Major announcements in this State of the Nation speech on Jan 15, 2020.
Here is a very brief summary to get the conversation started.
Immediate politics:
- The Medvedev government has resigned
- The little-known Mikhail Mishustin, former head of the tax service, has been appointed as PM. He is an AI-loving technocrat who reduced uncollected VAT from 20% to 1%.
- Source tells me FM Sergey Lavrov rumored to be permanently retiring.
Constitutional changes:
- Parliament, not President, to now name the PM and Cabinet. The President won’t have veto powers.
- President limited to an absolute two terms, ruling out a “Putin after Putin.”
- Increase the role of the State Council and enshrine its advisory role in the Constitution.
- Constitutional changes to be confirmed by referendum.
- Russian law now formally superior to international law.
- Ban PMs, Ministers, governors, some mayors and judges, from having second citizenships of foreign residencies; moreover, Presidential candidates should have been resident in Russia for 25 years (previously 10 years) and never had a foreign citizenship. (This rules out a large proportion of Atlanticists and crypto-Atlanticists).
Demographics:
- Putin bemoaned continued fall in Russia’s fertility rates to 1.5 children per woman this year (up from post-Soviet peak of close to 1.8 in mid-2000s), setting 1.7 children per woman as the new target for 2024.
- Reaffirmed demographics as the first national priority.
- Maternity capital to be increased by further 150,000 rubles and constitute 616,617 rubles (≈$10,000) for a family with two children, to be annually indexed.
Some very tentative thoughts:
(1) I have long thought now that Putin’s end game is to transition into an overseeing “elder statesman” role, along the model of Lee Kuan Yew/PAP in Singapore [see 1, 2, 3]. This appears to be the final confirmation that this is happening.
(2) Questions about the succession revolved around (a) The Belarus variant, in which it effectively constitutes a new state with Russia, allowing Putin to become the supreme head of that state; (b) A constitutional reshuffle such as the one we’re seeing here. This question has also been answered.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
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The demographic problems must be solved. It is at least heartening that President Putin has made this his first priority – and I hope he sincerely follows through on this to the best of his ability. Here in America, it is only a forlorn dream to contemplate a leader of ours saying such things and promising financial aid to promote families.
” Putin’s end game is to transition into an overseeing “elder statesman” role” – Not always does it work: King Lear, Benedict 16.
“Lear gave up a God-given duty and right to rule his people. His tragic flaw ‘hamartia’ is presumptuousness. He presumes that he can divest himself of what God invested him with (the Elizabethan idea of the divine rights of the ruler), he grows in tragic stature as the play progresses.” – found on google.
Looks more like he plans to become a powerful Prime Minister after 2024, rather than elder statesman. Might be good in the medium term: politicians of his caliber are rare. Still, in the longer term Russia needs a real successor: rule by committee never works, even in smaller and simpler countries.
Pardon my confusion on the #2 point below. So union with Belarus is still on the table right? But if that happens it would be Belarus joining a continuous RF, under the newly modified constitution?
I think (and it’s already been said for years) that’s he too tired for the role of PM, which is more intensive than the Presidency and involved dealing with boring domestic crap whereas the Presidency, at least, offers more in the way of Grand Strategy, diplomacy, etc.
I think the likeliest game plan is for him to chair a much more empowered State Council after 2024. (This is what Nazarbayev did with the Security Council after retiring last year).
Does this imply, that they’ll allow an actual election in 2024? I’m getting excited… 🙂
Speaking of constitutional changes, they should just get rid of the entire Yeltsin’s text, and write a new one. Yeltsin’s constitution is a mishmash of French and American constitutions, completely detached from the country’s realities and tradition.
My take on this is that Lukashenka told Putin to piss off, and he did. So no union.
How about not importing all of Central Asia, so that wages aren’t depressed. Higher wages might boost that low TFR.
Will that will help subsidize the Chechens, Avars, Laks etc. the most relative to their population size because Russia is a “Multinational” state with equality for all of its “constituent” nations?
Speaking of which will Uzbek and Tajik guests be able to get in on that too? A future Russian Duma might need to grant more rights to them because Russia will need more workers to support its aging population. They speak Russian after all, and there is a shared history. So, they will integrate well into society. I feel like that is what a future Russian PM will be arguing a few years down the line.
I assume and hope so, just that using Belarus in a constitutional maneuver seems to have been definitively withdrawn from the table. (Assuming it was ever seriously considered).
I don’t think the prospects of the union are realistic.
First, Lukashenko’s shenanigans in the last ~5 years significantly reduced positive feelings for Belorussians among Russian population. Many feel that Belarus is going the way of Ukraine, and think that if their population allows this, it deserves everything that is going to befall it.
Second, Lukashenko himself is a problem. He might be qualified to run a small agrobusiness, but certainly nothing greater than that. Yet his outsized ego (common among morons, think Bush Jr) won’t let him fade away peacefully.
Third, Belarus is subsidized by Russia, and many Russian citizens believe that the money would be much better spent inside Russia or helping countries that deserve this aid, like Syria.
Maybe Putin thinks differently, but he does a lot to remain popular. So, after pension reform hit to his support I don’t think he is going to do something most people disapprove of.
Fortunately, there’s very little Central Asian breeding going on it Russia – the pattern is for them to make their money (5-10x what they can make at home) and raise families at home.
Chechens, Avars, etc. will benefit disproportionately, but the program is after all primarily intended as an incentive. Personally, I think a childlessness tax will be much more effective, since people react better to penalties than rewards – plus it will rake in a net profit – but I don’t suppose its politically feasible in the modern age.
It is interesting thinking about this. I wonder if it was even mentioned once in an American state of the union address. What’s it been, near 50 of them, where white fertility has been below replacement?
Similar thought on countries in Western Europe and places like Canada and Australia.
Can I just point out to the local svidomy (AP, Hack, etc.) here that your hatred towards AnonFromTN is really displaced.
Guy does overtime arguing why Russia shouldn’t reunite with its former territories, just with more vatnik-pleasing phrasing that’s actually more likely to work (e.g. Ukrainians and Belorussians don’t deserve it). 🙂
Seems like a good balance between a liberal direction – limiting any one president to two absolute terms while substantially increasing the say of the parliament – and some common sense requirements (like on citizenship).
Putting it to a referendum is also welcome. The will of the people should not only be heard but increased.
I doubt this will work.
The biggest problem for fertility all over the world is housing. As long as the housing sector is neoliberalised, it will be a major impediment. Affordable housing is per definition low-margin and hence not interesting to private developers. For them, a perpetual housing shortage pushes up the profit margin. All firms are constantly seeking to maximise profits, so their behaviour is rational from a purely market fundamentalist point of view. That’s why market fundamentalism need to be overthrown. There has to be a massive building spree to lower the cost of housing to no more than 4-5 years of annual (net) wages for a median worker to buy without debt. That would be the real game changer. Import the churkas and get it done.
The second problem is ideology and religiosity. If you look at Israel, a major component of their high fertility is the massively increasing Haredi sector. Even outside the Haredis, they have a high share of genuinely religious jews. For the seculars, TFR is still a respectable 2.5, which is likely explained by nationalism. Whatever Russian nationalism is, it isn’t very fecund. Russians aren’t very religious either, though Putin seems to be. Church attendence in Russia is quite low. At this stage, I don’t believe high fertility can be solved without going into artificial wombs and more exotic solutions. A cultural revolution doesn’t seem to be on the cards.
I still think Belarus will be swallowed by Russia within this decade.
Well, that’s good. Hopefully, it stays that way. I’ve lived most of my life in Hispanic majority areas of Texas, and have reconciled to America’s future as the largest and most powerful Latin American country in the world for whatever that’s worth.
Very true.
I find this unlikely. Lukashenko has zero leverage, Putin has massive leverage. Why would Putin fold so easily?
Ban PMs, Ministers, governors, some mayors and judges, from having second citizenships of foreign residencies; moreover, Presidential candidates should have been resident in Russia for 25 years (previously 10 years) and never had a foreign citizenship.
I knew that if you kept it up, Putler would get around to targeting you.
After Russia pumped billions in subsidies into the Belarussian economy for decades, annexing it in one form or another is probably do or die. Letting Belarus slip into NATO at this point after the billions spent to prop up its economy would be quite the humiliation.
I am happy to impale myself for PUTLER if I take half a million other zoglings with me.
It’s good that Putin continues to pay attention to demographics. That’s the most important question and problems there should not be ignored.
I’m not very familiar with other stuff but I don’t understand all that with State Council. What’s that all about, what kind of institution is that. Ok if now Putin wants to move to more parliamentary system or something, but it seems they are adding to confusion. So Russia will have less powerful President, Prime Minister and some State Council and I guess executive power will be divided between them. Seems stupid.
That too. Ukraine is a split country on pro/anti-Russian attitudes whereas my impression is that Belarus is much more uniformly pro-Russian. Lukashenko is just a local strongman trying to protect his local dynasty/thiefdom, though one must admit he has played his very limited hand extremely well.
Let me clarify some points.
My opinion that Russia is better off without parasitic hangers-on is based on the comparison of what I saw in Russia in Soviet times and last year. The difference is striking.
My opinion regarding Russian’s feelings about former “brotherly” republics is based on talking to people who actually live in Russia.
Ukrainian citizens who deserve it are running to Russia: Crimean and Donbass people ran with the territories. In addition, half a million Ukrainian citizens got Russian citizenship in 2019. Optimists put Ukrainian population at 35 million, pessimists at 22-24 million, but half a million in a single year is a huge number in either case.
Finally, my interest in the opinions of me (or anything else, for that matter) of various “svidomy” and “svyadomy” personages is about the same as my interest in the opinions of cockroaches or ants. In one case, what they fought for has already befallen them, in the other – the same thing is likely to happen. In both cases Russia should not burden itself with unnecessary dead weight.
About the State Council:
http://en.kremlin.ru/structure/state-council
Can you give me a quick rundown on Lukashenko’s chimpouts?
This lukachenko has a too high opinion of himself . I cant for the day he hangs on a butchers hook.
Mishustin is a genius at reforming bureaucracies with IT systems. He is also an economist who thinks Russia should be less autarkic. He is in the Kudrin camp. For example, he is still scheduled to speak at the Gaidar forum. Shoigu seems to have fallen back. M is associated witht he Union of Right Forces.
There has been a huge Twitter storm of people/trolls posting this a Putin’s effort to stay in power.
The Atlanticists Fourth Estate has the attack article’s locked and loaded.
The Curse of Lee Kuan Yew
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/lee-kuan-yew-legacy-116317
https://static.politico.com/dims4/default/fdd47a5/2147483647/resize/646x/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fs3-origin-images.politico.com%2F2015%2F03%2F23%2F150323_judah_leekuanyew_gty.jpg
Just a few off the top of my head:
1. Lukashenko wants the prices for oil and natural gas for Belarus to be the same as for Russian regions, but refuses to behave like a Russian region.
2. He got many loans from Russia and Russian semi-commercial entities (like Sberbank), but behaves as if his country is living within its means.
3. He prevented Russian companies from acquiring Minsk automotive plant (MAZ). In response, Russia switched the trucks for its mobile rockets from MAZ to domestic KaMAZ.
4. He never recognized South Ossetia and Abkhasia.
5. He refused Russian request for an airbase, suggesting that Russia gives him some fighter planes for free and he will build an airbase of the Belarus army.
6. Belarus makes gasoline and other products from Russian oils and resells them at a huge profit. Besides, he wants to export it all via Baltic statelets, providing their ports business that Putin is taking away from them by building Russian deep-sea ports, like Ust-Luga.
7. Not to mention that he talks about 10 times more than is wise, saying mostly BS (the latter is natural for a moron).
There are many more, but these are enough to explain how most Russians feel about him. Belarus either gets rid of that idiot, or suffers because of his stupidity.
I can pretty much guarantee Russians would rather subsidize Belorussians than Syrians. And Lukashenka is meeting with Putin at Valaam of all places, very auspicious. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t want to say Russia and Belarus are spiritually united. Belarus has got to happen and so I think it will.
https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-now-if-democracy-will-not-work-for-the-russians-a-white-christian-people-can-we-assume-lee-kuan-yew-74-36-22.jpg
More power to Parliament means Oligarchy control, like all western countries.
Not good.
Unless angry Zmagars can launch a coup during a Minsk Euromaidan.
There seems to be less angst in Belarus than there was in Ukraine, so probably less likely. Although not impossible.
Can anybody elaborate on the new relationship of international and domestic law? Is something replacing constitution Articles 17, 18 or 46?
In my science, experimental data always trump theories. In fact, theories are a penny a dozen until proven by experiment. So, let’s wait and see.
All advanced countries need a no-children tax on free-loaders to survive. It is easy to implement and mostly fair (there are a few corner cases). It is not a penalty since it is a personal choice to be a parasite on the society and consume instead of raising children.
It can easily be implemented by including a number of children in retirement formula and in taxes. The no-kids parasites, the assorted barren women and gays, feminists and male scoundrels who abandon their families, would pay for the long-term support they get from the society – for the children that they will need to get pensions, medical care, etc… Or we can just cut them off once they no longer work. No kids – no old-age benefits, unless you pay for them. This would be automatic in a normal society in the past.
Most modern people don’t have children because they are lazy and because raising children is hard. It is a core role of any society to have families, so those who don’t participate need to pay up.
The Soviet Union did have a tax on childless (or unmarried?) men for a while. It wasn’t popular and didn’t last.
Autarky in the modern age is a difficult thing to pull off, but Russia would be wise to have a plan B in case 2008 or some new sanctions come again
It seems that Putin for whatever reason has a feeling it’s not very cool to just simply extend ruling terms or make them unlimited like Lukashenko was doing, therefore his knack for convoluted and forced legalities (as the swap with Medvedev) which essentially change very little as the goal and result stays the same – neverending personal power. Anyway, despite the everchanging legal masquerading in essence this is just continuation of mugabization in RF which is very good and desirable thing and only can be applauded with cheers.
The whole of capitalism is a demonstration of people reacting best to reward. The psychologist B F Skinner also demonstrated the superiority of reward with his experiments not only on pigeons but on people. Designing the right reward can be a challenge but very often, money works. Punishment tends to generate resistance and cheating.
Only 6) is a real point, it goes against Russia’s strategy to strangle the Baltic statelets economically by cutting off their transit role. This is an unfolding economic catastrophe for the Balts, they will become irrelevant once they are isolated from the Russian market. Belarus also loses in this transit re-alignment, so this is obviously a point of dispute.
The other points you make are a part of being a sovereign state, no dispute there. No sovereign country should have foreign military bases on its territory – it is incompatible with being a country and it usually serves no rational purpose.
Lol
Would that more countries suffered from the curse of a highly competent autocrat building a functional, wealthy society.
Malaysia GDP Per Capita: $11,338 62nd; Malaysia HDI: Increase 0.804 very high · 61st
Singapore GDP Per Capita: $65,627 7th; Singapore HDI: 0.935 very high · 9th
Malaysia isn’t bad, but Singapore is a city-state whose only natural resource is its human capital. I think Lee deserves the plaudits.
