[Politics] Russia invades Ukraine (24/02/2022)

Triggaaar said:

I know it's not the point of the article, but from that: "When Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash last year"

So it wasn't shot down, it simply crashed did it? I appreciate they may be attempting to be ambiguous and leave the cause of the deaths to us, but saying it crashed actually acts as though it wasn't shot down. When tanks are blown up by mines and rockets, we don't say they crashed

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Eric the meek said:

Good spot. This could be the BBC copying the narrative in a report from Russia, after Russia has been subtle in its reporting language. Suddenly, Putin is distanced from Prigozhin's death. He wasn't shot down, and the innocent plane crew were not sacrificed to kill him.

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GoldstoneVintage said:

Thanks, this is actually pretty encouraging and seems logical.

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Triggaaar said:

I think it's pathetic of the BBC. What they could have said was 'died when his plane blew up', because that fits the conclusion from the West, and also the claim from Russia. The difference is simply how it was blown up.

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Mackenzie said:

Hopefully folk will start walking away from Tesla.

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Eric the meek said:

A disturbing, but not entirely unexpected result of Russian veterans returning home and being violent.

What also is happening, is that the violence tends to go unpunished and is becoming normalised.

Russia's soldiers bringing wartime violence back home

Many of the attackers have previous criminal convictions and were released from prison purely to fight.

www.bbc.co.uk

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hampshirebrightonboy said:

And Twitter. Seems a lot of people are moving off twitter to Blue Sky. Would love it if twitter failed. Would it be the first large company to fail simply because it’s owner is a complete wanker?

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seagullwedgee said:

The hyper-inflation in the Russian economy suggests that money supply is growing much faster than real economic output. We don’t have any hard information on money supply in Russia, but it’s likely, maybe even probable, that Russia is now printing/creating new money, to use to prop up its currency, because it has no accessible reserves left. Remember when you did history back at school, and citizens in Nazi Germany were literally resorting to using wheelbarrows to move the amount of cash required to go shopping. Not there yet, but maybe not far off. That’s his last resort, to create new money to prop up his currency and this is an exponentially slippery slope. If only we had access to his genuine M0 and M4 (money supply) statistics, trends and trajectories.

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Wallace said:

Maybe he's been getting some advice from Gordon Brown regarding printing money.

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seagullwedgee said:

That Gordon who sold most of our gold reserves, at a low point in the price cycle, before going on to print money, and then leave the cupboard empty?!

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Wallace said:

Maybe he's been getting some advice from Gordon Brown regarding printing money.

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Eric the meek said:

I liked the observation about Trump, who says everything to futureproof himself against changing his mind. That would explain the mixed messages I wrote about a week or two ago.

Then there was the point about the Russian Black Sea oil export terminals. The reason they are still operating is because Ukraine doesn't want to risk upsetting the Americans.

But if Trump says he's not going to send any more aid, then it could be open season.

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raymondo said:

It was a very thoughtful video from Warburg, and I like the three points you highlight, especially the first. One always thinks Trump is just random, unpredictable, and it may well be very deliberate from him... covering all bases.

Even the rudeness directed toward Zelenskiy in the past week has come from Musk and Trump's son - Trump can disown that, as he hasn't been rude about Zelenskiy for over two weeks now!

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seagullwedgee said:

That Gordon who sold most of our gold reserves, at a low point in the price cycle, before going on to print money, and then leave the cupboard empty?!

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Eric the meek said:

I forgot to mention that the US have only sent 10% of the promised weaponry. So that means that the potential withdrawal of US aid is not so daunting for Ukraine as it might have been, and Trump may not have the leverage to twist Zelensky's arm as he might have done.

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seagullwedgee said:

This chart plots the rouble against the US$ for the last 3 months. In that period the rouble has devalued by 15%, on the back of at least 2 years of prior substantial devaluations. Marked with the red arrows, you can see how over time, the interventions of the Russian central bank have become progressively less effective at arresting the devaluation.View attachment 192497

That suggests they are very close to the point where they just don’t have enough, or anything, left to prevent further immediate substantial devaluation.

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hampshirebrightonboy said:

And Twitter. Seems a lot of people are moving off twitter to Blue Sky. Would love it if twitter failed. Would it be the first large company to fail simply because it’s owner is a complete wanker?

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