I can vouch for reolink, they have fairly straight forward nvr with decent cameras for the money. Been using their poe nvr system for around 5 years now and have never had an issue with it.

The key point about wartime economies is that they don’t actually increase quality of life for the people

That’s debatable dependent on the situation and the timeframe you’re looking at. You’ll usually see an increase in domestic production and consumption as a general by-product of lower unemployment.

However, they are still going to run into the guns vs butter problem. Unless they actually seize Ukraine and extract more wealth from it than they spent acquiring it, their investments into military infrastructure are going to be losses.

America will hang out in the hopes an opportunity will come of it, as well as a show of force to China.

What kind of opportunity? The only reason there’s any drama happening in the first place is because China is attempting to unilaterally reshape the very idea of the laws of the sea.

There wouldn’t be a perceived need to provide a show of force unless there was provocation to begin with.

You don’t have to be patriotic or even American to understand that willfully ignoring international laws in which you are a signatory, is problematic for international relations.

If it’s right and just to criticize America flaunting international law, then we should be non biased enough to be critical of other nations when they do the same.

They’ve migrated to a wartime economy, which gives you a lot of command over the economy. They’re currently doing a careful dance of increasing their money supply, while trying to stabilize inflation using what foreign currency reserves and income they have.

The biggest thing keeping their economy going is the price of oil, which is hovering around 80-90$ a barrel. The vast majority of this is being gobbled up by the government via their national wealth fund.

So long as heightened domestic productivity is maintained for the war, and the price of oil is higher than 60-65$ they could retain solvency for years.

A real economic collapse won’t be felt until the price of oil bottoms out, or if they attempt to transition out of a war time economy.

One might wonder why America feels the need to help escort an allied nation through their own exclusive economic zone in the first place? It’s almost like there is a member of unclos that isn’t adhering to international law or something?

“They’re not even denying it anymore, folks!”

Lol, k. Then please offer any evidence that the evidence and reporting are fake?

The Iron Dome is regularly penetrated by bottle rockets and radio shack drones.

It’s almost like air defense weapons all have a margin for error… Kinda like how we’ve regularly seen s300 and s400 systems get taken out by himars, a weapon platform from the 80’s.

But sure, Boeing is sitting on something that’s way better.

Lol, not sure who you’re arguing with. I haven’t mentioned the iron dome or Boeing… Do you exclusively argue via a strawman ?

I mean there’s material evidence out there that pretty well proves it, and Russia has ceased to claim that they’re fake reports.

If the kinzhal missiles were actually “hypersonic missiles” that could maneuver at speed, then yeah they’d be hard to intercept. However, the kinzhal are actually just missiles with a ramjet, meaning they hold a fairly normal flight trajectory and can be targeted by systems like the patriot.

Shooting a bullet with another bullet is basically what all anti air systems do, the only thing that changes is the scaling in the math.

Show me the American-made hypersonic air defense missile

Lol, what does that have to do with reconnaissance airplanes?

My whole argument is that planes can no longer out run/maneuver surface to air missiles. What does that have to do with hypersonic missiles?

Reconnaissance aircraft are notoriously difficult to hit, due to their high altitude and high speed.

I mean, maybe in the 80’s? The technological advancements of SAM have basically made speed and altitude mean next to nothing. Now most things depend on being hard to pick up on radar, or like the plane in the article, are just large planes filled with electronic warfare equipment.

Firing a bunch of ordinance into the sky would just mean raining it back down on your own population.

This would have been over the Pacific…

It’s not that large of an incursion force, I think something like 2k of some of their better troops who would normally be acting as a quick ground reaction force. So they aren’t really moving people off of the front line, though they may have lost the ability to quickly reinforce one front or another.

From what I’ve seen, the salient is being used to probe the strength of the Russian’s western flank. It doesn’t appear that Russia was expecting an offensive, and didn’t have their own version of a quick reaction force held in reserve.

Unless the Russians can move men and more importantly artillery to the area, there’s a risk the salient could be used to roll their western flank, cutting of their border guards from their supply lines.

