The regions Russia has invaded have large unexploited oil and more importantly gas reserves. Not only that, but some of the gas pipeline, which supply Russian gas to the EU run through that region. So if Ukraine holds them, it is fairly easy to them to replace Russian gas.

For the US the war is extremely usefull. Russia gave the EU a somewhat independent energy supply. But the war against Ukraine is just too dangerous. Especially with Russia threatening EU countries on a regular bases. So they turned to other suppliers and the biggest oil and gas exporter is currently the US. Due to the war a third of fossil gas used by the EU is from the US right now. That is a huge dependence.

As for oil, Ukraine is obviosuly very willing to attack Russian oil infrastructure. So the US is litterally taking out a competitor fairly long term here.

Something similar was happening with Iran. Israel actually attacked some oil and gas infrastructure in Iran as well. Obviously the entire region is always close to explode again.

This is also a good move against China. They import a lot of oil from Russia, Venezuela and Iran. So if the US can control Venezuela and take out Russia and Iran, then it is able to really punish China in a war. That is why China is going for EVs, renewables and coal. They can have those inside China. Something similar is happening inside the EU as well, but less strategic.

Also back to Ukraine. It is more complex then that. Ukraine is culturally close to Russia, so them removing a dictator might well be a bad example to the Russian people, from Putins point of view. It also acted as a buffer between Russia and EU/NATO, has a lot of farm land and due to Soviet legacy an economy, which integrates well into Russia, as well as a lot of Russian speakers. The war also helps Putin internally, as an excuse to strengthen the hold over the country and remove competition.

Holy crap do I really need to use the /s behind the first comment. I thought it was so bloody obvious, that it did not need to happen. The idea to walk around town, scan people sneakers and if they are legit Nike call them fascists. To me that idea is just so insane that it is funny.

At the same time, there are companies, which are worse and it is worth boycotting them. If you do so, then stand by that and do not buy some fakes. Seriously imagine trying to convince some guy that Nike sucks, while wearing full fake Nike gear. That is again a funny idea to me.

Do you seriously believe that anybody would be crazy enough to check other peoples clothes with a medical scanning device? Thank you.

We all have to exist in this system whether we like it or not, and unless you’re living 100% off grid in a hovel in the woods, you’re contributing to the slow ascent of fascism in one way or another.

When you know that an action supports fascism you do not do it and you warn others about it. Pretending to support fasism, is at least in this case really stupid.

$500-2000 depends on what sort of shoe, where you buy it and so forth. If you go to a poor country it can be had for a lot less though. It might well be worth to have that vacation and find a shoemaker. You certainly will not exploit them nearly as badly as Nike.

So you are saying that you need medical scanning devices to make sure that a person wearing what looks like Nikes is not a fascist.

Yes we are. In a mortgage the bank gives you the money today, for the promise of payments in the future. So for a bank far out payments are nearly worthless today. So they will not give you better conditions for a 50year mortgage compared to a 25year one.

The further in the future profits are, the less they are worth today. As in getting $1000 today is better, then getting a promise of being paid $1000 in a decade. After all if you got the $1000 today you could have invested it and got a return on it. So lets say you know you can get a return of a rate of 5%. The $1000 today invested over a decade would be $1000 * 1.0510 = $1628.89 in a decade. You can also use it the other way around, to estimate what the $1000 is worth in the future. As in X * 1.0510 = $1000 -> X =$613.91 That rate of return is called the discount rate.

The issue with getting money in 50 years is that it ends up being nearly nothing today. So it is just a horrible idea.

Anybody who believes a 50 year mortgage is a good idea, does not understand discount rates…

Democracies can plan ahead and do so all the time. Most laws and system stay in place even with changes in government. In fact you see that a lot in climate policies. Stuff like combustion engine or fossil boiler phase outs, carbon caps, subsidies for green technology and plenty more, which are for a long time. The UK has halved its annual CO2 emissions since 1990 and a good number of European countries are not far behind.

The West is not united on the issue. The EU got a hard lesson from Russia, that fossil fuel dependence is a massive problem. So you see actually quite large investments into the green transition. This is building on some good progress earlier. Obviously Trump doing what he does scares the EU, which currently imports way too much LNG from the US to easily replace. There is push back from the fossil fuel industry, but the laws in place and general direction are good. It is too slow however.

The US as the other large Western power went in the other direction. They elected Trump and currently work on blackmailing the world using oil. This year alone, they bombed Iran, moved a massive fleet towards Venezuela and used sanctions to destroy Russian oil exports. So the three largest oil producers, who deliver a lot of oil to China and are not some sort of vassal to the US.

Gross profit is not what you think it is.

Walmart pays employees, taxes, interest on loans and a lot more other regular expenses. Those costs are not included in gross profit, but in net income. That is obviously much lower.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WMT/walmart/net-income

2billion per month. So that means 24billion in a year. Last year Walmart had an income of 19billion.

Reading his Wiki page, he does sound rather reasonable. Support for Occupy Wallstreet, running as a UK Labour candidate, openly calling not to elect Trump and also calling the US Libertarian Party “lunatics”.

Me looking up the project: At least they figured out that they need a metro, given they plan the Nusantara Autonomous Rail Transit. Turns out it is a bus.

Unlike many other countries in the world, Spirits have the same right as humans in Manchuria. Your anti spirit racism is just disgusting.

Source: https://shadowrun.fandom.com/wiki/Manchuria

Exactly enough money to bridge the period between ending the war and having created enough jobs in the civilian economy. Right now unemployment is basically zero and given all the dead Russian soldiers that is going to be rather possible.

We are talking about $200B of Russian government assets in the EU. That is enough to pay the soldiers and workers in the military industry for some time until the economy can recover. Even if a lot is lost and lets be real that is happening with military spending as well.

Right now Russia has massive fuel shortages all over the country, the coal industry is collapsing, there are rolling black outs in some regions and high inflation. The base for recovery is pretty low. Add fossil fuel exports to the West at global higher prices and it goes a long way. Nothing some good propaganda can not handle.

Russia has some massive advantages ones they have peace. One is the assets they have in the West. We are talking billions and they could be sold to help out the local economy. The other one is lifting of sanctions. They sell a lot less gas and oil under market prices. So having those lifted would help the economy a lot.

It then is a matter of giving everybody who looses their jobs in the military sector a new one. That can be done with infrastructure spending or something similar.

Who cares. It is better that the government has a shit ton of debt, then almost everybody else. At least if it is used well. Company debt serves the rich and private debt has much higher interest then public debt. So if used well it is not a problem at all. Especially if you borrow in your own currency.

In reality both the US and Eurozone should just forgive the debt their central banks have bought. That if anything is what QE is for.

The transition between unipolar and multipolar is inherently unstable. BRICS wants the multipolar world, so it is destabilizing the US world order. That means change, which can be for good. However the transitions tend to be bloody. We unfortunately see some of that. I just hope we do not end up with some US-China war.