Ukraine War... How much will S&P drop this week?

[AR]

Its a balancing act. It doesn't have to be complete isolation or world police. We are far too active on the global stage.

You are correct that it's a balancing act. And we may even be too active in general. But in this particular case, I think assisting Ukraine is clearly better than not assisting. How much is of course debatable.

[fatlittlepig]

This is the small minded way of American isolationism which ultimately allowed global war - WWI and WWII - to get out of hand. Do you not understand the economic benefits the US derives from a Europe at peace? Was our society richer or poorer when the Berlin Wall stood and the Eastern Bloc was off limits to American industry? Was it good or bad to bring tens of millions of Europeans into NATO, the EU, and the western economic order?

it sounds like you would be happy to hunker down in ignorant isolation while handing over Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Romania, and the Baltics to Russia. Most sane observers understand why that would not be acceptable.

You’re equating the current situation to Nazi aggression in WW2? I don’t think we’ll see Russian tanks rolling by the arc de triomphe anytime soon. We’re always told how important it is that we are involved in this or that conflict, can’t fool me anymore. I’m for humanitarian aid and diplomacy, but a blank check and endless arms for a war, no.

[Ekanive23]

You’re equating the current situation to Nazi aggression in WW2? I don’t think we’ll see Russian tanks rolling by the arc de triomphe anytime soon. We’re always told how important it is that we are involved in this or that conflict, can’t fool me anymore. I’m for humanitarian aid and diplomacy, but a blank check and endless arms for a war, no.

Why is it not equating to Hitler? Putin is scum and investment in Ukraine now could destabilize the current regime.

no place for a russia acting like this in our world.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

Yes there have been little wars and skirmishes and police actions…. But there wasn’t a major, all encompassing war every 20 years since the various military powers dwindled. The unintended consequence of having everyone buildup their militaries, is that then you have a bunch of equally matched armies, and when this happens, wars break out. It’s one of the oldest military concepts.

I know the US and it’s military is the root of all evil, but it’s the main reason the world has been so peaceful, on a relative scale, the past 80 years. We’ve actually been pretty good at being the worlds police.

A byproduct of the peace has been that people have forgotten what the default setting for human society is. Unfortunately, as the pendulum swings back, I fear they are going to be in for a for-reals wake-up call.

When the Russian army comes into town, and comes into your house one night… With your wife and 14 year old daughter and you huddled there, it’s a nightmare like you’ve never imagined. You survive the first rounds of beatings, and your wife and daughter survive the first rounds of rape. After a few days they kill the father. After they are done with the mother in a few weeks they cut her throat. But your 14 year old daughter gets taken to a building with the other local teenage girls, where they keep her around for a good long time. This is what has happened in occupied Ukraine.

You can’t fight this kind of evil with good, or thoughts and prayers, and you can’t negotiate it away, or hide from it. Unfortunately, you have to fight this kind of evil, with a better kind of evil. It’s an awful job, a terrible job that has to be done. I feel ashamed for any society that values comfort and luxury over pushing back against this.

Of course it has to be done intelligently and deliberately. But you can’t let this go unchecked.

[FIREshrink]

We should be cautious about foreign entanglement but not unwilling to act when it's in our best strategic interests to do so. Sometimes that involves compromise and sometimes that means working with scoundrels. You don't have to sell me on avoiding unnecessary wars, I was always against the Iraq war which was such an obvious snow job and Cheney-Bush wet dream from Day 1; and I thought once we had crushed AQ and especially after grabbing Bin Laden we should have cut bait in Afghanistan. I'm glad we largely stayed out of Syria though perhaps some targeted bombing runs would have been proportionate after the chemical weapons deployment. I'm pretty skeptical we can introduce democracy where it's not wanted and it's not wanted in lots of places.

But none of this means we should turn over Ukraine to Putin without a fight, especially when Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying, it's their lives on the line and not ours. Doesn't mean a blank check and I agree $40b is a big number. Regarding Europe, they're contributing less militarily but much more in humanitarian terms, both in dollars but more importantly in the actual physical housing of five million human beings; we're taking 100,000. So there doing more than us in that arena and that arena is important.

[Ekanive23]

Inflation is rising with rising prices of fuel and groceries and we are handing over $40B to a corrupt nation with no oversight. Are we out of our ***minds?. It is shameful that we moan and fight over few millions to help in combating poverty in this country but have billions to fund a war machine going on far away.

And Ukraine is no angel, it is a corrupt money laundering machine. And people on both sides of the aisle have used it. And the president of that country is playing our senate and POTUS like a fiddle while his goons have also carried out atrocities. Russia and Putin have been terrible in this war but Ukraine is no knight in shining armor. It takes two to tango.

It will be a long drawn out mess with finally Ukraine being divided into an Eastern segment aligned with Russia and a broken, damaged western part. If we had any sense we would be engaging Russia in a diplomatic solution that will keep Ukraine intact and the war to end but it is easier to just supply arms and have a proxy war. And it will make our war machine and defense manufactures and contractors profitable till we transition into out next skirmish, most likely in Asia.

Russia has no place in Ukraine at all. Russia has bigger aspirations. Supplying Ukraine with weapons is costing our second biggest rival multiples of what it’s costing us.


putin is truly scum and no place for a man like him in modern world. Please destabilize his country.

my wife is european, you would not even imagine the disdain of the Poland/Slovakia/Estonia region toward Russia. It’s as real as any of the hate you see here in the us. It’s not for no reason.

pour in the weapons

[fatlittlepig]

We should be cautious about foreign entanglement but not unwilling to act when it's in our best strategic interests to do so. Sometimes that involves compromise and sometimes that means working with scoundrels. You don't have to sell me on avoiding unnecessary wars, I was always against the Iraq war which was such an obvious snow job and Cheney-Bush wet dream from Day 1; and I thought once we had crushed AQ and especially after grabbing Bin Laden we should have cut bait in Afghanistan. I'm glad we largely stayed out of Syria though perhaps some targeted bombing runs would have been proportionate after the chemical weapons deployment. I'm pretty skeptical we can introduce democracy where it's not wanted and it's not wanted in lots of places.

But none of this means we should turn over Ukraine to Putin without a fight, especially when Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying, it's their lives on the line and not ours. Doesn't mean a blank check and I agree $40b is a big number. Regarding Europe, they're contributing less militarily but much more in humanitarian terms, both in dollars but more importantly in the actual physical housing of five million human beings; we're taking 100,000. So there doing more than us in that arena and that arena is important.

Kind of interesting that you have to go back 75 years to WW2 to find a military intervention that makes sense to me. Regarding Ukraine, I wouldn’t paint it as if we are just supplying money and arms, we are taking a non negligible risk of a miscalculation that could lead us deeper into another conflict. This is especially true since we have not established the parameters of what we would consider to be an acceptable outcome.

[Jaqen Haghar MD]

You’re equating the current situation to Nazi aggression in WW2? I don’t think we’ll see Russian tanks rolling by the arc de triomphe anytime soon. We’re always told how important it is that we are involved in this or that conflict, can’t fool me anymore. I’m for humanitarian aid and diplomacy, but a blank check and endless arms for a war, no.

You don’t see it, because this time the world pushed back right away, instead of backing down over years. The Ukrainian president is a flawed man, as is their system of government. But under other circumstances with other actors, this would have ended far worse. They have performed admirably on the edge of oblivion.

[FIREshrink]

Kind of interesting that you have to go back 75 years to WW2 to find a military intervention that makes sense to me. Regarding Ukraine, I wouldn’t paint it as if we are just supplying money and arms, we are taking a non negligible risk of a miscalculation that could lead us deeper into another conflict. This is especially true since we have not established the parameters of what we would consider to be an acceptable outcome.

We're not actually saying different things, we are just debating where to set the limits. You think the limit should be set when Russia rolls into France, or maybe Finland, or maybe Estonia. I say Ukraine, because why wait for Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia to recognize the threat?

Malignant narcissists and megalomaniacs derive strength from appeasement. In the end it is usually less costly to set the limit early, firmly, and consistently.

[AR]

You can’t fight this kind of evil with good, or thoughts and prayers, and you can’t negotiate it away, or hide from it. Unfortunately, you have to fight this kind of evil, with a better kind of evil. It’s an awful job, a terrible job that has to be done. I feel ashamed for any society that values comfort and luxury over pushing back against this.

Of course it has to be done intelligently and deliberately. But you can’t let this go unchecked.

Yeah, this.

It's hilarious that flp keeps suggesting "diplomacy" as if it isn't being tried and as if it had a shot of working on it's own. "Diplomacy" ain't gonna stop people like this.

[fatlittlepig]

Yeah, this.

It's hilarious that flp keeps suggesting "diplomacy" as if it isn't being tried and as if it had a shot of working on it's own. "Diplomacy" ain't gonna stop people like this.

I guess we’ll see how it plays out.

[AR]

I guess we’ll see how it plays out.

Sure. But no matter how it plays out you will always be able to imagine an alternative time line where things turn out better with the use of diplomacy alone or any other different course of action from what was actually done.

Like many things, no matter how this plays out, no one will be convinced that they were wrong.

I freely admit this applies to me as well. And everyone else.

[Hank]

Less Chamberlain, more Patton.

[nastle]

Those Ukrainian men are dead if Russia takes over. The women, so far, have not been as lucky. They know it. Europe is resisting this because they know of the horrors that come next. The last of those who lived through Nazi and Russian occupation are dying off, but they left a collective memory of their experiences in those societies. You can’t just run off and let somebody else fight.

It’s cheaper and easier to deal with it now, rather than 20 years from now. But Europe does need to pay its share. Without the US, there is no NATO, just a bunch of bickering states.

You can’t negotiate from a position of weakness with a tyrant who would happily kill your family, if they were a mild inconvenience. When the bullets start flying, you have to call for the sons of bitches to bail you out. You can’t painlessly talk your way out of certain situations.

In ww2 it was Soviets not Russians and Ukrainians were complicit in many atrocities of both nazis and Soviets ( and there is no denying millions of Ukrainians were victims too like 9 million killed by dear uncle joe who was FDRs buddy ). So this moral argument is deeply flawed.

Let’s us not resurrect the old blood feuds of Eastern Europe it’s not going to end well
Next the poles and Germans will be dragged in
hopefully Germans will have more sense and try to play US and Russians against each other
let’s hope Mr T “ pities the fools”and comes to our rescue in the next elections

[nastle]

Yeah, this.

It's hilarious that flp keeps suggesting "diplomacy" as if it isn't being tried and as if it had a shot of working on it's own. "Diplomacy" ain't gonna stop people like this.

why hide behind the Ukrainian reservists and use them as cannon fodder ?