Comments by "joe k" (@joek600) on "Real Reporter" channel.

  1. Im Greek. I wanted to do a comparison of prices between your supermarkets (a country in war and under sanctions) with mine (a country in the Eurozone and a member of the different versions of EU since 1980). I understand that your supermarket was a rather posh one, so I will compare with one of our normal local chains, not discount supermarkets like Lidl etc. I wish you could be more detailed in your shopping list at the end, referencing weights and possibly the status of each brand in the market (cheap, regular, expensive, crazy expensive). I tried to do my best to match your list, where it was not possible i noted the alternative product or quantity available here. Ι used regular brands not private label ones. Fresh Milk 1lt = 1.71 eggs (six regular) = 1.86 Lentils 500gr = 1,63 (Backwheat is kinda exotic here so I replaced it with something as common in the Greek market. FYI 500gr of Backwheat is 2.46) Minced chicken 1k =6.90 Cheese (feta) 450gr= 6.00 Coca Cola 1.5lt= 1.77 Yogurt (3x cups of 200gr)= 3,72 Butter 250gr= 3,18 Tomatoes 1k= 1,60 cucumbers 1k= 0,64 Apples 1k = 2.00 Potatoes 1k = 0,88 Bread (one loaf)= 1.20 Chocolate bar 100gr = 1,58 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Up to this point we are at 34,67 euros. Lets add your fancy smansy ice cream and pelmeni -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ice Cream 650gr = 13,34 Ravioli 250 gr = 4,55 (Pelmeni do not exist in Greece and Im quite sure that your packs are much much bigger, so I replaced them with ravioli) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grand total = 52,56 euros Im curious to see the total in other EU countries.
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  2. I just accidentally stumbled on this video and I have to say that you did a great job. This video encapsulates my feelings about this conflict and the people involved. Life is fucking complicated. Somebody can seem like a gun nut, but he also can be a good friend and a thoughtful person. Im Greek, 20 years ago, when I was 24, from a strange stroke of fate I found myself in a serious relation with a girl from a town of Lugansk. For 2 years I was going back and forth there staying for long periods, and made myself the local exotic curiosity lol. Im still in touch with my ex, especially after the start of the war, getting news of our friends there. For our ''western media'' these people do not exist. 3 days ago a building 200m down the road of my ex's house got bombed by a HIMARS. 3 floors damaged and probably more than 20 people dead. I say probably because many were dismembered. Not a military target in the area, just residents. But still these people dont count and they are referred to as crazy Russian nationalists, on Putin's payroll, ''separatist terrorists'', all of them. All Putin's agents under mind control hating our ''western values''. Funny because I clearly remember most of them being metalheads, into fantasy/scifi literature, watching Hollywood movies, following to the best of their ability the fashionable trends, wanting the same things any young person wants everywhere. There was not one ounce of nationalism in them and in fact when i was asking them if they are Russians (everybody spoke Russian everywhere) I was always corrected by saying ''we are Russian speaking Ukrainians''. Many of them were extremely apolitical, thinking that anyway everyone is a thief so there is no reason to even go and vote. Actually my ex was making fun of me being political back then. Now if you call them Ukrainians, they will break your head and they are all VERY political. No reporter ever got in the trouble to ask ''what happened?'' and ''why''. What turned them against their former state. Is Russia paying so well that average people, with families are willing to endure being bombarded, sniped and constantly on the brink of personal tragedy for the last 8 years? How many silver coins (according to the Ukrainian state) are enough for a family to stay in such an environment ''for the love of Putin''? Are they really Orcs and robots without feelings as they are presented? Or is there much more to the story?
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  3.  @RealReporter  I didnt expect such a fast response, thanks man! Your work really makes a difference, I want you to know that. If I can be of any use, providing info. I would be happy to help, although Im not sure if I would go on camera. Im kinda of a double special case. Being Greek with all the financial complexities of the last 15 years that go along with it and having spent time in Eastern Ukraine (in a small Lugansk oblast town) due to a romantic relation in the ealy 00's. In fact Im still in regular contact with my ex and every time she is bombarded by the Kiev government, Im trying to cheer her up by sending links with our super market prices and receipts from the gas station lol.
