rip Boris Nemtsov

[Drowsy Emperor]

Turn to Page 3

 

Its a lose lose proposition. If you wipe your ass with it you get lead poisoning, if you read it your brain rots.

[Zoraptor]

no claim by us o' 6-12 months.

 

Nah. Two posts ago you admitted that you did use the 6-12 month figure yourself*, one of the few accurate things you've said; and, absolutely conslusively the first person to use the 6-12 month timeframe was indeed you**. The quote by me you provide as 'proof' doesn't mention a timeframe at all so you set the parameters yourself next post with your 6-12 months post immediately after.

 

It's exactly the same thing as your claims that I said sanctions would have 'no' impact when even the best quote you've provided says they won't impact 'severely'. Lack of context is the least of your troubles at this point as you appear to have completely lost basic reading comprehension skills and resorted to just making things up.

 

Gromnir didn't mention anything 'bout time frames for fail [..]

we did point out that the articles we linked said the fail could come as quick as 6-12 months

at current rate of spending, and given that the russian economy were tuned to 100 dollar per barrel oil prices, that $376 billion lasts anywhere from 6 months to a year.

[Source for second quote only, first is from this same page] No 'not my opinion, wsj says or whatever, and from before I mentioned any time frame myself.

 

Doesn't matter how much you regret the 6-12 month claim, you made it. And you weren't in any way shape or form suckered into doing so. If you regret doing so (and it certainly appears you do) then I'm afraid you have no one else to blame but yourself.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Zoraptor

[Zoraptor]

And now it turns out the chechens may have killed him. Where's the narrative going to go from here? AND HOW WILL WE FIND A WAY TO BLAME PUTIN? 

 

 

Kadyrov is Putin's guy, no doubt about that, so I imagine that connection will be highlighted, along with lots of intimations that nothing happens in Russia without Putin controlling it and that the guy who confessed is going to get a sweetheart deal for doing so. It's a bit more difficult to explain away the guy who blew himself up, but I guess you could imply that someone else blew him up as a cover story or something.

[Gromnir]

 

no claim by us o' 6-12 months.

 

Nah. Two posts ago you admitted that you did use the 6-12 month figure yourself*, one of the few accurate things you've said; and, absolutely conslusively the first person to use the 6-12 month timeframe was indeed you**. The quote by me you provide as 'proof' doesn't mention a timeframe at all so you set the parameters yourself next post with your 6-12 months post immediately after.

 

It's exactly the same thing as your claims that I said sanctions would have 'no' impact when even the best quote you've provided says they won't impact 'severely'. Lack of context is the least of your troubles at this point as you appear to have completely lost basic reading comprehension skills and resorted to just making things up.

 

Gromnir didn't mention anything 'bout time frames for fail [..]

we did point out that the articles we linked said the fail could come as quick as 6-12 months

at current rate of spending, and given that the russian economy were tuned to 100 dollar per barrel oil prices, that $376 billion lasts anywhere from 6 months to a year. which complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try.

 

[Source for second quote only, first is from this same page] No 'not my opinion, wsj says or whatever, and from before I mentioned any time frame myself.

 

Doesn't matter how much you regret the 6-12 month claim, you made it. And you weren't in any way shape or form suckered into doing so. If you regret doing so (and it certainly appears you do) then I'm afraid you have no one else to blame but yourself.

 

 

 

this is getting insane.

 

yet another example o' context stripping.  we did indeed mention the prognostications o' harvard professors and imf economists observing a possible time frame o' 6-12 months.  we did so AFTER your quoted material.

 

“Yes, I hear that Russia is down to their last 376 billion!

 

"“Always a good laugh, seeing US press (and especially Uncle Rupes' Yellow Journalists) talking their enemies down, you'd think dealing with the 18 trillion dollar (and currently increasing at more than Russia's entire external debt annually) log in their own eye would garner rather more attention.”"

 

YOUR claims o' context stripping were, therefore, patently ridiculous as we had not actual mentioned 6-12 months until AFTER your quoted material.

 

YOU claimed that we context stripped because we failed to recognize that the above nonsense were offered by you, "to remind people, you were saying that Russia would be out of reserves in "six months to a year at current rate of spending". "

 

we has now shown, MULTIPLE TIMES that we made no such claim until AFTER you posted the quoted material.  again,  "we made no such claim that could have inspired your ridiculous quote," given your espoused context and posts regarding intent.

 

...

