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US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

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Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#171

Post by andruby »

rich_sasha wrote: post #127
dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

Since RUB exchange is so constrained, its "market rate" is also meaningless. I too can issue a currency, set its value at 1,000,000 USD per unit and declare monopoly in trading it.

“Set its value at X”. There is no nob or “setting” to do this.

There are plenty of Forex exchanges trading RUB for any currency. Including USD, EUR and others. Governments don’t have control over all exchanges so they can’t set the price. The price is determined by supply & demand (ie: the market). Governments do have some levers they can use: buying or selling reserves to put up or downward pressure on the market price.

To limit trading of a currency you’d have to limit exchanges to any other currency. If you limit RUB-USD for example, people could still trade RUB-EUR and EUR-USD, thus still creating a defacto RUB-USD pricing.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#172

Post by matthewdgreen »

dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

>Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home.

For several years we bet the global economy on the idea that we could safely coexist with an aggressive dictator. That bet did not pan out. I agree with you that the least painful time to remove our dependence on Russian fuel was several years ago, but we failed to take the ample warnings and here we are in a crisis. At least we're finally dealing with it.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#173

Post by LewisVerstappen »

yks wrote: post #155
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, not everyone, Ukrainians knew That's completely false. Just read the news from February. U.S. Intelligence was warning Ukraine that Putin was planning to invade while Zelensky was in denial. The invasion began on Thursday Feb. 24. On Monday Feb. 21, Zelenky was insistent that Putin wouldn't be crazy enough invade Ukraine. Here's some articles from right before the invasion - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-eu…

What do you expect him to say, "Putin bring it on?". In some random interviews he said Ukraine is prepared [1]. And yes, no one was sure that this Feb military build up results in war cause there was already a build up in April before that. But this invasion was inevitable with the current Russian leadership, UAF underwent a series of reforms since 2014 to prepare for it. [1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/29/1076699748…

> What do you expect him to say, "Putin bring it on?".

That's an absurd take. He was clearly completely unprepared for the invasion and was not expecting it in the slightest.

If he was expecting it, he wouldn't have been in complete denial of US intelligence and wouldn't decried it as "the West sowing panic for political gains".

> In some random interviews he said Ukraine is prepared

I have no idea why you're looking at "random interviews" when you can just look at exactly what happened.

Ukraine was completely unprepared for Russian invasion and they were clearly shocked when the Russians invaded.

Did Zelenky evacuate any civilians beforehand? Nope. Did he ask NATO countries for aid? Nope, it was the exact opposite.

NATO countries were offering aid and he was calling them alarmist.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#174

Post by at-fates-hands »

snemvalts wrote: post #156
dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

> Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years Is that meant to demonstrate economic strength? * Russians have massive amount of brain drain. Most of tech employees have left, leaving only people extracting oil, people who turn it into fertilizer and gasoline and supporting roles. * They can't build military tech because of sanctions. Starting to use 1950s and 1960s tanks. * They've privatized and violate…

Serious question then. . .

How long before their economy collapses? Of course with the idea that everything you're saying is true. Which at this point, I have no basis to disagree with you. I'm just wondering how long you think it will take for all of this finally come to a head.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#175

Post by logifail »

snemvalts wrote: post #156
dxhdr wrote: post #62

Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT has only strengthened their ties to India and China. Russia is still invading Ukraine, and now we're dealing with soaring food and energy prices at home. At some point you have to consider whether this level of diplomatic incompetence is intentional.

> Meanwhile RUB to USD is at its highest in nearly 5 years Is that meant to demonstrate economic strength? * Russians have massive amount of brain drain. Most of tech employees have left, leaving only people extracting oil, people who turn it into fertilizer and gasoline and supporting roles. * They can't build military tech because of sanctions. Starting to use 1950s and 1960s tanks. * They've privatized and violate…

> Appeasement would be a better choice?

Pope Francis says Ukraine war was ‘perhaps somehow provoked’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/14/pope-francis-u...

