Things have slowed down a tad over the past couple days as both Russian and Ukrainian armies have done some repositioning, one playing off the other’s moves and vice versa.
I'm a boomer. There are dumbasses in every generation. Gen x is full of them. You'll find that the "generations" shit is just that - shit and propaganda - as you age.
Forget about the Minions like Camel, Macron or Starmtrooper
Here are the people who tell these minions what to do...
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN BLACK NOBILITY
The Russell Family of England who were part of the Banking, Drugging, Slaving East India Company Committee of 300, Founded the Russell Marquis of Tavistock, Tavistock Institute, the Frankfurt School, The Fabian Socialists, engaged Marx with his handler Ambassador Urquhart to write Das Kapital in London in order to create Socialism and Communism to take over Russia and China for the Anglo-American Empire Founded by Lord Milner and the Rothschild Backers.
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN BLACK NOBILITY FAMILIES
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN 2000 TRILLION DOLLAR ROTHSCHILDS and Blackrock, The Bush family - Royal Family of the United States, Clinton Crime Company TARTARIA AND THE 2000 TRILLION DOLLAR PHOENICIANS The conscious Great Reset destruction of the Anglo-American Empire and the move to the Chinese Century, The Phoenician Stanleys – The King Makers - Prince Duccio Corsini is a Roman prince and top owner of the Corsican Mafia. The Corsinis are both Florentine and Roman nobles. Prince Duccio is an overseer of a private Swiss banking and human trafficking operation in Gstadd, Switzerland. The Scherz family of Gstadd own a hotel in Gstadd and basically run Gstadd. The Scherz coat of arms is a heart. The Corsinis coat of arms is shaped as a heart and the Italian word Core or Coure has the meaning of heart. Prince Duccio also oversees the DEA. Lucien Conein was from Maryland and he was a documented associate of the Corsican Mafia and he worked for the OSS, CIA, and later for the DEA. The Corsican Mafia have a headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland and they oversee a large heroin and opium trafficking ring from Turkey, the Middle East, and Afghanistan to ports on the East Coast. Nancy Pelosi is from Baltimore and she is a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Order of Merit and an agent of the Corsinis. The Corsican Mafia then traffics the heroin or opium to the Lucchese crime family which then provide it to the modern day Drug Council run by black gangster rappers. Corsica is named after the Corsinis and uses a black Moor on its coat of arms and flag. Moors, Arabs, and Africans invaded Europe and Slave trafficked natural white Europeans for over a thousand years. The Corsinis also owned banks in Florence and London. Download this!
"The Russell family of England ... engaged Marx ... in order to create Socialism and Communism to take over Russia and China for the Anglo-American Empire"
Sure. Likewise the Catholic Church created Martin Luther to take over northern Europe for the Italian-Spanish Empire.
His Kamala accolade was an absolute gem, and said with such a happy smile. It could be summed up as; we wish our Partners the very best of luck under this latest sap's administration. That's assuming they are able to steal it from the true victor yet again.
I am so mother fucking sick of this shit. I've rarely seen so much greed, stupidity, and depravity. Hopefully, Russia finishes this soon but I'm not sure Russia is capable of it. One thing I will not do is pay for news or "analysis".
Jimmy, I swear you're going to give yourself a heart attack before this conflict is over. This ain't a hockey game. Don't worry, You'll live long enough to see the conflicts end soon. (if NATO doesn't escalate into a conventional WW3).
Rumor has it Sweden lost the entire top management of SAAB's Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) systems, about 15 people who were on site to oversee transition of their recon airplanes. That's jackpot if even half true. Kinda weird that S didn't include those tweets in the article.
S works hard to enlighten us. Andy, why don't you help S and the rest of us by providing one or two links to said tweets? I know I would take a look and preciate ya for it.
But statements and announcements have been made that they are being donated to the Ukraine for use
One must suppose them closer to Ukraine than Sweden
But you suggest that nobody knows - if so those Swedes are very darned clever - not only is it not known that any Swedes have been killed, it is not known where their planes are
Does anyone know if ever they have been flown to purpose in the Ukraine or nearbye?
Is it possible that a donation has not been made, and that the planes remain well hidden in Sweden for Swedish use when the time comes?
If so the Swedes are cleverer than credit usually has it
I live in southeast Sweden by the Baltic coast, close to a major airforce base (JAS Gripen fighter jets & helicopters). In MSM nothing about the Poltava massacre until yesterday when they claimed that no swedish militaries were killed or damaged...
MSM also claimed that it´s just fake info on internet reg killed swedish persons (sic).
I believe soon the truth will pop-up reg Poltava massacre.
Don't you mean dead (believe we are still a small but vital island) UK empire walking pilfering every farthing we can from our people to keep our financial system house of cards afloat? Financial types are betting on Japan and the UK to fight for who will have the first sovereign debt crisis. Then Europe and then the US around 2027.
No, quite the contrary. More Ukrainian troops keep pouring every single day into the Kursk salience, to replace the massive casualties they are suffering.
They pulled some elite units and replaced them with territorial brigades / border guards which are basically just instructed to dig in and hold ground and don't have the aptitude to advance/assault
To hell with Zelensky, Syrsky, Austin, Blinken, the MIC, and everybody now winning stupid prizes for playing stupid games. “Force Putin to peace” is a fool’s paraphrase of “Now that you have me by the neck, I insist you not cut my throat.”
Fascinating that Putin is welcoming westerners that way. I had no idea he was offering such a sweet deal. A 5 year wait isn't a bad deal if you want to live there anyway, to own the land.
The point about Moscow and St. Petersburg versus Vladivostok is also interesting. I hadn't thought of that at all, but it makes sense. The future is not in Europe, it's in Asia. The europeans are beginning to enter a new economic ice age, though most of them don't know it yet.
I'll pass, even though my Russian citizen partner makes us eligible. The 2.5 acre (1 hectare) plot of land, in the middle of nowhere, is an awkward size with lots to maintain but not enough for profitable farming.
Vladivostock will never replace Moscow as the capital of Russia. It only becomes a national capital if the east gets carved out as a new country (aka the neocon wet dream).
I don’t think it will replace Moscow officially, but the future is in the east, not the west. Trade with countries in Asia will eclipse anything done with europe. In other words, the action will be in Vladivostok in the future, not in moscow or st. pete.
System is not letting me like comments or I would.
FWIW there is decent agricultural land close to Vladivostok - the one time I was there in the very early 90's people were pretty much surviving on what they could grow on dacha plots - which were quite accessible by rail from town.
Anyway, more trade with Asia via V-stok and Nahodka is such a natural it's pretty certain to rebound in the future.
Trade between Japan and Russian Far East is way down due to Japan going along w/US sanctions, but it's hardly in Japan's interest - reality is likely to reassert itself at some point.
Land seems to be cheap all over Russia –from $1,000 an acre up to $4 or $5000 for blackearth:
out where you want to go it’ll be cheaper still, maybe as low as $500 an acre – you must be able to afford a good many acres at that kind of price, no?
Plus agro support systems are well developed throughout the East, and even in English for foreigners!
As even Tucker Carlson discovered you get big bangs for your bucks even in Moscow, think how much cheaper Vladiv must be, maybe a third or a quarter or a fifth of your current
I encourage you to take the plunge – then you can report back to S and us on a range of under covered subjects
Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea, but after 25 years living in the Canadian sub-Arctic, the long cold is something I'd like to avoid.
At 2.5 acres per lot, and one only lives on 1-1.5 acres, that frees up an acre+ for general farming/agriculture/animal 'ranching'...possible with 20 lots to utilize?
If I only had more courage (and was younger). Totally fed up with the hubris, hypocrisy, double standards, disinformation and lies. I know Russia isn’t perfect either, but it can never be that bad as what we have here in the west. And as a dutch I can tell that we are still doing reasonably well, but the future is grim as I see it.
Due to the loosening of ties to Europe and the threat of first-strike missile deployment, it seems to me that the more logical solution for a new capital would be more to central Russia, not coastal areas like Vladivostok - Russia's third largest city, Novosibirsk, might be a logical choice as it lies far into the heart of Russia beyond tactical missile range from either direction.
"It only becomes a national capital if the east gets carved out as a new country" It doesn't have to become the national capital in the literal, legislative sense. But in 100 to 175 years (a very long time given the *very* rapid pace of development in Russia) Vladivostok could easily become the economic and social capital of Russia.
Today Moscow is *the* capital in all senses, much the way Paris or London are for their respective countries. But in many other countries, including the US, the legislative capital is a different, lesser, city than the center of business, finance and society. Washington, DC, is a backwater compared to New York, for example.
But what's clearly happening in Russia is that the total, unipolar dominance of Moscow is giving way to the rise of a multipolar Russia when it comes to big cities. Setting aside St. Pete as the perennial number two, the other "million plus" cities are growing into real powerhouses. Krasnodar, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok along with several others are clearly become business, industrial, and social centers similar to how the US has not just New York but also LA, Chicago, and other cities.
John, as much as I like your comments here, I see that virtually nobody here among the Simp commentariat (BTW, it's great!) seems to grasp what's the real attitude of population of Vladivostok, its Primorsky Krai, and all the Russian Far East has been for the last 30 years to the development of the region.
I'm a Vladivostok native, but you don't have to believe what I'll say. You can simply listen to what Putin said during his visits to Vladivostok even long before the very first Eastern Economic Forum, for his entire 25 year rule.
Almost every year Putin came to our city and everyone heard all the same song: Vladivostok HAS BEEN LOSING NATIVE POPULATION every year since the fall of the Soveiet Union (I was 11 back then). Since the early 90's, vast amounts of young people left the city forever. Most went to Moscow, St. Peter's and other parst of Western Russia, some emigrated directly abroad.
Why? The city's governance has been riddled with corruption since that very early '90s. Family and criminal clans ruled everything not only in the city, but in the entire Primorsky Krai. They never tried to hide their firm grasp of the region's economy. If you, John, have become at least partly a Russian, you must know that Vladivostok has become a tongue-in-cheek for Russians, because for 30 years it never had a SINGLE mayor who: a) did not lose his job before his term expired, and/or b) was not prosecuted right after that or simply ran and hide.
As a result, any local business in Vladivostok that's not connected with mafia and/or gray/black ways of second hand JDM car imports is in paltry condition, with few jobs. The city itself, for 25+ years had seen exactly ZERO infrastructure development, has been neglected, and became very uncomfortable for everyday life. For the most part that still continues now.
Born and lived there for 30 years, having had enough of it and not seeing any improvements for the quality of life inr the city, I... joined the crowds I told you about above and left the place in 2010 for Moscow (by that time I had been a successful IT pro). Moscow is simply another planet as for the living standards, but that's another story.
