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Comment by standeven | Hacker News Reader

-USA stops supporting Ukraine war efforts and Ukraine is forced to cede large portions of land to Russia, creating a DMZ along vast stretches of the new border.

-Expanded land use restrictions and federal tariffs against solar and wind, resulting from pressure from fossil fuel lobbyists and the new head of the department of energy.

-Another CEO is shot.

-Crypto has a major correction; bitcoin finishes the year well under $100k.

-US grocery prices are higher than ever.

-Pierre Poilievre is the new Prime Minister of Canada and holds a majority.

-EVs continue to grow market share at a linear rate in North America.

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> USA stops supporting Ukraine war efforts and Ukraine is forced to cede large portions of land to Russia, creating a DMZ along vast stretches of the new border.

Some GDP numbers to put things in perspective (source: tradingeconomics.com).

Ukraine: $0.2T

Russia: $2T

United States: $27T

European Union: $18T

So even if you drop the US, only the EU should be sufficient. Russia

More specifically, I saw estimates that Russia spends about 20% of its GDP on the war. This is sort of in line with estimates from the second world war where numbers, from the top of my head, went up to 40% or higher. If 20% of your economy is busy throwing ordnance at someone else sounds pretty unsustainable, then you are probably right. Inflation in Russia is now at about 20% to 30% [1].

And the kicker is that the EU only has to spend about 2% to match Russia's numbers. Long-term it's just a losing proposition for Russia. Their economy is tanking while the rest of the West just gets stronger on an exponential rate. Even if the EU would spend twice as much as Russia, then that sounds perfectly sustainable for the EU.

That's true but apart from Poland, all large EU countries have anaemic weapon production and diverted all their military spending into social programs decades ago, which they cannot reverse. They are at their budget deficit limits and are all in territory where if they increase tax rates, tax proceeds go down (along with growth and employment). So the reality is that I don't think there is any chance the EU is a substitute for the US in term of ukraine support.

The question becomes one of politics: how much does each EU member care? I'm reminded about the old joke about the difference between ham and eggs being that the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.

Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states are "committed" in that they regard the risk of a Russian invasion as real, and have seen occasional incursions by Russian flights and even missiles. If it comes to a fight between self-defence and the deficit limit, they're just going to have to break the limit.

Germany, on the other hand, has been very comfortable taking Russian bribes and gas, as well as being uncomfortable with re-arming, so they've been lagging behind on the project.

Maybe there will be another "incident". France has already been reporting attempts of sabotage against their railway network.

The politics of Ukraine war is extremely complicate. After WW2 Ukraine got territories from Hungary (and they are still very mad because of this), Slovakia, Poland and Romania. Then Ukraine had very aggressive policies against the people from these territories and they mostly failed, these minorities speak Russian as the second language, not Ukrainian. This is not something that it is easily forgotten, people in the countries listed above still have family in Ukraine and have first hand experience of the situation.

> Then Ukraine had very aggressive policies against the people from these territories.

Let's call it for what it really was: Ukrainians commited genocide against Poles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacres_of_Poles_in_Volhynia...

Even so I assume the vast majority of Polish people would prefer a border with Ukraine rather than a larger one with Russia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_repressions_of_Polish_c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov...

I don't think that is an option of any sort. Wild guess is Putin bet was on Russia getting some territories opening the door for Hungary and Poland to do the same. No idea what is the atmosphere in Slovakia, but the recent surprise in the Romanian politics makes any prediction impossible. Well, he was wrong :)

I don't think that is an option of any sort.

That's insane. Of course it's an "option". No one in these countries (outside of a very tiny portion of wackos) cares about the current borders, or dreams of starting a war to move them.

No, full occupation of Ukraine is not an option that NATO will ever accept. With the current state of Russian military and economy, it is a very easy line to draw.

Not sure how we got to this, and it seems I may have misread you.

All apologies.

The politics of Ukraine war is extremely complicated.

They aren't actually. And none of that history relates to the current war.

