Ukraine Conflict - "An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war"

[majestic]

Cynical take: if the Ukraine was moved to some place in Asia, we'd be supporting the moderate extremists attacking them.

[BruceVC]

11 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Yep.  But who knows, maybe they'll change the rules

Malc dont you think sports events should follow sanctions? Look at SA during Apartheid, we were banned from most  sports events. It sends an important message and helps to change behavior of governments 

[ShadySands]

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

Cynical take: if the Ukraine was moved to some place in Asia, we'd be supporting the moderate extremists attacking them.

Or if Trump was still president

[majestic]

We'll see in 2024.  

[Gorth]

5 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Malc dont you think sports events should follow sanctions? Look at SA during Apartheid, we were banned from most  sports events. It sends an important message and helps to change behavior of governments 

Ehh... it just prevented SA athletes from participating. I doubt it changed anyone's mind in the SA government (they probably couldn't care less about athletes)

 

[Malcador]

8 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Malc dont you think sports events should follow sanctions? Look at SA during Apartheid, we were banned from most  sports events. It sends an important message and helps to change behavior of governments 

Kicking Iran out is one thing, randomly giving to Ukraine because they whine is another.   I guess it should be the UAE as they are next in line from that Confederation ?

[majestic]

3 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Kicking Iran out is one thing, randomly giving to Ukraine because they whine is another.   I guess it should be the UAE as they are next in line from that Confederation ?

Eh, never mind, not worth a potential warning.  

Edited October 24, 2022 by majestic

[BruceVC]

10 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Ehh... it just prevented SA athletes from participating. I doubt it changed anyone's mind in the SA government (they probably couldn't care less about athletes)

 

It did make a difference, being isolated on the international arena is not great and the sports sanctions  was another reminder of the  illegitimacy  with the Apartheid system and government policies 

 

 

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Gorth said:

Ehh... it just prevented SA athletes from participating. I doubt it changed anyone's mind in the SA government (they probably couldn't care less about athletes)

Nelson Mandela actually said it was fairly significant at least in terms of the sense of solidarity being shown, and the SA government put a lot of effort into attracting rebel tours and the like for their rugby and cricket teams at least (football of course being popular with the wrong people for apartheid RSA to care). Practically, all it achieved was the boycott of the 1976 Olympics and triggering a near civil war in New Zealand.

Don't think there's much chance of FIFA doing anything to Iran, just look at who they've got hosting the thing. Probably the most ironic choice for a replacement would be Azerbaijan...

[Mamoulian War]

An interested turn of events. Iranian minister of foreign affairs (Hosein Amir Abdollahian) has released statement, that if there will be clear evidence, that Russia uses their drones against civilian targets, they will no longer be neutral. Of course, they are still saying, that they do not supply Russia with them, but on the other hand, the defence cooperation between Iran and Russia will continue.

Looks like they are learning from Russia, how to spin stuff… For me this statement is really very hard to believe…

[BruceVC]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

An interested turn of events. Iranian minister of foreign affairs (Hosein Amir Abdollahian) has released statement, that if there will be clear evidence, that Russia uses their drones against civilian targets, they will no longer be neutral. Of course, they are still saying, that they do not supply Russia with them, but on the other hand, the defence cooperation between Iran and Russia will continue.

Looks like they are learning from Russia, how to spin stuff… For me this statement is really very hard to believe…

Do you have the link?

I also dont believe they are sincere, the Iranian government is happy to kill, torture and arrest their own citizens for very little reason so why would they care about Ukrainian citizens? Unless they worried about the international optics and increased sanctions?

 

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

An interested turn of events. Iranian minister of foreign affairs (Hosein Amir Abdollahian) has released statement, that if there will be clear evidence, that Russia uses their drones against civilian targets, they will no longer be neutral. Of course, they are still saying, that they do not supply Russia with them, but on the other hand, the defence cooperation between Iran and Russia will continue.

Looks like they are learning from Russia, how to spin stuff… For me this statement is really very hard to believe…

If a statement is part truth, part lies, all spin. Just pick parts to believe, parts to dismiss, ignore all of it

 

Edit: That's my inner programmer speaking. Information systems are only as good as their data...

