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2022-05-13 Economy
Ruble soars again to five year high against dollar, 65 RUB:USD
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Posted by Phomock Ebbaiting4341 2022-05-13 00:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [11128 views ]  Top

#1 The ruble is rising. It's backed by gold and the world's greatest concentration of valuable commodities.

The dollar is falling. It's backed by airy-fairy confidence in things that no longer exist in the US: rule of law, fiscal sanity, good government.

Shit for Brains Biden and his Freaky Deaky team think it wise to steal other nations' bank holdings and berate allies like the Saudis. Care to guess what effect that's having on the willingness of other nations to hold dollars and make themselves vulnerable to US blackmail?

But wait - there's more! Congress just rewarded failure by reappointing that architect of hyperinflation, Jerome "Temporary" Powell. Crank up the printing presses, boys!

Gooodbye, reserve currency status. Nice knowin' ya.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 00:31||   2022-05-13 00:31|| Front Page Top

#2 ^ Boy, are you gonna feel silly when the asteroid gold starts raining down. [kehinde_wiley_stacey_abrams_double_eagle.jpg]
Posted by Oscar Snore6922 2022-05-13 01:33||   2022-05-13 01:33|| Front Page Top

#3 Can you buy dollars or euros in Moscow?
No? Oh!
Posted by European Conservative 2022-05-13 07:42||   2022-05-13 07:42|| Front Page Top

#4 The periwinkle commenter doesn't understand how reserve currencies work. By definition, the reserve currency cannot and must not be manipulated for short term balance of payments improvements or trade advantages.

When (not if) the dollar loses its reserve currency status, US interests will, of necessity, soar. Borrowing costs for American firms and consumers will climb to nosebleed rates as they did during Paul Volcker's infamous root-canal economics procedure in the late 1970s-early 1980s.

What saved us then was the brutal recession of Reagan's first term and the collapse in oil prices of the mid-1980s. But oil prices are not collapsing now, and are not going to collapse, because of Shit for Brains Biden's mad determination to try to starve the world of everything Russia produces -- including but not limited to oil.

Biden and his sadsack economic team of incompetents are doing everything needed to trash this country and ensure our rapid decline.

Hyperinflation, thanks to Biden's foolish money printing and $5 trillion in welfare-for-all Santa Claus payments.

Permanent inflation, thanks to sanctions on all the stuff the world desperately needs and that Russia produces.

Denial of above throughout 2021 and 1Q2022 by their lying incompetent Fed Chairman and Economic Advisor, leading to too-little, too-late interest rate rises now that are destroying all the US stock market gains of the last two years. (Best hope you didn't buy Cathie Woods' and other NASDAQ and Bitcoin shit!).

And the ultimate stupidity, destroying the world's confidence in US rule of law by simply stealing another country's hundreds in billions stored in US banks.

No civilized nation in modern history has ever done this. Britain, whose sterling became viewed by the world as "good as gold," never even contemplated the wholesale theft that the Biden Freak Show has just perpetrated. Even during the American Tevolution, Ben Franklin and John Adams safely entrusted their wealth to Bank of England accounts in London, and King George honored those accounts.

There is no other conclusion: Team Biden and its foolish war are a deliberate plan to trash our economy and reduce our power, wealth and influence in the world.

No one could possibly be so stupid as to think that we will gain anything by perpetrating this foolish war, with their mad self-destructive sanctions and their unprecedented asset-grab heists... unless of course Biden actually wants to build up the big winner of the war: his crackhead son's employer, China Inc.



Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 07:46||   2022-05-13 07:46|| Front Page Top

#5 /\ The steps taken by Trump to make us energy independent and prosperous cannot have already been forgotten. As stated at #4, energy independence and prosperity are clearly not the goals of the Biden administration or the Deep State.
Posted by Besoeker 2022-05-13 07:53||   2022-05-13 07:53|| Front Page Top

#6 The degree of their stupidity depends entirely on what they are attempting to accomplish.
Posted by Cesare 2022-05-13 07:58||   2022-05-13 07:58|| Front Page Top

#7 * When the dollar loses its reserve currency status, US interest rates will, of necessity, soar.

This is because the economic reality is that the dollar is only backed up by confidence - in the US-led international order, which presumes US commitment to rule of law and property rights.