Which is all about Russia's internal politics and ideology. And not about the after-effects of post-WW2 territorial transfers at all.

Those transfers in turn were in turn the work of the Allied powers, not Ukraine.

> That's true but apart from Poland, all large EU countries have anaemic weapon production and diverted all their military spending into social programs decades ago, which they cannot reverse.

I would say that is a half-truth. You are right that Poland is an outlier in the EU with regards to its military expenditure and preparation. However, the idea that it is because military spending in other countries was "diverted into social programmes" is a politically charged red herring. Social expenditure and military expenditure are different by an order of magnitude and are not negatively correlated.

Poland's expenses on social programs are within the EU average, and Poland has not made any sacrifices in that regard to maintain its military expenditure. Conversely, the country with the highest social spending in the EU by a large margin (France) is also the 8th in terms of military spending. Meanwhile, some of the countries with the lowest military expenditure (e.g. Ireland or Luxembourg) are also some of the ones with the lowest social expenditure.

No the transfer of defense spending to social spending was an explicit policy in the 80s/90s, that was refered at the time as "the peace dividends".

And the fact that it is diverted into social spendings is also significant, because it is a kind of public spending that is politically impossible to cut back. Even Trump doesn't want to touch that third rail in the US.

France's military spending, though not as low as many other european countries, is still a fraction of what it was during the cold war [1] and so is its military capability. It has big shortfalls of amunitions (a couple of weeks worth in a Ukraine-style conflict), and even though it has in theory advanced techs, it has it in numbers that wouldn't help in an intense conflict like a war with Russia (the number of operational tanks, cannons and planes is just too low and it would be overwhelmed). It is a military that has been downsized to basically two missions: nuclear deterence, and small operations in the middle east and africa against terrorist groups and milicia. That military is completely inadequate to face a threat like Russia.

[1] https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/France/mil_spend_gdp/

> No the transfer of defense spending to social spending was an explicit policy in the 80s/90s, that was refered at the time as "the peace dividends".

The idea of "Peace dividend" at no point implied a dichotomy between social spending and military spending. It was referring to the purported trade-off between military spending and the economy as a whole, in all of its aspects: the taxation or public debt needed to maintain a strong military, civilian workforce vs military manpower, civilian industry vs military industry, and yes, military vs civilian government expenditure — of which "social" spending is just one of many.

Note that the idea of the "Peace dividend" was popularised by George H.W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher, hardly proponents of increased social spending.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_dividend

I want to share your optimism regarding the EU (countries) continuing the support for Ukraine. Still, if the US drops its support and its moral and (material) persuasion to the EU, I'm not sure that the EU won't pull the plug as well, considering the wavering and indecision shown by several countries regarding the approval of aids.

United states mainly provides quality weapons to the Ukraine which EU does not have. EU provides humanitarian aid. Which is also important but without American help Ukraine will lose the war against Russia

And a lot of European weapon systems have US components, so if Americans want they can certainly freeze and prohibit supply of military aid to the point where it won't be sustainable to resist Russian assaults.

I'm optimistic in the sense that I believe that if the EU offered to pay for the weapons, then the Trump government won't mind supplying them. The issue is that it would be difficult for the EU to reach an internal agreement.

> if the EU offered to pay for the weapons

It's a bit like if Mexico offered to pay for the wall at some point... Europe should not be a carpet, it has more than enough weapons manufacturers and any additional funding should be directed to them.

The war in Ukraine has so far been good for the US and bad for Europe so it's bonkers to suggest that Europe should make things even 'worse' for itself.

> it has more than enough weapons manufacturers and any additional funding should be directed to them.

Sure, but that won't buy us the ammunition that Ukraine needs right now. For a period of time you'd need to buy Patriot missiles, 155mm shells and a ton of other stuff from the US. Then you can slowly shift to sending shells made in the EU, IRIS-T or NASMS air defence, Marders and CV90 IFVs, and Gripen fighters over time.

> If 20% of your economy is busy throwing ordnance at someone else sounds pretty unsustainable, then you are probably right.

