workers and could not have afforded to field so many soldiers because they lacked food and weapons for them. And with the huge manpower losses russia suffered could they unlikely have afforded to keep on fighting this war like they did because they were beginning to run low on manpower already by 1944. Indeed only an increase in tank production by late 1943 helped russia to decrease its infantry losses during mass assaults against german lines. In an alternative universe without allied help, do I think it is extremely unlikely that russia could have kept on fighting the germans on their own hand. For the reasons mentioned, but also because of the force multipliers it meant to have access to radios (which was extremely scarce in russia), american high quality aviation fuel (russian fuel was low quality), explosives (which russia was in short supply of), and enormous amounts of military trucks that allowed the russian army to be more mobile than before and more mobile than their German enemy. British tanks was also more reliable than russian tanks that was built for a short life expectancy in mind. This made the Valiant tank very popular training tank for russian tank crews.
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  15. To me it seems like Peter often changes his views 180 degrees. Sometimes in just a week
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  16. They seem to be interested in increasing the standard of living of its people, while russia don't. On the contrary, I would say. Russia do seem to want to have poor and uneducated underclass that don't know to fight for its rights, which is easy to manipulate with propaganda, and which is willing to risk their lives for a small sum of money in one of the regimes evil pointless wars. China on the other hand do invest in education, job creation is a high priority for the regime, and the country do what it can to alleviate the worst poverty.
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  17. In the world of internet spam, yes. On other fronts no.
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  18. And is russia a super power? No. Having nukes does not make russia a super power. Just like North Korea and Pakistan are not super powers. Having 144 million people does not make it a super power anymore than Mexico is not a super power. Having a GDP the size of Spain does not make it a super power, indeed if we look at the number of fortune 500 companies, industrial manufacturing output per capita, number of innovations and so on then the country looks even more behind the curve... and would perhaps rank only as the 18th largest economy in the world and so on. And then haven't we even included all negative externalities from enviromental pollution. This country with the worlds 4th largest carbon footprint despite its tiny population. This country with the most toxic radioactive lake, and Chelnabinsk (aka "Tankgrad") which is the town in the world with the most polluted air. The country do have an aircraft carrier. A small and crappy one, but still. However having an aircraft carrier does not make Italy a super power. And nor are Japan with its advanced helicopter carriers any super power despite its enormous economic and technological superiority. And having a large army does not make russia a super power any more than North Korea is.
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  19. Japan also tried that model. But it turned out that they did not need to own resources to do well. They could just get what they wanted through trade instead. Today is Japan probably the most well being society in the world. A historic world record in GDP growth of 6% over a decade. Good income equality. Low crime. Long life expectancy. Clean enviroment. Technological progress. Tonnes of export. High speed rail.
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  20. Jesus said "turn the other cheek" and "love your enemy" and ended up nailed to a cross. As an atheist I regard this philosophy as a failure. Violance in self-defence is justified. We live in a world were evil people happily harms and murder innocent people if they can get away with it with little or no consequences.
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  21. Germany did defeat russia in 1917
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  22. China have harsh capital controls. Western Europe had a strong and healthy economic growth 1945-1970 despite very harsh capital controls. So I wouldn't say that capital controls in themselves are a bad thing. Sometimes they are necessary, as to protect the country from swift inflows and outflows of money from other countries that can cause massive inflation and deflation and destabilize and destroy the economy - like what happened to the Spanish and Irish housing market during the Eurocrisis, or what happened to Sweden in the 1990s, or what happened to the Asian economies during the asian crisis. The only asian country untouched by the Asian crisis was China thanks to its harsh capital controls.
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  23.  @petardetar5191  It can go on forever if it continues like it do now when the assets of the american people grows at roughly the same rate as the national debt. If you earn 100 times more than someone else, then it is no problem with borrowing 100 times more either. And the american people are just borrowing money from the american people. And when you tax, then you take money from the american people and give to the American people. But for some reason do rusbots not understand this. I have said this so many times that I have begun to suspect that they do not want to understand.
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  24. For the economically illeterate I can tell you that its normal operating procedure for a government to go into debt. The government goes minus so that the private sector can go plus. Its simple as that - double entry bookkeeping. When someone goes into a bank and take a loan, then someone gets a minus on their account and the other one gets a plus. The US government goes into minus and the American people goes into plus. There is no problem. People who worry about the national debt are economically illeterate. Simple as that. Stupid people or fear mongerers.
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  25.  @DIA1020-o8k  Reducing the Great Northern war to one battle is like when an American watch a movie about D-day and think it sums up the entire world war 2 😂😂 Russia lost one humiliating loss after another. And your best reply you can come up with is to brag about a battle russia won against an enemy they outnumbered with more than 2 to 1 in manpower and more than 28 to 1 in artillery. A Swedish army that lacked food and gun powder and had to attack a fortified position out of desperation. And even if the Swedish cavalry screwed up the battle plan from the start, did Sweden still come close to winning the battle. Peter the Great himself even prepared for a retreat and wrote a letter where he thought that the battle was lost. Gangut was a tiny victory with no significance for the war. It was a propaganda victory and nothing else. Russia won the battle by pure luck and no skills at all, as the lack of winds prevented the swedish ships from manouver. A tiny force of 1 pram and 6 galleys was lost. Thats all. The fact that the russian navy feels the need to brag so much over such tiny victory do I think says a lot about how few successes that navy must have throughout its long history. Otherwise its mostly just humilitations like Svensksund 1790, Tsushima 1905 and the war of Ukraine that comes to mind. Anyways, back to the topic of the Great Northern war. The Swedish high sea fleet did remain the most powerful one in the baltic sea even after the victory. Russia could dominate the shallow waters in the baltic sea with mass produced galleys built with low quality junk wood. But it stood no chance against the Swedish navy in the deeper waters where bigger warships were superior. Sweden did not have the resources for fighting a two front war against both Denmarks high seas fleet and the russian galley fleet. And most contemporaries in the 1700s Europe believed that Sweden would rise again after the loss in the Great Northern War. That would never happen because the corrupt incompetent nobility took a strong grip of power for the coming 100 years of the country and brought it towards ruin rather than recovery. They did behave much like russians today. Our nobles were filled with revanchism - just like Putins fanboys that are angry over the loss in the Cold War. There was a lust for military glory - like in russia today. There was an obsession about becoming a great power again - like in russia today - and the idea of peaceful future with economic development and civilian investments was getting contempt from the rich ruling class. The idiotic Swedish nobles brought Sweden into the seven years war against Prussia - for it was totally unprepared. Logistics was terrible, leadership was poor, thousands of muskets were totally unusable because of corruption. So even if the enemy had somehow ceased to exist, would the Swedish army have been unable to move forward more than a few kilometers because the logistics was in such a crappy shape. Much like the russian army outside Kyiv in 2022. The war ended with humiliation for Sweden. And the national debt grew into levels higher than it was after the 21 year long Great Northern War. Sweden was stupid enough to start a war it was not prepared for. And brought economic ruin upon itself. A lesson also other countries could learn from - like russia. Sweden would probably have been better off without more wars, even if I think that the war of 1788 against russia could have been succesful if the Swedish officers had not commited mutiny and treason against the King. After all was nearly all of Swedens empire still intact after the end of the Great Northern War. Finland was still part of Sweden. And the same goes for the German provinces. Swedens conquests from Denmark was still all in Swedish hands. So the empire was mostly pretty much intact after the war.
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  26. It depends on what your life goals are. If you want to have a nice car - then you might have to work 5 years in your life. And eat pizza at a nice resturant every friday - then you might have to work 5 years of your life. If you want a life with go skiing every winter and travel a few weeks to the sun every year - then you might have to work for say 10 years of your life. And you want a nice house - then you have to work another 10 years of your life. And then you want 3 kids - then you might have to pay for them for 15 years or so. And then you need another big house with space for your enlarged family - then you might have to work another 15 years of your life to pay for it. And then you might wanna have other stuff as well.. white whares etc So in the end do you might have to work a large part of your life to pay for all those things. Some people do not wanna pay for those things. They move to a country with low taxes on labor and work their asses off the first 10 years after they finished collage. And then they can retire afterwards at their 30th birthday if they just skip all the mentioned luxuries mentioned above and live cheaply instead and get much free time.
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  27. Putin reminds me of his own favorite Tsar Nicholas who started the Crimean war despite Russias backwardness and despite England and France was the richest high technological industrial superpowers of their age. And the reason why Tsar Nicholas and Tsar Putin believed in victory was the same. The west was decadent, materialistic, lazy, too comfortable, individualistic, unwilling to sacrifice blood and sweat, and unmanly. While Russia was manly, stubborn, brave, they were used to hardships, they were patriotic and understood the meaning of self-sacrifice for the greater good. It was believed that those virtues would compensate for russias technological, economical and manpower disadvantage. But Putin despite his love for history have failed to see that he is not the first one to have this faulty belief that wars could be won only by superior morality. Tsar Nicholas lost the Crimean war for Russia. Hundreds of thousands of people died for nothing for this childish man that had some silly fantasies about being a succesful conqueror King. Russia lost that war. Japan in World war 2 thought that the superior Japanese soldier would beat the industrial might of the decadent, comfortable, westerners that were unwilling to die for their country or for anything. But Japan had their asses kicked and lost the war anyways. And this was despite the Japanese undoubtably were fanatical and literarly fought til the last man and never surrendered, and japanese soldiers continued to fight for the emperor even decades after the war had ended on some remote pacific islands. So if not even fanatical Japanese bushido warriors could defeat the industrial might of the west, or German military professionalism. Then do I hold no doubt that russia will lose its future wars against the west. The russian soldier is less willing to fight than his western counterparts and more willing to surrender. And the lack of industrial might is even worse than that Germany had against USA. And nor do russia hold any manpower advantage like it had in previous world wars. Russias hopes and dreams are unrealistic. Putin just do the same mistake as previous Tsars. And russia will pay a high price for this for many decades to come.
