patrick.net

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.

Official government statistics agency Rosstat reports catastrophic losses across the entire corporate sectors of oil, gas & mining for Feb and March.

Highlights:

February 2025

Mining: -61%

Oil/Gas: -73%

March 2025

Mining: -89%

Oil/Gas: -106%

RWSGFY says

Official government statistics agency Rosstat reports catastrophic losses across the entire corporate sectors of oil, gas & mining for Feb and March.
Highlights:

it is as credible as Chicom statistics

they may be trying to put on some poser act like playing victim to show they are harmed by sanctions meanwhile they are doing okay selling oil and gas to China, India, etc

.

RWSGFY says

Official government statistics agency Rosstat reports catastrophic losses across the entire corporate sectors of oil, gas & mining for Feb and March.

Highlights:

February 2025

Mining: -61%

Oil/Gas: -73%

March 2025

Mining: -89%

Oil/Gas: -106%

Wow! With a -106% decrease in oil and gas production, the Russians must be stuffing oil back in the ground to unproduce that extra 6 percent.

stereotomy says

Wow! With a -106% decrease in oil and gas production, the Russians must be stuffing oil back in the ground to unproduce that extra 6 percent.

Hard to believe this , that is they are losing money as far as reporting the negative net income of 20.1 billion rubles

Looks like Kremlin propaganda to try to hide that they are making a lot of money still by selling to India, China, etc
.

MOSCOW, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and exporting infrastructure, striking the most important sector of President Vladimir Putin's economy to show it can fight back as the United States seeks to broker a peace deal.
The attacks disrupted Moscow's oil processing and exports, created gasoline shortages in some parts of Russia ...

...
Ukrainian attacks on 10 plants disrupted at least 17% of Russia's refinery capacity, or 1.1 million barrels per day, according to Reuters calculations.
The drone war has pushed more crude towards exports from the world's No.2 oil exporter at a time Washington is pressing China and India to reduce purchases of Russian oil.

...

Russia had tightened its gasoline export ban in July to deal with a spike in domestic demand even before the attacks.
There were shortages of gasoline in some areas of Russian-controlled Ukraine, southern Russia and even the Far East, forcing motorists to switch to more expensive petrol due to shortages of the regular A-95 grade.

...
Russia relies on oil and gas exports for a quarter of its budget revenues, which are funding a 25% rise in defence spending this year to the highest levels since the Cold War.

Historical Context:

During Hurricane Katrina (2005), when about 10% of refining capacity was disrupted, gasoline prices jumped nearly 30% in some areas. A 17% loss would likely exceed that, especially if prolonged.

I'm old enough to remember how the head of that fine institution was saying that Americans would have to use trampolines to get to the ISS if they decided to deny them rides on their rockets.

PS. After being fired from Roskosmos the guy went to Dumb-Ass and had his dumb ass literally blown off.

Eric Holder says

denazified

Ukraine is now attacking it's own troops?

Is it really that difficult to sanction Russia by removing GPS signal over Russian territory. That can make a lot of mess today. Military rely on this as well.
In meantime US taxpayers pay $2,000,000 per day average for GPS maintenance giving free world access.

REpro says

Is it really that difficult to sanction Russia by removing GPS signal over Russian territory. That can make a lot of mess today. Military rely on this as well.
In meantime US taxpayers pay $2,000,000 per day average for GPS maintenance giving free world access.

Russia has their own GPS System GLONASS with 24 Satellites. They've had this satellite system in space for decades.

rocketjoe79 says

REpro says

Is it really that difficult to sanction Russia by removing GPS signal over Russian territory. That can make a lot of mess today. Military rely on this as well.
In meantime US taxpayers pay $2,000,000 per day average for GPS maintenance giving free world access.

Russia has their own GPS System GLONASS with 24 Satellites. They've had this satellite system in space for decades.

And their military uses it completely.

Europe also has their own system too, I think.

I'd be surprised if the Chinese don't.

