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Sanctions Impact in Russia


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2022 Mar 4, 11:05pm   67,937 views  426 comments

by AmericanKulak   ➕follow (8)   💰tip   ignore  

Pay $1.81/gallon for gas
https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/Russia/gasoline_prices/?source=patrick.net

Gas in Russia is cheaper than Gas in Qatar or Bahrain or Saudi Arabia.

Unable to buy $30/lb luxury Italian Cheese, $30/bottle midrange French Wines, expensive German Audio Equipment... what will the Russians do with themselves?

Eat local cheese, drink local beer, and buy the same audio equipment from China that's on Amazon USA

« First        Comments 293 - 332 of 426       Last »     Search these comments

293   Eric Holder   2022 Dec 20, 10:27am  

8:54 am, December 19, 2022

The foreign producers of the nominally “Russian” Baikal and Elbrus CPUs have stopped delivering them to Russia.

Kommersant reports that international sanctions have disrupted Russia’s supply of “domestic” CPUs, citing a statement by Maksut Shadayev, Russian minister of digital development.

Shadayev says that 23,000 new computers, servers, and data-storage systems based on Russian-developed microchips were produced in 2022. “We would have had a lot more, if batches of Russian processors that had been ordered and produced had also been delivered,” Shadayev lamented, at a joint State Duma committee meeting on information policy and control.

The minister admits that Russia has no facilities of its own for producing domestic microchips, though it hopes to begin manufacturing CPUs by 2028.
294   richwicks   2022 Dec 20, 2:17pm  

Eric Holder says


The minister admits that Russia has no facilities of its own for producing domestic microchips, though it hopes to begin manufacturing CPUs by 2028.


All this will result in is a stronger Russia.

China and Russia are STILL allies. For the time being, Russia is just going to pay through the nose for the technology, but they will get them, if China wants energy, and they do.

Modern cutting edge technology for wafer manufacturing is bleeding edge, HOWEVER, nobody really needs that. A shitty computer chip from 15 years ago will meet your needs. It will consume more power, it will be more expensive to manufacture because the lamba size (size of traces) will be larger, but it will work just fine.

People again don't realize where we are. Your phone puts a Cray supercomputer from 1990 to SHAME. What do you use it for? Making phone calls, watching youtube videos, and sometimes surfing the net and posting to Facebook? You have no idea, NO IDEA, what kind of power the average person has. None. My phone has more storage, more computational power, more abilities than my state of the art workstation did in 2000, and that was $4k back then. Cost me $150.

My pathetic piece of shit phone is more powerful than all the mainframe systems my entire university used - 30,000 students, 4 VAX/VMS machines, 2 main Unix machines, and several workstations. I can run ALL those systems on my phone simultaneously, and it would have more storage, and more IO than all those did.
296   Ceffer   2022 Dec 23, 10:32am  

Gee, that's nice, Ukraine gets a bunch of mouldering mega yachts moored up in Monacao or other ports of call.
297   Bd6r   2022 Dec 23, 7:34pm  

richwicks says

China and Russia are STILL allies

Rubbish
What is wrong with this picture
https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/russia-s-medvedev-meets-with-china-s-xi-jinping-in-beijing.html/
Paging all resident Patnet russia specialists who cant speak russian and have no clue about russia
298   mell   2022 Dec 23, 10:17pm  

AmericanKulak says


GNL says


Eggs can last a long time (a month, I think) if you don't wash them. The eggs are covered with some secretion from the hen when laid.

Over 60 days from moment laid. And past that, most are safe to eat, if they aren't, you'll know the moment you crack 'em.


Yep. Also the contamination with salmonella (or e. coli) does not happen inside the egg (they may just rot at some point), but most of the time it's some outside contamination such a feces or other stuff which lands on the shell, it pretty much never penetrates an intact shell (though possible), so if you're worried you should wash the shells. If there is a salmonella contamination and cracked shells, they spread within a few days anyways. Lastly you can almost always hard boil older eggs to salvage them. Refrigeration doesn't add much shelf life as long as they are stored in a dry, dark, cool place, but it will slow down the spread/growth of bacterial contamination such as salmonella or e. coli
299   richwicks   2022 Dec 24, 11:34am  

Bd6r says

richwicks says

China and Russia are STILL allies

Rubbish


When the USSR collapsed, China made no moves on Russia, and instead helped them stabilize.