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  4.  @sduchnowski  First of all you have to understand that I’m not some kind of therapist for your anti-Russian butthurt. Ok the Soviets ate your grand father’s lunch 100 years ago. I personally give zero Fs about your grudge and in turn you give zero Fs about mine against Turkey. I’m more interested in what’s going on today and how it’s affecting my life. I will try once again and maybe this time you will manage to get it in your thick skull. The average salary which yes is commonly used as a metric is nothing but an illusion the same way that growth statistics are. But the real people, not the numbers live in a completely different reality. The average income combines all the income of the citizens, divide by their number and produces a number that has absolutely no relation to the reality. On top of that Income by itself is not an indicator of living standards if you do not calculate the general cost of living. How much is the cost of housing, utilities, rents, fuel etc. You can have an income of 5000 and pay 4500 for essential living costs, where does that leave you? There are major financial discrepancies even between the EU countries. The initial goal was that through investments and financial support EU will reach a point where those differences would be almost eradicated. Then neo-liberals happened, and decided to extend EU including countries that were not ready at least for the next 30 years, only to be a cheap labor force and cheap (mostly sex) tourism destinations plus low tax havens for businesses. That doesn’t change the fact that living standards are relative and that the most important thing is the essential every day needs. Do you buy cars or electronic appliances every day? No. Do you buy groceries, fuel and pay utilities? Yes.
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  5.  @sduchnowski  I didn’t compare prices between Russia and UK my razor sharp minded friend. I directly compared Greek market prices with the Russian ones. Actually I called for people to add their local prices, maybe you should move your lazy butt abit and do it, it only takes a few minutes. I will say again that there is no such thing as an average salary. This is a statistical illusion. Adding together the income of the upper and upper middle class and that of the working class provides an average of absolutely no practical use. By that standards the average in Greece is 2500 euros. Yeah good luck getting that kind of money buddy, not as a lower end worker but even as a skilled experienced employee. The true average, meaning the money that the majority of the people receive and it’s most likely for you to get if you seek a job ranges from 800 to 1200 euros. The fact that a shipowner like Latsis has billions and can spend hundreds of thousands in every supermarket trip, doesn’t change that the AVERAGE citizen counts his money three times before getting to the cashier. And as I said before it’s all about buying power. People can accept not being able to buy posh brands or things if their basic needs are met.
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  6. The ''cocky lawyer'' returned even more cocky, but now he can sue you AND shoot you, not necessarily in that order lol. Great interview, I wish Andrey best of luck and I also wish for a way to end this war.
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  7.  @sduchnowski  The comparison still stands regardless, if you keep in mind that there are huge wage discrepancies between the EU countries. And I’m not even including the third gear ones that should not be in the EU at all, but were included prematurely for pure political reasons and the expansion mainly of the German market. The 2008 financial crisis only increased those gaps. You must not look only at the ‘’average’’ salary, btw all those average salaries stated on the internet are just a big statistical illusion that create a false image. What’s important is the buying power and especially in essential goods and services.
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  8.  @Психолог_АлександрСосновцев  He simply doesnt want to understand, obviously because of anti-Russian obsession, that actual living standards and buying power are relative. He should be able to get it, since he is probably Polish LARPing british. For example Im renting a 120 square meters appartment that I own to a family, for 400 euro per month. This is the average price where I live in a suburb of Piraeus. The school is one block away, the open market every Monday one street away. The central street with all the shops 3 blocks away. This appartment in Germany in a suburb of a big city would probably cost a couple of thousands to rent.
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  9.  @joerosa170  Well... the situation is alot more complex than that
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  10.  @Kinotaurus  Thank you! I know that there is a large Greek community over there, many people, even in Greece, have forgotten that there is a continuous presence of Greeks in the area from the time of the Black Sea coast colonization with several Polis -states back in the 7th century BC, all the way to Byzantium and later to the orthodox communities set up by Catherine the Great. If our government had any semblance of courage and dignity, the least they could do, would be to break a deal with both sides during the siege of Mariupol, have a few days of cease fire, send over the fleet and evacuate the people who were trapped in there. During the war in Georgia back in the 90's they did that and many people were saved. During the start of the siege the TV networks here sometimes had a link with Greeks living in Mariupol. Every time they mentioned something contradicting the EU narrative the news casters were going in full scramble mode. Most of those videos are gone from youtube, but I managed to find one that I watched as it happened and curiously was not erased. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHfAcIPyhGk&t=72s The man is a retired officer of the Greek army living with his Ukrainian wife and their family in Mariupol. At some point when he is asked why dont they leave the city, he said that they cant because Azov snipers are shooting everybody trying to get out and emphasizes that they are fascists and the cause of everything going on there. The news presenters quickly tried (unsuccessfully) to change the subject.
