Here is September 19th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.

Here is September 20th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.

Here is September 21st's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.

Here is September 23rd's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.

Here is September 24th's update! TLDR? Here's the summary.

Links and Stuff

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Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists, for the “buh Zeleski is a jew?!?!” people.

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can, thank you.

Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins

Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)

Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.

Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.

On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.

https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.

https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.

https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.

https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.

https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.

https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.

https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.

https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine

With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:

https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.

https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.

Last week's discussion post.

      • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        When everyone is poor, inflation will come down. That’s their strategy, not even a joke.

        Yeah, the Fed might as well be on their own military campaign here in the class war.

        Which makes the efforts of some people in US politics, like Warren, unintentionally quite entertaining, because they're like "I'm concerned that the Fed will accidentally cause a recession on their way to reduce inflation!" and it's like - yeah, no shit. It's not on accident, they're doing it on purpose

        It's analogous to when people are concerned about civilian collateral damage from US drone strikes - I think you missed the memo there, the whole point is to terrorise their population and showcase the degree of overwhelming force you have over them and make them focus on surviving, rather than actively rebelling.

        • SoyViking [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Oh yes, they do this all the time.

          Before they do their class war stuff the likely and foreseeable negative consequences of their actions are framed as if they are unlikely hypothetical scenarios and you are made to feel like a crank for being concerned about them.

          After they do their nasty thing they frame it as if it was some freak error that nobody could have predicted of prevented. Maybe they blame some goon far down the hierarchy but most often they just move forward like those consequences are things in the past that we shouldn't dwell on.

      • Farman [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It all depends on the choice the 3rd world makes. Is indonesia going to choose between having fuel or having no sancions?

          • Farman [any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Hopefully. Im somehow not as optimistic. The leadership in most countries would rather doo what the us says or else.

            But lets hope most of the world gets sancioned so no one has to worry about sanctions any more.

          • SoyViking [he/him]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Lots of countries in the third world are effectively comprador regimes. They might not give up the US and thereby the source of their power and privilege without a fight.

            Things could get really nasty in a lot of places before they dedollarize.

    • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Basis points are the economicsy way of saying interest rates. 1 basis point = 0.01% rate hike. So 100 basis points = 1% rate hike.

      I think it's mainly because when you talk about increases in percentages, it's unclear sometimes if you're talking about a 1% increase of something versus an increase by 1%. e.g. the difference between a 200% to 201% increase (adding 1%) or a 200 to 202 increase (a percentage increase of 1% of 200).

      My understanding of the general situation is this, feel free to dunk on me if I'm drastically wrong:

      Increasing interest rates is seen by orthodox liberal economic thinking as the way to decrease inflation. In reality, the two have an unclear relationship at best, but hey, there's a reason why the global economic system keeps breaking down over and over again - we're ruled by these idiots. In this case, however, the problem is that there isn't enough supply going into the economy, when usually it's a demand problem. If it's a demand problem, then making interest rates go up is meant to decrease demand. But if supply isn't going up, then you can raise rates all you want - you're pressing a button on a disconnected video game controller.

      For us, increased interest rates mean higher chance of a recession, which is obviously bad for working people. Of cause, causing a recession is also a way of decreasing demand to the point where it matches supply - but that's like starving a population so enough people die so that a shitty crop harvest can support them, rather than trying to fix the crop harvest.

      • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
        ·
        2 years ago

        you’re pressing a button on a disconnected video game controller.

        Exactly. What would be needed is nationalizing the commanding heights of the economy, and some planning the get the supply side running, even succdems knew this, but we are stuck with neoliberal ghouls on all sides (well, not in China)

      • anoncpc [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        They also exporting their inflation with this. The dollar will come back to the US in short term. For long term, they're fuck

    • Kieselguhr [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Those advocating for a rate hike see the current inflation as a problem of too much demand. They argue that the fiscal stimulus was too big, increasing incomes and demand too much. But what we are dealing with is not demand-driven inflation in an overheating economy. The COVID crisis started as a supply-side crisis that severely disrupted production, causing massive layoffs and furloughs. Income and demand crashed. Relief checks partially restored income but the supply side is still shaky—with continuing supply chain disruptions, bottlenecks, and price-gouging. The war in Ukraine will intensify and prolong such problems.

      ...

      Furthermore, the Fed has never managed to guide the economy to a soft landing with rate hikes. Many point to Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s interest rate hikes in the 1970s — to 20 percent and beyond (and above 15 percent for a couple of years), but conveniently leave out what followed. The economy crashed into a deep recession, and a series of financial crises (the thrift crisis of the early 1980s, the developing nation debt crisis later in the 1980s, and the big bank crisis at the end of the 1980s) can all be traced to Volcker’s experiment. Chairman Alan Greenspan’s tightening in the early 1990s brought on a recession followed by our first jobless recovery, and his tightening in 2004 helped to bring on the global financial crisis in 2008 and another, even longer, jobless recovery.

      The evidence shows that in high inflation periods—including the current one—the major contributors are rising rent as well as oil and food prices. None of these is particularly interest-sensitive. People do not usually borrow to buy fuel for their cars, purchase groceries, or pay rent. Indeed, raising rates can even be perverse: higher interest rates reduce home purchases as well as new home construction, meaning that those who might have bought houses have to compete for a limited supply of rentals—pushing up rents and fueling measured inflation.

      We must find a better way to think about, and deal with, inflation. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to inflation control, but what is clear is that interest rates are a very imprecise tool for influencing prices. In the current circumstance, the more appropriate solution would be to work to alleviate supply-side constraints. That, however, requires much more work and intentionality than a stroke of a pen to change interest rates, which camouflages as action rather than the cop-out it has proven to be.

      hell, here's the whole article