Obviously it is unpopular with the parasites who have to pay, but all taxes are unpopular.
It is fundamentally the most fair way to handle generational issues – those who choose to be free-loaders, can’t expect others’ children to take care of them. This will happen regardless, all the pension obligations are imposed on people who never agreed to them, they will re-structure them in the future to benefit their own families.
In the West this is complicated by the diversity-migrant issue in the next generation – why should they pay for people who invited them for cheap labor? There is an assumption that they will pay, but why should they? This issue is coming.
most of the children will never – at least not financially – become net contributor in the social systems of modern welfare stats.
The same reason Putin paid $3 billion to Ukraine. Putin is a frightened little man, who huffs and puffs, then folds.
Generally speaking, I agree. However, most countries calling themselves “sovereign” do have foreign military bases on their soil. In some cases it is a wise insurance policy: say, Armenia and Syria have Russian bases to prevent mad neocons of even thinking of conquering these countries. Wise small fish maneuvers to survive. Dumb small fish eagerly pledges loyalty to one of the big predators and gets swallowed whole. Serves it right, if you ask me.
Also, sovereignty does not gibe with #1: if you are a sovereign country, you should buy hydrocarbons for the same price as other sovereign countries, not at prices charged non-sovereign regions of another country.
It’s location near a choke point is a key part of it
I’ve thought for years that in the end Putin will pull a Yeltsin (or a Nazarbayev,) Six months before the 2024 elections he will resign and appoint a handpicked successor. When the elections come around this successor will be reelected in a landslide.
Most countries aren’t sovereign. Sovereignty is a question of power not international law, as exemplified by American actions over the past century. Belarus simply isn’t powerful enough to have actual sovereignty.
Are there any good profiles or interviews of Mikhail Mishustin? Hope this works out, Russia could easily be a 21st century superpower with the right policies.
In Stalin’s times that tax was imposed an all and gradually reduced with the number of children, so that only people who had three or more children did not pay “childless” tax. In Brezhnev’s USSR that tax was on childless men and married childless women (on the assumption that marriage is male’s choice, so a woman cannot be penalized when no one marries her).
I might be misremembering, but I think that if you had 3 children, they would get free school lunches.
Very true location is key for Singapore, but human capital matters more than location. Otherwise, Djibouti and Panama would be like Singapore. Lee deserves credit as well, since 19th and 20th century China demonstrated what bad leadership can do with Chinese human capital.
Too many women whose potential husbands were killed in the war. Penalizing them with a tax on top of everything would’ve been heartless.
The US already has this. One look at the IRS 1040 form and instructions will confirm this.
Frankly, I don’t know. I never lived in Stalin’s times and never had enough siblings or three children. What I remember in the 1960s and 1970s, every school child in grade 1 (maybe 1 and 2) received a glass of free milk at school daily, and children from poorer families received free lunch (I never did).
The world seems to be moving away from pure globalization toward what the pre-WWII era world was like with several autarkic or at least highly protectionist trading blocs.
This won’t happen overnight, but things like Trump’s moves towards bilateralism, the trade war and not signing the TTP shift things in that direction. The ubiquity of sanctions also facilitates the movement toward different trade blocs.
https://twitter.com/RusEmbUSA/status/1217523662397607936
I’ve always thought about how Russia will prepare for a post-Putin future. I guess this Mishustin guy is a start.
From what I have read, he seems the ideal candidate for the premiership. Very happy about this.
I rather like Kudrin too, but his kind needs to be balanced with people who put tradition and society first — nationalists, culture workers, and the like.
No.
It is the other way around, the term limits are to be removed. President will also be able to ask the courts if laws are constitutional and the State Council role will be increased. A kind of quasi second government.
So ultimately the President will both lose and gain power.
https://sputniknews.com/russia/202001151078041620-live-updates-vladimir-putins-annual-address-to-the-federal-assembly/
https://www.russiapost.su/archives/200076
I find this move rather ballsy. There is the Israel constituency, of course, but also those elite Russian mothers who gave birth in America to give their kids dual Russo-American citizenship.
Hopefully Putin will disband the USA by nuking Yellowstone, it’s the US with its terrorism and kidnapping activities all over the world that abuses free countries and their citizens, and thinks its lawless “jurisdiction” applies everywhere.
In the UK we had a small bottle, about a third of a pint, of free milk. The ones who needed it most never drank it. (My school was in a small town and contained all social classes). School meals were paid for by most but some had them free.
The Russian government has just introduced free school meals for all for certain years. I forget which.
Before today he didn’t even have an English language Wikipedia article.
There was a nice FT profile of him a few months ago, which I covered here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ai-taxmen/
Rather strong and somewhat anachronistic statement. Ukriane was split prior to 2014.
There are still pro-Russian areas but being free of Crimea and Donbas means Ukraine can no longer be characterized as “split.” Probably 1/4 of the population can be considered to be politically friendly to Russia. Given, say, Latvia’s ethnic Russian population, that country is nowadays probably more “split” than Ukraine.
Possibly true. It certainly is a massive problem, if not THE problem.
In my country (USA), the biggest problem behind the shortage of affordable housing isn’t market fundamentalism, it is property taxes and various other areas where the government and capitalists collaborate to produce our Ponzi scheme disguised as an economy.
Property taxes also destroy good agricultural land by combining with various subsidies and giving incentives to low-density housing tracts.
Henry George was right: we need a land value tax, or anything else really, in place of property taxes.
Where market fundamentalism comes into the equation is that the worst libertarian and Republican think tanks continue to pretend 1) that we have a free market and that 2) our systemic problems can be addressed by continuing to pretend that #1 is true.
Ah yes, “free of” those vile treacherous scum. Europe might be in the throws of a demographic crisis and beset by waves of infinity immigration, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of scoring points in your parochial conflict with Russia.
What’s the big picture in petty European Nationalisms exactly? Fissioning into ever smaller states seems counter-productive.
I feel like robber barons in Kyiv have harmed you more through their looting of the country than impoverished Eastern Ukrainians, who were the biggest losers in the post-Soviet deindustrilization, have harmed you by existing and dying of diseases of poverty and despair.
It reminds me of how coastal shit-libs in America talk about “fly-over” country and want all the poor whites in Appalachia to die. I’m living in a country whose soul is totally poisoned. A country that is dying. While all this is happening, whites have split themselves into little factions focused on political point scoring.
I doubt people like Zelensky, Kolomoisky, Poroshenko and all the rest are going to turn Ukraine into an earthly paradise. They’re more likely to be Neros playing harps, while Ukraine burns.
I understand Ukraine is a beautiful place with its own history and culture, but so is the rest Europe. Don’t places like the Donbass deserve compassion more than derision? They have been fucked by the Putinist regime leaving them stranded in a frozen conflict zone. After they were fucked by industrial collapse and job loss. Before that they were fucked by wars, famines and the Bolsheviks. They really can’t seem to catch a break.
Europeans seem to be on the precipice of disaster everywhere. It would be nice to band together, rather than die while getting hung up on the narcissism of small differences. Probably just wishful thinking on my part though. I guess Americans can’t understand how important it is for Ukrainians on one side of the Dniepr to show how different they are from Ukrainians on the other or how different they are from Russians for that matter.
Much more importantly, it rules out Crimeans and repatrians. If this will pass, politicians like Poklonskaya or Yuneman would never be able to run. For every liberal with an Israeli passport Russia has ten repatrians from Ukraine or Kazakhstan.
The russian economy autarkic ? The russian economy has one of the highest share of exports and imports in the GDP. On the contrary it needs to rely more on its domestic market ,especially that its two main export markets- EU and China- are having lower growth rates than before. Its needs a more fordist / keynesian model , and it needs its own performant financial system to convert its population’s savings into investment . Kudrin , a notoriously incompetent néo liberal accountant mascarading a serious economist , has done everything in his power to make Russia super dependent on western financial markets when he was the minister of economy in the 2000’s and deny his own country the right to have its own sovereign finance to invest in the economy. Hence the country’s sensitivity to the 2008’s economic crisis and a certain sensitivity to US sanctions, hence the country’s relative under investment and technological backwardness and weak economic growth. Russian leaders need to stop to listen to him and his kind of degenerates and have some economy lesson from a man like Jacques Sapir ( a famous French economist with russian roots and one of the best experts on russia in the west ).
Exactly . Kudrin and his friends want parliament to have more power so that the russian people have less of it. They know they have 0 legitimacy , that the people hate them and that they would never survive at the top of the political elite if a real and intelligent nationalist comes to power in Russia one day ( Putin is a half-disapointment whose main merit is to have benefited from the work of Primakov ). They want the presidency to be paralysed . I hope they wont succeed and that there will always be a strong statesman on their way in Russia.
So he pulling a Nazarbayev?
Based. Nazarbayev is one of the more based politicians of the modern period, and severely underrated.
They all actually seem to emulate LKY, another based politician, bless him
The claim that Ukraine is no longer so split without Crimea and rebel held Donbass is put mildly suspect. Granted, that Crimea and rebel held Donbass are two of the more pro-Russian leaning of areas in the former Ukrainian SSR.
During the recent Ukrainian presidential election, note the svido leaning likes of Kuzio backing Poroshenko (for his svido platform) over the eventual winner Zelensky as a case in point. In varying degrees, the counter-Euromaidan/pro-Russian leaning perspective remains noticeable within the area of the former Ukrainian SSR, minus rebel held Donbass and Crimea.
The last deal on energy between Russia and ukraine is a massive defeat for ukraine. They lose half of earnings from transit of gas , and will lose everything if russia wants so in 5 years . They renounce to all legal complaints against russia and will continue to pay for the russian gas more than before because now they buy it from Slovakia, that irself buy its gas from Russia. All the ukrainian retards got is 3 billion dollars ( a drop of water in the ocean for Gazprom ) that will end in Naftogas’s managers pockets and that gazprom will make them repay by selling its gas more expensive anyway.
Vile and scum are too strong and treacherous isn’t exactly correct.
But Ukraine is free of them, thank God.
The mentality that prevents this is the one that is glad that Crimea and Donbas are gone.
Ukraine’s robber baron elite have been mostly from eastern Ukraine and were in power due to eastern Ukrainian voters.
Ukraine isn’t America, so you have it backwards. Donbas and Crimea are multi-culti, Sovoks-Communists, atheists, and full of non-natives. Ukraine is better off without them.
It’s like if America’s coasts were full of all the diseases of despair, the heartland was healthy, and was glad to be free of the coasts.
Rather than burning, Ukraine is doing better now than it has in years.
AK said:
I think you mean “down from post-Soviet peak of close to 1.8 in mid-2010s“
Instead of trying to make more women have babies, have the women who have babies have more babies. Tell them that their children and their children’s children will inherit Russia as the future belongs to the born and the living.
“Patriotic mothers of Russia. Your kids will inherit and own Russia.”
It’s like white people who have kids should have more kids and don’t worry about cat ladies who don’t. Be like the Mormons or Amish. Never mind whites who’ve chosen to be sterile. YOU should have more kids, and you can be assured they will inherit the nation since others aren’t having kids. Mother and the Other. Mothers have kids who inherit Russia. Others have no kids and just vanish, and good riddance.
Also, favor men for good jobs on the basis that men need jobs to get married whereas women do not.
Women without jobs can find hubbies. Men without jobs(or esp good jobs) cannot get wives.
So, for the good of the whole, men must be favored for jobs. Feminism and equal opportunity crap is a nation-killer.
I suppose I stand corrected then. I still feel sorry for them. Putin led the Donbass on and then stabbed them in the back. It’s unfortunate to see people languish like that.
They are full of disease and disrepair as well, since wealthy white liberals get to live in gated communities above the squalor or commute into the cities from suburbs. For instance, Californian cities are full of junkies dying from AIDS, meth addiction, human shit in the streets and on and on.
Well that must be nice. I can’t relate. I live in a country whose government managed to conjure $23T to bailout banks and has a bottomless pit of money for war, but can’t repair the infrastructure or give us affordable healthcare. The average hospital cost of giving birth is $30,000. A key factor in needing to import a million immigrants a year. My future is that I get to live in a Northern version of Brazil. Crumbling infrastructure, horrendous corruption and racial division, how the future turns to ash before I’m even out of my 20’s.
So, if the Easterners are really so bad, I guess I’m glad for you. I wouldn’t wish my country’s fate on another.
Is it a good idea to get these people involved?
https://tass.com/politics/1109257
Absolutely. The globalization is over. The share of trade in global GDP is now declining . The world is moving towards fordism and taylorism with big ” empires” relying firstly on their interior market to drive growth. The share of regional currencies in the reserves of Central Banks is growing, displacing the dollar and the euro. This is why it is so important for Russia to leave neo liberalism and to build an effective Eurasian Economic Union ( including Ukraine ). It has a good potential of becoming a major center of economic power in the nearest future . Its labor productivity grew massively during the years of Putin in power (mostly in manufacturing sector) and still growing . It can probably grow at 6-7 % rates if pro-growth macro economic policies are implemented .
What could go wrong with placing a bunch of intellectuals and artists in charge of making constitutional changes?
Maybe they won’t have liberal views or revise things to be even more in favor of entrenched oligarchical interests.
I saw Anatoly said on twitter that Authoritarianism and Multinationalism would likely be embraced with more enthusiasm than efficiency.
After all, Russia is just as much for Tuvans, Yakuts, Buryats and Chechens as it is for Russians, at least according to the Slaanesh touched liberal elites.
Putinotriumphalism of doing barely enough to maintain foreign policy interests; having the tightest monetary policy on the planet; storing financial reserves that will approach $600B by 2021 and doing almost nothing with that money; enriching his inner-circle; leaving Donbass in a frozen conflict and so on will all be able to continue into the next decade. I partially jest, but Putin can be a terrible disappointment for Russian interests about half the time it seems to me.
Ukraine doing better now ? You simply dont know what you are talking about. This is by far the poorest country in Europe ( it was the richest region of the Soviet Union ) , with a manufacturing sector in free fall , a massive emigration ( mostly towards Russia lol ) a failed state that only runs for neo nazis and US corrupt bureaucrats and that without a massive financial support from the west would have gone bankrupt 10 times already. Its infrastructures are totally obsolete . It has 0 chances of joining the EU or NATO ever because nobody in Germany or France can or wants to support this country financially like they have supported Poland and other Eastern countries , and having nothing in return aside from seeing its factories offshoring in another third world country and having another US colony to disrupt all French efforts to build a European defense. All it has is the most moronic and corrupt political elite Europe has ever seen . The Maidan served as a good exemple for other EEU states about what happens to regimes who wants to roll away from Russia. Ukraine will éventuelly come back to russia if only because it has way more export potential towards Russia and Asia than towards Europe. Even Kholomoisky understands that , judging by his interview in the NYT.
He said that two years ago.
Considering that the new head of government is supposed to be an effective technocrat, they may try to embrace that with the same enthusiasm as the others.
I agree. The population there was thoroughly Soviet, neither Russian nor Ukrainian. The region was most heavily settled under the Soviets, it was a truly Soviet society. The end of the USSR was, for those people, like the end of world. Native Americans went through a comparable process when the Europeans ended their world. And the behaviors of these peoples are remarkably similar.