 

you can't be this obdurate.

 

btw, we fixed your second quote.  naughty-naughty, but thanks for helping. and we don't mind 6-12 months 'cause it is backed up by actual Genuine scholars, and as we said earlier, 6-12 v. 6-18 is a complete non-factor. we like 6-12 given how much it appears oil is gonna again drop now that stored oil is adding to the glut o' crude, but we said from the start quibbling over time frame "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."

 

for chrissakes, do yourself a favor and invoke the mercy rule.  do we have a mercy rule?  we need one.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited March 9, 2015 by Gromnir

[Zoraptor]

I've been exhibiting 'mercy' throughout, actually, as I don't like making you look foolish and would quite genuinely prefer not to. Indeed, that's why I've tended towards being more civil later than at the start.

 

In any case there is no context stripping by me. You posted links, I said they were crap, you voluntarily doubled down on the claim in the wsj one of 6-12 months and introduced the time frame yourself. But yet, according to you, somehow my
 
"to remind people, you were saying that Russia would be out of reserves in 'six months to a year at current rate of spending'"
 
(as opposed to your)
 
"at current rate of spending, and given that the russian economy were tuned to 100 dollar per barrel oil prices, that $376 billion lasts anywhere from 6 months to a year. which complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."
 

is a vile calumny and gross misrepresentation when they're functionally identical and you chose to back the 6-12 month claim and the only 'context' 'missing' is me calling the article crap to which you posted the 6-12 claim- and I've called that article and its claim crap repeatedly throughout, anyone reading this ain't going to mistake my position on it. Yours, maybe, since it keeps changing, sometimes even within the same post.

 

Again though, those are your words, freely given and stated. If you regret them and want to back out that's fine, but don't try blaming someone else for them whether it be me or wsj dude, no one was holding a gun on you when you posted that wsj article or when you chose to pick its 6-12 month prediction and rally around it.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

And now it turns out the chechens may have killed him. Where's the narrative going to go from here? AND HOW WILL WE FIND A WAY TO BLAME PUTIN? 

 

 

Kadyrov is Putin's guy, no doubt about that, so I imagine that connection will be highlighted, along with lots of intimations that nothing happens in Russia without Putin controlling it and that the guy who confessed is going to get a sweetheart deal for doing so. It's a bit more difficult to explain away the guy who blew himself up, but I guess you could imply that someone else blew him up as a cover story or something.

 

 

It boils down to the fact that the west wants to sponsor a coup in Russia and they have trouble finding the people for it. Not because Putin is killing them off but because those they are backing are all politically compromised and reviled by most of the general populace. The betrayal and co-opting of Gorbachov and the subsequent humiliation and poverty under Yeltsin is still very fresh in Russia's collective consciousness.

 

This guy was worth more dead than alive. That's not to say that the west had a hand in his demise (I have no idea), but it is a fact that his usefulness had peaked long ago.

 

The only thing that may undo Russia is not this blather about economy - that's using patently American logic to a non-American issue. Its the question of succession post-Putin. Personalized governments have trouble replacing a charismatic leader with a credible successor. Like with Tito and Yugoslavia, it opens up space for internal strife.

Edited March 10, 2015 by Drowsy Emperor

[Hurlshort]

 

 

The only thing that may undo Russia is not this blather about economy - that's using patently American logic to a non-American issue. Its the question of succession post-Putin. Personalized governments have trouble replacing a charismatic leader with a credible successor. Like with Tito and Yugoslavia, it opens up space for internal strife.

 

But that's an issue that the US avoids by:

 

1.  Term limits

2.  Limited executive power

3.  Having a group that trashes the President no matter what he does, regardless of party.

 

It works surprisingly well.

[Drowsy Emperor]

The Russian political and cultural history, coupled with the size of the country, the issues it faces, the might of its neighbors necessitates a more authoritarian form of government. Like in China, its hard to take power, hard to hold onto it and very difficult to step down once you have it. Russia has been through several terrible ordeals in the 20th century (WW1, civil war, transition from imperial rule to bolshevik rule, WW2, communism, collapse of communism, transition to capitalism) that makes stability far more prized than "democracy".  You must realize that a single generation hasn't been born in Russia in the last 100 years that has not lived through at least one major disaster and paradigm shift.

 

Major interests in the US have been stable for a very long time, its neighbors are politically insignificant, its physically isolated from other major powers. There have been no serious upheavals since the civil war. Its a lot easier for the elite to build a consensus and to be lax about which part of the elite is in control at any given moment.

