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icantfindaname posted:The Allies fought only one major battle (the Bulge) after Normandy and had a hell of a time with it, even though they were facing only 200k German backbenchers, meanwhile the Soviets were conducting literally the largest military operation in human history against a million German troops who knew they'd be summarily shot or sent to Siberia if they didn't win. I don't think you can really say the US contribution was at all comparable to the Soviet OTOH I've seen it argued that the Battle of the Bulge depleted the last significant German reserves, indirectly assisting the Soviet offensive.
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Nov 7, 2014 03:45
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Cuntpunch posted:Ok easy enough. I'm not arguing the Soviet contribution wasn't enormous, just that using deaths is a bad metric. But you also do have to include the material costs, which in the end are also human costs. It's not an easy calculus. StandardVC10 posted:OTOH I've seen it argued that the Battle of the Bulge depleted the last significant German reserves, indirectly assisting the Soviet offensive. That's more of a commentary on Hitler being a dumb rear end in a top hat and taking divisions from the East to shore up the West because he thought he could still win, somehow, through some collapse of the alliance.
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Nov 7, 2014 04:05
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Looks like the time may be coming to buy Rubles. 
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Nov 7, 2014 04:15
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Nonsense posted:Noted American conquest of Imperial Russia in the War of 1812. The war of 1812 was so important to Russians that Pyotr Tchaikovsky even composed an overture about it!
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Nov 7, 2014 06:11
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Obdicut posted:I'm not arguing the Soviet contribution wasn't enormous, just that using deaths is a bad metric. If you use casulties caused to the enemy as a metric, its like, 4 Wehrmacht killed by the Soviets for every Wehrmacht killed by the west. The also, for the most part, killed what was the top 50% of the Wehrmacht. With some exception, stuff on the western front was backbenchers, while Eastern front was literally everyone else (also including backbenchers). I would also, as the pro Russian in the thread, state that Armia Krajova did make some things quite interesting for the Germans, and actually attempted a major military uprising (la Resistance did not). A lot of the reasons why it failed also werent something the AK was responsible for. AK is not to be confused with the UPA of course. Reading about Rokosvsky and Bagration, it could be interpreted that the Warsaw uprising bought the Soviets, and the forces involved in Bagration in particular, some much needed time to unfuck their supply situation. One should bear in mind that Bagration completely exceeded Soviet expectations, that the Soviets waged a concerted partisan campaign on the raillines prior/during Bagration (blowing up tracks they would later need intact to supply the RKKA), that the retreating Germans blew up a lot more raillines, that even more raillines got blown up by advnacing Soviets, and that Belarus wasnt exactly well railroaded easily traversed territory to begin with. Bagration had overoptimistic RKKA tank corps racing to Warsaw, run directly into two German Panzer divisions, and get eradicated in 2 days because they a) were far away from anyone capable of helping them, b) they were even further away from having the nominal strength and c) in their mad dash, their faster elements got seperated from their slower ones.
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Nov 7, 2014 07:14
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Here I am on RTL Late Night giving a preview of our upcoming MH17 report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pNZ419RMUs
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Nov 7, 2014 07:33
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You have a good title.
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Nov 7, 2014 08:01
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Obdicut posted:That's more of a commentary on Hitler being a dumb rear end in a top hat and taking divisions from the East to shore up the West because he thought he could still win, somehow, through some collapse of the alliance. "Hitler being a dumb rear end in a top hat" is pretty much an explanation for everything Germany did starting with attacking the Soviets to begin with. I may not have as many nice things to say about the Russians in the present day but it's still obvious that the beginning of the end of the war was Germany picking a fight with them.
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Nov 7, 2014 08:56
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Third World Reggin posted:You have a good title. 
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Nov 7, 2014 09:13
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That's hilarious! "Americans must be ready to die for Ukraine" former Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vladimir Ogryzko said that during Schuster Live talk-show Nov. 6 http://www.politnavigator.net/ogryzko-amerikancy-dolzhny-byt-gotovy-umirat-za-ukrainu.html It seems that Ukraine has found new debtors. Hey american friends, how this idea for you? 
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Nov 7, 2014 09:15
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whats a burger journalist? Is it like turd bugler?
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Nov 7, 2014 09:23
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:whats a burger journalist? Is it like turd bugler? Burger = citizen. BM, I hope you will make use of the knowledge you now have of Dutch mob murders and cheap romance novels.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:24
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Dusty Baker 2 posted:whats a burger journalist? Is it like turd bugler?
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Nov 7, 2014 09:26
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kalstrams posted:Uhm, turd bugler isn't some fetish related to faeces, right? It's a slur for homosexual.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:33
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CeeJee posted:Burger = citizen. Thing is, when she was reading the sex scene from her book I had it being live translated in my ear, and the translator was being very emotive, and I was trying not to laugh.
