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"Which can pigs fly" is not an english sentence, I think you meant "which pigs can fly", and the answer is none. We can be confident of that because they don't have any organs that would be tasked with flying ability.
I'd argue that all pigs can fly, with the definition of "travel by air". Just put them on a plane. What they cannot do is fly on their own power, and they probably also can't fly with the meaning of "controlling an airplane".
I'd also argue that zeo is trolling you guys, and that talking to him is utterly pointless.
This is a better analysis of Russia economy, I have a fair amount of economic history background.
Sanctions are meant to be extremely powerful, and extremely effective. You guys probably forgot or didn't know, George Soros and other Fx traders alone caused the collapsed of multiple Asian currencies and economy to negative growth in 1997 financial crisis.
These slow cracks aren't meant to be slow cracks. Russia could be entering stagflation, but so is Germany.
Economy downturn isn't a crisis. Crisis of faith is how an economy collapses, and like the video said, Russia still got huge amount of tools, being the totalitarian state.
Totalitarian states always collapse when you least expect it. Not a single fall of a dictator has been predictable.
Even Saddam Hussein fell... Much faster than expected. Usually, it's just that regime collapses are feedback loops, so when the parameters are right, the collapse takes days or hours. And it's very different from economic collapse, so being able to maintain a war economy just doesn't save the dictator from this feedback loop, only the perceived risk on the life of those disagreeing does. "Can he kill me or my family before we can stop him" is the only question that matters.
The main difference between Ukraine and Russia, is that Zelensky can visit his troops on the front line and trust them. Putin can't, not because he is a coward (he is...) but because he'd just get murdered by his troops.
Not always, and plenty are long enduring and even evolve into something else. See NK, China for example. Even Taiwan was under an extremely fascist era for quite a long time. An economics collapse would have likely lead to a regime change, even then it's not guaranteed.
True, but this is based on the survival bias, those are exceptions rather than the rule. The list of toppled dictatorships in the last 70 years is very long and they had all in common that they looked just as strongly installed as Putin is today. NK is its own world. Russians do have plenty of freedom today compared to soviet time as well. China also managed to juggle between freedom and total control.
The play is usually on the security vs freedom. If you don't have a threat, it's hard to convince the population to let freedom go. Hence NATO has to be a threat for Russia.
The question for us europeans is not if and when Putin falls, but rather once he falls, is he replaced by the next dictator or does Russians chose at that point to deal with corruption
Yes but reality is sanctions and cutting off from SWIFT is meant to be equal to an economics nuke.
It didn't do enough to cause a collapse, and gave Russia enough time to transition while being supported by China etc.
And they haven't opened up their full suite of market control policies. Being in stagnation is bad, but it's not like germany isn't already in stagnation.
I agree with your last point though. Putin had been in power for so very long. But I wouldn't bet it on "freedom" which is not necessarily the top concerns for russians.
Good economic prospect and shared identity are probably even more important going ahead.
"Which can pigs fly" is not an english sentence, I think you meant "which pigs can fly", and the answer is none. We can be confident of that because they don't have any organs that would be tasked with flying ability.
I'd argue that all pigs can fly, with the definition of "travel by air". Just put them on a plane. What they cannot do is fly on their own power, and they probably also can't fly with the meaning of "controlling an airplane".
I'd also argue that zeo is trolling you guys, and that talking to him is utterly pointless.
Indeed, it's very obvious how its just continuously refusing to engage with or acknowledge very straight-forward things. I'd had much more respect for someone willing to own it more clearly, without all the skirting and dodging around it
(In my later years ive kinda ended up chalking it down to the impressive skill the human brain has to completely shut down certain faculties whenever its a question of true in/out-group mentality. Basic facts fly out the window when its a matter of human identity....stuff)
EPT
