Boat + 1,324 RG January 6, 2022 5 hours ago, Wombat One said: You twit, if you lived in a free country you could watch the documentaries yourself? By the way, most in the high levels of the Pentagon have already stated they will refuse orders to engage conflict with China, nuclear or not. Whether it be Milley or Austin, they have appointed themselves as the diplomats whilst the State Dept is just a sideshow. They think they are preventing war but that is actually how it begins. They have let China and Russia go too far already, and won't see the errors of their ways until it is far too late for the entire planet. I only need to see the warped attitudes displayed by the likes of you and Frankfurter and other communists on this site to know that for fact. Where there is appeasement, there is a vacuum. Need I say more? Another feisty whacko I see. You see the results of authoritarianism in Kazakhstan. You see the results of a bear in charge of nat gas ripping off populations of countries. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190 January 6, 2022 12 hours ago, frankfurter said: To read the glee in your text, glee your government contributed to the starvation and deaths of millions, such glee is among the most revolting and reprehensible I have ever encountered. Glee for genocide. Your amurcun colours show vividly. Your despotic perversion knows no bounds eh? You would rather people starve under said despots, than force said despots to allow an outside country in to distribute food. Glee indeed. CCP despots killed 10's of millions. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tomasz + 1,608 January 7, 2022 (edited) Now you can see what a chess player Putin is. He first surrounded Ukraine with part of his army, and the west started screaming about the upcoming aggression. Meanwhile, all plans were focused on Kazakhstan. It's hard to call it aggression, because there is no war there and Kazakhstan as member of alliance formlly ask for military assistance. This is an end of multipolar foreign policy and Kazahstan will now ally with Russia without looting its riches. In Kazakhstan w saw what can be called premature revolution. The right time was not chosen to organize mass protests, an opportunity was seized related to the unimaginable increase in the price of gas used to propel cars. In total, there was nothing terrible about it for the organizers, but they did not take into account the experience of the organizers of the raid in Ukraine, where the protests started as peacefully as possible and intensified very slowly, and at the same time the initiative to aggravate the conflict came from the authorities . In Kazakhstan, the protests immediately took the form of an armed struggle, which led to such a serious disturbance of the public order that even in the west they have nothing against it, and the Kazakh people have put the order as soon as possible. Of course, it was not taken into account that Russia and its allies would send military units there. And when they found out, there were no protests. The West has simply recognized that Russia has a zone of its own interests and that it can do whatever suits its interests there. Edited January 7, 2022 by Tomasz 2 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tomasz + 1,608 January 7, 2022 (edited) The lesson from Ukraine has been learned and Russia reacts immediately, leaving no room for maneuver for various revolutions and presidents brought in suitcases. The only thing that remains in my curiosity is whether they will exchange current president for someone who will do a "new opening" or bet on hardening current situation. In Belarus, they have bet on the latter and so far they have not come out badly. I'll see .. We have also official reaction from China Quote According to state media reports, Chinese President Xi Jinping praised Tokayev for "highly responsible" handling of the unrest in a message sent to his Kazakh counterpart. "You have definitely taken decisive steps at critical moments and quickly calmed the situation by showing your responsibility and sense of duty as a politician and of being highly responsible for your country and your people," Xi told Tokayev in a press release, the official Xinhua news agency said. Edited January 7, 2022 by Tomasz 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
