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Topic Originator: Bletchley_Par
Date: Tue 11 Apr 17:24
The Russia sanctions only hurt those imposing the sanctions, as Vlad said they would.
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Tue 11 Apr 21:52
"The Russia sanctions only hurt those imposing the sanctions, as Vlad said they would."
Genuinely LOL`d there. Either a p*ss poor attempt at trolling or a display of economic ignorance beyond beggars belief!
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Topic Originator: Bletchley_Par
Date: Tue 11 Apr 22:29
The Guardian.
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Topic Originator: Andrew283
Date: Tue 11 Apr 22:51
Brainboiled will be delighted
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Topic Originator: Tad Allagash
Date: Wed 12 Apr 13:47
This is a forecast i.e. a guess. Their previous guesses were wrong, so now they’ve now got a new guess which will definitely be better than their previous guess.
Remember when the news was stuff that actually happened?
The BBC now lead with news which hasn’t actually happened.
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Topic Originator: OzPar
Date: Wed 12 Apr 15:18
That`s a very astute observation, Tad A...
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Wed 12 Apr 22:30
So as far as I can see, Simon Jenkins of the Guardian has no particular expertise when it comes to Russia, Ukraine, the relationship between the two or the wider geopolitics of the Soviet Union. He`s essentially another PPE Oxbridge graduate who knows not a lot outside of the UK.
If we go down to Brasstacks, long term, Russia is knackered. Their male young and well-educated population has by-and-large left the country. Russia will now have to rely on China going forward and, historically speaking, countries with authoritarian regimes don`t tend to do well when it comes to R&D, although the one exception that springs to mind would be Nazi Germany. Russia and China will struggle majorly going forward with getting the foreign "know how" to actually advance technologically because the vast majority of such capabilities lies in the hands of nations who are, by and large, hacked off at the two.
In the case of Russia, Putin is genuinely popular but only really holds the support of the older generation and they share his deluded fantasy of restoring the Soviet Union. Putin himself is essentially trying to prop up his regime because he is all to aware that he would never survive a corruption case. The whole situation is rather akin to how Yeltsin avoided the corruption charges at the end of his reign.
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Topic Originator: P
Date: Thu 13 Apr 14:25
The article is from July 2022 so not exactly anything for anyone to base the present on.
In fact the rouble is presently at its lowest since April last year
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Topic Originator: sammer
Date: Thu 13 Apr 14:47
I share AT’s scepticism about economic forecasts: if economists could forecast the future then there would never be a banking collapse ever.
Speaking in the present tense I know the situation inside Scotland is very difficult. My two daughters are both health workers in their mid 40s and they tell me money has never been so tight for their families as now. Energy prices have always been a problem in Scotland since the climate is damp and heating the house is required for much of the calendar year. The era of cheap gas pumped into Europe from Russia has clearly ended- the destroyed Nord Stream pipeline will stand as a symbol for that- and alternative energy sources are likely to prove either inadequate or more expensive.
The other major issue in the UK seems to be food prices which must in part be a result of the Brexit deal the country signed. Again, the era of cheap imports from British colonies has long ended and trying to restore trade deals with the likes of Australia and New Zealand will not happen overnight: these countries were forced to find alternative markets when the UK joined the EU and may be happy as things are.
As I write now from Moscow, the rouble is certainly not the ‘rubble’ promised by Biden. Prices have risen but the supermarkets are well stocked, something which astonished a German friend last week since he was moaning about shortages in Hamburg and had been reassured that Russian supermarkets were half empty. I sent him a photo from my local equivalent of Lidl to show otherwise.
Forecasting doom for Russia and China has deep roots due to the western elites’ terror of Communism but both countries continue to live and prosper outside the hegemony of the US Empire. The claim that these countries lack innovation and need experts from western countries to stay ahead of the game is standard cold war propaganda, part of Borrell’s racist vision of the West being a garden and everything else a jungle. It wasn’t a good time to make this claim since April 12th is Space Day in Russia, in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight. A great day for the human race and one of two monumental events which I lived through in April 1961.
sammer
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Topic Originator: DBP
Date: Thu 13 Apr 15:44
(your bit about technology and innovation summer)
I`d agree that is false - can`t speak for Russia, but in my last role, I spent over 4 years introducing AI to solve several problems for a large, multi-national and all of the technical architects and developers were from, and based in, Guangzhou, China
Post Edited (Thu 13 Apr 15:45)
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Topic Originator: P
Date: Fri 14 Apr 11:45
I was in the states last week and notice that inflation there had increased by 0.1% and was 5% on the year while we are getting a shoeing here.