I hoped that the Ukrainian state would turn them into normal functional human beings. But it was too riddled with former Sovoks at the to to do this (the state’s elite was largely from the East, former Sovok compradors, they ran Ukraine into the ground). So let the Russians do it instead. But instead Russia lets it fester, wanting to reattach it to Ukraine – a poison gift.
I live in the Northeast and it is very nice here. The poverty is in pockets, rather than vice versa. It is very different from California, which is indeed a shithole. Politics is annoyingly woke as is often the case in nice places but it doesn’t really affect my personal life, most of my social circle is right-wing Eastern Europeans.
I blame public education when I see shit as retarded as what you just wrote.
It’s a concrete empirical fact that it’s the breeders who are parasites: they unambiguously are less net-tax-paying at all income levels. Comparing like-for-like, in each income cohort a childless household pays an entire person’s-worth of tax more than a couple with one or more offspring.
Taken over all households, the parasitism of the breeders results in negative net tax – i.e., governments spend more than they collect in tax… this means that governments run deficits. Non-breeders on the whole do not contribute to government indebtedness.
The system in all Western countries as currently configured, subsidises squirting out pointless, useless offspring – the vast majority of which will be GPS-negative[1] for the society as a whole.
Taken over their entire lives, these useless-eater sprogs will take more out of public finances than they put in; only the top 10% of each cohort will be a net tax payer (i.e., will pay more in tax than they consume in government services over their entire lives)… and that will usually be because they don’t have offspring themselves.
Breeder sprogs are – like their parents – stupider, less productive, and a bigger net drain on the social balance sheet than folks who would rather flush ejaculate than incubate it. Back out the IQ estimates for non-breeders from Western IQ estimates… that’s instructive.
Smart, rich, productive people reproduce waaaay less than stupid, poor, unproductive people. Without us, you breeders would be fighting over scraps.
[1] GPS: GDP per sprog.
Your post is a collection of Russian wishful thinking. It’s like a Western fake “dying bear” narrative.
Yes.
You simply believe whatever nonsense the Russian media feeds you.
It is richer than Moldova and it has been very poor relative to the rest of Europe for 25 years.
But it is getting better finally.
From the 1990s until 2015, Ukraine had been falling further and further behind Russia every year. From 2016 it has started catching up again. It is now back to 2011.
Truly nonsense. This is a common myth among Russians. In Soviet times Ukraine was the poorest of the Slavic republics:
In 1990 Russia’s per capita GDP was $3485.
Belarus was $2124.
Ukraine’s was $1,570.
And of course the Baltic republics were richer than Ukraine.
It’s been up and down but basically has been around 0. So no free fall. Manufacturing is increasing in the West and decreasing in the East.
Mostly towards Poland. You got this wrong, too.
Debt to GDP ratio is going down:
https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/427246/national-debt-of-ukraine-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp.jpg
And is lower than many other countries, such as Hungary or Ireland:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/countries-by-national-debt/
Ukraine’s forex reserves are up to $25 billion, from $5 billion in 2015:
https://tradingeconomics.com/ukraine/foreign-exchange-reserves?user=zzalgiers
If Ukraine is the example, they can expect short-term pain and long-term gain.
Now that the Russians have the ugly bald bean counter to do the planning, they need a pretty blonde Chad to stand in front of the cameras and give bold speeches to crowds
Sure – undermine meritocracy, because that’s worked a treat everywhere it’s been tried.
This twisted horseshit (based on a static view of the world in which numbers of people are m,ore important than living standards) only differs in target selection, compared to nearly-identical horse-shit expounded by SJWs and thier ilk.
They think that hiring decisions should favour women (or non-whites, or some other ‘disfavoured’ group) based on empirical regularities in the makeup of the workforce; they ignore what implementing their infatuations will do on aggregate productivity (the enabler of rising living standards). They would sacrifice productivity to fulfil their sophomoric infatuations.
And then there’s the likes of you: you would sacrifice productivity because you think that there aren’t enough useless babies being born.
There would be no mechanism more dysgenic than giving uncompetitive men ‘good jobs’ because you want them to (falsely) signal economic merit to potential breeding sows.
The resulting signal of economic fitness is a priori false if it results from an economic situation that was not obtained by merit: the kids will be dumber and less productive than the sow expects.
So over time, breeding sows will adjust their expectations: the definition of ‘good job’ will be refined upwards until it gets to a place dominated by those who were competitive under the old definition.
It will credentialise the reproductive market, just as fake standards in education has credentialised the labour market – entry-level work now requires a degree on paper, even though it is understood that it only requires high school skills.
It’s fucking hilarious that the same people who will bleat and mewl about the horrific social consequences of AA/diversity/intersectionality, exhibit exactly the same blind spot as they scrabble around in the cognitive mire looking for a solution to their own imagined .
All humans below the cognitive elite are a net cost to a technologically-advancing society, both in static (current-budget) terms and dynamically. They are of benefit to the political class, because they furnish a mass of dullards whose infatuations are malleable, even for things that are manifestly counter to their interests.
Long-term gain is still not quite evident
But this is a good post, and the reason why AP shouldn’t be banned
Constant shit talking without looking at statistics is how the “Ukraine is about to collapse” meme still continues
Karlin is immune to this (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/ukrotriumph/), but a lot of people here aren’t
It would be more productive to point out in which way the Ukraine can benefit by siding with Russia over Globo-Homo then to stuff our ears and pretend it will sort itself out with another collapse
Russia ought to present itself as the stronger horse, instead of a bitter neighbour who wishes his brothers house burns down
I don’t understand calling Ukrainians brothers but also wanting them to fall into ruin (again)
Anatoly,
I think the reason why Putin is not resigning is because he is aware that throughout world history, Russia never caught up to the incomes of the developed countries in the West. Always something has gone wrong as Russia is ascending, with unfortunate consequences for those in Russia.
Since Putin essentially saved Russia from complete collapse, he probably has a hard time letting go given these historical trends…
It would be a shame if Russia stagnated/collapsed again and all that work was ruined, so he keeps his hands on the reins.
It remains to be seen how much authority he will end up having. Although efficiency would be a welcome addition.
In your case I blame just the inborn stupidity. It is embarrassing and no educational system would fix it in your case: you are a proud dead-ender.
Productivity, for what exactly? what do you want to produce? what are you hallucinating about? Why don’t we all not have any kids – none of us – and live it up for the next 40-50 years? It would be super productive, the easiest way to raise living standards by far. Maybe we can eliminate the current brood of breeders’ offspring too, it would save a lot of money.
Then maybe we can import some aborigines to take care of the society. Or why bother, let it all disappear as the super productive dead-enders disappear.
I am sensing a pathological Ayn Rand devotee – you are in the wrong decade, buddy…our kids are not paying for your retirement and your paper wealth and the so-called obligations are worthless. How are you going to defend it without some youthful muscle?
Ukraine (those parts under Kiev) is better off now than at any time since the early 90s collapse, and ongoing growth is projected.
Here is GDP per capita in constant dollars:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?locations=UA
It only goes to 2018 but 2019 will surpass 2018.
Prior to Maidan Ukraine was just stagnant – it never completely recovered from the 2008 crash and then got stuck at slight growth. After Maidan there was a short-term collapse, followed by consistent and significant (albeit not huge) growth.
And, keep in mind that pre-2014 included Donbas which had been the wealthiest region outside Kiev. So figures for Ukraine within its current borders (a true comparison) would have been lower than on the chart.
Thank you.
I looked into Ukraine’s industrial production after posting, and it has indeed had a sharp decline in October, minus 5%:
https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-industrial-output-stumbles-in-october-dropping-5-y-y-172202/
Overall however it has been around 0% the last couple of years:
http://d39raawggeifpx.cloudfront.net/styles/16_9_desktop/s3/articleimages/chart_81.png
So stagnant.
The real picture has been growth in West, decline in East, balancing each other out.
The decline is due to global drop in steel and iron prices. So it is beyond Ukraine’s control (has nothing to do with Maidan), and just hits the East.
Ukraine’s growth in tech services and agriculture compensate for industrial stagnation and overall GDP keeps growing.
Certainly, Putin’s greatest moral failure. The whole problem with Putin is he’s an enemy of Globo-Homo by circumstance rather than principle. He wanted to join the team, and he tried to join it during his first term. He was rejected because the US doesn’t want an intact Russia. It wants to absorb it in pieces.
If Putin had a committed and coherent Great Russian ideology then he would have absorbed the Donbass rather than starting a conflict and not finishing it. He could’ve annexed Donbass concurrently with Crimea fairly painlessly. The situation now is just a clusterfuck worse than Transnistria.
Stalin did a masterclass in drawing his borders. He had the foresight to draw all the borders in such a way as to leave tripwires for all the constituent countries. The Fergana Valley, Abkhazia, Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and the list goes on. The borders between Russia and Ukraine were designed to cause problems if they became independent states. Stalinism is a gift that keeps on giving.
That is all true. It isn’t that bad. As long as, we avoid the California style Sovietization becoming generalized. Homo Sovieticus does hate what he does not yet control and those who are guilty of wrong think.
Consider 1920’s Soviet Union. Outside urban areas all the banners and slogans vanished. 90% of the population was living in rural areas with a functioning market economy. Collectivization would be the hill Leninism lived or died on. Stalin was the only person remorseless enough to bludgeon it through over the mountains of bodies. Thus, all the little minions like Kalinin, Molotov and Beria would be in awe of him until their dying days.
The woke left liberals in America take the same attitude as the Bolsheviks towards the rest of the country outside their sheltered urban enclaves. Fortunately, they lack the intensity of the Bolsheviks’ homicidal utopian fanaticism. The heartland is killed by neglect rather than direct violence.
Hopefully, areas like the rust belt can be revived.
Why nuke Yellowstone ? Do you hope to set off world destroying volcanoes?
The best indicator of quality of life is human flow. Just like water always flows down, humans flow to better living conditions. In 2019 half a million of Ukrainian citizens acquired Russian citizenship. Out of those, only ~200,000 were from Donbass, the remaining 300,000 were from “prosperous” Ukraine. That tells the truth, in contrast to cooked statistics.
This is silly even for you.
By that measure El Salvador has a better quality of life than Latvia. And Nicaragua and Haiti, than Ireland:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_net_migration_rate
Donbas had 10% of Ukraine’s population but accounts for 40% of Ukraine’s people settling in Russia.
No one said Ukraine is more prosperous than Russia. It is simply more prosperous than it has been in 20 years or so, and is improving.
Zelensky won with 73% support, purely because Ukrainians wanted him to normalize relations with Russia (this would be the obvious result of ending the war in the Donbas). It seems like all of the patriots and neo-Nazis were very upset by this result.
LOL no.
He got 73% because he managed to unite a lot of different people wanting different things. Some wanted normalization with Russia, many others wanted an end to corruption.
In the first round of the election, when all parties competed, there was a candidate that was about normalizing relations in Russia: Yuri Boyko.
He got 12% of the vote. Another pro-Russian candidate got 4% of the vote. Their people mostly voted for Zelensky in the second round, because Zelensky was less anti-Russian than Porosohenko.
First round results:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%96%D0%B2_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D0%B8_2019_%D0%B7%D0%B0_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8_%28%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%29.svg/1024px-%D0%A0%D0%B5%D0%B7%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%96%D0%B2_%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B0_%D0%A3%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%97%D0%BD%D0%B8_2019_%D0%B7%D0%B0_%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B8_%28%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%88%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%82%D1%83%D1%80%29.svg.png
So a fraction of the 73% Zelensky voters were about normalizing relations. Keep in mind Zelensky won half of Galicia in the 2nd round..
Although the comparison is very hyperbolic, the Russian-Belarus relationship is similar to that between China and North Korea, if Lukashenko falls, all bets are off for what could happen there.
Read European history. Monarchs were often beholden to various nobles and moneylenders. People on the far-right often have extremely rose-tinted glasses when attacking democracy. Putin is an exceptionally strong leader, so he has wrestled control away from oligarchs, but that is more due to his own force of personality rather than the system itself.
In brief, whether a country will be beholden to oligarchs is less due to the governance structure and more about the general culture. Some countries have a very corrupt citizenry/culture and that will produce bad outcomes in most situations in the long run regardless of the political system. This can only be suspended temporarily by a very strong leader – but you only get them infrequently.
The only hope to reduce power of oligarchs when Putin leaves power is to attack corruption in society, at both high levels and ground levels.
Could you expand on that? What would your personal expectations be?
Completely agree, with the only caveat that the tax be excepted for people under a certain income level. In that way you kill two birds with one stone, whilst it also supports eugenic policy under the cover of progressive taxation.
Years of political turmoil, electoral chimpouts due to the release of built-up tension, collapse of Lukashenko’s subsidised dinosaur industries, major crime-spike in the wake of liberalisation, high-level embezzlement, political chaos and severe deterioration of relations with Russia.
This is not to say I view Lukashenko as the saviour of nation or even a very competent leader, but for the most part he has frozen rather than fixed the very serious internal problems within the country. Lukashenko has had differences with Putin, but nonetheless they have a decades long personal relationship. With his departure, agreements based on such trust, highly beneficial to Belarus, will no longer be tenable with the stage-managed chaos the accompanies liberal rule. There is also the adage about ‘stationary bandits’ over ‘roving bandits’, which has been the situation, politically, in Ukraine since 1991.
My anecdotal experience has been that Belarusian youth are considerably more Westernised than Russians (remember they border the most pozzed country in Eastern Europe), combine this with decades of uninspired personal rule, and there’s real potential for a Maidan type scenario. There is a possibility Lukashenko’s son will succeed him, but he’ll need much more talent than his father to assert himself in such a situation.
I tend to think net migration is a globohomo statistic. By that I mean that it is meant to help hide immigration numbers. That is to say, replacement immigration from the third world.
We need marry-tocracy.
The West was far healthier PRIOR to rise of feminism.
Feminism is good in offering freedom to women, but women must not be made take jobs from men.
Also, if men with good jobs marry women with good jobs, two high income go to ONE family. It leads to greater inequality.
Z’s win over Poroshenko reveal the limits of svido influence, whether hardcore Banderite, or sugar coated “gold star”, with select stat graphs not telling the whole story. That said, the svidos still have a disproportionate influence. Down the road, this current situation might change.
Ukraine isn’t joining NATO and/or the EU anytime soon. Russia isn’t the one needing to bend more.
Geopolitical patience and compromise aren’t something that Western pro-Euromaidan neocons and neolibs are known for. Their geopolitical paranoia can lead to greater suffering, which in turn can result in a blow-back.
Some months back, the Dem Senator Chris Murphy (a good gauge for Democratic Party foreign policy mischief making) said he feared that Ukraine might come closer to Russia, out of a disgust that the West isn’t doing enough for Ukraine. The first part of his thought (Ukraine coming closer to Russia) has a reasoned basis. The second part (as spun by him) actually concerns the misguided Western neocon/neolib advocacy to enhance an anti-Russian Ukraine with confrontational rhetoric – including arms supplies and training.