I continue to follow the life trends in my native city, as understandably, I have left a certain amount of connections there, but so far, very little has improved in the living standards there for the past 10+ years.
I hear you, and what you said about Vladivostok rings true and could be said about almost every other large "million" Russian city. It's a Russian stereotype with roots in indisputable truth. But there's another Russian stereotype with roots in indisputable truth and that's the stereotype of Muscovites (using the word as only a provincial person can, almost as an insult) looking down their noses at "the regions."
If you left Vladivostok for the Great Cancer on the Moskva River in 2010 you've missed the huge boom in development that has happened in big, regional cities. I live in a tertiary city with a population in the hundreds of thousands and not a million. But I'm frequently in one of the "million" cities and I can see the phenomenal transformation of such cities, staring around ten years ago. But only in the last five years can you really say that the quality of life has dramatically improved as a result of the infrastructure investments and that the flow of young people to Moscow has been reversed. The "million" city nearest to where I live has gone from being a dreary Soviet place in the early 2000's to a very vibrant, wonderful place to live that I prefer to every European city I know (and I've lived in a few).
Young people there now either stay home or many are moving from Moscow to there. They do that because they want a home nearer the center, they don't want to spend their lives commuting for hours on electric trains / the Metro or stuck in hellish traffic jams in Moscow. I used to live in Moscow and I loved it. But that was years ago before it became so densely populated. I still love visiting Moscow. But only for short periods of time. I far prefer living out in the regions.
As for Vladivostok, this is a wild exaggeration: "The city itself, for 25+ years had seen exactly ZERO infrastructure development, has been neglected, and became very uncomfortable for everyday life. For the most part that still continues now."
How is it you've missed the spectacular new bridge that has become the city's symbol?
There's a big difference living on the other side of the planet (literally, Moscow is almost that far away from Vladivostok) while staying in touch through friends or whatever with the local scene, and actually living there. Go back and live in Vladivostok for a year or two and I think you'd see that in many ways small and large it isn't the city you left in 2010 but is a far better place.
As for corruption, although I don't have personal experience of that in Vladivostok from what I've seen in other big cities from Kaliningrad and Krasnodar to, say, Irkutsk, that is so tremendously reduced that it is sometimes annoying to those of us who remember the old days that in modern times one cannot "expedite" some sort of procedure by paying a "consulting fee" to a knowledgeable, experienced person.
For example, in 2010 you could still buy a driver's license for about $100 without having to take the road test (notoriously difficult in Russia). Now, that's impossible in any major city. Besides all the cameras recording every test if you try to bribe an inspector you could end up in jail because they have a much better incentive to turn you in than to take a bribe, the low salaries for police not withstanding.
This isn't Switzerland, as they say here, (to which I always add "thank God!") so there continues to be corruption in big time matters just like in other countries, including the US. But whether it is higher or lower than the US or EU is difficult to say because the utterly endemic corruption which you describe has been so totally suppressed. It would be extremely surprising that the many Federal methods that have played such a key role in suppressing endemic corruption in so many other big cities would not also have had the same effect in Vladivostok.
A final comment: like it or not, when the Federal team prioritizes something, the vast flow of resources and money applied almost always have a magic effect. Guys like Mishustin are extremely effective technocrats, and they have made development of the region around Vladivostok a priority. To underestimate the effect that will have in attracting talent and in achieving development and creating jobs is a huge mistake. The Turn to the East is one of the two or three largest Federal priorities: now is time if you want independent wealth in your old age to think about doing an IT startup back in Vladivostok and not running on the treadmill in Moscow.
John, I can assure you I was not exagerrating. Not for the sake of proving I'm right, but for you to better know what can really happen in certain places of Russia and, regarding Vladivostok, to understand the difference between what's publicly declared as "development" and what's been really important to the city's natives for decades.
But first, let's clarify the fact that Vladivostok is the very same type "tertiary city with a population in the hundreds of thousands" you mentioned about, not an "around million" one, and has never been. It peaked at 650k the early '90s of my childhood and bled the native populace ever since. Since the mid 00's, the decline of population has been partly offset by immigrants from ex-USSR countries, to the point that in 2010, a first in decades uptick in population has been proudly recorded. It's been rising slowly since, but it hasn't been natives staying -- it's been immigrants coming. The natives continue to flee; our president and regional authorities continue to state this during EEF every year. BTW, how could that be if you say the living standards have improved in the last 5-10 years? Why they continue to come to Moscow (lots of my connections followed my suit in 2010s)?
Please, don't so easily dismiss my knowledge of modern Vladivostok as derived from my local connections only. From time to time I come to the city to evaluate the developments first hand, and it's much easier to do that properly when you know virtually every stone there and know what's important for the locals and what's not.
"The spectacular new bridge that has become the city's symbol" (two bridges actually) were among the first new things in the city. They opened to a great fanfare in 2012 and I saw them first that very year as I visited the city. I know what locals said at the time and I thought the same: these and several others are purely publicity projects that were built for Vladivostok ATEC 2012 summit, are to provide smoke and mirrors for Asian partners (and they did!). "New city symbol", yes, exactly. It was intended to be. But the city for decades had huge, well, not huge -- simply ENORMOUS transportation problems, and that project with an eye-watering cost did not bring any meaningful solution to them. These problems stay among the same points of criticism of the city as they were 10 and 20 years ago.
"Go back and live in Vladivostok for a year or two and I think you'd see that in many ways small and large it isn't the city you left in 2010 but is a far better place." If you aren't an outside tourist, but an ex-local, it's rather easy to come there on a long vacation and simply retry everything that had made me to leave the city (and it seems, it works the same for you, John, with the USA, your home country).
Alas... very little REAL improvement; often none at all. You mentioned about Moscow's commuting and traffic jams, and that's where's the real irony: the already mentioned Vladivostok's main problem for decades -- an absolutely piss-poor street-only public transport stuck in enormous traffic jams with NO alternatives due to a) very complicated city landscape (similar to San Francisco); b) mafia owning ALL public transport there and having lucrative deals with it -- every local would confirm this. You'll invariably (a key word) will spend MUCH more time in a traffic jam there than in current Moscow's public transport system which development for for the last 10 years simply awes me.
And this major problem has not had even a tiny improvement for all these 14 years I'm not living there. They're many; it's just an example of one.
I've never personally been to Vladivostok, but I'm definitely looking forward to visiting it. I don't know when I'll be able to do that but for sure I will make the effort.
I guess what I'm reacting to is the extreme negativity I hear from you about the city you left. I hear that a lot from people I know who moved from various places to Moscow and so far, without exception, the cities I hear them talking about that I know from years of personal experience are not that way at all: there really is massive development going on in the regions, with really huge changes in the "million" cities that are secondary to Moscow and St. Pete and with the many significant changes going on in the tertiary cities, those with populations, say, in the 200,000 to 800,000 range.
I see that in the tertiary city where I live, which is not one you hear about in the news. It's just a run of the mill ancient city in the European part of Russia, West of the Urals. But all the same it's been transformed as a result of federal investments that have improved parks, public infrastructure, tourist infrastructure, schools, hospitals, transportation, and so on. No, it's not like Moscow in that respect which has a futuristic world class public transit system with vast sums spent on projects like the D4 diameter line crossing all Moscow (a huge place) to link outer parts of the megapolis to the very dense Metro system. It's not even like the secondary cities. But the extra pulse from development adds up to significant improvements in quality of life.
I'm just skeptical that none of that is going on in Vladivostok. I haven't been there before the big pulse of internal development started happening and I haven't been there now to compare, but I'm skeptical there hasn't been improvement. I'm especially skeptical because as a tertiary city, despite the low population of 600,000 and not over a million, Vladivostok has an exceptionally high priority for Federal planning and budget precisely because it is a *huge* priority to increase population in the far East, all part of the big Turn to the East.
I've seen what happens when the technocrats running Russia aim Federal money at a priority: things happen big time. For example, when they decided to lift Sarov from being a forgotten place in the armpit of nowhere to being a national scientific treasure it went from being a place where scientists there had to dispatch a friend to a big city or Moscow to buy quality meat to having a dedicated quantum network for enormous bandwidth laid from other supercomputer centers and the spectacular new M12 superhighway, easily the best I've driven in Russia and exceeding the autobahn in Germany, routed from Moscow around Vladimir and directly to Arzamas, the host town for Sarov, on its way to Kazan. They actually placed the M12's route a full hour and a half from Nizhny Novgorod, the logical place it should have gone through, because developing the region around Sarov was a priority. That's just mind boggling.
But that's the level of Federal power now being applied to the region around Vladivostok. For that reason I'm skeptical that everything about Vladivostok is shit. The people I know who have lived there say they like the place, so it would be interesting to get into the details of why they aren't so negative but you are.
As for me and the US, that's a simple deal: the US I knew and loved to live in transformed into something very different that is not nearly as pleasant a place, at least by my tastes, as modern Russia. It's like everywhere, including Russia: there are good points and bad points and you just have to find the balance between them that works for you. It's the same within a country, where there's often a big difference between living in the capital, or in the business capital, or out in a provincial, smaller town. I loved living in Moscow when I lived there. But despite how much I enjoy the intensity and scale of Moscow when I'm there, for daily life I much prefer living out in the regions. If Moscow works for you, that's great, and I can certainly appreciate how living there is definitely living in a world class megapolis.
Thank you John for your very sincere attitude to our nation. I wish you all the best in your life in Russia.
I can't state the same fondness about the US I'd visited several times in 2010s during my business trips (several weeks long ones).
If you are interested in my general impressions: in early 2010s I mostly worked in Cincinnati and Orlando. The living standards there seemed simply OK to me, pretty comparable to Moscow and St. Peters' of late '00s - early '10s, but say, much inferior to Melbourne where I stayed for a month in 2010.
But Moscow's progress in the living standards for the last 10 years has been so tremendous, surpassing Melbourne in many ways, that I don't even know how it would compare with those US places right now.
"The europeans are beginning to enter a new economic ice age, though most of them don't know it yet."
I thought fathers in Euro-land taught their children, after even a cursory reading of history:
The first rule of fight club is...we DON'T fuck with the Russians.
Hey Swedes, real smart of you to dispose of neutrality and say, "hold my Aquavit..."
Dumb shits. Enjoy the influx of Uke refugees this winter. As I told anyone who would listen back in Feb '22, there's NO fucking way the Russians will lose this American invented, unnecessary war.
I could see the Swedes falling for the NATO thing but was pretty shocked that the Finns did. Armed neutrality was working just fine before they decided to 'fix' it...