"The pontiff warned [..] against what he said was a fairytale perception of the conflict as good versus evil"

"We need to move away from the usual Little Red Riding Hood pattern, in that Little Red Riding Hood was good and the wolf was the bad one [..] something global is emerging and the elements are very much entwined."

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#176

Post by yks »

gnulinux wrote: post #142
yks wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly what everyone said about Putin invading Ukraine. First, not everyone, Ukrainians knew. Second, after the end of WW2 we lived (wanted to live) under a spell that conquering whole countries with some opportunistic genocide on top is not going to happen anymore, or at least not in the "civilized" Europe. Now, I hope the spell is off, we can see the world more clearly, and it's a raw power competition i…

> First, not everyone, Ukrainians knew. Sounds like you were not following the events because invasion was effectively "announced" by US Intelligence weeks before the actual declaration of war. Besides, this was not the only sign and if you know the way Putin talks and you listened to him days before the invasion (talking about Russian Empire's old glory) you'd see that he already made his mind up way before the actu…

You're arguing my point! Which is that people knew about this invasion, US intelligence knew, Ukrainians were preparing as well despite the rosy rhetoric of Zelensky.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#177

Post by xkcd1963 »

yks wrote: post #29

The West could've ended this war by now if they just went all in on sending howitzers, MLRS and other heavy equipment into Ukraine but they keep slow dripping it, or just doing nothing like Germany. The most powerful societies in the world history just twiddle their thumbs while negative consequences keep mounting.

This is a dangerous view. Might have worked for the past when we didn't have nuclear weapons.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#178

Post by [deleted] »

vogre wrote: post #163
brandonmenc wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> allowed to do literally anything Uh, yeah? If you have nukes you can pretty much do whatever you want, short of launching them at another nuclear power. That's just like, reality. Remember this the next time everyone bellyaches about "unfair sanctions" or whatever when some country even hints that they're pursuing a nuclear program.

And if you don't have nukes, nuclear powers can do pretty much anything they wsant to you. As we have seen in Lybia, Serbia, Iraq, Syria. So don't be surprised when another country is rushing for nukes at all cost. These are the only thing that protect you against the West.

[deleted]

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#179

Post by pydry »

spamizbad wrote: post #136
nemo44x wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're literally asking for more death and destruction. Just think of what you're saying. Russia wins this war no matter what and the pointless cheerleading from the media and some politicians has been nothing but disposing of Ukrainian lives for the sole purpose of getting some type of bizarre revenge on Russia who they believe got Trump elected, or something. Sending more and more weapons only prolongs it and adds…

Russia could stop the bloodshed today by simply withdrawing their forces from the region. The LNR/DNR forces would surrender (they are reliant on Russia's support) and peace and stability could be achieved rapidly. The power is in their hands. It's important to remember that this war has really been going on since 2014. Eastern rebel forces were starting to crumble until Russia began offering direct military assistan…

They withdraw now and a year later theres a NATO base in Mariupol.

Donbas is the location from which the Nazis launched the attack on the USSR which almost lost them WW2. Its strategic significance cant be understated. Finland and Sweden are not as important.

Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis

#180

Post by wiseowise »

gretch wrote: post #43
yks wrote: post #29

The West could've ended this war by now if they just went all in on sending howitzers, MLRS and other heavy equipment into Ukraine but they keep slow dripping it, or just doing nothing like Germany. The most powerful societies in the world history just twiddle their thumbs while negative consequences keep mounting.

Yeah and Russia could have ended the war by now too by simply launching their nukes. I think it's weird you don't think anyone involved in the problem has thought of your proposed solution, or that you don't think there's any potential negative effects from antagonizing an unhinged despot with his finger on the nuke.

> Yeah and Russia could have ended the war by now too by simply launching their nukes.

The only thing they can end with nukes are themselves. What was even the point of attacking Ukraine, if you want to make it a nuclear wasteland?

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