Political Posts

[Luke]

1 minute ago, Dinar said:

You do not understand a very simple concept.  Capitalism cannot function without  rule of law.  You do not have a rule of law in China.  Oh, and the article is talking about tens of thousands.  When I mentioned it to my friends from high school who are Chinese and live in an area with a lot of Chinese people, they stated that there has been a flood of people recently out of China in their neighborhood.  

24k, thats like 0.00002% of their population, i accept your opinion and the picture you sketch, "a country falling back into communism, planed economy, total control, decoupling of global markets" but i dont think this is reality or will happen. 

[crs223]

The irony is:  Screaming about "China will fail" would only happen if there was a clear path for China to succeed.  If China were clearly going to fail (e.g. North Korea or Zimbabwe) there would be no discussion.

 

Remember in the early 80s when Japanese cars came onto the market -- GM was screaming the whole way about unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, and low quality.  Soon Toyota became number 1.  Screaming only happens when there is a threat.

 

[Red Lion]

21 hours ago, Luca said:

Agree with me on what, the CCP is working on exactly these problems

I’m not an expert and I’m not trying to troll you because I think you probably have spent a lot more time researching this issue and I’m probably not seeing things from your side as well as I should, BUT how are they working on these problems? 
 

It seems every socialist solution to income equality has just brought down the successful members of society, done nothing for the poor, and been the best thing ever for unproductive government workers. I’m not a historian, so maybe I’m missing some great examples. 
 

Also, a side point, a lot of these countries that have bigger social safety nets than the USA also have a more fair distribution of wealth. For example different countries use value added taxes and/or national resource revenues to help fund healthcare and other social safety nets. VAT is a “regressive” tax, but also provides a buyin by everyone using the services.

 

In the USA we still spend a ton on healthcare, and  the rich shoulder almost the entire burden. Yet we are also forced to compete for insurance policies in the “free market” against other high income earners for our own private policies. 
 

I think the USA needs a more regressive tax system. I think even the poor should be paying some money in taxes, especially for things like VAT. 
 

I for one would feel less pissed off about the insane amount of tax dollars I personally pay towards every old, disabled, poor, and middle class person’s healthcare, if i actually got healthcare out of the deal as well. The USA’s entire system is built around leaching off of the most successful members of society while encouraging waste. 
 

Anyway, it still seems in my humble non-professional opinion that the USA’s system of “working on the problem” of income inequality has created perverse incentives and made things worse, but at least we still get due process and a strong rule of law, and there is the ability to create a great business out of nothing WITHOUT the implicit approval of the CCP, so I’ll take it over the CCP (or do we just mean Xi?) 

[Xerxes]

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/defense-aerospace-report/id1228868129?i=1000639121637

 

Great end of the year discussion for us, watching from the peanut gallery  

 

 

 

 

[RichardGibbons]

6 hours ago, RedLion said:

It seems every socialist solution to income equality has just brought down the successful members of society, done nothing for the poor, and been the best thing ever for unproductive government workers.

 

I think the reason for this is the impact of incentives on growth.  If you have, say, 3% growth, then over the course of 25 years, then your economy will growth by 109%, and your poor are likely to be better off by 55% if they get even half the growth of the economy.

 

If you punish the more intelligent, hard-working, and creative members of your society, then you disincentivize them, which impacts growth.

 

So, suppose you disincentivize the successful, hurting your growth by 2 percentage points, but in return are able to boost the incomes of the poorest by 20%.  Then your economy grows by only 28%, and even if the wages of the poorest grow at the same rate, they still only make it to 48%.

 

Therefore, you basically screw over everyone, including the poor, when you create onerous regulations and taxes that impact your country's growth.

But that doesn't stop governments from doing it, I think largely because people aren't very thoughtful or proficient at math, and envy is a powerful emotion.

[changegonnacome]

On 12/17/2023 at 10:23 AM, Spekulatius said:

Good summary of the current state in Ukraine:

 

Well worth a view.

 

 

 

Stand out slide.

 

Cant remember here who was trying to categorize the Russian’s as some 3rd world country that had lost its access to resources and was somehow incompetent and impotent from a military industrial standpoint. Review the slide above and realize that on the left you’re looking at the ‘West’ emptying out its lockers to supply Ukraine shells etc……then on the right it’s Russia with a little help from its friends.

 

You take the above , add in the simple population advantage Russia has plus their GDP advantage.
 

