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Panto_Villan

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  1. I think you're overstating this. They do still have a pretty enormous amount of foriegn currency and gold. They are burning through it, but I've seen estimates of between six to eighteen months before they actually run out. Also, Russia has paid for the vast majority of things with unrefined oil since long before the war - they never had a particularly advanced economy, and oil exports were always far larger than anything else (far larger than natural gas). Previously they'd exchange oil for dollars but now they'll be getting yuan or rupees, but it's functionally the same. Most of the costs of running the war are local, too - e.g. salaries, munitions, etc. They import some things, but most stuff is built locally. Which means that the ruble crashing makes running the war cheaper - the price of oil isn't in rubles, so they'll get more rubles for their oil if their currency crashes, whereas salaries and local prices are in rubles so get cheaper. Sure, it'll fuel inflation to some extent, but the Russian economy really isn't doing that badly given the circumstances. There's only so much you can do to damage an economy that's that rich in natural resources, unfortunately - they grow vast amounts of food, dig loads of raw materials out of the ground, and have massive oil reserves. Plus they've got an unusally large arms industry relative to their GDP.
  2. It both does and doesn't help. Russia makes all its money from crude oil exports, not exports of refined products - I was reading the state actually loses money on refined products due to the way their tax system works. Plus the military will always have priority over civilian customers, so the military is never going to run short as a result of this. But if the refineries get damaged, it means they can no longer supply the local markets, and they'll need to import those replacement products from other countries, which obviously costs money to do and may annoy the civilian population if there are shortages (as bickster has already said). Is it a major problem for Russia? Probably not. But it's amost certainly worth the cost of the drones Ukraine are hitting the refineries with.
  3. So funnily enough, apparently in 2022 the polls were as accurate as they've been in the past 30 years: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/ ("The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022") I guess even then the "red wave" didn't really materialise, so I suppose they weren't *that* accurate. And that is the result that gives me hope, because it was the one where the Republicans did worse than expected rather than outperforming expectations. Anyway, I understand what you're saying logically. This should be a relatively easy election for the Democrats, logically, because Trump is an atrocious candidate and abortion has turned into a particularly large issue recently. But you and I and everyone else on VT aren't exactly a great barometer of the political mood in the US; VT is very left-leaning even for the UK and the fact that on here there's page after page of people who are genuinely amazed Trump is even allowed to run while in the real world he absolutely destroyed Haley and DeSantis in the primaries (Haley being a reasonably strong candidate imo) should probably illustrate that. I just don't think any of us understand what might motivate people to vote for Trump, so we can't really apply our own logic to the situation and expect to get an accurate result. I mean, Biden would have romped the last election if the US electorate wasn't insane, but he didn't. EDIT - actually, it's also worth noting that 2022 was the only time Trump effectively wasn't on the ballot. So perhaps its bad news that was the only time the Republicans underperformed the polls.
  4. Yes, but in 2016 and 2020 they significantly underestimated Trump’s support. You can’t assume the error will be in Biden’s favour like it was in 2022.
  5. While the polling putting Trump ahead is all within the margin for error, Trump is still polling higher than he was in the last election (which turned out to be incredibly tight in the swing states). If you’re not worried by the polling, you should be. It’s certainly not a guaranteed Trump win but right now it’s looking worse than it has previously. But the election is eight months away, and there’s time for opinions to change:
  6. Picked this up recently and it's genuinely one of the funniest games I've played in ages. Even the tutorial is hilarious. I also noticed that the default settings for everything in the settings menu are set to 11 rather than 10, which made me laugh far more than it should.
  7. That's because Israel has ensured there's no need to discuss any of those issues by so thoroughly sabotaging any path to peace that they're basically irrelevent (except Hamas, which has certainly been "looked at" in the past six months). Not sure what else there is to say. Israel can either try and work towards peace with Western backing, which might be a painful process and take a long time, or it can decide it wants forever war with no outside assistance. It's currently choosing the latter, and given they hold most of the cards in the Palestinian question that's by far the most important roadblock. You might want people to give equal weight to all the other roadblocks too, but just feels like you're trying to minimise downplay Israel's recent idiocy.