Finland had a pretty good deal going with Russia, trade wise, tourist wise, neighbour to neighbour
They, more than anyone, should have known to not exchange this for a very uncertain future
They have ceded a considerable part of sovereignty and autonomy of action to a hostile far distant imperial power, who's proven record of wasting proxy arms civilians and peoples should have provided warning enough of their now imminent fate
Indeed. It was pretty stable and mutually beneficial.
And given the Soviet Winter War and WWII experience it was highly
unlikely the Russians were going to invade just because they were bored or something.
Lots of opportunities lost - and will continue to be - as long as the people running things are doing everything they can to prevent peace from breaking out.
Yes - but this is not even a question of history - you just have to take a quick look at the map of Russia then take a look at the map of your own mini country
To figure out that with approx 3,000 soldiers in your army + a few airplanes - it is better to not go out of your way to provoke or spit in the face of the Russians
Nothing more than elementary common sense that anyone who can stand up and walk should be able to master past the age of 12 years old
If any ever do it will those that have figured out US style how to steal the vote without the submissive passive and indeed collaborationsit working class even knowing much less objecting
This is the result of having participated in colonialism and imperialism for centuries
They have only themselves to blame if smarty pants ruling classes exploit them
My mother who died in 2010 lived in Orange county outskirts of Orlando. a 5 min drive to Universal Studios.
She would get discount tickets from Central american immigrants who worked at Disney. The area looked Caribbean
She refused to believe this was an invasion saying troops were not landing on the beach. She believed they similar to her parents who came from eastern Europe in the 1910's. My grandfather was allowed to leave Austro Hungry after 4 of his brothers were killed in WWll. He refused to speak his native language.
This reminds me of the Sweds and Germans taking all men from thye mid east. They must see a field rather than a forest. i don't know about todays 12 year olds though.
You are right of "today's" re-invention of history, of course. I should have prefaced it by saying that I was speaking of history as taught in the sixties and seventies.
With the example of Olof Palme assassination in 1986, Swedish politicians know what can happen to those who are excessively "neutral", let alone willing to coexist peacefully with Russia.
However, it´s the parliament(riksdagen) who voted to join NAtO and not the people.
200 yrs of piece waisted. A referendum should take place first but the stupid members of riksdag got panic and cancelled referendum (maybe folks would vote no to join NATO).
BTW - so far silence in MSM of the Poltava massacre.....it will pop up soon I think-
Is it then that the Swedish ruling class is fully indentified with the US EU ruling class, in step as far as social programs lack of and military spending increases, wage decreases as opposed to increases, massive import and segregation of immigrants?
And that the major part of the population is against war in Ukraine, and not thrilled by NATO's invasion of Swedish sovereignty?
Western governments would make sure that all retired people heading to Russia, lose their government pensions and maybe even their savings in the attempt.
If we allow Ukraine to hit these targets, Russia will directly hit our assets, we will have to retaliate, and a direct war will start. Even if it doesn’t end in a nuclear exchange we will get f*cked.
Nothing. NOTHING. Will end the US empire so quickly (handing it over to China) than getting into war with Russia.
And if we don’t retaliate then we look like pathetic pu$$ies and it all ends the same way anyways.
(Apologies for the vulgarities. It’s Austin speaking not me 😉)
If one accepts that "all wars are bankster wars" this is a huge development. The article goes on to state that there will be similar negotiations required next year for sovereign nation and IMF owned debt.
There is no way Ukraine is going to repay anything while the war is still in progress. So there is a major incentive for "the west" to negotiate.
S can not comment on every aspect of this war in Ukraine, let alone every wider ramification of the financial policies being dealed in the background
.....let alone peace plans, RF finances, Central Bank Arctic policies, energy....CBR confiscation plans, EU and G7, EU Defense Bonds, and so on and so on the list is long
Why don't you provide a succint yet detailed report on this Ukraine bonds deal? with especial mention of the London role, and the consequences for the Brit economy of such support for the Ukraine, on top of the military
S is very generous with the range and extent of the comments he allows I would say encourages
His primary role is up close detailed warground coverage - he can not be expected endlessly to mulitask
My bet is that bond holders will be bailed out, ultimately by tax payers via real money or ctrl P (inflation). The BoE has already changed its collateral rules so as to give new cash for the nominal value of bonds leaving the losses with the Bank.
I read an article in the Brit press, no link kept, that said that the Brit gvmt had guaranteed the bond holders, via the World Bank ?, to the tune of very many millions of $
Even if the brits have no such money - the new PM is by this and other similar craven moves wishing to buy extra US passports green cards, and jobs for himself and all his relatives
I don't think he goes in detail into the financial ramifications of the war, but that's definitely an opportunity for further analysis by other writers there.
Seconding Gerard White's comment. Those who understand finance and what bond restructuring means should take the pain to elaborate, rather than expecting our host to make his posts longer and wider ranging still.
The first Commandment for the politically/geopolitically interested; "don't be lazy". Corollary - elaborate if you can. there are readers here. They don't seem to mind tl;dr's, if informative.
Ask what's been happening in the U.S. Bond market. The U.S. Fed and Treasury, pretending they are independent of each other, tapping the shoulders of their foot soldiers in New York, London, Brussels and every Tax Shelter Island, to cobble together a "market" BID underneath the crushing load of U.S. "Promises to Pay".
U.S. "Promises to Pay" their Debt is on a parallel to their promise to not move Nato eastward.
I wonder when the first Primary Dealer decides to withdraw from their legal requirement to bid on U.S. debt auctions.
Alex Krainer has a fabulous article on just this -- with timelines and ramifications of the "underperforming": bonds-- especially (note) on the UK govt and pension funds, called " The coming collapse of Britiain"
Thank you for frequently renewed updates: such frequent posts are very useful to combat the stupidities of the western press, especially that Daily Telegraph article that China will retake Vladivostok
The emphasis on the East by VVP is indeed very timely, and predictive of the future
Please find three recent posts by Karl Sanchez for additional information
China & Africa account for one-third of the world’s population, so their team-building work toward political, economic & social stability grows naturally strong as they reinforce initiatives.
President Xi is intent on implementing the 10 Partnership actions, which will enable South-to-South cooperation. Said Xi, as quoted in Global Times, "Developing countries face a variety of real challenges and are easily affected by the complex and changing international situation, which can disrupt or even hinder the achievement of established goals."
Foreign Ministry rep Mao Ning said in her weekly press conference, "Realizing lasting peace and common security is the common aspiration of the Chinese and African people. Helping each other on security issues is very much essential for building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future."
Swinging the weight & entrepreneurial talent of Africa eastward is congruent w/ Russia's own pitch toward the east.
The FOCAC documents are staggering in quantity and quality - as the RF_China Joint declaration, but expanded in scope and scale to 54 countries and a continent
Many years in preparation
I'm trying to get through some of them, but it will take time
As with the Third Plenum documents and comments - an overhaul of a society as large as China's which is devoted to particpatory democracy and so the confirmed in writing at many levels and through out the country of the plans and procedures
Produced a gigantic amount of discussions and writings
You've probably noted that the Kingdom of Eswatini was the only country in Africa which did not send a delegation to the FOCAC.
Bloomberg queried Mao Ning about this on the sidelines of the summit & she responded, "There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is a prevailing consensus in the international community. African countries widely support the one-China principle and view their cooperation with China as helpful for Africa’s economic prosperity and sustainable development. Developing official relations with the Taiwan region is not in Eswatini’s interest. We believe Eswatini will eventually see the prevailing trend in the world and make the right decision accordingly."
I'm wondering if the King of Eswatini attended a U.S. university or spent an extended period in Chicago.
Mao Ning had soaring thoughts about the FOCAC, however: "In conducting cooperation with Africa, China is committed to the principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and the right approach to friendship and interests. Our cooperation is defined by sincerity, equality, mutual benefit, fairness and justice, and openness and inclusiveness. China and Africa have been actively implementing the outcomes of FOCAC. Those efforts contribute significantly to the common development of China and African countries and deliver tangible benefits to the two peoples. This has laid a solid foundation for the building of a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future."
Ex Swaziland known for eccentricity in Kings Nobles and Lords
This the exception that makes the ruule
Remember Lithuania and their fractious relationship with Taiwan, for all the PR mutual interest projects talked up failed to get hardly anywhere, and the T were reluctant to invest
Which may be wise they'll need all their money to buy US arms, and to double bribe TSMC to stay not to flee 1-either to the mainland or 2- to the US
This is true, if the Arizona factory problems are to be understood
The only US style solution to this is to crash Intel and TI, and pressure TSMC to import whole factories and logistic & supply chains into the US - it is clearly not difficult for the US to point to serious problems on the way for their factories and personnel in Taiwan, since the US can not guarantee protection from any subversive sabotage or worse
The US is trying on this tactic in Sth K and Japan, pointing to their present vulnerabilities to Kim, let alone Xi, requiring that shipbuilding and defense fabrications be moved to the US
Wrong. The middle class market for consumables and conspicuous consumption will far outstrip any mineral resources. Try not to let racism cloud your vision.
I remember some of us in eastern Germany were thinking back in the 70's already that it was a great error not to develope the far eastern region of the Sovjet Union more.
For anyone who has not been there, the vastness of this region is unimaginable, you can almost put the entire USA into there and that's why I guess the dimension alone was too big to handle such a task on such scale for those times back then and other things were more important.
'they' the gvmt class, down to certain members of the media class, the judicial, law enforcement the military, etc
they all take the same prescribed and standardised doses of the same exclusive to gvmt formula which ensures adequate reactive mental skills, i.e. enough to get out of a cab, while narrowing focus to a set list of controlled pre fabricated and ordained topics together with the language to be reproduced with necessary insignificant variants but no variation
ditto for facial patterns and movements
If necessary extended to recipient spouses when necessary
These active ingredients do not have to be tested for to ensure constant consumption, there is a constant feedback loop to the fabricant which will also indicate deviant emotional or mental expressions
But as Alexander Mercouris said on YuoTube it's possible there were other swedish people present who got hurt.
Nothing in the local media either. As to Tobias Billström, I don't think it's related. I think that he resigned because he doesn't like the Official Swedish Gaza policy that unfortunately is what it is. Fullblown Sionist. But that is just my guess and totaly unconfirmed,
They were winning. All the time they were winning. Even when they were losing badly they were winning most of all.
Regarding Billstrom: it is said that when Christ, resurrected, appeared to his disciples the first time--"Peace be with you"--their hair went white in an eye-blink
Swedish television debunked the "Swedish medic" claim, reporting he is "Igor" from Ukraine and proving it with showing an old Instagram picture where Igor has the same tattoo as the medic. I looked into it and concluded they are right. It's Igor Tkachov, who in the aftermath of the attack has publicly criticised the lack of tourniquets. I also found the old Instagram picture with the tattoo.