 

The executive branch is the dominant political power in most countries today. The day when parliaments and judicial branches could control the executive has long since past. Russia and the USA are very similar in that regard. Both are federations and presidential systems in which the president and his cabinet hold most of the power and can be faced with some unpleasantness only when their party does not hold sway in the parliament. Even then, much of the time, the Duma/Congress is not a real impediment. 

 

Anyway, the problem Russia has doesn't stem from institutional issues so institutional shifts can't really solve it.

[Gromnir]

am beating on timmy.  we have been reduced to beating on timmy. 

 

*sigh*

 

but hey, there were no context stripping when you were fighting over 40% when the issue were whether western sanctions were having an impact?  heck, Putin thought sanctions were having a greater impact than did zor.  maybe putin don't understand basic economics... is possible seeing as how he plagiarized his thesis that were functionally an mba defense.

 

zor focuses on 6-12 as opposed to 6-18 as if that somehow diminishes the economic crisis in russia?  "which complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  is our rearguard attempt to prevent your irrelevancies and context stripping. am fine with 6-12, but your context stripping, particular in light o' your hypocritical condemnation should not be allowed.

 

again,

 

Gromnir quote:

 

"hell, it were only a few pages ago in this thread when you were telling us that the Russian financial crisis were some kinda invention o’ western journalists, or some such nonsense. 

 

"“Yes, I hear that Russia is down to their last 376 billion!

 

"“Always a good laugh, seeing US press (and especially Uncle Rupes' Yellow Journalists) talking their enemies down, you'd think dealing with the 18 trillion dollar (and currently increasing at more than Russia's entire external debt annually) log in their own eye would garner rather more attention.”"

 

 

zor reply:

 

Hooray for context stripping. To remind people, you were saying that Russia would be out of reserves in "six months to a year at current rate of spending". I handily refuted the "current rate of spending" pages back, now there's nothing else to do but set the alarm clock for early August- Feb 2015/6 and see whose experts were right, mine saying 18 months to two years or yours saying max a year. Whoever is wrong can feel free to admit they were an ostrich.

 

you don't even get that you is the guy with the context stripping. is this a problem o' namby-pamby projection, or just ignorance? the context o' your quote were as Gromnir described.  no mention o' time frames had entered into the discussion when you made your ridiculous statement.  on the other hand, your response were clear outta context.

 

pointless.  we is quoting same stuff and all you do is insist that black is white and up is down. and o' course, you selective quote til Gromnir helps you fill-in whoat you purposeful removed, you naughty little paranoid... paranoid who is inexplicably not suspicions o' putin.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/01/28/with-his-dying-words-poisoned-spy-alexander-litvinenko-named-putin-as-his-killer/

 

and taken from the following link

 

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2015/mar/02/russia-another-dead-democrat/

 

November 1998: Duma Deputy Galina Starovoitova, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, shot to death in her St. Petersburg apartment building.

 

July 2000: Igor Domnikov, reporter for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta who wrote about government corruption, dies in Moscow two months after being severely beaten.

 

April 2003: Sergei Yushenkov, Duma deputy and co-chairman of the Liberal Russia party, gunned down at the entrance to his apartment building. Yushenkov was serving at the time as co-chairman of the so-called Kovalev Commission, which was investigating the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia and the Kremlin’s possible role.

July 2003: Novaya Gazeta reporter Iuri Shchekochikhin, investigating at the time high-level corruption in the law enforcement agencies, dies from what is believed to have been poisoning with Thallium. Shchekochikhin was also a member of the Kovalev Commission.

 

July 2004: Paul Klebnikov, American editor of Forbes Russia, shot to death in Moscow. He was investigating organized crime and its connections with the Russian government.

September 2006: Andrei Kozlov, first deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Bank, who was, among other reforms, trying to put a stop to money-laundering, shot dead on a Moscow street

 

October 2006: Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya, known for her opposition to the second war in Chechnya and President Putin, gunned down in the stairwell of her apartment building. Although police eventually arrested and convicted five of participating in and carrying out the killing, the mastermind was never identified.

 

November 2006: Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Putin, who had been granted asylum in Britain, poisoned by polonium-210, a highly lethal and very rare substance, which the killers inadvertently spread all over London.

