Why is the USD getting stronger? Shouldnt the inflation in the US due to loose monetary policy make the USD weaker internationally?
Both regions need to improve renewables for national security reasons, and work on winterizing and migration to residential/commercial heat-pump technology to both reduce usage but also move to electrical-based heating/cooling which can be sourced from multiple vectors (renewables, gas, nuclear, et al.).
People frame renewables around global climate change, which while true, isn't the elephant in the room. The elephant is national security and stability, and renewables are a key element.
Oil follows the "law of one price" globally; https://public.wsu.edu/~hallagan/EconS327/weeks/week9/LOOP.p... global prices converge since it's an identical commodity that can be transported with low friction.
When the EU restricts russian oil, India and China buy more, and then EU buys more oil from elsewhere -- it's a global market that readjusts relatively quickly.
There is some short term friction around switching costs and infrastructure, moreso for volatile-to-transport gas than for oil, but this shouldn't be a meaningful factor to currency. There are tons of other impacts of war, such as general destruction of capital and people's productivity, as well as plenty of other explanatory factors that would have a bigger effect here.
Oil heating in Germany isn't supper common, it depends a bit on the region as it was trendy during some time in the past but most oil heating which had been build in the past has been replaced by gas at some point in the last 20 years.
There is going to be economic carnage if we keep turning the heat up.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/28/zelensky-...
The majority of those territories were already occupied for the last 8 years, it would have been better to negotiate that at the start.
The west refused to even accept the result of a landslide referendum whose veracity was confirmed by our own polls.
It's a good thing respect for democracy isnt a cornerstone of what we stand for coz one of those three demands was just "respect a democratic vote". Imagine the optics of pensioners dying of cold in the German winter because the Americans rejected democracy.
Russia needs to be dismantled military and ideally should be denuclearised they have proven they cannot play at the table with adults.
This is a rough war for everyone, but its a war that unfortunately needs to happen, Russia must have a decisive defeat or they will continue behaving how they have been for years now which is bad for the entire world.
Now our gang is fighting a proxy war with another nuclear gang because we cant deal with the result of a democratic vote to join Russia in a place that speaks exclusively Russian.
And we're being asked to freeze to death out of sympathy.
The Russians aren't soldiers like the west expects.
Im sure your opinion would be different if it was your friends and family be executed and raped.
In Yemen we dont even really try to justify the war crimes we just ignore them and keep sending weapons in Saudi's war of aggression.
The war crimes committed by Azov since 2014 we are equally indifferent to because hey, it's Russia and those Nazis are good fighters.
This war is purely a clash of empires. NATO are happy to discard all of the principles we purport to represent AND sacrifice the wellbeing of all Europeans even if all we do is give Russia a black eye.
This war is purely Russias, it is a war of aggression designed to wipe out a cultural, a people, its genocide.
That Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine is unsurprising they already did this before during the USSR with the holodomor.
Russia is solely responsible for this war.
It's lucky that a lot of Europe is happy to sacrifice both its weapons and some of its economy to stop the authoritarian beast just like they did in WW2.
Genocide has quite a high bar. Biden's opinion is currently that what Russia is doing doesnt meet it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_the_2022_Ru... just pick anyone of them.
> Genocide has quite a high bar. Biden's opinion is currently that what Russia is doing doesnt meet it.
Genocide is certainly a high bar and the Russians are certainly doing their very best to meet it, its arguable if they are meeting it but per the definition of the UN they are easily meeting it.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
Even without anything else Russia is already doing.
> Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
That one is notable because she had zero evidence and said she was doing it to ensure Ukraine got more weapons.
Wikipedia refers to her accusations but leaves the part out where she was fired for doing that.
Your team (Azov) committed rape all the way back in 2014, as documented by OHCHR: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/Ukraine_14th_HRM...
Why did you need evidence anyway according to you mass rape is a standard part of war no?. So we can expect the Russian armed forces to mass rape in every war yes?.
I'll wait.
This kind of aggressive know-nothing 'naivety on the warpath' is all too common at the moment. It might get us all killed.
Putin has lied since day 1. His words betrayed his motives and the facts about his actions are clear to everyone. Russia under Putin is a terrorist state. And the sooner the west fully isolates them fully the better.