The bigger harm Russia is putting onto itself is its inability to take part in the AI race. They've left the battle over to the US and China, while the EU at least isn't idling.

If they wouldn't have started the war and have at least pretended to be good friends, they could have used their vast amounts of energy resources to run huge datacenters (which they could then have used to start a war). Worst move ever made by a ruler.

The US and China are both profiting from this war.

We’re discussing a literal war, with all the death and destruction that entails, and your claim is “the bigger harm” is not wasting more money on a power hungry subpar parrot that is accelerating the dissemination of disinformation and making it harder to fight climate change with its energy consumption.

We’re all doomed. Anyone who believes AI will kill us is delusional, humans are greedy and stupid enough that we’ll do it ourselves.

https://www.newyorker.com/cartoon/a16995

> a power hungry subpar parrot

You may yet live to be bitten in the gluteus maximus by said parrot.

If that happens it will not be because it became sentient and decided to cause me harm, but because some developer somewhere decided it was a good idea to tab-tab-tab their code completion without fully understanding the solution and the resulting security hole caused the system to be exploited.

no, it'll be because it's aligned with rich people's interests. robot police holding back the unwashed masses is in our near future.

Same difference. The point is that it won’t be the AI’s choice, it will be caused by human misuse of it, whether by incompetence or malice.

you'll still be bitten by the parrot.

Whatever. The point was clear in the first message; if you refuse to understand the idea even after multiple explanations, that’s your prerogative. Your nitpick is unproductive and boring and doesn’t advance the conversation either way, it’s just contrarian for the sake of contrarianism. I have no desire to fuel a conversation whose replies amounts to nothing more than “no, you”.

that makes sense, thank you for explaining. you win.

“It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.” - T-800, 1995

Bigger harm than "20% of your economy is busy throwing ordnance at someone else". That comment was focusing on the economy, not on the deaths.

Regarding AI, it could lead to solutions to the problems we've been creating through the industrialization.

Russia is no stranger to the relationship between the economy and death. Both wars and economic mismanagement have led to famine in Russia. As for AI, we have no proof that it will work out for the benefit of humanity. Even if we did have such proof, it would also depend upon people heeding its advice.

The war in Ukraine is rarely analysed in the media, which cover focusses public opinion on superficial and emotional readings (one might say this is organised propaganda).

Why are the different players acting the way they are and what are their interests? These are the interesing questions.

So far the war seems to have served US interests quite well with the US appearing to be the one clear winner. Perhaps a way to estimate next moves is to guess how things can eveolve from now and which scenarios serve the US' interests best. If they don't see further gains they might decide to freeze the situation but I doubt they would want anything to be seem as a Russian victory (though it'd be hard not to at this point).

Anders Puck Nielsen has some very good (and directly to the point) videos about this, including Russia's plan for victory (which isn't land area).

He is a military analyst working for the Royal Danish Defence College.

https://www.youtube.com/@anderspuck/videos

A lot of the western GDP is stuff like marketing, ads, accountants - none of these are useful when the bullets are flying - ask the CEOs.

The war will stop on the current lines, and Russia will use the 4 years of respite to re-arm and take the rest of Ukraine in 2028.

GDP is imaginary. It is not how much money you have or how much wealth you have. It's not how much weapons or how much fuel or steel you have. It is only a measurement of how fast imaginary money is traded between people within an economic zone. And Europe has a lot of such economic "activity" with very little real world results.

> So even if you drop the US, only the EU should be sufficient.

So the US has a more robust arms industry, so they are certainly more helpful in that regard, but monetarily the EU as a whole seems to have given more:

* https://www.statista.com/chart/28489/ukrainian-military-huma...

* https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/news/ukraine-support-tr...

>> Crypto has a major correction; bitcoin finishes the year well under $100k.

This is easy. Bitcoin reaches it's high between Jun and Oct. This is based on historical 4 year trends.

Then falls. Falls around 70%. Again, this is based on historical trends.