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Nov 7, 2014 09:45
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TeodorMorozov posted:That's hilarious!
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Nov 7, 2014 09:52
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kalstrams posted:Uhm, turd bugler isn't some fetish related to faeces, right? He mispelled turd burgler.
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Nov 7, 2014 10:20
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He's actually just a lovely trumpet player.
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Nov 7, 2014 10:22
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Forgall posted:What's hilarious is that you find time to troll here while russian economy does repeat of 1998. Oh no! We all die!!!111!!!  Actually we will die someday, but not now.
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Nov 7, 2014 10:52
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Some crafty Finns sent a postcard with fabulous Tom of Finland stamps to the chief St. Petersburg homophobe Vitaliy Milonov who previously wanted to outlaw these stamps  
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Nov 7, 2014 10:58
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TeodorMorozov posted:Oh no! We all die!!!111!!!
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Nov 7, 2014 11:26
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Brown Moses posted:Here I am on RTL Late Night giving a preview of our upcoming MH17 report drat, the video is private.
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Nov 7, 2014 12:43
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fatherboxx posted:Some crafty Finns sent a postcard with fabulous Tom of Finland stamps to the chief St. Petersburg homophobe Vitaliy Milonov who previously wanted to outlaw these stamps That's most impressive and inspiring move since Great NY Vodka Party. Finns most gayest nation at all.
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Nov 7, 2014 12:58
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Re: Which Ally Did The Mostest Against The Nazis, another thing you have to bear in mind is the huge amount of material support that the USSR received from the other allies, without which its ability to make war and have all those glorious casualties would have been greatly curtailed. Everything from boots to Hurriance fighters were shipped to the USSR throughout the war - at the end of 1941 a third of the tanks in the Soviet inventory were actually British. The thousands of Allied airmen dying in the skies over Germany to disrupt its industry also provided a not insignificant contribution. No, it wasn't good ol' Yankee-Doodle who drove Hitler all the way back to Berlin. Equally though, it was not a triumph of Democratic Labour over the indolent capitalists either. It was... an Allied effort. kapparomeo fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Nov 7, 2014 |
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Nov 7, 2014 13:12
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People were saying Putin could support the ruble for two years. I'm assuming the oligarches have converted all their money to dollars or some other currency, but how long will they stand for the devaluation of their holdings?
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Nov 7, 2014 13:25
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Warcabbit posted:People were saying Putin could support the ruble for two years. I'm assuming the oligarches have converted all their money to dollars or some other currency, but how long will they stand for the devaluation of their holdings? If you read tomorrow about some huge explosion killing Putin and some random Muslim getting the blame, you know how long they stood for it.
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Nov 7, 2014 13:29
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Libluini posted:If you read tomorrow about some huge explosion killing Putin and some random Muslim getting the blame, you know how long they stood for it.
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Nov 7, 2014 13:38
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Ultimately it is a fundamental issue with the Russian if not Soviet economy that in some ways goes back to the early 20th century, even the Soviets were at the mercy of international oil prices. There really isn't anything to do about it either, even if Russia had been led by the most pro-Western liberal guy in the world the result would probably not be very different.
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Nov 7, 2014 13:45
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Russian empire had monopoly on vodka in 1914 which gave them a huge portion of their income. When the war came prohibition came into effect. Solid plan there by Romanovs. Now Russia has oil instead of vodka.
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Nov 7, 2014 14:07
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Ardennes posted:Ultimately it is a fundamental issue with the Russian if not Soviet economy that in some ways goes back to the early 20th century, even the Soviets were at the mercy of international oil prices. It doesn't help that Putin and his friends are African levels of corrupt and incompetent. Instead of investing the oil money into society they built themselves cool palaces and bought villas in Godless Gayrope. The palace of brothers Rotenbergs, who created or invented absolutely nothing and became billionaires through getting good deals from the presidential administration and being Putin's buds: 
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Nov 7, 2014 15:14
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Somaen posted:It doesn't help that Putin and his friends are African levels of corrupt and incompetent. Instead of investing the oil money into society they built themselves cool palaces and bought villas in Godless Gayrope. The palace of brothers Rotenbergs, who created or invented absolutely nothing and became billionaires through getting good deals from the presidential administration and being Putin's buds: Yeah of course, but the oil if a giant structural factor in Russia's economy and ultimately you would have needed a government make giant structural changes to the economy that probably wouldn't happen easily. Ultimately, Russia if anything needed far more than a Pro-Western liberal government to make those changes.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:06
