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[Great Order]

Hasn't Russia recently been at 17% inflation or something like that?

[Lord Shonus]

I mean, the planet's survived a shooting war with Russia in it for a few years now so frankly I'm not sure what you mean, unless you believe that China could take on the entire world with conventional forces? China is not more likely than Russia to start a nuclear war - for all their many faults the Chinese government at least projects a sense of pragmatism and probably understands that turning cities into dust and ash does not help their prospects.

China's far less likely to start a nuclear war than Russia is, because of the nature of their nuclear arsenal. They very deliberately restricted themselves to a "second-strike" countervalue force that doesn't have anything close to the number of high-precision weapons needed to pose a threat to US or Russian strategic forces. The sole purpose of their nukes is to maul somebody that decides to nuke them, or is about to kick in the doors of Beijing. Even without their long-proclaimed "no first use" doctrine, they are very unlikely to fire the first nuclear shots in a war.

The possibility that they might wind up fighting a conventional war, however, is far from zero. Even if they don't intend to do so deliberately, they have a habit of harassing and posturing the other nations in the area with warships. There is a very real chance that one of those harassment incidents winds up with shots being fired, and many of those countries are US allies.

[Madman198237]

I mean, the planet's survived a shooting war with Russia in it for a few years now so frankly I'm not sure what you mean, unless you believe that China could take on the entire world with conventional forces? China is not more likely than Russia to start a nuclear war - for all their many faults the Chinese government at least projects a sense of pragmatism and probably understands that turning cities into dust and ash does not help their prospects.

China's far less likely to start a nuclear war than Russia is, because of the nature of their nuclear arsenal. They very deliberately restricted themselves to a "second-strike" countervalue force that doesn't have anything close to the number of high-precision weapons needed to pose a threat to US or Russian strategic forces. The sole purpose of their nukes is to maul somebody that decides to nuke them, or is about to kick in the doors of Beijing. Even without their long-proclaimed "no first use" doctrine, they are very unlikely to fire the first nuclear shots in a war.

The possibility that they might wind up fighting a conventional war, however, is far from zero. Even if they don't intend to do so deliberately, they have a habit of harassing and posturing the other nations in the area with warships. There is a very real chance that one of those harassment incidents winds up with shots being fired, and many of those countries are US allies.

Exactly.

If they don't get more careful they might get a lot closer to WWIII than anyone (especially themselves) wants them to, but end the world they will not.

[anewaname]

Yesterday's Joe Blogs video talks about Russian government bond sales with the narrative that the government treasury is having problems. About 6 minutes into the video, there is the chart of Russian government bonds offers and sales, saying that between April and Jun of this year, they were offering bonds at 18 or 19% yield and only sold 2/3 of what they wanted to sell. That is a good bond yield, so is no one buying because they are unwilling or because they have no more money to risk?

edit: And as the narrative of the video plays out, he says the Russian economy and GDP looks strong because the Russian government is buying extra goods from Russian businesses, but their high bond yield is no longer enough to attract buyers.

[Great Order]

So the economy is still going because the government's been stimulating the economy and backfilling with bonds?

And now people are either unable to afford the bonds or the bonds are seen as too untrustworthy?

[Telgin]

If they keep raising interest rates, there's also the incentive to wait to buy bonds when the interest rate goes up instead of buying them now I'd assume.

[anewaname]

That is my interpretation. But "people" would only mean the wealthy ones and the podcaster never says whether the wealthy are unwilling or unable to invest; he just points out that in 2024 Q2, the government only sold 1/3 of the about 17%-yield-bonds they were attempting to sell.

He compares three charts, which include 2022 (when the invasion flopped, and when sanctions were started, and when the $300 billion was frozen), when the central bank rose the rate to 20% and sold a lot of bonds to raise money fast then soon dropped the rates back to about 8%; and over the months kept raising rates and selling bonds and now they are not selling all they want to sell even with the high rate. He points out that the rate now is almost the same as it was in 2022.

