Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 326 posts

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#191

Post by pinkfoot »

barrkel wrote: post #146
redis_mlc wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable Russian doctrine is that the satellite countries are buffers to be used as needed, like Kleenex. It's 100% certain Russia will annex Baltic countries whenever it pleases. To say otherwise just makes you "a useful idiot", as Lenin is credited with saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

If Russia annexes any Baltic states it's liable to trigger nuclear war. All the Baltic states are NATO members.

Er no, Ukraine was supposedly protected by the Budapest Declaration.

One of the signatories was the invader, the rest found obtuse reasons why they didn't have to defend Ukraine.

The next annexation will be the same.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#192

Post by brnt »

d0mine wrote: post #155
linkregister wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. The people of Georgia, Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine would beg to differ.

Which of the following statements are true: - Crimea became part of Russia before Texas became part of US - Crimea became part of Russia before (around the time) US independence - Kievan Rus' is older than Aztec Empire

Ah, I like this game!

- Before the US, the colonies were English, French, Dutch, Swedish, etc.

- Before the colonies, it was of course Native American land.

- Before the Anglosaxons, Britain was Celtic.

- Kievans are much older than Russians. Russia was created by a few Swedes forking the local Slav tribes.

- Before Moscow, there were Poles Bulgarians and Mongols.

Shall we go on?

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#193

Post by HenryBemis »

redis_mlc wrote: post #180
Animats wrote: post #150

Whether China's yuan should be freely convertible to other currencies is something the PRC has struggled with for years. A freely convertible yuan would increase China's influence on the world financial system, but it would also increase the influence of the world financial system on China. And it would require much easing, if not elimination, of China's exchange controls. A decade ago, a freely convertible yuan was…

Euros are, literally, a joke. A currency without an army is nothing. You can pretend whatever exchange rate you want between the Euro and the USD, but the USD is the real currency.

Yes because USA Vs the world will have USA as a winner (if this is what you imply) which is 5yo thinking. EU although it still going through some growing pains, appears to be far more mature than today's USA, which is burning bridges and building walls (I mean figuratively). If/as the planet continues to decrease its dependency to USD then the might will decrease further with it. USA has the No1 debt on this planet. I don't see any other countries of that size going bust and needing to print new money every other year because they cannot afford to run their states. I am using this childish and realistic example so you include that in your thought process.

As for the army, EU is in the process of considering/designing an EU army, since the "US hegemony" seems to be in deep .... with USA's latest leadership. And thank you for speeding up this process.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#194

Post by lispm »

bloodm wrote: post #190
lispm wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40000 and not 40,0000. Much is for the US and their military adventures, not for NATO or NATO-related things. It supports the US war machine. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa, ... Much of that has nothing to do with defending Germany, defending the US or defending NATO... The US and its allies/friendly countries currently outspend Russia approximitely fifteen times. If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on milit…

"If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on military, then it would approach Russia in absolute numbers, That would be crazy." It is her contractual obligation. Currently Germany does not have an Army anymore but a museum. How many tanks are operational? 100? Russia has 10.000...

There is no contract about it.

Tanks? Not sure that this is our biggest concern right now.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#195

Post by kmlx »

lispm wrote: post #187
kmlx wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. the expansion is over. last expansion resulted in some pretty nasty stuff. from massive EU fund corruption to a member leaving. 2. on this last point, how many hundreds of albanias would you need to replace the particular qualities the brits were bringing to the table? the only thing the EU can do is bring Russia onboard. something France and Germany are already doing, to the horror of the Eastern Europeans and th…

The expansion is not over. There are still european countries wanting to join. Btw., the UK (especially Boris Johnson) was a proponent of more countries joining the EU. France never wanted the UK in the EU in the first place. Maybe they were right? The UK was boykotting deeper EU integration on political, economical and defense levels, so after the UK leaving we may expect to see some progress. Boykotting Russia ever…

the UK was one of many countries objecting to the current form of the EU. this will not go away with one member leaving.

