Trump's tariff wars...long post.

[tauzero]

8 hours ago, tegs07 said:

The EU either needs to abandon its push into the Baltics and other parts of Eastern Europe, including Ukraine,  or face continued Russian aggression. Call this aggression whatever you like if war isn’t comfortable. IMO disinformation, election interference, economic pressure through artificial manipulation of the energy sector (war in soft targets does this very nicely) are all far more effective than missiles. 

 

So the Baltic states aren't allowed to want to join the EU?

[tegs07]

Just now, tauzero said:

 

So the Baltic states aren't allowed to want to join the EU?

They are allowed to want to join the EU. Whether permitting them to do so is a good thing is another matter.

 

I still think that the EU policy has caused huge tensions between the west and Russia and internal divisions within its own electorate. Farage, Le Penn, the aFD would just be fringe comedy acts IMO and Brexit would never have happened.

 

Macrons idea about core EU membership and satellite membership would be worth exploring. Even some current EU members don’t adhere to some of the core principles. Hungary for one. As much as I support Ukraine and its right to independence it’s economy and endemic corruption would have been a big issue for full EU membership. The same goes for Turkey. They are an important ally and deeper economic and military alignment would be advisable, but a full EU membership??

[SteveXFR]

I was going through Taunton earlier (bad times) and ended up behind a Tesla which had a sticker on the back saying "I didn't know he was a nazi"

That's a bad time when you feel the need to put a sticker like that on your car.

 

[Belka]

The Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) have been full members of the EU and NATO since 2004. Do you mean the Balkans?

[tegs07]

6 minutes ago, Belka said:

The Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) have been full members of the EU and NATO since 2004. Do you mean the Balkans?

I mean new membership to the EU from former USSR territories. IMO the EU has expanded eastwards as far as is feasible without provocation towards Russia and direct pushback from its own citizens. War or right wing (in some cases Russian sympathetic politicians) are possible consequences. I still think deeper economic co-operation and most of the benefits of EU membership are possible as outlined by Macron.

Obviously this is just an opinion and won’t be universally popular.

Edited Thursday at 16:55 by tegs07

[tegs07]

For anyone who is interested, I always find this guy to be very informative:

 

 

[tegs07]

 

[peteb]

38 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

 

 

So pretty much what I have been saying, except Zeihan says that Trump selling out NATO in Europe / Ukraine will have consequences that I was not aware of. He claims (and he does seem to have some expertise in this area) that Finland and Sweden have the capacity to upgrade their weapon systems to nuclear 'in weeks, if not days', swiftly followed by Poland and Romania, with the likelihood that the Germans will be forced to follow suit! 

 

Edited Thursday at 22:43 by peteb

[Downunderwonder]

18 hours ago, Burns-bass said:

Ukraines neutrality (or perceived neutrality) is the aim.

That is the crock of stuff that Russia is selling. They would have been quite happy absorbing the entire Ukraine as Russian, exterminating Ukrainian culture, and living next door to Nato in Poland. Total bullshit for the ignorant.

[TimR]

 

Modern Hydrogen tactical nuclear weapons are not like the bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Edited yesterday at 05:47 by TimR

[tegs07]

2 hours ago, Downunderwonder said:

That is the crock of stuff that Russia is selling. They would have been quite happy absorbing the entire Ukraine as Russian, exterminating Ukrainian culture, and living next door to Nato in Poland. Total bullshit for the ignorant.

I thought the aim was to de-militarise and de nazify ukraine to save the russian speaking inhabitants, the same objective as the georgia invasion and will be for moldova and potentially estonia …..(though if this happens it will probably be paramilitary groups, sabotage etc so plausible deniability like Donbas in 2014).

Edited yesterday at 07:23 by tegs07

[Burns-bass]

Interesting to see how the day after Keir Starmer directly threatened Russia that Heathrow airport needs to shut for an entire day as the result of some sort of "freak accident".

[tegs07]

To get back to Tariffs briefly.

China. It’s hitting terminal velocity in terms of demographics and debt. Is President Clownshoe going for the jugular and hitting them when they are most vulnerable.No.

 

Instead he has turned his attention to destroying his allies by a combination of economic sabotage and military weakness.

 

To take on China and turn the USA into a manufacturing powerhouse the combined strength of NAFTA would be essential. Mexico has the cheap manufacturing capacity, the cheap labour and Canada has the essential raw materials.

 

But no. Trump is working against them and simultaneously deporting the cheap labour essential for construction and creating an economic climate where investors pause and wait for the storm clouds to settle.

 

Muppet. And a dangerous one.

