not sure if they have live streams, but here’s the video of the launch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Gyo-gFTmE

turns out fascists aren’t very good at logistics

none of this makes much sense to be honest, but the oligarchs have found ways to make money hand over fist in this economy and so it continues

What I really liked about the talk is how he connects different things there. The tariffs cause prices to go up because they’re a tax, and so you have economic contractions as a result. Meanwhile, the fed can’t bring rates down cause that causes inflation to go up. And deporting immigrants is leads companies to start laying off high skilled workers because their manual labor force is gone. So, all these things are working together to undermine economic fundamentals.

That all only works for so long though, material reality always finds a way of asserting itself in the end.

oh here https://archive.ph/yTM5s

Yes? We’re in agreement here. The neighbors are happy to get their oil at a discount. They would not be getting this discount were it not for the sanctions, since there would be more competition in the buyer’s market.

You’ve never seen a company offer a discount price initially to get people to sign up? This is the same approach. Once trade relations are established, and these countries build up infrastructure around buying Russian energy, Russia will start raising prices. The key part is that it’s already more profitable for Russia than selling pipeline gas to Europe on fixed contracts ever was.

If Russian leadership was under the illusion that NATO was secretly an offensive alliance, and thus needed to preemptively invade Ukraine, it should be clear with this Hormuz straight business that it really is a defensive alliance. Trump tried to get the NATO members to help and they all told him to pound sand.

NATO has literally been invading one country after another ever since Yugoslavia. One has to lack even a shred of intellectual integrity to claim that it is s defensive alliance. The Hormuz business simply exposes the fact that even Europe isn’t imbecilic enough to follow the US into this debacle directly. However, NATO members are currently actively participating in the war by providing the US military bases to stage attacks on Iran. This is in fact direct proof that NATO is not a defensive alliance. Try to put at least a bit of effort into your trolling here.

They’re down year-over-year, with the biggest hit coming in the first year. The sanctions did what they could (forced Russia to offer big discounts) and now they’re stable in their effect.

They’re not down year over year in any meaningful sense. It’s pretty clear that they are in fact quite steady. What’s down is economic activity all across Europe with energy prices being three times that of US and six times higher compared to China. The European industry is no longer competitive on the global stage. Europe cutting itself from Russian energy was the equivalent of cutting off your own feet to spite your cobbler.

I mean, this is an argument fraught with “nuh-uh” and hand-waving on all sides. “Worth it” is very subjective, especially when the harm to both sides is relatively minor, in the grand scheme of things. Both sides have adjusted to the new reality.

LMFAO no it’s not. Every single economic indicator from Europe shows shrinking economic activity and growing inflation. There’s a reason there’s no major European leader polling above 20% right now.

The European oil sources are super diverse, there’s no need to make this a false East vs West thing. I’m literally just here to explain that Russia is selling oil at a discount because it has to, not because it wants to.

If by super diverse you mean that you buy Russian oil at a markup from Kazakhstan, India and Turkey then sure.

It’s not, it is a terminal emulator application for Android that creates a Linux-like environment.

Ah yes, ABC doing Chinese propaganda. Stay mad little chud.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that public sector controls the commanding heights of the economy in China. While these are not run as cooperatives, the purpose of work is the key difference. The goal of a private corporation is to produce capital for the owners. Meanwhile, public enterprise exists to produce things the society needs. The workers in public enterprises are the primary beneficiaries of their labor. Additionally, the state owns the golden share in all major corporations, and thus makes final decisions on how they operate. So, even private sector in China exists on a tight leash. I can highly recommend this video from Ben Norton explaining how Chinese economy actually works for people who are interested.

I would imagine so.

rookie mistake 🤣

Indeed, we’re gonna be facing much bigger problems. And on top of that, our whole global economy is built entirely on just in time supply chains. Any time there’s a breakdown in shipping then the whole house of cards quickly comes crashing down. And most of the world has no local redundancies that would facilitate any measure of self sufficiency.

yeah the whole thing is obviously a hare brained scheme

I recall reading it was a major factor in collapse of Rome as well.

Exactly, a lot of the American doctrine is completely outdated. Stuff like drones, hypersonics, cheap IR sensors, completely change the game.

Are you suggesting they wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that?

An even bigger factor is that Iran has modern technology that can match the US.

relatable :)

Yup, watch the video, Postol discusses exactly how they would do it.