Let Them Eat Crabs!

You Vill Eat Ze (sea) Bugs Und You Vill Be 'Appy

Some good news coming out of Russia recently! Thanks to the sanctions, Russia’s seafood is finally forced to swim on home to fill up the shelves of the local stores.

One of my top secret inside sources in Russia provided me with a fresh new scoop:

“В магазине возле дома появились крабы. Раньше вроде не наблюдал.” - Crabs have appeared on the shelves of my local store. I never saw them there before.

You heard it here first, people!

CRABS CONFIRMED.

I repeat.

THE CRABS HAVE ARRIVED!

But this raises a far larger and more important question for today. Namely, why sell your country’s natural wealth abroad at all?

After all, what do the peasants get out it? Are Russians now not better off for having these crabs on their store shelves? Who wins when a country’s natural wealth is sold off for a quick profit? Perhaps it is the “invisible hand” that governs international money-making that is being referred to, or, more accurately, could it be the “crooked nose” of the international money cabal?

Hmmmmm …

But forget about the crab news (exciting!) for just a moment. The more relevant sector of the Russian economy to discuss is the gas industry. The short of it is that Gazprom continues, through hook and crook, to sell gas to Europe.

1prime:

In May, Ukraine stopped receiving gas for transit through the Sokhranovka GIS, citing the fact that it is under the control of Russian forces (on the territory of the LPR). As a result, there was only one entrance left for gas transit to Europe - GIS "Sudzha". Gazprom stated that transferring all volumes to Sudzha is technologically impossible, the company fulfills all obligations to European consumers, and transit services are fully paid.

Since the end of May, deliveries of Russian gas through Ukraine's gas transmission system to Europe have been at the level of 40-43 million cubic meters per day.

And LNG.

Bloomberg:

The European Union has slashed its dependence on Russian energy this year, banning coal imports and readying an oil embargo too. But one product is booming, and is unlikely to face an EU boycott anytime soon.

Liquefied natural gas imports from Russia are up about 40% in a year as buyers scramble to replace dwindling piped flows.

One of the many questions that patriots have had about the war effort is why Russia continues to sell gas to enemy countries.

This is routinely hand-waved away as being necessary to keep Moscow’s coffers full and fund the war effort. Me, I’m not sure I agree with this logic. After all, Europe is funding the war in Ukraine and directly contributing to the death of both Ukrainians and Russians. Huge sums of money, almost comparable to the amount that the US is sending, especially if adjusted for PPP, are making their way into Ukraine. And yet, despite this, Russia continues to try and sell Europe gas. This makes no sense, even if you are trying to keep the market dependent on your energy supplies. Apply the logic to something else. Perhaps Russia ought to sell Europe weapons to then fund the war effort with the profits, no?

“No,” you say, “that would be too much”.

But where is the line that can’t be crossed?

Remember, the logic behind bombing Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is to force Kiev to the negotiating table. Furthermore, Russia’s government officials routinely claim that they are at war with the entirety of NATO. So, follow my logic here …

Would not starving the EU of energy not make sense based on the Kremlin’s reasoning for starving Ukraine?

NOTE: I do not think the current energy-targeting campaign makes ANY sense. But the decision was made and now a precedent has been established. So what gives?

Basically, if you’re already using energy as a weapon, why not just keep using it that way?

The only real answer that makes sense is that the current situation benefits Gazprom’s bottom line. I mean, sure, there’s a 5D explanation here that any blogger with an imagination can cook up, but we’re just not about that here on this blog. There’s no proof of any 5D plays, so we have to assume that the most obvious, but the unsavory and direct explanation is probably the correct one.

But hey, gas supplies, in general, are dropping, despite Gazprom’s best efforts to keep up their bottom line.

KP:

The volume of gas supplies from Germany to Poland via the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline fell to zero between 06:00 and 07:00 local time (from 08:00 to 09:00 Moscow time) on Monday, December 5. This is evidenced by the data posted on Monday, December 5, on the website of the German gas transmission operator GASCADE.

According to the operator, gas supplies to the east through the Malnow gas metering station located on the border of Germany and Poland from 06:00 to 07:00 local time on December 5, 2022, were equal to zero.