That said every time I am in the states I am flabbergasted at the cost of groceries. Cereal starts at $5 for a wee box and a big bag of Doritos is the same price. Saw an article from this year on the topic which said
“It’s estimated that a British household spends £280-£300 per month for two adults, rising to £370 for a family, while an American household will spend almost $700 on groceries, which is up to 2.5 times more than you might expect to pay in the UK.”
So while inflation is rising and brexit stings we’ve a good way to go before we reach those levels
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Topic Originator: LochgellyAlbert
Date: Fri 14 Apr 11:55
Quote:
P, Fri 14 Apr 11:45
I was in the states last week and notice that inflation there had increased by 0.1% and was 5% on the year while we are getting a shoeing here.
That said every time I am in the states I am flabbergasted at the cost of groceries. Cereal starts at $5 for a wee box and a big bag of Doritos is the same price. Saw an article from this year on the topic which said
“It’s estimated that a British household spends £280-£300 per month for two adults, rising to £370 for a family, while an American household will spend almost $700 on groceries, which is up to 2.5 times more than you might expect to pay in the UK.”
So while inflation is rising and brexit stings we’ve a good way to go before we reach those levels
And how does that compare with wage levels?
Also to be costed in is the price of health care in the USA and housing.
I will have to ask my American daughter in law, now living over here.
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Fri 14 Apr 15:12
On your point DBP, working in IT myself, can I ask you how many of that team in Guangzhou were actually educated in their IT skills in China? My experience is that the best programmers actually come from Russia. Poland, Czech and Estonia are also pretty strong in the IT field within Europe. Most of the companies that we work with in Asia and Europe are withdrawing from China and moving to other Asian countries such as Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand.
As we`ve seen however, Russia`s potential advantage in electronic warfare has been squandered by the sheer levels of corruption that exist in the country. Having a good bit of experience of China myself, I can tell you that the corruption levels there are even worse and they rely on a completely top-down hierarchy. These two simply facts play really badly when it comes to R&D. This would go a long way to explaining why the Russians have been so ineffective in Ukraine.
Essentially what the Chinese have done to a number of Western companies is invite them in for reduced taxes etc, allowed them to train a workforce and develop technology, only for the CCP to set up a similar company and steal the R&D and undercut them. Tesla will likely be the next victim of this.
Moreover, if you put the collective economic might and "know how" of the US, EU, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and (likely) India against Russia and China, then they don`t stand much of a chance of catching the "collective west" in terms of technology going forward unless they boot Putin and Xi and their respective regimes. Personally, I heavily suspect that India will overtake China if the Chinese political regime remains as it is now, or closes itself off further.
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Topic Originator: sammer
Date: Fri 14 Apr 16:41
This term ‘know how’ seems very vague, rather like the ‘leadership gene’ which tantalisingly eludes any British citizen born of low status and who has never attended Eton or Harrow. Top-down hierarchy is enshrined in the UK system and embedded in its institutions be they private or public. Probably the UK is an extreme example but political power and wealth in most western countries is handed down through a small ruling elite: Clintons, Bushes, Bidens, Stoltenbergs, Rees-Moggs and Von der Leyens. Not much scope for innovation amongst that lot unless you can convince them there is a fast buck to made. These are banking people. Corruption is so baked into the western system that words like ‘lobbyists’ and ‘preferred bidder’ barely raise an eyebrow from the average voter. When Macron, representing financial interests, ducked out of a parliamentary vote and provoked riots on the streets of Paris he was given an easy ride in western media for his undemocratic move.
