Silly Jennifer: Just because people are okay with paying marginally more at the pump to oppose Putin doesn’t mean they agree with Progressive efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate domestic fossil fuel production, a flight of pure Progressive fantasy if there ever was one, as this article from City Journal also forwarded by Jeff Foutch confirms.
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: simply put…
So why impoverish billions while at the same time wasting untold trillions attempting what would amount to economic suicide?!? Unless, of course, the death of free-market Capitalism was your goal in the first place.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, since we’re the on subject, the Morning Jolt relates how…
“It sounds absurd, but it’s true — Vladimir Putin is now running the Communist revolutionaries’ playbook on foreign investment, foreign assets, and foreign debts. History tells us this is a quick path to a massive economic calamity, but Putin appears willing to commit economic suicide in order to bring his vision of a conquered Ukraine to fruition.
In February 1918, the Communist revolutionaries who had taken over Russia announced that they no longer recognized the debts owed by the previous government under the czar. The new Soviet government declared that it had a clean slate, and anyone who was owed money by the previous Russian government was out of luck.
Simultaneously, the new Soviet government “decided to confiscate all the assets of foreign capitalists in Russia and restore them to the national estate.” The new Soviet Union knew that this would outrage foreign powers, but did it anyway, voluntarily cutting itself off from the world. The economic consequences — exacerbated by famine, disease, and the continuing strife of regime change — were off the charts…
…When a government declares that it will confiscate the assets of foreign companies and foreign investors and that it won’t pay its debts, severe and lasting economic calamity follows.
This may seem like long-forgotten history, but it is particularly relevant now that Putin has announced Russia will confiscate the assets of foreign companies and foreign investors and strongly hinted that it won’t pay its debts.
…Usually, the consequence of a government’s default is that it becomes much more difficult, and much more expensive, for that government to borrow money in the future. But a default may not be as momentous in these circumstances; even if Russia paid off its debts, Western banks and investors would still be extremely wary of loaning money into the blood-soaked hands of the Russian government — even if they themselves didn’t have moral objections, most big financial institutions would recognize the public-relations damage those loans would inflict.
Nonetheless, it will probably be a long, long time before international investors feel safe putting any money in Russia in any form…”
There was another interesting section in the Jolt detailing why your average Ivan likely hasn’t the faintest inkling what’s actually going down and why:
If Western countries continue to tighten the economic screws on the Russian economy as a whole, instead of targeting specific figures in the regime with more tailored sanctions, they will risk turning Russia into something like a larger, more unstable, and more dangerous North Korea…
Russians are not the only ones who are unprepared for what is about to happen. The Western countries that have imposed these sanctions have not fully thought through their likely consequences. Measures that make life miserable for ordinary Russians might have the opposite of their intended effect: they might rally the public behind Putin. Over the last 20 years, the Russian leader has built a powerful propaganda machine — one that has been working overtime since the Ukrainian invasion began. Right now, about half of Russians support the war. (Among them, initially, was my mother-in-law. She has a university degree but believed Putin’s claim that Ukraine and NATO had attacked Russia and that Russia was just defending itself. It took some time for my wife to convince her that Putin had attacked Ukraine and not the other way around.)
Mironov may well be right, but I’m not sure how many Western leaders want to hear that argument when they’re watching Russian forces shell cities and bomb hospitals…”
About the war in Ukraine: Is the United States a belligerent?
The Russians think so. Kremlin spokesreptile Dmitry Peskov says that the United States “definitely has declared economic war against Russia” and promises that the Russian response will be . . . something.
We should assume that in this if nothing else the Kremlin is telling the truth, and we should prepare ourselves for what that response might be.
What the Russians currently are perpetrating in Ukraine is less a war than a mass murder, with Putin’s forces targeting residential buildings and a maternity hospital, among other civilian sites. The world has recoiled in disgust and contempt from Russia — from the Putin regime and the people who enable it — and though the Biden administration has not exactly exercised inspiring leadership in this, the actions of the country with the world’s largest economy and most powerful military inevitably stand out.
In practical terms, the U.S. (and U.K.) prohibition of Russian oil imports probably will not have much of an economic effect — certainly not in comparison to the other measures that have been taken — but even largely symbolic gestures can have a powerful effect, and the Kremlin seems to be very much agitated by the boycott.
The Biden administration’s bumbling on the matter of sending MiG-29 fighter jets from Poland to Ukraine is the result of both nations’ fears that the action would drag them directly into the war in Ukraine. Poland wanted to send the jets to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Washington shied away from the prospect of having fighter jets fly out of a U.S. base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine. The thinking was that this would look too much like the United States and NATO carrying out a military operation against Russian forces in Ukraine.
In truth, the United States is a belligerent if Vladimir Putin says the United States is a belligerent. He is perfectly capable of making up a pretext, however absurd, to justify whatever action he wants to take — that is why Russians are in Ukraine in the first place. His subjects in Russia are largely pliant and inclined to accept the propaganda they are fed, and those who aren’t can be jailed, terrorized into silence, or murdered. Putin can do what he chooses — it is not like he is worried about an upcoming election.
The MiG fiasco underlined the Biden administration’s predictable fecklessness and disorganization — America needed a Keystone pipeline but we got the Keystone Cops — and if there is any serious thinking going on in the White House about what Putin’s response to our “declaration of economic war” is likely to be, there isn’t any obvious evidence of it. The posture of the Biden administration by all appearances is one of wishful thinking: that while the United States and the world have rightly taken a side in this conflict, the fighting is going to stay in Ukraine.
