Luke

That said, Putin has its own goals and isnt a "good guy" here either. He is a authoritarian brutalist and responsible for the death of many, accepting horrible military practices to protect russias interests. But at this point selensky is continueing what shouldnt be continued, his men are dying and he makes no progress. He has to cut a deal NOW and protect whats left, anything else is madness.

But look at the facts: 1. Hundreds of thousands of mutilated or dead ukranian men. 2. No progress on the front although hundred of billions of USD spent and further dying 3. Majority of infrastructure destroyed and will be further destroyed 4. No air superiority, not enough men, not enough tanks, not enough drones, the list is long. Lets say you would want "global peace, democratic values, western way of life", what is the next thing to do here? Increase the amount of money and weapons given to them? What did it get them so far and how do you want to solve the man power problem? Russia hasnt even had a total mobilization while selensky is scratching the last men from the streets. Would you want your own military drive to Ukraine and also fight against russia? Then we not only would have a local conflict but a world war, maybe not only 1m+ dead but 10-20m. And for what? To get back a small peace of land because that would be more fair? If you follow that logic, why dont you want to send men to africa, to the kongo to free them from rebells where thousands are dying...reason is that conflicts shouldnt escalate into a bigger and bigger war. Sometimes you gotta make a cease fire-take a peace deal that is reasonable under the promise that nobody further will die...its not black and white here, the lifes of millions are at stake and Trump and Vance protect those while selensky wants further bloodshed until his goals are achieved.

The thing is, Selensky will knock at everyones door to try to get as much weapons, manpower, money as he can get to fight Russia and get back the territories. This is totally understandable from his perspective. The countries he is asking for help though not only face massive ressources they have to give away and harm local budgets but also face security risks, even more than the US which is far away from Europe. Selenskies incentives are to engage other countries military to fight russia together but he wont get that, id would be madness and WW3, as trump said it...lets see where he tries to get further funding or if he is finally forced to settle for a deal that could have been settled years ago

Yeah. I think Selensky is in disbelief of his situation, frankly. He will now try to convince europe to increase stakes into this war. IMO Germany wont follow and can not looking at recent election results. Without germany europe wont do anything either. The time ticks...i wonder what these scenes at the white house will do to Ukrainian opinions on selensky, the biden era western media always wanted to portray a unified ukraine that 100% stood behind selenskies total defense at all costs and willing to sacrifice everyone to sustain what is unsustainable. Reality is, there are many people in ukraine that know this strategy wont work, he has no manpower, no weapons, defect infrastructure, couple of millions of people already left the country...rock and a hard place.

All i can say is kudos to the trump administration. They are not willing to spend that much money with nothing to gain but more men dead. They are reestablishing diplomatic relations with russia, having phone calls, call for a cease-fire to stop the dying...finally someone doing something.

Nah, Selensky appeared disrespectful, basically would like a total war against russia if we are all being honest. Trump obviously knows he wont risk any more US citizens or US money for this madness. Selenskies sits in an office while soon 1m+ ukranian men are dead and mutiliated. Its delusional to want further escalation against russia, a nuclear power. No way, i think germany wont be able to do so anymore looking at election results. Gotta disagree, this was democracy pure. This is what the majority in the US voted for to see, have Trump and Vance take position and defend US interests.

@cubsfan Is the ball in selenskies court? He basically has to choose between a rock and a hard place. He can decide but his power is tiny.

Wow. That was truly historic and to me it made perfect sense. Selensky comes into the oval office with the old Biden Era mindset and faces a stone-hard wall. Trump and Vance were on point, high respect here. There is no chance Selensky is winning, there is no chance he is winning back these territories without US support. Germany has a new government where the new coalition has no 2/3s majority to lower the debt break and increase military funding and the AFD+Left will block further war investments. Game over. Selensky has to face reality, get the best deal he can, step down and then have new elections.

Well AMR going down down down...anyone interested?

Its an everlasting uparming that ultimately will lead to conflict, i also think the countries who have to engage in this kind of uparming will fall behind economically because it drains so much ressources. Its not smart from a diplomatic or economic perspective, with the reasonable diplomatic engagement institutions like the UN could serve their purpose of deescalation and dearming but you need people willing to do so. If you come in with a mindset of "its the game that is played lets go all in" of course nothing will happen but thats not smart frankly, my two cents.

