251–260 of 278 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When did WWII start? It depends on where you lived. In 2014 they had a fig leaf of not using uniformed Russian military. It was a transparent fig leaf, but we all need our fictions to get through the day.
Yeah Crimea invasion was basically Sudetenland. Nobody really thought Putin would become completely unhinged.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People seem to expect the free market to adapt immediately, for consumers immediate benefit. The market will regulate itself, but it may not happen in timeframes that people are comfortable with.
No, consumers just expect it to show consistent reaction times. A rumour is typically enough to warrant an overnight price hike in consumer prices. While for experiencing reductions, consumers have to wait for a few months for the market to "adapt". And in the end, it usually is the consumers that adapt to the increased prices, so companies don't see any good reason to reduce them.
But have you looked at a chart that proves this claim that everybody makes and assumes is true?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is how the market works? Look at any stock in any stock market that had a highly positive or negative rumour associated. You will see an immediate spike or dip in value and, a slow regression to the mean.
You missed what they said: the problem is that consumer prices are not symmetric like that: prices spike, and then regress, but they never sharply dip.
I don't understand why people waste electrons making comments that cannot even be right or wrong without specific data and defined terms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Germany gets a lot of flak for buying Russian gas cheaply the last 30 years in ever increasing volumes. But it seems strange to argue that Germany just should have bought gas from Qatar or the US for double the price from the start. How should Germany have done that? Import tax on Russian gas? Laws preventing importing cheap gas from the east? Sounds a bit aggressive towards our big neighbor to the east. Germans mayb…
>But it seems strange to argue that Germany just should have bought gas from Qatar or the US for double the price from the start. That was never on the table. The US doesn’t even have the export capacity to manage it. Germany should have pursued energy independence for the the European Union. It’s as simple as that.
> Germany should have pursued energy independence for the European Union. It’s as simple as that.
Nothing simple about that. Germany financed the first solar boom under the Green party before 2005 which cost German consumers a pretty penny (EEG Umlage). When Merkel got into power this renewables surcharge got so high that it was threatening consumers and industry. Merkel put on the brakes for renewables (which cost Germany pretty much all solar industry) and ushered in the Gas dependence.
Only with expensive fossils do renewables have a chance in Europe. So the current prices do have at least one advantage and might eventually lead to the energy independence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Securing the borders from what? If he was worried about NATO he would be beefing up troop deployments along the borders of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia where he has withdrawn troops and he wouldn't have his military completely bogged down in Ukraine. Why would Russia need to secure borders anyway? Who is going to invade on foot? They have nuclear weapons and would have a justifiable reason in using them if they wer…
> Securing the borders from what? Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers. Securing good natural borders has been a major national security concern for Russia for centuries and up until the fall of Soviet Union they had secured all of them. They have been winning those back gradually over the last couple of decades. > If he was worried about NATO he would be b…
Russia has nuclear weapons. They can say that they are worried about being invaded but I certainly reject that as an argument worth consideration.
> The Baltic states are likely future targets. Thankfully they've been doing so badly in Ukraine they are being forced to withdraw forces from other areas and debasing their ability to achieve those future aims.
Agreed and I think initially (I certainly posted) he intended to break NATO by testing the resolve of the alliance in the Baltics, where had he actually had success in Ukraine would have invaded the Baltics and likely took them quickly as well which would have left the US and NATO allies in the position of continuing a war and reconquering land. I think what he miscalculated was that the US was quite serious about protecting the Baltic states and would have for sure gone to war with Russia directly over them.
> The idea that Russia wants a secure border geography and that Ukraine is a barrier to that is not new nor controversial.
It is in the sense that there was ever any desire to "be secure" as that is a new talking point designed to cause uncertainty in what is desired. It's mostly just about claiming territory perceived to be historically lost and other elements such as this are part of an ongoing propaganda campaign. Putin himself tells you this over and over again in his speeches. Ideas like NATO on the doorstep are recent propaganda tools because NATO has "been on the doorstep" for awhile. It also seeks to remove agency from nations in forming their own security partnerships.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is how the market works? Look at any stock in any stock market that had a highly positive or negative rumour associated. You will see an immediate spike or dip in value and, a slow regression to the mean.
You missed what they said: the problem is that consumer prices are not symmetric like that: prices spike, and then regress, but they never sharply dip.
Which is the case for electricity and natural gas.
