Miscellaneous news items that don't warrant their own thread

[SeattleGriz]

Of course. Just like how you dismissed the US Intelligence trained official who worked for the UN and NATO when he made the analogy of what happened in Ukraine in 2014, as he was commissioned to rebuild their military image.

I'm not playing the game you and Klamala play when you deny 2+2=4 simply due to ad hominem thinking.

You mean that clown who compared Ukraine to Switzerland? He had foreign policy chops but that comparison cost him his credibility. It was stupid, lazy or intentionally biased. I don’t think that guy was stupid. He might have been lazy but the most reasonable explanation was that he was intentionally biased. He made an overly simplistic comparison to convince gullible readers with little to no understanding of the two countries that his argument was accurate.

You should be more upset with yourself for buying it than with me for pointing out how superficial it was.


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After Euromaidan, a pro US leader was in charge. One of the first things they did was to abolish Russian as an official language. This pissed off the Donbas because they predominantly spoke Russian.

Here is the 4th paragraph of the "clown" you claim to know more than.

In fact, these Republics were not seeking to separate from Ukraine, but to have a status of autonomy, guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. For the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 that made Russian an official language. A bit like if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.

See, an analogy. He was not comparing Ukraine to Switzerland, he was showing how prevalent the Russian language was spoken in Ukraine by comparing how prevalent French and Italian are spoken in Switzerland.

This is simply you making up a bullshit excuse to dismiss a factual representation of history.

For posterity sake, here's the "clowns" bio. So please, stop asking for links if you are going to incorrectly dismiss everything St Wronge.

Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST and Gouverner par les fake news, L’affaire Navalny. His latest book, Poutine, maître du jeu?, is published by Max Milo.

[SeattleGriz]

Oh my Lord. What a train wreck.

[UNI88]

You mean that clown who compared Ukraine to Switzerland? He had foreign policy chops but that comparison cost him his credibility. It was stupid, lazy or intentionally biased. I don’t think that guy was stupid. He might have been lazy but the most reasonable explanation was that he was intentionally biased. He made an overly simplistic comparison to convince gullible readers with little to no understanding of the two countries that his argument was accurate.

You should be more upset with yourself for buying it than with me for pointing out how superficial it was.


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After Euromaidan, a pro US leader was in charge. One of the first things they did was to abolish Russian as an official language. This pissed off the Donbas because they predominantly spoke Russian.

Here is the 4th paragraph of the "clown" you claim to know more than.

In fact, these Republics were not seeking to separate from Ukraine, but to have a status of autonomy, guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. For the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 that made Russian an official language. A bit like if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages in Switzerland.

See, an analogy. He was not comparing Ukraine to Switzerland, he was showing how prevalent the Russian language was spoken in Ukraine by comparing how prevalent French and Italian are spoken in Switzerland.

This is simply you making up a bullshit excuse to dismiss a factual representation of history.

For posterity sake, here's the "clowns" bio. So please, stop asking for links if you are going to incorrectly dismiss everything St Wronge.

Jacques Baud is a former colonel of the General Staff, ex-member of the Swiss strategic intelligence, specialist on Eastern countries. He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He has served as Policy Chief for United Nations Peace Operations. As a UN expert on rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional UN intelligence unit in the Sudan. He has worked for the African Union and was for 5 years responsible for the fight, at NATO, against the proliferation of small arms. He was involved in discussions with the highest Russian military and intelligence officials just after the fall of the USSR. Within NATO, he followed the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and later participated in programs to assist the Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism, in particular Le Détournement published by SIGEST and Gouverner par les fake news, L’affaire Navalny. His latest book, Poutine, maître du jeu?, is published by Max Milo.

Has France dominated and oppressed Switzerland for hundreds of years the way that russia has Ukraine? No. The animosity of Ukrainians toward russia can’t be compared to relations between the Swiss and French. This clown ignores all of that history which is important to understanding the context of their oppression of the russian language.

It’s a crappy comparison/connection meant to fool the gullible who are looking for reasons to support the russians and attack support for Ukraine.


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[SeattleGriz]

After Euromaidan, a pro US leader was in charge. One of the first things they did was to abolish Russian as an official language. This pissed off the Donbas because they predominantly spoke Russian.

Here is the 4th paragraph of the "clown" you claim to know more than.



