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I always thought Slovenia was a bloody lucky country because it avoided all the mess.

 

Slovenia is basically a Scandinavian country accidentally plonked in Central Europe by some accident of history [tongue in cheek mode off/]

The Slovenians are like the Czechs, who Poles have told me aren't really Slavs, but Germans who speak a Slavic language. Slovenians are Austrians who speak a Slavic language. :D

Top ten reasons for being Slovenian:

1. You can speak the beautiful Slovene language and know that no one cares except you.

2. You can feel superior to all former Yugoslavs.

3. You can drink after work.

4. You can pretend to live on the "sunny side of the Alps," although you know it's not that sunny.

5. You can pretend that you are as good as any German while secretly enjoying the fact that you are a Slav.

6. Good relations with Italy and Austria.

7. You can afford to be Yugo-nostalgic.

8. You can marry a Slovene and have Slovene children who speak Slovene.

9. You don't have to be ashamed when abroad.

10.No one bothers you because no one really cares.

 

Hehe! I like it. I liked it enough, in fact, to come up with my own top 10 list of reasons for being a Serb:

1. You can drink before work.

2. You can sing the Millwall anthem "No one likes us, we don't care" and mean it.

...but I ran out of reasons after the first two.

From my experience with Serb friends in NYC, you can add "everyone thinks you're totally hardcore and have seen things only in our nightmares etc." Also you can pretend that you're Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto!

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Your judgment is based on believe that “If Russia behave itself according to West demands, it would prosper”. The practice show us it is not plausable. There is no way Russia might be more obedient then it was in Yeltsin years – and what was results? I am not trying to convince you, just showing you popular opinion in Russia now.

And regarding this numerous mentioning of “German foreign policy playbook of the 1930s” - it is pointless IMHO: Austria and Germany historically were parts of two separate empires, while Russia and Ukraine are historically part of one state. So it is more like Germany reunification in 1990th.

 

The result was that we see that Russian oil-based economy prospers when oil prices are high and doesn't when they are low. Putin lucked out that he came in when oil prices were on the upswing - other than being in the right place at the right time, he has done nothing to improve Russian economy.

Edited by Gregory
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But you still need to be able to export product to benefit and if the price goes up and your exports droop, then you might actually make less money.

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So the infrastructure is there. if the Russians play hardball on the price, they may end up losing the market forever.

 

Without actual numbers on what Canada can actually supply, what can be transported (shipping, pipeline capacity etc) and so on it is basically wishful thinking.

I mean, Italy prime minister could go on TV and say with a big smile "Don't worry, Italy is an oil producer". And it would be factually true, thing is 100k odd bpd is not even 10% of what is used.

Edited by Marcello
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Northern Gateway Pipeline

 

The planned project consists of two parallel pipelines between an inland terminal at Bruderheim, Alberta, and a marine terminal near Kitimat, British Columbia, each with a length of 1,177 kilometers (731 mi). Crude oil produced from oil sands would be transported from Bruderheim to Kitimat, while natural gas condensate would move in the opposite direction.[8] Condensate would be used as a diluent in oil refining to decrease the viscosity of heavy crude oil from oil sands, and to make it easier to transport by pipelines.[11][12] About 520 kilometers (320 mi) of pipeline would run in Alberta and 657 kilometers (408 mi) in British Columbia.[8] The crude oil pipeline would have a diameter of 36 inches (910 mm) and a capacity of 525 thousand barrels per day (83.5×103 m3/d). The condensate pipeline would have a diameter of 20 inches (510 mm) with a capacity of 193 thousand barrels per day (30.7×103 m3/d). Enbridge expects these pipelines to be completed by 2015.[13]The project, including a marine terminal in Kitimat, is expected to cost C$5.5 billion.[14] The Kitimat terminal would comprise two tanker berth platforms, one servingVery Large Crude Carriers and another serving Suezmax-type condensate tankers. The terminal would include oil and condensate tanks and a pump station.[12]

 

 

Canada;s problem is not oil butting getting it to market.

