Don's Weekly, 25 November 2024: Part 4
by Donald Hill
(…continued from Part 4…)
***
Russia
670 km from Ukraine, a Russian depot in Kotovo was attacked by drones. It stores a variety of missiles, including S-300 and S-400 missiles.
Explosions were heard around a power station in the Rostov region.
Oil tanks in Kaluga burned after a drone attack.
A 39-year-old ballet star criticized the Russian invasion in 2022. His fall last week from the fifth floor of a building in St. Petersburg was attributed to painkillers, a very narrow balcony and a loss of balance.
1,000 soldiers of a regiment deserted, including 26 junior officers, a major and two lieutenant colonels. This event was documented in April and the report lists the deserters by name. Ukraine says 18,000 Russian soldiers in the southern command have deserted. 11,700 cases of “unauthorized abandonment of a unit” were tried in military courts.
A hospital in Rostov-on-Don is overflowing with wounded.
Soviet-era and Voronezh early warning radar were deployed to detect external threats. Now there is a gap along Russia’s border with Ukraine.
The value of the ruble continues to decline and a dollar can buy 104 rubles. In the last two months it lost 22% of its value. In the last month it lost 10% of its value. In the last five days it lost 5% of its value.
While Russia claims it’s inflation rate is 9.1%, an economist says it’s actually 27%. It’s unemployment rate is 2.4%, and as the unemployment rate decreases, the inflation rate increases. 4 to 6% unemployment is healthy for the economy. The Russian national budget is based on the price of a barrel of oil being $72. Saudi Arabia is retaliating against smaller oil producers that are selling their oil too cheaply so they are increasing production and may drive prices as low as $50 per barrel. If that happens then the ruble can be devalued to 122 or 135. This is in addition to the USA producing more oil than any country has ever produced.
When the Netherlands discovered natural gas, that single resource drove their economy and development of other sectors declined. When the price or availability of that resource declines, so does the economy.
Europeans spend about 15% of their income on food. Russians spend 50% of their income on food. As the ruble devalues, a higher percentage of Russian income will be spent on food. If Russians want to borrow money, the largest bank is offering micro loans of $365 at a rate of 47.5%. The Russian central bank is lending money to other banks at 21% and that rate will increase in December.
In 2023-24, Russia paid $32 billion in death benefits to families, which is 8% of its budget and 1.5% of its GDP. 40% of the budget is spent on the military and that will increase to 50% in 2025, exceeding spending on education, healthcare and social service. This has not happened since the time of Soviet rule. The resulting deficit spending will be 2% of the GDP. In the past, the deficit was covered by the National Welfare Fund but half of that has disappeared since 2022.
With the low unemployment and factory capacity utilization at 80%, production has reached its limit. 73% of companies face labor shortage, which is double the rate from 2023. 200 shopping malls are close to bankruptcy and are asking for preferential loans. The high cost of credit and rising costs of wages pushed many companies into debt and some are surviving only with state subsidies.
***
Ukraine
Here are two videos of six multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) for each Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) that was fired. The inaccurate MIRVs did not have explosive warheads. They used kinetic energy to do their damage to whatever they hit. While the MIRVs can be targeted to a specific location, the 200-500 meter range of error means the Russians used the $50 million missiles as shotgun shells.
Some Ukrainians are demanding Putin decide whether or not he will use nuclear weapons for practical reasons.
Budanov said that when Russia invaded they had a kill list.
A Ukrainian lieutenant colonel was recruited by Russia before their 2022 invasion but wasn’t activated until 2024, when he was a commander of a Special Operations Forces unit. He gave them details about sabotage and reconnaissance missions until his activities were uncovered during an investigation.
A Ukrainian MiG-29 at an airfield in Dnipro was reportedly destroyed by a missile.
The Russians stockpiled their missiles and launched 120 of them plus 90 drones during one night. These are the scenes from Mykolaiv.
A retired British colonel (and then one that was advising the ZSU for years) is another voice for a change in Ukraine’s doctrine and organization: "Ukrainian troops demonstrate exceptional effectiveness when they are able to act independently. However, under strict control of the generals, their effectiveness in combat and logistics is significantly reduced."
Guess, from the point of view of the Golovkom and the GenStab-U, he also has no trace of clue what is he talking about…
***
Diplomacy
In the past couple years, several undersea cables were cut. While 200 cables are cut by fishing and anchors each year, these cables showed signs of deliberate damage. One cable was cut by a Chinese ship that drug its anchor and the ship refused to stop or be inspected. Two more cables were cut last week and the German defense minister said that no one believes that the cables were accidentally damaged. A Chinese ship with a Russian pilot was one of the vessels at one breakage site at the time of the damage. A Danish naval ship was shadowing the ship, then helped in its boarding by Danish special forces.