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  28. I think this question if it is good or bad is irrelevant for the discussion here. Here is the thing, Putin and Trump try to win support by proclaiming they are the defenders of the Christian faith. You and I as non-religious people might not care about this issue as we are non-religious. However people like us are a tiny minority in many countries, including USA and Russia. To many is this issue relevant because they are religious. However neither Trump or Putin live like Christians and they act contrary to Christian values, so they do not deserve the support from Christian voters. Indeed, Putin is not a Christian at all, and no matter how many homophobic and anti-woke things he say will ever change that fact. He has broken against the basic Christian commandments. And nor does he feel any regret, shame or guilt over it. On the contrary. He will happily start a new war in the future as soon as this war is over and he have rebuilt his military. Putin is thereby no just non-christian. He is anti-christian. He supports murder, theft, lying, corruption, and opression. Jesus spoke about love, compassion and forgiveness of past sins.
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  29.  @DominicFlynn  You do not seem to understand MMT. MMT does not support the idea of reckless money printing. It considers money printing as a good thing only as long as it doesn't cause inflation. And to reduce inflation do economists use various tools like increased taxation or higher interest rates for example. What you propose now is more money printing to solve the problem of higher interest rates. But the problem for russia is the opposite. They raise interest rates to prevent inflation, because it would be seen as a prestige loss if the ruble fell like a rock in its value. If there was a strong global demand for this currency there would have been no need for capital controls, confiscations, high interest rates and such to prevent inflation. To me this is a sign of weakness of the russian economy.
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  30. I am an atheist, and I agree with your conclusion 100%. He just use religion as a tool to get votes. Reminds me of his disusting speech he held at a stadium the first weeks of the war where he said the famous Bible quote that is deeply inbeded in russian military historical tradition: “There is no greater love than this: that a person would lay down his life for the sake of his friends.” Putin used this quote in his speech to honor the sacrifice the fallen soldiers, in order to get applauds from the people. But the truth is that he was the man who send all those soldiers to their deaths. Without Putin starting this war would there had been no need for anyone to die for someone else. Everyone could stayed home played with their kids or dogs, kissed their wife, played minecraft and eaten pizza and having a good time instead. Putin choose the path of war and hate.
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  31. I don't think the word "mad" is accurate. I think he is aware of what he is doing. He knows it is wrong and evil and do it anyways. To me that just makes him an evil person. He also got an exagerated belief in his own greatness. That makes him a bit stupid in my opinion. But I do not think he is a madman doing crazy stuff. It is at least not like he considering a nuclear war or thinks that a frontal assault against Nato would have any chance of victory for russia. He is a person with a biased worldview that has taken decades to form, and he is not capable of changing this worldview in just a few years. He will however realize that he miscalculated when he strongly assumed that the democratic west is weak and decadent and too comfortable and materialistic to be able to win against an united and determined russia. Japan also had such beliefs that they could win against USA despite their enormous superiority in military power, superiority in natural resources, manpower, industrial capacity, technology, and so on. Japans attack was foolish and unrealistic. They got crushed in world war 2 despite Japanese soldiers were extremely brave and willing to self-sacrifice and never surrender. The Russian soldier is nowhere near the fanatical willingness to fight that the Bushido japanese had. And still Putin believe that he could win against the west somehow. He considers democracy just as weakness and something that hostile powers like his own could exploit and manipulate unpunished.
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  32. They take their own last currency reserves to prop up their currency a few more months. I see that irresponsible behaviour a bit like a parent plundering his childrens bank accounts to provide his own private company with some cash. But his company have been runned with a loss since the start. And all hopes that it will turn around is just wishful thinking.
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  33. You want to go beyond just selling raw materials, and also sell more advanced stuff. Learn from Sweden development in iron ore and timber. Sweden have iron ore that it can mine → around that Sweden built a steel industry → from the steel industry did Sweden start to also make machine tools → from the machine tool industry did Sweden begin to also make ships, airplanes, cars, trucks → this led to more demand for steel from the Swedish steel industry so it expanded even more → the ovens in the steel industry needed electricity, so Sweden decided to build hydroelectric power dams and nuclear plants → the know-how in electronics made Sweden a world leader in civilian nuclear power in the 1960s → and from electronic products did Sweden move into making mobile phones from Ericsson Sweden have timber → But instead of just cutting down a tree and selling the tree to another country, did Sweden decide to make more money from the tree. So Sweden began making paper from trees. And that paper could be sold to other countries for a higher profit → Paper production needs lots of chemical to make, so this led to the creation of a chemical industry in Sweden → During World war 2 was Sweden neutral, but could not import medicine from other countries because the war had cut off all trade, so in a desperate situation was Sweden forced to make its own medicine and the government asked the chemical industry for help - and that led to the birth of Swedens pharmaceutical industry with companies like Astra, Pharmacia and Kabi. So today as you see have Sweden got a very diverse and knowledge based economy. The demand for medicine is nearly endless. Sweden makes worldclass weapon systems with everything from fighter jets to submarines to tanks. And as a world leader in nuclear energy was Sweden close to making its own atomic bomb. The country was also the largest shipbuilder in the world after World war 2. Losec made by Astra did become the worlds most sold medicine when it was introduced in the 1990s. Ericsson grew to the largest company on the Swedish stock market surpassing Volvo during the same time. So the country have constantly tried to develop further and further up the value chain instead of just being content with selling timber and iron to other countries. Sweden export gigantic amounts of iron ore. 90% of all iron in the EU comes from Sweden. Just the mine up in Kiruna alone produce enough iron each day to make 13 Eiffel towers! But despite this do this industry only make up 1% of Swedens economy today. So if Sweden had not diversified its economy would it certainly have been very much poorer today.
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  34. Russian Orthodox christianity is just as much fake as Russian Communism was. The Soviet union was never truely Communist. The Soviet union also had a strong mixture of Russian imperialism in it and a small dose of moral conservatism / Orthodox Christianity. Stalin criminilized homosexuality. Romanian communists banned abortions. Marx wanted to abolish the nuclear family, but the Soviet union never did that as far as I am aware. And the idea that all countries and cultures are equals was never really a thing in the Soviet union that tried to russify its colonies - Like Königsberg, Eastern Ukraine, Viipuri and so on. Stalin deported ethinic minorities in the caucausus to Siberia to scatter communities and let their native culture die out. So there was never just pure noble ideas in the Soviet union. It was always mixed with Russian imperalism and ethno-nationalism. And Putin is just a successor of this russian tradition as I sees it. Perhaps he wants more russian nationalism and a bit less communism. And his religious thinking does not seem deeper than just being anti-woke.
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  35. Russian state tv claims that russia have never lost a war throughout its history. And that it have never started one either. But neither of those claims are true. And taking Kyiv will never happen. Not even with a 100% mobilization. Russia simply does not have the resources for that.
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  36. As David Graeber points out in his book debt the last 5000 years, are credits an older innovation than money. Barter economies mostly only exist in the fantasy land of theoriticians like Adam Smith, and not in the real world. Say that I got a nice book you want but all you have to offer me is a smelly t-shirt that is not in my own size. Then we have a double-coincidence of wants problem. A problem economists say is difficult to solve without money. But that is just nonsense. We can behave like the natives at Borneo or the Amazon jungle that don't have money. I see that you like my book, and I give it to you. And then you can walk back to your own village as a happy man. And a few days later I come and visit you and I look at your possessions and take out something of roughly equal value to the book I gave you. I then say "nice dinner plates you got". And you say "you like them? then you can have them! I want you to take them my friend. That is the least I can do for someone who gave me such a nice book!". So what we have done here is not really barter. I gave you a loan. And you repaid that loan when you were able to do so, and when you had something to offer me. And nor did we need any money to make these transactions with each other.
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  37. No one here in the EU notice much of this war. Its more Putin that cries that the western sanctions (which he claims are 100% ineffective) must end.
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  38. Its military was difficult to maintain also during the Cold war, it was always the more technologically backwards opponent that built primitive stuff at a low quality and its equipment is therefore ageing less well than that made in the west. At the end of the Cold war did it become difficult to maintain this collossos. Having an army based on quantity meant that the male workforce was dressed in uniform and therefore became economically unproductive. Also focusing large parts of the economy around military production made the economy unproductive in improving life in general. And wasting what little of what remained of the economy on Lenin statues, space programs, propaganda, parades and such did not help.. and in the long run would it make the east bloc struggle economically. This obsession of prestige also harmed its military capacity. The country built useless aircraft carriers for prestige reasons when it should have built small ships for coastal warfare instead. Now with a declining population and aged equipment will russias military situation only get worse. Fewer men will remain in the workforce if the country decides to keep its old Soviet military model. Reforming the army and go from an army of large numbers to a smaller force of more quality will take much money and investments. And now when russia have lost their best military gear in Ukraine do I think it is fair to say that 20 years of progress in has been wiped out. Much costs of maintaining old Soviet junk has of course been removed, as tanks have become burning wrecks in Ukraine. But this military is still too large for russia to afford. And losing a few million men to combat deaths, wounds, braindrain do make the current negative trend even worse for russia. Its population is ageing and needs upkeep, but the young people are becoming fewer, and the military cannot suck up all of them. And there are no Soviet satellite states that can share the cost of burden like back in the cold war. The country needs to replace old rusty AK-47 and steel helmets with kevlar helmets, and body armor. And Soviet tanks needs to be scrapped and replaced by T-90 tanks and T-14 Armata. And while SU-35 is a good plane by todays standards, do the future not look good for the russian air force as it still haven't built a single 5th generation fighter jet, while other countries are developing their 6th generation fighter. This is a bad omen for them. And even after billions of Indian money and years spent are their SU-57 still not finished, and it will probably never be. It cannot compete with F22 or F35 in terms of stealth. Indeed, I would argue that even the old Gripen E is superior to it in most things, including stealth, while also being cheaper.