 

November 2006: Maksim Maksimov, investigative reporter for the St. Petersburg weekly Gorod, declared dead on November 30, 2006, two years after he was reported missing. At the time he went missing he was investigating the unsolved 1998 murder in St. Petersburg of Galina Starovoitova.

 

March 2007: Ivan Safronov, apparently pushed to his death from his Moscow apartment window. A respected correspondent for Kommersant, Safronov was investigating a secret sale of Russian missiles and fighter jets to Syria and Iran.

 

October 2008: Prominent lawyer Karina Moskalenko, who pursues cases in international courts against the Russian government for human rights abuses and has also represented the family of Anna Politkovskaya, was poisoned by mercury placed in her car but survived.

 

January 2009: Russian human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov shot and killed on a Moscow Street, along with a reporter for Novaya Gazeta, Anastasia Barburova.

 

July 2009: Natalya Estemirova, human rights activist and contributor to Novaya Gazeta, shot dead near the capital of Chechnya, Grozny. She reported on extra-judicial killings, abductions, and torture in Chechnya by federal and local authorities.

November 2009: Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian accountant who had made allegations about large-scale theft in the government, died while languishing ill in prison after being arrested on false charges.

 

April 2013: Mikhail Beketov, died from apparent complications arising from a November 2008 attack by unknown assailants that crushed his skull and left him in a coma for months. Beketov was a journalist who reported on government corruption involving the highly controversial construction of a highway through the Khimki Forest, near Moscow.

 

extreme selective suspicion is just another reason to laugh at zor.  and so we do.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

The Russian political and cultural history, coupled with the size of the country, the issues it faces, the might of its neighbors necessitates a more authoritarian form of government. Like in China, its hard to take power, hard to hold onto it and very difficult to step down once you have it. Russia has been through several terrible ordeals in the 20th century (WW1, civil war, transition from imperial rule to bolshevik rule, WW2, communism, collapse of communism, transition to capitalism) that makes stability far more prized than "democracy".  You must realize that a single generation hasn't been born in Russia in the last 100 years that has not lived through at least one major disaster and paradigm shift.

 

Major interests in the US have been stable for a very long time, its neighbors are politically insignificant, its physically isolated from other major powers. There have been no serious upheavals since the civil war. Its a lot easier for the elite to build a consensus and to be lax about which part of the elite is in control at any given moment.

 

The executive branch is the dominant political power in most countries today. The day when parliaments and judicial branches could control the executive has long since past. Russia and the USA are very similar in that regard. Both are federations and presidential systems in which the president and his cabinet hold most of the power and can be faced with some unpleasantness only when their party does not hold sway in the parliament. Even then, much of the time, the Duma/Congress is not a real impediment. 

 

Anyway, the problem Russia has doesn't stem from institutional issues so institutional shifts can't really solve it.

 

I agree with everything you are saying except your analysis of the US Executive Branch.  It is very limited.  Even when one party controls congress and the presidency, they can barely get anything done.  Just look at the Affordable Care Act, which is basically the one big program Obama has pushed during his time in office.  It's a bureaucratic mess that has faced roadblocks and rewrites every step of the way.  

 

One big part of limiting executive power is the fact that each state operates independently, meaning when the President wants to make a big change, he has to deal with 50 different states reacting to it.   

[Gromnir]

there is an incredible misapprehension, even among Americans, regarding the actual powers of the President. in domestic affairs, the President must needs work through the bureaucracy to make changes, or he needs depend on appeals to the public and Congress.  the President's greatest power is not actual in the Constitution.  as the most visible member o' the Fed government, the President has a natural ability (and the public's expectations) to set the national agenda.  the President can't make laws, but from a practical standpoint, if the President is speaking o' affordable health care, so too will Congress. 

 

is actual amusing when even a popular President such as Reagan can be stymied by one of his appointments. Sam Pierce were secretary of HUD under Reagan, and under Sam Pierce, corruption and scandal were rampant.  so Reagan appoints Jack Kemp, who were about as conservative as a popular American conservative can be.  'course, Kemp went native instead o' following Reagan directives.  you figure the one area a President would have actual real control over domestic affairs is in the executive branch bureaucracy, but even that is largely limited to appointment power and budgeting... which should be enough, but isn't. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited March 10, 2015 by Gromnir

[Zoraptor]

but hey, there were no context stripping when you were fighting over 40% when the issue were whether western sanctions were having an impact?

