Lord Ratner

What? Why? In the buildup to WWII the American people were staunchly isolationist, to the point our minimal involvement in the war that was already raging was quite unpopular. It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that the American people woke up to reality. Sound like how we-the-people would react to our Chinese-made TVs getting pricier? Democracies are bad at identifying threats until they are catastrophic threats. I agree with you that the line of calling someone a traitor is blurry when you still have full trade and travel relations with a country, but to claim the country that is actively stealing our military and civilian tech while sowing social discord through digital media bot accounts to destabilize support for the American system is not an enemy is obtuse.

A little online research indicates that there is such a thing as a pipeline "pig" which can zip through the pipe, propelled by the gas pressure, usually for cleaning and inspection. Easy to rig with a bomb. If true for the NS pipes, it would be a much easier solution than using a submarine. And because the gas only flows in one direction, it would have had to come from the Russian side. Getting four to go off at the same time might be tricky More Intel needed.

Is that what it shows? when you shoot a can of spray paint, the metal of the can still rips outward from the escaping gas. How do you even get a bomb inside an underwater pipeline? Strap it to an RC car? Is it just one long smooth pipe from one end to another, or are there regulators and valves along that way that would impede movement inside? Were the charges prepositioned during construction? It would not surprise me at all that Russia did this, but from inside? Seems sus.

You can't expect a regular citizen to identify China as a don't-associate-with enemy when our government (and big business organism) has been bending over backwards for years to maintain our economic relationship with the CCP. Now we are declaring economic war on China, but without the declaration. This semiconductor ban is an existential threat to many CCP initiatives. It will not just pass by in the night. And what can China do to simultaneously gain the needed semiconductor infrastructure while checking off an ancient and deeply symbolic goal of unifying the Chinese lands? I'm worried the unexpected success of Ukraine against Russia is emboldening the hawks to provoke China to invade Taiwan. On the flip side, I think in the long term this war is inevitable, so maybe we just rip off the band-aid. But it's not going to be pretty.

I bet he whips immigrants with those reins

It's all rather fascinating. I still think there's a pretty decent chance Russia did it, but I'm more open to Western actors being responsible. Here's something I didn't know until recently, though it is obvious once you hear it. The destruction of these (any) pipelines have a pretty devastating effect on the Russian ability to raise money, primarily because the production capacity that feeds these pipelines cannot be easily diverted to other transportation methods. So if the pipeline goes down, that region of energy production goes dormant, with the associated income. Can't just sell it to India or China, since the pipeline was the only method of transportation. Not the case with oil, which is very transportable. That puts a clearer incentive on Western involvement, though it still doesn't answer the question of why blow it up when you can just sanction it into oblivion? Those pipelines can only deliver to Europe, so if Europe says "no," the pipeline is effectively dead anyways, including the associated production. Now, counter point, of Sweden is using Intel in the investigation, the results could give away sources and methods that are still quite engaged in the conflict. So I don't think this article is as damning as you want it to be.

Found the little dick energy.

I'm not an expert, but when I was watching the videos from the day of the explosion, it sure didn't look to me like the blast originated from the bridge.

And let me tell you, of all the things I expected to see drunk in Bucharest, the return of Chang was not on my bingo card.

I have awoken him! I am chosen! Blessed be thy name! Chang is risen! The best troll ever. If Bashi was your next act, you lost your touch. But I do respect the dedication

Forgot about this gem. Whose job is it to prove guilt, the accusing party, or the defense?

Can you define that first. To me that means some foreign entity somewhere can control him, as unproven for years now including the largest Special Prosecutor investigation ever. So what do you mean by that? For those conservatives wondering why the Trump turd can't flush, this type of bullshit is exactly why. His supporters don't have clearly defined political views, but they're tired of the sense that they've been lied to, about everything, for years. People twisting the truth or exaggerating reality regarding Donald Trump's many shortcomings makes them sense the same elitist bullshit and rally around him. He is many things, but the full weight of the US government against him was unable to prove that he is compromised. Meanwhile, the sitting president literally is by any normal definition, thanks to his nitwit son and brother. I really, really, really want Donald Trump to be gone, but everybody's going to get this man reelected if we can't rededicate ourself to objective truth, and that includes the Republican party.

Here's an attack, if you wish to interpret it as such. 90% of your posts make you sound like a moron or a Karen. You are a detriment to any cause you support, which annoys me because I agree with most of your underlying points. But you're the shittiest spokesperson imaginable. It's to the point I wouldn't be half surprised if you were actually Donald Trump's secret baseops account.