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  39. Natural resources can be a great aid of economic growth if they are used correctly - as in the case of USA and Sweden. The problem for russia is that they have never bothered to climb up the ladder of industrialization to make manufactured goods. Simple ones in the beginning like perhaps beer, toys, milk and such. And then make a bit more technologically advanced stuff once they have learned to master the simple levels of industrialization. And then the final step is to become a world champion in making high tech products that few other countries can produce.. like jet engines or nuclear reactors and be a world leader in those fields. Russia needs to use mercantilism to create those new companies. 144 million consumers is a good start. Paying for importing machinery and new production technologies can be done with fossile fuels, that is a good start. Corruption is a problem, but on the other hand did corruption not stop China from growing into the workshop of the world. But the oil income must be invested for the benifit of the country, and not for the benifit of the corrupt and incompetent ruling elite and wasted on wars and military spending. Industralization is key in lifting a country out of poverty. Because the industrial sector have much higher productivity levels than agriculture , mining or service sector jobs. During the industrial revolution could the cotton industry increase its output 400 fold. A skilled worker could produce maybe 2000-3000 cigars per a 16 hour workday. Today do we have industrial robots that can spit out 6000 cigarettes per minute. Such productivity level increases cannot be done in other parts of the economy. If you tell a hairdresser to cut 400 times more people per hour, you would probably not end up with good haircuts. A chef could probably not make 400 times more meals per hour. And a hen could not lay 400 times more eggs in a year, and there is a limit how much you can increase milk production from a cow, or how much wheat you can reap from an acre of land in a single year. Another benifit with manufacturing goods is that when you make products that people wants but not many got the know how or the ability to produce it - then you have less competition and can charge higher prices for your products. While competition is very hard on the world markets when you try to sell a ton of salmon, coal or copper. But not every country knows how to make a smartphone or a patriot missile. Russia cannot perhaps compete on world markets today with their inferior products. So increasing exports is hard for now. It is however easier to cut imports of foreign manufactured goods if they learn to make some simple manufacturing goods themselves and sell it to russian consumers and block imports from foreign countries with tariffs. That will help russia improve its balance of trade. And it would help to nurture new companies. And when they have grown large and strong enough to fight conquer shares of world exports, then can the government cut down on its subsidies and tariffs and let the companies stand on their own feet. And instead can the government focus on creating new high tech sectors.
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  40. I am still waiting for russia for creating something equal to the internet. seems like their military spending does not create any civilian spinoffs... no apple, microsofts, google, or amazon.
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  41.  @peter-pi8bc  One of the most common expression from Jesus is "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!" (Matthew 23:27). Strangely enough have this expression became forgotten. But I guess that people in power - like Putin - do not want people to call him a Pharisee, because that is what he is. Someone who just acts very religious so that other people should give him respect and see him as an honourable person, while he in fact do not care one bit about God. He just follow religious rituals and have not spent 1 minute of his life wondering about the deeper meaning in the religious texts of what is means to be a good person or how God wants us to follow him. For Putin is nothing about religion, and everything is about superficial displays of piety in front of the tv cameras. Aside from that do he not care one bit about Christianity. For him it is just a tool to get peoples support for his regime and to gain popularity.
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  42. I feel like Stockholm is so vulnerable on the east coast. It needs a defensive barrier like in the past... when Finland and the Baltic states and Leningrad oblast belonged to Sweden, plus some north German provinces and Polish towns.
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  43.  @amraceway  BRICs is no monolithic unity. Brazil is on the rise and so is India, and China is undeniably an economic gigant. But russia is irrelevant. Those countries also have opposing interests. China and India do see each other as rivals for example. And China is making itself unpopular in Asia by taking all Mekong river water for themselves for their hydroelectric powerplants so all fish farms, and agriculture in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia is left without water. The conflict about territorial waters in the pacific is also a topic that have made China going into collision course with Japan, Taiwan, Phillipines, Vietnam and others. And the only way China gets support in the UN for its view on Taiwan is through paying out bribes to countries in Africa and Latin America. There are also reason to believe that many BRICs will leave this club and join the west in the future. India is a democracy opposed to China and do regard russian military equipment as increasinly outdated as it cannot build a 5th generation fighter aircraft for example, and thereby have to ask for western help instead against China. And as countries becomes developed rich countries do their views upon IMF policies and intellectual property rights change - like it did in South Korea and Japan when those countries went from poor to rich. So I think it is likely that more countries will feel more in common with the west than with the club of 3rd world countries in the future.
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  44. You are correct that russia is at war with the west. For that reason should all enemy proganda be banned in the west.
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  45. You focus on superficial stuff. Jesus would have called Pharisee behaviour, and just held all this in deep contempt. In all more important stuff are Moscovia failing. Murdering, lying, stealing, kidnapping children, feeling lust to steal ones neighbours property, wife and children. What is not so important are lighting candles in church like Putaine does. What is important however is being good at heart.
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  46. The bot comment is written in English because its lingua francua. the dollar is still the world reserve currency by far, Nato is the most powerful military alliance in history, the countries that supports Ukraine makes up 60% of the world economy. Look where patents, nobelprizes and fortune 500 companies come from you will further see that wests economic and technological dominance is total. Russia got nothing to offer the world by comparison.
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  47. 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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  48. Being worried is pointless. If the problem can be solved, then why worry? And if the problem cannot be solved why worry? So being worried is a pointless feeling.
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  49. Its a quick way to get noobs to stop overestimating the power of the russian economy. But you are correct that the comparison is flawed. I would say that many other things matters too. Economic power in this world also depends on the number of Fortune 500 companies that a country have, its GDP per capita, its patents and innovation, its GDP per workhour, the amount of industrial robots per 100.000 workers, the structure of the economy where I consider manufacturing to be a superior activity compared to resource extraction, farming and banking. And then do other things matter too.. like the amount of corruption, health of the population, infrastructure etc. If all those measurements are taken into account, then I do not think that Russia even deserves a place among the worlds 20 largest economies. But Italy do.
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  50. And yet is the rouble falling in value compared to the dollar. And not just a little bit. I mean it falls like a stone dropped from an airplane. In places like Bankok you need something like 290 roubles for every 1 dollar you wanna trade
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  51. I think russian propaganda is just full of contradictions. First it says that west is weak and that russia easily outproduce the west in artillery ammunition, and that the west have no military stockpiles and is laughably weak. And then all of a sudden Russia turns around 180 degrees and says that the west is a great aggressive threat towards russia that wants to steal their resources. Even if the western armies are so weak that even Germany have less artillery ammunition than for a 2 week fighting with russia. So I say this: Get your own story straight for F*** sake.
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  52. With what? Bitcoins? World of warcraft gold? Super Mario coins?
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  53. Of all issues in the world one could care about, you care about woke 🙄Not the opiod epidemic, not the unaffordable healthcare, not AIs impact on society, not national security or the problem of mass incarceration... nope those issues are too complex. Let's talk about some totally unimportant non-problem gender pronouns that are easier to grasp for a low information voter with an IQ of 60. 🤦‍♂
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  54. Evangelicals could believe that Trump is God's best child if they want, but what annoys me is that they are judgeing everyone else so harshly. But rightwingers like Trump gets away without criticism from their own rightwing voters. Despite Trump had sex with a pornstar, cheating on his wife, despite having children with multiple women, despite being a draftdodger who mocks veterans like McCain, despite he is constantly lying and behaving like a bully despite he is an old man that should know better. I would say that the average leftwing voter is more moral than that guy.
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  55.  @ЕржанЖанабердинов-р4ш  Capital controls should be done in moderation. You do not want useless and harmful speculative foreign capital creating inflation bubbles followed by deflationary crashes. You do not want tax evasion. You do not want foreigners to buy up the crown jewels among the high tech companies in your country. However some foreign money is good for a country. If they build new factories, create good well paying jobs and make long term commitments and bring foreign technologies into the country. Russia have just stolen assets from the west - everything from Carlsberg to 500 passanger planes. This will have long term negative consequences for the country as foreigners will be very hesitant and wait many many decades before they can come back. And stealing russian peoples savings in dollars, pounds, and Euros is also sacrificing the future for short-term gain.
