Weekly Webinar #61: “The State of Play”

as always coach, you've connected all the dots. Excellent Webinar!

Just a few comments... On Ukraine: If in 2014 Russia could easily take AND CONTROL Kharkiv and Odessa, they would have, but they realized early on it would not be quick and easy. While militarily Russia can reasonably quickly defeat Ukraine, I don't think it can control and annex it, or even parts of it, without imposing long-term martial law. And obviously the fallout with the West will be enormous, and most of people in Russia itself will be strongly opposed to that. So Russia's strategy appears to be to foment long-term economic decline in Ukraine that will erode power of the central government and unity of the country. On China: it's main expansion is focused first and foremost on Taiwan, then SE Asia, NOT Siberia. China's own Manchurian provinces have relatively low population, and their younger people are migrating en masse to Southern China megacities. Where China may come into conflict is not Siberia, but Central Asia, but as long as China needs Russian support elsewhere, they will be inclined to respect Russian interests. The only way China may invadee Siberia is if Russia for some reason will get super stupid and side with the Americans against them. Further, Russia is not a "banana republic", it makes plenty of hi-tech equipment, and its own military and space technology is better than China's; it's just the US and EU are blocking development and sales of Russian manufactured goods. The inevitable decline of the US/ UK and equally inevitable rise of China (and India) is the best thing that can happen not just to Russia but to the rest of the world. And "the rest of the world" includes American people themselves who have been used and fleeced by the globalist elite.

Russian IT as good as American IT?

Pardon Coach but you're wrong, 6:08 UK didn't go to war with Germany cos of Poland, they did go because Hitler from 1933-1939 was actually trying to get Poland on a good side of Germany, signed Non-Agression pact with Poland in 1934, scarpped Locarno treaty(which was anti polish as it left open question of revision of German Eastern Border with Poland) and so on, sent Göring few times to Warsaw to get her join the Axis against the Soviets. Germany and Poland actually together took part in taking some of the Czech land in 1938. UK decleared war because they realized that appeasement policy was a failure that Germany is going to become a hegemony power on the continent and they had to act against that, they would rather have Germany attack Poland first than to have her as her ally, when UK signed alliance with Poland, Hitler literally attacked Poland a week after.

Thanks Marc—and thank you for your support over the past year. It's very humbling, and very much appreciated.

Congrats on the 3000 patrons. Glad to be one of them.

Coach, I think you’re seriously overestimating Russian military capability and underestimating Ukrainian. Since 2014 the Ukrainian army has been improved considerably, and has been repelling Russian forces for years now and preventing them from taking any meaningful amount of territory. It would take an all out offensive by Russia to make it even as far as Kharkov, so that’s not going to happen. Ukraine is not dependent on the NATO boots on the ground, although somewhat dependent on American hi-tech weapons like the Javelin, and as long as they continue to be supplied Russia will be kept at bay. You also mentioned that Ukraine has signed the Minsk agreements with the self proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics, which is incorrect. Ukraine signed those agreements with Russia. The DNR and LNR leaders were not at the negotiations table (as Ukraine views them as terrorists and will not negotiate directly) and these pseudo-republics are not even defined under the Minsk agreements, and they simply don’t exist as far as those ceasefire agreements are concerned. They are between Ukraine and Russia, and have been signed by Ukrainian and Russian officials. Lastly about Russia-China. While they do currently have common goals, I think China has its eye on the Russian far eastern territories which it considers to be temporarily lost, so any alliance will be temporary. Chinese have been slowly taking control of some of those territories by way of 25-50 year leases with mining rights that it signed with Putin (ironically bigger than size of Crimea). Do you really think that when those leases run out the Chinese who by that time will have raised several generations Chinese people on those lands will just pick up and leave? And there is nothing that Russia can offer China as far as finished goods are concerned, as Russia is a banana republic that can only offer raw materials. Russia cannot even refine gasoline. Hyper missiles / IT tech? Come on Coach, Russia can’t even make a half decent smart phone. You mentioned Putin’s interview with Oliver Stone, the funny part about it is that at some point Putin was showing him footage of supposed Russian helicopter night vision capabilities in Syria which showed helicopter killing some kind of forces on the ground. It turned out to be American footage from the Apache helicopter in Iraq. There were also a few similar things that Russia showed which turned out to be footage from Call of Duty game :))

W.O.P.R.

Porphy's Attorney

https://t.me/realCRP

Crp, you mentioned health concerns in a prior video. Are you able and willing to give an update in this regard. Respectfully, -Arjun

Appreciate your thoughts on macroeconomics as always, Gonzalo. This + business experience, you always knock out of the park.

Josh

Great webinar. How do we join the crp telegram group?

Can you make a video on Abusive Husbands?

I have a different experience: in the area I live, a lot of people are remodeling their kitchens/baths/whatever, spending buku on home improvements. Same in Florida where one of my friends works in construction. Prices of materials for all that have gone up, because people are buying while the production is actually down. Same with electronics, and not just near me. There is, for example, a world-wide graphics card shortage because everyone and their uncle seems to want the new cards but production hasn't kept pace, so a soviet-style black market ("scalpers") has developed, where those people use bots to buy up the supply and then sell them at a markup which wouldn't be possible if supply met demand. Fuel prices are up, again a sign that people are consuming more while supply is down, and so on. So I'm sure it's true some people have had to cut way back (since a lot of us are unemployed or underemployed now) and then they rationalize it as "well, I'm, like, just not into consuming anymore, man" - but we've all met those types and some of us went to college with such types and indeed there's a whole movie from the '90s (CRP's salad days) about such types, called 'SLACKERS.' It's not new but doesn't necessarily indicate a fundamental change. I'll believe it when there is more unsold stuff, and prices collapse because of lack of interest in buying.

Porphy's Attorney

Coach, have you realised that the pandemic has drastically sized down people's consumption? With the pandemic, keeping up with the Joneses is not a thing anymore, it feels as if not much money is needed anymore. People are realising that busting your ass working for a few more bucks is not worth it. Some huge changes are taking shape in the world, people are demoralised, consumerism is dying and capitalism is poised to radically change. This is happening everywhere.

Excellent webinar Gonzalo, thank you. You are back in the zone, 'wall for men' was great one too. All the best 🐬