The 2008 situation in the former Georgian SSR, serves as a prime example of when such manner gets knocked down. Georgia didn’t improve itself with an armed confrontation against Russia. Arming Ukraine with anti-Russian reasoning, is a path that takes away from improving Ukraine internally.
Can’t argue with numbers. Gotta say that Ukraine has positively surprised to the upside and defied the cynics/naysayers. Your big remaining problem is emigration.
An informative background article:
National projects summed up: why Putin dismissed Medvedev
Will the State Council function like the Politburo in China: officially, they merely “advise” the government; but actually, they set the policy that the government implements?
I dont read the Russian media . I read media from all countries and serious economists. While you are a probably some west-ukrainian svidomite or even ukro-nazi, judging by your hateful rethoric about the people of the eastern ukraine, that reminds me some people i unfortunately know.
Heres your “around 0 ” non sense :
https://apostrophe.ua/ua/article/economy/promyshlennost/2019-12-27/ukrainskaya-promyishlennost-letit-v-propast-kto-vinovat-i-chto-delat/30018
Manufacturing declined at -7,5 % between 2018 and 2019. There is no significant manufacturing capability in the west.
Legendary aicraft maker going to collapse :
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/notes_about_airplanes/an178-posledniaia-popytka-5e04b9ceec575b00b0774f0a
Without Russia Ukraine is like Africa without France . Some western ukrainian morons may be believe they are the superior aryen race but the fact is that without Russia they are only peasants who export their daughters as prostitutes and thats their main export product.
I am not going to spend much time correcting the other BS that you pooped.
Long term gain in what ? Integrating a declining EU that doesnt even have the money to support its eastern partners , with its low growth rates , and that will probably collapse in the near future anyway because its non sustainable ( i say that as a French) , loose your Eurasian and Asian export markets ( which in the case of ukraine were more important than the EU market before the so called revolution of dignity ), end up with a civil war , a failed state , mass emigration towards Russia or EU , on life support by the IMF and with neo nazis controlling the street ? Yeah sounds like great long term gains. So great the Ukraine is actually dying from all this greatness . How much people they lost since the big evil USSR collapsed ?
So if Russia is re-embracing socialism, and putting national law above international law, then, I guess the apt name for the system would be? :p
Two points:
a) ‘AP’ is a paid shill, don’t expect rational discourse from him. He’ll just flood the discussion with volumes of loud bullshit when he’s losing the argument.
b) By ‘Ukraine’ he means Galicia only.
btw, Belarus is the perfect example that state Russophilia is the most futile, dangerous and counterproductive policy you can cultivate while neighbouring RF – they have made Russian as a state language, state financed Russian language shools, state media is dominating and essentially pro-RF, they share the Soviet victory cult, neverending official declarations of love and brotherhood with RF etc.
Did it increase their statehood safety in the end? Absolutely not, as the teeth gnashing, grudge, economic blackmail and desire to landgrab them from their “brothers” only increased because of that but not otherwise.
So the policy of gradual derussification is the only way to go forward for them if they want to survive.
Interesting person.
An idea, Russia has still has high abortion rates as far as I know, how feasible would it be for the government to provide incentives to not abort the baby? Perhaps pay the mother to give the baby up for adoption after birth.
There is no “they”.
“Belarus” is a Soviet frankenstein non-country that was created out of thin cloth purely to make the communist party of the RSFSR less powerful within the USSR power apparatus.
It’s like if the ZOG decided to gerrymander chunks of New Jersey, Delaware and North Carolina into an “independent nation”. Would you expect such a fake and gay non-country to care about their non-existent ethnic solidarity or sovereignty?
Abortion rates in Russia are falling rapidly – down 50% within the last 5 years. Public opinion on the subject is extremely negative, a pro-abortion message is viewed with the same ickiness that the idea of killing baby kittens would be viewed in the USA.
P.S. Is the USA the only country that values baby kittens more than baby human beings?
I’m extremely saddened by this development.
Increasing the parliament’s role, that is, dismantling the ‘vertical’ power structure, is bad news for Russia.
Zionists and other anti-national forces will make inroads by funding a large number of organizations, from media outlets to think tanks and powerful lobbies, that will focus on selecting, funding, and promoting politicians, making the supposed servants of the people the functionaries of international finance (also responsible for maintaining a seemingly infinite number of pressure groups known as human rights organizations well-funded and running, with the role of pozzing the world), and these government officials will be much more agreeable to (((their))) tastes than the current Russia (or any other country with a vertical power structure). Think of random stuff like the governor of Florida sponsoring an unconstitutional law to silence Israel critics. Practically nobody asked for that, but out of nowhere it surges. And such is the reality for many laws, from hate crime to mass migration to loyalty to Israel.
Democracies care very little about public opinion, less than systems like in Russia, those important members of government who are not re-elected generally have a generous post-office remuneration for their service, if you understand what I mean. Vertical power structures may create “patriotic corruption” as stated by Karlin, but they are independent of international finance.
Russia may well go the US way. I wished the opposite: Russia should stop paying lip service to democracy and become more like China, where the vertical power effectively cuts out the bought for ‘democrats’ we see in the West.
About this item: “Increase the role of the State Council and enshrine its advisory role in the Constitution.”
That’s a possible safeguard, but who chooses the members of the State Council? Again, if it’s the parliament, then the safeguard is useless
So Russia will have now jewish prime minister (his father was jewish at least) . I am sure he will oppose all kind of ethnic nationalism.
More on what I said above:
Putin is thinking about his future; he’s not considering the full implications of weakning the presidency, the protective measures against dual loyalty notwithstanding. Most US Congress puppets of lobbying interests don’t have foreign citizenship. This protective measure against foreign hijacking of the Russian parliament is very low energy, almost useless one could say.
The optics is not good, either. He’s trying to show that he will not be president for life, “you see? I will respect the constitution and leave the presidency!”, but he’ll still change the constitution to maintain power, so in the end, it makes the pretense even more glaring, with the collateral damage that the parliament will be empowered after he dies or is incapacitated by age.
I’m legitimately sad. I know how international Jewry works. You just have to study the behind the scenes in last 100 years in the US, Britain, and France. The strange, unexpected moves that don’t come from public opinion and/or necessity are telling signs. “We will fund your campaign and if elected, you will establish the federal reserve for us”. And Woodrow Wilson obliged.
“In plain English, the Federal Reserve Act authorized a private central bank to create money out of nothing, lend it to the government at interest, and control the nation’s money supply, expanding or contracting it at will.”
Paul Warburg and his pals got a very good deal indeed.
Democracies are poison and the popular will matters very little in them. It’s a mechanism for powerful interests to mediate their differences, and if a considerable segment of the population wants a certain policy and it happens, it’s because there’s a powerful faction that also endorses said policy and the candidate(s) behind it. The strongest lobby with its tentacles everywhere is of course that of organized Jewry. The US MIC is a distant second one.
It does not look like you are living in a meritocracy.
Long (1992): “The lesser productivity of females has been established in dozens of studies covering diverse fields, spanning decades, and using a myriad of measures…”
Cole (1979, p. 63) reported that after twelve years the average male scientist produced eight papers, whilst the average female scientist produced only three.
Women are not only under-represented in science but, on a per capita basis, produce less than their male counterparts (Cole, 1981).
Within the academic profession (at least in the US) men are more productive than their female colleagues at each status/salary level, as measured by number of research publications and citations (Over 1982). This finding holds true even for unmarried, childless women. In other words, women may already be over-promoted.
Cole and Zuckerman (1984): “More than 50 studies covering various time periods and fields of science report sex differences in published productivity, more specifically, that men publish more than women, even when age and other important social attributes are taken into account. Moreover, gender differences in publication rates appear to have persisted for decades.”
Cole and Zuckerman (1984): “women publish slightly more than half (57%) as many papers as men”
Farmer (1985): “Homemaking commitment, consistent with expectations based on Atkinson and Raynor (1978), was negatively and significantly related to long-range career motivation for young women, but not for young men. Young men had a small but positive simple correlation of 0.10 for these variable. It appears that for young women with high homemaking commitment there is a dampening effect on their long-range career motivation, but for young men such commitment may coexist with high career motivation.”
Beverly Steffert (Steffert 1991) found that female students took, on average, twice as long as males to complete funded PhD degrees (despite gaining more help from staff members with matters such as statistical analysis). Interestingly, those who were highest in femininity were least likely to finish.
Zuckerman (1991): “When it comes to rates of publication, more than 50 studies of scientists in a variety of scientific disciplines, types of institutions, and different countries show that women publish fewer papers than men of the same ages, on average, 50-60 percent as many (see Cole and Zuckerman 1984 for a review of the studies since 1975). The weight of the data is persuasive. Moreover, we find that gender differences in publication are smaller earlier in the career than later, as Figure 1.4 indicates. Data on matched pairs of men and women scientists who received Ph.D.s in the same departments in the same years in the same fields show that gender differentials in publication start early in the career and grow as scientists get older, and this has been so for some time (Cole and Zuckerman 1984). Such differentials are of course reduced considerably when rank and type of institution are held constant, but they are not eliminated.”
Broder (1993) showed that, even after controlling for other relevant variables, female economists have published fewer papers in top journals.
Das Gupta (1997) reported that, across disciplines, women pursuing an advanced degree take, on average, significantly longer to finish than their male peers.
Low productivity of female doctors
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/9950248/Part-time-women-doctors-are-creating-a-timebomb.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2532461/Why-having-women-doctors-hurting-NHS-A-provovcative-powerful-argument-leading-surgeon.html
Low productivity of female lawyers
https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2014/retrieve.php?pdfid=889
Low productivity of women in STEM
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-science-it-matters-that-women-come-last/
Etc. etc. etc.
Not just emigration, but demographics in general.
https://insomniacresurrected.com/2019/09/04/ukraine-will-again-forego-conducting-a-census-of-the-population/
https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/635842.html
The last proper census in the Ukraine was in 2001.
There are two big question marks here.
Q1 Will Russia stay functional after the death or incapacitation of Putin, or will it descend into chaos?
Q2 Will Russia stay independent after the same? And which way will it go, towards Globohomo, China, or the worst of both worlds? (Like, encouraging immigration, multiculturalism, gay marriage etc. at home while becoming a Chinese vassal in foreign policy with heavy Chinese economic presence would probably be the worst outcome.)
I’m pretty sure the answer to Q1 is that it will stay functional, even if under a more oligarchic type rule. But Q2… anything is possible, and most of the possibilities seem bad.
Rather ridiculous the way foreign countries imitate the US constitution, it is very much of its time and place and is largely obsessed with ensuring there are so many checks and balances not much can be done.
Zionists and other anti-national forces will make inroads
Unfounded worry, AK would be all over them in a New York minute.
Russians seem to have the strange idea they should subsidise the vassals, at the least the Americans have the vassals subsidise them. The US also understands bribing the elite is the best way to control a country.
A retired Conservative MP recently mentioned immigration and its negative impact on native birthrates but I cannot conceive of a major political figure addressing the issue.
Compare and contrast 😉
The topic of Ukraine is a fascinating one,because of too many reasons to count, and you seem to do a good job explaining the details from an insider perspective…
Euromaidan is the result of Russia’s really poor handling of Ukraine since 1990 and, even more painfully to avow (for Russia), the difference in sheer economic might between Russia and EU. In economics, the EU is a superpower, and a mere trade agreement and promises of future membership was enough to move Ukraine westward…
If Russia had a bigger economy,it could have taken more territory in 2014, but it could not absorb that many people and their problems,so it backed down, and this is probably the most painful thing for Russia vis-a-vis Ukraine. What I wanted to ask you is: do you think that investment in light industry from EU companies (to take advantage of lower wages) in westers Ukraine will lead to a permanent realignment of Ukraine,and the increase in power of Lvov over eastern Ukraine in time? By the way, I think that Russia’s desire to keep Ukraine near it is ethnically and culturally legitimate, but, after all, empires exist in the realm of power and capabilities,and the Russian empire is one of the greater worshippers of power; and power has nothing to do with mercy or compassion; empires,even former ones, should never receive mercy.
Russia must find a way to institutionalize its political system, so that it wont be vulnerable to a grab by globalists after Putin leaves. Putin will not live forever…
And it must keep its ability to make its own decisions in the international arena. Nationalist institutions are better than nationalist leaders.
It appears that the “State Council “is an attempt to emulate China’s (up to now) successful system. I believe that this State Council” is where the ultimate power will lie
Russia clearly will not slide into chaos without Putin. There are enough examples in the former Soviet republics (Kazakhstan, etc.). And to be honest, Putin’s role as an all-powerful ruler is greatly exaggerated.
Russia will probably retain its independence, since there are no other options. Perhaps the Russian elite would be happy to transform Russia into the servile state under the American boot (like Germany or France) in exchange for matching bonuses, but the US will not go for such a deal.
Sounds like a very unfair system to me because relationships and reproduction are not a level playing field by any means. A lot of men simply struggle to find a partner, especially one to have a family with.
I would say most men who are single are not single by choice, so to impose a tax on men because of that sounds incredibly unfair. I’m not surprised that system didn’t last, sounds like the sort of thing that would eventually cause an uprising.
Limp wristed liberals don’t topple Governments
Ukrainian Maidan had pissed off working class folks and neo nazi larpers, this is the bigger danger and is probably the reason Luka keeps the dinosaurs on life support
Ukraine couldn’t stay in freefall forever, their human capital is still probably far higher than truly brain-drained places like Albania or Romania.
Cats won’t be taking care of you when you’re old
The Congolese migrant who was brought in to fix you countries struggling demographics will
https://c.stocksy.com/a/xh3000/z9/14257.jpg?1571948044
Unfounded worry, AK would be all over them in a New York minute.
I didn’t say it’s already happening, and that’s very clear in my post.
It will not happen overnight, but after Putin is out of the scene for good and the Constitution has it that the power of government lies primarily with the parliament – what Putin suggests is very familiar to the American system, actually – then you’ll be left without a vertical power structure, and international finance thrives in this disjointed system. Indeed, they constantly try to overthrow all countries that don’t have one, and their base of operation is primarily the US, but if push comes to shove, they can get France and the UK involved too.
I hoped that Putin would convince Lukashenko of uniting the two countries, this way the vertical power structure would be maintained or likely strengthened. Sadly, Russia isn’t playing its hand well. Putin could have offered Lukashenko a very high position in the new unified state and the possibility to continue running the affairs in Belarus proper, while also having authority in Russia. Putin does not appear to have entertained the idea of empowering Lukashenko in Russia at the cost of merging with Belarus. From what I gather, Putin only offered the economic stick, at the cost of Lukashenko being king. Well, patriotic corruption works in Belarus, too. Lukashenko ruled the deal unworthy.
The issue of trust appears to be an issue with Putin. Switching positions with the prime minister would look very bad, so this was his genius alternative. If he trusted someone, he would have this person succeed him at the presidency. No need for constitutional shenanigans which jeopardizes his country’s resilience, and if this is not reversed, the dangers will become apparent after Putin’s out.