Consumer goods that are usually priced at market rate, such as clothing, regularly see deep discounts.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Securing the borders from what? Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers. Securing good natural borders has been a major national security concern for Russia for centuries and up until the fall of Soviet Union they had secured all of them. They have been winning those back gradually over the last couple of decades. > If he was worried about NATO he would be b…
> Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers. Russia has nuclear weapons. They can say that they are worried about being invaded but I certainly reject that as an argument worth consideration. > The Baltic states are likely future targets. Thankfully they've been doing so badly in Ukraine they are being forced to withdraw forces from other areas and debasing thei…
Nukes aren’t the trump cards you seem to think they are. In fact I would go so far as to say that nukes are essentially useless outside of deterring being destroyed by nukes or otherwise imminently existentially threatened. Even then they’re no guarantee as no one knows if MAD would actually be triggered in the event of a devastating attack. Regardless, salami tactics and other less-than-total-defeat strategies are likely to be quite effective at avoiding anything too grave to provoke a nuclear response because they can be conducted in such a way that suicide by MAD remains irrational.
> NATO has "been on the doorstep" for awhile
Not very long by European standards. It is obviously an ongoing concern for Russia having an enemy military alliance next door and that is also not a controversial statement. What country wouldn’t be gravely concerned by that? However, this is a long term strategy regardless of NATO and they have been executing it systematically for decades by gradually capturing the defensive geographies around Russia. They see it as existentially necessary to do this and that’s why they have to be stopped in Ukraine.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Russia has been invaded by land countless times over the centuries as it has few natural barriers. Russia has nuclear weapons. They can say that they are worried about being invaded but I certainly reject that as an argument worth consideration. > The Baltic states are likely future targets. Thankfully they've been doing so badly in Ukraine they are being forced to withdraw forces from other areas and debasing thei…
> Russia has nuclear weapons. Nukes aren’t the trump cards you seem to think they are. In fact I would go so far as to say that nukes are essentially useless outside of deterring being destroyed by nukes or otherwise imminently existentially threatened. Even then they’re no guarantee as no one knows if MAD would actually be triggered in the event of a devastating attack. Regardless, salami tactics and other less-than…
The idea that NATO would invade Russia on its face is ridiculous, as you know, especially considering it’s a defensive arrangement. The idea that nuclear weapons don’t protect Russia from such an attack is also ridiculous, as you know.
But if you believe that they do not protect Russia, it doesn’t follow to then antagonize a far superior military force and risk invasion and destruction.
> Not very long by European standards.
Not a relevant point
> It is obviously an ongoing concern for Russia having an enemy military alliance next door and that is also not a controversial statement.
It’s an ongoing self-inflicted concern, to be certain. But you can choose two options: countries can decide their own security arrangements, or might makes right. If you remove agency from Ukraine you simply give license to other countries such as China or the United States to act as they see fit.
> However, this is a long term strategy regardless of NATO and they have been executing it systematically for decades by gradually capturing the defensive geographies around Russia. They see it as existentially necessary to do this and that’s why they have to be stopped in Ukraine.
If this is what you and/or Russians believe then the United States should immediately go to war with Russia, especially since nuclear weapons aren’t trump cards and they should invade before Russia secures these natural borders you speak of since the two nations are adversaries and there is no reconciliation. Although I’m still wondering what the point would be.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was on hn when that happened last time. I felt like but could not convince someone to "buy" me an oil tanker for negative money, only for a short period but I could boast about "being an owner of an oil tanker once". Sigh. If only someone could help
It was the value of the contracts for delivery at a certain time and place (e.g. the "May 2020 WTI crude" contracts) that went negative, because there was no capacity to accept delivery. Sure you could have received money by buying the (undeliverable) oil on a tanker, but then you would have been stuck paying the oil tanker lease cost (tens of thousands of USD/day) until capacity to take delivery became available, or…
i would've get a receipt in my name (for whatever brief period that would've been) and i would get to boast about that..... just harmless fun thing
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could also be a bad thing; if a country's storage capacity is woeful (like the UK), it indicates we could be storing more.
20/20 hindsight. In a less miserable timeline, the absence of hostilities with Russia makes gas storage a non-issue, and any government putting money into gas tanks rather than renewable energy would have been (rightly) lambasted. I'm willing to tear chunks out of our inept leaders over many things, but this isn't one of them.