Political Posts

[John Hjorth]

Related to the POTUS 'dictator' statement related to Volodymyr Zelenskyj :

 

Rating Group - [ratinggroup.ua] [February 21^st 2025] : Attitudes toward specific European leaders :

 

Quote

... Two-thirds of Ukrainians trust President Zelenskyy, while one-third do not. Since January, trust in him has increased from 57% to 65%. Valerii Zaluzhnyi is trusted by 76% of respondents, 16% do not trust him. Serhii Prytula is trusted by 34%, and 51% do not trust him. Petro Poroshenko is trusted by 22%, while 76% do not trust him, Dmytro Razumkov is trusted by 19%, and 41% do not trust him, Yuliia Tymoshenko is trusted by 11%, and 86% do not trust her. ...

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Belonging PowerPoint Deck attached.

RG_Ukraine_Monitoring_Leaders_САТІ_022025_ENG.pdf

[cubsfan]

 

26 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

Related to the POTUS 'dictator' statement related to Volodymyr Zelenskyj :

 

Rating Group - [ratinggroup.ua] [February 21^st 2025] : Attitudes toward specific European leaders :

 

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Belonging PowerPoint Deck attached.

RG_Ukraine_Monitoring_Leaders_САТІ_022025_ENG.pdf 1.28 MB · 1 download

 

Of course that is so much BS. 

 

If Zelensky has such massive popularity - then why would he NOT hold free and fair elections?

He would win in a landslide.

 

By your logic, Putin is NOT a dictator becuase he has overwhelming support by the Russian people.

 

 

 

Edited February 22, 2025 by cubsfan

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

 

It's actually a very good point about the situation for Germany by now, @Spekulatius, 

 

In every challenging situation is also the basis and foundation of a new opportunity, if one looks sufficiently around. It's time for some tailwind for Germany on the bicycle path, in stead of headwinds, that appear without end.

 

There wil be a lot to do, all while European defense budgets are swelling and going beserk.

There is absolutely opportunity in all this upheavals for Europe if you look close enough. i think Merkel has a shot of reshaping the political landscape if he gets a strong enough mandate. the changes to the EU will come from political leaders demanding changes not from the current EU bureaucrats themselves. 

[james22]

On 2/20/2025 at 4:10 PM, John Hjorth said:

Why do you consider it funny that someone reacting to that they can't take the words of your POTUS at par? What is actually funny about that?

 

That some still reflexively underestimate Trump is funny.

 

In this case, for example, he isn't wrong. And acknowledging that reality makes a negotiated peace much more likely.

 

If you have a pot that needs stirring, call Donald Trump. 

 

A couple of days ago Trump made heads explode when he claimed (among other things) that Volodymyr Zelensky was “a dictator without elections” who started the war with Russia.

 

“Oh my God, can you believe it? Trump doesn’t know Russia was the aggressor in the war. What an idiot.”

 

The BBC, CNN and many other news sites ran little “fact-checking” stories. Politicians dusted off their most serious faces to deplore Trump’s lies/exaggerations (the US hasn’t given $350 billion to Ukraine, it was “only” $180 billion or whatever)/historical ignorance. “Ukraine did not start the war,” CNN intoned. “Russia started the war by invading Ukraine in 2022.” 

 

Well, Russia did invade Ukraine in 2022. But is that when the war started?

 

“OK, it really started in 2014 during the Maidan protests when Russia snatched Crimea.”

 

Do you think so?  

 

I think that the national security analyst Mario Loyola is right that the conflict started much earlier, in the  aftermath of the Soviet Union’s implosion in 1991.  

 

In an important essay for the Federalist from 2022, Loyola points out that Ukraine and Crimea gradually and separately became part of Russia beginning in the seventeenth century. “Ukraine came in stages as Poland waned in territory,” he notes, “with the areas east of the Dnieper River firmly in Russian hands by the time of Peter the Great, while Crimea was captured from the Ottoman Turks.”

 

Jump forward to the period after World War Two. “The Soviets wanted to give the impression of a diverse coalition of states, particularly in order to justify their demand for multiple seats at the United Nations, so Ukraine was presented to the world as a powerful Soviet Socialist Republic.”

 

Then in 1954, Khrushchev, himself a Ukrainian, ceded territory and nominal control of military forces to Ukraine but, “it was all a show, because everyone knew the Kremlin retained total control:

 

When those borders suddenly became “real” in 1991, amidst the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kiev found itself in control of a nuclear arsenal, the Black Sea fleet, Russia’s most important commercial and naval ports in the world (Odessa and Sevastopol), and tens of millions of Russians.

