The All Things Political Topic - Those who do not move, do not notice their chains

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

I got a bit of a chuckle of UK sending their NLAWs (in-laws ? :P) to Ukraine.  Wonder if they'll find their way to third parties.

Some of the Javelins the US sent ended up in Russia. Ukraine supplied North Korea with rocket engines too- though there have been extensive efforts to cover that up, including labeling them, ludicrously, as 'soviet' to imply Russia sent them and despite the USSR not existing for decades before they were sold.

The NLAWs are old and expiring, and much like all the TOWs that made their way to the moderate head choppers in Syria they'd cost more money to dispose of than to transfer and make someone else's problem. People might care if John Smith of the British Army gets blown up by malfunctioning kit, they won't care if Ivan Smithovich or Henna bin Muhammed do.

Gotta say, I find the messaging around Ukraine absolutely hilarious because it's so very very muddled. Can't take land by force- except the Golan Heights, Kosovo, Jerusalem and Western Sahara, of course, they're all fine. Ukraine has developed so far under the western aegis and everyone is happy now corruption is gone- its economy is worse than Moldova's now, and it still has uncontrollable brain drain and rampant corruption. The Ukrainian army is western trained and armed so will provide a massive obstacle and cost to Russia- but 100,000 Russians are enough to launch an imminent invasion, at the small matter of 1:3 odds. Russia has nothing to fear from NATO, has no say on where we deploy and anyway our deployments are purely defensive- but every Russian deployment near a NATO country is wanton aggression; their fault for putting their country in a stupid place and they should stay at least 500km within their own borders.

[Darkpriest]

Wow, what a result for a year of Bidenomics/virtuesignomics

Rampant inflation

Damaged business due to failed covid lock policies

And now stock market crashing with such companies like Netflix (25% in 24h!), Twitter (50% vs 6m ago) and Disney (40% from its high) shedding a lot of value (and a bailout cannot come this time so easily for the market, due to inflation) 

What a beginning of 2022 - some would say, this was predictable, once excessive budget expenses and extra stimmies were signed, and FED was soft pressured to keep dovish policy, as mr Powell wanted his next term... (tone changed surprisingly in December). 

Also, going too far woke in entertainment is a bad business practice. I wonder how quickly boards will be pressured to go back to what worked and brought money in the past? 

Phase 4 reshoots already at Disney/Marvel? 

Cant wait for end of Q1! 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Hurlshort]

49 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Wow, what a result for a year of Bidenomics/virtuesignomics

Rampant inflation

Damaged business due to failed covid lock policies

And now stock market crashing with such companies like Netflix (25% in 24h!), Twitter (50% vs 6m ago) and Disney (40% from its high) shedding a lot of value (and a bailout cannot come this time so easily for the market, due to inflation) 

What a beginning of 2022 - some would say, this was predictable, once excessive budget expenses and extra stimmies were signed, and FED was soft pressured to keep dovish policy, as mr Powell wanted his next term... (tone changed surprisingly in December). 

Also, going too far woke in entertainment is a bad business practice. I wonder how quickly boards will be pressured to go back to what worked and brought money in the past? 

Phase 4 reshoots already at Disney/Marvel? 

Cant wait for end of Q1! 

 

This post was off to a good start until you started talking about 'wokeness'. What does that even mean? You think stocks are tumbling because companies are too woke? 

[majestic]

5 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

This post was off to a good start until you started talking about 'wokeness'. What does that even mean? You think stocks are tumbling because companies are too woke? 

You got past "virtuesignomics" and are surprised it ended with "go woke and go broke"? Really?

[Malcador]

You don't even need to read posts to know what the takes are here after a while. 

  

2 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The Ukrainian army is western trained and armed so will provide a massive obstacle and cost to Russia- but 100,000 Russians are enough to launch an imminent invasion, at the small matter of 1:3 odds

Well both can be true, those 100K Russians have other troops to come help them.  Here, most media seem to be saying Ukraine's screwed if it comes to arm conflict regardless of assistance (500 CF soldiers and $120MM CAD aside...).    Going to be a banner year for arms smugglers in Ukraine, Czech Republic going to supply a lot of artillery rounds as well.

 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Malcador

[ShadySands]

When I was at the grocery store yesterday some older angry gentleman was huffing around blaming the long lines and empty shelves on Sleepy Joe Biden. I'm just standing there shaking my head because the shelves were actually pretty well stocked but the one item in the frozen food section that he was looking for when he started ranting was gone (our line was backed up into the aisle) and the long lines could easily be blamed on the fact that the store was packed because the main grocery store chain in the metro area is on strike and despite that they only have 3 lanes open. All this is just to say that if you try you can interpret anything to fit your political worldview.

