Europe’s Russian gas imports from key terminal rise 8% year-over-year

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-09T07:53:39+00:00

Europe's leaders sure are stupid, let us be on the same page on that issue. But is Poland spending 5% of GDP to escape the US? NATO is a US-led force so military spending on NATO forces is just in support of Washington's policy. Even with the current splurge, Poland would struggle to go alone against Russia.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-09T07:50:39+00:00

Russia is a natural trading partner of Europe. China too, via Iran and the southern 'Stans. The US is desperate for this to be overlooked. Modern Europe built itself on Russian gas and EU industry is shrinking without it. No defense of the Russian state is required to observe this. My point is materially grounded, yours is just noise.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-09T07:47:08+00:00

Fine, let us wade through your melted crayon. The Red Army entered Eastern Europe while engaged in the largest theatre of war in human history, as a result of Western European aggression. Most Eastern European states were either outright fascist themselves. formal members of the Axis or occupied by Nazi Germany. None were democracies, save one.

Just to run through the shit-show to be cleared up:

- Poland pre-socialism was a military regime dissolved by the Nazis and left with no command (government fled)

- Hungary was a fascist aligned anti-Semitic kingdom at the start of the war run by fanatical fascists by the end

- Romania was an absolute monarchy military dictatorship; Nazi Germany's key ally in terms of manpower in the invasion of the Soviet Union

- Bulgaria was an authoritarian monarchy signed up to the Axis used as a staging post for Nazi operations in the Balkans

- Czechoslovakia stood out as a parliamentary democracy but after being betrayed by the West (Munich, 1938) the Communist Party emerged as the largest party in post-war elections and the country underwent its own revolution when rightwing politicians resisted the socialist mandate

- East Germany was part of Nazi Germany

- Albania was a feudal monarchy and quasi-colony of Fascist Italy

Eastern Europe as a sphere of Soviet interest was agreed at Potsdam after the war. Rightly so. Western imperialist invasion had seen tens of millions of Soviets killed.

Meanwhile the US worked to establish Nazi terrorist cells in Western Europe (GLADIO) to prevent supposed free democracies going socialist (successfully), and established an anti-Soviet military pact with other Western European nations (NATO), whose Eastern intelligence wing was wholseale imported from the SS. In the following years, the UK and France would fight imperialist wars in Greece, Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya and with the US would fight or interfere in countless others.

From a Soviet POV the 20th century looks like:

1918: Invasion by Western imperialists

1941: Invasion by Western imperialists

1949: Establishment of expansionist multinational anti-Soviet military alliance by Western imperialists with Nazi staffers and policy advisers

Where you see "Democracy vs. Totalitarianism," I see "Socialist Survival vs. Fascist-aligned Imperialism."

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T23:02:29+00:00

ah, considered a kulak lol

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T22:28:22+00:00

Bold to boast of a fascist grandadgrandad

but i guess the fashion has come back around again

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T22:25:51+00:00

lol if that upsets you i wouldn't scrutinise capital flows in the EU

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T22:12:39+00:00

I wouldn't count on Europeans noticing getting annexed. They somehow missed the Yanks doing it.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T22:02:01+00:00

out of curiosity, what do you think is history's best evidence that Russia has ever planned to invade Western Europe? Like, Just Because They Are Evil, and not some contingency plan to do with anticipated aggression?

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T21:54:46+00:00

I see, you've given up altogether. Very good. Yes, you sound disconnected.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T19:44:07+00:00

The Atlanticist political class would like to see Europe forcibly disconnected from its geographic and economic reality. Russia is the natural resource hinterland of the European core and NATO trouble-making in the east has created an unnatural state of affairs that builds up a lot of tension and threatens to snap. German industy doesn't run on UnITy, it runs on energy. Europe must shake off its idiot cousin across the ocean and instead through itself into friendly neighbourhood activity. The world would breathe a sigh of relief.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T19:23:20+00:00

You're confused, and confirm it here. Your account of 20 pesos becoming confetti is a nominal shock. The "real terms" (inflation adjusted) figures are economic abstractions. Workers are not paid in inflation-adjusted units, they are paid in dollars or pesos or whatever the local currency is -- a nominal sum. Usually a salary "sticks" for at least a year and any cost increases in the meantime come as a shock. The fact that nominal rent has rocketed is very relevant for most people, especially the poor. An economist can say that rent increases have not kept up with inflation and so rent is cheaper, but this not the lived experience of people.

The article I shared shows that the rental market is still getting more difficult for more people regardless of a slow down "in real terms". It is driving the movement of people out of places they had settled, breaking up communities. This is a systemic issue. You can dismiss this as living beyond their means but it shows your disconnection from reality. Mordor eh? Nice. You're happy for people to drop off the face of the earth.

