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SaltyJesus posted:Also, I hope I'm wrong on this but Serbian entry into EU by 2020 sounds hopelessly optimistic. The EU should kinda stop expanding and fix their newly joined members. Wrt to expansions after 2000, have there been any success stories?
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Oct 20, 2014 14:30
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awesome-express posted:The EU should kinda stop expanding and fix their newly joined members. Wrt to expansions after 2000, have there been any success stories? Most of Eastern Europe did pretty well from around 2004-2009 and GDP in most countries saw large increases, but each country since then has had a different recovery. Poland recovery well and is still growing while Hungary has had a pretty bumpy road. Bulgarian growth also also been mediocre and Romanian growth has done better but not by that much. It is a mixed bag you could say. Ultimately, the quality of life has dramatically improved in many of those countries since 2000 simply because the 2004-2009 growth bubble has so huge but ultimately it may very well been a one time "miracle" financed by Western and Southern European debt.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:43
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I'l make a post about Serbian politics, but not today.SaltyJesus posted:A lot of our agricultural production goes to waste because the gov't is poo poo at organizing collective bargaining and trade since we've sill got many small producers. Once that is fixed and providing some inflow of money to the state coffers (realistically we could fix a lot of poo poo with just agriculture money, if managed well) we can think or restarting some of our industrial production. I don't think entering EU will bring anything new to the table economically. Our future lies in agriculture, energetics, and the IT sector, but it's the arms industry that is the fastest growing component of our present economy, earning around 200 million dollars a year at this point, not counting additional deals, like the 230 million dollar deal with Iraq in 2008, or the recent export of APCs to Pakistan's police force.
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Oct 20, 2014 14:53
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SaltyJesus posted:Also, I hope I'm wrong on this but Serbian entry into EU by 2020 sounds hopelessly optimistic. Could you expand a little? Perhaps others more familiar with the acquis communitaire could chime in as well. All I have read is how positive the EU and member nations are about getting Serbia in. The negotiations have already started and the only challenges are things like improving the legal system, which can't be too much of a barrier since there were pretty big protests in Bulgaria against corruption last year. Romania doesn't seem to be much better: http://ec.europa.eu/cvm/docs/com_2012_410_en.pdf It goes into detail about political corruption but the first paragraph it explicitly says Romania was let in even though it didn't meet all the criteria. Obviously the GFC intervened since then and would cause jitters concerning further expansion but to not let Serbia in by 2020 based on normal accession principles would be a pretty glaring double standard. And if the GFC is still going by 2020 I suppose Serbia's EU accession will be the least of everyone's problems even if there still is a recognisable EU.
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Oct 20, 2014 15:15
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CheGayvara posted:Could you expand a little? Perhaps others more familiar with the acquis communitaire could chime in as well. All I have read is how positive the EU and member nations are about getting Serbia in. The negotiations have already started and the only challenges are things like improving the legal system, which can't be too much of a barrier since there were pretty big protests in Bulgaria against corruption last year. Romania doesn't seem to be much better: It's because of Bulgaria/Romania that the EU tightened it's ascension requirements. Bulgaria/Romania made a pinky swear that they will continue with reforms after EU ascension, and then they drastically slowed down. Brussels don't want that to happen again.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:01
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HDC posted:I'm Russian, but still can't discern what the gently caress you're trying to say here. Whatever you say. I believe you. Seriously.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:03
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I wonder if Serbia in EU would be Russia's trojan horse, seeing as EU has to agree on everything.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:50
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TeodorMorozov posted:Whatever you say. I believe you. Seriously. You're not very good at this. Go study some Peon and come back when you're at at least a basic level of gibberish posting.
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Oct 20, 2014 16:52
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SaltyJesus posted:Don't get me wrong, I'm no Russophile. My "gently caress the Russians, they've backstabbed us more often than not" stance is sometimes controversial here, but they could be cautiously used as a major trade partner. Pretty much all direct foreign investment I've seen so far has been at the expense of the state under the excuse of "incentives to bring the investors in" and a few greased palms. Opening trade borders would likely mean more of this and more brain drain. They could be, but last I checked you guys were running a 1:4 trade deficit with Russia. You're already at the wrong end of the milk flow. 
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Oct 20, 2014 17:17
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jonnypeh posted:I wonder if Serbia in EU would be Russia's trojan horse, seeing as EU has to agree on everything. Only if the Trojan War ended with the Greeks hiding inside the horse realized Troy was a pretty cool place and decided to start partying with the rest of the Trojans.