Is the world safer when there are not only 12k nuclear warheads but 20k or 30k? And you then still have a M.A.D situation where both parties wont pull the trigger and just fight a conventional war that will still lead to infinite uparming, droneuparming etc. It never ends, nobody is safer afterwards, it costs a treasure that desperately needs to be invested in important things and it increases the total risks for everyone while leading to the possibility for even more brutal conflicts.

Yes, so soon military will be 50% of the annual budget and we need to build bases on mars to store all the tanks and nuclear weapons...you always have to prepare and the other guy is also preparing...there will always be evil and they only understand strenght...

But my gut tells me that Trump does not want to be a war guy and he and his administration have spoken a lot about the problematic expansionism of the US, like Vance. We will see whats going to happen...:)

This rulebased order could have only existed as long as the majority of countries globally were underdeveloped or continue to stay underdeveloped. This changed with china which was actually not what the US wanted i believe. I think we are now facing a future with much more growth and increased competition and that will be good for humankind. The UN was founded after WW2, i hope we dont need a WW3 to understand why it was founded...the UN is the only tool how we can lower military spending, increase mutual trust and move closer to each other instead of more and more distance and hostility that will ultimately end in escalation either by accident or by the wrong administration.

I think europe is incapable of organizing their military properly together, its much easier if there is a small chain of commands than a chain of command through 27 member states attached with X military personnel, constitutional differences, different electoral cycles etc. I think its best that the nations focus on their sovereignty, invest strategically in sectors with future potential and become experts in these fields that grow both their domestic economy but also are products that can be sold at high margin globally (see semiconductors, biotech, automachines etc), eventually some succeed and some wont and have to continue to sell their labor at low margin or be jobless and try to get up the value chain (the weaker southern countries for example). The Ukraine war is a showplace for the US and Russia and will end anytime soon, the billions of weapons where a waste of money and a waste of human life. There was the window of an even better deal in 2022 and it was neglected, just madness.

There is currently around 2.5T USD of cash spend annually on building out the military of states, thats capital which is almost completely wasted and cold metal sitting around doing nothing while we face (with the exception of china) severe underinvestment in infrastructure in basically any developed country. Now people come up with ideas of increasing that amount severely to protect us and make the world safer which leads to others doing the same in a never ending spiral. Just by this argument it becomes evident that building out the military does not lead to more peace but rather to malinvestment and the potential for bigger and bigger catastrophy, even just by accident. Thats why we need to elect leaders that are capable of developing international relations which all previous administrations of NATO, US whatever were incapable. The UN was already dismantled by previous US administrations with breaking the UN law over and over again, thats why BRICS is forming, thats why there are many states turning their back towards the "western alliance" and seek diplomatic relationship with China or at least continue to maintain them with russia. That trump is negotiating is great but he is unfortunately a mixed message, doing two steps ahead and two back at the same time. The US was never this peaceful hegemon under previous administrations that brought everyone together but rather played out everyone and only served its own interest and continues to do so, economically and military.

Isnt Alibaba also mainland listed now and can just buy back shares locally without this USD conversion problem?

The lead actor in this movie had the role of a lifetime, honestly, this was an oscar worthy performance and the movie overall was intense at all times, really stuck in my head, way better than reviews say IMO. Movie is even free on YT

Its a very nice company and they have access to a great talent pool...i own a tracker now too and is a joy to follow what breakthroughs they will come up with in the future.

I have learned a lot from pabrai, i also think he grew a lot as an investor and while coal has gone back from the parabolic moves last year, if those bets turn out well i think investors who held on to him will be rewarded...i also understand the critics

Why am I getting itchy feet that a major bullrun is developing in chinese stocks?....havent read any negative news for a while, focus is on current US administration and tariffs+ukraine. China aint looking bad here...

Gotcha.

China rocket today: Reason?

We are all value investors on this board and those 50 bucks could be 1 share of Joe I still think 30 day ban is a good move. Also, if there is a political topic of relevance, those can be discussed in SPECIFIC threads destined for that topic only to prevent other threads from getting crowded. Perhaps crowding other threads with 1 vs 1 political debates is the thing thats bannable @Parsad? Cheers!