I don't know why he appears to be saying "take him first" in Swedish in the video, but my guess is that this sound has been added afterwards.
Initially, the Swedish instructors claim was backed with a screenshot of a FB post from American-German volonteer Britta Ellwanger saying she had lost an old university friend from her time in Sweden. However, she then publicly denied having written the post, or even studied in Sweden.
So, thus far we have two fakes carrying this story. To my mind that makes it less plausible, not more. Last night a statement from an anonymous highly-placed Russian military source also said to Russian media that Swedes were among Western "mercenary" instructors killed in Poltava. Maybe that is true, and maybe he has some other information supporting it, but I would not bet on it.
Or maybe he was speaking to another Swede in Swedish. What's your take on tweets claiming that SAAB lost its top management of Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) systems?
Or maybe it's easier to bring a dozen instructors to an already established academy far away from the front with all necessary facilities and hundreds of students instead of moving a whole bunch of young men abroad and back, where half of them might disappear on the way?
Lol. Do you understand how much on-site technology, simulations and training flights they need to fly the plane?. Why not then train on M1 Abrams, Leopard, CV90, Archer, Ceasar, F-16 in Ukraine. Nope. Maybe a few swedish instructors in signal/radio communications perished in Poltava. I dont know. The rest is fantasy.
This is by no means debunked. The 'Igor' explanation sounds completely fake unless someone can provide a link to Igor's Instagram showing an identical tattoo.
And why didn't we get to see an interview with 'Igor'? Or why is there no comment on the other (injured) person who also speaks Swedish.
This all sounds like very far fetched explanations to contradict the obvious. Besides there has been no lack of Swedes getting killed/captured in Ukraine. So why would Russia go to this length to show an injured Swede. It doesn't make much sense.
Swedish television did get a telephone interview with him.
As for an injured person also speaking Swedish, I can't make out what anyone else is saying in that video or in what language. Apparently, no one else here can either.
It all doesn't make much sense, no. Silly useless games trying to invoke the defeat of Sweden in Poltava 1709. Polluting the infospace with fakes serves no good.
Thanks. It appears to be the same guy, but we don't really know if he is the one saying "Take him first" in Swedish. Could just as well be someone standing nearby.
Since Swedish media is working overtime trying to debunk this story I believe there's definitely something here.
I'm a Swedish native speaker. The Poltava rescue video does indeed have Swedish speech (not Norwegian), first from the rescue worker "Take him first" and then from the wounded person who is clearly in shock and says something incoherent about helping others first while waving his arms.
It's notable that the wounded person is wearing military attire, so clearly not an innocent civilian.
It is very important not to know beforehand what you are "supposed" to hear. Hearing is extremely susceptible to suggestion. Try it with a few friends, and report back the results!
I am from Sweden aswell, and after listening to the video severalt times, I am now conviced that it is swedish that is being spoken when they sa "Ta han först".
You can hear a tiny bit of swedish being spoken just prior to that sentence aswell.
The first fruit reports are coming in thick and fast, on the heels of the many Explanations of the Explanation reports, which are already elaborations of the basic texts, including many variant explanations, some high level
Resulting in some perhaps - unexpected for the Westerner- documents – one from the Foreign Ministry, such as no western foreign ministry would begin to think about nor let slip a hint of thinking
Including how to fit this Resolution into the history of China’s reforms – which is interesting for westerners who have little idea of China and how it works
This is the exemplar of practical people’s democracy that the western ruling class is beginning to take notice of
Others in the West, more critically, have realised how far in avance these practices are over the more or less collapsed western practices
“Zhu Guangyao served as China's Vice Minister of Finance from May 2010 to June 2018. After joining the Ministry of Finance in 1985, he has served in various senior positions within the Ministry, including Director-General of the Department of International Economic and Financial Cooperation. From 2001 to 2004, he was the Executive Director for China at the World Bank Group.
In a speech delivered at a seminar at Renmin University of China on August 5, Zhu said with an average annual growth rate of 5.4% for 2021-2024, China would only need an average annual growth rate of 4.3% over the next eleven years to reach a total GDP of 200 trillion RMB and a GDP per capita exceeding $20,000 by 2035—a long-range goal set in 2020. He was also confident that China is on track to achieve economic growth between 4.5% and 5% in 2025 and during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), providing greater flexibility during the 16th Five-Year Plan (2031-2035) to meet the 2035 objectives”
Foreign Affairs
‘To create a favorable external environment for the further deepening reform and promoting China style modernization’ (Third Plenum)
“The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization (hereinafter referred to as the Resolution) adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) emphasizes that in the external work, we must “foster a favorable external environment for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.”
“Transcript and takes of Politburo Meeting on the Chinese economy headed by Xi”
Ignores or dismisses the significance of the Joint Declaration, and appears to believe that a peaceful relationship with the US can be, fairly easily, remade
A deep dive will take time, but @ a glance this stood out--
Clair Reade w/ the Center for Strategic & International Studies was predictably pouty:
>>The Third Plenum Decision adopted last week contains disheartening contradictions, and, overall, reconfirms the top-down government-Party control of the economy. The Decision also makes clear that the Party will guide every area of the economy and society. <<
Dear old Clair does not find President Xi's China the *right* China, I guess.
Ok boomer
I'm a boomer. There are dumbasses in every generation. Gen x is full of them. You'll find that the "generations" shit is just that - shit and propaganda - as you age.
Bang, bang.
If you're going to shoot, don't talk, shoot. (The Good, Bad and Ugly)
https://youtu.be/enuOArEfqGo
Thanking you Denis for the reminiscent of a truly amazing piece of music and of one's youth a well deserved first place!!!
My pleasure, man.
Another one from the Danish National Symphony Orchestra on the theme of "Bang, bang":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdZkFXiiio8
Noice !
My favorite version. Give it a minute.
https://youtu.be/pLgJ7pk0X-s?si=gpuXoM1o0s08xmPd
Putin made the best troll endorsement of Kamala. Such expressive laughter. Zelensky will soon be what unburdened by what has been.
Forget about the Minions like Camel, Macron or Starmtrooper
Here are the people who tell these minions what to do...
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN BLACK NOBILITY
The Russell Family of England who were part of the Banking, Drugging, Slaving East India Company Committee of 300, Founded the Russell Marquis of Tavistock, Tavistock Institute, the Frankfurt School, The Fabian Socialists, engaged Marx with his handler Ambassador Urquhart to write Das Kapital in London in order to create Socialism and Communism to take over Russia and China for the Anglo-American Empire Founded by Lord Milner and the Rothschild Backers.
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN BLACK NOBILITY FAMILIES
THE SATANIC PHOENICIAN 2000 TRILLION DOLLAR ROTHSCHILDS and Blackrock, The Bush family - Royal Family of the United States, Clinton Crime Company TARTARIA AND THE 2000 TRILLION DOLLAR PHOENICIANS The conscious Great Reset destruction of the Anglo-American Empire and the move to the Chinese Century, The Phoenician Stanleys – The King Makers - Prince Duccio Corsini is a Roman prince and top owner of the Corsican Mafia. The Corsinis are both Florentine and Roman nobles. Prince Duccio is an overseer of a private Swiss banking and human trafficking operation in Gstadd, Switzerland. The Scherz family of Gstadd own a hotel in Gstadd and basically run Gstadd. The Scherz coat of arms is a heart. The Corsinis coat of arms is shaped as a heart and the Italian word Core or Coure has the meaning of heart. Prince Duccio also oversees the DEA. Lucien Conein was from Maryland and he was a documented associate of the Corsican Mafia and he worked for the OSS, CIA, and later for the DEA. The Corsican Mafia have a headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland and they oversee a large heroin and opium trafficking ring from Turkey, the Middle East, and Afghanistan to ports on the East Coast. Nancy Pelosi is from Baltimore and she is a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Order of Merit and an agent of the Corsinis. The Corsican Mafia then traffics the heroin or opium to the Lucchese crime family which then provide it to the modern day Drug Council run by black gangster rappers. Corsica is named after the Corsinis and uses a black Moor on its coat of arms and flag. Moors, Arabs, and Africans invaded Europe and Slave trafficked natural white Europeans for over a thousand years. The Corsinis also owned banks in Florence and London. Download this!
https://satchidanand.substack.com/p/the-satanic-phoenician-black-nobility
"The Russell family of England ... engaged Marx ... in order to create Socialism and Communism to take over Russia and China for the Anglo-American Empire"
Sure. Likewise the Catholic Church created Martin Luther to take over northern Europe for the Italian-Spanish Empire.
You really need some medication for your delusions
His Kamala accolade was an absolute gem, and said with such a happy smile. It could be summed up as; we wish our Partners the very best of luck under this latest sap's administration. That's assuming they are able to steal it from the true victor yet again.
You must remember, comrade: today will be yesterday tomorrow.
I don't think it was a troll endorsement at all: now no one can accuse trump of Russian interference when Trump wins
I am so mother fucking sick of this shit. I've rarely seen so much greed, stupidity, and depravity. Hopefully, Russia finishes this soon but I'm not sure Russia is capable of it. One thing I will not do is pay for news or "analysis".
Good for you! Don't support those who work hard to supply such services to you as a refreshing and truth-bearing alternative to MSM.
Never pay for software, open source is better.
NOTHING IS FREE.
Jimmy, I swear you're going to give yourself a heart attack before this conflict is over. This ain't a hockey game. Don't worry, You'll live long enough to see the conflicts end soon. (if NATO doesn't escalate into a conventional WW3).
That Poltava Training Center Kinzhal double=tap turns out to have been a very impressive strike, still more impressive with each passing day.
Imagine NATO's chagrin at Ramstein... "but there is no joy in Mudville..."
;-(
Rumor has it Sweden lost the entire top management of SAAB's Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) systems, about 15 people who were on site to oversee transition of their recon airplanes. That's jackpot if even half true. Kinda weird that S didn't include those tweets in the article.
here is a piece fomr the MSM, you know it's bad when they can't hid it. Also MSM bits on VW troubles-i.e Germany economy is in big trouble: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/sep/06/drones-russia-poltava-airstrikes
"Alarming If True", as the saying often goes.
;-/
S works hard to enlighten us. Andy, why don't you help S and the rest of us by providing one or two links to said tweets? I know I would take a look and preciate ya for it.
Like this one? https://twitter.com/semper_vincit/status/1831389265269551467
That nails it.
Andy Dean - you have a lot insider insight - but your tweet is merely 'rumours have it'
Can you find anything better than that?
15 dead techies, presumbably very specialised and valuable techies, will leave a bigger trace than that
Unless the Swedes are much much better at cover ups than any other gvmt
And where are the planes based?