Having lived and worked in both Russia and China I fail to see how a change of leader or even political system would benefit anybody other than some local oligarchs and those who build US military bases. The western (NATO) assumption of superior military ‘know how’ over Russia has been exposed over the last year; in fact one problem the Russians have faced is trying to destroy these old Soviet steelworks which were built to withstand nuclear attack. (As a boy we were always told everything made in the USSR was crap.) Western snobbery about heavy industry (I remember Buff Hoon calling shipbuilders ‘metal bashers’) has seen them without the resources to produce the amount of weaponry required for a long conflict.
I see no evidence of China cutting itself off from the world. It has just brokered a peace deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, much to US anger I am sure, and has even had the cheek to offer a peace deal for Ukraine which is taboo for the time being in western governments. Its fast railway system must be the equal of any in the world today and the belt and road initiative has been well received on the African continent. Instead of following the US lead of seeing China as a threat, a more sensible economic approach would be for European countries to see China as an opportunity. Macron took this step last week.
sammer
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Topic Originator: DBP
Date: Fri 14 Apr 17:19
Majority if not all of them...
Most of the business managers were educated and / or worked in Europe / north America, but the engineers and architects seemed to be all China. In fact a few of them couldn`t speak English very well at all which made some of the project meetings interesting
Post Edited (Fri 14 Apr 17:19)
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Topic Originator: P
Date: Fri 14 Apr 17:48
Quote:
sammer, Fri 14 Apr 16:41
The western (NATO) assumption of superior military ‘know how’ over Russia has been exposed over the last year;.
You mean by that Special Military Operation that would be over in a fortnight owing to Russian might?😂😂
I think it’s safe to say the Russian military have been shown up to be a poor joke over the last year
Post Edited (Fri 14 Apr 17:50)
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Fri 14 Apr 18:38
Sammer, we`ve been over the military stuff before and you`ve shown on all occasions that you simply have no idea about military aspects. US military intelligence was pretty spot on in terms of predicting the invasion and I can tell you for an absolute fact that even the Swedish Military intelligence service was very well aware of the Russian military build up on the Ukrainian border several months before February 2022. Do you HONESTLY believe that Russia is winning?
Funny thing is that a lot of the dire quality spare parts the Russians are using are Chinese made...go figure.
Based on your statements about "top down", you might want to refresh your knowledge on what the definition actually is. At the moment you`re playing your usual game of whitabootery.
Also very curious about where I have apparently said that there is no corruption in democratic countries - could you please enlighten me on that one?
If you don`t see China cutting itself off from the world, then I suggest you have a wee read up on the "Dual Circulation" model that the CCP is now implementing in its economic planning, which has had to be revised quite drastically because everyone is hacked off at them because its now widely known that they basically lied to the WHO about the nature of the Covid virus.
I certainly wouldn`t interpret what Macron said in the way that you have. What Macron and most Western European leaders want is to basically build up strategic independence from the US, which will likely mean more military build up in Europe in the coming years. The big difference between East and West Europe is that most of the Eastern Countries want the US involved as a safety guarantor and a number of Western European countries do as well. For Macron, a lot of it is about being seen as a "big player" and I know from my own industry that many companies (both from Asia and the EU) in many sectors are withdrawing from China. I heavily suspect what Macron is doing is basically buying time for the EU to build up. Remember that the EU is currently 450Mn in comparison to the 330Mn of the US and, properly mobilised and organised as it will be, will be a force to be reckoned with. Russia by comparison is only 130 Mn and has progressed very little since 1991 by most measures compared to other former communist states. Meanwhile in China, you only have about 30% of the population urbanised and progress being hindered because the Government doesn`t know what its doing.
Post Edited (Fri 14 Apr 18:39)
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Fri 14 Apr 18:39
As for the quality of Chinese construction and quality control...well having seen it for myself it certainly leaves a lot to be desired. Just one example would be that whole cities in China are build with inadequate storm drainage in the Central Plain in China, which is prone to flooding. Thousands killed but the official figure isn`t even in triple digits. Go figure. Call it snobbery if you like, but having seen a lot of China and having a good understanding of "Chinese Face Culture" actually gives you a good idea of how the country operates. Xi has basically decided that he needs to be as "great" as Mao so this will likely be China`s Second Great Step Backwards.