[Starver]

This is in the context of those in power having experience (and/or) nostalgia for the Planned(/Command) Economy system. Maybe not so many experienced the full force of the non-Trotskyist version (he prefered the distributed, not authoritariatively centralised, implementation), but enough of it.

Perhaps they associate the teething troubles of those moves towards free-market ideas (sort of about face... it basically 'decentralised' straight out into the oligarchs' pockets - loads of mini-centres - for what could be perceived to be the worst of all routes away from being "entirely in the pocket of the regime") to the, admitedly flawed, open-style economies. The big trouble probably being the anti-socialist tendency to suck control into the hands of the powerful. (Not absent from the situation of the Western 'financier' system, and Big Bank economics, but done differently badly, with different failure modes.)

But when you have (and need) your hands on the actual levers of the economy, as much as has been consolidated back by pressures upon the oligarchs themselves (sometimes just a playful jostle out of a window), it must be tempting to try to minimax your character sheet towards 'winning the game' that you started playing.

[martinuzz]

Amongst 20 people killed in Russian-occupied territory were 6 North Korean military commanders. They were visiting the region to observe a Russian miltary excercise.

[Lord Shonus]

If they keep raising interest rates, there's also the incentive to wait to buy bonds when the interest rate goes up instead of buying them now I'd assume.

That, and the reason bonds usually have low interest is that they are incredibly trustworthy. High interest on a bond is a major "you likely will never get to redeem this" red flag.

[King Zultan]

Amongst 20 people killed in Russian-occupied territory were 6 North Korean military commanders. They were visiting the region to observe a Russian miltary excercise.

Bet that will impress North Korea, and show them how much Russia sucks military exercises.

[Strongpoint]

Well...
N. Korea likely to send troops to Ukraine in support of Russia: S. Korea's defense chief

[Great Order]

Honestly should make a red line of ours, and enforce it: Any foreign nationals sent to Ukraine on behalf of their nation (so as to exclude the random volunteers) will result in an intensification of support for Ukraine, up to and including direct troop support for defensive purposes (e.g. protecting the northern border with Belarus to relieve the Ukrainian army)

I mean, it won't happen of course, the West is very, very, very reluctant to do any real show of force as if Putin's *actually* going to nuke the world at any moment. I understand the desire to not throw everything at the situation so you've still got something to escalate with as a threat, but it's kind of ridiculous that we made defensive guarantees with Ukraine in exchange for their nukes and went "Oops, it's Russia so good luck"

[Sirus]

I question how much aid North Korean troops would even offer, except maybe as laborers or cannon fodder. Their military is woefully behind, technology and doctrine-wise, and I don't see the DPRK being able to provide all that much in the way of supply for any troops they did send. The distances involved are massive and somehow I don't think North Korea has a lot of experience running logistics over many thousands of kilometers.

And before anyone chimes in with "they have nukes though!":
A, they're crap.
B, neither Russia nor China is going to want nukes flying over their countries to try and strike at targets in Ukraine, even if Putin does go insane and push the big red button himself.

In terms of conventional military power, NK has numbers and very little else. "Else" includes the ability to get those numbers where they'd be needed or keeping them supplied once they get there.

[Grim Portent]

North Korean troops would be hot garbage for most practical purposes, but so were the convicts and the conscripts and Russia made use of them.

More troops that won't contribute to unrest in the heart of Russia is probably what Russia wants right now. They can send Koreans to die against prepared defenses, then push their own forces into any weak spots they percieve in the process.


As for logistics, Russia has an edge in internal logistics because they inherited a very robust railway network from the Soviets. Moving troops and supplies from Siberia to Ukraine is actually pretty quick. I doubt any of those rails run directly into NK, but in theory it's not that much effort for some Russian ships to move stuff from the Korean peninsula to the coast of Siberia, pack them onto a Soviet train and rush them across the country.

I would imagine N. Korea won't be providing much of the supplies other than men anyway, the country is low on basically everything except for antiquated artillery. The actual food and such will probably have to be provided by Russia.