patrick.net

Patrick says

Russia’s economy expanded 3.6% in 2023 despite the economic sanctions imposed by the EU, the US and their allies since the start of the special operation in Ukraine in 2022.

Just like we adjusted the jobs report 800k here. All countries lie about their economics. I don't believe any of it. I go by what I see. 99.9% of Americans won't go to Russia, so they can't see it with their own eyes.

i literally don’t understand how did swamp elites got so many americans to care and hate russia out of nowhere. them 2 minutes hate rituals must have worked. monday we were thinking about work week, tuesday america transitioned into Russia hate. some like that.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/historic-wednesday-october-23-2024

If one thing has remained constant in the ever-shifting propaganda landscape of the Proxy War, beyond its kaleidoscopic narratives and chameleonic claims, it is the ever-present background refrain sung by the mockingbird media chorus that “Putin’s aggression has made Russia increasingly isolated.” I could show you at least a hundred headlines parroting that phrase, “increasingly isolated.” But if Russia gets any more isolated, Putin will be living in downtown Manhattan.

Yesterday, corporate media ran scads of quiet but unavoidable stories about what is surely one of the most, if not the most historic political meeting in our lifetimes. The New York Times’ article was originally headlined, “Putin Welcomes Xi and Other World Leaders to Russia for BRICS Summit.”

In a telling sign of how terrified the deep state blob is about this meeting, the Times stealth-edited its original headline, to smear Putin and to remove any reference to the BRICS. It now reads, “Seeking to Elude Sanctions, Putin and Xi Promise ‘A Just World Order.’” ...

Even the Times seems to recognize that the “increasingly isolated” canard is wearing thin. Consider this remarkable paragraph, wedged late in the story, rife with admissions of the failures both of Western sanctions and anti-Russia Proxy War propaganda:

"For Russia to have 22 leaders and representatives of over 30
countries coming to Kazan two and a half years into this war does
not only show that Putin is not isolated internationally and the
I.C.C. warrant is of limited utility, but also that the war in Ukraine
has become a new normal, something accepted as a feature of
international reality," said Hanna Notte of the James Martin Center
for Nonproliferation Studies in California."

... Ignoring BRICS is what got us here, morons. To be fair, they aren’t ignoring BRICS. Biden’s out-of-control neocons are deploying their entire bag of dirty tricks against the BRICS nations, including blowing up undersea pipelines, creating colorful color revolutions, and funding endless Proxy Wars. Biden’s neocons want us to ignore the BRICS, so we don’t realize that Biden is crashing the American dollar faster than that F-35 the Air Force lost over South Carolina. ...

What else can you call this except failure? How many billions were wasted, with that lackwit Lindsay Graham chortling all the way, calling it the best money America ever spent? Spent for what? To erect an anti-Western coalition of countries bent on creating a more competitive world currency than the dollar? ...

Regardless what you think of Putin, the fact is right now the United States offers the world nothing hopeful like this. Just the opposite. The U.S. has rabbited so far down the deep state’s dirty-tricks hole that our entire foreign policy is now just a vast secretive effort to undermine things other nations are doing, rather than building anything better ourselves.

The core problem is that our current crop of DEI-infused leaders lack the intellectual capacity to build anything. They can’t run a profitable lemonade stand without first regulating their competitors out of business. In other words, the only thing they are good at is breaking stuff.

My fanciful dream is that, if Trump is elected, we might shut down for good the deep-state’s dirty tricks division, and join the BRICS. Maybe we could work with other countries instead of trying to force them to swallow drag queens. Maybe, as a significant BRICS member, we could help build a new, better, more stable, less manipulated, gold-based world currency. Maybe we could finally replace the corrupt, ineffective, cronyist United Nations with something that actually works.

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/trumps-october-surprise-friday-october

Yesteday BRICS released a comprehensive plan to which its members and applicant members agreed. BRICS is not, in fact, creating any new global currency. Instead, it’s creating an alternative international payments platform, for people buying and selling things across borders, or for when nations trade with each other (to buy weapons, grain, or oil, for three examples).