[BruceVC]

23 minutes ago, Gorth said:

If a statement is part truth, part lies, all spin. Just pick parts to believe, parts to dismiss, ignore all of it

 

Edit: That's my inner programmer speaking. Information systems are only as good as their data...

Geez Gorthfuscious, thats seriously cynical. So you dont believe anything politicians tell you?

What about positive spin, do you believe that? For example when Oz was going through the lockdowns Im sure your politicians were saying " these lockdowns and economic shutdowns are necessary to save lives " but they ignored the economic impact that was coming  when the lockdowns ended

But they genuinely meant well and most governments acted to save lives, thats what I mean by positive spin?

Edited October 25, 2022 by BruceVC

[xzar_monty]

15 hours ago, Malcador said:

Tangential but an amusing bit of entitlement -

 

I wouldn't use words as harsh as "entitlement" or "whine" as you do, but it's tricky, I agree.

Footballing legend Graeme Souness is one of those who have suggested that Ukraine should be in the World Cup despite not qualifying. However, he didn't say anything about kicking Iran out, his suggestion was to make one group of 5 countries to accommodate Ukraine.

[xzar_monty]

13 hours ago, Gorth said:

Ehh... it just prevented SA athletes from participating. I doubt it changed anyone's mind in the SA government (they probably couldn't care less about athletes)

 

Stuff like this is actually impossible to measure -- and  Zoraptor makes a good point about Mandela, above.

I suppose the classic case is the Vietnam war: it was very unpopular and led to huge protests. There are those who assert that these protests were very significant, and then there are those who say that they had no effect whatsoever; the US came back from the war only because it was becoming much too costly in terms of money, effort and casualties. Unfortunately, we cannot save-scum the universe so I don't think there's any way to determine the influence of the various possible factors.[*]

Bono and the Edge weren't all that keen to perform in Kiev because they thought it might look a bit shabby, which I'd tend to agree with. However, Zelenskyi eventually persuaded them by stressing how important such a show of solidarity would be for the Ukrainians. So there's that, too: we look at these things from various perspectives. My stance on the former Yugoslavia conflict, for instance, was permanently and dramatically altered by actually going to work at a hospital where they operated on children with limbs and other body parts missing.

 

[*] This last bit, btw, goes a long way to describing why the whole sciences of psychology and sociology are very problematic. We, as humans, are extremely good at coming up with credible-sounding narratives post factum, but demonstrating that they are actually true is a different thing altogether.

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Do you have the link?

I also dont believe they are sincere, the Iranian government is happy to kill, torture and arrest their own citizens for very little reason so why would they care about Ukrainian citizens? Unless they worried about the international optics and increased sanctions?

 

You need to put it through Google Translate. I have not found any western media links so soon in the morning, but It is the biggest news broadcaster in the country, so it should have gone through heavy fact check.

https://www.ta3.com/clanok/249375/nezostaneme-nestranni-odkazuje-iran-ak-zisti-ze-rusko-pouziva-jeho-drony

[Darkpriest]

On 10/23/2022 at 10:50 AM, xzar_monty said:

This is more of a general comment but also pertinent to what you say here.

Now, you write with the intent of giving the impression of being an expert on things. But your language and your terrible choice of references (zerohedge for god's sake) don't exactly look convincing. So the question rises: if this guy's an expert on this stuff, why does he use language like that and why does he rely on frankly awful sources? Why would a genuine expert ever do that, even on a meaningless internet forum?

Of course, you may be right in your assessments.

Because I value this place for something, which would most likely cause me a lot of grief in other places. I can write in almost unfiltered way, with all the emotions attached. 

If you think this language is not professional, you'd never want to see what happens on various Bloomberg chats between trading desks or trading and analytics. 

 

The ZH is not a 'source' as in it does not shape my views. I use it to reference to views sourced from some other authors (people still make the same mistake of not recognizing what is a ZH article and what is an 'authored' article sourced from some other place) . It also contains charts in daily summaries or related topics that I could not share from my resources as screens etc. , for example some Bloomberg or Refinitiv data based views. 

