Bloomberg report on the russia's economic damage: No airplanes, no cell phones, food shortages, no medicine, no heavy industry

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[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

"Bloomberg report..."

This is it in a nutshell.

One place where all sides agree: we are beyond "differences in opinion". Certain sides of our current divide are actively lying. This is not a matter of "shading". If one side is correct, the other side must be consciously lying. The "facts" each side puts forth are 100% incompatible with the "facts" of the other side.

How to decide, then, which side is gaslighting? We need to use our own judgment of what is reasonable based on our own individual experience of human nature. I read this headline, and my thought is that if what "Bloomberg reports" is true, I would expect evidence of significant popular rebellion developing in Russia. I see no evidence for this rebellion. I was in Russia a little over three years ago. The description of "Russia" given to me by western media did not remotely meet what I found on the ground when I was there. I find it easier to see provable lies from the likes of Bloomberg than I see from Russia's media. This isn't to say that Russia tells "the truth". They don't. But the lies Russia is telling have more truth in them than do the lies the western media is telling. Russia is shaping the image of reality they are distributing. I have watched western media make reality up out of whole cloth now for three years. They're both lying, but I find it far more valuable to entirely dismiss stories from the western media than I do to dismiss what Russia's propaganda is saying.

[–]Site_rly_sux[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You did read further than the headline, right? And saw that this wasn't a report which Bloomberg themselves prepared but instead ruzzian state financial planners?

if what "Bloomberg reports" is true, I would expect evidence of significant popular rebellion developing in Russia.

That's a very interesting point which kind of indicates that you didn't learn enough during your travels. Let's go through some facts about the ruzzia which you might not have seen during your travels.

  1. On average, every single ruzzian knows someone who has been tortured by prison officials. They like to record the torture, so they can threaten to release the video when putting pressure on convicts and their families. You can see some of the videos which got leaked at Gulagu dot net.

  2. This is a country without a democratic outlet. Boris Nemtsov was the last reformer who stood a chance, and he was shot dead outside the kremlin. The murder hasn't been solved.

  3. Let's talk about what happens to protestors. Do you recall all the videos from early in the war of security policy sweeping up anyone stood still to long, anyone with a blank piece of paper? Protest is illegal.

  4. There is no freedom of speech. "Spreading fakes" about the "special operation" is punishable by up to 15 years in jail. A person cannot publicly condemn the war. Girkin tried to, now he's in prison. Mayor Roizman of Yekaterinburg tried to, now he's in prison too.

  5. The chilling effect. There are no spontaneous pro-Z or pro-United ruzzia rallies. There are no spontaneous pro-putin rallies even from his most ardent Zombies. Why? Because anyone who sticks their heads above the parapet is a target. Nobody is allowed to develop a name or image for themselves, even as a pro-Z guy (Kadyrov tried and is now being forced aside. Prigozhyn tried and simply disappeared). The only mood which ruzzians are allowed to adopt is black cynicism.

  6. The siloviki. Let's say everything I wrote above is wrong, and actually ruzzians feel super empowered to go out and protest about the war's effect on the economy. Do you think you and I would hear of it? Do you think any international press would be allowed to witness it? Do you think the protestors would simply go home at the end of the day and kick back with a beer? Or would they go back to #1, back to the torture rooms, back to being assassinated in public or have novichuk rubbed into their underwear. If you think there is some peaceful protest movement which is allowed in the ruzzian security state then you haven't learned much from the past 500 years of moscal history.

  7. Conclusion. Your argument is that, because you don't see popular protests, the ruzzian economy must be doing fine. What you didn't account for is - how are they doing fine while (1) the most sanctioned nation on earth (2) no gas sales to Europe any more (3) hundreds of billions of foreign reserves forfeited? What is your economic theory that a nation can undergo these three things during wartime, while not experiencing any ill effects?

I think you are very wrong, wishful thinking, huffing copium and hopium while the fascist empire of lies crumbles.

[–]StillLessons 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

"...according to an internal report prepared for the government.

The document, the result of months of work by officials and experts trying to assess the true impact of Russia’s economic isolation due to President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, paints a far more dire picture than officials usually do in their upbeat public pronouncements. Bloomberg viewed a copy of the report, drafted for a closed-door meeting of top officials on Aug. 30. People familiar with the deliberations confirmed its authenticity."

In other words, Bloomberg is citing an unspecified "report" confirmed by unspecified "people familiar with the deliberations". The number of stories "leaked" from inside the US establishment with such unspecified sourcing is now legion. The CIA loves crap like this. Maybe there is a report, maybe not. I have to take Bloomberg's word for it. My trust meter is pretty low these days...

That said, we are all guilty of confirmation bias. I am as well. We seek out the information which confirms what we expect to find, and then we weight that information preferentially over the information that argues against it.

As such, I will soften what I wrote above and I will not flat out deny much of what you write.

The personal experience I write from is travel in Russia twice. Once in 1989 and once - as I said - a little over three years ago. The picture you are painting is that of an absolutely suppressed society. When I traveled in Russia in 1989, I actually experienced that, first hand on the ground. People I spoke with were brought in by the KGB and questioned for three hours simply for the act of speaking with us. The mood on the streets during that trip is difficult to describe for people who haven't experienced it. In my mind, the only image I can come up with is the color "grey". Everything operated in grey. There was no vitality.