Right now, everyone must use a common payment settlement system called SWIFT. SWIFT is U.S. created and effectively controlled, even though it is ostensibly privately owned and supposedly located in Belgium. The thought that SWIFT is at all independent is a great gag that everyone at the State Department always guffaws about making them cough champagne up their noses.

For many countries, SWIFT has at least two huge problems. When I say the platform is effectively U.S.-controlled, you can imagine all the implications. Users’ data is supposed to be private, but for some reason everybody thinks the U.S. constantly snoops on where all the money is going to and coming from. (One possibility for why they think that is because Edward Snowden exposed it all in 2013, but I digress again.)

The second, even bigger problem is that the U.S. acts like the spoiled kid at his birthday party, refusing to let the kids he doesn’t like ride the rented pony. In other words, the U.S. forces countries to do things they hate, like teach their kids trans techniques, by threatening to cut them off from SWIFT, or snatching their money as it travels through the collected SWIFT system.

Russia, for example, is cut off from SWIFT under U.S. sanctions. And $300 billion of its money was seized while sitting in a SWIFT clearinghouse bank. The implacable Russians are great poker players, you can’t never tell if they’re at all mad about Biden snatching their $300 billion or exploding their undersea pipelines.

But you can imagine how mad the Russians must be.

The Russians are mad enough to spend their time and money leading a world movement to replace the G-7 and its captive SWIFT system. Which would be horrible for us.

Once BRICS has its own interbanking system, they won’t need to trade in dollars anymore, not unless they need something from the U.S. or from a G-7 country. For complicated reasons, the reduced demand for dollars just from those lost transfers will drastically worsen our debt problem. And maybe more important for BRICS countries, the U.S. won’t be able threaten sanctions to force them to swallow every lunatic social experiment that comes down the liberal U.S. pike.

The BRICS pitched their interbanking system yesterday as a non-threatening “alternative” to SWIFT, rather than any kind of direct competitor. Having choices, they stressed, just improves everyone’s outcomes. But that logic is like claiming that when you parked your taco truck right next to Jose’s taco truck, it is actually better for Jose’s taco trade since diners like different choices of tacos.

Jose is not likely to agree. Jose is likely to go loco. ...

The U.S. could shut this BRICS initiative down easily and immediately. All we need to do is reform SWIFT. If the U.S. stopped using SWIFT to sanction other countries, and SWIFT opened up its system transparently, and the U.S. stopped using SWIFT for spying, then BRICS would be unnecessary.

And everyone would keep trading in dollars.

In other words, we could rescue the dollar. We only need to give up the ‘dirty tricks’ tool we use to force other countries to make their kids sit through drag queen happy hours. But Biden’s neocons won’t try that simple remedy, will they? They’ll let the dollar be destroyed before they give up their economic wonder weapon.

For the first time in history, one of the largest Russian dry cargo ships of the Russian Defense Ministry, which was under sanctions, was destroyed in the Mediterranean Sea by three explosions. Unknown militias began the destruction of the Russian fleet in the world's oceans
An unprecedented event. The Russian fleet suffered a heavy loss in the Mediterranean Sea. Today, the Oboronlogistika company, which works for the Russian Defense Ministry, announced the details of the destruction of one of its largest and most modern dry cargo ships of the Ursa Major type, a Ro-Ro type, with a full displacement of 12,700 tons, which was built in Germany in 2009. Since 2022, the ship has been under US sanctions for participating in aggression against Ukraine. The entire crew is Russian citizens.
According to the report of Oboronlogistika, Ursa Major was carrying on deck two mobile portal cranes with a total weight of 686 tons, manufactured in Germany, Liebherr 420. Russia does not make such cranes, it cannot buy them again in Europe due to sanctions, there is nowhere to buy them quickly, so it had to be transferred to the Far East from Europe.
On December 23, off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea at 1:50 p.m., three explosions occurred on the starboard side near the stern of the ship.
During an inspection of the explosion site, the Russians noticed one of the craters, measuring 50 by 50 centimeters, which was approximately 15-30 centimeters above the waterline.
The crater looked like a minor threat for such a large ship, but there were three hits, and they were aimed with jewelery precision - the explosions completely disabled the ship's power systems, so the Russian sailors were unable to start the backup power supply, pump out water, and organize a fight for survivability. At 15.10 the Russian sailors abandoned the ship, leaving two of their comrades on board, who could not be found. At 23.22 the Ursa Major sank 70 miles south of Cartagena, Spain.
Oboronlogistika announced a "terrorist attack" on the ship.
The Russians have no evidence to establish what and who destroyed such a large ship, which belonged to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
No organization has taken responsibility for what happened.
But from now on, no Russian ship and no cargo on Russian ships will feel safe anywhere in the world's oceans.
These are the most effective sanctions against Russian maritime trade that have been applied since the beginning of the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion.