Edited by Colin
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the crude oil pipeline would have a diameter of 36 inches (910 mm) and a capacity of 525 thousand barrels per day

 

Which would be about 1/7 of what Russia exports to Europe AFAIK. Still nice to have for diversification purposes, mind you.

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The flash to bang of power generation infrastructure is pretty long though.

It's not like you've just got to flip a few switches and bingo, you've got your nuke plant back, or worse, build a new one.

A great example is back in 2007/08 time frame when oil was well over $100 a barrel, applications and approvals for nuke plants went through the roof, the economist magazine had a front page proclaiming the renaissance of nuclear power, but the in service projections were close to a decade, optimistically.

Even coal or LNG you're talking years, even with a massive political hurry up. If you cut corners in the name of national security and let the spotted owls just deal with it, the time to plan locations, land, contract construction, actually build the damn thing is still a few years, never mind the fact you wouldn't do something like that without some significant overarching infrastructure development plan, it won't be in isolation.

 

As for sourcing LNG from ships, that pushes the cost up considerably versus a pipeline. Think of it as the difference between the tap in your kitchen versus fetching it from a well or buying bottled water.

 

If Europe was truly serious they would be investing I seriously and putting the hurry up on pipelines through Turkey and the Black Sea. Coal seam gas is always an option in a lot of places as well, but a much harder sell, even more than nuclear.

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Im not sure why we cant think Europe cannot go elsewhere for gas.

 

There have to be alternative sources that will actually be able to deliver, one cannot just toss a couple of countries names with some surplus right now, and then you have to spend quite a bit of money in building infrastructure. Not just the ships, but the pipelines bringing gas from the source to the harbors, liquefation and regassification plants (which aren't wildly popular) and so on. Talk is cheap, infrastructure of that sort is not. It cannot be just conjured up out of thin air to solve a temporary squabble.

 

I mean the US set itself the goal of making itself independent of everyone else of energy supply.

 

 

Which is as likely to come about as any Obama's promise as far as I can tell.

 

A great example is back in 2007/08 time frame when oil was well over $100 a barrel, applications and approvals for nuke plants went through the roof, the economist magazine had a front page proclaiming the renaissance of nuclear power, but the in service projections were close to a decade, optimistically.

 

 

I still remember an interview with Japan Steel Works CEO, the world chief producer of commercial reactor cores (not many plants can forge and machine 600 tons ingots to required specs) back in those days. He was not that hung-go about expanding capacity despite demand then vastly exceeding what could be turned out, given that nuclear industry had a chequered past of feast and famine. In light of what happened after and news like this it was clearly a prudent position.

 

When we we talk about Europe being dependent on Russian supply, its really about laziness, not that there are not alternatives. They arent going to remain lazy forever.

 

 

It isn't lazyness. It is a combination of the following:

1) Actual availability of alternative suppliers and supplies.

2) Lots of money for investments that will justify themselves only in the long term in order to bring those supplies online.

3) Political will to sustain long term strategies. Who can for example still guarantee support for NPPs a decade down the road?

 

Suppose for instance you are right about the "China-is-going-to-implode-soon" meme you keep pushing around. Then lower oil/gas prices and economic blowback will turn those investments into substantial losses, that Russia will be less of a concern will be little consolation for anybody who had sunk money into that.

So bottom line, no, nobody is going to spend lots of money just to be able to tell russians to screw themselves on a "just in case" basis. States do not have money for that. And businness will do what makes sense to them.

Edited by Marcello
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There's an article in the latest Economist about this.

 

There are 15 LNG terminals on the W. European mainland (with a 16th - in Lithuania - to open this year), & 3 in Great Britain. They're currently running well below capacity. The main problem isn't with infrastructure in Europe, but with supply & price: producers elsewhere are all happily selling LNG to Asia at higher prices than we pay here (tell the bloody Japanese to switch their nuclear power stations back on & stop importing gas!), or lack the infrastructure to increase exports quickly. W. Europe could import more, but in the short term, not enough to completely replace Russian imports, even with the opening of mothballed coal generators. We do have huge stocks, though, so could last for quite a while with no Russian imports.

