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Inside Putin's Circle

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Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#101

Post by alecco »

tatrajim wrote: post #49
mmaunder wrote: post #31

I’ve been a paid subscriber of FT for years. It’s horrifically expensive and worth every penny.

I was a subscriber for ten years, but gave up on them over mediocre coverage of important issues in the US and East Asia, about which I had some knowledge. Relying on their reporting risked costing me money in my investment decisions.

Indeed. FT used to be a must-read 15 years ago with investigative journalism and decent counterpoints on any issue. Now it's mostly one-sided opinion with little more information than you can read everywhere else. It's very sad.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#102

Post by 8ytecoder »

jfk13 wrote: post #47
notyourwork wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to check pricing after reading your comment. $375/year! That sounds crazy.

Does a dollar a day sound more affordable? Just read the news over a cup of home-brewed coffee instead of getting a take-out, and you should easily break even. :)

They regularly have some deals going around. ft.com/weekendpodcast would also show you some deals. I pay around $80 a quarter. Like OP, worth every penny and it’s much more than just a financial newspaper.

I get WSJ through work and NYT/WaPo are all super cheap. I’ve just never found the quality of FT. So I decided to pay for it. Another publication I recommend is The Economist.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#103

Post by tenuousemphasis »

user249 wrote: post #45
01100011 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is a tech news aggregator website. Some of us are more active in the appropriate forums. Do you leave comments on cooking websites suggesting they need to take action?

People who cook could help in their own way. Hacker News is has people who could tell you about how to run a botnet hack, mount an effective DDOS or the appropriate type of crypto to donate and how to get it. Nevermind, though. I'm just feeling helpless and want to do something. I need to think a little deeper about it.

How much time do you spend here? HN seems to have an overwhelmingly negative opinion of all cryptocurrency.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#104

Post by khuey »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

"I believe, however, that Putin and the siloviki (though not many in the wider elites) welcome this isolation [from the west]. They are becoming impressed with the Chinese model: a tremendously dynamic economy, a disciplined society and a growing military superpower ruled over with iron control by a hereditary elite that combines huge wealth with deep patriotism, promoting the idea of China as a separate and superior…

"The Chinese model" is fundamentally underwritten by exporting vast quantities of goods to the West which Putin just blew up any hope of doing.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#105

Post by JumpCrisscross »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #94
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a centralised planned state fell with the USSR, and it was widely argued that it fell _because_ of central planning. China is becoming a counter-example for the people who have always been fond of the idea of having a state ruled by an "elite", with the perception that democracy is fragile and doesn't work for long-term (more than a 4/5 years mandate) planning.

The world changed in a very significant way over the last 70 years. Even more so over the last 20 years. It may very well end up that the Information Age has tipped the scales and our large meandering decentralized democracies are no longer the superior model they were back when it took 4 weeks to get a letter from New York City to Washington DC. Now it’s a synchronous call with satellite footage of every inch of the…

> the Information Age has tipped the scales and our large meandering decentralized democracies are no longer the superior model they were back when it took 4 weeks to get a letter from New York City to Washington DC

Telegraphs were used in the 1840s [1]. They went transatlantic in the 1850s [2]. The game change is not in modern autocracies being better at planning. It's in surveillance. What took the KGB and Stasi armies of informants filling cabinets of index cards can now be run out of a single data centre by a small team of loyalists.

The common failure mode of centralized systems, peaceful transitions of power and/or long-run economic power, is thus not addressed. (Founders have a decent record, at least in their early years [3]. But with each subsequent generation, the gap between the stability of monarchies and eccentricity of dictatorships widens. Putin is a first-generation autocrat. Xi is a bit more complicated, though I'd argue the CCP hasn't had power so concentrated since Mao, and China barely limped through that transition.

Maybe the efficiency gains in surveillance and repression will turn what would have been a revolutionary failure into a slow-burn diminishment. Whereas previously a resistance could have festered and grown, today it can be nipped in the bud, preventing the internal power competition that rejuvenates the system.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable

[3] https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/54717/1/670514403.pd...