 

"Up to" 40%; omitting the "up to" significantly changes the meaning because one says "this is the exact figure" and the other says "this is the maximum figure". If you can't recognise why that is dishonest then, well, you'll be forever doomed to be a Weasel*. You don't have to admit it publicly, that is expecting too much, but you should at least admit it to yourself.

 

And again, hiding behind your entirely made up claim (again, PPOR) that I said sanctions had no impact when the best proof you've offered is that I said they did not have a severe impact. And the now staple rambling and random quotes claiming you didn't really start the talk about 6-12 months despite (1) being quoted saying it yourself and (2) admitting yourself that you did so; and how me making a quote that mirrored that claim with functional identity is misleading because I didn't also say that I called the article you got the figure from crap- context which is irrelevant since no one was going to think that I considered that article as Thucydides reborn writing a Pulitzer Prize worthy magnum opus.

 

And all leavened by some of the most feeble insults man has had the misfortune to see.

 

*to whit: use 'everyone agrees with me' argument- with or without optional misquoting of said experts

Restate your opponent's ideas using bizarre absolutes (change "not severe" into "no" damage, make argument absolute) and then refute those

For every respectable human quality there is an insulting word that means the same thing. For example, accuse open-minded people of being flakes. Accuse cautious people of being afraid of change etc.

[Gromnir]

 

but hey, there were no context stripping when you were fighting over 40% when the issue were whether western sanctions were having an impact?

 

"Up to" 40%; omitting the "up to" significantly changes the meaning because one says "this is the exact figure" and the other says "this is the maximum figure". 

and again, what were the Context you most obtuse and paranoid o' putin parrots?  in the same quote you hypocritically complaint o' irrelevant but missing verbiage, you left out how putin agreed that sanctions were having a significant impact, which, *sigh* you repeated denied. blame all on oil drop alone?  HA! the 40% were evidence that even russians were admitting the impact o' western sanctions on the collapse o' the ruble.

 

we might as well add the following to every post responding to you:  your inane response, "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  your attempt to distract with irrelevancies after you make ridiculous assertions is amusing but predictable and tediously repetitive.  we wish there were a way to add the chastisement you selective lifted from your quote o' Gromnir and add it to all responses to zor.  sadly, the board software doesn't allow such.  

 

 am not sure if you is doing on purpose or not.  very repetitive, is plain to see that you don't know how to read graphs, don't understand basic economics and clearly don't get that predictions o' a russian fail in 6-12 months is hardly more or less compelling that russia is facing a sever economic crisis in 6-18 months.

 

...

 

"*to whit: use 'everyone agrees with me' argument"

 

nope. we said nobody agrees with you.  is a difference.  we keep need pointing these simple things out o you.  is tiresome and should be unnecessary.  

 

oh well.  go ahead and keep channeling timmy.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[BruceVC]

 

 

but hey, there were no context stripping when you were fighting over 40% when the issue were whether western sanctions were having an impact?

 

"Up to" 40%; omitting the "up to" significantly changes the meaning because one says "this is the exact figure" and the other says "this is the maximum figure". 

and again, what were the Context you most obtuse and paranoid o' putin parrots?  in the same quote you hypocritically complaint o' irrelevant but missing verbiage, you left out how putin agreed that sanctions were having a significant impact, which, *sigh* you repeated denied. blame all on oil drop alone?  HA! the 40% were evidence that even russians were admitting the impact o' western sanctions on the collapse o' the ruble.

 

we might as well add the following to every post responding to you:  your inane response, "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  your attempt to distract with irrelevancies after you make ridiculous assertions is amusing but predictable and tediously repetitive.  we wish there were a way to add the chastisement you selective lifted from your quote o' Gromnir and add it to all responses to zor.  sadly, the board software doesn't allow such.  

 

 am not sure if you is doing on purpose or not.  very repetitive, is plain to see that you don't know how to read graphs, don't understand basic economics and clearly don't get that predictions o' a russian fail in 6-12 months is hardly more or less compelling that russia is facing a sever economic crisis in 6-18 months.

 

...

 

"*to whit: use 'everyone agrees with me' argument"

 

nope. we said nobody agrees with you.  is a difference.  we keep need pointing these simple things out o you.  is tiresome and should be unnecessary.  

 

oh well.  go ahead and keep channeling timmy.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Zora you make a lot of sense on certain topics but any suggestion that sanctions aren't hurting the Russian economy on certain levels just makes you sound silly and like an intransigent fanatic. You should be able to recognize certain political and economic realities without feeling the need to dispute them ?