> The majority of those territories were already occupied for the last 8 years
How do you have an invasion, occupation by one country of large sections of the territory of another, with shelling and other fighting between the parties, without a war?
You don't; you are confused as to what the beginning of the war is.
It really is a good question why has the world leaders have settled with a person like that in charge of a nuclear power. I wonder if cheap energy had something to do with that.
Their nukes don't mean that you let them do whatever they want. But it means that you have to take limited actions that keep the warfare conventional. And sometimes that means settling with them.
Heck, finding something that Putin can claim is a victory is probably important if you want the war to end. It doesn't matter if it's real, and it may not matter if he thinks it's something he won. It certainly matters that he can tell the Russian people that the cost they bore to "denazify" Ukraine worked. Otherwise, he failed and that way lies bad consequences for dictators.
It’s a certified shit show and the only thing preventing conventional war in all of Eastern Europe right now is NATO. Economic war (and cyber and psyops) is what’s left, so that’s what they’re fighting with. Looks like they ran out of stuff to steal from their own citizens, so had to start looking outwards.
The two things that caused this war are:
1) NATO the "defensive" alliance tearing libya to shreds like a rabid dog, basically for sport. This signaled the start of Putin's paranoia.
2) NATO putting Ukraine on the path to membership and refusing to back off.
Joining a gang is dangerous. Ukraine paid dearly for trying to join ours.
2) NATO never put Ukraine on the path to membership, although as a result of this invasion they're changing their mind.
2) Please, don't embarrass yourself. Ukraine was explicitly on the path to NATO membership (as of 2008), and the place was crawling with NATO trainers and advisors.
NATO probably won't exist in a decade. The US is not that committed to European security, and nobody else is worth a spit.
2) This is what NATO itself said at the 2021 summit. It was crystal clear about its intention to continue the admission process for Ukraine.
If Russia cannot handle its neighbours making decisions as a sovereign nation, then thats there problem.
It's possible Russia would have accepted their membership if NATO hadnt underscored its status as an offensive alliance with the destruction of Libya in 2011. Sadly this confirmed the reality to every Russian that NATO is an imperial threat.
You can look components of inflation in both regions and see exactly how much is hydrocarbons.
All of the world's central banks are printing like mad. Both the EU and Japan both have negative interest rates atm.
[0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ECBASSETSW
[1]: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...
[2]: https://blocnotesdeleco.banque-france.fr/en/blog-entry/under...
US has a higher interest rates.
US has a stronger economy (relatively).
US Dollar is where people go in times of trouble.
US central bank is turning off QE ("money printing")
US central bank is planning on reversing QE ("money destruction")
That is effectively what is driving up the price of the dollar - more people are moving their money over to take advantage of rates that they expect will pay more than other currencies.
Think of it like this - Would you move your money to a bank paying 2% interest versus a bank paying 0% interest? Not everyone would, but many would.
Monetary policy is shifting, Fed has said they will keep tightening until inflation is back to 2%. For whatever reason a lot of people keep betting on a pivot. I don't see this happening, even if the end result is a recession (may already be in one). Inflation continuing to rise is ultimately worse than another recession if the Fed pivots.
At some point the US has to print to outrun its debts. There will be a pivot.
The ECB is lagging behind US federal reserve in tightening monetary policy. (They are just about to implement their first rate hike in 11 years)
The Eurozone is facing war and an energy insufficiently.
- Germany facing record deficit spending to offset energy shortages due to Ukraine war.
- Massive US-denominated debt in Europe, requiring USD to service and/or payoff at a time when the US has raised interest rates and decreases liquidity. This is a huge reversion of a bubble that has enlarged for over a decade.
- Greatly decreased USD revenue from exports to US due to inflation, adjusting EURO downward in a somewhat autonomous rebalancing (meaning not necessarily central bank led).
- Inflation over imports of food, energy & other goods settled in dollars.
- Fissures in the EU over German and Hungarian reluctance to participate meaningfully in defense of Ukraine as a proxy for defense of countries like Poland and Lithuania.
- Risk premiums across the board.
People seem to think that if Ukraine collapses and Russia just takes it that the EU/US will just be able to back off, but that's not in the cards.
Both USD and EUR are losing value relative to real goods, just at different rates
The EU is inflating their currency more.
EU and Russia are playing .... the Russian Roulette