surrept33 + 609 st January 7, 2022 (edited) 27 minutes ago, Tomasz said: Now you can see what a chess player Putin is. He first surrounded Ukraine with part of his army, and the west started screaming about the upcoming aggression. Meanwhile, all plans were focused on Kazakhstan. It's hard to call it aggression, because there is no war there and Kazakhstan as member of alliance formlly ask for military assistance. Yes, one country with a personality cult helping out another country with a personality cult, shocking! https://www.axios.com/russia-troops-arrive-kazakhstan-csto-74c4346a-83c1-45d2-9f6e-ae481357a76e.html Kazakhstan's president orders troops to "shoot to kill" protesters Kazakhstan's president said in a televised speech Friday that he ordered security forces to "shoot to kill without warning" in an attempt to forcibly suppress an unexpected uprising, adding that those who failed to surrender "need to be destroyed." Having denounced the protesters as “a band of international terrorists,” Tokayev now seems intent on suppressing the uprising by force. The big picture: Kazakhstan is effectively a one-party state that has been dominated since independence from the Soviet Union by Nursultan Nazarbayev and his family and close associates. Nazarbayev handed power to Tokayev in 2019 in a stage-managed transition that left the ex-dictator as "Leader of the Nation" and chairman of the Security Council — and saw the capital renamed in his honor. Hopes that the transition would provide a political opening, raise living standards, or reform the kleptocratic system that’s left a tiny elite with a huge share of the national wealth have been unfulfilled, says Bruce Pannier, Central Asia correspondent for Radio Free Europe. Edited January 7, 2022 by surrept33 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ronwagn + 6,290 January 7, 2022 (edited) On 12/26/2021 at 10:01 PM, SUZNV said: In the US the contracts sell out on a specific day with an expired date. At the expired date of the contract, the one who own the contract have to go get the oil. This is the reason WTI was in negative last April because no one wanted the oil and they pay money for people to get their oil contract. Maybe that is how thing works on Russia commodity exchange? But the gold price and oil contracts are both measured in USD. The gold China accumulated overtime rarely leave China, only USD. I don't believe the official number of 1,948 tons China has. I expected 10 times more as 1948 tons maybe the official number in Chinese Central Bank that China is obligated to report to the IMF. I don't believe China want to store their accumulate gold out of the borders. The gold price are manipulated by futures contracts and the spot is just the added premium price + delivery. Most of the case the gold custodies only change the label with allocated gold in gold custody. If everyone who have a contract for spot deliveries do a version of bank run, it would be very interesting. However more and more people reports that the spot gold custody send them the USD rather than physical gold delivery, it depends on the contract with the spot gold custody. Most of the gold custodies have 3rd independent parties to regularly check but I guess they can trust rent the gold from somewhere to pass the check. I recall last September JPMorgan fined $1.26 billion for manipulating precious metals. I haven't keep up with the gold for months. Mostly developing countries Central Bank in Asia, include China and India's use gold as reserve to hedge their currencies or USD inflation. They make good use of the gold price manipulation for accumulations. Even the gold bugs in US has been waiting for decades for this to happen as they will get rich if USD is back to gold standard, aka short USD. Since Xi got into power, instead to use the USD China has from exporting for buying US treasuries, they lent them out to set the debt traps in Belt and Road. Yet the US treasury bond yield in last 10 years keep dropping, suggesting USD long term trend monetary deflation as the velocity aka economics activities world wide are slowing down. 95% of the money printing is from bank lending out, this lead the demand of USD to pay back the loan--> rolling back the printing. But the Euro Dollar bubble historically always make USD deflation compares to other currencies in the long run as people need USD to pay back the debt and governments tends to manipulate exchange rates to make their products cheaper for exporting and to have USD. China can no longer have enough USD to roll over USD bonds for many real estates companies and real estates bubble, not gold, is the form of middle class Chinese storing their wealth to. China real-estate bubble is about $55 trillion, twice the size of US real estate equivalent. You can check China tech stocks like Alibaba in the last 10 months. Do you think Xi want to call out for “common prosperity,” in booming time? Ruble to dollar value. https://wise.com/us/currency-converter/rub-to-usd-rate 0.1342 https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CNY&view=10Y Dollar to yuan renminbi Edited January 7, 2022 by ronwagn reference 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SUZNV + 1,197 January 7, 2022 (edited) 52 minutes ago, ronwagn said: Ruble to dollar value. https://wise.com/us/currency-converter/rub-to-usd-rate 0.1342 It is not that bad when you compare to VND with is around 22k per USD which was 1:1 around 1987. After the sanction from US in 2014, it is not that bad to only lose half of the value since it would be harder to convert Ruble to USD make less demand in Ruble and in developing countries they wouldn't want to get pay back in their or any developing currency. Russia try to diversify their dependent in USD as much as possible, mostly in Euro or Gold (but most central banks