Care to elaborate? Or are you simply professing faith in the US intelligence apparatus?

This is an odd choice, considering the Steele dossier has been thoroughly debunked. Perhaps it would be more interesting to describe the ways that President Biden's international strategy has been more effective than President Trump's. You first. I may be mistaken, but I believe Trump did materially increase production. That would be the geopolitical version of saying " fuck off" to OPEC.

I'm not good enough to give advice. But what I'm planning to do is buy once (if) the Fed pivots. Until then, their stated goal is demand destruction and increased unemployment, which will necessarily be recessionary, especially to the assets most effected by the last decade of Fed policy: homes and stocks. My buying will be focused on the widespread lack of capital expenditure in the energy market, in particular nuclear, but also oil and gas. Gold and silver will *probably* wake up with a fed pivot because it will signal the acceptance of long-term high inflation, but that's not nearly as certain as the energy crisis we are barreling into. I think long bonds will get crushed once the narrative shifts to expecting >3% average inflation over the next decade.

This is silly. Why blow up a pipeline that you can simply sanction into irrelevance? NS2 was dead the moment the Russians crossed the border into Ukraine. No explosives needed. It seems to me that everyone is looking at everything from an international perspective, but I think this is a domestic matter, just like the annexation. Putin doesn't expect anyone to honor the annexation vote, nor did he expect NS2 to ever function. But the NS2 allows him to blame the West for something, and blowing up a doomed pipeline doesn't cost much. The annexation allows Russia to frame their draft as a defense of the Homeland instead of a "special operation" against Ukraine. That's a very big difference in public perception. Externally the propaganda of tyrannical governments seems absurd, but internally it often works. Just look at North Korea and Iran.

Won't matter. The Fed does not act proactively. They waited for intractable inflation to hike, they'll wait for a credit market collapse to stop. If they reverse course and cut rates down to nothing (and restart QE), we'll get another inflation roller coaster like the 70's. Buckle up, kids. The bill has come due for a couple decades of debt-fueled good times.

All tankers are combat tankers. Not a whole lot of combat (for the air force, that is) without them.

Wife and I each got 10k, planning to get another 10k through the "gift" allowance before the rates drop in November. If you have a company you control or a family trust, that's another few sets you can purchase Our "emergency fund" of ~ 6 months expenses are in the process of being converted from a high yield savings account (2%) to 26 week t-bills (3.5-4%). Just put 1/3 into the t-bills every 8 weeks with the auto-reinvest option. Now if you need the emergency fund, disable the reinvestments and you'll get the first 1/3 no later than 8 weeks, with the rest every two months after that. Still got to maintain enough cash in the high yield savings account to get you through that first two months. Depending on your situation, you can modify this plan using a rotation of longer (or shorter) duration bonds, but that's going to depend mostly on how much cash you want to keep on hand.

Going to the actual Oktoberfest this year, I will report back with my findings

But that's just it, it's not a handful that's needed. Yeah I know, a single nuke in Manhattan would be devastating. One for every major city would be as well. But that's not really how the doctrine works. It takes hundreds, thousands really for the strategy to work *if* you plan to be the first one to launch. A couple dozen would hurt us, but the follow on devastation from our arsenal, very much functional, would end Russia as a global entity. Using a nuke is end game for Putin, and I don't think he's willing to lose everything over Ukraine. Unless he's terminally ill, who knows? This isn't just about us. Europe is experiencing some pretty amazing introspection over their blind eye towards Russia over the years. They are going through way more pain than we are, willing, to hurt Russia. Humans aren't economic entities, they have pride and shame, and I think both are at play here. Either way, the rules of the past 40 years, economically, military, geopolitically, don't apply anymore.

No. COVID lockdowns used against another country (not possible) would be much closer to an act of war than an economic action. Non-economic actions can absolutely have immediate effects. But the traditionally economic actions (sanctions, tariffs, taxes, regulations, interest rates, money printing, etc) are slow acting.

People have been saying "sanctions don't work" as though anything in economics has a time-to-effect of a couple months. Now, did the West (mostly Europe) hilariously fail to predict that Russia would impose sanctions of their own? Yes. But if the Russian sanctions on Europe are having an effect, clearly the reverse is true.

Old man lack vision, and vision wins wars. So does overwhelming force, but it seems like the entire world was wildly overestimating Russia's overwhelming force. It's obviously not worth gambling on, but it has made me wonder just how functional their nuclear deterrent is.