The US and Russia notify each other in peacetime when they launch an ICBM or IRBM to prevent misunderstandings that could escalate. Russia notified the US 30 minutes before they launched the missiles, the first time they’ve done so under wartime conditions.
In August 2022, Russia stopped sending gas to Germany despite having contracts obligating them to send gas. The Austrian owner of the German subsidiary sued and won a $242 million arbitration award. The Austrian company said it would stop paying for Russian gas until it received an amount equal to $242 million. In response, Russia stopped sending gas to Austria. Austria says they have a sufficient amount of gas for the winter.
A Romanian ultranationalist will be participating in the final round of presidential elections. A respected Romanian journalist said, “One the evening of November 24th, 2024, the invasion of Romania by Russia began.”
The president of Taiwan said the US should prioritize sending weapons to Ukraine over her own country since defeating Russia would be a greater deterrent. The Chinese president told his forces to be ready for a potential attack in 2027.
Houthi fighters from Yemen have been using Russian satellite data to target ships and their leaders are in discussions with Russia about acquiring weapons. In return, the Houthis are facilitating talks sending Houthis to Russia for high paying jobs and even Russian citizenship. Instead, hundreds are forced into the army and sent to Ukraine, the latest in a worldwide trend. The promise of jobs lured hundreds of Nepalese to Russia and their government stopped issuing work permit visas for Russia. Nepalese from one unit deserted due to heavy losses, lack of salaries, abuse and executions for not following orders. Hundreds of Africans also were lured into the Russian army with promises of jobs or a bonus of $2,000 to join. The false promise of jobs lured dozens of Indians and at least 200 Cubans.
The president of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia resigned. The prime minister will also resign and the protestors will vacate the offices they seized. The protests started when the parliament was about to ratify an agreement that gave Russia a lot of benefits.
In the rest of Georgia, citizens gathered to protest the rigged elections again.
Switzerland sent $3 billion in humanitarian and economic aid to Ukraine but insists on neutrality in the face of aggression that generated the need for humanitarian assistance. The Swiss president is calling for a change in policy because it threatens Swiss defense industry profits and Swiss security. For example, the Netherlands refuses to buy weapons from Switzerland because they cannot be re-exported without Swiss approval. In the meantime, Switzerland is banning sales to a Polish company because 645,000 rifle rounds it sold to that company ended up in Ukraine.
The US sanctioned Gazprombank and said anyone that joined SPFS (the Russian version of SWIFT) will be sanctioned.
There is a report that North Korea sent two artillery brigades of 150 MRLs and 4,000 troops.
***
(…to be concluded in the Part 5…)
" 4 to 6% unemployment is healthy for the economy. "
For a site that so proudly agitates against western oligarchies, I'm shocked you're using the ideas of the oligarchic neoliberal system ie NAIRU or Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment.
This theory is designed to impoverish working classes and destroy their bargaining power.
It basically states that to limit inflation, salaries and wages growth must be stifled.
1. The 4-6% "healthy" unemployment range (or any other range) is purely arbitrary. There is no empirical evidence as to what unemployment range is healthy.
2. There have been plenty of instances when unemployment dropped below NAIRU without causing inflation (eg US in Clinton era).
3. There have also been numerous cases of inflation being higher despite high unemployment (so many examples).
4. Since NAIRU was embraced by US in 1970s, US real wages have collapsed. They only managed to get to their 1970 level in recent years.
5. Also since NAIRU was embraced, US middle class has shrunk from 61% to 51%.
6. NAIRU type policies limit wages growth which has meant more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of a relative few.
7. Here in Australia NAIRU policies means our standard of living has continued to drop (now down to 2014). Over 1 in 4 Australians now suffer "food insecurity" (ie struggle to eat) due to decaying incomes relative to inflation.
8. NAIRU does nothing to stop companies profit gouging. In fact it helps them as they reduce their wage costs whilst increasing profit margins. In Australia, most recent inflation was due to profit gouging, not salaries and wages growth. Real salaries and wages are in decline.
And this was in spite of record low unemployment which means NAIRU is doing it's job: impoverishing people.
9. NAIRU literally works on premise of sacrificing living standards of large numbers of people by not having enough jobs for them. Eg if you have 100 million workers, that means 4-6 million of them are condemned to absolute poverty. But then the remaining 84-86 million have their living standards reduced because the 4-6 million unemployed act as a pool of reserve labour and reduce worker's bargaining rights.
10. In reality the "ideal" unemployment rate is unknown as each economy is different and even with economies there's a lot of variation depending on economic activities in different reasons. Eg a city might have 4-6% unemployed but a rural or regional area might have 25%.
Commenting on part 3, it’s like U Stab are working for the Russians than their people with the way they’re handling this war.