For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.
What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.
Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.
Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.
Just because the numbers might be small if germany doesn't has enough gas and some old fragile human being might die of this or because they cant afford the gas, its still no way to die in a country like germany.
Real estate in Poland is the only investment option without capital gains tax. You only have to keep it 5 years, extremely simple. A condo is tax free, risk free brokerage account. Even if drones start hitting these mostly empty buildings, the prices will keep rising.
> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.
Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.
While there's no magic land of opportunity to flee to, there are still many safe and stable places where one can raise a family and lead a simple life. Especially if you remove the abstraction of countries and look at cities and towns instead. It does depends on what you want and what you're willing to give however, as moving may mean learning a new language and assimilating a new culture. And then there's differences in wealth and earning potential as well, so I guess leaving the USA is more 'bugging out' than 'economic migration'.
OTOH, mobility is a privilege, and it's usually the least privileged who are the most affected by war. So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about my own advice, since it's most useful to those that need it least.
> Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Depending on what you're running for China is in some senses kinda what the US was back in the day, except there's no land so no easy way for them to accept migrants. These day and age migrants also aren't very accepted anywhere.
I agree in a sense, and the writing for this has been on the wall for some time. In my circles, many learned some Mandarin at one point or another.
The difference from the past is that the US has always been a melting pot, while China is pretty much a closed society. If you’d emigrated to the US, you always had a good chance of blending into that diverse society no matter where you came from. Assimilating into the homogeneous Chinese society will take generations.
For me it’ll be either the westernmost end of Europe or one of the better parts of South America, in the hope that they will prosper modestly in the shadows of the upcoming conflicts.
I'm very curious how China will adapt over the next couple of decades. Their population has started contracting, and it's clear the government has seen the fertility rate as a problem for some time. There's no obvious way for them to keep economic growth going without either finding a solution to something nobody else has managed to solve (getting the fertility rate back up), or opening up for more immigration. Either will take significant changes.
I assumed there would be plenty of land in China, is just completely remote or do I just have a completely incorrect perspective on China (generally speaking I’m sure I do, I’ve live my life on the other side of the planet)
There's plenty of land in China. There's not plenty of empty plots that would be attractive for people to farm. I'm not so sure that has much relevance to modern immigration, though.
There is .. with the last of the subsistence farmers already living on it. There is basically no good unoccupied agricultural land in the world. The American settlers never appreciated how much work disease did in creating a seemingly empty space for them.
Those problems could be solved with a careful migratory policy (ie what America did back in the day because it was economically impossible for the entire third world to fly there; today, this could be enforced with laws)
The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.
And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.
I feel you... the situation is more or less the same for Greece (and many other countries).
Things are not looking very good and I don't know how all this situation is going to stabilize or even better come back to normal.
> Half of its six biggest diesel plants cut or halted output this month
Claude chose a weird turn of phrase here. Does this mean "the smallest of the three was the sixth largest"? If the Ukrainians hit a tiny plant, will it now be "three of its hundred biggest diesel plants"?
Once again the top submission of HN is a LLM-generated article. I know we're not supposed to speculate on people reading past the title, but I incur you to read 3 paragraphs and tell me with a straight face that you did not eyeroll at every short, empty phrase stated with enormous confidence.
- To maintain fellowship, the empire spreads money to buy influence
- eventually this starts to cost too much, so the empire reduces spending
- wars ensue and independent voices emerge
- unable to establish order, the empire loses its influence and collapses
You can see this patterns as the US is overspending (high debt / trade deficit) while reducing its diplomatic influence on international programs. Not sure how they can save the USD value over time.
Every thread has a cynical AI accusation from someone looking for an excuse to dismiss long articles, so I tend to gloss over them, but this one's mind-boggling.
Literally how did you come to the conclusion this was written by ChatGPT? The text is clearly written by a polish person that speaks fluent english as a second language - I know cause I am one. Telltale signs are sentences like "Meanwhile, shares are at records" which is an overly direct translation of the polish equivalent, where the word "rekord" by itself implies a record high whereas in english you'd make it explicit.