 

US diplomats realized the situation was dangerously untenable, and quickly pressed Kiev to return the nuclear arsenal and Black Sea fleet to Russia. Unfortunately, the adjustments stopped there, leaving Ukraine with a bigger bite of Russia than it could safely chew.

 

Was Ukraine strong enough to maintain both its territorial integrity and its political independence? That is the question that Loyola asks. History has answered with a resounding no.

 

"Ukraine had no problem controlling the territory as long as it accepted Moscow’s control,” Loyola points out. “But the moment it definitively broke away from Moscow in 2014, it immediately lost control of those areas that were most vital to Russian interests, and nobody with an even minimal sense of Russian and Ukrainian history can pretend to have been taken by surprise.”

 

The fate of Ukraine is one of those subjects that seems automatically to induce moralist posturing all around. A couple of points. One can acknowledge that Russia is an aggressor while still admitting that it has real and legitimate interests. 

 

Should we support the idea of Ukrainian membership in NATO? I think that Loyola is correct: “the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine, while it still claims sovereignty over Russia’s most important naval base in the world, is both preposterous and needlessly provocative.”

 

Russia may, as Loyola notes, be a “malign force in the world.” But that does not mean that it is without genuine political interests and real grievances.

 

It’s fun to denounce Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” and all-round bad hat. It allows one to bask in the glow of one’s superior moral fiber. But as Henry Kissinger observed, “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy, it is an alibi for the absence of one.” 

 

The larger point, however, brings me back to the pot-stirrer in chief. Donald Trump’s comments about Ukraine and Zelensky sent the commentariat (and Zelensky himself) around the bend. But what if it was a gambit designed to bring about the peace he promised to bring to the region? And what if, despite the grumbling and grandstanding of the talking heads, it succeeds?

 

https://thespectator.com/topic/donald-trump-comments-ukraine-gambit-bring-peace/

 

https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/04/in-russia-crisis-ukraine-should-trade-land-for-independence/

[John Hjorth]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Of course that is so much BS. 

 

If Zelensky has such massive popularity - then why would he NOT hold free and fair elections? He would win in a landslide.

 

By your logic, Putin is NOT a dictator because he has overwhelming support by the Russian people.

 

Mike [ @cubsfan ],

 

Here, you are right by your logic in your last sentence in your post above. Reading around 'Rating Group', you'll find it's beyond the control of Putin. It's Ukranian, yes.

 

Other CofB&F board members have already provided answers upstream to your question about why Zelenskyj hasen't held free and fair elections by now.

[cubsfan]

Here is the playbook of a dictator @John Hjorth:

 

-  ban elections

-  outlaw opposition political parties

-  outlaw the media, and enforce only 1 government media outlet

-  restrict freedom of religion (and confine and confiscate their property)

-  extend martial law unnecessarily 

-  restrict travel.

-  suspend habeus corpus (confinement without authorities justify in front of a judge)

 

A dictator, like Zelensky will and has done this since the inception of the war.

 

Let's not kid ourselves about who we are dealing with here. Ukraine has always ranked very high on the most corrupt countries in the world.  No need to go through the list of journalists and political figures that have been assassinatied in Urkraine during this time.

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

 

Of course that is so much BS. 

 

If Zelensky has such massive popularity - then why would he NOT hold free and fair elections?

He would win in a landslide.

 

By your logic, Putin is NOT a dictator becuase he has overwhelming support by the Russian people.

 

 

 

Come on Cubs… Ukraine are in a war.  
 

Elections do not take place in Ukraine when martial law is in effect.

 

These laws were made before Zelensky took office.

 

Marital law took effect when Russia invaded.

 

This is so silly.

 

 

[Sweet]

2 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Here is the playbook of a dictator @John Hjorth:

 

-  ban elections

-  outlaw opposition political parties

-  outlaw the media, and enforce only 1 government media outlet

-  restrict freedom of religion (and confine and confiscate their property)

-  extend martial law unnecessarily 

-  restrict travel.

-  suspend habeus corpus (confinement without authorities justify in front of a judge)

 

A dictator, like Zelensky will and has done this since the inception of the war.

This is cultish.  I’m sorry Cubs, I like you, but if you truly believe this you aren’t thinking straight.

 

This isn’t even about whether you support the war, peace, or whatever.  This is about being able to rationally patch together concepts and ideas that align with reality.

 

Trump called Zelensky a dictator this week, prior to that have you ever made the argument that Zelensky was a dictator?

[TwoCitiesCapital]

 

On 2/21/2025 at 8:34 AM, Milu said:

Seems like twitter is almost back to being valued at it's original $44b purchase price, obviously he overpaid a lot at the time, but will be fun to see the heads explode when it gets to $100b. The man just continues to win no matter what people think of his personality or politics. Sure he is putting some people off and probably losing some customers for Tesla, but on the flip side he's probably attracting another group of people who traditionally wouldn't have bought Teslas. 

