Poor Russia with an economy that gets ever worse.

First India stops buying most Russia oil and now Turkish banks cut off Russia. The Russian economy just gets worse and worse and no amount of Kremlin lies can hide it.

https://youtube.com/shorts/YRTjNZCWLIQ?si=0L22KsrH5KiXC6b5

 

For every month this war drags out....sets RuZZia back a year or more....as it stands now ...the Mafiosi has set itself back 20 yrs or more....on top of being China's vassal state for decades to come.

 

Everyone will become vassal states of china. They practically own USA as it is.

 

Oh for certain!. I mean because it's not like China's economy hasn't been powering along perfectly these last three years. There's no housing oversupply or construction industry debt crisis to speak of and certainly no demographic issue like a rapidly ageing workforce or massively inadequate investment in aged care and social security systems it needs to deal with. It certainly doesn't suffer from endemic corruption issues, neither has the stock market market or investor confidence fallen to record lows and the fact that it has a youth unemployment rate greater than 20% is a mere trifle. In short nothing stands in the way of China becoming the worlds dominant economic power in the next decade.

 

This is bad news, because it means that China will be gunning for a (limited) war, too. Nothing distracts from domestic chaos like a good little international fight.

 

Possibly, but unless your absolutely desperate you also have to believe you have a reasonable chance of winning the war your about to start.

And frankly given the corruption scandal currently embroiling China's armed forces and the game of musical chairs that is occurring in its top leadership positions as a result? It's entirely possible Zi might not be all that confidant. A large scale, opposed sea borne invasion is just about the most complex and risky military operation its possible for a nation's armed forces to perform. And that's even if you have a well lead, well trained and (hopefully) experienced force at your command. China's armed forces may be well trained (well that's open to debate but lets assume it's the case) but its definitely not experienced and (if recent reports are to be believed) not particularly well lead either.

And here's the thing Zi is stuck in the same trap Putin was before the start of the Ukrainian invasion. Zi has to trust his generals when they give him readiness reports on the preparedness and effectiveness of China's armed forces. Putin did and Zi has seen what happens when all the glaring problems and capability gaps are papered over for fear of delivering bad news or because you want to hide how much money everyone has been skimming off the top of the defense budget for decades. You have to trust your generals. Almost all western Nations can. Russia and China?

The other big problem is as I noted China's economy. At the moment its far from robust and even if the invasion did go without a hitch (which is extremely unlikely BTW) China's export trade with the west would be decimated for the duration. It would take years to reset if ever. At the moment that kind of shock could well be a death blow to the Chinese economy and the social contract the Chinese Communist Party has with the people. In short the Party gets to rule for so long as it delivers prosperity. Even Xi is going to be hesitant to test that contract.

 

Good analysis, @Monash

I hadn't thought about corruption within the armed forces themselves. I assume the Chinese are fairly patriotic, but could be wrong.

 

They are definitely patriotic, from memory I think they are even forced to undertake a couple of hours of political training every day. (Please don't quote me on the exact numbers though that purely my recollection). But then so is Taiwan's army by all accounts.

IMO patriotism as a motivation to fight generally works best for the defender. When your being attacked you have every motivation under the sun to defend home and family. When your attacking someone else unless you are a fanatic part of you is always going to be asking yourself 'why exactly am I here being shot at?'. China and Taiwan are a special case though. Both sides are likely to be riding high on patriotism in any war between the two.

 

Why oil prices are going down
July 2022: "India and China are have been buying so much Russian oil that it looks like India has outbid China and Chinese refineries won't be getting any."

August 2023: Russia is the fifth economy in the world to overtake Germany

 

We live very poorly and suffer a lot!

 

Something tells me they are still a paper tiger compared to the US and Europe. I doubt they'll go directly at Taiwan but we shall see.

 

The logistics of attacking Taiwan based off of the geography alone make it next to Impossible.

China would be more successful if they just diplomatically went after Taiwan.

Change the minds of the people

 

Commenting on the two points that you made in one sentence:

True. The analogy that comes to mind is they have the 'hardware' but possibly not the 'software'.

Vs both, not a chance. But would Europe/UK support the US?

 

Depends on the global security and economic threat Taiwan being under China's control would mean. Putin has been quite successful promoting a far RW fascist agenda worldwide but especially in some European nations using migration to fire up nationalistic frenzy. The US is going through this right now. I would hope that balance doesn't tilt too much from center.

 

Look I'm no Russian defender. I ****ing HATE Putin.

But every time I've checked up on their oil trade, it has sustained and gone from disclosed to non disclosed.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/russian-total-oil-exports-january-2022-january-2023


I fully expect this grey box to just get larger in the next report.

 

Haha, no, really no. The communist system is breaking down in China and their economy is not going to recover. Between their terminal demographics and the utter mismanagement and corruption their male investment debt is going to consume virtually all the wealth in China. I would be surprised if the CCP is still in power in 10 years.

They are economically breaking down just like the failed USSR did and like the corrupt Russian dictatorship is doing now. I hope you have an exit plan, Boris.

 

Unlikely as 90%+ of its energy and base inputs for things like fertilizer must be imported. Worse, the communist Chinese Navy simply lacks the range to protect its trade so it would be completely at the mercy of the west and its allies who would instantly cut those trade links. It is hard to run a modern economy without gasoline or electricity just like it is hard to feed 1.2 billion (quickly aging and mostly elderly) people without fertilizers, pesticides, or all the other modern things needed for farming.

The CCP won't be able to keep the lights on or food on the table.

 

Lol! I do love junk like this because inflation is killing average Russians while the economy means everyone is making less even before inflation. Sure, unlike China Russia can feed itself but life has gotten so bad in Russia there are power outages which go on for days while ancient old Soviet city scale steam heating systems break down leaving entire cities without any heating during winter.

So, no, life is not good in Russia and ever Russian knows it including you

 

Of course we live very poorly, that's right. You see how desperate these people are.

 

Let's see did your city....Kazan is it?....manage to clean up the knee deep $hit from ruptured sewer line that ran through the city......LOL.


Great pics with no links?

 

A few videos to help you.

In January 2023, the median salary was 43,500 rubles or $630 per month. In July 2023 was 53,571 rubles ($591.90) per month.

You guys are poor as hell and you are quickly getting poorer. Especially as inflation means your meager income buys ever less.

 

Here is the reality about living in Russia. Power and heat have been off for whole cities in numerous parts of the country in the dead of winter because repairs and basic up keep were never done. Corrupt officials stole the money while Putin's optional war of aggression sucked up all the available funds. Enjoy freezing!

https://youtube.com/shorts/zR4q44H4AYI?si=JC8Enm0OfStEc7c_

 

"You guys?"

Can you read or is that hard for you?

 

Sadly, that was two posts in one. I started typing a post to you but my browser crashed. I then came back to respond to our Russian friend and it appears part of the crashed post was saved. If that makes sense.

Basically, the two videos were for you (there was a third but it didn't seem to get saved before the crash) then the text is all directed at Vitally. Sorry.

 

It was not the sewer that broke, but the hot water. It has already been restored.

There simply can't be links to the photo, because I shot it myself. The first picture is on Saturday, the second on Sunday.