PS Admin - any chance we can get the limitless character input boxes back in the politics forum? Quite difficult to judge when you`ve reached the limit. Should just be a change to one of the attributes in the HTML, no? Cheers! :)
Post Edited (Fri 14 Apr 18:41)
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Topic Originator: sammer
Date: Fri 14 Apr 23:04
I think we have strayed somewhat from the topic of economics. In reply to P, I have no idea where that strawman claim of a two week victory march into Kiev came from but I would suspect MOD or Bellingcat. Within two months a rough outline of a peace plan was in place during talks in Istanbul but this came to naught. The decision was taken by NATO/Ukraine to fight it out in the belief better terms could be obtained. In response Russia began to mobilise its troops for war instead of the Special Military Operation. On Russian TV, Kremlin spokesmen anticipated that their stated aims, which were clearly outlined from the outset and remain unchanged, would take around two years of military action. If the Russian army is the joke P believes, there are unfortunately around 200,000 Ukrainians now unable to share it with him.
From the present perspective that decision to jettison the Istanbul peace talks looks like a catastrophic decision since so much Ukrainian life and land has been subsequently lost. At the time of writing it is difficult to see how Ukraine will last anything like two years.
This conclusion is not based on my scant military knowledge which is clearly vastly inferior to HJ’s activities with the Swedish defence forces, but has been expounded by several military commentators for over a year. More tellingly, the allegedly ‘leaked’ Pentagon documents this week paint an equally grim picture for Ukraine and confirm much of what these commentators have been denounced for saying. An attrition rate of 7:1 in personnel at the expense of Ukraine is not sustainable and their air defences are forecast to collapse by late May. They are short of both ammunition and men. The peace of the graveyard is no peace at all.
The ‘whitabootery’ riposte is the last card of the hypocrite. HJ`s comments about corruption in China were equally applicable to western countries as well whereas he suggested they were on a greater scale. After the UK Covid scandal I thought that was a rash way to write. Ukraine was known as the corrupt man of Europe before the invasion and yesterday Seymour Hersch wrote that 400 million dollars has been skimmed off by Zelensky and around 30 of his generals, although the story has been spiked so far in western media. So they are having a good war. As for a great step backwards, Mao Zedong set up China to take its place outside western influence: there are no American bases in China, unlike Japan or Sweden for that matter.
The former soviet states I have visited look underfunded. What happened to the ‘peace dividend?’ Poor roads, no industry worth the name, public transport as crap as the UK and even deficient street lighting. But I’m sure the bankers are doing well and shouting to become part of NATO to protect their dollars same as Zelensky.
I did once have high hopes of being part of an EU which could act as a counter balance to east and west both economically and militarily. That was the original dream
sammer
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Sat 15 Apr 05:58
Sammer, the simple fact of the matter is that all the loss of life in Ukraine could have been prevented had Putin not decided to attack.
You seem to be suggesting that Ukraine should simply have rolled over and simply accepted Russian subjugation. What planet are you actually on?! Do you honestly think that the Ukrainian people would have accepted that?
This war was always meant as a distraction for the Russian public away from the anti-corruption protests that were brewing in Russia during the early Covid Pandemic. Its the same pattern with Putin. When he came to power, he started the war in Chechnya to make himself look like a hard man. When he was facing challenge in 2008, he attacked Georgia. Now when a lot of people are really starting to become aware of his corruption and his status as the single biggest Oligarch in Russia then what does he do? Another conflict, this time in Ukraine.
As for military deaths, as far as I`m aware, the Russian death toll far exceeds that of the Ukrainian one so far. Much of that is down to poor equipment, training and organisation on the Russian side. German intelligence, who are fairly reliable, suggested a few months ago that Russian deaths were close to 300,000 whereas the most recent estimates of the Ukrainian casualties are in the region of 150,000 at the top end, of which about 20,000 are deaths. In short the Ukrainians seem to be far more effective as a military forces and better equipped to save the lives of their wounded. And so far that`s been with outdated equipment.
I`d also be very curious to know where the US military base in Sweden is - could you enlighten me on that one?
And we`re back to Hersch again? The guy that was claiming the US blew up Nordstream despite the Russian Navy being in the area at the time? Frankly, everyone is aware that the was and potentially still is corruption in Ukraine however Zelensky himself knows that failure to tackle this would likely end up with the financial and military aid tap being turned off. Let`s not pretend otherwise.