[Daz39]

2 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Interesting to see how the day after Keir Starmer directly threatened Russia that Heathrow airport needs to shut for an entire day as the result of some sort of "freak accident".

He’d best stay on the ground floor and avoid windows for a while…

[tegs07]

46 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

Interesting to see how the day after Keir Starmer directly threatened Russia that Heathrow airport needs to shut for an entire day as the result of some sort of "freak accident".

The sabotage (if Russian) has been going on for years. The intelligence agencies have thwarted numerous attempts throughout Europe. The CIA and MI6 have issued joint statements about this very serious threat for the last couple of years and various arson attacks in Germany, the UK and most recently Lithuania have had Russian links.

 

Yet there is no war….

Edited yesterday at 08:37 by tegs07

[Paul S]

It could just be coincidence.  My wife knows someone who worked in the sector that covered keeping the electricity sub-stations operative.  In her opinion they were mostly not fit for purpose, in some cases with an infrastructure dating back to the 1950s, and given to spontaneously combusting.  She always maintained that there was no way the network could sustain everyone driving electric cars, for example.

[Wombat]

Maybe a ship mysteriously ploughed into it?

[tegs07]

8 minutes ago, Wombat said:

Maybe a ship mysteriously ploughed into it?

or a trawler accidentally dragged its anchor over it?

[peteb]

34 minutes ago, Paul S said:

It could just be coincidence.  My wife knows someone who worked in the sector that covered keeping the electricity sub-stations operative.  In her opinion they were mostly not fit for purpose, in some cases with an infrastructure dating back to the 1950s, and given to spontaneously combusting.  She always maintained that there was no way the network could sustain everyone driving electric cars, for example.

 

There has been a lot of work to update the grid in recent years. Whether it would be enough if everyone were to buy an electric car is another thing, but the grid is in the process of being upgraded. 

 

[tegs07]

Sorry to be indulgent and take up my soapbox (it’s kind of in my nature) but I find this type of discussion very interesting and it does trigger the academic that never was within me.

 

IMO the only way to stop a real war in Europe involving many more lives is economic. 40% and rising of Russias economy is committed to its war machine. This is not a situation that is easy to reverse without plunging the Russian economy into a severe and protracted recession.

 

It’s an economy geared up to sieze assets, commodities and infrastructure by force.

 

If the force can be contained then eventually one side runs out of cash. 

Russia is simply not a big enough economy to survive this. Ukraine was a costly mistake that has been double downed upon to the point IMO there is no going back. There won’t be a lasting peace without a backstop. Just that precious geopolitical commodity. Time.

[JoeEvans]

51 minutes ago, tegs07 said:

The sabotage (if Russian) has been going on for years. The intelligence agencies have thwarted numerous attempts throughout Europe. The CIA and MI6 have issued joint statements about this very serious threat for the last couple of years and various arson attacks in Germany, the UK and most recently Lithuania have had Russian links.

 

Yet there is no war….

I work for a charity and we've recently been upgrading our cyber security, on advice from our IT support company who told us that there are active teams of Russian hackers employed simply to look for anything they can do to cause disruption, chaos and expense. So it's not just about protecting against simple financial fraud, you need to protect against random professional malice too.

[tegs07]

1 minute ago, JoeEvans said:

I work for a charity and we've recently been upgrading our cyber security, on advice from our IT support company who told us that there are active teams of Russian hackers employed simply to look for anything they can do to cause disruption, chaos and expense. So it's not just about protecting against simple financial fraud, you need to protect against random professional malice too.

Very sensible. A large part of my job involves cybersecurity…

[edstraker123]

1 hour ago, Burns-bass said:

Interesting to see how the day after Keir Starmer directly threatened Russia

He normally just threatens pensioners and the mentally ill.

[edstraker123]

47 minutes ago, JoeEvans said:

I work for a charity and we've recently been upgrading our cyber security, on advice from our IT support company who told us that there are active teams of Russian hackers employed simply to look for anything they can do to cause disruption, chaos and expense. So it's not just about protecting against simple financial fraud, you need to protect against random professional malice too.

I work in an IT department at a University and there are active teams of hackers of many nationalities trying to cause disruption.chaos and expense.

[tegs07]

5 minutes ago, edstraker123 said:

I work in an IT department at a University and there are active teams of hackers of many nationalities trying to cause disruption.chaos and expense.

To be fair the vast amount of cyber attacks are just script kiddies probing well known vulnerabilities and ports for kicks.

 

There are state sponsored hackers whose knowledge is vastly superior. These attacks predominantly originate in Russia, North Korean Iran and China.