Topic: Russian Gas ban - A problem for Europe or suicide for Russia? - page 28. (Read 14450 times)

Monthly gas bills increased by 800%, from 81 euros to 651 euros per month. This is the result of EU governments declaring that they have enough gas for this winter and will never need Russian gas again. This is just one of the families in Germany, but I guess this is a well-to-do family that can spend that much money. How will the poor and working class cope with the harsh weather conditions?

The war against the aggressor cannot be stopped. A war against an aggressor can either be won or lost. We, the Ukrainians, have not been left with any option other than victory over the most bastard regime of the 21st century.
The victory of Ukraine and its strategic partners will stop international terrorism for many decades. Russia is the center of support, financing and planning of terrorist movements all over the world.
Plus, I am sure that the modern world will reconsider the concept of supporting peace on earth, and develop a new, really effective system of pre-emptive containment of the emergence of such terrorist regimes.

The United States is ready to supply Europe with gas at prices that are a multiple of those fixed on the spot market, Toby Rice, head of the largest US gas producer EQT, said at a conference in Abu Dhabi.

According to him, in case of signing long-term contracts, the price of liquefied gas for European consumers will be about $12 per Mmbtu (million British thermal units), or $380 per thousand cubic meters.

The discount to market gas quotations in the EU will be almost twofold: on Monday, gas futures for the Dutch TTF hub on the London ICE exchange are traded at 60.3 euros per MWh, or $683.5 per thousand cubic meters.

https://www.moscowtimes.ru/2023/01/16/ssha-predlozhili-evrope-gaz-za-poltseni-a30902

After the war against Afghanistan and the trouble in South asian continent - and then the Covid and the war against Ukraine.
That has destroyed the world to an extreme - already people are suffering and dying because of bad health - and then the missile and gunfire and bombing is adding fuel to the fire.

This strategy is what has put Europe in real trouble today.  All its vital resources are derived from outside its borders.  We will easily come to the conclusion that Europe is not a productive continent by nature, but rather consumes the resources of others.

Missiles being fired at again at  Lviv - Kharkiv - Belarus starting  joint military aviation drills with Russia 
 UK France and Poland have all vowed to send tanks - Poland call on Germany to supply weapons to Ukraine - 100 of people killed in apartment attack - Russia should have a little mercy on the people of Ukraine

If they don't send more heavier weapons to Ukraine which also NATO has approved to do so in their latest statement,they let Russia have it their way and we know what will happen next when a psychopath like Putin is in power,he will think that he can go and invade another country which would then be prelude to World War 3 as I think no country would be just staring anymore.Therefore as long as they provide Ukraine with the needed weaponry they are doing their part to protect the free world,I know that this may sound like they are using Ukrainian people to do so but it is not like that,it is Russia who invaded out of nowhere and Ukraine has to respond.Imperial fantasies of Putin should come to an end sooner rather than later for the sake of the good of all humanity.

I feel sorry for all those who have nowhere to go and have lost their lives.
Although Uk and France has promised to send more arms and ammunition and tanks to help Ukraine armed forces but that is accelerating the war more! and making more blood shed.

Russia is thinking that they can keep fighting and keep the Western power at bay and they want to kill up to the last Ukrainian,40 people is nothing for them,also they have done much more horrible crimes than this,I hope everyone remembers the civilians killed in Bucha especially that guy in the blue coat (killed for fun from Russian soldiers) which went viral back then,they did the same in Kharkiv where massive graves were found which consist a serious war crime yet they are still a member of the UN.

Anyway back to economics here on the thread,the gas is a suicide move for Russia,Europe distanced themselves 30% this year in which they were not really prepared and they intend in a couple of years do be 90% dependent free from Russian gas and oil.The smartest "guy" in this war is the US,they are draining all of Russia power,military and economic and once the war is over Russia will be down on their knees,an isolated country which will have not a real future and no one will give a damn about them anymore as a great power of the world.

Now Belarus has joined exercise with Russia - Exercises  is  a guise to strengthen the combat aviation group in Belarus  says Ukraine President - UK France and Poland have all vowed to send tanks - on the other hand Poland calls on Germany to supply weapons to Ukraine -seems like world war III in making

Russian are getting brutal - Missiles fired at Lviv - Kharkiv - Zaporizhzhia and elsewhere Monday - Belarus begins joint military aviation drills with Russia  Belarusian defense minister says drill  to run through Feb 1 `- what is going on in the world?
 

Today again attack on Dnipro apartments killed more than 40 people including children.
Its been months that Ukraine has been attacked - isn't there any rule of war to be stopped after the X numbers of day - this. is beyond horrible.

What is liberalism? How does it differ from other political approaches to the interaction between the citizen and the state?

The basic principle of liberalism is that the state was created for the needs of its citizens. The opposite approach is that people serve the interests of the state. If a citizen of the state does not benefit the state, then he can be shot with impunity in the street, like a stray dog. From the point of view of liberalism, a person cannot be killed just like that, since he has the basic (natural) right to life.

However, if you use a different approach, then there are no obstacles to killing a person, since no natural rights are recognized for a person. He has only obligations to the state. For me, the state is an abstract construction, convenient for the functioning of a social society.

Therefore, I believe that the state should sell natural gas to Europe, and distribute the money received among the citizens of the state, increasing their well-being.

