Upon checking in over at Diplomad’s joint, imagine my surprise at finding he’d brazenly, audaciously purloined the title of his latest offering from me!
Nah, not really. Anselm’s post actually appeared the day before mine went up, so it’s merely a case of great minds thinking alike. At any rate, it’s a good ‘un.
Having an ever-harder time writing about US and Western politics and society.
Dangerous buffoons head the governments of the major Western countries. Right here, once the greatest place on earth, we have leadership at both the national and local level that would prove an international embarrassment if not nearly all the other leaders around the world also prove embarrassments.
No major Western country has a leader worth admiring or, at least, about whom one can feel moderately hopeful. Canada? Australia? UK? France? NZ? All led by morons of varying degree who have bought into the Woke nonsense destroying Western Civilization. They prattle on about equity, climate change, inclusivity, open borders, “diversity is our strength,” gender “identity,” etc. The only glimmers of hope come from heads of “lesser” powers: Italy, Singapore, Hungary, and–for now, though probably not for long–Brazil.
As though that did not prove enough to fill one with despair, these self-hating creeps seem determined to get us into war, the hot kind, including the use of nuclear weapons. We have ZOMBUS Biden, speaking to a conclave of Democratic donors, idly speculating about how close we are to nuclear “Armageddon.” Oh, his handlers immediately say, pay no mind, it’s just a passing thought, one of many pouring through the sieve that the man with his finger on our nuclear trigger calls a brain. He, or whoever writes his stuff, seeks to draw an equivalence between the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the Russian war against Ukraine–rubbish of the most dangerous kind. This is even worse than when our “leaders” in the recent past kept finding an equivalence between every challenge they faced and Munich 1938. Making it all even worse, of course, is that nobody I can find trusts Biden’s leadership or managerial abilities. All those who hate Trump might want to reflect on how much more dangerous an international situation the West now faces when compared to when the “Mean Tweeter” held power. Now, we have chaos everywhere we look.
Russian leader Putin has gotten himself and his country and the world into a tremendous mess. To be fair, he warned us repeatedly that Ukraine’s joining NATO was a red line for Moscow. We, in response, sent Willie Brown’s mistress, Kamala Harris, to Europe to announce how we would welcome Ukraine into NATO. The Cuba analogy is reversed. When Moscow pushed up to our shores in 1962, we responded with the threat of nuclear war. Ukraine is Russia’s Cuba–on steroids.
What did our leaders think (“think,” who thinks anymore?) would be Moscow’s response? Invasion. Poorly planned, poorly executed, but, nevertheless an invasion, a bloody and brutal one, at that. The Kyiv bunch called in their chits; they, after all, own the Biden crime family. Billions of dollars in equipment and financial support poured out from the US treasury, headed for the Kyiv kleptos. Preserving the sanctity of Ukraine’s borders became the greatest moral crusade since WWII! Never mind the borders of Western Europe or our own. No! Those borders are evil and deserve to be violated! But, Ukraine’s? Those are set in cement! The whole fate of the world depends on those borders! No suffering by our citizens is enough! Turn the global economy upside down! It’s all for a sacred cause!
To be blunt about it, I’ve had little to no sympathy for Ukraine’s plight from Day One of this shitshow, seeing as how Ukraine’s gangster-government has functioned primarily as a Democrat Party ATM for years. Its corruption is endemic, deeply embedded, and apparently intractable. I do have some sympathy for the ordinary folks there who are caught up in this bloody maelstrom, yes. But when all’s said and done, if Putin wants to bend The Country Formerly Known As THE Ukraine™ over for a good, hard rogering, I couldn’t care less.
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Well said Mike my sentiments exactly
We got Putin exactly because BJ and his Gangs of Rapacious Dems wanted to do to Russia what they did to places like Haiti and since that time, Ukraine. Ukraine was richer per Capita than Russia after the Russian Debt Defaults brought their economy to near collapse. If any of you don’t remember that, it was the final straw default that crushed the largest hedge fund at the time, LTCM, and nearly took down the banking system in the West. 100 Billion in assets on something like 4 Billion of capital as the losses were adding up.
It all seems so quaint now. Just ten years later, while CRA under BJ was allowed to metastisize into a Credit Bubble under W, Lehman went down with 600 Billion in assets and almost no capital left. Even worse, Citigroup essentially failed with 2.4 TRILLION in Assets.
I so hope we aren’t headed for a “that’s nothing, hold my beer and watch this…” moment.