Yep, that’s a tapered/angled roller bearing. They’re conceptually a pretty easy concept, but deceptively hard to manufacture

Pretty much anything with a turning wheel and axel relies on some sort of bearing system. That means traditional and high speed rail systems both require them.

There are some differences in types of bearing depending on what you use your rail system for. In the US we utilize antiquated plain bearings that are relatively easy to manufacture, but that’s because our rolling stock is ancient compared to most countries. Mainly because we rely heavily on trucks for transporting most goods and haven’t bothered investing in our aging rail network.

In Russia they have a much more modern rolling stock, as everything they ship goes through their rail network. Their rolling stock utilizes angled/slanted roller bearings, which can vastly increase their weight capacity, speed, and can double to triple their lifespan. The only problem is that they are complicated to manufacture.

The bearings in trains are actually pretty complicated to build. They use slanted roller bearings, not just regular old ball bearings. 10 companies in the world make like 70% of all rail bearings, and 5 of those are in Japan. Plus, only a few countries produce the two steel alloys that you make these bearings out of.

China does produce around 20% of the bearings used in trains, but pretty much all of it gets used for domestic purposes and they still have to import due to their massive rail expansion projects

Lol, I’m not gonna bother breaking down your arguments again. You clearly aren’t interested in any kind of honest discourse. The constant flip flop between being purposely obtuse and then aggressively pedantic is a wild way of trying to get your point across.

It’s actually kind of impressive that you can work in a variety of different logical fallacies into so many of the responses while never addressing the original topic.

Have a great rest of your day.

China has been actively dumping US securities for years now. Given the openly hostile stance US is taking towards China, I fully expect that this trend will only accelerate going forward https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202303/1287406.shtml

And yet there is obviously still enough demand for US securities to allow the US to borrow more money every year.

oil is a small portion of Russian overall economy.

It’s like 30-40% of their federal revenue and funds the entirety of their national wealth fund… Which is what they are utilizing instead of issuing securities. I would hardly call it a small portion of their economy.

The whole point of buying securities is that you expect them to retain value, hence why it’s important for them to be backed by something tangible.

The whole point of buying securities is to have a reserve of foreign currency with high liquidity at large volumes. Gold is tangible, but it holds no inherent value, it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to move around the globe, and is a fairly easy market to disrupt if attempting to liquidate at significant volumes. There’s a reason everyone moved away from the gold standard in the first place.

That’s a process of issuing currency, you’re not borrowing anything from anybody.

Ahh, yes. Lending value and then being paid back that value with interest isn’t “borrowing”. I have some calls to make to some credit card companies…

Fluctuations in trade obviously impact domestic economy, but they can be weathered and they’re not catastrophic in the long run.

I think you’re moving the goal post here… Also, “can be weathered and they’re not catastrophic in the long run” requires supporting evidence.

That’s precisely what Russia illustrated at the start of the war when the west put the most severe sanctions it could come up with.

How? The Russian government moved to a war time economy, growth isn’t exactly a surprise in that scenario. The hard part is sticking the landing, what happens if they are succeeded or fail in Ukraine? It’s not like war actually creates material value that is tangible and lasting for the majority of citizens.

Misallocation of labour and resources as I’ve explained several different ways in this very thread.

And what causes the misallocation of labour and resources…? You are just utilizing cyclical logic.

Politics encompass more than simply allocation of resources. In this particular case, the politics were that Yeltsin decided he’d rather be the president of Russia than a deputy of USSR

So economic collapses are always caused by a misallocation of resources and productive forces… but not in the case of the USSR. Their economic collapse was solely because of Yeltsin. Got it…

economic decline was the core reason, then you wouldn’t have seen high level of public support for USSR.

We weren’t talking about the dissolution of the USSR, when I brought up them as an example I was solely talking about the economic crisis of the late 80’s and 90’s.

You’d see a situation that’s similar to what we see in US today where majority of the population no longer believes that their country is working in their interest.

