Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
@Crash- Talk is cheap, but how many in our country are clamoring to send American lives into yet another war? What you don't seem to be understanding is that at this point NATO is not involved, and if we go it alone that's exactly where we will be. …
Some countries, Egypt for example, import most of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. Major shortages or steep price increases may lead to civil unrest in those areas.
"We beat Stalin during the Berlin Airlift using our right to resupply our allies. What is the difference?"
The difference is this: After Germany's surrender there was a documented legal agreement dividing Berlin into four zones, under the authority…
From the article mentioned above:
" He has shut down almost the entire independent media, threatened journalists with up to 15 years in jail if they do not parrot official falsehoods, and had anti-war protesters arrested in their thousands."
And her…
There's a parallel thread over in the Discussions that have Comments section. In case you've not been there, I'm replicating a post here that was also made over there.
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Below are extensive excerpts from a current article in The Economist. The article focuses on the parallels with the Soviet Union under Stalin. I've seriously abridged the article to include some of the more serious points that it makes.
Of those po…
Even smart people can make serious miscalculations. They may sometimes do things which turn out to have been stupid, but that doesn't make them stupid, unless they continue down that street. If Putin, after subjugating Ukraine, continues down that s…
I agree. Putin may be a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. Russia warned that arms shipments from NATO countries would be "legitimate targets".
Not: Russia warned that arms shipments within NATO countries would be "legitimate targets". If…
I'd be amazed if Putin deliberately sucks NATO into the present conflict. He's pretty much got his hands full as it is, and I really don't think that he's insane. But after he has Ukraine back under Russian control and he regroups and rearms he'll b…
Allow me to clarify a bit... in my case the "taking literally" would be with full understanding of the circumstances and a deliberate effort to discomfit and possible screw up the "system" under the guise of a "misunderstanding". As in: "Oh, I didn…
In my post above, I said:
"Some time or some place NATO is going to be forced to actively engage."
And I've just run across this from a current Associated Press article. Some excerpts:
HELSINKI — Sweden’s foreign minister is dismissing fresh warni…
As a former teacher you know damned well that some people (like me, for instance) will take things literally. Please report to the principal's office. :)
Hi Derf- That's a good question. At your request I downloaded, enlarged and enhanced that photo to see if I could get more detail. The photo has good pixel density, and I was able to get a pretty good enhancement.
That item you wonder about appears…
@hank- I'd surely agree on your comparison of the WSJ journalistic reporting to that of the Washington Post. The WSJ is one of the last sources of in-depth news coverage, at least here in the US.
Well Derf, it really hasn't changed in four months. Or four years. Or, probably, four decades.
And PLEASE- despite what @hank suggested, let's not all start putting everything in CAPS to see who can shout the loudest around here. He, of all people,…
You have to be kidding, right? The editorial and management-controlled pages are 295% far-far right radical Republican.
The value of the WSJ is that it's news and financial reporting is still neutral, without much underlying political slant at all.…
An excerpt from The Economist newsletter, today:
President Joe Biden reiterated that America will not send troops to fight in Ukraine, saying that doing so would mean a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia and thus “World War III”.
Speaking …
Now that you bring up banks, I don't see BofA or Wells Fargo either. I wonder if it's likely that they don't have any Russian exposure or dealings?
Edit- Looking more closely I now see "Citi at $9.8 B" on the "Remain in Russia list.
"If not -- and I suspect that will probably prove to be the case -- the current turmoil caused by this war may seem minor in comparison to what follows."
"... and that will be only the beginning."
Yes, that's exactly what I meant.
His theories seem to be well grounded in what's actually going on in the real world, and I respect his efforts to anticipate what's going on, but unfortunately in this arena there's just so many unforeseen variables that I don't think that any econo…
This definitely is not going to end well. Putin will eventually assimilate Ukraine, and that will be only the beginning. We older people know where a policy of appeasement got us in the 30s, but I really wonder if most people under sixty even have a…
@Derf- yes, that's an old story. When we toured there some years ago our guides pointed out huge blocks of apartments in wealthy neighborhoods that were almost totally Russian-owned.
No argument at all. You just happened to hit a nerve. Living in this city drives me nuts, sometimes.
"when they should perhaps save their ammunition for the most egregious pressing offenses" is exactly right on.
To @LewisBraham: Let me be VERY clear about this: I may be an EAP, but I'm sure as hell not "woke", and have no intention whatever of "waking up" any time soon. There's enough of that nonsense here in SF to make me choke. A couple of weeks ago "the…
It's a long and involved story and to an extent does involve posters who are no longer present, as @hank alludes to. Lewis Braham's comments are something of a parody, but contain more than a germ of truth.
Here's the situation, highly abridged, bu…
Happy to try and help... thanks for your response. I'll add that to my store of miscellaneous info which might just come in handy sometime.
OJ
@Mark- It just occurred to me that an interesting test might be to try a different browser on the older…
