As an economist, a quick primer on what the economic sanctions are doing to Russia. SWIFT is the system that lets Russians do business with other countries that have different currencies. Say Russians want to buy a computer with their oil. They sell their oil domestically for rubles, exchange the rubles for, say, Euros on SWFT, and use the Euros to buy the computer. By cutting them off SWIFT, they can't exchange the rubles for Euros. Unless they try some back channel with anyone who will do business with them, but back channels suck and as a result, to get the other party to agree on the transaction they'll have to offer the rubles at a discount. This is what's causing the ruble to crash. Ordinarily the Russian Central Bank would step in at this point and sell their assets (e.g. foreign treasuries, gold, etc.) to buy rubles and stop the bleeding. But a lot of those assets, while they belong to Russia, are held in the custody of other countries' banks. And those assets are now frozen. So if the ruble keeps crashing and the Russian Central Bank exhausts their unfrozen reserves, it could be game over for the ruble. Russians know this and would love nothing more to exchange their rubles for other things, but to do that, they need to get their rubles first. And this is causing bank runs. Anyway, the Russian economy is in big trouble, and short of pulling out of Ukraine, they don't have an off-ramp. Which is itself dangerous because Putin has already proven himself to be crazy, and a crazy cornered man with nukes is very dangeours.
I'm more pissed at Robinhood not being able to work and instead of selling at almost 80 cents I sold mid 50s. That was the end of my Robinhood crypto.
However it went down Musk sycophants are gonna sycophant. I said he did a good thing, but if you think it's completely divorced from him patting himself so hard on the back that he might need a body cast you're delusional.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWar...ev_mayor_saying_that_the_city_is_not_blocked/ AP and other major news sources ate up the Russian propaganda that the city was going to fall. I honestly feel a bit bad for some of these Russian soldiers. Saw someone going through their things and the kid looks all of 18 with pictures of his family fighting (and probably died) for literally nothing.
The bold is the scary part. The good thing is that in the short term the US has plenty of ways to intercept them. The bad thing is that not many other countries have that ability.
Bitcoin standard incoming.... The mystery wallet that has bought nearly 130,000 Bitcoin may be theres: https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1P5ZEDWTKTFGxQjZphgWPQUpe554WKDfHQ Russia has been buying a lot of Gold the last few years. They can pump the price up by scaring everyone, and then dump their Gold on the market. If Putin ends up dropping Nukes, every decision made by every country leading up to this should be put into question, investigated, and held liable. Not sure though how much left of humanity there will be, if any at all however.
Musk has a track record of making promises like this that are hot air, from his useless rescue submarine to his nonexistent Covid ventilators. I would be surprised if this time is different.
Where exactly would they be dumping this gold? What country is going to risk sanctions by buying the gold? Venezuela doesn't have the money to do it so that really only leaves China which if they did take it would do so and a huge discount. And would China leave the gold in Russia, not likely. I can see them trying to load 2000 metric tons of gold on a train and sending it through Siberia, that's not going to take too much effort now is it. And if an unhinged Putin drops nukes after invading a sovereign nation it's every other nation fault? Truthful, rational, outstandingly logical and learned
I thought this was great https://www.yahoo.com/news/russias-chechen-leader-says-forces-141851300.html Sat, February 26, 2022, 9:18 AM MOSCOW (Reuters) -Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of Russia's Chechnya region and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Saturday that Chechen fighters had been deployed to Ukraine and urged Ukrainians to overthrow their government. In a video posted online, Kadyrov boasted that Chechen units had so far suffered no losses and said Russian forces could easily take large Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, but that their task was to avoid loss of life. "As of today, as of this minute, we do not have one single casualty, or wounded, not a single man has even had a runny nose," Kadyrov said, denying what he said were false reports of casualties from Ukrainian sources. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrai...-chechen-tanks-kill-general-near-kyiv-report/ 27 February 2022, 3:19 pm Ukrainian military forces were successful in destroying a Chechen special forces column of 56 tanks near the capital of Kyiv on Saturday, Ukrainian news agency The Kyiv Independent reported. According to the report, which the outlet said was confirmed by the Ukrainian President’s Office, the attack killed top Chechen general Magomed Tushayev, head of the 141 motorized regiment of the Chechnya National Guard.
President Zelensky to release prisoners with combat experience to join the fight. So now you have hardened inmates joining the fray. Here come the mercenaries. https://mothership.sg/2022/02/ukraine-inmates-release-fight-war/
Breaking News: Ukraine destroys Russian supply column (per CNN) Looks like Putin getting a good ass kicking lol! I don't think the Ukrainians care what the Russians or Belarusians throw at them
Putins best bet is to shake sone hands today, go ahead and spin it any way he wants to make him look like he got what he wanted. Then then go home and think about how Ukraines defense will be built up by the west as soon as you leave
