Enjoy the borscht, friend! Fruit of Erd!
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Well, the Russians do know how to enforce their airspaceā¦
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I will miss the vodkaā¦but not too much. Itās still the bestā¦but even dark horses like Ireland are in that game now.
Not getting jingoistic hereā¦butā¦
āU.S.ā Madness? Really?
Methinks the straightjacket belongs elsewhere this time.
Excellent point.
Russia slapped itself. Not letting people sell you stuff means you pay more for said stuff. Yeah, it will make European farmers sad, but farmers are not exactly the lifeblood of Europeās economy. So, Russia did essentially no damage to Europeās economy and just increased the cost of living for all of their citizens. Brilliant.
The simple European response to doing so something so incredibly stupid would be to ban Russian commercial air travel over its airspace. Guess who loses that game? Flying around Russia is annoying and imparts an extra cost on business travel for Europeans. Europe banning Russian flights cripples Russianās economy.
Russia has nothing to threaten with other than it can beat up on its non-NATO neighbors militarily. The only real leverage Russia has beyond kicking the snot out of its defenseless neighbors is its gas supplies but again, it hurts them more than it hurts Europe. Cut off Europe from natural gas and the Americans and Canadians, the people sitting on the largest natural gas supplies in the world, will just let out three cheers.
I want what you are smoking.
There is no financial cost to the US; at all. The absolute worst thing Russia could do is cut off European gas supplies and make the Americans filthy rich. Americans can only economically win. They are laughing their way to the bank as Europe slowly shifts their natural gas consumption away from Russia. The only reason why the US does just go, āNo world wide banking for you!ā and economically decapitate Russia is because the US wants something to hold over Russia so that if they really go to town on one of their neighbors, the US still has rocks to throw over the wall.
Russia has outmaneuvered itself. They have gotten some worthless land at the cost of economic sanctions. Maybe they can gobble up a little more (also worthless) Ukrainian land before this is all done. It is a raw deal for Ukraine, but it is worse for Russia. Russia has finally convinced Europe that it isnāt a trustworthy trading partner. People were not exactly kicking down the doors to work with Russia to begin with, but after this, you would have to be a fool to enter into long term contracts with Russia. The chances of your business getting sunk by sanctions is simply too high. Russia is currently fucking its own economy. The only thing they are getting out of this is that it play well for the domestic crowds. The rest of the world is just slowly backing away.
Russia isnāt some new pole unless you happen to be one of the poor bastards that have to share a border with it. Russia is an economically worthless and their GDP is only propped up by resource extraction. They have a per capita GDP below Argentina and Poland and again, it is propped up by resource extraction. The unipolar world is certainly slowly fading, but Russia has nothing to do with it. The EU and China are the reason why American power is relatively declining in importance. If Brazil and India get their shit together, they will probably act as poles. Russia though? Russia is terrifying to its non-NATO neighbors and a nothing more than a nuisance everywhere else.
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The ālargest gas reservesā are pretty likely just a propaganda of the fracking industry to prop up the share value.
http://shalebubble.org/
Meanwhile, Russia is supplying gas to China and canāt be happier.
The new Russia/China gas deal doesnāt begin delivery until 2018. The fields itās supposed to pull from arenāt developed for export yet. So, what Russia will have to do in the meantime is ink a new contract with China to get them to buy the fuel currently in production for the west. China may not do that.
Russia is well-known for propaganda, and the deal currently existing between the countries was made with a lot of pomp and circumstance - after failing to get signed off on a few times. They got it done at the end of May, right when Russia was threatening gas sanctions for Ukraine. Even with this new deal, China wonāt be the one needing Russia - itās Russia that needs China.
As of 2006, Russia only supplied China with 2 percent of oil and 8 percent of its energy needs but that figure is expected to rise to around 15 percent of energy needs when planned pipelines are built. China doesnāt want to become too dependent on Russia for oil. There are still hostilities which date back to skirmishes on the 1960s.(Source)
China is allowing Russia to step in on gas. If Russia wasnāt there, China could either trade with other nations, or try more ways to reduce gas and other carbon fuel use - and theyāre doing just that. In fact, last year China passed new legislation concerning renewable energy. So, as Russia tries to tap this new market - the market itself is trying to close down its dependency.
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Good more California Mandarin oranges for me.
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Here are the embargoed countries: European Union, United States, Australia, Canada and Norway.
Not Embargoed: Africa, Central and South America, China, India, Middle East, and Asia.
Also from the same article
āThe ban will not cover baby food and people will still be able to buy the banned products abroad if they want, but warned those who try to profit from reselling them will be harshly punished.ā
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Well, if you agree with what US foreign policy has done to Ukraine, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel/Gaza, then perhaps madness isnāt the best way to describe what the US has.
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They given themselves one year to invest in their own food infrastructure with limited
outside competition. Another point of the sanctions is that it begins to put countries within the EU against each other. Southern Europe will most likely be the ones to start feeling the hurt and putting pressure on the EU to back away from the earlier EU imposed sanctions.
Keep in mind that Russia only announced what the sanctions were and who against. It might have changed but they havenāt said when they go into effect. Russia also implied that more sanctions could happen. You can probably imagine the chaos created as member states of the EU start crunching numbers and start expressing their self interests.
Guess who already did that? The EU. They did it to Dobrolet over flights to Crimea. It wonāt hurt Russia because the EU hasnāt blocked Russian flights yet. It simply means if you want to fly to Asia from the EU, youāll probably be traveling on an Asian carrier.
The problem I see here is that the US has beat up on non-NATO countries, and Russia hasnāt.