Bd6r says
What is wrong with this picture
https://www.russia-briefing.com/news/russia-s-medvedev-meets-with-china-s-xi-jinping-in-beijing.html/


That you still read propaganda and take it seriously. I don't give a shit about what any press says. Articles are drawn up entirely to lead their victim readers to a conclusion, not to inform them.

Nobody is paid to inform you. All "news" media is either citizen journalists, or state propaganda. There are no "news organizations" at all.
300   Bd6r   2022 Dec 24, 8:02pm  

richwicks says


That you still read propaganda and take it seriously. I don't give a shit about what any press says

Look at picture and let me know what is wrong. Article is irrelevant
richwicks says


When the USSR collapsed, China made no moves on Russia, and instead helped them stabilize.

Did China get any land from Russia after ussr collapse and if yes, is that "no move on Russia". You seem to be clueless abt that part of the world
301   richwicks   2022 Dec 25, 1:53pm  

Bd6r says

richwicks says



That you still read propaganda and take it seriously. I don't give a shit about what any press says

Look at picture and let me know what is wrong. Article is irrelevant



It's all irrelevant. Who cares what is wrong with propaganda?

There are preciously few journalists today. I can count the total number of actual journalists working in the west on my fingers. It's not even worth any of your time to pay attention to anything that is "corporate media". It's nothing but a string of lies, that have sociopathic liars, stringing you along with constant bullshit. That should be quite obvious to even the dimmest individual at this point.
302   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 5:29pm  

richwicks says

It's all irrelevant

Picture is quite real and cant be journalwhored aka lied away.
303   richwicks   2022 Dec 25, 6:48pm  

Bd6r says

richwicks says



When the USSR collapsed, China made no moves on Russia, and instead helped them stabilize.

Did China get any land from Russia after ussr collapse and if yes, is that "no move on Russia". You seem to be clueless abt that part of the world


Am I incorrect? What land did China take from the former USSR after it collapsed?
304   richwicks   2022 Dec 25, 6:50pm  

Bd6r says

richwicks says


It's all irrelevant

Picture is quite real and cant be journalwhored aka lied away.


I have no idea what you're talking about with the picture, and I have no reason to trust that site to report accurately.

I really entirely ignore mainstream media. I was a news buff until I realized all the information isn't only wrong, but also contradictory. They never post retractions or corrections, it's pointless bullshit. It's not even passable propaganda, it's designed to waste time of people reading it chiefly.
305   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 7:03pm  

richwicks says

Am I incorrect? What land did China take from the former USSR after it collapsed?

I posted this a while ago, in response to a similar claim of yours. This is a Russian source, but you will keep ignoring these facts as they do not agree with your ideology.

https://english.pravda.ru/world/121658-china_territorial_claims/
Any territorial dispute, but rather, its resolution, is a serious precedent. If China's claim in respect of at least one territory from the list of the "lost" is satisfied, the Chinese machine would be unstoppable. Despite the fact that the Chinese are very pleased to partner with Russia and have always supported Russia in the UN Security Council, in person, on the sidelines, its diplomats supposedly jokingly hint to their Russian colleagues: you must understand that soon you will have to share the Far East? China has more than a billion people, while Russia's vast territory barely has 150 million.

These dangerous trends - demographic, and as a result, geopolitical - must sound scary to the Russian government, but so far it seems that it is happy with the fact that Beijing makes territorial claims only to Seoul and Tokyo. In 2005 Russia had already given China a bounty in the form of 337 square kilometers of land in the area of Big Island (upper Argun River in the Chita region) and two sites in the vicinity of the islands Tarabarov and Big Ussuri near the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri.
306   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 7:04pm  

richwicks says


I have no idea what you're talking about with the picture, and I have no reason to trust that site to report accurately.

So what site do you trust? Kremlin.ru?

The picture shows Chinese trolling Medvedev with a flag of a non existing country, USSR. Photo is real, text is irrelevant.
307   richwicks   2022 Dec 25, 8:25pm  

Bd6r says


richwicks says


Am I incorrect? What land did China take from the former USSR after it collapsed?

I posted this a while ago, in response to a similar claim of yours. This is a Russian source, but you will keep ignoring these facts as they do not agree with your ideology.

https://english.pravda.ru/world/121658-china_territorial_claims/



According to your source:

"Burma, Laos, Northern India, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Ryukyu Islands, 300 islands of the South China, East China and Yellow Seas, as well as Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Taiwan, South Kazakhstan, the Afghan province of Bahdashan, Transbaikalia and the Far East to South Okhotsk - here is the complete list of areas that, according to Zedong, were lost due to the fall of the Qing empire."


yeah - who cares? What did China take from the USSR once it collapsed?

