A global recession is on the horizon - please read OP for mod warning

🤣Next up: Why Russia launched a nuke on it's own cities to show the West what they're capable of

I agree sure they simply turned off the gas from the other pipe line , why would Russia blow up their leverage? I think Putin is a phucker but I also think he is intelligent enough not to torch the biggest weapon he has with regards to this war can anyone give a viable explanation why Putin/Russia would do this?

Obviously there's good deal of confusion around why the pipeline was blown up or who it would benefit. And I'm aware this has gone off-topic significantly. But the blasé and slimy equivocal attitude of some people on here towards Russia is revolting.

"Boogeyman"? Wtf else would you call a state that's in the process of carving up its neighbour (no doubt with designs on other ones), massacring civilians and dumping them in mass graves, deporting countless others, holding sham referenda and creating the greatest humanitarian upheaval in Europe since WW2? Never mind threatening the rest of Europe with an economic stranglehold. Try telling the residents of Mariupol or Kharkiv that they should stop treating Russia like a boogeyman. Or the people of the Baltics with memories of deportation that they're all a bunch of "Russophobes" (a more contrived and bs word there never was).

Just how far exactly are you prepared to give any state a pass on this kind of behaviour? I don't claim any great interest in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict but christ it isn't difficult to know who to side with. Just because you're "tired" of the coverage (as if it was some make-belief soap-opera conflict that only exists on TV) doesn't make it any less significant, and doesn't give you the right to gaslight people who are observing it as "obsessives".

Again, apologies for going off topic, but it has to be said.

Every time you eat do you think of famine in Africa?

Just on your back and forth there seems to be a lot of people thinking that if someone spends some cash on a luxury they should be ashamed of it or should be taxed more than the taxes already paid for this luxury. People who work and who earn remember that word "earn" cash should be allowed buy what ever the hell they want with out any guilt. We already pay a myriad of taxes to help the less well off. Some people will not be happy until we have committed to full communism with the caveat that those working continue to do with out the incentive of actually having more cash to make their life a bit better cant see that working.

Oh I'm far from well to do and have had to work for every penny I've got. I'm just pointing out in the grand scheme of things that there are much more important things in life than a fancy gaming desk or chair or whatever. If the point is lost on you that's not my problem.

Anyway this is dragging the thread way off topic, apologies.

With this latest escalation Winter 2023 is now looking like a terrifying prospect. Euro and pound in the gutter, fractures in the EU as Germany go into recession, Italy vote right and what the interest rate hikes will do to their debt, France leaning right, Norway possibly doing a Norway and looking out for themselves by capping electricity exports, our neighbours in disarray and to top it all off a refugee crisis from Ukraine and North Africa. The US, who printed $13 trillion during Covid, are seeing the value of their exports go through the roof. It just doesn’t add up and something has to give.

Germany brings in a price cap for consumers and businesses at a cost of up to 200 Billion. Looking like every man for himself now instead of waiting around for Brussels to come up with some crazy scheme.

Amazing to think these people in charge actually started an economic war against a country that could cripple them at the flick of a switch. You just wouldn't risk it would you ?