And yes, while past performance is not indicative of future performance, the bitcoin cycle has been following this, and when everyone expects this, it ends up happening by the virtue of everyone's expectation.

Only 4 data points.

There are meaningful differences this time around: Trump support of Bitcoin lobby and mainstream ETFs.

If you assume that BTC's market cap increases 5x-10x per $1 in inflow it receives, if it does another $100b in inflows next year, it'll be between $120k-$130k

> Then falls. Falls around 70%. Again, this is based on historical trends.

A semi-joke-y observation about a monkey wrench that may be thrown into the mix:

> The main argument for a Strategic BItcoin Reserve seems to be that Bitcoin holders worry about an impending shortage of greater fools and need the US government to act as the greatest fool of last resort.

* https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1870564077535470079

- At the same time EV continues to grow faster everywhere else than NA.

- US requires more percentage of EV components made domestically, making US the most expensive EV market.

- US made EVs will retreat to NA markets only.

Ukraine will not cede land to Russia. What is likely though is a frozen conflict along the conflict lines.

In Brazil we have a famous saying, not related to wars but football, "já combinou com os Russos?" or in literal translation, "Did you already check with the Russians?".

Ukraine won’t ever cede these territories. Whether on a field of battle, or diplomacy table, this war will continue for decades.

What is the meaning of this term? I am not native english speaker

Even as a native English speaker, I only understand the literal meaning, not how it (or the original) would apply here.

This is an expression from the cold war, and roughly means "have you reached an agreement with your foe?" in a context that the foe is involved in the "solution" you're proposing. Something like that.

it’s more like imaginary scenarios still need to face field reality

World cup 1958, Brazil National team coach explains a very convoluted and intricate tactical play for a goal in their match against Russia (then Soviet Union).

A very famous player - Garrincha, arguably one of the greatest players of early football/soccer - listened to his explanation and asked

"That's very cool and all, Mr. Feola. But have you checked with the Russians?"

(In English I think 'did the Russians agree' may sound more idiomatic)

[1] https://barrichelo.com.br/teoriadosjogos/list-trechosimprime...

It means that this is a decision Ukraine can't make all by themselves. It depends on what will happen to them as much as it depends on what they will decide.

It also doesn't fit very well, because it's more intended to be used about cartoonish plans that expect other people to behave exactly as the plan predicts. I dunno why the GP got to it.

Since it's about football you no longer have to "check with the Russians", they're banned from all major competitions. One major misnomer is referring to Soviet citizens as Russians, the majority of USSR population weren't Russians but other ethnicities. Wikipedia has a bunch of this history falsehoods specially when talking about Red Army brigades consisting entirely of other ethnic minorities and referring to them as Russians. Actually calling Canadians- Americans is more correct, at least it's technically correct which is best kind of correct.

> -Crypto has a major correction; bitcoin finishes the year well under $100k.

Wild prediction from me: Trump creates a US coin, everyone realises that a large government can easily create an alt coin, with enough people buying it and selling Bitcoin because it has the US government's support. Bitcoin then loses significant value and possibly becomes worthless eventually.

The value of Bitcoin is only there because it was the "first", but there is nothing fundamental about it that cannot be replicated. Am I wrong?

Prediction: Musk will call it x-coin.

Traded as a single X letter, to confuse people even more

Bitcoin has a proof of work based blockchain.

The length and story of the chain is a unique experiment, unlikely to be replicated ever again in my opinion

The length and story of the chain bears no value

Panama canal will be returned to the loving embrace of the USA

I wonder if the next CEO will be shot or taken down by drone.

I think it's very likely that in 2025 we will see the first North American assassination by drone.

!remindme 1 year (oops, we're not on reddit)

Very interesting prediction! I wouldn't be surprised.

Nah, has to be shooting. Guns are politically protected and the mass shooting is a traditional American ritual. They've not even discovered the primitive technology of the car bomb.

So you're saying... gun drone?!