RWSGFY says

These are the most effective sanctions against Russian maritime trade that have been applied since the beginning of the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion.

1) STOP posting shit like Ohomo does. Have ever heard of fucking paragraphs?
2) Even if half of this is true, Russia can easily retaliated.
3) What's worse is Sweden stopping Russian ships leaving St Petersburg for insurance and environmental bullshit.

LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - At least 65 oil tankers have dropped anchor at multiple locations, including off the coasts of China and Russia, since the United States announced a new sanctions package on Jan. 10, ship tracking data showed on Monday.

Five of those tankers were stationary off Chinese ports and a further seven dropped anchor off Singapore, with others halting near Russia in the Baltic Sea and the Far East, according to Reuters' analysis based on MarineTraffic and LSEG ship tracking data.

The U.S. Treasury on Friday imposed sanctions on Russian oil producers Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz, as well as on 183 vessels that have shipped Russian oil, as it targets the revenues Moscow has used to fund its war with Ukraine.

The halt in trading for these tankers adds to further pressure on vessels already hit by previous U.S. sanctions.

These include another 25 oil tankers that were stationary around various locations, including off Iranian ports and also near to the Suez Canal, ship tracking analysis showed on Monday.

Some ports have already acted before the latest measures, adding further strains. Shandong Port Group banned tankers under U.S. sanctions from calling at its ports, traders said last week.

Analysts estimated that around 10% of the global oil tanker fleet was subject to US sanctions.
"The effect of these sanctions should be supportive to the tanker market as vessel supply in the broader fleet shrinks, but the real potential strength would come once other exporters make up for the lost volumes," Jefferies analyst Omar Nokta said in a note on Monday.

Average daily earnings for supertankers jumped over 10% on Monday versus the previous day to around $26,000, according to market estimates.

Some charterers already tried to secure ships on Friday after the sanctions were announced, pointing to the tightening supply of ships.

"Increased demand for exports to India and China from outside Russia will increase non-sanctioned tanker demand," trade analytics platform Kpler said on Monday.

MOSCOW, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia's vast Arctic oil business is facing major disruption from U.S. sanctions on its tankers and depots, stranding crude supplies previously snapped up by Asian buyers in storage, according to three sources familiar with its logistics.

The sanctions, opens new tab unveiled on Friday are the toughest yet on Russia's oil sector, targeting major producers Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM), opens new tab and Surgutneftegas as well as 183 vessels that have shipped Russian oil.

Three sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said all three of Russia's Arctic oil grades - Novy Port, ARCO and Varandey, with about 300,000 barrels of output per day - face disruption.

The vessels and infrastructure needed by Russia's Arctic oil business, which accounts for a tenth of its seaborne oil exports, are unique, two of the sources said.

Novy Port crude from Gazprom Neft's Novoportovskoye field, where temperatures can hit -55 C, ARCO, from the Prirazlomnaya offshore platform, and Varandey, from Lukoil's Timan-Pechora fields, are shuttled by a special type of ice-class vessel to the Umba and Kola floating storage facilities near Murmansk.

It is then offloaded to larger vessels - Aframax or Suezmax that can carry 100,000-140,000 tons, compared to the smaller vessels' 30,000 tons - for shipment to the international market.

The United States has now sanctioned both Umba and Kola, and more than a dozen small tankers used as shuttle suppliers of oil from the fields.