As for the former Soviet states being poor, have you ventured far outside of the Moscow-St Petersburg bubble in Russia recently? I think you`ll find many places outside of these two cities are pretty damn poor. Compare this to the progress in Poland, Czech, Estonia (among others) then you really need to ask the question where the money in Russia is going. With all the resources that they have, Russia should have progressed far more in the last 30 ears and be doing FAR better.
To me, it seems that you are almost happy to ignore the 40-80Mn deaths that Mao caused in China and the cultural destruction that his regime brought. Is it that you are an authoritarian shill? or you just hate the "collective west"?
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Topic Originator: parathletic
Date: Sat 15 Apr 06:54
The leaked Pentagon documents were edited to change the casualty figures when shown in the Russian media.The originals were easily available for us to see, but I`m guessing Sammer won`t have seen those versions.
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Topic Originator: londonparsfan
Date: Sat 15 Apr 10:58
I`ve made the point on Estonia before its flying at the moment. You can see the new buildings and modernisation, it`s way further ahead than when I first visited so I can only imagine that those that were there for some of the earlier Scotland games would notice it either more.
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Topic Originator: sammer
Date: Sat 15 Apr 15:54
‘Sammer, the simple fact of the matter is that all the loss of life in Ukraine could have been prevented had Putin not decided to attack.’
It’s not that simple. 14,000 had already been killed since 2014, many of them civilians in the Donbas region, and around 1 million Russians had fled the country. More attacks were being planned to root out opposition to the illegal Kiev regime so Putin sitting on his hands would not have stopped bloodshed. The Minsk Accords were designed to do that and were cynically disregarded by Poroshenko and Zelensky, as conceded by the former. The intent was to de-Russify Ukraine- Zelensky was quite open about this in his address to the Israeli parliament- and create a Ukrainian state for a Ukrainian people under the NATO umbrella. No cod psychology is required to see why Putin acted as he did.
German Intelligence is maybe not so reliable: they are still scratching their heads over who blew up Nord Stream 2 pipeline apparently. But if the figures quoted by HJ are accurate then little more needs to be done in terms of supporting Ukraine since, although retreating, they are slaughtering Russian forces on a grand scale. This must be why Zelensky was talking last week about a Ukraine flag flying in Crimea, an area which has resoundingly voted to remain part of the Russian Federation. Last year he called for the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Mariupol but that venue is unavailable. So far every NATO foreign incursion since 1998 has achieved nothing bar the wrecking of the country, so Ukraine will be counted as a first when victory is announced.
‘’I`d also be very curious to know where the US military base in Sweden is - could you enlighten me on that one’’
Indeed, it was a foolish mistake on my part to jump the gun. Sweden’s neutrality has served it well over the years so we will see if NATO membership serves it better. I assume HJ engages in military training alongside NATO forces at Vidsel Air Base and I think it would be better for joint exercises to remain at that level.
‘Is it that you are an authoritarian shill? or you just hate the "collective west"?’
I am opposed to the colonial mindset which sees countries outwith the US empire as inferior and therefore legitimate targets for attack or being subverted. I define the American Empire as any country which houses US military bases, of which there are around 600 scattered across the world. I have a particular dislike of those elites who sell out their countries to the highest bidder as Gorbachov and Yeltsin tried to do and Zelensky has done, but then as a Scot the concept of ‘a parcel of rogues’ is not new to me.
sammer
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Thu 20 Apr 16:32
Sammer, once again it seems you simply ignore basic established facts.
It is actually as simple as I stated. The Little Green Men who entered Donbas and Crimea in the aftermath of the Maidan revolution in 2014 were Russian soldiers with their insignias removed. Who provided the rebel groups with the Russian-made weapons they`re using? I do wonder...What Putin says about the conflict beginning in 2014 is correct, however he seems to be omitting the fact that he was directly involved. Funny that!
On the subject of casualties, there really isn`t much debate over the fact that the Ukrainians have suffered far less than the Russians. As parathletic said above, the Russian media have doctored the pentagon documents that have been leaked to show lower casualty figures, mainly so that they are acceptable to the Russian public.