[Darkpriest]

35 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

This post was off to a good start until you started talking about 'wokeness'. What does that even mean? You think stocks are tumbling because companies are too woke? 

For the Twitter, Netflix (over 20% loss in  day!) and Disney... Yes, partially, especially when you tie that to poor outlooks for subs, etc. 

 

For the other general sell off, no, that's a result of Bidenomics of the early 2021 and 'soft' pressuring FED to remain dovish, as that would keep debt issuance and rolling cheaper. 

 

I'm sure that things will stabilize next week, unless FED will feed into a tantrum, but the end of Q1 has a potential to throw US into a recession, as FED will most likely have to rise rates due to high inflation, straigh into a slowing GDP (who would have guessed what would happen with all those printed 'free' money and driving short term consumption at large trade deficits) 

 

Biden already has as low approval as Trump had at his worst? 

 

The outlook for midterms looks like a republicans sweep. 

 

Btw. How is that crime rate in Cali? 

 

I've heard you've gotten back to wild west practice of looting trains there? 

Net residents flow also does not look like an utopia in the making. 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Darkpriest]

As for other topic here around Ukraine/Russia thing. 

Nothing major will occur. It's jawboning from both sides of the isle to largely move away focus from pandemic related failures and mismanagment of economics. 

 

Russia's only startegic gain would be to secure a land connection to Crimea to ensure a stable flow of goods, water, elecricity, but the cost is too high. It wants to get NATO commit to a deal. 

In no way they would ever commit to occupation of full Ukraine. They are even hesitant about anexing a much easier Belarus, and you'd think in real terms that they would invade Ukraine? 

 

US does not want the conflict, as it would most likely result in a loss anyway, due to no real capability of commitment, other than starting a global conflict. ( a reminder of which is the most recent drill of Russia, Iran and China navy) 

That's the last thing they want. It is also to make a political play and look competent and keep the anti-russian mask prior to midterms. 

(and a prestige/reliability loss in such a short time after the Afghaniatan failure, would only bring more pain on the Dems image in the mideterms election year) 

 

 

EU is much divided on the topic, but you can already see that Germany will fold and other than current posturing, they won't do much... (well, they actually block arms transfers to Ukraine). Not in the land of shutting down nuclear plants and issues with energy and economy. 

 

Edited January 21, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Hurlshort]

5 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Btw. How is that crime rate in cali? 

I've heard you've gotten to wild west practice of looting trains there? 

It has apparently ticked back up towards pre-pandemic rates for 2021. The train heists are pretty crazy, but much like the rampant catalytic converter thefts that have plagued the state, it is typically a matter of time before people are caught and charged.

 

[Malcador]

Regardless of the evidence, Hurlshot, you must endeavor to make California an ethnostate.

[Darkpriest]

13 minutes ago, Hurlsnot said:

It has apparently ticked back up towards pre-pandemic rates for 2021. The train heists are pretty crazy, but much like the rampant catalytic converter thefts that have plagued the state, it is typically a matter of time before people are caught and charged.

 

I can only hope, that your hopes will materialize and things will calm down. 

Isn't there an issue, that even some arrests are made, a lot of those cases are released anyway? 

[Darkpriest]

3 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Regardless of the evidence, Hurlshot, you must endeavor to make California an ethnostate.

I never said that, and that would be stupid, even if for historical and geographic reasons, but you can have policies that build up a civilized, law abiding, clean and working society, and not a ****hole that looks more like a film with a Kurt Russell. 

[Hurlshort]

1 minute ago, Darkpriest said:

I can only hope, that your hopes will materialize and things will calm down. 

Isn't there an issue, that even some arrests are made, a lot of those cases are released anyway? 

https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-prison-population-drops-sharply-but-overcrowding-still-threatens-prisoner-health/#:~:text=In January 2020%2C California state,incarcerated%2C a decrease of 27%2C500.

You can read about it if you are interested.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Well both can be true, those 100K Russians have other troops to come help them.  Here, most media seem to be saying Ukraine's screwed if it comes to arm conflict regardless of assistance (500 CF soldiers and $120MM CAD aside...).    Going to be a banner year for arms smugglers in Ukraine, Czech Republic going to supply a lot of artillery rounds as well.

Theoretically the Russians have up to 3 million troops that can come help them. The Ukrainians can bring in reserves too, but yeah they are screwed if it comes to an all out war. Not least because a decent number of troops will simply switch sides when push comes to shove, as happened in Crimea, and despite people trying to convince themselves otherwise. If it's all out war then formal arms supplies are pretty meaningless, as they'll just get bombed. You aren't going to have RAF transports flying to Kiev if there are Russian Su35s flying overhead however much of a chub it gives reddit generals to think so; they're only doing it now because it's safe. The west will cheerfully fight to the last Ukrainian and the US will happily fight economically to the last Euro, but that's the point the line will be drawn.