[Zoraptor]

"Bruce, dear fellow, you agreeing with me is one of the things that would get me to question whether I was right."

 

  in the same quote you hypocritically complaint o' irrelevant but missing verbiage

 

'Irrelevant' verbiage that changes the meaning can not be irrelevant- as it changes the meaning. If you change the meaning from maximum to exact by omitting words it is not irrelevant, by definition, because exact and maximum do not mean the same thing.

 

you left out how putin agreed that sanctions were having a significant impact

 

 

Unsurprisingly, he doesn't say that, that's just your interpretation. Indeed, he said Russia had plenty of reserves and would be back in growth inside two years- though he is, of course, biased every bit as much as you or wsj dude, just differently biased.

 

In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'. Unfortunately I must use maths and statistics to illustrate how, so you may have difficulty following. The rouble has roughly halved (50%) in value against the USD (somewhat less than halved, but I'll round 'up'), proportionately 25-30% of that is a 12.5-15% total devaluation. Leaving the large majority, 70-75% proportion, or 35-37.5% total devaluation not related to sanctions.

 

You know who have had the same or larger devaluations than 12.5-15%, of the top ten (exc US, for obvious reasons- it's had a 0% change relative to itself, after all) traded currencies? Nine of them, China being the only exception. So if that is severe then the effects on the Euro, Pound, non US anglophone dollars, peso, krone, Sfranc and Yen must also be 'severe', and nine of the top ten currencies must be approaching crisis. The extra 70-75% makes it 'severe', but that, by your own logic, isn't due to sanctions.

 

"*to whit: use 'everyone agrees with me' argument"

 

nope.

 

Well, at least you tacitly admit to the other two. Though of course 'everyone disagrees with you' rather loses its impact when you're tacitly admitting to restating your opponents arguments using bizarre absolutes- after all, that is precisely why people restate arguments as bizarre absolutes; so they can say everyone disagrees with the bizarre absolute that was just made up.

[BruceVC]

"Bruce, dear fellow, you agreeing with me is one of the things that would get me to question whether I was right."

 

Okay Zora lets keep this simple. Russia credit ratings are now what is known as junk

 

http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/26/investing/russia-credit-rating-junk/index.html

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/moodys-downgrades-credit_n_6724766.html

 

 

Do you think this has any impact on a countries economy? What I mean by that is do you think " junk status" means anything?

[Malcador]

Ah, if only credit ratings were a force of nature.

[Gromnir]

"In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'."  but it is significant, which were our claim. we used words such as painful and significant, but you wanna quibble over significant v. severe, as is your typical distraction technique.  

 

" your inane response, "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  your attempt to distract with irrelevancies after you make ridiculous assertions is amusing but predictable and tediously repetitive.  we wish there were a way to add the chastisement you selective lifted from your quote o' Gromnir and add it to all responses to zor.  sadly, the board software doesn't allow such."

 

thanks for illustrating.

 

but shucks, at least you ain't giving total credit to the devaluation o' the ruble to oil drop with your graph misreadings. and yes putin sees this crisis as little different from the one in 2004.  unsurprising.  he didn't do anything to fix the problems that made This crisis inevitable. kurdin is far more jaded, even though he is russian and understandably needing to be cautious with criticisms.for chissakes, the ruble more than halved against the dollar at one point.  to slow the freefall, putin and his geniuses raised interest rates to 17% and used ten of billions of dollars o' the quickly disappearing reserve in three short months to help prop up the ruble.  your math is specious and ignores that that a significant percentage o' the devaluation was Not just oil but western sanctions, and the devaluation hurt.  

 

​oh, and you don't understand your claimed maths (trying to halve the devaluation because the devaluation were half its total value?  HA!) anymore than you understand graphs or basic economics.  tell you what, it would even be better if you used same horrible math/non-reasoning on recession numbers. russian economy shrank less than a full percentage point, but if we were to suggest that western sanctions were responsible for 31-40% o' the recession, that would meant that western sanctions were responsible for a mere fraction o' 1%... which to a Complete Yutz might not sound all that bad. not to mention that the nine nations you ain't giving actual examples o', didn't have sanctions.  duh.  the other nations, due to oil price drop and other economic factor had drops in currency value o' their own.  and if similar sanctions had been imposed on them they woulda' felt an equally significant bit o pain.  sure, the other nations woulda' had sanctions be a proportionally much larger hit to their devaluation because only thrid world countries (and norway) is so darn dependent on a single export, but equal sanctions would be very painful. "We mustn't downplay the impact of sanctions … It's a very big blow every year to the Russian economy,"

 

*sigh*

 

is insane.  don't bother bruce as he ain't trying to be reasonable.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Drowsy Emperor]

The dispute is utterly pointless. Potential nuclear weapons within first strike range of Moscow are the reasons why Putin will fight tooth and nail for Ukraine, and that is the exact thing anyone with any sort of sense would do in his position. If anything, his response has been late (prior to the coup) and mild (post coup).