 

Ukraine could get by on its own production, if it used gas as efficiently as W. European countries (but with cheap Russian gas, there's been no incentive to improve efficiency), & it has scope to increase production. But nobody will invest if they can only sell gas at Ukrainian prices, as they're too low to make a profit. And nobody would invest under Yanukovich whatever the price, because the level of corruption was too great. Too risky to do business in a country where the state arbitrarily re-assigns ownership of firms to cronies of the president.

Edited by swerve
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And its not a meme. Its a possiblity put around by a British Journalist I respect. Or I suppose all those Ghost cities that are buying built are representative of an economy thats performing healthily?

 

1) I remember a similarly reputable source telling that chinese collapse was just behind the corner. Back in 2010.

2) It is not like Victorian England didn't have a sizable amount of speculative bubbles and boneheaded investments, the general momentum was still upwards though.

 

So we do not know. As a possibility it is certainly worth keeping in mind, maybe they just delayed the unavoidable, and I am not optimist in terms of overall future of industrial societies across the board. But I have seen far too often people jumping on the Chinadoom bandwagon in the 2000s with a not so veiled "Those damn upstart chinese will be put back in their rightful place very soon and we will have another American/western Century" perspective. That has not worked out well so far...

Edited by Marcello
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And the British economy was effectively stood still compared to its competitors from the 1860s onwards.

 

Any data that I have ever seen shows that economic growth continued and was substantial (give or take the recessions and such). No, it may not have been as brilliant as competitors and that had strategic consequences as they caught up but you cannot have a economic boom that lasts forever and keeps a moderate size island nation permanently ahead of everyone else. That was not going to happen.

 

Putin has had, what, 14 years now? And they are still stuck on supplying oil and Weaponry.

 

 

Putin can't make a competitive manufacturing sector arise out of the ground by fiat. If it was that simple every other nation in such position would have done it; anyway back when I took economy 101 for a country to specialize into its strongpoints was supposed to be a good thing according to the book, go figure...

 

Not least because, unlike many western economies

 

 

I think you are overestimating the amount of resilience of western economies. As things stand another round of recession will send a large portion of Europe over the edge to fall God only knows where economically, socially and politically. As it is we are heading for a permanent decline in absolute terms in all likelyhood, with regaining pre 2008 levels taking 20-30 years in some estimates (IOW never, I suspect).

 

Problem stalled again, for now.

 

That's pretty much as good as it gets in this day and age. Even in the better off part of the West such as USA or Germany there are big problems brewing if you scratch below the surface.

Edited by Marcello
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It may get to a point where we are going to have to consider energy subsidy just so we can import gas from elsewhere. Its either that or watch the economy slowly seize up because we cant buy gas on the cheap.

 

 

Or:

- admit that the mandarins from either party simply aren't smart enough to correctly predict future energy reserves and prices, future demand, foreign conflicts, and technological advances;

- get the gov't thumb the hell off the scale and let the free market work out prices and quantities.

 

In the global economy, gov't bureaucrats trying to manage P and Q of energy or anything else is about as rational as training ourangutans to perform open heart surgery.

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The problem is that political decisions have to be produced by actors who are not in possess of any superior wisdom. How long coal subsidies could have survived in the face of lack of economic convenience and environmental activism anyway?

Yes, I figured out that the decomissioning of german nuclear program back in the 90's and using then cheap gas for everything from power generation to domestic uses would have created supply issues too. Back then however the germans had to mobilize police in divisional strenght whenever a train of radioactive waste had to be moved around and under such conditions the political capital to build new NPPs was not available. All Merkel could do was suggesting to milk existing ones longer and Fukushima took care even of that. Yet building more NPPs presuppose a great deal of long term stability and that there will be an industrial system able to take care of them (storing of waste, proper decommissioning, dealing with the freak accident that can never be 100% ruled out), if those are not a safe bet then it is a dicey proposition.