The trouble with mentioning figures like 3 million is, of course, that a 'build up' of 100k troops then looks utterly stupid as it's 3% of that number. Indeed, the 100k figure meaning an imminent invasion looks stupid in pretty much any context that has, well, context.

That's fewer troops than the US used in Iraq against a smaller enemy both area and population wise, and which had a smaller and less well equipped army, and where most major population centres were in a straight line alone the Tigris/ Euphrates valleys, and where a significant majority of the populace hated its leaders.

100k is 1 Russian soldier per 20m of border with Ukraine.

Or roughly 1 Russian soldier per 150 Ukrainians in the most 'likely' occupation scenario.

Or 1:3 odds for an attack against, supposedly, a well trained and armed Ukrainian army which has had to practical purposes infinite time to dig in and prepare. OK, so they'll have no air force after 48 hours, but still...

Yet you have 'experts'- and despite the air quotes not just reddit generals but people with actual qualifications on the BBC etc- talking about imminent multi pronged assaults launched on, let's say, 45 minutes notice from Belarus, Crimea, Donetsk and Belgorod capturing Kharkov, D'prov', Mariupol, Odessa, Zhaporizie and half a dozen other pretty significant cities right on down to the Moldovan frontier and right up to the Dniepr; and doing it in a few days to a few weeks. Then they'll say how much the Ukrainian army has improved since Ilovaesk or Debaltseve. Their scenarios make no sense and have no internal consistency at all, yet get regurgitated acritically everywhere without even the most basic scrutiny. Given the performance of the western trained Afghan or Iraqi armies- or more fairly, the Georgian one in 2008 where they couldn't even take the Roki Tunnel or Tskinvali against 500 Ossetian militia and the survivors of a Russian peacekeeping unit- them losing badly and fairly quickly is pretty likely if it came to proper shooting, but that would require way way more than 100k troops from start to finish unless a really, really significant number of Ukrainians switch sides or immediately run away which we're told won't happen...

And this all very likely completely unnecessary verbiage anyway, since we've had similar imminent invasion stories every six months since 2016.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

You think stocks are tumbling because companies are too woke? 

If you have to ask, the answer is probably not what you want to hear.

3 hours ago, majestic said:

You got past "virtuesignomics" and are surprised it ended with "go woke and go broke"? Really?

So I guess this is the best place to ask as any, but is there a German word for "Disappointed but not Surprised"? Because that's the general feeling everytime I hear some bull**** like "virtuesignomics".

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

When I was at the grocery store yesterday some older angry gentleman was huffing around blaming the long lines and empty shelves on Sleepy Joe Biden. I'm just standing there shaking my head because the shelves were actually pretty well stocked but the one item in the frozen food section that he was looking for when he started ranting was gone (our line was backed up into the aisle) and the long lines could easily be blamed on the fact that the store was packed because the main grocery store chain in the metro area is on strike and despite that they only have 3 lanes open. All this is just to say that if you try you can interpret anything to fit your political worldview.

By some miracle I have avoided hearing any political rants when waiting in line at the grocery store. Maybe I've unknowingly mastered the art of minding my own business that I instinctively tune out such nonsense. Lord knows that there are plenty of folks around here who think that any inconveniences to them are a plot by Sleepy Joe to destroy western civilization with virtuesignomics or some other ridiculous fantasy.

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

When I was at the grocery store yesterday some older angry gentleman was huffing around blaming the long lines and empty shelves on Sleepy Joe Biden. I'm just standing there shaking my head because the shelves were actually pretty well stocked but the one item in the frozen food section that he was looking for when he started ranting was gone (our line was backed up into the aisle) and the long lines could easily be blamed on the fact that the store was packed because the main grocery store chain in the metro area is on strike and despite that they only have 3 lanes open. All this is just to say that if you try you can interpret anything to fit your political worldview.

is always amusing when you try and get the folks who blame biden to explain what specific policies "sleepy joe" implemented which resulted in the problems real and imagined being lamented today. can't exact blame biden for powell and the fed or for the economic fallout from trump's gross mishandling o' the pandemic? no doubt it were the school lunch program which broke everything. 

Presidents get far too much credit and too much blame for the economy, and the fact o' the matter is that when a President does royal screw the p00ch, is typical the next President who gets the blame. biden's 1.9 trillion american rescue plan, which continued the trump spending spree, is indeed gonna result in increased inflation, and such numbers will be apparent maybe six months from yesterday. maybe. 

am not a pro biden guy, and like it or not the President and his party is gonna take responsibility for problems which happen during his administration. doesn't need be fair. voters will hold biden responsible. sans the maxwell lord mind control o' 45, biden is gonna judged by both democrats and republicans based on the oversimplified "are you better off today than you were four years ago," bit which worked so well for regan. 'course for Congressmen seeking reelection in 22, they will be asked to explain why we ain't back to prepandemic like canada and europe. 