Criminals and medical doctors are funnelling a fortune into domestic and foreign real estate, and into premium cars. Nearshoring and outsourcing centers are fleeing the country. Polish army expenditures are at the level of Israel and South Korea. The budget is spent on 40 years old retirees while Russian drones and missiles are freely entering and penetrating the airspace. I'd say so long Poland, a failed experiment again. Polish elites don't even have to flee this time, they're already watching from their 10th or 20th real estate in Spain, US, or Italy.
These technical analysis is really futile and counterproductive, there exists only vicious greed which will be followed by a catastrophe.
The west wanted a confrontation with Russia (pushed Zelenski out of the Misk accords; keeps supplying weapons for the lost cause Ukraine; Merkel lied about seize-fire intentions; NorthStream was infighting in the coalition pushing Germany further from Russia).
The Israel wanted a confrontation with Iran, and used it's --as we now all know-- pit-bull lapdog USA to do most of it for them. They killed Iran's leader and some of his family: something we long ago decided is "not modern".
Both countries are not giving in. And they should not. These are existential matters for them; they crossed red lines; they are illegal escalations by all rules and conventions. But the west can do what it wants.
Now Europe is caught in the middle. US has fuel, and basically annexed Venezuela. Europe has to pay through the nose for energy.
The narrative has never been more blatantly misconstrued in the corporate media: Russia will not attack Europe, and if genocidal-Israel can have illegal A-bombs while refusing inspections why bother with Iran doing the same?
Fearmongering. All to "save our democracies and freedom". It's getting old really quick. And combined with ridiculous immigration policies they may destroy Europe as we know it in a few decades, I'm afraid. But saying so, results in the immediate "extreme right-wing Putin propagandist" label, and thus can be disregarded.
No the west did not want a confrontation with Russia/Putin. Merkel tried to reign in Putin with Gas.
Putin wanted the confrontation and started to attack Ukraine, killing people for no other reason than his ego.
US has expensive fuel and not the right one and also still trades its oil internationally and facing a huge price increase for millions, it also has to pay a lot more money for fertilizers.
The oil of venezuela is the wrong kind of oil and can't just be bought and processed by the USA with a snip of a finger. They have to build/change their refineries for it.
Minsconstrued in the media? Russia will not attack Europe because Putin knows he is gone the moment he starts attacking Nato.
Yeah lets have a PROPER discussion and not some right-wing telegram magic group thinking wanna be intelligence experts. After Ukraine, Moldovoa, Belarus and others would have fallen.
This proxy war is a realltive good outcome especially after what russia was doing the last 15 years: Propaganda manipulation in the west and killing of people with toxins and intervening / playing armsdealer to Africa with conflicts against France.
I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
Russia invaded Ukraine. Yes. In geopolitics these things happen. You need to know eachother's red lines. Ukraine in NATO is such a line. The west also did it: Turkey (NATO) is still in Syria, US topples Venezuela, US attacked Cuba, Israel is currently outside of its border -- all in the name of security. But Russia cannot do it. No Russia is bad and policy is Putins-ego driven.
NATO can attack Russia (though Ukraine) so it's not a direct confrontation and not on NATO soil. "To the last Ukrainian!" the shout. It's really horrific. Ukraine is ravaged by West/NATO policy. And then remember that Zelenski said he wanted to keep the peace and stay neutral during his election campaign.
"This proxy war is a realltive good outcome" -- nearly made me puke. It looks at Ukrainians as cannon fodder. Is you do not want to fight the war, but just pay from the sidelines, you are IMHO an evil manipulator.
One of the attacking groups is the "Right sector", see their OUN links. These guys are basically neo-nazis, and they were killing ethnic Russians. Wikipedia frames this information as Russian propaganda, I see it as what actually happened.
The people that died where Unionists -- you know those groups that got us 8h workdays, weekends, holidays and sick-leave.