According to LSEG data, at least 15 of the tankers sanctioned by the U.S. on Friday, including the Shturman Scherbinin, Mikhail Ulyanov and Aulis, have been actively involved in shipping Russian Arctic grades during the last two months.

The smaller shuttle tankers were designed to operate in northern seas and have a specific design allowing them to load more oil without compromising keel clearance.

"There is no option to replace those quickly. Nothing like this to buy elsewhere. The vessels were specifically built for the projects," one of the sources said.

That could leave Russia with millions of barrels of unsold oil in storage, the sources said. According to one, the limited storage capacities at all three projects mean a couple of weeks of loading disruptions might lead to cuts in output.
...
Gazprom Neft, which produces ARCO and Novy Port, was also added to the U.S. sanction package directly, although Lukoil, which produces Varandey, was not.

ASIA BOUND

Novy Port and Varandey are favoured by refiners worldwide for their high quality - both are light, with 0.1-0.4% sulphur.

The Arctic grades, which prior to a 2022 EU embargo had been purchased by refineries in northwest Europe, have more recently been snapped up by refiners in India and China.

"Light Arctic oil grades from Russia were priced above the (G7) price cap due to their premium quality," one of the sources familiar with dealings in the Indian oil market said.

India and China have shown however that they are not ready to accept oil coming from sanctioned tankers, and have started to look for replacements for Russian oil.
..
India reduced U.S. oil buying after it started to snap up cheap Russian barrels from the market a couple of years ago, but a source at one Indian refiner said his company is looking at buying more U.S. oil.

THAT'S RIGHT! BUY MOAR US OIL, MUTHAFAKAS!!!!

"If we don't make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries," Trump said.

Eric Holder says

"If we don't make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries," Trump said.

What did Biden miss something ???

Misc says

Eric Holder says

"If we don't make a 'deal,' and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries," Trump said.

What did Biden miss something ???

A lot of things, actually. He did a half-ass job.

The Russian economy faced a precipitous drop in export revenues at the end of 2024, according to statistics from the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

In December, exporters exported goods worth $31.3 billion, and their revenue fell by 19% year-on-year. Of this amount, $25.7 billion left the country to pay for imports. As a result, the net inflow from foreign trade (trade surplus) shrank to $5.6 billion, the lowest since 2020. If you take into account the export and import of services, then in December the Russian economy earned only $2 billion in trade surplus, and this is also the lowest since the pandemic.

“The deterioration in foreign trade at the end of the year could have been due to the effect of sanctions imposed at the end of November against the Russian banking sector, which affected payments and, apparently, slowed down export flows,” Raiffeisenbank analysts write. Gazprombank, the last of the large state-owned banks that retained access to dollar settlements and the SWIFT system, fell under the American restrictions. Along with it, 50 more credit institutions that serviced foreign trade were blacklisted.

The Russian economy saw even less real currency: in December, foreign assets of Russian companies, according to the Central Bank, grew by another $4.9 billion. This means that “part of the foreign exchange earnings remains in accounts abroad and does not enter the domestic currency market,” says BCS analyst Ilya Fedorov. Over the year, the volume of such “frozen” income, according to Moneyroo estimates, reached $20 billion.

Eric Holder says

THAT'S RIGHT! BUY MOAR US OIL, MUTHAFAKAS!!!!

MUTHAFRACKERS!

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/none-shall-sleep-monday-february

In the long, deplorable history of stupid foreign policy decisions, one big blunder stands out: Biden’s pugilistic decision to impose massive, across-the-board sanctions on Russia. In three short years, instead of bankrupting Russia, Biden’s sanctions skyrocketed Russia up the economic charts to fourth largest economy in the world, and transformed it from a “developing” to a “wealthy” economy.

The main reason why Biden’s sanctions backfired so spectacularly is because they solved Putin’s biggest economic problem. At the risk of oversimplifying, let’s recap recent history. Following the collapse of communism in the late 80’s, Russia’s fledgling free market flourished. But it came with a lot of crime. All that crime eventually blossomed into a cruel cartel of corrupt oligarchs.