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  11.  @crabluva  You must be a genius. I surrender you found me out. I don’t live in Piraeus worrying every day that a person I truly loved might be dead in the next missile strike, and I can’t even show it because I don’t want to impose on an already tensed psychological situation. It must be really hard to deduct that if a town 50 km from Donetsk cannot be reached with the Soviet rockets Ukraine used, but suddenly is regularly bombarded after the delivery of HIMARS which have a longer range. It must be a Russian troll farm lie OR THE FACT THAT WE DISCOVERED LOGICAL DEDUCTION WHEN YOU WERE STILL ON TREES. You just made me channel the Gus Portokalos hidden within each Greek.
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  12. Im not Russian, you have a point about the provocative gestures with Z and such but my dude Lithuania has done everything possible to escalate this situation. They started the whole train line issue based on completely BS arguments about the EU sanctions, aggressive rhetoric, provocations, invitations for NATO intervention etc. My dude Im saying that with all my sympathy, I have nothing against you, but you are a country mentioned only during Eurovision, you entered EU only because Germany wanted to expand its market when you (and many other eastern european countries, dont take it personally) did not have the economy or living standards justifying a smooth transition. Do you really think that if the shit hits the fan after all your barking, any of us would run to fight your war?
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  13.  @antzacalie  It wasn’t always like that. I’m part of the generation that grew up having everything and slowly watched the world crumbling around us. Everything points back to the time when Greece entered the eurozone. What was presented as a blessing was really our undone. The first wave of price increases came in 98 when drachma was devalued in order to lock the relation with euro. I remember as an art school student the illustration Pantone markers I was using, cost 800 drachmas on Friday and 1300 on Monday. But people quickly got over that because the private sector and personal debt was extremely low. Then in 2001 came the Euro. During the transition let’s say that many prices were ‘’lost in the translation’’. That could be solved if the then government did not allow for the annual price rising to happen, as it already happened with the pretext of the euro transition. They did nothing and the annual price increase launched the prices of all the essentials. From the time the drachma and euro exchange rate was locked, the banks started issuing business and personal loans like there is no tomorrow. They would literally call you and ask if you want 3000 euros loan for vacations or shopping. That caught people completely off guard. You see in Greece up to the late 90’s credit cards and bank loans were almost unknown words. Up to my 20’s I never knew somebody who had a mortgage. Because drachma was a soft currency and the banks were extremely reluctant to issue any kind of loan except if you had concrete evidence that you will be able to repay them. That resulted into an extremely affordable housing market compared to the average western country. And the majority of the people had at least some emergency savings in the bank. Actually it was considered extremely shameful to owe money even to a bank. It was seen as a sign that you mismanaged your finances. Buying home appliances or a car on payments was something that you didn’t want the neighborhood to know. All that were turned on their head and especially during the time of the Athens Olympic Games the illusion that money are falling from the sky was everywhere. When it was my generations time to get married and find a home there was a huge housing bubble that drove the prices like 5x times upwards. Our parents managed to BUILD houses on real estate they owned only with their salaries and some tight financial management for a few years. We realized that unless you get in line and get a huge mortgage for the next 40 years it was virtually impossible to get an apartment in a building complex. All that was brewing when the financial crisis and the punitive treatment we received in order to scare Italy, that was about to bust, came like a wrecking ball. The real average salary in Greece, not the statistical BS, is about 1000 euros now. When I got my first job as a graphic designer back in 2002, my first salary was 1050 euros. I think that’s enough to give you the picture of what happened here.
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  14.  @Thor.Jorgensen  were you crying when typing that?
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  15.  @avlasting3507  Who is the ‘’we” exactly?
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  16.  @samztang953  Turkey a member of NATO occupied Cyprus. Nobody did anything about it for 50 years.
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  17. This was a very interesting video, especially since Im Greek Orthodox. From the little I read on the subject, the Russians took Orthodoxy to 11, inventing more and more austere rules to the point of verging on heresy. So the Patriarch of Constantinople had to call the Russian church to get back in line. For example crossing yourself with two fingers was never a thing in the original church and its something reserved only for the iconography as a gesture of blessing by a saint or Christ. Speaking about Jesus btw, in Greek its IHΣΟΥΣ (in the middle ages it would be written as ΙΗCOYC) so again the ''old believers'' are quite neoteristic by shortening the name by one letter. I suppose that their custom of eating raw fish can be related to the IXΘΥΣ (fish) acronym (IHΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΣ ΣΩΤΗΡ =Jesus Christ God's Son Saviour). This phrase was related to the persecuted christians who used it as a code, many times just drawing a very simple shape of fish. I guess they see themselves as persecuted but maybe miss what the acronym really means? Im using capital Greek letters cause they are easier for non Greeks to understand them btw. Im really interested to know how the Soviet state interacted with these self exiled people. Were they left alone, or was there an effort to ''civilize'' them?I would also like to know whats their relation to the modern Russian state. They seem to live completely autonomous, without expecting from the state to provide any kind of infrastructure. Does that make them living outside the traditional social contract between a state and its citizens? Do they still have all the obligations of a ''normal'' Russian citizen?