Those AWACs are most likely based at SAAB factory airfield in Linkoping.
Maybe in Poland, Lithuania or already in hiding Ukraine....
If in Ukr, - any volonters from Sweden to fly them back ? (I don´t think so)
Well that's is where they are from, perhaps
But statements and announcements have been made that they are being donated to the Ukraine for use
One must suppose them closer to Ukraine than Sweden
But you suggest that nobody knows - if so those Swedes are very darned clever - not only is it not known that any Swedes have been killed, it is not known where their planes are
Does anyone know if ever they have been flown to purpose in the Ukraine or nearbye?
Is it possible that a donation has not been made, and that the planes remain well hidden in Sweden for Swedish use when the time comes?
If so the Swedes are cleverer than credit usually has it
Rumor has it.
I live in southeast Sweden by the Baltic coast, close to a major airforce base (JAS Gripen fighter jets & helicopters). In MSM nothing about the Poltava massacre until yesterday when they claimed that no swedish militaries were killed or damaged...
MSM also claimed that it´s just fake info on internet reg killed swedish persons (sic).
I believe soon the truth will pop-up reg Poltava massacre.
Ramstein deserves a double tap too.
Russia: Message Sent.
Nato: Money Python/Black Knight response, "Hey, get back here. 'tis but a scratch."
Imagine the key Poltava buildings that Russia has targeted in Europe and the USA.
Those coming out of their bunkers can be picked off with squirrel rifles.
Dead Empire Walking trying to install a Kackling female dog.
Don't you mean dead (believe we are still a small but vital island) UK empire walking pilfering every farthing we can from our people to keep our financial system house of cards afloat? Financial types are betting on Japan and the UK to fight for who will have the first sovereign debt crisis. Then Europe and then the US around 2027.
"... Ukraine pulled some forces from Kursk..."
No, quite the contrary. More Ukrainian troops keep pouring every single day into the Kursk salience, to replace the massive casualties they are suffering.
They pulled some elite units and replaced them with territorial brigades / border guards which are basically just instructed to dig in and hold ground and don't have the aptitude to advance/assault
How easy can it be to leave without getting hit on the way out?
Meat falls into the grinder and mince comes out. Sad, but true - and good.
The clock is ticking for Zelensky, which does my heart good, and never ever leave the door open, the drones might get in.
To hell with Zelensky, Syrsky, Austin, Blinken, the MIC, and everybody now winning stupid prizes for playing stupid games. “Force Putin to peace” is a fool’s paraphrase of “Now that you have me by the neck, I insist you not cut my throat.”
Yeah I chuckled at that, he has to pretend he is still in a position of power.
Fascinating that Putin is welcoming westerners that way. I had no idea he was offering such a sweet deal. A 5 year wait isn't a bad deal if you want to live there anyway, to own the land.
The point about Moscow and St. Petersburg versus Vladivostok is also interesting. I hadn't thought of that at all, but it makes sense. The future is not in Europe, it's in Asia. The europeans are beginning to enter a new economic ice age, though most of them don't know it yet.
I'll pass, even though my Russian citizen partner makes us eligible. The 2.5 acre (1 hectare) plot of land, in the middle of nowhere, is an awkward size with lots to maintain but not enough for profitable farming.
Vladivostock will never replace Moscow as the capital of Russia. It only becomes a national capital if the east gets carved out as a new country (aka the neocon wet dream).
I don’t think it will replace Moscow officially, but the future is in the east, not the west. Trade with countries in Asia will eclipse anything done with europe. In other words, the action will be in Vladivostok in the future, not in moscow or st. pete.
System is not letting me like comments or I would.
FWIW there is decent agricultural land close to Vladivostok - the one time I was there in the very early 90's people were pretty much surviving on what they could grow on dacha plots - which were quite accessible by rail from town.
Anyway, more trade with Asia via V-stok and Nahodka is such a natural it's pretty certain to rebound in the future.
Trade between Japan and Russian Far East is way down due to Japan going along w/US sanctions, but it's hardly in Japan's interest - reality is likely to reassert itself at some point.
Well.......... I'll bet that you can buy land cheaply out there, nowhere is best for cheap land and farming
I haven't checked land prices- but will and will get back to you - for sure agro equipments are cheap
Then you miight have viable information allowing you to assess a move
Land seems to be cheap all over Russia –from $1,000 an acre up to $4 or $5000 for blackearth:
out where you want to go it’ll be cheaper still, maybe as low as $500 an acre – you must be able to afford a good many acres at that kind of price, no?
Plus agro support systems are well developed throughout the East, and even in English for foreigners!
As even Tucker Carlson discovered you get big bangs for your bucks even in Moscow, think how much cheaper Vladiv must be, maybe a third or a quarter or a fifth of your current
I encourage you to take the plunge – then you can report back to S and us on a range of under covered subjects
https://ownwoodenhouse.com/index.pl?act=PRODUCT&id=339
https://russian-farmland.com/cost-of-agricultural-land-in-russia.html#:~:text=The%20price%20ranges%20from%20%242%2C500,region%2C%20and%20Kursk%20region).
https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/in/Vladivostok
"If only I was younger"....
Yes, that sounds like a wonderful idea, but after 25 years living in the Canadian sub-Arctic, the long cold is something I'd like to avoid.
At 2.5 acres per lot, and one only lives on 1-1.5 acres, that frees up an acre+ for general farming/agriculture/animal 'ranching'...possible with 20 lots to utilize?
The possibilities *are* there! :-)
Correct, if only I was younger and my children and grandchildren would be willing to pack up and leave with me....
Cian.ru
If I only had more courage (and was younger). Totally fed up with the hubris, hypocrisy, double standards, disinformation and lies. I know Russia isn’t perfect either, but it can never be that bad as what we have here in the west. And as a dutch I can tell that we are still doing reasonably well, but the future is grim as I see it.
Due to the loosening of ties to Europe and the threat of first-strike missile deployment, it seems to me that the more logical solution for a new capital would be more to central Russia, not coastal areas like Vladivostok - Russia's third largest city, Novosibirsk, might be a logical choice as it lies far into the heart of Russia beyond tactical missile range from either direction.
"It only becomes a national capital if the east gets carved out as a new country" It doesn't have to become the national capital in the literal, legislative sense. But in 100 to 175 years (a very long time given the *very* rapid pace of development in Russia) Vladivostok could easily become the economic and social capital of Russia.
Today Moscow is *the* capital in all senses, much the way Paris or London are for their respective countries. But in many other countries, including the US, the legislative capital is a different, lesser, city than the center of business, finance and society. Washington, DC, is a backwater compared to New York, for example.
But what's clearly happening in Russia is that the total, unipolar dominance of Moscow is giving way to the rise of a multipolar Russia when it comes to big cities. Setting aside St. Pete as the perennial number two, the other "million plus" cities are growing into real powerhouses. Krasnodar, Novosibirsk, and Vladivostok along with several others are clearly become business, industrial, and social centers similar to how the US has not just New York but also LA, Chicago, and other cities.
When it comes to vibrance, entrepreneurial spirit & culture, Houston & Nashville register bigly
Some try to see Omaha in that category but, to quote the Magic 8-Ball: future uncertain
Houston is democrat shit whole. Automatic weapons and everything. Started changing 15 years ago.
John, as much as I like your comments here, I see that virtually nobody here among the Simp commentariat (BTW, it's great!) seems to grasp what's the real attitude of population of Vladivostok, its Primorsky Krai, and all the Russian Far East has been for the last 30 years to the development of the region.
I'm a Vladivostok native, but you don't have to believe what I'll say. You can simply listen to what Putin said during his visits to Vladivostok even long before the very first Eastern Economic Forum, for his entire 25 year rule.
Almost every year Putin came to our city and everyone heard all the same song: Vladivostok HAS BEEN LOSING NATIVE POPULATION every year since the fall of the Soveiet Union (I was 11 back then). Since the early 90's, vast amounts of young people left the city forever. Most went to Moscow, St. Peter's and other parst of Western Russia, some emigrated directly abroad.
Why? The city's governance has been riddled with corruption since that very early '90s. Family and criminal clans ruled everything not only in the city, but in the entire Primorsky Krai. They never tried to hide their firm grasp of the region's economy. If you, John, have become at least partly a Russian, you must know that Vladivostok has become a tongue-in-cheek for Russians, because for 30 years it never had a SINGLE mayor who: a) did not lose his job before his term expired, and/or b) was not prosecuted right after that or simply ran and hide.
As a result, any local business in Vladivostok that's not connected with mafia and/or gray/black ways of second hand JDM car imports is in paltry condition, with few jobs. The city itself, for 25+ years had seen exactly ZERO infrastructure development, has been neglected, and became very uncomfortable for everyday life. For the most part that still continues now.
Born and lived there for 30 years, having had enough of it and not seeing any improvements for the quality of life inr the city, I... joined the crowds I told you about above and left the place in 2010 for Moscow (by that time I had been a successful IT pro). Moscow is simply another planet as for the living standards, but that's another story.
I continue to follow the life trends in my native city, as understandably, I have left a certain amount of connections there, but so far, very little has improved in the living standards there for the past 10+ years.
I hear you, and what you said about Vladivostok rings true and could be said about almost every other large "million" Russian city. It's a Russian stereotype with roots in indisputable truth. But there's another Russian stereotype with roots in indisputable truth and that's the stereotype of Muscovites (using the word as only a provincial person can, almost as an insult) looking down their noses at "the regions."
If you left Vladivostok for the Great Cancer on the Moskva River in 2010 you've missed the huge boom in development that has happened in big, regional cities. I live in a tertiary city with a population in the hundreds of thousands and not a million. But I'm frequently in one of the "million" cities and I can see the phenomenal transformation of such cities, staring around ten years ago. But only in the last five years can you really say that the quality of life has dramatically improved as a result of the infrastructure investments and that the flow of young people to Moscow has been reversed. The "million" city nearest to where I live has gone from being a dreary Soviet place in the early 2000's to a very vibrant, wonderful place to live that I prefer to every European city I know (and I've lived in a few).
Young people there now either stay home or many are moving from Moscow to there. They do that because they want a home nearer the center, they don't want to spend their lives commuting for hours on electric trains / the Metro or stuck in hellish traffic jams in Moscow. I used to live in Moscow and I loved it. But that was years ago before it became so densely populated. I still love visiting Moscow. But only for short periods of time. I far prefer living out in the regions.
As for Vladivostok, this is a wild exaggeration: "The city itself, for 25+ years had seen exactly ZERO infrastructure development, has been neglected, and became very uncomfortable for everyday life. For the most part that still continues now."
How is it you've missed the spectacular new bridge that has become the city's symbol?