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  56. I do think that we humans have both cooperation and competition in us. And we can build a society based on hard competition where some people act like cheetahs while others gets targeted like gazelles. But we also got the option to build a society more around friendship and cooperation instead. And we can try to limit competition to as few areas as possible in society where they blong... like say sports or having companies trying to out do each other in producing the best microwave. After all do I think most animals got something good in them. All videos on youtube have led me to believe that. Even lions like rubs from their owners and can become friends with dogs. Wolves can enjoy strokes and long for their owners hug and love just as much as dogs do. And I have even seen an alligator jump into the sofa just because it wanted to get strokes and cuddle. So even wild predators got something good in them, and could enjoy friendship with individuals of other species. So things do not need to be as they are. If there was no competition for limited resources, and the wild animals had other sources for food than killing other animals... then perhaps would their killing and wild behaviour be a thing of the past. And nature would be based on cooperation instead of competition. So I think that we should think about how we organize societies. What incentives do we reward? Do we encourage competition and cutting each others throats, or do we encourage cooperation and friendship? I believe that a society leaning towards more cooperation is a better one. But we are of course living in a world with limited resources, so not even the most socialist society can avoid some degree of competition over limited resources.
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  57. The winter war was a humiliating failure. They also suffered more deaths due to winter cold than the Swedish army in 1708-1709 but was less affected only because they had more cannon fodder. The same goes for the battle of Stalingrad in 1942.
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  58. Nonsense. The west was preparing to invade russia and moved the Nato border closer to russia year after year. Therefore did the aggressive warmongering west start this war. And little innocent russia had to defend itself.
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  59.  @maxinabo  If Sweden invaded Finland. And if Swedish troops there behaved like the russian army in Ukraine, and murdered, raped, plundered, destroyed cities, turned villages into dust and rubble, kidnapped thousands of children to brainwash them, built torture chambers for finns, forbade finns from speak their own language in occupied lands, forbade them from waving finlands flag, killed people for supporting finlands independence on facebook... and behaving like scum in general.... well then I could very well understand if the Swedish speaking minority would not want anything to do with Sweden. They would rightfully hate Sweden for destroying their cities and killing their neighbours. And the Ukrainians feels the same way towards russia today. But for some reason are some people not clever enough to figure that one out.
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  60. I think manpower is not russias weakest link in the chain. I rather think that it will run out of military hardware first. And without tanks and artillery will it be impossible to conduct any succesful offensives. Especially with low quality troops, now when russia have wasted its best troops. Economic constraints will more and more starve the russian military of resources, and as wests artillery ammunition is ramping up will the balance on the battlefield shift more and more to Ukraines favor. Ukraine will have more resources in a war of attrition. And they will have much more firepower. And Ukraines future advantage in firepower will lead to higher russian losses. And it can compensate for russias advantage manpower.
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  61. Not true. https://youtu.be/tY3cysKDNZI?si=Zzb_z1q_kqcjM_q6
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  62. Sadly it seems like Ukraines destiny is now decided more by idiots in the big western countries than in Kyiv. US aid is blocked by a pro-russian traitor, and the EU has failed to deliever 1 million artillery shells, and the pathetic Europe club could not even give Ukraine 7 patriot systems, despite having over a hundred. So now is Ukraines energy grid totally destroyed and will need billions to repair, and if the idea is that EU will repay for Ukraines reconstruction and refugee wave then I would say that the EU is ruled by idiots. It would have been cheaper to just give patriot missiles than pay for reconstruction of Ukraine. European leaders have never said they want Ukraine to win. Why? Because that would entail large military commitments, so instead do we get all those useless half-assed too little too late garbage packages. European politicians should feel ashamed of themselves.
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  63. Russia lacks knowledge and advanced components. That will ensure its place among the worlds poorest economies. Rich countries makes advanced high tech manufacturing products. Those are highly profitable since they are in high demand. Every country in the world wants them and competition is low since not everyone can make them because they do not know how to create them. But selling raw materials like wood, and coal is not advanced and large numbers of countries around the world can compete which drives down prices and profit margins. And then there is also a risk that the oil, timber and fish stocks runs out one day if you over exploit it. And if someone invents an alternative, like using green energy instead of oil, or the world begins to use optical cables instead of copper cables - then do the world demand for oil and copper fall so prices and profits starts to fall. And countries that relies on selling those raw matericals will fall into deep problems. So being a resource producer is risky, and can lead to economic ruin for a country if it is overly dependent on a few resources no one longer wants. When synthethic dye was invented it was bad news for countries in latin america that lived off selling insects to crush to make certain colors. African countries have been hurting when prices of copper, vanilla and cotton has fallen. And russia will lose 60% of its GDP if the world no longer wants its fossile fuels and use other energy sources instead.
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  64. I think industrialization was doomed to take a long time for Russia. The population density was low and the population was scattered over long distances. Transportation of goods was made difficult. And in the pre-industrial age was it for example cheaper for the Romans to transport wheat from a ship from Egypt from one end of the mediaterranean to Spain, than what it was to transport a cart of goods on land 100km. Russia could have used its rivers and water ways someone might say - but the problem with that was that they were covered with ice for something like 5 months of the year. And using hydroelectric power to run industries was also inpractical when the water had frozen into ice. So this problem could only be solved by using the steam engine then. However russia had the same problems as the northern half of Sweden, there was lots of natural resources there with much iron and wood, but no way these resources could be transported away and exported for a profit due to high transportation costs would have made it unprofitable. And only the construction of railroads in the 1800s could have solve this problem. Contrast this to Norway which only had 25% as much forest as Sweden, and yet in the early 1800s did it produce 4 times more timber than Sweden because all of its forests laid closed to the coastline so transportation costs wouldn't eat up all profits. And the salt in the ocean water prevented it from freezing into ice. And finally did russia have serfdom. I mean extremely harsh serfdom that was just as opressive as slavery. And this and the poverty among the masses it created prevented the creation of any industry, as mass production requires mass consumption. So the only way for russia to create any industry at all during this time period was through state-led industrialization. So the government built railroads in the 1800s, because no private enterprise would have seen any oppurtinity for profit for building any railroads in such a country with low population density and a poor population. State-led industrialization does not mean that the country is doomed to failure. Prussia in the 1700s was Germanys most succesful economy I would argue, with its state-led industrialization around military goods such as textiles, iron, and weapons.
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  65. The Russian currency will fall as global demand for it has fallen. And because of all the sanctions have imports of production imports become more expensive, that leads to higher prices. And a higher price level is the same thing as what economists call inflation. There are no willingness to invest in russia. For ethical reasons. But also because the russian state is in economic problems and if you lend out money to it you might not get repaid. And then there is this problem that opening a factory in Russia is risky because the government can just all of sudden decide to steal your factory from you - like what happened to Carlsberg - so then what reason will there be to invest in russia? Russia might also wanna pay for their war with their printing press as raising taxes is unpopular and lead to deflation, and russias savings are running out, and borrowing money is difficult when you are kicked out from the SWIFT agreement and have to pay higher interest rates for all money that are being borrowed. Of course will it always be possible to borrow money, but the question is always at what interest rate? If you begin say borrowing money for 500% interest rate after two weeks has passed, then you have just created a bigger hole for yourself when you tried to get rid of a hole in the ground.
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  66.  @afreire239  Every people do. Even the russians could depose the Tsar in 1917. And the Chinese did force their own government to abolish the harsh covid restrictions when people went out and protested. And the government feared that the protest might spread further, and also mix with more demands for democracy so it had to react quickly to the will of the people and scrap all the Covid lockdown measures over a night. The chinese government also have to give economic growth and jobs to stave off riots, and in return have it gained the popularity of the Chinese people. Also the unpopular one child policy was scrapped. So even brutal dictatorships listen to their people. The Hitler regime had to surrender to the protestors at Rosenstrasse. And if women go out and protest against the war, then it becomes difficult for Putin to secretly and harshly beat down the protest. So he will be forced to make concessions. And if that doesn't help, then he might be forced to end the war.
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  67. conspiracy theory
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  68. Maybe I am a horrible person... but if team Putin is playing against a Stroke.. then I hope the stroke wins the game.
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  69. Exactly. The vodka rouble will replace it.
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  70. Merkel is Hitlers daughter. There are photos that proves it. And its no coincidence that she have the same shakings like that she inherited from papa Adolf.
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  71. When people pay higher interest rates on mortages, credit card debts, car loans, student loans or whatever then do have less money over left to spend on buying consumer goods. That means less sales for companies that makes furniture, clothes, cars, books, white wares and so on. And less sales means less profits. And lack of profitability means less taxes to the government and more lay offs. And more unemployed means less people that can pay taxes to the government and more people who need government handouts for unemployment benifits or food stamps. And when people lose their job and income, then they spend less. And less spending means less sales for companies, and that means even more lay offs. So the economy is spinning into a death spiral.
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  72.  @DominicFlynn  If that was the case then why not raise the rates to 99% then? High interest rates benifits savers over consumers. And it is consumers that create demand in an economy and are job creators. High interest rates makes it impossible for some companies to pay off their debts and they go bankrupt. High interest rates might also eat up future profits and thus discourage people from investing in new factories. Most people have more debts than assets. While only a few of the richest people have more assets than debts and they can lend out money to get some interest on that money. When you raise interest rates you do create a transfer of wealth, from ordinary people to rich people. A problem with that is that rich people do not behave like ordinary people. They do not spend most of their income each month like poor people do. They stack more of their money on a pile that never gets circulated into the economy and thus keeping buisnesses alive.
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  73. ​ @johnwalsh4857  Even if a new government comes into power in russia after the war, will they have a problem with convincing foreign investors to come back to their country after they have shown that they have no respect for private property of foreigners in russia as their theft of 500 airliners and their theft of Carlsberg beer has shown. Personally do I hope that corporations also get shamed for still doing buisness in Russia like Unilever, Tuc, Mondelez, Proctor & Gamble etc. Selling Pringles cans with St. George ribbon painted on them should be considered as anti-western treason. Its like if Pringles sold cans with swastikas and SS symbols in nazi Germany while they were fighting WW2. And Mondelez chocolate bars should be boycotted, as they have a taste of Ukrainian blood in them as this sh*thole company is paying taxes to Putins warmachine. All companies should have a choice - either they leave russia, or they will be bullied and ruined in USA and Europe. And if companies are forced to make that choice, then would the last remains of western involvement in the russian economy go away, and the country would fall apart.