And this is a purely liberal approach.

They really aren't. You are just looking at the winners of World War 2 and concluding that based on the advantage they had just because they won while the rest of the world were destroyed and continued being destroyed ever since with the wars these same winners began. Otherwise liberalism is the worst thing that happened to the world right after communism and bunch of other *isms.

In my experience whatever sector that got infected with liberalism got ruined shortly after. One of the main reasons why our economy is in ruins is because of that!

Besides, all of these things are working for a short time and only as long as everything else is going fine. But the moment things get hard you'll see how these liberal democrats bring down the hammer! For example in UK (which is a dictatorship under the mask of democracy) they are passing a law that instead of fixing the problem that caused the strikes, would force those workers on strike to continue working like slaves!

In my country, very little is known about India, although they treat this country with great respect.  

A popular series about the hero of the Sepoy war with the British, Prince Dakkar (Captain Nemo), was filmed in country.  From this film, I first learned about India and the history of this country.  The book and cartoon about Mowgli are also very popular.  Indian practices of personality development are very popular among young people - yoga, tantra, kamasutra, kundalini.  

Many people know such a politician as Mahatma Gandhi.  

However, in general, we know very little about the life of the Indians.  It is very difficult for me to imagine how a country with a population of more than 1 billion people can function.

Completely agreed with this. My country (India) is being regarded as a democracy, but sometimes I feel that having a dictatorship was way better. Just 2% of the population pays income tax and 60% of the jobs and university seats are reserved for people from certain ethnic groups. Farmers don't need to pay any tax, even if they earn billions every year. The state governments come up with increasing amounts of freebies during every election cycle in order to win votes. Groups that reproduce rapidly are given priority as they command more votes. A few decades earlier, China was much poorer than India. Now the per capita income there is three times that of India. So what is the point in being a democracy? 

In my opinion, China has made progress in economic development due to its adequate and pragmatic policies.  

The leaders of China first cooperated with the leadership of the USSR, then with Western democracies.  China has become the world's factory through cooperation with the United States.  At the same time, he himself actively explored Africa, buying up promising enterprises there.  

However, China has not been able to offer the world anything similar to Western liberal values ​​(which are indeed of great value).  

Strictly speaking, when Russia followed the path of Western democracies (2000-2014), it was a fairly comfortable place to live.  

At least then people did not flee from Russia to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey and Mongolia.

Trade may be boring, but it promotes economic growth....  

Respect for human rights may be associated with a developed bureaucracy, but you are sure that you will not become a victim of repression....

I disagree mainly because you are comparing apples with apples with a different color. Democracy is dictatorship with a different face. But also the evidence suggests otherwise. If you want to compare, you have to compare countries based on their own situation (geography, population,etc.) and over time.

China is a country that has been harmed by the colonizers and with the wars forced on them, their country and people were in ruins. Over the past 40 years for example, China has eradicated absolute poverty that 85% of its population were struggling with. That is 800 million people living in absolute poverty at the time. Over the same time they expanded their economy, built massive industries and turned into the second biggest and strongest economy, all from nothing!

Note that I'm not defending dictatorships here but that we haven't seen any good results from democracies in comparison. What have the "democratic" countries done in the same period? The poverty rate has been growing and homeless people are filling the streets. Middle class no longer has the same meaning since it is now what lower class used to be! Everywhere you look people are protesting against their "democratically elected regimes" for the increasing cost of living and generally the injustice, like in France where the protests reached their 5th consecutive year. And it's only getting worse.

I don't know what you call high standard of living but if you have to borrow money to be able to live in heavy debt all your life and if you get sick you have to declare bankruptcy the next day in a country where a 6-year old is arrested for intentionally shooting someone else (6000+ kids per year!), I would not even call it a living.

Yes, I agree with you, poverty in China has been eradicated in recent decades. 

However, the standard of living in China has not reached the level of Western democracies.  At the same time, it is more likely that the standard of living of ordinary citizens of the China will never reach the standard of living of citizens of countries with a more democratic form of government. 

There is one important economic law - the standard of living in democratic countries is always higher than in totalitarian ones.  There are exceptions to this rule, but they only confirm this rule...

Totalitarian countries are not interested in the growth of the well-being of their citizens, as this threatens the power of the elites of these countries. 

Therefore, even if they receive super-profits from exports, these countries will use these additional revenues not to improve the well-being of their citizens, but to increase gold and foreign exchange reserves or to an arms race and strengthen the repressive apparatus. 

This is one of the reasons for the weakness of the Chinese yuan and the strength of the US dollar.

If only there are people who believe and say that there is no problem with stopping the supply of Russian gas to Europe, maybe we need information from gas-producing countries in the Middle East. Qatar is the largest, the energy minister himself said, replacing Russian gas supplies to Europe, which amounted to 40% of Europe's total needs, is not something that can be easily and quickly implemented. it needs to add more production capacity, it needs new pipelines or channel changes from the Middle East to Europe, it takes time to reach the target quota, and everything needs money. not cheap and impossible to achieve in a year, at least 5-7 years. then for 5-7 years where does Europe want gas from? to meet European needs.

and History proves that just to survive, Europeans have to cross countries to meet the needs of their people, from ancient times to the end of time.