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[martinuzz]

Question: Guy's close enough to see the dashcam. Did his head-whacking INCREASE his intelligence?

I thought that was a video of the standard Russian way of facepalming?

[Sheb]

Mict, mainiac showed you a graph of CPI+food and energy vs. CPI and ou just brushed it aside, relying insteand on a bunch of more-or-less unerelated number (like worldwide bulk food price, when you two were talking about US prices).

Stop Trolling.

[BlindKitty]

Really, it's not like CPI discussion is irrelevant here. Not that I have a lot of time here, but our inflation numbers are about as false as American ones, and it goes to say that they have nothing to do with real increase in prices, especially for the less rich societies (not to mention the really poor people). You might not feel the problem further in the West, but in Poland, the food budget is much bigger part of whole budget for most families - and the food prices are rising much faster than inflation rate shows. Hell, I am even hearing that there is negative inflation recently, and yet I pay more for my food every month. Not to mention stuff like electricity, gasoline, clothes, apartments... Generally, if you try to compare what you could have bought 10 - 15 years ago here, and what you can buy now, it turns out that inflation is closer to 100% than to reported 35% (or something similar, I don't even recall that number, it is so meaningless).

Note: I don't know if it is the same in USA or not, but from what Mict shows, I'm inclined to think that it is similar.

[Guardian G.I.]

Remember Sikorski's story about how Putin offered Donald Tusk to divide Ukraine between Poland and Russia at a meeting in Moscow in 2008? Now he claims it didn't happen.

[Sheb]

Might be true in Poland, we'd need numbers for that. In the US, it's pretty clear Mict's line of argument is bad, as mainiac already posted this image showing that the gap between CPI and CPI+food and energy is only 3%.



I also would like him to explain how food price increase caused a 25% decrease in purchasing power, when food only account for 6.4% of total consumer spending in the US. This USDA dataset shows 2012 food spending at 10.0% of disposable income, up from an all-time low of 9.5% in 2008, likely due to the crisis, but otherwise going steadily down (11.5% in 1990, 13.9% in 1970, 20.6% in 1950).

[BlindKitty]

Yeah, first of all, 3% in 14 years is non-trivial, so this very graph shows that it would make more sense to include food and energy in the CPI, especially if the argument to not include it is "it makes CPI less predictable". If you want predictable results, just calculate them and post them, you don't have to mangle real-world data. Specifically, I see a bump in 2008/2009 - do you think that people who had to buy food then were happy that CPI is predictable, when their bread was suddenly x% more expensive? And second thing is: this is a random graph from an institution that has a serious conflict of interest here, trying to show that their CPI is good. Why would they show anything else? The good idea would be to take a basket of commonly bought goods from 2000 and compare to the same basket in 2014, and check the prices. Simple things, you know: bread, milk, butter, gasoline, electricity, poultry, things like that.

As far as the purchasing power goes, I don't really know the definition you are using, or if Mict is using the same as you, and I don't really know any definition at all; so I can't tell whether he is right or not.

I'm also very interested in any definition that puts disposable income as something not containing food, but containing other stuff. I've always imagined that the food is the first thing to buy in any reasonable case, but maybe some people prefer to die of starvation under the roof, than of exposure with full stomach, so maybe some kind of payment for shelter?

[mainiac]

especially if the argument to not include it is "it makes CPI less predictable"

No, the argument is not "less predictable" the argument is "greatly increases the noisiness of the data".  I was discussing a monthly change for which noisy data could be very, very misleading.  The full CPI or full PCE, including food and energy, are used in situations where we care about straight up purchasing power but they are used over an extended period of time.  What it isn't used is where we are talking about a monthly data point for macro-economic state.  If we are asking about the underlying strength of the Russian currency or whether EU monetary policy is creating inflation we want the less noisy metric.

[Sergarr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/world/ukraine-used-cluster-bombs-report-charges.html

[10ebbor10]

Seems like it's both sides using cluster ammunition. Truly I hope this doesn't escalate further.

[miljan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/world/ukraine-used-cluster-bombs-report-charges.html

Mehh, nothing new

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdj7v_t5qHo&list=UUG2L5r9T5iYCH0Mmgq85jNQ
I wonder is this real, or propaganda of pro russians. Its little stupid to me to film it and also  say few times "for heroes glory" when killing them.

This is generally happening for sure in ukraine, on both sides, but for this video I am not sure is it legit.

[Erkki]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/world/ukraine-used-cluster-bombs-report-charges.html

Ukraine is not part of the convention on cluster munitions. As aren't many others such as Russia, USA, India China and so forth. Is it morally still right right or acceptable to use them, one ones own turf or not? I think it depends on the perception of the seriousness of the conflict to the user. Same thing with anti-personnel mines.

[10ebbor10]

Then again, cluster ammunition isn't exactly a precision weapon.

[mainiac]

I honestly didn't even know that people had any special objection to cluster munitions vs. explosive projectiles in general.

[Morrigi]

I honestly didn't even know that people had any special objection to cluster munitions vs. explosive projectiles in general.

They're indiscriminate, and tend to leave lots of unexploded ordinance.

They're also extremely effective, which is why many countries have refused to ban them.

[miljan]

Anyone want to buy some old tanks/choppers in ukraine (for civil use  )?
http://www.sovietarmor.com/for_sale.html