won't want to sell their gold as they need to diversify with their USD reserve currency, with the exception of Canada has 0 gold in their central bank officially). I would guess that's why US Politicians almost ignore paper gold manipulation from gold custodies and banks (yes JP Morgan got prosecuted a few times but the settlement is worthless compares to the level of manipulation). Edited January 7, 2022 by SUZNV 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ronwagn + 6,290 January 7, 2022 5 minutes ago, SUZNV said: It is not that bad when you compare to VND with is around 22k per USD which was 1:1 around 1987. After the sanction from US in 2014, it is not that bad to only lose half of the value since it would be harder to convert Ruble to USD make less demand in Ruble and in developing countries they wouldn't want to get pay back in their or any developing currency. Russia try to diversify their dependent in USD as much as possible, mostly in Euro or Gold (but most central banks won't want to sell their gold as they need to diversify with their USD reserve currency, with the exception of Canada has 0 gold in their central bank officially). I would guess that's why US Politicians almost ignore paper gold manipulation from gold custodies and banks (yes JP Morgan got prosecuted a few times but the settlement is worthless compares to the level of manipulation). I would like to see food and energy commodity equivalents used as a basket that could be used as an online currency. Like crypto but more believable. Actual documents showing the purchases and sales. Does that make sense? 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ronwagn + 6,290 January 7, 2022 28 minutes ago, ronwagn said: I would like to see food and energy commodity equivalents used as a basket that could be used as an online currency. Like crypto but more believable. Actual documents showing the purchases and sales. Does that make sense? Are there mutual funds that deal with a number of valuable commodities? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SUZNV + 1,197 January 7, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, ronwagn said: I would like to see food and energy commodity equivalents used as a basket that could be used as an online currency. Like crypto but more believable. Actual documents showing the purchases and sales. Does that make sense? To be fair, inflation is a very complicated matter, especially in the Fiat World without gold standard. Problem 1: Current money printing system is a loan issued by bank. So when you pay back the bank, the money disappear and the only money printed is the interest. If that loan is default to 0, then the money is in the system forever. It is no longer the paper printing control and the bank has real hard asset to buy back the printed papers. So the Governments get stuck between: 1 Let the rotten entity default to 0 (one of the tools is increase interest rate), which make more money chasing less goods and services, with make everything priced higher in a high unemployment environment that affect them to get re-elected. or 2 Bailed out with basically kick the can down the road. Keep the mal investment corporation zombies (especially financial institutions, state enterprises, ESG etc. ) alive and eat out the capital should have been for good healthy businesses (normally small and middle sizes). Most innovations came from small startups and grew into big Corporations. 1 for short term pain (WW1,WW2, 1970s inflation etc. )and 2 for long term depression (like Japan for the last 30 years or EU last 10 years and maybe US next). Option 1 is really scary now because the Gov is heavy in debt, extremely pain to do that (Bush started with the high deficit and Obama accelerated the debt and Covid19 hit in Trump era). The governments are hoping the productivity from Industry 4.0 such as ESG policies,5G,Cloud... will pull the world out of recession and debts after a theoretically long time ( but I doubt short sighted governments for election cycle can plan something that long). We see bubble in all assets, stocks rather for R&D or innovation, more productivity to make more goods and services to offset the debt. Problem 2: Back in the old time, inflation can be measure easily with basic needs like foods, houses or energy... as these goods take a large part in the economy and each economy was isolated within their own currency. Nowadays we have the increasing in price of basic needs but cheaper high tech product. A smartphone nowadays is many time faster than Iphone 1, 4G mush faster than 3G but the prices are the same. This means many products or services are much cheaper than before. And USD is the world reserve currencies with most of debt in the world are nominated in USD make problem more complicated as there is a deflation pressure. This make calculation in USD for inflation is just kind of wild guess of combination with no standard and the data is kind of pick and choose. Even it is around 8% in 2021, remember US CPI was too low in the last 12 years so when we average out it still not