On ZH you are also more likely to read opinions which are contrarian to main media sources, and that in itself is a value. The hedge funds world works on various contrarian scenarios. ( watch The Big Short for example to view a simplified and sterilized view of some of the things people do in funds) . 

I've called on inflation and asset buble in 2021, I've called on the social and economic costs of excessive sanctions on a commoditty giant, I've called on a debt crisis and credit panic, which in near term will lead to stagflation as central banks will throw in a towel on inflation fight as the costs of recession and issues with soverign debt will amplify. 

I rarely point to a gold bug like Peter Shiff, but read some of his publicized estimates on debt service costs in US, should the high rates persist. You've already witnessed first hand recently what UK suffered in relation to debt issues. 

On the UA front, just give it more time. The support will start to wane by the end of the year and will drop significantly by the end of Q1 2023.

There will be a lot more domestic social issues to solve in EU and US. 

China might soon pounce on Taiwan too. Even read something on main media on this, after the recent Xi reelection. Markets certainly decided to bail at the moment. Some funds are risking to go back in now, with hopes of stabilization, but here I'm more pesimistic after the recent 'chip bans' from US. 

Lets see if Xi will make German channcelor squirm during his visit and take back what he voiced in Japan.

 

[pmp10]

Interesting calculations on the basis of 'excess weddings' suggests that Russia conscripted close to half a million men.

There were rumors that they weren't about to stop at the 300k mark. 

 

[xzar_monty]

10 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

Because I value this place for something, which would most likely cause me a lot of grief in other places. I can write in almost unfiltered way, with all the emotions attached.

Fair enough. I think attaching emotions to the text makes it significantly weaker no matter what, if the intention is to make a point based on expertise. It gives the impression of pub talk, i.e. noise over signal. Like, for instance, @kanisathacomes across as someone whose points of view are based upon solid knowledge, because he keeps his language civil -- and this generates trust, even if I don't always share the views themselves.

@pmp10: My sense was that it was something more solid than just "rumors". Also, I think they were / are aiming at 1M.

[xzar_monty]

This is very interesting: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2022/10/24/the-remote-control-killers-behind-russias-cruise-missile-strikes-on-ukraine/

[BruceVC]

https://news.yahoo.com/gas-prices-europe-drop-pre-180400194.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Really good news for the EU about gas prices falling

@Darkpriest

Anything to add, didnt ZH predict the gas price crashing the EU economies?

 

[xzar_monty]

3 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Anything to add, didnt ZH predict the gas price crashing the EU economies?

"Decadent West on the brink of collapse"

That's a headline from the Pravda (Soviet version) in 1989. The headline is especially poignant / funny given what happened soon and to whom.

[Malcador]

8 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I wouldn't use words as harsh as "entitlement" or "whine" as you do, but it's tricky, I agree.

Footballing legend Graeme Souness is one of those who have suggested that Ukraine should be in the World Cup despite not qualifying. However, he didn't say anything about kicking Iran out, his suggestion was to make one group of 5 countries to accommodate Ukraine.

I don't see how it isn't - Ukraine had their chance to qualify as every other nation did and failed, so their wanting (ok, is just some clown from Shakhtar Donetsk) is whining and feeling entitled to getting in. 

[BruceVC]

6 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

"Decadent West on the brink of collapse"

That's a headline from the Pravda (Soviet version) in 1989. The headline is especially poignant / funny given what happened soon and to whom.

Really, in 1989?

That is so interesting considering the USSR was about  to collapse, I dont suppose you can find that link? Its classic and such a good reminder of the anti-Western propaganda war from the likes of Russia\Soviets 

 

 

[BruceVC]

Just now, Malcador said:

I don't see how it isn't - Ukraine had their chance to qualify as every other nation did and failed, so their wanting (ok, is just some clown from Shakhtar Donetsk) is whining and feeling entitled to getting in. 

Malc would you support us cancelling the WC and just letting Ukraine win?