There's a flamethrower drone video that circulates, used for clearing debris from power lines. And lots and lots of "DJI phantom with a grenade" videos from the Ukraine war. But not only does the gun drone not work very well, the drones are heavily tracked and dependent on radio links while there are thousands of people making sure that guns, even concealed ones, have a constitutional right to be in as many places as possible. Probably the only thing that could change American gun law is an outbreak of snipers against CEOs and politicians.

> heavily tracked

As in the flights or the hardware?

I've always thought drones would work well as ambush devices i.e. don't make a long flight to a target but stash within a few seconds of flight time.

If it's the hardware then is there not much of a DIY scene anymore? I assumed the tech was mostly in the components e.g. cameras/motors/batteries rather than the integration. I'm not a drone person but when I cast my eye at FPV racing drones, it seemed they were building their own with off-the-shelf components.

> radio links

I see Russia heavily using fibre-optic drones these days and they blew my mind. When I heard of "wire-guided missile" I assumed it was some term-of-art and never conceived they literally laid down wire. I understand you can buy kilometre spools of the stuff for a few bucks so I guess it's in consumer's reach.

Ah, I've just realised the "Ariadne's thread" weakness of using fibre-optic for something covert! Maybe the launch site can hop to another connection though...

> I've always thought drones would work well as ambush devices i.e. don't make a long flight to a target but stash within a few seconds of flight time.

My immediate thought: "So… a missile?"

But on reflection, you're probably right. Just because missiles make more sense and have a long pile of R&D behind them, doesn't mean an amateur will pick that over the simple, easy, and obvious meme.

Probably for the best. It will be a bad day when someone, or some agency, makes anti-personnel missiles that can just be left waiting in nearby trees until the target goes past. I really really hope that such things would be treated like mines in international law.

So Dune style hunter-seekers...

> Leto's Golden Path has prevented a future in which the Ixians released, and ultimately lost control of, self improving Hunter-Seekers that would eventually consume all organic life in the known universe.

Yikes!

> -Crypto has a major correction; bitcoin finishes the year well under $100k.

Eh, I was expecting the opposite, with people flocking it to bitcoin (or some other crypto) as a backup strategy in case of political/ecological instability.

What makes you think that there will be a major correction?

See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42493130

Reposting:

This is easy. Bitcoin reaches it's high between Jun and Oct. This is based on historical 4 year trends.

Then falls. Falls around 70%. Again, this is based on historical trends.

Fair enough, but this doesn't sound like a major correction, does it?

70% is the end of the world for traditional stocks, not a "correction"!

70% is not the end of the world for a single company stock. Plenty have done similar and come out on top (Apple, Meta, Carvana, Netflix, etc.).

BTC market cap is lower than nVidia, Apple or MS. But that is not important, what it should really be compared to is gold and compared to that it is an upstart at current price levels.

BTC has no utility other than being digital gold. Other crypto currencies have no utility either.

You need a constant supply of new bag holders, but miners need to be paid.

Crypto moves with financial liquidity. If the stock market falls, so does crypto. Gold is for investment diversity not crypto.

Why not? Because crypto is somehow easier to buy/liquidate than gold?

Gold will always retain value. Stocks and crypto can fall to 0. It is the only asset that has retained high value for thousands of years.

When the future in uncertain (like start of a war/pandemic), gold is a safe heaven. Stocks and crypto get obliterated in panics.

Isn't the future uncertain since the creation of Bitcoin? I'd like to be obliterated like I've been with BTC going through multiple global crisis :)

BTC is not a threat to gold. No central bank is replacing gold in it's vault with BTC.

> I'd like to be obliterated like I've been with BTC going through multiple global crisis :)

Crashes don't happen in a vacuum. The reason people sell at the bottom is because they believe in the crisis not the recovery.

> Gold will always retain value.

After >40 years, gold has only just gotten back to its 1980s inflation-adjusted price:

* https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-...