Oh, and Russia is 2.2x as prosperous per Capita today than Ukraine. So much for “Western” affiliations. It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap…
Hold my beer
“Oh, and Russia is 2.2x as prosperous per Capita today than Ukraine. So much for “Western” affiliations. It’s a death trap, it’s a suicide rap…”
We should all commit suicide then. Western countries are far more prosperous then russia or places like belarus and other russian sphere countries. Ukraine is still working it’s way out of the massive economic deprivations created by the russians.
Find me the median Per capita GDP. I can’t find it, it’s always the average which means a few oligarchs might make the the average misleading. The CIA factbook, which is what I used when I was traveling worldwide, has the same value, the average – total GDP / population. This is very misleading in many countries. In many cases it has PPP applied, an attempt to set the GDP as a functioning of purchasing power that cannot be garnered directly by dollar exchange rates.
OK I’ll Clarify why I put “Western” in square quotes since it apparently wasn’t obvious.
The people who wanted to Loot Russia were Clintonistas, Dems, Deep State Scallywags that pretended they were bringing “Western” ie American ideals to the former Soviet Republics.
What they WERE bringing was rapacious Leftist Oligarchy to them in which “Westerners” would do the raping and looting.
Ukraine stuck with them.
Russia went with the old saw about “He may be a rapacious looting Oligarch, but at least Putin was OUR rapacious looting Oligarch” and they were better off for it than Ukraine.
So, not an Ideal for us to emulate (and we have our own rapacious looting Oligarchs in DC who are ALSO not OUR rapacious looting Oligarchs either) and nothing to write into the annals of Freedom and Human Rights, but for the Russian people it was 2.2x not as bad as it could have been for them.
So, No Good Guys there, but one was less worse…
PPP is the only way to understand local currency standard of living, because not everything is paid for by buying dollars and importing, which is what exchange rates only do:
GDP per Capita – Worldometer (worldometers.info)
PPP. Russia $25,763 Ukraine $8,699 2.96x
List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita – Wikipedia
Here’s nominal Russia $12,173 Ukraine $4,836 2.52x
I understand PPP, and the reasons for it. I am also certain it is inaccurate at best.
GDP per capita is still an average and subject to being skewed. I’d like to see GDP per capita as a median value which would be a much better indication of the populations wealth or lack of.
For example, while I cannot prove it, having been to both russia and ukraine there are some things I *know* for certain. The russian per capita PPP based is not right. They simply are not nearly 50% of the US in purchasing power. I also know they are not 2.5 times better off than the average Ukrainian.
By the way, the worldometer says russian GDP per capita nominal is $10,846. This is way off. The wealth inequality in russia is the greatest in the world, with something like 500 people controlling nearly 50% of the total wealth.
All of which is beside the point.
Russia is and has always been a deeply corrupt country, putin is an evil man, and the reason for invading Ukraine has nothing to do with talk of NATO expansion. The invasion is all about wealth and power, and legacy. That’s it. Biden didn’t make putin invade ukraine. That’s always been hogwash as putin is evil but not stupid. He doesn’t dance to the potato’s tune.
The russian military has proven to be as incompetent as I have been saying all along. A bunch of conscripts with inferior equipment. But they have the numbers and ukraine cannot hold them off without substantial help. Were it up to me would I help the ukraine? I’ve said no over and over.
And yet in both methods Russia is MORE than 2.2x richer.
Kenny, when are you going to come to grips with the fact that your pal, Sir Cuck the Witless, is the self-declared most knowledgeable person around these parts.
He sees all and knows all.
He’s visited the Ukraine, whereas you’ve only resided in Hong Kong for many years and been involved in the financial sector, so you obviously don’t know how the world turns.
Your pal is the expert. Also, I heard he self-identifies as a chicken.
When you admit you wet your panties over WuFlu and gave credence to the lockdowns.
We disagree here. So?
Unlike you, I don’t make him stay in house wearing a mask about it, and neither does he to me.
He just insults your intelligence. Are you a masochist?
That says more about you than it does he or I.
Oh look, the “man” that wears panties over his face has decided to try and insult everyone, once again. As though he has any idea about anything, other than where to copy a picture of tits.
I didn’t insult Kenny’s intelligence. We have different views on the subject. And of course, your pathetic attempt to suggest the only thing that I bring to the discussion is the anecdotal evidence I see from visiting the countries is just flat wrong and a lie all by itself.
Hey, pussy, perhaps the not vax will get you after all. Scream for us once again how the chinaVirus could kill you. Come on henryKaren, scream loud.