Then layer on the fact that the Russian’s are their own masters here in terms of funding the war….plus their own captive military industrial complex to produce what they need (artillery, tanks, drones, missiles)

 

Ukraine by contrast is running the war on shaky welfare payments from the USA/UK/EU……and the consumables (artillery, tanks) are coming not from their own captive industrial base….but the combined industrial bases of the West which has been shown during Covid and during this conflict to be quite limited relative to the past and relative to China/Russia who never de-industrialized as we clearly have.

 

Ukraine is in a terrible situation……and without a decisive step change in the quantum and scope of our support, they are doomed….perhaps Putin sits tight till Nov 2024 to see who takes the WH….but I suspect not…..at a certain point I think he drives to take more territory bordering the Black Sea all the way to Odessa if possible. Time is on his side - this could be a 2025 or 2026 project for all he cares….time is not the friend of Ukraine or the West’s flagging support. 

[Spekulatius]

Prosus and Tencent are down a mid teens percentage in European trading due to CCP cracking down on online gaming again. It is not the first time and probably not the last time.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-china-curb-gaming-spend-041159548.html

Edited December 22, 2023 by Spekulatius

[cubsfan]

9 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Well worth a view.

 

 

 

Stand out slide.

 

Cant remember here who was trying to categorize the Russian’s as some 3rd world country that had lost its access to resources and was somehow incompetent and impotent from a military industrial standpoint. Review the slide above and realize that on the left you’re looking at the ‘West’ emptying out its lockers to supply Ukraine shells etc……then on the right it’s Russia with a little help from its friends.

 

You take the above , add in the simple population advantage Russia has plus their GDP advantage.
 

Then layer on the fact that the Russian’s are their own masters here in terms of funding the war….plus their own captive military industrial complex to produce what they need (artillery, tanks, drones, missiles)

 

Ukraine by contrast is running the war on shaky welfare payments from the USA/UK/EU……and the consumables (artillery, tanks) are coming not from their own captive industrial base….but the combined industrial bases of the West which has been shown during Covid and during this conflict to be quite limited relative to the past and relative to China/Russia who never de-industrialized as we clearly have.

 

Ukraine is in a terrible situation……and without a decisive step change in the quantum and scope of our support, they are doomed….perhaps Putin sits tight till Nov 2024 to see who takes the WH….but I suspect not…..at a certain point I think he drives to take more territory bordering the Black Sea all the way to Odessa if possible. Time is on his side - this could be a 2025 or 2026 project for all he cares….time is not the friend of Ukraine or the West’s flagging support. 

Right - unfortunately, Ukraine is going to run out of manpower. Already hearing about forced conscription of any able bodied males on the streets. With the media controlled by the government, and martial law in place , getting the real story is tough.

 

Nobody wants to see Ukraine fail, but recovering the Crimea & Donbas is a pipe dream.

[Castanza]

20 hours ago, RedLion said:

I think the USA needs a more regressive tax system. I think even the poor should be paying some money in taxes, especially for things like VAT. 
 

I for one would feel less pissed off about the insane amount of tax dollars I personally pay towards every old, disabled, poor, and middle class person’s healthcare, if i actually got healthcare out of the deal as well. The USA’s entire system is built around leaching off of the most successful members of society while encouraging waste. 

 

Yup a quick look at the Federal tax brackets shows just how poor the incentives are to earn more at the lower brackets. Especially when you stack it against what jobs and wages are actually available/attainable out there for the average person. That jump from 44k/yr to say a job at 55-60k a year is not worth it in many cases. Especially if you take into account education costs/requirements which is probably required for most jobs in that 50k+ income bracket. Most people probably don't see north of 80k for at least 5-10 years in their jobs if ever...So when you add in those 8-9% student loans on 40-50k, general cost of living, housing, vehicles....it's almost like it makes sense to just be poor and go after handouts in those lower ranges lol

 

12% bracket after tax at 45k a year is: ~40k

22% bracket after tax at 55k a year is: ~47k

22% bracket after tax at 65k a year is: ~59k

 

And the IRS wonders why there are so many people doing under the table work in those lower brackets...

Edited December 22, 2023 by Castanza

[Whensthepaintdry?]

I don’t think that’s how it works. 

[Castanza]

1 minute ago, Whensthepaintdry? said:

I don’t think that’s how it works. 

Well I didn’t feel like doing the math on tax after certain amount lol but it’s not that far off. Tax incentives are bad either way imo.

[Whensthepaintdry?]