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Oct 20, 2014 17:19
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Ukrainian Armed forces may have finally started using their Cruise Missile arsenal: http://pressimus.com/Interpreter_Mag/press/4664 and http://pressimus.com/Interpreter_Mag/press/4663
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Oct 20, 2014 18:18
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Sergiu64 posted:Ukrainian Armed forces may have finally started using their Cruise Missile arsenal: Actually it's more likely that they were used before than today: this thing was because something hit a whole bunch of stored explosives which triggered massive secondary explosions. Edit: to elaborate, there were in a past a couple of spots where a large area got leveled, where it seems likely a Tochka was used (e.b. some warehouses near the airport), but for this the impressive size of explosion is from secondary stuff, so no reason to expect the fire starter to be anything noteworthy. OddObserver fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 18:30
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TeodorMorozov posted:Whatever you say. I believe you. Seriously. Look, if you actually have a point to make you honestly should consider posting in Russian and having us translate for you. I get that English isn't your first language, but if you aren't capable of writing a coherent sentence you should ask someone in this thread to help you get your ideas across.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:33
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Idk, ujtkjku obviously uses g translate and i can get the cut of her racist/homophobic jib
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Oct 20, 2014 18:35
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Ardennes posted:Admittedly it does sound quite familiar, but I wonder how Serbia is going to manage entry into the EU at this point. I guess Brussels needs a "victory" since expansion has slowed with a lack of targets and faith in the EU has plummeted in much of Europe. I could see Serbia enter the EU and if economically it doesn't work out, a fierce counter-reaction. Yeah that's exactly what the people in the EU need and want, another low-wage country to compete with so that the race to the bottom will be able to go even lower. Maybe we could just abolish the concept of wage entirely. Bring back indentured slavery, I say. That's what it's gonna take to get jobs back. Ardennes posted:Of course the EU and especially the Eurozone is in bad shape already and even Germany looks like it will go into recession. (Arguably, The entire Eurozone is designed to benefit Germany in the first place.) Germany's dead, it just doesn't know it yet. Germany is so enamored with the concept of austerity, of having as close as possible to 0 public spending, that the entire country is falling apart. Its infrastructures aren't maintained, that makes logistics more complicated in Germany, so private companies prefer to build outside. Foreign companies don't invest in Germany; Germany companies prefer to invest abroad; the German state doesn't invest at all. The entire austerity policy is a suicide pact. The Maastricht thing about keeping debt under magical threshold of 3% of GDP is toxic bullshit that kills every single economy it touches. These Chicago-school geniuses will never understand that the GDP is the most terrible metric one could use to measure public debt, by the way. Hey, guess what is part of GDP? Public spending. You reduce public spending to reduce your debt relative to GDP? You also reduce GDP, which increases your debt relative to GDP. And yes that's how it works, because public spendings -- in the form of infrastructure maintenance, public service jobs, etc. -- are what allows to have a functional economy in the first place, so there's a strong multiplier effect. Countries like Portugal who slashed their public spending by a lot saw their GDP shrink proportionally even more, so they increased their debt by spending less. They're touting the cause of the crisis as the solution to it. If they were in medicine, they'd treat anemia with bloodletting. "Your iron deficiency cannot be solved by a diet richer in iron, it'd just make you dependent to continued eating. What you need is strong structural reforms in your vascular system, force it to create efficient blood, and to achieve that the only way is to get rid of the bad blood currently in your veins. All of it. It'll hurt a bit, but on the long term it'll be much better, you'll see." Ardennes posted:Right now, at least yields on European bonds are down thanks to heavy subsidization of purchases but ultimately the Euro crisis was only really suppressed not stopped. If you want to stop the crisis instead of just vaguely suppress it for a short while, the first step is to perform a 180° on all financial and economics policies.
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Oct 20, 2014 18:48
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OddObserver posted:http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/10/vladimir-putins-coup-112025.html#.VEULi3VGh5Q Right. It is worth remembering that Putin also told GWB that "Ukraine is not even a real state". This is a far-reaching plan conceived long ago and obviously the propaganda machinations have been, shall we say seasoned for just as long. Putin has warned of "extremism" and "neo-Nazi" elements in Europe in his Victory Day speeches for ages.