China worked with Russia to prevent a, probable, CIA coup in Kazakhstan.

China and Russia aren't, by ANY means, fast friends and allies, but they are allies. They use diplomacy over their territorial disputes, they aren't controlled by stupid fucking Neocons that don't engage in any diplomacy.

We need to get rid of these assholes, or it's going to destroy this nation. We've been in 20 years of endless stupid wars. We've bombed Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia. How has ANY of this been to the benefit of either this nation or the people of this nation? Cost us over 10 trillion bucks. How has this helped you, me, this nation, anybody? Some fucking offense contractors made money by drastically inflating the currency, and that's all I can see.

If you won't recognize a problem, you won't even attempt to address the problem. Fucking morons run our foreign policy, and what Russia and China do isn't of great concern, the fucking retards that run US foreign policy are destroying this nation. Our state department might as well be run by our enemies, because these stupid motherfuckers haven't done a goddamned thing in at least 20 years that has helped this nation, only hurt it.

They're destroying Europe now. They obviously blew up the Nordstream. Traitors run our nation. How obvious does it have to get?


original link

Constantly we have braying NPC's screaming about foreign enemies. Well, they are HARDLY a threat compared to the ones in DC, Langley Virginia, Wall Street NY, and Silicon Valley. Why can't you employ some fucking priorities?

Meanwhile these very same stupid cunts have made the entire nation dependent on Chinese goods. We have domestic enemies to worry about, not foreign ones. How can you not see this at this point?
308   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 9:21pm  

As usual, you did not read parts that conflict with your ideology. See below
richwicks says

What did China take from the USSR once it collapsed?

Bd6r says

. In 2005 Russia had already given China a bounty in the form of 337 square kilometers of land in the area of Big Island (upper Argun River in the Chita region) and two sites in the vicinity of the islands Tarabarov and Big Ussuri near the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri.
309   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 9:23pm  

richwicks says

China worked with Russia to prevent a, probable, CIA coup in Kazakhstan.

Can you read either of those 3 languages? If not, where you can get any reasonable news about what happened in Kazakhstan? How do you know it was CIA? Did CIA also shit on SF street?
310   richwicks   2022 Dec 25, 9:25pm  

Bd6r says


As usual, you did not read parts that conflict with your ideology. See below
richwicks says


What did China take from the USSR once it collapsed?

Bd6r says


. In 2005 Russia had already given China a bounty in the form of 337 square kilometers of land in the area of Big Island (upper Argun River in the Chita region) and two sites in the vicinity of the islands Tarabarov and Big Ussuri near the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri.




18x18 km? Fort Drum stole more land from my local area in the 1940's.

China was in a position to FUCK Russia once the USSR collapsed. Probably some disputed area that didn't have any strategic interest or any inhabitants but I cannot know without having the ability to see the region.

Show me the GPS co-ordinates or a map.
311   Bd6r   2022 Dec 25, 9:57pm  

richwicks says

Show me the GPS co-ordinates or a map.

Use yandex search - I am not your secretary to do it for you. Source is Russian, so you should trust it. You can also find China Russia border treaty 1991 or 1992 and then 2005 or search for Heixiazi island. But you will not.

We have so far established that you know nothing about Ukraine and now also Chinese-Russian relations (as in not knowing that China did take land from Russia after ussr collapse).

That particular Big Island on Amur was place of clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops in 1960's with hundreds of dead.
312   richwicks   2022 Dec 26, 7:26am  

Bd6r says

richwicks says


Show me the GPS co-ordinates or a map.

Use yandex search - I am not your secretary ...

That's right. You're not my secretary. You're just somebody claiming that China took advantage of the dissolution of the USSR but you cannot find the area, you don't know the date, and you can't find it on a map.

I'm not asking you because I expect you to answer, I'm asking because I don't think you can answer. I'm just demonstrating this.
313   Bd6r   2022 Dec 26, 7:32am  

richwicks says


I'm not asking you because I expect you to answer, I'm asking because I don't think you can answer. I'm just demonstrating this.

I gave you a link to Russian news source describing Chinese taking Russian territories. and I gave you the name of one of islands. You can find those in yandex or google maps. As for dates, I gave you years of treaties.

Please take you meds. You are completely unable to comprehend any facts that go again your ideological ideas. So you will keep spouting fact free nonsense, just like you do about Ukraine.