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  74.  @ericdaniels4650  I base my prediction on the past track record of the russian military. If russia would continue to push forward with the same rate of advance as they had during the battle of Avdiivka it would take something like 800 years before all of Ukraine is occupied. And Russia have to spend the lives of about 300 million soldiers. Russias population is 144 million. And the population of men in military age is even less. So things do not look good for russia if the goal is to take all of Ukraine. So far has not yet any big city, not even Charkiv, fallen into russian hands. Bakhmut was a tiny place compared to Charkiv, and even more so compared to Kyiv. And with most of russias best troops and heavy equipment wiped out I doubt its possible for russia to gain anything. I do not even think russia have the artillery ammunition available for such a large project.
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  75.  @sleefy2343  Why this angry and upset tone? These things happened a long time ago. I don't feel much anger about what happened to my great great great great grandpa. And nor do I think anyone else should. You are upset about a foreign country selling drugs to you. You are upset about imperialism that was done to you. And yet today are fentanyl cooked in Chinese labs and sold in America and contributing in the drug death epidemic. China is also behaving like an opressive imperialist power by taking over Tibet. It does not respect the will of the people in Hong Kong or promises given to Britain to accept a high degree of self-determination there. It is a country that is cutting off the water supply to neighbouring countries in Indo-china and keep all water for itself. It invaded its neighbours Vietnam and India in modern history. So I think it is time for some self-reflection and self-criticism here. Time to be humble. Why should China have its historical lands Taiwan back, but Tibet should not get its historical lands back from China? I also think that if China was democratic, free, economically succesful, and not aggressivly imperialist then would the people in Hong Kong and Taiwan volunteer to join China and give up their independence. And the west could not stop that process even if it wanted to - which I don't think it would want. It wants people in Asia to be happy and free and prefer not to go to war. I also think that China could do better than to opress Uighurs and Tibet. Indeed, if China was more free and tolerant, then its perhaps even possible that the uighurs and Tibetians would prefer to be a part of China for all the advantages that gives.
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  76. 1. Not really. And no russia is lagging behind. There is no 5th genertion fighter jet in russia. Russia have no CATOBAR aircraft carrier. Nor does it have the fine precision tools for making advanced weapons, as those German, American and Japanese capital goods that can cut metal down to a fraction of a millimeter and having multiple arms that can do it simultanously according to a 3D blueprint does not exist in russia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIvhlKT7SY&t=39s Without those tools can russia not make more advanced components like for example glass for radar screens. And when you resort to plunder refridgerators for components for hundred million dollar jets, then of course will performance be sub-optimal. 2. Russia started their mobilization for war earlier and had a head start. Thats all. Saying russia have stronger industrial potential than the west is as dumb as saying nazi-Germany have stronger industrial potential than the allies because they outproduced them in 1936-1938. But it turned out that Germany had a problem with ramping up production much more... and when the political will finally came to go all in for a 100% war economy by 1943 it was already too late. The allies outproduced Germany with a wide margin. And the same will be true next year. The west will provide Ukraine with more artillery shells than russia have. And the western artillery shells will also have a much better quality. Russia can go all in into a war economy by 2025, but that will not change the tide - the free world will begin to outproduce russia with a wide margin. The wests main restraint is then political will to help Ukraine, and not production capacity. While dictator Putin lacks no will at all to fight this war, but the russian economy is weak and cannot pump out more gear to outproduce the west no matter how many workhours Putin demand by law from the russian people.
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  77. Once China have aquired skills to make the most advanced and profitable products in the world, then it no longer got any need for importing technologies from France and Germany and can kick out their producers from China and let Chinese car makers make cars for the Chinese instead and keep all jobs and profits at home instead. So I don't think this Sino-western trade will go on forever. And I don't blame China for wanting to climb up the technological ladder, who doesn't want that? Of course you wanna make as much economic profit as possible and being able to make the most advanced products in the world, so your military have the upper hand in every future war. China do have its big rivals in India, the west and Russia. China have allied itself with the hated islamist country Pakistan against India. And the friendship with Russia is a complicated one. China do want allies and leverage against the west. But on the other hand are the Chinese leadership too wise than to go to war for the sake of a weak and worthless ally - Like Germany did in 1914 when it went to out to fight a war for the weak and useless Austro-Hungarian empire. Or how Hitler got involved in North Africa because of his useless Italian allies. Russia is technologically backwards and only got a GDP the size of Italy, so its value as an ally is very limited after all. Its only real value to China is to extract resources from it and some few military technologies from it that it havn't aquired yet.
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  78. My bet is that 80% of russian nukes don't work due to corruption and bad engineering and maintence. While my guess is that 100% of American nukes works and will hit their targets unless intercepted. However when it comes to russian ability to intercept I am not that impressed. While on the other hand do the patriot missile system do offer at least some protection against russian missiles. And I would be suprised if USA did have any secret ace up its sleve either. But regardless if do or not do I think it would easily defeat russia in a war, both a conventional and an unconventional.
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  79. Seems like the only thing Mordor are good at are at letting trolls spamming how good their own country is and how much everyone else suck.
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  80.  @neolord50pro77  Well it doesn't matter. Russia have used up their missiles intended for nuclear strikes in Ukraine and have used them for carrying conventional explosives instead and sometimes not even that and just concrete. And many such missiles has been shot down. So russia have used up most of their missiles intended for a nuclear war, which tips the scale even more in wests favor.
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  81. Reminds me of a story in the Bible. Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother. “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
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  82. Personally I am not a christian. I do not believe that one needs to give everything away to the poor. I just wanna point out that the priesthood living in wealth and luxury are living a total opposite life of that Jesus told people that they should live.
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  83. I really cannot understand Putin. I get angry on him. Why didn't he cut all ties with the west earlier so the russian economy could have grown faster all those years under his rule? And why do he want the sanctions lifted now? Are he crazy? That would only result in a lower GDP growth. So its better to just let the sanctions stay.
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  84. And yet have east european truckers blocked the road to Ukraine, the Slovaks have voted in a Putin bot, Hungary got the fascist Orban who is Putins biggest friend in Europe, and Bulgaria is more upset about Ukrainian grain than helping a wartorn country in need, and Austria is mildly pro-putin, and Serbia and Turkey do have strong friendship ties with Putler. And eastern Germany votes for AfD that are a far right party that wants a remake of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and divide Eastern Europe up with russia again. So I got to say that I am a bit dissapointed of most of Eastern Europe. Latvia and Lithuania and Czechia are heroes. Poland have stained its otherwise excellent reputation by not punishing their road blockers and not throwing Hungary under the bus. They have also ordered gigantic amounts of military equipment, and nothing wrong with that. I just think a fraction of that, say 10-20% could go to Ukraine.
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  85. GDP growth must be adjusted for inflation
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  86. Bitcoins will be the new global world reserve currency one day. Its basically just like World of warcraft gold and Supermario coins.
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  87. Nazi-Germany did create much innovations. So dictatorships can be advanced. But I think dictatorships are bad places where people do not want to live under. Not even under an enlightened despot/benevolent ruler like Park Chung Hee. People want to be free and not have to live under fear for just expressing a tiny little opinion. And sure did nazi-Germany create many innovations, but they might have invented even more stuff if they had not taken the lives of all those jewish scientists, engineers, doctors, and professors. Many jews did great contribution to German society, like Fritz Haber.
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  88. It is about power and how to economic pie is divided, and it leads to winners and losers as you say. I am no expert in this field. I believe the argument behind this yearly inflation is that companies borrow money to expand production, and then production is expanded and more goods flows into the market. But the problem is that due to the law of supply and demand, will all those extra goods drive down prices. And that forces the producers to sell their products for a price lower than they had expected and that leads to lower profits that cannot repay the loans - so then you get a crisis. The other example mentioned is the Japan thing that you brought up. I have always found those arguments in favor of intervention as not very convincing. I can however see that inflation can have positive effects as it lowers the debt burden for the government, it helps ordinary people as they got more debts than personal wealth, high inflation do also create more equal societies - which one can see that Europe became a more equal society during the 1940s and 1950s when high inflation was normal to pay off the debts from World war 2. When rich people are in power of a country, they do usually not allow their debts being inflated away - and the result is a debt burden that never goes away (England still paid off their debts of the Napoleonic wars a hundred years later), government taxes are taken from the poor people (tax payers) and given to rich people (bond holders), and economic growth was sluggish compared to what it could have been. Ordinary people are the job creators and engine of growth in an economy and not the rich people. Its consumers who creates jobs. And rich people in management wants to slash as many jobs as they possibly can to increase the rate of profit instead.