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Oct 20, 2014 19:00
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Cat Mattress posted:If you want to stop the crisis instead of just vaguely suppress it for a short while, the first step is to perform a 180° on all financial and economics policies. I completely agree, but I don't see it happening if anything too many European politicians believe it in or at very least have stake their careers on it. I do think there is still an impulse in some EU circles to continue expansion full steam ahead and to bring austerity policies alongside with it but there may be a breaking point. One thing is if Germany and France are both looking sickly and they are suppose to be the "engines" of the EU. Another issue is simply that far-right populists are only gaining power and if the FN for example gains a lot of leverage, then the status quo becomes harder to keep. It is pretty tough to hear French people who use to be center-left basically say they know where Le Pen and her crowd is coming from and France is only the latest in countries that have become more divided and radicalized in Europe. It is hard to see the European project as a whole staying on the rails, the EU/Euro can't disappear at this point but Euroskepticism is getting some real teeth. Eastern Europe in order to catch with the West needs a healthy EU, so it is tickle down dysfunction. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 19:04
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Cat Mattress posted:Yeah that's exactly what the people in the EU need and want, another low-wage country to compete with so that the race to the bottom will be able to go even lower. If it can cheer you up, the new Belgian government has been sworn in and they've finally kicked out those incompetent socialists. We'll finally rid ourselves of years of destructive economic governance and will cut taxes on corporations, reduce public spending, increase the minimum age for retirement, reduce unemployment benefits and fix the deficit.    The worst part is: they believe they're doing the right thing. I can live with maleficent. I understand incompetence. But these are smart people, they can see how things have been run for the last 5 years. And yet they. don't. learn. I never thought I'd say it but I think I'm going to miss the drat socialists. double nine fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Oct 20, 2014 |
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Oct 20, 2014 20:16
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Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the "prime minister" of
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Oct 20, 2014 20:35
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Rincewinds posted:Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the "prime minister" of It's unclear whether that's a genuine account or not.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:09
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Ukrainian BM-30 Smerchs Being fired today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTHSN1ESmrg This level of bombardment seems to show a general end of the ceasefire for UA forces. Before this they took a much more passive role. Explosion in Donetsk:  Aftermath: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8AAMGPptrg
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Oct 20, 2014 21:14
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sparatuvs posted:Ukrainian BM-30 Smerchs Being fired today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTHSN1ESmrg Dayum, those make grads look like bottle rockets.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:19
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double nine posted:The worst part is: they believe they're doing the right thing. I can live with maleficent. I understand incompetence. But these are smart people, they can see how things have been run for the last 5 years. And yet they. don't. learn. Why do you believe that they believe they're doing the right thing instead of, you know, lying so they can sell their "let's divert a bigger slice of the pie to the upper class" policies to the people that are going to get hurt? It's not like they'd get elected on a program of "we're going to impoverish you because you don't get us juicy jobs when we get out of the government." I used to think like you but as you say, these are smart people, you can only make the same mistake so many times before it becomes suspect that maybe these results are not a mistake.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:28
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sparatuvs posted:Ukrainian BM-30 Smerchs Being fired today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTHSN1ESmrg It's chilling seeing these things being used. You appreciate how unpleasant they really are.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:32
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The-Mole posted:Dayum, those make grads look like bottle rockets. The explosion is not the warhead but a secondary explosion of whatever those missiles hit.
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Oct 20, 2014 22:05
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I see the ceasefire is over. 
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Oct 20, 2014 22:09
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Those missile launchers are very impressive. Although we shouldn't discount the alternative explanation — Wil E. Coyote and Roadrunner hijinx. Who else would set off a TNT factory?
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Oct 20, 2014 22:32
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Niedar posted:The explosion is not the warhead but a secondary explosion of whatever those missiles hit. I was talking about the launches.
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Oct 20, 2014 22:33
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sparatuvs posted:Ukrainian BM-30 Smerchs Being fired today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTHSN1ESmrg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNBj0RbxzOM 
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Oct 20, 2014 22:35
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The man who nailed his scrotum to Red Square sat on a wall naked in Moscow today and chopped off part of his right ear in protest to Putin and the Kremlin. http://mashable.com/2014/10/20/russia-artist-cuts-off-ear/?utm-cid=mash-com-fb-main-link   Obviously for a naked dude mutilating himself. 
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Oct 20, 2014 23:04
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Sounds like he has some valid complaints that we should listen to.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:13
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Anyone know what was being targeted in the missile strikes? I'd have to guess weapon stockpiles or some such thing to cook off like that.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:17
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Yeah, that was a huge explosion. Maybe a shell cache, if it was actually hit by UA arty that shows a decent amount of intelligence.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:31
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TNT factory
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Oct 20, 2014 23:40
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HUGE PUBES A PLUS posted:I see the ceasefire is over. Kreosan no!
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Oct 20, 2014 23:43
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Russia just assassinated a french oil and gas conglomerate CEO. http://rt.com/news/197648-moscow-vnukovo-jet-crash/
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Oct 20, 2014 23:43
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Couldn't that have just been incompetence?
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Oct 20, 2014 23:55
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We'll never know.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:57
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Poles know.
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Oct 20, 2014 23:58
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Finally a true Russian humanitarian action?
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Oct 21, 2014 00:01
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