And here is the map for yandex challenged:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Location-and-settings-of-the-Heixiazi-Island-a-Schematic-map-showing-the-monsoon-climate_fig1_329401132
314   richwicks   2022 Dec 26, 7:57am  

Bd6r says

I gave you a link to Russian news source


I have told you multiple times, I don't care about "news" sources.

If you cannot get the location of the land that was supposedly stolen by China when they were well positioned to take it after the USSR collapsed, you're not reading a news source are you?

I used to waste a GREAT deal of time going through "news" sources, until I realized they spend a lot of time either saying nothing, or they just outright lie to you. You, supposedly, read this news source. Why aren't you able to get any information out of it?
315   Bd6r   2022 Dec 26, 9:41am  

richwicks says

you cannot get the location of the land that was supposedly stolen by China when they were well positioned to take it after the USSR collapsed, you're not reading a news source are you?

I gave you a link to map above.
In that vein, I can give you a link to map of Khabarovsk. Rusdian news claim that it is still Russian, but a map of it means that it is now Chinese, according to your logic, no?
316   richwicks   2022 Dec 26, 2:23pm  

Bd6r says


I gave you a link to map above.


I'm wasting my time. Give me a GPS location, or a link to the area that clickable. I don't want to hear from some 3rd party propagandist that you don't realize is a propagandist.

I'm tired of this shit.

Bd6r says


In that vein, I can give you a link to map of Khabarovsk. Rusdian news claim that it is still Russian,


Who gives a shit about what "news" says? I don't.

When you tell me the area, I can start researching it to see if you're correct or not. Stop playing this stupid fucking game of "I pointed you to a haystack, weren't you able to find the needle???" - if you found the needle, you'd just give me the information I asked for.

Where is the location that China took over after the USSR fell apart? I don't give a FUCK what "news" media says anymore, and you know why?


original link

That's a "Ukrainian fighter pilot" - according to MSNBC, a respected "news source". He's got a beard, and a Swedish accent, and a fag Vanderbilt that did a "internship" at the CIA who has no credentials to be a journalist is reporting on it. That's not just OUR media in the United States, that's ALL media. I can't get over that fighter pilot, with a beard, with a Swedish accent, on national television "news". Is Anderson Cooper this fucking retarded, has he been fucked in the asshole so violently his brains fell out? OR do they just believe the public is so fucking moronic, so stupid, so pathetic, they would believe this? It's still a mystery to me.

We have the ability to share information directly, and you still listen to these assholes that are, strangely, vague. Where's the GPS co-ordinates?
317   Onvacation   2022 Dec 26, 2:31pm  

Bd6r says

And here is the map for yandex challenged:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Location-and-settings-of-the-Heixiazi-Island-a-Schematic-map-showing-the-monsoon-climate_fig1_329401132

I missed the part where the Chinese took Russian territory. Can you find a better reference to what you claim?
318   Onvacation   2022 Dec 26, 2:38pm  

Bd6r says


Did China get any land from Russia after ussr collapse and if yes, is that "no move on Russia". You seem to be clueless abt that part of the world

Or did I misunderstand? Did China take a piece of Russia when the Soviet Union broke up?

Never heard of this before and can't find any references.
319   Onvacation   2022 Dec 26, 2:42pm  

Bd6r says

Please take you meds. You are completely unable to comprehend any facts that go again your ideological ideas. So you will keep spouting fact free nonsense, just like you do about Ukraine.

This sounds like a gas lighting personal attack. Do you have evidence of China taking ex Soviet land or not?
320   richwicks   2022 Dec 26, 2:59pm  

@Bd6r - there is no shame in being fooled. We all are.

What lands did China take from the USSR when it fell apart? China was in a prime position to do this at this time.

China and Russia are not fast friends, but they also aren't stupid enemies - at least that I know of. Russia was a prime victim of rapacious theft when the USSR fell apart, and as far as I know, the only group that fucked them over, were the United States with Zionist oligarchs. I can be misinformed as well but this is what I think I know, so far.
321   Bd6r   2022 Dec 26, 9:49pm  

Onvacation says


This sounds like a gas lighting personal attack. Do you have evidence of China taking ex Soviet land or not?