So the Russian people elected Vladimir Putin, at least in part, with a mandate to clamp down on the rampant crime and corruption accompanying the country’s freed market. Putin did. Many corrupt oligarchs accidentally tumbled off the balconies of their luxury high-rise apartments, taking speedy, one-way trips to the pavement.

But even as corruption was brought under control, Russia’s reforming economy still sputtered.

Russia’s next problem was that even its loyal, law-abiding oligarchs and entrepreneurs rationally saw better financial prospects outside Russia. It was a chicken-and-egg problem. Russia’s lack of development encouraged its entrepreneurs to invest in other countries. This kind of capital drift slowly bled Russia’s economy, which was stuck in a vicious cycle— perhaps better than communism, but still not quite first world.

Enter the answer to all Putin’s financial problems: Joseph Robinette Biden. After Biden closed off international investment as a viable option, Russia’s capitalists had no choice but to start investing back into Russia. This new domestic focus created an economic renaissance like nothing in Russian history. Russia’s economy has improved in nearly every measure.

Hapless Joe Biden single-handedly created a Golden Age in Russia.

Sanctions are the ultimate tariffs - if Kunstler is to be believed, then the syllogism indicates that Trump is on the right track.

Syllogism - A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All humans are mortal, the major premise, I am a human, the minor premise, therefore, I am mortal, the conclusion.

WASHINGTON — President Trump is prepared to increase US sanctions for Russia to bring about an end to its war on Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, his special envoy to the conflict, exclusively told The Post this week ...

Sanctions enforcement on Russia are “only about a 3” on a scale of 1 to 10 on how painful the economic pressure can be, Kellogg said. The US sanctions themselves — such as those targeting Russia’s lucrative energy sector — are nominally twice as high, but there is still room to ratchet them up.

“You could really increase the sanctions — especially the latest sanctions [targeting oil production and exports,]” he said. “It’s opened the aperture way high to do something.

“And if there’s anybody who understands leverage, it’s President Donald J. Trump, and you can see that with what he’s recently done [in other foreign problem-solving.]”

-- New York Post

Ukrainian drones struck a key pumping station on a major international pipeline in southern Russia, disrupting oil supplies from Kazakhstan, the pipeline operator said Monday.

In the latest attack overnight, seven explosive-laden drones struck a pumping station of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which carries Kazakh oil across southern Russia for export via the Black Sea, including to Western Europe.

"Oil transportation through the Tengiz-Novorossiysk pipeline system is being carried out at reduced pumping levels," the company said on social media.

The 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) pipeline is operated by a consortium that includes the Russian and Kazakh governments, as well as Western energy majors Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell. In 2024, the pipeline loaded more than 63 million tons of oil onto tankers at its terminal in the southern Russian port of Novorossiysk, the company said.

The overnight attack targeted the Kropotkinskaya pumping station, the pipeline's largest in Russia's southern Krasnodar region.

...

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/17/ukrainian-drones-hit-major-pipeline-in-southern-russia-disrupting-oil-supplies-a88043

Another refinery denazified:

https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1892158491478893030

Ryazan refinery demilitrarized (for the 3rd time in so many months):

"MOSCOW, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Russia's Ryazan oil refinery has suspended operations after an attack by Ukrainian drones on Monday, three industry sources told Reuters.
The main crude distillation unit at the refinery, CDU-6, caught fire in the attack and the plant has fully suspended oil processing, the sources said.
Rosneft, which owns the plant, did not respond to a request for comment. Ukraine's military said on Monday some of its drones had hit the Ryazan oil refinery overnight, with at least five explosions occurring in its vicinity.

The governor of the Ryazan region, Pavel Malkov, said on the Telegram messaging app that falling debris from destroyed Ukrainian drones had sparked a fire at an industrial enterprise in the region. Malkov did not elaborate.

The CDU-6 unit has a capacity of some 170,000 bpd, or some 48% of Ryazan's refining capacity.

Ryazan refinery partially resumed oil processing and loading of motor fuels to railway tanks on February 11 after staying idle for 18 days after another attack by Ukrainian drones on January 24.

