So my latest assessment is that Russia has built up massive gold reserves and is certainly not officially reporting a large part of its holdings.

It's the sign that football is broken

yes, that's the joke, that the fiatsystem thinks in these cycles and has the horizon of a field mouse.

All figures come from national institutes that are more or less audited. It is right to be critical of data from government agencies. But it's a typical mistake that many make, that they don't realize that these are series of figures that tend to make sense - we have to work with the material that is presented to us, otherwise we can't orient ourselves at all.

What I read is that they have increased spending but not significantly more than the EU and less than Papa Joe is pumping out in relation to GDP.

these sanctions and their persistent continuation and intensification show how stupid European policy has become. they have pushed Russia and China even closer together, exerted extreme pressure on the Russian economy to innovate and plunged themselves into a resource shortage and energy crisis. it really doesn't get any stupider than this!

The majority lives in the bubble the msm creates for them. But that's ok as long as they shut up from time to time

this war of attrition is an extreme burden for both sides. but at this point the Russians have a clear advantage and are gaining ground. Putin will expand the catalog with every rejection of his proposals, which means that the costs for the other side will continue to rise. At this point he would have achieved his minimum goals, Ukraine would not be a NATO member, he would have the resource-rich regions of Luhansk and Donbass under control, a neutral buffer between the NATO states and Russia in this region and, above all, he would have finally secured Crimea as an important naval base under his control.

Why did the U.S. not accept the treaty?

That's why our end-stage 'democracy' puts idiots and commies into office. It's not that the russian statists are geniouses

under normal conditions, with normal leadership in the european states, this competitive situation would be excellent for european consumers as well. but there is nothing here to suggest that a rethink is taking place in the political castes. that is why i see more sanctions, capital controls, restrictions on movement and ultimately further deprivation of liberty for europeans in the pipeline.

exactly, and that is what i have been trying to say for two years, again and again in an article: it is about the prospects for change. as libertarians, we must be careful not to be drawn into the maelstrom of nationalism and geopolitics. peacekeeping comes first. because which of these tyrants ends up ruling, Putin or Zelenski with his camarilla, plays a subordinate role from the perspective of the individual in this region. Peacekeeping is everything. Willingness to engage in dialog, diplomacy and trade. And whenever I raise this issue, these crazy people come crawling out of the caves, calling you a Putin understander or a Putin collaborator. This cruel, intellectually unclean way of dealing with historical processes has become unbearable

Right. But same for the others involved

yes, for me it is important to paint a complete picture of the situation. in the european media, for example, this is completely ignored. While the situation of the European economy is painted in a rosy light, where everything points to recession and de-industrialization.