There's a big difference living on the other side of the planet (literally, Moscow is almost that far away from Vladivostok) while staying in touch through friends or whatever with the local scene, and actually living there. Go back and live in Vladivostok for a year or two and I think you'd see that in many ways small and large it isn't the city you left in 2010 but is a far better place.
As for corruption, although I don't have personal experience of that in Vladivostok from what I've seen in other big cities from Kaliningrad and Krasnodar to, say, Irkutsk, that is so tremendously reduced that it is sometimes annoying to those of us who remember the old days that in modern times one cannot "expedite" some sort of procedure by paying a "consulting fee" to a knowledgeable, experienced person.
For example, in 2010 you could still buy a driver's license for about $100 without having to take the road test (notoriously difficult in Russia). Now, that's impossible in any major city. Besides all the cameras recording every test if you try to bribe an inspector you could end up in jail because they have a much better incentive to turn you in than to take a bribe, the low salaries for police not withstanding.
This isn't Switzerland, as they say here, (to which I always add "thank God!") so there continues to be corruption in big time matters just like in other countries, including the US. But whether it is higher or lower than the US or EU is difficult to say because the utterly endemic corruption which you describe has been so totally suppressed. It would be extremely surprising that the many Federal methods that have played such a key role in suppressing endemic corruption in so many other big cities would not also have had the same effect in Vladivostok.
A final comment: like it or not, when the Federal team prioritizes something, the vast flow of resources and money applied almost always have a magic effect. Guys like Mishustin are extremely effective technocrats, and they have made development of the region around Vladivostok a priority. To underestimate the effect that will have in attracting talent and in achieving development and creating jobs is a huge mistake. The Turn to the East is one of the two or three largest Federal priorities: now is time if you want independent wealth in your old age to think about doing an IT startup back in Vladivostok and not running on the treadmill in Moscow.
John, I can assure you I was not exagerrating. Not for the sake of proving I'm right, but for you to better know what can really happen in certain places of Russia and, regarding Vladivostok, to understand the difference between what's publicly declared as "development" and what's been really important to the city's natives for decades.
But first, let's clarify the fact that Vladivostok is the very same type "tertiary city with a population in the hundreds of thousands" you mentioned about, not an "around million" one, and has never been. It peaked at 650k the early '90s of my childhood and bled the native populace ever since. Since the mid 00's, the decline of population has been partly offset by immigrants from ex-USSR countries, to the point that in 2010, a first in decades uptick in population has been proudly recorded. It's been rising slowly since, but it hasn't been natives staying -- it's been immigrants coming. The natives continue to flee; our president and regional authorities continue to state this during EEF every year. BTW, how could that be if you say the living standards have improved in the last 5-10 years? Why they continue to come to Moscow (lots of my connections followed my suit in 2010s)?
Please, don't so easily dismiss my knowledge of modern Vladivostok as derived from my local connections only. From time to time I come to the city to evaluate the developments first hand, and it's much easier to do that properly when you know virtually every stone there and know what's important for the locals and what's not.
"The spectacular new bridge that has become the city's symbol" (two bridges actually) were among the first new things in the city. They opened to a great fanfare in 2012 and I saw them first that very year as I visited the city. I know what locals said at the time and I thought the same: these and several others are purely publicity projects that were built for Vladivostok ATEC 2012 summit, are to provide smoke and mirrors for Asian partners (and they did!). "New city symbol", yes, exactly. It was intended to be. But the city for decades had huge, well, not huge -- simply ENORMOUS transportation problems, and that project with an eye-watering cost did not bring any meaningful solution to them. These problems stay among the same points of criticism of the city as they were 10 and 20 years ago.
"Go back and live in Vladivostok for a year or two and I think you'd see that in many ways small and large it isn't the city you left in 2010 but is a far better place." If you aren't an outside tourist, but an ex-local, it's rather easy to come there on a long vacation and simply retry everything that had made me to leave the city (and it seems, it works the same for you, John, with the USA, your home country).
Alas... very little REAL improvement; often none at all. You mentioned about Moscow's commuting and traffic jams, and that's where's the real irony: the already mentioned Vladivostok's main problem for decades -- an absolutely piss-poor street-only public transport stuck in enormous traffic jams with NO alternatives due to a) very complicated city landscape (similar to San Francisco); b) mafia owning ALL public transport there and having lucrative deals with it -- every local would confirm this. You'll invariably (a key word) will spend MUCH more time in a traffic jam there than in current Moscow's public transport system which development for for the last 10 years simply awes me.
And this major problem has not had even a tiny improvement for all these 14 years I'm not living there. They're many; it's just an example of one.
I've never personally been to Vladivostok, but I'm definitely looking forward to visiting it. I don't know when I'll be able to do that but for sure I will make the effort.
I guess what I'm reacting to is the extreme negativity I hear from you about the city you left. I hear that a lot from people I know who moved from various places to Moscow and so far, without exception, the cities I hear them talking about that I know from years of personal experience are not that way at all: there really is massive development going on in the regions, with really huge changes in the "million" cities that are secondary to Moscow and St. Pete and with the many significant changes going on in the tertiary cities, those with populations, say, in the 200,000 to 800,000 range.
I see that in the tertiary city where I live, which is not one you hear about in the news. It's just a run of the mill ancient city in the European part of Russia, West of the Urals. But all the same it's been transformed as a result of federal investments that have improved parks, public infrastructure, tourist infrastructure, schools, hospitals, transportation, and so on. No, it's not like Moscow in that respect which has a futuristic world class public transit system with vast sums spent on projects like the D4 diameter line crossing all Moscow (a huge place) to link outer parts of the megapolis to the very dense Metro system. It's not even like the secondary cities. But the extra pulse from development adds up to significant improvements in quality of life.
I'm just skeptical that none of that is going on in Vladivostok. I haven't been there before the big pulse of internal development started happening and I haven't been there now to compare, but I'm skeptical there hasn't been improvement. I'm especially skeptical because as a tertiary city, despite the low population of 600,000 and not over a million, Vladivostok has an exceptionally high priority for Federal planning and budget precisely because it is a *huge* priority to increase population in the far East, all part of the big Turn to the East.
I've seen what happens when the technocrats running Russia aim Federal money at a priority: things happen big time. For example, when they decided to lift Sarov from being a forgotten place in the armpit of nowhere to being a national scientific treasure it went from being a place where scientists there had to dispatch a friend to a big city or Moscow to buy quality meat to having a dedicated quantum network for enormous bandwidth laid from other supercomputer centers and the spectacular new M12 superhighway, easily the best I've driven in Russia and exceeding the autobahn in Germany, routed from Moscow around Vladimir and directly to Arzamas, the host town for Sarov, on its way to Kazan. They actually placed the M12's route a full hour and a half from Nizhny Novgorod, the logical place it should have gone through, because developing the region around Sarov was a priority. That's just mind boggling.
But that's the level of Federal power now being applied to the region around Vladivostok. For that reason I'm skeptical that everything about Vladivostok is shit. The people I know who have lived there say they like the place, so it would be interesting to get into the details of why they aren't so negative but you are.
As for me and the US, that's a simple deal: the US I knew and loved to live in transformed into something very different that is not nearly as pleasant a place, at least by my tastes, as modern Russia. It's like everywhere, including Russia: there are good points and bad points and you just have to find the balance between them that works for you. It's the same within a country, where there's often a big difference between living in the capital, or in the business capital, or out in a provincial, smaller town. I loved living in Moscow when I lived there. But despite how much I enjoy the intensity and scale of Moscow when I'm there, for daily life I much prefer living out in the regions. If Moscow works for you, that's great, and I can certainly appreciate how living there is definitely living in a world class megapolis.
Thank you John for your very sincere attitude to our nation. I wish you all the best in your life in Russia.
I can't state the same fondness about the US I'd visited several times in 2010s during my business trips (several weeks long ones).
If you are interested in my general impressions: in early 2010s I mostly worked in Cincinnati and Orlando. The living standards there seemed simply OK to me, pretty comparable to Moscow and St. Peters' of late '00s - early '10s, but say, much inferior to Melbourne where I stayed for a month in 2010.
But Moscow's progress in the living standards for the last 10 years has been so tremendous, surpassing Melbourne in many ways, that I don't even know how it would compare with those US places right now.
"Partner" That's faggot talk and they probably wouldn't let you in anyway.
"The europeans are beginning to enter a new economic ice age, though most of them don't know it yet."
I thought fathers in Euro-land taught their children, after even a cursory reading of history:
The first rule of fight club is...we DON'T fuck with the Russians.
Hey Swedes, real smart of you to dispose of neutrality and say, "hold my Aquavit..."
Dumb shits. Enjoy the influx of Uke refugees this winter. As I told anyone who would listen back in Feb '22, there's NO fucking way the Russians will lose this American invented, unnecessary war.
Swedes very very dumbabumba, just like the rest of the Nordics and Baltics - how could they buck the trend?
Then this awacs gift, utlra sonic hyper stupid - as if they do not need all the awacs they can get
.....the one thing they could give that the RF would get very very keen to destroy
I could see the Swedes falling for the NATO thing but was pretty shocked that the Finns did. Armed neutrality was working just fine before they decided to 'fix' it...
Finland had a pretty good deal going with Russia, trade wise, tourist wise, neighbour to neighbour
They, more than anyone, should have known to not exchange this for a very uncertain future
They have ceded a considerable part of sovereignty and autonomy of action to a hostile far distant imperial power, who's proven record of wasting proxy arms civilians and peoples should have provided warning enough of their now imminent fate
Indeed. It was pretty stable and mutually beneficial.
And given the Soviet Winter War and WWII experience it was highly
unlikely the Russians were going to invade just because they were bored or something.
Lots of opportunities lost - and will continue to be - as long as the people running things are doing everything they can to prevent peace from breaking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPJIJx1dYk8
Thank you for your comment
This form of acting very obviously against their own best interests of their country and any reasonable governance
Hard to understand except via the old formulas of capitalist ruling class oppression etc
Nobody in Euro-land (or Britain) teaches their children any history. "The past is irrelevant; the glorious future is all that matters".
Yes - but this is not even a question of history - you just have to take a quick look at the map of Russia then take a look at the map of your own mini country
To figure out that with approx 3,000 soldiers in your army + a few airplanes - it is better to not go out of your way to provoke or spit in the face of the Russians
Nothing more than elementary common sense that anyone who can stand up and walk should be able to master past the age of 12 years old
Let me know when any country in the West lets its citizens to vote on war with Russia.
A few elitist bumboygirls get to have their lower classes killed while they beat the drum for the glory of war.