 

I will wait to see if an actual deal goes through before judging it - but we know that revenues are down over that time with fewer advertisers and fewer daily users (though hard to know how much of the drop was 'bots' like he claimed vs actual users departing the platform). So it is strange that a company that makes less money with fewer users would be valued at an amount that was known to be absurdly high when it had higher revenues and more users....

 

That being said, S&P 500 companies are still making less than they were in 2021 and the index is up ~25-30% from its 2021 highs...so perhaps this is exactly the type of environment where that can happen.

 

On 2/21/2025 at 11:23 AM, Milu said:

Thankfully we have a very easy way to check how it will work out as tesla report deliveries every month. I think the current forecast is for 2m vehicle deliveries in 2025 so let's check back at end of year to see how well or badly things worked out.

 

 

Given the trend over the last 3-4 months...I think 2 million is going to prove to be optimistic. 

 

[cubsfan]

19 minutes ago, Sweet said:

This is cultish.  I’m sorry Cubs, I like you, but if you truly believe this you aren’t thinking straight.

 

This isn’t even about whether you support the war, peace, or whatever.  This is about being able to rationally patch together concepts and ideas that align with reality.

 

Trump called Zelensky a dictator this week, prior to that have you ever made the argument that Zelensky was a dictator?

 

Yeah, I have a lot of respect for your opinion too. Seriously.

 

Everything I listed in terms of what Zelensky has done is true - every one.

As much as you might like to think, Ukraine is not the UK or France.

 

So what exactly is the problem? 

Exactly what have I said that is not true?

 

I have been saying for almost 2 years that Zelensky was a dictator and that Ukraine was one

of the most corrupt countries in the world. Of course, I want them to win the war, but that is not

the issue. 

 

Why don't you want to deal with reality? 

 

 

 

[cubsfan]

40 minutes ago, Sweet said:

Come on Cubs… Ukraine are in a war.  
 

Elections do not take place in Ukraine when martial law is in effect.

 

These laws were made before Zelensky took office.

 

Marital law took effect when Russia invaded.

 

This is so silly.

 

 

 

Why outlaw opposition parties? Why outlaw the free press and religious freedom?

 

Or do you not believe those things are true?

[Parsad]

22 minutes ago, cubsfan said:

 

Yeah, I have a lot of respect for your opinion too. Seriously.

 

Everything I listed in terms of what Zelensky has done is true - every one.

As much as you might like to think, Ukraine is not the UK or France.

 

So what exactly is the problem? 

Exactly what have I said that is not true?

 

I have been saying for almost 2 years that Zelensky was a dictator and that Ukraine was one

of the most corrupt countries in the world. Of course, I want them to win the war, but that is not

the issue. 

 

Why don't you want to deal with reality? 

 

 

 

 

I don't remember a single person on here calling Zelensky a dictator until Trump did so this week.  If you can prove otherwise, especially as it pertains to you, please do so and accept my apologies.  If you can't, then admit that you simply reiterate Trump's weekly talking points!  Cheers!

[Gregmal]

12 hours ago, Libs said:

 

For those of us paying over 40% on every marginal dollar we make (over 50% when you include CA taxes), let us know when it's enough.

 

The deficit is not because the rich don't pay enough.

Yea it’s quite incredible the narrative and how people are suckers for it. The most aggressive move against the “rich” folks over the last 2 decades was the cap of SALT taxes. Now you have the same guy who sponsored that talking about taxing sports team owners and eliminating carried interest while completely zeroing out taxes of tips. Yet we keep getting this “tax cuts for the rich” groveling from the folks that want to just sweepingly raise tax rates across the board on everyone….

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, cubsfan said:

I have been saying for almost 2 years that Zelensky was a dictator and that Ukraine was one

of the most corrupt countries in the world

Show me please.

[Sweet]

7 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Why outlaw opposition parties? W

Ukraine are operating martial law because Russia invaded - that’s why.  How can you say these things without acknowledging why Ukraine are operating martial law in the first place.

 

This isn’t happening in peace time. Martial law is an emergency measure at a time of crisis such as war and anything pro-Russian is going to come under intense scrutiny and even outright banned.  Ukraine are at war.

These actions are taken to preserve their freedom.

 

European parties have not been banned because the EU has not invaded. Religion isn’t suppressed, the Orthodox Church linked to Russia has faced greater scrutiny and some pro-Russian clergy expelled.  You’re acting like praying has been banned.

 

Philosophically, politics is a non-violent way for a range of interest groups to try to get their way.  When Russia invaded they deliberately side-lined the political process, and Ukrainian democracy, in favour of violence.  Putin decided that Ukraine cannot decide its own fate democratically and they will do what he wants with his gun at their head.  And yet you expect the Ukrainians to operate under democratic norms when their process, government and state are under attack from Russia?  That’s genuinely stupid.