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  18.  @aceyage  You do realize that kindergarten analogies doesn't work in a real geopolitical scenario, don't you? You cant be so naive.
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  19.  @jimmiekarlsson4458  even the latest variants do not have protection for modern drone warfare, stop embarrassing yourself and at the same time admitting that you set up those poor Ukrainians to lose.
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  20.  @mitchrodee giving sophisticated weapons to people who were trained only according to some papers, and hype building media reports, and then kicking them out of the door towards a conflict that is probably the most gruesome since WWII, is like sending them to their deaths. There are rumors that some of the crews of those weapons sabotaged them by themselves because they knew that they were a primary target. Probably the Russian propaganda blows up this out of proportion but I don’t find it hard to believe that a crew of a Leopard 2 A6 would prefer to fake malfunction, than waiting to be roasted alive in a machine they can barely operate.
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  21.  @jipex911 and they eat babies too, seriously get stuffed already
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  22.  @avotia  I remember that literally over one week the koulouri (pretzels for the non Greeks) you would buy on the street for 50 drachmas, turned to 50 cents. 50 cents of the euro were 170 drachmas. I remember the ministers playing puppet theatre ‘’patroling’’ the open markets to show for the cameras that they are fighting back against price increases by the ‘’evil’’ middlemen. I also remember that my parents bought in 1997 a plot of land about 700 square meters in a sea side area close to Korinth. I’m not talking about some god forsaken village, but a location IN the city plan with the beach at less than 100 meters away. It cost them 7 million drachmas. That’s 20.500 euros. They built a house of 320 square meters triple floor maisonette without any loan, just savings from my father’s pay checks. It took about 10 years to complete, while living a measured but normal life as a family, the total cost was about 60k excluding personal work that saved around 10k. Right next to us there was another plot with the same size for sale. The guy who bought it took a loan and payed in 2008 120000 euros. Just for the plot of land. Our house today even with the current lower prices would sell for over 400000 euros. That should indicate the tremendous changes in the prices of real estate after our entrance in the eurozone.
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  23.  @RealReporter  Always stand by an old friend! Cheers!
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  24.  @uristZ  Lets hear the opinion of your squad mates! Lol. I’m sure they will be roasting you lol. Best wishes from Greece and know that even if our government is in a stranglehold, and the media are singing in tune like a choir, the people are very much aware of what is going on in this war.
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  25. Russia has a mandatory military service. My country is one of the very few proper EU countries that still have. I used to be an engineers corp sgt.
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  26.  @kobi_pw  Personally I absolutely hate feta cheese lol. But it’s a DOP product meaning that only if it is produced in Greece it can be called ‘’Feta’’ (btw feta means ‘’slice’’) in the same way that Cognac is a trademarked product and you can’t call just any Brandy, Cognac. So if it is a feta type white cheese as in this case ok but if it’s actually Feta then that means that it comes from Greece directly or indirectly. That’s why I was curious about the price difference. I was joking with some friends in Lugansk that I could send them olive oil from my fields in exchange for gasoline lol
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  27.  @bradleyheights5905  ''as the rest of the EU increases its military budgets'' that was funny
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  28. My grandma used to say, ''when the bulls fight in the swamp, the frogs are the ones paying the price''
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  29.  @comeforaride  Thats like staging a house burglary in the process of which I beat my brother and break my windows, just to test the reflexes of the local police station
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  30. Nobody has free press mate, the only difference is that the Russians know that they dont while many of us in EU have not realized it yet.
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  31. What did you do with your Martin Luther King?
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  32.  @steamedham5412  yes he had all the time in the world sitting in his little basement and memorizing computer game stats
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  33.  @stefthorman8548  Its seems that you have a comprehension problem. I answered to the ''bro he literally served in the army what did you do?''. In US you might be thinking that anyone enlisting is ''special'' in countries with mandatory service everybody serves, so saying that once in a blue moon you were in the army means nothing unless you held very particular posts. Now I dont know how exactly Ryan gets a ''Mr Know it all'' status by serving as very heavy infantry 20 years ago.