Correction:
I meant to say Putin only offered the economic stick [to Belarus], at the cost of Lukashenko no longer being king.
Lukashenko judged being king of Belarus is better than being a low level functionary of an unified state under Putin.
Putin’s pals would in no time take over Belarusian industry, leaving Lukashenko powerless and poor, relative to what he can have in his fiefdom.
The merge of Russia and Belarus can only happen if Lukashenko gains broad authority in the new polity (including political influence in Russia proper) and is promised that he and his friends would continue their ownership over Belarusian industry, even if a cosmetic change is necessary to the ownership model. Doable, but Putin didn’t entertain the idea.
This post makes me miss Gerard2.
I’m extremely saddened by this development … is bad news for Russia.
Counts as worry in my book.
I wish that I could mount a vigorous defense of “democracy” and insist that that would be the best path for Russia but I can’t. It is obvious to even a casual observer (like we used to say in junior high) that making “democracy” work is above the pay grade for many peoples and countries.
We are failing at it here in the US, and we wuz the “democracy” God Kang at one time.
This is what is done in many Western countries. Iirc Denmark hasn’t had a proper censuses since the 1980s.
Если в борделе падает прибыль, то нужно не кровати переставлять, а блядей менять.
Tony Abbott has said the same iirc and he spoke at or up for the world congress of families last year in Verona.
How does one shift the Overton window?
I think the structure Putin is going for is something like what post-revolutionary Iran has evolved created precisely because of the external threats it faces. http://smiccompgov.weebly.com/uploads/8/6/1/0/8610124/4490756.jpg.
Essentially the candidates that can run for President/parliament are vetted by a higher body for “suitability” and after that it’s an open vote. And indeed the spectrum ranges from reformist to traditionalist but ensured they are not beholden to outside forces.
On top of that the Supreme Leader (elected by a Guardian council itself elected) effectively controls the military and has final say on foreign policy and who can dismiss the government.
Putin seems to what to strengthen the State Council which is now an informal body by including its role in the constitution. Essentially he is trying to introduce a system of checks and balances where the Government/Parliament takes more explicit ownership for results but whose membership/conduct will be tightly monitored for compliance. Effectively there will be a Guardian Council like body in place to prevent external bodies from influencing/taking over the Parliament.
And yet you linked to a Russian media article.
And we see where that led you.
They make fun of Donbas in Kiev also. There were signs in the perekhods (passages beneath streets pedestrians use so they don’t have to have crosswalks) – don’t urinate here, this is not Donbas.
November. In May there was a 1.6% increase:
https://112.international/finance/ukraines-industrial-production-increased-by-16-in-may-41042.html
As has been explained to you, the recent drop was largely due to the drop in global steel and iron prices, not to some sort of deindustrialization.
According to Russian sources it was going to collapse in 2014, 2015, 2016, etc.
Meanwhile Google now has an R & D center in Kiev:
https://www.kyivpost.com/technology/google-opens-research-and-development-center-in-ukraine.html
Lots of new factories being opened in the west and center:
https://www.ft.com/content/27f943ac-91b4-11e8-9609-3d3b945e78cf
(article from September 2018, the increase continues)
Wishful thinking and sour grapes.
SE Ukraine is where most prostitutes come from. You are just making fun of Ukraine’s pro-Russians.
Here are HIV rates in Ukraine:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg/1280px-Registered_HIV_prevalence_in_Ukraine.jpg
You just failed then as you fail now.
But thanks for demonstrating the false things that Russians believe about Ukraine. You put them all in one post.
GDP, wages, etc.
Localized rebellion propped by by Russian support.
Crime is down, economy is up. Some “failed state.”
Meanwhile, have you seen what is going on in much of Paris?
As has already been shown to you, Ukraine ratio of debt to GDP has gone down and continues to do so:
https://www.statista.com/graphic/1/427246/national-debt-of-ukraine-in-relation-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp.jpg
Another funny fairy tale.
Here is a random video someone took of a Lviv street:
Kiev:
These are random videos, not tourist promotional ones.
No neo-Nazis.
You are gullible indeed.
It’s already happening. There is no longer a danger of a pro-Russian (relsatively speaking) coming to power in Ukraine. The best the Russians can hope for is a moderate like Zelensky.
Indeed, and now you are going to explain, in your contradictory and convoluted way, how the EU is so wonderful for Ukraine.
Why use the word danger? Why not just chance?
“There is no longer a chance of a pro-Russian (relsatively speaking) coming to power in Ukraine.”
Clearly you think having a US/EU hireling is not a danger to Ukraine, whereas having a Russian one is dangerous.
The foreign intelligence officials dispensing red lines and orders to the Ukrainian government, among these orders the need to leave the many Trotskyite NGOs alone, are not based in the slightest, let me tell you that. Meanwhile, they provide the government list describing what and who must be persecuted: the cannonical church was targeted (as in Montenegro with their local hireling), pro-Russian activists, ‘hate crime’ perpetrators (only if the ‘victims’ fit the Critical Theory checkboxes: anything but heterosexual Ukrainian men and Russians). The push to introduce stricter hate laws was just too much for me, because I know who these laws will forcefully target when the time is ripe.
They go straight for the jugular too, namely the culture.
Ukraine’s most popular rapper had songs condemning sodomy, now he’s a changed man. In one clip watched by millions, a blonde, Nordic-looking Ukrainian female and her Negro boyfriend are confronted by Ukrainian men who don’t take on miscegenation kindly. The Negro is made to look noble and righteous, a poor victim of Ukrainian male racism (the old, tired “blame the white men” Critical Theory lynchpin). People who deplore their demographic integrity are made to look evil and stupid. Sounds familiar?
Things are panning out exactly as I thought they would. Nationalists are being sidelined (they will eventually be persecuted, and the expression of their ideology outlawed, except the Russian hatred), Trotskyite forces are being funded and let loose on the population.
Yes, the Russian propaganda about Nazis was silly, the real situation is much worse. Ukraine will be spared by the time being by its poverty, but further pressure from the south and a revitalized democratic party in the US could spell trouble, despite Ukraine’s condition. This we shall see.
Yep. The strangest thing is that this tradition survived from the Russian Empire. Bribing the elites (or replacing the elites with the ones you choose) part was there. Like all empires, Russia mostly conquered territories far below it in their level of development. However, instead of just robbing them, like the other colonial empires, Russia in all its incarnations (the Empire, the USSR, the RF) tried to bring conquered people to its level, which means spending more than you extract. I have no explanation for that.
Tony Abbott has some controversial ideas on migration and he thinks Europe should take them on.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/tony-abbott-wants-europe-to-take-on-his-migration-ideas/11480758
We need to highlight some topics where we can talk about Ukraine. In other cases, the discussion of Ukraine must be prohibited, in order to avoid flooding the discussion with an off-topic Ukraine circlejerk
Thank you for answering! Sorry, but I can’t help myself, so I will ask you one more thing:why is western Ukraine so anti-Russian? Russians and pro-Russians usually point to Catholicism, Austria, Poland and CIA infiltration and exploitation. What do you think, as an Ukrainian? And number 2: are you sure that the best place for Ukraine is EU? Because its problems might only get worse in the future and it is caught in a period of ideological madness, mad with progressivism,unfettered. For Russians Ukrainians are brothers, for the rest of Europe they are just another eastern European country. I am asking these seriously, not as provocations,so dont get mad.
Emigration is the true thing. The numbers AP cites are cooked. This very true phrase describing statistics is often ascribed to Churchill: “I never believe statistics I haven’t cooked myself”.
The US always kept internal law above international law. Does it mean that the US always embraced socialism? As Poirot used to say, “Quelle idée”.
Ukraine has the lowest TFR is Europe – 1,22 for 2019, and it is dropping with every year, so the talk about how things are good in Ukraine is stupid. Could be 1,3 in the West and 1,1 in the East of the country, but this largely does not change the overall depopulation and aging of the population.
My personal prediction is that over the next two decades Australia will see massive Indian immigration with the full support of successive Conservative Governments.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/how-conservative-anglosphere-fell-love-india
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/sites/default/files/15172403511_8a4bc8903b_k.jpg
‘The only institution ever devised by men for mastering the money powers in the state is the Monarchy.’
Napolean.
Belloc, for one, writes over and over on this theme.
Most European histories are Whig histories, and, hence, worthless on this topic.
Which is not to discount your valid point about princes becoming indebted to jews.
Aristocracy had this problem to a greater extent.
Why? Chinese foreign policy is much less destabilising than US foreign policy.
Then how come the US gives Israel 38 billions over a decade, with some suggesting raising that to 50 billion. I also don’t see the US bribing the Israeli elite, but I do see pro-Israel groups like AIPAC bribing many US politicians.
Is the US really so different here?
Most successful revolutions (The US being the prime example, but to some extent also the French) were fundamentally liberal. The French revolution did not produce as radical results as were sought, but the new political equilibrium was nevertheless substantially different and had real and lasting political gains for a variety of groups.
By contrast, how many conservative revolutions have been successful of late? I suppose you could argue the Iranian revolution was the major example over the last century, but is Iran successful compared to the US or France?
I was talking about the modern big city bugmen
Addendum video
Thulean Friend, any comments?
If by elections you mean like in the US, that would be a huge mistake.
I suspect its essentially the legitimacy of force the monarchies and other strongmen governments wield which prevents essentially merchantile factions from becoming dominant; this is part of Jatt’s endless ramblings about “warrior.” So as long as the state can legally renegotiate all contracts by essentially using force, then it’ll stay at an advantage. Contrary to Thulean, I believe that universal rule of law actually weakens the state and its ability to control merchantile factions. Of course, casual acceptance of “rule of power” is a form of corruption and if it isn’t limited to the strongman himself, results in wasteful factionalism.
However, this essential snubbing of the merchantile factions has the very obvious result of them working against the state, for “rule of law”(which benefits them), and of course, not helping their rivals in the warrior factions. In the long run, lack of access to liquidity can severely cripple governments that don’t play well with potential creditors.
Bla bla bla.
We going to see Ukraine go the way of the balts.
None if the things you say are remotely true. I have friends and family in Ukraine. After the split with Russia Ukraine had a big crash and never recovered to pre Russia split levels. Ukraine is still eating through it’s capital stock and gifts from Russia. That will eventually end just like the balts.
Either way we will see end result. So far Ukraine post Soviet Union has stagnated. Now post Russia friendship it will continue to stagnate.
You are a moron. Russia subsidises Belarus because Belarus is friendly. If I had to guess the only reason why integrating into Russia is even an offer from Russia is because they like Belarus. You will not see this offered to balts or Ukraine.
Have some hope. I think events unfolding in the West will be a net negative to Jews. There is always a backlash to manipulation.
I’m sure such oddities will be dealt with when the constitutional changes are reviewed by lawyers, as Putin said they will be.
“Conservative” Boris Johnson also actively supports Indian mass immigration to the UK, also a lot of British civic nationalists virtue signal by saying how much they like Indians and would gladly welcome them over Muslims.
If Brexit happens then Britain is going to get flooded with Indian mass immigration without a doubt, in fact I think the Indian government even said they wouldn’t agree a trade deal with Britain without Britain allowing free movement for their citizens.
Q1: if Russia can survive the 1990’s with Yeltsin’s groveling to Clinton then it can survive post Putin easily. Power in Russia is becoming institutionalized rather than concentrated in one person. This will mean more stability during leadership turnover.
Q2: It depends on whether Russia can climb the value chain. If Russia exports raw materials and low value chain goods to china and then imports high value chain goods like electronics then it will be at risk of turning into an appendage. Russia needs to develop competitive industries to keep its sovereignty intact. It also needs markets for its non-primary sector exports. Exporting the raw materials to China then importing the finished goods from China will not be a recipe for success. Same thing with regards to the EU.
Just so you know, you are speaking to a fellow American here.
Indeed, the thing to remember about our resident svidomi (AP, but also Mr. XYZ) is precisely that their families have been American for generations. This is why you sometimes see deeply un-Ukrainian comments — AP talking about “Russians” in a post above, suggesting that they are somehow unlike their “Ukrainian” neighbors across the street.
This is true in his mind, I’m sure, but on the ground in Ukraine, this distinction makes no sense outside perhaps Galicia. Ethnicity is basically a non-factor so long as it’s not too different from what has been around in Ukraine for centuries.
Heaven forfend!
Here again we have the racializing angle. If ever there was much of difference to begin with, these “Russians” have lived there for well over a century, and here’s an American telling them that they are “non-natives.”
Exactly right.
I don’t usually connect to me blog but here is my ramble on the government changes.
https://waleseuroperussiafuture.blogspot.com/2020/01/putin-prepares-to-retire.html
I would also like to draw attention to this point.
The announcement of Mishustin’s appointment prompted a surge of trolls on the internet claiming that as head of the tax service, Mishustin was responsible for the death of Sergey Magnitisky, Browder’s accomplice in a $ 0.25 trn fraud according to Russian arrest warrants. It should be noted that Magnitisky died on 16 November 2009. Mishustin was apppointed head of the tax office in 2010 having worked in private business beforehand. I think some of us here should track these comments down on Twitter and spell out the truth. Browder gets away with much.
Yes. The main charge against svidomism, perhaps, is that the power they are siding with, the American Empire, is basically the number one existential threat to everything they hold dear (religiosity, tradition, femininity, masculinity). How they don’t see this, I fail to understand.
Unlike you I back up my statements with data. It’s easy to do when one tells the truth.
So do I. And unlike you I visit regularly.
There was a big crash and by 2019 Ukraine surpassed 2019 levels, as I have shown. The Western regions had done so earlier, some Eastern regions have not done so. I posted the data from World Bank. I can post more. You will claim the numbers are cooked in order to maintain your fantasy about a place you haven’t seen recently, if ever.
This summer my cousins from an oblast bordering Kiev oblast took a family holiday to Turkey. This was the first time they could afford to do that. They say it’s the first time they’ve ever felt financially okay.
This anecdote matches data about Ukraine. Turkey has seen a record number of Ukrainian tourists in 2019, over 1.5 million. Ukrainians have more money now.
Yes, I think this is the key factor. Government by committee is no government, which means the parasites will rise to take over.
Additionally, the western stupidity of tying everything to high flown abstractions, i.e. universal law and principles, is both idiotic and impossible. History demands the intervention of the intellect, i.e. the mind of the monarch or the autocrat.
My father was born in Germany and my family left in the 40s. I have plenty of cousins in Ukraine with whom I am in regular contact and I visit regularly. I’ve been there in Soviet times, pre Maidan, post Maidan.
I thus have more connections to Ukraine than do any of the Russians posting about it, and indeed more than do many of the pro-Russians do towards Russia itself.
I won’t dox myself but they have recently named some streets in Ukraine after my grandfather 🙂
And what makes you think the right-wing in Europe would be any more courageous? Most of them are just idly whining on the internet about foreigners and not being represented in the political process while doing nothing between elections.
The only right-wing political project I can think of in Europe over the past few decades was Serbia’s faction during the yugoslav wars and we all know how badly it got crushed. No, there is nothing to suggest the so-called right-wing are any less passive. Which is even more strange given that they, by and large, don’t control the metanarrative.
