napoleonsdumbcousin

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My question was more specific than that. I absolutely understand why it is important to sanction high-tech products and stop Russia from exporting their goods.

But western companies selling non-critical goods inside Russia felt more like russian economic dependancy to western companies to me, which (for me as a layman when it comes to economy) seemed preferable to Russia having an independent economy. Thats where my question came from.

Now I realized that rather than "dependant economy" or "independant economy" the intended goal in this case is "no economy", although i am doubtful whether that will really work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Good point. Thanks for your insights.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

If they imported some ingredients before and then had to switch to local suppliers after the pullout ... doesn't this also benefit Russia, since now all of the production is national and they require less imports?

It is not like making food or soft drinks is really high tech. At worst, it is just going to taste a bit different if the ingredients are different. Or other, already local companies might gain market share.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Maybe, but not without startup investment and knowledge. All of that isn't free, and if an economy is unstable, no-one is going to commit money into it.

At least the knowledge is already there. Pepsi is not going to take the workers in Russia away with them. And as far as I know the investment is mostly the cost of buying the assets from the western company. For example the russian McDonalds branch just reopened with a new name at the same locations.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (19 children)

I have a genuine question that maybe somebody with more economic knowledge can educate me in:

How is continuing the sale in Russia helping Russia? As I understand Russia is gaining money on the sales taxes, etc. but the rest of the earnings will go to the US parent company, which cannot be taxed directly by Russia. If Pepsi backs out, wouldn't operations just be replaced by a rebranded russian company, where all of the earnings would be under russian "sphere of influence"?

I genuinely do not understand why Pepsi backing out is considered bad for Russia. I thought countries generally prefer national companies over foreign ones.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I think that is where our differences in thinking are:

I was thinking about modern nazis, which are way more laissez-faire than the "original" (at least where I live). At the same time I would argue it is not very important how a belief evolved if you are talking e.g. current party programs or policy. Sure it can be important for research, but it is only of secondary importance for "applied politics" if the result at the end is the same.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Tankies and Nazis would be both on the outer end of the authoritarian axis, but on completely different ends of the economic axis. If you take 3, 4 or even more dimensions there will barely be any positional closeness left. You can visualize every form of difference in the form of an additional dimension.

I am not advocating specifically for a 2 axis political spectrum. My original comment was just pointing out that the horseshoe theory is bullshit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Well yes, but it was never the goal of the political compass to portray the history of beliefs. It is just a way to visualize the current alignment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (7 children)

What you are describing is known as the "horseshoe theory" and is widely rejected by political science.

The actual way to portray such things is a political spectrum, but with 2 or more axes, also known as a "political compass".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

It is not about how many animals a cat kills. The question is "how many kills are sustainable for the local animal population?". And that number will always be different depending on where you are. In North Africa cats are literally native animals and in Europe they have been held as free-roaming pets for thousands of years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The source is NABU = "Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union" (the largest non-profit nature conservation organization in Germany)

Translated from german:

But you have to look at the overall picture: only in human settlement areas are cats a serious factor that can partially lead to a decline in bird populations. But in fact, bird populations are increasing there, while they are decreasing especially in agricultural landscapes, but also in forests. Blaming these declines on cats would be far too simplistic. The greatest threat to biodiversity is and remains the progressive degradation of habitats by humans.

https://www.nabu.de/tiere-und-pflanzen/voegel/gefaehrdungen/katzen/15537.html

They recommend castration to limit the cross-breeding of house cats with wild cats, but see no general problem in free-roaming house cats.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

That depends on where you live. Every ecosystem is different.

Australia or USA? Yes thats bad.

Central Europe? Not so much.

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