That confidence has been shattered by this administration's obsession with trying to scapegoat Russia for all of the damage wrought by Team Biden's colossal incompetence. The Saudis, the Indians, good G-d, even the ISRAELI central bank -- all of them are horrified at what this Freakshow team has done to Russia. They are all seeking to reduce their exposure to Biden Blackmail. The Israelis dropped their US dollar holdings by 10 percent (and their Euro holdings by one-third). The Saudis are shifting to yuan. The Indians are making preparations to trade in rubles.

We are living through historic times. There has truly never been a series of blunders by any American administration that can compare with the foolishness of this administration.

Our ruling class's bizarre and unbelievably reckless obsession with a foreign leader -- and a war that doesn't touch on American vital interests in the least -- is nothing short of insanity.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 08:02||   2022-05-13 08:02|| Front Page Top

#8 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The future is Russian. Hell, the Force is Russian.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-05-13 08:04||   2022-05-13 08:04|| Front Page Top

#9 Our ruling class's bizarre and unbelievably reckless obsession with a foreign leader -- and a war that doesn't touch on American vital interests in the least -- is nothing short of insanity.

As you may have noticed, the "Unbelievable reckless obsession"... is not limited to "foreign leaders."
Posted by Besoeker 2022-05-13 08:08||   2022-05-13 08:08|| Front Page Top

#10 ^ Anotger Team Biden moron speaks. See my comments above about the bizarre obsession with one country and its leader.

No one outside Washington gives a fuck about what is essentially yet another intra-European conflict, an 8-year long civil war that has nothing whatsoever to do with United States vital interests.

People who don't even grasp basic economics should go back to reading their Daily Mail bullshit and leave discussion of the reserve currency, interest rates, monetary policies and stagflation to the grownups.

Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 08:13||   2022-05-13 08:13|| Front Page Top

#11 Strong relative to other fiat currencies. And meanwhile the vaunted crypto is circling the bowl of mystical monetary myths and dreams.

Food
Fuel
Ammo
Medications
Surgical goods
Field grade clothing
Drinkable water
Shelter
Viable plan for when that shelter must be abandoned.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 08:20||   2022-05-13 08:20|| Front Page Top

#12 "Another Team Biden moron" was directed not at # 9 Besoeker but at the manic-obsessive #8 poster.

The Russo-Ukrainian spat is not our concern. Has nothing whatsoever to do with our security or freedom or prosperity.

The reduction ad absurdam is Team Biden and our corrupt idiot Congresscritters' latest howler -- that they're somehow supporting "freedom and democracy"!

Freedom and democracy, right: in a fourth-world dictatorship dominated by the puppet of a fascist-supporting billionaire.

Supporting nonexistent "freedom" abroad, by deliberately escalating a pointless, brutal war that does more and more damage to Americans and American interests every day Team Biden prolongs it.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 08:22||   2022-05-13 08:22|| Front Page Top

#13 Notice that among all the chaff in the ads on your internet pages there are no big ads that scream "Add Rubles to Your Portfolio Today!"
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 08:32||   2022-05-13 08:32|| Front Page Top

#14 circling the bowl of mystical monetary myths and dreams.

Oh, and Biden's band of incompetent freaks also gave us that marvelously lunatic bullshit they call "Modern Monetary Theory."

The economics equivalent of the Flex Capacitor, or a Crystals peddler in Sedona.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 08:37||   2022-05-13 08:37|| Front Page Top

#15 It's reductio ad absurdum, not reduction ad absurdam, which doesn't even qualify as Pig Latin.
Posted by Matt 2022-05-13 08:37||   2022-05-13 08:37|| Front Page Top

#16 Auto-correct changed reductio to reduction, you pedo-pedant. Go back to mastering your ablative absolute.

"Cinaede Matte, mollior cuniculi capillo vel anseris medullula vel imula auricilla vel pene languido senis situque araneoso."
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 08:48||   2022-05-13 08:48|| Front Page Top

#17 Biden's band of incompetent freaks also gave us that marvelously lunatic bullshit they call "Modern Monetary Theory."

MMT predated the Bath House and Bidet misministrations by decades. It's only recently that it gets a lot of lame stream press attention.

Flux capacitor, rube...