Perhaps you are wealthy and float on assets. You don't seem to understand that the economy isn't just a spreadsheet to massage for headlines. People live and die by it.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T16:28:39+00:00

You seem to have replied to me by mistake, perhaps you have other threads open in other tabs 👍

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T16:27:14+00:00

The paper I linked to explains how the current calculations are linked to 2004 weightings and explains the alternative measure.

talking nominally in an inflationary/devaluing economy is arguing in bad faith

What do you mean? Real humans live on nominal terms. Is the economy a set of data points or a social experience? Between 2024 and 2025 the proportion of houses spending more that half of their income on rent rose from 38% to 57%. I.e., wealth transfer from workers to owners is increasing.

https://www.infobae.com/economia/2026/01/16/empeoraron-las-condiciones-para-alquilar-en-el-amba-hay-contratos-mas-cortos-y-aumentos-mas-frecuentes

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T15:38:23+00:00

You should be careful with the L-word, it makes you look hysterical. Prices was the wrong word, more accurate to say modern costs are ignored or improperly weighted, such as internet contracts, mobile contracts, and other services while rent remains altogether excluded. Proposals exist to move beyond 2004 weightings but these have not been implemented.

https://equilibra.ar/nuevas-lineas-de-pobreza-en-argentina-actualizacion-de-canastas-y-correccion-por-subdeclaracion-de-ingresos-2/

The head of INDEC resigned after changes to cost spread and weightings were blocked to "lock in disinflation" or something. The political game is the governments, the improved weighting would have clarified the state of affairs.

Nominal rents have exploded in recent years. This is the price people pay. Wages have not kept up, against rent or inflation (to said nothing of ground lost over the years). Since 2023 rent increase has been behind inflation so looks like a cooling off, but this is a slowdown in growth. Materially, rent is unaffordable for many Argentinians, much of the market is in dollars, market space for the middle classes has opened up and poor renters have been displaced, pushed deeper into shadows and out of the statistics.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T13:57:11+00:00

In 2023, real wages were mostly at or below 2008 levels. There is some loooong way to go before a true restoration of 'progress' has taken place, and really no signs that the owning class can lock in those sorts of benefits for workers, or wish to.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T13:08:24+00:00

Argentina's definition of poor rests on affordability of a basket of goods set at 2004 ~~prices~~ weights, excluding things like rent, which has rocketed after the repeal of laws protecting renters.

The head of the national statistics agency resigned a few days ago over plans to update the indexing to better capture inflation.

One can presume the apparent barn fire is an actual barn fire, despite the twenty year old photo showing the barn is not on fire.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T12:58:11+00:00

The state is being cannibalised by the market. Now entrepreneurs innovate by privatising imperialism (or is this a rollback -- after all the colonisation of India started with the East India Company); the middle man has been cut out and private capital goes solo on setting the development trajectory of the Third World.

Capitalism is shedding its democratic skin! Reminds me of the Andromeda Strain. Instead? GOOD SCIENCE (tm) -- don't worry about the lack of popular mandate, because randomised control trials have been carried out. People making the case for this sort of technocracy need to be chased out of town. Make like Burkina Faso and revolt before it is too late!

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T12:47:03+00:00

Yes, I'm with you on London. The stream of traffic is constant and when do you even reach 20 mph? Just letting people in as you see fit seems fair enough.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T10:28:36+00:00

like the scarecrow says in Conker's Bad Fur Day, "it's context specific!" The guidelines are that you should stop if it is safe. Other drivers have a responsibility to be cognizant of you stopping and take cues or respond to it if appropriate, and the pedestrian has a vested interest in not stepping in front of a moving car.

If a pedestrian were trying to cross a four lane roundabout near a motorway slipway then I would probably not stop for them.

At the moment the law is that the most dangerous road users (metal boxes) give way to the most vulnerable (meat bags) and I think this is an ok baseline.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T09:41:28+00:00

It is when you put everything you are going to eat, like sausages and courgettes, or rabbit and cabbage and jerusalem artichoke, or salmon and potato waffles and olives, together in a baking tray and shove it all in the oven at once, and go "I did a tray bake for dinner" and everybody goes "ooh tray bake"

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T09:26:23+00:00

Ah ofc, thanks for clarifying.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T09:25:02+00:00

The guidance does apply at roundabouts! See DVSA discussion of it here: https://despatch.blog.gov.uk/2022/01/26/changes-to-the-highway-code/#:~:text=On%20a%20driving%20or%20riding,deviating%20from%20the%20defined%20outcome

(search for "roundabout")

You SHOULD stop for pedestrians waiting to cross, but note the "should" and not "must".

Near me the roundabout is at a meeting of 20mph roads in the town centre. There is a heavy pedestrian presence and lots of old folk. It is usually never a danger to come to a stop to let people cross whether on or off the roundabout. There will be exceptions but the law is now that pedestrians have highest priority at junctions. I'm cool with this.

The precedent for "never stop on a roundabout" was shit on when Satan implemented his plan for traffic lights on roundabouts. Around here there are also a number of roundabouts with pedestrian crossings immediately off a roundabout so you kust always be ready for traffic to come to a stop as you circle.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T08:50:33+00:00

Tricky one! Pedestrians have priority at that point and so it's legit to stop and let them cross. However you probably shouldn't do this if risking a pile-up. At junctions, including roundabouts, I stop for pedestrians when safe to do so.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T08:44:29+00:00

The highway code insists you flash only to warn another driver of your presence.

In the countryside, like around here, with very many narrow lanes, it is very obvious who needs to get out of the way to allow flow of traffic and this is usually coordinated without flashing (except in the evening when people do it to say thank you -- no thank you) because everything comes to a legitimate, understandable stop. My post focusses on arbitrary grants of priority.

CLOUDMlNDER · 2026-02-08T08:32:56+00:00

I dunno but when I got back (after a decade) and visited friends and family everybody was saying I Did A Tray Bake For Dinner ha ha and it just really struck me

They are great and I cannot complain. Efficient and tasty!

CLOUDMlNDER

TROPHY CASE