Papers have been written on how it does not hedge inflation:

* https://www.nber.org/papers/w18706

* https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3667789

See also Roy Jastram's The Golden Constant: The English and American Experience 1560 to 1976:

> Andre Sharon, head of the international research department at Drexel Burnham, Inc., notes, “the value of gold essentially derives from its capacity to preserve real capital and purchasing power.”† I select this particular quotation because of the prestige of the organization and the position of the spokesman, but statements in this vein can be found in great numbers. They can be traced back for generations and in many countries. How can this proposition so contrary to statistical fact become so widely believed and quoted? Possibly because gold has preserved capital in cataclysmic cases it is easy to infer that it can be trusted to do the same in less severe circumstances. To extrapolate from gold’s protection in singular catastrophes to its use as a strategy against cyclical infation is an example of faulty inductive reasoning.

* http://csinvesting.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/RoyJastram...

So if the barbarians are (close to literally) coming across the fields, gold can be useful to hide or take with you as you head for the hills, but for most economic situations it is not useful.

> Stocks and crypto can fall to 0.

In which case, you better be a farmer with lots of ammo so you can feed yourself and protect what's yours. Of course the Mad Max chaos is a popular trope, but historical events show that people tend to be altruistic and pull together during disasters:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Paradise_Built_in_Hell

> After >40 years, gold has only just gotten back to its 1980s inflation-adjusted price

If you look at the absolute peak of its price for the last 100 years, it took 40 years to get back to it. Yeah, so? Absolute peaks are like that.

If you don't cherry-pick the year, the gold price right now is looking good compared to the past. (Though an honest reading of that chart would lead one to suspect that we might be near another peak right now...)

Gold will always retain some value. It may not retain 100% of its current value (based on that chart, you could lose 80%). But it still might do better than, say, the Zimbabwe dollar, the Continental, or even the ruble over the past decade.

> If you don't cherry-pick the year, the gold price right now is looking good compared to the past.

Then there's the near-decade drought between 2011 and 2019, and the multi-year drought between 2021 and 2024.

Meanwhile, if instead of having cash tied up in gold one had invested in an index fund (total market or even S&P 500), it'd be getting both price appreciation and dividends. Even the so-called S&P 500 lost decade of the 2000s did pretty well if you had some bonds and rebalanced (or, as a US resident, were internationally diversified):

* http://archive.is/https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2010...

The only time in recent history that gold seems to have been a useful 'investment' was a few years in the late 1970s and between 2000 and 2011. Over the course of decades it seems to have been a money hole.

> But it still might do better than, say, the Zimbabwe dollar, the Continental, or even the ruble over the past decade.

Compared to a diversified portfolio or even bonds (especially TIPS in the US), gold would have been a disaster.

A well diversified portfolio contains an allocation in gold. If one is not an american it is even more important.

Your original claim was "retain value". I think that was good wording - gold isn't a "make money" asset; it's a "don't lose it all" asset.

Comparing its investment performance to TIPS is therefore moving the goalposts from "retains value" to "grows fast". (Or am I taking the words in your first post as being more precise than they were intended?)

I even think that with the polarization of the world and the new global crisis coming, people might realise the ever growing need of decentralization, and we might see the real birth of web3 technologies. (Not speaking about meme coins =))

Crypto correction on 21st Jan is my prediction.

Will there be any conflict between Musk's supposed eco-credentials and Trump's ambitions to destroy everything green?

It seems to me that Musk's eco-credentials have been long largely abandoned, assuming he every really had them to begin with. I get the sense that they were only ever useful to help sell cars and support his ego-trip (make him seem a "visionary"). None of his other projects are particularly eco-friendly (a tunnel, but just for cars, big rockets, autonomous cars rather than larger scale transit, etc.)

I think the more likely reason Musk and Trump will fall-out of... whatever it is they have... is they both have huge egos and don't like sharing the spotlight.

My feeling is that, while the rest of Big Tech is busy kissing Trump's ring at Mar-a-Lago, Musk is something between Trump's consigliere and Trump's owner.

I also don't think that it's going to end well for them, but it might last a while. Also, Trump is pretty old, so it's entirely possible that he'll die before they have a falling out.

I agree with prediction 1. Why do you really think prediction 3 will happen?

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