 

[Sweet]

10 hours ago, Parsad said:

 

I don't remember a single person on here calling Zelensky a dictator until Trump did so this week.  If you can prove otherwise, especially as it pertains to you, please do so and accept my apologies.  If you can't, then admit that you simply reiterate Trump's weekly talking points!  Cheers!

Exactly.  I’ve never heard anyone say this before this week.

 

Trump may not even ‘believe’ it himself.  Trump does a lot of smack talking, he deliberately goads, mocks and belittles people like a comedian roasting a heckler.

 

I don’t know for sure, but given he pulled the 4% approval rating comment straight from his ass, I’d say the ‘dictator’ jib is a high chance of smack talking too.

 

In his first term, someone said ‘take Trump seriously but not literally’, and it has been useful compass for me when trying to understand him.

 

If you take everything Trump says literally, and jump to defend it, you’re gonna look foolish.

 

Edited February 23, 2025 by Sweet

[Milu]

9 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Given the trend over the last 3-4 months...I think 2 million is going to prove to be optimistic. 

Ya maybe you will be right but let’s wait for the facts to play out. There is a lot of noise ( various anecdotes and media stories) about how Tesla is doomed and not much signal (actual reported numbers on a quarterly and annual basis). 

[Xerxes]

@Sweet  @Parsad

 

 

You may have seen me, writing “good guy-bad guy”, over the years in these two political threads, … when discussing West relationship with various countries in Asia and Middle East. 

 

You and others probably hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant … until it happened in 2025 with Ukraine … and now you understand. 
 

 

 

[james22]

 

 

On 7/13/2023 at 10:29 AM, cubsfan said:

Bailing out one of the most corrupt countries in the world, requires one to hold their nose.

 

On 12/14/2023 at 1:16 PM, cubsfan said:

Personally, if Ukraine wasn’t so corrupt, it would make the aid argument easier.

 

On 5/31/2024 at 9:49 AM, cubsfan said:

I do hope that Zelenksky is acting in the majority interest, but I have my doubts with all the corruption and thievery in Ukraine.

 

[John Hjorth]

Now share your corruption fidings with us - all of us - , here on CofB&F, Mike [ @cubsfan ] and @james22 .

Edited February 23, 2025 by John Hjorth

[james22]

Ukraine’s strategy of defeating Russia by joining the West’s political community and security institutions has been undermined by its continued struggles with corruption, a problem that is still far beyond Western standards.

 

The issue extends to the center of the Ukrainian state. Top judges, politicians, and officials have faced corruption charges, and the Ministry of Defense has been at the heart of many corruption scandals, such as procuring overpriced eggs and winter jackets, buying 100,000 mortar shells that were never delivered, or accepting bribes from men who wanted to escape conscription.

 

Transparency International ranked Ukraine at 104 out of 180 countries in the corruption index for 2023, far worse than members of the European Union whom Ukraine wishes to join as an equal. 

 

https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/29/ukraine-is-still-too-corrupt-to-join-the-west/

[james22]

The war unleashed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine is having a devastating impact on Ukraine. Despite unprecedented support from the United States and European countries, Ukrainians’ standard of living is declining, exacerbating preexisting issues. Yet, according to recent polls, corruption tops the list of domestic problems for Ukrainians.

 

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukrainians-see-corruption-key-issue-even-during-war

[TwoCitiesCapital]

6 hours ago, Milu said:

Ya maybe you will be right but let’s wait for the facts to play out. There is a lot of noise ( various anecdotes and media stories) about how Tesla is doomed and not much signal (actual reported numbers on a quarterly and annual basis). 

 

Doomed? Probably not. 

 

Elon has always found creative ways to save it - institutional investors buying minority interests, publicly lying about its finances while being days away from running out of cash, promises that build hype but then are never delivered on (or delivered years later), etc. 

 

He'll find a way. But it will be a no-growth company selling a fraction of the cars of other OEMs with no immediate pathway to revenue growth trading for $1 trillion.... who is going to want to own it? Maybe everyone can sell to Kathy Woods and the price will remain unchanged.

[james22]

Ukraine has long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system. In its annual report published in January 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 123rd of the 180 countries it examined, with a score of 32 on a one to 100 point scale.

 

By comparison, notoriously corrupt Russia ranked just modestly lower, 139th, with a score of 29.

 

https://www.cato.org/commentary/whitewashing-ukraines-corruption

[james22]

Corruption in Ukraine has its own entry:

 

Corruption is a significant issue in Ukrainian society going back to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Ukraine