Quote from: DrBeer on Today at 09:07:12 AM

Quote from: Smartprofit on February 13, 2023, 11:13:37 AM

I read that in the 70s of the last century there was a similar situation - the Arab countries imposed an embargo on the supply of energy carriers to Europe.

And this led to an economic crisis in Europe, in particular in Germany. At that time, restrictions were placed on the use of private cars by Europeans.

From this we can conclude that the Kremlin's view of the Europeans as pampered crybabies who run to give up at the first serious difficulty is absolutely wrong. This is a typical example of cognitive bias. The Germans and other Europeans accepted this challenge with dignity and reduced their gas consumption at home.

At the same time, this situation is catastrophic for the future of Russia, since it has lost the most important irreplaceable resource - the reputation of a reasonable and respectable counterparty.

That "crisis" had similar features. True, Europe has not drawn conclusions. Now it seems that after the second time they ran into the same problem, they decided to think about it and change something

The essence of the problem is the monopolization of the market by one or a "related group" of suppliers. And their ambitions. So then the European economy was heavily tied to energy from the Arab countries. What caused the crisis, I will not even remember now, the point is that they "turned off the tap" and Europe has problems. The second mistake was the gas monopolization of the industry of the main European players (Germany, Italy, France) by Russian gas. I'm sure you've been watching what's going on in real time. The same "game" itself - they turned off the tap, tried to show who was in charge here ... and got screwed

Europe quickly found an alternative. And this time they acted smarter - they diversified supply channels.

PS if you go back to Russia - all she has done since 2014 is shoot herself in the foot. More precisely, first in the leg, then in the arm, then in the ass, and now it looks like they put the barrel to their head

And some news from the "stable economy":
Rosstat is trying to convince Russians that their standard of living in 2022 fell by only 1%, while wages allegedly increased by 12.7%, inflation was below 12%, and unemployment was only 3.7%.
But in reality, prices have risen 1.5-2 times, and the standard of living has also collapsed! 17.2 million below the poverty line! 80% - save on food

Yes, it's all true. The standard of living in Russia has fallen sharply. People try to buy goods at a discount in the store, such goods are marked with yellow price tags. There are few young people in the cities. There are very few well-dressed people with happy faces. There is nothing special to rejoice about....

A lot of people in military uniform. Perhaps these are mobilized who were given leave. Their eyes are very sad and they are constantly in a hurry somewhere, as if they are afraid of not being in time ...

The atmosphere is very oppressive, and somehow surreal, it feels like I ended up in Russia in 1915. And nearby are soldiers who returned from the German front, fighters from death battalions, as well as drunken Black Hundreds.

How did we get into this situation? I think this is largely a fear of the technological singularity. Probably, it became very uncomfortable for old people to be close to scientific and technological progress....

There are two ways to increase the manageability of social processes - to improve the management system (making it more technological and progressive) or to simplify the system that you manage. Then it will be easy to manage. It seems that Russia has chosen the second option. But simplifying a managed system is a very dangerous process. Because when the mind turns off, primitive animal instincts turn on.