@Onvacation, Please see the Russian source I quoted above, at the beginning of this discussion, followed by the map of the area. If this is not enough, let me know what would convince the land transfer was real. I can not get an affidavit from Putler the Great, sadly.
https://english.pravda.ru/world/121658-china_territorial_claims/
322   Bd6r   2022 Dec 26, 9:54pm  

richwicks says

Where is the location that China took over after the USSR fell apart

Heixiazi island, on river Amur. Half of it was ceded to China
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bolshoy+Ussuriysky+Island,+Jiamusi,+Khabarovsk+Krai,+Russia,+680502/@48.3538235,134.7451755,11z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x5efaf3c325213b8f:0x2e497e37c129594f!8m2!3d48.361389!4d134.8138891!16zL20vMGZiNzRu

I must assume that you are either trolling, in which case I deeply admire your skills, or have forgotten to take autism meds, in which case they probably should be taken ASAP.
323   Bd6r   2022 Dec 26, 10:02pm  

More. Not from news, but from a private .ru travel blog
https://dzen.ru/a/Xo2Vco4TRn8Cs3B8

So in 2005-08, Russia suffered the latest territorial loss at the moment: China has gone about 300 square kilometers of its territory - half of the Great Ussuriysky ( Heisyatsizdao ) islands and entirely Tarabararov ( Inlundao ), Grape and Korean islands.

This act itself lay down on the old fears of the Chinese capture of Siberia, and even the accession of "and so our" Crimea Putin in the public mind did not quite atone for the surrender of the Amur Islands.
324   Onvacation   2022 Dec 27, 2:21pm  

Bd6r says


the land transfer was real.

So the Chinese didn't steal Russian land?

Your links suck.
326   Eric Holder   2023 Jan 9, 10:41am  

Russia’s Flagship Oil Is Trading at Half Global Prices With Tiny Pool of Buyers

Urals crude oil traded at about $38 a barrel on Friday
European ban made Russia increasingly reliant on China, India

ByAlaric Nightingale

January 9, 2023, 12:40 PM UTC

Russia’s flagship oil is selling at less than half international prices — and way below a Group of Seven imposed cap — following sanctions targeting the Kremlin’s revenue from petroleum sales.
The nation’s Urals grade, a far bigger export stream than any other crude that Russia sells, was $37.80 a barrel at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk on Friday, according to data provided by Argus Media. Global benchmark Brent settled at $78.57 on the same day.
...

On Dec. 5, the European Union all but halted seaborne crude imports from the country, killing what was historically Russia’s top export market. Simultaneously, the bloc joined with the G-7 industrialized nations in imposing a cap on the price of Russian supply. Anyone wishing access to Western services — in particular industry standard insurance, but also an array of other things — could only do so if they paid $60 of less.
A key driver of prices has probably been the lost European market, because it put Russia at the mercy of a tiny pool of large buyers, most notably China and India. And with tankers having to sail thousands of miles further to get cargoes from western Russian ports to those buyers, freight costs soared. That forced barrels to be discounted to compete with shipments from the Middle East.
...
-- Bloomberg
327   keeprubbersidedown   2023 Jan 9, 12:02pm  

Its all propaganda to make the west think this is all having an effect, so keep bending over and take some more. I once had an office in Moscow and Vladivostok. I have many friends from Russia, Ukraine. Its not that bad there. Better than here cost wise....
328   RWSGFY   2023 Jan 29, 9:56am  

$1B per week in revenue lost to oil cap & bans (WHICH ARE NOT WORKING!!!):

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z68JAgpXTzE&feature=youtu.be

Some slides from the presentation above:


























329   Eric Holder   2023 Feb 2, 11:32am  

“If Europe imposes sanctions on dairy starters, then we will not have sour cream in Russia. Now 90% of our market is imported starters. We simply do not have biofactories for their production,” said Sergey Bachin, the founder of Russia’s largest producer of meat and dairy organic products, AgriVolga.
330   AmericanKulak   2023 Feb 2, 12:00pm  

"If Kreative Klass Moscovites can't get their $50/lb imported Italian Cheeses, Putin will be overthrown" - Masha Gessen, paraphrased, some years ago.
331   HeadSet   2023 Feb 2, 5:32pm  

Sanctioning Russia will have the same effect as the sanctioning of the Union of South Africa did - the sanctioned nation will become more self-reliant. A nation like Russia that can build a MiG-29 can certainly learn to make their own cars and pacemakers.
332   Patrick   2023 Feb 3, 11:05am  

https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/lose-lose/


“The White House has taken the entire West in such a direction and speed of triumphalism, arrogance and “egregious” imbecility that there is no going back or reversal possible without a total defeat of the official narrative and the consequent eternal shame.” — Hugo Dionisio

The New York Times — indicted this week as a chronic purveyer of untruths by no less than their supposed ally, The Columbia Journalism Review — is lying to you again this morning.