Within the Ukrainian context the Sovok threat is worse and closer, and the bad stuff about America doesn’t touch Ukraine. To be more Western means fewer abortions, less corruption, more religious. It means being less like Donbas and more like Poland. San Francisco is irrelevant here.
Here is a lot gloomier article about Ukrainian economy (from 112.ua, of all sources):
https://112.international/opinion/economy-is-slowly-dying-how-ukraine-preserves-poverty-39674.html
Whatever, I prefer experimental science. So, I’ll wait until all big Ukrainian thieves convert their assets into dollars and euros. Then the government controlled by those thieves will stop artificially supporting hryvna, so that Ukrainian currency moves to its real value. This would take maybe a year or two.
You should read The Anarchy by William Dalrymple. It is about the conquest of India. He forcefully makes the point that we should not really think of it as primarily a British conquest but rather a corporate conquest first and foremost.
The British state was not particularly involved in planning the conquest and the company self-financed much of the early stages of the conquest itself, ironically enough often from wealthy Indians who were given attractive financing options. The company innovated many things we take for granted today, such as the joint stock company. Of course, the British state did step in eventually but by that time much of the groundwork had already been set. Adjusted for inflation, the EIC was many times larger than either Google or Apple is today at its peak, closer to 4+ trillion USD.
Too much of history blindly focuses on kings and rulers while ignoring many non-state actors.
He is no longer Jewish. His wiki entry was changed several hours ago. Now no mention of Russian-Jewish father but his mother became Armenian.
Holy cow, so you really are a grandson of a Nazi collaborator. Seems everyone (including me) pegged you correctly based solely on your speech ticks and ideological idiosyncrasies.
We will see if the economy improved or not. So far six years out Ukraine is still a shit hole. If 10-15 years out you still talking the same way you did as you did about the 23 years after independence we will know Ukraine economy is shit and all of us who dunked on it are right.
We all hearing from friends and family and etc. Except we all know you are either a liar or a retard.
Hakan tells us to concentrate on the magma chamber.
Sounds interesting, thx.
‘Why War’ by Frederic Clemson Howe had a similar theme about how the ‘flag followed the dollar’ in the lead up to WWI.
Holy cow, so you really are a grandson of a Nazi collaborator.
Duh, he does have an Unz gold star.
You bet! This sort of election might end up with Putin going to prison. But if the next president will be handpicked by Putin anyway (possibly one of his personal bodyguards), why bother amending the constitution in this fashion?
Putin might deserve a sentence. However, by rights he should go to prison long after Clinton, Bush Jr, Blair, Obama, Trump, Merkel, and many others. As none of these scoundrels is likely to end up in prison, why should Putin?
I don’t know about his ancestors, but that AP person is a great illustration for a Russian joke that Ukrainian is not a nationality, but a diagnosis.
To clarify: personally, I believe that there is a huge difference between Ukrainians and Ukies. That AP person is a typical Ukie. I refuse to defame Ukrainians by calling him one.
Almost all men (let’s say those who are somewhere above the bottom 15% in the desirability distribution, meaning the normal 70% and the upper 15%) were able to marry a decent and sweet girl when they were young, because most young girls are willing to marry or establish a long-term relationship with one of their first three or so serious boyfriends, but become bitches after those first two or three boyfriends dump them, for apparently no other reason than to move on (speak: search for more and better females). After a certain age most men realise they cannot get more and better females, if ever, to copulate with, so they want to settle, but hey, above a certain age –if you are not in the upper income and/or desirability percentiles– you cannot marry desirable females, so those men stay single or marry deceptive bitches who then cheat on them and/or rob their income and savings. It is true that a single man in his 30s or 40s stays single because women reject him, but that very same man could have easily married his high-school or college sweetheart who was then willing to be with him for the rest of her life, and believe me, every normal man, unless a total weirdo, had one loving sweetheart when young. It is not young females who ruin the prospect of family but the attitude of young males who dream of endless possibilities, of infinite chances my ass.
For the vast majority of human beings nothing extraordinary will ever happen in their entire lives, and for the vast majority of men the prospects of tying up with a sweet and decent woman will diminish with every passing year after his early 20s unless he works himself up to the highest income and/or desirability clusters. Male desirability has nothing to do with genetics. It is a function of attitude and posture, which can be learned and internalized, but most men are too dumb and/or too lazy to do that, and the latter two qualities are most certainly a function of genetics.
Bottomline, all men who want to marry at ‘some point in their lives’, should do so as early as possible. It is my experience that, in any modern society, within a typical workplace filled with people in their 30s and 40s, where, let’s say, 10 men and 10 women work together in a division, 4 to 6 of the women admire and target 1 or 2 of the males (the other half of females target no males at all as they are either content with what they already have at home, or are too shy to target anyone, or are not interested at all). That is not so in high-school or in the first couple of years of college where women usually pick one of the men not taken by the other girls. Once you pass that window of opportunity most modern females become bitches and most modern males remain single, and that is indeed expected in the absence of legal or societal or cultural enforcement of monogamy.
A singlehood tax could certainly be an appropriate reminder to young males to look out for potential mates and not to search too long in anticipation of more and better women. This whole searching and settling thing between male and female is like if you drive downtown to dinner or cinema, and you see an empty parking lot that is, let’s say, still 200m away from the venue you are heading to, so you have to park and then walk a little bit, but anyway, you decide to move on in anticipation of a parking space closer to your target, but you realise it’s all taken. Then you turn around the block with the previously empty parking space in your mind, but gee, by the time to have circled the block that free space is also taken, so you park around some other block much farther that the initial spot (equivalent to marrying a less desirable person), or you pay for valet parking (equivalent to going to prostitutes), or you decide to go home, have junk food and watch TV (equivalent to masturbation).
Looking back, I am happy that I accepted my wife’s proposal to marry while we were both in college (yes, she was the one who proposed) as it was better to face the hardships of life together instead of alone.
Your record of being wrong continues. Not everyone escaping Bolshevism was a Nazi collaborator.
Nope.
Not really a counter-example. Just shows who is the master and who is the colonial.
Google’s “r & d” center has more to do with their interest in an environment with no laws protecting peoples’ privacy. They’ve given their Ukrainian workers access to everyone’s Ring videos with no encryption to keep it private. More like Snitchkraine. The country is a favorite of security agencies.
We are talking about Belarus, not Western Europe
In Ukraine it was the disgruntled working class and dumb nazi kids that were fighting street brawls with cops, the bugmen were useless except as easy targets for CIA snipers
If the propped up industries in Belarus collapse then there will be a real risk of a Maidan as the workers start protesting and Zmagars start stirring the shitpot
I agree that the right wing in Europe is in a pathetic state
“Donbas and Crimea are multi-culti, Sovoks-Communists, atheists, and full of non-natives. Ukraine is better off without them.”
Strange – holidaying and driving around the Crimea this summer, there were very few non-Slavic faces (apart from the native Tatars), and an Orthodox cross at the entrance to every village.
Crimea is now doing better then any part of Ukraine
That does not mean it is a good idea, though.
We already see that it has improved.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=UA
GDP PPP per capita:
2014: $8711
2015: $7972
2018: $9,233
Ukraine wages 2015 (you can calculate the 2014 figures from this map):
https://blogs.elenasmodels.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/ukrainian-salaries-2015.jpg
Ukraine wages 2019:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/AverageMonthlySalary2019.png
How does it feel to be shown to be wrong and dumb?
Projection and/or wishful thinking. The data speak for themselves. Ukraine has improved after Maidan. Too bad it makes you sad.
It’s a small region with massive Russian state assistance.
Two relatives, neither of them ancestors, came back from India with fortunes. One, the richer, was a Great Captain of the EIC (Commander of the Fleet). He made his money from private trading as company employees were allowed to do. The less rich one commanded three regiments of cavalry at the 3rd siege of Seringapatam. He was elected Prize Officer and thus had an extra share.
They returned and with other East India men built a canal to a coal mine they opened on the hill above an iron works eventually connecting Clydach Gorge to the sea thus launching the industrial revolution in South Wales. So there are very direct links between profits from trade and the industrial revolution. They fed off each other. South Wales at one time produced most of the world’s copper. This was in great demand in India for making brass.
Wikie must have been changed again. It now says: “Mikhail Mishustin was born on 3 March 1966 in Lobnya, a town close to Moscow. His ethnic background is the source of debate, with various respected sources referring to his father as of Russian-Jewish descent[3] and his mother of Armenian descent.[4”
So non ethnic Russian PM.
You are a boomer who believes all sorts of nonsense because its on some article on the internet. As when you claimed Ukraine has 22 million people.
Ukraine 112.ua is owned by a pro-Russian Opposition-Party guy. Another myth about Ukraine is that it is somehow totalitarian and Ukrainians are brainwashed by lack of exposure to other POVs.
In 2015 people like the author used to claim that Ukraine would continue collapsing. Since it’s impossible to pretend otherwise anymore, the new idea is that a mere 3% or whatever growth is a disaster and unsustainable.
This from the article is funny:
“Ukraine will reach a maximum in the amount of gross product in the range of 130-140 billion dollars and then this figure will decline very slowly to the current level against the background of degrading infrastructure.”
Ukraine’s GDP was $131 billion in 2018, 4% growth likely for 2019. If 3.5% growth in 2020, it will already be above $140 billion.
Those are pathetic numbers.
Considering dollars of 2014 is not the same as dollar of 2019, help from the west, Russia slow rolling sanctions, not paying pensions in the east and still getting gas transit. The numbers are even worse.
Ukraine had a bounce back from the lows. It is still in a shit position that is pathetic for a country of her size and history.
My experience of a vacation in Crimea is that Tatars serve very good food of all kinds, and in most cases charge less than Slavic-owned eateries.
BTW, during summer months more than half of the people you see in Crimea are not residents, but fellow tourists. Most of them are from Russia. In 2019 Crimea received the total of >6.8 million, ~1.5 million tourists were from Ukraine. Ukies were furious, but that’s their normal state: demented and furious.
So? Russia is not a tribally obsessed country, like some we know. Neither Russian foreign minister Lavrov, nor Russian defense minister Shoigu is tribally pure Russian, but only demented nationalists with primeval Hutu-Tutsi mentality would fuss about it. Fewer than 5% of Russian citizens belong to this category.
Of course Ukraine is poor. 20+ years ruled by Sovoks will do that to a country. I have already said that. Pretty much the only time you are ever correct is when you agree with me.
Although still poor, Ukraine has also improved since Maidan, and has finally begun the long road of catching up to where it had been in the decades of avoiding Western integration and decline. Relative to Russia, Ukraine has gotten “back” to 2011, erasing not only post-Maidan but also Yanukovich-era relative decline.
So Russians aren’t eager to point out that Ukraine’s president is a Jew?
Ukraine would be lucky if that were his only sin. But this clown, Jewish or otherwise, is no more than a puppet in the hands of a lot more sinister forces. Perfect illustration of a saying that each country has the government it deserves.
Where did you get this?
Here it says 1.3 in 2018:
http://database.ukrcensus.gov.ua/Mult/Dialog/statfile1_c_files/pasport1.htm
With 1.313 in Lviv oblast, but also birth rate of 9.2.
Rivne (far west) has a TFR of 1.639 and birthrate of 11.5.
:::::::::::::::
In Kharkiv it is a TFR of 1.08 and birth rate of 7.3.
:::::::::::::::
Obviously this is bad. Too many young people working abroad rather than having kids.
(in comparison, ethnic Russian TFR in Russia was about 1.5 in 2018).
Bosnia, Italy, and Spain had lower TFR than Ukraine’s 1.3 in 2018.
don’t know in great details what changes to Constitution Putin has proposed but at first glance they don’t look as immediate need or archaic norms to be discarded long overdue.
Naturally question arising why minor cosmetic changes proposed for expensive and lengthy process of adopting adjustments to “unchangeable Constitution”.
I wonder if in fine print yet to be released we will find out real purpose of referendum: for example “simplification” of process of Constitutional adjustments so these minor photoshopping will usher in era of complete Constitutional overhaul
No doubt, they like it. As the hunter in a certain way also truly likes the animal which is about to be hunted.
Thank God for that, great relief to hear it 😉
In the 1940’s? There were, broadly speaking, two cases:
a) Nazi collaborators fleeing west. (As in, North/South America west.)
b) People who were kidnapped as slave labor by the Nazis, and who later got left behind.
Clearly your granpa wasn’t the second case.
AP,
I agree with JPM:
Looks like your understanding of Ukraine is mostly based of a short trip to Lviv and reading neoliberal MSM and forums. That’s not enough, unless you want to be the next Max Boot.
Ukraine is a deeply sick patient, which surprisingly still stands despite all hardships (Ukrainians demonstrated amazing, superhuman resilience in crisises that hit them, which greatly surprised all experts).
The infrastructure they inherited from the USSR mostly is fully amortized. For example railway park in in complete ruin. Central heating pipeline communications in cities like Kiev are in ruins too. In the USSR they tried to reuse the heat from electric stations and have elaborate hot water delivery networks from each which provided heat to a large city blocks. Now pipes are completely rusted (which in 30 years is no surprise) and are in the state of constant repair.
And, what is really tragic Ukraine now it is a debt stale. Usually the latter is the capital sentence for the county. Few managed to escape even in more favorable conditions (South Korea is one.) So chances of economic recovery are slim: with such level of parasitic rent to the West the natural path is down and down. Don’t cry for me Argentina.
And there is no money to replace already destroyed due to bad maintenance infrastructure, but surprisingly large parts of Soviets era infrastructure still somehow hold. For example, electrical networks, subway cars. Bur other part are already crumbling.
For example, in Kiev that means in some buildings have winter without central heating, you have elevators in 16-storey buildings that work one or two weeks in month, you have no hot water, sometimes you have no water at all for a week or more, etc). Pensioner have problem with paying heating bills, so some of them are forced to live in non heated apartments.
And that’s in Kiev/Kyiv (Western Ukrainians love to change established names, much like communists) . In provincial cities it is a real horror show when even electricity supply became a problem. The countryside dwellers at least has its own food, but the situation for them is also very very difficult.
Other big problem — few jobs and almost no well paid job, unless you are young, know English and have a university education (and are lucky). Before 2014 approximately 70% of Ukrainian labor migrants (in total a couple of million) came from the western part of the country, in which migration had become a widespread method of coping with poverty, the absence of jobs and low salaries.
Now this practice spread to the whole county. That destroyed many families.
The USA plays its usual games selling vassals crap at inflated paces (arms, uranium rods, coal, locomotives, cars, etc) , which Ukrainians can’t refuse. Trump is simply a typical gangster in this respect, running a protection racket.
The rate of emigration and shrinking population is another fundamental problem. Mass emigration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine) is continuing even after Zelenski election. Looting by the West also is continuing unabated. This is disaster capitalism in action.
Add to inflated military expenses to fight the civil war in Donbass (with the main affect of completely alienating Russia) and “Huston, we have a problem.”
May be this is a natural path for xUSSR countries after the dissolution of the USSR, I don’t know.