This is classic whataboutism. Tethered caps and energy security aren't competing for the same budget or the same people. Nobody delayed a gas pipeline to write a cap regulation. You can think the caps are annoying (they are) and still see that they have nothing to do with a closed strait.
I feel like this is overdramatized a bit.
For instance: it's mentioned that EU gas storage is at 67% and Germany's at 56%.
What is not mentioned though is that Poland's storage is at 97% because the previous administration, for better or worse, was paranoid enough to invest in a sizeable marine gas terminal and the current one stocked up early.
Regarding real estate: adjusted for inflation prices peaked 2.5 years ago, interest rates are also much lower than back then. Nobody is buying because all the Ukrainian refugees who were moving to Poland are here already and that's the last bump in population this country will see for the foreseeable future.
Also there's the threat of war on Polish soil, which affects investor sentiment.
Germany hasn’t historically been nice about leaving polish oil to the polish when they decide they need it though?
It's 97% but total gas storage capacity it quite low so it's easier to fill.
Humans are fragile.
Just because the numbers might be small if germany doesn't has enough gas and some old fragile human being might die of this or because they cant afford the gas, its still no way to die in a country like germany.
Life is finite.
Real estate in Poland is the only investment option without capital gains tax. You only have to keep it 5 years, extremely simple. A condo is tax free, risk free brokerage account. Even if drones start hitting these mostly empty buildings, the prices will keep rising.
> Every generation believes it is living through the end of something.
Many generations are. Last century saw the collapse of the British and Soviet empires - titans by any measure - through mismanagement. Europe as an international power was also broken (compared to how they used to be). I can easily imagine 1900s me fleeing to America in fear of the end times and feeling quite justified in his choices with hindsight. Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Most of the people who died didn't get an opportunity to complain, so we live with some serious survivorship bias on how bad things got.
While there's no magic land of opportunity to flee to, there are still many safe and stable places where one can raise a family and lead a simple life. Especially if you remove the abstraction of countries and look at cities and towns instead. It does depends on what you want and what you're willing to give however, as moving may mean learning a new language and assimilating a new culture. And then there's differences in wealth and earning potential as well, so I guess leaving the USA is more 'bugging out' than 'economic migration'.
OTOH, mobility is a privilege, and it's usually the least privileged who are the most affected by war. So I'm not exactly sure how I feel about my own advice, since it's most useful to those that need it least.
> Less obvious where to run to these days as the US not-an-empire looks like it may crumble.
Depending on what you're running for China is in some senses kinda what the US was back in the day, except there's no land so no easy way for them to accept migrants. These day and age migrants also aren't very accepted anywhere.
I agree in a sense, and the writing for this has been on the wall for some time. In my circles, many learned some Mandarin at one point or another.
The difference from the past is that the US has always been a melting pot, while China is pretty much a closed society. If you’d emigrated to the US, you always had a good chance of blending into that diverse society no matter where you came from. Assimilating into the homogeneous Chinese society will take generations.
For me it’ll be either the westernmost end of Europe or one of the better parts of South America, in the hope that they will prosper modestly in the shadows of the upcoming conflicts.
I'm very curious how China will adapt over the next couple of decades. Their population has started contracting, and it's clear the government has seen the fertility rate as a problem for some time. There's no obvious way for them to keep economic growth going without either finding a solution to something nobody else has managed to solve (getting the fertility rate back up), or opening up for more immigration. Either will take significant changes.
I assumed there would be plenty of land in China, is just completely remote or do I just have a completely incorrect perspective on China (generally speaking I’m sure I do, I’ve live my life on the other side of the planet)
There's plenty of land in China. There's not plenty of empty plots that would be attractive for people to farm. I'm not so sure that has much relevance to modern immigration, though.
There is .. with the last of the subsistence farmers already living on it. There is basically no good unoccupied agricultural land in the world. The American settlers never appreciated how much work disease did in creating a seemingly empty space for them.