You’re conflating voting to keep the USSR and “believing the country no longer working for their interest”. It’s not like 30% of the country is voting to change their nationality/economic system.

grew up in USSR, so I’m speaking from personal experience here. The kinds of horrors that are happening in US today, were completely beyond imagination.

A bit anecdotal don’t you think? I’m sure if I asked some nepo baby if America is doing well I’d get the same exact answer as someone who grew up in the projects.

The shortages started after the dissolution, and introduction of liberal reforms. One thing USSR did quite well was ensuring that everyone had a decent minimum standard of living.

Your link is from 83’, aka not the late 80s and early 90s. Here’s one from 1990

Again, we were originally talking about a specific monetary policy. You seem to be wanting to bring this all back to a gish gallop about the Soviet Union, and not even about their economic policy.

Again, that’s my original point that labor and resources aren’t being allocated in the interest of the majority which is leading to discontent and civil unrest among the public.

And how does civil unrest connect back to debt monetization? How is modern Russia allocating nearly half of their federal spending on the military and “secret” spending, serving the interest of the majority?

I’m not arguing against backing debt with securities though.

What was the whole point of the entire conversation?

What I’ve been saying is that Russia is in a good position to do so.

I don’t agree with your assessment. If they were able to sell securities they would be selling more securities, it’s kinda a no brainer. However, securities are susceptible to sanction activities. They’d rather use their gold reserves as a way to move around sanctions than to give the US another easily trackable and sanctionable resource.

The main item with high liquidity that’s not being heavily targeted by sanctions is oil and gas. But, utilizing those for securities would effect revenue already earmarked for the Fed and their national monetary fund.

I never claimed Russia is on the brink of collapse or anything. So long as oil stays above $60 a barrel, allowing them to fund their nwf and maintain wartime spending, they’ll probably be fine for a while. But that doesn’t mean they can solve indefinite deficit spending via “printing money like the US”.

It’s very obviously shrinking in the long run given that now there’s a whole alternate world economy forming around BRICS

If US debt is growing at an ever faster past, that logically demands that us securities are being sold at an ever higher pace…

China is one of the largest buyers of US securities. Having a large foreign exchange reserve is beneficial for export economics whose government mainly relies on vat taxes for revenue.

hence why sanctions against Russia failed in the first place. So, it’s pretty clear that Russia would have no problem backing their security with tangible stuff that countries need.

Sanctions failed because oil is still 80$ a barrel and the vast majority of governments are run by people wanting to line pockets.

It’s an example of a tangible asset Russia can back securities with

The whole point of buying securities is that they are liquid assets that can be traded as or like currency.

Borrowing money in a currency you yourself issue is a nonsensical concept.

It’s not really a radical concept…? Especially considering that every major economy does some form of debt monetization.

There is a difference between domestic market and international trade. The value of the currency domestically is not directly related to its trade value.

I think “Not only that, but currency being valued lower internationally actually plays in favor of the government in a country that’s primarily an exporter of goods.” Is kinda proof that there is a direct correlation. In a globalized economy domestic and international markets are inherently intertwined.

These collapses all directly relate to the decline in material conditions.

You don’t say…so what is causing the decline in material conditions?

Meanwhile, the dissolution of USSR was primarily political in nature.

Isn’t how we allocate productive forces always political in nature?

The economy of USSR was certainly in a far better shape than US is today where millions of people are currently starving, unable to get healthcare, or even afford housing.

You really think that the current US economy is doing worse than the Soviet Union in the late 80’s and early 90’s?

Food shortages were rampant in the 90s, even in Moscow. If we were utilizing the same metrics as America for “starving” (aka food insecurity) then the majority of the Soviet Union would have been “starving”.

Healthcare by the late 80s in the USSR had fallen tremendously, mostly because their transition to prioritizing outpatient care, which caused their hospital system started falling apart.

As far as housing… Yeah, America is always gonna win that particular shitty trophy. Though that’s not exactly because of an inability of production, moreso an inability to empathize with the working class.

