The Lifespan of an Oligarch
Prigozhin is now in Belarus Lukashenko vouching for his future good behavior.
Will Russia balkanize once Putin is out? There is speculation that it might go that way. Back when the Soviet Union broke apart, deals were cut with former Soviet republics to turn their nuclear weapons over to Russia, aided by promises of security and territorial integrity backed by both Russia and the USA. After events in Ukraine and Georgia and Moldova, the hypothetical Free States won’t turn over their nukes to some rump Rus in Moscow. If there’s one thing that recent history has taught everyone, it’s that nukes mean people won’t mess with you. In any event, digital maps are better to own these days than hard-copy maps with national boundaries.
What is the future of Private Military Companies in Putin’s Russia? What lesson might Pedo Joe and the American Oligarchs take from this saga?
Sure, an armed society is a polite society, but polite. armed people can still march on the capitol in some version of the Hunger Games Scenario.
We will assume the gambit to find out who Putin’s devoted followers are and those who are not are worm food – and Wagner is over. But will it be replaced by another Russian cat’s paw that can move internationally?
Bullet Points:
** Slovakia adds right to cash payments in the constitution over digital euro fears… Everyone has the right to pay for the purchase of goods and services in cash, says a new amendment to the Slovak constitution that was passed last week with the support of 111 MPs and is meant to protect physical payments from a future in which the digital euro becomes mandatory.
** A county in Oregon is suing gas companies for more than $1.5 billion, faulting them for climate change https://t.co/DhdxSeBakY— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 25, 2023, From the Post Millennial: Multnomah, a county covering parts of Portland, is suing companies including Exxon Mobile, Shell, and BP for more than $1.5 billion, alleging the companies were responsible for a heat wave.
It would seem appropriate for the gas companies to stop selling gas to residents of that county.
It’s the only way that they can save the county from catastrophic warming.
They can drive their Priiuses/Preii.
I live in the communist paradise of Oregon… just glad I don’t live in Multnomah County, it was bad enough I lived in a county next to it and worked in a hospital there, least I didn’t have to stay there. I live in a Southern County or Oregon and planning very soon to move back to the midwest.
I helped build a Pizza Hut in Bend Oregon the late summer and fall of 1988. The people were for the most part warm and friendly. The closer to the pacific a person ventured, the atmosphere changed. Eastern Oregon reminded me of the Flint Hills back home in Kansas. I’m glad I experienced it, darn glad to get back to middle of the country!
I liked Bend (the one time I visited last November). But it’s changing, the locals told me. It’s been Discovered. The COVID/post-COVID “work from home” allowance has only accelerated the influx of wealthy coastal types. I was talking to a woman who’d moved there from Southern California. She was very proud of her activism on behalf of the ordinary working person in Bend. According to this woman, Bend needs construction of mucho public housing, tax-payer subsidized of course, because home prices are rising dramatically and the ordinary person is being priced out. This woman lives in a new subdivision and paid $1.5 mil cash for her house. She was also concerned about diversity, shameful lack thereof. Bend is about 85% white and 10% Hispanic, Blacks are <1% of the population. She was completely oblivious to the fact that persons such herself are responsible for the rise in home and rental prices. And her ritzy subdivision is too expensive for 95%+ of Blacks. But the “ordinary working people” she claims to champion will benefit from the diversity that she is working to bring to Bend. Like rust, she never sleeps in her task of repairing the things that are not broken.
It might be good if she hosted inner-city people in her suburban dwelling. I’m sure that she could take it upon herself to increase the population density and diversity in her little piece of the world. People like her (and Pelsoi) never seem to be the ones who move ghetto people into their estates or personally fund the crap that they advocate.
I actively considered moving to the Applegate Valley (Josephine County, I think) before I shifted to Arizona. I liked the area but felt a disturbance in the Force.
Oregon and Washington are totally Californicated, now. The demographics mean the large minority of sane humans there are just slaves at this point.
It’s a shame, they were cool places not long ago.
-Kle.
The Applegate is nice for sure LL though I think you made the right move to AZ. The biggest issue is that it is overrun with so many that are in the pot business. During the harvest the trimmigrants come in from all over the country. We moved to Southern Oregon from the mid-Willamette Valley 11 years ago to be closer to family. It is better than up North, but it is tough living in a state run by the commies of Portland, Salem, and Eugene.
My sister, who lives in AZ, just recently sent me a picture of some beautiful cutthroat trout from the Black River. Is that near the White Wolf Mine?
Mike, there are plenty of guys with shopping carts, living in tents in the greenbelts of Bend for her to take care of all on her own. Too bad that she won’t bother to invite them in.
You now pump your own gas in Oregon. Will the savings of not having station attendants (minimum wage earners) be passed on to the consumer? Next door, Washington has once again trumped California by having the highest gas prices in the country
How many billions does it take to buy a mercenary army? Enough to split with Pooty and still retire once the check clears?
How much influence on Wagner does the CCP have?
Ed, I’d think very little. The Chinese operate in a different way. I was on the phone explaining to a colleague how they organize private efforts. The Chinese military, the PSB (police) and the Ministry of State Security (secret police and overseas intelligence collection activity) all own hotels, brothels and other “private ventures”. They undertake fentanyl trafficking and engage in computer crimes and bank frauds. That money makes its way into private hands within the halls of the military, police, etc as well as being a funding mechanism. Foreign thefts are laundered to obfuscate the movement of those funds.
I don’t mean to sound rude or seditious against our beloved rulers but maybe III Corps could make a thunder run to DC? Asking for a friend.