Ha, ya I guess the good news related to China and taxes is my tax loss is just getting bigger! 

[ValueArb]

12 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Well worth a view.

 

 

 

Stand out slide.

 

Cant remember here who was trying to categorize the Russian’s as some 3rd world country that had lost its access to resources and was somehow incompetent and impotent from a military industrial standpoint. Review the slide above and realize that on the left you’re looking at the ‘West’ emptying out its lockers to supply Ukraine shells etc……then on the right it’s Russia with a little help from its friends.

 

You take the above , add in the simple population advantage Russia has plus their GDP advantage.
 

Then layer on the fact that the Russian’s are their own masters here in terms of funding the war….plus their own captive military industrial complex to produce what they need (artillery, tanks, drones, missiles)

 

Ukraine by contrast is running the war on shaky welfare payments from the USA/UK/EU……and the consumables (artillery, tanks) are coming not from their own captive industrial base….but the combined industrial bases of the West which has been shown during Covid and during this conflict to be quite limited relative to the past and relative to China/Russia who never de-industrialized as we clearly have.

 

Ukraine is in a terrible situation……and without a decisive step change in the quantum and scope of our support, they are doomed….perhaps Putin sits tight till Nov 2024 to see who takes the WH….but I suspect not…..at a certain point I think he drives to take more territory bordering the Black Sea all the way to Odessa if possible. Time is on his side - this could be a 2025 or 2026 project for all he cares….time is not the friend of Ukraine or the West’s flagging support. 

 

Emptying out our lockers? We have nearly 4,000 Abrams M1A1 and over 2,800 Bradleys in storage that the US isn't supplying. I don't know how many older leopards, challengers, are in European and UK storage, but I'd bet at least a thousand.

 

And its not as simple as saying 100 tanks > 28 tanks. Sure the Russians still have more equipment and more men but on the left side of the graphic and you see significantly more lethal and valuable weapons. On the right side you see mostly death traps like T-72s, T-80s, T-90s and BMPs, while the Ukrainians are getting far more survivable armor. And while the chart lists far less accurate Russian MLRS, it doesn't acknowledge the existence of HIMARS. Or Javelins. Or GLSDB (when it finally gets there).

 

What the chart tells us is that we can help Ukraine very inexpensively by actually digging into our massive stores of equipment that is obsolete for our military requirements, but significantly better than anything the Russians have. Will we do it? Hard for me to be optimistic about it given the Biden administration has consistently only given Ukraine enough help to survive, not to win. They appear to be terrified by the prospect of Russia actually losing. And Republicans are knee jerk anti-Biden on every topic, so unless we get a Republican president who is a strong supporter of Ukraine, there is no clear path to giving Ukraine the support they need.

 

And as far as Russia mounting new offensives, they've tried a couple this year and mostly failed. As they grind through their few remaining experienced troops its going to get tougher and tougher to mount any sophisticated campaigns. Especially when they need to keep blocking battalions to ensure the front line doesn't flee. Where Russia is still strong is in their generalship, you can see this in their brilliant defensive operations this year where they flooded massive areas before the Ukraine offensive, and built strong defensive barriers in depth across the entire front. They know they don't have offensive capable troops anymore, all their paratroops and other elite units have been annihilated.

 

Over the winter both sides will use it to rebuild forces as much as possible and both will attempt new offensives and then we'll find out who can get it done.

[ValueArb]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

Right - unfortunately, Ukraine is going to run out of manpower. Already hearing about forced conscription of any able bodied males on the streets. With the media controlled by the government, and martial law in place , getting the real story is tough.

 

Nobody wants to see Ukraine fail, but recovering the Crimea & Donbas is a pipe dream.

 

France called up nearly 8M men in WW1 (not including colonials), despite having a population smaller than Ukraine. Ukraine has about 800,000 active personnel and 900,000 reserves, out of a pool of at least 11M men aged 16-49, more if we include women.

 

So the question is, is Ukraine really struggling to get conscripts or is this just anecdotal or disinformation? And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops? It's hard to imagine the French "esprit de corp" was higher than it is in the Ukraine, as the first year of WW1 was a complete disaster for them. They lost half of France, had Germans camped within artillery range of Paris, and took well over 1M casualties. They even had widespread mutinies in 1917 after losing faith in their generals after yet another failed offensive.