 

The US has recognised their vulnerability to foreign supply by introducing programmes to increase domestic production so you can give the finger to the middle east.

 

WTI is still above 100$ last time I checked. And once their gas pipeline network is connected to export terminals a lot of locals will end up staring in horror at their heating bill as the ability to export drives price to international levels.

The US is not directly vulnerable to Russia or others closing off the spigots as Europe is of course but the demand/supply situation is such that big producer like Russia cannot be simply isolated from the world market without a great deal of pain across the board at this point. Only a substantial round of demand destruction (still pain under other forms) and/or unpopular decisions entailing substantial resources re-allocation and consumption cutbacks could change that.

Edited by Marcello
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The fun has started all over again in Eastern Ukraine. The unrest will climax with Easter to be followed shortly by decisive action to protect " the oppressed Russian minority ".

 

Europe and the US will ask the Ukrainians for restraint ( as if the Russians are doing this by mistake and will see their actions unjustified if the Ukrainian gov is showing "restraint" ) which will mean Eastern Ukraine getting separated and Kiev probably occupied.Priest all over Russia will chant about the "Liberators of Russian and Ukrainian brothers from western fascists thugs".

Southern Ukraine will be lost also due to action from Crimea and Transnistria. Probably Moldova is lost also without decisive action from us with or without Nato. And if we step to the Dniestr to bring Moldova under the Nato umbrella de facto and Nato is saying "sorry, your action was not pre-approved ", what else is to say ?

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So, now the pro-Russian crowd is starting up protests and whatnot and wanting their part of Ukraine to go back to the motherland.

 

The two sides should just get it over with and fight it out. That's far more exciting than silly and rigged referendums.

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And the British economy was effectively stood still compared to its competitors from the 1860s onwards.

 

Any data that I have ever seen shows that economic growth continued and was substantial (give or take the recessions and such). No, it may not have been as brilliant as competitors and that had strategic consequences as they caught up but you cannot have a economic boom that lasts forever and keeps a moderate size island nation permanently ahead of everyone else. That was not going to happen.

....

I think you are overestimating the amount of resilience of western economies. As things stand another round of recession will send a large portion of Europe over the edge to fall God only knows where economically, socially and politically. As it is we are heading for a permanent decline in absolute terms in all likelyhood, with regaining pre 2008 levels taking 20-30 years in some estimates (IOW never, I suspect).

 

Yes, the UK kept growing, both overall & per head. Just not as fast as some of its competitors. Overall, it grew faster than France & Italy from 1860 to 1913, about the same as Austria-Hungary, but slower than the USA, Germany, & Russia. It also grew faster than China, but slower than Japan. India grew more slowly than the UK, but that, of course, counted as a loss, partly balanced by. Australia, Canada, & New Zealand growing much faster. Total UK GDP grew by about 175%, & per head by 75%. German output per head doubled, US did a bit better, Russian & French were in between British & German, & Italian & Austro-Hungarian were slightly slower. Not exactly standing still compared to the competition. Being overtaken by some (USA, Germany & Russia in overall GDP, USA per head), maintaining or even increasing our lead over others.

 

The European countries which were not above their 2008 level of GDP by 2013 were -

Cyprus

Denmark (expected to exceed it in 2015)

Finland (marginally - expected to exceed it this year)

Greece

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Luxembourg (marginally - expected to exceed it this year)

Netherlands

Portugal

Spain

UK (marginally - expected to exceed it this year)

Bosnia

Bulgaria (expected to exceed it in 2015)

Croatia

Czech Republic (marginally - expected to exceed it this year)

Hungary

Latvia (expected to exceed it in 2015)

Lithuania (marginally - expected to exceed it this year)

Slovenia

 

Of sizable economies, only Italy & Spain aren't expected to exceed their previous highest levels this year. Only Cyprus, Greece & Slovenia aren't growing again. Only Cyprus, Greece, Croatia & Slovenia are more than 10% below their past peak. Most are less than 5% below the peak. The overall European GDP is back to where it was, & on the way up, albeit slowly. The only countries to which your ultra-pessimistic outlook seems applicable are Greece & Cyprus, especially Greece (an economic decline of 23%).