meeting the target. Even in the year when oil price is down, the cost of foods is till up partly because modern wages are always up, not down and the average increase each year using CPI as guidelines which made CPI a self fulfilling prophecy (2021 is exceptional). Problem 3: Lots of innovations are great for productivities which make the world economy booming, especially after Cold War: Personal Computer, Internet, cell phone, 3G,4G,5G Smartphone leads to Industry 4.0 with cloud, big data, IoT etc. However materialistic culture tend to make people lazy with welfare. Media, entertaining and marketing people advocate for materialistic or enjoy "life" but not "work" to sell goods, keep inventing unnecessary reasons for consumptions, start living way beyond their means , many came from boosting the ego and entitlement or social class with luxury goods, fashions and high ego came with jealousy and entitlement. Remove these life style and we can reduce half of the CO2 emissions without the need of paying higher spending for ESG and make people less crazy. With the entitlement put pressure on governments to keep their living standard no matter what they work or not, make governments spend more and more to get elected with lead to more debt. In democracy countries, government reflects the quality of the people so the more the cultures are spoiled, the less quality of the governments. I think fixing the people out of Mainstream's spell (including materialistic marketing) will fix the government, make them smaller, less power over the people and these will eventually fix all the economics problem including the currency. New currency alone won't fix any problem. Edited January 7, 2022 by SUZNV 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tomasz + 1,608 January 7, 2022 There is one conclusion from the conflict in Kazakstan. Send an army immediately. As for Kazakhstan, I am convinced that it will be an important topic of Biden-Putin talks. The US did not anticipate this, but now they have trouble. There really is a large US cash desk. It's like I said - maybe by accident and unplanned, but Putin got some aces to play at the table. Of course, as long as the events in Kazakhstan go to the end in his way. This was planned to be so beautiful by the way: Russia was to go to talks with Biden, humiliated by the "uprising" in Kazakhstan and the change in the geopolitical vector, including Central Asia. Sorry but no half-measures in the context of the hostile attitude of the West against Russia make sense. Soft policy would end only that Ukraine and Belarus would be in NATO by now.. The West has clearly shown that this is a zero-one game against Russia and the Russians would be extremely stupid to believe in any assertion by the West especilly after not one inch eastward by James Baker. It makes no sense for Russia to play softly with the West, although there will be sanctions. Russia must bet strategically on China and it only solution. 1 1 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ronwagn + 6,290 January 8, 2022 (edited) 58 minutes ago, Tomasz said: There is one conclusion from the conflict in Kazakstan. Send an army immediately. As for Kazakhstan, I am convinced that it will be an important topic of Biden-Putin talks. The US did not anticipate this, but now they have trouble. There really is a large US cash desk. It's like I said - maybe by accident and unplanned, but Putin got some aces to play at the table. Of course, as long as the events in Kazakhstan go to the end in his way. This was planned to be so beautiful by the way: Russia was to go to talks with Biden, humiliated by the "uprising" in Kazakhstan and the change in the geopolitical vector, including Central Asia. Sorry but no half-measures in the context of the hostile attitude of the West against Russia make sense. Soft policy would end only that Ukraine and Belarus would be in NATO by now.. The West has clearly shown that this is a zero-one game against Russia and the Russians would be extremely stupid to believe in any assertion by the West especilly after not one inch eastward by James Baker. It makes no sense for Russia to play softly with the West, although there will be sanctions. Russia must bet strategically on China and it only solution. All Putin is doing is keeping another puppet state. Russia is to Kazakhstan like China is to North Korea. Putin just hides his aggression as much as possible. Calls his paratroops peacekeepers, and plants thousands of secret agents in adjoining countries and around the world. China does the same. It is all real imperialism and real dictatorship. It must be opposed by the free world. Not your world. https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-united-against-any-russian-aggression-us-says-after-meeting-2022-01-07/ Edited January 8, 2022 by ronwagn reference 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 1 hour ago, ronwagn said: All Putin is doing is keeping another puppet state. Russia is to Kazakhstan like China is to North Korea. Putin just hides his aggression as much as possible. Calls his paratroops peacekeepers, and plants thousands of secret agents in adjoining countries and around the world. China does the same. It is all real imperialism and real dictatorship. It must be opposed by the free world. Not your world. https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-united-against-any-russian-aggression-us-says-after-meeting-2022-01-07/ All of Europe is a puppet state to the US. All of Central and South America is a puppet state to the US. Japan is a puppet state. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq are puppets. uh, on which planet is the free world of yours? 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 2 hours ago, SUZNV said: To be fair, inflation is a very complicated matter, especially in the Fiat World without gold standard. Problem 1: Current money printing system is a loan issued by bank. So when you pay back the bank, the money disappear and the only money printed is the interest. If that loan is default to 0, then the money is in the system forever. It is no longer the paper printing control and the bank has real hard asset to buy back the printed papers. So the Governments get stuck between: 1 Let the rotten entity default to 0 (one of the tools is increase interest rate), which make more money chasing less goods and services, with make everything priced higher in a high unemployment environment that affect them to get re-elected. or 2 Bailed out with basically kick the can down the road. Keep the mal investment corporation zombies (especially financial institutions, state enterprises, ESG etc. ) alive and eat out the capital should have been for good healthy businesses (normally small and middle sizes). Most innovations came from small startups and grew into big Corporations. 1 for short term pain (WW1,WW2, 1970s inflation etc. )and 2 for long term depression (like Japan for the last 30 years or EU last 10 years and maybe US next). Option 1 is really scary now because the Gov is heavy in debt, extremely pain to do that (Bush started with the high deficit and Obama accelerated the debt and Covid19 hit in Trump era). The governments are hoping the productivity from Industry 4.0 such as ESG policies,5G,Cloud... will pull the world out of recession and debts after a theoretically long time ( but I doubt short sighted governments for election cycle can plan something that long). We see bubble in all assets, stocks rather for R&D or innovation, more productivity to make more goods and services to offset the debt. Problem 2: Back in the old time, inflation can be measure easily with basic needs like foods, houses or energy... as these goods take a large part in the economy and each economy was isolated within their own currency. Nowadays we have the increasing in price of basic needs but cheaper high tech product. A smartphone nowadays is many time faster than Iphone 1, 4G mush faster than 3G but the prices are the same. This means many products or services are much cheaper than before. And USD is the world reserve currencies with most of debt in the world are nominated in USD make problem more complicated as there is a deflation pressure. This make calculation in USD for inflation is just kind of wild guess of combination with no standard and the data is kind of pick and choose. Even it is around 8% in 2021, remember US CPI was too low in the last 12 years so when we average out it still not meeting the target. Even in the year when oil price is down, the cost of foods is till up partly because modern wages are always up, not down and the average increase each year using CPI as guidelines which made CPI a self fulfilling prophecy (2021 is exceptional). Problem 3: Lots of innovations are great for productivities which make the world economy booming, especially after Cold War: Personal Computer, Internet, cell phone, 3G,4G,5G Smartphone leads to Industry 4.0 with cloud, big data, IoT etc. However materialistic culture tend to make people lazy with welfare. Media, entertaining and marketing people advocate for materialistic or enjoy "life" but not "work" to sell goods, keep inventing unnecessary reasons for consumptions, start living way beyond their means , many came from boosting the ego and entitlement or social class with luxury goods, fashions and high ego came with jealousy and entitlement. Remove these life style and we can reduce half of the CO2 emissions without the need of paying higher spending for ESG and make people less crazy. With the entitlement put pressure on governments to keep their living standard no matter what they work or not, make governments spend more and more to get elected with lead to more debt. In democracy countries, government reflects the quality of the people so the more the cultures are spoiled, the less quality of the governments. I think fixing the people out of Mainstream's spell (including materialistic marketing) will fix the government, make them smaller, less power over the people and these will eventually fix all the economics problem including the currency. New currency alone won't fix any problem. good post! If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. So, when may we see you leading a new political party in the USA? 