Daryna Shevchenko, CEO at ‘The Kyiv Independent’ nails it!

The West’s fascination with Russia will have to end eventually, but every moment spent fixated on the concept of the “good Russian” buys the Kremlin time to rearm, regroup, kill more Ukrainians, and move further into Europe.

Let’s be clear: If Ukraine falls, Russia will move further into Europe. I and other Ukrainians have repeated this countless times, only to be dismissed as “melodramatic” and “traumatized.” We have the most experience in dealing with an aggressor that the rest of the world is just starting to discover.

Russia is not the solution to Russia; Ukraine is. If Ukraine falls on your watch, there will no longer be a solution.

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Want peace? Prepare for war!

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Shortage of AdBlue may crush Europe’s economy!

Did you realize that all HDV’s (heavy duty vehicles) in Europe (also commonly known as lorries, we call them transport trucks) have to treat their emissions with a fluid called “AdBlue”. This is a mix of urea and deionized water that neutralizes nitric-oxide emissions from diesel engines. According to ‘The Economist’ “as many as 4 million European lorries are programed to stop after a few kilometres without AdBlue. This is a mandatory ingredient for all trucking companies, no doubt a noble concession to the green movement. One of the largest producers of this liquid, Stickstoffwerke Piesteritz in Germany that makes about 40% of the country’s supply, stopped production in August because of exorbitant gas prices. They have since restarted production, but only about 45%. There are only two other big producers of AdBlue, BASF in Germany and Yara in Norway. You still with me? Read on, this gets very interesting.

The price of one liter of AdBlue in August 2021 was 17 cents. It now costs trucking companies 1.20 Euros per liter! That is more than a 1,000 percent price increase in 12 months! Try running a trucking company with those kinds of price increases! Not only that, but in Germany alone there is a shortage of 100,000 truck drivers. Given that 75% of all goods in the EU travel by transport truck (lorry) can you picture what is going to happen to supply chains in the very near future?! Between the War and AdBlue, who knows what other recession creating monsters are lurking. Shortage and exorbitant price of a product that sounds like it should be in a washing machine may be responsible for crashing and crushing Europe’s economy! AdBlue. Remember that word.

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Macron thinks he can negotiate with the Butcher of Moscow!

In a speech in Warsaw, Poland, last night, Joe Biden said Putin is a “butcher” and said “this man cannot remain in power”. However, the White House later clarified that the US was not calling for regime change. Emmanuel Macron told broadcaster France 3: “I would not use those words.” He added that “everything must be done to stop the situation from escalating” if there is to be any hope of stopping Russia’s war in Ukraine. Macron also told France 3 he saw his task as “achieving first a ceasefire and then the total withdrawal of [Russian] troops by diplomatic means. If we want to do that, we can’t escalate either in words or actions.” Macron is a moron! Joe Biden called it exactly how it should be called. If Macron would leave his delusional world of niceties and diplomacy he might learn that Vladimir Putin only understands and respects power. All of Macron’s trips to Russia and his ‘nice’ conversations with Putin have served only to embolden Putin and convince the Butcher of Moscow of the west’s weakness and failure to protect smaller states. Now is not the time for the EU to show any weakness nor division. So hey Emmanuel, shut the f.. up and let more experienced leaders lead! Now is the time to escalate.

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#ISTANDWITHUKRAINE

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Putin: unhinged, angry, reckless but not a genius.

In my last post I mused on the possibility of Putin being genius in his tactics. After listening to his speech, wherein he rambled on about the illegitimacy of Ukraine and suggested a demilitarization of Ukraine, I definitely have to retract any possibility of his genius. The man is paranoid and unhinged. And that combination is even more dangerous than genius. He sees a threat in democracy, knowing democratic nations on his borders will only spur the Russian people to seek this freedom for themselves. He cannot be a dictator and tolerate democracy. But, he has strengthened NATO with his reckless assault on Ukraine. Hell, even Canada sent lethal arms to Ukraine. Thus far, the west’s sanctions are lukewarm at best. Germany’s suspension of certification of Nordstream 2 is just a temporary stoppage. Germany will need the LNG, maybe not for the balance of this winter, but next year they will have to get the gas. Either thru Nordstream 2 or from the west. So it looks like Putin will continue the push in Donbas region while Ukrainians gird themselves for massive resistance. Ukraine has enacted legislation enabling its citizens to bear arms. That’s a great move! But will grannies with sniper rifles be enough to stop Putin? The west has not yet realized this guy is not playing by anybody’s playbook but his own. And it seems like he is making it up as he goes along! His actions are and will continue to be fluid, adapting to the circumstances. Putin is a good chess player but a great poker player. We’re in a game with a gambler, not a Carlsen level strategist, and I believe he is willing to risk it all. Does the western world have the cojones to stand up to this guy by applying more than sanctions? I don’t think the west yet realizes how unhinged and desperate Putin can be.