See, an analogy. He was not comparing Ukraine to Switzerland, he was showing how prevalent the Russian language was spoken in Ukraine by comparing how prevalent French and Italian are spoken in Switzerland.

This is simply you making up a bullshit excuse to dismiss a factual representation of history.

For posterity sake, here's the "clowns" bio. So please, stop asking for links if you are going to incorrectly dismiss everything St Wronge.

Has France dominated and oppressed Switzerland for hundreds of years the way that russia has Ukraine? No. The animosity of Ukrainians toward russia can’t be compared to relations between the Swiss and French. This clown ignores all of that history which is important to understanding the context of their oppression of the russian language.

It’s a crappy comparison/connection meant to fool the gullible who are looking for reasons to support the russians and attack support for Ukraine.


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Willing to throw your reputation out over the fact you didn't read an article.

Regardless of what you uninformedly think, Paramilitary were paid by Ukraine and the US to cleanse the Donbas. That was the point of the article.

[UNI88]

Has France dominated and oppressed Switzerland for hundreds of years the way that russia has Ukraine? No. The animosity of Ukrainians toward russia can’t be compared to relations between the Swiss and French. This clown ignores all of that history which is important to understanding the context of their oppression of the russian language.

It’s a crappy comparison/connection meant to fool the gullible who are looking for reasons to support the russians and attack support for Ukraine.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Willing to throw your reputation out over the fact you didn't read an article.

Regardless of what you uninformedly think, Paramilitary were paid by Ukraine and the US to cleanse the Donbas. That was the point of the article.

You think anyone who doesn’t agree with you and your preferred “experts” is uninformed.

I might not work in international relations but I’ve been a history lover since I was a kid and studied political science with a lot of international relations classes in college. Lash out at me all you want but my knowledge of international relations is not insubstantial.


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[kalm]

Has France dominated and oppressed Switzerland for hundreds of years the way that russia has Ukraine? No. The animosity of Ukrainians toward russia can’t be compared to relations between the Swiss and French. This clown ignores all of that history which is important to understanding the context of their oppression of the russian language.

It’s a crappy comparison/connection meant to fool the gullible who are looking for reasons to support the russians and attack support for Ukraine.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Willing to throw your reputation out over the fact you didn't read an article.

Regardless of what you uninformedly think, Paramilitary were paid by Ukraine and the US to cleanse the Donbas. That was the point of the article.

Does the article also talk about Russian influence in UKR politics? Or the history going back millennia?

My wife’s hometown was settled by Volga River Russians which were really Germans who Catherine the Great encouraged to settle the steppes.

Point being it’s a complicated region. UKR is an independent country. Russia invaded it without provocation.

[kalm]

Interesting graph (yeah the image wouldn’t copy over well). The dark blue are expected economic outcomes with light blue being the actual.

Better graph in the link.

I would guess the housing costs among other inflation related household expenses like healthcare skew the perception. And with a long term view.



https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -sentiment

[GannonFan]

Interesting graph (yeah the image wouldn’t copy over well). The dark blue are expected economic outcomes with light blue being the actual.

Better graph in the link.

I would guess the housing costs among other inflation related household expenses like healthcare skew the perception. And with a long term view.



https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -sentiment

Isn't real income still down something like 3% or so over the past couple of years? Of course that's strongly impacted by inflation, but it's a real thing, not just perception - people aren't able to afford as much now as they could just a few years ago. That tends to make people gloomy, no matter how rosy the economic forecasts are.

[kalm]

Interesting graph (yeah the image wouldn’t copy over well). The dark blue are expected economic outcomes with light blue being the actual.

Better graph in the link.

I would guess the housing costs among other inflation related household expenses like healthcare skew the perception. And with a long term view.



https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -sentiment

Isn't real income still down something like 3% or so over the past couple of years? Of course that's strongly impacted by inflation, but it's a real thing, not just perception - people aren't able to afford as much now as they could just a few years ago. That tends to make people gloomy, no matter how rosy the economic forecasts are.

If it is that’s despite minimum wage efforts and union activity. Yes…incomes don’t meet expectations of the American dream. There’s also the retirement with dignity aspect. Seems a lot of workers have resigned themselves to working until the day they die.