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  89. One could divide up the economy into consumer goods, capital goods and military goods. Russia have always screwed over the consumers, for the sake of the other two. I know that other people don't have the same goals and priorities as me, I see that every time people vote in an election. However I think that is unhealthy and harmful to never throw a bone to the consumers and let people enjoy life. And exaggerated military spending harms the economy in the long run. Consumers needs to enjoy life. That gives them an incentive to work and to wanna live in the country. It makes people happy - and that is important as we only live a short time on this planet. And sure could one argue that investments into capital goods and long term productivity is better for creating a better life for future generations and will make life better for the country in the long run. But I do however think that we should not forget to also make life better for people who lives on this planet here and now. Taking the entire budget for healthcare and not curing patients today and instead investing all that money into research to find cures for all possible diseases in the long run might benefit endless amounts of people of the future generations. However I think that we also needs to take care of people who live here and now. Otherwise would I not wanna live in a country that sacrifice all human happiness for the greater good and for the future. I also believe that investments in infrastructure and capital goods will last forever. It will rust, get destroyed by wear and tear, and computers will become old outdated and useless after a few decades. And if there are no demand for the products produced because consumers are opressed - then there are no incentive to produce any goods as there are no buyers for them. And it doesn't matter if the government subsidise production, and minimize production costs by lowering taxes down to 0% and forcing state owned banks to give loans at 0% interest. If there are no demand for the goods, then nothing will be produced by the companies. And then no one will get employed, and no tax money from the companies will be gained. And the economy dies. Soviet leaders don't like to hear this, but maybe the people should have more consumer goods instead of trying to invest as much as possible and build weapons. Sure will people buy dumb junk for their money.. USB-toasters, devices for bleaching backholes, books about silly conspiracies, fashion, green ping pong balls and good who knows what. But if that is what makes people happy, then I think that those things have a value for human happiness.
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  90. Personally do I think Chinas ageing population will mean the downfall of its growing military and economic power
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  91. This isn't russia. No one forces you to read or watching 4 hour long boring Putin speeches. So if you don't like it then just don't watch it. I don't get why Rusbots are too dumb to understand that 🙄 My comment also have 5 thumbs up with suggest that some people saw some value in my input. And that is what matters to me. I rather go for quality than quantity of followers. I do not need the worship from vermins
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  92. Its not just that they are old, Putin lives in the past... being angry about the fall of the Soviet union and wants revenge for that. He romanticise Peter the Great and wanna be the new Peter for Russia. Indeed, Tuckers interview even suggest that he dreams back to the age of Kievan-Rus 1200 years ago. Or rather his own distorted view of russian history that makes no sense at all. He told so many lies that it would surprise me if he hadn't begun believing in his own BS.
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  93. They need to make the russian people hate Johnny foreigner so they don't get angry on Mr Cleptovich back home in Russia instead.
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  94. I do not get the impression that Russia was a society with high levels of trust from Fyodor Dostoevskys books, rather are all caracthers there immoral and criminal, and the book have a cynical and negative view on humanity. It regards humanity as flawed and that nothing could be done to improve it. And from the russian bots you read that every other country, is corrupt, and they assume that USA must be as corrupt and unequal as russia, and that the elite abuse their power, lie and start illegal wars. And their message is that two wrongs makes 1 right. So I think this mindset have a longer history than just from the time of Communism.
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  95.  @rmondave  Yep. Source: Russian governments own made up fake statistics.
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  96. They do so today
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  97. Germany have never taken Moscow. But Sweden, Poland and France have.
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  98. Bitcoin is an idiotic system with a suicide mechanism built into it. The system gets it energy from its users that are giving up CPU (computer power) to it, and in exchange do they get Bitcoins in a process known as "Bitcoin mining". Fanboys of this currency means that just like with real gold and silver you have to sacrifice energy to dig it up from the ground. All the computer power the system gets are then used to enable people from moving Bitcoin money from one Bitcoin account to another. But if people no longer do any Bitcoin mining, then will the system slow down so much that moving Bitcoin money from one place to another cannot be done fast or easily. And that will make people even less interested in being involved in Bitcoins which will kill the interest for this currency even more, and possibly even make the situation worse with fewer Bitcoin miners. And if energy prices goes up, or if the price of Bitcoins falls low... then will it simply not be worth mining any new Bitcoins. You will not make any profit from mining any new Bitcoins as energy costs are higher than any profits you make from Bitcoins. So the system is idiotic, and built to self-destruct. It is of course hilarious when people think that all inflation is caused by money printing and nothing else, and that a fixed amount of money would protect your wealth and provide price stability that will make economic calculations more predictable and thus encourage long term economi growth. Face is that Bitcoin is jumping up and down in price with enormous upswings and rapid downward crashes. Good luck having a company and try to make any long term planning with Bitcoins when the costs for buying raw materials all of a sudden can increase with 500% just like the wages for your workers. And then little more than a month later have the price of Bitcoin crashed, and you cannot get much paid for the products you sell despite you had bought them at previously high prices that was 5 times higher. So now your company is runned at a loss, and its a matter of time before it goes bankrupt. The system is totally unsubstainable. And Bitcoin do today consume more energy than all solar panels in the world produces combined. All for this useless piece of crap.
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  99. So succesful at the battlefield that no one else sees it aside from russian propagandists xD
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  100. It all dependends on the time horizon I think. Any economic prediction is useless if you do not say when a thing is going to happen. And yes a countrys economy might crash, a housing bubble might go bust... but it could take much longer time than predicted, because political interest groups can try to manipulate the system for as long as possible to prevent the russian economy from falling. For 2 years have russia been able to do just that. The question is for how much longer they can continue like this. Personally do I think this cannot go on forever.
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  101. Here is what Sweden's largest economic blog Cornucopia says (my own translation): "IMF base their numbers on the numbers that Russia themselves provide. For instance, Russia claims to have an inflation rate of 7%, while independent surveys indicate a rate of 23%. Anything else equal should Russian GDP-growth thus be reduced by 23-7=16 percent, and if those numbers are correct, then russia is in a deep recession."
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  102. Meh.. they often got brown eyes, strange looks like Peskov, and nearly all of them are around 160cm tall. Even I as a relativly short viking are like 20 centimetres taller than the average Russian dictator for the last 100 years.
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  103.  @campfireeverything  The younger version of him looklike Timon in the cartoon Lion King. Now he looklike the moon man because of all botox bloating. I have always thought that there has been something disproportional about the distance between his eyes that makes him look odd.
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  104. Swedens economy have been doing poorly for the last 30 years compared to the period 1945-1990 when it was not obsessed about this stupid idea that the national debt must be kept low and price stability is more important than unemployment and economic growth. And having gold reserves is stupid. We do no longer have any gold standard and I see no point in getting one either. It was always a bad system. And gold is also one of the most worthless metals in existence.. its weak and not good at transferring electricity. It have almost no industrial uses at all.
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  105. so far
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  106. I think good times and bad times regarding inflation and deflation is a bit like this. People who like deflation will say that food is so cheap but complain that wages are low. And people who likes inflation can remember that they bought a huge palace, and then came the inflation of the 1970s and paid it all off so one almost got it for free. But what inflation lowers often later on complain about is the higher costs for food.
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  107. they get cheap oil as long as the war lasts, and they see the west and russia use up their weapons against each other. so the situation benefits china. russia is more and more becoming the junior parter in their military pact. and russia will more and more have to bend to the will of their more powerful bigger brother
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  108. They desperatly tries to keep the inflation out from the country. They have their national wealth fund (Statens pensjonsfond Utland (SPU) that owns 1.3% of the shares of stock market companies around the world. They use their money to buy companies in other countries so not all oil money stay in Norway and push up prices on almost everything. But despite this, are things very expensive in Norway. Wages are good but prices are high. So Swedes like to travel to Norway to work, and Norwegians drive to Sweden to buy stuff because everything is so much cheaper in Sweden.
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  109.  @peter-pi8bc  I do not wanna get into politics and tell people to vote for this or that party, and I think republicans and democrats have their reasons to vote they way they do. However, I cannot ignore the utter hypocrisy of the Christian rightwing in the Republican party that made an impeachment on Bill Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky... as if this issue has anything to do with his ability to govern the country. 🙄 And don't get me wrong, I have no love for Bill Clinton. I believe that the average Republican probably likes him more than I do. And yes cheating on ones wife is a scumbag move, but I do not think this is a political issue. With that said, do I think it is utterly hypocritical that the republican party 20 years later makes all kinds of apologies for Trumps behaviour with talking points like "we have all done bad things in our past", "we all made stupid mistakes in our youth" and yada yada... And sure one could have that opinion. But then one should also grant that generousity of forgiveness to ones political opponents as well. And I do not think Trump was exactly young as a spring chicken when he made his "locker room talk" on the bus and the things he is going to court for now. A man with less power, influence and fame would certainly have been convicted by now if he had done the same acts like Trump when he violated the 14th ammendment. I realize that the courts would not dare to give him a just sentence before he loses the election, because otherwise might the entire federal government lose trust with almost half of the US electorate... which could have very serious and dangerous consequences for the future of the country, and perhaps even a civil war. This stupid circus needs to stop. I hope Biden will win next september and put the last nail in the coffin for MAGA. Trump might then be too old to ever run again for president. Tucker might have a hard time replacing him as the MAGA successor. And the other names in the party are too radical and too weak to get anywhere. Taylor Greene is even hated among fellow radical republicans.
