Luke

Putin doesnt want to take over ukraine completely, nor does he want to go further than ukraine. Main concerns were foreign interventions in ukraine regarding their security positioning...the peace treaty was almost there and the chinese published their 10 point plan of which one point was to get back to the negotiating table. Whats the end game? Complete destruction of ukraine and capitulation after 1m+ of men were killed slowly in this war...they will never beat the russian forces and only if we really go into this war which would lead to what exactly? EDIT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Kujat

Retired german general of our air forces, ex chief of staff german forces and ex nato military committee chairman for 3 years (Harald Kujat): "ukraine was prevented from signing the peace treaty" "at the 29th of march Zelensky posted on the internet how the negotiations were, on the 28th we find interviews in Russian television of positive feedback by such negotiations. The istanbul communique was even already initialed BUT ukraine was urged by foreign parties to stop negotiations..." English subtitles available.

Yeah this is a very good point i think fukuyama pointed something like this out in 2022 after the invasion in a newspaper article. I previously thought chinas population would rage about the death count if they invade but in russia they only send the rural low educated guys who nobody misses. Educated st petersburg/moscow folks are not drafted. Combine that with a very staged media sector and you can prevent public concern easily, could happen in china too....

+ The problem is the current government in ukraine is just nuts, selensky is on a suicide mission, there is likely more corruption than we know. All we can do is force them to do the right thing, cut off any weapon supply, force them into capitulation and then organize peace talks with the russians. Best outcome would be that the west agrees to neutrality for ukraine, probably the regions putin wants will remain in his hand and then some rebuilding can take place with stimulus from the the larger nations, US, europe, china, russia. But you need willing leaders for that and i really dont see that right now unfortunately.

It's highly likely that one can get peace with Putin taking his regions of interests and Ukraine promising to stay a neutral country. We won't get peace with "Ukraine is independent and can decide to join NATO" and "Ukraine gets everything back".

Highly recommended

I have recently watched the navalny documentary and also his 1.5 hours video about putins abuse of his political power, stealing taxes etc. Yes, russia became an authoritarian regime with a few people with lots of power, with putin at the top. But he is also very paranoid and he hates having missiles close to his border that could bomb him away because of "missing democracy in russia" or whatever reason the US might make up. He is not interested in conquering the world but rather preserving a wide margin of safety around his country so he can live in peace and play his emperor game. That's for the Russian people to solve and not for us, we try to be diplomatic and take the resources necessary and maintain peaceful relations and focus on our own...

Trump is terrible for us and you have to counter him with his own medicine. America great again? Sure! Germany great again too No more "common interests", sure! Then we all look out for our own and i think thats best. Germany is in a great position, lots of industry, lots of neighbors and potential. We need missile defenses for germany but most of all we need good relationships with russia I am very sure putin is not interested in attacking germany, he actually rather looks at the US with pessimism if you read his speeches so i think he will be quite happy if we get back to diplomacy and the US chills on their own island.

So yes, leaving nato, stopping being a US puppet and looking out for our own interests will make a lot of sense. But hey, perhaps the US will start sanctions if we miss behave? Maybe stop sending the AI chips to germany too? lol! Imagine what could be possible in eurasia and how much wealth we could create? Short SP 500, long Eurasia 500?

About time we get independent from the US, especially considering what kind of presidents are voted for...is Trumpe a reliable nato partner? Absolutely not. Germany upsizes military spending, either gets control of french nuclear weapons in an alliance between the two countries, or asks for their own (lol). As you can see by my illustration, your nato partners already provide enough buffer space for us were you have to protect these countries before russia or china reaches us: Win Win. The rocket defense domes are produced in germany too, we shall up the spending! With better russian relations we can built/reuse our pipelines again, start a large industrial stimulus and germany will be great again! On top comes that we dont get drawn between the US and China, can keep china as an ally/market/ressource partner!

Leaving nato ultimately would be a good thing for germany honestly, we can finally stop the non sense in ukraine, get our cheap energy back and drive up our industrial machine, not be involved in military conflicts all over the world and time to focus on our economy...getting to a position like switzerland, neutral...one can dream.

Why are we getting booted out?

Also find it quite funny that western countries focus SO much on "DEMOCRACY" (the process) while OUTCOMES apparently seem to matter less. I have to say, I care more for the outcome of a society than for the process and id say that is true for a large swatch of chinese people. Sure we have some rebellious journalists or students etc, the west has greta thunberg etc, doesnt mean that these people are necessarily correct with what they want although they make good headlines. What will matter to the chinese joe is growth per capita, feelable development of their environment, wealth increase for everyone. Not if he can vote black or white and nothing changes.

+ Its also not very democratic setup either, US+Europe is 1b people. China alone is more than that, then you have the Brics nations which historically didn't have much say either... I mean, putin cant go into countries that accept the power of these courts so they are working in someway dont they?

Good illustration of how desperate youtubers have become generating clicks...

Its uploaded in the Fairfax Letter 2023 thread!

Holy S*** this is a great read, especially considering that sleezy MW shorter...Watsa seriously can be proud of what he built

Yeah even when i did it it just went blank but started to work now

Its live: FFH_Fairfax-Financial-Shareholders-Letter-2023.pdf

Its visible to me but there is no pdf opening when i click it

To reframe: What help are high-end AI chip sanctions for Uyghurs? Which other countries have sanctions for NVIDIA chips? The sanctions are just there to get the upper hand on China, economically and militarily. China could stop the labor camps now and it wouldn't change anything. And yeah, if china allows LGBTQ folks they will surely get the chips too Why is the US allowed to have AI chips with Assange releasing war crimes to the internet and then faces 175 in a torture cell somewhere in the US? Prisoners were hidden from the red cross...collateral murder by US Apache helicopters, spying on normal citizens without probable cause... But more fundamentally, i seriously hope for chinese investments that they can develop their own chips because i dont think they will get em anytime soon and i think there is a reasonable chance the US can really amplify the control of these for their own benefit.

I strongly disagree. The only thing that matters is that China is a significant competitor of the US on all fronts. Are there sanctions against other countries with human rights abuses? Its one sided against china only.

Something that really shocks me: I have an account at a german broker called "trade republic". Its the robin hood equivalent for northern europe. If i simply go to "search", the function to search for stocks etc, I have DIRECTLY on the front page the option for derivates with THREE underlying stocks: NVIDIA NASDAQ SUPERMICRO Its probably based on the most traded derivatives but still, the app is inviting people into buying derivatives on the companies which obviously then also pushes up the prices of the underlying securities... Talking about a bubble... EDIT: They are managing 35b in assets.

If China is blocked from global semiconductor trade, bombing TSMC will hurt a bit, but a lot less than if they are included in the supply chains. What it will hurt is the US at that point. So very strategic business for global power and way closer to china to destroy...