[BDKJMU]

Interesting graph (yeah the image wouldn’t copy over well). The dark blue are expected economic outcomes with light blue being the actual.

Better graph in the link.

I would guess the housing costs among other inflation related household expenses like healthcare skew the perception. And with a long term view.



https://www.economist.com/graphic-detai ... -sentiment

Isn't real income still down something like 3% or so over the past couple of years? Of course that's strongly impacted by inflation, but it's a real thing, not just perception - people aren't able to afford as much now as they could just a few years ago. That tends to make people gloomy, no matter how rosy the economic forecasts are.

Think its more than that going back to eary 2020. 2nd qtr 2021 to 2nd quarter of 2022 alone real wages were down 8.5%
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/econ ... 25%20years.

[kalm]

Isn't real income still down something like 3% or so over the past couple of years? Of course that's strongly impacted by inflation, but it's a real thing, not just perception - people aren't able to afford as much now as they could just a few years ago. That tends to make people gloomy, no matter how rosy the economic forecasts are.

Think its more than that going back to eary 2020. 2nd qtr 2021 to 2nd quarter of 2022 alone real wages were down 8.5%
https://www.dallasfed.org/research/econ ... 25%20years.

Which is why higher wages matter for everyone.

[GannonFan]

Isn't real income still down something like 3% or so over the past couple of years? Of course that's strongly impacted by inflation, but it's a real thing, not just perception - people aren't able to afford as much now as they could just a few years ago. That tends to make people gloomy, no matter how rosy the economic forecasts are.

If it is that’s despite minimum wage efforts and union activity. Yes…incomes don’t meet expectations of the American dream. There’s also the retirement with dignity aspect. Seems a lot of workers have resigned themselves to working until the day they die.

Which is great and all, but minimum wage efforts and union activity also contribute to inflation as well. If they didn't we could just snap our fingers, make minimum wage something vastly higher, and all of our problems would be solved. However, as we've seen with the housing market, the pharmaceutical market, the cost of a college education, etc, the dynamics of real life economics mean that we just can't tip the scale on one side and make everything magical. It's much more complicated than that.

[Pwns]

This Tweet legit made my jaw feel really heavy. She's a former GA congresswoman and the 2008 Green Party candidate. I've always considered her in the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democrats but I would not have expected this...

[kalm]

If it is that’s despite minimum wage efforts and union activity. Yes…incomes don’t meet expectations of the American dream. There’s also the retirement with dignity aspect. Seems a lot of workers have resigned themselves to working until the day they die.

Which is great and all, but minimum wage efforts and union activity also contribute to inflation as well. If they didn't we could just snap our fingers, make minimum wage something vastly higher, and all of our problems would be solved. However, as we've seen with the housing market, the pharmaceutical market, the cost of a college education, etc, the dynamics of real life economics mean that we just can't tip the scale on one side and make everything magical. It's much more complicated than that.

It’s is more complicated. It’s also more complicated than wages are a driver of inflation. Are higher wage markets faring worse? Does a Big Mac cost $20 in Denmark?

[kalm]

This Tweet legit made my jaw feel really heavy. She's a former GA congresswoman and the 2008 Green Party candidate. I've always considered her in the Dennis Kucinich wing of the Democrats but I would not have expected this...

She’s clearly a nutbag. Look at her other tweets. Wowsers!

[GannonFan]

Which is great and all, but minimum wage efforts and union activity also contribute to inflation as well. If they didn't we could just snap our fingers, make minimum wage something vastly higher, and all of our problems would be solved. However, as we've seen with the housing market, the pharmaceutical market, the cost of a college education, etc, the dynamics of real life economics mean that we just can't tip the scale on one side and make everything magical. It's much more complicated than that.

It’s is more complicated. It’s also more complicated than wages are a driver of inflation. Are higher wage markets faring worse? Does a Big Mac cost $20 in Denmark?

Well, the biggest driver of inflation this time around, pretty much without question, was the runaway government spending, first a smaller amount by Trump on the way out, and then a much larger amount by Biden several months later (both instances being way past the time when government COVID relief was even needed) coupled with the Fed being asleep at the switch and being way too slow to increase rates. We don't have those policy mistakes by government and we don't have a tremendous money supply issue and we don't have rampant inflation. All the other stuff (prices, wages, etc) only come up after the inflation horse is out of the barn. This was a self-inflicted economic hit by a pretty incompetent administration believing a now-proven false economic theory.