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Burn 2021 and celebrate your moment!

Here we are. The final day of 2021. And a good riddance! If ever there was reason to celebrate anything’s passing, it is this. There are so many things that went wrong in 2021, that it will need a full page to list them all for the bonfire. That’s the annual tradition here, compile a list of all the things you want to forget and throw them in the fire. It’s a kind of purging. I won’t share them with you because lots of items are quite personal, and I’m not yet ready to share those things with my readers. I’m sure you all have similar items you want to toss as well. You don’t need a huge bonfire either, a candle will do. But make your list and get ready to kiss it goodbye. Believe me, it works, a kind of catharsis. As for making resolutions, if it works for you go for it! My philosophy provides that nobody cares what you are going to do, tell them about what you did! Share your accomplishments after the fact. In the meantime, go about your business, accept that Covid is here forever, sooner or later we shall all be struck, but it will be a milder form and not debilitating like the first and second waves. Thank God, or whatever your deity is, that you are alive to celebrate the passing of 2021and entry to a NEW YEAR!. Happy New Year and have a great pandemic day y’all!

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Luxembourg to legalize growing and using cannabis.

Adults in Luxembourg will be permitted to grow up to four cannabis plants in their homes or gardens under laws that will make it the first country in Europe to legalise production and consumption of the drug. Under the legislation, people aged 18 and over will be able to legally grow up to four cannabis plants per household for personal use. Trade in seeds will also be permitted without any limit on the quantity or levels of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the principal psychoactive constituent. Under a softening of the law, however, the consumption and transport of a quantity of up to 3 grams will no longer be considered a criminal offence, but classified as misdemeanour. Luxembourg will join Canada, Uruguay and 11 US states in flouting a UN convention on the control of narcotic drugs, which commits signatories to limit “exclusively for medical and scientific purposes the production, manufacture, export, import distribution, trade, employment and possession of drugs” including cannabis. Uruguay became the world’s first country to create a legal national marijuana marketplace when it legalised the drug in 2013, and Canada followed suit in 2018. (Daniel Boffey, The Guardian)

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Estonia, Hungary and Ireland opt out of OECD tax deal

A total of 130 countries representing more than 90% of global GDP are this week celebrating a landmark technical agreement to overhaul the global tax system and increase their revenues.

Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rome and many others joined Brussels on Thursday evening in a collective celebration of the good news. But not everyone agrees.

Three EU member states – Estonia, Hungary and Ireland – refused to sign up to the deal, which was reached within the Inclusive Framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group that encompasses 139 countries and jurisdictions. Of all these, only nine opted out: Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Sri Lanka, the three aforementioned EU countries, and two Caribbean islands generally considered tax havens: Barbados, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. All the G20 countries, including China, Russia and India, endorsed the agreement

According to the EU treaties, any changes to tax policy need to be approved by unanimity, which means that just one “no” is enough to derail a reform supported by the other 26 member states.
The unanimity requirement, also present in foreign policy, has created a disparate tax landscape across the bloc, where different regimes and rates coexist within a borderless single market.

Estonia, whose corporate tax rate ranges from 14 to 20% and only targets “distributed profits” (mainly earnings shared with shareholders as dividends), voiced two main objections to the OECD text.

“Firstly, the current version enables the state where the company’s headquarters is located to tax the profit earned in Estonia if Estonia has not taxed the local subsidiary’s profit within three to four years,” a statement from the Ministry of Finance said.

“Secondly, a minimum turnover rate should be set for the groups from which a minimum tax may be levied, rather than it being left open.”

The three countries insisted on one particular point: any OECD deal must meet the needs of all countries, both large and small. Ireland, Hungary and Estonia see their attractive corporate tax rates as an essential tool to compete against most powerful economies.

For Brussels, the bold move of Ireland, Hungary and Estonia puts the whole bloc in a precarious and somewhat awkward negotiating position, where the official line towards the international community is diminished by a group of small countries that together account for over 4% of the EU’s GDP,

(Estonian World Review)

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