So, luckily, circumstances beyond Russia’s oligarchs’ control are still working in our favor. Chances are, whether they like it or not, Gazprom will be forced to stop providing fuel to Russia’s sworn enemies eventually.

**

Now, on a more theoretical level, it’s worth bringing up just how destructive and impoverishing the one world global market is to the peasant population. We’ve all heard quite a bit about the miraculous power of the globalized one world market, but what always shocked and appalled me was how quickly and willingly the peasants repeat the mantras of their overlords to get little pats on their heads. Clearly, the same people who have have lied about literally everything from WWII to COVID and 9/11 and well, you name it, are telling us the truth about the benefits of a borderless world of international trade.

Lucky us!

But let’s run a thought experiment on Russia’s gas situation and ask ourselves Q: what would happen if Russia decided to stop selling its gas abroad. Well, the law of supply and demand tells us that prices for gas would fall in Russia, no? That means that gas for businesses and citizens would become cheaper.

A follow up Q: Why are industries in Germany now being forced to move to the US? Well, because of cheaper energy prices there.

And the obvious next Q: So, wouldn’t it make sense that Russian industry might experience a revival if energy prices became cheaper in Russia? Yeah, probably.

And won’t someone think about the crabs!!!??

Isn’t it a good thing that Russians can now actually enjoy some of their nation’s natural wealth? When the crabs were sold off to Japan or wherever, how did the average Russian benefit from this? Sure, in theory, the government could tax the profit that the private crab companies made and redistribute it in the form of infrastructure projects around Moscow … or just embezzle it. Yeah, that’s the standard redistributionist economic model argument that we all probably understand.

Barring that, the simpler solution to ensure the growing prosperity of the citizenry would be to simply make it so that the price for things went down from year to year instead of continually going up as they do now. Yes, with the one world global market you can import some bananas on the cheap, I suppose. But there are also serious negatives worth considering as well.

Just think, if there is a profit to be made somewhere, a country’s natural resources or finished products will be sold to the highest bidder on the international market. Businesses therefore engage in a never-ending arbitrage hunt to make profits. As a result, prices around the world start to stabilize over time. Also, an increase in supply or demand half a world away affects the prices at home. For example, a drought in Africa knocks out the crab supply and now Russian businesses get a chance to sell their crab for a mark-up in the affected countries.

Good for them, sure.

But because demand increased somewhere, and supply remained the same at home, prices for crab also have to go up in Russia for ordinary Russian citizens because some of the supply of Russian crab is now being diverted by big business to eke out a profit abroad.

That’s what the peasants don’t seem to understand because thats what being part of a global market entails. Events from halfway across the world affect the living standards of people in the home country.

Now is that fair? Who benefits really? And, most importantly, would the people, if given a voice on the issue, side with the global businesses on this issue?

Imagine you’re playing some city-constructer game where you’re the omnipotent Autocrat building roads and houses and factories with a click of the curser. In this closed system, you may decide to build a new crab factory for the citizens of your happy town. As a result, if they were paying 10 bucks a crab-burger before, now with increased supply of crab-burgers, they only have to pay 5 bucks. Great, the people live better than before and you feel like given the chance, you’d make a great president because it all just seems so straightforward and easy to make people’s lives better and not worse given half an inkling and the means to do so.

But say there’s a neighboring town where they didn’t build an extra crab factory. And there’s an empire threatening your town with big guns next door demanding that you sell the other town your crabs. Well, you go ahead and start doing so, and sure, your crab companies make a profit, but the citizens of your town, with whose money, time, labor, technology and so on that you built the second factory don’t see the cost of crab going down. Worse, the neighboring town experienced a population boom and are now clamoring for delicious, tasty and nutritious crab. Your factory tycoons decide to appeal to the empire with the guns to get them to put pressure on you to sell your town’s precious crabs to the neighboring town for a mark-up. So you do, and now your townsfolk have to pay more for crab than before, just because demand increased somewhere else.

I dub this phenomenon the Crab eConomy Conundrum or the CCC for short.

Feel free to post “yee-claw” in the comments section below if you liked this content, agree with what I’m saying, or like crabs in general.