Ukraine Conflict - "There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare"

[Mamoulian War]

48 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Peskov has suggested that Russia won't reopen Nord Stream 1 after the "maintenance" is over, which strongly implies that the counter-attack in the Kherson area has been successful enough to strongly affect Russian supply lines. Russia is aiming at further slowing down German help to Ukraine, which may well turn out to be a counterproductive move, as Germany will essentially go, "Right. You're stopping the gas, so we're sending all we can to Ukraine." Of course this is not the only way it can turn out.

I think, something has already awakened in Germany. 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/04/germany-olaf-scholz-announces-package-help-ease-high-energy-prices

This might be a sign, that they rather counter the high prices and eat it up, than trying to find a solution with unreliable Russia, which knows only how to blackmail…

[Mamoulian War]

And looks like Ukraine just “cancelled” the “referendum” in Zaporizhia oblast, together with a bunch of FSB officers

original source:

https://t.me/info_zp/14972

Google translate:

“In Kamianets-Dniprovska, the storage of pseudo-referendum ballots and the FSB base were destroyed

 Fighters of the Special Forces of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine conducted a special operation in the temporarily occupied Kamianets-Dniprovska

 The place where the ballots were stored for the pseudo-referendum was destroyed.  At the same time, the warehouse was blown up by an explosion from inside the premises.  All existing printed materials have been destroyed.

 Along with this, the base of the unit of the Russian FSB, which guarded the warehouse of ballots, was destroyed.  The exact number of killed and wounded is being clarified.  The surviving and wounded Rashists are urgently evacuated in the direction of the occupied Crimea.

 This is what the jewelry work of the Ukrainian military means

 That is why the occupiers announced a curfew in the city”

EDIT: it’s already in Pravda as well:

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/09/5/7366157/

Edited September 5, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[xzar_monty]

Btw, I find it really interesting (read: a little baffling, actually) that there's a Pravda in Ukraine as well. I associate "Pravda" so strongly with the Soviet Union, so it has an ominous sound. Yes, I know what the word means, and I am not aware of the specific history of the newspaper, so it may well be justified. But it does ring some strange bells.

It's like if some German financial company used the motto "Arbeit Macht Geld". It just wouldn't be ok. (Ok, fair enough, that would be a lot more serious.)

[Malcador]

I generally think you don't trust anything called Pravda. Sort of like how if a country has "Democratic" in their official name...

[xzar_monty]

Yeah, exactly. Also, any newspaper that has exclamation marks on its front page is definitely rubbish. (This does not apply to Pravda, of course, but to a certain class of newspapers that are identifiable by this simple point.)

Edited September 5, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Mamoulian War]

I think Pravda was in every “socialistic/communistic” country, and in some it is still up until now. In Slovakia we have Pravda as well, and it is the only leftist newspaper left. Thankfully, it does pretty good job as a journalistic medium, and sometimes it is good to read it, if you are right wing, but do not want to end up in a closed echo chamber.

[Mamoulian War]

Also, NATO started to collect winter uniforms from its member states to donate to Ukraine Army.

[xzar_monty]

Russia buying weapons from North Korea looks like some kind of desperation in the sense that once you're at that level, you probably don't have many worthy allies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/politics/russia-north-korea-artillery.html

 

EDIT: And speaking of Russian weapons, here's an interesting thread:

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

Interesting listening, albeit at an hour's length

[Lexx]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-05/russia-risks-bigger-longer-sanctions-hit-internal-report-warns

"Russia Privately Warns of Deep and Prolonged Economic Damage

    Confidential document contrasts with upbeat public statements
    Report says key sectors face sharp drop in output, brain drain"

Interesting read.

[Darkpriest]

22 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I think, something has already awakened in Germany. 
 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/04/germany-olaf-scholz-announces-package-help-ease-high-energy-prices

This might be a sign, that they rather counter the high prices and eat it up, than trying to find a solution with unreliable Russia, which knows only how to blackmail…

So in other words, lets print more worthless money and create even more mess? 