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  34. a walking sand bag maybe
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  35. the dead pilots are not laughing though
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  36.  @jimmiekarlsson4458  that’s how all those tanks are knocked out, if you expect tank duels go back to playing WoT. Drones and mines and no tank can do anything about these right now.
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  37. ⁠ @antoniochalking the opinion about the jets is very valid. One of my mates is actually a HAF technical officer with specialty into detecting micro cracks on F-16, Rafale and Mirage 2000 airframes in service of the Greek Airforce. Possibly the only European airforce that takes its equipment to its limits. The F-16s that are destined for Ukraine are very old ones and basically they passed their service life if we consider the safety of the pilots a priority. Yes they fly, only because their initial use was against seagulls and not actual opponents that are actually trying to kill you or maneuver you to the point of causing an accident. But expect a lot of failures. That’s how the cookie crumbles. I urge you to ask a technical officer and get real answers.
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  38.  @WangAiHua  Oh you want a comment? Here is one. First time I visited Ukraine in 2002 I had to ask people to speak Ukrainian just to hear how they sound, cause everybody was speaking Russian.
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  39.  @marcodelguerra  Actually I’m Greek
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  40. In a sane world, one should dismiss completely types like Ryan and move on. But we don't live in a sane world and that greasy meatball was all out for a character assassination, so a reply was obligatory. In my country we have an expression ''you slayed him with a cotton swab''. It refers to a situation when a low intelligence rude boor is put into his place, with elegance, and why not sarcastic humor. Being a narcissist is toxic and negative by definition. Being a narcissist while you don't have the looks, brains, education or charisma, is tragic. Ryan is a tragic figure, and one can even sense his jealousy of Konstantin, when he refers to his qualities even as a jump point for straight sycophancy. Ryan is one of those extremely pedantic individuals, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel if that could provide them with a ''win'' cause they desperately need one. Expect him to come back again and again, cause that type never knows when to stop. I would not be surprised if he was on the payroll of one of those NGOs that run influencers online. Thats not a badge of honor or testament to his quality since these agencies now days will take in anyone.
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  41.  @Diaboli29A  Is that how he was assassinated? By too much appreciation?
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  42.  @avotia  Πλέον είναι οικονομικά αδύνατον όχι μόνο να μεθύσεις σε μαγαζί έξω, αλλά ούτε σπίτι σου με φίλους. Αν το σκεφτείς ένα Τζάκ από σουπερμάρκετ κοστίζει όσο το βασικό μεροκάματο ενός υπαλλήλου γραφείου.
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  43.  @avotia  Μας έχουν φάει την ζωή κανονικά. Ήμουν 29 όταν ξεκίνησε το πανηγύρι το 2008, τώρα είμαι 44 και ακόμη δεν υπάρχει φως. Χάσαμε τα πιο δημιουργικά μας χρόνια σε μια διαρκή κατάσταση ανάγκης κάθε φορά για καινούριο λόγο. Οι βορειοευρωπαιοι πρώτη φορά τώρα ζορίστηκαν και είναι ακόμα στην φάση ‘’νταξει μωρέ θα περασει’’ όπως κι εμείς στην αρχή. Αν δεν βγει κόσμος στον δρόμο αυτή η ιστορία θα κρατήσει μέχρι τα 60 μας.
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  44.  @MrBoxxer95  the 832 is before taxes and healthcare/insurance deductions. Now do you want to compare utility costs?
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  45. yeah crazy, I mean what he did wrong he only continued a civil war, trashed every agreement and was signing bogus petitions for EU membership on the same day that Ukrainian and Russian diplomats were met in order to compromise (at that point there were very few casualties and literally 3 bombed buildings in Kiev, most probably by the Ukrainian air-defence, that all the networks were showing again and again).
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  46. He has a whole video explaining that. And that’s exactly what makes the ‘’exposure’’ video of that greasy meatball, an attempt at character assassination. A half baked attempt or maybe half flipped…
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  47. Not one of the people who disagreed completely with the war, properly elaborated. In fact the reporter makes an effort every time to make them say more but they won’t. You can blame the Russian government for making them fear to openly express themselves publicly, but how can you blame the reporter? Unlike 1402 they don’t edit the material down, or make provocative snapshots with comic elements, in order to make the people with the ‘’wrong’’ opinion look foolish. Or find somebody who clearly has not the education and ability to express himself and then making him the main act.
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  48.  @steamedham5412  army service is mandatory in my country I’m an engineers corps sgt in reserve. And on top of that I didn’t end up like a greasy meatball lol
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  49.  @zhl5806 lol dude
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  50.  @eskualranjov241  I dont think that the Cam-girl Land is West mate
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