  8. I never said the attacks would stop if Israel hadn't elected hardliners - my point is that a more moderate government with a more moderate stance on the Palestinians wouldn't have alienated the West, who Israel rely on for military and economic survival. And they're ultimately doing it for what? Taking a bunch of largely worthless farmland off the Palestinians? There's clearly no guarantee peace will come if they elect a moderate government, but there's at least a pathway open for it (and over time many of Israel's enemies have become neutral parties; it's only really Iran left now). But Israel needs to play by the rules if they don't want to be thrown to the wolves; eventually even the US will tire of their behaviour if they continue down this path. Yes, in the past the Palestinians have sabotaged the peace process too. This is part of the reason why support for Israel was higher twenty years ago, because they weren't the ones sabotaging the peace process. If in ten years the Palestinians are the ones preventing a peace settlement then most people won't be interested in hearing excuses from them about how Israel did bad things a decade ago, and right now nobody cares about Palestinian corruption because it's just not the issue that matters. The way to put it in the spotlight is for Israel to be pushing for peace.
  9. A new reply as you've edited the original post to add this. Yes, all of that is true. Of course the military threat against Israel is a huge factor in their policies / elections - but they're still choosing to vote for terrible solutions to the problem. They've repeatedly elected a government actively choosing to make the only viable peace solution (a 2-party state) impossible. Not just blocking progress on it, but actively moving it further away. The problem is you're presenting this as the inevitable result of the external threat, which it isn't. I don't doubt that if the Israelis were doing their absolute best to make a 2-state solution work there would still be protestors in the street and people in this thread railing against Israel. However, there would be fewer of them, and far more people willing to give Israel unqualified backing (including at state level). The onus would be entirely on the Palestinians to make the 2-state solution work, or if they already had a state, to leave Israel alone. I think all this would be playing out quite differently. Instead we're in a position where Israel has gone out of its way to sabotage the only route it has to an actual peace settlement.
  10. I’m aware of all that, I just think your interpretation is unnecessarily charitable towards the Israelis for two reasons. First, you’re implying the challenging situation Israel finds itself in makes Likud rule inevitable. I don’t buy it. There were alternatives, but not enough Israelis voted for them. That isn’t Iran’s fault or Hamas’ fault, it’s the fault of the Israelis. Second, Netanyahu lost the election before last against a united opposition, so it was obvious his only partners this time around were going to be the far right - and he’s been around so long there should be precisely zero Israelis surprised he’s willing to put self-preservation ahead of national interest. Sure, lots of Israelis didn’t vote for him and the polls suggest enough that did now have buyers remorse that he’ll get booted out at the next election. That’s good. But you still can’t try and pin this on anyone other than the Israeli electorate as a whole; they still voted him into power.
  11. Today’s loss and the red card is a disastrous result, but the season isn’t over until it’s over. There’s still plenty of games for us to rescue our CL bid.
  12. I think everyone posting in this thread or reading it gives a shit, kinda by definition. Why else would anyone be here?
  13. Nah, I don’t believe that. The Israelis are buying a fantasy if they think they can vote for a government that wants to settle Palestinian land, actively sabotage a two-state solution, empower the ultra-orthodox minority and pursue maximalist war goals. There’s no long-term way any of that works out in Israel’s favour. They’re getting a preview of how it’s going to play out right now, and thankfully it looks like people have realised it’s a bad idea. A more sensible government would be better able to protect Israel from external threats, and would be much less likely to antagonise the allies Israel needs to survive. And perhaps finish the reconciliation with the Arab states that was on the table before the attack. This war could have been conducted very differently if it wasn’t being carried out as political theatre. Electing Netanyahu is entirely on Israel, just as electing Trump was on America and Brexit was on us. You can’t blame every act of self-destruction on external factors; sometimes people just vote for bad ideas.
  14. The Israeli electorate is perfectly capable of electing a more moderate government without any help from Iran or external factors.
  15. I’m seeing reports on Twitter that Norway has provided the last bit of funding required for the Czech-led European effort to buy the 800k artillery shells from the rest of the world. If so that’s great news. Gives the US a bit more time to sort their shit out (although it seems like they’ve got a final tranche of $4bn available if they really need it too). Maybe those two things are enough to get Ukraine through to November, when Trump will hopefully lose the election.
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