Ryazan refinery processed 13.1 million metric tons (262,000 barrels per day), or almost 5% of Russia's total refining throughput in 2024.

Another refinery liberated overnight:

On the night of 25-26 February, Ukraine’s Defence Intelligence (DIU), in coordination with other units of the defence forces, launched an attack on the Tuapse oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai.

The source indicates that the attack resulted in at least 40 explosions and a fire at the facility, damaging oil refining equipment.

Local residents have shared photos and videos online showing the aftermath and reported that the attack also targeted the local seaport.

The affected facilities play a key role in supplying logistical support to the Russian forces.

Further details on the damage caused by the strike are being clarified.

Ukies have this so in the bag, with just the Europeans paying for Ukraine, they'll have no problem. If the Russians cross the Vistula we have nukes.

AmericanKulak says

Ukies have this so in the bag, with just the Europeans paying for Ukraine, they'll have no problem. If the Russians cross the Vistula we have nukes.

Who is 'we'?

Eric Holder says

MOSCOW, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Russia's vast Arctic oil business is facing major disruption from U.S. sanctions

usaid funded reuters

Another refinery denazified:

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1896335503898599824

Eric Holder says

Another refinery denazified:

https://x.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1896335503898599824

Right.

Last year, the Eloi bought $22 billion in Russian gas/oil despite 'sanctions'. They paid less than that for 'saving Ukraine'.

This entire thread is Ukey Fluffing Bullshit.

Major oil facility sanctioned and denazified by drones:

Ukraine has carried out a second attack on oil export infrastructure in Russia's Krasnodar region in the space of a month, striking a transshipment and storage facility which processes more than 28,000 barrels per day of Russian oil destined for international markets.

Krasnodar authorities on Wednesday confirmed that suicide drones attacked the privately-operated Kazkazskaya facility in the south of the country in the early hours of 19 March. The aerial assault caused a large fire, according to pictures and videos of the incident posted by witnesses on Russian social networks on Wednesday.
Russia's defence ministry said that three Ukrainian drones were used in the attack on the facility, carried out shortly after Moscow and Washington agreed a partial ceasefire to halt strikes on each others' energy and power generating infrastructure. An oil reservoir on the site has burned out as a result of the attack, the ministry said.

Kazkazskaya receives light and sweet oil from Russian producers by rail, and then ships the crude about 13 kilometres via pipeline to the Kropotkinskaya pumping and storage station operated by Caspian Pipeline Consortium.

The facility was responsible for delivering more than 28,000 barrels per day of Russian oil to the Caspian Pipeline last year, or about 19% of total Russian oil exports via the network, according to reports in Moscow.

The attack on Kazkazskaya follows an earlier strike on the Kropotkinskaya pumping station by Ukrainian drones. The facility on 17 February reportedly suffered damage to its gas-fired power generation and electronic control rooms which manage the pumping facility.

After assessing the damage to Kropotkinskaya, Caspian Pipeline Consortium indicated that repairs would take about two months during which operations of the station will be stopped, with expected completion in May.

https://www.upstreamonline.com/energy-security/ukraine-hits-another-russian-oil-facility-to-delay-black-sea-exports/2-1-1794817

https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/billionaire-boomerang-tuesday-april

Before the Proxy War, Russia’s economy was over-reliant on foreign investment. Biden’s sanctions made foreign investment impossible, and the unexpected result was a renaissance in Russia’s economy, as Russian billionaires —cut off from their London townhouses and Swiss banks— were forced to invest at home.

Cut off from the West, Russia didn’t wither. It de-globalized and re-nationalized— and it worked. In just two years, Russia rocketed from mid-level doldrums to the top of the world’s wealthiest countries list. Once an ailing, foreign-dependent economy, Russia is now independent, politically stable, economically self-sufficient, and —despite all expert predictions— stronger than ever.

Patrick says

Once an ailing, foreign-dependent economy, Russia is now independent, politically stable, economically self-sufficient, and —despite all expert predictions— stronger than ever.

The oligarchs, sure. Average citizens are probably getting smashed. It's not all that easy for a US citizen to get in so who knows if it's a lie. Also no one wants to go there unless they're paid for it.