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#106

Post by khuey »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #105
the_lonely_road wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world changed in a very significant way over the last 70 years. Even more so over the last 20 years. It may very well end up that the Information Age has tipped the scales and our large meandering decentralized democracies are no longer the superior model they were back when it took 4 weeks to get a letter from New York City to Washington DC. Now it’s a synchronous call with satellite footage of every inch of the…

> the Information Age has tipped the scales and our large meandering decentralized democracies are no longer the superior model they were back when it took 4 weeks to get a letter from New York City to Washington DC Telegraphs were used in the 1840s [1]. They went transatlantic in the 1850s [2]. The game change is not in modern autocracies being better at planning. It's in surveillance. What took the KGB and Stasi ar…

The CCP had a power transition model mostly worked out that Xi tore apart. Interesting times ahead there.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#107

Post by dralley »

agumonkey wrote: post #44
mekkkkkk wrote: post #28

I read an incredibly thorough book about Putin a year or so ago, and what stuck with me is how political his career in the KGB was. In those final years of the USSR, everything was in shambles, and any position of power became so through-and-through political. That makes his rise so interesting and frightening. He has been forged in a dark web of covert slush funds, power projection and kompramat. He was obviously ve…

there's also long interviews from 2017~ on PBS Frontline IIRC, a series called "Putin files" Julia Ioffe, Masha Gessen It's partial but has a lot of detail On the other side there are the Russian friendly views such as Mearsheimer or even Stone. It's difficult to weigh what is true (even though I'm biased anti aggressor in this case)

I watched both of those interviews yesterday, they are excellent.

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#108

Post by qiskit »

js2 wrote: post #69
qiskit wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edification. Nobody says "wear a gun". It doesn't sound right. Was assuming the commenter was a non-native english speaker and was helping him out.

I’m a native U.S. English speaker and I didn’t think twice about “wear a gun”. People absolutely say that. It’s not even pedantically incorrect: 2 (b) to carry on the person; wear a sword https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wear https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Wearing+a+gun%22&tbm=bks

> I’m a native U.S. English speaker and I didn’t think twice about “wear a gun”.

Maybe it's regional. I've never heard it said that way before. "Are you wearing a gun"? "Concealed wearing laws"? Doesn't sound right, but I guess people do use it.

Don't cops ask "Do you have a gun on you" or "Are you carrying?". I think most of us would find it weird if a cop asked us "Are you wearing a gun?".

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#109

Post by [deleted] »

the_lonely_road wrote: post #94
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a centralised planned state fell with the USSR, and it was widely argued that it fell _because_ of central planning. China is becoming a counter-example for the people who have always been fond of the idea of having a state ruled by an "elite", with the perception that democracy is fragile and doesn't work for long-term (more than a 4/5 years mandate) planning.

The world changed in a very significant way over the last 70 years. Even more so over the last 20 years. It may very well end up that the Information Age has tipped the scales and our large meandering decentralized democracies are no longer the superior model they were back when it took 4 weeks to get a letter from New York City to Washington DC. Now it’s a synchronous call with satellite footage of every inch of the…

[deleted]

Re: Inside Putin's Circle

#110

Post by tenpies »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #72
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #61

"I believe, however, that Putin and the siloviki (though not many in the wider elites) welcome this isolation [from the west]. They are becoming impressed with the Chinese model: a tremendously dynamic economy, a disciplined society and a growing military superpower ruled over with iron control by a hereditary elite that combines huge wealth with deep patriotism, promoting the idea of China as a separate and superior…

The idea of a centralised planned state fell with the USSR, and it was widely argued that it fell _because_ of central planning. China is becoming a counter-example for the people who have always been fond of the idea of having a state ruled by an "elite", with the perception that democracy is fragile and doesn't work for long-term (more than a 4/5 years mandate) planning.

Governments can be learning organizations, especially when they have long time horizons and balance agenda with reality. If anything, I think China has shown that central planning can work and is even the envy of Western leaders (see: Canadian PM Trudeau's admiration).

The implicit agreement in China is that in exchange for your freedom, you receive prosperity.

Russia - especially after the West seriously damages their economy - can easily form a similar narrative, especially when the West is being sadistic about it. Nationalize most things now when the equity is dirt-cheap because unwise Western governments have forced the hands of banks, investors, and funds; then privatize things as the new anointed class rises. Key for them will be to reward merit and capability, not just loyalty.

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