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  110. Are destroyed weapons deflationary or inflationary? Max Keiser says it causes deflation, as valueable things are getting destroyed. While others mean that many weapons are paid for by inflation, and when the weapon gets destroyed do nothing except the newly printed money remain, and thus are higher inflation created
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  111. I think the mentality was formed of this time period. When you look at old peoples homes you always see them save up things, including total garbage. They truely embraced the 2nd hand trend so to say. They rather kept things and tried to repair them than throwing them away. And in old peoples homes you can see old ugly butter packages being repurposed after the butter is gone, and becoming used as boxes. Compare that to the current day mentality of throwing away things and buying something new. Its often cheaper to buy a new computer than repairing and old lap top that is a little bit broken. I think that says a lot. Resources was scarce during the great depression and people had to make do with what ever little they had. And even if some people did get rich and succesful later on, would their values and habits still live on long after the economic crisis was gone and economic growth was strong. Its also clear that people have their worldview stuck in the past. People who had their worldview formed in the 1950s often have an over romanticised view of free trade, the EU and an obsessive fear about inflation leading to Hitler. We who was born in the 1980s see a society without any progress like more vacation, shorter workdays, better healthcare, better pensions, full employment. But rather a failed economy without affordable housing where it is hard to form families and have kids. I think there are pros and cons with those worldviews and values. One thing I think we should however avoid is to let these biases of the elderly generations getting too much power over decision making. I think outdated beliefs are harmful. Just like using tactics that worked on the battlefields of the old days do more harm than good on a modern battlefield. The worldview must constantly be updated. Just like the military. Walking in line formations and wearing colorful uniforms and letting flutes and drums play is not very effiecent if you fight against an enemy with minefields, machine guns, barbed wire, and HIMARS artillery. Many laws of economics from the past are still valid today, just like some general principles of strategy and logistics. However the world today is not the same as in the past. And that needs to be taken into account.
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  112. I think most improvement reforms in history have taken place after disasters, and when people are angry and will not take it anymore and the working class and middle class demand for example the right to vote and universal healthcare and veterans benefits in exchange for fighting for the capitalists against USSR or Hitler. In France it was 1789 that led to the French revolution and the end of the ineffiecent parasitical feudal state. The disasterous defeat of Denmark in 1658 led to the end of the corrupt rule of the nobles, and a strong Danish state was created with a permanent tax system that could support a standing army. In the past did Denmark not have any peace time army since the nobles did not wanna pay taxes for it. And as a result did the Danish army not have any well trained regiments, and the armies were quickly put togheter in times of war against Sweden who had a well trained army with men who had trained togheter with each other for years and therefore knew each other well and would fight and die for their best friends. That team spirit did not exist in the Danish army before a new army was created that existed both in times of peace and war. Likewise did Swedens military setback against Poland at Kircholm in 1605 force drastistic military changes to how the military was organized. And the defeat against Denmark in 1613 forced Sweden to make drastic changes to its tax system and resource mobilization. And the result of these changes made Sweden the strongest military power in Europe of the 1600s, capable of conquering Moscow in 1610, defeating Denmark twice, occupying all of modern day Germany in 1630 and defeating the might Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. And the rise of corrupt nobles that put self-interest before national interest and refused to spend taxes for a strong military led to the disasterous Scanian war for Sweden in 1679. And the result became strong public anger, and the King, the people, the clergy and the mechant class united against the nobles and forced them to resign much of the wealth they had gained the last decades. And the result became good government finances and a strong military. The catastrophic defeat of Japan 1853, forced the country to make drastic changes to its society. It modernized it military according to German model, its navy according to the British model, its education system to the american model and later on German model, its banking system and legal system was modelled after Belgium and France and so on. And soon would Japan rise as a great strong economic power and a military power. So necessity seems to be a mother of innovation.
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  113. That definition of money are old outdated and useless. It is also highly impractical and harmful to economic development as an economy needs an expanding money supply. I also do not take for granted that things said have any intrinsic value of its own. In the past was dog teeths used as money, but today I highly doubt anyone would see much value in them. And things can also go the other way around. In the past was uranium just useless rocks laying on the ground, before someone invented nuclear power and uranium became useful and valuable. Today are most money just digits on a computer. And like with all else is it supply and demand that determines the price of a Dollar, Yen or a Pound. You can create trillions of US Dollars and that currency is still valuable worldwide. But if you create trillions of Zimbabwe dollars you get inflation because there are no strong global demand for such money.
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  114. The country was the home of the industrial revolution. It was skilled at new innovations like the steam engine, spinning jenny and it have produced many excellent chemists like William Henry Perkin. Also in modern times have the country been innovative creating everything from tanks, to radars, touch screen technology and the harrier jet. The countrys over-sized banking sector and free market dogma have harmed its economy a lot. But I am convinced that it will rise one day. Its just unfortunate that it have had a long series of bad governments for the last 40 years.
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  115.  @D.von.N  I think British innovation fell behind the curve during the second industrial revolution when German and American industry grew and outclassed Britain in the new growth industries such as electro-mechanics, chemicals, combustion engines (cars etc), petroleum, and steel. Britain got outcompeted. And its free trade dogma prevented it from protecting its own industry from foreign competition like the Germans and Americans had done, so its industry got crushed in foreign competition after the 1860's. But Britain itself never fell into ruins because it had two other large sources of income: Banking and the merchant marine. The majority of all goods in the world was transported on British ships and Britain got an income for that from other countries. And British banks did give out loans to other countries, like Latin America to build railroads and the interest from all those loans flowed into Britain and helped to keep Britains economy afloat while its industry was doing so poorly. The overseas income from loans from colonies and dominions was of course also important. However the unwillingness to deal with Britains weak industrial performance did become harmful to Britain in the long run. I also don't think exploitation made Britain rich. Rather was it the early adoption of thought-through industrial policy that made Britain the workshop of the world. Edward III (1327-1377) is believed to have been the first king who deliberately tried to develop local wool cloth manufacturing. He banned the imports of foreign wool clothes and encouraged home based production of such clothes. The Netherlands was a world leader in this industry at that time - it was an industry considered the ultimate high tech industry of its time, so the Netherlands was considered the Silicon Valley of that time period. However the British wool industry was protected from being outcompeted and destroyed by foreign competition thanks to the protective tariffs. So the British wool industry could grow larger, and more effiecent. And later on would it become strong enough to outcompete and destroy competitors from the Netherlands, and Britain become the high tech economy of the world.
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  116. Jeffrey Sachs = Financial terrorists. He gave Bolivia fascism, and later on went on giving eastern Europe the shock doctrine with catastrophic results for the people there and for the economy. Richard D. Wolff = Marxist clown. Michael Hudson = Conspiracy theory guy that supports Putins war of aggression against Ukraine. So I consider him as bribed and dishonest. He could have been an excellent economist, but he did instead sell his soul to satan. And now he pushes for conspiracy theories instead and he defend idiotic ideas like universal basic income.
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  117. Youtube is censoring comments, and not Econlessons. Its brainless sensor usally deletes your entire comment if you use the wrong word, or if you say some sentence that it perceives as offensive towards some protected group (ie russians). But pro-russian trolls are of course free to write what the hell they like on this platform. Hypocrisy at its finest.
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  118. Yes, their mentality reminds me of the aggressive imperialism mentality that was so common in the late 1800s. Its the same concepts and ideas there. A country's measure of success is only through the might of its military. Womens main duty is as mothers and baby making machines to provide the state with future soldiers and educate the kids. Other races are seen as inferior. Historical lands needs to be retaken. Its just social darwinism as Herbert Spencer did view it, and racists like Gobineau would approve it.Russia have tried to destroy many cultures by killing people, forcefully resettle them to Siberia and scatter them all over russia while russian settlers comes to Ukraine, Estonia and Königsberg to replace the native population. Just like russia do today in Mariupol and Crimea. Children are indoctrinated in a young age, and put in uniform even as small kids. And the biggest holiday in Russia is may 9th - the day of a boring military parade. Its not even a day of flowers, tears, remembrance of all fallen who gave their lives for the motherland... but instead is this military parade only about showing power and prestige to the russian people and the world for the benifit of the ruling party and nothing else.
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  119. Power and prestige seems important to the ruling class. But if a good life for the people living in your land is more important than this dick measuring contest.. then trade and cooperation is a better way to go. Japan have done extremely well through trade and cooperation. Better than they ever did trying to be an imperial power that tried to get resources through warfare and conquest.
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  120. Why hate a country that commits genocide and wars of aggression and have installed one opressive dictatorship around the world after another?
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  121. They were reversing climate change
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  122.  @merchz2  One could argue that it was an improvement to introduce an "eye for an eye" with the introduction of islam to the middle east. That put an end to the blood feuds that you talk about, since a person was now not allowed to take away more than an eye from a person who had hurt him. Only at a later stage did people deescalate even more. However not taking any revenge at all is dangerous and stupid. Scandinavian justice system is a joke. The Breivik case shows this when a mass murderer can win against the Norwegian state in a court case, when he claims that his human rights have been violated when he does not have access to the latest most modern video games in his cell and can eat pizza every day. He now lives in a large cell with more luxuries than the average retired pensioner in Norway. I see this as a spit in the face of his victims, as the message from the Norwegian government is that their lives are less worth than that of a criminal. The second message that this gives out is that there are no severe punishments, so you do not have to fear much if you commit any severe crimes in the future. So I think that punishment still is much necessary in modern day society.
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  123.  @johnupjohn  Seems like the tough pro-russians are some of the most easily offended ppl on the planet. And cry and gets heartbroken over nothing. Maybe thats the reason FSB people arre spamming on forums instead of fighting in the frontline like real men.