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 8 hours ago, Tomasz said: Now you can see what a chess player Putin is. He first surrounded Ukraine with part of his army, and the west started screaming about the upcoming aggression. Meanwhile, all plans were focused on Kazakhstan. It's hard to call it aggression, because there is no war there and Kazakhstan as member of alliance formlly ask for military assistance. This is an end of multipolar foreign policy and Kazahstan will now ally with Russia without looting its riches. In Kazakhstan w saw what can be called premature revolution. The right time was not chosen to organize mass protests, an opportunity was seized related to the unimaginable increase in the price of gas used to propel cars. In total, there was nothing terrible about it for the organizers, but they did not take into account the experience of the organizers of the raid in Ukraine, where the protests started as peacefully as possible and intensified very slowly, and at the same time the initiative to aggravate the conflict came from the authorities . In Kazakhstan, the protests immediately took the form of an armed struggle, which led to such a serious disturbance of the public order that even in the west they have nothing against it, and the Kazakh people have put the order as soon as possible. Of course, it was not taken into account that Russia and its allies would send military units there. And when they found out, there were no protests. The West has simply recognized that Russia has a zone of its own interests and that it can do whatever suits its interests there. Has the US vacated its base in Kazahkstan? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SUZNV + 1,197 January 8, 2022 7 minutes ago, frankfurter said: good post! If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. So, when may we see you leading a new political party in the USA? New immigrant, not a native English speaker and writer, no persuasion skill, no leadership, hate acting, hate lies, hate mainstream, marketing and politicians etc. I don't have the materials to be a politician. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 5 minutes ago, SUZNV said: New immigrant, not a native English speaker and writer, no persuasion skill, no leadership, hate acting, hate lies, hate mainstream, marketing and politicians etc. I don't have the materials to be a politician. honest answer, respected. So if you hate acting (hollywood), mainstream (all news outlets), marketing (the very basis of USSA business and media), politicians/lies everywhere, why do you live in the USA? 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 3 hours ago, ronwagn said: All Putin is doing is keeping another puppet state. Russia is to Kazakhstan like China is to North Korea. Putin just hides his aggression as much as possible. Calls his paratroops peacekeepers, and plants thousands of secret agents in adjoining countries and around the world. China does the same. It is all real imperialism and real dictatorship. It must be opposed by the free world. Not your world. https://www.reuters.com/world/nato-united-against-any-russian-aggression-us-says-after-meeting-2022-01-07/ 700 Mayo Clinic employees FIRED for not getting vaccinated free world? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Eyes Wide Open + 3,555 January 8, 2022 1 hour ago, frankfurter said: 700 Mayo Clinic employees FIRED for not getting vaccinated free world? I must ask Frankie,were you a abused child? Shunned by the world simply for the lack of articulation or expression of your inner fears? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SUZNV + 1,197 January 8, 2022 1 hour ago, frankfurter said: honest answer, respected. So if you hate acting (hollywood), mainstream (all news outlets), marketing (the very basis of USSA business and media), politicians/lies everywhere, why do you live in the USA? Acting I means not only Hollywood but celebrities and politicians as a whole. Their careers are all about acting, seeking attentions and manipulating the listener's emotions for their gain. Luckily I didn't have much of a choice. When I was 17, my father spent most of his saving for me go to NZ to study. I asked him to send me to Germany for cheaper school fee (after so many stories when he was studying and working in West Germany) but he wanted me to learn English. He took the risk, not me. Part of me wanted to seek the answer about socialism, communism and capitalism. After graduation in NZ in Recession time and struggle to find job, my younger brother didn't want me to go back to VN as my dad spent 200k for my education and the rest should be his share. Coming back to VN would make him worry so I applied for residency in NZ. I found my first job got laid off after 9 month but I appreciated that one. Then I worked for a startup for food and shelter for half a year as a sole developer before getting minimum wage after having a contract from a big