This whopper is an artful diversion from the reality on-the-ground that Ukraine is just about finished in this tragic and idiotic conflict staged by the geniuses behind their play-thing President “Joe Biden.” By the way, it’s not a coincidence that Ukraine and “JB” are going down at the same time. The two organisms are symbionts: a matched pair of mutual parasites feeding off each other, swapping each other’s toxic exudations, and growing delirious on their glide path to a late winter crash.

The point of the war, you recall, is “to weaken Russia” (so said DoD Sec’y Lloyd Austin), even to bust it up into little geographic tatters to our country’s advantage — that is, to retain America’s dominance in global affairs, and especially the supremacy of the US dollar in global trade settlements.

The result of the war so far has been the opposite of that objective. US sanctions made Russia stronger by shifting its oil exports to more reliable Asian customers. Kicking Russia out of the SWIFT global payments system prompted the BRIC countries to build their own alternative trade settlement system. Cutting off Russia from trade with Western Civ has stimulated the process of import replacement (i.e., Russia making more of the stuff it used to buy from Europe). Confiscating Russia’s off-shore dollar assets has alerted the rest of the world to dump their dollar assets (especially US Treasury bonds) before they, too, get mugged. Nice going, Victoria Nuland, Tony Blinken, and the rest of the gang at the Foggy Bottom genius factory.

All of which raises the question: who is liable to bust up into tatters first, the USA or Russia? I commend to you Dmitry Orlov’s seminal work, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects, Revised & Updated. For anyone out there not paying attention the past thirty-odd years, Russia, incorporated as the Soviet Union, collapsed in 1991. The USSR was a bold experiment based on the peculiar and novel ill-effects of industrialism, especially gross economic inequality. Alas, the putative remedy for that, advanced by Karl Marx, was a despotic system of pretending that individual humans had no personal aspirations of their own.

The Soviet / Marxist business model was eventually reduced to the comic aphorism: We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us. It failed and the USSR gurgled down history’s drain. Russia reemerged from the dust, minus many of its Eurasian outlands. Remarkably little blood was shed in the process. Mr. Orlov’s book points to some very interesting set-ups that softened the landing. There was no private property in the USSR, so when it collapsed, nobody was evicted or foreclosed from where they lived. Very few people had cars in the USSR, so the city centers were still intact and people could get around on buses, trams, and trains. The food system had been botched for decades by low-incentive collectivism, but the Russian people were used to planting family gardens — even city dwellers, who had plots out-of-town — and it tided them over during the years of hardship before the country managed to reorganize.

Compare that to America’s prospects. In an economic crisis, Americans will have their homes foreclosed out from under them, or will be subject to eviction from rentals. The USA has been tragically built-out on a suburban sprawl template that will be useless without cars and with little public transport. Cars, of course, are subject to repossession for non-payment of contracted loans. The American food system is based on manufactured microwavable cheese snacks, chicken nuggets, and frozen pizzas produced by giant companies. These items can’t be grown in home gardens. Many Americans don’t know the first thing about growing their own food, or what to do with it after it’s harvested.

There’s another difference between the fall of the USSR and the collapse underway in the USA. Underneath all the economic perversities of Soviet life, Russia still had a national identity and a coherent culture. The USA has tossed its national identity on the garbage barge of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which is actually just a hustle aimed at extracting what remains from the diminishing stock of productive activity showering the plunder on a mob of “intersectional” complainers — e.g., the City of San Francisco’s preposterous new plan to award $5-million “reparation” payments to African-American denizens of the city, where slavery never existed.

As for culture, consider that the two biggest cultural producers in this land are the pornography and video game industries. The drug business might be a close third, but most of that action is off-the-books, so it’s hard to tell. So much for the so-called “arts.” Our political culture verges on totally degenerate, but that is too self-evident to belabor, and the generalized management failures of our polity are a big part of what’s bringing us down — most particularly the failure to hold anyone in power accountable for their blunders and turpitudes.

This unearned immunity might change, at least a little bit, as the oppositional House of Representatives commences hearings on an array of disturbing matters. Meanwhile, be wary of claims in The New York Times and other propaganda organs that our Ukraine project is a coming up a big win, and that the racketeering operations of the Biden family amount to an extreme right-wing, white supremacist conspiracy theory. These two pieces of the conundrum known as Reality are blowing up in our country’s face. It will be hard not to notice.

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