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Joined 2 months ago
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Cake day: November 10th, 2025

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  • Purchasing Power Parity.

    It’s a method that adjusts a country’s GDP to its local level of prices and living expenses. This makes it possible to compare the GDP across different countries. Comparing the countries’ nominal GDPs would be misleading as, simply speaking, earning 1,000 dollars in New York City or London has a different meaning than earning the same amount somewhere in the Global South where price levels are usually lower.







  • “I discussed obviously the situation in terms of Irish beef exports into China, the tariff situation in respect of dairy products”

    Yeah, Xi Jinping increased prices for dairy products for Chinese people by introducing tariffs, very much as Trump did in the US for other goods. It’s time that Ireland and other EU farmers diversify its trade imo.

    And what did they say about forced labour and the China’s genocide in East Turkistan, Tibet? Beiijng’s aggression against Taiwan? Was that an issue?












  • I posted this in another thread, but when reading the comments it may fit also here.

    Ivashov is for sure pro-Russian in principle, and certainly not what we would call pro-Western or a friend of democracy. He and his fellow generals warned, however, of a war against Ukraine already early 2022.

    On 1 February 2022, roughly three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Leonid Ivashov, then chairman of the All-Russian Officers Assembly, published a piece titled, ‘On the Eve of War?’ – Appeal of the All-Russian Officers Assembly to the President and Citizens of the Russian Federation, warning about a war against Ukraine:

    Today mankind is living in expectation of war. A war inevitably means human casualties, destruction, suffering for large masses of people, loss of the habitual way of life, and the disruption of the vital systems of states and peoples. A big war is an enormous tragedy, someone’s grave crime. And it so happens that Russia has found itself in the center of this imminent catastrophe.

    And this is perhaps happening for the first time in its history. In the past, Russia (the Soviet Union) waged necessary (justified) wars, generally when there was no other way out, when the vital interests of the state and society were under threat. But what is threatening Russia’s existence today? And are there really any such threats anyway?

    He then continues criticizing Putin’s foreign policy:

    Naturally, in order for Ukraine to remain a friendly neighbor for Russia, Russia would have had to demonstrate the attractiveness of its state model and system of government. But Russia never became a friendly neighbor; its model of development and foreign policy mechanism for international cooperation repelled almost all its neighbors and beyond. Russia’s appropriation of the Crimea and Sevastopol, and their nonrecognition as Russian by the international community (meaning that the majority of countries in the world still believe they belong to Ukraine) are convincing proof of the failure of Russian foreign policy and the unattractiveness of its domestic policy. Attempts to use ultimatums and the threat of force to make [others] “fall in love with” Russia and its leaders are pointless and extremely dangerous.

    Ivashov, usually maintaining a hard line against the West, refused the Kremlin’s public propaganda of Nato being a threat:

    As far as external threats are concerned, they definitely exist. But in our expert opinion, they are not critical at the moment, and do not pose a direct threat to the existence of Russian statehood and its vital interests. Strategic stability has been preserved overall, nuclear weapons are under reliable control and groups of NATO forces are not amassing or displaying any threatening activity. Therefore, the explosive situation surrounding Ukraine is primarily artificial and self-serving for some internal forces, including in Russia.

    He then addresses the threat a war could pose to the Russian state:

    The use of military force against Ukraine will, first of all, call into question Russia’s very existence as a state. Second, it will turn Russians and Ukrainians into mortal enemies. Third, thousands (tens of thousands) of young, healthy people will die on both sides, which will naturally have an effect on the future demographic situation in our dying countries. On the battlefield field – if there is a battle – Russian troops will face not just Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom will be [ethnically] Russian, but also NATO troops and equipment, while NATO member states will be obligated to declare war against Russia … In addition, there is no doubt that Russia will be added to the category of countries that pose a threat to peace and international security, subjected to the most severe sanctions, transformed into a pariah in the eyes of the international community and probably lose the status of an independent state. There is no way that the president, the government and the Defense Ministry do not understand these consequences.

    Finally, they address Putin himself, demanding his resignation:

    We, Russia’s officers, demand that the Russian president abandon the criminal policy of provoking a war in which Russia will find itself alone against the united forces of the West and create conditions for implementing Art. 3 of the Russian Constitution [which states that the people are the only source of power – Trans.] and resign.












  • China supports Russia’s annexation of Ukraine.

    I am not so sure. China has clearly said that it can’t afford Russia to lose the war in Ukraine. But there is the point that China can neither afford Russia to win, or at least the Chinese don’t want Russia to win.

    China wants both a weak Europe and a weak Russia (as well as weak, disunited ‘partners’ around the globe; Trump’s attacks against the EU’s existence plays into China’s hands imho). If everyone aroudn is distracted and busy with domestic problems, economic and political coercion work much better, and it makes it easier for the Chinese government to pursue its own advantages - in Siberia, Taiwan, in the South China Sea, in global trade, … I may be mistaken, of course, but that’s my opinion.