I only know of two US citizens personally that have been to Russia. And they couldn't just roam where they wanted. They wall you in at the west end of Russia by the major cities. The quality of living from my understanding is shit outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Maybe some other small cities by the Black Sea.

It's no different than N Korea. If people or outsiders don't see it or record it, it's not happening the way they tell the story. A Russian can fly into America with minimal hassle and take a tour of the whole country. Russia hides their poverty is what I've been told.

We broadcast our homelessness globally whether it's Seattle, LA, Austin, NYC, etc. Put this way you can be middle class here on $100k, in Russia it would be like making $20k. Again this is from the two people I know that went. The cities are great they said, but get outside them and it's ghetto Russians.

Patrick says

Before the Proxy War, Russia’s economy was over-reliant on foreign investment. Biden’s sanctions made foreign investment impossible, and the unexpected result was a renaissance in Russia’s economy, as Russian billionaires —cut off from their London townhouses and Swiss banks— were forced to invest at home.

Wow!

This is an important and recent lesson for the USA.

If sanctions caused Russian Billionaires to reinvest in the Russia, imagine what tariffs will do for the reindustrialization of our economy!

It's almost as if the US, full of iron, coal, wheat, pork bellies, oil, etc. is in a similar position, with the added benefit that tariffs, unlike foreign-imposed sanctions, are under our control and we can tweak them as appropriate.

Field vs. Clark (1892), SCOTUS established the Congressional Authority to delegate to the President the power of tariffs.

We can just do things.

By the way, the Panic of 1893 was caused by reducing the Tariff by Demonrat Free Traders, who also introduced an income tax that was shot down by SCOTUS in 1894. It smashed the tin plate (stain resistant plating prior to mild and then stainless steel) and other industries leading to 25-35% unemployment rates by misguided economic policies.



Fortunately in 1897, McKinley the Great reimposed a high tariff rate, the Dingly Act, that recovered the Economy.

External Revenue Service Tax outsourcing and importing, not American Productivity.

Another great idea is a Navigation Act that requires at least 50% of imports be brought in on US owned, insured, flagged, and built ships/aircraft with US Crews. The USN is has the USNR

Renaissance with central bank interest rate at 20%, mortgages at 40% and all manufacturing basically working to crank out (or refurbish) stuff which will go to be destroyed in some Dumb Ass field.

With renaissances like that who needs malaise. 🤡

And no, I don't think anybody moved any money from London to Moscow. They are not THAT stupid. The KGB fucks are burning through (what's left of) theire National Wealth Fund.

What general benefits has Free Trade since the 1990s brought to the average American who owns little to no stock?

Mass high wage unemployment? Definitely not.
Cheap Housing? LOL.
Low Personal or Government Debt? Bwahahahaha. The US has never seen so much debt in it's history. Most of which happened in the past 20-25 years.
High Quality goods lasting years? You're lucky if Chinese crap lasts 3-4 years.
Lower Taxes? Hell no.
Less SNAP, Medicaid, EIC, other government programs? No way.
Less Corporate subsidies? LOL
Less Corporate Bailouts? The 1990-2024 period saw the greatest bailouts, both as percentages and raw dollars, of any period in US History, under mostly RINO Congresses.
More Democracy & Freedom in CHYna? Hahahahahaa
Reciprocal low tariff rates on things the US is good at (ie not pink plastic lawn flamingoes, but cars, chickens, dairy, aircraft)? Not at all.

Economic Reality-based Evidence Trumps Economic Theory on the Chalkboard. Free Trade has demonstrably failed.

But but but, how did China have tariffs on us?

I thought tariffs led to economic disaster, according to Wall Street?

I thought free trade was reciprocated, certainly given 30 years!

So how did China built such a massive industrial base with such GDP growth annually while charging evil, uneconomical tariffs and never reciprocating free trade in 3 decades? ;)

And the only prescription is more tariffs

MolotovCocktail says

Who is 'we'?

France, Britain, and if necessary if it goes beyond a tac here and there, the USA.