You out of your tiny apartment yet? Come on henryKaren, preach to us, tell us how terrible the chinaVirus is, and how we should follow the government 100%.
Go fuck yourself henryKaren, if you can. I doubt it works anymore, if it ever did. You make an excellent case for abortion.
Ever notice how the dickhead henryKaren never engages with anything but insults?
The result of a low IQ.
He’s usually not worth my time responding anymore.
Kenny, I’m not arguing that PPP or normal averages don’t show a difference of 2.2X.
I am suggesting that the median would show a completely different story, but I can’t find any median info for any country. Ukraine is a poor place, there is no doubt about that. I just don’t believe the difference for the average person is 2.2X and we know that the data about the russian wealth holdings suggests that the average is quite skewed. If you take the 40-50% of GDP the top 500 or so russians account for and divide the remainder by the population, then the true per capita GDP is far less, approaching parity with the average Ukrainian. That’s just a mathematical fact. The only argument to be made in opposition is if you don’t believe 40-50% + of the GDP is accounted for by 500 russians.
For some numbers:
“The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that Russia’s financial elite — the approximately 500 individuals with a net worth of more than $100 million — controlled 40% of the country’s entire household wealth.
That was three times the global average, where the super rich’s net worth makes up a combined 13% of total wealth.”
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/10/russias-500-super-rich-wealthier-than-poorest-998-report-a74180
Ukraine is a top heavy Oligarchy same as Russia.
Seriously, both are former Soviet kleptocracies. Both suck for the average person. There’s no questioning that. Perhaps in the median it’s only 2x or 1.5x.
Ukraine is STILL a basket case compared.to Russia then considering that Russia took all the debt on and Ukraine was comparatively debt free by the time Putin took over.
So, I’m saying that Putin’s gang have been slightly less klepto in Russia than our Deep State has been with their kleptos in Ukraine.
None compare with our Rapacious Looters like the Clintoons and all the Big Guys, of which Biteme is a piker.
Ukraine does not have the same concentration of wealth among a very few as they do in russia, best I can tell. Russia is the worst in the world.
Ukraine was corrupted through russia first, then the US. Ukraine is a basket case because russia and too many damn russians. Russians are the worlds scourge at the root of every problem there is.
So, why do the russians want a “basket case”? It’s not NATO and yes I know the answer.
I’ll be in the car today, will wave as I pass through 🙂
“We got Putin exactly because…”
A pet theory with no basis in reality. You might as well blame Reagan.
George Kennan, 1998 interview on NATO expansion – Times of Gold
That first bad reaction came end 1999 after NATO Expansion and Default when Yeltsin gave way to Putin.
A younger, stronger man who would fight.
A “wartime consigliere” in Godfather Terms. Someone who could go to the mattresses at the right time, if necessary.
We got Putin because HW and BJ blew it in the 90s.
Kennan might as well have changed to commie. By 1950 he was incapable of recognizing true evil, the suffering of people behind the iron curtain, etc. I have nothing but contempt for the man.
As far as HW and clinton “blowing” it, sure, they screwed up everything. But that is not why we got putin, other that as just being a part of the historical record. Again, you could blame Reagan just as easy.
Yet, on this he called it ALL a year ahead of time and has been right about everything ever since.
So doesn’t matter about the rest. he got this right.
We got Putin because we needed an enemy to keep the MIC in money. Same reason we left 85 billion in equipment in the sand box. We are buying stuff that is marginal at best, I work for one.
But don’t run on with Yoda, he is a legend…
There is not a single state department / diplomat that got this stuff right except by pure luck. The CIA, which was who state heavily relied upon got nothing right when it came to the soviets. To get the truth and accurate predictions you had to turn to Defense Intelligence who consistently got it right. They would die if they didn’t. DIA’s were predicting the fall, CIA / State wasn’t.
Why did the soviets fall? Easy. Afghanistan drained them, showed them to be evil, took there $$$, and showed the failure of their military equipment and tactics. By the end of 1988 the DIA was predicting the fall. Can I find that info now? Apparently not without devoting more time to it than I desire. I lived through the period and was actively engaged in monitoring the soviets.
Putin is just a few months older than I am. He’s an evil man, straight to the KGB from school. Involved with terror from the very beginning, likely involved with both the Red brigades (Italy) and the Red army (german) which were terror operations funded by the russians.
Most don’t know that Putin’s paternal grandfather was a personal cook for both Lenin and Stalin. He gets the evil from way back.
PS Mike, love the new Masthead Seasonal Art.