[Skjellyfetti]

the runaway government spending, first a smaller amount by Trump on the way out, and then a much larger amount by Biden several months later

Trump signed $2.2 trillion CARES act in March 2020
Trump signed $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020
Trump signed $2.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 - I assume this is the one you meant "on his way out." But, it wasn't the only one.

That's about $5 trillion in Covid relief by Trump

Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021

"A smaller amount by Trump" (~5 trillion) "a much larger amount by Biden." (~2 trillion)

Wat

[UNI88]

the runaway government spending, first a smaller amount by Trump on the way out, and then a much larger amount by Biden several months later

Trump signed $2.2 trillion CARES act in March 2020
Trump signed $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020
Trump signed $2.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 - I assume this is the one you meant "on his way out." But, it wasn't the only one.

That's about $5 trillion in Covid relief by Trump

Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021

"A smaller amount by Trump" (~5 trillion) "a much larger amount by Biden." (~2 trillion)

Wat

“On his way out” and “being way past the time when government COVID relief was even needed” limits it to the final appropriations by trump.

I’m not sure “runaway government spending” is limited to just Covid spending. What about the oxymoronic Inflation Reduction Act?

Has Ganny become your new white whale since CID doesn’t post much?

[kalm]

Trump signed $2.2 trillion CARES act in March 2020
Trump signed $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020
Trump signed $2.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 - I assume this is the one you meant "on his way out." But, it wasn't the only one.

That's about $5 trillion in Covid relief by Trump

Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021

"A smaller amount by Trump" (~5 trillion) "a much larger amount by Biden." (~2 trillion)

Wat

“On his way out” and “being way past the time when government COVID relief was even needed” limits it to the final appropriations by trump.

I’m not sure “runaway government spending” is limited to just Covid spending. What about the oxymoronic Inflation Reduction Act?

Has Ganny become your new white whale since CID doesn’t post much?

When was the appropriate time to end emergency spending?

I might agree on the naming but will the Inflation Reduction
Act hurt in the long run?

[GannonFan]

the runaway government spending, first a smaller amount by Trump on the way out, and then a much larger amount by Biden several months later

Trump signed $2.2 trillion CARES act in March 2020
Trump signed $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020
Trump signed $2.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 - I assume this is the one you meant "on his way out." But, it wasn't the only one.

That's about $5 trillion in Covid relief by Trump

Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021

"A smaller amount by Trump" (~5 trillion) "a much larger amount by Biden." (~2 trillion)

Wat

Wow, I didn't peg you for being dishonest, but then you go and throw a post out like that and it can't be labeled anything other than dishonest.

First of all, COVID spending at the start of the pandemic has never really been in doubt or criticized in terms of whether it was needed. The government shut down the economy, of course the government would then have to pump money into the country to make up for ceasing a good chunk of economic activity. None of that is in doubt or contested.

As for the bill Trump signed in December of 2020, yes I believe the COVID relief part of that to be excessive. But you're being dishonest by saying the bill was $2.3 trillion. As the bill says, it was a consolidated appropriations bill. The COVID relief part of that bill was about $900 billion dollars. The rest was money to fund the government and was going to be roughly that number regardless of anything else. The COVID part was the add-on, and considering it was almost half of a bill where the other half was just what we needed to fund the government, it certainly points to it being excessive.

That just puts it into even more perspective when you consider Biden's $1.9 trillion dollar package, entirely for COVID relief, came on the heels of the bill 4 months before that we knew 4 months ago we probably didn't need. So if we didn't need $900 billion in December, we certainly didn't need more than twice that just in March. It's no coincidence either that you see the inflation start to tick up a few months after the passing of this bill in March and when the money started to impact the money supply in the country. It's also no coincidence that it was only after this bill was passed that the administration started putting out the talking points that inflation was only transitory - everyone knew the connection between excessive government spending and it's impact on inflation. Heck, we still know that today.