If any ever do it will those that have figured out US style how to steal the vote without the submissive passive and indeed collaborationsit working class even knowing much less objecting
This is the result of having participated in colonialism and imperialism for centuries
They have only themselves to blame if smarty pants ruling classes exploit them
My mother who died in 2010 lived in Orange county outskirts of Orlando. a 5 min drive to Universal Studios.
She would get discount tickets from Central american immigrants who worked at Disney. The area looked Caribbean
She refused to believe this was an invasion saying troops were not landing on the beach. She believed they similar to her parents who came from eastern Europe in the 1910's. My grandfather was allowed to leave Austro Hungry after 4 of his brothers were killed in WWll. He refused to speak his native language.
This reminds me of the Sweds and Germans taking all men from thye mid east. They must see a field rather than a forest. i don't know about todays 12 year olds though.
Umm, Austro Hungarian Empire ceased to exist after WWI...
Unless education has changed completely, "Geschichte" (History) is being taught in German schools, from the early grades to high school.
Who's version? Reality or the fake believe western version?
You are right of "today's" re-invention of history, of course. I should have prefaced it by saying that I was speaking of history as taught in the sixties and seventies.
@occamsrazorback22
With the example of Olof Palme assassination in 1986, Swedish politicians know what can happen to those who are excessively "neutral", let alone willing to coexist peacefully with Russia.
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/killing-innocence-the-anniversary-of-the-assassination-of-olof-palme/
I live in Sweden and fully agree with you.
However, it´s the parliament(riksdagen) who voted to join NAtO and not the people.
200 yrs of piece waisted. A referendum should take place first but the stupid members of riksdag got panic and cancelled referendum (maybe folks would vote no to join NATO).
BTW - so far silence in MSM of the Poltava massacre.....it will pop up soon I think-
Is it then that the Swedish ruling class is fully indentified with the US EU ruling class, in step as far as social programs lack of and military spending increases, wage decreases as opposed to increases, massive import and segregation of immigrants?
And that the major part of the population is against war in Ukraine, and not thrilled by NATO's invasion of Swedish sovereignty?
You are almost correct except about the wages (they do not decrease).
But Sweden has the the lowest pensions in the Scandinavian countries.
(I myself is a 65+ person)
Western governments would make sure that all retired people heading to Russia, lose their government pensions and maybe even their savings in the attempt.
Austin:
If we allow Ukraine to hit these targets, Russia will directly hit our assets, we will have to retaliate, and a direct war will start. Even if it doesn’t end in a nuclear exchange we will get f*cked.
Nothing. NOTHING. Will end the US empire so quickly (handing it over to China) than getting into war with Russia.
And if we don’t retaliate then we look like pathetic pu$$ies and it all ends the same way anyways.
(Apologies for the vulgarities. It’s Austin speaking not me 😉)
“The US is doing a very dangerous balancing act worldwide” and won’t be rid of this misadministration soon enough.
Still no mention from Simplicius of the massive (37%) haircut that private sector Ukrainian bondholders voted to accept last week.
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/ukraines-bondholders-approve-crucial-20-bln-debt-restructuring-2024-09-02/
If one accepts that "all wars are bankster wars" this is a huge development. The article goes on to state that there will be similar negotiations required next year for sovereign nation and IMF owned debt.
There is no way Ukraine is going to repay anything while the war is still in progress. So there is a major incentive for "the west" to negotiate.
S can not comment on every aspect of this war in Ukraine, let alone every wider ramification of the financial policies being dealed in the background
.....let alone peace plans, RF finances, Central Bank Arctic policies, energy....CBR confiscation plans, EU and G7, EU Defense Bonds, and so on and so on the list is long
Why don't you provide a succint yet detailed report on this Ukraine bonds deal? with especial mention of the London role, and the consequences for the Brit economy of such support for the Ukraine, on top of the military
S is very generous with the range and extent of the comments he allows I would say encourages
His primary role is up close detailed warground coverage - he can not be expected endlessly to mulitask
My bet is that bond holders will be bailed out, ultimately by tax payers via real money or ctrl P (inflation). The BoE has already changed its collateral rules so as to give new cash for the nominal value of bonds leaving the losses with the Bank.
I read an article in the Brit press, no link kept, that said that the Brit gvmt had guaranteed the bond holders, via the World Bank ?, to the tune of very many millions of $
Even if the brits have no such money - the new PM is by this and other similar craven moves wishing to buy extra US passports green cards, and jobs for himself and all his relatives
He is the worthy pupil of Tony Blair
I don't think he goes in detail into the financial ramifications of the war, but that's definitely an opportunity for further analysis by other writers there.
Seconding Gerard White's comment. Those who understand finance and what bond restructuring means should take the pain to elaborate, rather than expecting our host to make his posts longer and wider ranging still.
The first Commandment for the politically/geopolitically interested; "don't be lazy". Corollary - elaborate if you can. there are readers here. They don't seem to mind tl;dr's, if informative.
Ask what's been happening in the U.S. Bond market. The U.S. Fed and Treasury, pretending they are independent of each other, tapping the shoulders of their foot soldiers in New York, London, Brussels and every Tax Shelter Island, to cobble together a "market" BID underneath the crushing load of U.S. "Promises to Pay".
U.S. "Promises to Pay" their Debt is on a parallel to their promise to not move Nato eastward.
I wonder when the first Primary Dealer decides to withdraw from their legal requirement to bid on U.S. debt auctions.
Alex Krainer has a fabulous article on just this -- with timelines and ramifications of the "underperforming": bonds-- especially (note) on the UK govt and pension funds, called " The coming collapse of Britiain"
https://alexkrainer.substack.com
If one accepts anything said by Reuters as the truth they are completely brain dead
Thank you for frequently renewed updates: such frequent posts are very useful to combat the stupidities of the western press, especially that Daily Telegraph article that China will retake Vladivostok
The emphasis on the East by VVP is indeed very timely, and predictive of the future
Please find three recent posts by Karl Sanchez for additional information
https://karlof1.substack.com/
China & Africa account for one-third of the world’s population, so their team-building work toward political, economic & social stability grows naturally strong as they reinforce initiatives.
President Xi is intent on implementing the 10 Partnership actions, which will enable South-to-South cooperation. Said Xi, as quoted in Global Times, "Developing countries face a variety of real challenges and are easily affected by the complex and changing international situation, which can disrupt or even hinder the achievement of established goals."
Foreign Ministry rep Mao Ning said in her weekly press conference, "Realizing lasting peace and common security is the common aspiration of the Chinese and African people. Helping each other on security issues is very much essential for building a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future."
Swinging the weight & entrepreneurial talent of Africa eastward is congruent w/ Russia's own pitch toward the east.
Auspicious outcomes are afoot.
The FOCAC documents are staggering in quantity and quality - as the RF_China Joint declaration, but expanded in scope and scale to 54 countries and a continent
Many years in preparation
I'm trying to get through some of them, but it will take time
As with the Third Plenum documents and comments - an overhaul of a society as large as China's which is devoted to particpatory democracy and so the confirmed in writing at many levels and through out the country of the plans and procedures
Produced a gigantic amount of discussions and writings
You've probably noted that the Kingdom of Eswatini was the only country in Africa which did not send a delegation to the FOCAC.
Bloomberg queried Mao Ning about this on the sidelines of the summit & she responded, "There is but one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. This is a prevailing consensus in the international community. African countries widely support the one-China principle and view their cooperation with China as helpful for Africa’s economic prosperity and sustainable development. Developing official relations with the Taiwan region is not in Eswatini’s interest. We believe Eswatini will eventually see the prevailing trend in the world and make the right decision accordingly."
I'm wondering if the King of Eswatini attended a U.S. university or spent an extended period in Chicago.
Mao Ning had soaring thoughts about the FOCAC, however: "In conducting cooperation with Africa, China is committed to the principle of sincerity, real results, amity and good faith and the right approach to friendship and interests. Our cooperation is defined by sincerity, equality, mutual benefit, fairness and justice, and openness and inclusiveness. China and Africa have been actively implementing the outcomes of FOCAC. Those efforts contribute significantly to the common development of China and African countries and deliver tangible benefits to the two peoples. This has laid a solid foundation for the building of a high-level China-Africa community with a shared future."
link <<
https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/xw/fyrbt/202409/t20240904_11485051.html#:~:text=Developing%20official%20relations%20with%20the,make%20the%20right%20decision%20accordingly.
Ex Swaziland known for eccentricity in Kings Nobles and Lords
This the exception that makes the ruule
Remember Lithuania and their fractious relationship with Taiwan, for all the PR mutual interest projects talked up failed to get hardly anywhere, and the T were reluctant to invest
Which may be wise they'll need all their money to buy US arms, and to double bribe TSMC to stay not to flee 1-either to the mainland or 2- to the US
I think they’ve already given up on the US, the workforce isn’t up to their standards:
https://www.techspot.com/news/99008-tsmc-extreme-work-culture-affecting-us-hiring-ceo.html
This is true, if the Arizona factory problems are to be understood
The only US style solution to this is to crash Intel and TI, and pressure TSMC to import whole factories and logistic & supply chains into the US - it is clearly not difficult for the US to point to serious problems on the way for their factories and personnel in Taiwan, since the US can not guarantee protection from any subversive sabotage or worse
The US is trying on this tactic in Sth K and Japan, pointing to their present vulnerabilities to Kim, let alone Xi, requiring that shipbuilding and defense fabrications be moved to the US
africa is only good for meaterail resources. have to eliminate the fauna savages
Wrong. The middle class market for consumables and conspicuous consumption will far outstrip any mineral resources. Try not to let racism cloud your vision.
Citation needed. There is no black middle class in Africa.
Name anywhere that would not be improved by the removal of all Africans
I remember some of us in eastern Germany were thinking back in the 70's already that it was a great error not to develope the far eastern region of the Sovjet Union more.
For anyone who has not been there, the vastness of this region is unimaginable, you can almost put the entire USA into there and that's why I guess the dimension alone was too big to handle such a task on such scale for those times back then and other things were more important.
As a point of reference, the link here compares the size of Russia to TX, an enormous
US state.
https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/texas-usa/russia
You can drive all day from north to south or east to west in TX without leaving the state.
It's difficult to wrap your head around the immensity that is Russia.
SCTV was onto this phenomenon decades ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXqKkYYALMU
For some reasons Tx thinks it is a big land - until it takes its head out of it's neck and looks around
All hat no cattle
This is a great turn of phrase 😂
“A clearly intoxicated Syrsky gave an interview to a medicated Amanpour”
Mrs. Amanpour has a prescription for the same pharmaceuticals as Nancy Antoinette Emerita
It's amazing how Project Ukraine has driven Major Players to drugs, drink or dementia
They started with dementia and went downhill from there.
