Russian Army Invades Ukraine And Seizes Crimea

jorarulit said:
Yeah, putin is a great guy, russia is one of the world's richest countries, resource-wise and regular people over there live like it's 19th century ;)
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George come on.

You say life is bad in Russia. I will disagree. My biological dad still lives in Russia and is a successful real estate investor. My aunt owns a success chain of stores in multiples cities. They have no debt and are shocked when I tell them everything in American is purchased with credit. If you have the brains and arent looking for handouts you can make it even in Russia. The 90s have passed.

Its easy to look rich when everything is purchased on credit.
800px-Government_debt_gdp.jpg
 


For the record, I'm against what is happening in Crimea right now, as I was in regards to any other violation of the law elsewhere in previous situations.

But this time, Russia did what America was doing for years, while blatantly ignoring the calls on following the international law from Russia, with a "don't give a fuck" attitude.

Russia does the same thing now, cause.... fuck you double standards. :)

USA sponsored theft of Kosovo happened in '99, the same exact scenario with crazy media campaigns and pretexts. Kosovo was part of Serbia for centuries, and USA helped heavily in its succession, ignoring all the international treaties and laws.

Double standards!
 
jriddick said:
This is actually quite an amazing picture.
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Fuck yes, madagascar is all green and shit and fucking united states are red. We should all go live in madagascar :)

I think it is easy to not be in debt when you don't have anyone to lend you money because you live in a mud hut.
 
fixie said:
Fuck yes, madagascar is all green and shit and fucking united states are red. We should all go live in madagascar :)

I think it is easy to not be in debt when you don't have anyone to lend you money because you live in a mud hut.
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Sudan is also in the Red. Poor and in debt. Which would you take.
Poor no debt or poor with debt.

Also how do you know this debt thing can be sustained over the long haul. How do you know US isn't going to experience what Greece and Spain have. What happens when worlds talent / rich look to other places and the dollar isn't the world currency.

Sweden and Norway seem to be doing okay in the light green.
 
Rusky said:
^^^
In reference to my debt post.

Here's some recent data.
US Debt tops $17 trillion for first time
U.S. debt jumps a record $328 billion
and
$1 trillion student loan debt
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-trillion-student-loan-debt-141440433.html
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Debts in your own currency can be written off. eg companies like jp morgan were given a tax write off in return for debt relief it was giving home owners.

Debt is only truly deadly when you've borrowed in a foreign currency that you don't control and therefore can't lobby your govt over. Plus a small negative movement in exchange rates makes it harder for you to service. See Argentina in the 1990's for what happens when you do this.

Russian companies have about $136 billion in dollar denominated debt and the fall of the rouble v the dollar is hurting them bad, as it costs more roubles to pay the interest in dollars.

The big question is why they borrowed in dollars. You'd never get an American company borrowing in roubles. Perhaps there was so much corruption in the Russian banking system that Russian companies thought it was cheaper to borrow in dollars from American banks. Whoops.
 
^^^ Not really. They can default, but will never be able to do business outside Russia again. And the Russian economy isn't big enough to sustain the businesses they have - they need to export. So a default means closing down your business with the losses that entails.

I saw one article which pointed out that the Americans don't need to fire a single shot, they can just suffocate the Russian economy to death. And that's a very real risk for Russia.

Don't forget the cold war ended without a shot either. The Soviets were caught between two pincers - American escalation of the arms race increased Russia's expenditure massively, and at the same time the Saudis were forcing the oil price down to $10 by turning on the taps, in an explicit move to bankrupt the Soviet Union and force them out of Afghanistan. It worked - Soviets ran out of money and imploded.

Yet here they are again, not having learnt that lesson, and believing that armies count instead of economies...
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
Really? Didn't Russia just default on their debt in 1998?
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That was the Russian govt. I was referring to Russian businesses - It's Russian businesses who have $136 billion in dollar loans. If they default on their loans, that's their business over.

The 1998 Russian govt default was no picnic either. They descended into a barter economy, where people were paid in useless things like jars of pickles, state employees like police weren't paid, and resorted to extorting bribes to keep themselves, and they endured all sorts of other horrors that we in the comfortable west find hard to imagine.

The Russians still haven't worked out that all their recent defeats have been because of economic weakness. That's their area of vulnerablity. Instead of getting worked up over Ukraine getting a trade deal from the EU, they should have said, "great" and pressed for one for themselves too.
 
^^^
In the 90s most energy and natural resource exports were in the hands of oligarchs controlled by the west (they were also Jewish by coincidence). Putin cleaned house and is now focusing on tomorrow. No need to cry over spilled milk.

Putin is Peter the great reincarnated for modern Russia. Except the focus will be to the East and less on the West this time. With the emerging market in the East business is just getting started. China is tired of burning coal and its time to natural gas up the massive population. The pipeline to China is in the works right now.
Russia grabs China oil and gas export deals | Reuters
Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China | Zero Hedge

I'm waiting for winter time so EU can finally eat the big Putin dick and shut the hell up.

You talk about massive amounts of stupid debt like its a good thing.
 
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