...

what, you says the US is not the anchor on the global economy?

"Last week, new data revealed that the European Union was seeing a record-high inflation rate of 5% in December, the highest in its twenty-year history. Canada is seeing the highest rate of inflation in two decades. Ditto South Korea. Turkey. The United Kingdom. Countries, big and small, conservative-led and progressive-led, are grappling with surging consumer prices as global demand outstrips supply. It's one big global inflation-fest, and no single leader seems to have the power to stop it.

"All these countries have one thing in common: they're all struggling to recover from a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic that continues to disrupt the supply side of the economy, hampering the ability of businesses, workers, and the global supply chain to operate at full capacity and satisfy boomeranging consumer demand. Rather than putting a Biden "I did that" sticker on products with skyrocketing prices, it's probably more accurate to say "COVID did that.""

there were a freaking pandemic, and more than 1/3 o' the country has been trying to sabotage efforts to mitigate the damage. is gonna be blamed on joe.

even before vaccines, we had a blueprint for what is the correct response. the situation weren't near as novel or as unexpected as some suggest. 

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-19/coronavirus-lessons-from-great-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic

nevertheless, 'cause o' politics and stoopid, we f'd up our pandemic response in spite o' being one o' the few major nations which had spent billions, developed a plan and innovated tools for such an eventuality. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 22, 2022 by Gromnir

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Gromnir said:

Biden shut down the keystone pipeline (the closure of the oil flow through which, is apparently the reason gas prices are up)

As the professor points out, it isn't even built yet, so no oil ever flowed through it. Shows the level of intelligence employed by Murdoch.

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

 

Gotta say, I find the messaging around Ukraine absolutely hilarious because it's so very very muddled. Can't take land by force- except the Golan Heights, Kosovo, Jerusalem and Western Sahara, 

Nah, whataboutism in geopolitics never helps and is not going to change the massive economic consequence if Russia does invade Ukraine. And whatever sanctions fall on Russia it will be deserved and self-inflicted  

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-prison-population-drops-sharply-but-overcrowding-still-threatens-prisoner-health/#:~:text=In January 2020%2C California state,incarcerated%2C a decrease of 27%2C500.

You can read about it if you are interested.

Hurlshot please stop using your @Darkpriest alt-account to create discussions on the political discourse in the US 

[pmp10]

7 hours ago, Darkpriest said:

In no way they would ever commit to occupation of full Ukraine. They are even hesitant about anexing a much easier Belarus, and you'd think in real terms that they would invade Ukraine? 

There might be no need to occupy much of Ukraine after a successful regime change.
The country is still likely pretty divided and it should perfectly possible to buy-off the elites, or show the common people the error of their ways with serious energy scarcity.

Edited January 22, 2022 by pmp10

[BruceVC]

2 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

There might be no need to occupy much of Ukraine after a successful regime change.

If Putin is stupid enough to invade  and occupy Ukraine it will become another Afghanistan for Mother Russia, forget the economic consequences  this will cost   them  hugely in lives and resources 

[ShadySands]

12 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

There might be no need to occupy much of Ukraine after a successful regime change.
The country is still likely pretty divided and it should perfectly possible to buy-off the elites, or show the common people the error of their ways with serious energy scarcity.

As I understand it, at least according to in-laws in Ukraine, that Ukraine would be more likely to split. It's not something I know much about and my in-laws there are very pro-Ukrainian so I dunno how much of that is realistic and how much is wishful thinking.

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

As I understand it, at least according to in-laws in Ukraine, that Ukraine would be more likely to split. It's not something I know much about and my in-laws there are very pro-Ukrainian so I dunno how much of that is realistic and how much is wishful thinking.

Ukraine is a  sovereign country and the current  legitimate government will never agree to  losing more territory, especially after Crimea,  so its not  realistic but it is wishful thinking 

[ShadySands]

It's not something they'd agree to, especially the pro-Ukraine folks, but as opposed to switching back to a Russian aligned country they(in-laws) think the country would split and not peacefully.

Edited January 22, 2022 by ShadySands

[pmp10]

33 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

As I understand it, at least according to in-laws in Ukraine, that Ukraine would be more likely to split. It's not something I know much about and my in-laws there are very pro-Ukrainian so I dunno how much of that is realistic and how much is wishful thinking.

I'm sure that after Afghanistan nobody can be certain of political outcomes once things start going south.
I doubt Putin would mind a Kievian rump state provided it's tiny and insignificant.