More sanctions:

MOSCOW, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Rosneft’s Ryazan oil refinery, one of the largest in Russia, suspended crude processing after a Ukrainian drone attack on November 15, three industry sources told Reuters.
"The plant is expected to remain idle until the end of the month. No (oil product) loadings are planned before December 1," one of the sources said.

WookieMan says

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.

Grok:

By Russian law (Federal Law No. 115-FZ), U.S. citizens with a valid visa can travel domestically in non-combat zones via trains, buses, or flights without special permits. No blanket bans apply to internal movement in these areas. However, visas tie to pre-submitted itineraries, limiting deviations to approved purposes.

But it took 4 queries to find that answer, because Grok and other AI was just saying "Russia bad don't go there" over and over in various ways. This makes me suspect that AI is being used for political purposes.

More oil sanctions:

ISTANBUL — Ukraine used domestically produced Sea Baby naval drones to strike two Russian oil tankers in the Black Sea, an official from Ukraine’s security services told the Associated Press on Saturday.

The two oil tankers, Kairos and Virat — said to be part of Paper Tiger's “shadow fleet” that evades sanctions — were struck in quick succession off Turkey’s Black Sea coast late Friday afternoon.

The strikes prompted rescue operations by the Turkish coast guard and other teams. Crew members on board both vessels were reported to be safe.

The SBU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operations, provided a video of the alleged attack, purporting to show the destruction of two tankers at sea.

The official said the two tankers were vessels sanctioned by the West, adding that Ukrainian intelligence continued “to take active steps to curtail Paper Tiger's financial capabilities to wage war against Ukraine.”

Sea Baby naval drones had disabled vessels capable of transporting oil worth almost $70 million, hindering Russia’s efforts to circumvent international sanctions, the official said.

Why don't Paper Tiger use its Black Sea Fleet to escort and protect their tankers? :trollface:

And yet more oil sanctions:

The Caspian Pipeline Consortium has halted operations at its marine terminal in Novorossiysk following what the company describes as a drone boat attack on its offshore mooring equipment.

The consortium, which transports Kazakh and Russian oil to global markets, announced the incident on social media. Loading and other port operations have stopped, and tankers were moved outside the CPC water area.

"As a result, the company's mooring equipment was damaged," the company reported, adding that emergency protection systems activated to shut down pipelines prevented any oil spill into the Black Sea.

No casualties were reported among CPC personnel or contractors.

The company said the berth can no longer be used ...

What's Black Sea Fleet doing? Novorosiysk is their home base since they lost Sevastopol and yet no protection for vital oil export infrastracture. This is beyond neutered, this is "doesn't exist anymore" kinda deal, lol.

The long arm of sanctions reaching as far as African coast:

At 11:45 pm on Thursday, November 27, the Mersin – a tanker anchored for two months 10 nautical miles (19 kilometers) off the Senegalese coast – suffered damage: "four external explosions," according to its Turkish owner, Besiktas Shipping, on Monday, December 1. The vessel, registered in Panama, sustained severe damage.

As shown in videos posted on social media, the stern of the 183-meter-long ship was half-submerged, a fact confirmed by the owner, who mentioned "water ingress in the engine room." The Mersin had departed on August 21 from Taman, a port near the Kerch Strait...

RWSGFY says

What's Black Sea Fleet doing? Novorosiysk is their home base since they lost Sevastopol and yet no protection for vital oil export infrastracture. This is beyond neutered, this is "doesn't exist anymore" kinda deal, lol.

The Russian navy is about as useful as it's air force LOL!

Patrick says

This makes me suspect that AI is being used for political purposes.

So much for objective, unbiased and reliability.

PeopleUnited says

Patrick says

This makes me suspect that AI is being used for political purposes.

So much for objective, unbiased and reliability.

That is the end game. Social media was the same thing, started under pretenses of it being simple community chat, turned into government and corporate controlled mass manipulation tool. Zuckerberg is a real piece of crap.