Tag Archives: Putin

This “Letter from an American” author Prof. Heather has a different spin to it. Prof. Heather is discussing OPEC and the impact it is going to have on the US as well as other counties not having the wealth we have. One thing I did not know is, Russia is the Vice-Chair of OPEC. Or Putin has his input to OPEC. Leading up to the MBS ‘s decision to cut oil production, the market was stabilizing and prices were dropping. “October 5, 2022,” Letters...

Putin Supporters In US Becoming Desperate  Latest reports have after Putin annexed four oblasts in Ukraine the Ukrainian military making numerous gains in several of those and simply on a major roll that seems very unlikely to be stopped or even slowed down all that much, short of Putin using nuclear weapons. First Lyman was taken, now the last town the Russians held in Kharkiv oblast was taken. Ukrainian troops appear to be closing fast on both...

Vladimir Mau Has Been Arrested, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser  Vladimir who? I appreciate that most readers have never heard of this individual. But this is the sign of a major new shift in the situation in Russia. To make clear why this is important: until quite recently Vladimir Mau was the top economic advisor of V.V. Putin. Just prior to his arrest, he has just been reelected to the Board of Gazprom, the most important state-owned company in...

A Deadline Passes And Stalin Is Exchanged For Peter The Great, Barkley Rosser, Econospeak  I am not all that much into posting about the ups and downs of the Special Operation in Ukraine, but it seems that there has been one of those lines crossed. While it was not widely publicized, June 10 was apparently a deadline set by V.V. Putin for Russian forces to conquer Severodonetsk.  While reportedly they control a solid majority of that now mostly...

Putin-centered approaches to Russian politics also assume that President Putin can easily turn his preferences into policy outcomes. To be sure, Putin is the central node in Russian politics, has faced no serious political challenger since returning to the presidency in 2012, and can often pass legislation with few amendments in Parliament, but he also confronts the physical limits of ruling Russia and challenge of governing a modern society. He must rely on close advisers who in turn...

Putin-centered approaches to Russian politics also assume that President Putin can easily turn his preferences into policy outcomes. To be sure, Putin is the central node in Russian politics, has faced no serious political challenger since returning to the presidency in 2012, and can often pass legislation with few amendments in Parliament, but he also confronts the physical limits of ruling Russia and challenge of governing a modern society. He must rely on close advisers who in turn...

This might be a very long confused post or might be a series of confused posts. I am trying to think about what to do about Putin (assuming he isn’t overthrown in a palace coup). My first thought was that this is not time for increased military spending . The Russian military turns out to be much less capable than we thought. There is no reason to guess that the Chinese, North Korean, Iranian, or other potential trouble maker militaries are...

Fascist Traditionalism And Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine  About a half-century ago I was urged by my oldest friend to read a book by Fritjof Schuon (1907-1998) written in 1953, The Transcendental Unity of Religions. The book’s title basically tells its message: that while each religion has its own exoteric forms that differ from those of each other, there is a core to all of them that is the same, a transcendental unity of cosmic truth and...

Reading the first few paragraphs of Last War Brain by Noah Smith, I thought I would strongly disagree with his post and decided to write an attempted rebutal. I find that I agree almost 100% and can mainly complain about what I assert is a bit of bait and switch. As always I advise readers to just click the link. Noah is a much better writer than I am (low bar) so my effort to summarize and explain might best be skipped (skip to ***) Noah argues...

Why Did Trump Initially Support The Saudi-UAE Effort To Overthrow Qatar’s Government?  One of the more curious things in 2017 in the first year of the Trump presidency was how when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) placed a boycott on Qatar and more directly attempted to overthrow the government of Qatar, President Trump openly supported this effort initially.  He would later be pulled back from this position as his first Secretary...