 

Trying to prove that he's a bad leader (why even bother? what's it to you? concerned for Russians, maybe? lol) flies in the face of everything that has happened since he came to power. From a ruin Russia has become a major regional power again, and on average the quality of life has improved from year to year and is world's away from what it was during the Yeltsin years. It may not be great, or ideal, but holding onto power for so many years in a country that spans two continents, with huge issues all the while having genuine constant popular support is a feat no one in the west is capable of. 

 

If you think trying to build a power base among the extremely fickle and dangerous Russian oligarchs and to get them all into the same boat is easy, you're free to try it yourself. I'm pretty sure they'd eat a lesser man for breakfast and the only thing he'd be doing is putting a stamp on their decisions. 

Like Ronald Reagan @ 1:00:

 

There is some sort of rabid bias at play here, trying to prove something that entirely irrelevant to the current events.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Drowsy Emperor

[Zoraptor]

"In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'."  but it is significant, which were our claim. we used words such as painful and significant, but you wanna quibble over significant v. severe, as is your typical distraction technique.

 

Nope. I used the term 'not severe' and indeed it's the term you've actually managed to quote me as using, as opposed to when you use Weasel Debate Technique #1: deliberately overstate the other person's opinion by claiming I said no effect.

 

​oh, and you don't understand your claimed maths

 

Yeah, I do. Can't say I didn't warn myself that maths would give you problems, but sadly I have no patience to explain proportions, fractions and their reciprocals to you in depth.

 

As always, it was you who started talking about 40% [sic, misquoted] of the currency devaluation being due to sanctions, then complained about not using Putin's 25-30%. Well, the rouble has had an overall devaluation of 50%, it has halved in value, the proportion of that which matches Putin's estimate is 12.5-15% devaluation (0.5*0.25*100 to 0.5*0.3*100 so you can follow on your calculator)- and from Kudrin's- maximised- estimate, 20% (0.5*0.4*100); about half what the Euro has had against the dollar in the same timeframe. It doesn't show what you thought? 1) Quelle surprise and 2) tough noogies; you, again, picked the figure and defended it same as the 6-12 month claim and that agricultural imports that had appreciated 100% would help decrease 30% greater food prices- if someone is to blame for you picking rubbish figures it's you.

 

And that so many of the worlds major currencies have performed similarly to that without the effect of sanctions is exactly the point.

[Gromnir]

"Nope. I used the term 'not severe' " 

 

...

 

have us just repeating

 

 

"In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'."  but it is significant, which were our claim. we used words such as painful and significant, but you wanna quibble over significant v. severe, as is your typical distraction technique.  

 

" your inane response, "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  your attempt to distract with irrelevancies after you make ridiculous assertions is amusing but predictable and tediously repetitive.  we wish there were a way to add the chastisement you selective lifted from your quote o' Gromnir and add it to all responses to zor.  sadly, the board software doesn't allow such."

 

 

funny.

 

 

the sanctions made the situation severe.  duh.  your maths decrease the impact of oil. *chuckle* how could you not notice?  by your own maths, the impact o' western sanctions doubled the devaluation countries with healthy economies Not complete dependent on oil felt... 'cause sanctions is an additional devaluation and not a replacement. oil is now, responsible for 20-26% o' the fall-off o' the ruble and you see western sanctions as not having had a severe or significant impact?  hell, you even used norway as a comparison in your now infamous graph.  norway sees drop from 100 to 80.04 and russia drops from 100 to 45.07? your maths and graphs is funny. you were feebly attempting to refute Gromnir's claims o' significance.  you were ineptly contradicting links o' experts that said russia were in the midst of a economic crisis with the following:

 

"“Yes, I hear that Russia is down to their last 376 billion!

 

"“Always a good laugh, seeing US press (and especially Uncle Rupes' Yellow Journalists) talking their enemies down, you'd think dealing with the 18 trillion dollar (and currently increasing at more than Russia's entire external debt annually) log in their own eye would garner rather more attention.”"