the EU is expecting another round of new participants in 2025. and the countries are the likes of Macedonia and Serbia. of course the EU politicians are already arguing about this, since the last expansion was a small disaster: https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.politico.eu/article/eu-en...

personally i don't see how the EU can expand without major reform.

countries like Poland and Romania are strong Nato allies looking in horror at Germany and France cozying up to Putin. the US simply expected the two western countries to pay up. they preferred to pay Russia instead.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#196

Post by pnw_hazor »

pinkfoot wrote: post #172
elfexec wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Because the US is the sole guarantor of German sovereignty. It's why the US has tens of thousands of troops in germany. It's why US decides if and how much oil/gas Japan or South Korea gets from Russia. It's why the US decides if the Dutch get to sell ASML semiconductor equipment to China. It's why the US di…

> Because the US is the sole guarantor of German sovereignty. Sole? So the German armed forces are for what exactly?

"Along with the reliability woes of air force jetliners, only about a third of Germany’s 128 Eurofighter jets are combat ready and just a quarter of its 130 army helicopters are operational, mainly because of shortages of spare parts. Only one of six submarines and fewer than half of 244 Leopard tanks are working, according to a recent report to Parliament."

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-germany-armed-forces-201...

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#197

Post by pts_ »

mc32 wrote: post #134
akudha wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I watch some "expert" on TV taking about some country, I think one thing - does this person have any real experience with the topic he/she is taking about? Have they visited the country they are dissing on TV, even once? Most of these so called experts are paid too. This is not just faux news either, the experts are on all channels. No wonder the public has low trust of news these days. Sucks to know that…

It’s worse that that even. Lots of people who have experience and “know” are selling their opinion (trying to influence) to the audience. So often it’s their half of s story.

We would be better served by analysing ourselves than following the pack leader like unevolved wolves.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#198

Post by HenryBemis »

d0mine wrote: post #155
linkregister wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. The people of Georgia, Crimea, and the rest of Ukraine would beg to differ.

Which of the following statements are true: - Crimea became part of Russia before Texas became part of US - Crimea became part of Russia before (around the time) US independence - Kievan Rus' is older than Aztec Empire

Heh, I cannot Reply to brnt's post so I am using 1 lvl higher. My favourite examples are ancient Greece, Rome, ancient Mongolia, etc. Cherry picking moments in time to redefine borders is dangerous to say the least. Give the Italians half Europe and Near East? Give Greece everything from South Italy (Magna Grecian) all the way to Afghanistan?

Crimea was part of Russia, true. Give Italy what it had first and then we will give Crimea to Russia (and let's have a WW3 and all be dead me give the planet the break it deserves (from human stupidity))

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#199

Post by HenryBemis »

eru wrote: post #143
baybal2 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to say... Russians invasions are acts of war, squarely and simple, but they do so without any tinfoil "geopolitical conspiracy" in mind. There is no bigger "grand plan" to them than to an 8th century Viking raid: more subjects, loot, and territories to use to stage further invasions. Danes cared more for how tasty the British were, before they started to care about the British throne and court politics in the big…

The conquest of Crimea was probably more about providing a distraction for domestic audiences than anything else?

I think it was the approach that a former ally (Ukraine) would open up the door to NATO/USA and Russia didn't like having a USA naval base right on its doorstep, and losing control of the Black Sea. There may already be USA'S military bases nearby (Romania, Bulgaria, etc) but not THAT close.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#200

Post by pinkfoot »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #196
pinkfoot wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the US is the sole guarantor of German sovereignty. Sole? So the German armed forces are for what exactly?

"Along with the reliability woes of air force jetliners, only about a third of Germany’s 128 Eurofighter jets are combat ready and just a quarter of its 130 army helicopters are operational, mainly because of shortages of spare parts. Only one of six submarines and fewer than half of 244 Leopard tanks are working, according to a recent report to Parliament." https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-germany-armed-forces-20…

And you don't think they would change that pretty quickly if they really needed to?
Post reply on HN