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You are the expert on economic output here Swerve, but I distinctly recall from my college course on the industrial revolution that Britain had to some extent starting to be overhauled by Germany in industrial output from 1900 onwards? That relatively, compared to other industrialised nations, we were losing ground from the 1860s onwards? Which was inevitable in that we would not maintain the lead we had when we were the only industrialised nations were fighting for a slice of the same pie.

 

 

Always keep in mind that growth rates almost invariably look better for up-and-comers than for the defending champions. For defending champions to stay ahead of the pack they have to take risks and develop new means and methods. For up-and-comers, they only need to emulate the champions. It wasn't that long ago that the central planning gurus were asserting as fact that America's time at the top of the heap was over and Japan was going to knock us to the minor leagues. Then it was going to be EUrope. Now China. The reality is that in 1780, 1880, 1980, and 2080, doing reasonably smart things will put your economy at or near the top, regardless of which continent or island your nation resides upon.

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You are the expert on economic output here Swerve, but I distinctly recall from my college course on the industrial revolution that Britain had to some extent starting to be overhauled by Germany in industrial output from 1900 onwards? That relatively, compared to other industrialised nations, we were losing ground from the 1860s onwards? Which was inevitable in that we would not maintain the lead we had when we were the only industrialised nations were fighting for a slice of the same pie.

 

Its certainly more complex than my general assertion that we were in decline compared to everyone. But the general tend from the peak in the 1860s was in relative decline compared to our primary competitors, Germany lead among them, was my general impression.

 

I thought it rather ironic one of the other claims that, far from increasing Britains industrial decline, the two world wars had actually created an maintained a lead over Germany that couldnt last. Not that id advocate it as economic policy mind...

There weren't exactly a lot of industrialised countries to lose ground to in 1860. Russia certainly wasn't one. I think only the UK, Belgium, Netherlands & maybe Switzerland had less than half their workers in agriculture.

 

There wasn't a British industrial decline until 1980. Industrial output & overall GDP kept growing, with occasional temporary setbacks. Some (not all) other countries grew faster, particularly the USA & Germany. They both overtook the UK in total & industrial output between 1860 & WW1 (the USA first), & the USA overtook the UK in output per head - but there were also countries which failed to catch up, or fell even further behind the UK.

 

The UK went from number one to number three. But it could also call on the dominions, whose relative positions had all improved considerably. If you see them as outlying provinces, rather than separate countries (& in some ways that was still a valid point of view at the time) we'd gone from 1st to 2nd.

 

It's not really a story of British decline, but one of US, & to a lesser extent German, growth.

Edited by swerve
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More from Donetsk

On riot police shields written “Russia DMB” (DMB traditionally mean something like “Demobilization will come soon”) and “I like\love Internal Forces» (ВВ – Внутренние Войска)

 

 

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(Reuters) - Pro-Moscow protesters in eastern Ukraine seized arms in one city and declared a separatist republic in another, in moves Kiev described on Monday as part of a Russian-orchestrated plan to justify an invasion to dismember the country.

Kiev said the overnight seizure of public buildings in three cities in eastern Ukraine's mainly Russian-speaking industrial heartland were a replay of events in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow seized and annexed last month.

"An anti-Ukrainian plan is being put into operation ... under which foreign troops will cross the border and seize the territory of the country," Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said in public remarks to his cabinet. "We will not allow this."

Pro-Russian protesters seized official buildings in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk on Sunday night, demanding that referendums be held on whether to join Russia like the one that preceded Moscow's takeover of Crimea.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/07/us-ukraine-crisis-protesters-idUSBREA360TI20140407

 

Edited by X-Files
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