China is facing many of the same problems that the rest of the world is, with demographic decline, slowing growth, etc.
Those problems could be solved with a careful migratory policy (ie what America did back in the day because it was economically impossible for the entire third world to fly there; today, this could be enforced with laws)
The issue with demographic decline is not just quantity of people, but also quality of people. China (and any country) will want individuals that speak the language, are culturally compatible, with useful skills, and so on. The limited number of people any country can draw on once you consider this starts to make it clear that migration doesn't solve anything.
And even with migration, if those migrants don't themselves end up with high fertility rates then you've done nothing but kick the can, and not especially far. Because of all of these issues, I think there's approximately a 100% chance that China will do the equal but opposite of the one-child-policy should their demographic issues fail to start reversing more naturally.
There's no land in China?
This is one of the most cogent summarizations of the status quo that I've seen.
It leads nicely into a conclusion that, even without the preface, seems reasonable: build personal buffers of water, electricity, and cash.
I feel you... the situation is more or less the same for Greece (and many other countries). Things are not looking very good and I don't know how all this situation is going to stabilize or even better come back to normal.
> A price cap meant as a cushion, in a system with no slack, turned a price shock into empty pumps
It's almost s if economic theories actually describe reality! Given that it's economy 101 predicting that this would happen.
Still, people do it again and again. Rent control proponents for housing should take notice.
This is cool, but like every website that tries to manipulate scrolling I eventually got too tired of that shit.
> Half of its six biggest diesel plants cut or halted output this month
Claude chose a weird turn of phrase here. Does this mean "the smallest of the three was the sixth largest"? If the Ukrainians hit a tiny plant, will it now be "three of its hundred biggest diesel plants"?
very cool website
Once again the top submission of HN is a LLM-generated article. I know we're not supposed to speculate on people reading past the title, but I incur you to read 3 paragraphs and tell me with a straight face that you did not eyeroll at every short, empty phrase stated with enormous confidence.
This how empires collapse:
- To maintain fellowship, the empire spreads money to buy influence
- eventually this starts to cost too much, so the empire reduces spending
- wars ensue and independent voices emerge
- unable to establish order, the empire loses its influence and collapses
You can see this patterns as the US is overspending (high debt / trade deficit) while reducing its diplomatic influence on international programs. Not sure how they can save the USD value over time.
thankfully, this years winter is expected to be relatively mild
...as seen by one ChatGPT.
Every thread has a cynical AI accusation from someone looking for an excuse to dismiss long articles, so I tend to gloss over them, but this one's mind-boggling.
Literally how did you come to the conclusion this was written by ChatGPT? The text is clearly written by a polish person that speaks fluent english as a second language - I know cause I am one. Telltale signs are sentences like "Meanwhile, shares are at records" which is an overly direct translation of the polish equivalent, where the word "rekord" by itself implies a record high whereas in english you'd make it explicit.
Criminals and medical doctors are funnelling a fortune into domestic and foreign real estate, and into premium cars. Nearshoring and outsourcing centers are fleeing the country. Polish army expenditures are at the level of Israel and South Korea. The budget is spent on 40 years old retirees while Russian drones and missiles are freely entering and penetrating the airspace. I'd say so long Poland, a failed experiment again. Polish elites don't even have to flee this time, they're already watching from their 10th or 20th real estate in Spain, US, or Italy.
These technical analysis is really futile and counterproductive, there exists only vicious greed which will be followed by a catastrophe.
The west wanted a confrontation with Russia (pushed Zelenski out of the Misk accords; keeps supplying weapons for the lost cause Ukraine; Merkel lied about seize-fire intentions; NorthStream was infighting in the coalition pushing Germany further from Russia).
The Israel wanted a confrontation with Iran, and used it's --as we now all know-- pit-bull lapdog USA to do most of it for them. They killed Iran's leader and some of his family: something we long ago decided is "not modern".