Have you actually seen the footage of the Wagner guys going against the Ukrainian military? Basically trying to run across fields and just getting mown down. Many of the casualties in the "professional" army are because of poor training and equipment. It seems Putin thinks he can simply win with quantity.
In terms of legalities, you`ll find that every region of Ukraine including Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea voted in favour of Independence from the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Ukrainian_independence_referendum That pretty much undermines any claims that these regions are not part of Ukrainian territory. Now, even if you want to compare that to the 2014 "referendum" in Crimea, surely the supposedly 97% voter turnout compared to the 57% in the region in 1991 presents something of a conundrum. Or are you gonna ignore this as well?
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Thu 20 Apr 16:44
Referring to the supposedly "illegal regime" in Kiev is also rather laughable considering that there have been two free and fair elections in Ukraine in 2014 and 2019. Again, this is you simply taking Russian propaganda at face value.
Contrast this where Putin has changed the constitution in Russia - something which he always promised not to do remember - to extend the term of the office of President to 7 years and to remove the limitation of 2 terms. Now, to pretty much anybody with a reasonable ability to critique a situation, does that not seem like an attempt to keep his presidential immunity? Why might that be, I wonder?
As for the claims of wanting to "de-Russify" Ukraine. I have read quite a considerable amount about these during the courses I`ve taken on the Soviet Union. Essentially this claim refers to things like that changing of street names and language policy etc. When it comes to the former, much of this is actually a "de-Sovietisation" and getting rid of street names of Communist era leaders, which has happened in EVERY state since the fall of Communism in Europe. The same thing happened in Germany after the fall of the Nazi regime. We`ve been over language policy aspects as well. Are you forgetting that it was the Brezhnev doctrines in the 70s that basically forced citizens of the Soviet Union to learn Russian? Or just ignoring it? Are you really surprised that the Ukrainians want to promote their own language? This is the reason that only 17% of the pre-war Ukrainian population are ethnically Russian, but 30% speak Russian as their first language.
Again, you show yourself to simply be one of these "Western Z shills" and the opinions you show are quite typical of such a Z-Westerner who lives in the Moscow-St Petersburg bubble.
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Thu 20 Apr 16:54
As for Vidsel Air Base, its 21 Wing that are based up there and the base is actually a missile testing site for the most part with an airfield attached to it. It is the training site for the Air Force North Group and has been for about 30 years if memory serves correctly. It has hosted joint Swedish-US exercises in the past - and still does as far as I`m aware - but there is no permanent US presence there. In short, I think you`d be extremely hard pressed to claim that Vidsel is a US base.
I also reckon you need to read a wee bit more about Gorbachev if you think he "sold out" Russia. I think you`ll find the guy was basically trying to walk a tight-rope between the reformers and the deluded old guard of the Communist Party who didn`t want him to do anything and tried to block him at every turn. As for Yeltsin, well the guy was a drunk and had very little control of anything.
In short, you can make all these warped claims you like, but every so often you might come across somebody who knows more than you do about the history and politics of Russia.
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Topic Originator: sammer
Date: Thu 20 Apr 18:24
‘In short, you can make all these warped claims you like, but every so often you might come across somebody who knows more than you do about the history and politics of Russia.’
I often meet such people but they are invariably Russian and they usually take a much harder line on Gorbachov and Ukraine than I do. Then again, they can read historical accounts in both the Russian and English language which gives them an advantage. Western attempts to employ Ukrainian nationalists in the crusade against the USSR were well known to the grandparents of present day Russians, beginning with the Nazis in 1941 and subsequently adopted by NATO thereafter. The fact that this required funding groups who were unrepentant Nazis open in their racial hatred mattered little, even when some of the recipients had been involved in civilian massacres on Ukrainian soil.
So the modern Russian views the present fighting in Ukraine as a continuation of that historical process, complete with NATO arming of fascist groups whose atrocities in Mariupol in particular are a matter of UN record. The 1991 referendum was taken before the coup of 2014 and the Azov crew were given free reign by Kiev. Unsurprisingly, the inhabitants of eastern Ukraine do not want them back. And they want to speak Russian in public as well.