I know some crystal peddlers in Sedona. It's tripe for the marks, but the peddlers themselves live rather comfortably...
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 08:50||   2022-05-13 08:50|| Front Page Top

#18 Team Biden's obsession with this one country and its leader in recalls the Team Cheney obsession with Iraq and Saddam throughout 2002-1Q2003.

Another interventionist fiasco, except this one is truly dangerous and even more foolish.

Still, Iraq and its oil were at least relevant to US interests. The Ukraine is about as relevant as Ouagadougou.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:03||   2022-05-13 09:03|| Front Page Top

#19 *The Ukraine-Russia spat is about as relevant to us as Ouagadougou.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:05||   2022-05-13 09:05|| Front Page Top

#20 And Russia will be less relevant to America's future too when they are done squandering their treasure and international standing.

Just don't tell the Russia! Russia! Russia! crowd inside the beltway.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 09:06||   2022-05-13 09:06|| Front Page Top

#21 Russia will be less relevant to America's future too when they are done squandering their treasure and international standing.

Ukraine has zero relevance to us but Russia is and will always be relevant to us because of China. A rational US administration would be doing everything in its power to persuade Russia to side with us in helping to contain China.

These fucking lunatics have done the exact opposite. They're building up China and bringing down both us and the Russians. Hunter Biden's Pop is truly the Manchuruan Candidate
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:14||   2022-05-13 09:14|| Front Page Top

#22 
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:16||   2022-05-13 09:16|| Front Page Top

#23 Russia is and will always be relevant to us because of China

Yes, the sulphate of mercury cure for syphilis is something to be desired.
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 09:19||   2022-05-13 09:19|| Front Page Top

#24 ^ Nice try. Your Sedona reference was wittier. MMT's lengthier provenance was a good catch, thanks.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:23||   2022-05-13 09:23|| Front Page Top

#25 Or are you elliptically implying that The Manchurian Candidate's whoremastering son has syphilis? I didn't see that in the latest Inquirer bombshell.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 09:25||   2022-05-13 09:25|| Front Page Top

#26 I'm wittier. I'm lengthier. And all that with no roubles in my portfolio.

I'm off to the beach. See all y'all tonight...
Posted by M. Murcek 2022-05-13 09:27||   2022-05-13 09:27|| Front Page Top

#27 The Flux Capacitor...

Imagine what the Biden folks could do with a time machine. It boggles the mind.
Posted by ruprecht 2022-05-13 10:13||   2022-05-13 10:13|| Front Page Top

#28 They do have a Time Machine. They're the second coming of the Carter Administration.

But this time they're deliberately stoking inflation with their retarded sanctions and energy policies. Carter at least promoted the research that led to fracking (as did Jerry Ford before him).

Carter was essentially a moderate who scaled back government (see his / A. Kahn's deregulation of the airlines for instance). The Biden Freakshow is uniformly made of left-wingers and total incompetents. They're ten times worse than the Carter administration.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 11:22||   2022-05-13 11:22|| Front Page Top

#29 No one outside Washington gives a fuck about what is essentially yet another intra-European conflict, an 8-year long civil war that has nothing whatsoever to do with United States vital interests.

Didn't you just put three posts up why it involves everyone worldwide?

Ukraine has zero relevance to us but Russia is and will always be relevant to us because of China

I used to have these same type of discussions with the libertarian isolationists, especially when being courted. Too much doublethink. I do not disagree that DC is pounding canine and posting smile pics, but the conclusions in the process are wrong to the point you argue against yourself.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 11:33||   2022-05-13 11:33|| Front Page Top

#30 Didn't you just put three posts up why it involves everyone worldwide?

No. It's the US sanctions + our incredibly foolish escalation of the war that are pouring gasoline on the inflation bonfire fire that Biden and Jerome Powell ignited.

The best thing for the world economy would be for us to push aside our Ukrainian puppet and work out a solution with Russia to end the conflict for good. Biden is doing the exact opposite. It's unbelievable.

libertarian isolationists

Nothing of the sort. We need to engage intelligently in the world and understand REAL threats.

The peer competitor to us is CHINA. Russia doesn't threaten us in the slightest. Nixon played the China card against the USSR. Nixon's 21c idiot successors are allowing China to play the Russia card against us.

Unbelievable incompetence. It's truly mind-boggling how foolish these Clinton-W-Obama-Biden China buttsuckers have been.