I was in precisely the same city, on precisely the same streets three years ago. There was color. The difference was dramatic. People were behaving in a completely different manner. The fear I had experienced thirty years before was not present. That city under Putin was not the same as that city under the Soviets. Humanity had returned.

I will not argue that the Russian state is some utopian, free place. It's not. Nor will I argue that Putin permits serious challenges to his power. He is a leader in charge of a country with a tradition of systems centered around singular men. He's not the first dominant personality in charge of the Russian state, nor will he be the last. I suspect he is committing many of the acts you accuse him of.

So yes, I am retreating from the more absolute tone of my original comment.

Living in the west right now, however, I am on the side of the aisle where my speech is being actively suppressed (there are many "public" outlets where I am actively censored - e.g. Reddit), and where people who are basically guilty of trespassing (many, though not all, of the J6 detainees) are being held in insanely punitive conditions. So when I hear Bloomberg talk about black-and-white conditions of "Russia bad/West good", I don't buy it. I am personally experiencing our own governments being anything but good. They are using tools of totalitarian control in quite open and explicit ways. As such, the organs which promote their story, such as Bloomberg, have no cred with me. None.

There is a story in the middle, where the West is not "good" (we need absolutely to take off our rose-colored glasses for what is happening right in front of our faces), and Russia is not "bad" (they are engaged in behaviors which are happening in the west as well). Russia still has a culture which leans toward authoritarian, but it is better than it was forty years ago. I say that from my personal experience. The west still has many of the structures of individual freedom, but we have gotten WAY worse over the past ten years. I say that as well from direct experience living here.

Watching Biden's speech preparing the ground for purges against tens of millions of his countrymen chills my marrow. The organs of mass communication, such as Bloomberg, have been running cover for this crap for far too long. The goal in stories such as this by Bloomberg is to create emotional impressions of what "Russia" is and how they are doing. They have lied far too many times over the past three years about far too many subjects for me to accept the picture they paint as written. The background of the Magnitsky acts (the basis for anti-Russian sanctions for years) is fascinating. I suggest looking into Bill Browder's public story about Magnitsky and comparing that to his testimony under oath about the same story. Two very different stories, with video of him telling both.

The western propaganda system is extremely effective. It should be recognized as every bit as dangerous as that of its Russian foes.

[–]Site_rly_sux[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I do disagree with you on a number of points, around Browder and J6 and Biden, but we don't need to debate on those anyway, so I won't say more about it.

I will just check one thing with you - because I think you may have misread the article - you wrote this:

The number of stories "leaked" from inside the US establishment with such unspecified sourcing is now legion.

I just want to clarify that the report was supposedly leaked from the ruzzian side, not the US establishment. In other words, this is, allegedly, a report produced by ruzzian economists and not american.

Anyway, we can at least practice some logical positivism in how we approach this report.

A hypothesis which we could test is: are the GDP projections in the report correct?

The null hypothesis is - the projections have no bearing on reality.

Then we can watch and see which more conforms to reality.

I think the projections will turn out to be correct - and I wrote why above (copied below). I think your argument is that the null hypothesis will be closer to the truth. So let's see.

how are they doing fine while (1) the most sanctioned nation on earth (2) no gas sales to Europe any more (3) hundreds of billions of foreign reserves forfeited? What is your economic theory that a nation can undergo these three things during wartime, while not experiencing any ill effects?

[–]StillLessons 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I was aware in writing my comment that they are claiming this to be a Russian internal report. But the claim of unspecified reports is a tactic that has been beaten to death over the past few years in a variety of contexts. Once you claim an unspecified report by unspecified people it doesn't matter where it comes from. You can fill in the blanks to tell the story you want to tell.

As you say, we will watch the situation develop on the ground. Part of my vehemence on this subject is there has been a lot of reporting - usually equally anonymously sourced - about how the Russian advance in Ukraine was about to collapse, the Russian soldiers were deeply demoralized, etc. Yet the Russians have occupied significant chunks of what was Ukraine. The positions of the armies on the ground argue against the story of Russian military collapse. For a military that was been claimed to be a demoralized mess, the Russian military now controls an awful lot of ground they didn't control before.

[–]Site_rly_sux[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Ok so it wasn't a misreading, great.

I would just make mention of the fact that since the high water mark in March 2022, the ruzzia has taken a few sq miles, while Ukraine has liberated a whole lot more, so "the Russian military now controls an awful lot of ground they didn't control before" pretty much stopped being true by April.

https://saidit.net/s/WorldNews/comments/9grh/a_quarter_year_in_the_making_worlds_second_best/

Also, today, there are two Ukrainian offensives in the north and south which are actively gaining ground - and massive if true - luhansk province is no longer under total ruzzian control. So they are certainly collapsing, it's just taking a bit longer than some optimistic reports

[–]hfxB0oyA 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

And yet nuclear ICBMs. What could possibly go wrong?