A guy from this article sums it up pretty well. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/putin-has-pushed-europe-inflationary-depression-and-currency-collapse

Btw, what is the cost of backstopping the European economy? Is it already more than dmg to the Russian one? 

 

Btw. The October/November approaches, and I stick to this timeframe from hmm... March? 

 

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

So in other words, lets print more worthless money and create even more mess? 

A guy from this article sums it up pretty well. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/putin-has-pushed-europe-inflationary-depression-and-currency-collapse

Btw, what is the cost of backstopping the European economy? Is it already more than dmg to the Russian one? 

 

Btw. The October/November approaches, and I stick to this timeframe from hmm... March? 

 

A small price to pay to get rid of the blackmail by Russian mobsters. EU will recover in 5-10 years, Russia in 30-50…

[Darkpriest]

4 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

A small price to pay to get rid of the blackmail by Russian mobsters. EU will recover in 5-10 years, Russia in 30-50…

I think you are grossly overestimating the negative impact on Russia, unless you believe you can isolate it from Asian trading partners, which include China, India Iran, Pakistan, plus a lot of African states and South American states. 

Meanwhile the social unrest might redraw political map fairly soon in the EU. 

Imagine, if this happens

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/europes-nightmare-scenario-comes-true-energy-bills-rise-eu2-trillion-will-reach-20

 

Anyway, back to my cave. Enjoy the ride. 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Darkpriest

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

I think you are grossly overestimating the negative impact on Russia, unless you believe you can isolate it from Asian trading partners, which include China, India Iran, Pakistan, plus a lot of African states and South American states. 

Meanwhile the social unrest might redraw political map fairly soon in the EU. 

Imagine, if this happens

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/europes-nightmare-scenario-comes-true-energy-bills-rise-eu2-trillion-will-reach-20

 

Anyway, back to my cave. Enjoy the ride. 

Yes I might overestimate it, but I am somehow more inclined to believe more people at Yale, than on zerohedge

https://www.dw.com/en/yale-study-shows-sanctions-are-crippling-russias-economy/a-62623738

On the other hand, you might overestimate the friendship between them and their trade partners and their willingness to risk secondary sanctions, in the longterm 

 

Edited September 6, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[Lexx]

German wikipedia says zero hedge is an alt-right and libertarian website. Also the news are economically pessimistic especially against wall street, it's conspirative, and anti-establishment. Bloomberg describes it as "extreme" and "pro-russian", also they often present pro-Trump talking points, while continuously presenting the united states as declining. Heh, they were even banned from Twitter in 2020.

So yeah, going by that ... Not sure how much merit those articles have.

/Edit: lol, back when the BLM stuff was going on, they were posting articles about the CIA and George Soros being behind the movement.

 

Other than that, what's also funny to me is how they mark certain parts of sentences in bold, to make them stick out. I remember we did the same in my first job back in the days, because stupid people wouldn't read a whole article, you had to point out the "facts" to them like that. To me, those style elements feel highly unprofessional.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Lexx

[kanisatha]

4 minutes ago, Lexx said:

German wikipedia says zero hedge is an alt-right and libertarian website.

Wikipedia says this about anything that is not left. Wikipedia's own ideological leanings are quite well established.

[Lexx]

Makes sense, since the opposite of left is right. /s

I know that america has a boner for right wing stuff, just wish they would chill a bit with the move to fascism for a while.

Anyways. That website seemed very suspicious, and the only reason I've looked it up some more now in the first place was because the articles read weird to me.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Lexx

[Hurlshort]

Zero Hedge definitely has a gimmick. Its basic philosophy is to always bet on the drop and then celebrate when it happens. It's a weird way to live. 