ā¦BRICS
While they might not be the future pole, they certainly have shown other emerging countries that you can stand up to the US.
It seems like weāve been hearing this line for over 10 years.
Edit: Old graph removed because of incomplete data.
Please look at this chart
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When it comes to Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan, Russia has a pretty fair history of assraping both itself and others, and doing so in a completely media-opaque, explicitly fascist way, without even the figleaf of trying to make their press releases seem plausible. After the electorate in the U.S. began shitcanning its warmongers in 2006, it un-occupied Iraq and is currently leaving Afganistanāthe nation whose government really did facilitate 9-11āand is allowing Iraq to return to itās ungerrymandered reliance on Kurdish autonomy to keep the peace, Thereās also the little issue of comparing what our fired fascist-fondling leaders did compared to Putinās ongoing domination of Russiaās neighborsā and current violations of their sovereignty A Chechen dipshit terrorist is invading Iraq because, apparently, Chechnya under Putin is a fucking hellhole. Thanks, scumbag Putin!
And when your Putictator comes up with a workable, diplomatic solution to the one-/two-state dichotomy in Israel, apart from killing all the Jews (as was Europeās go-to answer mid-century and Russiaās historically, until they both just relied on making Jews extremely unwelcome), Iām sure it might get a look by the U.N.
Until then, nice try, borscht-guy.
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Extra-EU27 trade is trade involving all countries outside of the EU. You selected a portion of the balance (not total trade balance) for the countries shown, and didnāt post by year. So, youāre not really showing anyone much of anything. You may want to look at this site instead. Look up āexportsā and ātrade balanceā. You can also select various countries. The defaults are Brazil, Canada, China, Russia, and the U.S.
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Russia or the former U.S.S.R?
Hmm, Iām inclined to think Saudi Arabia played a bigger role than Afganistan.
Good luck to them! Wonder if ISIS has heard of 'em. Hopefully, someone will come to their rescue. Perhaps the country that created the mess? Wonder how that will go down at home?
Turkey might have its hands full with ISIS soon especially after that courtship with some very sympathetic elements of the new caliphate.
The only other country up to the task is Iran. I can hear the howling already to create some phony info to start a flare up there. Canāt have the Iranians outside of their fence, now.
By default right now, any solution that would be selected can only be written by two exclusive countries - Israel and the US.
Guess who voted against a UN draft resolution to investigate alleged war crimes committed during Israelās assault on the Gaza Strip? Guess who voted for it?
History is important, but so is what is happening now. The US foreign policy of late (specifically R2P ideology) has been extremely noxious.
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Thanks! Mucho mejor than what I found.
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Canāt really see that happening. The embargo is on food - from specific countries. The Russians will simply get the embargoed items from another country. One that didnāt place sanctions on them. What will happen is that new trade routes and partners will be made.
āOnce new market channels are opened in response to sanctions, it becomes
extremely difficult to win back those markets when sanctions are
lifted.ā
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Youāre welcome - did you notice that it didnāt agree with your own data? I recommend people take a trip to it. Russia actually sits below the U.S. and China for both exports and total product.
Their economic āretaliationsā are face saving figleaves. Europe and the US are not shaking in their boots at the might of Russia to inflict economic harm. Russiaās limited trade sanctions against agriculture are a howling laugh. Agriculture makes up roughly 2% of EUās and the USās economy. If Russia in its āmanfulā sanctions wiped out all EU and US agriculture (which it canāt even dream of doing), it would still just be an economic blip. The US and Europe are literally not going to even notice.
You donāt seem to understand how weak Russiaās economic position is. The only thing Russia has to sell is natural resources. It can choose not to sell that, and it might cause a little pain for the EU, but it lets the Americans cash in. Further, Russia has no choice but to sell their natural resources. Strip Russia of their natural resources and they have absolutely nothing. The business climate is so utterly abysmal in Russia outside of the resource exploitation market, that they have literally no choice. The government would be bankrupt and the economy would implode if they ever were suicidal enough to use their one piece of small leverage.
Iām pretty sure that Georgia and the Ukraine pretty strongly disagree with that statement. There are few things that suck in this world than to be a democracy setting next to Russia. Donāt get me wrong, I think US foreign policy is shit, but pointing to Russia as a counter example of someone doing it right is laughable.
Ask Cuba or Iran how that is working for them. The US and the EU control the world banking system. You can live outside of that system, but you are going to pay a very steep price. If they cut you and anyone who works with you off, you can find ways around, but it isnāt fun, and it sure as hell isnāt cheap.
Poison your neighborās leaders, get your own el presidente for life, and institute harsh autocratic policies, create an epic oligarchy, end competitive elections, take state control of the media, and work furiously to destabilize your neighbors? I really hope that isnāt the lesson being learned by people looking to āstand upā to the US.
The US has problems. US foreign policy sucks. I would like the US hack its military down to a fraction of what it is, and not invade places for a few decades. That said, pointing to fucking Russia as some sort of alternative is so absurd that it almost defies reason. It is hard to find a country fucking it up harder than Russia. Their business environment is abysmal, corruption is rampant, and their political system is thoroughly broken and destroyed by that sociopath douche bag Putin. And all that is said while not even bothering to mention the state of basic human rights and liberty in Russia. Literally the only thing saving Russia from the abyss is that they have massive natural resources that they can use to fund their kleptocracy.
Yes, I did and Iām glad. I wasnāt too keen on it, but posted it anyway. Mainly to see what others would make of it and see if it was kosher. Thatās why I prefaced it with āMake of this what you will.ā
Iām glad you posted the one you found. Should I leave the previous one up or edit it out?