 

and your links show that those reserves, which were over $524 billion in october of 2013, will only last 18 months... in spite o' the yellow journalism nonsense. is it really a laughing matter?  heck, bloomberg, the folks who gave us your wonderful graph, tell us that the actual "usable" reserves is much smaller... but am doubting you wanna go there, yes?

 

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[obyknven]

Because this is a new tread with Western butthurt i post this here.
https://youtu.be/bvn3LEx9dhw 

[Zoraptor]

"In any case, and since you insist: 25-30% is still 'not severe'."

 

 

And it isn't. It's less than 9/10 of the top traded countries had, without sanctions. Whatever things were effecting them effected them more severely than the sanctions effected Russia, and without the oil price drop Russia's currency would have appreciated relative to 9/10 of them (or 7/10, if we remove Canada and Mexico for the oil drop having a negative effect on their currency), even with the sanctions- indeed, the Euro has fallen in value by about twice the amount sanctions caused, even with your made up 40% figure and no reliance on oil exports. And, of course, we have the dial back and redef which happens every single time you get caught out with hyperbole: "we used words such as painful and significant" with 'painful' suddenly disappearing...

 

Now sure, with the effects of the oil price drop added it becomes severe, that is what I've been saying all along- and you've now started defending my 18 month (to 2 yr figure) for just liquid assets as well. So we're now at the stage where you agree with me. Progress has been made.

[Gromnir]

"It's less than 9/10 of the top traded countries had, without sanctions."

 

...

 

you can't be this obtuse.  you is comparing sanctions ALONE, to the devaluation suffered by other nations.  to make a valid comparison, you need add the impact o' sanctions to all those other nations-- add the lowball "Putin's estimate (of) 12.5-15% devaluation" to all the other nations and ask if impact were severe or significant or painful.  is not as if russia woulda' been better off than your other non-specific examples o' other nations.  even before sanctions and oil drop the ruble were falling.  at best russia could hope for similar devaluation as those 9/10 countries... without sanctions and a backwards arse economy particular vulnerable to oil drop.  you is forgetting your math- you forgot how to add.

 

and just for fun instead of 9/10 nonsense:

 

 

and again, has shown multiple times that you is the hypocrite with the context stripping.  gonna get censored for spam if we keep posting same links and quotes.  however, you simple pretending such posts don't exist or retreating to "yellow journalism" or whatever is yet another example that, " your inane response, "complete ignores actual problems o' the crisis, but nice try."  your attempt to distract with irrelevancies after you make ridiculous assertions is amusing but predictable and tediously repetitive.  we wish there were a way to add the chastisement you selective lifted from your quote o' Gromnir and add it to all responses to zor.  sadly, the board software doesn't allow such."

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps the somali shilling actual did better than the dollar, but apparent ain't considered noteworty enough for the chart... and the amount it eclipsed dollar by were .14% or somesuch.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Gromnir

[Zoraptor]

"It's less than 9/10 of the top traded countries had, without sanctions."

 

...

 

to make a valid comparison, you need add the impact o' sanctions to all those other nations

 

...

 

That would prove nothing except how significant the oil price drop was on Russia's currency, which is what I've always said. You have to deal with empirical figures- until the oil price dropped the rouble had barely flickered in value, 20-25% of that, heck even your made up 40% would be utterly insignificant. I was doing you a favour taking it as an absolute, it's actually the thing that makes your argument look least silly- take out the oil drop and you get 25-30 or 40% of even less, for far less absolute effect. And as below, I was already maximising your claimed effects, not minimising them.

 

[chart]

Oh dear, 2014, really? Not from when sanctions were first applied (March 2014, conveniently) to now? That's what I did, since I'm not relying on Weaseling by using a convenient timeframe. Here's a handy link, March to March of a USD vs RUB chart. If you change the 'RUB' in the URL to other currencies' abbreviations you can generate charts for each of the top ten traded currencies, or any you like. Do so and you'll find that your chart is out by, well, a significant and painful amount, shall we say? eg, AUD has dropped about 17%, March to March, not 10%, NZD has dropped ~15%, not 7%, the Euro has dropped ~30% instead of 12% etc. And that's straight March to March, not the yearly max to min I used to generate Russia's currency halving in value, to be charitable and maximise the amounts your claim would generate. Again, your use of figures is at best extremely ill-informed.