customer. He liked my program so much as it is useful for his business that even hire me to work for him after I moved to the US and have a job. I knew my wife back in middle school in VN, sat next to me. She rejected me 3 times when I email love letter to her after few years I was studying in NZ. I moved on. 10 years later I found out she was in one of my fb friend and pretend to be some Rumania girl asking me personal questions few years ago (back then I accepted whatever invitation and chat with any stranger who talk to me). She wanted me to call her. I told her I am fatter now and couldn't find any feeling to her, so come to see me in NZ, if she still has feeling for me, then I would marry her, else she should move on and stop holding on an illusion of the past . We turned out alright now but back then I just honored my promise. I don't have any dating experience before getting marriage. We certificated our marriage in NZ. She has to look after her mum in the US so 2 years later I joined her in USA. I was lucky to find a first job after one month in the US and am doing my best to pay back the trust and didn't want to switch job. However I am mentally prepared to be laid off anytime. Because I made decision based on someone else's wish, I don't really have to ask myself "what's if" question. In any environment I will do my best to understand, adapt to make the most out of it while keeping my core values. I guess I have low expectation. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
frankfurter + 562 ff January 8, 2022 On 1/6/2022 at 9:04 PM, Wombat One said: Why do you blame America for the sins of your own politicians? You know, most of the world was sympathetic to the plight of the Chinese at the onset of Covid. Then we discovered that it was a CCP bioweapon. Produced with the aid of Dr Fauci and the communists in the USA. Don't you know that the globalists want to wipe out half the global pop'n? Mr Xitler, Mr Putin, and Biden are all as evil as each other and don't give a shit about any of us. They are complete psychopaths that would have us all killed for the sake of their ego. Simple. Pre 1945, the US aided the KMT to loot the China treasury of gold and silver, and move shiploads to Taiwan. The US and UK stole all gold and currency China held in USA and UK banks. China was left destitute: a country destroyed, all gold and currency stolen. US, UK, AU all banded together to impose and enforce sanctions upon China since 1945. The CNY was banned from trading. This prevented China from purchasing the oil, foods, equipment needed to recover from the WW2 Japan invasion and the resulting civil war. Imperialists like you will say the China leadership was incompetent and caused starvation. The Chinese say your sanctions caused a desperate situation, requiring desperate measures. True, the measures taken caused suffering. These measures could have been avoided, if the sanctions were removed and the stolen gold returned. The starvation could have been avoided, if the US had allowed humanitarian aid. So, yes, I hold YOUR governments accountable for the sanctions and consequences leading to the deaths of millions. The days of such imperialism are coming to an end, thankfully. But not because of any benevolence from the western imperialists. Hopefully, when people like you will pass, we may have a more humane world. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrei Moutchkine + 828 January 8, 2022 On 1/6/2022 at 11:52 AM, Rob Plant said: 1.4 billion are Indian and they may disagree with you! India is a staunch ally of Russia's Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrei Moutchkine + 828 January 8, 2022 (edited) On 1/6/2022 at 12:02 PM, Rob Plant said: Ive been to St.Petersburg and Moscow The suburbs are poor and run down IMHO I ask you would you have the personal wealth you have now if you had remained in Russia?? If so, why did you live in the USA for so long if you dislike it so much? I would probably be richer if I remained in Russia. It was a time where a lot of my generation got very rich. I drank the Silicon Valley kool aid instead. Edited January 10, 2022 by Andrei Moutchkine Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrei Moutchkine + 828 January 8, 2022 33 minutes ago, Wombat One said: Betting strategically on China is the biggest mistake Putin ever made. Just cost him NordStream2 and he has painted himself into a corner. Biden has wisely not embarrassed him but the longer that Putin behaves like a 2yo demanding sweets, the more likely he will end up with a smack on the butt. What about NS2? Not turning it on hurts the EU a lot more than it does Russia. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andrei Moutchkine + 828 January 8, 2022 1 hour ago, Wombat One said: No. You should be thankful. In Australia, we have warmth, plenty of kangaroos, and seafood to eat. Any Russian or Chinaman that survived a nuclear attack would soon starve or freeze to death. We have Chinese all-you-can eat places serving your roo roadkill! 2 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites