This is once again a ‘sources and information on everything happening’ post. In the last few days after Russia’s retreat from the Kyiv area, focus has shifted from military and other issues to the atrocities discovered in Bucha. This covers both. Military Progress and Conditions
On wheat: Maybe it takes a long time for world wheat production to adjust, but what about world wheat consumption? Price of wheat goes up slightly, people reduce their wheat consumption by one percent, it doesn't seem like a big deal.
On the complexity and installation difficulty of heat pumps: what's wrong with ordinary electric heaters? They're less efficient than heat pumps, but that's partially offset by the fact you only have to heat the room you're in instead of your whole house. Plus you can buy one for, like, twenty bucks, and plug it into your wall. (Not sure how well it works in genuinely cold places, though.)
Re: the Sarah Taber thread, I'm bearish. It's been a hot minute (>200 years, probably) since there was a famine because calories required exceeded calories produced. The trouble since the second agricultural revolution has been getting food in mouths. Most Eastern European wheat goes to feeding the Middle East. *If* Iran and/or Saudi Arabia play nice, then India can make up the shortfall. But if both of them decide to play hardball and get aboard the "burn down the 20th c. global order" train, they could plausibly close off trade (Iran closing land routes, Saudi Arabia closing sea routes). I'm not sure if/why they might do so, but I also lost money on Putin's invasion happening, so I'm trying to keep options open re: corrupt autocratic regimes doing daft shit. Since there's certainly no regime corrupter or autocraticer than the House of Saud and Iran is already mostly not a part of the global order, I'd say the prospects of Indian wheat actually making it to the consumers of Eastern European wheat is >50% but bad enough to be alarming. I'd consider any prediction of major Middle Eastern famine below 20% to be a good arbitrage opportunity.
I think the focus people have on wheat is a bit myopic. Sure, Ukraine grows a lot of wheat, but it exports more corn than it does wheat (and these tend to be somewhat supplementary goods.) According to this (https://www.fb.org/market-intel/ukraine-russia-volatile-ag-markets), Ukraine has 6 agricultural exports that typically exceed $1 bil/yr:
* Corn ($5.8b)
* Sunflower Seed ($5.7b)
* Wheat ($5.1b)
* Rapeseed (Canola) ($1.7b)
* Barley ($1.3b)
* Sunflower meal ($1.2b)
Of these, the shortage I'm least concerned about is wheat, because wheat has multiple crops per year. I'm not familiar with Ukrainian climate/practices specifically, but in rural Michigan where I live farmers usually get two crops of wheat per year. Farther south with a longer growing season, you can get three crops per year. A spring invasion may only knock out half of Ukraine's annual wheat production, even in the areas that are completely shut down.
On the other hand, corn produces one crop per year. Sunflowers produce one crop per year. So does rapeseed. I'm not familiar with barley, but a quick google suggests it's probably a typical one crop per year plant as well. These grains seem likely to be more affected by any shorter invasion scenario than wheat.
>An alternative interpretation is that authoritarian armies that have not been tested in a long time and then are asked to invade have a tendency to dramatically underperform
I mean we can't have it both ways with the authoritarianism and effectiveness observation. On COVID and fiscal policy, authoritarianism is considered a feature. But now for military operations it's a bug? I could be convinced otherwise but I don't think authoritarian governments have much of a correlation with military might.
FWIW, I think a better military parallel for the current invasion might be Russia's own winter war(s) with Finland or the Second Chechen war. In both cases, Russia chose to "learn the hard way" before ultimately changing tactics to brutally suppress the populace.
>With so many tech experts leaving, Russia is hoping it can help convince them to stay by
> exempting them from the draft. It is an interesting dilemma. If you admit you’re an expert, you
> can’t be drafted, but also you can’t leave. I wonder if they have linked up the two lists
> successfully.
They absolutely have not, last I checked you could just lie to passport control and they had no way of catching you (except the normal ways of "you look like you're lying, if you really do marketing, tell us about what you've done at work recently"). IIRC the standard advice for those leaving was to prepare a detailed story of why you're going, where you're going, how you're super definitely coming back, and what you do for a living that definitely isn't tech.
On wheat: Maybe it takes a long time for world wheat production to adjust, but what about world wheat consumption? Price of wheat goes up slightly, people reduce their wheat consumption by one percent, it doesn't seem like a big deal.
On the complexity and installation difficulty of heat pumps: what's wrong with ordinary electric heaters? They're less efficient than heat pumps, but that's partially offset by the fact you only have to heat the room you're in instead of your whole house. Plus you can buy one for, like, twenty bucks, and plug it into your wall. (Not sure how well it works in genuinely cold places, though.)
Re: the Sarah Taber thread, I'm bearish. It's been a hot minute (>200 years, probably) since there was a famine because calories required exceeded calories produced. The trouble since the second agricultural revolution has been getting food in mouths. Most Eastern European wheat goes to feeding the Middle East. *If* Iran and/or Saudi Arabia play nice, then India can make up the shortfall. But if both of them decide to play hardball and get aboard the "burn down the 20th c. global order" train, they could plausibly close off trade (Iran closing land routes, Saudi Arabia closing sea routes). I'm not sure if/why they might do so, but I also lost money on Putin's invasion happening, so I'm trying to keep options open re: corrupt autocratic regimes doing daft shit. Since there's certainly no regime corrupter or autocraticer than the House of Saud and Iran is already mostly not a part of the global order, I'd say the prospects of Indian wheat actually making it to the consumers of Eastern European wheat is >50% but bad enough to be alarming. I'd consider any prediction of major Middle Eastern famine below 20% to be a good arbitrage opportunity.
I think the focus people have on wheat is a bit myopic. Sure, Ukraine grows a lot of wheat, but it exports more corn than it does wheat (and these tend to be somewhat supplementary goods.) According to this (https://www.fb.org/market-intel/ukraine-russia-volatile-ag-markets), Ukraine has 6 agricultural exports that typically exceed $1 bil/yr:
* Corn ($5.8b)
* Sunflower Seed ($5.7b)
* Wheat ($5.1b)
* Rapeseed (Canola) ($1.7b)
* Barley ($1.3b)
* Sunflower meal ($1.2b)
Of these, the shortage I'm least concerned about is wheat, because wheat has multiple crops per year. I'm not familiar with Ukrainian climate/practices specifically, but in rural Michigan where I live farmers usually get two crops of wheat per year. Farther south with a longer growing season, you can get three crops per year. A spring invasion may only knock out half of Ukraine's annual wheat production, even in the areas that are completely shut down.
On the other hand, corn produces one crop per year. Sunflowers produce one crop per year. So does rapeseed. I'm not familiar with barley, but a quick google suggests it's probably a typical one crop per year plant as well. These grains seem likely to be more affected by any shorter invasion scenario than wheat.
>An alternative interpretation is that authoritarian armies that have not been tested in a long time and then are asked to invade have a tendency to dramatically underperform
I mean we can't have it both ways with the authoritarianism and effectiveness observation. On COVID and fiscal policy, authoritarianism is considered a feature. But now for military operations it's a bug? I could be convinced otherwise but I don't think authoritarian governments have much of a correlation with military might.
FWIW, I think a better military parallel for the current invasion might be Russia's own winter war(s) with Finland or the Second Chechen war. In both cases, Russia chose to "learn the hard way" before ultimately changing tactics to brutally suppress the populace.
>With so many tech experts leaving, Russia is hoping it can help convince them to stay by
> exempting them from the draft. It is an interesting dilemma. If you admit you’re an expert, you
> can’t be drafted, but also you can’t leave. I wonder if they have linked up the two lists
> successfully.
They absolutely have not, last I checked you could just lie to passport control and they had no way of catching you (except the normal ways of "you look like you're lying, if you really do marketing, tell us about what you've done at work recently"). IIRC the standard advice for those leaving was to prepare a detailed story of why you're going, where you're going, how you're super definitely coming back, and what you do for a living that definitely isn't tech.