But the destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic: they wanted better life and got a really harsh one. Especially pensioners (typical pension is something like $60-$70) a month in Kiev, much less outside of Kiev. How they physically survive I do not fully understand.
I agree that there is a substantial growth of anti-Russian sentiments. It is really noticeable. As well as growth of the usage of the Ukrainian language (previously Kiev, unlike Lvov was completely Russian-language city).
And in Western Ukraine Russiphobia was actually always a part of “national identity”. The negative definition, if you wish. See popular slogan “Hto ne skache toi moskal” (“those who do not jump are Moskali” — derogatory name for Russians). Here is this slogan in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6rfqr9afMc 😉
But when the standard of living dropped to such extent as it dropped after 2014 sentiments toward even slightly different ethnic groups turn hostile too. This is the case in Ukraine. In this sense you are wrong. there is no more unity now then existed before 2014. I would say there is less unity now.
Sentiments turned against both Donbass dwellers and Ukrainians from Western Ukraine.
In Kiev the derogatory term for both categories is “ponaekhali” (“come to overcrowd the place and displace us”, or something along those lines; it’s difficult to translate, but the term carry strong derogatory meaning) .
“Donetskie” (former Donbass dwellers, often displaced by the war) are generally strongly resented and luxury cars, villas, etc and other excesses of neoliberal elite are attributed mostly to them, while “zapadentsi” are also, albeit less strongly, resented because they often use clan politics within institutions and often do not put enough effort as they rely on its own clan ties for survival.
This sentiment is stronger to the south of Kiev where the resentment is directed mainly against Western Ukrainians, not against “Donetskie” like in Kiev. And I am talking not only about Odessa. Western Ukrainians are now strongly associated with corrupt ways of getting lucrative positions (via family, clan or political connections), being incompetent and and doing nothing useful.
What surprise me is that this resentment against “zapadentsi” and “Poloshenko clan” is shared by many people from Western Ukraine. The target is often slightly more narrow, for example Hutsuls in Lviv (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls)
The nationalistic hysteria of 2014-2017 now mostly changed into deep depression: how a tiny group of far right nationalist and football hooligan gangs managed to get to power against the will of the majority of the country and destroy its economy. That’s why Zelensky was elected and most far right parliamentarians lost their seats. Most of Western Ukraine voted for him, which is telling you something.
The problem for Ukraine is that with the cut of economic ties with Russia the natural path for economics is probably down. De-industrialization, Baltic style, is raining supreme. Many enterprises survived the period from 1991 to 2014 only due to orders from Russia. Especially remnants of military industrial complex and manufacturing industry. Now what. Selling land (like Zelensky is trying to do) ?
Ukraine will probably eventually lose a large part of its chemical industry because without subsidies gas it just can’t complete even taking into account low labor costs. And manufacturing because without Russian market it is difficult to find a place for their production in already established markets, competing only in price and suffering in quality (I remember something about Iraq returning Ukrainians all ordered armored carriers due to defect is the the armor https://sputniknews.com/military/201705221053859853-armored-vehicles-defects-extent /). Although at least for the Ukrainian arm industry there is place on the market in countries which used to old Soviet armaments, because those are rehashed Soviet products.
Add to this corrupt and greedy diaspora (all those Jaresko, Chalupas, Freelands, Vindmans, etc ) from the USA and Canada (and not only diaspora — look at Biden, Kerry, etc) who want their piece of the pie after 2014 “Revolution of dignity” (what a sad joke) what and you will see the problems more clearly. Not that much changed from the period 1991-2014 where Ukraine was also royally fleeced but own oligarchs and Western pirates , simply now this lead to quicker deterioration of the standard of living.
None of Eastern European countries benefited from a color revolution staged by the USA. This is about opening the country not only to multinationals (while they loot the county they at least behave within a certain legal bounds, demonstrating at least decency of gangsters like in Godfather) but to petty foreign criminals from diaspora and outside of it who allies with local oligarchs and small fish and are siphoning all the county wealth as soon as possible. Greed of the latter is simply unbounded. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2016/08/26/the-ukrainian-diaspora-as-a-recipient-of-oligarchic-cash/
Of course, Ukrainian diaspora is not uniform. Still, outside well-know types from the tiny Mid-Eastern country, the most dangerous people for Ukraine are probably Ukrainians from diaspora with dual citizenship 😉
What is Lavrov’s ethnic background? I’m curious.
And Russians are very mixed anyway, Slavic + Finno-Ugric + Turkic + Mongolic. It’s like the only major multiracial country that’s actually culturally healthy.
The others, like Brazil, India, America getting there too, are basically artificial, founded on colonialism, master-slave societies. No matter how civilized they think they are, that’s their foundation. It is engrained and cannot be removed, just like you cannot remove your heart.
From what I googled up, father (Владимир Моисеевич) seems to be half-Jewish (from the paternal side), was born in Polotsk, Belarus, while mother (Луиза Михайловна) is rumored to be Armenian (no confirmation, and some suggestions that its a fake), but was herself born in Kotlas, Arkhangelsk oblast in 1942, so even she was presumably highly Russified even if she was Armenian (not likely pure Armenian would be born in some podunk far northern Russian city). Mikhail is himself practicing Orthodox, so presumably fully Russified. My guess would be that he’s about as non-Russian as Valtsman.
It collapsed further in 2019, so will indeed be somewhere around there. (In fairness, so did Russia).
That is not a win. You are so high on your own fantasy that you can’t recognize that.
Edit: You are like a child that’s happy you didn’t shit your pants today. Ukraine is still a corrupt backwards colony with shit standard if living. Five years is plenty of time where a much better result should have registered.
Lavrov is half Russian, half Armenian.
There’s no significant Turkic let alone Mongolic element to ethnic Russians (Tatars do have a major but not predominant Turkic element). Russians are, fundamentally, a Slavic/Finno-Ugric metis, with the admixture going from pure Slavic in the South to half and half in the far north. But there are similar gradients in plenty of European countries, including even England (Germanic/Celtic).
No. The Russians don’t have the mixture of Turks and Mongols. Genetically, Russians are divided into two sharply different clusters. Northern Russians (descended from some tribes of Northern Europe) are genetically different from any Slavs, but are close genetically to the Balts, Finns and German-speaking Scandinavians.
Southern Russians (3/4 of all Russians) core Slavs (together with poles and Slovaks)
Here is a representative sample of anthropological types for the Russian public. The black-haired beauty in the first photo is a half-Tatar, the Asian in the second row is a Korean. southern guy (first photo in the second row) Azerbajanian. The rest are Russians
https://b.radikal.ru/b34/2001/fe/5d980845d280.png
You missed two other groups, to whom my grandparents belonged:
People who came from the Soviet Union to Lviv in 1939, got a taste of the non-Bolshevik world and saw that it was far more civilized, pleasant, organized etc. than the Soviet nightmare, and decided to move West rather than return to Bolshevik filth
There were other types, such as priests, farmers, teachers, etc. who did not like what they saw in 1939-1940 and decided that taking their chances was better than returning to Stalin’s rule. Overall % of Nazi collaborators while not zero was pretty small.
Interesting take. Are you a dissident pro-Russian from Kiev?
Nope. I’ve visited Ukraine multiple times, for the first time in 1990 when it was still Soviet-ruled. I was there under when the country was ruled by Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovich and Poroshenko. I have family in Kiev, Lviv, and from a village in an oblast bordering Kiev and spend time in all of those places. So you can’t try to fool me 🙂
Your impressions are interesting and probably sincere, but they don’t match mine, and mine are backed up by statistics regarding increase in wages, GDP PP, etc. etc. so my impressions are probably correct. There was a crisis in 2014-2015, followed by improvement such that (at least in Kiev and Lviv, and the oblast next to Kiev) the country is better off than it had been in 2014 and due to rate of improvement the prospects are good.
My Lviv family were prosperous from the 2000s (they were connected in Soviet times and began to run computer/outsourcing firms) the ones in central Ukraine struggled from the 1990s (we were helping them) until c. 2018, when for the first time they no longer needed help, they were able to take a trip abroad, and told my aunt who visited this summer that they felt financially secure for the first time since independence.
From what I understand things are worse to the south and east. But overall and in the core Ukrainian areas there has been improvement and the country is not stagnant as under Yanukovich but actually improving further, even if not at a fast pace.
Overall % of Nazi collaborators while not zero was pretty small.
Damned amazing accomplishments of the Nazis throughout Europe with so few collaborators in any country, Germany not excepted.
But the destiny of ordinary Ukrainians is deeply tragic
The destiny of most ordinary people these days is deeply tragic.
I regret any contributions made by my country (America) to Ukraine’s troubles. You must understand the little thinking of the bureaucrats. They are followers, as we all are, and did not want to be the person who failed to “grab Ukraine.” They would have been vilified in the same manner as those who “lost China.” It is impossible for the bureaucrats in power to effect needed changes because they achieved their position and power by rigidly following the current paradigm. It will take a great leader to make changes in our foreign policy. Since it was ultimately the fault of the Ukrainian leaders who foolishly misjudged the geopolitics, you are well aware that “great leaders” are in short supply in all countries.
I don’t get the impression that average people in most Western countries really think about mass immigration or really understand how it affects them. Opposition to Islamic mass immigration is more common as people are well aware of Islamic terrorism, but most people don’t really understand mass immigration and race replacement in general.
True ethnic nationalists are a very small minority in Western countries, probably less than 5% of the native population. If you mostly only read sites like Unz and other alternative right wing outlets then that would probably create the impression that the percentage is higher than it really is. In my experience the average native British person would consider you a racist if you said there were too many non-white people in Britain.
It seems that you and likbez exemplify the Ukrainian counterpart to differences in perspective between heartland people and cosmopolitians in the US.
Some sources claim that Lavrov was born in Tbilisi (now the capital of Georgia), some say that he was born in Moscow. He is reputedly half or fully Armenian (his biological father was Armenian, his mother is alternatively reported to be Armenian or Russian). He does not speak Armenian, his mother tongue is Russian. He was raised by his mother and step-father, the latter was Russian. He married in college and stayed married to the same woman for life.
E.g., see:
https://inosmi.ru/world/20080128/239202.html
http://www.bolshoyvopros.ru/questions/1166834-kto-po-nacionalnosti-sergej-lavrov-glava-mida-rf.html
https://zen.yandex.ru/media/znamros/kto-po-nacionalnosti-ministr-inostrannyh-del-rf-sergei-lavrov-5b77eb06337a2400a8d2fef4
In Russia, this does not matter much. As Russians say, Russian is not a nationality, but a state of mind. In fact, this tradition goes back to the Russian Empire, where people of different nationalities were treated with respect and often got various privileges, including nobility. Georgian, Armenian, Central Asian, Ukrainian, and Polish nobles were recognized as nobles of the Russian Empire.
That’s one of the things in which Russia was and is vastly superior to Bantustans with prevailing Hutu-Tutsi mentality.
I can already the the Congoids in Cherkeskas
There’s nothing specific to Russia about it, it’s the default for non-ethnonationalist states (including, of course, most empires).
Incidentally, it’s also true for the Ukraine, e.g., https://theintercept.com/2015/02/27/isa-munayevs-war/
I guess there are limits, but maybe not. I did not live in Russia for the last ~29 years.
To my knowledge, former commander of Gorlovka (Donetsk People’s Republic) Bezler expressed it best: “my father is German, my mother Ukrainian. So, who am I? A Russian!”
In my experience the average native British person would consider you a racist if you said there were too many non-white people in Britain.
Most – actually just about all – of the British people I know (working class or of wc backgrounds) would agree with the statement. They would probably say ‘foreigners’, not ‘non-whites’ – which is not how people talk – but it would be implicit that the problems come mostly from non-whites. It’s the same throughout the West. However, when they vote it is either not their main priority or they think a Conservative/Christian Democrat/Gaullist/whatever party will suffice.
Maybe that’s why the slogan “hang Russians and knife Jews” is so widespread in Ukraine? They match the actions to their words, perpetrating mass murders in Donbass (where they call people Russians, sovoks, and separatists), and beating up Jews (recently in Uman a group of Jews was beaten up with sticks by a bunch of crazed Ukrainian nationalists).
That’s more recent than I thought, then, but my point about your having American eyes still stands. 75 years have passed since the end of World War 2, and even missing out on a decade of life in a country leaves huge gaps in one’s understanding. Ask Dmitry how accurate the Saker’s comments about life in Russia are.
I fully agree that AP comments are about as misguided as American foreign policy. However, truth be told, to my knowledge the Saker never lived in Russia and never even visited it.
But Poland is the exact country I have in mind. I have been going there steadily since 2006, and the speed of the Americanization is breathtaking. Poland was a fairly conservative place back then but has become remarkably more like Sweden, with things like atheism, feminism, one-night-stand culture, gay culture, Hollywood worship, androgynity, etc., growing stronger by the year.
Wow! If so, it’s pretty rich to lecture others on things like “the Russian soul.” Still, for all his faults, I enjoy reading him.
The Saker has a lot of weird opinions about Russians, e.g. https://www.unz.com/tsaker/russian-presidential-elections-boring-useless-and-necessary/#comment-2215994
I agree, he is fun to read. He is half-Russian, as far as I know. He is also more of an Orthodox Christian than most Russians. One thing that annoys me consistently is that he does not appear to reread what he wrote and edit it. Naturally, you need to take everything he says with a grain of salt. Then again, that applies to everybody. As I tell my students, nobody is perfect, myself included.
‘Nazi collaborator’ doesn’t mean they wore Hugo Boss uniforms and guarded death camps.
Working in a government job under the Nazi occupation regime was enough to become a ‘Nazi collaborator’. Even writing articles for an occupation regime newspaper would be enough.
As to your disseminating comment: utter and complete bullshit. There was no freedom of movement in Europe in the 1940’s. People couldn’t just up and “decide to move West”. “Moving West” was only possible if the retreating Nazi army took you with them. And the Nazi army certainly didn’t let any random dindu in search of a ‘pleasant place’ tag along with them; they took only the useful people. That is, Nazi collaborators.
So I hope you are indeed simply massively ignorant about your family history, and not just a filthy liar.
While this is sad and points to negative trends, on various measures such as divorce rate, abortion rate, political preferences/election results, survey data etc. Poland remains very different from the lands to its west. With the exception of greater tolerance for homosexuals, in every measure Poles are far more traditional and conservative than are Sovoks. These are, roughly, what West vs. East means in Ukraine.
Unlike Saker and most of my opponents here I actually visit the places I discuss.
“Cultural Catholicism” doesn’t seem to be much of a defense against degeneracy in society. Many of the countries that people think of as being staunchly Catholic, such as Ireland, Spain and France, etc are today some of the most left wing, pro-LGBT countries in Europe. Poland seems to be going the same way.
I would guess that it’s Catholicism’s emphasis on universalism that tends to make Catholic societies quite liberal, especially when they modernise.
Yes, that idea that Russians look down on wealth and the wealthy is among the odder of his.
Sure, and Poland still is a nice place to be, but the overall trend is clear, and this is what matters in the medium and long runs.