To return to topic a little. The de-dollarisation of the world economy looks like it will continue, which is bound to affect all these countries within the US hegemony. Rumours of a banking collapse in the US may be no more than that but the economic uncertainty hanging over Europe will make it difficult for either Macron or Scholz to stay in power and serve their Wall Street masters. Maybe time to repair that pipeline.
sammer
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Tue 25 Apr 09:23
Oh, I do love the "de-dollarisation" argument. Funnily enough, if you search for this term, a lot of the sources you`ll find are Chinese government-controlled such as CGTN, Global Times or Xinhua and they are trying to peddle the narrative that the RMB is overtaking the dollar. The strange thing though is that if you go and look at the stats, the USD accounts for about 80% of all global trade. The RMB is about 2% and the Rouble is even less, so these claims don`t hold water in the slightest. The Aussie dollar (and remember from a country of only 25Mn people) accounts for more global trade than the RMB.
What is actually happening with the de-dollarisation argument is that the Chinese Government are using satellite offices in Hong Kong and Macao to pay English-speaking influencers and media personalities to promote the topic in an attempt to undermine confidence in the dollar, but by-and-large it isn`t really having and effect in the marketplace. You can have a wee read here about some of these individuals here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57780023
Personally, I do think we will see a multipolar world in the longer term with the EU, US, Mercosur and India on one side and Russia and China on the other. Were China not run by a Fascist and Imperialist gang masquerading as Communists and Russia not run by a paranoid wee dweeb oligarch and were more open and transparent then I don`t think many people would have actually have an issue with them.
On the other points, its kinda telling how you just simply try to ignore everything and particularly the LGMs. Is it that you can`t be bothered or you know you`re wrong and don`t want to admit it? The claims about Nazis and there influence are also rather laughable and show you`re just taking the Russian narrative at face value:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxM1TplHlos
As for Gorbachev, the main thing for Russians is Imperialist pride and there is a similar thing in England. Perhaps, like the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and others the Ukrainians simply want to rule themselves and have done for a long time? I mean, after the Holodomor, can you really blame them?
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Topic Originator: Tenruh
Date: Tue 25 Apr 11:39
Quote:
hurricane_jimmy, Tue 25 Apr 09:23
Oh, I do love the "de-dollarisation" argument. Funnily enough, if you search for this term, a lot of the sources you`ll find are Chinese government-controlled such as CGTN, Global Times or Xinhua and they are trying to peddle the narrative that the RMB is overtaking the dollar. The strange thing though is that if you go and look at the stats, the USD accounts for about 80% of all global trade. The RMB is about 2% and the Rouble is even less, so these claims don`t hold water in the slightest. The Aussie dollar (and remember from a country of only 25Mn people) accounts for more global trade than the RMB.
What is actually happening with the de-dollarisation argument is that the Chinese Government are using satellite offices in Hong Kong and Macao to pay English-speaking influencers and media personalities to promote the topic in an attempt to undermine confidence in the dollar, but by-and-large it isn`t really having and effect in the marketplace. You can have a wee read here about some of these individuals here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57780023
Personally, I do think we will see a multipolar world in the longer term with the EU, US, Mercosur and India on one side and Russia and China on the other. Were China not run by a Fascist and Imperialist gang masquerading as Communists and Russia not run by a paranoid wee dweeb oligarch and were more open and transparent then I don`t think many people would have actually have an issue with them.
On the other points, its kinda telling how you just simply try to ignore everything and particularly the LGMs. Is it that you can`t be bothered or you know you`re wrong and don`t want to admit it? The claims about Nazis and there influence are also rather laughable and show you`re just taking the Russian narrative at face value:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxM1TplHlos
As for Gorbachev, the main thing for Russians is Imperialist pride and there is a similar thing in England. Perhaps, like the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and others the Ukrainians simply want to rule themselves and have done for a long time? I mean, after the Holodomor, can you really blame them?
Why did you not add Scotland to the last paragraph?
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Topic Originator: hurricane_jimmy
Date: Tue 25 Apr 12:30
Tenruh - my experience is that most Scots do not view the British Empire as being a good thing, nor do they have a particularly Imperialist mindset. The exception of course is the Orange Rangers fans including the likes of Douglas Ross and Murdo Fraser, the latter of whom is a full-blown member of the Orange Order. Why, therefore, would I add it?
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