With all due respect
'they' the gvmt class, down to certain members of the media class, the judicial, law enforcement the military, etc
they all take the same prescribed and standardised doses of the same exclusive to gvmt formula which ensures adequate reactive mental skills, i.e. enough to get out of a cab, while narrowing focus to a set list of controlled pre fabricated and ordained topics together with the language to be reproduced with necessary insignificant variants but no variation
ditto for facial patterns and movements
If necessary extended to recipient spouses when necessary
These active ingredients do not have to be tested for to ensure constant consumption, there is a constant feedback loop to the fabricant which will also indicate deviant emotional or mental expressions
Zelensky wants to end the war this fall because whether Trump wins or not he’s getting either nothing or a fraction of what he got starting January.
😢
Well, just barely you can hear "Ta han först" (Take him first), However, I found this on Facebook: https://x.com/KajJakobsson/status/1831002644384518195 The First Screenshot appears to be fake.
But as Alexander Mercouris said on YuoTube it's possible there were other swedish people present who got hurt.
Nothing in the local media either. As to Tobias Billström, I don't think it's related. I think that he resigned because he doesn't like the Official Swedish Gaza policy that unfortunately is what it is. Fullblown Sionist. But that is just my guess and totaly unconfirmed,
I get it that we now have to have all sorts of alternative explanations to defeat the obvious one.
They were winning. All the time they were winning. Even when they were losing badly they were winning most of all.
Regarding Billstrom: it is said that when Christ, resurrected, appeared to his disciples the first time--"Peace be with you"--their hair went white in an eye-blink
Something like that happened to Billstrom
I think you are just hearing that because you've seen the video with text. Remember the "ansiktsburk" videos? :)
To me (a swede) this sounds Slavic. I'd be surprised if we cannot find a russian, ukrainian or polish speaker that can identify what they say.
Agree with you, it does not sound swedish
Swedish television debunked the "Swedish medic" claim, reporting he is "Igor" from Ukraine and proving it with showing an old Instagram picture where Igor has the same tattoo as the medic. I looked into it and concluded they are right. It's Igor Tkachov, who in the aftermath of the attack has publicly criticised the lack of tourniquets. I also found the old Instagram picture with the tattoo.
I don't know why he appears to be saying "take him first" in Swedish in the video, but my guess is that this sound has been added afterwards.
Initially, the Swedish instructors claim was backed with a screenshot of a FB post from American-German volonteer Britta Ellwanger saying she had lost an old university friend from her time in Sweden. However, she then publicly denied having written the post, or even studied in Sweden.
So, thus far we have two fakes carrying this story. To my mind that makes it less plausible, not more. Last night a statement from an anonymous highly-placed Russian military source also said to Russian media that Swedes were among Western "mercenary" instructors killed in Poltava. Maybe that is true, and maybe he has some other information supporting it, but I would not bet on it.
Or maybe he was speaking to another Swede in Swedish. What's your take on tweets claiming that SAAB lost its top management of Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) systems?
I haven’t looked into them but guess they are just trying to spin these lies.
Why should they train the Ukis in Poltava? Better to take them to Sweden and train them at proper facilities.
Or maybe it's easier to bring a dozen instructors to an already established academy far away from the front with all necessary facilities and hundreds of students instead of moving a whole bunch of young men abroad and back, where half of them might disappear on the way?
Lol. Do you understand how much on-site technology, simulations and training flights they need to fly the plane?. Why not then train on M1 Abrams, Leopard, CV90, Archer, Ceasar, F-16 in Ukraine. Nope. Maybe a few swedish instructors in signal/radio communications perished in Poltava. I dont know. The rest is fantasy.
This is by no means debunked. The 'Igor' explanation sounds completely fake unless someone can provide a link to Igor's Instagram showing an identical tattoo.
And why didn't we get to see an interview with 'Igor'? Or why is there no comment on the other (injured) person who also speaks Swedish.
This all sounds like very far fetched explanations to contradict the obvious. Besides there has been no lack of Swedes getting killed/captured in Ukraine. So why would Russia go to this length to show an injured Swede. It doesn't make much sense.
Sorry, here is a link to Igor Tkachov's Instagram picture with the tattoo:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BmTobqClr6h/?fbclid=IwY2xjawFI_D1leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZHu1_Ua8sTSmIs58BRo2PYf1tX_iJPQ7mbd3UNjnsbSSWDbiNsvkIOUhg_aem_vbSK4cMFUmh0x7GqWBVIfQ
Swedish television did get a telephone interview with him.
As for an injured person also speaking Swedish, I can't make out what anyone else is saying in that video or in what language. Apparently, no one else here can either.
It all doesn't make much sense, no. Silly useless games trying to invoke the defeat of Sweden in Poltava 1709. Polluting the infospace with fakes serves no good.
Thanks. It appears to be the same guy, but we don't really know if he is the one saying "Take him first" in Swedish. Could just as well be someone standing nearby.
Since Swedish media is working overtime trying to debunk this story I believe there's definitely something here.
It shouldn't be too hard to verify if Britta has ever studied in Sweden. Anything after that, is either true or fake.
I'm a Swedish native speaker. The Poltava rescue video does indeed have Swedish speech (not Norwegian), first from the rescue worker "Take him first" and then from the wounded person who is clearly in shock and says something incoherent about helping others first while waving his arms.
It's notable that the wounded person is wearing military attire, so clearly not an innocent civilian.
Thanks for that, Jonas.
I'm a swede too, and I don't agree. See above.
Interesting. As of now we got 3 ppl attesting to that this is Swedish. You are the only exception.
Are you Swedish counter intel by any chance?
It is very important not to know beforehand what you are "supposed" to hear. Hearing is extremely susceptible to suggestion. Try it with a few friends, and report back the results!
I listened to the sound of the video about 40 times without looking at the subtitles, especially to make out some of that the 2nd guy was saying.
Well I can't make it out to be swedish, but I guess we'll know if the obituaries start showing up.
I am from Sweden aswell, and after listening to the video severalt times, I am now conviced that it is swedish that is being spoken when they sa "Ta han först".
You can hear a tiny bit of swedish being spoken just prior to that sentence aswell.
Context is King
The Third Plenum Viewed from China - Update
The first fruit reports are coming in thick and fast, on the heels of the many Explanations of the Explanation reports, which are already elaborations of the basic texts, including many variant explanations, some high level
Resulting in some perhaps - unexpected for the Westerner- documents – one from the Foreign Ministry, such as no western foreign ministry would begin to think about nor let slip a hint of thinking
Including how to fit this Resolution into the history of China’s reforms – which is interesting for westerners who have little idea of China and how it works
This is the exemplar of practical people’s democracy that the western ruling class is beginning to take notice of
Others in the West, more critically, have realised how far in avance these practices are over the more or less collapsed western practices
Annexe Links and Quotes
“Xi Qiushi explanation of the Resolution”
August 15 2024
http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0815/c90000-20206355.html
‘Deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization: Major Achievements and Global contributions’
August 6 2024 Think Tank CPC and Xinhua
http://download.people.com.cn/waiwen/eight17230123701.pdf
‘Update: Think Tank report on achievements, contributions of China’s reform published”
August 7 2024
https://english.news.cn/20240807/1d710564a2c9476ab6c739a09eda3aaa/c.html
The Institute of Party History and Literature of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Xinhua News Agency
Xi’s message on Reform Implementation”
August 19, 2024
https://trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/p/china-fiji-ties-xis-messages-on-reform
‘Plenum marks milestone in further reform’
July 20,2024
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202407/20/WS669b151ca31095c51c50f0f1.html
“Zhu Guangyao: During the 1th Five Year Plan, my country’s economic growth can be maintained at between 4.5% and 5%”
9 August 2024
https://m.guancha.cn/zhuguangyao/2024_08_09_744289.shtml
“Former Vice Minister of Finance confident in 4.5%-5% growth 2025-2030”
Aug 20, 2024
https://www.eastisread.com/p/former-vice-minister-of-finance-confident
“Zhu Guangyao served as China's Vice Minister of Finance from May 2010 to June 2018. After joining the Ministry of Finance in 1985, he has served in various senior positions within the Ministry, including Director-General of the Department of International Economic and Financial Cooperation. From 2001 to 2004, he was the Executive Director for China at the World Bank Group.
In a speech delivered at a seminar at Renmin University of China on August 5, Zhu said with an average annual growth rate of 5.4% for 2021-2024, China would only need an average annual growth rate of 4.3% over the next eleven years to reach a total GDP of 200 trillion RMB and a GDP per capita exceeding $20,000 by 2035—a long-range goal set in 2020. He was also confident that China is on track to achieve economic growth between 4.5% and 5% in 2025 and during the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030), providing greater flexibility during the 16th Five-Year Plan (2031-2035) to meet the 2035 objectives”
Foreign Affairs
‘To create a favorable external environment for the further deepening reform and promoting China style modernization’ (Third Plenum)
The People’s Daily Aug 13 2024
http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrb/html/2024-08/13/nw.D110000renmrb_20240813_1-06.htm
“Breakdown of Wang Yi’s Post-Plenum article on China’s Foreign Policy”
Tracking People’s Daily August 13 2024
https://trackingpeoplesdaily.substack.com/p/breakdown-of-wang-yis-post-plenum
‘Foster a favourable external environment for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization’
August 13 Ministry of Foreign Affairs
https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbzhd/202408/t20240813_11471901.html
“The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization (hereinafter referred to as the Resolution) adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) emphasizes that in the external work, we must “foster a favorable external environment for further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.”
“Transcript and takes of Politburo Meeting on the Chinese economy headed by Xi”
July 30 2024 Fred Gao
https://www.fredgao.com/p/transcript-and-takes-of-politburo
A contrarian view of China’s role
‘Shen Zhihua on avoiding a New Cold War’
https://www.sinification.com/p/shen-zhihua-on-avoiding-a-new-cold
An interview with the South China Morning Post
Ignores or dismisses the significance of the Joint Declaration, and appears to believe that a peaceful relationship with the US can be, fairly easily, remade
America
‘Third Plenum Hot Takes: Skepticism and Concern’
July 22 2024 CSIS
https://www.csis.org/blogs/third-plenum-hot-takes-skepticism-and-concern
Thx for this exhaustive biblio
A deep dive will take time, but @ a glance this stood out--
Clair Reade w/ the Center for Strategic & International Studies was predictably pouty:
>>The Third Plenum Decision adopted last week contains disheartening contradictions, and, overall, reconfirms the top-down government-Party control of the economy. The Decision also makes clear that the Party will guide every area of the economy and society. <<
Dear old Clair does not find President Xi's China the *right* China, I guess.
More to absorb & drill down into