What’s different about Ukraine is that the “cosmopolitan” people (the comprador Sovok elite, the atheist-communist, deracinated multiethnic factory workers of the East and South) are not more sophisticated or worldly than the people from Ukraine’s heartland. It’s urban tracksuit wearing steelworker vs religious farmer, not woke urban bourgeois vs regular American.
In Ukraine a government with an ethnic Russian-Belarusian president and Russian immigrant PM (who came to Ukraine when he was in his thirties!), from the eastern fringe of the country, was overthrown by ethnic natives from the country’s ethnic heartland.* Russian nationalists and Soviets (two distinct groups, but each opposed to Ukraine’s existence) have been bitter ever since.
*Obviously Ukrainians and Russians are more similar than Anglos and Latinos, but imagine if the USA came to be dominated by a Mexican- Guatemalan born in LA and Mexican immigrant who came to LA when he was 34 years old who decided to integrate with Latin America. Would heartland Americans overthrow this government? And if as a result California became independent wouldn’t it be a relief despite California’s wealth?
Cultural conservatism and liberalism are not as mutually exclusive as many seem to think they are. For instance, many people would consider Spain to be a very conservative and traditional country especially in a cultural sense, and yet at the same time it is known as one of the world’s most LGBT-friendly destinations and is also known for having a liberal attitude towards immigrants as well.
So basically just because Poles are culturally conservative and value their traditions doesn’t mean they can’t also be pro-LGBT and have liberal views on immigration.
My experience as a foreigner is that Russia has at times changed as fast as 5 years to the year compared to the UK. It’s still not caught up but it is no longer 1973, even in the provinces.
Up in the Welsh mountains where I come from, the girls who didn’t go on to academic study left at 15 or 16 and by 17 were pregnant and married, often in that order. The boys responsible were 19-21. ( You weren’t a man until 21 then). Even some of those who stayed on at school were sometimes caught up. Everyone already knew each other at least from 11 years old. All also knew who was officially or otherwise related to whom. No cousins or half siblings.
If you ask the elites and UMC in America, everything is coming up roses. It’s a different story for the lower middle class and down. I’m sure it’s the same for The Ukraine.
The Ukraine should have maximized its position as a potential defector from the Russian orbit. Once it sold its soul to the West, it had no more leverage. That move wasn’t Georgia invading South Ossetia dumb, but it is close.
imagine if the USA came to be dominated by a Mexican- Guatemalan born in LA and Mexican immigrant who came to LA when he was 34 years old
Tick-tock
Well in 1950s in Sierra Madre Castro was identified as a .. Liberal.. who’d implement the liberal Cuban constitution of 1940. That’s how Herbert Matthews of nyt depicted him…as a liberal. Not as a Marxist leninist which Castro kept well hidden until he was in power..much pushed by Guevara to Marxist leninist position.. the Cuban revolution had two stages..the liberal one that got Fidel into power, and the M/L one he sprung in surprise including to his many liberal allies who sought democracy not Red dictatorship
You are the Guatemalan in your example.
My relatives in central Ukraine are middle class, not rich. They are villagers, nurses, a low level manager at a bank branch in a regional center, a schoolteacher, a physician who doesn’t work in his field but owns a small home remodeling company with a crew of 5 or so people. For most of them, their lives are better now than they were before Maiden, and they don’t regret Maidan.
The turn to the West has paid off for the heartland Ukrainians as shown by GDP and wage stats. It was bad for the deracinated Soviets in the South and East whose elites used to run the place and who drove the country into the ground over the 23 years until Maidan. These clowns now become “experts” cited by pro-Russians here, predicting doom.
No, I am not a Yanukovich.
How is life in New York, loser?
The turn to the West has paid off
And if at some point the $$ are not there will you still support the Maidan? What about all those dead Ukrainians, and possibly more to come? Don’t they count for more than a few dollars?
Part of your argument seems to be mostly based on economics, but part seems to be based on pure blind nationalism.
Childlessness in Russia is low. For women born in 1970, who reproduced in the 90s and the 2000s, it is 9.3% (European average 14.3%, Italy 20.6%). It’s close to the lowest possible (some infertile, disabled and forever alone people will end up childless no matter what). – https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-44667-7_2, Appendix 2.
A tax won’t do what the social norm already does. And the principled childfree who don’t care about social pressure won’t care about the tax either. The choice between giving away a little money and undergoing what they perceive as horrible torture followed by permanent enslavement, is obvious.
The completed fertility rate is 1.6 because the social norm until recently has been: 1 is obligatory, 2 are nice, 3 – what are you, a freak? I think zemfort1983 wrote under one of his demographic posts how some kids in his school had defended themselves saying they have 2 siblings but they’re normal because these siblings are twins. In the Soviet movie Однажды двадцать лет спустя, a shop clerk suspects a mother of a large family of being a criminal and tells her that in families like hers “there are as many fathers as there are children.” She might have had a point – the functional and dignified large families, like families of priests, had been killed by early Soviet repressions, the social dregs who bred mindlessly in a drunken haze remained, and public opinion formed from looking at them.
To normalize 3 children (which has already started, at least there’s no open bullying), it would be wise to learn from secular Israel. Their Russophone Jews and wives of Jews are more than happy to share stories of family life. The picture of their habits and motivations is quite clear. Should be modified according to Russian climate and psychology (we’re not crazy noise-loving hyper-extraverted Yehuda Devir comic characters), but the main stuff is all there in the open to take.
Dead Ukrainians were caused mostly by Russia refusing the outright annex certain territories, while funneling in arms to prevent the government from taking control, thereby prolonging the conflict. Putin is more to blame for that than was Maidan.
It’s based entirely on the principle that natives of a place should do what they want with it and should determine its destiny. If most of the the Ukrainian people were happy with and wanted union with Russia, I would support that. But they do not. But when pro-Russians make up nonsense about economic collapse, I point that out.
Your definition is so broad that it is meaningless. Essentially, every employed person would be a “collaborator” in your world. So schoolteachers teaching kids how to read – “collaborators.” Physicians in hospitals – “collaborators.” Farmers who have to give up some of their food rather than burn the fields and starve – “collaborators.”
Do you also view every working person in the USSR at that time as a collaborator of Stalin?
Wrong as usual.
LOL, that’s right – Nazis gave rides to 100,00os of fleeing Slavs, Balts, etc. So generous.
People traveled west as they could. Some could afford train tickets. My grandparent from central Ukraine, who moved to Lviv in 1939, ended up riding on trains like a hobo until reaching Germany.
No, that would be you.
In West Jersey now.
Also I like how you refer to west Ukraine as the heartland.
So hillbilly country? Or Trenton? You like ghettos.
West and Center is the long-settled heartland with the least diversity. South and East are the recently settled areas with an ethnic mix.
Percentage of the population that is ethnic Ukrainian:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Ethnicukrainian2001.PNG/350px-Ethnicukrainian2001.PNG
Yup. Lots of land. I told you I wanted a farm. And no dirty immigrants.
Anyways listening to Ukranians talk about zapadentsi is all one needs to know about where heartland is.
There are many amateur writers on this website with crazy opinions, that isn’t the problem. What makes him unbearable to read for me is the overwhelming impression of him being an insufferable know-it-all, and playing-acting as a Sovok, despite white-emigre parents.
An interesting question. I am not a legal expert. It looks like:
— De jure – no (“Automatic loss of Ukrainian citizenship occurs in the event an adult Ukrainian citizen voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality or enters into the military or governmental service of a foreign power.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_nationality_law)
— De facto yes. For example, oligarch Kolomoyskiy has three, and zero problems with the law. Many Ukrainian parliamentarians are dual citizens. Also all emigrants from Ukraine after 1991 retains Ukrainian citizenship by default, unless they explicitly petition the Ukrainian President to revoke it. They are simply not considered to be permanent residents (but this also can be bypassed 😉 . So the law cited above clearly does not work in all cases.
In any case, for “enterprising” elements from diaspora obtaining Ukrainian citizenship (if they do not retains one, see above) is not a problem and that allows lucrative speculation in Ukrainian real estate without paying proper taxes.
It’s based entirely on the principle that natives of a place
Pie in the sky.
Somebody has to (gets to) define natives and place.
Hunter Biden corruption is okay with you, but not Ivan Ivanovitch’s?
Such writings only further serve as the confirmation of absolute non usefulness of being overly friendly with RF as it being viewed as the basis for denial of very existence, whereas “banderite” like behaviour is way more favourable in this regard, as existence of Ukrainians (at least from western side) is rarely being denied these days. And again as a rule, those groups of central and eastern Ukrainians who were/still are with relatively more favourable views towards RF, only serve as a basis to amplify denialism too.
Bad things according to you:
Good things according to you:
It has to be my lack of mental agility, but I can’t see how you hold this view together.
The West is the mortal enemy of nationalism, except where it can be used to advance the atheist-communist, deracinated, multiethnic, globohomo, one-world ideology and dogma and SJW totalitarian rule.
BTW, I’d appreciate it if you would smile when you use the term hillbilly.
Cherry on top the faction he supports can’t even be considered properly nationalist because they represent three regions out of 23 and most mixed up with Soros.
A word not in the native language, used most often by deracinated Easterners (often of mixed descent) from the south and east, away from the heartland.
That’s very early — maybe too early — but people married young even in 1960s Stockholm. The present system is clearly a historical oddity, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it brings all kinds of ills that we aren’t even aware of.
With the exception of homophobia, Sovoks are far more advanced in the process of all the stuff you dislike than are even Western Europeans. HIV rates, divorce rates, abortion rates, atheism – they are far ahead. They just hate gays like Africans do.
The West is not a monolith. Some parts of the West are diseased and weak, other parts are still alive and strong. Western Europe is sick. Terminal? Who knows. Visegrad shows some negative signs but is still healthy. America still has some hope. Ukraine has Poland, Slovakia and Hungary (healthy Europe) to its West and Donbas (Sovok) and Russia (semi-Europe, wth a history of bringing Sovok plague to Ukraine) to its East. Ukraine’s natives have chosen the (healthy) West. That their interests and wishes coincide with that of American empire-builders is a happy coincidence. Should the Poles have turned down Napoleon? Hunter Biden is a minor irritant in this process.
When I told him I lived about 2 hours train ride from NYC he got the bizarre idea that I lived among hillbillies. So then he himself moved among them. Lots of projection from him.
So far as I know, Poles don’t hold liberal views on immigration, but I certainly agree that you can be conservative without thinking badly of gays. I was mostly listing changes in Poland that I can’t imagine a Ukrainian nationalist approving of.
This he certainly is, but that’s style. 😀
I’m a traditionalist who supports his people, not a nationalist.
I’m not sure how this works, but if you are okay with it just remember what happens to a people without a national state.
If my people decide to be Little Russians, or Ukrainians – I support them. If they decide to become Sovoks, or Secular-Consumer-Hedonists, I don’t.
It definitely doesn’t work this way.
The way it works is: my people (country), right or wrong.
I’ll leave you Slavs to slug it out amongst yourselves. I would just point out that Ukrainians living in the Ukraine have much more in common with the Russkies than they do with the Anglo dominated West, more so as the West sinks lower.
Also, though needless to say I am no expert on the history, communism, the hatred of which seems to animate you, is more a product of Anglo, German, French, Jewish, and Western thought in general, rather than Russian, even though the Russians, with the help of various peoples of their Empire, were the first to demonstrate that it would not work.
In my opinion, there is nothing so exciting or “major”.
The “musical chairs” game is not only related to Putin’s maneuvers for 2024. It’s also a typical response for declining popularity.
The fall in popularity of the government is at least 2 years old. So it surprising in a way how late it was that they have tried to project a different image by changing around of personnel.
If I recall about Saker, his parents were Dutch and Swiss. His homeland is Switzerland and he is now American. He said in the video (with the Islamic preacher) that his great-grandparents on his mother’s side immigrated originally from Russia.
The responsibility in creating Saker’s blog is some mix of Switzerland and America. Russia is not guilty.
This “North” language is a bit misleading for latitude because people moved a lot.
If you try the DNA test and investigate their information, the company says that much of the genetic ancestry in the Ural district cities, for example, is the Baltic people .
So the largest ancestry in the diverse mix of peoples’ blood in e.g. Chelyabinsk (i.e. slightly more South than Moscow) this company is calling “Baltic” – because genetically this component of ancestry is measured by them as identical as Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians.
Lukashenko is not stupid – he is even clever enough to include stupidity in his persona. Anyway most of Putin’s public relations methods are copied from Lukashenko.
As for “Belarus is going the way of Ukraine”. While possible, I do not think it is the most likely option. Belarus has high political stability, popular consciousness of their weakness and dependence on Russia.
It’s true that netizens’ opinion in Belarus – if you judge from reading Belarus forums – can be described as “pro-Ukraine and anti-Kremlin”. However, this public opinion is not envy of Ukraine, but just a sympathy for an unfortunate and failing person.
Maybe surprise at how late it is demonstrates that you don’t understand what you are talking about.
Sad sad AP.
I am not going to get in here on your retarded views on life. Just to provide the real story.
You jumped in on me shitting on NYC to defend it. During the conversation you been proven to be wrong on NYC subways and to cover your self you resorted to lies instead of owning up to it. So you claimed that out of city trains is what you were talking about.
Anyways I like some of your views and you don’t always present wrong arguments. But your propensity to lie is your problem and downfall.
There you go, lying and failing again.
Everything can be quickly looked up in the archives:
As I wrote then:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/russia-regains-pace-voting-rights/#comment-3320673
“Let me explain to you again:
You mention Grand Central, where the commuter trains end up.
Somehow in your mind when you discussed trains and Grand Central, you didn’t mean commuter trains but the subway.”
In that discussion you also wrote lies such as : “Go to any NYCHA run apartment building and the area around it would resemble a concrete jungle.”
So I posted picture such as:
https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/20233115/Ingersoll-NYCHA.jpg
https://ak4.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/9000544/thumb/1.jpg
I am not going to rehash this here again. Anyone can check for themselves. You are a liar and anyone who spends time talking to you gets that quickly.
I posted links and your words. You, afraid of the truth, did not.
Secret king AP wins again. You such a gamma loser trying to have the last word.
“Gamma loser” sounds like an expression that only losers would use.
Still the poorest country in Europe (and behind some sub-Saharan countries)!
The middle guy in the bottom row is actually English.
Some news out of Ukraine. Sharij is having spats with radical nationalist activists. They are attacking his party and journalists and he is paying back with the same.
It seems Ukraine is a giant cluster fuck. US management in Ukraine is in civil war between Soros wing and now pro Trump wing. Ukranians vs radicals. Clear lack of unity within Ukranian society and no monopoly on force by the government is leading to ever more factions.
While we are on topic of Ukraine.
https://sharij.net/169865
Six years passed and they still can’t guarantee simple court proceedings. In nationality covered court case about assassination of journalist they have suspects supporters controlling who gets to walk in to the room. Police in the room not intervening.
I wanted to say that it has a particularly high share of trade in GDP amongst big countries. Of course if we are talking about Luxemburg Russia will always inward focused. But what it needs right now is to develop its internal market.