February 29, 2008
Welcome to Vlad's Daily Gloat, my new eXile blog from Russia in which I laugh every day at the hilarious decline of America, "the world's only superpower." The eXile editors agreed to give me this blog space as a "probnii shar" or trial blog. We will see how much our online American readers can endure the pain of a Russian laughing at your country's inglorious collapse on a daily basis.
Today I am lucky to launch Vlad's Daily Gloat with a real side-splitting story about America's hilarious decline. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that the United States war in Iraq is the real cause of America's economic decline, and that it's at least 50 times more expensive than the Bush Administration admits:
THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.
So America gets, to use The eXile's language, a double clusterfuck in both eyeball sockets: it's going bankrupt to pay for a war that it can't afford (and hiding the costs like Enron, Bush's former bankrollers), and to top it off, America is losing the war! America goes broke in order to suffer defeat. That is FUNNY!
Or to be more precise, America already lost this war, but it is too delusional to accept defeat. This means America will continue to go bankrupt, and continue to lose. This means it can't even pay for things like giving medical insurance to its own children:
Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, [Stiglitz] said.
This is bad news for American children, but it's good news for a gloating Russian observer like me.
I also had a laugh from this story from the Wall Street Journal about a gullible American soldier who fights and dies for America, and meanwhile, he must abandon his American house because he can't pay for the mortgage--because of the war he's fighting in!:
Sgt. First Class Nicklaus Skaggs is among those looking to walk way. Mr. Skaggs bought his home in April 2005 shortly after returning to California from a one-year tour of duty in Baghdad.
The $455,000 three-bedroom home he and his wife purchased in Vacaville, about one hour northeast of San Francisco, is worth an estimated $285,000 today, well below the $453,000 he owes on his mortgage. The monthly mortgage payment, which jumped after its interest rate increased, is now $4,000, up from $2,980 when he bought the house.
Mr. Skaggs expects to be redeployed to Iraq again later this year. But he can't sell his home, since there are few buyers, and he can't refinance because lenders require a large down payment he doesn't have. Now, the 18-year Army veteran has decided to walk away from his mortgage. He hopes in a few years lenders see his decision as a unique situation created by the housing meltdown. "I don't think that house is going to recover in value any time soon," said the 40-year-old. "I'd just be throwing the money away."
Actually when I stop laughing I feel some pity for this American soldier. Should I? I don't know. I'm trying to remember pity that Americans feel for Russians in the defeat of Afghanistan or so-called "Cold War defeat." While I'm going through my memory trying to remember the American sympathy for Russians suffering, I'll continue to laugh at this soldier-sucker and the whole country of declining morons.
Long Live The Occupation of Iraq! May you elect John McCain and stay in Iraq for 100 years, gullible American losers! Ha-ha-ha-ha!
--Vlad Kalashnikov
Moscow Richer Than New York
March 6, 2008
VLAD'S DAILY GLOAT Yesterday the incompetent American editor of this site failed to post my blog (it's called "daily" guys, or don't American editors understand the meaning of "daily"?), but that is fine because today's news makes up for it.
Poor New York City is now just a second-rate city compared to Moscow, according to your own Forbes magazine:
Moscow has overtaken New York City as home to the most billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with 74 of the super-rich elite now counting the Russian capital as their home.
By contrast, 71 billionaires live in New York, according to the magazine's annual list, which placed London in third place with 36.
"Russia is again the dominant story in (Europe) this year. Its billionaires are just fast and fearsome. What's fascinating is that every single one of them is self made," said Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll.
Yes, it is fascinating, isn't it Luisa? Because unlike in the United States, where everyone rich got their money from their rich daddy, a country collapsing from its own corruption and nepotism, Russia's rich actually work for their money.
And speaking of American corruption and nepotism, your President Bush, the son of another President Bush, can be proud of setting another record for your pathetic piece of shit dollar:
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose to $105.97 a barrel, the third day this week New York prices have reached a record, as the U.S. dollar fell to its lowest ever against the euro.
Like I write every day here--every day price of Russian oil keeps rising, your loser dollar keeps falling, you have no choice but to pay us more every day for something you can hardly afford any longer. And meanwhile, the Russian ruble gets stronger and stronger. Today, the ruble rose to its highest against the dollar since 1999. In reality if our Central Bank did not intervene, the dollar would be even much, much lower because no one here wants shitty dollars anymore.
Everything now in Russia is priced in rubles or Euros -- restaurants, business, regular people, real estate -- because those are real solid currencies tied to real solid economies that are not in a free-fall. Any currency will do for Russians except for the weak, sad, pathetic US dollar.
--Vlad Kalashnikov
Russians Get Richer, Americans Get Poorer
March 4, 2008
VLAD'S DAILY GLOAT
I would not be gloating if I didn't compare American losers to Russian success. Since Americans care most about money more than anything, they should be happy to know that Russian wages grew 16.2% in 2007, and in January wages grew 15.8% over the previous year. We are getting richer so fast that our Central Bank is worried it may be too fast.
Meanwhile America's central bank is so afraid of collapsing everything--housing prices, banks, economy--that it is in a panic, as are all Americans. They're too poor and too in debt to save a penny a day:
Most consumers claim that Americans are "addicted" to debt and many say they can't do much about it because their savings are too low and they live paycheck to paycheck. The results of the most recent American Pulse, a survey conducted by BIGresearch, underscore how Americans increasingly are feeling like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place as the economy limps along.
"They wish they could save more. It's something they want do," Phil Rist, vice president of strategy for BIGresearch, said of the desires of most consumers surveyed. "But you need to have money to save money."
Nearly 80% of those surveyed said Americans were burdened by debt, with those who said so crossing all income levels.
Aw, you poor stupid dumbfuck Americans. Isn't it awful to be poor? Not that we would know, but we do sort of remember how it felt.
WELCOME TO AMERICAN POVERTY
The Financial Times reports the reason why you dumbfuck Americans are getting so poor is because all of the Americans' wealth is being transfered right here to evil authoritarian Russia:
With crude oil at $100 a barrel, there is going to be a massive transfer of global financial wealth from oil consuming countries to oil exporters.
...While many observers focus on the shift in reserves between dollars and euros, the deployment of petrodollar investments will in fact likely tilt the balance in favour of emerging market currencies, at the expense of both the dollar and the euro.
Think about that the next time you only fill half of your tank of gas because your credit card is maxed out. I sure will be thinking about it on my next pay raise (actually I got a 50% increase in January, but I will get a nice bonus in May as well, thanks to the fact that you Americans send your cheap dollars to my country).
--Vlad Kalashnikov
____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping