BOOJUM!: Rouble Ruble Rubble

Yes, More Economic Woes For Mister Rogue Brogue

You know, Peter The Foot Fiddler, that chap who has to wear shoes with inserts to look Big And Important. For a good thirteen months after his Special Idiotic Operation he insisted that sanctions were not affecting Ruffians, that the economy was doing even better than normal, that it was The West who were going to freeze, and that bright pink flights of besequinned unicorns were circling the Kremlin overhead. Art!

Stop Press! New Olympic Sport - Table Wrestling!

Earlier this month he actually admitted that "The illegal economic restrictions" (because it's 7 years in prison if you say "sanctions") "might severely affect our economy in the medium term". This is quite an admission from Bloaty Gas Tout, even if he's lying about the medium term, because the Ruffian economy is in trouble right now. What follows is mostly derived from Joe Blogs and his latest vlog about the Ruffian ruble. Art!

At no point is the ruble mentioned

I have already touched on the ruble's depreciation, but Joe comes up with both statistics and charts to explain why, exactly, it's fallen off a cliff. Six months ago the ruble was 60 to the dollar, yet now it's 82 to the dollar, a significant depreciation. Art!

Jake's info is slightly out of date hence the different value. Okay, from an abysmal low of ₽130 to the dollar as of 22/02/2022 when the SMO began, it bounced back to ₽50 to the dollar in June of last year. Idiot pundits and Ruffian bots, fanbois and trolls all promptly seized on this as evidence that Russia Stronk and the ruble was a mighty currency that would beat the pasty, pale-faced dollar into green pulp.

Except not so fast. The reason the ruble appreciated in value was because the Ruffian Ministry of Finance was burning through billions of dollars of foreign currency reserves to buy rubles, thus propping it up. Art!

"Ministerstvo Finansov Rossiiskoi Federalitsii"

The thing is, to keep a currency afloat like this, you need to keep on spending. And keep on spending. And keep on spending. After a while, the RMOF got fed up of throwing money into a financial black hole and stopped wasting it, at which point the ruble begins to depreciate. For one thing, Ruffian oil and gas exports to the EU stopped, meaning there was less demand for rubles. Further sanctions and the oil and gas cap also diminished demand for rubles. Art!

This chart shows the depreciation of the ruble - against the Chinese currency, the Yuan, rather than the dollar. Overall it has lost 40% of it's value, which is even worse than it's performance against the dollar. Art!

No, Your Humble Scribe has not klutzed up and re-printed the chart above. This is the exchange rate of the ruble against the Rupee, the Indian unit of currency. As you can see, it mimics that of the yuan verrrrry closely.

Why is this significant? Because China and India are Ruffia's major trading partners, and the ruble has collapsed against these currencies more severely than against the dollar. In other words, the ruble is, indeed, rubble.

One potential short-term solution is to simply print more money. Well, yes, you can do that, but your inflation rate will promptly increase and it will keep on increasing the more money you print. It already stood at 11.5% for the Ruffians in February, so the question would become how long before their citizens have to make a choice of food or rent*? Art!

Designer-accommodation in Nizhny Novgorod!
Rent is only two potatoes per month!

"White House Down"

Okay, okay, this is the last one of my posts mocking this film and picking holes in it. Admittedly it is low-hanging fruit. Art!

FYI, these three helicopters contain the SEAL/Delta Force/Marines who intend to storm the White House, kill all the bad guys, liberate the hostages and ensure the Prez is intact and alive. There can't be more than thirty soldiers in these choppers and they don't appear to have co-ordinated anything with the forces lying in wait outside the WH. They boldly declare at 1:27 "We go in low and quiet", yet they are zooming over blocked streets full of people and news crews and essentially a world-wide audience. What are the odds that the bad guys inside the WH have a couple of spotters on the outside, feeding them back information about the external response? because that's what tricky Ol' Conrad would do. Art!

Blackhawk down?

Of course it all goes horribly wrong, because I cued you in that this took place at less than an hour and a half into a film well over two hours long.

"The Sea Of Sand"

For those of you not especially fond of this looooong piece of fan-fiction, be comforted by the fact that we're nearing the end. Once again we bounce back to Wastelandworld, where beleaguered loyalist bio-vores are under attack from rebels inspired and indeed led by the Doctor.

Sub-Senior Kosadi was now Senior Kosad. He had decided to shorten his name without the formal ceremony, feeling that it gave him more kudos amongst the Warriors defending the trans-mat station complex. The only bio-vore who might have protested, Senior Fosor, was unable to complain, having been Eviscerated by Sub-Senior Kosadi when the latter felt his play for command was merited under the circumstances.

And the circumstances?

Rebellion! Mass revolt and murder committed by Farmers in their thousands! Figures were debatable, but perhaps half of the Farmer population of Lord Excellency Url’s new bailiwick – he legally acquired it after removing Lord Excellency Sur – were in a state of open revolt. No communications with Sur’s keep nor, as of a few hours ago, Url’s castle, were possible.

Fosor had dallied in making requests for help from other aristocrats. He hadn’t really believed that the Farmers could be so numerous and hostile. That changed after the massed hordes lying in siege beyond the dunes tried to storm the trans-mat complex, twice.

Thanks to the molten glass moat, and the heavy weapons sent in support from other Lords, they had beaten off both attacks, leaving a multitude of dead Farmers lying on the sands.

Ah yes, but that was before our favourite Gallifreyan put in an appearance.

Ja, Vi Elsker Dette Landet

Which you must surely recognise as the Norwegian national anthem, "Yes, We Love This Land". As you ought to realise by now, Conrad has a certain fond regard for the Norks**, whom, up until North Sea oil came along in the Seventies, were quite a poor country. Art!

No longer.

If you refer back to our Intro, you will realise that the Ruffian oil and gas export market to the EU has died on it's bottom. So who took up the slack?

Norway!

Last year the Norks made five times their oil and gas revenue from 2021, thanks to becoming the substitute of choice for Ruffian energy exports. This means an increase from $10 billion dollars to $50 billion dollars, which - because this is Norway - has been banked in the National Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Give their national anthem a listen, it's quite haunting and reminiscent of "Abide With Me", one of the best hymns ever.

Oslo at twilight

I Answered A Question On Quora!

<mutters darkly> honestly, Quora is more addictive than JJ180, Philip K. Dick's horribly dangerous drug from "Wait From Last Year" and E.E. 'Doc' Smith's "Thionite" from his "Lensman" stories. Someone had asked how barbed wire was put up in the trench warfare of the First Unpleasantness and I answered.

Placing barbed-wire would be done at night so you couldn’t be observed by the enemy, or at least not unless they sent up star-shells, in which case you froze and prayed.

Initially the picket stakes were knocked in with a padded or rubber mallet so as to deaden the noise; later on the metal ‘screw’ picket was adopted, which could be screwed into the ground by hand, silently. The beginning of the job would be the hardest, since two men had to carry a huge reel of barbed wire and unspool it along their route.