Both countries are not giving in. And they should not. These are existential matters for them; they crossed red lines; they are illegal escalations by all rules and conventions. But the west can do what it wants.
Now Europe is caught in the middle. US has fuel, and basically annexed Venezuela. Europe has to pay through the nose for energy.
The narrative has never been more blatantly misconstrued in the corporate media: Russia will not attack Europe, and if genocidal-Israel can have illegal A-bombs while refusing inspections why bother with Iran doing the same?
Fearmongering. All to "save our democracies and freedom". It's getting old really quick. And combined with ridiculous immigration policies they may destroy Europe as we know it in a few decades, I'm afraid. But saying so, results in the immediate "extreme right-wing Putin propagandist" label, and thus can be disregarded.
About your first paragraph:
- what action specifically is the west pushing Zelenski away from Minsk?
- why is the Ukraine war a lost cause if it is tying up Russian military resources?
- how does Merkel wish for a stronger Ukraine defense indicate a wish for confrontation instead of a deterrence against it?
- how does northstream, which seems to be Ukraine going against “the west”, an evidence for the west wanting a confrontation with Russia?
No the west did not want a confrontation with Russia/Putin. Merkel tried to reign in Putin with Gas.
Putin wanted the confrontation and started to attack Ukraine, killing people for no other reason than his ego.
US has expensive fuel and not the right one and also still trades its oil internationally and facing a huge price increase for millions, it also has to pay a lot more money for fertilizers.
The oil of venezuela is the wrong kind of oil and can't just be bought and processed by the USA with a snip of a finger. They have to build/change their refineries for it.
Minsconstrued in the media? Russia will not attack Europe because Putin knows he is gone the moment he starts attacking Nato.
Yeah lets have a PROPER discussion and not some right-wing telegram magic group thinking wanna be intelligence experts. After Ukraine, Moldovoa, Belarus and others would have fallen.
This proxy war is a realltive good outcome especially after what russia was doing the last 15 years: Propaganda manipulation in the west and killing of people with toxins and intervening / playing armsdealer to Africa with conflicts against France.
I think the Odessa Union house arson clearly shows that Ukraine is not protecting it's ethnic-Russian population. Also Ukrain and the baltics trying to ban Russian as al language is a big indicator to me (does not fit a free-democracy with freedom of speech).
Russia invaded Ukraine. Yes. In geopolitics these things happen. You need to know eachother's red lines. Ukraine in NATO is such a line. The west also did it: Turkey (NATO) is still in Syria, US topples Venezuela, US attacked Cuba, Israel is currently outside of its border -- all in the name of security. But Russia cannot do it. No Russia is bad and policy is Putins-ego driven.
NATO can attack Russia (though Ukraine) so it's not a direct confrontation and not on NATO soil. "To the last Ukrainian!" the shout. It's really horrific. Ukraine is ravaged by West/NATO policy. And then remember that Zelenski said he wanted to keep the peace and stay neutral during his election campaign.
"This proxy war is a realltive good outcome" -- nearly made me puke. It looks at Ukrainians as cannon fodder. Is you do not want to fight the war, but just pay from the sidelines, you are IMHO an evil manipulator.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Odesa_clashes (article on the arson)
One of the attacking groups is the "Right sector", see their OUN links. These guys are basically neo-nazis, and they were killing ethnic Russians. Wikipedia frames this information as Russian propaganda, I see it as what actually happened.
The people that died where Unionists -- you know those groups that got us 8h workdays, weekends, holidays and sick-leave.
Phew, thanks God Europe introduced unremovable plastic caps and deposit for plastic bottles. It's gonna save it, right?
Don't forget we have a new map projection as well...
This is classic whataboutism. Tethered caps and energy security aren't competing for the same budget or the same people. Nobody delayed a gas pipeline to write a cap regulation. You can think the caps are annoying (they are) and still see that they have nothing to do with a closed strait.
Just after the Covid storm and in the middle of a war at the border we made it. All caps are attached now.