Label them whatever you want, but their critics -- basically, every leading Realist IR scholar and every diplomat (except the idiot McFaul) outside the DC Swamp for the last 30 years -- that is, everyone not in China's pocket can see that we should be enlisting Russia in the attempt to encircle and contain China. Fuck Ukraine. It is of zero importance to us.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 11:49||   2022-05-13 11:49|| Front Page Top

#31 The wise course is NOT isolationism. It's foreign-policy realism.

Any realistic assessment of US national interest in this entity pits us against China and with Russia and India.

Instead, our corrupt and demented D.C. elites are siding with China, insulting India, and literally making war on Russia. Totally bizarre. None dare call it treason, but that's what this completely upside-down and self-destructive policy amounts to.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 11:57||   2022-05-13 11:57|| Front Page Top

#32 *realistic assessment of US national interest in this century pits us against China and with Russia and India.

20c realism: play the China card, contain the USSR
21c realism: play the Russia + India cards, and contain China
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 11:59||   2022-05-13 11:59|| Front Page Top

#33 Albemarle is constantly calling the other commenters "pedo" -- is that acceptable?
Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-05-13 12:14||   2022-05-13 12:14|| Front Page Top

#34 
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 12:23||   2022-05-13 12:23|| Front Page Top

#35 Putin is to the Biden Freakshow and their camp followers as Saddam was to Cheney and their Neo-Con cranks.

That is to say, an unhealthy obsession that distorts one's judgment and leads to foolish and self-destructive, catastrophic foreign-policy interventions.

The Ukraine intervention is the Biden Freakshow's Iraq War. Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan combined... a colossally foolish mistake.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 12:33||   2022-05-13 12:33|| Front Page Top

#36 I can conceive of no circumstance in which today’s Russia would side with America against China, no matter how rational that choice might be — even including a zombie apocalypse.

Posted by trailing wife 2022-05-13 13:59||   2022-05-13 13:59|| Front Page Top

#37 Perhaps you can't but every one of our best scholars and diplomats and spymasters can. It merely requires our foolish policymakers to get some common sense, and do what all those scholars, diplomats and CIA chiefs have pleaded with them, in vain, for 25 years to do: give their insane fever dream of extending NATO to Russia's doorstep. That's the obstacle.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 14:36||   2022-05-13 14:36|| Front Page Top

#38 *give up the insane fever dream of NATO expansion
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 14:37||   2022-05-13 14:37|| Front Page Top

#39 No. It's the US sanctions + our incredibly foolish escalation of the war that are pouring gasoline on the inflation bonfire fire that Biden and Jerome Powell ignited.That is to say, an unhealthy obsession that distorts one's judgment and leads to foolish and self-destructive, catastrophic foreign-policy interventions.

The Ukraine intervention is the Biden Freakshow's Iraq War. Iraq, Vietnam and Afghanistan combined... a colossally foolish mistake.

Intentional or not, these are all arguments of the isolationist libertarians. "Next chance, we can do it better. If we could turn back time, if we could find a way, we'd take back all the words that had hurt you." and it always leads to a ridiculous conclusion as it did back in the late 90s and 2000s when the movement joined the anti-W. team.

Any realistic assessment of US national interest in this entity pits us against China and with Russia and India.

Yeah, well, whatever that was died on the table 2020. Last best chance was 2016-2017, and that rogue's den of opponents to such a thing is well known by the authors and then the subscribers.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 14:53||   2022-05-13 14:53|| Front Page Top

#40 If this were a rant, especially six years ago, I'd be nodding along. But what you are, with the calling of names, is having what the left calls a discussion, otherwise known as a persuasive monologue.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 15:04||   2022-05-13 15:04|| Front Page Top

#41 
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 15:13||   2022-05-13 15:13|| Front Page Top

#42 the calling of names, is having what the left calls

🤡 So says the man (?) who can't even get his own name-calling straight. First you foolishly characterized hard nosed realists as "isolationist libertarians." Now you're trying to label them "leftists." You're so incoherent you don't even know which direction you're spraying in.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 15:18||   2022-05-13 15:18|| Front Page Top

#43 The only way remaining to put the genie back in the bottle and salvage what's left of US leadership and US interests is to push hard with everything at our disposal for a negotiated settlement. Ukraine is now an American puppet state. We need to send our best and smartest diplomats to meet with Lavrov and negotiate a cease fire as the basis of a lasts MG agreement, one that, at minimum, forswears amy further NATO expansion and lifts the stupid, utterly self-destructive and pointless US sanctions.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 15:22||   2022-05-13 15:22|| Front Page Top

#44 *basis of a lasting agreement
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 15:23||   2022-05-13 15:23|| Front Page Top

#45 Blah, blah, blah, blah.

