By the way, if someone would like to support the Ukrainian war effort, you can contribute to Polish fundraising for a Bayraktar:
https://zrzutka.pl/en/bayraktar
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I find such pacifist arguments ridiculous. If they are not able to fight back, then all the humanitarian and other donations will be stolen by Russians. If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine now, you will see tens of millions of Ukrainian refugees in Western Europe, and in the future probably tens of millions of Moldavians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Poles. Thatâs the alternative you are facing.
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Sure you donât have to if you donât like it. A lot of people think the governments are doing not enough and thus we have to support Ukraine privately. Thatâs what I believe.
Any actual opinions on how to hedge against nuclear war? I guess if NY would be hit the NYSE would unlikely to be trading for a while?
For such a scenario, I keep my gold coins and think also about buying a gun.
When we buy oil from the aggressor, and then he uses this money to buy weapons, then itâs ok, I guess?
But when we buy weapons for the victim directly, thatâs not ok.
And itâs totally not ok if civilians buy weapons. Weapons should only be in the trusted hands of our prudent governments, right?
And itâs just so terrible when people kill each other. If Ukraine gave up on day 0, nobody would have to die. Thatâs why the EU should not send any military help, only humanitarian. Because otherwise the fighting will go on, more people will die, the inflation will get worse. So we should just let Russians win already in order to save lives. At least thatâs how the people in the West are trying to spin it. I wonder how would they act if it was their freedom that was taken away.
Especially since their main tactic is to bomb civilians. They commit war crimes on a massive scale - not seen in Europe since the Yugoslavia wars or even WW2. Thereâs no need to pity war criminals.
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To the guys who said sanctions donât make an (economical) impact. Yes they do, even the 
government admits it, but first there are workarounds (âShooting themselves in the footâ: Western sanctions on Russia | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera) and second the big question is wheter the people will steer their anger towards the government or against the west wo imposed the sanctions. Those who try the first are already getting arrested in big numbers so I bet on the second⊠If you think this is weird and feel more comfortable reading western media interpretations of sanctions then youâre probably born after the end of Cold War and/or lived under a stone during COVID. For sanctions to have an impact they have to be intensified much more and given way more time to do their damage. But even then nobody knows what happens, see Iran, NKâŠ
https://forum.mustachianpost.com/t/coffee-possibility-of-world-war-3/7507/438?u=sdeg
Very interesting but very bad idea. Nuclear power countries are not considered neutral nor do they make the world a safer place. Especially the USSR was not happy to find out Switzerland was having secret plans to get nukes: Das Ansehen der schweizerischen NeutralitĂ€t in der UdSSR sank allerdings rapide, als im Juli 1958 die PlĂ€ne des Bundesrats zur Beschaffung von Atomwaffen bekannt wurden. (Peter Collmer; Klaus Ammann: âRusslandâ, in: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS) , Version vom 27.01.2016. Online: https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/de/articles/003376/2016-01-27/)
To close my post a nice quote attributed (maybe wrongly) to Mark Twain: History Doesnât Repeat Itself, But It Does Rhyme.
If the US and itâs major cities get hit in a nuclear war, our portfolios are most probably be toast anyway. Regardless of some under-/overweighting in their allocation.
Iâd rather limit my exposure due to the risk of politics and the next election, for example.
Thereâs a chance that theyâll descent into civil war and/or become an authoritarian shithole after the next presidential election - and itâs not negligible (not necessarily bad for business, but over the long-term it may be).
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Agreed, but neutrality has exactly done this since 1815 and it was economically speaking rather cheap. There is no need to pick sides when you are not involved nor a target unless you want to be involved or a target.
The car production in Russia fell by 97%. In aviation situation is also very bad. I think it will hurt a lot in the future - at least in certain sectors of the economy. The problem currently is that Kremlin can keep afloat these industries thanks to money earned in oil and gas markets. But itâs unlikely that high prices will stay high forever - the combination of alternative supplies, new gas and oil infrastructure buildup, and moving away from fossil fuels will eventually slash the prices. Stabilization of the war will already have an impact on the prices - and this is coming because Russia is slowly but surely running out of soldiers, equipment and ammo.
Average Russian is not flying anywhere - average Russian works in a sh*thole factory and doesnât have a running water, toilet and fridge (unless he stole one in Ukraine) at home.
You are talking about a tiny middle class from Moscow and Sankt Petersburg.
Otherwise, I agree with you - sanctions should be better crafted to be more effective and we should focus more on the Westâs oil and gas production to push prices as low as possible. That would have much stronger impact on Kremlin.
From my perspective, the sanctions should basically block arms industry in Russia - so that they canât rebuild their army and start another war with Baltics or Poland in the future. That should be our main goal. Regime change would be also welcomed - but itâs unfortunately unlikely, as average Russian is a crazy imperialist and loves Putin.
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Letâs not forget that Ukraine has neutrality in itâs constitution since 1991. It also gave up itâs nuclear arsenal in a deal with Russia and US, UK in a exchange for a guarantee of its borders. In fact Russia signed few such documents. Ukraine started looking for Westâs help after âOrange Revolutionâ, when pro-West candidate won elections (and was poisoned by FSB), and Kremlin become more and more aggressive towards them.
I think Ukraine after Crimea annexation can and should legally rebuild their nukes. This is the only way to stop this lunatic chingis-chan from trying to take over whole of Ukraine (and potentially rest of Eastern-Central Europe).
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Kind of expensive thoughâŠ
Plus from where should they get the actual knowledge to do so (especially for the deliery system, kind of useless to have a nuclear device if you cannot deliver it to the agressor state, except if you adopt scorched earth tacticsâŠ)
From what Iâve read they have experts and infrastructure to pull it off. Iâm not 100% sure they can afford it though. Before the war it was one of the poorest European countries (4 times poorer than Poland in terms of GDP per capita), and the war slashed their GDP in half.
Is building a few nukes so expensive, though? I think one should not look at the average wealth of a countryâs inhabitant to evaluate what the country can afford at the state level. After all, they are a country of 44 million people and a GDP of $155 billion and a military spending of $6 billion (4% of GDP).
How much does a nuclear program cost? I donât know. But somehow I think if they prioritized it, they would be able to finance it.
A separate issue is how fast would Russia sabotage their efforts. Just look at how fast to act the Americans are when Iran or North Korea talk about nuclear weapons.
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You also need the knowledge, beyond the material. There are a few parameters that one must get right, in order to set off a nuclear fission detonation.
EDIT: This means that it takes a lot of time to get to the point where a nuclear weapon is ready for deployment. Provided one doesnât find a country willing to breach the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
True, sadly itâs too late for Ukraine now, but the situation cannot be compared to Switzerland. Similar to WW2 we should be careful and unlike now back then were clear intentions before WW2 from axis-powers to take over the small countries like ours. In the end we were lucky (and unethical) by not picking sides and even cooperating. This spared the lifes of many and proved that apart from military there are non-violent ways to protect a country. If you want lo live in a country that wonât be attacked choose US, China or Russia. Look at Israel their population and size is similar to us and they have a first class army and nuclear weapons some of you are demanding, but they sure know they canât possibly win a war with any of the big guys and in my view thatâs why they keep their mouth shut when it comes to CN or RU plus they need their support anyway because of some archrivals in the area⊠But STILL no guarantee that they wonât be attacked by hostile countries. Although their program was secret itâs hard to believe their enemies didnât know they were ready by about 1967 and they STILL were attacked in 1973. But I would agree that their nuclear program (and the US) are the main reasons they still exist today.
So what is the consensuses here about the invasion of Taiwan?
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