 

And Crimea is hanging by a thread. Russia couldn't hold it if we provided enough HIMARS/ATACMS to suppress their rail lines or if Ukraine gets another 20 miles or so to put them under artillery bombardment. Donbas is a really tough nut, even post Crimea collapse there is no easy way to roll that back up against Russia's superior manpower and ability to quickly build defensive fortifications and massive minefields. Personally I'd attack through Russia itself at that point, but if its in the second Biden term they'll never allow that to happen.

 

But everyone misses that Russia is suffering just as badly. Its already suffered through its first troop rebellion and it was a doozy. Traditionally Russian armies pour massive amounts of untrained troops at the enemy to overwhelm with numbers, and use blocking battalions to keep the front line troops fighting despite terrible morale. Also traditionally eventually some rebel leading to massive retreats, even regime change. I predict more are coming.

[cubsfan]

^^^ I think you make excellent points, we really just don’t know. How many Ukrainians have left the country? 20 or 25%??   The scandal with conscripts this year where deferments were being sold right and left for those choosing not to fight - is a sure sign of stress. Broadening the military age to able bodied men from 18 to 60 looks like manpower stress. Now including women looks like stress. So this years crackdown is indicative of a manpower shortage. We’ll know soon enough. The issue won’t be weapons, but enough people to man and train those weapons, and then fight.

[changegonnacome]

12 hours ago, ValueArb said:

So the question is, is Ukraine really struggling to get conscripts or is this just anecdotal or disinformation? And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops?

 

Their inability to replenish the frontlines with troops is very real......via straight up fleeing of Ukraine by fighting age men at the beginning of the war and the various deferment bribery scandals reaching a crescendo in August.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66478422

"Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that more than 30 people face criminal charges, with all regional officials in charge of military conscription removed."

 

Complete removal of all regional officials speaks to a serious lack of internal buy-in for the conflict not to mention widespread corruption in the civil & army service.

 

12 hours ago, ValueArb said:

And if they are struggling, why was it easier for the French to conscript troops?

 

 

Anecdotally from speaking to Ukrainians that work in my company - there is a not so minority view in Ukraine that Zelensky but especially the Ukrainian right (using Zelensky) whistled to the graveyard with this war by pivoting so strongly to the West in the 2010's (NATO/EU) culminating in Zelensky becoming Trumps lap-dog in the infamous 2018 phone call.......while simultaneously running an overly aggressive & belligerent foreign policy with their big neighbour to the East- Russia. The Ukrainian right in short was too idealistic, some would say naive in their drive to 'join' the West.

 

Pre-invasion some 30% of the Ukrainian population did not want to join NATO chiefly due to its antagonizing nature between Ukrainain-Russian relations. Which is to say that one third of Ukranians knew that poking the Russian bear is not a clever strategy.

 

In the same way that Vietnam, for many, became "not my war".....the War between Ukraine & Russia for descent slug of fighting age men in Ukraine is 'not their war'......they saw it coming and the pivot to the West was strongly opposed by many in Ukraine because they understood the realpoltik of being small country in the shadow of a much larger one.

 

Two thought experiments - 

 

Many consider Joe Biden an idiot when it comes to foreign policy......if Uncle Joe landed the US in the dumb and completely avoidable conflict with Mexico......how quick would republican leaning fighting age men be to go fight 'Joe's war'

 

Secondly - just ask yourself I guess what Charlie Munger's hero in Singapore would have done - Lee Kuan Yew -given the Ukrainian set of cards heading into the 2000's......the answer of course would be obvious to Lee Kuan Yew > play both sides > the only answer is to have good relations with both the West AND Russia recognizing the reality that Ukraine will always remain via geography sandwiched between these two 800ilbs gorillas .....so your fiduciary responsibility to your people as their leader is to skillfully align and diverge on policies such that Ukrainian prosperity, security & survival might be maximized inside this reality. Hell I bet Lee Kuan Yew would figure out a way to get US dollars AND Russian rubles in various aid & financing packages from both. The idealogue Ukrainian right did the opposite......politics is the art of pragmatism, not idealism.....the foolish forget the former and execute the latter.

 

The reality is Ukraine has been led by second rate political operators for more than a decade (perhaps longer). Zelensky is an actor playing the role of a politician........a 1st rate politician or political party would never have gotten themselves into the situation the Ukrainian right has gotten Ukraine into.*

 

*Of course if you want to believe the conventional wisdom re: Putin the Imperialist.....then whats happening in Ukraine was simply inevitable.....and I get that argument if your happy always to have your foreign leaders/countries distilled down to mere caricatures...James Bond villains.....but I don't think it stacks up.....the world is much more complicated than the goods guys ('us') and the bad guys (anybody that isnt 'us'). I find the nuance constantly gets lost in the foreign policy realm via mixture of natural tribalism that afflicts us all and the medias need for villains & heroes........multi-segment 22 minute news programs aren't designed to explore complicated issues of sovereignty, security and power politics between states.

 

Edited December 23, 2023 by changegonnacome

[Spekulatius]

Nikes profit warning could be a secular problem rather than a temporary or cyclical one. From what I read and hear, the Chinese consumer increasingly prefers domestic brands rather than foreign ones.  Japanese (Fukushima water resales) and US brands (geopolitical tension) could be harder hit than Europeans ones.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nikes-warnings-china-scare-other-025856754.html

[ValueArb]

I don’t think you have to reduce Puyin to a caricature to know he was always seeking to rebuild the Russian empire, regardless of what politicians in Ukraine did.

[Spekulatius]

Interesting post on the destruction of a couple of Russian SU-34 fighter jets who thought they were safe (over Russia) but I guess not. They were downed by Patriot missiles deep over Russia.

 

Edited December 25, 2023 by Spekulatius

[ValueArb]

21 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Interesting post on the destruction of a couple of Russian SU-34 fighter jets who thought they were safe (over Russia) but I guess not. They were downed by Patriot missiles deep over Russia.

 

They just added another SU-34 and a SU-30 in last 24 hours. That’s now five of Russia’s best shot down this week. Those crews and jets are going to be very hard to replace.

[Spekulatius]

I am currently in Pukhet / Thailand and you would think it’s a Russian colony now. My wife is from Thailand and knows some friends with extensive travel experience and they told her to be careful with Taxis as the Russian Mafia has taken hold in the transportation business, so we got our driver through local connections here. Anyways, I hear a Russian spoken everywhere and there are Cyrillic signage everywhere as well as some stores that seem to cater to Russian exclusively. Looks like the Russian are using the Thai long term Visa programs to stay here for the long run.  I guess you could say there is some leakage from Putin’s regime.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

Tass [ December 26^th 2023] : The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has put the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleshchuk on the wanted list [translated from Russian to English].

 

Message text translated to English :

 

Quote

He is accused in absentia of a terrorist act after a drone attack on Russian territory

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. 

 

The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has put on the criminal wanted list the commander of the Air Force of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Nikolai Oleshchuk, who is accused in absentia of a terrorist act after a drone attack on Russian territory. This follows from the department's search database.

 

“Oleschuk Nikolai Nikolaevich is wanted under an article of the Criminal Code,” the database says. It is not indicated under what article the search is being conducted.

 

At the beginning of October, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation filed charges in absentia for committing crimes under Part 2 of Art. 205 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (terrorist act), to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine Kirill Budanov, the commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Nikolai Oleshchuk and several other Ukrainian military leaders. 

 

The investigation has collected sufficient evidence of the involvement of the top military leadership of Ukraine in organizing and carrying out from April 2022 to September 2023 more than 100 air strikes using aircraft-type drones in the territories of Moscow and the Moscow region, Crimea and Sevastopol, Rostov, Belgorod, Bryansk regions and other regions RF. 

 

Earlier, Budanov was already put on the wanted list in the Russian Federation under a criminal article. 

 

 

In short, Russian war logic, based on what is going on in Ukraine is not a war.

 

Now isen't that just something very special. Anyway, I'm impressed.

 

Merry Christmas.

[ValueArb]

Looks like a Ukrainian strike all the way down in Feodosia hit the Novocherkassk while it was loaded with munitions. The ship basically disintegrated and large pieces landed all over town, including nearly taking out the rail station.

[John Hjorth]

War is indeed ugly and meaningless from a humanitarian point from view. Very hard to belive that only one human being lost the life in this brutal Novocherkassk event.

 

Morbid humor may be needed to survive :

 

 

If what is seen at this photo seems look like a submarine conversion of Novocherkassk, I tend to disagree. 

[ValueArb]

I wonder how many Russian troops really know what is going on as they just get fed into the meat-grinder. Was reading a news story about a small town that was held hostage in a basement for months at the beginning of the war.  When the hiding civilians were first discovered by Russians the soldiers told them "we are here to liberate you from the Nazis!" and couldn't believe the civilians when they said there were no Nazis.