[Zoraptor]

The fundamental problem is that people tend to view economics as a 'science' but the vast majority of economists aren't actually scientists. Zerohedge does tend to go a smidge, maybe a tad far in the opposite direction into contrarianism* to mainstream opinion for the sake of it, but mainstream economists really do tend to be pretty awful when it comes to predictions. The more general issue is twofold, firstly that that a lot of predictions are made only partly out of actual objective data but because it effects 'feeling' (and not solely feeling as in big C 'Confidence') in a system in which such feeling can shape reality**; and that so many predictions are made that it's impossible to remember who got what right, and what wrong. After all if you predict a crash every year you're going to be right, eventually, and if predict growth every year you're (historically at least) going to be right most of the time.

*but if deliberate contrarianism to experts manages to be correct a decent amount of the time then it's fair to say there's also something wrong with the experts.

**"Don't worry about oil prices, we're going to sign a deal with Venezuela andor Iran in March". In April. In May. In June... Very much also a consequence of a lot of economic discourse being via think tanks and the like with very set 'partisan' views.

 

[Gorth]

The science of Economy is a bit like the science of Psychology with too many variables and unknowns

[ShadySands]

Economists, the weathermen of finance

[xzar_monty]

4 hours ago, Gorth said:

The science of Economy is a bit like the science of Psychology with too many variables and unknowns

A friend of mine switched his major from psychology to physics simply because of this problem: there are so many variables and unknowns that it's fair to ask whether psychology is a science at all. (Well, heck, psychology relies on consciousness, and we have NO idea what consciousness is, there's not one good theory around.) He's now a pretty renowned cosmologist, although not on a global scale.

The mathematician N. N. Taleb pointed out that once you take a look at the underpinnings of the Big Five "personality theory" in psychology, astrology starts to look like hard science.

The problem of course is that we can't avoid psychology...

[xzar_monty]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

Other than that, what's also funny to me is how they mark certain parts of sentences in bold, to make them stick out. I remember we did the same in my first job back in the days, because stupid people wouldn't read a whole article, you had to point out the "facts" to them like that. To me, those style elements feel highly unprofessional.

Indeed. Bold elements and exclamation marks immediately signal rank unprofessionalism. I hadn't visited zerohedge before, but I did after this post of yours, and the bold elements (that are all over the place) made me quit before clicking one single article. The site is almost certainly rubbish. I mean, it's possible that they both produce excellent content and edit it to look like third-rate sophomore stuff, but it's very, very unlikely.

(Btw, professional outlook is not a guarantee of proper content, either...)

[Lexx]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

(Btw, professional outlook is not a guarantee of proper content, either...)

True, but there are certain thinks that are instant red flags. What's interesting to me is that german right wing blogs and "news" websites are almost all in exactly the same style. They have a certain visual "feel" to them that just sticks out. Bigger than average font, or generally non-standard font, big headlines, a very blog-y page feeling, the already mentioned bold elements, big pictures in the middle of the article, lots of blockquote elements, and last but not least of course the usual anti-vax stance or slight jabs at jews. However, even without reading articles like the last two points, it is often possible to identify those websites just because they look a certain way.

[xzar_monty]

25 minutes ago, Lexx said:

What's interesting to me is that german right wing blogs and "news" websites are almost all in exactly the same style. They have a certain visual "feel" to them that just sticks out.

What about grammar and vocabulary? I don't really speak German well enough to say anything about that stuff.(*)

The reason I ask is that in my country, it is astonishing to see how bad the writing can sometimes be in those circles, strictly from a linguistic point of view: poor grammar, plenty of elementary mistakes, needless repetition in word choices, and so on. All the things that instantly make you think "poor education, lack of knowledge".

 

(*) It's funny how the understanding of a foreign language proceeds in fairly clear steps. At some point, you learn to communicate, to get along, in everyday life. Later, you learn the language well enough to read and appreciate good literature in it. And then, finally, after quite some time, you start to recognize puns quickly, you learn to understand when someone uses the language poorly (in a stylistic sense), you become able to tell whether a piece of prose or a newspaper article is written well or not, you recognize the cliches and bad choices instantly, and so on. But getting to this last stage really takes time. I read El Pais but I can't really say whether a particular article is really good Spanish or not. I couldn't recognize a stylistically superb journalist in Spanish, I'm still at the level where I just get the information, not the subtleties.