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Somaen posted:It doesn't help that Putin and his friends are African levels of corrupt and incompetent. Instead of investing the oil money into society they built themselves cool palaces and bought villas in Godless Gayrope. The palace of brothers Rotenbergs, who created or invented absolutely nothing and became billionaires through getting good deals from the presidential administration and being Putin's buds: That is a cool loving place to live though.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:18
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If I was in Putin's shoes I would do the exact same thing and loot the hell out of my country before moving to Switzerland.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:18
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Putin is a lot of things but incompetent? The dude oversaw the largest improvement in Russian living standarts during his decade, Russia moved from being a joke to something that is a credible threat, even if only on the defence and not always successfull, to the western hegemony. In addition, journalists in Russia are actually safer now then under Yelzin. In terms of repression, Russia isnt that different from Adenauer Germany, which frankly is flaming liberal for Russian standarts. Of course, when Yelzin decides that murdering a bunch of Chechens who wanted what he gave to Belarus, Ukraine etc. for free is cool, he is "on a level with Abraham Lincoln", if Putin does the same but with a pretty decent Casus Belli and after having exhausted granting wideranging de facto indepdence, he is Hitler 2.0 . Internationally, Russia scored a couple of "wins" under him, and was generally punching way above her weightclass. He also managed to keep Russia as one of the worlds 3 indepedent countries. All of these are pretty serious and meningfull achievements. He has major failings, especially his not so great handling of the infrastructure, and his education policy, but if he is "incompetent" then precisly who is "competent"? Only ones coming to mind are the Chinese.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:50
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http://news.sky.com/story/1368812/russia-sends-dozens-of-tanks-into-ukrainesky news posted:Russia Sends Dozens Of Tanks Into Ukraine
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Nov 7, 2014 16:51
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drilldo squirt posted:That is a cool loving place to live though. It is built with the same eye for quality as Sochi olympic village.
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Nov 7, 2014 16:54
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Ultimately, Russian growth (and its decline) is connected to oil prices and all the factors that influence them, they has been a very slow improvement in living standards of some manner in Russia but ultimately in some metric the country (male life expectancy) modern day Russia isn't doing much better than the late Soviet period. I do think oil revenue has been improperly invested in Russia, but at the same time, I think it was going to happen regardless. In a country where the rule of law was already fragile, revenue from commodity production is rarely going to be redistributed fairly. It could, but it doesn't. Keeping the Russian energy industry privatized probably wasn't going to help either.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:00
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Let's not forget that Ukraine is having a hard rear end time too, being much like Russia but minus any oil revenues + a more or less active war going on inside its borders. More likely to get propped up in the short term from the outside, but this can't go on forever either. I came across this article and while it's only the agricultural side it's interesting: http://www.agrimoney.com/news/russia-ukraine-wheat-output-to-drop-10m-tonnes--7668.html quote:The bank said that wheat production in Ukraine will fall by some 3m tonnes to 22.0m tonnes next year, hurt largely by the impact of the country's crisis, including in weakening the hryvnia, and raising the cost of inputs such as diesel and agrichemicals. Seems like they are expecting a harsh winter too.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:22
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Mightypeon posted:Putin is a lot of things but incompetent? The dude oversaw the largest improvement in Russian living standarts during his decade, Russia moved from being a joke to something that is a credible threat, even if only on the defence and not always successfull, to the western hegemony. If "taking a step back toward USSR level totalitarianism" is an improvement, sure. But standards of living were going to rise anyway thanks to swelling oil prices. Putin can hardly thank himself for that. You are falling into the same fallacy as Stalinists who say "but bolsheviks made Russia an industrial power!" Except Russia was on its way there anyway, and say what you will about capitalism it wouldn't have been as costly as Stalin's 5 year plans were. quote:He has major failings, especially his not so great handling of the infrastructure, and his education policy, but if he is "incompetent" then precisly who is "competent"? Only ones coming to mind are the Chinese. It's pretty big incompetence to get Russia into the quagmire where it is now. When you make Lukashenka look like a smooth player you have a problem. Anyway, do name the competent things that Putin has done, aside from concentrating all wealth on himself and his feudal vassals and making Russian mothers give their sons for his imperial dream? Things that won't come to bite back once Russian state runs bankrupt due to Putin's incompetence?
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Nov 7, 2014 17:31
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Pimpmust posted:Let's not forget that Ukraine is having a hard rear end time too, being much like Russia but minus any oil revenues + a more or less active war going on inside its borders. More likely to get propped up in the short term from the outside, but this can't go on forever either. Yeah, the Hryvnia has taken a giant drop this year, and if anything not only the war but its impact on trade has greatly affected them. Right now the Hryvnia is around 14.47 from around 8.1 during February and between 5 - 5.1 before the 2008 crisis. Looking at the past 6 months they have been trying to keep it supported as best they can but in the last couple days it has collapsed with the Ruble. To be honest, I am worried for both working Russians and Ukrainians, not matter how "dehumanized" they are suppose to be. Ultimately, Ukraine has less reserves than Russia and in order to support their currency they are going to have to ask for loans from the IMF.
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Nov 7, 2014 17:37
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