To take up kalm's point, it's not like this is Monday morning quarterbacking - there was significant debate even in the lame duck session when Trump added the $900 billion to the appropriations bill. And there was 10x that debate when Biden was insistent to pass something, anything, to look like he cared even more. Remember, vaccines were coming out and were widely available by March and April of 2021. The COVID emergency, from the standpoint of a shutdown economy, was no longer an issue. Heck, good portions of the economy were already back and up and running in the summer of 2020 even long before vaccines became available. So yes, we can certainly say that government spending to prop up the economy was really no longer needed by the summer of 2020. Biden's bill came about 10 months too late, and was even more harmful as it included weird and unnecessary things like extending enhanced unemployment benefits until September of 2021 or even beyond. Heck, we're only just now a month away today from restarting student loan payments. I don't think there's any reasonable argument that can counter the idea that we extended COVID reliefs way past when they were needed. Obviously, we were using COVID relief as cover to try to implement policy changes by other means.

So to sum it up, and to counter Skellie's blatantly dishonest post, Trump passed $900B of unnecessary spending in December of 2020, Biden then passed a wholly unnecessary $1.9T in March of 2021, even well before he added other measures such as the much maligned-named Inflation Reduction Act and other new spending. The question of excessive government spending and its impact on inflation has been definitively proved on the macro scale for the past two years.

[BDKJMU]

the runaway government spending, first a smaller amount by Trump on the way out, and then a much larger amount by Biden several months later

Trump signed $2.2 trillion CARES act in March 2020
Trump signed $484 billion Paycheck Protection Program in April 2020
Trump signed $2.3 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act in December 2020 - I assume this is the one you meant "on his way out." But, it wasn't the only one.

That's about $5 trillion in Covid relief by Trump

Biden signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March 2021

"A smaller amount by Trump" (~5 trillion) "a much larger amount by Biden." (~2 trillion)

Wat

About 920 billion of that was extra so called Covid spending. The rest was regualr appropriations. Edit: GF beat me to it.

Looking at extra govt spending:
Trump last yr in office: 3.6 trillion so called COVID

Biden 1st 1+ year in office (well over 4 trillion).
1.9 trillion so called Covid
1.2 trillion so called Infrastructure bill
.8 trillion Inflation Creation Act
.3 trillion CHIPs
And whatever else I am leaving off.

That last 920 billion by Trump and 4+ trillion by Biden + Biden’s keeping interest rates near zero for a year plus + Biden/Buttigeg’s bungling of the supply chains + Biden’s war on fossil fuels is what has driven the 2 1/2 year inflation crisis. Trump gets some blame, but it is mostly Biden’s doing.

[BDKJMU]

“On his way out” and “being way past the time when government COVID relief was even needed” limits it to the final appropriations by trump.

I’m not sure “runaway government spending” is limited to just Covid spending. What about the oxymoronic Inflation Reduction Act?

Has Ganny become your new white whale since CID doesn’t post much?

When was the appropriate time to end emergency spending?

I might agree on the naming but will the Inflation Reduction
Act hurt in the long run?

March 2020.

[kalm]

When was the appropriate time to end emergency spending?

I might agree on the naming but will the Inflation Reduction
Act hurt in the long run?

March 2020.

Why?

[UNI88]

Senate Republicans Align With Democrats to Avoid Shutdown

The vote is the latest sign of a breach among Republicans over the shutdown strategy, a sharp contrast to a political battle earlier this year over raising the US legal debt limit. Senate and House Republicans then united to force President Joe Biden to agree to spending cuts in exchange for avoiding the nation’s first default.
...
“We know that in divided government you are not going to get everything in a bill,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “We need our military to get the funds they need.”

Looks like the House ultra conservatives may have overplayed their hand. Expecting lots of RINO name calling and calls for moderates to be primaried. This could lead to Republicans losing winnable House seats.

[kalm]

Senate Republicans Align With Democrats to Avoid Shutdown

The vote is the latest sign of a breach among Republicans over the shutdown strategy, a sharp contrast to a political battle earlier this year over raising the US legal debt limit. Senate and House Republicans then united to force President Joe Biden to agree to spending cuts in exchange for avoiding the nation’s first default.
...
“We know that in divided government you are not going to get everything in a bill,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota. “We need our military to get the funds they need.”

Looks like the House ultra conservatives may have overplayed their hand. Expecting lots of RINO name calling and calls for moderates to be primaried. This could lead to Republicans losing winnable House seats.

The spring agreement was just delaying the inevitable. They’ll push for impeachment and a government shutdown right up to the brink.