I wouldn't classify that as wholly accurate. Yes there is a substantial rural community but that's quite true for lots of Ireland. Letterkenny in Donegal has a sizeable tech sector for a small place although one with an unfortunate road network far too small for the traffic it gets. Internet was pretty standard when I lived there, nothing to write home about but not slow. Amenities aren't going to be extensive of course so if you're used to a city you'd find it sparse.
The other aspect is, while Donegal is more remote to the rest of the Republic, Derry in Northern Ireland is a city right beside it and is generally considered part of the overall area. North west that is, it's not within Donegal itself.
That appears to show that the volume has returned but not its price.
"The revenue is still down 43% from a year ago, the IEA said, as Russia is forced to sell its barrels to a more limited pool of customers who can negotiate greater discounts."
That doesn't actually follow. Had the west not got into a sanctions war with Russia, then they might've never increased their output. The end result is that the profits have not been affected. More importantly, what actually counts is the relative damage. It's pretty clear that EU economy has been affected far more severely than Russian economy. IMF projects Russia to actually have growth this year, while there is a recession projected across EU states.
I guess we'll see won't we. However, it's pretty obvious that Russia is doing massive amounts of trade with China and India. Trade between China and Russia has already reached over 200 billion this year. So, not really sure what this notion that Russian economy is collapsing is based on to be honest.
> However, it's pretty obvious that Russia is doing massive amounts of trade with China and India.
For sure India and China are eager to exploit the very unequal relationship where Russia now needs India and China much more than the opposite.
The Russian economy is not collapsing, but I'm pretty sure it's hurting. Even if we had real GDP figures, they'd be misleading as now a significant part of the GDP is coming from production of military gear which is literally being burned and does not generate income or feed into other parts of the economy.
This is just wild speculation that's completely baseless I'm afraid. We've literally been hearing this story for nearly two years now, and there is zero substantive evidence to support any of these assertions.
It's just basic economics. India and China have a bigger leverage, it would be stupid of them to not use it.
I mean, what's the alternative explanation of why India increased the Russian oil imports tenfold? It's not because of good will, it's because India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. Why does Russia sell oil cheaper to India? Because it won't find another such big customer.
Basic economics say that Russia is a major commodity exporter and that as long as there is global demand for these commodities then Russia will have no problem selling them. It's like you don't understand how basic supply and demand works. India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.
> India gets a great deal because it can buy oil from Russia at a slight discount and then resell it to Europe at a large markup. The loser here isn't Russia but Europe.
You're contradicting yourself. India is selling at a market rate, so if there's a profit to make, it's coming from the Russian side. Pick one - either India has a big markup or Russia sells with only small discount. Both can't be true.
You're the one who said that India can suddenly import Russian oil much cheaper than before. So, using your logic India is selling oil to Europe at a markup. If Russia is selling to India at a small discount, then India is still making money directly at the expense of Europe.
I'm happy to admit that India is making money as middlemen, that's exactly how the price cap was supposed to work. But given India is selling at market price, it's cutting into Russian profits. Indian profit is the same as Russian loss, so it's really silly to claim that Russian discount is "small" while India makes "big" markups.
That's absolutely not how the price cap was supposed to work since India is buying at a higher price than the cap and we've seen repeated complaints from western officials regarding this fact. Again, as many articles I've linked show, there is no sign that this is cutting into Russian profits in any significant way/ However, it absolutely is devastating European economy.
I'll reiterate my point since it clearly escaped you. The question is which economy is being hurt more relatively speaking. There is clear evidence that European economy is suffering and countries like Germany are now in recession. There is no such evidence regarding Russian economy.
Evidence absolutely does point to European economy getting hammered while Russia is better than ever. I have to ask what your agenda is here given that you keep trying to pretend things that are obviously happening aren't happening?
In same fairytale, that may be so. In the real world, oil and gas revenue is 40% of Russia's federal budget and down -52% YoY as of April, so that's more than -20% from oil and gas alone gone before taking collapse of other exports and explosion of military expenditure into account. At this rate, we'll see a replay of 1998 soon.
In the real world Russia is making pre-war level profits of its energy exports. It's like you don't understand the concept of supply and demand, the need for the energy and other commodities that Russia was exporting hasn't magically gone away, and you can't just make these things appear out of thin air. The fact that so many people are unable to wrap their heads around is idea is just amazing.
That's some nice cherry-picking. German "barely a recession" projected at -0.1% over 2023 with most of the Europe growing is "getting hammered". Russia with -2.3% is "better than ever".
I mean if you're just going to keep repeating that then there's no point continuing this conversation. The Reuters link I provided clearly shows that Russia is projecting growth this year.
While it might not have been communist, Korea certainly was oppressive when it built the chaebols which did involve a fair bit of government management.
Being from Europe, my perspective might be as biased as American fatalism but as the article says I think the key most important aspect is lacking a true single market and I'm sceptical of us ever achieving it.
The more we fall behind the more we'll cling to tradition and avoid further integration, a continuous cycle.
They do, and unsurprisingly it's the relatively culturally-close countries of Ireland and the UK that sell the most to the US. But no European country has a free trade agreement with the US, and industrial standards are different because the EU is big enough to act as it's own trade centre.
I took a look at toolbox just now and seen they've only just got symmetry and stencils last month, which would make me worried about what other aspects they are currently missing.
There is a perpetual license for substance painter on steam, which although updates are only for that years version, is still permanent. Not ideal I know (I'm stuck with a minor bug) but it's half the price of toolbox for an industry standard tool.
I think the democratic aspect can be overemphasised. The Weimar Republic lasted only 15 years and lurched from crisis to crisis. It was rife with political violence, several attempted uprisings, military with questionable loyalty to this new government, economy in taters, so politically unstable that rule by decree had effectively become the norm.
Democracy didn't prevent his rise, but democracy was barely existent.
What is more disappointing to me is the amount of general unpleasant comments under this tweet. I know there will be a bias in that this will be mostly those that follow him but even still, it doesn't give me much hope.
Mentioned it before, but I think that to a lot of his fans Musk has become a sort of L Ron Hubbard figure; they see him as literally infallible, so they shoulder through the cognitive dissonance and go along with this stuff. If Dear Leader says it, it must be so.
It’s pretty remarkable, really. Even the Jobs people were able to acknowledge that Apple was not perfect, generally.
Fuchsia was announced around the time of the Google Vs Oracle case if I remember correctly. They said it had been in development for years but I guess the assumption of the public announcement was that it was directed at oracle.
Even customisable like your character's appearance.
This was one of my criticisms of Fallout 4, the voice actors weren't bad, it just didn't fit very well some player characters.
The other aspect is, while Donegal is more remote to the rest of the Republic, Derry in Northern Ireland is a city right beside it and is generally considered part of the overall area. North west that is, it's not within Donegal itself.
I can't speak for the islands though.