What if it doesn’t?
A direct military attack by Russian forces on the United States is, of course, unlikely.But a Russian attack on Moldova is far from unthinkable. It is entirely possible that Putin will attack a NATO member such as Lithuania, Latvia, or even Poland, whose people have gone to such extraordinary lengths to assist the Ukrainians. There are already Americans fighting in Ukraine, as private volunteers rather than as part of our armed forces. If Putin islooking for a pretext, he will have no trouble finding one.
The United States is keenly interested in keeping the fighting in Ukraine. But the fighting will stay in Ukraine for only as long as Putin believes it is in his interest to keep it there. That may not be much longer. Putin already has failed to achieve his main political objective in Ukraine and will not achieve it no matter how long the conflict drags on; what was intended as a show of awesome military might has instead been a display of weakness and incompetence. A wider war — a glorious crusade — might soon suit Putin’s purposes better than does a quagmire in Ukraine, where the Russian army has been reduced to trying to substitute atrocities for victories.
President Joe Biden has said that U.S. forces will defend “every inch” of NATO territory. But Biden was there when the Obama administration offered a lot of big talk about “red lines” in Syria and then did nothing. Biden’s people right now are engaging in counterproductive (to say the least) negotiations with Tehran that serve no obvious U.S. interest, and going through Moscow to do so. Vladimir Putin calculates and, as he has just demonstrated, he sometimes miscalculates. Putin might be inclined to take an inch and put Biden to the test. (A test Joe would be destined to fail, much to America’s detriment!)
President Biden has promised in very direct language: “I will not send American servicemen to fight in Ukraine.” But whether the United States finds itself at war with Russia is not Biden’s decision — it is Putin’s decision. Washington’s part is to be ready for whatever he decides, and to not be caught by surprise.
If by “every inch” President Biden means “every inch,” then we had better be prepared to do what it takes to make good on that. It will involve more than high gas prices.
Which begs the same question of Biden Jimmy Malone asked with his dying breath of Elliot Ness:
Unfortunately for the country, the only things Joe Biden appears prepared, or even able to do is eat ice cream and take naps.
Speaking of Xi Jinping’s personal puppet president, Just the News informs us the…
“Just two weeks after the Justice Department ended its program to thwart Chinese spies, the U.S. intelligence community warned Congress that China’s espionage efforts pose a major threat to America’s economy and national security. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on Tuesday submitted the intelligence community’s annual assessment of worldwide threats to the House Intelligence Committee, which held open and closed hearings on the report.
“China will remain the top threat to U.S. technological competitiveness as Beijing targets key sectors and proprietary commercial and military technology from U.S. and allied companies and institutions,” the assessment states. “Beijing uses a variety of tools, from public investment to espionage, to advance its technological capabilities.” The document adds that China’s “willingness to use espionage, subsidies, and trade policy to give its firms a competitive advantage represents not just an ongoing challenge for the U.S. economy and its workers, but also advances Beijing’s ability to assume leadership of the world’s technological advancement and standards.”
Haines told lawmakers that China “remains an unparalleled priority” for the intelligence community, challenging the U.S. for supremacy across a range of economic, military, and technological domains…”
(4). In what surely has Vlad quivering in his valenki, Jen “Little Red Lying Hood” Psaki recently tweeted any lawless actions by Russia against U.S. corporate interests or employees therein would result in even more economic pain, and might invite legal action!
“ICE agents arrested 74,082 non-citizens from October 2020 through September 2021, down from 103,603 arrests in the 2020 fiscal year and 143,099 arrests in the 2019 fiscal year.
Deportations were also lower than previous years. The agency deported 59,011 non-citizens in the 2021 fiscal year, compared with 185,884 deportations in the 2020 fiscal year and 267,258 deportations during the 2019 fiscal year.”
Gee…
…we can’t imagine why?!?
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Speed…
…Fielding…
…Major Jon…
…Ed Hickey…
…Balls Cotton…
…and last, but never least, our old (and we DO mean OLD!) buddy Bill:
Finally, we’ll call it a day with the Sports Section, and Jim Freeman’s heart-warming tale of…
“A coach who assisted in perhaps the greatest college basketball upset of all time is now creating another underdog story. Specifically, a man who has overcome both cancer and the decision to become an attorney is now leading his unheralded team into next week’s NCAA tournament.
On Sunday the athletics department at Virginia’s Longwood University announced: “Yes it’s a dream, and yes it’s real. Longwood is headed to March Madness.” The joyous release from the school followed a win in the Big South conference tournament. The Longwood Lancers had never had a winning record in conference play until Griff Aldrich arrived to coach four years ago. Mr. Aldrich has described the school’s decision to hire him as “a hare-brained notion” but he has certainly vindicated its judgment…”
As Carl Spackler would undoubtedly have observed…
Here’s wishing the long-shot Longwood Lancers continued success.
By the way, UMBC didn’t just upset Virginia, they dominated them.
Magoo
Video of the Day
Our favorite part of this Jesse Watters exposé has to be Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Lois Frankel buying fossil fuel stocks in anticipation of Russia’s unprovoked invasion.
Tales of The Darkside
John Stossel offers proof there’s no depth Progressive politicians won’t plumb to preserve their personal power.
On the Lighter Side
Relive what is perhaps the greatest performance in Olympic history, an absolutely amazing event we were fortunate enough to view live.
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