I’m not claiming that America has a great economy, or that capitalism is the best economic system to distribute resources. Just that certain economic principals are relevant wether you have a command economy or not. China is a socialist state and they still back their debt with securities, because not doing so leads to currency instabilities in both the domestic and international sectors of the economy.

Collapses aren’t caused by loss of production capacity, they’re caused by misallocation of resources that leads to an unacceptable decline in the standard of living for the majority.

Oh, like 39% of the federal budget going to the military? You don’t think that might catch up with them at some point?

They’re very much printing money, meanwhile the demand for US bonds globally is in fact dropping.

Lol, I mean money is being printed in the literal sense. But, it’s still backed by securities.

As far as bond demand goes, it tends to dip and surge in popularity based on its yield.

There’s absolutely nothing preventing Russia from backing its currency with securities as well. In fact, Russia is in a much better position to do so because they’ve been stockpiling gold.

Securities are only valuable if the buyer believes they will be paid out once they have matured. Russia could start borrowing and utilizing securities, but they don’t exactly have a wide market to borrow from. Basically they’d have to borrow from China or maybe India, and those two likely wouldn’t be interested in gold reserves.

Gold isn’t a currency or even like a currency, it’s value declines the more it moves. It’s not exactly the best thing to back securities with, it’s more geared for purchasing when you have currency instabilities. More than likely they would have to back their securities with interest in oil/natural gass. However, that wouldn’t really help their problems too much, as that’s how they find their National Wealth Fund.

mean the fact that it can is literally the premise behind MMT.

Borrowing money is not the same as “printing money”.

very nature of currency is that it’s just a social contract. What actually matters is whether the country is able to allocate its productive forces effectively.

Yes, currency is a social contract, one that’s based on trust. How that currency performs and what it represents can influence that trust. Currency is not completely insulated from material realities, and the gap between the stated worth of the currency and the material realities of the country that determine that worth can determine how people outside the country will value it.

What actually matters is whether the country is able to allocate its productive forces effectively. As long as a country can continue to produce the things people need then the economy will be fine.

I mean… That’s a neat theory, but it kinda is easily disputed by nearly all economic collapses of the 19th century and onwards. If this is true, then did the Soviet Union’s economy explode simply due to an inability to allocate productive forces accordingly?

Has there been an economic collapse outside of a major war that was caused simply by a country losing its production capacity?

This means there’s no risk of default because the government can simply print money to pay off its debts. That’s how US is able to have national debt of $34.4 trillion right now. If The Economist thinks that Russia’s financial reserves will be exhausted in five years or so, then they have some explaining to do regarding the US.

The US is able to have a national debt of 34.4 trillion because people are still willing to lend them money. They aren’t just printing money, they are selling securities, which is similar to taking out a loan.

Printing more money in your own currency without backing it with some sort of security is just going to devalue your buying power and increase inflation. The Russian government is currently utilizing their reserves to sustain their spending, but if they run through those reserves they’re going to have to stop spending, or start selling securities. Either way, deficit spending cannot be solved via printing press.

That’s mainly because America mostly moves freight via trucks, and thus has very outdated rolling stock. It’s not unusual to see freight chassis that are 50 plus years old.

Russia on the other hand moves the majority of their freight via rail, and like most countries utilize tapered roller bearings for their trains. This allows them to carry a lot more weight, and the bearings last nearly 3x as long.

I’m not quite sure what would be harder, to import new bearings, build a production line from the ground up for bearings, or retrofit all their rolling stock with outdated technology.

Each choice is going to be expensive and extremely time consuming.

Bearings for rolling stock are actually relatively hard to come by, and there are only a few countries that even produce the two different steel alloys they are made from.

Ten companies in the world manufacture 75% of the bearings used in rail. With like 5 of them being located in Japan, and the rest in the US, Germany, and I believe Sweden. China only produces about 20% of bearings used in rail, but they are pretty much all for domestic use, as they are still expanding their network.