More light, less heat.
Posted by Rob Crawford 2022-05-13 15:38||   2022-05-13 15:38|| Front Page Top

#46 
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 15:46||   2022-05-13 15:46|| Front Page Top

#47 Didn't label. They willingly joined the leftists in opposing W. in the early 2000s. There were against Clinton in the late 90s for his Africa Adventurism, but not really because legal pot was on the table.

Same reason they cooled when Obama took office.

Its just so weird they always come down on the same side, eh?

As for our current best, that was Blinken, Milley, and Austin, and they opted for selfies with Elenskyy.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 15:52||   2022-05-13 15:52|| Front Page Top

#48 In the land of cartoon villainy, this is known as "monologing". It is the scene where the super-villain explains *everything*, just before it all comes crashing down.
Posted by SteveS 2022-05-13 16:07||   2022-05-13 16:07|| Front Page Top

#49 Putin wagged the dog to push back against Democracy which is creeping closer to his borders and could influence his own people against his domain. However, the advanced weapons of Democracy are 'unexpextedly per his original calculations' destroying his archaic weapons of tyranny.
Posted by Bugs McGurque4586 2022-05-13 16:23||   2022-05-13 16:23|| Front Page Top

#50 We just need to watch the Ruzzians bleed until they can't hold down their Donbas proxies or their other puppets like Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And the Belarussians really don't like Lukaschenko either. Bankruptcy: Slowly, then all at once.
Posted by Nero 2022-05-13 17:21||   2022-05-13 17:21|| Front Page Top

#51 Its just so weird they always come down on the same side, eh?

What the hell are you talking about?
Richard Pipes, Edward Luttwak, Paul Nitze et al weren't/aren't leftists. They hated communism.
Posted by Albemarle Ulease2342 2022-05-13 17:48||   2022-05-13 17:48|| Front Page Top

#52 Heh.

But not as much as the rank and file loved their weed, and took every opportunity to buck social conservatives for that dream.

What was Luttwak's take on African Liberation Theory?
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 18:21||   2022-05-13 18:21|| Front Page Top

#53 Why do you think support for Obama was being framed as support for Smart Diplomacy?

(Especially in contrast to "that warmonger McCain!" after the D-"primaries")

That was a libertarian based sales pitch designed to attract or at least neutralize those frustrated with the WoT.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 18:35||   2022-05-13 18:35|| Front Page Top

#54 Our longest threads are with some narcissist "look at me" who will tolerate no dissent or questioning. Herb? Dat You?
Posted by Frank G 2022-05-13 18:56||   2022-05-13 18:56|| Front Page Top

#55 ^ In fairness to Herb, I don't think he ever claimed to be omniscient.
Posted by Matt 2022-05-13 19:40||   2022-05-13 19:40|| Front Page Top

#56 It has been a while since I've come across a practicing, evangelical libertarian and I am curious what the current take is concerning Luttwaks contribution and/or dissuasion was to African Liberation Theory.

Say what you will about Herb; he had a pretty good handle on Chinese Food.
Posted by swksvolFF 2022-05-13 20:18||   2022-05-13 20:18|| Front Page Top

22:56 Super Hose
22:17 Airandee
21:54 trailing wife
21:53 Greater the Anonymous5721
21:02 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
20:59 Jefe101
20:54 Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843
20:25 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
20:18 swksvolFF
19:40 Matt
19:31 Frank G
19:25 trailing wife
18:56 Frank G
18:39 Seeking Cure For Ignorance
18:35 swksvolFF
18:21 swksvolFF
17:48 Albemarle Ulease2342
17:36 NN2N1
17:33 Mullah Richard
17:22 NN2N1
17:21 Nero
17:15 Chris
17:11 magpie
17:07 Papa Cooky
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