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  124. Freedom and self-determination is the most important thing. Silly imperalist games is a mindset that should belong to the 1500s and 1600s. It only brings about deaths and pointless wars. Russia should focus on their own land instead of trying to steal others land and spend money to subvert democracy in other countries and make hostile take overs by bribing foreign politicians. If russia do not like that happen to themselves, then they should stay out from other countries internal affairs. Russia already got the biggest landmass on the planet. And if global warming is true, and the rest of the world turns into desert, then will russia have more lands available in Siberia when the snow is gone. Russia have great oppurtunities. It just have to focus inwards instead of playing silly imperialist games. And frankly, with such a tiny economy and technological backwardness is it impossible for russia to play the game of big politics in the long run. If a country cannot build stealth fighters and is too poor to build CATOBAR aircraft carriers then it cannot play the role as a world power. Russia is trying to play poker with a pair of fives at their hand. And a tiny wallet of a few ten thousand dollar notes does not take you far when USA and China got millions. And then are many other players far stronger than russia.. like Japan that is much richer and more technologically advanced, or India with nukes, a huge army, a large economy and endless manpower reserves. And EU with its much larger economy, technological advantage and larger population.
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  125. Russia will never become an east-asian miracle economy, and especially not in times of war. And all ridiculous talk about BRICS being their ally (which they are not) are they still a minority of the world economy while west still controls 60% of it. And some countries that are not western or BRICS do also control some portions of the world economy as well. Regardless I think the russian government is not dumb enough to believe its own silly propaganda that is created to appeal to simpletons. Their goal is wage a succesful war economy. And I do not think that will succeed as they run low on good microchips and foreign currency reserves that will allow them to buy stuff from other countries. They are already rather bring back old garbage tanks like T-62 to life rather than building modern T-90 tanks. And I think that says a lot about russias lack of manufacturing capabilities. And when russia lose as much manpower in the last 5 days as they lost in 10 years of war in Afghanistan, then I think they are burning through Soviet stockpiles at such a fast rate that manufacturing cannot keep up and replace all losses of equipment. There are of course stuff the west needs to do to harm russia even more. We should put pressure on Turkey so they stop providing 70% of russias nitrocellulose they need for explosives. Before the war did Turkey only make up 1% of that export to Russia. And China should be aware of that any aid to russia will be punished very hard with sanctions from Europe. If things continue on the current path do things not look good for russia. By 2025 will west outproduce russia in artillery shells. And in better quality of artillery. From that moment onwards will Ukraine be able compensate a lack of manpower with superior fire power. And that advantage will only grew more and more. And that will mean lower Ukrainian losses and higher russian losses. And Ukraine could start trading artillery shells for land and take back its territory.
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  126.  @dragodragic4180  Indeed, and starting with the Great depression was a great asset for Hitler. That made the German people less picky about their own standards of living and was happy to get any kind of job. And Hitler gave people jobs and wasted Germanys money on military spending. Normally would people have protested, because they would not liked seeing taxes go up to pay for a larger military and see other government services shrink. But now did the economy recover from the great depression and all money made in the recovery flowed into the military instead of into peoples standard of living improvements.
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  127. There are evil people who were vegetarians like Hitler. And there were evil people who were meat eaters like Pol Pot. Some of histories worst mass murderers were Muslims and Christians, while others were atheists. For some of them did religion play a big role in their motivation for killing people, while in other cases had their religion nothing to do with their deeds. In Putins case, it seems like he is just a soulless person. He cares about himself, and his ideology seems to be russian imperalism and supremacism. He wants a life in endless luxury and expanding the russian empire and he is prepared to walk over millions of dead bodies to get reach his goal. He knows that what he is doing is wrong but do it anyways. This war was always totally avoidable. Just like his other wars. Before the invasion 2022 he even manufactured hitlists for Ukrainians he wanted arrested and murdered. Ukrainian patriots and people in leadership position that had the potential to lead a rebellion against the new russian opressive russian rule was to be murdered the same way as the nazis murdered people in Poland as they hoped to destroy Polish culture and national identity. Professors, teachers, Officers, priests and even boy scouts were killed by the nazis in their 'Intelligenzaktion' and Putin have copied this recipy. Putin was even so disgusting that he provided his invasion army with crematorium trucks - another idea borrowed from the nazis I guess - so that he could burn all people wanted to kill into ashes. And without any dead bodies in mass graves would there not be any evidence left that could help to prove that Putin was commiting a genocide. Putins regime has even sunk so low that they built torture chambers for children in Khersun. And stealing Ukrainian children and murdering their parents is another idea he borrowed from the nazis. Just like all nazi talking points to justify his invasion with "retaking russian historical lands" and "protecting the opressed russian minority inside Ukraine/Georgia". Truth is that he does not care one bit about the russian speakers in Ukraine. Its not just Ukrainian speaking cities he have destroyed, but he has also destroyed the russian speaking city Mariupol and killing 200.000 civilians in the process. And he have done daily missile attacks against other russian speaking towns like Odesa, Charkiv, Dnipro, and Zaporizjzja. To me Putin just seem like a childish nazi wannabe ruling a mafia gang.
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  128. Nope. Youtube blocks comments. I cannot even post "hateful comments" on my own channel without youtube deleting them for me without my permission. And russian trolls have a defealt setting to delete my comments when I respond to them.
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  129. Hyperinflation happens to countries at war and socialist regimes. It doesn't happen to modern industrialized manufacturing super powers. Russia is a 3rd world country while USA isn't. USA can print billions of dollars and foreigners worldwide happily take that money and save it in their bank accounts. But there are not much demand for rubles. People rather trade that money away for something else instead. Worldwide demand for it is weak. So due to the law of supply and demand do I consider the russian currency much weaker as there are no demand that can suck up any extra money printed, and that means that there will be inflation. "Too much money chases too few goods" is another explanation of what the word inflation means... and given russias weak manufacturing sector is there no way it can counter more money printing by spitting out more goods like manufacturing economies of the west. All russia can make money off is from selling raw materials like oil, natural gas, and coal
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  130. His murder of Prigozhin shows how much his word is worth. How much his friendship is worth. How much his words of forgiveness is worth. He is just behaving like an old Machiavellian renaissance King with no moral laws. Like how Christian II of Denmark acted at Stockholms bloodbath or how Hitler treated his former friend Ernst Röhm.
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  131. He went to a French grocery store chain in Russia. And because it had shopping cart escalators there, is russia justified in invading their neighbouring country says Tucker Carlson. By that logic are Australia justified in invading New Zealand. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tvrxyoscst4?feature=share
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  132. He was using PPP as a measurement. Which is of course an incredibly silly way of measuring and comparing things. Its like when the Swedish government skipped measuring unemoployment in percentage points like the rest of the world, and began calculating it in absolute numbers instead and ignored population growth. So I guess that Nigeria with this method then must be the most succesful economy in the world as they create hundreds of thousands of new jobs each year... (and the rapid population growth in Nigeria is something that we should of course ignore)
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  133.  @kobbetop  Of course. But since when have Putin ever cared about the truth? He said stupid stuff that are probably intended for consumption by the people home in russia that will not fact check his statements.
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  134. We are not talking about value, we are talking about price. A bucket of coal is valuable regardless if you paid 5 dollars or 15 dollars for it. That coal is equally useable for barbeque regardless how much you paid for it. And that is its value. While the number of money you paid for it is the price. Fiat money itself got no value, it only got a price - and that price is how much other people is willing to pay for it.
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  135. I guess he with "populism" means the illiberal democracy parties such as Fidesz of Victor Orban in Hungary. I would lump togheter it with pro-russian rightwingers like MAGA in USA, AfD in Germany, Le Pen in France, and Nigel Farage in UK. No term or label is completly perfect. And context usually matters. I do not mind populism itself (which should not be confused with Orban, AfD and such scum). Indeed not helping Ukraine is in fact an unpopular minority idea. Most Americans, Germans, French and Brits supports Ukraine.
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  136. I believe he is hoping for a miracle. A miracle of the house of Brandenburg event. Like Trump becoming president or something. However throwing away russian manpower and material day after day in the waiting for that day does not make any sense. If he is too afraid to apologize, surrender and leave Ukraine... then I say its the right thing. Its what God wants (if he exist), its what is best for Putin, it is what is best for Russia, and it is what is best for the world. Its a decision that takes courage. The consequences might be dire. But the consequences of not doing it will only make things worse for Russia. And Putins time in hell will undoubtably be longer.
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  137. I think a problem with Spains Latin American empire was that it was exploitative. Native americans was enslaved. Many died from diseases, and some died from harsh treatment and in violent uprisings. So many died that Spain felt it was better to transition towards a semi-slavery/semi-paid labor workforce. So the native Americans took a forced labor job for spain and got underpaid, over-taxed, over-charged for the food and other stuff they were forced to buy from their slave masters, and the Spainish crown and the local rulers got very rich, while the native americans became very poor. Society became unequal, and this prevented the rise of a mass consumer economy and therefore could no mass production economy rise either when people were too poor to buy good that were produced. And when England began to rule the waves it became difficult for Spain to rely on their old economic model of selling things to Asia and maintain division of labor. And when the silver mines ran out of silver, then did the economic engine that kept all other industries alive also die out. And places like Mexico deindustrialized. So sucking the value out as much as possible and letting the rich benefit at the expense of the many is a recipy for economic stagnation. However economic resources can be a big help to make countries rich - USA and Sweden shows that. But thankfully can also countries witout much natural resources also become rich thanks to innovation and manufacturing - like Japan, Prussia, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea. Countries that are cold can become rich like Scandinavia and Canada. Countries that are hot tropical climate can also become rich like Singapore. Landlocked countries like Switzerland and Austria have also became rich. So I think that geological determinism belongs to a time of the past.
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  138. Putin is standing inside a spaceship outside planet earth, and then he opens his mouth: Satan, I request the permission to re-enter earth.
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